Beijing Biking and Government Crackdowns

What I thought would be an easy week turned out to be anything but.  Monday was my friend Cory’s birthday and Tuesday was my friend Alba’s birthday.  So, Monday night we went out to dinner for Cory’s birthday, followed by a trip to Haagen-Dazs.  On Tuesday, we had a field trip with my Chinese class to a middle school, at which time we talked with the kids about the single-child policy in China and whatever other questions we or they might have had.  Later that night we went out for a nice sushi dinner in Wudaokou for Alba’s birthday, followed by some time at Lush (a nice bar) and some dancing at Propaganda (a club).  The next day (Wednesday—my day off) I realized that I’d caught a cold, so I spent the entire day sleeping.  On Thursday, we had a field trip with my Sociology class to a different middle school, which was evidently the most elite middle school in Beijing.  We observed for two hours.  It was actually quite an interesting experience.  The class seemed fairly normal, besides the fact that all of the students seemed to be paying attention, no one raised their hands (all yelling out instead), and classical music would randomly come through the PA system.  Then, all of the students in the first year at the middle school (over 600 students in all), exited the school onto the field and lined up perfectly performing stretching and jumping exercises in synchrony to music and numbers being played through the sound system, getting faster and faster for over a half an hour (yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi ba… and again, and again).  While they were doing their exercises, we went exploring and found a gigantic zoology exhibit with real stuffed animals, including a giraffe.  All encased in a museum style glass case on the first floor of the building and organized by a computer system that would explain all the animals and reproduce their sounds.  They told us that the exhibit had cost over 2 million yuan.  The school was entirely government funded.

Later that day we received an email from our program director, informing us of police crackdowns in Beijing.  With the Olympics less than four months away, the Chinese government is getting more and more serious.  Evidently, the police had arrested over 30 foreigners in Sanlitun (the preferred expat bar area), including at several bars and clubs frequented by IES students, for inability to produce proper ID (meaning that they didn’t have their passports on them).  The police then released a statement saying that all foreign students are required to carry their passports and student IDs at all times.  We were encouraged to stay away from Sanlitun and to make sure that we had proper identification at all times.  Furthermore, the Chinese government has stopped issuing work visas and has closed the visa loophole through Hong Kong and Macau, making it especially difficult for people to get into the country on anything but a short tourist visa, or to leave and come back. 

On Friday, a few of my friends (all girls) talked me into going with them to a clothing market above Wudaokou about 30 minutes or so by bus.  When we got there, however, I discovered that it was entirely women’s clothing.  So, I decided to go for a walk.  Since I hadn’t been paying attention on the bus, I wasn’t really sure where I was.  Therefore, I decided it would be a challenge to try to find my way back to school on foot.  Two hours later, I made it back to school, having walked a few many miles, and making some great discoveries along the way.  (I was excited to find a TGIFriday’s!)

This morning, Saturday, I woke up early to go on a bike tour of Beijing.  I rented a bike for 10 kuai and, we set out south east from Campus towards the city center with Fang Laoshi, the calligraphy instructor and long-time Beijing resident.  Riding bikes with traffic in Beijing was certainly an interesting experience and Fang Laoshi told us lots of stories along the way.  After passing Sizhimen, we stopped for lunch at a traditional Beijing snack restaurant.  Then continued down through the city, passing through Hutongs and streets till we reach Houhai, then back up around towards school.  The whole ride, including lunch, took about 6 hours.  I said at the time, when I ride my bike around my neighborhood in New Jersey without a helmet, I get yelled at by random parents “Put on a helmet!!!” etc.  If only they could see me riding through Beijing without a helmet, cutting across a large street between a bus and a truck, against traffic, through a red light.  (Don’t worry, mom.  I finished without any wounds—besides the whole in my jeans caused by the friction of the bike seat.)

Tomorrow afternoon we’re heading up to the Old Summer Palace for a game of capture the flag, followed by dinner at the Kro’s Nest.  My time here seems to be running short and I’m in the midst of planning several trips including a weekend trip to Shanghai, a long weekend trip to Inner Mongolia, an overnight trip camping out on the Great Wall, and trying to figure out what I’m doing in place of Tibet, since I’m assuming that 1) my trip will either be cancelled or changed and 2) I may have trouble getting back into China for my return flight (given the current visa problems).  So, we’ll see.  I’m sure it will all work itself out, and in the meantime I’m having an amazing time.

By the way, I’ve split this post into two parts: the first about my trip to Anyang, below, and this one about everything after that.  I’ll work on getting all of my new photos up soon too!

Anyang or Bust

I left off with my last post before my trip to Anyang last weekend.  We arrived at the train station with just enough time to quickly buy snacks and run to our train car.  IES was nice enough to schedule our long-weekend trip on Qing Ming Jie (Grave Sweeping Day), a Chinese holiday when many people return home to pay respect to their deceased relatives.  So, the train was mobbed.  We set out at 6:45 in a cramped and stuffy train car.  I spent the long train ride opposite a man who worked as an engineer for Siemens in Beijing.  Fortunately, (though I wouldn’t have expected otherwise) we had seats.  Chinese trains often sell standing-room only tickets, and the aisles were full with people who stood for several hours until they reached their destinations.  We got into the Anyang train station at around 11:20, and walked outside to the usual banter of taxi drivers crying “Hello!  Welcome!” (in English).  Our hotel, in what can best be described as downtown Anyang, was reasonably nice with complimentary Internet, a waterfall shower, and clean sheets.  The next morning, our tour-guide, Asher, gave us an introduction to the city.  “Anyang,” he said, “is a small city of only 6 million people.”  By contrast, Philadelphia has less than 1.5 million people.  He was right, of course.  Even though Anyang has almost 6 million (registered) residents, in addition to who-knows-how-many migrant workers, it was a small city—not at all metropolitan, no nightlife, not too many sites, and a fairly walkable central city area.  He next told us that we were lucky, that since Anyang was currently in a competition to win the title of the Cleanest City in Henan Province, the city was cleaner than usual.  That wasn’t saying much. 

Our first day, we set out to an archaeological site to listen to a short lecture about archaeology in the area, to visit a museum, and later to dig.  Anyang had been the seat of power of the Chinese empire throughout the Shang Dynasty and sub-Shang Yin Dynasty, up until the Zhou Dynasty.  It was also the birthplace of a famous general during the Song Dynasty, and had been constructed as a city during the Ming Dynasty in 1386 CE.  As a result, Anyang is a treat for archaeology and history enthusiasts alike.  Anyang is also considered to be the birthplace of Chinese writing, and the museum had many examples of how characters have developed from pictographic representations to their current forms.  After lunch, we returned to the Yin Dynasty archaeological site and started our dig.  While it was an interesting experience, I was slightly disappointed with the archaeological dig.  I’ve always loved archaeology, but this dig wasn’t real.  While last semester they had sent the group to a real site in the field, and they had found an actual child’s sarcophagus from the Shang Dynasty, this semester they put us in an area under a temporary overhang that had been examined for quite some time.  They obviously didn’t expect us to find anything of value, but just to make sure, they told us that whatever we found we could keep, so long as it wasn’t jade or bronze.  I found several pieces of pottery, and one of my classmates found 3 large pieces of a pot.  At one point, a local television station came through and interviewed one of my friends and myself (I was there more for moral support).  I also found a piece of petrified wood, an animal bone, and possibly a piece of human bone.  When we were getting ready to leave, however, the leader of the site came through and said to leave now and not take anything with us.  I looked at my tour guide, who whispered, “Clean them out.”  So, I grabbed all of the items I’d found, and pocketed them.  We then saw them kicking the rest of our artifacts back into their holes, and re-covering them with dirt.  It turns out that later that day they were having an important visit from a Taiwanese group, and they wanted it to be easy and look good.  So, in the end, I was the only one who made it away with my artifacts, and then, after a little more exploring the grounds, we headed back to our hotel for free time.

On Saturday, we got on the bus and set out on the 2-hour ride to Linzhou City, in the mountains.  There, we explored an area called the Red Flag Canal and the Youth Tunnel.  Again, since it was Qing Ming Jie, the place was mobbed, and what we had hoped would be a nice hike, turned out to be slow crawl up the stairs of the mountain.  (Chinese hikes always involve stairs.)  The Youth Tunnel was extremely narrow, and difficult to pass through with my bag, but overall not too bad.  When we reached the top of the “mountain,” we encountered a lot of local school groups.  All the children starting screaming “Laowai” (foreigner) and “Waiguoren” (also means foreigner), so we took some pictures with them, and me being the smart-ass that I am would say “Nali you?  Laowai zai nar?!?” (Where are there foreigners?!?).  Crossing a long cable bridge between two peaks with a sign that read “Maximum 50 people”, and which clearly had many more people on it, we arrived at the start of what claimed to be the “longest one-way (?) slide in China.”  (I have no doubts).  They gave us an extra piece of cloth to put on our pants to avoid rips, and a pair of gloves to slow ourselves down if we thought we were going too fast, and we set out.  It was definitely the longest and best sliding experience I’ve ever had (J). 

Next we drove to Taihang Canyon, and hiked through the very nice scenery for an hour or so, after which time we drove to a small lake and paid to go play on the water in giant inflatable balls.  They told us that if we were able to use the balls to walk on the water 20 meters, they would give us 50 kuai, 20 meters and back, 100 kuai, or if we fell less than 2 times during our 10 minutes, they’d give us another ten minutes free.  What looked like an easy task proved to be extremely difficult.  As soon as we hit the water, we fell.  Also, standing up was quite difficult, and you quickly became tired.  Still, it was definitely a fun experience.  That night we headed back to Anyang, and after dinner, played cards and drank a bit in my hotel room.

The next morning we found out that our 1:30 train had been rescheduled for 7:30, and so they’d planned a few extra activities and some free time for us.  We first visited a historic site that had been built as a prison for one man during the Shang dynasty, but which was more of a temple than anything else.  Besides Chinese fortune-tellers, because of the sites relation to the ancient Chinese book, I Ching, the highlight of this stop (for me at least) was a giant labyrinth.  Upon entering the maze, they told us that if you were able to complete it in less than 15 minutes you are very smart.  (I finished first in just under 14. J)  It was quite fun, though most people gave up and waited at the end, escaping through small exit holes in the walls.  Next, we went to the Anyang cultural center, where we learned to do Chinese paper-cutting and got to play with clay.  I made an elephant, which a small girl destroyed after I walked away.  Later, during our free time, we walked to a huge pagoda in downtown Anyang.   Many  large pagodas, but the one in Anyang is one of the only ones that you’re permitted to ascend.  So, we went to the top, and took some pictures.  Then, got some food and headed to the train station to return to Beijing.  The train back to Beijing was especially nice, since it was new.  Therefore, there were no people in the aisles, the seats head plenty of leg room, and the bathrooms were nice.  So, I pulled out my computer and played games for a while before intending to study for my dictation quiz the next morning.  While I was playing Mario on an NES (Nintendo) emulator, I noticed that I had a new friend (a 10-year old boy) standing over my shoulder watching.  So, I played for twenty minutes or so, talking with him at the same time.  He was from Beijing, and had been traveling for the holiday with his parents.  Once my battery ran out, however, I told him I was going to study, and then he went back to his seat.  A half an hour later, however, he came back and I talked to him for about an hour and a half in Chinese (figuring that real conversation was more important than my dictation quiz anyway).

Peking Duck and... wait, seriously? 14 chapters for the midterm?!?

It’s been a while since my last post.  Classes and other stuff have really been keeping me busy.  The weekend before this past weekend, I went on a field trip with my Sociology class.  We first visited an NGO affiliated with the People’s University of China, which serves to improve the quality of life of migrant workers in Beijing.  Then, we took a bus trip out of the city to a migrant worker community, where we walked around the old factory areas, had some talks about migrant life, and then visited a school for migrant children.  All in all, it was a very interesting experience.  The next day, I had intended to wake up to circumambulate (walk all the way around) the second ring road as an optional program activity.  If I haven’t mentioned it already, Beijing is connected by a series of five “ring” roads which encircle the city, with the Forbidden City at their center.  In any case, a long night on the town on Saturday night, and forgetting to set my alarm clock, found me sleeping until three in the afternoon on Sunday.  So, after eating a jian bing for “breakfast”, and feeling like I should still walk somewhere, I headed out on my own away from the city.  The next thing I knew, I was on my way to the Golden Resources Shopping Mall (as I mentioned in an earlier post, the second largest mall in the world)—not really out of any great desire to go to the mall, but really just because I was walking in that direction and happened to realize that it was only three miles away.  Besides, the day was beautiful.  So, I spent some time at the mall, mostly people watching rather than shopping.  Living in China really makes you think about things.  Whatever polarities we find in American society are magnified ten- if not hundred-fold in China.  Perhaps due to the fact that the day before I had just been talking with migrant workers, things seemed especially poignant.  I am continually amazed by Chinese society:  that in one part of the city people are parking their BMW’s heading to the mall to buy a new Rolex, while in another part of the city thirteen year-olds are borrowing older people’s IDs in order to bypass child labor regulations so that they can contribute to their families; that people remain in the dark about such issues as Tibet and human rights; that a completely overwhelming number of people has yielded clockwork inefficiency.

Last Wednesday (my day off), I went with a few friends to 798, the art district in Beijing, where most of the hip and controversial contemporary Chinese art can be found these days.  798 is an old factory area in North West Beijing, and the space is truly suiting to its purpose of an emerging Chinese art scene.  The place still has old factory equipment strewn throughout, and is made up of smaller scattered galleries, several chic cafés, and a larger art exhibit.  Most Chinese people are still very conservative when it comes to discussing sexuality (for example, one of my friends told the story of having been talking with some of our Chinese roommates (all guys), who were working up the courage all night to ask a big question which turned out to be:  “when… did you have your first date?” followed by giggling and a brief awkward silence), so the Chinese art scene really seems to be where you might consider the American art scene to have been in the 60’s and 70’s.  As a result, there are a lot of nude pieces, and a lot of pieces apparently addressing sexuality.  Still other pieces deal with society and human rights.  Many of the pieces were very revealing and interesting, while others just weren’t.  But, I suppose that’s art. 

This past weekend wasn’t overly exciting.  Friday night I went out with some friends to get really good Peking duck at a nice restaurant in Chaoyang (an area in Eastern Beijing).  We had a private room for the 13 of us, and ordered 3 ducks plus several other dishes including roasted eel, a veal stew, and a number of vegetables.  We wanted to get more duck, but we were feeling especially cheap (for such a nice and expensive restaurant), so we left slightly hungry, and a little disappointed at not having eaten more.  The problem about eating dinner in Beijing is that you get used to paying very little for a lot of food.  So, when you go out to an expensive (as in normal priced, if not even slightly cheaper) restaurant, things feel relatively much more expensive.  Our meal cost 100 kuai, which is really only around $14.00—what I might expect to pay for an average dinner in the States.  Saturday night was really laid back.  We headed back to Houhai with the hopes of sitting down at the East Shore Jazz club for some live music.  When we got there, however, the place was packed, so we found a small bar on the end of one of the bar streets, and then did a bit of dancing before heading back to campus.  We’ll have to show up a bit earlier next time for the jazz.

This Thursday will be especially busy.  I have a Chinese midterm from 8:00-12:00, followed by another Sociology field trip at 1:00 (ironically to the Golden Resource Mall), Business class from 3:00 to 4:30, and then we leave at 5:00 for a long-weekend trip.  Among all of this, I’m not sure when I’ll be packing, since I’ve yet to start studying and I still need to do laundry.

We had five trips to choose from for our long-weekend, and I chose to go to Anyang (interestingly the least popular trip this semester).  Anyang has over 3000 years of history as a Chinese city, and was home to prehistoric cavemen.  So, it is one of the centers of archaeology in China.  Anyang, which is in Henan Province about 300 miles south of Beijing, is a “quick” train ride away.  So we’ll arrive late Thursday night.  Friday, after breakfast, we’ll have a brief discussion about archaeology in the area, followed by a few tours around the area, lunch, and then archaeological digging all afternoon.  On Saturday, we’ll having touring and hiking of a mountainous canal area and a canyon, followed by sliding down the canyon on a giant slide, and then playing around on a lake in giant plastic bubbles.  On Sunday, we’ll do some more touring before heading back to Beijing on Sunday night. 

Next week shouldn’t be too bad since we’ll have just finished with our midterm (which, unlike our Chinese midterms at school that cover about 5 or 6 chapters, covers a very nice 14 chapters—we do a new chapter each day… no seriously).  Besides a badminton tournament on Tuesday, it doesn’t look too bad.  Anyway, I should probably start studying the 14 chapters for my midterm, or maybe do some laundry for my trip.