Thoughts on China

Well, as you can see, I had a very busy and productive day! I met a lot of nice people, had Peking Duck (picture below), etc. I’ll put these into different headlines below, so you don’t have to read the parts you aren’t interested in…

Cell phone problems resolved

Well, I found out my cell phone has a fairly short battery life. Luckily, it came with two (which I’ll now bring with me). I had a lot of people to call….I was glad to talk to my wife, Linda, though I made the mistake of calling her at 11:00 in the morning (aka 11 PM in Tallahassee time). I tested the local Chinese call to my coworker, Wenjin, and it worked well. I called my tutor (and student) Sophie, who was probably wondering if I had fallen off the face of the earth, since she is setting up a way for me to see her sister’s dancing troupe. Then, I made a local call to Lily, the VP of PR for the Toastmasters club I’m going to tomorrow evening. It turns out she is giving a speech tomorrow night about an interesting historical site that was uncovered in Sichuan province in 1984 (I’ll be going to Sichuan and am looking forward to the speech).

I have never used cell phones much before, but it is extremely handy to use in this situation, where I’ll be out and about all day, but always in cell phone range. There is one amusing thing, though, that I’ll try to get rectified if I can. I got an SMS from Lily, telling me about something that I wanted to reply to. This cell phone has a PDA like screen that you write the letters on….or that’s what I thought. I was going to start it with “OK”, but when a list of Hanzi (Chinese characters) came up for me to choose from, I realized that while the store had changed the menu system to English, it will be rather challenging for me, with a 200 character knowledge, to write coherent messages. A lady in one of the stores I went to (see below) said I could change that to English, as well, but we couldn’t test here theory since the phone calls above used up the battery! Oh, well….

Beijing Bicycle…my sequel

One of the movies I watched over the last year in preparing to come to China was “Beijing Bicycle”. It’s a good movie, but it’s late, so I won’t go into the plot. Suffice it to say that I rented a bicycle for the day from the hostel for Y30. While this is only $4, it is really not a good deal, since you can by one for Y150 - 200 ($20 - 27). So, tomorrow I’m going to go bike shopping. The first one I took out, I had to immediately return for another, since the pedals would slip a quarter to a third of their rotation without moving the chain, which was very aggravating for the 100 yards that I tried it. That was the only one they had with a basket and a big seat for my big butt…so, I ended up on a “mountain bike” (I’ll take a picture of it tomorrow), which had a low gear ratio, questionable brakes and steering, etc. On the positive side, it didn’t stand out in the crowd, so no one would go after it to rip it off…

The flow of traffic is very chaotic, but very musical at the same time. Everyone seems to work in unison to go efficiently about. There is a whole lane of traffic dedicated to bicycles, and traffic lights at intersections are also there with a bicycle on them. I could write a lot more about it (and I probably will, since I’ll be using it as my primary means of transport for the rest of the week), but I’ll save it for later.

Shopping in Qianmen

I was on my way to the Temple of Heaven, when I passed by a shopping district that I wanted to go to sometime this week. So, I parked the bike and walked along. I made a big mistake with my first purchase…I didn’t bargain! It was a stamp made of soapstone that I had engraved with a reasonable approximation of my last name, Keller). I bought it for 100RMB, or $13.50. Stupid me. I was kicking myself the rest of the day, walking past all of the shops that sell them…which reminds me….

This street is made up to resemble an old time shopping district and they sell all of the cool Chinese stuff that I like. The four treasures (ink, paper, inkstone and brushes) for calligraphy, calligraphy and paintings, yixing teapots and tea, as well as “antiques” (who really knows which are and which aren’t here), etc. are sold by shops on both sides of the narrow hutong walking street.

It was really a pleasant experience for me, since I got to practice my Chinese with a lot of very nice shop workers. One of them told me she learned her (quite good) English at “English Corner”, which takes place every Friday evening at Renmin University (where my Chinese tutor went to school). So, I’m going to show up there on Friday to check it out and maybe help a few people with their English and get Chinese tips in return.

I told another shop worker (in a Yixing teapot store, her brother has a store in Yixing, where I’m going, so I got his card from her) about my plan to buy a bicycle and sell it cheap. As it turned out, her family is looking for another bike, so this will work out well for both of us. I’ll be able to use a bike all week for about $25, then I’ll sell it for about $5 or $10 to a family that will get a good deal and make my bike that much cheaper at the same time. A good deal all around.

Beijing (Peking) Duck at Quanjude

Well, I hated eating Beijing Duck alone, but at least it wasn’t eating me!

Quanjude was an interesting restaurant. They have a waiting staff that is huge and make sure your teapot and your condiments are always full. I ordered a half duck and mushroom soup. It was very good, but I’m not good at describing tastes, so I won’t try. One of the wait staff took this picture for me. BTW, I forgot to get any pictures along the shopping street, but I’ll stop there again either when I go to the Temple of Heaven (which everyone staying at the hostel says is wonderful) or when I go to sell the bike mentioned above. So, this is my only picture of today’s activities…

Well, it’s 1:22 AM, so I’m going to get some sleep, since I’ll have another full day tomorrow, I’m sure.

As my plans are now:

I’ll go to either the Temple of Heaven or Beihai Park tomorrow, then go to the Zhongguancun Toastmasters Club meeting tomorrow evening.

Wednesday, I’ll leave at 6:40 AM to the Jinshanling to Simatai section of the Great Wall (a 4.5 or 5 hour hike) and get back in the evening (exhausted, but happy, I’m sure).

Thursday, I’ll go to Temple of Heaven or Beihai Park (whichever I didn’t go to on Tuesday) and then pick up tickets to Sophie’s sister’s dance troupe. It will be nice to meet Sophie’s 姐姐 (jiějie, or elder sister) and tell her (in Chinese, of course) what a great teacher her 妹妹 (mèimei, or younger sister) is. The Chinese have a name for every relative, so you can tell just by the short name what relation someone is, without trying to figure out if it’s the mother on the wife’s side, etc. The downside is, of course, you have to learn all the words!

I have decided to forgo my trip to Chengde in favor of spending more time around Beijing. Part of this trip is about “seeing the sites”, but an equal portion is getting to meet and talk to very interesting people who are just as interested in our culture as we (or at least I) are (am) in theirs… Plus, it will give me another chance to try another restaurant or two before I leave Beijing next Saturday….

Until tomorrow, 再见 (zàijiàn, or goodbye)