As per my previous post, I'm back to life in Beijing. Let me first apologize for my site being down Friday afternoon to evening Beijing time (morning to afternoon EST). As I was experimenting with some new scripts, I accidentally deleted my main page and it took some time for me to remember just exactly how to fix it. But hopefully everything should be working fine now. Anyway, as I was walking down the street the other day, I saw something that reminded me just how different manners are in China. I know I've mentioned this before, but I thought I'd shed some more light. In America, if you were to noisily hoc up mucus from your throat and then spit it into the street in front of crowds of people, you'd be considered rude (at the least). In China, however, it's part of day to day life. Yeah, it's still disgusting, but you get used to seeing it. So, back to the story - walking down the street I saw a fairly old man (maybe 60's, 70's), in one swift motion, inhale a good dose of Beijing's polluted air, place a finger to his right nostril, closing it, gently tilt back his head, and throw his head slightly forward, cleanly expelling a large glob of snot a good few feet in front of him. Disgusted yet? Well, that answers the question of what people did before Kleenex and handkerchiefs, and provides a basic view of the ancient Chinese art of the snot rocket.
Friday night, I went out to dinner with the two Laoshis (teachers) who went on our Yunnan trip with us, and the rest of our group. We took the bus maybe 20 minutes or so to a Xinjiang (Western Chinese Muslim) restaurant, which was delicious. Afterwards, a few of us went to Houhai (the back lake, in central Beijing where I ice skated earlier in the semester). We tried to sit in a jazz bar, but as it was still early, there wasn't any live music yet, so we went to another bar and listened to another band play. After a stop at a bakery and a DVD shop, we hopped in a taxi and headed back to school.
Saturday, we decided to head back to Houhai, to explore some Hutongs (historic alleyways) and do some more unique shopping. I bought a cool pingpong t-shirt for a hefty 98 kuai ($14), unhagglable, and found another store with great handmade kites, story scrolls, and crafts. Saturday night, we had planned to go out for all-you-can-eat sushi, so nine of us met at 6:00. We headed over to the Japanese restaurant (which evidently was not the popular one), and sat down. The price was 65 kuai per person for "all-you-can-eat", which we clarified with the fuwuyuan (waitress), who said in Chinese "Order what you want, if you want more, order more, just don't waste food." So, we ordered a ton of food for the 10 of us, and waited. And waited. We got a few of our appetizers, but no sushi. After about an hour, we finally got a few pieces of sashimi, of which the salmon was nearly frozen. So, we went and complained about the speed and the quality, and they said they'd bring things out a bit faster. By around 7:45, after we'd complained a few more times, they brought out two pieces of sushi (a tuna roll and a cucumber roll). So, at 8:00 we were still extremely hungry and extremely pissed off. So, we asked them to at least bring us some rice. They then said that they were out of rice, and we'd have to wait another 20 minutes. So, we waited. And waited. After 20 minutes, still no rice. So, by 8:45, as they again brought us frozen sashimi, we told them to forget the rice. During the whole evening, we had been threatening to leave. So at that point, after almost 3 hours, slightly worried about getting arrested, we called our RA to make sure it was legit to walk out. We told him the story, and he said, just pay what you feel is necessary and then leave. So, we left 310 kuai out of the 595 kuai that it would have been for all-you-can-eat, and walked out fairly quickly. Of course, about a block down the road, two of the fuwuyuans came running and yelling after us. We walked another block with them at our heels and called our RA back. He said to stay where we were, that he'd come and work it out. So, we stopped. And the fuwuyuan said they were also calling someone. A minute later, one of the other fuwuyuans came running down the street with the chef and one of the army policemen in camo, arguing with us in rapid Chinese (of which I did my best to participate in). But finally, after another 10 minutes, Steve, our RA arrived with the Contemporary Issues RA, Dan, on their bikes, out of breath, and hopped off to the rescue, calmly discussing with the chef. He told us to leave, that it would be easier to deal with--so we did. And the fuwuyuans tried to stop us, but they worked it out. In the end, he ended up calling the Laoban (owner) and discussing it calmly, and finally having them agree to forget the situation. So, we bought both RAs some cookies, and made them a nice card to thank them.
Since I'm registered with the US embassy in Beijing, I get emails of US government advisories for Asian travel. Yesterday, I got one telling me to stay out of Tibet, and any areas where Tibetans live, including all of the locations on my recent Yunnan trip. So, while I feel for the Tibetans, I do hope that the situation gets resolved in one way or another, since I really want to continue on my trip in June.
Sunday morning, I woke up early to take a tour of the Hutongs (historic alleyways), which turned out to be mostly a complete waste, since we didn't visit any actual Hutongs, only a buddhist temple and a famous writer's house. Later in the day, as I procrastinated my homework, I got pulled into a spur of the moment badminton match, and then went to dinner. And now, as I continue to procrastinate by writing this entry, I'm thinking maybe I should really start studying for tomorrow's quiz. So, I guess that's it. (Still working on getting pictures from Yunnan up--the internet's really really slow here).
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