professor-in-dalian

Country Living in China

2011-09-05T01:42:00.000-07:00

I grew up in America’s farm country, Iowa and Illinois, with frequent trips to Indiana where I had relatives with a real-life farm. My hometown, Moline, is the headquarters of John Deere. Yet for all of that, my actual experience with farms mainly consists of driving past them with the windows up and my nose occasionally scrunched up in the classic, condescending grimace of a city boy smelling other people’s animals.

Those were American farms, though, at once more unobtrusive, human-friendly, and massively concentrated than Chinese agriculture. I’ve marveled at the Chinese way of farming since my first summer in-country, when I observed through the windows of speeding vehicles the tiny little carved-out spaces lush with green which seemed to spring from dusty orange clay.

Chinese farming is a paradox for me, at once phenomenally productive (filling the supermarkets of hungry Dalian every day) and desolate. The countryside is filled with the elderly, the youths having left for better-paying jobs and greater flexibility in the factory towns of China. But the young factory people must be fed by someone, and as far as I can tell it’s the old farm-hands who work the land and send their products to the factories, ironically being paid so little that their children must go off to the factories, work slavishly as laborers, and send their excess home to provide for their parents a living that the selling of farm products doesn’t. All these issues, grand and humble, came together for me when I went to visit Ma Lei’s family in the family village.

Ma Lei’s family is a demographic archetype. Her grandparents were born to local landowners, and therefore vastly wealthy by the standards of the early 1900s in northeastern China. There’s some sort of a story involving her paternal grandfather, now 90 years old, working with a bank from Hong Kong, but my Chinese isn’t up to actually following it. The parents still work the farm, though Ma Lei's father also works construction. Both Ma Lei and her younger brother have gone off to the cities for work.

I’d eat brambles to be able to hear and understand the family's stories, and I have redoubled my language studies in the hopes that I can one day commit the family story to print. I’ll have to do it before Ma Lei’s English is good enough to understand what I’m writing, though, because she tao yan’s any hint of my writing about her, or her family, or indeed about anything at all personal. She is aware that she’s engaged to a writer, and she knows that I write about stories from China, but I don’t think she has quite realized that means her.

(Tao yan, by the way, is one of those magnificent Chinese terms that means a dozen different things. It’s sometimes joked by Chinese students of English that our language has ten different words for the same thing, whereas Chinese has one word for ten different things. What’s especially interesting to me, philosophically, is that Chinese often uses the same word for opposite relationships. Tao yan, for example, can mean “very bad,” “disgusting,” or “nasty,” when it’s used as an adjective. But as a verb, it means “hate” or “be disgusted by.” Couple this with the fact that verbs are often omitted from Chinese sentences, and “Wo tao yan” can mean either “I am disgusting” or “I am disgusted.”)

Ma Lei’s family had been rich, by local standards, and had owned land rented by others. Hence they were tao yan after the Revolution and the Mao Ze Dong wenti, as they call it — “the Mao Tze Deng problem.” There was a time when Ma Lei’s father and grandfather moved far north, to Jilin province, where Ma Lei was born. There was an incident during which Ma Lei’s sweet old Yeye (grandfather) was beaten with belts by a crowd of Cultural Revolutionaries. As Ma Lei tells the story, her father tracked down the instigators of that incident and gave them an eye for an eye, but I cannot verify that story. Ma Lei’s father is an unusually good man, that much I can see from his face, but the Cultural Revolution was a time when no one stood up for anyone else, and children frequently were the tormenters of their own parents.

Be that as it may, I knew a bit about Ma Lei's family before I went out to the family farm. I was amazed, though, at the life I saw there. I thought I would find a hardscrabble existence of poverty and deprivation. Instead, I found proud people with a very comfortable life and ample provisions.

Visiting the Countryside

2011-08-25T02:00:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I made my first visit to see the village where Ma Lei’s family lives.

As you may know, going to visit a woman's family in China is tantamount to an engagement, so it was potentially a very important trip. If her mother and (especially) father disapproved of the relationship, that would be the end of it: very few Chinese girls will go against their parents' wishes.

Ma Lei was pretty nervous, but I wasn't the least bit. I figured that her family must be pretty good folks, or she wouldn't be as down-to-earth and open-minded as she is. They'd let her get involved with a foreigner thus far, so they were at least open to the possibility. And besides, there wasn't too much I could do about it either way. They were going to think whatever they were going to think, regardless of my stressing about it.

Their farm would be an hour from my university, if I were driving my own car. However, taking a bus, then another bus, then another, it was more like three hours. We rode through the town of Jin Zhou, right past the little restaurant where the pretty waitress had tried on my bike helmet, five or six months ago. In Jin Zhou, we picked up a scrappy-looking little bus through increasingly remote farm country along a road parallel to the one I took on the bike trip to Zhuang He.

Around 1:00, the bus pulled up the tiny cluster of eight or ten farm houses where Ma Lei was raised. Quick introductions were made as I was whisked into her family's house and Ma Lei distributed gifts of moon cakes and Peking duck we'd brought from Beijing. I was seated next to Ma Lei's father at a small dinner table decorated with Snoopy characters. As Chinese tradition requires, Ma Lei's female relatives quickly began filling the table with a gigantic feast — perhaps twenty plates overflowing with food for ten people.

Ma Lei's younger brother was there with his girlfriend, whom he's been dating for more than a year. They somehow didn't look reluctant or put-upon, despite the fact that my coming to visit the family had caused him to be more or less shamed into coming, too. His girlfriend had not yet been introduced to the family, a point that their mother didn't fail to mention to him once or twice in the build-up to my visit. Ma Lei’s brother and his girlfriend were placed directly opposite me, next to Ma Lei's 90 year-old grandfather, who sat next to her father. Ma Lei's aunt, mother, and two unrelated people sat on the side of the table opposite from the two men of the house. Ma Lei was at my side, to help me with food and translations.

Ma Lei's mother is a compact, good-natured woman. With the dutiful character of a Chinese farm wife, she let her husband do almost all the speaking for her. But she keeps an immaculate house, cooking and cleaning with professional efficiency.

The father is a good-humored man in his mid-50s. Though I couldn’t understand his dialect at all, when he told stories I could tell from his body-language and from people’s reactions that he’s an excellent raconteur. He welcomed me to the house warmly and took great pleasure serving me beer and baijiu, which we drank together in ritual fashion.

When Chinese men drink together (and women almost never drink, not in a traditional family), it is a highly social experience. You are not to lift a glass on your own: you move your hand to your glass, and wait for the other man to notice and raise his glass along with you. Without looking at each other directly, you swing the glass toward your partner as if to clink a Western-style toast, then raise it to your lips, being careful to sip for about the same length of time he does. On the way down, you make a smaller gesture to your partner, then set your glasses down simultaneously. Tough luck, if you want to drink more than he does, or less. Tough luck, if you want to drink while he's got his hands on his chopsticks or while he's telling a lengthy story. It's quite rude to force someone to interrupt his eating or talking, by putting your hand to your glass. It's best to let the host set the pace, rather than appearing to be greedy with someone else's alcohol. I’d been told some of the rules of this custom in the past, but I’d never really experienced it before. I think Ma Lei’s father enjoyed having a drinking partner; there’s not much social life in their tiny little village.

The ritual is at once mildly stifling, and intensely bonding. One becomes unusually aware of the partner's behavior, his body language, his pace and rhythm of eating, as well as (obviously) how much he is drinking. Coupled with the fact that the Chinese method of sharing food at the table requires you to coordinate your eating, only reaching for what you can grab without interrupting someone else's reaching and grabbing, it gives a much more intimate connection with the other person than you get at a standard Western-style dinner.

With so much food of such variety, there is generally a quick feast at the beginning followed by a long period of socializing, storytelling, and picking at the remaining food. Northeasterners in China speak with the thickest, most incomprehensible of accents, as if their mouths were stuffed with sponges. Other Chinese people have a hard time communicating with them, so of course it’s hopeless for a foreigner. To make things even more complicated, about half of the people at lunch speak not Mandarin but the local dialect, which is significantly different. So Ma Lei had to act as a sort of Chinese-to-Chinese translator, going from her family's Chinese into Chinese I could understand and back again. We communicated some, but mostly I listened and tried to understand their body language.

After a couple of hours, Ma Lei's brother and his girlfriend left the table. Ma Lei made sure to have me take her picture with her brother and his girlfriend before she would let them leave. Ma Lei is the one in black and white, on the right-hand side of the picture.

After the young couple left, the other local residents slipped away, leaving the four of us to go back to the table. Presently, Ma Lei's mother offered me a small bowl of noodles, which I had been instructed to accept no matter how overstuffed I already felt.

This was another tradition about which Ma Lei had warned me, but which I had never heard of before this weekend. If the family likes and accepts their daughter's suitor, after a meal they will offer him noodles. Noodles are a sign of long life, and they are typically eaten on every birthday as a way of saying "...and many more." So by offering noodles after the introductory meal, the family is wishing that the couple will stay together for a long and healthy life.

If, on the other hand, the family had decided that they didn't like me, they would have instead offered me jiaozi (Chinese dumplings something like won tons). Although jiaozi are a favorite food of China, and it seems as though the list of traditions associated with just about every holiday in China ends with "... and you must eat jiaozi," jiaozi also seem to have a kind of negative connotation. I've heard Ma Lei say "he can eat jiaozi" in the same way I might say "he can go to hell." It's perhaps akin to "let them eat cake."

So under the circumstances, I accepted a very small bowl of homemade noodles with a delicious mussel sauce. Ma Lei's mother complained that I hadn't taken enough, but I made a joke about being too fat already, and she let me get away with my small helping.

We were in the farm village for two full days, returning early in the morning of the third day. Later that evening, while I was off teaching a private class for a company in downtown Dalian, Ma Lei’s father called her up. He asked for Gao Meng (my Chinese name — it sounds a lot like “Garmong”). I don’t know why he asked for me, since we couldn’t have communicated over the phone anyway, but he was disappointed when I wasn’t there. He didn’t particularly want to talk to Ma Lei, he just wanted to know when I could come out to drink beer and baijiu with him again.

Abdul's politics

2011-04-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I went for lamb-kebobs at the stand of Abdul, the best Muslim barbecue vendor on my street. While I was waiting for my lamb to cook, Abdul asked (in Chinese) if I was American. "Dui," I said, "yes."

He asked if I like George Bush, which took me aback a little. I don't think I'd ever heard a Chinese person say the name "George Bush." Bush was already in the world's rear-view mirror when I came to China.

While I was pondering my answer — my Chinese being nowhere near good enough to say "No, I don't especially like George Bush's politics, but for reasons almost the opposite of what most people who don't like him would name" — Abdul went on to say "I like George Bush," in Chinese and, for emphasis, in English.

"Do you like Obama?" He asked in Chinese. This, I could answer quickly and ponderlessly: "Bu xi huan" ("I don't like"). "Wo ye bu xi huan" ("I also don't like"), he said enthusiastically, and continued in Chinese: "Obama doesn't have heart or balls. George Bush has heart and balls." (The "balls" part I didn't exactly get from his words, but I inferred it from his two-handed interpretive gesture.)

I guess on that level, I can't disagree. And thus, with a nod of my head, I concluded my first-ever political conversation in Chinese as Abdul took my spicy lamb kebobs off the flame and handed them to me with a flourish.

Interestingly, the Muslim street vendors are often the most pro-American faces in China. They are typically ethnic minorities who see themselves as being repressed by the ethnic Chinese, so they see us foreigners as natural allies. It's perhaps not what one would expect from Muslims in some other parts of the world.

Sneaky Me!

2009-06-10T06:15:00.000-07:00

Several people have noted that my blog has been inactive since the penultimate moment, just as Driver and I were banging our way across the decimated pavement toward the Great Wall, for my first experience actually walking on that piece of history. This is not by my choice: the Chinese government blocked access to blogspot just before the one-year anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake and the 20th anniversary of Tian'anmen Square.

I waited them out for a while, but I finally decided to dig around and find (with the help of my friend Keenan) a back-door to blogspot. I'm not sure how well it will work, or for how long, but at least now I can resume blogging.

Driving to the Wall

2009-05-11T09:33:00.000-07:00

After a quick lunch, I found Driver's glossy tourist brochure and pointed to a picture of the Great Wall climbing up a mountainside

We drove back through central Shanhaiguan, then drove down a rural road past run-down farmhouses. At a big crossroad, Driver stopped the car and ran out with a water bottle to fill the radiator. I hope that the amount of money he overcharged me as I left town was enough for a down-payment on a newer car.

The road out of town would have been rough and unforgiving under the best of circumstances, but for whatever reason it was drilled full of regularly-spaced potholes. These were clearly intentionally drilled, but don't ask me why. If you can imagine a tiny little car that's falling apart to begin with, threatening to stall out if Driver slows down too much, with an oversized American loading down the rear of the car... it's a wonder either of us survived. Driver swerved around, trying to avoid impact, but what's the point? It was like a Vietnamese mine field.

After just a few kilometers, we emerged into a huge and dusty parking lot, nearly filled with cars, with people bustling around everywhere. Also, there was a camel. In case you want to have your kids get their pictures taken on the back of a camel, I know where to send them. By the way, this was indeed a real-live camel.

Driver led me to another ticket window, where there ensued a discussion as to how much I should pay. There was something for 90 RMB, and another package for 150 or so, and Driver was clearly urging me toward the more expensive. I ended up with the cheaper ticket, but I never did learn exactly what I had bought admission to.

It was just a smidge after noon, and driver and I managed to communicate that I was supposed to be back two hours later. I slung my pack over my shoulders and started walking.

Crossing the rocks

2009-05-08T22:19:00.000-07:00

Here's one more picture I can't resist showing you. Here is another guy trying to pick his way across the slimy rocks from the beach. There was really only room for one person to pass at a time, so I had to wait for him before I could attempt a passage. I was glad I chose to wear water-resistant boots that day, rather than tennis shoes!

Professor at sea

2009-05-08T20:47:00.000-07:00

We parked near the public beach, and Driver led me down along the water. I could see the Dragon's Head off to the right — shrouded in mist in this photo. I wanted to walk there, but Driver steered me to the left, toward a small card table with an old woman selling something for 30 rmb. I resisted for a moment, because I hadn't a clue what I was paying for, and I didn't see anything I thought was worth paying five dollars for. But eventually I gave in and paid. My options seemed to be either that or nothing.

Driver motioned for me to take off my backpack and leave it with him. The woman selling tickets saw me hesitate, pondering whether I trusted him with everything I had brought with me. She laughed and made a little "don't do it!" hand gesture. Driver seemed nice, and I trusted him pretty far... but not THAT far.

A smiling man took me over toward a sort of algae peninsula, at the end of which was a rickety gangplank and a line of little powerboats. I finally realized that I had bought a ticket to walk out this:

To this:

I handed my backpack to the guy in the waders, waited a moment to make sure he actually put it on the boat before I got six feet out over water on a thin, rickety bridge, then hobbled uncertainly down the plank to the boat. I think my awkwardness was a cause of some mirth among the workers and the other passengers, a young Chinese couple. I sat at the bow and took a good little while trying to wrestle myself into the Chinese life preserver which was designed for... well, let's just say a non-Western physique.

The day was grey and presaged rain, and the wind had blown the sea to a modest chop. The other passengers seemed a little nervous, but I loved it. Since I was a kid visiting my dad's friends in Florida, I've always loved high speed and sea air and, yes, a little chop to shake things up. Blame Joe Lettelleir. As the pilot brought the boat up to speed and we banged over the first wave, I let out a little "Whoop!" and a laugh.

I think the pilot took that as a challenge. He poured on extra power and cut hard into the waves. He adjusted course to hit them at different angles, making sure we got a workout from every direction. I banged around like a pinball, and I'm pretty sure the pilot was testing me. He didn't slam me around hard enough to kill me, but it definitely made me stronger. The girl in the seat behind me was squealing in fear and pain, while laughing at the crazy American on the bow.

Then suddenly we turned around and cut power, and there it was, Laolongtou: the Dragon's Head, where the Great Wall of China meets the Bohai Sea. We sat for several minutes looking at the impressive beast, taking pictures and thinking what it must have seemed like in its early days. I don't know much of the history, so I can only guess at what the area was like — fairly lawless, from what I've read — and the peace of mind it must have brought to the people of the area.

I've read that the Wall's actual military function was very limited, even in its early days. But the symbol of Chinese military defense must have been priceless!

We banged our way back across the waves, crossed the little gangplank, and picked our way over the algae-covered rocks to land. Driver was there, smiling at me and waiting to take me to the next adventure.

Cows on the beach, cows in the road

2009-05-08T08:30:00.001-07:00

We actually had to stop for a half-minute or so, while Driver laid on his horn and shouted for this cow to get out of the road. Meanwhile, to the right, I just missed getting a picture as four calves took off running playfully down the beach. It was surreal.

Driving to the Dragon's Head

2009-05-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

The reason I chose Shanhaiguan as the place to first experience the Great Wall is that it is the location of Laolongtou, the "Dragon's Head" — where the Great Wall meets the sea. (It's sometimes described as the easternmost part of the Great Wall of China, but that's not precise. There are other walls, older, I think, that stretch as far as North Korea. But Laolongtou is the easternmost part of the Ming Dynasty wall that is our standard picture of the Great Wall of China.)

By pointing at the glossy tourist brochure, speaking pointlessly in English, and nodding my head emphatically, while waving off other suggestions, I managed to communicate that I wanted to see Laolongtuo. It's about 20 minutes of rather harrowing driving from the First Pass, where I was staying.

Shenhaiguan/Qinhuangdao is a beach resort area, and I could see the hotels and apartment buildings getting fancier and pricier the closer we got to the beach.

We drove past the beach and through a gate in the Wall, up a hill that was much too steep for Driver's little three-wheeled taxi. In the chaotic rush that is Chinese traffic, hand-drawn carts, motor scooters, bicycles, city buses, all rushed around each other and attempted to slither through tiny gaps and spaces in the traffic — with one undersized, underpowered cab lugging an oversized an American through it all. With that stolid resolution which is the unique province of the Chinese man, Driver laid on his horn and shoved aside lorries and bicyclists alike. When their resolution bested his and he was forced to slow or stop, the car always risked stalling.

Just on the other side of the wall, there was a gentle decline past a public beach. Improbably enough, a herd of cows was

grazing in the thin strip of grass between the road and the beach.

Shanhaiguan Museum details

2009-05-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

The museum was laid out in a number of courtyards, flanked by houses with ornate bedchambers. The modern museum seemed to preserve many of the internal details (and here, I suspect, the Western-style concept of authenticity was being at least somewhat observed). But related materials had been collected in certain of the houses, to show the metal-working of the day, or the wood-carving, or the pottery. It was beautiful.

Notice the inlaid ivory in this piece of woodwork, over one son's bed. I haven't a clue how you embed ivory in wood like that — and I'm sure that, however it was done hundreds of years ago, it's illegal now.

Here is some gorgeous woodwork, at first at something of a distance...

Then somewhat closer-up.

Beautiful things

2009-05-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

When I had time to take a breath and go back through the museum at my own pace, I could start forming my own understanding of the place. I guessed that it must have been the home of an important person, probably a scholar. The "read-place" was clearly a kind of library, filled with comfortable couches for reading and studying, ink-stained tables and — behind glass — gorgeous calligraphy sets.

Then a miraculous stranger approached with a bright "Hello!"

Of course, I'd heard "Hello!" before, but this young man followed up with a fair grasp of English. He was a college student visiting Shanhaiguan for the holiday, and he responded as the English-speaking Chinese youth always do when they encounter an American: he quizzed me about America, about myself, and about my experience, in exchange for leading me back through the museum and repeating whatever bits of the Chinese-language tour he could remember.

The museum, as it turns out, was indeed the residence of a prominent man in Shanhaiguan, whose name I attempted unsuccessfully to write down. He had something like five sons and four daughters, all of whom seem to have been housed in this complex. Hence, there are an awful lot of beds and bedrooms, most of which are lavishly carved.

Touring the Museum

2009-05-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

My tour-guide, the only one who spoke maybe ten words of English, ran me through the museum complex as if she were rushing to the hospital to give birth. She knew how to say "go straight ahead," "go to left," and "go to right." When we entered a bedroom, she could say "It is sleep place." In a room filled with scrolls and calligraphy sets, she said "it is read-place." As we crossed an atrium, she pointed to a tree and said, proudly, "it is tree." She moved on hastily, as if forestalling any questions about what sort of tree, how old it was, or why it was being pointed out to me.

She refused to have her picture taken, and didn't want me to take any pictures of anything we saw. I assumed that photography wasn't allowed, but then I saw Chinese tourists taking flash photos of everything. I realized that she was just unwilling to wait long enough for me to take pictures. I think, too, that she felt nervous — as if escorting me through the buildings in English were a sort of Spoken-English pop quiz.

I asked a few questions, tried to be friendly, and expressed my enjoyment of the artisan works all around me. She didn't understand most of my questions, and she couldn't explain to me what the large-ish complex had originally been originally, but she had calmed, and slowed down, considerably by the time we got to the end.

Finally, she finished her tour: "here there are the two arches, that means health and something," pointed me to the exit, and said "now can take any pictures want to." I thanked her, turned around, and started walking back through the places we'd seen before — this time, luxuriating in the scenery and, indeed, taking any pictures I wanted to.

A few minutes later, she reappeared, smiling, and offered to take my picture in front of one of the buildings.

Entering the Shanhaiguan Historical Musem (I think)

2009-05-06T04:53:00.000-07:00

When I finally made myself give up on that "delicious" breakfast, Driver came up to plan my day with me.

The night before, I had presented him with a page in my notebook on which a friend had written instructions to find me a hotel. From the existence of Hanzi in my notebook, Driver seems to have concluded that I knew Mandarin.

When I finally convinced him that "Wo bu hui schuo putonghua," he decided that I must know how to read and write, but not pronounce the words. So all day, he would grab my notebook from me and write long passages, then pronounce them to me VERY SLOWLY — as if that would help. "Wo bu dong," I told him again and again, "Wo bu ning bai." Whereupon, with paternal patience, he would grab the notebook from me again and begin writing what I suppose was a synonymous phrase — all the while pronouncing it to me VERY SLOWLY. It didn't help.

Finally, in a gesture of supreme, impatient indulgence, he grabbed up a glossy tourist brochure and pointed to a couple of possible destinations. It was printed all in Chinese, no English at all, so I couldn't really tell what he was pointing at, but the first place looked like a historical museum, so I nodded. He shuffled me into his car.

Turns out the historical museum was maybe half a mile away — easily walkable, had I known where I was going and what I was doing. Driver opened the car door for me, gestured for me to exit the car, and pointed me to a window where I was supposed to buy a ticket for thirty kui, in order to see I-knew-not-what.

No one spoke a smidgeon of English, not even the number-words. No one could say "Ticket," or "Over here." No one could tell what I meant when I asked "Museum?" And for sure no one understood when I pointed to something and asked "How old is that?"

When my grandfather was ancient and fragile and Alzheimer's had long-since stolen his comprehension, I watched him be pushed and walked from his room to the bathroom or the dining room in the old-folks home, guided like the stone in a Curling match. I felt a bit like that. I saw the number "30" amid a sea of meaningless characters, so I grabbed out thirty kui and stabbed my hand in someone's direction, and she traded it for a glossy ticket, all in hanzi.

I stumbled toward what I hoped was the entrance, haltingly, half-expecting someone to shout angrily that I was going the wrong way — which, of course, I wouldn't exactly understand, but would have to guess from their anger and then judge the rightness of my corrections by the decrease in their anger.

Hovering around the entryway to the museum were four or six young girls — tour guides, apparently — garbed uncomfortably and traditionally and, I strongly suspect, wishing they could shuck their gowns for a pair of blue jeans

and a tee shirt with Mickey Mouse on it. When I brought out my camera, they hobbled swiftly out of sight. My camera caught one of them before they all escaped.

I hadn't a clue what sort of compound I was entering, other than that it had a strong appearance of authenticity. Authenticity of what, I don't know. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a ticket window here, back when this was... whatever-it-used-to-be.

My arrival had caused a frenzy of hiding among the traditionally-clad ladies, off to the right of the picture above, in a deep alcove. The one who seemed to hide deepest in the shadows was the one who eventually got dug out by her colleagues, for apparently she was known to speak some little phrases of English. She appeared, eventually, with profoundly shy reluctance, to announce that "I will be you guide," in about the same tone as I might say, under the right provocation, "I will help you pick poison-ivy leaves."

Breakfast in northern China

2009-05-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

Next morning I arose, relatively fresh and ready to explore. I packed up my little day-pack a little early, then went down to wait for Driver to arrive at 8. The restaurant was in the appealing part of the hotel, so I decided to try breakfast there. It was only 5 RMB, so I didn't have much to lose.

The table was huge for one person, and the center was a giant turntable, the likes of which you've probably seen in Chinese restaurants. First, I was served a hard-boiled egg in a little bowl. When I had eaten that, the waitress came by and deposited an array of foods, shown on the left. The white balls on the top right are dumplings. To their left is bean curd. Under the bean curd is some sort of crunchy veggie mix in a strong-flavored vinegar marinade. At the bottom is a plate of peanuts. On the lower left-hand corner, you can see part of a bowl that I had hoped would be some sort of rice-based porridge. I grabbed a handful of peanuts, found them tasty, then started in on the real food.

I bit first into the mixed veggies. Their crunch was pleasant, but the marinade was way too strong and tasted of spoiled curry.

I quickly bit into a dumpling — I've had those before, in Dalian and in various cities of North America, and always liked them. I expected them to be like something one would get at a dim sum restaurant back home: pasty bread on the outside, with maybe some meat or something sweet on the inside. Not this dumpling: it was paste all the way through. Actually, that's an insult to paste: Elmer's Glue has more flavor than this stuff. Imagine that you made bread dough, but forgot to add salt, sweetener, or flavoring of any kind, then took the bread out of the oven half-baked and still a little sticky. That's about what this was like.

Becoming desperate, I lunged at the bean curd. It was yellow, with the texture of tofu. I like tofu. It was covered in red sauce. I like red sauce. I jabbed off a little corner with my chopsticks.

It tasted like gym socks in pepper sauce. Fermented, stinky, and disgusting.

So my choice seemed to be disgusting flavor, or no flavor at all. Surely, the rice porridge would be my solution. I like rice, and surely this was some sort of breakfast cereal that might perhaps have the right combination of flavors.

It turned out to be nothing but rice in water. No salt. No flavor. Just... rice... in... water. It had only slightly more flavor than the dumpling.

I couldn't quite believe that every item on the table except the egg and the peanuts had tasted awful. So I tried everything around the table, one item after the other, thinking that something here must taste good. Then I tried them in different combinations: bite of dumpling, bite of bean curd. Ick! Bite of bean curd, spoonful of rice. Ick! Bite of veggies, bite of bean curd. UGH! Bite of rice, bite of dumplings. Blah. I went like this for some time, chased around the table by my own disgust.

I once rented a room from a woman who had a very spoiled little terrier. When I cooked, as I like to do, the little dog was always underfoot, looking for me to throw him scraps. I accidentally kicked the poor little guy pretty hard a couple of times, because I'm not used to having a dog underfoot while I cook. So finally, to break him of the habit, I decided to try giving him little bits of my food — but first, I would dip it in cayenne pepper sauce. The dog would try it, make a funny face, spit it out. But he would keep eying it, and a few seconds later he would try it, make a funny face, and spit it out. I could see him thinking: surely that didn't taste as bad as it seemed — I must've gotten a bad bite. Maybe if I come at the other side...

Try it, make a funny face, spit it out.

Try it, make a funny face, spit it out.

I felt a little like that little dog. Finally, I gave up, admitted defeat, poured the remaining peanuts into a baggie, and escaped. Driver was waiting for me.

Historical preservation

2009-05-04T20:25:00.000-07:00

Before I launch into some of the stories about visiting historical sites, I should remark on the Chinese concept of historical preservation. It seems very different from the American idea.

For example, as I'll discuss in a future blog entry, the parts of the Great Wall I was hiking on have been extensively "restored." What that means, as you will see shortly, is that I have no idea whether a single brick or stone of it is original. When I walked beyond the tourist section to where the wall had not been restored, it was a very different thing. A few brick outcroppings could be seen amid what could otherwise be mistaken for a long, overgrown hill of waist-high grass and shrubbery. To from that, to the "restored" section of the wall, must have been a task more of rebuilding than of restoring.

In other words, "historical preservation" in China has little to do with "preservation."

As I describe the places I visit, I'll try to indicate my best guess as to how authentic they are -- but of course this is only my guess, and I am by no means a professional historian.

Jing Shang Hotel — my room first night

2009-05-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

After arriving, exhausted, at a hotel that cost almost 100 rmb more than I'd intended to pay, I was at least pleased to see that it looked decent. Then the little hunched-over woman led me, very slowly, through the courtyard, through a reasonably well-appointed lobby, and up to a room. Not the room I was going to end up in, as it turns out.

In Shenyang, last month, I noticed a pretty cool power-saving method which seems to be common Chinese hotels. The room key there was a plastic card, just like at modern Western hotels, and there was a little slot-reader just inside the front door to the room. All the electricity in the room was turned on by inserting the room key in that slot, and turned off by removing it. I thought this was tremendously clever: we never had to wonder where we'd left the room key, and all the lights popped on instantly when we came back in, tired from whatever activities had occupied us during the day.

This time, when the hunched-over old woman stopped at the first room down a short hallway and attempted to get the electricity to turn on, it didn't work. She took a cheap plastic toothbrush out of its cardboard box, squished down the box until it could fit through the slot. Still, no action.

I was exhausted, and I just wanted to get some sleep. The woman struggled for a long, agonizing time before she finally gave up and took me one door down. When the lights came on in this room, it was a ghastly sight.

I've stayed in some pretty nasty motels, in my time. A twenty-dollar-a-night fourth-floor walkup in Tijuana actually turned out to be pretty nice. Twenty-five bucks got me a night in the Panhandle of Florida, with a cracked neon sign glaring in my window and carpet that covered only about two thirds of the floor. But none of them creeped me out any more than a $42 per night hotel a hundred yards from one of the most famous tourist destinations in the world.

I don't know if this picture adequately conveys the disgustingness of the carpet, which had once been off-white but now was gunmetal grey. Too late, the next morning that I discovered a pair of disposable sandals in little plastic bags. The television was just for show: it didn't work all night.

The beds and other furniture were actually decent-looking, but not especially comfortable. The fluorescent light fixture overhead wasn't wired in, so the power cord ran right down the headboard of my bed. When I plugged it in, it gave the room a frighteningly Soviet look.

Looks like someone wasn't happy!

Notice something missing? There's no shower stall. The shower curtain ran down the middle of the bathroom, to provide rather imperfect protection from splatters.

Not that there was very much to worry about in that regard: this was the strongest stream I was able to coax out of the heavily corroded shower head. At least there was hot water.

I was tired enough, I managed to fall asleep despite the nasty conditions. That night, I dreamed of roaches.

Jing Shang Hotel — exterior

2009-05-03T06:03:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Shanhaiguan right at nightfall on the first day of the May Day celebration, April 30. I met Driver just outside the train station. He called out "Hallo!" and I showed him the page in my notebook where a friend had written "Please take me to a hotel near the Great Wall where I can get a room for no more than 200 RMB a night." Driver took me to the Jing Shan Hotel, directly opposite the so-called "First Pass Under Heaven," i.e. the first gate on the easternmost point of the Great Wall.

Here is the First Pass, as seen from the front steps of my hotel. This was built in 1381, during the Ming

Dynasty. 111 years before Columbus's voyage!

The exterior of the hotel was lovely. It's recently built, but made to look like the classical architecture of central Shanhaiguan. The price was a bit more than

I'd

asked for in my note, 280 rmb a night. That's less than $45, but it's more than a luxury hotel in Shenyang. I wasn't thrilled, but it looked nice, and I'd been on a train for seven hours. The woman at the desk spoke a tiny bit of English, and after showing her my passport (required for all foreigners in any Chinese hotel) and pa

ying her cash for my room (credit cards are

little-used in China), I was escorted upstairs by a small, hunched old woman.

Here is the courtyard, seen the next morning.

2009-05-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

Here is the top berth in a Chinese "hard sleeper" train car.

The "hard sleeper" doesn't refer to the hardness of the bed. It's just that the Chinese Communist Party can't exactly talk about "First Class," or whatever, because that might imply inappropriate class distinctions. The "soft sleeper" costs more money, and it gives you a lockable room with only, I think, three others.

Here's the bustling mass in the middle of a "hard sleeper" while a few of their friends and family are sleeping above.

I've been told that it's best to get a "hard sleeper," because the guys in "soft sleepers" all smoke vile Chinese cigarettes throughout the trip. Enough people did it on my train ride, despite the abundant "no smoking" signs, that I figured it's a cultural tradition. At least in a hard sleeper there's no door to trap their smoke in with the lone, miserable nonsmoker.

Early departure from Shanhaiguan

2009-05-02T08:06:00.000-07:00

I'm back now, after my visit to Shanhaiguan -- regarded as the "head" of the Great Wall, where it meets the Bohai Bay. I had intended to be there for four days, or maybe five, but I ended up being there for only two. It was a sublime experience, in the full meaning of that word. I learned several things:

1) It is not the case that one can find English speakers in every tourist destination in China.

1b) My Chinese language skills are way short of adequate for any basic survival needs.

2) The Chinese people in smaller towns are not your friends. They will rob you silly when it comes time for you to pay your bill for anything, if they can get away with it.

2b) They can always get away with it.

3) I really wish I'd had my backpacking gear, so I could have struck out on my own and not been at the mercy of everyone who thought she could extract some money from me.

4) Surprisingly, I do have the capacity to feel fear. I mean, real terror that I am helpless and alone and unable to get home.

Here is one quick anecdote, before I launch in to the full story: My driver all through ShanHaiGuan (SHG) was a very smiley, friendly Chinese guy who spoke exactly one word of English: "Hello!"

Here is a picture of Driver, standing next to the three-wheeled taxi he drives. The passenger-side front door does not have a door handle.

When I first tried to get into his cab, after arriving in SHG, he issued me into the front seat, where I barely fit. I'm not that tall, but I'm a Westerner. It felt as if the cab might flop over to the front-right when I sat down — it definitely lurched that way. My knee changed the radio station and the volume, both at the same time. My backpack hit my chin, until he very helpfully pointed to the back seat, and I moved it there. On our second drive of the night, he invited me to sit in the back seat.

I never learned a name for him, so I can only call him "Driver."

I must say that he was very helpful to me, taking me to the two sites that I especially cared about: Qinghuangdao (The Dragon's Head), where the Great Wall of China meets the ocean, and Jiaoshan Mountain, which is the first major mountain pass on the Wall.

However... the man knew nothing by means of which we could communicate verbally.

He did not even know the English numerals. And by that, I don't mean that he didn't know "one, two, three..." I mean, he did not know "1, 2, 3." He did not know that "1" is "yi," "2" is "er," etc. He only knows how to write and read the numbers in Hanzi, not in Western characters.

This is bizarre to me, especially having lived in Dalian where everyone knows at least THAT much. It took several experiences of my thinking he understood what I meant — accompanied by bobbing head gestures of "yes" — before I realized that he didn't know what I was writing down for a time, or a street number, or a calendar date...

... such as, for example, the date when I wanted to book my train ticket back to Dalian...

I told him very clearly, in English and in my version of spoken Chinese -- and I wrote down the date in English numerals -- that I wanted to come home on May 1 or 2, and no later. By this time I hadn't tasted true fear, but I knew that I wasn't comfortable here being massively overcharged. I wanted to get home, and soon. He nodded, smiled eagerly, and then ran up to the window. He ordered in sharp-toned Chinese phrases, and came back with a ticket.

I thought I was going to lose my lunch when I saw that the date on the ticket was May 18! I can't stay here till then! I'm supposed to be teaching on May 5!

And when I called out, pathetically, "Does anyone speak English?!" with as little fear in my voice as I could manage, it took two or three entreaties before two teen Chinese tourists who spoke VERY little English were able to come forth and get my ticket changed for me. Somehow, though, it worked: I got home.

My driver was much abashed -- but he still managed to extract from me a little more than 30 dollars for 8 hours' work. He's doing well for himself, at that rate.

Heading for the Wall!

2009-04-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

I told my students in class today that I will be hiking along the Great Wall this holiday weekend. They burst into laughter and applause. (Chinese students are SO sweet!) One young lady from Beijing gave me her phone number, in case I find myself in any trouble. I had her write "I want to go to the train station" on a slip of paper I can give to a taxi driver, because I don't know what to say.

So now I will close down my computer, sling my pack over my shoulder, and depart for my biggest Chinese adventure so far. I will try to find internet cafes along the way, but I can't promise anything. I need to be back at night on Tuesday, May 5 (which, to quote Ronald Reagan, will be morning in America).

The great hall from the back side

2009-04-28T06:26:00.000-07:00

When Marcy first came to Dalian, she complained. "It's not Chinese enough." She was right — Dalian is basically a European-style city. If not for the Chinese people and the squiggly characters all over the place, it could just easily be in a former Soviet republic.

Shenyang, on the other hand... now THIS is China!

More architectural painting

2009-04-28T06:20:00.001-07:00

Everywhere we looked, there was interesting hand-painted woodwork.

Ticket to ride

2009-04-28T05:58:00.000-07:00

I found out only last weekend that this weekend is a strange sort of holiday (for an American). We have Friday, May Day, off outright. It's a communist country, after all. But then Monday and Tuesday are borrowed days — not outright holidays, because we must pay them back by working the following weekend. This sort of thing would never happen in the States, but I kind of like it. I'd rather get my days off all in a row, so that I can spend them traveling.

So, as you may know, I decided to take a trip to Shanhaiguan, where the Great Wall dips its head into the Bohai Sea.

This is the easternmost part of the Wall, so it's known as the Dragon's Head. And actually, it kind of resembles a dragon's head. Shanhaiguan itself is a smallish, walled village with a handful of hotels and hostels of varying levels. There is reportedly a small Great Wall museum, and one can hike the wall for many miles from there. This is my plan.

I don't have a proper backpack, yet. Hopefully I can get mine from America before I start my big adventure this summer, but for now I've bought a fairly comfortable day-pack. I'll take enough clothing and equipment to last a couple of days, I'll throw in my super-powered water filter in case I can't find bottled water for sale — and of course, there will be a camera. Expect some fun stories and pictures!

It was not an easy thing to get a ticket for the train to Shanhaiguan. Everyone travels when there is a holiday like this. Serena, the foreign faculty "handler" for my Department, tried several options before she finally got me a sleeper on the 12:45 train Thursday afternoon. It cost twice what I would have paid for a simple seat on the same train, and it's going to be tough to get to the station in time for that early train (class ends at noon). But I'm lucky to have a ticket at all.

On the plus side, this is a high-speed train, so it will only take about six and a half hours to travel almost 400 miles.

Downspouts

2009-04-27T05:59:00.001-07:00

I know I'm going on and on about the architectural details in Shenyang, but I really found them fascinating. I'm usually not a big fan of over-detailed ornamentation in architecture: I tend toward the Chicago School of American architecture. But Chinese design seems to be somehow both ornate and integrated, and I think that's a crucial virtue. It's the tendency of minute details to overwhelm the grand structure that, I think, makes me dislike it. When it fits the overall structure, an attention to details is lovely.

I was especially impressed by the details on the rain spouts, which I thought were very cool. It's not great art, perhaps, but every piece seemed to be hand-crafted.

More of Shenyang

2009-04-25T08:33:00.001-07:00

I know some people are ready to be done with Shenyang, but there's a ton left to show off. This plaque was in the back reaches of the palace museum.

Here is some more detail. I can't help but be amazed by this image.

Dwelling-place for concubines -- wow!

2009-04-25T07:17:00.000-07:00

After the Qing emperors had moved their capital to Beijing, they still used the Shenyang palace as a summer retreat — a Qing Camp David, if you will. When the Son of Heaven travels, of course, he must bring with him a proper selection of his wives. Thus, was this small building built about fifteen feet out the back door to the Emperor's sleeping quarters.

It's perhaps a little cramped, suggesting that the Emperor traveled with a greatly reduced retinue of concubines, relative to the hundred or so who might be available to him in Beijing. Such a pity!

Okay, the neon-green sign over this circular door might not be authentic. I don't know.

This was the only place in the Palace where I noticed a circular orifice, and I'm pretty sure that little architectural detail was original. Am I wrong to think that it's perhaps suggestive of something?!

To a modern eye, the concubine's "job" may seem a little off-putting, but at least they lived with some degree of sumptuous comfort. I especially enjoyed the light fixture with the tassels.

Looking the other way, we see another circular doorway with labial drapery. Perhaps the writing desk is historical, but I don't know that the concubines had such liberties afforded to them.

Please forgive me if disturbed

2009-04-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

Today I received the following e-mail message:

贵公司负责人你好：

   我是深圳天宏实业有限公司，我公司在（全国各地）有分公司，每个月进项多完成不了所定的发/票，

公司现在每个月有向外代开发/票，有增值税的（海关缴款书），国税和地税的：商品销售，运输，广告；

建筑安装；其它服务业等等，以优惠代开为基本，还可以按数量的大小来商讨。

如有打扰请原谅，

详情请电；

       联系人：黄先生

       联系电话：138-265-91959

       业务QQ：326763017

                                              深圳天宏实业有限公司

Run through Google Language tools, it reads:

Hello, your company:

    I Industrial Co., Ltd. Shenzhen Tianhong, I in (across the country) have branch offices, can be completed more than a month proceeds Set fat / vote

Out now on behalf of each month development / votes, value-added tax (customs payment book), tax and government rent: the goods sold Sale, transportation, advertising;

Construction and installation; other services, etc., open to concessions on behalf of the basic, but also by the size of the number to discuss.

Please forgive me if disturbed,

Details, please call;

        Contact: Mr. Huang
        Phone :138-265-91959
        Business QQ: 326763017

So this is my first Chinese spam! I feel I'm moving up in the world.

My favorite part is the last line: "Please forgive me if disturbed." If only it were that easy, Mr. Huang!

More details -- and a warning

2009-04-24T03:01:00.001-07:00

Here are some more of the beautiful details from the Shenyang palace. I love the intricate carvings -- all done by hand, long before electric jigsaws!

Unfortunately, the entire place is exposed to the elements -- as well as tourists' fingers (as we saw a few posts back), flash bulbs, and other destructive substances. Amazingly, flash photography is not prohibited anywhere that I'm aware of inside the Palace Museum.

Still, some lovely painted woodwork has survived. These scenes are painted on the beams under the eaves outside two of the buildings. The first one was near the front gate, so I presume it may represent a visiting dignitary being greeted.

These birds were painted under a kind of pagoda in the far back of the palace, in what might have been some sort of flower garden.

As I'm enjoying the palace scenery, I have to realize that the standards of authenticity are maybe not the same as they might be in the States. Looking in the window of an ancient storage room, I saw the following spare parts. They look authentic enough, and they probably are patterned after the original decorative elements, but I'm sure they are quite recently minted.

As I post more pics from the Shenyang palace, I'll try to include only photos of parts that seem authentic.

Shenyang architectural details

2009-04-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

I was particularly fascinated by the beautiful, detailed carving and painting at the palace in Shenyang. Everything was so exquisitely handcrafted, and the details were so clear after four centuries. This stone carving is from the stairway into the Chongzheng Hall, which I discussed in a previous posting.

Here is the throne room in

Chongzheng Hall. Notice the incredibly detailed columns, the details on the watchful dragons, and the scrollwork on the throne.

Mandarin jackets

2009-04-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a break from my stories of Shenyang to show you two recent purchases. Marcy and I went to Er Chi Square to shop for traditional Chinese goods. She bought a beautiful green silk blouse with a bamboo pattern on it, which I will post a picture of as soon as she sends it to me.

When we went to pick it up, I saw several gorgeous Mandarin jackets for men. I couldn't resist ordering two of them. The woman took my measurements and sent me on my way. The cost for two tailor-made silk jackets, including material and labor: $75.

I wore the gold one to class today. My students audibly responded when I walked into the room. None of my students said anything out loud, but as I was walking down the hall a student pointed at the jacket and said "It's very wonderful!"

Here is the other one. I can't decide which I like better.

The Manchu kings

2009-04-21T19:35:00.000-07:00

Although the Palace in Shenyang is built on the same plan as the earlier Forbidden City in Beijing, it shows a significant influence from the nomadic heritage of its builders. I'm not an expert, but I can see definite hints of it. Here, for example, is where military parades took place. The Emperor would have been in Dazheng Hall, which is the roughly hexagonal building at the far end. It's shaped rather like a Mongolian ger, the circular tent used by nomads in China's frigid north.

Note also the small buildings that line the square. These were occupied by military leaders when they gathered for ceremonies or strategizing. They are small and simple, and reminiscent of a commander's tent in the field.

Sudden-Advent Day

2009-04-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

I told my students in Spoken English class today that they should expect an oral exam in two weeks. No one said a word about it in class, but after class one student came up to ask "what can we do if we will not be here for class?" It turns out that the university just recently announced a five-day May Day holiday, which I believe runs from May 1-5. (This is still notionally a Communist country, so May Day is a cause for celebration.)

It's nice to have some time off, but I sure would've appreciated a little heads-up!

Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do with all that time off...

Entering the palace

2009-04-20T02:35:00.000-07:00

Entering the main palace gate, looking north toward Chongzheng Hall, the center of government.

Looking upward from the spot where the previous picture was taken, I saw that I was being protected by a watchful dragon. The dragon was a benevolent figure, in Chinese mythology — not a villain like in Western stories. Each of the wooden columns of the gatehouse is topped with one of these dragons.

The two stairways up to the throne room where the emperor held official audiences are guarded by four of these watchdogs. They may be lions: the Chinese venerated lions, but they didn't have much concept of what they actually look like, so they often modeled them after dogs. At least, that's what I remember from grade school history class.

Marcy had to pet the guard dog/lion.

The Other "Forbidden City"

2009-04-20T00:38:00.000-07:00

Most Americans don't realize that several places other than Beijing have served as the capital of China at various times during China's history. From 1625-1644, the Qing Dynasty ruled from Shenyang, which is a few hours north of Dalian by train.

The Qing were Manchurians, but their intention to rule all of China is evident in the fact that their palace compound in Shenyang is modeled after the Forbidden City in Beijing, from which the Ming dynasty had ruled since 1406. Still, the architecture in Shenyang shows interesting influences from the nomadic northern culture of Manchuria.

The palace is right in the middle of Shenyang, which is one of China's largest, busiest, most industrial cities. The streets are crazy with

traffic, the air grey with heavy soot. Here is the street outside the palace walls.

The palace gate is approached down a long, touristy alleyway filled with buildings made to look antique. It's fake, but it works to shake the impression of the modern city.

Being a celebrity

2009-04-18T07:28:00.000-07:00

I've never gotten all that much attention as a Westerner in Dalian. Other than small children, a few of whom have stared noticeably, people pay no more attention to me than to anyone else. But my friend Marcy has gotten constant attention since she arrived here a week ago. Here we are in Xinghai Park, along the waterfront, where people stared at her, asked to take their pictures with her, touched her hair as she passed them.

It's been even more extreme here in Shenyang. There seem to be fewer Westerners here. Even I have noticed more attention, and she is definitely a rock star. At the Shenyang Imperial Palace this morning, these people were

staring at her rather obviously.

The guy with the wild hair had been following her around, trying not to let her notice that he was taking her picture from a distance. It didn't work — she saw him — so finally she invited him to come take a picture with her. I had to take a picture of Marcy being a rock star.

A few people invited us both to get our pictures taken with them. Once they'd gotten their own pictures, I insisted that they take another picture with my camera.

The train to Shenyang

2009-04-17T17:03:00.000-07:00

This weekend, Marcy and I headed north of Dalian to the Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province and ancient capital of China. It was a four-hour train trip through the dusty, rural farming areas of Liaoning.

There was almost nothing growing yet, so I assume it's planting season. Farmers

with rusty bicycles could be seen far out in the dessicated fields, hoeing up huge plumes of light-brown dust. Others walked behind sluggish oxen, plowing the fields the ancient way.

Real-estate Chinglish

2009-04-15T07:41:00.000-07:00

I've posted before about the funny, butchered English one finds on Chinese signs and advertisements. It seems to me that real-estate signs are the worst. It's as though some one, very bad advertising copywriter had a monopoly on signs for new developments. These first two are from a new high-rise going up on Zhongshan Lu, in a very fashionable area.

This one is just of Zhongshan Lu, right across from Xinghai Park. Another very expensive area.

I suspect you can tell a lot about the Chinese language by the characteristic mistakes Chinese people make when they attempt English. I've seen many very nice-looking buildings referred to as "treasure apartments," so I'm guessing that must be the standard phrase in Chinese for a luxury apartment.

A blizzard in mid-April?!

2009-04-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, it was like this in Dalian. Sunny, beautiful, and warm. The flowers were blooming.

This morning, the thunder storm started about 4:30. By 6:00, a few snow flakes had started to join in. By 6:30, it was a full blizzard.

These look like my pictures from February, not April!

Chicks for sale

2009-04-14T14:15:00.000-07:00

In case you can't tell from these pictures, this box was indeed full of live chicks, brightly dyed in festive Easter colors.

I have no idea what someone would do with such a chick, once purchased.

Product names

2009-04-14T07:15:00.000-07:00

Here, one sees the best product names...

...and the worst.

Somehow, that straw with the greenish fluid coming out of it looks a little too much like "peejoy."

Love My Bone

2009-04-09T01:04:00.001-07:00

As I've mentioned, English is very popular in China... but not very well-understood.

Perhaps this shirt is some sort of reference to John Lennon, since he's the John I see most often written with the peace sign for the "O." Or perhaps I'm over-thinking, and it's really just as meaningless as it seems.

This, I will let go without comment.

Is this not crazy?

2009-04-08T11:23:00.000-07:00

If you were a traffic cop, how would you even begin to clear a jam like this?

Another picture of chaos

2009-04-08T10:38:00.000-07:00

How does no one lose an arm in this process? There's not six inches of clearance between one heavy truck and the next!

And then you add in the maddening throng of pedestrians, three-wheelers, and bicycles. It's a wonder anyone gets anywhere!

Motorcycle Taxi Down-Time

2009-04-08T10:12:00.000-07:00

The taxi drivers sometimes wait forever while they creep forward toward the front of the line where the fares are picked up. These poor guys are on at least 12-hour shifts. So what's there to do but...

Chaos in the streets!

2009-04-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

The way from the campus of my university to the waterfront leads down the long, steep hill I recently posted pictures of, then it turns sharply down another narrow alley. This is the street at the bottom of the hill. Those of you who have been following this blog for a while may recognize the signs on the left, for the new condo complex currently under construction. The sign reads, in English, "It is metropolis apartment and luxurious houses in essence."

Note how narrow and crowded this small street is. Traffic sometimes can be crazy through here -- and in the usual Chinese way, the sidewalks are very iffy. At several points, one has no choice but to walk in the street because there are obstacles on the sidewalk.

The narrow lane ends at Zhong Shan Lu ("Middle Mountain Avenue"), the major street that runs all the way to downtown Dalian seven or eight miles from here.

Where the two streets meet, there is a gathering of roadside vendors selling everything from seafood of questionable quality, to tennis-shoe insoles marked with fake "Hello Kitty" logos, to illegal knives. There is also a long row of motorcycle taxis, a concept which I find perversely fascinating. This is taken looking back from Zhongshan Lu toward the construction site.

Some of the motorcycles are decorated with fancy lighting, painted gas tanks, ornate crocheted seat-covers, and LED's running up and down the exhaust pipes. They're quite something to see at night.

Coming back from the waterfront that evening, I encountered a dreadful pedestrian traffic jam as I passed the row of motorcycles. The road was clogged with traffic, so pedestrians could barely make headway. At one point, the roadway was so congested that either pedestrians could go, or a single car could go (one way or the other). How do you fight with this?!

It turns out that there are two conflicting construction sites. The "It is metropolis apartment..." high-rise on the one side of the street is now matched by this, on the other side:

Note that there are no barricade walls to separate passing pedestrians from the potential harm and death of an open construction pit. See earlier rule: There are too many of you, and if you get yourself killed you will be doing the Chinese gene pool a favor.

There seems to be no restriction on where a car can park in this city. So in the midst of all this back-and-forth construction traffic, here was someone's Volkswagon, happily parked against the wall. Never mind that it's causing a huge traffic disruption — there's no law against it.

Qing Ming on the water II

2009-04-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

These things turned out to be a lot less cool up-close than they looked from a distance. I thought you'd be able to tool around for miles by running up one side or the other -- but in fact, they're tethered to the beach, and in retrospect you'd need some kind of paddle structure to actually make any progress. The people who rented them seemed mostly to be horsing around inside. Boring!

This little guy reminded me of Frisco, back in the days when Darlene and I would take him around New York in a backpack. Too cute!

I've seen all kinds of crazy. I've DONE all kinds of crazy. But I'm not sure I would ever strap myself into a "reverse bungee cord," as this spinning thing was called, to be shot up into space.

And speaking of crazy, this girl is 40 feet up in the air on an inflatable climbing wall. I never quite got the gist of this game, but I think because she climbed high enough to touch one of those red, fluffy stuffed hearts, she got to keep one when she got back down to earth.

Chinese people think Americans are violent -- but please note that these bumper-cars have mounted guns!

Qing Ming on the water

2009-04-06T05:15:00.000-07:00

It must be good to be a Chinese kid at Qing Ming time!

One of the important elements of the Qing Ming celebration, almost as important as to sweep your ancestors' graves, is to educate the young generations about the achievements of their ancestors, whether recent or in the distant past. For example, if your grandfather played a role in political events, you might tell his story; or if your family name is Sui, you might tell stories of the Sui Dynasty (581-618).These days, though, as far as I can tell the focus is as much on the kids as it is on their ancestors.

Here is the first thing I saw when I hit the waterfront. Parents could pay a few yuan to mount their kid up on a stuffed horse,

or maybe a tiger, and then by jumping up and down rhythmically the kid could ride around in a little circle. Looks like fun!

Or if you prefer, you can drive around in a little car that looks like a goofy monster:

Kite-flying seems to appeal to both the very old, and the very young. I'm not sure which category I fit into, but I find kites fascinating.

When I was a kid, I had a "Sit-'N-Spin," a little round vehicle with a wheel on either side so you could reverse directions or spin in circles. It was endless fun. These kids get the same thing on water!

Qing Ming

2009-04-06T04:40:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the annual Qing Ming festival here in China. If you pay much attention to Chinese culture, you may have seen images or heard descriptions of this particular festival. Its best-known element is to have family members gather in order to sweep the graves of their ancestors. It's kind of like spring cleaning for your ancestors: a time of rebirth, renewal, and remembering what's past.

I've read that there are references to this ceremony dating to 600 BC. But nowadays, it seems to have taken on a different cast. There is still the sweeping of the graves, but there is also walking along the coast, taking the kids to ride carnival rides, and eating cotton candy. I don't think any of that dates back very far.

Saturday was still a bit chilly, though much milder than it's been so far this spring. As I was sitting at my breakfast, reading the New York Times on the computer, and clearing my head, I heard loud, muffled BOOM-BOOM-BOOM sounds from the waterfront. Fireworks are a big thing here, but I've yet to see the flashy American-style fireworks up in the sky at night. So far, all I've experienced are loud and impressive booms.

I get moving only slowly on a Saturday, so it was 12:30 or so before I started down the hill toward the waterfront. Here is the street down the hill from DUFE to the water:

If it looks like chaos, it is. There is a street vendor in the center of the picture, selling Chinese books of all descriptions, including some that seem to be textbooks. On the left under the red awning is a restaurant, and there are various restaurants and stores all the way down the hill.

A little farther down, you can see the contrast between Old China and New. The somewhat run-down building in front (which is by no means the worst I've seen) frames the brand new high-rise in the background. Remember "It is luxury apartment and..." from an early post? That's the "luxury apartment" complex going up.

On the ground level of the old building, you can see some small restaurants. The one with the blue awning and the white lettering is quite good. They make a rough-hewn chicken soup over noodles that is definitely worth a try.

I don't exactly know what "Let's Fall in Love" is supposed to be advertising... but I'm pretty sure it's not what it would be in the States.

Funny numbers

2009-04-04T04:31:00.000-07:00

Think of all the words you might need to know, if you were in a new country. "Hello." "Goodbye." "Thank you." "Hot dog." Nothing is more basic, nor more frequently used, than the words for numbers. You have to be able to tell someone how many hot dogs you want.

It is symbolic of my abject failure to advance in Chinese, that until now I have not learned to count in Chinese. The language even makes it easy.

English numbers are a pain: they're constantly changing form. The numeral 1 is pronounced "one," until it's 1+10, when it's suddenly "eleven." Where did that come from? Then there's "twelve"?! Then suddenly we switch to "teens." "Four" is spelled with a "u," unless it's part of "forty." How did any of us learn this stuff?!

Chinese is much simpler. Over-simplifying a bit, for most numbers you deal with in daily life one simply lists the digits, so that 22 is simply "two-two." 543 is "five-four-three." So really, you only have to learn ten words — just ten! You'd think that a professor of philosophy would be able to learn ten simple words.

You'd be wrong. I've learned two. Here's why I learned those two numbers:

Every time my big bottle of water runs out, I must take it downstairs to the "gatekeeper," give him about $2.50, and remind him of my apartment number. The man speaks no English. I speak no Chinese. The first time I tried, we spoke at each other a few times, each shrugging our shoulders, until finally he gave me a pad of paper so I could write it out: 303.

After about the third time of this, I decided it's silly: I pulled out my "Survival Chinese" book and memorized 3-0-3: "san-ling-san." I spoke it. He didn't believe me. He repeated it back: "san-ling-san?" "Dui: san-ling-san." He made me say it again one more time, and this time he looked a little more like he believed me.

(His skepticism comes from more than just mistrust of my Chinese: he's responsible to get the water to the right place, so in China if it ended up in the wrong place he would have to provide a new bottle out of his own pocket. I suspect that 15 RMB would be a lot more on his salary than it is on mine.)

Nor did I fully trust my own Chinese. I was gone for a long walk that day, and I felt only confident, not certain, that there would be a bottle in front of my door when I got home. There was.

To use is to remember, and I had no problem after that. I spent much of my walk singing to myself "san-ling-san, san-ling-san..." That's how I learned two numbers. If not for that damned repeated digit, I'd know three.

(I was a little disappointed the next time I took the bottle down, because he remembered me and called out "san-ling-san?" Great! I learn two numbers, for the sake of bottle exchange, and the very next time he makes my knowledge obsolete.)

That "language exchange" between me and the gatekeeper took place several weeks ago, and in the mean time I've learned exactly none of the other numbers. Today, for the first time, I happened to order something and hear the magic words "san kui" — "three RMB." But the moment was ruined because the woman was also holding up three fingers. So far, I'm waiting to order something that costs "ling," zero.

It's not that I haven't made some feeble attempts to learn. I've read through them, saying them to myself, a hundred times. But I haven't had to use them, because most times there's too little need for it. The other kind of digits, fingers, takes care of roadside vendors. At Trust Mart, the clerks just swivel the old-fashioned green read-out my direction to show me my total. It's too easy.

But there are cases in which these simple expediencies are inadequate. For example: I get on the elevator of the classroom building, and the operator wants to know what floor, and I can't tell her. Most times, I just push the button myself, with a blush of shame. Once, a throng of professors pressed me back against the wall before I could press my button. The floor above mine was pressed, so I got off there and took the stairs down.

So today I resolved — as blog is my witness! — I am going to learn my numbers. Not only that, but I'm going to do it in the presence of all, right here on this page. Isn't this exciting?

Some of them should be really easy to learn. "One" is "yi." For a Texan, that should be easy: yi-haw!

"Two" is "er." I wonder how you know if someone's apartment number is 222 or he just stutters: "er-er-er."

I've already got "san." Yi-haw!

"Four" is "si," senor! (It's pronounced differently, but I don't care right now.)

"Five" is "wu." Someday I would love to live in Apartment 55: "Wu-Wu!"

Oh, crap! "Six" is "liu." What am I supposed to do with that?! Oh well, I'll come back to it.

By the way, "si" is actually pronounced "suh." "Seven" is "qi," pronounced "chee." So apartment forty-seven would be "sucky."

"Eight" is "ba." "Eighty-eight black sheep, have you any wool?"

"Nine" is "jiu." Almost like "liu," so that helps. Maybe I can remember 9 jiu-jiu beans.

"Ten" is "shi." That's eashi to remember. It's pronounced like the verb "to be." That helps!

So now, here we go: without cheating, 1: yi-haw! 2: er, I can't remember. 3: san. 4: si, senor! 5: wu-wu! 6: oh, crap, how'm I going to remember "liu"? 7: sucky qi. 8: ba, ba, black sheep... 9: jiu-jiu bean. 10: shi-it, I've got this down!

So there you have it. You have just watched me learn my numbers. I promise I won't make you follow the process of learning every Chinese word!

What if I were a clove of garlic?

2009-04-03T08:08:00.001-07:00

"English Corner" is very popular in China. This is an event in which English-speaking foreigners are enticed to come and chat with native Chinese who are trying to learn the language. Some are very new to English, while one or two are masterful speakers who want to keep it up with regular practice. The majority are at low-to-middle fluency. The enticement offered to foreigners may be a free cup of coffee (as at Amici) and the chance to meet other foreigners. Or, if it's being held at the university where you teach, the enticement may be Enduring Gratitude from your students. Not surprisingly, the former is a lot more popular.

My god-awful Friday teaching schedule (last class ends at 8:30 PM!) means I can only get to Amici for the final hour of their weekly English Corner, but I go anyway. I've met some very nice people there, and the coffee's good. Plus, the little kids who hang out there are adorable!

The first two times I went, it was pleasantly sparse. Each week, however, it has been more crowded, until tonight I walked into this mob:

The picture doesn't really do it justice, because I could only get wide enough to catch about a third of the crowd. It was so crowded, I wasn't even able to get that free cup of coffee before they closed. I'll get over it.

Here are a couple of the kids I enjoy talking to. I hadn't met the boy before, but the girl is a regular. Both of them speak English without accents, and with only a little less-developed grammar and vocabulary than American kids of their age.

Tonight, she had brought a goofy, form-fitting paper hat that she thought made the wearer look like a clove of garlic.

Her mission was to get as many people to wear it as possible. Here is one of the waitresses looking like a clove of garlic.

And of course, your faithful correspondent was talked into wearing it, too:

Actually, wearing that wine-colored shirt, it makes me look less like a clove of garlic than a bottle of zinfandel.

Expert walkers

2009-04-01T03:28:00.000-07:00

I just saw something that sparked an observation. Two people at the Trust Mart bumped into each other, hard. I realized that this is the first time I've seen that happen in China. Dalian has just taken the prize away from New York for the city where I've experienced the best walkers.

A Chinese market may look like this on a busy Saturday:

Sure, people bump and jostle each other, but very gently. In London, I thought I was going to get killed by someone or other too busy texting to look where he was walking, but I've never felt that way in China. I suppose that a nation where there are basically no traffic laws must be very alert!

Incidentally, if you're in the way and someone needs to get past you, then never say "excuse me." There is a phrase that translates "excuse me," but it's rarely used.

Instead, they simply gently brush into you and push, so you step aside without even thinking about it. It may seem a little rude at first, but it works much better than the American practice of uttering an ambiguous phrase of apology that you probably don't really mean, then waiting to see if the person a) heard you, b) could figure out what you're asking, and c) could figure which direction you need him to move.

Fire-dragon fruit

2009-04-01T02:43:00.000-07:00

I don't think I've yet written about this little bit of heaven, which looks a bit like a space alien. The Chinese name for it translates as "Fire-Dragon Fruit," and it's easy to see why.

You eat it by chopping it open to reveal this:

The center, with its tiny black seeds, has a texture a little drier and more crunchy than a kiwi fruit, and just as sweet. Just one makes a pretty good-sized meal.

By the way, the Chinese meat cleaver shown in the picture has become my best friend. It's amazingly useful -- how have I gotten by without one for so many years?

Ice cube trays!

2009-04-01T02:01:00.000-07:00

When I first arrived here, I complained about the fact that there is no such thing as an ice cube tray in Dalian. I think the rest of the world thinks Americans are crazy for watering our drinks down with melting ice, but I missed the luxury of an ice-cold Coke or a cold glass of water.

A few friends helpfully suggested that I get some flexible Tupperware-type containers, fill them a bit, then twist out the ice when it froze. Brilliant!

Ice-cube trays, Dalian-style:

Trouble is, the ice had a tendency to break into pieces that were just a little too big to fit into the glass, but too small for me to get leverage to break again. Resulting in this:

Often, I just gave up and poured my water straight into the ice-cube trays. Drink up!

(I think you can tell I've still got a little bit of a fever, but it's not too bad any more.)

Then today, there came in the mail a box from my friend Beth, who was one of my professors in grad school at the University of Texas. Ice-cube trays, Texas-style!

Yes, that is the map of Texas. Gotta love Texas regional pride!

Thank you, Beth!

Google -- too smart for its own good?

2009-04-01T01:56:00.001-07:00

When I log in to manage my blog, Blogger (which is owned by Google) automatically sees that I'm in China -- and very helpfully defaults to Chinese characters rather than English words for all the menus and buttons. For 1.3 billion Chinese people, I'm sure that's an essential feature -- but for a lonely American who doesn't know Chinese, it's maddening!

Somewhere, if I page through to the right place, which I can never remember where it is, I can see the single, lone English word: "English." Click on that, and I'm back in the world I'm familiar with. But today when I went to add an update or two, it took me ten minutes!

Smart folks, at Google.

Durian

2009-03-31T01:43:00.001-07:00

There is a fruit here, which is apparently especially prized. It looks like a Medieval weapon and smells like severely-used armpits, but if you can get yourself quickly through the odorific aura and into its guts, it is a magnificent treat. It's called a durian.

It is a binary thing, apparently: love or hate. Some Chinese friends have told me that they can't stand it, but I suspect that they've never gotten past the smell and the looks to dip a spoon into its lovely yellow belly.

Trust Mart sells gutted durians, which look like this and cost less than a dollar. This meal can feed you for half a day.

You have to be brave, though. The odor of this thing can own a room, so it really must be eaten... let's say... expeditiously. When you walk into the produce section of any grocery store here, it is an exercise in self-control not to vomit from the locker-room stench of it. How can something that smells so vile taste so good? It's China -- the land of paradoxes.

Spitting in public

2009-03-31T00:56:00.000-07:00

It's getting milder here -- and nothing like the horror stories I've heard from my American friends, about piles of snow and near-zero temperatures -- but it's still cold-and-flu season. As I've mentioned, I got a walloping dose of it myself.

I've heard that, according to Chinese medicine, it is unhealthy to swallow phlegm. This sounds pretty reasonable to me. I'm also told that it is considered disgusting to blow one's nose in public, no matter how quietly and discretely. I have seen only two people do it in my six weeks here. Both were students of mine, both female, and both went quietly "puff, puff, puff" into little tissues that quickly disappeared from view. I wouldn't have noticed at all, if I hadn't been alerted to the fact that it's an uncommon practice.

So this leaves really just one option: apparently, the norm (at least for men) is to hawk and spit in public. Because somehow that's not nearly as disgusting as blowing into a tissue. (?!?!)

I had been told that it's considered acceptable for men to spit in public. This was wrong: it's not "accepted," it's a cherished art form. If the normal onomatopoetic "hawk" describes the American practice, here it would be a polysyllable. They lean into it. They relish it. There should be competitions for poetic expectoration.

It seems not to be done indoors, though. I suppose that indoors, there is an assumption that someone will have to clean up after you. Whereas outdoors on the street, the only person "cleaning up" will be some stupid American who walks by looking upwards, as Americans tend to do, instead of down at the ground.

I wonder why Chinese people always take their shoes off when they enter the home.

More Chinese signage

2009-03-31T00:48:00.000-07:00

Don't these kids look jaunty? I don't know why someone felt the need for that much detail in a sign that basically comes down to: "Don't run over the children." I especially enjoy the little purse, and what I suppose must be a lunch box.

More on Chinese traffic control

2009-03-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

I've posted about the traffic control and signage in China before, but it continues to amaze me. I suppose that they save a lot of money on traffic cops, Chevy cars, bored judges, and pointless attorneys.

This is a traffic circle a couple of blocks from here. If a foolish American is inclined to think that those white stripes mean he can cross the street at any time... Foolish American! The white stripes mean that drivers won't intentionally kill you, as long as you run across the street as fast as you can. Other than that -- no promises!

Here is another view of the same traffic circle. The big white building is the main classroom building, which you've seen in some earlier posts. My home is off to the left.

Almost all taxi cabs I've seen in China have been Volkswagon Santanas. I don't think I had ever seen that particular model before coming here.

I suppose this must mean "don't use your horn here." Either that, or this is the violin section of the orchestra.

Continuing down the road

2009-03-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

So just in case you land in this awful beside-the-road ditch, where you could possibly break your neck and die... do we bother to warn you in advance? No, why would we do such a thing? See the rules listed above: There are too many of you, and if you are stupid enough to fall and kill yourself, you are doing the Chinese nation a favor.

Closed off

2009-03-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I strolled down the street a block, and the sidewalk had been utterly blocked off. No warning, no notice, no public discussion. When the government decides it's going to happen, it just happens.

I'm not sure if you can tell it from this picture, but there was NO way around this barricade. The street, sidewalk, and parking areas were all entirely closed off.

Religion in America

2009-03-30T04:45:00.002-07:00

If I were religious, I would hate what Americans do to religion -- they cheapen it, make it shallow, mean, and ridiculous. Since I am not religious, I hate what religion does to Americans: it cheapens them, makes them shallow, mean, and ridiculous. But I hope that both my religious and my irreligious friends can agree that this is preposterous:

http://informationageprayer.com

Road Sage

2009-03-30T04:18:00.000-07:00

Chinese-style "traffic control" might be arguably described as population control. There seem to be no actual rules of the road, and who owns a particular piece of the lane has much less to do with who has some sort of legal right, than with who has a stronger desire for it.

It is a battle of wills here. You don't worry so much about what you're "supposed" to do, as about what you can do. Elbows are strong in China, and they get used.

Car horns here are a basic means of communication.

Let's say a taxi driver is approaching an intersection, and five people are trying to walk across the street in front of him, while two cab-drivers are trying to move into the street from his right. He can toot his horn, gently, to say "no, you wait: I really want to go now." Another cabbie might lay on his horn, to say "sorry, my passenger is in a hurry, so I'm going to go anyway." The first cabbie will either slow down and let the more-urgent driver get through, or lay harder on his own horn. It's a kind of nonverbal communication that a professor could write books about.

Of course we poor pedestrians don't have horns, but we have body language: if someone really has to get where they're going, they will step out in front of a speeding bus, and either it slows down to let them pass or it doesn't and they step back. You get really good at figuring out who is more determined.

It's been described by some other writers as a game of Frogger, that computer game from my childhood days. I think this comparison is only half-accurate. At least when you're trying to cross the street in China you are able to communicate by smiling and nodding at the drivers, or leaning forward, or leaning backward. It all seems somehow sophisticated.

The funny thing is, you know, it works. And as a friend of mine said, "don't fix it, cuz it ain't broken."

By the way, after living in China for a month and a half, I'm starting to wonder why we Americans even have horns our cars. We don't really use them to communicate with other drivers -- if you toot your horn, it's because you're crazy-mad at someone. So if you think about it, the horn on your car in America is like a raised middle finger: something you should never really use. Surely it's crazy for us to spend extra money to have it installed in our cars. Upon reflection, the Chinese system seems so much more polite to me.

Sick, sick, sick

2009-03-27T17:25:00.000-07:00

I am a disgusting creature, full of drainage and drippings, and parts that go "squish" when touched. I ache as if my entire body were a giant bruise. Thank God for my friends who brought me medicines yesterday, because I couldn't leave my home to crawl for a glass of water if I were dying of thirst. Ugh!

Sickness!

2009-03-26T18:13:00.000-07:00

Ugh! I'm dreadfully sick today. My head is throbbing, and my throat is in full-scale rebellion against me. I came over here with a terrible cold that hasn't yet left me, so I've now got some sort of cruel commingling of Eastern and Western germs. I'm sure there's a metaphor in that, but my brain is too feverish and addled to tease it out. I am going to call in sick and go back to bed, hopefully to recover before next week.

Smooth sailing so far

2009-03-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

Things are pretty smooth here. It's shocking to me that we are now almost through the fourth week of the semester! Soon I'll have my first graded assignments, and I probably won't have time to blink before it's summer and I'm on top of the Great Wall.

There is an interesting aspect of the Chinese standard of living. You can live very comfortably on nothing, but there's a huge gap between this level and a yuppie-American lifestyle. Say, for example, I decided to buy a bicycle, or upgrade the furnishings in my apartment, or buy some electronics or new clothes. These things would cost the same or slightly more than they do in the States, and would quickly gobble up that inexhaustible paycheck. It's okay, though: I love my life without such things. At least for now, I'd much rather see some debts disappear and save some money.

Teaching is still fun and interesting. There's an incredible, massive, frightening gap between the best students and the worst -- WAY more so than in the States -- but many of my students are quite hard-working and good. Teaching Spoken English is especially fun, because it's basically a two-hour conversation every class. Sometimes I'll have a little lecture, but mainly I have the students practice English in small groups, and then we have class discussions.

Most of the kids seem to love the class, and they are very animated. They seem to act about 5 years younger than equivalent American students, which at its best means that the classroom bubbles with giggles and rapid-fire conversation. At its worst, it means that they are socially awkward, have a very hard time interacting with students they don't know very well (especially the opposite sex), and will frequently pretend they didn't hear or understand instructions they don't want to obey.

Chinese people have an amazing stolidness, that as far as I know it is unique to the Chinese. If a Chinese person does not want to move, you might as well try to budge an 80-foot statue of the Buddha. Sometimes I feel like I need a pair of spurs for class. It's absolutely maddening!

I'm still making lots of friends, and I get out more often here than I ever have elsewhere. Last night I went out for hot pot with a friend who is a researcher at the Fisheries University near where I walked on that snowy day last month. He's a very philosophical guy, and the conversation was interesting even through his halting English. I've learned a lot about Chinese culture from my friends here. There's no religion here to speak of, at least not in the American way, and there's a great love of freedom. For me, this is a perfect combination.

(Hot pot, by the way, is something I had heard of but never tried. It was a pot of boiling broth in the middle, divided down the middle into one half spicy and the other half mild. Various uncooked meats and vegetables came to the table, and we threw them into the broth. My favorite was lamb, sliced very thinly just like double-wide strips of bacon. There was also a kind of paste that looked like thick pancake batter, which we dropped in one spoonful at a time. It turned out to be fish of some kind, and was very tasty. I'm told the fish is a specialty of the restaurant, which is called Care For You. I still chuckle at Chinese naming.)

Dinner for two at a very nice, clean restaurant, including a 500 ml Tsingtao mega-beer for each of us, came to 106 rmb: about $16. Back home, you'd be lucky if that covered the beers! I probably sound like a broken record with this stuff, but I just can't get over the prices.

Acting down

2009-03-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

Friday night, I threatened to throw three students out of my classroom.

Not because they were making too much noise -- they were silent. Not because they were acting up -- they weren't acting at all. Is there such a thing as a student acting down?

My students all have a government-issued textbook from the "Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press," printed on pulp paper, with cartoons and fairly condescending text and exercises. Think of a poorly-done sixth-grade reader, being served up to college-aged kids. I don't blame the students for disliking the text, but at least it gives us all something to work from. The first week of class, I told them that we shall get away from the text as much as possible, but they need to bring it every week.

Friday night I began with a fairly rudimentary exercise in comprehension and conversation, based on the text. I had them read a page of one-line arguments, in which they were supposed to identify premise and conclusion (or, as the text numbly termed it, "opinion" and "reason"). I knew it was basic stuff, but I intended for it to start off our classroom conversation.

This class of 20 included only one small, timid clot of boys, clustered on the right, away from the door, in the back two rows. As the rest of the class broke out their texts, it became quickly apparently that none of the boys had brought it with them. The rest got to work reading, while they just sat there in silence, as if on guard duty.

I gave them a minute or two to solve their own problem, then I turned their direction and said, sotto voce, "if you don't have the text, please find someone who does so you can work with them."

One of the three boys moved, turning wide and plaintive eyes to the other two for clues to how he should behave. The largest boy, seated in the middle with a fashionable woolen overcoat and brushed-back pompadour, leaned back and crossed his arms. The third boy made no move to question me, nor to defy me -- he just sat. No one moved but me, walking to the opposite corner to give them a moment.

I sniffed a handful of distinct scents in their various reactions: Hatred for the text. Shame for having failed to bring it. Squiggly unwillingness to ask a girl for help. Fear of what horrible things might happen if they actually had to work directly with a girl. Alpha-male pack challenge to my authority. None of it smelled good.

Finally, after another minute or two of silent indolence, I walked back to the podium and asked the three of them directly: "is there a reason you are refusing to accept my instructions?"

No answer. Finally, I had reached my end. I told them that if they continued to refuse to obey simple instructions, "I will have to ask you to leave my classroom." The timid twist-necked boy looked up and met my eye for the first time. The pompadour grinned arrogantly. The other boy gave no reaction.

A girl from across the aisle quietly slipped them the text, and they bent their three heads to it. When I called upon each of them, that first time, they had at least done the (very easy) assignment.

Later in the class, though, I assigned the students to read slightly more complex arguments. Not difficult, but marginally more so.

This time, pompadour did just fine -- he even volunteered extra information beyond the question I had asked. The third boy gave a so-so response. But the swivel-necked boy said "I did not look at the text." Then he dropped his head in shame. I quickly turned to another student, but I knew that I must find a better way to work with this odd cultural dynamic.

The Aquatic Dictator

2009-03-10T15:48:00.000-07:00

China is ruled by an absolute dictator. This dictator has ruled from ancient times, sometimes more harshly, sometimes less. Nowadays, it claims its authority based on the peasants and the downtrodden, and they feed its power regularly.

The native Chinese learn to obey its absolute dictates, and so they seldom feel the lash of its whips, and foreigners are its main victims. Those who obey it have little to fear, but those who do not may be abused, even tortured. In certain extreme cases, they can be taken to institutions with others who have foolishly disobeyed its commands. There, they may suffer so horribly that they beg to be put to death. And in rare cases they are, though their deaths are not discussed.

I am talking, of course, about the kitchen tap.

The tap-water here looks perfectly clear, and it smells of nothing at all, but it is always to be regarded as contaminated. It may be boiled for use in tea or soup, but it may never be consumed directly. It's hard for a Westerner to imagine a city of millions, all living in fear of their own water, but here we have it.

I have received two pieces of sage advice from Westerners who have spent time in places such as this (one in Mexico, the other in China). The first person told me to consume at least a small sip of alcohol with every meal, to help kill the bugs. The second said I should always brush my teeth with tap water, but then to spit it out rather than swallowing it. The small amount of bacteria, she suggested, might help build my tolerances.

These are somewhat contradictory (should I attempt to cultivate nasty bacteria, or kill them all with liquor?), and they both sound like old wives' tales. However, given the choice between the two, I prefer to obey the former and ignore the latter.

I have developed a morning routine that seems to have kept me safe. I do brush my teeth with tap water, but the second I'm done I rinse with Bering, which is a horrid Listerine knock-off. It tastes like mildly mint-flavored antifreeze, but I figure if it does such nasty things to my mouth it must be doing even more lethal things to the bugs. After I've finished, I rinse again with bottled water.

The odd, shiny appliance over the sink turned out in fact to be a dish decontaminator, as I had initially surmised. Chinese friends, though, have puzzled over it and had to read all the characters on its front before they knew what it was supposed to do. I guess it's not a common Chinese appliance -- either because they are all used to bacteria, or because they drink alcohol with every meal. I'm not sure which, but I'm happy to have it. I find that it's handy for keeping many things stay fresh, such as my kitchen sponge or my Sonicare toothbrush head.

In combination, these various forms of self-protection seem to have kept me relatively safe. I've had a couple of very mild attacks of traveler's tummy, but generally I've been fine.

Through the hole to China

2009-02-23T05:40:00.000-08:00

When I was very young, maybe four or five years old, and I first heard that there was such a place as China, I asked my parents where that is. "Well," I was told, "if you dug a hole all the way through the earth and came out the other side, you'd be in China." This was very interesting to me. I figured, if they live on the bottom of the earth, they must walk upside-down.

This was something I had to see for myself, so I dragged a shovel out to my mother's garden and set about digging a hole to China.

I made it perhaps a foot down, then I hit a rock and couldn't dig any further. I reckoned I'd picked the wrong spot to dig, so I moved a few feet over and tried again.

It must've been a bad day for me, because once again I hit an obstruction long before I got to China, so I gave up... but I never lost the desire to see the land where the people are all upside-down.

Just a few months ago, through a friend of a friend I received an opportunity to come and teach at Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, in Dalian, China. This was a wonderful opportunity, and of course I crawled through that hole as quickly as I could.

Settling in

2009-02-19T08:39:00.000-08:00

I've been in Dalian now for a couple of days, and I'm loving it.

I just got back from the "Trust Mart," a hypermarket owned by Wal-Mart, with a load of groceries I've got a chicken soup bubbling away in the wok, and I'm watching the sole English-language channel on CCTV. The programming is divided between loving documentaries on Chinese history and culture, and current world events (with, of course, a decidedly Chinese slant). I've been watching the documentaries with a particular eye toward identifying historical sites I need to visit during my summer break.

I don't have internet access yet in my apartment, which is probably just as well. There will be plenty of time to waste online once they get me hooked up, which should happen in a few days. I'll be getting a phone card so I can start using the phone in my apartment, but I'm not in too much of a hurry. For the moment, I'm enjoying my splendid isolation. With the exception of a couple of British faculty members who live down the hall from me, the campus is nearly empty. And since almost no one in the general population speaks English, I have been isolated indeed.

Yesterday I discovered a tidy little coffee shop where English is spoken and the wi-fi is free. They court English-speaking clients in ways that would be unacceptable anywhere but the Orient. During the 2 hours I was there yesterday afternoon, I was offered free doughnuts, sandwiches, and a shot of espresso -- offers that were blatantly not made to the Chinese patrons sitting right next to me. On Fridays they host an "English Corner" during which Americans eat and drink for free, while Chinese pay a premium. It's good to be the king. (Of course, I didn't exactly get away for free: two cafe late set me back 40¥, about six bucks. Still, not a bad deal.)

The airport in Beijing is one of the nicest I've been in. It may have been built in preparation for the Olympics. It is certainly new, shiny, and friendly. Customs was quick and painless, though it's possible that my arrival time of 5 AM had something to do with that.

We arrived before the Sunrise, literally and figuratively:

Still, we were greeted by a friendly smile:

The first thing I saw inside the terminal was that ancient Chinese establishment, KFC!

I love the architecture inside the terminal.

Even the baggage claim area was elegant:

The only way you'd know this TCBY isn't in America... is the stylish decor.

Well, maybe this is a hint we're not in America any more. "Kiss n Bake"?

<=I'm all in favor of not smoking... but is it really a patriotic duty?!

After a couple of hours in the terminal, I queued up to board my flight to Dalian. Maybe 60 or 80 of us were crammed onto a shuttle bus, driven out perhaps a quarter mile, and deposited on the tarmac in front of a little twin-engine jet plane. The plane was the same sort one would take on the hop from Chicago to my hometown of Moline -- except that that the Quad Cities has maybe a quarter of a million people, and Dalian has three million. Clearly, China has a long way to go.

After landing in Dalian I was supposed to look for Serena Sui, the woman who hired me. Since she is, I suppose, technically my boss, I was expecting her to be a middle-aged woman, probably cheerful, definitely professional, and well-experienced. I turned out to be right on "cheerful" and "professional," but she is... well, not exactly middle-aged. As it turns out, she only just graduated from DUFE with her MA, and has held her job since September. I am her first hire.

Serena took me on a quick tour of the campus, which is very compact but quite nice. She showed me to my apartment... also compact but nice.

My building is called -- I'm not making this up -- the "International Cooperation Building." The Chinese have a way of naming things that is at once idealistic and bluntly unpoetic. For example, at Liaoning Normal University (itself a curious name), there is a middle school creatively named "The Middle School Attached to Liaoning Normal University." I'm sure it sounds poetic in Chinese.

The apartment consists of three rooms: a kitchen, a bedroom, and a study. The latter two rooms are each 14' 6" X 14' 6"; the kitchen is maybe 15' X 18'. The apartment is entered through the kitchen, with the two additional rooms located directly opposite the front door. To the left is a rather spacious and tolerably well-appointed bathroom, including a compact washing machine (but not a dryer).

Here is an image of the kitchen, as seen from the front door

Here are the two back rooms, as seen from the same spot in the front doorway

And the bathroom. The washing machine is behind the door, to my left.

Here is my study:

And the bookcase, which is sadly uninhabited I had to leave all but four or five books in LA.

The bedroom is pretty basic. That's my luggage on the bed.

Here's the view from my bedroom window. The big white building is the undergraduate classroom building.

Not bad digs, for free! Of course, the kitchen appliances are rather limited.

There is one little hot-plate for cooking

There's a tiny fridge that doesn't really work very well. A microwave, all of whose buttons are marked in Chinese characters I cannot read.

And then this appliance, which I suspect is designed to disinfect one's dishes, since the tap water cannot be trusted. There's no way to know for sure what it does, though, because the directions are all written in squiggles.

All in all, it's a nice little place to spend a few years. First, though, I have to start learning what all those funny little squiggly characters are all about.

RG