3 of 3 - Inner Mongolia: Sand, Grass, and Crowded Trains

I suppose I really do need to start catching up with my posts or I’m really gonna be behind.  Let me start where I last left off.  Three weekends ago was the IES Beijing Do-It-Yourself (DIY) weekend.  This is basically a three day weekend during which time they encourage you to plan and go about your own travel in China, providing you with Y1000 per person (after the fact) if you organize all of your receipts correctly.  While Y1000 is really only around USD140, it does go a long way for travel within China.

I had decided earlier on in the semester that I wanted to go to Inner Mongolia, the part of Mongolia currently held as a province of China.  So, I put a trip together and ran it by four of my friends (Matt, Rona, Mae, and Alba).  The plan was this: three cities in three days—focusing not on the cities themselves but the nature and sites around the cities, using them only as bases to get to other places.  Before we left, my teachers told us that they thought we didn’t have enough time for the trip and still make it back for class on Monday morning (we didn’t get any money from IES if we were late on Monday), but I remained confident.

So, Thursday evening after classes, we headed to the Peking Airport for our 9:00 flight to Baotou (only about an hour away by plane).  I had made reservations for a hotel for Thursday night via text messages in Chinese.  The five of us arrived at the Baotou airport only a little bit tired, but ready for an adventure.  Despite the fact that the airport is only 2km south of the city, all of the taxi drivers refused to use their meters instead asking Y50 (anything under 3km should be Y6 in Baotou).  We finally determined that we had no other choice, since it was 11 pm by that point.  What’s more since there were 5 of us, we had to take two taxis.  Before I go on, let me just thank IES for planning this trip on the weekend of May 1^st, a Chinese national holiday.  We got to our hotel in no time at all, only to find that they had no rooms.  We discussed with them for a few minutes, showing them the text messages and asking them what they wanted us to do.  They told us that the text messages had been from a staff member in the cafeteria, and therefore they weren’t responsible for it (WHY SOMEONE FROM THE CAFETERIA WOULD BE MAKING ROOM RESERVATIONS, I DON’T KNOW!!!).  They offered us a suite for about three times more money than we were willing to pay.  Seeing that we were desperate, they finally offered to call around to other hotels to see if they had availability.  After a few minutes on the phone, they told us that there was a hotel about 15 minutes away by foot that confirmed they had a few rooms, but couldn’t promise anything.  So, we walked in that direction and finally found it.  They had two rooms available for us, so we checked in and settled down just before midnight. 

The next day we woke up at 7:30am and ate breakfast at the hotel, before heading to the train station.  The plan was to get train tickets to Hohhot for that evening and bus tickets to the city closest to the desert for that day.  Unfortunately, the train station only had standing-room tickets for the train to Hohhot.  We discussed it, and agreed that since it was only a two hour train-ride it would be okay.  At the bus station we were hounded by local drivers offering to take us to the Resonant Sand Gorge (our desert destination) for a fairly high price, claiming that we wouldn’t be able to get taxis from the bus station in Daqi (the city closest to the gorge).  We found it very hard to believe that there  wouldn’t be taxis, so we took our chances and went with the bus.  An hour later, at the Daqi bus station, we found that we had chosen well, since there was a lot full of taxis waiting to take us. We arranged a price with two drivers and set off further towards the gorge.

The Resonant Sand Gorge, according to Lonely Planet China is “a slice of the Sahara dropped into the Inner Mongolian grasslands…,a section of the Kubuqi desert with sand dunes up to 110m high,” so-called because of the sound that the sand is supposed to make when you step on it (we didn’t hear anything).  In any case, the Resonant Sand Gorge is a desert area with many fun activities in addition to just enjoying the desert itself.  So, after stealing five pairs of brightly colored shoe-coverings, and grabbing a quick lunch, we ascended the gorge by foot (there was a chair-lift, but we’re too lihai [hardcore] for that, or maybe just too cheap).  We decided to first go for a 30-minute camel ride up to an outpost a bit away into the desert and then back.  Then, we broke IES policies (which state that we’re forbidden to operate motorized vehicles in China) by going for an ATV (all-terrain vehicle) ride over the dunes.  I had never ridden an ATV before, and besides the time that I went too fast, got stuck, and had to push, it was a lot of fun.  Finally, after fully enjoying the desert, we went sand-sledding back down into the gorge (definitely a fun sledding experience), before heading back up to the entrance to head back to Baotou.  Arranging all of this transportation was especially difficult since we needed to have official receipts for everything in order to get refunds from IES.

The restaurant that we had planned to eat dinner at in Baotou had still not opened, so we took a walk, found another restaurant, emptied the sand from our shoes, then headed to the train station for the standing-room only ride to Hohhot.  Standing-room only turned out not to be that bad.  We were able to sit on our bags, and get reasonably comfortable.  About an hour in, I was approached by two Chinese girls, asking if they could practice their Chinese with me, and offering seats to my friends and me if I agreed.  So, I agreed, and we went and talked with them for the remaining hour.

We had arranged to stay at a hostel in Hohhot, run by a Mongolian man named Zorigoo, for two nights.  When we arrived at the train station, Zorigoo’s friends and three Australian girls (also staying at the hostel) were waiting there to greet us.  We walked to the hostel, and settled in.  Anda Guesthouse, was really just an extra apartment, but was cozy enough.  They had Mongolian tea waiting for us upon our arrival, and we talked a bit with them before arranging a trip with them to the grasslands for the next day and then going to sleep.

There were 6 American, British, and Australian people, all currently teaching English in China, also staying at the hostel.  So, in the morning, we all headed north towards Xilamuren (the location of the grasslands closest to Hohhot).  On the grasslands we had a traditional Mongolian breakfast and lunch, and walked down to a dried-out lake.  The grasslands are called the grasslands, because in the right season all that you can see for miles and miles in any direction is the grass and the sky.  We knew before we went on this trip that it wasn’t the most ideal time to visit the grasslands, since the green season had just begun.  As such, the grass was minimal, but the feeling of nothingness was still the same.  On the lake, one of our hosts showed us how to Mongolian wrestle, and I gave it a shot with one of the other visitors (I won…).  Then we decided to go horse riding.  Because the family that we were visiting only had 3 horses, one of them rode over to a nearby family to have them bring more horses over.  We went riding for an hour up to a hill, which was a Mongolian holy site, and then back to our starting point.  Somehow I managed to pick the fastest horse.  Instead of letting me figure this out for myself, one of the Mongolian guys rode next to me the entire time.  I was a little annoyed since I didn’t really feel like I was leading the horse, even though we were in front of everyone else.  So, I told him in Chinese, “you know, I’m from America.  I’m a cowboy.  I ride horses all the time.  No worries.”  That, of course, didn’t work.  So, I rode with this Mongolian man and talked with him.  He asked me where America was.  I wasn’t quite sure how to answer, since he obviously didn’t have a great grasp on geography, probably never having left the grasslands, or maybe only having gone once or twice into Hohhot.  I told him, “you know that big sea next to China?  The Pacific?”  He said, “I’m not sure.  I may have seen it on television once.”  I said, “well, it’s really, really, really big.  Much bigger than China.  And if you cross that sea, you’ll get to America.”

That night we returned to Hohhot, and had ate at a Mongolian restaurant before walking around for a while and heading back to the hostel to rest.  When we got back to the hostel, we played with Zorigoo’s 10 year-old son, who insisted on telling us a ghost story in Chinese.  Of course, the power went off in the middle, which actually gave it some weight.  Then we took the opportunity to play in the dark, before going to sleep for an early departure for Datong in Shanxi province.

The bus to Datong was an early one, and took five hours.  We got in around 11:30 am, and went immediately to buy our train ticket back to Beijing.  Remember how I complained about IES having scheduled this trip on a holiday weekend?  Well, here’s where it matters.  When we got to the train station, we were informed that everyone and their mothers were trying to get to Beijing, and there were no more seats on any of the trains.  There were, however, standing tickets.  But this was no 2 hour ride from Baotou to Hohhot—this one was 6 hours in the middle of the night.  We quickly ran to the bus station to check if they had any seats.  They had few seats on the next bus out, but that wouldn’t give us enough time to go see the Yungang Grottoes (the first Buddhist carvings in China).  So, we took a vote, and opted to buy the standing tickets for the train, holding out hope that, just like our Baotou to Hohhot trip, we’d have room and be offered seats for speaking English with someone.

Our tickets in hand, we went and got lunch before making the one hour trip out to the grottoes.  The Yungang grottoes were very impressive, and worth the visit.  The Buddha statues carved into the hills were gigantic towering through their caves.  While we were there, we were even approached by a probably 80-some year-old woman to sign a petition for Taiwan’s Independence.  Not quite sure what to do, my friends signed “Harry Potter” and “J. Hancock”, knowing that this was probably not the best document to have our names on.  On the way back to Datong, we stopped to walk up through a mining village to search for Mongolian beacon towers and a piece of the Great Wall.  When we reached the top of the hill above the mining village, we realized we’d climbed the wrong hill, seeing a gigantic beacon tower and a piece of the Great wall over on a neighboring hill (but at least we saw them). 

Back in Datong, we ate dinner and headed back to the train station.  Our train was schedule to leave at 11:30pm.  When it finally approached, and it was our turn to board, we thought that there would be no way.  People were literally hanging out of the door, and inside there was not even enough room to lift an arm. If anything, I’m playing down the situation.  I turned to the train attendant and asked, “how do we get on?”  Her response was: “Push!”  So, we did.  We pushed and pushed, and were pushed, and just as our last group member made it into the mess, the train started off.  For the first 15 minutes, we thought that we were going to die.  Six hours in this situation would have been enough to make all of us go insane—even sardines would have felt uncomfortable.  No air-conditioning, no space, no comfort whatsoever.  Fortunately, we were able to keep pushing and find an aisle with not too many people (meaning while I still couldn’t lift my arms, I could at least put my bag down.)  So, we did our best to stand.  A couple hours in, it started to clear out a bit more as we hit more train stations, and a few people offered to let us sit while they went for smokes.  Then, one of my friends found a small corridor, which was a bit cooler and more spacious.  So, we migrated there, and tried to get some sleep.  Of course, each time that somebody passed (which was probably at least every five minutes), they woke us up, even if they could have stepped over us.  This was probably one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life, but it was a true China experience.  We got into Beijing at 4:40 am, tired, sore, and glad to be back. 

 

 The next weekend, I went on an overnight trip to the Great Wall.  We drove two hours from Beijing out to Jinshanling, from which point we spent the day hiking towards Simatai.  Some great views and good inclines, made the hike a good one, and we made it to our destination, a village just beyond the Great Wall at Simatai, in the late afternoon, in time for dinner.  The night was cold, especially since I had woken up late, and forgotten to pack long pants.  But our hosts started up a couple of bonfires, and set off some fireworks to keep us entertained.  Since we planned to get up at 3:30 am in order to hike to the highest part of the Great Wall in China to see the sunrise, we headed to bed early, sleeping four people per bed.  The morning hike was difficult since the incline was fairly steep and it was still dark.  We made it up to the top in time, but the weather was such that the sun didn’t rise.  A lot of people were upset, but it was still a fun time.  We headed back down for breakfast, as it started to rain, and then boarded the bus back to Beijing.  Unfortunately, what should have been a two hour bus ride turned into a 6 hour bus ride, since the roads were closed because of a bad accident.

I'm alright...

I just wanted to write a quick note in light of the current situation in China.  I am okay.  The effects of the earthquakes on Beijing were minimal, and although some people did report feeling the tremors, I didn't notice them.  Life goes on in Beijing as usual.  However, the sentiment of Beijingers towards the devastation of the earthquakes is probably much the same as where you are: one of dismay and helpless remoteness.  One of my teachers' families lives in Sichuan (the province hit directly by the quakes).  She has as yet been unable to contact them, since the telephones are still down.

I am in the middle of writing final papers and preparing for final exams, which is why I've yet to tell you about my trip to Inner Mongolia and my overnight stay and hike at the Great Wall.  What's more, I was not surprisingly told about a month ago that my trip to Tibet had been canceled.  Since then I have been working to put another trip together myself, and had just about finished working out all of the details when the earthquakes hit.  Since a good deal of my planned travel was to take place in Sichuan and surrounding areas (including towns directly at the epicenter of the earthquakes), I have to go back to the drawing board to figure out Plan C.  What's more, with little more than a week left in my study abroad program, I'm rushing to figure out my travel, spend time with my friends, see all those sites I forgot to see, and buy all those last minute souvenirs.  So, I'm busy. -- But okay.  (Now, back to my 3000 word sociology paper...)

2 of 3 - Shanghai: Out of the sea and back to reality

POST 2 of 3 – (last week)

When I said that I had gone to play capture the flag last Sunday, I actually meant two Sundays ago.  I’ve been extremely busy with classwork and planning travel.  The Friday before this past Friday, we had to write and perform a play instead of having a test.  Ours, which I’d rather not discuss the topic of (J), was fairly good.  I played a Chinese mother/owner of a brothel, and won the prize for best actor (as well as doing fairly well in the best actress category too).  That evening, I headed to the train station with 6 of my friends (coincidentally all girls: Persephone, Cory, Alba, Rona, Mae, and Fei), for a self-determined long weekend trip to Shanghai.  We arrived around 10am on Saturday morning, and headed to our hostel.  I had booked the hostel (Koala International Youth Hostel) online, and it exceeded my expectations.  Despite the fact that it was a cab ride away from most of the interesting places, the rooms were great, with private bathrooms (better than most Chinese hotel rooms I’ve stayed in). 

While some of the girls went shopping, I went with two of my other friends exploring the touristy area near the river known as the Bund.  Shanghai, in contrast to Beijing, is a western-style city, and it feels more like a city you’d find in the west than in China.  We walked down a popular shopping and tourist street called Nanjing Lu, being called to from every direction by street salesmen holding small pictures of products that could be obtained after following them to another location, “Watch, T-shirt, DVD?!?”  Then, on the recommendation of a friend, we took a “ride” called the sightseeing tunnel.  Expecting it to be interesting, we were disappointed and a little upset to see that our ridiculous 40 kuai ticket had bought us no more than a light show and a way to the other side of the river.  We ascended to street-level to find the Oriental Pearl Tower, the tallest tower in Asia and 3^rd tallest tower in the world.  After looking around for a while, we walked back down to river, and walked around a little before heading to the subway and back across the river to go to the Old Town.  Later, we went back to our hostel to get dressed up before heading out for a nice dinner and night on the town.  We went to a Morrocan/Middle-Eastern themed restaurant and bar in the park next to the Shanghai Museum, where we met up with my friend Persephone’s friend who is studying in Shanghai and 10 of her friends.  The dinner was expensive, but that’s Shanghai.  Then we walked down to the Bund to go to some clubs.  The first club, which supposedly had a great view, also happened to have a really high cover for guys.  So, my friends said they’d only go up for 10 minutes to check out the view while I went across the street with two of the other guys we were with for a beer.  (Of course, I forgot that when girls say 10 minutes they actually mean an hour.)  An hour later, they showed up at the bar, and we had a few more drinks before heading to a techno/house club on the other side of town, complete with lasers, glow sticks, and fairly sketchy dancers.

The next morning we headed back to the old town, ate local specialty foods and explored a park.  Afterwards, we headed back to the other of the river.  While some of the group, went up the Oriental Pearl Tower (I was dismayed by the 150 kuai ticket price), I went for a walk with my friend Alba to a large and upscale mall and then down by the river.  The mall was filled to the brim with western stores and prices, as well as a skating park and side Olympic event for children.  (I had a good time playing in Toys ‘R Us for a while.)  Then we hopped the subway back towards the People’s Square to look for a market.  After walking around for a pretty long time, we met up with the others for dinner.  Once it got dark, we walked back to the river and bought tickets for a boat ride.  Meanwhile, my camera had been acting up all day, and a lot of my pictures didn’t come out properly. 

On Monday, while the others went to the Shanghai Urban Development Museum, Alba and I went over to the French Concession (a largely French-influenced area with parks and shopping).  We walked around for a while and then headed back towards the museum area to meet the others at the Shanghai museum.  Then, we all went down to the Bund and bought kites from street vendors, flying them for a while by the river before cabbing it back over to the hostel and then to the train station for our return to Beijing.  The soft-sleeper cabin that we had on the way back was really nice, and we got into Beijing on Tuesday morning just in time to be slightly late for our 8am class.

With our Do-It-Yourself (DIY) weekend approaching, we spent Tuesday night making phone calls, reservations, and plans.  On Wednesday, I went to Zhongguancun (a big technology area near my school), to try to get my camera fixed and to look at new ones.  Since it was purchased in America, they wouldn’t fix it.

Whatever the case, they had pushed our weekly test to Thursday since we had off on Friday for the DIY weekend, and I needed to go back to school to study and pack.

1 of 3 - Busy Times in Beijing

POST 1 OF 3 – (this one’s a couple weeks behind—I’ve been very busy.)

One more week down.  Last Sunday I went with a bunch of friends up to the Old Summer Palace to play Capture the Flag.  For any of you who don’t know how the game works, you basically split up into two teams, divide the playing area into two parts (one for each team), give each team a flag, and then each team individually hides their flag, sets up a prison area, and goes to work trying to both protect their own flag and capture the other team’s flag.  If a member of the opposite team crosses into your team’s territory, you can tag them and then bring them to your jail, until they’re set free by a fellow team member.  The Old Summer Palace area extends in the Northwest of Beijing as a series of archaeological parks and lakes.  In the back, however, the main site of the Old Summer Palace is contained within a fence, probably slightly larger than a football field and has many pits, pillars, crumbling ruins, trees, and Chinese tourists.  You can image, therefore, how amazing it would be to play capture the flag there.  Besides the extensive hiding areas and the natural obstacles, the Chinese tourists just made things all the more fun, whether it was trying to blend into their groups to sneak over to enemy territory, or chasing the other team through a large group of them, and seeing the fear and surprise on their faces as two big white people lunged past.  Anyway, after a few rounds, we decided it was time to pack it in, so we headed over to the Kro’s Nest for some pizza.

On Tuesday night, I sat and watched my friends play Mahjong for a while, until I picked up the rules, and then tried my hand at it.  Having played gin rummy growing up, I took to it naturally, and really enjoy playing.  On Wednesday, I was woken up by my RA at 11:30am, telling me that we were leaving in 10 minutes for Houhai to film their Chinese class project, which I had forgotten I’d promised I’d help them with.  So, we spent the day at Houhai.  They were required for their fifth year Chinese class to make a 30-45 minute movie on any topic.  The basis of their movie was an ancient Chinese philosopher named Zhuangzi, who was famously quoted having the following discussion (roughly): 

                Zhuangzi says to his friend by a lake, “Look at those fish, they are truly happy.”  His friend replies, “You’re not a fish, how do you know what makes fish happy?”  Zhuangzi replies, “You’re not me.  How do you know I don’t know what makes fish happy?”  And so on.

Anyway, their idea was to have Zhuangzi at Houhai (a fairly touristy area), searching for happiness.  So, naturally when they thought about who to have play Zhuangzi, I was their first choice (?).  We basically spent the entire day walking around asking people in Chinese if they knew what happiness is, and if they were truly happy.  Once Emily, my RA, put it together, it was really an amusing and impressive film, and if I manage to get a copy, I’ll put it up.  On Friday, they screened it in their class.  So, I skipped part of my class’s activity to go watch.  Later that day, I tried to do some work.  The weather was nice, so I went outside with my computer to sit by the small store near our dorm.  It might have been very nice, but a little boy came running over as soon as I’d turned on my computer, and sat next to me, randomly pressing my keyboard.  He also took the liberty of pulling out my headphones to see what I was listening to, which he said in Chinese was “bad to listen to”.  While he was very cute, I did have to get my work done, so I apologized to him and headed into a café.  After a few hours I went with a few friends to eat hotpot down the road.  I don’t remember if I’ve given a description of hotpot, though I did mention going to an all-you-can-eat hotpot restaurant earlier in the semester.  Anyway, hotpot is a Chinese specialty in several different regions, including Beijing.  The basic functioning of the meal is that there is a big pot of water and seasonings in the middle of the table on a built-in stove.  The water boils and they bring you raw meat and vegetables to your specifications, which you then put in the water to cook.  They also give you sauces on the side, which you can use for dipping.  We got a big pot, with half regular water and half spicy water, and ordered a bunch of meats and vegetables.  (Definitely much better than all-you-can-eat hotpot.)  Then, we headed to an all-you-can-snack/drink tea house to play Mahjong.  We played for a couple hours, until they came over to us telling us that we weren’t allowed to play Mahjong out in the open, because they assumed we were gambling, and if the authorities came in, they’d be fined.  So, we switched to Chinese poker before heading back to campus.

On Saturday, I went on a trip to the Great Wall at Jiankou.  Jiankou is not the usual touristy Great Wall experience, and in fact, it is off limits to tourists (we had special permissions).  There has been very little efforts to preserve the Great Wall in this area, so rather than a nice walk or hike, the trip becomes a brisk hike and climb, and can be fairly dangerous-going at times.  (I accidentally displaced a rock while descending one portion of the wall, which jettisoned down towards another group and almost took out a man’s leg before shooting through one of the look-out windows—fortunately, it just missed him.)  We got back to Beijing just in time for me to get dressed up and head to Chaoyang for the first night of Passover and a Seder with the Beijing Chabad.  The seder was held in a nice hotel just north of the embassy district, and the guests managed to fill the ballroom.  I sat at a table with a friend of mine who’d gone with me, two men from America who were in town for the International World Wide Web Conference, and an Israeli expat who was working in Beijing.  It was nice to be among so many Jewish people, and only a little disconcerting to hear them all speaking English.  Since it was a Lubavitch service, it was long and traditional (besides the additional reading of the Four Questions in Chinese).  While I didn’t feel that I would be able to keep to the Passover kashrut laws as closely as I would at home, I devised my own system that would have me make an effort without starving me.  I also ordered some food from Chabad, which helped to hold me over.

The next morning, I woke up early for a badminton tournament.  The tournament, which was held at the Beijing Normal Studies University, was an all-IES Beijing doubles double-elimination tournament.  I partnered up with my Chinese teacher, Zhang Laoshi, and we won our first match and lost our second.  We were on our way to winning our third game (two more wins after that would have put us in the finals), when we looked over and so Xiao Zhao, the head Chinese teacher, with whom I went to Yunnan, on the floor.  Evidently, she and her partner had collided, and her ankle at twisted the wrong way.  One person went to get ice, while someone else looked for a taxi to go to the hospital, and the older calligraphy teacher (who is a very interesting man), Fang Laoshi, used Chinese pressure points to keep her from fainting in shock.  When the taxi finally arrived, Fang Laoshi carried her over, and I followed, realizing that no one would be at the hospital to help her when they arrived.  So, while the others went back to the tournament, I rode with her and our other teacher, Lu Laoshi to the hospital.  Chinese hospitals are not like American hospitals.  The nurses do not take care of you like they do in America—family and friends are expected to attend to the sick (even during long-term stays).  We spent a couple hours there, having her leg inspected then carrying her back to the waiting room, then over to the radiology room for X-Rays.  It turned out that her bone was fine, but that the surround tissue had been torn.  The doctor said she shouldn’t walk at all for a day or so, but that she would be back on her feet in about a week.  So, we hopped another taxi, and helped her up to her apartment before returning to school.

***MORE POSTS COMING VERY SOON***

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.