 |
|
 |
|
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
A recent news snippet:
Windy Days
A kite flyer in Hainan, surnamed Zhong, finds himself lifted four meters into the air by a sudden gust of wind while flying his kite. He falls, and sustains broken arms and legs. (Xinhua, June 26)
Kite flyers are out in droves lately. Old men, like the unlucky one mentioned above, are the main flyers. As the weather warms and the breezes get a little gentler, China's favorite pastime is evident here in Beijing. Any given day, Frank and I can look out and see many kites being flown from the park outside. There is little that's more traditional in China than holding the end of a kite string out in a park. Kites go waaaay back in Chinese history. In 200 B.C. (only 500 years after the ancient Chinese philospohers devised the perfectly aerodynamic kite that would fly for one day) a famous Chinese military general flew a small bird-looking kite over a castle that he planned to attack, measured the string, and dug a tunnel the same length towards his target for a little surprise ambush. With its beginnings in philosophy and war gadgetry, kites have played other roles in Chinese history as well. Depending on the Dynasty, kites were used in some fashion as a way to carry messages to the gods. When Marco Polo brought back a 3-D kite to Europe in the late 1200s, Westerners began to make their own style of kites. The emperors of the 1700s & 1800s made kite-flying a popular pastime, with markets opening up across the nation, especially in Beijing, where the wind comes from the northern plains. During the Cultural Revolution, however, kite-flying was banned, though small ones were made in secret to keep the art form alive. They were reintroduced to society a decade later as an appropriate way to encourage health and fitness for all the comrades of China. Even now, there's an annual kite festival in south China, complete with kite-flying competitions (different categories depending on the size and shape of your kite and judged on kite-flying technique) and the crowning of a Miss Kite International.
All kite flyers remain loyal to their calling. Rich and poor alike are able to enjoy this sport. Even the relative high expense of kite flying doesn't discriminate against the poor. Because it's easy to lose one's flying beauty with just one gust of wind straight to the power pole, MANY men I've seen have found ways around that - they make their own kites out of plastic bags and sticks. Though I've never personally witnessed anything like the news report above, I am going to look out for it now that I know it's possible.
Monday, July 12, 2004
There are two things that Frank absolutely hates doing: (1) moving - as in houses, and (2) shopping. Shopping in China, though, is much different than shopping in America (however, more and more, Beijing is getting its share of mega-malls), so I can actually get him to come to some markets with me sometimes. When my students found out that we don’t bargain on prices hardly anywhere in America, they were almost in disbelief. They couldn’t imagine paying full sticker price for anything. I think it's the art of bargaining that attracts Frank the most. Who doesn't like knowing that they've just agreed on a price much lower than what most others paid? It's not the end result that is the greatest satisfaction for him, though that counts for a lot. It's all about how one gets to that price.
To compare, markets here are kind of like flea markets in America - aisle after aisle and booth after booth of (new) stuff - clothes, watches, DVDs (pirated), shoes, sunglasses, electronics, antique furniture, silks, books, scrolls, bags, sports equipment, ceramics, plants, lights – you name it, it can be found in almost any market around here. This kind of shopping has its ups and downs, though. One negative is that it takes more time to find and get what you want for the price that you want it. Frank and I have haggled for ten minutes before and then reminded ourselves that what we’re arguing over what amounts to about one American dollar. Bargaining/shopping takes up a lot of time in that sense. The good thing about it is, obviously, the price. Most of the time, if you look hard enough and bargain hard enough, you will likely find someone willing to sell it for your price.
Like many other, what Americans would call minimum-wage, jobs in the capital, the sellers’ positions are held mostly by outside-of-Beijingers. The majority of them are young countryside girls. You can tell most of the time because they are generally shorter than your average Beijinger and have slightly darker skin (from farming in the south). On a side note, Beijingers have seen enormous physical/nutritional improvement recently – for example, in the last ten years, girls have started to go through puberty three years earlier, on average, which the government blames on a higher teen pregnancy rate (though minuscule in comparison to the States’). These sellers are amazing to watch in action. Living here for five months and having one of the most popular markets near our house affords us some friendships with some of these girls. When I come in sometimes, they love to let me watch as foreigners and Chinese alike come in one after the other and bid/bargain on things. The starting and ending prices vary greatly. The most fascinating thing to me is to watch one of these girls size up someone in about a millisecond. She knows exactly what price to start out with. She must take in to account during a period of seconds all kinds of things to say as her starting price – what’s too high, what’s too low, how much time the customer has, how much he/she really wants it, his/her experience bargaining, language level, etc. There are some general understood rules that we try to follow. 1.) Frank, the great negotiator, and I never let a price slip out of our mouths, not even in English, until it’s towards the end of the process. If we want to buy three of something, we’ll start off bargaining on just one, get that down as low as she’ll go, then ask about another discount if we but two… you get the picture. Once you state a price, though, the only place you can go from there is UP. 2.) Just know that the first price thrown out there could be anywhere from 40% to 500% higher than what you can buy it for. 3.) Try to maintain at least somewhat of a smile. You’ll get turned down pretty quickly when you say some ridiculously low price anyway, but if you’re frowning, you’re outta there empty-handed. Showing any sign of anger is a dead-end street, too. 4.) We try to have a general idea of what the item is worth. That’s a little bit trickier. We mostly refer to our p@stor’s wife and daughter, who’ve lived here for several years and are master shoppers. 5.) Hit the markets on a weekday. If the foreign tourists are there (likely on weekends), you’re just wasting your time. 6.) In the end, if we still feel like the price should be lower, we do the walk-away trick. If you get called back, your chances are big that they’re willing to go lower. I hate it when I walk away and don’t get called back, particularly when I really want something. It causes me to lose face all the time when I have to walk back a few minutes later. In the meantime, I just doodle around at another nearby booth for two reasons – one, I hope that she changes her mind and sees me near, and two, I want her to see me trying to buy from someone else (they can be competitive). 7.) Last but not least is Frank’s favorite tactic – show them the money. There’s power in seeing what they’re missing out on, even if it’s 10 RMB less than what they want. Nine times out of ten, it works.
The few words of English that they seemingly all know is, “cheaper”, “How much you pay?”, “good quality”, “no profit”, and “highest/lowest price” (depending on who’s price she’s referring to). They all must buy these huge calculators from the same company, looks like to me, and they tap out their price just to avoid confusion.
Here’s an example of what a successful bargaining experience may be like:
Brandi & Frank: (checking out a nice pair of fake Polo Ralph Lauren pants) How much?
Qing Chong: 500.
Brandi & Frank: (we look and decide the pants are worth about 50-60 RMB to us) Cheaper!
Qing Chong: How much you want to pay?
Brandi & Frank: (Frank’s joke every time) Free!
Qing Chong: (Smiles) You are clever.
Brandi & Frank: What’s your lowest price?
Qing Chong: You say highest price.
Brandi & Frank: (never saying it right away, we look the pants over many times, ask why such a high price, remind Qing Chong they’re fake, find holes or stains) What’s your lowest price?
Qing Chong: 300.
Brandi & Frank: You can’t be serious! Do you know that we have been here many times and we know how much these pants should be? We can buy them anywhere else for much cheaper.
Qing Chong: Ok, 200, just for you, friend.
Brandi & Frank: Cheaper!
Qing Chong: No, no. These are real Polo pants. Good quality. 150.
Brandi & Frank: (eyes popping wide in surprise at the price) If we have friends and family come to visit us, we’re taking them to the shop that gives us the best deal. (Now we tell her a price for the first time) 40.
Qing Chong: (laughs) I lose money. No profit. No profit. Okay, okay, last price. 100.
Brandi & Frank: No, 40. (start the walking-away process)
Qing Chong: Okay, okay. We make a deal. 75.
Brandi & Frank: No. Our highest price is 50.
Qing Chong: (animatedly acting like she’s stabbing herself) Lose money. No profit! Good quality! 70.
Brandi & Frank: (start to act like we’re walking away again) No, sorry. 50.
Qing Chong: Okay. Last price. 60.
Brandi & Frank: (Frank pulls a nice, crisp 50 RMB bill out of his wallet and tries to hand it to her)
Qing Chong: (Rolls the pants up and puts them in a bag, takes the 50 in silence – maybe she doesn’t want the next customer knowing?) Wow, you good bargain.
By Western standards, one may think that $6.00 for a pair of pants, Polo or not, is really a good deal. Fact is, if the seller still has a smile on her face, you haven’t gotten the best deal possible. We always say in these situations that at least their family can eat a little better tonight.
The following two examples are what I see happening far too often with foreigners (and these people are the ones that ruin it for the rest of us).
One
French guy: (looking at a nice pair of Polo pants) How much?
Qing Chong: 500.
French guy: (Ha! Thinking he’s going to show her) 400.
Qing Chong: 450.
French guy: 425.
Qing Chong: Okay! Deal. You’re killing me!
Two
American man: (looking at a nice pair of Polo pants) How much?
Qing Chong: 500.
American man: OK. Great. Thanks.
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, “Doh!”
Monday, July 05, 2004
Dinner At Frank's Student's Home
It all started about a month ago when Frank went out to the neighborhood park. He often plays basketball on the sports complex side of the park, complete with tennis courts, basketball courts, soccer fields, and skateboarding halfpipes. Yes, Beijing is very funny in that way - we live in a pretty lower-middle class part of town, and we still have these facilities near us. As I heard Frank describe to someone on the phone the other day, it's not uncommon to see a brand new Ferrari on the street followed by a man and his mule (of course, guiding the mule as he's talking on his cell phone). Frank and I bought our cell phones at a second-hand market for about $15. We didn't think they were too shabby because it was about the same model Nokia that I had been using in America (probably much like the phones you guys have now). China is leagues beyond the U.S. as far as cell phones go. Our Ayi and our bicycle repairman have phones that surpass our outdated Nokia models. Everyone, everyone has a cell phone with all kinds of gadgets.
So Frank was walking back from the basketball courts through the area of the park where the grandparents take their grandchildren to play. Like I've said, as the seemingly only Westerners in our section of town, we generally attract attention just walking. Frank got stopped by somebody, asking him a question, and then more people gather around to hear the laowai try to speak Chinese. All in all, about 10 or so people talked to him, and among those, one man towards the end of the conversations asked Frank about studying English. He said he was interested in studying about once a month. First of all, let me explain that we get these kinds of requests from random people all the time that never amount to anything, so Frank surely didn't expect this guy, who wanted a once-a-month lesson, to actually call. Well, he did. Soon thereafter, too. All Frank knew about this guy was that he is an artist and wanted to learn English so that he could better sell his paintings to foreigners or take requests from them on exactly what they wanted him to paint. He doesn't speak a lickof Englishand doesn't really recognize what you say even when you're speaking slowly.
The first (and so far only) lesson went well. About a month later (last week), we got a call from him inviting us over for dinner at his house. We never know quite what to think about dinner invitations. Some Chinese invite us over right after we've just met them. I've asked some of my students about this custom. Some say that you're supposed to decline - it's just courteous to ask, and some say that it's quite an honor to be invited - it would be rude to turn them down. So we decided to take him up on his offer, having no idea what to expect. I'll be honest and say that I intentionally ate a little before we went over because you never know what will show up on the table. Ox tongue, pig snouts, chicken feet, cow brains, and the like are typically seen on Chinese tablespreads.
Last night, Fang YinQi (his name - he's waiting on us to give him an English name) met us at our place and walked us over to his home nearby. He was nicely casually dressed. Frank and I were asking the getting-to-know-you questions - are you from Beijing, are you married, etc.? He's 42 (unbelievable - he looks at least ten years younger), married, no kids yet (next year). His father died when he was 9 years old when he was sent off to work in a countryside factory during the Cultural Revolution. We didn't ask more details about that. He has grown up in the same home that he and his wife (of ten years, she's 35) live in now. The building is about 50 years old. FangZhuang, our neighborhood, used to be a farming village around 40-50 years ago. His was the first modern building to be built in the area. Our building is ~20 years old, and it's in pretty bad condition. The Chinese don't necessarily build for longevity's sake. So you can imagine what kind of condition Mr. Fang's building is in. With no elevator, we climbed the stairs to the top. Each floor has six units each, intended for six families. On each side of the stairwell is an entrance to a common area that leads to the units, three on each side. As we walked in the right-side entrance, the common bathroom and kitchen (for three families/units) and small storage area were here, with three rooms splitting off from the common area. Each of these rooms is some family's one-room flat. High ceilings, like this one had, are a trademark of older housing. The floors were bare concrete. The walls were still 'unfinished' - just plastered with no paint or wallpaper - and fairly dirty. When we first walked in, we greeted the Mrs. with a bag of apples (a common thing to do if you're a guest), who was slaving away in the kitchen, wearing a white Chinese chef's hat. From our conversation on the walk over, we knew that he had opened a small restaurant several years ago (to our surprise, we thought he was a full-time artist, but he just does it on the side, along with many other things like playing the guitar and reading world history books) and hired most of the workers from the countryside. His wife was one of those girls. She is from central China, in a mountainous area. For the first hour, Frank and I stayed in the one room, looking at his paintings on the wall while we were waiting for his wife to finish up in the kitchen. I was impressed with his artistic talent. His friend, a professionally trained artist, had earlier brought over some of his own paintings for us to see, too. Mr. Fang left us alone for a little while to go help in the kitchen. He's the one who taught her how to cook. This kitchen was like no kitchen I'd ever seen. I am truly not trying to make fun of the way these people live, but just trying to give a better idea of what it looked like. The walls were so thick with black and dark yellow grease (particularly thick behind the gas stove area), I really don't think you could touch the wall without sticking to it. No cabinets (just one board nailed into the wall for a shelf), no sink (just a washpan), and one window that was so thick with grit, you couldn't see out of if. The floors were the same concrete that the other rooms had, with a water hose running in from window to the washpan, which was set next to the open-hole drain in the middle of the floor, I suppose to wash dishes. When I peeped in to ask if I could help, I saw a bowl full of shrimp. Do you know how expensive shrimp are here? Frank and I have been able to afford them for one meal - and they were frozen. These were fresh shrimp. Wow. They were going all-out for us. So I went back in their room to wait. Everything smelled great. Mr. Fang came back in and told us that his wife was a little nervous. We were the first foreigners to ever come over.
One by one, each dish was brought in. There was no dining table, just a small coffee table in front of the couch, where she sat everything, about nine dishes in all. Frank and I quietly said our own blessings and dug in. I think it was one of the 5-10 best Chinese meals I've ever eaten. Nothing out of the ordinary. Lamb and scallions, green beans and pork, kale and chicken, tomatoes and sugar, stir-fried peppers, braised pork, pistachio nuts, peaches, and last but not least "Chinese-Cajun"-style (can I use that description?) sauteèd shrimp.
His wife wouldn't eat with us. She sat a few feet away from us, just smiling every once in a while and listening to our conversation. Mr. Fang used to be a soldier in the Red Army. He told Frank that when he first saw him in the park, he approached him because he thought he was an American soldier. I guess Frank sort of has that look - especially now with his short haircut. Mr. Fang's favorite movie is Saving Private Ryan, and Mr. Wang thought Frank resembled one of the characters in the movie (could it be Matt Damon?! – but, as I’ve said, they think all Americans look alike). He only has two DVDs, and this is one. He's seen it several times. Before he watched it, he thought that Americans weren't brave, but after seeing it, he changed his mind and now has great respect for the American military. He was asking us (he was mainly asking Frank, but I think that he knew enough of what American feminists are like to assume that he better include me, too - also he had to translate through me, though Frank understands more than he lets on) all about our life - plans after China, long-term and short-term. He then began on a series of questions to test Frank's worldview. He was very interested in Frank's answers and seemed to respect them, even if he didn't agree with them, which is more than the typical Chinese usually does. If a Chinese disagrees with what you're saying, they'll stick their arm out, turn their head away, and wave their hand near your face, while repeating, "Bu bu bu bu..." (No no no no...).
A few years ago, he went to a legal "Sunday-meeting place" about 10-15 times. He soon realized that the "speaker" there was not a true believer, but a gov't.-appointed leader. He's not been able to find another place to go since then. His wife had been, too, she never gave her impressions. I was trying to include her in the conversation, but I finally realized that she was really content to sit there and listen. At least she stayed. Mr. Fang told us that when other friends or customers come over, she won't even stay in the room.
We stayed there for about five hours. We didn't know when we were supposed to leave! Like I've said, meals are a big deal here, especially dinner. When guests are over or friends gather at a restaurant, it's not uncommon to extend the meal for several hours. It's not like in America where you eat, clear the table, and then sit back down (or go to the den) to talk a while. Becoming full gradually takes place. Eat a chopstick full, chew, drink, talk, talk, talk. Eat another bite a couple minutes later. Mr. Fang was still eating at the five-hour mark, while Frank and I had stuffed ourselves in the first 20 minutes. I don't have that kind of self-control or manners yet. I do when the food isn't good, though.
Frank and Mr. Wang made plans to play tennis next week. Mr. and Mrs. Fang (or whatever her last name is) asked the neighbor to come over to take some pictures before we left. His wife must have warmed up to us during the last few hours because she put her arm around us (a rarity with relative strangers) in the picture. Then Mr. Wang escorted us out for a ways (another custom is to walk your guests out as far as you can). He told us that his restaurant was about to be destroyed by the government. That's part of what happens here in Beijing. One day I can pass by a building, the next day I can see it whitewashed with the Chinese character for "destroy" (chai), ten days later (at most), it's gone. Two months later, a new building is in its place. Street turnover is amazing. Someone who hasn't been to Beijing in five years wouldn't recognize a lot of the streets. It's fascinating how it all works. Mr. Fang is getting paid by the government - not a lot, though - just enough to make him barely satisfied. He knows it could easily be nothing. With the money he's planning on starting a home decorating business next year!
Thursday, July 01, 2004
Preface: There's really no point to this story. I'm sure I could draw some conclusions or state the lessons learned, but I won't for now.
At the south gate of the Forbidden City is an area referred to as Qianmen. Qianmen, called this for many centuries, is like most other places in Beijing -- once part of the old pre-Revolution city but are now quickly becoming commercialized. This one is a little different, though, as it was the passageway from the Inner City to the Outer City. Around the turn of the century (1900's, that is), this area could be described as the place where the freaks and weirdos of Beijing loitered, not to mention where the pursuits of earthly delights were allowed. It is told that even the emperors would dress up in commoners' clothes and sneak across the gate to partake of such forbidden pleasures. Circus acrobats trying to earn a little extra money would perform on the street corners. Opium dens were mixed in with the brothels along the street. Transvestites dressed in Peking Opera attire would parade around their brilliantly-painted costumes outside the small theatres.
A couple of my students are from this area, and their families have lived there for many generations. From their tales, I knew that Qianmen, and especially the people there, were a little different than most other places around Beijing.
A couple months ago we headed over there. After we got off the crowded public bus, we needed to change some money, so we asked the closest rickshaw driver to point us to the nearest Bank of China. He did, but he told us it would take about 30 minutes to walk there and then offered to take us. We haggled over the price for a little bit and finally settled on 9 RMB (a little over a dollar). Once we got there (all of a five-minute ride), I pulled out the money to gave it to him, but then he said, (in Chinese, of course) "No nonono, American money" (which is about ~80 RMB). I said to him, "I realize you get a lot of tourists coming through this area that DO have a lot of money, aren't familiar with the currency, and really don't care if they pay 9 or 90, but we live here, and we know what we should pay. We settled on a price beforehand, and that's what we're going to pay. Take it or leave it." He was still being quite belligerent, which draws a crowd here, especially when foreigners are involved and Chinese is being (or trying to be) used. We got fed up with him, quasi-politely handed the money to him and took off for the bank. So we're in the bank waiting in line, and as I'm looking at Frank, I see this look of panic come over his face in a split second. He quickly says, "I left our bag in the back!" and takes off running. I stay in the bank, finishing our business (all the while thinking what all stuff we had in there - possibly a digital camera, money, lots of important but replaceable papers, books, etc. besides the backpack itself) and then go outside to see if I can possibly spot him or find anyone who saw where he went. Of course, the same crowd was there as before and they knew immediately what was going on. Minutes earlier Frank had gotten direction from the crowd, too, as they pointed which way for him to run. He ran for about 30 minutes, right around the Tiananmen Square area, then came back to see if our original rickshaw driver had come back, by any chance.
At that point, one of the other rickshaw drivers watching all this hoopla from the sidelines stepped up and offered to help Frank find him. The driver told him he knew where the first driver had gone and that he could take him there. By this time, I had finished in the bank and had found a rickshaw of my own, and Frank and I started communicating on our cell phones of each other's whereabouts. I was talking to my driver, who had seen the whole initial incident happen (about the unfair haggling) and he was agreeing how terrible it was, yadda yadda, how one guy can make all of them seem bad, etc. Both my driver and Frank's seemed to be extremely helpful in trying to find this guy (we honestly didn't know if the other driver realized that it was still in his cart or not, but my driver said he knew that he still had it). Frank and I finally met up after giving up on the chase. We exchanged phone numbers with our two drivers, and they said they'd call us if/when they saw this guy again.
Then came the start of our bigger problem. They tell us how much we owe them -- a whopping 80 AMERICAN dollars. You can't fathom how ridiculously expensive that is until you live amongst Chinese prices. That's like enough to feed a small village for a month+ or send a few college kids to school for a while or something crazy like that. I'll say I started to get mad at this point. I don't know if you've ever gotten mad and had to express yourself in another language before, but it can be quite frustrating. And then listening to what they're saying to me wasn't quite textbook material either that I'd exactly practiced before. I recognized a few words here and there that were thrown out to us, like "rotten egg" and "black heart" (considered very bad "cut-downs", as I called them in 5th grade, here). I do know Frank's driver said something about my mother...no, seriously. The worst thing was that he said that we didn't care about the Chinese, that we can come live in China, have a grand life and then get to return to America, but they still have to stay here with their life. Getting mad in public (especially for Chinese people) is one of the worst things you can do. "Losing face", as they call it, is something you avoid at all costs. All faces were lost by the end of our sort-of-raising-our-voice match. I wasn't rude, but I stuck to my guns on what a rip-off he was giving us, how he took advantage of us, how he knew what he was doing the whole time (wasting our time and charging more by the minute), that they are all in cahoots to begin with, that I wanted my phone number back, that the rickshaw drivers next to our place are fair and honest, etc. So we ended up paying Frank's 30 RMB and mine 20, QUITE a fair price, in my opinion, but I think they felt like injustice had been served to them and thus threw it on the ground. I was ready to get outta Qianmen for a while. We went to McDonalds. It was like a small embassy for me, like I was on American soil for a little while. We left after having a healthy dose of hamburgers, fries, and shakes.
As we were walking right back to where we got off the bus in the first place, we see the original rickshaw driver waiting to prey on his next victim (okay, I'm being a little harsh at this point). I could just smell victory approaching... Frank sneaks up behind him, peeks into his back seat area, and sure enough, there was our bag, just where we'd left it. The driver quickly turned around after Frank grabbed it and yells, "Hey, put that back. It's mine now!" HA! Are you kidding me? YOUR bag?...
Those Fashionable Beijingers
....OK, I remember more. Frank and I have been constantly entertained when we go out by just reading the Chinglish on peoples' shirts. Maybe this isn't that interesting, but it caught my eye. One of the more popular Chinese designer labels here, especially for womens' jeans, is XO (the Greek letters for Chi Omega). I don't know if the sorority headquarters in Memphis have caught on to this yet or not, but I wonder what Mary Ann Frougè (our national president) would do about this if she did.
By the way, one of my favorite examples of brandname-stealing here in China is Starbucks. Some Chinese self-made bistro saw what a huge success the Seattle coffee chain had become and decided that he deserved a piece of the pie. I don't know how many shops he opened around Beijing (maybe Shanghai, too- I can't remember now) before the big men at headquarters shut his shops down. I really am not convinced that he was aware that he was doing something illegal. He had it all, though - from the exact replica of the Starbucks' Mixomarthenos (that mermaid-looking thing from Greek mythology on their logo) to even that perfectly-made frappuccino. No one knew the difference between the real ones and his. He'd done his research well. Even after he was busted, he wanted to change the name to Starbuck, but that's still up in the air.
Anyway, Frank has spotted a few people around town sporting t-shirts/pants emblazoned with Chinglish. Here's a few of the incongruous phrases:
* Robin Hood Loves Me
* Microsoft WINDOW 2000 (if you don't get it, notice the singular - how does this happen?)
* Intel Inside (Frank wants this one badly for us)
* FOX Racinging (Fox sponsors NASCAR)
* I am Batman to the Bat Cave (close to, but not quite like, the navy sweatshirt my grandmother [Mamaw] gave me for Christmas in the mid-1990s, "I have a bat attitude" with a huge orange bat flying across the center
* Lion King Never Dies
* Sexbuch
* The Clash is Burning
* The South's Dixie Angel Chick
* THUG
* Fashion Victim
* I’m a mad toy
* Sun pulp 23 Fruit it up
* PHAT farm
And our personal favorite...
* I'm huge in Japan
Mind you, all of the above came within the last seven days, since Frank finally decided to start recording these things. He promises many more to come. He also wants me to mention that the amazing thing about some of the shirts is not how funny their butchered English is, but rather the complete and utter unfathomability of their creation. The question we are often left with is, "How did that shirt ever come into existence? What are the series of events that led to this shirt's production in the exact way, shape, and form that we see before us? How can this be?"
'Fashionable Beijinger' is somewhat of an oxymoron. Despite the tons of knock-off and a few real Louis Vuitton around (and his lesser known cousin, Lcuis Uuittcn -- I suppose that the typesetters/screenprinters have a hard time recognizing and matching the English letters on the keyboard), this isn't Paris. I kind of like the way the Chinese dress, though. By my standards (which, as some of you who are familiar with my hygiene know, isn't a mile high), most everyone looks fairly respectable out in public. The adults wear trousers. Hardly any over-30 person wears jeans - too Western-looking or high-class. I don't really feel comfortable wearing shorts out if I don't have to. For the common Beijinger, his/her style is pretty simple.
It's "hot as the dickens," as my Papaw would say, (anyone know where this came from?) here in Beijing now, so many people just roll up their trousers. The Men: If you're lucky, the men will just roll up their shirt hems in the heat, but most will be off with that sticky shirt anytime it's around 30 or above (they operate on Celsius here, for all you Fahrenheit-centric people, that's ~86). Most of them have a fairly round belly to be seen (or rather, not to be seen). They stick it out and rub and pat it like they're pregnant. Buttoning up their shirts to the top is also seemingly uncool. Even though they don't leave a lot to the imagination, one thing is for sure - chest hair is practically non-existent for the Chinese men. One day as Frank was coming from the shower to our room with a towel wrapped around his waist, our Ayi asked him in a kind of weirded-out way when he was going to shave his chest hair off (could be translated like this, "Hey, Frank, did you forget to do something while you were in the shower there, buddy?). Another time, a driver told me that frankly, he was scared of any man who had chest hair. He then went so far as to give me the advice that I shouldn't trust them either. I had to break the news to him that my very own husband has some of that stuff. No comment from him after that. Maybe he felt like he couldn't trust me either since I married one of them. On the contrary, Frank says that one shouldn’t trust anyone who doesn’t have chest hair. I have had students during the middle of class look at my arm and comment on how hairy they are (they're not that hairy).
The ladies: 40+ crowd -- They love to mix and match all kinds of prints. No rules here for wearing polka-dots, tropical florals, and geometric patterns all at once. This has been the trend from at least the first time I was here. Here's the worst thing I see overall with the ladies - pantyhose socks! They wear them with every type of shoe in summertime, even with sneakers (I love what my dad calls them - "tenny-pumps"). The ladies' legs are so creamy white. Like I said, they don't leave to go anywhere without their parasol. If they're riding their bike and their arms have to be extended out, they have these special slip-on sleeves to protect them from the rays. Large straw hats and visors with full facial coverage is in high-style (the bill of the visor drops way down, like a dark mini-windshield). Forming a distinct color demarcation between leg and hose, they wear these brown circulation-stoppers to right above their ankle. I usually feel the stares of the Chinese when I get on the bus -- I know immediately (among other things) they are looking down at my bare feet in my flip-flips. Beijing is a pretty dirty (more like dusty) city, so they probably think I'm nasty just having my bare foot exposed to all the muck.
As a general rule, the Chinese have different shoes for outdoors and indoors. When anyone comes over, they wait at the door for us to give them a change of slippers. When we tell them, buyung (no need!), they ask for at least a brush/rag to clean their shoes. We don't even provide a mat to wipe them off on. We just usher them on in, much to their surprise and possibly discomfort. Frank and I have our own houseshoes, but none for guests yet. After the first time we didn't offer slippers, our Chinese tutor started bringing her slippers with her to every class.
The youth -- Other than advertising Chinglish t-shirts, these days big buttons are in. The young people are all over it (like ”white on rice” - I tried to explain this expression to someone the other day, but they just didn't quite get it). I think mainly the problem with all of this Beijing fashion is their overdoing it. This is one case where the kids definitely do. They look a little Bozo-esque. The children: Anything that has a slit through the rear end of the pants is in.
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
A Chinese Grandma in McDonalds
Some of the following content may not be appropriate for young readers.
One of the main shopping districts in Beijing lies right near the heart of the old Imperial City (or Forbidden City, to most). On the east side of this former Innermost City is a street that has been tromped on for over 700 years, retaining its name from the Ming and Qing dynasties, Wangfujing, or "Gold Well Street". In the 1920s it became a commercialized area open more to the public, and in the 1980s it underwent an eight-year renovation to become what it is today - a ritzy, bustling, chaotic street. In more recent years, the wealthy Chinese families are the only ones who can afford to actually buy the foreign name brands (Gucci, Prada, Armani, Rolex - all the Real McCoy, too) sold in the shops that line the street. Expensive Peking duck restaurants, foreign bakeries, and one of Beijing's first McDonalds are the eateries to choose from on Wangfujing. Needless to say, your average laobaixing ("Old Hundred Names", meaning commoners) cannot afford the many luxuries offered here.
Sitting at a table in this particular McDonalds one day, waiting for my apple pie to be brought to my table, I was passively staring towards the main entrance door. Chinese executives and foreign tourists were packing into the place, as the weather outside was becoming inclement. I came out of my fixed stare when I noticed an older laobaixing grandmother walk in. They are easy to spot. Upper-class older people usually keep their hair dyed pitch black, even if they're 90 years old. Their skin is still Chinese porcelain white, a sign of aristocracy, (but nowadays, every female carries a parasol during the sun-shiny days) as opposed to the Great Leap Forward, out-in-the-heat workers that are now part of the other class of the aging generation. This grandma definitely had wiry, grayish, untamed hair (similar to my Grandma Wilson's, for those of you who've had the distinct pleasure of meeting her) and was wearing a somewhat-tattered, brown corduroy jacket. Having the heater cranked high in there, she immediately slipped off her coat. I will never forget what she had on underneath that coat. I will try to paint a picture -- you know those airbrushed t-shirts that you can get on the Redneck Riviera (as my college friends called it), a.k.a. anywhere along the Mississippi to Florida (Gulf of Mexico side) coastline? Grandma's t-shirt was purple and had fringe cut around the armsleeves. In the front center of the shirt in silver-glitter was largely airbrushed, "TEXAS SLUT". I would have given a lot to have had a camera - that moment needed to be stilled for posterity.
She had NO IDEA what in the world was on her shirt. I want to meet the clown(s) that puts out these Chinglish, as they're called here (get it? - Chinese & English), shirts. I wish Frank and I had a camera or at least a pen for all the people we pass on the street with who-knows-what advertised across their person. People of all classes will wear anything that has English written on it, all having no clue what it says or means.
Another one comes to mind. We live next to a 50-something storey building that employs construction workers around the clock (who are brought in from the far-away, poor countryside). Anytime of day that we go out, we're bound to pass one of the yellow hard hats coming/going for mealtime. These guys, unlike many Beijingers, act like they've never seen a foreigner before. They blankly stare, all the way turned around sometimes, even after we've passed. One of these guys passed us a few weeks ago sporting a brown sweater. In the front center of it was embroidered, "KARL MALONE".
When I remember more, I'll post.
Friday, June 11, 2004
May Be Out Of Commission Soon
Just a quick one to say that if there are no more posts after this one, it's because the gov't of this country is quickly banning all blog sites. Already I can only access this "manager's" page and not the main webpage you're seeing now. We'll see....
Here's some snippets of a recent news release about blogging in China:
In March 2004, the Chinese government first closed down two major local service providers, BlogCN and Blogbus, while they were purged of political content. Another provider in the US, Typepad, was blocked altogether and rival hosting company Blogspot has been blocked since 2003. At least 61 people are jailed for what they published on the Internet.
Meanwhile, the authorities in Shanghai have been installing video cameras and software in the city's Internet cafes to track user's activities, and there are countless other examples of government action against Internet usage – perhaps timed to coincide with controversial events such as the Taiwan election and reform in Hong Kong and the Tiananmen Square Massacre 15th anniversary, says an unnamed inside Ministry of Media source.
"It's significant in the fact that China will not allow any kind of dissent, no matter how small, to exist," explains a representative from a Beijing-based media firm. "It doesn't matter if you're one person who has no political clout, read by three, any kind of dissent must be shut down… They do this because allowing any free expression might cause people to rebel." Another wishing-to-be-anonymous representative adds, "Emperor Qin burnt all the books he could find when he took over in 221BC," he points out, "and leaders of China have been trying to control information ever since then."
The reasons for the blocking of blog hosts and various other media outlets (for example the BBC and Time website and several others in previous years that have just been un-banned) may be even simpler than this, postulates Joseph Bosco, an American journalist, author and visiting Professor of Media at a Beijing University: "They block these networks because they can." He adds, "I do not believe the government will stop blogging. I do believe they are going to monitor it and trim it back frequently for some years yet."
Perhaps the shadowy legions of perhaps 40,000 Internet censors are not trying Canute-like attempts to stop the online tide but are merely demonstrating that whatever is out there, they are still in charge of. "The significance of Chinese blogging is more symbolic than actually effective or influential," continues Bosco. "However, symbolism in this regard is very important. The fact that there are a reported 300,000 main land Chinese bloggers is powerfully prophetic of what could be."
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Situation: You pass someone you recognize (a friend or an acquaintance)on the street/in the elevator/in the store, and he smiles, pauses and asks you, "Have you eaten [rice] yet? (Ni chi [fan] le ma?)" Actually, it has been some time between meals, so you answer, "No, not yet." Suddenly, his smile disappears and you wonder what you could have done wrong.
What you did wrong: You told your friend you hadn’t eaten recently. In Beijing, and many other parts of China, the greeting "Have you eaten yet?" is a polite way of saying hello or "what's up?". By actually admitting you hadn’t recently eaten, you could be, among other things, obligating your friend to stop and take a meal with you.
My first time here, most of my new Chinese friends would address me with this greeting. It seemed kind of strange to me, but so are many of the literal translations of common phrases. For example, one of the strongest insults that you can say to anyone here is literally, "You have a pretty green hat", which translates somehow as, "Your wife is cheating on you."
To the question, "Have you eaten yet?", I have sometimes answered with a recital of what I had for lunch, where I ate, whether it was good, etc. A perplexed look would come across his/her face. When I found out that it really meant, "What's up?" or "What's going on?", I'd then pride myself with my new understanding of Mandarin and tell him/her some of the things that were new in my life. Still, I'd get baffled looks. Now I know that all they really want is a simple answer of "YES!" - just a Chi le should suffice. Even though I know how I'm supposed to reply, I still feel like I'm lying if I really haven't eaten my meal yet. When I attempt to obey that Ninth Commandment and say, "No, not yet", it's obvious that, in their mind, I'm still not considered a "China hand", as they like to call foreigners who've lived here a while and should know things like this. I'm still a yangguizi [foreign devil] in their mind. Maybe I should allow the m.o. from now on to just be "yes" and be done with all this worrying.
However, I still want to know how this came into their language. Here is what one of my Chinese students has written:
"As for eating, it is the most important and fundamental necessity for any creature in
the world. In fact many of Chinese eat less meat than many foreigners. A few of Chinese
have not enough food to feed themselves. The most important meaning of eating for Chinese
is living. I think so."
What I think that means is that food/eating is a pretty serious subject among the Chinese and has been for a number of centuries (though I would agree that this historically holds true for most inhabited places on earth). Maybe it's a little different here, and this is where I insert my opinion: As one of the world's longest continuous civilizations which has prided itself on its distinct cuisine and one that only forty+ years ago endured the worst famine in human history, to ask your comrade if they've eaten yet is to look out for him -- especially among the older generation that are still living in the old-school thought of communism. So in reality, the aforementioned interchange about one's recent dining history is really just a way of saying, "Comrade, I care about your well-being, as you are my comrade." The answer of "yes" is really just the logical way of saying, "Thank you for your concern, comrade. I am fine." Thus, in a lot of ways, by not saying yes, it's like not thanking them for their concern.
***After new marriage laws were introduced in China (like in America with the institution of no-fault divorce laws), some young people now jokingly substitute Li le ma?, "Have you divorced yet?"
On Marriage
That new twist on the question may be a joke, but for every joke, I believe there's a half-truth in there somewhere. There seems to be numbers to back this one up: In 1998, the number of marriages in China for that year was 8.9 million, with a divorce rate of 1.9% (not bad compared to the U.S., eh?), but just four years later in 2002 the number of marriages decreased sharply while the divorce rate remained about the same. Fewer are getting married and more are getting divorced, basically. Some say that Beijing and the other large cities are going through a "sexual revolution", which started with the onset of the Opening and Reform movement of the 1980s. Its extremes, however, don't resemble that of the American one of the 1960s. This is a little more innocent. We're talking about going from Cultural Revolution times - where you could hardly tell the difference between a woman and a man (all wore the same blue-gray Mao suit and had short hair) and could be punished for a putting a hand on your wife's shoulder - to now being allowed to hug or peck your high school girlfriend on the cheek in a public park. As for Frank and me, we generally try to err on the side of respecting the beliefs of the over-30 crowd with regards to public displays of affection (which, in China, is a far cry from what is defined as PDA in America). We draw enough attention as it is down in the old-Beijing-style neighborhood where we live. It's astonishing, too, that we can't convince some people that we're actually married. They continually think that I'm confused about the Chinese words for husband and boyfriend. Every time, they refer to Frank as my boyfriend. Maybe because these days, married at 23 is all too uncommon. More likely it's because not too many months ago, a couple had to present their government-recognized marriage license before even staying in a hotel, much less renting an apartment together. I feel like I sometimes get winks/looks from people, like, "Riiight... he's your 'husband'... I see."
As in most countries, we see mostly the younger adults taking advantage of this new freedom - in the parks, on the sidewalk, on the bus, in a restaurant booth. In reality, there's no true privacy, even for married couples, since many family members live in one unit. These budding youths and twenty-somethings can't exactly go back to one of their homes and smooch in the one-room flat while grandma and grandpa are reading the newspaper. They must prefer complete strangers as their audience.
Even as the acceptance of divorce is quickly growing (remember there's no true underlying religious ideology so there's less of that kind of social stigma attached to it), the number getting married is decreasing, too. Maybe my old Chinese roommate, Small Round Egg, is part of the increasing trend when she says she never wants to get married. The main reason, she says, is that she's never met a boy who treated her the way she feels she should be treated. I've seen the so-called (or rather, not-so-called) standards of treatment of women here, and let me tell you, the bar isn't raised very high. Released just last week from a 3-year study, an admitted 38% of husbands across China say they regularly resort to abuse/violence to settle an argument. A whopping 68% of Chinese men and women see nothing wrong with that. I rarely see any form of chivalry. For example, they usually don't even take their wives out with them - see just large groups of men in restaurants drinking baijiu, a local spirit that can have two functions, other than the obvious quick intoxicant (not to mention that it's about $.20 per bottle) - 1) it's used as gasoline in small engines such as lawnmowers or motor-powered bicycles, and 2) it's dispensed as traditional medicine to cure pretty much any stomach ailment. Out on the sidewalks where the retirees pass the days away, there are hardly any mixed crowds. Most of the time, the women sit on the stoop and chat/gossip (where one time I heard comments on how scantily the young girls are dressing these days - oh, all the world over, women will be women!) while the old men play chess or cards and attend to their birds. I must say, though, that even as I observe the lack of chivalry between man and wife, I see far more filial piety than I've ever witnessed in Meiguo (America, or "The Beautiful Kingdom). Grown children taking their aging parent(s) out for a stroll or paying for a large part of their retirement is expected here. No matter the reason, whether out of a sense of duty left over from the remaining Confucian influence (likely the case) or out of just plain love (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt), adult children consider it an honor to take care of their parents.
Chivalry may be the least of wives' concern here: adultery is the worry de jour. I have two students, both well-educated businesswomen, who say that it is an accepted and well-known truth that every big-city man has one wife and one mistress. Except for theirs, of course.
Small Round Egg's sentiments are true for a few young ladies that I know, and with all of this in mind, I can't say that I blame them. This is why any king of guy from anywhere in the world can come here and date/marry waaaaay out of his league. We see foreign men here all the time that are not-exactly-eye-candy with a Chinese beauty draped over his arm. Even if the foreigner has three or four Chinese girlfriends at once, I don't know that the girls terribly mind because each one gets treated better than how one typical Chinese man would treat her. I struggle with not judging these men immediately because I know that for every 10 sleezes out there taking advantage of these Chinese girls, there's one who's in a devoted relationship. Even our Ayi wants us to find her daughter an American husband because the ratio of Christian women to men in China is about 2:1, and her chances are better of finding an American one than in high-populated China.
From what Frank and I have observed from our friends here, we think that their ideas of family life are quite peculiar, to say the least. Take this couple for example -- We know a young Chinese couple that work for the CBA (China Basketball Association). She was college-educated in Oregon, and he is a part-time model (we see his face plastered across billboards, mall entrances, and sides of buses). What we've come to figure out is that, after marriage, their living situation didn't really change (like many young marrieds here) -- she still lives with her parents and he with his. On weekends, he comes to stay with her family.
One of my students, an executive with Mars (he brings us endless supplies of M&Ms and Dove, which Frank shows no self-control over and can polish off a carton in a few days), hasn't slept in the same bed with his wife in more than ten+ years. He has been relegated to sleep in the room meant for his daughter, and his wife and daughter sleep in the big bedroom together.
Husbands and wives also don't share the same last/family name (I can't say "last" name here because their first name is their family name). When a woman gets married, she keeps her father's family name, and if she has children, they take her husband's name. Like I mentioned earlier, in Beijing, it's not uncommon for parents and their adult children and grandchildren to live together in the same apartment (or hutong, a imperial courtyard-type layout that sounds more appealing than it really is). Times are changing, though, and for the up-and-coming middle class city-dwellers, there seems to now be an understood length of time that the young marrieds live with the parents, as they are trying to become financially secure in order to get a place of their own (wanting to move out and cut the filial ties is a fairly new phenomenon, as capitalism has hit - everyone wants to own more things of their own). However, the situation reverses when a grandchild enters the picture. The grandparents move in with their children (or child, I should say, with the one-child policy settling the old issue of which child to move in with). In fact, this is how Frank and I have our apartment now - our landlord and her husband moved in with their son to take care of the new grandbaby while its parents are at work. They told us that they are using our rent money to buy a new vehicle for the whole gang. When D. Olasky was here visiting us, he commented on the number of older people (meaning 55+!) out in the parks compared to Cambodia's youth playing out in the streets. That's because the middle generation are unseen, hidden during the daytime in office cubicles, construction sites, and factory plants. By and large, their child is left for the grandparents to raise. So the thought goes, the grandparents have been around longer and are thus wiser than the parents to raise another citizen of the Middle Kingdom (even though couples now generally wait until their mid-30s to bear a child). On any given day it's amazing how many grandparents we see out with their pre-K grandkid on the sidewalks, in the stores, at the park. Both parents work. The stay-at-home-mom is a foreign (literally) idea to them (possibly a remnant from communist thought that there's no difference among the sexes? - that females naturally are better nurturers may not be the consensus here). New mothers, however, get at least a 4-6+ month mandatory break from work. One of our American friends here from California and his Chinese countryside wife just had their first, and this is how it was described to us (and I have confirmed it with my female students). For the first 30 days after the delivery, she and the baby are not allowed to leave the home. Her girlfriends and her husband take complete care of her as she stays bedridden in order to give her body time to heal and give the baby time to build up its immune system before seeing the big world outside. In more traditional families, the new mother's mother is not even allowed to see the mother during that time -- it's brings bad fortune (in various forms) to the family the next X number of years.
Another example of a strange-to-us marriage/family situation is that of a waitress at the Muslim restaurant across the street (serves Frank's favorite, KungPao chicken). Zheng Ping is just like many young people from the countryside that come into Beijing and commit to work for a year or so in any odd job so they can in order to save up money and then return home for their family to live on that plenteous sum for a few good years (other examples include some painters we hired or repairmen that come in to fix something atleast once a week). This waitress friend of ours and her husband work in different restaurants that are far apart in the city. They get to see each other once every two+ weeks. The danwei, or "work unit" controls their life. The restaurant worker here is very much unlike that of a waitress in the US of A. You leave no tip (or tax, for that matter). Their meager wages (about $70/mo.) include housing and food -- all the workers live at the restaurant and eat at the restaurant. When Frank and I are there late at night (around 9:30), it is an amusing sight to see the all-under-25 group of cooks and servers filing out of the back into the main area for mealtime. All these boys in white paper chef hats in their white stained uniforms are so excited to get to eat. The true comradery is evident. The xiaojies (female waitresses) usually eat together at their own tables, too. At nighttime at most restaurants after closing around 12, they push all the tables together, put sheets and blankets on top, and sleep for a wee number of hours before they get up to start chop-chopping again. They are like a family - in fact, that is their family, for a while (or longer for others). There are also ranks within the family group. Before the restaurant opens for lunch or dinner each time, they all stand outside in uniform (looking perfect for the inspection by their work unit superior) in perfect military formation while their superior shouts chants to be repeated at the top of their lungs. The chants are of the usual propaganda type: "I will serve my restaurant...[insert: clever remark]..."
________________________________________________________________________
One time Frank and I were at our favorite Korean restaurant around 2:30 in the afternoon (when no one else was eating), and we were having an unusually hard time getting service. Outside, all of the workers were participating in, what we call, "the war of the restaurant workers". Near our apartment, there is a street lined with restaurant after restaurant, and each restaurant danwei was competing for the championship title. The passers-by on the sidewalk had stopped to see what was going down, (as curiosity often gets the best of them here), and a crowd had already gathered to watch as each team was doing its final warm-ups. The relay games were similar to that of an elementary school field day competition, with a little 'restaurant' twist to it. One relay, for example, had the workers carrying a round serving tray with a half-full glass of pijiou (beer), a jug of beer, and a single-stem flower in a vase. Holding the tray at shoulder level, each participant (a mix of male and female) had to scurry down to the end and touch the white tape on the ground with their foot, turn on a dime, and scoot back to hand the tray off to the next guy, all without spilling any of the contents (else, seconds would be added to the final time). Each team took their turn separately (about eight altogether) and was timed by the three officials (press cards and all), and the winner of each event was announced and posted on a big board to keep tally as to who was in the lead for the grand prize.
Frank and I, after finishing eating, joined the crowd on the sidelines. Usually the waiguoren (foreigners) are immediately noticed, but with all the commotion, no one seemed to really notice us until.... Frank, in between a relay segment, jumped out of the spectator line and into the open space between the lines and proceeded to act like he was one of the participants - holding up a flat hand like he was carrying a tray over his head, turning at the end (a little wobbly), all the while gaining more and more cheers, claps, and whistles from the common onlookers. "Jia you" was heard all over (Go, Go!) for his 20 seconds of fame. I was so proud of him.
Sunday, May 30, 2004
Funny Signs (of English Translations)
- Waiting Will Be Prosecuted
- Give me your love, and I will make you peel at home
- Star-rated toilet: Issued by Beijing Tourism Administration
- Beware of people
- Please keep chair on position and keep table cleaned after dying. Thanks for your cooperation.
- (Spotted on grocery store aisle) Caned Fruit, Caned Vegetarian & Dried Meat Floss
- 100% Discount Store
- The civilized and tidy circumstance is a kind of enioyent
- (posted on the outside door of a men's restroom) Maleman
- (posted by a sink) Stretch your hands
- (on a price tag) 20¥ uncomplimentary
- To protect cultural, relic no carving - In order to keep fit, no spitting
- Carefully slip and fall down
- Carefully fall to the river
- (on our pepper shaker) Be careful to pollution on your table
- Notice of Take Staircase: (1) Fasten armrest by order, please don't ambulate in staircase (2) Children and old folks take staircase ought to accompany by keeper (3) Please don't resort and disport at passageway (4) Strictly prohibit bestride the armrest (5) Bicycle don't take the staircase (6) Don't protrude the tartness and keenness out the staircase
- (posted near Beijing city moat) Get worried when tasting excrement
- Beware of missing foot
- (at ATM) Cash Drowning Machine
- (at a Confucius temple) Confusion Temple
- Fuk Man Road Public Toilet
- Nice to live. Pay attention to safety.
- No striding!
- The zone of no smoking
- Engine room is serious place
- Sincerity and Fairness Law Office
- Little grass is smiling slightly, please walk on the pavement.
- Protect a piece of green leaf and dedicate a share of love.
- (on dry-cleaning bag) Bespeak as to stature civvies
- Caesarean Palace Hotel
- Be sterilized
- Rear end collusion. Keep space.
- Take notice of safe. The slippery are very crafty
- New acheivements of economic comic construction
- (on menu) Stir Fry All Over the Country: Silver basin water bowl fish [cannot try], Merit husband woollen blood is prosperous [cannot eat]; Loud oil eel pasties; Fragrant hot crispy chicken gizzards
- (on tea bag) Do not wet with water
- (at airport) Luggage disembowel unit
- Don't fling from hight
- Civilised traffic starts at home
- (seen on a railway station sign - the Chinese meaning, 'to direct any questions to the proper security guard') Question Authority
- (from the back of a pack of peanuts) Made with advanced international equipment. How to use: Unseal the bag, take away the deoxidizer, then can be eaten and better eat it up as quick as possible. The best food to go with presents and convenient touring food.
Monday, May 24, 2004
Trees, Birds, and the Government
Back when Frank and I had bicycles (in the last three months, we've had SIX BICYCLES stolen!), riding around in the early spring weather was sort of a breath-stopper (and not for its beauty, though springtime here is actually quite gorgeous - there are gardens and flowers everywhere). For about three weeks the air was filled with these ping-pong sized white furry fuzzies floating through the air that would get sniffed up into my nostrils or the sucked into the back of my throat. Wanting to breathe again, I would hack (with my mouth, which could still be done while riding) or blow (through my nostril, which could not be done while balancing two wheels in traffic -- done the common way, this is accomplished by holding the un-clogged nostril down with one finger and giving one big thrust of air). Beijing's still-polluted air was even more loaded with extra particles with these things flying everywhere. What are they? Catkins from the female willow and poplar trees. The government's solution? Well, take this example. I am doing sit-ups out in the park one afternoon, and as I am laying back, I see these two older men standing on top of the equipment behind me holding what looks like go-go-Gadget arms with claws reaching up into the trees and plucking the buds from the branches of the overhead willow and depositing each one into a bag held in the other hand. I sit up and see that there are sackfuls of these things around them. Yes, the government has set up what we may liken to a 5 cent glass bottle return ploy in Maine. The men (women, children, dogs, whoever) bring their bags of buds in to a certain location, and they are paid in return. What genius. This tactic is not new to China, however. During the Great Leap Forward into communism (1958-1960), an example of the fervor of this period is Mao's indoctrination of the large population against four pests: flies, mosquitoes, sparrows, and rats. People collected bags of flies, which were then counted individually by Mao's dispatched officers, who then would be considered for a promotion within the commune.
The trees in Beijing, for the most part, are relatively new. A massive campaign for the re-planting of most of the trees in the capital began in the 1960's. What lead to it is this: In the preceding decade Mao ordered that sparrows be put on the aforementioned hit list of natural pests to be exterminated as China made its Great Leap Forward [GLF]. This was another of Mao's agricultural tips that fared poorly. He decreed that farmers make a concerted effort to hunt down and kill each and every sparrow. Pots and pans were banged day and night until sparrows dropped exhausted from trees. In actuality, the sparrows were eating insects which lived on the crops. So the farmers were in fact slaughtering one of their few allies in the battle for pest control. Once scientists finally had their pleas heard, the remaining sparrows were given a reprieve. But the pests and other insects became more and more of a problem, and pesticides were seen as the only solution (and now, the pollution). Recent environmental studies show that the sparrow's deadliest enemy now is Chinese farmers' haphazard and extravagant use of pesticides, including some banned in other countries. Pesticides, however, aren't the only enemy of sparrows - hungry city-dwellers and country-side folk alike feast on, what they consider "a crunchy, rustic snack," according to a local newspaper. "The public can understand that, say, swans or black neck cranes are precious, but sparrows or crows aren't seen as special, so why not eat them?" she [a Chinese environmentalist] said.
Besides an overpopulation of insects (that killed plants and trees) and then the resultive overproduction of harmful and unregulated pesticides (that killed plants and trees), a few other reasons exist for the loss of trees during that time period. A major one is that during the GLF, Mao proclaimed that China would surpass Britain in steel production. Tens of thousands of small, backyard furnaces were built across the country, producing iron billets from both scrap metal and useful items (pots, pans, door hinges, etc.) that were so inferior as to be useless. Deforestation, resulting from cutting trees for fuel, had disastrous environmental consequences. A second major problem that lead to the loss of the trees is the widespread malnutrition and famine that struck in 1959 that lead to 20-30 million deaths (due to several things: diversion of labor to the steel production, inaccurate economic planning, poor weather). People were reduced to eating tree bark, leaves, and grass.
To ensure that the now-30-year-old trees continue growing with sufficient water, sunshine, etc., Beijing controls the weather. Yes, that's right. It is a whole new branch of meteorology. According to a recent city weekly, "China's work on weather modification has made great strides in preventing and fighting various disasters as well as developing the resources of clouds and water in the air." Experimentation started in 1990, when frequent draughts caused a water shortage. "The technology of artificially modifying weather in the forms of artificial rainfall, hail and frost prevention as well as rain and fog dispersal has been widely used to prevent disasters." With over 30 provinces and 30,000 'weather modifier technicians' participating in playing God, it is quite a concerted effort to make sure that all the equipment (rocket-powered missiles, rocketlaunchers, 2,123 aircraft - which handle the bulk of artificial rainfall work, and over 6,790 anti-aircraft devices -- used in hail prevention and artificial rain) is properly coordinated. Who knew? Thus the Chinese can always plan accordingly on what to wear or bring with them, if they just watch or listen to the weather forecast. There is no 80% chance of rain here - only 100%. Yet Frank and I are still the only ones out on rainy days without an umbrella.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
