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July 30, 2006
Quirks
As I've mentioned many times in the past, China is a land of contradictions. As such, it's extremely difficult to generalize about almost anything. However, I've decided that I can claim one universal fact about this country and it relates to housing. Every single apartment or house I've been to thus far seems to have some sort of quirk. It might be a big thing or it might be a little thing, but it's always there somewhere.
In my apartment back in Guangzhou, the washing machine does this thing where it will stop mid-cycle and you have to open it up, rearrange the clothes to be more evenly distributed, and then start it up again. Not a big deal, but it's always there. Our DVD player also doesn't like to work if it's at anything other than a perfect horizontal level. That takes a bit of balancing at times but it works out. Finally, to get hot water in the bathroom, not only do you need to have just taken a hot shower, but you also turn the faucet the opposite direction of every one I've ever used in the states. Again, nothing major, but quirks nonetheless.
One of the Yale-China apartments in Guangzhou has a weak power circuit so it's constantly a fun game to see how many appliances you can actually turn on before the fuse blows. It's impossible for two people to shower at the same time because the second you turn on both water heaters, you blow a fuse. In like manner, you can't have both bedroom air conditioners on while someone tries to shower. You'll blow a fuse. They also have a sink in the kitchen that sometimes decides to leak on the floor. Other times it's just fine. The bedrooms also only have one power outlet each. My favorite though is the television that takes about fifteen minutes to warm up before it will give you a clear picture.
In my friend's apartment in Kunming, there is a complicated system of circuit breakers that you need to flip on and turn in order to get hot water. And even when you do everything in the right order, it oftentimes doesn't work anyway because it's all related to solar power cells on the roof of the building. It's sort of an all or nothing proposition--either boiling hot or ice cold. In one of the PiA apartments in Wuhan the water shuts off from 11:30pm-6:00am. This is not a big deal except when you need to do some serious business in the bathroom and you can't flush. There's a bucket that can be filled and used to flush but if more than one person has to go, it can get ugly. What's funny is that even when the water is on, you need to manually hold down a button to fill up the tank to get enough water to flush anything other than a #1.
One of the PiA apartments in Hangzhou had this thing where the bathroom was so small that the shower faced directly towards the wooden door, about 4 ft away. You had to sort of angle yourself away from the door or else you got a small flood in the kitchen. So what ends up happening is that toilet gets soaked and if you need to sit down after a shower, it's a very cold experience for your rear end.
And even the few high class apartments I've been in tend to have small quirks as well. My friend Meggie in Guangzhou lived in a very expensive high rise located in a premier area of town. It was extremely nice inside but was hardly devoid of quirks. There was a toilet seat in the guest bathroom that liked to come unfastened when nudged in the wrong direction. There was a light fixture that was able to move up and down from the ceiling...except when it decided not to. The best though was the front door. In order to actually close and lock it, you had to pull up on the handle and then slam it with your shoulder. Otherwise it just bounced right back at you.
My apartment here in Beijing is no exception either. Though it can be classified in the category of "Unnecessarily Nice," it has a handful of quirks up there with any apartment I've seen thus far. The shower is a really nice feature of the bathroom, complete with a granite-like floor and glass shower door. The only problem is that eveytime I use it, it leaks out on to the floor. I've put a towel down on the floor to soak it up but what's weird is that I never know which side will get wet. Sometimes it's only the right corner. Other times, the left. And sometime, just sometimes, it's both. The air conditioner in my bedroom is also a bit weird in that it really only seems to have one setting. Most ACs in China have a digital remote in which you can move the temperature up and down. Everytime you change it, it beeps and adjusts accordingly. Well, mine beeps alright and registers the change on the remote, but I'm not convinced the temp every changes. However every once in a while it makes a really loud noise in the middle of the night and blows out a gust of cold air. At least it works.
The biggest quirk of my home here in Beijing is the kitchen light. Sometimes it just doesn't go on. I've cooked many a meal in the relative dark which makes me feel primaeval or something. So basically I leave the switch in the on setting and just hope that it comes on and stays on. Right now I'm in a period of "on" which is great. I feel like I should cook up a week's worth of meals for when it inevitably goes off inexplicably in the near future. Ah well--all part of the adventure.
Besides the various anomolies here, everything is going well. I've reached the halfway point of my language program and that's a little scary. I'd like to take stock and see how much I've learned but I still have no idea. I hit a bit of a wall this past week when I felt like my brain shut down a bit, but I suppose everyone goes through that at some point or other. Again, I have managed to get out a bit and even found myself at a Wesleyan alumni get-together last night which was great. And since I'm halfway done here, I figured it's time for some pics. Click on the link to see some shots from the Great Wall, the acrobats, the soccer match I went to, and some other random pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/awolfe03/sets/72157594214781834/
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July 23, 2006
Blue Skies?!
Walking out of my apartment on Friday morning, I had to rub my eyes a few times to see if I was dreaming. Lo and behold, you could actually see a blue sky! It's amazing how much this improves both my mood and the appearance of the city at the same time. I almost didn't want to go inside for class because it was so nice outside. Given that it was the first day of sun and blue skies in about three weeks, it seemed like a shame to waste it in the classroom. Unfortunately, that's the way it goes when you're in a summer language program.
The past week has pretty much been more of the same and I'm still unsure of how much I'm retaining from this experience. I get approximately forty new words everyday and I really do think it's impossible to fully learn all of them in a single night. The textbooks are set up in order to have as much repeat exposure as possible, yet when we keep moving through new chapters all the time, it's tough. My apartment is now full of various textbooks opened up to different exercises and readings. Surrounding the books are mountains of flashcards separated into three piles: "Don't Know," "Definitely Know," & "Questionable." The Definitely Know pile grows everyday, but unfortunately so do the other two.
I have mixed feelings about the overall quality of my program, but I have to say that I am pleased on a few levels. First, I don't have a single class larger than 4 students. That's definitely an ideal way to learn--not small enough to feel like you're under a microscope every second, but not big enough to feel like I'm not getting any attention. Second, the name World Link is definitely not a misnomer. Though there are certainly a huge chunk of students from the states, my circle of friends here includes one Englishman, one Chilean, two Germans, one Canadian, one guy from Switzerland, and one American. My class consists of one Englishman and two Japanese. Needless to say, we have some pretty interesting conversations.
Besides the classwork, I have been playing a whole bunch of football. I was super proud of myself for bargaining down a pair of indoor-style cleats from 400 to 70. However it came back to bite me as I got two major blisters from the shoes. I hate playing with blisters but that's just the way it goes. We have been playing an Americas team vs. Europe and have had some heated competition. We got embarrased once but have split our other matches. I think it's high time we challenge them in basketball but they seem reluctant. Oh well.
And on the subject of football, I went to my first China pro game last weekend as Beijing downed Shenzhen 2-0. It was definitely an interesting experience. Not knowing what to expect, I tried to prepare myself for anything. The night started off with a serious trek out to the western edge of Beijing as their usual home stadium is currently under renovation for the olympics (along with just about everything else). Once we finally got there, we found a small, yet spirited crowd cheering on their boys. There was a complete lack of beer but yet an abundance of police waiting to pounce on any hooligans. Professional sports without beer? It took a little getting used to.
The game itself was... interesting. I'm somewhat confident that my intramural team from college could have competed decently well with them but it was still fun. We had a field day in the stands trying to decipher the various trash talking. The most common imprecation was repeated over and over to the point that we felt like suggesting something new to the crowd. We kept hearing "Sha Bi! Sha Bi!" which, when spoken in the right tones, is a derogatory term for female genitalia. I guess sports fans around the world are always that classy.
Besides the soccer game, I also got out of my apartment for a few other occasions. First, I got to see my buddy play some music at a small bar near the Forbidden City. I'm not quite sure what it is, but recorded music just pales in comparison to live music. It must have something to do with the timbre of the sound waves and the vibrations, but it's so much more exciting to see someone play live. He played a set of just acoustic punk rock and it was awesome. The next morning I got up bright and early and headed out to Tian Tan, the Temple of Heaven.
The temple is interesting for having such cool architecture, but it's also interesting from a historian's point of view. This enormous complex was built back in 1420 for the emperor to pray only twice a year. Meanwhile, nobody else was ever allowed to enter--even when the emperor was there praying for the harvest. Talk about a waste of space! I can't even fathom the time and money that went into constructing and maintaining the temple for what amounted to about an hour of face time every year. Unbelievable.
Other than that, the beat goes on. There are only about 300 characters waiting for me on the table right now...
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July 16, 2006
Thoughts
I now have two weeks of class under my belt and I think it's safe to say I'm learning something. I guess the real test will be once I return to Guangzhou, but overall I guess it's going well. It's a bit tough to try and shove so much information into your brain in such a short period of time, but it's certainly worth a try. I have been so busy with class and homework that I haven't gotten out all that much, but I think I'm starting to get a good feel for Beijing... and it's much different than Guangzhou.
First off, I didn't think it was possible, but I'm pretty sure the air here is even worse than down in GZ. It may just be that I came here straight from the states or that the weather has been particularly bad these few weeks, but I've only seen the sun once and only seen a hint of blue sky on one occasion. Other than that, it's grey, hazy, and polluted like crazy. On the upside, the temperature hasn't been nearly as smoldering as I expected. Again, I don't know if this is typical, but we've had some semblance of a breeze almost every day. Even if it only disguises the humidity for a brief moment, it's still nice.
Second, Beijing public transportation is suprisingly awful. For a city that is hosting the olympics in two short years, the subway system is remarkably inadequate. I believe they are in the process of adding a bunch of lines and expanding the frequency of trains, but right now it's horrendous. For starters, I can't even figure out the ticket system. Much like in Guangzhou, you pay more depending on how far you're going. But unlike GZ, there are no kiosks with digital maps to show you exactly how much to pay. I tried to decipher a sign but it made no sense to me. Instead, you wait in a long line and buy a paper ticket. Some attendant then tears your paper ticket in half when you walk down the stairs. I don't know how this could possibly be more efficient than a card or token system but what do I know. What's even more incredible is that even once you get down the stairs and figure out where to go, the subway cars themselves are incredibly outdated. There is no air conditioning so you basically have to hope that the fans are working. If they're not, you're in for a hot/smelly ride. If they are, it's only mildly more palatable.
I've only taken the bus twice but I can't say it was much better. I think the buses are much more far-reaching; however, they are also not super convenient, at least where I am. This pretty much amounts to a ton of walking. Usually that wouldn't be a big problem, but in Guo Mao (my part of the city), almost half the sidewalks are under construction right now. There are so many buildings going up in the central business district here that there is huge construction pretty much anywhere you'd want to walk. It's annoying dodging cars and bicycles everyday, but I guess that's just a way of life.
Another interesting difference between here and GZ is that people seem to be much more used to foreigners. I guess there are probably quite a few more up here but it's sort of funny. My friend Dan has really good Chinese and used to get enormous compliments anytime he spoke in Changsha, his former home in Hunan Province. Over here, they don't give him a second look. They *expect* you to be fluent. Last night I was in a restaurant and managed to not only read a bunch of the menu, but also use one of the phrases I recently learned in class with the waitress. She was unimpressed.
I don't know if this a difference, but despite being comparatively well educated and cultured here in Beijing, people are still remarkably China-centric. I mentioned something to one of my teachers about everything going on in Israel right now and she had no idea what I was talking about. I watched the news on CCTV-9, the English language channel here, and it only got a small mention, sandwiched in between news of a rainstorm here and a new business deal in Hong Kong. It's really not hard to see why people have a very insular view here because they get fed nothing but China China China all the time. And what's painfully obvious to me as a foreigner is that it really is monitored and censored by the state. Not only do you not hear bad news, but you may have seen the article in the NY Times last week that publishing breaking news (without permission) now carries a hefty fine.
On a separate note, learning characters has definitely given me a new perspective on things. As a good friend told me, learning how to read and write here is like learning a secret code... that millions of people know. A lot of those little squiggles really do carry meaning so it's interesting to piece them together now, especially for words that I've known for months. It's almost like walking around a city and piecing together sections of a mental map--I can now look at some signs and figure out exactly why they use a certain character.
I'm still in the basics of reading and writing but that's just fine by me--there's a lot for me to catch up on. Furthermore, a lot of the more basic characters have some really interesting meanings: hao, the character for good, is actually a compound that combines the characters for woman and son (i.e., a woman together with her son is good). Along the same lines, the character for peace is a compound of a woman in a house. The character for taking a rest is a compound of a man up against a tree. You get the idea. Of course it also makes me chuckle to discover that the character for bed is actually a compound that sort of means "wide piece of wood." Doesn't sound too comfortable to me but, again, you get the idea. So basically I am spending hours just trying to decode these characters and find logic/meaning in a system that up til now has appeared to be completely random.
I am not being a total recluse though and have gotten out a bit this weekend. Friday night I saw a performance of Chinese acrobats and it was stunning--really defied any words. My favorite was probably the guy rolling around about twenty feet up balancing precariously on top of a few of his comrades' heads, flipping small bowls from a board on to his head. Picture that, if you can. And tonight I am heading out to catch my first Chinese Football League match (read: soccer). I'm not expecting a super high level of play but I am extremely curious to see the culture of it all. Will people be yelling and singing all game? Will they be downing lots of beers? Will there be a big police presence? I'll soon find out.
Posted by awolfe at 5:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 11, 2006
Beijing
I've (more or less) surived my first week here in the people's capital and it has been a rollercoaster of a ride. There are a billion things for me to write but I'll try to keep this entry at a reasonable length. First off, the trip here: It took me a ridiculously long time to actually get to Beijing from Hartford but, luckily, I managed to sleep for most of the long flight between Detroit and Tokyo. I think that probably added to my horrendous jetlag but waddaya gonna do. Anyhow, I arrived Sunday night and made it through customs by about 10pm. After getting my stuff, my language program picked me up along with two other guys and we headed off to the city center.
I had signed up for a dorm room single but as it was, they were overbooked so they had to put about 50 of us into a hotel for the first week. Though some may have had illusions of grandeur, I knew better. We walked into a predictably dingy hotel and I made my way up as quickly as possible in order to get to bed. I dozed off by midnight but managed to wake up of my own accord at 3:30am--the first of about six mornings in which I woke up at an ungodly hour.
A bunch of us made our way over to the academy early on Monday morning in order to go through orientation, take a placement test, and start right in on classes. Now I knew before I got there that this program was hardly well reknowned. I knew it was more or less a business rather than an educational institution, but it happened to be the only game out there at a decent price and with flexible start/end dates. So there you have it. I expected some sort of campus or affiliation with a university but I was wrong on that one--it turns out the classrooms are on the fifth floor of a huge high rise building inside a ritzy business complex not-so-aptly named SOHO. It is located in the Central Business District of Beijing which means it's a pretty nice area, though super expensive and super new--not really my cup of tea.
The orientation was a standard sort of introduction lecture, though I thought it was telling that the director of the program opted not to read any of the rules from the handbook (e.g. don't bring alcohol into the lounge, no outsiders, etc.). He literally said that they weren't that important. Interesting. Anyhow, afterwards we took the placement test which really was one of those nightmares you have when you're a kid, one of those ones where you show up to take the test and can't even read the exam. In this case, I struggled to recognize every 5th character which meant I didn't understand a single sentence on it--not even where to write my name.
This was the first indication that I was going to have an extremely frustrating first week. It turns out I inadvertantly screwed myself but not having formally studied beginner's Chinese. After a year in Guangzhou and one semester of oral Chinese, I can get around decently well--I can bargain in stores, order some food, use transportation, etc. However, since I never studied characters, my readiing is waaaay behind my speaking, which is even miles ahead of my almost non-existent writing. This is a problem. I was not entirely alone in this situation and after doing much better on the speaking portion of the test, I got placed into an intermediate level class of interesting distinction.
When we all got settled and organized, it turns out I was in a class with five other kids, all Chinese-American. They also lacked anything in the way of reading or writing, however they had all had twenty some-odd years of speaking with their parents. Guess who was not quite at their level of speaking? That's right--the caucasian!
We have 6-7 hours of class everyday split into four different catgeories: reading (in reality, more like writing), speaking (more like reading), comprehension (more like speaking), and listening (more like comprehension). At the end of each session I felt like half of it had passed me by. There's no doubt I was learning quite a bit, however, I couldn't help thinking there was a better way to be going about this whole thing. I went to talk to the head teacher and he was immediately willing to switch me down to a lower level reading class. I hated feeling like I had given up, but that's the way it goes. Naturally I walked into the new class and was immediately bored. They were doing absolute beginner's stuff, going around pronouncing basic words like "ni hao." Umm, yeah, I think I know that one. So it was back to the drawing board.
I went back once again and chatted with the head teacher. He moved 3/4 of my classes starting this past Monday to a class of advanced beginners, a group that had started about 6 weeks ago, and it was great. Of course the 4th class turned out to be a bit of a disaster again (it's clear to me that the woman has never been at the front of a classroom before) but I successfully lobbied today for her to be replaced. I'm hoping for an improvement tomorrow.
And to top it all off, due to overbooking, we had to have our first week of classes about 15 minutes away at a satellite campus of Qinghua University, which was conveniently under construction during class time (can you hear the jackhammers out there in the states? I wouldn't be surprised). Starting Monday we were back in the academy classrooms (a HUGE improvement) and also moved out of the dingy hotel into the apartments. I was "upgraded," most likely in attempt to silence any complaints, and it worked. I have a swank new apartment to myself and it's pretty cushy.
Despite the 6 hours of classtime, 2 hours of language exchange with our Chinese partners, and 15 minute walk to and from my apartment, things are going well. I'm definitely learning at least something (hopefully more than I realize). I'm enjoying my classmates (a smattering of folks from around the world). I hiked a huge section of the Great Wall (just as breathtaking as you'd think). I had some high-class Beijing Duck (yum). I found my way onto a football team (now if only I were in shape). And for the first time, I'm beginning to be able to read a restaurant menu without any assistance. That's a huge score.
Posted by awolfe at 8:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 1, 2006
Unique
Over the past two weeks I have been to 4 major cities (Boston twice, New York twice, DC once, and Hartford if that counts), 2 games at Yankee Stadium, 1 beach island (MV), and 1 wedding. I've eaten exorbitantly large meals, stood in "civilized" lines, watched a ton of baseball, and seen friends from high school, college, grad school, and the vineyard. I am completely exhuasted but trying to rally in order to pack up my life once again for another year.
It was great to be back in the states for a couple of weeks though it was exactly what I expected: surreal and hectic. It's tough when you try to fit in a year's worth of activity into 15 days--there's just no easy way. It was even stressful at times, as I had to organize around schedules and compromise between having fun/relaxing and doing as much as possible. And of course the entire time I kept looking around thinking, did I really just spend a year in China? Did I really? I think so, but yet... now I'm back where I grew up. It's a weird feeling.
I had many different thoughts, realizations, and minor epiphanies while I was home and I'll see if I can explicate a few here. First, my initial reaction coming off the plane was true--people in America are grossly overweight. It's really no wonder, given that our portions are double or triple something comparable in China. Furthermore, we drive everywhere. And if we're not driving, we're getting a ride on the subway or bus. I think my generation (at least the population on the coasts) is quite a bit better with exercising, but we are definitely a lazy society. It seems a bit bizarre to say so, but I felt like I could see America in slow-motion decline. We're used to everything being easy and available and I'm not quite sure how we will respond if and when that changes.
Second, there is so much about America that is unique to the rest of the world. 12 hours after touching down in the states, I was at one of the most famous sports buildings of all time: Yankee Stadium. Besides baseball itself being so traditionally American, the entire culture surrounding baseball is completely unique. At the game there were dozens of commonalities: people wearing baseball caps, drinking beers, shouting (the same things in unison) at the umpires, doing the 7th inning stretch, cheering at the appropriate times, clapping in certain patterns, etc. It was amazing. I think to someone Chinese it would appear that we had all gone through training before getting our tickets. And in a way, I suppose the socialization of living in America is a form of training.
I also had a chance to visit some of my good friends from high school and college and we participated in another expressly American event- playing drinking games. I think other countries have a number of different imbibing games, but I think the U.S. takes the cake. There are scores of different drinking games that almost every college kid knows involving various combinations of alcohol, cups, cards, tables, and motions. I really don't think it exists anywhere else in this capacity.
Third, my hometown in beautiful. Having grown up and lived in W. Hartford for 18 years, I didn't have all that much to compare to. Sure, I had traveled to major cities and town around America and even abroad, but I never really stopped to look around my own surroundings. The fields, flowers, and trees in West Hartford are gorgeous. There are a plethora of (free) parks with facilties for baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis, football, and even golf. The architecture of the houses are also gorgeous. They are all different shapes and sizes. They are different colors. They have well maintained lawns. More than anything else, West Hartford is amazingly clean! Put it together and it equals a great town. These things simply do not exist in China.
Fourth, I missed the diversity of the states. Riding the subway in Boston or New York City, I could see approximately a dozen different languages in newspapers. I saw people of all colors. Walking around the cities I heard many different kinds of music played by people on the streets. Once again, these things simply do not exist in China. The government does not allow for very much public perfoming, especially un-supervised. And with a predominantly Han-Chinese society, it's rare to see anything other than your stereotypical Chinese face. In reality, of course, there is an incredibly diverese array of Chinese ethnicities, but for some reason it doesn't seem to compare to the different faces you see in America.
Lastly, I felt an unexpected measure of pride when introducing myself to people while at home. I think I forgot that what I'm doing is relatively unique and somewhat daunting to many people in the states. While I don't think I'm taking this opportunity for granted, I do sometimes forgot just how special it is. People almost always did a double take when I said, "I live in China," or "I work in China." They were very interested and curious to hear my thoughts. That made me even more excited to get back and get going for the second year.
I'm not quite sure how much blogging I'll be able to do over the summer but I am going to try. I head to Bejiing tomorrow morning and upon arrival begin studying Chinese 7 hours a day. I think it's going to be pretty exhausting but ideally worth the effort. Wish me luck...
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