Dec. 15
I spent 6 months living in India.
For the past 4 months, I’ve been living in China.
Tonight, for the first time, those two worlds collided.
Now, I’m so culturally disoriented.
Last week, I made an excursion to Nanjing’s main mosque to join the city’s Muslims in celebrating Eid al-Adhr I figure, I’ve gotta get my winter holiday fix somehow, and Christmas isn’t looking promising (but rather even more nauseatingly commercial than its become in the states but with out that quintessential Christmas charm on the sidelines). So when a Uighur acquaintance mentioned this celebration at the mosque, I was determined to attend and see how Islam as it’s practiced here in China differs from what little I know of how it’s practiced elsewhere around the world.
Apart from the sacrifice of a giant ox, the thing that surprised me the most was the international nature of the crowd that gathered in the mosque that morning. Many worshippers were from Xinjiang in the country’s upper West corner. Also, making up the majority of the congregation, were many members of the Hui minority, one of China’s largest minorities and also one of the most spread out in terms of the area they populate; what ties this group together is not a common culture, language, or land, but rather Islam. But not only did the crowd include people from far-flung corners of China: after the prayer service finished and the ox had been sacrificed in commemoration of the Prophet Abraham’s noble spirit of sacrifice, I made a number of new acquaintances from around the globe, a diverse assortment of North Africans, Middle Easterners, and Europeans. Among them were Iranians, Algerians, Lebanese, Moroccans, French, and Yemenis.
Pakistanis, too. One of the people I met after the prayer service finished up was Mehdi, an international student from Pakistan studying mechanical engineering at one of the many schools here in Nanjing. For a brief spell before the bus left to take him and a crowd of other Pakistani students back to their campus, we enjoyed the atmosphere of Eid al-Adhr together and reminisced about some of the things we miss about South Asia. We both mentioned the food, of course, and when I asked whether there were any places to get authentic Indo-Pakistani food here in Nanjing, he answered, “Yes.” I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Taj Mahal Restaurant near Xinjiekou, a commercial district within walking distance of my current home, exists. I was even more pleasantly surprised when Mehdi insisted that he’d take me for dinner there sometime. That sometime turned out to be tonight.
“Sister, Salaam Alaykum!” Mehdi’s text message the previous evening read. “If you are free, we’ll have dinner together tomorrow night at the Taj Mahal. Meet me in the Xinjiekou subway station at 7 o’clock sharp. Allah Hafiz, may Allah protect you.”
Even before the precise point of 7 PM, Mehdi and his friend Said (also Pakistani, but “His Auntie is living in Chicago,” Mehdi explained right away as a way of establishing a connection) had arrived in the station from their campus a good 30-40 minutes away. We greeted each other with warm greetings of “Salaam Alaykum” in the cool winter air (I won’t yet say cold: Nanjing winters are nothing compared to Chicago winters with biting winds, below zero temperatures, and several substantial dumps of lake effect snow per year), and continued on our merry way to the Taj Mahal. We strolled along the streets on the fringes of Xinjiekou, a commercial center in the city (and as such, sufficiently decked out for Christmas), and spoke of our studies and stories of being international students in Nanjing and more about what we miss about South Asia. Our mutual longing for South Asian food was about to be satisfied.
As we approached the Taj Mahal, I could smell the distinct spices of Indian cuisine before I spotted the restaurant itself. The delicious aroma intensified once we went inside, finding the atmosphere akin to that of an average Indian restaurant you’d find in the States. There must have been a significant proportion of the city’s Indian residents gathered inside, enjoying, like us, the food and surroundings of a part of Asia that on a map seems so relatively close but in every other regard seems so far. There were also a number of Chinese patrons, many of who seemed to be trying Indian food for the first time.
I left it up to Mehdi and Said to order, as they are true connoisseurs of the cuisine while I’m just an enthusiast. In the end, inadvertently, without ever having mentioned any preferences, off of an extremely extensive menu that must have had over 200 selections, they ordered 3 things that I myself would have ordered (saag paneer, chicken tikka, and garlic naan), plus a mutton curry, more of a Muslim favorite. Our server brought out a basket of sweetened popcorn with a selection of chutneys, the only significant difference I noticed between this place and an Indian restaurant in the U.S. or India, the only trace of Chinese flavor that seemed to infiltrate the doors of the Taj.
For the past many months, I’ve grown to love Chinese cuisine (just about as much as I love the flavors of Indian food, I thought) and have eaten it happily every day for every meal for the past 4 months, without once eating or even craving Western cuisine. But when the exquisite taste of saag paneer and Indian spices touched my tongue for the first time in too long, I was instantly transported back to India, my other Asian home away from home. Oh, India. A place, so I rediscovered tonight, equally close to my heart as China. And oh, Indian food. A heavenly combination of flavors even more attuned to my palette than Chinese food.
Indian tastes on my tongue, Hindi and Urdu (for the most part mutually comprehensible) being spoken around me, for the first time in months my 2 Asian homes intersected, tearing at my heart for the upper hand. My senses were inundated and overwhelmed. Taste (the food). Smell (the spices). Sight (the décor). Sound (the Bollywood music videos playing in the background and the smooth cadence of languages with contours far different from the tonal Chinese). Touch, too (it’s been so long since I’ve eaten with my hands, and the feel of a piece of nan in my fingers pocketing a dab of curry-and-spice-saturated sauces). All that plus a sort of sixth sense, a feeling of being at home, worked in tandem to transport me away from China and back to India for a brief evening.
After the amazing meal was finished, the uneaten food was wrapped up and taken to go (a pleasant contrast to the Chinese custom of ordering way too much food and letting everything left uneaten go to waste). While we were waiting for the check, Mehdi asked in passing,
“Now what is your father’s good name?”
“Phil, or Philip,” I replied.
“That’s not a Muslim name…” Mehdi exclaimed, seeming confused. “But, wait!”
“That’s because I’m not Muslim, Mehdi!” I said, starting to feel bad for inadvertently deceiving him.
After that realization, his tone took on a slight change, seeming disappointed that I wasn’t the good Muslim girl he’d somehow assumed me to be. “But I thought,” Mehdi went on, “since we met in the mosque that day, on Eid al-Adha, I thought you were a Muslim.”
“Mehdi, my friend,” I said apologetically, “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but a blonde American Muslim is quite a rare find. No, I’m not Muslim. But I have many Muslim friends and have great respect for them and their religion.”
Soon after that awkward yet amusing exchange, the friendly feel of the evening’s conversation was for the most part restored. Still, I think we were both left a bit dumbfounded by the misunderstanding. Mehdi, Said, and I then stepped out of the little pocket of South Asian-ness and back onto the streets of Nanjing. Following farewells of “Allah Hafiz” (“May Allah protect you”), they stepped into a taxi that would take them back to their campus, leaving me to walk home alone. Leaving me overwhelmed by a sense of cultural disorientation.
My feet kicked into auto-pilot mode and took me home on their own accord, my mind detached and seeming to observe the scene from a distance. The street scene in Nanjing that night was a blur of bright colored lights blaring messages in Chinese characters, mixed with a swirl of Chinese faces and store fronts decorated for Christmas. It all felt so unreal, not just superficial but beyond, as if I was watching from afar or from a film. My mind, my spirit, remained suspended above it all, being stretched across all corners of the earth; first and foremost, my two Asian homes away from home. I drifted into sleep that night, my body in Nanjing, my heart stranded in some no-man’s land between China and India, the blanket of night sky a bridge between the two.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Nanjing Massacre Remembered
December 13, 2008
The final sessions of this semester’s classes all past. Exams over and done with. Final research paper submitted, program assessment surveys filled out and turned in, in sum all outstanding responsibilities to the CIEE program that I’ve studied with for the semester taken care of. School’s out for the winter! Today, as my first day of winter break, started off in a carefree way. Despite having no early classes to attend (no more Taichi at 6:30 AM or language lessons from 8 until noon), despite having no need to wake up early, true to my nature and my annoyingly persistent sleeping problem, I woke up with Ayi at the crack of dawn (it’s hard to sleep through the roar of the blender she uses to make a morning thermos full of warm soy milk for the family’s breakfast anyways).
As the family wouldn’t be at home for lunch (my host sister and her mother would be eating at Grandma & Grandpa’s, my host dad having an annual reunion lunch with some of his high school classmates), Ayi didn’t have to start preparing food between 9 and 10 AM as she typically does, so she decided she was going to use her rare afternoon off to get a haircut. “Xiao Laowai (“Little Foreigner,” as she often calls me; while it may sound a bit crude, I assure you it’s not, but a sign of affection if anything), do you want to go get your hair cut too?” Ayi asked, originally as a kind of joke. But I considered, I haven’t gotten my haircut in… perhaps a year. I had no other engagements that morning and had kind of been wanting to experience a haircut in China anyways (I’ve been intrigued all along by the proliferation of barber shops and beauty salons in this part of the city, many rather sizeable and fashionable establishments with bright lights and floor-to-ceiling windows that allow you to look in and see the customers’ new do’s in progress).
“OK, hao ba,” I replied, to Ayi’s surprise. “I could use a haircut too.” Ayi had a coupon from a relative with a recommendation to go with it, so as soon as the supposed opening time got close, we set out on our quest to get a haircut. Arrived at 9:30. “Not open yet. Come back at 10:30,” we were told. So we walked back home to set out again to arrive a bit before 10:30, to beat the crowd (Ayi’s adamant attitude about using this coupon to get her haircut, to arrive early to be first in line, reminded me quite a bit of my grandma…).
While we waited around at home for the appropriate hour, Ma Yujie and I sat drawing around the living room coffee table. Suddenly, sirens started sounding in the distance, their eerie wails echoing across the city on this otherwise unremarkable Saturday morning.
Then, I remembered the date. December 13. This day, and the blaring sirens, mark the 71st anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre, a horrific incident that continues to this day to haunt the collective memory of Nanjing citizens and make many of them still wary of Japanese. The sirens signified the start of the massacre at 10 AM 71 years ago this day on December 13th, 1937. But the horrors still went on for weeks, at the end claiming the lives of an estimated 300,000 Nanjing residents, making the massacre among the worst atrocities of World War II.
An unfathomable bloodbath that brought out the most despicable depths and the greatest virtues of humanity, that claimed an incomprehensible amount of human lives… how did it all start? In the early 20th century, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the abdication of the “Last Emperor” in 1911, China was left a country confused by rivaling factions vying to fill the power void and wounded by years of exploitation by those blasted foreign imperialists. Japan, at the time rising in political and economic power like the red sun that still occupies the center of the country’s flag, took advantage of the chaos in China and invaded.
The city of Nanjing played an important role in all of this: in 1928, the Chinese Nationalist government moved the capital from Beijing to Nanjing. At the time the move was made, 80 years ago, the city’s population was around 250,000 (roughly 1/30th that of today!). In the matter of a few years, once the mid-‘30s rolled around, the city’s population had swollen to over 1 million, many of whom were refugees fleeing from the invading Japanese armies. After a drawn-out military campaign that further harmed an already-hurting China, the Japanese took Shanghai on November 11 of 1937. Afterwards, they advanced towards Nanjing from different directions. By early December, the Japan’s troops already had the city surrounded.
On December 9th, a massive offensive began. After 3 days of fighting and heavy losses on the Chinese side, the defending Chinese army pulled out of the city and retreated to the far side of the Yangtze River. On the 13th, 71 years ago this day, once the Chinese army was out of the way, the massacre began. For the following 6 weeks, the occupying Japanese forces engaged in an orgy of raping and pillaging and mass execution that in the end claimed an estimated 300,000 lives and ruined far more.
So that, in brief, reducing 6 excruciating weeks of suffering to a few paragraphs painless to read, is the story of the Nanjing Massacre. The Rape of Nanking, it’s also called, after the title of a book recounting the atrocity in in-depth detail.
Sitting there on the floor beside my host family’s coffee table drawing a picture of a rose for my host sister when the sirens started blaring in the distance, struck me into somber silence the chilling pictures I’d seen during my recent visit to the Nanjing Massacre Museum flashed before my mind’s eye. The rest of the household took pause too, but only for a second (“Oh, that’s right, today’s the anniversary of the massacre,” my host parents commented nonchalantly), and then went back about their business. After several minutes more of continuing to color my rose with an unsettled heart while the sirens still sounded, the time came for Ayi and me to head out again for our haircut.
Out on the streets, the city seemed to mirror en masse the response I’d found at home. People chatted and smiled and laughed and went about their normal business as though they were deaf to the wail of the sirens. By now, I guess, after 71 years have passed and the people of Nanjing have gotten used to this annual memorial, that kind of reaction is understandable. But to this newcomer to Nanjing, the haunting song of the sirens was rather harrowing and struck me into silence while they echoed across the city for what seemed like at least an hour.
After that unsettling walk back to the hair salon, still no luck: we arrived to find the lights still off and the doors still locked. But there was someone home: a chubby man sprawled out on the waiting room couch covered by towels. Ayi, adamant about getting her haircut, knocked on the door, and woke him up. After being told that it would still be a good hour and a half before people proficient in cutting hair would—maybe—arrive, Ayi proceeded to wait two hours before finding out that her coupon had expired and giving up. I gave up much sooner and returned home to write.
The final sessions of this semester’s classes all past. Exams over and done with. Final research paper submitted, program assessment surveys filled out and turned in, in sum all outstanding responsibilities to the CIEE program that I’ve studied with for the semester taken care of. School’s out for the winter! Today, as my first day of winter break, started off in a carefree way. Despite having no early classes to attend (no more Taichi at 6:30 AM or language lessons from 8 until noon), despite having no need to wake up early, true to my nature and my annoyingly persistent sleeping problem, I woke up with Ayi at the crack of dawn (it’s hard to sleep through the roar of the blender she uses to make a morning thermos full of warm soy milk for the family’s breakfast anyways).
As the family wouldn’t be at home for lunch (my host sister and her mother would be eating at Grandma & Grandpa’s, my host dad having an annual reunion lunch with some of his high school classmates), Ayi didn’t have to start preparing food between 9 and 10 AM as she typically does, so she decided she was going to use her rare afternoon off to get a haircut. “Xiao Laowai (“Little Foreigner,” as she often calls me; while it may sound a bit crude, I assure you it’s not, but a sign of affection if anything), do you want to go get your hair cut too?” Ayi asked, originally as a kind of joke. But I considered, I haven’t gotten my haircut in… perhaps a year. I had no other engagements that morning and had kind of been wanting to experience a haircut in China anyways (I’ve been intrigued all along by the proliferation of barber shops and beauty salons in this part of the city, many rather sizeable and fashionable establishments with bright lights and floor-to-ceiling windows that allow you to look in and see the customers’ new do’s in progress).
“OK, hao ba,” I replied, to Ayi’s surprise. “I could use a haircut too.” Ayi had a coupon from a relative with a recommendation to go with it, so as soon as the supposed opening time got close, we set out on our quest to get a haircut. Arrived at 9:30. “Not open yet. Come back at 10:30,” we were told. So we walked back home to set out again to arrive a bit before 10:30, to beat the crowd (Ayi’s adamant attitude about using this coupon to get her haircut, to arrive early to be first in line, reminded me quite a bit of my grandma…).
While we waited around at home for the appropriate hour, Ma Yujie and I sat drawing around the living room coffee table. Suddenly, sirens started sounding in the distance, their eerie wails echoing across the city on this otherwise unremarkable Saturday morning.
Then, I remembered the date. December 13. This day, and the blaring sirens, mark the 71st anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre, a horrific incident that continues to this day to haunt the collective memory of Nanjing citizens and make many of them still wary of Japanese. The sirens signified the start of the massacre at 10 AM 71 years ago this day on December 13th, 1937. But the horrors still went on for weeks, at the end claiming the lives of an estimated 300,000 Nanjing residents, making the massacre among the worst atrocities of World War II.
An unfathomable bloodbath that brought out the most despicable depths and the greatest virtues of humanity, that claimed an incomprehensible amount of human lives… how did it all start? In the early 20th century, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the abdication of the “Last Emperor” in 1911, China was left a country confused by rivaling factions vying to fill the power void and wounded by years of exploitation by those blasted foreign imperialists. Japan, at the time rising in political and economic power like the red sun that still occupies the center of the country’s flag, took advantage of the chaos in China and invaded.
The city of Nanjing played an important role in all of this: in 1928, the Chinese Nationalist government moved the capital from Beijing to Nanjing. At the time the move was made, 80 years ago, the city’s population was around 250,000 (roughly 1/30th that of today!). In the matter of a few years, once the mid-‘30s rolled around, the city’s population had swollen to over 1 million, many of whom were refugees fleeing from the invading Japanese armies. After a drawn-out military campaign that further harmed an already-hurting China, the Japanese took Shanghai on November 11 of 1937. Afterwards, they advanced towards Nanjing from different directions. By early December, the Japan’s troops already had the city surrounded.
On December 9th, a massive offensive began. After 3 days of fighting and heavy losses on the Chinese side, the defending Chinese army pulled out of the city and retreated to the far side of the Yangtze River. On the 13th, 71 years ago this day, once the Chinese army was out of the way, the massacre began. For the following 6 weeks, the occupying Japanese forces engaged in an orgy of raping and pillaging and mass execution that in the end claimed an estimated 300,000 lives and ruined far more.
So that, in brief, reducing 6 excruciating weeks of suffering to a few paragraphs painless to read, is the story of the Nanjing Massacre. The Rape of Nanking, it’s also called, after the title of a book recounting the atrocity in in-depth detail.
Sitting there on the floor beside my host family’s coffee table drawing a picture of a rose for my host sister when the sirens started blaring in the distance, struck me into somber silence the chilling pictures I’d seen during my recent visit to the Nanjing Massacre Museum flashed before my mind’s eye. The rest of the household took pause too, but only for a second (“Oh, that’s right, today’s the anniversary of the massacre,” my host parents commented nonchalantly), and then went back about their business. After several minutes more of continuing to color my rose with an unsettled heart while the sirens still sounded, the time came for Ayi and me to head out again for our haircut.
Out on the streets, the city seemed to mirror en masse the response I’d found at home. People chatted and smiled and laughed and went about their normal business as though they were deaf to the wail of the sirens. By now, I guess, after 71 years have passed and the people of Nanjing have gotten used to this annual memorial, that kind of reaction is understandable. But to this newcomer to Nanjing, the haunting song of the sirens was rather harrowing and struck me into silence while they echoed across the city for what seemed like at least an hour.
After that unsettling walk back to the hair salon, still no luck: we arrived to find the lights still off and the doors still locked. But there was someone home: a chubby man sprawled out on the waiting room couch covered by towels. Ayi, adamant about getting her haircut, knocked on the door, and woke him up. After being told that it would still be a good hour and a half before people proficient in cutting hair would—maybe—arrive, Ayi proceeded to wait two hours before finding out that her coupon had expired and giving up. I gave up much sooner and returned home to write.
A Taste of Two Chinas
Nov. 15, 2008
Until today, what I’ve tasted of the real China—not just sampling the tourist sites—has been more or less limited to city life. Nanjing city life to be specific. My time in China will soon hit the 3-month mark (hard to imagine!), and all this time I’ve been hearing that there is another side to China; that within the borders of this one unified country, there is not one China but two. Thus far, I haven’t gotten a chance to see that second side. Until today.
What do I mean by “Two Chinas?” Well, the borders of China encompass an estimated 1.33 billion people, making it the most populous nation on earth. As a whole, as a giant mass clumped together, that number—1.33 billion (or perhaps more)—is hard to fathom. But China—and the complex mosaic of the 1.33 billion individuals that make up the nation—can be better understood if taken on in more manageable chunks. That huge number can be further subdivided into countless categories, depending on what criteria you use to divvy things up: by dialect, regional variants Putong Hua (Standard Chinese) or separate languages altogether that can be so different as to make it difficult for neighbors living a block away to understand each other; by ethnic group, of which there are 55 main minorities plus the majority Han Chinese in addition to dozens of other groups; by income or economic standing.
One of the most often mentioned and perhaps most stark such division, however, is the line between urban and rural. Several people I’ve met in the past months—from economists to Chinese college students—all point to the gap between China’s cities and countryside as being almost a line separating two worlds: on the one hand, a world of relative affluence, modernization, and Westernization comprised of some 575 million Chinese that occupy the country’s expanding cities; on the other hand, a world virtually trapped in a more traditional time comprised of 755 million, mostly subsistence farmers, that survive on less than $37 per month.
$37 per month. My new job teaching English to Chinese kindergarteners earns me (well, I don’t really feel that I earn it) 200 RMB an hour, which translates to roughly $30/hour. I feel rather guilty about accepting this exorbitant wage, especially considering that I have absolutely no experience teaching children English while my wonderful Chinese tutor—who actually majors in teaching Chinese as a second language while also having quite a bit of tangible experience—earns about 1/8th of what I do. And I wasn’t even searching for a job. As with all my past jobs, a job came to find me. I don’t start until next Tuesday, but its already been confirmed: I can work for two hours and earn over 10 times as much as a typical family in this country’s rural areas earns in a month.
But by virtue of the fact that native speakers of English are in high demand (and a new boss that inexplicably has full faith in my teaching skills), I have this job in China with a salary higher than anything I’d expect back in the U.S. and can earn in an hour roughly 10 times what the average Chinese can earn over a month of hard labor. Back in the 1980’s, it wouldn’t be incorrect (though perhaps politically incorrect) to say that virtually every family was impoverished. With that in mind, in the span of less than 30 years since Chairman Mao’s strict communist economic policies gave way to Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms, the economic situation of the average Chinese has improved by leaps and bounds. Out of an entire population of over 1 billion impoverished citizens, the majority of the 575 million Chinese that occupy the country’s cities, in addition to a few in the countryside too, are now relatively rather well off. That 500 million plus or minus can be considered not only the largest number but also the largest percentage of a population lifted out of poverty in such a short span of time.
Still, that doesn’t mean that the average salary in China has caught up with that of the U.S. Though China comes out second only to the U.S. by some methods of measuring world economies, China’s enormous population must be taken into account. China’s substantial GDP ($2.67 trillion in 2006), when looked at nominally as a lump sum, comes in 4th behind—can you guess which 3 countries?—the U.S. with a whopping $13.2 trillion (although, with the current economic tides, who knows how much longer that will last…), Japan with a respectable $4.34 trillion, and Germany in third with $2.9 trillion. When adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity, however (basically taking into account how far that much money can go, how much you can buy with the price levels in a given country), China can be seen as the world’s second wealthiest nation.
Why this discrepancy? Oftentimes, whichever figure is used depends on the spin an economist or government wants to put on the data. To me (a complete ignoramus when it comes to issues economic), both seem like valid measures. Just take this comparison: these days, with the relatively high cost of living in the U.S., earning $20,000 in a year puts a person perilously close to the poverty line. Here in China, however, $20,000 a year goes a long way. With that sum, a family can live rather comfortably with a car (even a chauffer!), plenty of means to spoil the family’s only child, and a housekeeper to clean and cook and make sure the household’s “Little Emperor” doesn’t get too out of hand.
If the GDP figures are adjusted yet again, this time taking population into account, China falls a bit behind. Per capita GDP even knocks the U.S. (with a per capita GDP of $44,190) out of first place, to be replaced by Norway. From a per capita perspective, China’s economy falls significantly behind most European countries—and weighs in at less than 5% of the U.S. figure—with a per capita GDP of $2001. Looked at through yet another economic lens, that of GDP growth, China pulls back up close to the top: in 2007, the U.S. recorded a rather stagnant rate of economic growth at 2.2%. Japan’s bubble economy burst long ago and last year only grew by 2%. The economies of Russia and India are both growing respectably, at the rapid rates of 7.6% and 8% respectively. What about China? Among the world’s large economies, China is leading the race with an 11.4% annual rate of growth. And that’s without oil reserves or any other significant repositories of resources.
Resources: that’s another economic factor that warrants consideration. Especially a certain resource, something on everyone’s minds these days, a three letter word that’s sure to be a hot topic of the 21st century: OIL. The U.S. is currently the world’s oil hog, guzzling down the incomprehensibly enormous volume of 20,800,000 million barrels per day (and that was back in ’05). The shocking and scary thing is that this number looks like it’s just gonna keep on growing: between 1992 and 2004, the country’s level of oil consumption rose by 22.2%! Lets see how long the country—and the world, for that matter—can sustain that extravagant rate of consumption. Though China’s economy is moving forward at a far faster pace, it is using substantially less fuel to do so: 6,700,000 barrels per day back in 2005. Over that same 12-year span, however, due to the breakneck speed of the country’s development, China’s oil consumption levels showed a horrific 152% growth. For the planet’s sake, I hope China’s doesn’t develop a U.S.-style addiction to oil anytime soon.
The U.S. economic system has recently developed an additional addiction that strengthens its ties to China: cheap labor. There are roughly 755 million people in this country hoping to break into the urban labor markets. The desperation of these rural dwellers and the disparity between their economic status and that of their urban counterparts means that there are a lot of people willing to work for what we in the U.S. would consider a pittance but is often sufficient to support a whole household in the countryside. The masterminds behind multinational corporations (or companies with hopes of taking operations abroad) and large manufacturing enterprises are not blind to this state of affairs and often not averse to taking advantage of it.
Apart from just cheap labor, there are a number of other factors enticing CEO’s to set up a branch in China: international companies can take advantage of the huge (and cheap, and efficient, and industrious, and well-educated) labor market and also sell to China’s huge consumer market while they’re at it. Furthermore, opening up operations here often means less strict regulations and more support from the government. Part of this government support includes an intricate physical infrastructure. During the past few decades, to encourage the country’s economic development, the Chinese government has basically taken the attitude, “build it and they will come”; in other words, use a little foresight to construct roads and airports and railroads and bridges before people will think of using them. Then, once people have reasons to use those routes, its there. This means of improving infrastructure wouldn’t work in just any country, however. It takes that special kind of socialist environment with a lack of regard for private property and political leaders that see no scruples in destroying a few (hundred thousand) homes and displacing a few (million) people in the process. Its rather convenient that no one officially owns anything: “It’s not your house, it’s the People’s house.”
One not so convenient aspect of the communist system here has been a lack of economic incentives, which leads to a rather inefficient production system. Privately owned companies are a relatively new phenomenon here in China: before era of economic reform started in 1978, all enterprises that existed in the country were State Owned Enterprises, or SOE’s. Take the First Auto Group as a classic example: with a population of 250,000 workers and dependents, the First Auto Group is, to this day, the biggest employer in Jilin Province. The company town—or city, more like—built up around the factory contains 23 schools, a hospital, and its own TV station. Job security and benefits are the priorities in a venture like this. Efficiency kind of falls by the wayside: the average employee of First Auto Group produces a whopping 2.5 cars per year (compare that to GM’s 20). Recently, a consulting firm suggested firing 7 in 10 employees to see if that improved the company’s productivity. The suggestion was shot down. Even though there would be no way for such an inefficient enterprise to stay afloat without government subsidies and support, such an SOE apparently can’t go back on its promise of security to its employees.
Though the “iron rice bowl,” a metaphor for the kind of job security that Chinese got accustomed to under Mao’s leadership, has shattered beyond repair, there’s not much more to lose but a lot to gain (from an economic standpoint at least) by following the current trend of privatization. With market forces at work, levels of productivity and profit have skyrocketed and led to an enormous increase in exports ($1.35 trillion in the past year and growing). Just visit any supermarket in the U.S. and you can see the evidence. 92% of Wal-Mart’s products are manufactured in China, after all (gag…).
The trends of privatization, increased production, increased trade: all are factors feeding the formidable machine that is China’s economy. And though is moving further and further away from a socialist-style planned economy, that doesn’t mean that its up to the “invisible hand” of market forces to pull the strings. China’s remarkable economic growth is certainly not due to some blind faith in capitalism. The government has been behind the screen pulling the strings all along. To pull off the kind of economic progress that China has experienced in the past few decades, a government as to do so many things right at the same time. In a sense, contemporary China is being run like a corporation.
Furthermore, many feel that today’s leadership is ideal for the economy. Actually, a recent poll (and this one conducted by a private U.S. polling firm, so its not just some party propaganda) shows that China’s current President Hu Jintao has a 70% approval rating (compared with George W’s 30%, last time I checked). Why is a government that thinks it can get away with bulldozing peoples’ houses—or should I say The People’s houses—met with such favorable public opinion? It’s all about the economy. The recent regimes have been doing things right and, as I mentioned before, have lifted more people out of poverty in a shorter span of time than any other instance in history. The economy here is blossoming. Within days of my arrival in China three months ago, I could feel it. Just biking a few blocks on my way to school, the energy of the expanding economy is tangible.
So how does this fit into the global picture? Well, considering the size of China’s population (and now the size of its economy and the volume of its exports, too) the impact on the world scene is huge. Just one piece of the puzzle: the U.S.’s trade deficit with China has recently reached $201.5 million! In today’s interconnected world, however, economic impact is a two—or multi—way street. Which means that the economic crisis the U.S. is currently suffering through can be felt all the way here in China. While on the one hand China’s economic development is truly tangible, the current global economic crisis is also tangible.
The crunch of the economic crisis was tangible today when I accompanied a Nanjing U student friend of mine on his weekend business excursion and a simultaneous tour of the countryside surrounding Nanjing. To help pay his way through college, Dengfeng works weekends as an itinerant salesman of household appliances. Every weekend, and this one was no different, he makes the rounds to a long list of shops selling his company’s (Haier’s) washing machines, microwaves, stoves, etc. in the city of Zhenjiang and the surrounding area. We set of early in the morning in a company car with a professional driver, stopping at shop after shop to sip tea while Dengfeng talked business with his clients. Without exception, every single one of his clients, the owners of the dozen or so shops we visited that day, complained that business has been unusually bad lately. People just aren’t buying household appliances these days in the way they were in the era before the recent economic crisis. All of the shop owners traced effects back to the U.S. economic crisis. It’s a flat world after all.
Until today, what I’ve tasted of the real China—not just sampling the tourist sites—has been more or less limited to city life. Nanjing city life to be specific. My time in China will soon hit the 3-month mark (hard to imagine!), and all this time I’ve been hearing that there is another side to China; that within the borders of this one unified country, there is not one China but two. Thus far, I haven’t gotten a chance to see that second side. Until today.
What do I mean by “Two Chinas?” Well, the borders of China encompass an estimated 1.33 billion people, making it the most populous nation on earth. As a whole, as a giant mass clumped together, that number—1.33 billion (or perhaps more)—is hard to fathom. But China—and the complex mosaic of the 1.33 billion individuals that make up the nation—can be better understood if taken on in more manageable chunks. That huge number can be further subdivided into countless categories, depending on what criteria you use to divvy things up: by dialect, regional variants Putong Hua (Standard Chinese) or separate languages altogether that can be so different as to make it difficult for neighbors living a block away to understand each other; by ethnic group, of which there are 55 main minorities plus the majority Han Chinese in addition to dozens of other groups; by income or economic standing.
One of the most often mentioned and perhaps most stark such division, however, is the line between urban and rural. Several people I’ve met in the past months—from economists to Chinese college students—all point to the gap between China’s cities and countryside as being almost a line separating two worlds: on the one hand, a world of relative affluence, modernization, and Westernization comprised of some 575 million Chinese that occupy the country’s expanding cities; on the other hand, a world virtually trapped in a more traditional time comprised of 755 million, mostly subsistence farmers, that survive on less than $37 per month.
$37 per month. My new job teaching English to Chinese kindergarteners earns me (well, I don’t really feel that I earn it) 200 RMB an hour, which translates to roughly $30/hour. I feel rather guilty about accepting this exorbitant wage, especially considering that I have absolutely no experience teaching children English while my wonderful Chinese tutor—who actually majors in teaching Chinese as a second language while also having quite a bit of tangible experience—earns about 1/8th of what I do. And I wasn’t even searching for a job. As with all my past jobs, a job came to find me. I don’t start until next Tuesday, but its already been confirmed: I can work for two hours and earn over 10 times as much as a typical family in this country’s rural areas earns in a month.
But by virtue of the fact that native speakers of English are in high demand (and a new boss that inexplicably has full faith in my teaching skills), I have this job in China with a salary higher than anything I’d expect back in the U.S. and can earn in an hour roughly 10 times what the average Chinese can earn over a month of hard labor. Back in the 1980’s, it wouldn’t be incorrect (though perhaps politically incorrect) to say that virtually every family was impoverished. With that in mind, in the span of less than 30 years since Chairman Mao’s strict communist economic policies gave way to Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms, the economic situation of the average Chinese has improved by leaps and bounds. Out of an entire population of over 1 billion impoverished citizens, the majority of the 575 million Chinese that occupy the country’s cities, in addition to a few in the countryside too, are now relatively rather well off. That 500 million plus or minus can be considered not only the largest number but also the largest percentage of a population lifted out of poverty in such a short span of time.
Still, that doesn’t mean that the average salary in China has caught up with that of the U.S. Though China comes out second only to the U.S. by some methods of measuring world economies, China’s enormous population must be taken into account. China’s substantial GDP ($2.67 trillion in 2006), when looked at nominally as a lump sum, comes in 4th behind—can you guess which 3 countries?—the U.S. with a whopping $13.2 trillion (although, with the current economic tides, who knows how much longer that will last…), Japan with a respectable $4.34 trillion, and Germany in third with $2.9 trillion. When adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity, however (basically taking into account how far that much money can go, how much you can buy with the price levels in a given country), China can be seen as the world’s second wealthiest nation.
Why this discrepancy? Oftentimes, whichever figure is used depends on the spin an economist or government wants to put on the data. To me (a complete ignoramus when it comes to issues economic), both seem like valid measures. Just take this comparison: these days, with the relatively high cost of living in the U.S., earning $20,000 in a year puts a person perilously close to the poverty line. Here in China, however, $20,000 a year goes a long way. With that sum, a family can live rather comfortably with a car (even a chauffer!), plenty of means to spoil the family’s only child, and a housekeeper to clean and cook and make sure the household’s “Little Emperor” doesn’t get too out of hand.
If the GDP figures are adjusted yet again, this time taking population into account, China falls a bit behind. Per capita GDP even knocks the U.S. (with a per capita GDP of $44,190) out of first place, to be replaced by Norway. From a per capita perspective, China’s economy falls significantly behind most European countries—and weighs in at less than 5% of the U.S. figure—with a per capita GDP of $2001. Looked at through yet another economic lens, that of GDP growth, China pulls back up close to the top: in 2007, the U.S. recorded a rather stagnant rate of economic growth at 2.2%. Japan’s bubble economy burst long ago and last year only grew by 2%. The economies of Russia and India are both growing respectably, at the rapid rates of 7.6% and 8% respectively. What about China? Among the world’s large economies, China is leading the race with an 11.4% annual rate of growth. And that’s without oil reserves or any other significant repositories of resources.
Resources: that’s another economic factor that warrants consideration. Especially a certain resource, something on everyone’s minds these days, a three letter word that’s sure to be a hot topic of the 21st century: OIL. The U.S. is currently the world’s oil hog, guzzling down the incomprehensibly enormous volume of 20,800,000 million barrels per day (and that was back in ’05). The shocking and scary thing is that this number looks like it’s just gonna keep on growing: between 1992 and 2004, the country’s level of oil consumption rose by 22.2%! Lets see how long the country—and the world, for that matter—can sustain that extravagant rate of consumption. Though China’s economy is moving forward at a far faster pace, it is using substantially less fuel to do so: 6,700,000 barrels per day back in 2005. Over that same 12-year span, however, due to the breakneck speed of the country’s development, China’s oil consumption levels showed a horrific 152% growth. For the planet’s sake, I hope China’s doesn’t develop a U.S.-style addiction to oil anytime soon.
The U.S. economic system has recently developed an additional addiction that strengthens its ties to China: cheap labor. There are roughly 755 million people in this country hoping to break into the urban labor markets. The desperation of these rural dwellers and the disparity between their economic status and that of their urban counterparts means that there are a lot of people willing to work for what we in the U.S. would consider a pittance but is often sufficient to support a whole household in the countryside. The masterminds behind multinational corporations (or companies with hopes of taking operations abroad) and large manufacturing enterprises are not blind to this state of affairs and often not averse to taking advantage of it.
Apart from just cheap labor, there are a number of other factors enticing CEO’s to set up a branch in China: international companies can take advantage of the huge (and cheap, and efficient, and industrious, and well-educated) labor market and also sell to China’s huge consumer market while they’re at it. Furthermore, opening up operations here often means less strict regulations and more support from the government. Part of this government support includes an intricate physical infrastructure. During the past few decades, to encourage the country’s economic development, the Chinese government has basically taken the attitude, “build it and they will come”; in other words, use a little foresight to construct roads and airports and railroads and bridges before people will think of using them. Then, once people have reasons to use those routes, its there. This means of improving infrastructure wouldn’t work in just any country, however. It takes that special kind of socialist environment with a lack of regard for private property and political leaders that see no scruples in destroying a few (hundred thousand) homes and displacing a few (million) people in the process. Its rather convenient that no one officially owns anything: “It’s not your house, it’s the People’s house.”
One not so convenient aspect of the communist system here has been a lack of economic incentives, which leads to a rather inefficient production system. Privately owned companies are a relatively new phenomenon here in China: before era of economic reform started in 1978, all enterprises that existed in the country were State Owned Enterprises, or SOE’s. Take the First Auto Group as a classic example: with a population of 250,000 workers and dependents, the First Auto Group is, to this day, the biggest employer in Jilin Province. The company town—or city, more like—built up around the factory contains 23 schools, a hospital, and its own TV station. Job security and benefits are the priorities in a venture like this. Efficiency kind of falls by the wayside: the average employee of First Auto Group produces a whopping 2.5 cars per year (compare that to GM’s 20). Recently, a consulting firm suggested firing 7 in 10 employees to see if that improved the company’s productivity. The suggestion was shot down. Even though there would be no way for such an inefficient enterprise to stay afloat without government subsidies and support, such an SOE apparently can’t go back on its promise of security to its employees.
Though the “iron rice bowl,” a metaphor for the kind of job security that Chinese got accustomed to under Mao’s leadership, has shattered beyond repair, there’s not much more to lose but a lot to gain (from an economic standpoint at least) by following the current trend of privatization. With market forces at work, levels of productivity and profit have skyrocketed and led to an enormous increase in exports ($1.35 trillion in the past year and growing). Just visit any supermarket in the U.S. and you can see the evidence. 92% of Wal-Mart’s products are manufactured in China, after all (gag…).
The trends of privatization, increased production, increased trade: all are factors feeding the formidable machine that is China’s economy. And though is moving further and further away from a socialist-style planned economy, that doesn’t mean that its up to the “invisible hand” of market forces to pull the strings. China’s remarkable economic growth is certainly not due to some blind faith in capitalism. The government has been behind the screen pulling the strings all along. To pull off the kind of economic progress that China has experienced in the past few decades, a government as to do so many things right at the same time. In a sense, contemporary China is being run like a corporation.
Furthermore, many feel that today’s leadership is ideal for the economy. Actually, a recent poll (and this one conducted by a private U.S. polling firm, so its not just some party propaganda) shows that China’s current President Hu Jintao has a 70% approval rating (compared with George W’s 30%, last time I checked). Why is a government that thinks it can get away with bulldozing peoples’ houses—or should I say The People’s houses—met with such favorable public opinion? It’s all about the economy. The recent regimes have been doing things right and, as I mentioned before, have lifted more people out of poverty in a shorter span of time than any other instance in history. The economy here is blossoming. Within days of my arrival in China three months ago, I could feel it. Just biking a few blocks on my way to school, the energy of the expanding economy is tangible.
So how does this fit into the global picture? Well, considering the size of China’s population (and now the size of its economy and the volume of its exports, too) the impact on the world scene is huge. Just one piece of the puzzle: the U.S.’s trade deficit with China has recently reached $201.5 million! In today’s interconnected world, however, economic impact is a two—or multi—way street. Which means that the economic crisis the U.S. is currently suffering through can be felt all the way here in China. While on the one hand China’s economic development is truly tangible, the current global economic crisis is also tangible.
The crunch of the economic crisis was tangible today when I accompanied a Nanjing U student friend of mine on his weekend business excursion and a simultaneous tour of the countryside surrounding Nanjing. To help pay his way through college, Dengfeng works weekends as an itinerant salesman of household appliances. Every weekend, and this one was no different, he makes the rounds to a long list of shops selling his company’s (Haier’s) washing machines, microwaves, stoves, etc. in the city of Zhenjiang and the surrounding area. We set of early in the morning in a company car with a professional driver, stopping at shop after shop to sip tea while Dengfeng talked business with his clients. Without exception, every single one of his clients, the owners of the dozen or so shops we visited that day, complained that business has been unusually bad lately. People just aren’t buying household appliances these days in the way they were in the era before the recent economic crisis. All of the shop owners traced effects back to the U.S. economic crisis. It’s a flat world after all.
King of Masks, Live!
After our stomachs were filled and our sinuses sufficiently cleared, all interested students had the option of attending a performance of Sichuan Opera and folk arts. Of course I was interested: I’d heard that one of the skills unique to Sichuan Opera is 变脸 (“bian lian” or “changing faces”). Ever since seeing the Chinese film (under the English name “King of Masks”) years ago, I’ve been captivated. Bian lian is a performance art form that mixes drama with slight of hand. Masters of this art form can, up on stage, before the eyes of an attentive audience and in the blink of an eye, change their appearance entirely by changing masks—and even clothes—of different color and style.
But first, some opening acts to warm up the audience. Before the fantastic grand finale of bian lian, the Sichuan folk arts extravaganza also encompassed a huge variety of other performance art forms, all put together in a dramatic spectacular package with the express purpose of wowing tourists. The folk arts aspect I enjoyed and appreciated. The tourist-attracting spectacle… a little over the top. For the opening number, a full orchestra of the sort that would traditionally accompany Sichuan Opera played a piece of music full of clanging gongs and cymbals, shrill bells and whistles and brass. I enjoyed the sound, but saw that other audience members (mostly elderly European tourists) seemed to be sitting through it so they could say they had an “authentic” Chinese experience.
All the orchestra members then walked off stage, leaving behind one incredible erhu maestro. Whether or not you like the sound of erhu (Chinese 2-stringed spike fiddle), you surely couldn’t help but be bowled over by the guy’s skill. He played along the accompaniment of, alas, not a live orchestra, not even a recording of a live orchestra (both of which it seems would have been feasible) but a recording of the most cheesy-sounding electronic music played so loud that it drowned out the sweet sound of his instrument. I tried just to zoom in on the sound of his playing and the sight of his skilled fingers flying across the strings of his instrument while ignoring the painful noise in the background.
The erhu act was followed by a puppet show of sorts that, unlike Western-style puppetry where part of the point is that the puppeteer remains hidden, the puppeteer pranced around on stage right along with his puppet. Like the intimate interactions of two skilled dancers, the puppeteer’s actions and his puppet’s flowed in sync, puppeteer masterfully manipulating the multiple joints of his puppet (attached to iron rods) so well I was convinced the guy must have had some extra arms hidden somewhere. After that, another puppet-related act: hand puppets. One man standing behind a screen used only his two hands to come up with a greater variety of animals and scenes than I thought two hands with light and shadow could create: he started the standard dog, then a rabbit… that then proceeded to be eaten by the dog and coughed back up again (rather convincingly, believe it or not), an owl, an eagle, a graceful galloping horse. All quite impressive. But the best was saved for last: bian lian, the final act.
The spectacle was even more incredible in real time than it was on a TV screen. The performance we saw was designed to shock and awe, and, to me, it succeeded. A troupe of performers paraded around upon the stage and, in the dramatic flash of a flag across a face, a red monkey mask appears in the place of what was just a purple face. The bian lian masters pulled off this feat again and again, each time more dramatic and spectacular, each time adding to my perplexity, as they never gave away any hints as to the secret of their art.
I’d already gotten the impression from the movie (please see it if you get a chance: it’s one of my all-time favorite Chinese films, hands down making it into my top 3) that the secrets of the trade are strictly guarded: Tang Laoshi mentioned that, last year, she tried to arrange for CIEE students to have an introductory class on the art form with this troupe and they automatically refused outright. Their response: “Bian lian is a secret performance technique that has been guarded for centuries! You think we’re about to give it a way to a group of lao wai?” Fair enough. I guess the mystery of it all enhanced the spectacle. For a fantastic finale, a few of the performers took the wow-factor up a few notches: a piece if fabric would flash in front of their body for a split second and be pulled away to reveal an outfit and mask of an entirely different color and design. I was left sufficiently wide-eye and slack-jawed. And for those of you who know about my mask obsession, that just added to the attraction. My childhood dream to run away and join the circus was once again awakened.
But first, some opening acts to warm up the audience. Before the fantastic grand finale of bian lian, the Sichuan folk arts extravaganza also encompassed a huge variety of other performance art forms, all put together in a dramatic spectacular package with the express purpose of wowing tourists. The folk arts aspect I enjoyed and appreciated. The tourist-attracting spectacle… a little over the top. For the opening number, a full orchestra of the sort that would traditionally accompany Sichuan Opera played a piece of music full of clanging gongs and cymbals, shrill bells and whistles and brass. I enjoyed the sound, but saw that other audience members (mostly elderly European tourists) seemed to be sitting through it so they could say they had an “authentic” Chinese experience.
All the orchestra members then walked off stage, leaving behind one incredible erhu maestro. Whether or not you like the sound of erhu (Chinese 2-stringed spike fiddle), you surely couldn’t help but be bowled over by the guy’s skill. He played along the accompaniment of, alas, not a live orchestra, not even a recording of a live orchestra (both of which it seems would have been feasible) but a recording of the most cheesy-sounding electronic music played so loud that it drowned out the sweet sound of his instrument. I tried just to zoom in on the sound of his playing and the sight of his skilled fingers flying across the strings of his instrument while ignoring the painful noise in the background.
The erhu act was followed by a puppet show of sorts that, unlike Western-style puppetry where part of the point is that the puppeteer remains hidden, the puppeteer pranced around on stage right along with his puppet. Like the intimate interactions of two skilled dancers, the puppeteer’s actions and his puppet’s flowed in sync, puppeteer masterfully manipulating the multiple joints of his puppet (attached to iron rods) so well I was convinced the guy must have had some extra arms hidden somewhere. After that, another puppet-related act: hand puppets. One man standing behind a screen used only his two hands to come up with a greater variety of animals and scenes than I thought two hands with light and shadow could create: he started the standard dog, then a rabbit… that then proceeded to be eaten by the dog and coughed back up again (rather convincingly, believe it or not), an owl, an eagle, a graceful galloping horse. All quite impressive. But the best was saved for last: bian lian, the final act.
The spectacle was even more incredible in real time than it was on a TV screen. The performance we saw was designed to shock and awe, and, to me, it succeeded. A troupe of performers paraded around upon the stage and, in the dramatic flash of a flag across a face, a red monkey mask appears in the place of what was just a purple face. The bian lian masters pulled off this feat again and again, each time more dramatic and spectacular, each time adding to my perplexity, as they never gave away any hints as to the secret of their art.
I’d already gotten the impression from the movie (please see it if you get a chance: it’s one of my all-time favorite Chinese films, hands down making it into my top 3) that the secrets of the trade are strictly guarded: Tang Laoshi mentioned that, last year, she tried to arrange for CIEE students to have an introductory class on the art form with this troupe and they automatically refused outright. Their response: “Bian lian is a secret performance technique that has been guarded for centuries! You think we’re about to give it a way to a group of lao wai?” Fair enough. I guess the mystery of it all enhanced the spectacle. For a fantastic finale, a few of the performers took the wow-factor up a few notches: a piece if fabric would flash in front of their body for a split second and be pulled away to reveal an outfit and mask of an entirely different color and design. I was left sufficiently wide-eye and slack-jawed. And for those of you who know about my mask obsession, that just added to the attraction. My childhood dream to run away and join the circus was once again awakened.
"Death in a Bowl:" Sichuan Hot Pot
While the diet of the Giant Panda of Sichuan is bland and rather restricted due to the pressures of its unique habitat, thankfully, the diet of the people of Chengdu is a different story. We had a chance to simple a small sample of its diversity and spiciness during lunch before our visit to the panda reserve. Dinner kicked the spice level up a notch further. My friend Sarah lamented afterwards that after a lunch that left her tongue on fire, she didn’t think things could get any worse. But then, at the Huo Guo or Hot Pot restaurant we went to for dinner, the servers brought out what Sarah said looked to her like “death in a bowl” (“death” being a broth that was basically concentrated essence of chili peppers), placed it in the center of the table, and lit the burner beneath to bring the contents of the “bowl of death” to a boil.
How does huo guo work? Once the soup in the center of the table came to a boil (which happened quite quickly), our servers started setting plate upon plate of raw ingredients around the hot pot. Every inch of free space on our table was soon filled up. First came raw mutton and various grades of beef, then (more to my liking) fresh squid and slices of a huge variety of vegetables and soon some tofu and noodles as well. There seemed to be two basic ways to work the pot:
1) Once a plate of food arrives, automatically dump its contents directly into the boiling broth (making sure to distribute things equitable between the safety zone soup in the center) and then, after giving it time to cook properly, diving after a piece with a pair of chopsticks. The problem with this method: the broth, being so thick and a blanket of bobbing chili peppers obstructing our view, made it impossible to tell what morsels were lurking beneath the boiling surface, resulting in food remaining un-retrieved for so long that it would overcook.
2) A free-for-all: each pair of chopsticks for themselves. This is what our table soon resorted to and it served us well. Those of us whose chopsticks dared to dive into the “bowl of death” ate well but were soon sporting red faces and runny noses from the extreme spice. After these two meals, a few of my classmates (Sarah among them) didn’t dare go near any pepper for the rest of the trip and, at times, had to resort to eating rice (some Sichuan restaurants didn’t have much of a selection of safe, non-spicy choices).
How does huo guo work? Once the soup in the center of the table came to a boil (which happened quite quickly), our servers started setting plate upon plate of raw ingredients around the hot pot. Every inch of free space on our table was soon filled up. First came raw mutton and various grades of beef, then (more to my liking) fresh squid and slices of a huge variety of vegetables and soon some tofu and noodles as well. There seemed to be two basic ways to work the pot:
1) Once a plate of food arrives, automatically dump its contents directly into the boiling broth (making sure to distribute things equitable between the safety zone soup in the center) and then, after giving it time to cook properly, diving after a piece with a pair of chopsticks. The problem with this method: the broth, being so thick and a blanket of bobbing chili peppers obstructing our view, made it impossible to tell what morsels were lurking beneath the boiling surface, resulting in food remaining un-retrieved for so long that it would overcook.
2) A free-for-all: each pair of chopsticks for themselves. This is what our table soon resorted to and it served us well. Those of us whose chopsticks dared to dive into the “bowl of death” ate well but were soon sporting red faces and runny noses from the extreme spice. After these two meals, a few of my classmates (Sarah among them) didn’t dare go near any pepper for the rest of the trip and, at times, had to resort to eating rice (some Sichuan restaurants didn’t have much of a selection of safe, non-spicy choices).
Monday, December 15, 2008
中国少数民族识别：another recent Chinese composition I'm pleased with
我刚刚开始研究中国少数民族的时候，我还记得有一次听到我的中国叔叔跟朋友聊天时开玩笑地说，“中央最近确认了一个新的民族成份。这种民族世界上只有一个人，那就是我。我就是中国的第五十七个民族。”我听到这句话，就吃了一惊：在美国，人们大概不会这么随便地谈论种族和民族识别。在跟我叔叔，我的中国朋友以及同学随便地聊天中，一提到中国少数民族，他们的态度就往往给我留下这样的感觉。
按照我的了解，这种对于民族识别比较轻松的态度可能跟中国民族识别的状况有关：中国民族识别的问题表面上很肯定和确切的。不过实际上，自古以来在中国人民的思想里，民族的区分其实很难说。56个民族，现在看起来很确定的数字，其实不是国家一下子就决定的。民族学虽是科学，但是并不是像数学那么精确，还包括学者主观的看法。我有不少的中国朋友告诉我虽然许多人都接受，像中央说的，中国共有56个民族，但是他们还认为数量更多。我有两位朋友（一位汉人，一位藏民）都说中国肯定有最起码一千多个民族。
新中国成立之前，在中国这个多民族的社会中，少数民族确切的数字究竟有多少很难说。古往今来中国历史上，随着民族之间的文化，经济，政治交流，以及边界变幻的过程，民族的特征也一直在演变。旧中国，没有像现在的政策下这么确定的成份。到1983年为止，才有现代中国的55个少数民族成份。共产党统一国家以后，民族识别的重要性和必要性开始引起政府的注意。民族识别这项重大的任务原因主要是为了更好地贯彻执行民族区域自治制度，另一方面是为了保障所有国民的平等权利。因此从1950年起，在地方民族事务机关的配合下，中国的民族识别工作就开始了。这项工作共经历了三个阶段，包括四个特征。
一开始，根据1953年第一次全国人口普查，有400多个民族被提出进行识别。从这个初步估计400个民族中，只有56个（比本来的数字少三倍）最后被选择。凭什么只有这56个民族？从五十年代初开始到七十年代末，民族识别工作经过三十多年，三个阶段，以及科学家的再三考虑和研究。自始至终，有一位哲学家的思想指引这项工作的方向，他就是斯大林。按照斯大林《马克思主义和民族问题》提出的观念和他在苏维埃社会主义共和国联盟发动的民族识别工作的榜样，中国科学家选择四个基本特征来区分中国的民族成份。这四个主要的特征是：共同语言（中国56个民族之中，只有20个有自己的语言文字），共同地域，共同经济生活（这三个都比较精确），以及共同的文化特点与心理素质。
按照我的分析，之所以大多民族成份不太精确是因为这最后第四个特征的主观性。就拿回族来说：他们没有统一的语言，没有共同的地域，而且有的回族认为自己是其他的一个民族。但在回族共同的文化宗教来看，这个多样性的民族还被认为是一个民族。民族识别这项工作虽然一开始有不少的争议，但是到现在56这个数字越来越容易受到国民的接受。民族识别一方面有助于达到中央本来的目标（保障所有国民的平等权利，更好地贯彻执行民族区域自治制度），另一方面也带来了一点麻烦。民族识别提高了各个民族对他自己的民族的骄傲，像英帝国的经历一样，所以也引起民族之间的冲突和偏见。
按照我的了解，这种对于民族识别比较轻松的态度可能跟中国民族识别的状况有关：中国民族识别的问题表面上很肯定和确切的。不过实际上，自古以来在中国人民的思想里，民族的区分其实很难说。56个民族，现在看起来很确定的数字，其实不是国家一下子就决定的。民族学虽是科学，但是并不是像数学那么精确，还包括学者主观的看法。我有不少的中国朋友告诉我虽然许多人都接受，像中央说的，中国共有56个民族，但是他们还认为数量更多。我有两位朋友（一位汉人，一位藏民）都说中国肯定有最起码一千多个民族。
新中国成立之前，在中国这个多民族的社会中，少数民族确切的数字究竟有多少很难说。古往今来中国历史上，随着民族之间的文化，经济，政治交流，以及边界变幻的过程，民族的特征也一直在演变。旧中国，没有像现在的政策下这么确定的成份。到1983年为止，才有现代中国的55个少数民族成份。共产党统一国家以后，民族识别的重要性和必要性开始引起政府的注意。民族识别这项重大的任务原因主要是为了更好地贯彻执行民族区域自治制度，另一方面是为了保障所有国民的平等权利。因此从1950年起，在地方民族事务机关的配合下，中国的民族识别工作就开始了。这项工作共经历了三个阶段，包括四个特征。
一开始，根据1953年第一次全国人口普查，有400多个民族被提出进行识别。从这个初步估计400个民族中，只有56个（比本来的数字少三倍）最后被选择。凭什么只有这56个民族？从五十年代初开始到七十年代末，民族识别工作经过三十多年，三个阶段，以及科学家的再三考虑和研究。自始至终，有一位哲学家的思想指引这项工作的方向，他就是斯大林。按照斯大林《马克思主义和民族问题》提出的观念和他在苏维埃社会主义共和国联盟发动的民族识别工作的榜样，中国科学家选择四个基本特征来区分中国的民族成份。这四个主要的特征是：共同语言（中国56个民族之中，只有20个有自己的语言文字），共同地域，共同经济生活（这三个都比较精确），以及共同的文化特点与心理素质。
按照我的分析，之所以大多民族成份不太精确是因为这最后第四个特征的主观性。就拿回族来说：他们没有统一的语言，没有共同的地域，而且有的回族认为自己是其他的一个民族。但在回族共同的文化宗教来看，这个多样性的民族还被认为是一个民族。民族识别这项工作虽然一开始有不少的争议，但是到现在56这个数字越来越容易受到国民的接受。民族识别一方面有助于达到中央本来的目标（保障所有国民的平等权利，更好地贯彻执行民族区域自治制度），另一方面也带来了一点麻烦。民族识别提高了各个民族对他自己的民族的骄傲，像英帝国的经历一样，所以也引起民族之间的冲突和偏见。
The Giant Panda: could become creationists best argument against evolution
That light and flavorful first taste of Chengdu was followed by a taste less light but flavorful to the extreme: Sichuan cuisine. Throughout China and even beyond its borders, Sichuan is known for its especially spicy food. For a lover of the spicy food like me, Sichuan is a culinary paradise. For a person who can’t handle a speck of spice, like my friend Sarah, Sichuan food is like the fiery pits of hell manifest on earth and concentrated into a the contents of a single plate. Alas, sorry Sarah! It’s hard for me to imagine not being able to enjoy the spices of life. After enjoying the subtle tastes of subtle teas at the temple, our group piled back onto our bus and soon arrived at an authentic Sichuan restaurant. There, as plate after plate saturated with the spice and filled with chilies was placed upon the lazy Susan at the center of our table until it (and our stomachs) could hold no more, we took the level of our taste-testing intensity up a good several notches. All varieties of vegetable and meat, prepared with no lack of flavor and plenty of peppers. That meal, to me, was paradise on a collection of plates.
Sichuan is not only a paradise for fans of fiery food, but also a paradise for panda lovers: 80% of the world’s panda population calls Sichuan home. Though the recent Sichuan earthquake made our group’s original plans to visit the Wolong Nature Reserve (a protected panda habitat) impossible, no visit to Chengdu is complete without a Giant Panda sighting, so we paid a visit to the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center on the outskirts of the city. One of Chengdu’s main attractions, the center attracts visitors and researchers alike from all over the world. After all, as their website says, “The giant panda is beloved by people from all over the world. All local and foreign visitors enjoy the beauty of giant pandas.” Yeah, the panda propaganda doesn’t lie: I too could not resist the charms of the pandas. They are just too ridiculously cute. Though the efforts expended by the researchers and personnel at this center at times may seem a little over the top—after my visit there, I’m convinced that no single species in the whole world has more people working or money spent on behalf of promoting their survival—just one look at a panda’s adorable face and it all seems worthwhile.
The mission of the research center we visited is to increase the amount and viability of the dwindling panda population with the hope of eventually finding a way of releasing animals bred in captivity into the wild. As a step towards that goal, the habitats housing the pandas in this huge facility are designed to make the pandas feel at home in captivity, each enclosure supposedly mimicking the Giant Panda’s natural environment as closely as possible (right down to the wooden jungle gym-like structures that took up most of the enclosures, apparently, as well as the bountiful bundles of bamboo that are plopped in front of the pandas at every schedule feeding time).
While strategically located a mere 10 km. away from Chengdu’s city center in order to provide a place where tourists can view China’s famous Giant Panda at their convenience, the center isn’t exactly strategically located in terms of caring for the pandas that live there: as approximately 99% of the Giant Pandas’ diet is comprised of bamboo—not just any ordinary bamboo but a few certain species of bamboo that only grows above a certain elevation in the mountainous regions of Sichuan and the surrounding areas. The slight catch is that the center itself is located below that elevation in an area where the bamboo pandas eat just doesn’t grow. So every day, personnel from the center collect the bamboo fresh from a higher elevation area and transport it down into the valley to feed to the center’s pandas by the truckload. Due to the low nutritional value of bamboo and the large size of the panda, it takes quite a bundle of bamboo to keep the panda up and running: the panda spends the bulk of its waking hours (11-14 hours a day) eating. The average panda eats an average of 25-40 pounds of bamboo per day. But the Giant Panda wasn’t always a vegetarian, apparently. The panda, like other bears, has the digestive system of a carnivore. At some point along the process of evolution, however, the panda switched to a vegetarian diet (I can’t say I blame them!).
Considering that the Giant Panda’s diet is so limited—almost exclusively restricted to one type of plant with a very limited growing range—its easier to understand why the panda as a species is dangerously close to extinction: any threat to their fragile environment is a threat to the pandas that live there. Under the pressures of human development that continued relatively unchecked for years, the panda population has dwindled to a mere estimated 1590 plus 250 in captivity. Its not just humans that can pose a threat to the Giant Panda’s fragile environment: natural disasters, like the recent devastating Sichuan earthquake, can also put the panda’s home in peril: according to some reports, roughly 80% of the panda’s habitat suffered some degree of damage from the quake. A number of pandas died in the aftermath, subtracting further from their already low number. The harsh realities of an at-risk environment holds true even for pandas in captivity: after the May 12 quake, the Chengdu Research Center’s pandas were forced to ho on a diet, as the environmental damage wrought by the disaster caused a food shortage for pandas wild and pampered alike.
But a dwindling natural habitat and food supply is just one of an array of reasons that the Giant Panda is on the endangered species list. A significant compounding factor is the panda’s stagnant rate of reproduction: the panda is an animal with a notoriously low libido. In an effort to get the sex-shy panda to mate, researchers have resorted to what news reports about this strange phenomenon have called “panda porn”: showing recordings of mating pandas to males that seem otherwise uninterested in sex to help them get “in the mood.” In combination with a number of “sexercises” (including one that involves dangling an apple above a panda to encourage it to stand on its hind legs and thus workout muscles key to sex but otherwise seldom used muscles that are nonetheless key to reproduction), the technique is supposedly working: after implementing Operation Panda Porn at the Chengdu Research Center in 2006, the number of newborns jumped up to 31 cubs from a mere 9 the previous year.
Still, combined with the fact that practically every trait the Giant Panda possesses just seems so against the laws of evolutionary theory—the panda’s clumsy cuteness, bizarrely designed body, habits tailored to a small and shrinking habitat, strictly limited diet, seeming reluctance to reproduce, the helplessness of its offspring upon birth (a baby panda comes out of the oven at 1/900th’s the size of its mother!), and I’m sure there are more traits that would fit the bill, too—it seems that the panda as a species has a death wish. Despite the fact that they have more government support and a larger team of scientists and researchers working on their behalf than any other animal I know of, the panda still doesn’t seem very interested in cooperating in the fight for its survival.
So why is the scientific community, the Chinese government, and the world at large coming together to help this admittedly pretty pathetic creature we know as the Giant Panda? My answer: because it’s so darn cute! Watching the pandas play and eat and snooze in their enclosure at the center made me a convert to their cause. With a higher cuteness factor than any other animal I’ve ever laid my eyes on, even though they seemed pretty clumsy and lazy and slouched as they sat and scarfed down their bamboo, the panda is irresistibly cute. That seems to be the only evolutionary factor working in its favor.
Sichuan is not only a paradise for fans of fiery food, but also a paradise for panda lovers: 80% of the world’s panda population calls Sichuan home. Though the recent Sichuan earthquake made our group’s original plans to visit the Wolong Nature Reserve (a protected panda habitat) impossible, no visit to Chengdu is complete without a Giant Panda sighting, so we paid a visit to the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center on the outskirts of the city. One of Chengdu’s main attractions, the center attracts visitors and researchers alike from all over the world. After all, as their website says, “The giant panda is beloved by people from all over the world. All local and foreign visitors enjoy the beauty of giant pandas.” Yeah, the panda propaganda doesn’t lie: I too could not resist the charms of the pandas. They are just too ridiculously cute. Though the efforts expended by the researchers and personnel at this center at times may seem a little over the top—after my visit there, I’m convinced that no single species in the whole world has more people working or money spent on behalf of promoting their survival—just one look at a panda’s adorable face and it all seems worthwhile.
The mission of the research center we visited is to increase the amount and viability of the dwindling panda population with the hope of eventually finding a way of releasing animals bred in captivity into the wild. As a step towards that goal, the habitats housing the pandas in this huge facility are designed to make the pandas feel at home in captivity, each enclosure supposedly mimicking the Giant Panda’s natural environment as closely as possible (right down to the wooden jungle gym-like structures that took up most of the enclosures, apparently, as well as the bountiful bundles of bamboo that are plopped in front of the pandas at every schedule feeding time).
While strategically located a mere 10 km. away from Chengdu’s city center in order to provide a place where tourists can view China’s famous Giant Panda at their convenience, the center isn’t exactly strategically located in terms of caring for the pandas that live there: as approximately 99% of the Giant Pandas’ diet is comprised of bamboo—not just any ordinary bamboo but a few certain species of bamboo that only grows above a certain elevation in the mountainous regions of Sichuan and the surrounding areas. The slight catch is that the center itself is located below that elevation in an area where the bamboo pandas eat just doesn’t grow. So every day, personnel from the center collect the bamboo fresh from a higher elevation area and transport it down into the valley to feed to the center’s pandas by the truckload. Due to the low nutritional value of bamboo and the large size of the panda, it takes quite a bundle of bamboo to keep the panda up and running: the panda spends the bulk of its waking hours (11-14 hours a day) eating. The average panda eats an average of 25-40 pounds of bamboo per day. But the Giant Panda wasn’t always a vegetarian, apparently. The panda, like other bears, has the digestive system of a carnivore. At some point along the process of evolution, however, the panda switched to a vegetarian diet (I can’t say I blame them!).
Considering that the Giant Panda’s diet is so limited—almost exclusively restricted to one type of plant with a very limited growing range—its easier to understand why the panda as a species is dangerously close to extinction: any threat to their fragile environment is a threat to the pandas that live there. Under the pressures of human development that continued relatively unchecked for years, the panda population has dwindled to a mere estimated 1590 plus 250 in captivity. Its not just humans that can pose a threat to the Giant Panda’s fragile environment: natural disasters, like the recent devastating Sichuan earthquake, can also put the panda’s home in peril: according to some reports, roughly 80% of the panda’s habitat suffered some degree of damage from the quake. A number of pandas died in the aftermath, subtracting further from their already low number. The harsh realities of an at-risk environment holds true even for pandas in captivity: after the May 12 quake, the Chengdu Research Center’s pandas were forced to ho on a diet, as the environmental damage wrought by the disaster caused a food shortage for pandas wild and pampered alike.
But a dwindling natural habitat and food supply is just one of an array of reasons that the Giant Panda is on the endangered species list. A significant compounding factor is the panda’s stagnant rate of reproduction: the panda is an animal with a notoriously low libido. In an effort to get the sex-shy panda to mate, researchers have resorted to what news reports about this strange phenomenon have called “panda porn”: showing recordings of mating pandas to males that seem otherwise uninterested in sex to help them get “in the mood.” In combination with a number of “sexercises” (including one that involves dangling an apple above a panda to encourage it to stand on its hind legs and thus workout muscles key to sex but otherwise seldom used muscles that are nonetheless key to reproduction), the technique is supposedly working: after implementing Operation Panda Porn at the Chengdu Research Center in 2006, the number of newborns jumped up to 31 cubs from a mere 9 the previous year.
Still, combined with the fact that practically every trait the Giant Panda possesses just seems so against the laws of evolutionary theory—the panda’s clumsy cuteness, bizarrely designed body, habits tailored to a small and shrinking habitat, strictly limited diet, seeming reluctance to reproduce, the helplessness of its offspring upon birth (a baby panda comes out of the oven at 1/900th’s the size of its mother!), and I’m sure there are more traits that would fit the bill, too—it seems that the panda as a species has a death wish. Despite the fact that they have more government support and a larger team of scientists and researchers working on their behalf than any other animal I know of, the panda still doesn’t seem very interested in cooperating in the fight for its survival.
So why is the scientific community, the Chinese government, and the world at large coming together to help this admittedly pretty pathetic creature we know as the Giant Panda? My answer: because it’s so darn cute! Watching the pandas play and eat and snooze in their enclosure at the center made me a convert to their cause. With a higher cuteness factor than any other animal I’ve ever laid my eyes on, even though they seemed pretty clumsy and lazy and slouched as they sat and scarfed down their bamboo, the panda is irresistibly cute. That seems to be the only evolutionary factor working in its favor.
Chengdu: My Cup(s) of Tea
In 2002 (shortly before I started considering the question of were to apply for college), Indiana University—my state school and now current home campus—was awarded the coveted-by-some dreaded-by-university-officials ranking of #1 top party school in the nation by Princeton Review.
The southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu, where I now find myself in the midst of a whirlwind of travel / sightseeing / study with my CIEE study abroad group, has a similar reputation. As I was researching this city’s history, culture, and contemporary status in preparation for my current visit, I found that the LA Times in a fun article titled “People’s Party Animals” (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/columnone/la-fi-chinaparty8feb08,1,7457737.story?coll=la-headlines-columnone) dubbed Chengdu “China’s Party City.”
So why did this similar news about IU turn me off at the time to applying there, while in regards to Chendu acting as a further attraction? Well, I’ve never been much of a party girl in the U.S. college kid relieve-the-stress-of-study-by-getting-smashed kind of sense. But the people of Chengdu have a bit broader sense of what it means to party While higher-than-average number of bars was a significant factor in earning Chengdu its title (with half of Shanghai’s population—Chengdu is home to roughly 10 million people and 3000 pubs and karaoke bars—, has more such establishments than Shanghai, a city renowned for its indulgence in leisure), Chengdu’s bars, still seen as a Western import, are still far outnumbered by the more traditional-style teahouse.
With roughly 4000 teahouses scattered throughout the city, you can find one on virtually every corner. Here, Chengdu’s residents gather—and often linger for hours or even an entire day—to enjoy a cup of tea, chat with friends, and play an assortment of games from cards to mahjong to Chinese chess. The passion that the people of Chengdu have for having fun and playing games isn’t limited to the teahouses: on the streets everywhere, you can see people with their personal portable game boards spread out on any available surface.
One of my first tastes of Chengdu was a cup of exquisite Pu’er tea at one of the city’s many teahouses. Considering that over the centuries the people of Chengdu have turned the teahouse and the beverage that it revolves around into a complex culture of its own, its not surprising that there are many different kinds that cater to different tastes, purposes, and budgets. The teahouse we went to was part of the ____ Buddhist Temple: before tea made its way into mass culture, it was refined to perfection as part of Chinese Buddhist practice. Like the tea ceremony of Japan, drinking tea was turned into an art, an intricate series of motions that became a means of meditation. The tea ceremony we saw was just that sort: two monks of the ____ Temple—in a rather touristy setting albeit, with a woman holding a microphone doing a play-by-play in Chinese—performed step by step the ceremonies that have been kept alive by monks in this temple and others like it around China. The monks’ motions were made in sync to mellow mood music, which, like the tea we sat sipping and our surroundings, had a distinctly Chinese traditional flavor.
In China in general and Chengdu in particular, tea has been turned into an art. Different types of tea have different methods of preparation, I discovered, developed over the centuries in temples like this and in the homes of the imperial elite. Pu’er tea is prepared differently than oolong, oolong differently than green tea, the method of preparation designed to suit a certain tea and optimize its taste and smell and the overall experience. As it became clear here in Chengdu, there’s not just one generic type of green tea or pu’er or oolong but dozens. The tea ceremonies we saw allowed us to sample just four varie-teas. The first was Pu’er, an unfermented but usually aged (among tea connoisseurs, the older, the better, the more such people are willing to pay, regardless of the taste) type of tea that was prepared by two monks in saffron robes with faces as serene as an undisturbed pond and hand movements as intricate and graceful as the flitting of small birds. The second tea we tasted was a sort of oolong prepared by a lovely young woman with movements even more graceful. The monks in their saffron robes then returned, the tea this time a type of green tea with a flavor and preparation more reminiscent to Japan’s tea ceremony, using a bamboo whisk.
Though by that point we were all filled with caffeine, the atmosphere of the temple and the serene demeanor of the monks brought a feeling of peacefulness. The last—but not least—tea we drank at the temple that day was served in a way that certainly livened things up. Two young students of martial arts bounded onto the stage bearing teapots with spouts a good 3 feet long. They literally bent over backwards to pour a cup of tea. The contortions they went through in the process of pouring tea were quite impressive, shock-and-awe factor increasing with each successive cup. It was martial arts and acrobatics and tea ceremony all mixed into 5 minutes of amazing-ness.
Now for tea to have reached such a legendary status, it surely must have some legendary beginnings. And indeed that is the case: the power of tea was first unlocked in ancient China roughly 5,000 years ago. Shen Nong, an early emperor whose actual existence is mixed with legend, was, in addition to being a skilled ruler, also a self-studied scientist of sorts. His far-sighted edicts required, among other things, that all drinking water be boiled as a hygienic precaution. One summer day while visiting a distant region of his realm, he and the court stopped to rest. In accordance with his ruling, Emperor Shen Nong’s servants began to boil water for the court to drink. Dried leaves from the nearby bush blew into the boiling water, creating what was perhaps the world’s first cup of tea. His scientist side taking over, the Emperor was fascinated by this unfamiliar liquid, took a sip, and found it quite refreshing. So the story goes, at least. Though the true story of the world’s first cup of tea is lost to the tides of history, that version to me sounds plausible enough. Since then, tea has made its way into all corners of the world and permeated countless aspects of Chinese culture.
The southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu, where I now find myself in the midst of a whirlwind of travel / sightseeing / study with my CIEE study abroad group, has a similar reputation. As I was researching this city’s history, culture, and contemporary status in preparation for my current visit, I found that the LA Times in a fun article titled “People’s Party Animals” (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/columnone/la-fi-chinaparty8feb08,1,7457737.story?coll=la-headlines-columnone) dubbed Chengdu “China’s Party City.”
So why did this similar news about IU turn me off at the time to applying there, while in regards to Chendu acting as a further attraction? Well, I’ve never been much of a party girl in the U.S. college kid relieve-the-stress-of-study-by-getting-smashed kind of sense. But the people of Chengdu have a bit broader sense of what it means to party While higher-than-average number of bars was a significant factor in earning Chengdu its title (with half of Shanghai’s population—Chengdu is home to roughly 10 million people and 3000 pubs and karaoke bars—, has more such establishments than Shanghai, a city renowned for its indulgence in leisure), Chengdu’s bars, still seen as a Western import, are still far outnumbered by the more traditional-style teahouse.
With roughly 4000 teahouses scattered throughout the city, you can find one on virtually every corner. Here, Chengdu’s residents gather—and often linger for hours or even an entire day—to enjoy a cup of tea, chat with friends, and play an assortment of games from cards to mahjong to Chinese chess. The passion that the people of Chengdu have for having fun and playing games isn’t limited to the teahouses: on the streets everywhere, you can see people with their personal portable game boards spread out on any available surface.
One of my first tastes of Chengdu was a cup of exquisite Pu’er tea at one of the city’s many teahouses. Considering that over the centuries the people of Chengdu have turned the teahouse and the beverage that it revolves around into a complex culture of its own, its not surprising that there are many different kinds that cater to different tastes, purposes, and budgets. The teahouse we went to was part of the ____ Buddhist Temple: before tea made its way into mass culture, it was refined to perfection as part of Chinese Buddhist practice. Like the tea ceremony of Japan, drinking tea was turned into an art, an intricate series of motions that became a means of meditation. The tea ceremony we saw was just that sort: two monks of the ____ Temple—in a rather touristy setting albeit, with a woman holding a microphone doing a play-by-play in Chinese—performed step by step the ceremonies that have been kept alive by monks in this temple and others like it around China. The monks’ motions were made in sync to mellow mood music, which, like the tea we sat sipping and our surroundings, had a distinctly Chinese traditional flavor.
In China in general and Chengdu in particular, tea has been turned into an art. Different types of tea have different methods of preparation, I discovered, developed over the centuries in temples like this and in the homes of the imperial elite. Pu’er tea is prepared differently than oolong, oolong differently than green tea, the method of preparation designed to suit a certain tea and optimize its taste and smell and the overall experience. As it became clear here in Chengdu, there’s not just one generic type of green tea or pu’er or oolong but dozens. The tea ceremonies we saw allowed us to sample just four varie-teas. The first was Pu’er, an unfermented but usually aged (among tea connoisseurs, the older, the better, the more such people are willing to pay, regardless of the taste) type of tea that was prepared by two monks in saffron robes with faces as serene as an undisturbed pond and hand movements as intricate and graceful as the flitting of small birds. The second tea we tasted was a sort of oolong prepared by a lovely young woman with movements even more graceful. The monks in their saffron robes then returned, the tea this time a type of green tea with a flavor and preparation more reminiscent to Japan’s tea ceremony, using a bamboo whisk.
Though by that point we were all filled with caffeine, the atmosphere of the temple and the serene demeanor of the monks brought a feeling of peacefulness. The last—but not least—tea we drank at the temple that day was served in a way that certainly livened things up. Two young students of martial arts bounded onto the stage bearing teapots with spouts a good 3 feet long. They literally bent over backwards to pour a cup of tea. The contortions they went through in the process of pouring tea were quite impressive, shock-and-awe factor increasing with each successive cup. It was martial arts and acrobatics and tea ceremony all mixed into 5 minutes of amazing-ness.
Now for tea to have reached such a legendary status, it surely must have some legendary beginnings. And indeed that is the case: the power of tea was first unlocked in ancient China roughly 5,000 years ago. Shen Nong, an early emperor whose actual existence is mixed with legend, was, in addition to being a skilled ruler, also a self-studied scientist of sorts. His far-sighted edicts required, among other things, that all drinking water be boiled as a hygienic precaution. One summer day while visiting a distant region of his realm, he and the court stopped to rest. In accordance with his ruling, Emperor Shen Nong’s servants began to boil water for the court to drink. Dried leaves from the nearby bush blew into the boiling water, creating what was perhaps the world’s first cup of tea. His scientist side taking over, the Emperor was fascinated by this unfamiliar liquid, took a sip, and found it quite refreshing. So the story goes, at least. Though the true story of the world’s first cup of tea is lost to the tides of history, that version to me sounds plausible enough. Since then, tea has made its way into all corners of the world and permeated countless aspects of Chinese culture.
Adventures in Inner Mongolia: one of my first decent compositions in Chinese, for those of you who can read it
考虑到内蒙古的土地那么大，人口那么少，那里的名胜古迹和天然风景区比较寥落，所以去内蒙古旅游十天那么短时间非得花很多时间坐交通工具不可（我的旅有是坐火車，大巴和吉普車。古代的時候，一般是马或著骆驼。) 我在内蒙古的旅游也是那样，但是四次坐车坐半天肯定很值得。坐车那么长时间，旅游团的领队一直忙着放电影或著給我们看相声，听音乐等。我们的旅游结束之前，有几部电影看过两次，每首歌听过好几次。有一首歌，歌词唱道，“我心爱的草原在哪里？”我这次去内蒙古以后，还不能用自己的经历确定地回答，因为我们去的地方不是内蒙古的草原的地，反而是内蒙古最西部的部分。
西部没有蒙古族其他住的地区那么有名的草原，其实比草原还干燥。我们去了一些很有独特的地方，例如额济纳，阿拉善高原，巴丹吉林沙漠，胡杨林，黑城，怪树林，等。最后那一天我们从甘肃的兰州坐火车回南京来。那些地方都很干，不过除了巴丹吉林沙漠以外都有植物，从小小的到很大叶子开始变成黄色的树。再说，虽然土地那么干，风景还出人意外地有多次变化。风景的界标少倒是少，不过对我来说看风景比看功夫电影有意思。一会儿有记漂亮的叶子黄色的树林，一会儿有怪树林的真的奇怪的形状和影子，一会儿有平平的土地，一会儿有不平地形，一会儿有沙漠中美不胜收的沙丘。
如果这一次去内蒙古是由我自己安排的，我旅游的经历肯定会很不同。一来我大概没有机会去看那么多有特色值得一看的地方。二来，因为我跟中国人一起去的，这一次旅游的心情，人情，习惯也跟我以前旅游的经历有点不同。例如，当我们美国人去旅游看天然风景区的时候，一般的时一个人或者几个关系比较密切的人最远的地方，要独自的跟自然界在一起。像我们刚学完的第二课的文章，西方人普遍看重的是自我独立和个人主义，中国社会讲究人缘跟合作。因此我们参加这个去内蒙古的旅游团的人任何事都一起做，包括做饭（好多顿饭我们吃的是方便面），搭帐篷，或者收拾行李，洗脸刷牙。我们团一共有二十八个人。除了我以外，都是中国人。我真感谢大家都很友善地，很谅解地接受我，赵瑛我，每天一天到晚跟他们在一起交流，说汉语，我肯定体验得很多，我的中文水平肯定进步得不少。我跟他们在一起玩得很愉快。下次有机会，真想要回内蒙古去。要是需要选择，要想这次跟大的旅游团在一起去旅游或者想美国人的习惯一个人去旅游，我大概会选择向这一次比较中国的经验。
西部没有蒙古族其他住的地区那么有名的草原，其实比草原还干燥。我们去了一些很有独特的地方，例如额济纳，阿拉善高原，巴丹吉林沙漠，胡杨林，黑城，怪树林，等。最后那一天我们从甘肃的兰州坐火车回南京来。那些地方都很干，不过除了巴丹吉林沙漠以外都有植物，从小小的到很大叶子开始变成黄色的树。再说，虽然土地那么干，风景还出人意外地有多次变化。风景的界标少倒是少，不过对我来说看风景比看功夫电影有意思。一会儿有记漂亮的叶子黄色的树林，一会儿有怪树林的真的奇怪的形状和影子，一会儿有平平的土地，一会儿有不平地形，一会儿有沙漠中美不胜收的沙丘。
如果这一次去内蒙古是由我自己安排的，我旅游的经历肯定会很不同。一来我大概没有机会去看那么多有特色值得一看的地方。二来，因为我跟中国人一起去的，这一次旅游的心情，人情，习惯也跟我以前旅游的经历有点不同。例如，当我们美国人去旅游看天然风景区的时候，一般的时一个人或者几个关系比较密切的人最远的地方，要独自的跟自然界在一起。像我们刚学完的第二课的文章，西方人普遍看重的是自我独立和个人主义，中国社会讲究人缘跟合作。因此我们参加这个去内蒙古的旅游团的人任何事都一起做，包括做饭（好多顿饭我们吃的是方便面），搭帐篷，或者收拾行李，洗脸刷牙。我们团一共有二十八个人。除了我以外，都是中国人。我真感谢大家都很友善地，很谅解地接受我，赵瑛我，每天一天到晚跟他们在一起交流，说汉语，我肯定体验得很多，我的中文水平肯定进步得不少。我跟他们在一起玩得很愉快。下次有机会，真想要回内蒙古去。要是需要选择，要想这次跟大的旅游团在一起去旅游或者想美国人的习惯一个人去旅游，我大概会选择向这一次比较中国的经验。
Sunday, November 23, 2008
My Modern Day 西游记 ("Journey West")
China is a HUGE country. Look at a map of the world and that much is apparent. It’s also huge in terms of population: now having surpassed the 1 billion mark, China is second only to India in the list of the worlds most populated countries. But then take into account population density statistics: the bulk of China’s population is concentrated along the country’s East and South, particularly in the several already bursting at the seams and continually expanding big cities along the Eastern coast. Take Nanjing; although, with a population of roughly 7 million (roughly 3 times the population of my sweet home Chicago, considered a big city by U.S. standards), I’ve heard several Chinese friends say its not typically included in the ranks of China’s 大城市 or “big cities.”
While China’s Eastern edge teems with people, what about the West? The North? There you can find the Xinziang, Xizang (Tibet), and Nei Mungu (Inner Mongolia) “Autonomous Regions,” taking up the bulk of the land we know as China but certainly not home to the bulk of the population. Even with the influx of Han Chinese from further East into these less-populated, less-developed regions, the population density is still a small fraction of the figure found further west. I get the impression that most Chinese think of these areas perhaps as most Americans though of the “Wild West” a century ago. Few people have been, many are attracted, the rough living conditions turn many away, but the impulse to idealize this vast, peripheral, largely undeveloped territory remains. It is the source of numerous songs romanticizing the 草原 and 雪山 (“grasslands” and “snowy mountains”).
Because in Western and Northern China land isn’t lacking but people are sparse, if you want to travel around that part of the country, you have to spend quite a bit of time being transported from one place to another. In the olden days—from the days before the Silk Road up to the 20th century—the main means of transport included foot, horse, and camel. Today, there are trains and planes to take you there and buses, trucks, and SUVs to get around once you arrive. During my recent trip to Inner Mongolia, the better part of 4 out of 9 days of travel were spend sitting on trains (2 days: one ride 30 hours, the other 22+!) or buses (2 8-hour + rides plus many shorter legs of the journey). But the beauty and uniqueness of the places that all of that patient sitting on trains and buses afforded us made it all worthwhile.
(*Note: The title of this post contains 3 Chinese characters, 西游记, (pronounced "Xi You Ji" and can be translated "Journey to the West"), one of the most famous folktales in China and also one of my most favorite. It involves the adventures of the Monkey King and his companions Zhu Bajie (a pig) and a monk as they make an epic pilgrimage West to retrieve some precious Buddhist scriptures. Even though its not really West but actually more central verging on East, Inner Mongolia seems to be encompassed in the Chinese conception of Western China. I guess its kind of like Chicago is considered "Midwest" despite the fact that it falls in the Eastern half of the U.S. In both cases, I think that appellation has to do with historically how the land was settled mixed with a leftover notion of a "Wild West.")
(Note: This nowhere near all-encompassing narrative will be expanded upon at a later date. Sorry for the delay!)
While China’s Eastern edge teems with people, what about the West? The North? There you can find the Xinziang, Xizang (Tibet), and Nei Mungu (Inner Mongolia) “Autonomous Regions,” taking up the bulk of the land we know as China but certainly not home to the bulk of the population. Even with the influx of Han Chinese from further East into these less-populated, less-developed regions, the population density is still a small fraction of the figure found further west. I get the impression that most Chinese think of these areas perhaps as most Americans though of the “Wild West” a century ago. Few people have been, many are attracted, the rough living conditions turn many away, but the impulse to idealize this vast, peripheral, largely undeveloped territory remains. It is the source of numerous songs romanticizing the 草原 and 雪山 (“grasslands” and “snowy mountains”).
Because in Western and Northern China land isn’t lacking but people are sparse, if you want to travel around that part of the country, you have to spend quite a bit of time being transported from one place to another. In the olden days—from the days before the Silk Road up to the 20th century—the main means of transport included foot, horse, and camel. Today, there are trains and planes to take you there and buses, trucks, and SUVs to get around once you arrive. During my recent trip to Inner Mongolia, the better part of 4 out of 9 days of travel were spend sitting on trains (2 days: one ride 30 hours, the other 22+!) or buses (2 8-hour + rides plus many shorter legs of the journey). But the beauty and uniqueness of the places that all of that patient sitting on trains and buses afforded us made it all worthwhile.
(*Note: The title of this post contains 3 Chinese characters, 西游记, (pronounced "Xi You Ji" and can be translated "Journey to the West"), one of the most famous folktales in China and also one of my most favorite. It involves the adventures of the Monkey King and his companions Zhu Bajie (a pig) and a monk as they make an epic pilgrimage West to retrieve some precious Buddhist scriptures. Even though its not really West but actually more central verging on East, Inner Mongolia seems to be encompassed in the Chinese conception of Western China. I guess its kind of like Chicago is considered "Midwest" despite the fact that it falls in the Eastern half of the U.S. In both cases, I think that appellation has to do with historically how the land was settled mixed with a leftover notion of a "Wild West.")
(Note: This nowhere near all-encompassing narrative will be expanded upon at a later date. Sorry for the delay!)
Friday, September 26, 2008
Off to Inner Mongolia!
My age-old dilemma: would I rather spend my time...
~ doing things worth writing?
~ Or writing things worth reading?
It's hard to reach a happy medium.
Over the past two weeks, my life in Nanjing has been transformed from the life of a lonely liu xue sheng (foreign exchange student) with few Chinese friends to a life filled with invitations from my new Chinese friends to go out to eat, hang out, go to museums and performances, to sing KTV (the Chinese version of karaoke), etc. It's been a blast!!!
Over the past two weeks, my life in Nanjing has been transformed from the life of a lonely liu xue sheng (foreign exchange student) with few Chinese friends to a life filled with invitations from my new Chinese friends to go out to eat, hang out, go to museums and performances, to sing KTV (the Chinese version of karaoke), etc. It's been a blast!!!
But now my other age-old dilemma:
~ Experience?
~ Or sleep?
Again, tough to strike a good balance.
Lately, I've been leaning towards the "doing things worth writing" and the "experience" end of things. Which explains why I haven't been updating my blog as regularly as ideally I'd like to. But I've put together a few new posts for the time being, and I promise there will be plenty more to come after I return from my 10-day excursion to Inner Mongolia.
Lately, I've been leaning towards the "doing things worth writing" and the "experience" end of things. Which explains why I haven't been updating my blog as regularly as ideally I'd like to. But I've put together a few new posts for the time being, and I promise there will be plenty more to come after I return from my 10-day excursion to Inner Mongolia.
I'll be taking off for the Nanjing Train Station in a matter of hours, with my hiking backpack (the only luggage receptacle I brought to China) packed with camping gear, for a trip to Inner Mongolia. Students in the CIEE study abroad program at Nanjing U get a 10-day vacation during Guo Qing Jie, or the National Day of the PRC, and I'm using that time to join my host dad and a group of 24 or so other participants for a camping trip in Inner Mongolia.
A bit about this Guo Qing Jie: the actual holiday falls every year on October 1st, the day the nation was founded back in 1949, but many people have a substantially longer holiday and use it to travel: from my understanding, Guo Qing Jie is the most popular time of year to travel here in the PRC. So the more touristy sites (Taishan, for example: the mountain I visited with my fellow CIEE students earlier this month) are typically overrun with tourists this time of year. But I think we'll be able to escape the crowds in the wilderness of Inner Mongolia.
Out there in the Mongolian caoyuan (grassy plains), while I'll escape the Guo Qing Jie influx of tourists, I'm also certain that I won't get any opportunities to update my blog. I hope these recent postings will tide you over until my return to Nanjing. Until then, take care & Guo Qing Jie kuai le (have a happy PRC national founding day)!
紫金山
I've always admired the time and skill—or the sheer impulse of nature—it takes to create an oasis of green, of fresh, of quiet and nature in the middle of an otherwise gray, drab and noisy city. In China’s particularly gray, drab, and noisy cities, the difference seems most striking. Upon setting foot in one of Nanjing’s many gong yuan (public parks), the environment is immediately transformed. City on the outside, peaceful park on the inside. In addition to having over a dozen public parks of varying sizes, Nanjing also has a sizeable mountain within the city limits (I’m sure it was on the outskirts until recently, but the expansion of the cities population and construction has consumed it whole). Zijin Shan (or “Purple-Gold Mountain) is a popular destination for tourists and Nanjing natives alike. In fact, a friend of my Shu Shu organizes a weekly hiking and camping outing on the mountain.
One weekend, I was invited to join the expedition. I packed my hiking backpack (the only luggage receptacle I’d brought with me to China) with a tent, sleeping pad and bag, some other useful camping supplies, and plenty of snacks. When my host dad packed his bag, the bulk in both space and weight was taken up by beer. The evening of the climb, after going out for a nice dinner with the whole family and my host aunt and niece (who’s family, coincidentally, is hosting another laowai or foreigner at their home. And not just any foreigner but a girl I went to high school and college with, and now we’re doing the CIEE study abroad together). We returned home to grab our bags—and of course can’t forget the stash of beer—and took a taxi to the trailhead that we would take up the mountain.
By the time the group of 25 gathered at the bottom and we started to hike to the top, it was already past 8:30 PM. After stumbling up endless by the light of the headlamps—and the mid-autumn moon that all of China would be celebrating that very weekend with Zhong Qiu Jie or the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival—we made it to the top, panting and drenched in sweat drawn out of us by the muggy air. After reaching the summit campsites, we wasted no time in setting up camp. And after setting up camp, we wasted no time setting up the elaborate feast we would enjoy on the mountaintop. We did a head count and a can count, and discovered that there were roughly 4 cans of beer per person, plus a few bottles of red wine for the ladies and bai jiu (traditionally China’s alcoholic beverage of choice, a strong foul-tasting clear liquor with the smell of rubbing alcohol) for the men.
I didn’t drink my fair share, I assure you, but couldn’t get out of drinking a couple cups of red wine. The customs surrounding drinking in this country are quite different from those in the U.S. The U.S., as far as I know, doesn’t really have many if any such customs, except for the occasional raising of a toast. In China, however, throughout a meal at which alcohol is served, usually the more respected, almost always male, members of the party, will frequently raise toasts to their guests and friends and families. They will drink a certain amount, and usually the other person is supposed to drain the same amount. Luckily, it seems OK for ladies to accept the sentiments of a toast but refuse to drink. But some times, you can’t get out of it.
From all I’ve seen so far, it seems the most popular recipients of toasts are the “meinu” or “beautiful ladies.” So in our hiking-camping party, the women that I sat with got toasted countless times. But because I had the added novelty of being a “Mei Guo meinu” or “beautiful American woman,” I can accurately claim that most of the toasts that night were in my honor, thankfully not always involving me to take a sip of Great Wall red wine in a flimsy plastic cup little bigger than a shot glass. Astonishingly, all of the cans of beer, the bottles of bai jiu and red wine, were drained by the end of the night. And only one guy in the group had noticeably too much. Everyone else—myself included—was left in still standing and in good spirits, and got to keep their suppers.
After the mountaintop meal and drinking party was finished, I hiked up the rest of the way to the actual summit with a small group of . There we sat to admire the nearly full moon that would occasionally peek out from the cloud-smog cover. Atop Zijin Shan, with two days to go until the Moon Festival, we enjoyed some moon cakes to complete an excellent meal and get an early start on the celebrations. And what celebration is complete without… more beer. Someone had apparently stashed some cans away just for this purpose. More toasts. To the moon. To the mountain. And, of course, to the “meinu.” We then hiked back to the campsite. Everyone crawled into their respective tents (it was around 3 AM by that point) and fell asleep.
We didn’t stay asleep for long. As happens early every morning in every park in the city, people—mostly the elderly—come to “duan lian shenti” or “work the body.” Zijin Shan, despite being a sizeable mountain, was not exempt. In fact, the added challenge of climbing the mountain seemed to draw larger numbers of early morning exercisers. A wide range of workout activities were practiced, from Tai Chi and other forms of martial art to dance and using the workout machines (which, when clustered together in the clearings scattered across the side of the mountain, looked like a bizarre, run-down playground). Also, large numbers of elderly men seemed to prefer exercising their voices. That entails hollering and grunting and doing something that sounds reminiscent of yodeling—all at maximum volume—while walking up the mountain. Mind you, this all starts at around 5:30 in the AM.
That unwelcome yet unique alarm clock was sufficient to wake up all of us in the camping group. Whether ready to wake up or not, we decided to start disassembling camp and heading down the mountain. We took a different and apparently more popular path on our way down, and the closer we got to the trailhead, the closer the crowds were packed together.
One weekend, I was invited to join the expedition. I packed my hiking backpack (the only luggage receptacle I’d brought with me to China) with a tent, sleeping pad and bag, some other useful camping supplies, and plenty of snacks. When my host dad packed his bag, the bulk in both space and weight was taken up by beer. The evening of the climb, after going out for a nice dinner with the whole family and my host aunt and niece (who’s family, coincidentally, is hosting another laowai or foreigner at their home. And not just any foreigner but a girl I went to high school and college with, and now we’re doing the CIEE study abroad together). We returned home to grab our bags—and of course can’t forget the stash of beer—and took a taxi to the trailhead that we would take up the mountain.
By the time the group of 25 gathered at the bottom and we started to hike to the top, it was already past 8:30 PM. After stumbling up endless by the light of the headlamps—and the mid-autumn moon that all of China would be celebrating that very weekend with Zhong Qiu Jie or the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival—we made it to the top, panting and drenched in sweat drawn out of us by the muggy air. After reaching the summit campsites, we wasted no time in setting up camp. And after setting up camp, we wasted no time setting up the elaborate feast we would enjoy on the mountaintop. We did a head count and a can count, and discovered that there were roughly 4 cans of beer per person, plus a few bottles of red wine for the ladies and bai jiu (traditionally China’s alcoholic beverage of choice, a strong foul-tasting clear liquor with the smell of rubbing alcohol) for the men.
I didn’t drink my fair share, I assure you, but couldn’t get out of drinking a couple cups of red wine. The customs surrounding drinking in this country are quite different from those in the U.S. The U.S., as far as I know, doesn’t really have many if any such customs, except for the occasional raising of a toast. In China, however, throughout a meal at which alcohol is served, usually the more respected, almost always male, members of the party, will frequently raise toasts to their guests and friends and families. They will drink a certain amount, and usually the other person is supposed to drain the same amount. Luckily, it seems OK for ladies to accept the sentiments of a toast but refuse to drink. But some times, you can’t get out of it.
From all I’ve seen so far, it seems the most popular recipients of toasts are the “meinu” or “beautiful ladies.” So in our hiking-camping party, the women that I sat with got toasted countless times. But because I had the added novelty of being a “Mei Guo meinu” or “beautiful American woman,” I can accurately claim that most of the toasts that night were in my honor, thankfully not always involving me to take a sip of Great Wall red wine in a flimsy plastic cup little bigger than a shot glass. Astonishingly, all of the cans of beer, the bottles of bai jiu and red wine, were drained by the end of the night. And only one guy in the group had noticeably too much. Everyone else—myself included—was left in still standing and in good spirits, and got to keep their suppers.
After the mountaintop meal and drinking party was finished, I hiked up the rest of the way to the actual summit with a small group of . There we sat to admire the nearly full moon that would occasionally peek out from the cloud-smog cover. Atop Zijin Shan, with two days to go until the Moon Festival, we enjoyed some moon cakes to complete an excellent meal and get an early start on the celebrations. And what celebration is complete without… more beer. Someone had apparently stashed some cans away just for this purpose. More toasts. To the moon. To the mountain. And, of course, to the “meinu.” We then hiked back to the campsite. Everyone crawled into their respective tents (it was around 3 AM by that point) and fell asleep.
We didn’t stay asleep for long. As happens early every morning in every park in the city, people—mostly the elderly—come to “duan lian shenti” or “work the body.” Zijin Shan, despite being a sizeable mountain, was not exempt. In fact, the added challenge of climbing the mountain seemed to draw larger numbers of early morning exercisers. A wide range of workout activities were practiced, from Tai Chi and other forms of martial art to dance and using the workout machines (which, when clustered together in the clearings scattered across the side of the mountain, looked like a bizarre, run-down playground). Also, large numbers of elderly men seemed to prefer exercising their voices. That entails hollering and grunting and doing something that sounds reminiscent of yodeling—all at maximum volume—while walking up the mountain. Mind you, this all starts at around 5:30 in the AM.
That unwelcome yet unique alarm clock was sufficient to wake up all of us in the camping group. Whether ready to wake up or not, we decided to start disassembling camp and heading down the mountain. We took a different and apparently more popular path on our way down, and the closer we got to the trailhead, the closer the crowds were packed together.
The previous evening, when we met to start our climb at 8:30 PM, I was wondering, ‘Why start so late in the evening?’ Now it made sense. The mountain is a popular destination for locals and tourists from other parts of the country alike. During the daylight hours, the trails are packed with people. We made our way with our bulky camping backpacks through the crowds, me as the only foreigner in the group attracting a lot of surprised stares. Once we made it to the bottom and out into the busy streets of the surrounding city, we hiked a little farther to find a spot for our breakfast. Our group leader ended up bringing us to his favorite baozi (steamed bun) spot, their specialty being tang bao or small flying saucer shaped baozi filled with a tasty broth or tang. After we ate our fill of tang bao, we stood out on the street to say our goodbyes and then went our separate ways, through the busy streets with bulky backpacks in tow.
望子成龍
At least during my first few weeks in their home, I’ve made it a priority to spend as much time with my host family as I can manage. Much of that time has been spent playing with my Mei Mei, or little sister, Ma Yu Jie. She is a sweet, smart 7-year old with an abundance of energy, mixed with a bit of an attitude. So when she wants me to play Barbies or building blocks with her, she gets her way. Ayi, my family’s live-in housekeeper, who I understand was hired primarily to take care of Ma Yu Jie, and my host parents, however, are not such push-overs. When Ma Yu Jie doesn’t want to drink her milk in the mornings or practice piano in the evenings, she will often put up quite a fuss. In the end, though (most of the time, at least), she will grudgingly end up following orders.
Like lots of Chinese parents seem to do, Ma Yu Jie’s parents and Ayi, who is like a second mother, are able to balance their love for their daughter—and their desire to fulfill her every will and wish—with their desire to make sure she has the brightest future they can provide for. That means piano lessons, calligraphy classes, extracurricular swimming, and plenty of homework outside of that assigned at school. In a country bursting at the seams in terms of population, many parents hope their children will grow up to succeed and stand out in the crowd. Seeing as most parents have only one child, they’ve got only one chance to see that wish fulfilled, proverbially putting all their eggs in one basket.
Chinese language abounds in cheng yu, 4-character-long proverbs or sayings of sorts that often have some story behind them. One that I’ve heard more often than others is “望子成龍,” expressing the wish parents have to see their children grow up to be “dragons,” in other words, great. To help their daughter turn into a “dragon,” my host parents have been taking Ma Yu Jie to an assortment of extracurricular activities every week for the past couple years. This week, I was invited to come along and get a taste of the dream of dragons.
First: piano lessons on Friday night. The teacher, upon greeting us at the door of his apartment on the top floor of a 33-storey building, looked surprised to see a foreigner tagging along for the lessons, and pulled out an extra pair of slippers for me to wear. I’ve always had the utmost respect for music teachers, like this man and my new erhu teacher, for their endless patience. The next day, Ma Yu Jie and I practiced her newly assigned songs together.
Then, like every Saturday at noon, shu fa ke (calligraphy class). Around 20 Chinese children, all around my Mei Mei’s age range (7), sat at double desks next to a parent while the teacher briefly explained the way to write that week’s 6 new characters, all containing a common radical or portion. The art school where the class was held is a walk-able distance from home, so this time it was just Ma Yu Jie and I. She showed me the way and we gave mom, dad, and Ayi the afternoon off.
But it wasn’t that long of a respite: we showed up just in time for class, the teacher did about 15 minutes of explanation, and the students were left to practice on their own—under the more or less watchful eyes of their accompanying parent (some strictly kept their kids on task, some used the time to nap)—for the rest of the class as the teacher went around the room to each student’s desk and, with amazing speed and skill, copied the 6 characters of the week on a paper the student could take home and use to practice. After the teacher finished at one desk, he moved on to the next, and on down the line while the students continued to practice. As soon as he finished at Ma Yu Jie’s desk, however, she started to pack up and insisted that, even though none of her fellow students had yet packed up and left, it was perfectly fine to do so. I didn’t buy it, but she refused to touch her brush again. So after 10 minutes or so of trying to convince her, I caved and let her lead the way out of the classroom, where the other students were still practicing away, and back home.
That brief break aside, Ma Yu Jie still seems to get plenty of opportunities to play. About a block away from our apartment, a fancy new department store just had a grand opening: there seem to be growing numbers of such high-end shopping centers in this city. Anyways, on the 3rd floor, my sister soon discovered, is an arcade. Young and old alike—especially groups of teenage boys or couples around my age—seem to enjoy going there to dance DDR, shoot hoops on a time limit, whack plastic gophers as they emerge from their plastic holes, play slot machines, and the like. My sister seems to like the games where you can win tickets, and later exchange them for little trinkets such as stuffed animals or Hello Kitty alarm clocks. Her second—and certainly not last—time at the arcade, I tagged along. The noise and flashing lights, the colors and the crowds—and most of all the cutesy-ness—was a little much for me. Regardless, I’ve been back many times since, and every time I leave feeling a little nauseated. The only time I stuck a coin in a machine was to play a round of table hockey with Ma Yu Jie. When I go, the most entertaining aspect is watching the action.
For a mix between the fun and the educational, one Sunday morning, my host mom took Ma Yu Jie and me to the Nanjing DianShiTa (TV tower), once among the tallest constructions in Nanjing but now being outdone on a regular basis. The bottom few floors contain a science museum designed especially for kids around my Mei Mei’s age. Upon arriving, we met up with some colleagues of my host mom and their 2 kids and entered the museum (although not after spending about 20 minutes to get the guards at the door to accept my student ID, seeing as I hadn’t thought to bring my passport and very well might be a terrorist or spy).
It was reminiscent of Chicago’s Science & Industry, smaller on the one hand but more hands-on on the other hand. The two mothers and I followed the trail blazed by the kids, who ran from one science station to the next. The father of the two kids we went through the museum with, however, disappeared soon into the visit. Once we had walked through the whole museum and experimented with about every single station in working order (several weren’t), we found all the fathers clustered together in one of two places: the internet station in the technology section or the café next to the gift shop, where several of them sat sullenly or could be caught nodding off. In matters of fun as in the pursuit of the “dragon dream,” it seems to be both parents who lend their support but the mothers who make it happen.
Like lots of Chinese parents seem to do, Ma Yu Jie’s parents and Ayi, who is like a second mother, are able to balance their love for their daughter—and their desire to fulfill her every will and wish—with their desire to make sure she has the brightest future they can provide for. That means piano lessons, calligraphy classes, extracurricular swimming, and plenty of homework outside of that assigned at school. In a country bursting at the seams in terms of population, many parents hope their children will grow up to succeed and stand out in the crowd. Seeing as most parents have only one child, they’ve got only one chance to see that wish fulfilled, proverbially putting all their eggs in one basket.
Chinese language abounds in cheng yu, 4-character-long proverbs or sayings of sorts that often have some story behind them. One that I’ve heard more often than others is “望子成龍,” expressing the wish parents have to see their children grow up to be “dragons,” in other words, great. To help their daughter turn into a “dragon,” my host parents have been taking Ma Yu Jie to an assortment of extracurricular activities every week for the past couple years. This week, I was invited to come along and get a taste of the dream of dragons.
First: piano lessons on Friday night. The teacher, upon greeting us at the door of his apartment on the top floor of a 33-storey building, looked surprised to see a foreigner tagging along for the lessons, and pulled out an extra pair of slippers for me to wear. I’ve always had the utmost respect for music teachers, like this man and my new erhu teacher, for their endless patience. The next day, Ma Yu Jie and I practiced her newly assigned songs together.
Then, like every Saturday at noon, shu fa ke (calligraphy class). Around 20 Chinese children, all around my Mei Mei’s age range (7), sat at double desks next to a parent while the teacher briefly explained the way to write that week’s 6 new characters, all containing a common radical or portion. The art school where the class was held is a walk-able distance from home, so this time it was just Ma Yu Jie and I. She showed me the way and we gave mom, dad, and Ayi the afternoon off.
But it wasn’t that long of a respite: we showed up just in time for class, the teacher did about 15 minutes of explanation, and the students were left to practice on their own—under the more or less watchful eyes of their accompanying parent (some strictly kept their kids on task, some used the time to nap)—for the rest of the class as the teacher went around the room to each student’s desk and, with amazing speed and skill, copied the 6 characters of the week on a paper the student could take home and use to practice. After the teacher finished at one desk, he moved on to the next, and on down the line while the students continued to practice. As soon as he finished at Ma Yu Jie’s desk, however, she started to pack up and insisted that, even though none of her fellow students had yet packed up and left, it was perfectly fine to do so. I didn’t buy it, but she refused to touch her brush again. So after 10 minutes or so of trying to convince her, I caved and let her lead the way out of the classroom, where the other students were still practicing away, and back home.
That brief break aside, Ma Yu Jie still seems to get plenty of opportunities to play. About a block away from our apartment, a fancy new department store just had a grand opening: there seem to be growing numbers of such high-end shopping centers in this city. Anyways, on the 3rd floor, my sister soon discovered, is an arcade. Young and old alike—especially groups of teenage boys or couples around my age—seem to enjoy going there to dance DDR, shoot hoops on a time limit, whack plastic gophers as they emerge from their plastic holes, play slot machines, and the like. My sister seems to like the games where you can win tickets, and later exchange them for little trinkets such as stuffed animals or Hello Kitty alarm clocks. Her second—and certainly not last—time at the arcade, I tagged along. The noise and flashing lights, the colors and the crowds—and most of all the cutesy-ness—was a little much for me. Regardless, I’ve been back many times since, and every time I leave feeling a little nauseated. The only time I stuck a coin in a machine was to play a round of table hockey with Ma Yu Jie. When I go, the most entertaining aspect is watching the action.
For a mix between the fun and the educational, one Sunday morning, my host mom took Ma Yu Jie and me to the Nanjing DianShiTa (TV tower), once among the tallest constructions in Nanjing but now being outdone on a regular basis. The bottom few floors contain a science museum designed especially for kids around my Mei Mei’s age. Upon arriving, we met up with some colleagues of my host mom and their 2 kids and entered the museum (although not after spending about 20 minutes to get the guards at the door to accept my student ID, seeing as I hadn’t thought to bring my passport and very well might be a terrorist or spy).
It was reminiscent of Chicago’s Science & Industry, smaller on the one hand but more hands-on on the other hand. The two mothers and I followed the trail blazed by the kids, who ran from one science station to the next. The father of the two kids we went through the museum with, however, disappeared soon into the visit. Once we had walked through the whole museum and experimented with about every single station in working order (several weren’t), we found all the fathers clustered together in one of two places: the internet station in the technology section or the café next to the gift shop, where several of them sat sullenly or could be caught nodding off. In matters of fun as in the pursuit of the “dragon dream,” it seems to be both parents who lend their support but the mothers who make it happen.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
A word worth a thousand words...
Some pictures are worth a thousand words. But what about a picture of a word? Chinese calligraphy is writing and art rolled into one scroll, and even something more. Through technique and skill thrown in with the artist’s personality, a calligrapher can turn a standard square Chinese character into an expressive image that shows the inner world of the artist and reveals far more than just the meaning of the characters themselves. In the olden days of the Chinese empire, a good handle on a calligraphy brush was imperative and could propel a prospective civil servant or scholar far. Back then and still today, many Chinese (my host sister and father included) study diligently for years to master the deceptively difficult art and science of combining the right proportions of ink and water with the responsiveness of rice paper and a steady hand that can maneuver the brush in just the right ways and at just the right speed.
Calligraphy can be considered a discipline—both a physical and mental one—much like China's more world-renowned martial arts. During my first calligraphy lesson, I came to understand that in the slower-paced society of times past as well as in modern China's rush, the calligraphy brush together with paper, ink and stone can be seen as a means to meditate, clear the mind and calm the soul. “For our purposes and fast-paced life,” Huang Laoshi told the group of CIEE students that he had taken to buy supplies for his calligraphy class, “the pre-mixed and bottled ink will do just fine. But if you want the real experience, and to clear your mind while your at it, I suggest you buy one of these ink sticks as well. A serious student,” he explained, “will spend a half-hour or so before starting to paint just grinding the ink stick to come up with the perfect proportions of ink and water.” I bought both, but with my busy schedule, alas, have yet to try out the ink stick.
In addition to a means of making ink and an ink stone to hold it, calligraphy of course requires a brush and paper. These four basic tools, known as the “four treasures of the study,” are versatile enough to express a broad range of styles and emotions. Ink. Stone. Brush. Paper. Sounds simple enough. But the four treasures are surprisingly hard to work with. Looking at a flawless finished work, it's hard to imagine the hours of practice and preparation involved. The key is not necessarily mastering how to write a character, but mastering the 8 basic brush strokes—including a dot as well as horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines in straight, curved and hooked form—that comprise every component of every character. That too sounds pretty straightforward. But here’s the catch: it all has to be executed in one fell swoop, no going back over a spot where the brush faltered. Even if you go back over what you painted, the result will often turn out worse than if you just left it alone.
Our very first lesson involved no brushes or other “four treasures,” but Huang Laoshi explaining (in Chinese, of course) some of the things I just explained for you here. A few days later, he agreed to take a group of all the students interested in joining his class to Shi Zhi Zhai, apparently the best (although slightly more expensive) place in town to get calligraphy supplies, books and finished works, a place that's been an establishment in Nanjing since the early days of the Qing Dynasty (mid-1600's).
Next class, now that we all came armed with our own supplies, we could finally get our hands dirty and start to paint. For roughly an hour and a half, we painted long horizontal lines. The following class, we practiced short in addition to long horizontal lines. And next week, if we're lucky, we’ll get to move on to vertical lines. Progress is slow and it sounds like it could be frustrating. But in the process of monotonous practice, my mind and spirit become calm. After the hour and a half class, I walk out of the classroom with sheets of practice paper covered in horizontal lines and a mind cleared momentarily of the worries of homework and the pressures of making a life in a new country, a country where lots of things (from social relations to calligraphy, from food to commerce) are more complex beneath a simple-looking surface.
Calligraphy can be considered a discipline—both a physical and mental one—much like China's more world-renowned martial arts. During my first calligraphy lesson, I came to understand that in the slower-paced society of times past as well as in modern China's rush, the calligraphy brush together with paper, ink and stone can be seen as a means to meditate, clear the mind and calm the soul. “For our purposes and fast-paced life,” Huang Laoshi told the group of CIEE students that he had taken to buy supplies for his calligraphy class, “the pre-mixed and bottled ink will do just fine. But if you want the real experience, and to clear your mind while your at it, I suggest you buy one of these ink sticks as well. A serious student,” he explained, “will spend a half-hour or so before starting to paint just grinding the ink stick to come up with the perfect proportions of ink and water.” I bought both, but with my busy schedule, alas, have yet to try out the ink stick.
In addition to a means of making ink and an ink stone to hold it, calligraphy of course requires a brush and paper. These four basic tools, known as the “four treasures of the study,” are versatile enough to express a broad range of styles and emotions. Ink. Stone. Brush. Paper. Sounds simple enough. But the four treasures are surprisingly hard to work with. Looking at a flawless finished work, it's hard to imagine the hours of practice and preparation involved. The key is not necessarily mastering how to write a character, but mastering the 8 basic brush strokes—including a dot as well as horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines in straight, curved and hooked form—that comprise every component of every character. That too sounds pretty straightforward. But here’s the catch: it all has to be executed in one fell swoop, no going back over a spot where the brush faltered. Even if you go back over what you painted, the result will often turn out worse than if you just left it alone.
Our very first lesson involved no brushes or other “four treasures,” but Huang Laoshi explaining (in Chinese, of course) some of the things I just explained for you here. A few days later, he agreed to take a group of all the students interested in joining his class to Shi Zhi Zhai, apparently the best (although slightly more expensive) place in town to get calligraphy supplies, books and finished works, a place that's been an establishment in Nanjing since the early days of the Qing Dynasty (mid-1600's).
Next class, now that we all came armed with our own supplies, we could finally get our hands dirty and start to paint. For roughly an hour and a half, we painted long horizontal lines. The following class, we practiced short in addition to long horizontal lines. And next week, if we're lucky, we’ll get to move on to vertical lines. Progress is slow and it sounds like it could be frustrating. But in the process of monotonous practice, my mind and spirit become calm. After the hour and a half class, I walk out of the classroom with sheets of practice paper covered in horizontal lines and a mind cleared momentarily of the worries of homework and the pressures of making a life in a new country, a country where lots of things (from social relations to calligraphy, from food to commerce) are more complex beneath a simple-looking surface.
气
It can be found just about anywhere.
China is its source, but is spread across all corners of the earth. It's a driving force behind a lot of what goes on in the world, in terms of economics, politics, and otherwise.
No, its not the Chinese people—or their cheap manufactured goods—that I'm thinking of, but their concept of 气 or “Qi.” By this day in age, most people have probably heard the word, heard of the Tai Chi (Chi, Ji, Qi, Ki, spell it how you will: all refer to the same character 气 & concept) that it encompasses. But 气, a word with multifarious meanings and manifestations—all referring to things intangible—can be a tough term to grasp. It can mean…
Air, breath, gas, or smell, or something in between (just hopefully not foul-smelling gas). 气’s connotation also extends to concepts like mood, manner, attitude. Even more elusively ethereal, 气, as in Tai Chi, is often translated as “life force” or “energy flow,” the subtle, mysterious, and often unnoticed force that makes us move and moves the world. Japanese culture covers the same concept, except they call it “ki.” Just to illustrate how complex气can be, a linguistic study showed that there were 11,442 known uses of the character in Japanese. Back to China, though: 气 is a key concept within various schools of martial arts and medicine. It's also an important part of Feng Shui, wrapped up in the duality of Yin and Yang. Today, my first day to attend a I began my quest toward a deeper understanding of the concept of气.
That afternoon, I was sitting in the CIEE office chatting with Tang Laoshi, our program director, when she received a phone call from a confused Tai Chi Laoshi teacher: she had been waiting in the lobby to start class, but no students showed up. 'Is no one interested?' she was wondering. ‘Or was there maybe some miscommunication?’The latter turned out to be true: earlier that day, excited about the prospect of beginning my study of Tai Chi, I asked about the class had been assured that the first session wasn't until the following week. It certainly wasn’t that no one was interested: a good 26 out of 33 students showed up to check it out. We worked together, pushing desks and chairs to the edges of the conference hall that was to transform into our Tai Chi classroom. Now to begin.
But wait: all the explanations were in Chinese. Though I've been getting the hang of informal conversation on the streets and with my family, technical Tai Chi terminology was way beyond me. Luckily, though, Tai Chi (philosophy of 气aside) is one of those sets of skills that can be learned by showing and doing. And that was just how the 26 of us—mostly newcomers to the martial art of Tai Chi, like me—learned the series of warm-up exercises and the first set of steps in the Yang-style form. Laoshi demonstrated, we did our best to mirror her movements. And here’s the magical thing about Tai Chi: it looks so simple, mellow, and slow-moving. But, if done right, it can be just what's needed to stir up that inner energy or 气 and regulate its flow.
Call it a new age fad—and maybe that'’s what it has become to a lot of people in the U.S.—but I'm convinced that there's certainly something to it. Our Laoshi is a petite woman who must be approaching her 60's, yet years of doing Tai Chi have kept her in such superior shape that it's not a stretch to say that she has as much or more strength and flexibility than anyone among the crop of students who showed up for her class. We started with some low-key warm up exercises, which left me thinking that we wouldn't be doing anything all that strenuous. Then, out of nowhere, she into a deep squat stretch that I then tried to imagine all the 60-year old ladies I know back home attempting, and that caused my friend Sarah to exclaim, “This one's gonna take some work if we don't want to end up tearing ourselves in half.”
After the strenuous squat stretch, we didn't encounter anything quite so challenging for the rest of the class, which was focused on learning the first few steps in the Chen-style form (there are numerous schools of Tai Chi with different styles and routines: Chen is one of them). But the fact that our elderly teacher could move like that continued to blow me away. Yeah, there indeed must be something to Tai Chi. My thoughts turned to the flocks made up mostly of men and women age 50 & over that filled the public park on Nanjing U's campus every morning, groups practicing Tai Chi or dance—even a few basketball teams that I would estimate all the members to be around 70 or older—that one could encounter during a walk across the park… provided you got up at an early-enough hour.
In Chinese, the general term for this kind of activity is 鍛練身體, or something like “working the body.” It seems to be a fad for the older generations here, a popular way to start the day with both a physical workout and some social time. And the fad isn't just in Nanjing: I've seen such groups and activities in all the cities I've visited here. And, you know what, the elderly population in this country seem to be, generally, in much better shape than I've seen elsewhere around the world. Tai Chi seems to be the most popular morning workout activity. Though the warm-ups and routines people practice tend to look pretty low-key and simple—Tai Chi doesn’t always have to entail contorting the body into crouching tiger position—it truly seems to do the trick. The effectiveness of Tai Chi, as I see it, stems from not necessarily the exercises themselves but the way they cause a person's 气 to flow around the body.
So it all comes back to that concept of 气. But what is this 气, exactly? Hard to pinpoint, you could say, although the many pin points used in acupuncture try to locate and regulate its energy meridians in the body. The question for me is not so much, “What is 气?,” which I can vaguely answer on a theoretical level, but what is this force called 气 on a practical level? How can I feel its flow, not just through my body, but in the world around me? And what can I do to tap into that energy and, like the dozens of elderly men and women that gather in the parks across that country early every morning, make sure its flowing smoothly and evenly to all the right places? Well, I'm not sure how much of that I can truly grasp, but that's my goal for the course of my new Tai Chi class.
China is its source, but is spread across all corners of the earth. It's a driving force behind a lot of what goes on in the world, in terms of economics, politics, and otherwise.
No, its not the Chinese people—or their cheap manufactured goods—that I'm thinking of, but their concept of 气 or “Qi.” By this day in age, most people have probably heard the word, heard of the Tai Chi (Chi, Ji, Qi, Ki, spell it how you will: all refer to the same character 气 & concept) that it encompasses. But 气, a word with multifarious meanings and manifestations—all referring to things intangible—can be a tough term to grasp. It can mean…
Air, breath, gas, or smell, or something in between (just hopefully not foul-smelling gas). 气’s connotation also extends to concepts like mood, manner, attitude. Even more elusively ethereal, 气, as in Tai Chi, is often translated as “life force” or “energy flow,” the subtle, mysterious, and often unnoticed force that makes us move and moves the world. Japanese culture covers the same concept, except they call it “ki.” Just to illustrate how complex气can be, a linguistic study showed that there were 11,442 known uses of the character in Japanese. Back to China, though: 气 is a key concept within various schools of martial arts and medicine. It's also an important part of Feng Shui, wrapped up in the duality of Yin and Yang. Today, my first day to attend a I began my quest toward a deeper understanding of the concept of气.
That afternoon, I was sitting in the CIEE office chatting with Tang Laoshi, our program director, when she received a phone call from a confused Tai Chi Laoshi teacher: she had been waiting in the lobby to start class, but no students showed up. 'Is no one interested?' she was wondering. ‘Or was there maybe some miscommunication?’The latter turned out to be true: earlier that day, excited about the prospect of beginning my study of Tai Chi, I asked about the class had been assured that the first session wasn't until the following week. It certainly wasn’t that no one was interested: a good 26 out of 33 students showed up to check it out. We worked together, pushing desks and chairs to the edges of the conference hall that was to transform into our Tai Chi classroom. Now to begin.
But wait: all the explanations were in Chinese. Though I've been getting the hang of informal conversation on the streets and with my family, technical Tai Chi terminology was way beyond me. Luckily, though, Tai Chi (philosophy of 气aside) is one of those sets of skills that can be learned by showing and doing. And that was just how the 26 of us—mostly newcomers to the martial art of Tai Chi, like me—learned the series of warm-up exercises and the first set of steps in the Yang-style form. Laoshi demonstrated, we did our best to mirror her movements. And here’s the magical thing about Tai Chi: it looks so simple, mellow, and slow-moving. But, if done right, it can be just what's needed to stir up that inner energy or 气 and regulate its flow.
Call it a new age fad—and maybe that'’s what it has become to a lot of people in the U.S.—but I'm convinced that there's certainly something to it. Our Laoshi is a petite woman who must be approaching her 60's, yet years of doing Tai Chi have kept her in such superior shape that it's not a stretch to say that she has as much or more strength and flexibility than anyone among the crop of students who showed up for her class. We started with some low-key warm up exercises, which left me thinking that we wouldn't be doing anything all that strenuous. Then, out of nowhere, she into a deep squat stretch that I then tried to imagine all the 60-year old ladies I know back home attempting, and that caused my friend Sarah to exclaim, “This one's gonna take some work if we don't want to end up tearing ourselves in half.”
After the strenuous squat stretch, we didn't encounter anything quite so challenging for the rest of the class, which was focused on learning the first few steps in the Chen-style form (there are numerous schools of Tai Chi with different styles and routines: Chen is one of them). But the fact that our elderly teacher could move like that continued to blow me away. Yeah, there indeed must be something to Tai Chi. My thoughts turned to the flocks made up mostly of men and women age 50 & over that filled the public park on Nanjing U's campus every morning, groups practicing Tai Chi or dance—even a few basketball teams that I would estimate all the members to be around 70 or older—that one could encounter during a walk across the park… provided you got up at an early-enough hour.
In Chinese, the general term for this kind of activity is 鍛練身體, or something like “working the body.” It seems to be a fad for the older generations here, a popular way to start the day with both a physical workout and some social time. And the fad isn't just in Nanjing: I've seen such groups and activities in all the cities I've visited here. And, you know what, the elderly population in this country seem to be, generally, in much better shape than I've seen elsewhere around the world. Tai Chi seems to be the most popular morning workout activity. Though the warm-ups and routines people practice tend to look pretty low-key and simple—Tai Chi doesn’t always have to entail contorting the body into crouching tiger position—it truly seems to do the trick. The effectiveness of Tai Chi, as I see it, stems from not necessarily the exercises themselves but the way they cause a person's 气 to flow around the body.
So it all comes back to that concept of 气. But what is this 气, exactly? Hard to pinpoint, you could say, although the many pin points used in acupuncture try to locate and regulate its energy meridians in the body. The question for me is not so much, “What is 气?,” which I can vaguely answer on a theoretical level, but what is this force called 气 on a practical level? How can I feel its flow, not just through my body, but in the world around me? And what can I do to tap into that energy and, like the dozens of elderly men and women that gather in the parks across that country early every morning, make sure its flowing smoothly and evenly to all the right places? Well, I'm not sure how much of that I can truly grasp, but that's my goal for the course of my new Tai Chi class.
Frogger, LIVE!
Imagine: a country of 1.3 billion plus people. Twenty years ago, only the highest-ranking party officials could dream of owning a car. Now, roughly 1000 vehicles—and drivers—are being added to Beijing’s roads each day. Not only in Beijing, but in other big cities and suburban areas alike across the country, car ownership is becoming more commonplace. But what does that mean for the state of the nation’s roads? Consider a situation where there are too many drivers on the roads to begin with and that all of them are relatively new to the skill. Then throw in a crowd of pedestrians mixed in with motorcyclists and plenty of bicycles and what have you got? That can give you a reasonable picture of the state of China’s roads.
Actually, after spending time in India where each time you cross a street can call to mind not only a fretful mother’s advice to “Look both ways before crossing the street…” but also the Buddhist doctrine of the impermanence of life, China’s traffic isn’t nearly as bad as I expected it to be. Nor is it as bad as the free-for-all found on the roads across India, where the most strictly adhered to rule is: the bigger your vehicle, the greater your power (roaming cows and monkeys excluded). No, in fact, keeping in mind China’s drivers’ relative lack of experience behind the wheel under their belts, the traffic situation in Nanjing and the other cities I’ve seen here is surprisingly orderly. Imposing order, I’ve noticed, is the forte of this nation’s government. Orderly, yes, but still crowded and chaotic.
Passing pedestrians and motor- and bi-cycles—which to help keep things nice and orderly have been allotted their own lane that is more or less formally marked off from the rest of the road and the sidewalks—plus the constant flow of cars makes for a slightly intimidating frenzy of people on the go that I was initially reluctant to jump right into. That’s why I decided to wait a week, study well the route between home and school, and get a better feel for the principles that govern traffic flow (or occasional lack thereof) in this city before beginning to ride a bike to school.
My family had been encouraging me to bike instead of walk all along, offering to let me use an old bike of theirs and the further enticement of cutting my travel time from 25 minutes one way to 10. A bike sounded appealing, but I enjoyed the opportunity the stroll home from school provided to soak in my surroundings and reflect on the day’s occurrences. Biking might be faster, yes, but it wouldn’t be so leisurely, nor would the nerve-wracking nature of navigating a Frogger-like maze of obstacles lend itself to reflection.
This past week, I finally decided to go for it, to try taking the bike to school. It happened to be the morning my Tai Chi teacher had invited my friend Sarah and I to observe her early morning (6:30 AM!) class to decide whether we wanted to join once the new session started up. Which meant that, even if I were biking, I’d need to be out the door by a time when everyone else would still be sleeping. As I should have expected, though, my motherly and ever-caring Ayi was awake to see me off. I wouldn’t have been able to take the bike otherwise: it was stowed away—and a while ago, at that, judging by the thick coating of dust its surface had accumulated—in a basement room designated for our apartment’s residents to keep their bikes.
I had actually been wondering where the people living here kept their bikes. Several families, mine included, have cars but most people I see coming and going seem do so on foot or by bike. So in a 23-storey apartment building, you can imagine how many bikes that adds up to. From this basement room, there was a special cement ramp built for people to walk their bikes up to the surface. Which is once I did, once Ayi undid the bike lock and handed me the key. By this point, I was starting to feel a bit nervous about my maiden voyage by bike in Nanjing’s morning traffic, and, certain that I would encounter some obstacle(s) on the way, was concerned I wouldn’t make it to Tai Chi class on time.
Right before I was about to hop on the bike and pedal off to see Tai Chi in the park, Ayi astutely decided to check to wheels. Two floppy, essentially flat tires. Despite that, it seemed to ride smoothly enough. So off I went. And that’s what surviving in this traffic takes: you’ve just got to jump right in, I found. Once in the midst of it, and as long as you pay attention to what’s going on around you, its really not that hard to navigate. I made it to class on time and without incident. And that old, beaten up “Café Blue” brand bike (that is hardly blue anymore) with the padding peeling off its seat—all deterrents to a potential bike thief, which I’ve heard there are a lot of around here—has served me well since.
Actually, after spending time in India where each time you cross a street can call to mind not only a fretful mother’s advice to “Look both ways before crossing the street…” but also the Buddhist doctrine of the impermanence of life, China’s traffic isn’t nearly as bad as I expected it to be. Nor is it as bad as the free-for-all found on the roads across India, where the most strictly adhered to rule is: the bigger your vehicle, the greater your power (roaming cows and monkeys excluded). No, in fact, keeping in mind China’s drivers’ relative lack of experience behind the wheel under their belts, the traffic situation in Nanjing and the other cities I’ve seen here is surprisingly orderly. Imposing order, I’ve noticed, is the forte of this nation’s government. Orderly, yes, but still crowded and chaotic.
Passing pedestrians and motor- and bi-cycles—which to help keep things nice and orderly have been allotted their own lane that is more or less formally marked off from the rest of the road and the sidewalks—plus the constant flow of cars makes for a slightly intimidating frenzy of people on the go that I was initially reluctant to jump right into. That’s why I decided to wait a week, study well the route between home and school, and get a better feel for the principles that govern traffic flow (or occasional lack thereof) in this city before beginning to ride a bike to school.
My family had been encouraging me to bike instead of walk all along, offering to let me use an old bike of theirs and the further enticement of cutting my travel time from 25 minutes one way to 10. A bike sounded appealing, but I enjoyed the opportunity the stroll home from school provided to soak in my surroundings and reflect on the day’s occurrences. Biking might be faster, yes, but it wouldn’t be so leisurely, nor would the nerve-wracking nature of navigating a Frogger-like maze of obstacles lend itself to reflection.
This past week, I finally decided to go for it, to try taking the bike to school. It happened to be the morning my Tai Chi teacher had invited my friend Sarah and I to observe her early morning (6:30 AM!) class to decide whether we wanted to join once the new session started up. Which meant that, even if I were biking, I’d need to be out the door by a time when everyone else would still be sleeping. As I should have expected, though, my motherly and ever-caring Ayi was awake to see me off. I wouldn’t have been able to take the bike otherwise: it was stowed away—and a while ago, at that, judging by the thick coating of dust its surface had accumulated—in a basement room designated for our apartment’s residents to keep their bikes.
I had actually been wondering where the people living here kept their bikes. Several families, mine included, have cars but most people I see coming and going seem do so on foot or by bike. So in a 23-storey apartment building, you can imagine how many bikes that adds up to. From this basement room, there was a special cement ramp built for people to walk their bikes up to the surface. Which is once I did, once Ayi undid the bike lock and handed me the key. By this point, I was starting to feel a bit nervous about my maiden voyage by bike in Nanjing’s morning traffic, and, certain that I would encounter some obstacle(s) on the way, was concerned I wouldn’t make it to Tai Chi class on time.
Right before I was about to hop on the bike and pedal off to see Tai Chi in the park, Ayi astutely decided to check to wheels. Two floppy, essentially flat tires. Despite that, it seemed to ride smoothly enough. So off I went. And that’s what surviving in this traffic takes: you’ve just got to jump right in, I found. Once in the midst of it, and as long as you pay attention to what’s going on around you, its really not that hard to navigate. I made it to class on time and without incident. And that old, beaten up “Café Blue” brand bike (that is hardly blue anymore) with the padding peeling off its seat—all deterrents to a potential bike thief, which I’ve heard there are a lot of around here—has served me well since.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Pearl Springs Field Trip
September 6
China time doesn’t equal India time. Meaning, from the impression I got from my Chinese friends back in Bloomington—and now from the sense I’ve gotten so far regarding how this country runs—China is not set to the same time concept as much of the rest of Asia. The very loose, fluid, flexible idea of time—and timeliness—that I first noticed during my time in India (but later found out extends across much of Central Asia and the Middle East) doesn’t into China, as I was half expecting. No, things here in the PRC tend to run pretty precisely on time. Not quite to the same extent as in its easterly neighbor Japan, but hands down much more punctual than its neighbor to the south, India.
“Mei guo ren zong shi bu an shi…” (“Americans are always late…”)
During orientation week, I heard many such complaints from Tang Laoshi and Ping Ping, the CIEE program coordinators. So I was surprised when the two of them were perpetually running behind schedule during last weekend’s Taishan trip. And again today: I set out from home a bit before 8 AM this Saturday morning when only Ayi was awake to see me off. On the streets, I was surprised to see so many people out and about so relatively early. Again surprised to arrive at the school on time for our departure to the Zhen Zhu Quan, or Pearl Spring, Tourist Park to find that virtually no one else was ready to go. It was to be our first CIEE outing altogether with the Chinese roommates of the students staying in the dorms. But Tang Laoshi and Ping Ping hadn’t arrived yet. Once they did, they had a task for those us who were ready to go: help carry the fixings for our barbeque picnic from the office fridge to the bus.
OK. I joined in the effort. After seeing people carry past tupperware containers brimming with scrumptious sliced vegetables, I was handed a giant bag dripping blood and filled with skewers of steak. Yumm… In the U.S., I’d try and keep as much distance between me and such slabs of red meat as possible. But because 1) it’s harder to keep your distance from meat in China, 2) I don’t want to burden family and friends with special meal preparation, and 3) the way meat is prepared here actually tends to be a lot tastier and suited to my palette than back in the States, I’ve decided to try not to be averse to consuming the stuff while I’m here. But that big beautiful bloody bag made me have momentary second thoughts.
An hour bus ride and we arrived at Pearl Spring Park, then split into groups of 8 for our barbeque. There were roughly 100 barbeque sites to choose from, all in close quarters and, at least during lunchtime, almost all occupied. We found an agreeable site, surrounded on all sides by Chinese families, and luckily, there was more than enough food that didn’t require a second encounter with the bloody bag of beef skewers. Eggplant, pepper, potato, broccoli and cauliflower galore, even bean paste buns and bread and bao.zi (dumplings), were all ready for the barbequing. Now just to start the fire. Thankfully, among our group, we had at least one person competent as both cook and fire-starter: my friend Sarah was our savior. We all ate well. Our group turned out to be better provisioned than some of the others, so our classmates were continually visiting to borrow our supplies—and barbequed goodies—while they were at it. Apparently, the Chinese way to barbeque (or “shao kao,” as it’s called here) requires more than raw meat/veggies and barbeque sauce. We had a collection of condiments: soy sauce, salt, sesame oil, cumin, and, most curiously (and curiously delicious), honey. Each of us was armed with a pair of chopsticks and had quite a feast, enjoying the fruits (and vegetables and meats and grains) of Sarah’s skilled labors.
Having eaten our fill, fresh from the grill, we made our way to the bay of a lake where dozens of bamboo rafts were tethered. At tourist attractions in the U.S., we have pedal boats. At Pearl Spring here near Nanjing, there was a floating fleet of bamboo rafts. Each raft is complete with two long bamboo poles that raft riders can use to propel themselves along by sticking the poles into the thick sludge on the bottom of the shallow lake and pushing. We were set free on our raft to float around the lake. It was a grand old time and a perfect day for bamboo rafting: this was the first time I recall seeing blue sky and sun at the same time since arriving in China.
Soon, we realized we could take the fun to another level: sitting atop the raft was one more mild form of fun. Getting wet and dirty, now that was more my style. Some classmates agreed, and soon several of us had jumped into lake (trying not to think about what it was that made the water so thick, brown, and pungent). I swam around, enjoying the feel of the lake bottom’s one-foot-thick slimy sludge between my toes, paying peaceful visits to fellow students’ rafts. A few rambunctious boys in the group started paying some not-so-peaceful visits, terrorizing and trying to sink rafts of screaming girls, all in good fun of course. Battleship on bamboo rafts, a grand old time!
Our time on the rafts was over too soon, and many of us were in the mood for more daring fun. A short walk from the rafts was a rollercoaster of respectable size and number of vertical drops and loops. It turned out to be expensive and too short a ride, but we decided to go for it anyways: this is a country where you can bargain even for rollercoaster rides.
The ride was too short, yes, but left the contents of my stomach pleasantly stirred up. We still had an hour and a half before the bus ride back to the city, and I realized I still wasn’t sure why the park was called “Pearl Spring.” So some new Chinese friends offered to take me to see the source of the spring and the source of its name. We walked together, passing groups of Chinese families and friends picnicking and fishing and otherwise having fun, to a pond with the most sparkling, clean, inviting, pristine water I’ve seen in China. My friend Ani grabbed my hand and led me over to one side of the pond, started enthusiastically clapping her hands while bending over the water, and urged me to join her. We stood there applauding the water and looking slightly silly. Then, a stream of sparkling bubbles emerged, bubbles that looked like… why yes! Pearls! I could see now how the spring got its name.
Speaking of bubbles, on our way back to the bus, Ani bought a bottle of bubbles for blowing. The outing was, in many ways, reminiscent of the school field trips I used to look forward to as a kid (that is, until the steel mill in my community—the main fuel for the local economy and source of funding for the schools—went bankrupt and my the Duneland School Corporation called a ban on field trips…), but with a Chinese twist. At least in this part of China, the urban and suburban areas and tourist resorts like Pearl Spring Park built for people living in those parts to visit, things don’t seem quite as exotic as I did and you might imagine. But, as I’m finding out, there is not just one China but many. Most basically, you can say there are at least 2 Chinas. A dividing line can be drawn between urban areas like Nanjing and the rural countryside, where roughly 755 million of the population live under conditions much different than those found in cities. That’s one of my goals over the next semester: get a taste of not only the urban China that’s vaguely reminiscent of urban America, but also the countryside where over 2 times the population of the U.S. live in what might as well be a whole different world.
On the bus ride back to the city from Pearl Springs, this idealized form of the countryside made to suit the tastes of Chinese tourists from the city, I sat next to a Nanjing U student studying Sanskrit in addition to his majors in Chinese and linguistics. I asked why he was studying such an obscure and no-longer-spoken—albeit interesting—language (I can certainly understand the allure, being a foreign language fanatic myself). He explained, all in Chinese, and this was the gist of it: in this very populous nation, a lot of young people now feel an urge to do something different, to define themselves as individuals in this country in which, under Mao’s communist regime, the collective was emphasized over the individual, sameness was encouraged over uniqueness. He had no desire to go to India to further his studies, or to be able to read the Buddhist texts for which Chinese first became students of Sanskrit. But in this nation of over 1.3 billion people, he desired to do something different. In the U.S., on the other hand, studying Chinese—the world’s most widely-spoken language—can be considered a relatively rare endeavor.
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