Monday, August 24, 2009

Ashok is back from China

A post I made a few weekends ago, but forgot to actually post

Some more on Chinese food: For some reason, many products formed into
blocks are classified as "tofu". This is sometimes wildly misleading,
as this includes such things as curdled duck and pig blood ("red
tofu"), and fish/starch blocks. Also, it occurred to me that one of
the most common Chinese dishes - tomatoes stirfried with eggs - is one
that I have never seen in Chinese restaurants in America. Kind of a
shame, as it's a simple yet tasty dish, not to mention inexpensive and
healthy.
Every so often, I discover some facet of Chinese language culture that
reminds me that I am, in fact, living with people from a different
culture. For example, in America, to describe something is "like the
stars" means that it is beautiful, but in China it means that it is
numerous/commonly found, because there are a lot of stars, and each
one looks roughly alike. Thus, in China, comparing someone to stars
to tell them you think they're pretty is a bad idea.

A bit more on my last weekend

So my post "Leaving China" was rather brief. The Saturday was rather
low key, but I did have an interesting chance encounter mid-afternoon.
I was in a bookstore in the Wudaokou mall when an American foreign
student and Chinese local student came in. I initially paid them
little attention, their conversation in the background, until I heard
"I've heard there was an Ikea around here? At my college everyone
goes to Ikea in the beginning of the year to get furniture." This
sounded oddly familiar. I listened a bit closer, and as I had a
hunch, she mentioned the name of her college - Yale. I walked over
and introduced myself - I was a little surprised to suddenly run into
another Yale student, though I had already done so once (Fellow HBA
student/Yalie Tory Jeffay and I ran into Chris Young, my
recently-graduated friend on the Yale-China Teaching Fellowship, on
the street at night in the Sanlitun bar district - completely
unexpectedly). I couldn't stay for long (I had to meet my friend for
dinner very soon), but I found she was a rising junior and going to be
at Beijing University this fall.

Chinese customs and treating others to dinner

Chinese custom while going out for meals is to take turns treating the
group (but everyone fights to pay nonetheless). I just read an
article from the Boston Globe that describes research concluding that
more money spent on prosocial behavior, such as treating friends to
meals, correlates with higher levels of happiness. Maybe we Americans
could adapt this custom?

Full article at
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/08/23/happiness_a_buyers_guide/?page=1.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Leaving China

Took the train back to Beijing Saturday morning, ate lunch with my
tutor and dinner with my engineer friend I met in Wudaokou. Leaving
for the airport shortly.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Ashok screws up his Circadian rhythms

Recently came back from Mt. Hua. I originally planned to get there in
the morning, climb to the East Peak, stay the night and watch the sun
rise from there, but I got to the base of the mountain later than I
expected, and, furthermore, learn that most people climb at night.
Since it's hot during the day, and food/lodging on the mountain is
very expensive, many choose to start the climb at around 11 or so,
getting to the east peak at sunrise. So, I slept in a hotel room at
the base for 8 hours (or tried - I might have only spent the first
hour actually asleep) and woke up at 10. Ate a meal (not sure how to
label it), then made my trip up the mountain with two women from
Jiangsu province. The climb was more difficult than Mt. Song, which I
climbed during the Shaolin Temple trip - much steeper, longer, and had
to hold on to chains on the sides of the path most of the time. Got
to the top at about 5, stayed for about an hour watching the sun rise,
then walked along the ridge back to a cable car station.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Ashok violates customs of his home country, is rewarded for his efforts

So I just got back from eating on the Muslim Street. Street food
tends to rank among the best I've gotten in China (never eat uncooked
vegetables or anything left unattended, and that contains most of the
safety tips). I also just saw someone selling kites fly a 60-meter
string with small kites strung along it. 60 meters is pretty long.
My ability to speak passable Chinese has drawn me into situations as
an interlocuter several times - about half an hour ago, I helped some
French backpackers figure out how to order food at a stall. I think
I've actually seen more Europeans than Americans on my trip so far.
One thing I enjoy in particular about the sweets I've had here so far
is that they aren't overwhelmingly sweet, but are mildly so.
Many districts have a local street where food vendors gather.
However, the ones near the front can attach a notable price premium,
simply because they are in front and often people go to the first
thing that looks good - it would take a lot of time to travel the
whole street, especially with the crowds (also, many foods are
similar). For example, the price of a skewer of meat might be 10 kuai
right at the front of the street, but decrease to 3 kuai further back.
Anyhow, this morning I took a bus to the train station and then took a
1.5 or so hour bus ride to Huaqing Hot Springs, where I took a look
around and ate lunch. I took another bus to the Terra-Cotta Warriors.
The sight of the warriors was impressive, but I think the most
impressive facet was the Qin dynasty's level of technology - some of
the bronze weapons where chrome-plated, a process developed by German
in 1937 and the US in 1950 - thousands of years later.
The title of this post comes from my bid to get on the bus home -
while queueing in China isn't non-existent, in some places it's
expected that you scrum around a location, for example, trying to buy
a ticket, or, in my case, board a bus. Maneuvering (sometimes not
entirely by my own volition) my way through the crowd and noticing a
ferocity in some old ladies not normally seen in old ladies, I managed
to snag a seat for the ride home.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Monday (leaving Beijing) and Tuesday (first day in Xi'an)

I'm writing from the Bell Tower Youth Hostel right now, across the
street from the Bell Tower in Xi'An.
Spent most of yesterday morning packing. I planned to go to the
Summer Palace in the afternoon, but ended up spending some time
reading and the rest exploring to the north and south of Chengfu Rd.,
where the development is less evident. In the evening, I took the
subway to Beijing West Train Station. On the way, I met a Guangzhou
student; to show just how much accents can affect understanding here,
at first I thought he said he was going to Tibet when he said he was
going to the west train station. In my cabin (soft sleeper - hard
sleepers sold out even 5 days ahead) were four others - a Xi'an man
and his young son sharing a bunk and two students from Xi'an who had
been to Beijing to sightsee and visit family. I experienced a tiny
bit of reverse culture shock on the train - walking into the bathroom,
I fully expected to see a normal squat toilet, but instead did a
double take when I noticed the toilet was western sit-down style.
Since my Chinese was better than the others' English, we spoke in
Chinese during the ride.
Arrifved in Xi'an this morning, found myself a place to stay, and
bought my ticket back to Beijing. Afterward, I headed to the Bell
Tower, a large building located in the center of a roundabout and
accessed underground. I next headed to its counterpart, the Drum
Tower, then walked through the Muslim quarter to get lunch. On the
way, met and talked with two English backpackers doing a 6-week trip
starting from Hong Kong, going up the east coast of China (to the big
cities), then making their way west into Chengdu, south into Yunnan,
and back to Hong Kong. They didn't speak any Chinese; so far, it
hasn't caused them problems, but it could in the future when they head
further inland.
After lunch, went to the Great Mosque, then took the bus to the Big
Goose Pagoda, a seven-story building in a large square outside of the
city walls. Going to eat dinner in the Muslim quarter again now.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Imperial Palace Museum (Forbidden City)

Imperial Palace today. I took the subway to Tiananmen West again
today, and this time walked through Tiananmen itself (Tiananmen
translates to "Gate of Heavenly Peace"; it seems all of the Chinese
names of buildings in the Forbidden City translate to superlatives
like "Hall of Supreme Harmony"). After walking through a few more
large gates and getting a chance to look around, I saw that the place
was packed today – I'm not sure if this is a usual thing or not, but
everywhere along the main paths I had to weave between people (as did
others) to make my way through. Passing through more gates escalating
in grandeur, I finally reached the main courtyard, which contains the
vast Hall of Supreme Harmony on a multi-tiered white marble base. I
continued to explore the main north to south meridian, which contains
all of the big buildings, for most of the morning. There were so many
people that when I tried to approach the entrance of the hall to take
a picture of the throne inside, to move in any direction required
pushing against other people. Taking the picture itself was doubly
hard, not just because of the low lighting but also because I had to
stand still long enough to avoid blurs. It was almost like the crowd
at the front at Spring Fling between N.E.R.D. and Girl Talk, and if
people here were drunk it very well could have been just as bad. The
overall Forbidden City is huge – it would take at least a day to cover
everything, and that's if you went very fast. After the vast spaces
of the outer court, I headed into the narrower alleys of the inner
court, all red-walled and yellow-roofed (with one standout lone yellow
wall whose purpose I didn't discover).
Before getting to the park, I ate lunch, and some Colorado travellers
sat down with me to eat. We talked in English for a while about our
respective travel plans – they plan to go to places like the Longmen
Grottos, Shaolin Temple, and also the east coast, overall taking 3
weeks. We also talked about the street food; though they said they
regularly ate very spicy food, they thought street malatang was too
hot, so I need to check this out – it wasn't that bad when I tried it.
They also had bought some art from an "art student exhibition," which
I've heard is a classic scam front, but they've travelled to Thailand
before, so maybe they bargained for a good deal. Visited the imperial
park in the back after lunch, which had some interesting rock
carvings, unusually-shaped trees, and a pavillion built on top of a
pile of rocks 10m high. I saw one tree (lacebark pine, I think) whose
root was described as looking like a "crouching dragon"; despite being
curved, I didn't catch the resemblance. My theory is that whenever
Chinese people want to hype the beauty of a natural feature, they
liken it to a dragon – it's already been done with the Great Wall.
Afterward, checked out some of the small halls in the inner court to
the right side of the main path. These had been converted into
museums, and I got to see some beautiful examples of bronze, jade, and
gold/silver works; some of the goldwork was particularly fascinating.
After these, I went to a hall containing many highly ornamented and
large clocks; the opulence was stunning, as it was for the gold/silver
works. Some of the clocks in this exhibition had things like moving
figures as well, one clock was even a chariot that moved in a circle
when wound. There was also an ancient Chinese water clock. Near the
back was a small section designed to resemble an imperial living
quarters, where most everything had a clock built into it, down to the
armrests. The plaque said that it would let the imperial
family/concubines know what time it was no matter where they looked,
but I'm inclined to think that ten clocks in ten square feet is
overkill. Also, the plaque said they all made a "sweet sound" at
regular intervals; with so many, I think that would drive me nuts
after a while. Nevertheless, they were all quite well-made.
After this, it was nearly 5. Had initially planned to go to Jingshan
Park to the north, but was tired, so returned home.

Day One of the Trip - Tiananmen, Qianmen, Wangfujing, Silk Market

My post-HBA adventure starts with me heading to the Wudaokou light
rail station at about 8:30 in the morning. I took the subway for
about 45 minutes and landed in the northwest corner of Tiananmen
Square. I had once walked by the Gate of Heavenly Peace, an
absolutely giant gate that leads toward the Forbidden City, and had
briefly seen the square from there, but hadn't entered. The square
is, quite simply, vast. The north is flanked by the aforementioned
Gate of Heavenly Peace, to the west is a massive hall where the
People's Congress meets, and to the east is an equally-large museum.
A monument (a stone pillar) stands in the center of the northern part,
and Mao's mausoleum dominates the center. I joined the line to enter
the monument, but left when I saw just how long it was (doubling back
over a large fraction of Tiananmen). South of the mausoleum are two
giant gates, which I think show where the city walls were earlier. In
the square itself were lots of people, some walking around like I
were, and some just sitting there under umbrellas; I don't know what
for. Water sellers were prevalent, as were sellers of boxes of ice
cream sticks, which were somehow always cold, though I never saw a
fridge or freezer nearby. I started from Heavenly Peace to the north
and made my way south, noting the Soviet/European style architecture
to the sides of the square.
At Qianmen gate, one of the large gates at the south end, I found a
large street running south from there. It was wide, had no cars (but
a trolley), was very clean, and had faux-imperial-Beijing style
design. This was a shopping district, still under construction by the
looks of it. There were many American and European brands on the
storefronts, such as Haagen-Daas and Zara, and there were multiple
workers around keeping the street clean from any litter soon after it
was dropped. From there, there was an entrance to one of the more
well-travelled hutongs (alleys) of Beijing; a bigger, crowded (but not
too narrow) one which had loads of stores to the left and right such
as arts/crafts stores, dry-goods supermarkets, and clothing stores.
From there, paths to more hutongs branched off. I departed the main
hutong and looked down some of the side ones. These were even
narrower, and, in the region near the big hutong, had just as many
stores, but had fewer people (but were equally as crowded – the
narrower and fewer balanced out). Getting further away from the main
hutong, however, the streets got significantly less crowded. From one
of these side alleys, I walked into a very narrow, branching alley
with no shops. What most surprised me was the silence – though not
far away was the main street with lots of noisy shopping, this place
was very quiet.
I had originally planned to spend the afternoon exploring the
Forbidden City, but I decided to do some shopping instead, wanting to
flex my bargaining muscles a bit. I first took a bus one stop to
Wangfujing. This is a very upscale (and touristy) shopping region
centered around a wide pedestrian road, with TV-covered colorful
shopping malls to the side; however, it was not my final destination.
I went to a small alley to the side called Wangfujing Snack Street,
which not only has interesting (and cleaner, due to regulations, but
more expensive) street food, but also several curio sellers. I first
got lunch, which included trying "stinky" tofu (really, not bad at
all), some sort of fruit similar to a coconut where sellers drill a
hole in the shell and stick a straw in for you to drink the juice, and
a desert which consisted of a hot flour-and-water paste mixed with
sugar, sesame seeds, and dried fruit. The most famous items sold are
the skewers of odd meats fried and given to you, including scorpions
(still alive before frying), seahorses, and starfish, but there was
plenty of normal food as well, including all manner of sweet drinks,
eggy pancakes with vegetables, and plenty of standard Chinese and
Korean fare. Afterward, I went around and started trying bargaining
for things I didn't want as well as for things I did want. Some
things I discovered:
1. Sellers often sell exactly the same items.
I have seen dozens of sellers selling the exact same scroll
paintings, chopsticks, "antiques", etc.
2. The best way to get a seller to lower the price is to come to
agreement on a price, then suddenly turn around and walk away.
I discovered this by accident while practicing with things I didn't
want; I would reach my target for a given item, then drop everything
and turn around; they would then call towards me and start lowering it
even more, to prices I couldn't get through normal bargaining or when
I simply walked away before reaching an "agreement". My thoughts are
that once they say "OK", they've mentally committed to the deal, so
when you then walk away you have a "foot in the door" and they want to
finish the deal, even if it requires lowering the price even more.
I'm not sure if this will work in all circumstances, but it seemed to
work for me this afternoon.
3. The "1/3 rule" is misleading
I have heard of a rule that you should never pay more than one third
of what the seller wants. This is certainly true, but grossly
underestimates the seller's actual starting price – I was able to
bargain some items down to less than 1/10th of their initial asking
price. Sellers will ask ridiculously inflated prices, for example
asking hundreds of yuan for brown-paper Mao-era-style poster that I've
seen go for 3 yuan a poster elsewhere, or asking hundreds for
easily-mass-produced art scrolls.
4. The statement that "salsemen are pushy" is also misleading"
They are not just pushy; they will grab your hand and try to drag you
back when you start to walk away, especially after using point #2
described above. In some cases, I had to flatly state "don't touch
me."
I later headed out to one of the most famous free-for-all markets,
Silk Street Market. Housed in a large, multistory building, narrow
lanes separate multitudes of sellers all selling roughly the same
items. The first floors are standard clothes, such as jeans and
t-shirts, sports clothes and jackets; on the second and third floors
there are also rugs, carpets, silks, and materials for suits that will
be tailor-made for you. The upper floors have arts, crafts,
"antiques", and watches, sunglasses, and electronic stuff. I was
greeted with many "hello"s instead of "ni hao"s and was called out to
most of the time in English, as I am easily recognizable as a
foreigner (or at least definitely not Chinese). This enabled me to
have to have the fun experience of switching into Mandarin when their
English couldn't keep up with the conversation and seeing their
surprise. When I told some shopkeepers that I was looking for
t-shirts with terrible English, they even asked me to translate the
English on some of the t-shirts they sold and tell them if it was
correct or not, which I did until I came across one which had multiple
sentence fragments whose meaning I couldn't decipher – it could have
been a mistranslation, or it could have been a "fashion statement," I
really couldn't tell. A few hours later, I headed to a Xiabu Xiabu
hotpot chain restaurant for dinner, and took the subway across town to
get home.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Graduation

3 hour exam this morning, followed by a graduation ceremony. We had
speeches by Profs. Gu and Feng, as well as some people in connection
with BeiYu and some HBA students. I understood some parts - namely,
where other 2nd year students were speaking - and didn't understand
others - like when the 5th-year students were speaking. At any rate,
we all got our diplomas, and left to eat lunch, which was a large
banquet at the Conference Center with our Chinese families and
professors.
The language pledge ended without fanfare - Professor Feng simply
stated "language pledge is over" in the middle of a sentence, without
much prelude. Going back to speaking English, of course, presented no
problems, though I did slip in the occasional "dui" or "hao". It also
occured to me how unusual of a greeting "Have you eaten yet?" sounds
in English (it is a common greeting in Chinese). At lunch, we got to
hear the teachers speak English, when they chose to (we had a more
difficult time getting some to speak than others). There was a wide
range - most every teacher had an accent, but some were much more
fluent and had less of an accent than others.
Not sure what I'm going to do exactly these next few days, but plans
include Forbidden City, Tiananmen, Jingshan Park, shopping in the
larger street markets, the Summer Palaces, and the hutongs (old-town
alleys).

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Official: Going to Xi'an

Yesterday, I bought my ticket to Xi'an, a city in Shaanxi province
near the terra-cotta warriors. Still working out some details, but
right now I plan to spend 2 and a half days in Xi'an, and 1 and a half
climbing Lao Shan, a nearby mountain.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Sequoia

Ate dinner with another BeiYu student today. I was eating at a
Japanese place in the student cafeteria and noticed we had different
types of the sushi that comes with a meal, so I asked him if we could
trade a piece each. He then came over and sat at my table. He is
also studying for the summer, although only one month. He teaches at
a university for training teachers to teach Chinese through English in
Shanxi province, and is a linguistics major with a very good knowledge
of English (good enough to explain the more difficult parts of
Chomsky's generative theory of linguistics which I couldn't understand
in Chinese). He also offered some interesting insights into current
Chinese events, such as why the Chinese fear swine flu much more than
Americans – while in pretty much all of America, swine flu is not much
more annoying than standard flu, in China, since seeing a doctor is so
much more expensive, even getting standard flu is a much more serious
matter; hence, the large amount of screening for swine flu going on
here. Also interesting was what he described as China's two big
medical problems: "chronic diseases, like diabetes, and pregnancy."
At first I thought he meant unmarried or teenage pregnancy, but I then
realized he meant pregnancy in general. However, what I am not likely
to forget soon is what he said shortly before we parted ways. We were
exchanging names; after I told him I was named Bao Yueran (a
meaning-based translation for the given name and very loose
sound-based for the surname), I gave him my English (Tamil? Not
really clear if "Ashok" counts as English or Tamil or perhaps both)
name. He told me that when first received an English-speaking guest,
he decided on the English name "Sequoia." His rationale was that
"John, Joe, Sam, all those other names are so common that everyone has
them and no one remembers them. I wanted something that would stand
out." I think Sequoia does the trick for memorability; I doubt I'll
meet another anytime soon.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

China Night

Last night, China Night performance. First was the Shaolin Temple
group performing two of the three forms we learned while there, with
some choreographed mock-fighting in between. Next was a cross-talk
performance (humorous dialogue), followed by orchestral pieces. Next
was my group; we played a Chinese lullaby song by a recent artist (I'm
fairly certain). I can't remember the exact order afterwards, but
other performances included erhu (Chinese violin), Professor Feng
singing Beijing Opera and Professor Gruber playing the accordian, an
Irish dance, more skits and songs (including an elaborate medley by
the Chinese song singing class), Taijiquan, ballroom dance, and some
others. Afterward, pretty much everyone went to Vics, a club in
Sanlitun district (lots of bars and clubs and restaurants).

Friday, August 7, 2009

Ashok Fords the River, Oxen Die En Masse

Entering the final stage of HBA classes next week. Tonight we have a
talent show performance, and I'll be playing guitar to accompany a
Chinese song. We had a dress rehearsal this morning, and it was
raining very hard. The rain in China is unusual; it seems to rain
with about the same frequency as in Southeast Philadelphia, but
virtually all rain comes in the form of thunderstorms, not often light
drizzles or the like. Though clouds are often seen over Beijing,
during these cloudy periods, the rain comes when a cluster of raining
clouds passes overhead, showers very hard for a few hours, and then
leaves. Thus, rain comes in short, intense bursts. The net effect of
this was that during the time I had to carry my stuff over to the
auditorium, the roads were literally flooded with several inches of
water. Getting through a few portions was like wading through a
shallow pool. Luckily, caulking the wagon proved to be unnecessary.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

More on Food (with pictures; written Saturday night)

Continuing my culinary forays throughout Wudaokou, yesterday for
dinner I ate hotpot again – but this time, at a popular chain (I think
it's been called fast food, but it's not really "fast") called "Xiabu
Xiabu" (tones unknown). This place is so popular that there is often
a waiting line to get seats. There is a long counter lined with
individual pots (hotpot usually has communal pot) that snakes its way
through the restaurant, separating the waiters from the patrons whilst
maximizing the number of seats. The restaurant is very thorough and
developed regarding its method – once you get there, you choose a soup
base, a dipping sauce (to cool off the food once you take it out of
the boiling broth; unfortunately, Xiabu Xiabu does not provide other
plates, so you are forced to put your food into the dipping sauce
after taking it out) to which you can add garlic, onions, and/or
coriander, and then you choose raw food, including several prepackaged
sets. Things overall went smoothly; I was helped a bit by the people
sitting next to me when I encountered characters I was not familiar
with and foods I saw but didn't know how to name (of which there were
many; for example, I don't know the names of many types of vegetables,
and I can only differentiate two types of noodles, though many more
exist). Finding myself still hungry afterwards, I bought a yogurt
drink from a street stall refrigerator. Though literally "sour milk",
this was anything but sour – it was loaded with sugar. It resembled
lassi, though a bit thinner, sugarier, and the taste was somewhat off,
like it was made with sugar substitute or sugar alcohol. I also tried
a strange dessert I had never encountered before from another stall –
it was some sort of clear viscous fluid (I think potato or some other
starch) mixed with sugar, nuts, sesame and dried fruit. Not bad, but
not amazing either – I asked that the vendor only put a little sugar
in, which leads me to believe that most of the taste comes from the
sugar (the dried berries were good, though not very prevalent in the
mix).
Today for lunch I went to a Yunnan restaurant. Yunnan's most famous
food is "across the bridge noodles," so named due to a story where a
woman had to make a long journey to bring her husband food each day,
including crossing a bridge. The dish is a noodle soup; because the
top is covered by a layer of oil, the soup would be insulated and thus
stay warm during the long trip. The cooking method is also
interesting. All the ingredients are brought to the table, then the
broth is brought, very hot; the ingredients (thinly sliced) are dumped
into the soup, where they are quickly cooked (including meats). That
said, the taste is pretty much exactly like chicken noodle soup. I
also had one of the better desserts I've had in China here – a "soup"
of partly-solidified gelatin with caramel on the bottom and sesame
seeds on top, which is then mixed.