So I haven't thought about blogging that much lately because I've been spending a lot of time on Twitter (that means I post a few times a week, from my laptop.) So if you're not already following me there, you should.
Latest news-- spent a little over a week in Sichuan province with the BF and a couple of friends who live down there.
Highlights--
1) The BF has this theory that in a strange town, the best way to find a restaurant is to ask a taxi driver what he thinks. I completely disagree with this-- I happen to think the second taxi drivers notice you're foreign, they just bring you to the most expensive, pretentious place in town, thinking it's what you want. Anyway, because I don't like to argue, I allowed our taxi driver in Leshan, a small mountain city south of Chengdu, to do exactly that. Inside, our waitress swept us into a private room. When we asked for the menu, she said, "We only serve fish and tofu. Want to pick out a fish?" We looked at each other. "Uh, ok."
We went to the restaurant's fish tank, and asked her to select the cheapest fish. "You're getting a great deal," she said. "It's only 70 kuai (about $10)" Ok, a little expensive for China, but really not that steep.
If you've been to this part of the world, you can guess what happened next. She promptly scooped the fish out, threw the struggling thing down onto the linoleum floor in front of us and literally beat it to death with a wooden mallet as it flopped around. Meanwhile, waitresses were coming and going without batting an eye.
About 10 minutes later, the entire fish was on a plate in front of us, this time cooked with hot sauce, chilis, tofu, etc. Fortunately, it ended up being really delicious. I wish I could tell you what kind of fish it was, but my Chinese isn't that good and I only know how to say like 2 different kinds of fish. (and one of them is goldfish.) (the other is dolphin.) Anyway, then the bill came and it was for something more like $40.
"Wait, I thought you said this was 70 yuan?" I said. "per kilo," quoth the crafty waitress. Epic fail.
2) Being Indian in China is kind of fun sometimes because there's a lot of diversity in the way people react to you. I get a lot of "I love your skin" "India is in Africa, right?" "are you related to Barack Obama" etc. But this experience in Sichuan takes the cake-- a driver we had seriously turned around while we were stuck in traffic and said "you know, China is definitely going to war with India within 10 years, tops."
"Why's that?" I asked.
"India supports the Dalai Lama," he explained. "But it can be easily wiped out. India is a small, weak country, right?"
"Well, they have nuclear weapons, so not really."
He paused for a second. "No they don't."
"Yes, they do."
"No they don't."
"Also, India's population is like 1.2 billion. It's second only to China."
"No, that's not true, India is small."
"No it's not."
"Yes it is! If India's population were that large, India and China combined would make up over a third of the world's population, and that's just not possible!"
"Yeah..."
Anyway, I don't want to make fun of this guy too much because he also told us he had to drop out of the 5th grade to help support his family. And he does know a hell of a lot more about the world than all those Americans who can't put America on a map or whatever. But hey, he tried to declare war on my (parents') country!
3) The Wenchuan adventure. So Wenchuan was the epicenter of the huge earthquake in Sichuan last year, and the BF wanted to visit and see how the rebuilding was going/talk to the locals about living there after the quake, etc. From Chengdu, the province capital, to Wenchuan, which is in the mountains, should have been about 2 1/2 hours. In reality it took us literally 9 hours to travel 166 kilometers. So it's been almost a year after the earthquake and we didn't expect it to be totally reconstructed, but we expected the roads would at least be ok.
This was not the case. In some places it looked like nothing had been done at all. There was rubble everywhere, you could see huge broken bridges extending crookedly into nothing, gutted shells of leaning buildings and many, many people who were still living in makeshift tents. Really sad.
Anyway, we actually missed the bus that was supposed to take us to Wenchuan, so we ended up taking the journey in a minivan with some local construction workers who were going to look for work. When the journey started, it was mid-afternoon and we were all in high spirits. Cut to several hours later-- we're literally parked in a dark tunnel, it is pitch black, women with flashlights are selling cup noodles car to car and there are workers in front of the tunnel literally clearing away fallen rocks from a landslide so we can move forward. So freaky.
Fortunately the construction workers ended up being totally cool and we just spent the whole trip gabbing with them about Sichuan after the quake, the Dalai Lama, the price of drugs in America (they wanted to know) etc. In fact, the whole trip would have actually been worth it, except that around hour 7 someone mentioned that you can only go up the mountain on odd days and down on even days because the roads are so narrow. Meaning we would have to make the return journey the very next day if we wanted to catch our flight home.
So long story short, we got there, found a $7 room in a guesthouse, woke up to some squawking geese, walked around town for a few hours, then caught a bus back to Chengdu. While we were there, I came up with the bright idea of going to a barber shop, which would give us an extended period of time to chat with the locals. I wasn't brave enough to actually get my hair cut, but the BF happily peppered his stylist with questions about the relief efforts as she massaged his scalp.
Anyway, we got some sweet pictures, so I feel like the trip was a success.
4) In Sichuan, if you pay $600 you can hold a baby panda in your arms for 10 minutes. $200 to sit next to an adult panda for the same amount of time, and like $40 to hold a baby red panda.
Other highlights-- the BF chasing a peacock around a park so he could get a good picture (it didn't happen), best roadside seafood market ever, learning to play Sichuan-style mah johng with my former classmate H., who's from Tokyo, and the guy she's currently seeing from New Zealand. Also "teaching English" to H. (she's only interested in learning phrases with the word "fucking" in them and has no interest in what they mean), hanging out in teashops and drinking a lot of gross bamboo tea.
Anyway now I'm back to my normal life in Beijing, which basically consists of studying all the time, eating a lot of Korean food and talking to my American friends in Chinese. Good times.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
It finally happened. I said "poop" by accident.
In Chinese, I mean. It was bound to happen sometime. Ever since I arrived in sweet, smoggy Beijing, I've been doing nothing but yapping at whoever will listen about the economic crisis, international relations and the plight of Chinese migrant workers. Sure, my explanations were simplistic, like those of an unusually opinionated kindergartener, but I was talking, and talking about interesting things no less. I had come so far, I thought, from when I first arrived in Shanghai and didn't even know how to say excuse me.
But the Chinese language is a tricky lady. It sucks you in, letting you assume that it's like other foreign tongues. It lets you believe knowledge builds on itself, and that once you get past a certain level, all the truly ridiculous mistakes are behind you. Maybe you don't have all the vocabulary, you think, but you have a grasp on those four slippery tones and a couple thousand characters. That should be enough to at least conduct yourself as an adult in an ordinary conversation, right?
Wrong. Cut to a crowded cafe, where I have just tried to ask my friend Cathy about defending her thesis. Cathy promptly turns bright red, cracks up and covers her face with her hands.
[translated into English for your benefit, dear readers]
Me: What? I asked when you're planning to take a poop. TAKE A POOP!
Cathy: [beginning to tear up from laughing] no no no
Me: Did I pronounce it wrong? It is "take a poop," right?
Cathy: oh god...
Me: seriously, what is so funny?
Cathy, nice person that she is, informed me that I had used the wrong tone on one of the words, thereby producing said super-gross non sequitur. After I was done banging my head against the table, Cathy paused for a second, then delicately asked me the most polite way to say "take a poop" in English. She's hoping to study abroad in Canada and thought it might be useful. I won't tell you what I said because I want you all to speculate on how you would answer that question. (She wanted to know it in a literal sense, not "I have to use the bathroom.")
Moral of the story, so this entry isn't just like gross-out time. One thing learning Chinese teaches you is humility. Sometimes the rules and inflections of the language just seem like an impenetrable thicket, where you can keep hacking and hacking away with a giant machete and still never reach that magical place where fluency resides. An American friend I met in Beijing once told me he felt incredibly depressed watching A Charlie Brown Christmas dubbed in Chinese and not being able to understand a good deal of it, despite having lived in China for 2 years and developed so-called advanced Mandarin.
But hey, the journey is the destination and all that garbage. Someday I'll stop making so many mistakes, and until then, well, accidental poop jokes never killed anybody.
In Chinese, I mean. It was bound to happen sometime. Ever since I arrived in sweet, smoggy Beijing, I've been doing nothing but yapping at whoever will listen about the economic crisis, international relations and the plight of Chinese migrant workers. Sure, my explanations were simplistic, like those of an unusually opinionated kindergartener, but I was talking, and talking about interesting things no less. I had come so far, I thought, from when I first arrived in Shanghai and didn't even know how to say excuse me.
But the Chinese language is a tricky lady. It sucks you in, letting you assume that it's like other foreign tongues. It lets you believe knowledge builds on itself, and that once you get past a certain level, all the truly ridiculous mistakes are behind you. Maybe you don't have all the vocabulary, you think, but you have a grasp on those four slippery tones and a couple thousand characters. That should be enough to at least conduct yourself as an adult in an ordinary conversation, right?
Wrong. Cut to a crowded cafe, where I have just tried to ask my friend Cathy about defending her thesis. Cathy promptly turns bright red, cracks up and covers her face with her hands.
[translated into English for your benefit, dear readers]
Me: What? I asked when you're planning to take a poop. TAKE A POOP!
Cathy: [beginning to tear up from laughing] no no no
Me: Did I pronounce it wrong? It is "take a poop," right?
Cathy: oh god...
Me: seriously, what is so funny?
Cathy, nice person that she is, informed me that I had used the wrong tone on one of the words, thereby producing said super-gross non sequitur. After I was done banging my head against the table, Cathy paused for a second, then delicately asked me the most polite way to say "take a poop" in English. She's hoping to study abroad in Canada and thought it might be useful. I won't tell you what I said because I want you all to speculate on how you would answer that question. (She wanted to know it in a literal sense, not "I have to use the bathroom.")
Moral of the story, so this entry isn't just like gross-out time. One thing learning Chinese teaches you is humility. Sometimes the rules and inflections of the language just seem like an impenetrable thicket, where you can keep hacking and hacking away with a giant machete and still never reach that magical place where fluency resides. An American friend I met in Beijing once told me he felt incredibly depressed watching A Charlie Brown Christmas dubbed in Chinese and not being able to understand a good deal of it, despite having lived in China for 2 years and developed so-called advanced Mandarin.
But hey, the journey is the destination and all that garbage. Someday I'll stop making so many mistakes, and until then, well, accidental poop jokes never killed anybody.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Life update: I've switched to a much better Chinese program, the one the BF is doing in Beijing. Basically it has a little more prestige and is a whole lot more effective. Unlike my previous school, there is a language pledge and the foreign students here are pretty much all American, so I spend a surprising amount of time chatting with white people in Mandarin (as opposed to Korean, or Japanese, or Colombian, or North African or... whatever.) Latest challenge has been finding a suitable apartment.
My school is located in an extremely gentrified part of western Beijing called Wudaokou. I'm told that two years ago there was actually nothing out here. Then a whole bunch of foreigners (read: KOREANS) moved in. Now, if you substitute all the Korean barbecue joints for Ethiopian restaurants, teen clothing boutiques for Urban Outfitters and overpriced cafes for... slightly less overpriced cafes, it's basically downtown Silver Spring.
The boyfriend and I decided a couple of months ago that we would give living together a go. It seemed like a great idea. There we would be, tucked in a cozy one-bedroom-- perhaps a loft-- near the university, riding bikes side by side to class in the morning. Visions of me wok-sauteing noodles in our small-but-tastefully-decorated kitchen while cheerfully chugging red wine from the bottle danced through my head.
A few too many inflated rent quotes, racial discrimination issues and evil real estate brokers later, we were about to put the dream to rest. Fortunately there was an angel in our midst.
When first met M., we were all about a 5 hour plane ride away from Beijing-- in Urumqi. Urumqi is in the expansive northwestern desert province of China called Xinjiang. It is a little farther from Beijing than DC is from LA. The BF and I were traveling there and had a few adventures that I hope to write about later. One evening, we ventured out to Urumqi's Muslim night market (Xinjiang is full of a people called Uighurs. Their ethnicity and language is somewhat similar to Turks, and they're mostly Muslim.) After walking past several racks of cured meat and a lot of melon vendors, we stopped to buy a honey drink of questionable sanitation from a Uighur woman in a white floral headscarf.
"Where are you from?" she asked in Chinese.
"America," we said. (She didn't look like the type to hold it against us.)
"They're from America too," she said, gesturing to three guys who were sitting on plastic stools at the other end of her stall.
We exchanged polite hellos with them and asked the usual-- where are you from, why are you in China, etc. etc. Then we really got to talking. The conversation had gone on almost two hours when the BF asked two of the guys, M. and W., where they lived in Beijing. (The other guy was living in town.) It turned out, not only did they live in Wudaokou, they happened to live like 2 blocks from where the BF was living.
Not only that, they had several mutual friends from the area and had gone to a house party we had almost attended a week earlier.
Not only that, but they had gone to the same Paralympics wheelchair rugby match between China and America.
Not only that, but M. had photographed the BF and his friends' painted chests at said match. (Their chests said GO USA!) (The BF was the exclamation point.)
Not only THAT, but the photograph was on M.'s i-Phone, which he promptly showed us. Then he friended us on facebook. Totally bizarre!
Anyway, fast forward 4 odd months. Turns out M. is an extremely cool, extremely generous guy that we ended up genuinely befriending. I helped show him around when he brought his girlfriend to Shanghai, and he and the BF hung out often in Beijing. He also happens to have a huge, luxurious apartment that's paid for by his company (a certain well-known software giant everyone loves to hate.)
This place is three bedrooms, two baths of amazing. The kitchen and living room are giant, the furniture is unugly and there's even a balcony. Not to mention heated floors... HEATED FLOORS! Basically it is the apartment equivalent of a steak topped with a bacon cheeseburger topped with an ice cream sundae... with a slice of deep dish cheese pizza for garnish.
So basically we had been crashing in this until we got settled in a new place along with a friend of M.'s visiting from Switzerland. The apartment search was running out of steam, but we definitely could not afford the rent to really live with M.
This is where the angel part comes in-- because M.'s company pays his rent, and he doesn't care about making a profit, so he basically cut it in half for us. It's still not that cheap, but so totally worth it. So now we live there. And I love my life.
The moral of the story: When meeting other expats in a strange land, don't turn up your nose. In a place like China, good friends are almost as important as a great apartment.
My school is located in an extremely gentrified part of western Beijing called Wudaokou. I'm told that two years ago there was actually nothing out here. Then a whole bunch of foreigners (read: KOREANS) moved in. Now, if you substitute all the Korean barbecue joints for Ethiopian restaurants, teen clothing boutiques for Urban Outfitters and overpriced cafes for... slightly less overpriced cafes, it's basically downtown Silver Spring.
The boyfriend and I decided a couple of months ago that we would give living together a go. It seemed like a great idea. There we would be, tucked in a cozy one-bedroom-- perhaps a loft-- near the university, riding bikes side by side to class in the morning. Visions of me wok-sauteing noodles in our small-but-tastefully-decorated kitchen while cheerfully chugging red wine from the bottle danced through my head.
A few too many inflated rent quotes, racial discrimination issues and evil real estate brokers later, we were about to put the dream to rest. Fortunately there was an angel in our midst.
When first met M., we were all about a 5 hour plane ride away from Beijing-- in Urumqi. Urumqi is in the expansive northwestern desert province of China called Xinjiang. It is a little farther from Beijing than DC is from LA. The BF and I were traveling there and had a few adventures that I hope to write about later. One evening, we ventured out to Urumqi's Muslim night market (Xinjiang is full of a people called Uighurs. Their ethnicity and language is somewhat similar to Turks, and they're mostly Muslim.) After walking past several racks of cured meat and a lot of melon vendors, we stopped to buy a honey drink of questionable sanitation from a Uighur woman in a white floral headscarf.
"Where are you from?" she asked in Chinese.
"America," we said. (She didn't look like the type to hold it against us.)
"They're from America too," she said, gesturing to three guys who were sitting on plastic stools at the other end of her stall.
We exchanged polite hellos with them and asked the usual-- where are you from, why are you in China, etc. etc. Then we really got to talking. The conversation had gone on almost two hours when the BF asked two of the guys, M. and W., where they lived in Beijing. (The other guy was living in town.) It turned out, not only did they live in Wudaokou, they happened to live like 2 blocks from where the BF was living.
Not only that, they had several mutual friends from the area and had gone to a house party we had almost attended a week earlier.
Not only that, but they had gone to the same Paralympics wheelchair rugby match between China and America.
Not only that, but M. had photographed the BF and his friends' painted chests at said match. (Their chests said GO USA!) (The BF was the exclamation point.)
Not only THAT, but the photograph was on M.'s i-Phone, which he promptly showed us. Then he friended us on facebook. Totally bizarre!
Anyway, fast forward 4 odd months. Turns out M. is an extremely cool, extremely generous guy that we ended up genuinely befriending. I helped show him around when he brought his girlfriend to Shanghai, and he and the BF hung out often in Beijing. He also happens to have a huge, luxurious apartment that's paid for by his company (a certain well-known software giant everyone loves to hate.)
This place is three bedrooms, two baths of amazing. The kitchen and living room are giant, the furniture is unugly and there's even a balcony. Not to mention heated floors... HEATED FLOORS! Basically it is the apartment equivalent of a steak topped with a bacon cheeseburger topped with an ice cream sundae... with a slice of deep dish cheese pizza for garnish.
So basically we had been crashing in this until we got settled in a new place along with a friend of M.'s visiting from Switzerland. The apartment search was running out of steam, but we definitely could not afford the rent to really live with M.
This is where the angel part comes in-- because M.'s company pays his rent, and he doesn't care about making a profit, so he basically cut it in half for us. It's still not that cheap, but so totally worth it. So now we live there. And I love my life.
The moral of the story: When meeting other expats in a strange land, don't turn up your nose. In a place like China, good friends are almost as important as a great apartment.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Christmas & New Year's
Right now I'm home in the states for a couple of weeks of vacation-- I've been going on a couple of job interviews, preparing for next semester and watching a whole lot of reality TV. News: I'm moving to Beijing for the next few months because I've been accepted into a much better Mandarin program. I'm pretty psyched. I'll definitely miss Shanghai though.
Highlights from the past few weeks--
1) A very Basque Christmas. This is the second Christmas I've spent away from my family, which isn't such a big deal because my folks, being Hindu, don't actually celebrate Christmas. Christmas in China is the expattiest of holidays, moreso even than Halloween, in which locals and expats alike pretty much ignore tradition in favor of getting trashed in the skankiest of manners. I spent last Christmas eve in Hong Kong, where some close friends and I dined at our favorite Korean barbecue joint, then after massive quantities of soju and cheap beer, went skinny dipping on this lovely beach, built a human pyramid on the sand and collapsed in time to watch the sunrise creep over the island. Isn't it obvious why I love Hong Kong? (I really hope this blog isn't googlable under my name. shh.)
This Christmas eve was a bit different, but just as fun. The plan was to have a kind of potluck Christmas dinner, where everyone would cook/bring stuff that was at least peripherally related to our countries of origin. Shanghai apartments (much less the dorm where I live) are not suited for the Dickensian dinner spectacular we had envisioned-- no ovens, and moreover, no space. Fortunately, a classmate happened to be from the Basque region of Spain.
A little background on the Basques before I tell you why this is relevant. Essentially they're a minority ethnic group living in Spain, best-known here in the U.S. for their sometimes violent separatist ambitions, especially those of the terrorist ETA. Think of them as the Spanish IRA.
Anyway, it turns out all the Basques in Shanghai (there are apparently quite a few) had pooled their money into a sort of timeshare on a really awesome house in the French concession district. Our Basque friend was nice enough to hook us all up. So on Christmas eve, I joined a couple dozen foreign friends in putting together an eclectic feast of Persian-style kabobs, coconut shrimp, Korean rice wraps, some kind of shredded chicken dish from Colombia and yes, a whole turkey with stuffing, which is not easy to come by in China. A few of the Basques were there to share dinner with us. I half-hoped a heated discussion would break out, but the mood was jovial and the only real conflict happened when the time came to carve the turkey.
"Let me do it," said my friend P., who grew up on a farm in rural Scotland and seems to know all there is to know about birthing, milking, killing and carving animals.
"I'm the man of the house. I'm going to do it." quoth the Basque.
"But you've never seen a turkey before," P. protested.
"Hey!" he said, turning and raising the carving knife. "It's just a big cheecken."
That kind of logic is hard to argue with. We ate, drank, held an impromptu dance competition and the night ended with karaoke, as many great nights in Shanghai do.
2) New Year's: I spent this New Year's Eve in Beijing with the Boyfriend, who took me to the two-story (!!) home of an American friend. The place quickly filled up with other Americans, mostly BF's classmates. It was a surreal moment-- like being at a house party back in college, except the whole place is full of white people speaking very good Mandarin.
There was no TV or radio and we neglected to synchronize our watches. The result was that we ended up counting down to midnight 5 different times, each to appease someone who knew their own watch was correct. At around 12:40 (or 12:36 or 12:44...) we left to chase a cab in the cold Beijing night.
3) Inauguration: I'm sad I wasn't in China for Chinese New Year, but being able to be here for inauguration kind of made up for it... many of you guys were probably there as well, so you know how it was. The first thing I want to comment on was how incredibly friendly everyone was. Coming from Shanghai it was a little funny to see people complaining about the metro being crowded, but even though it was a little more packed than usual, people were giving up their seats, chatting with each other and helping kids get on and off the trains. I've never seen DCers so happy and amiable despite the cold weather and ridiculous crowds. My friend U. (a recent college grad who works for a non-profit in the city) chalked it up to the Obama effect. I'm a little less optimistic-- I think the atmosphere had more to do with the influx of friendly outsiders than the lessening surliness of actual Washingtonians. Either that or the city just benefits when all the Republicans stay home (or take vacations and rent out their flats.)
We spent much of the day on the parade route, playing word games to pass the time with newly made friends and periodically invading CVS for a little warmth. I must say, I felt bad for the employees of that particular CVS... people were picnicking in the aisles, unwrapping and putting on socks and generally running amuck. One old lady had actually rolled up her pants and was lotioning herself with some "free moisturizer samples."
Where we were, the crowd was overwhelmingly black, and I suppose that's the closest I'll ever get to knowing what it was like to be part of the civil rights movement. When I headed back home on the metro, my limbs felt more stiff from the cold than they ever have in my life-- which is saying a lot, considering a couple of weeks ago I spent a few days in an icy wonderland just south of Siberia. That story will be my next post.
Highlights from the past few weeks--
1) A very Basque Christmas. This is the second Christmas I've spent away from my family, which isn't such a big deal because my folks, being Hindu, don't actually celebrate Christmas. Christmas in China is the expattiest of holidays, moreso even than Halloween, in which locals and expats alike pretty much ignore tradition in favor of getting trashed in the skankiest of manners. I spent last Christmas eve in Hong Kong, where some close friends and I dined at our favorite Korean barbecue joint, then after massive quantities of soju and cheap beer, went skinny dipping on this lovely beach, built a human pyramid on the sand and collapsed in time to watch the sunrise creep over the island. Isn't it obvious why I love Hong Kong? (I really hope this blog isn't googlable under my name. shh.)
This Christmas eve was a bit different, but just as fun. The plan was to have a kind of potluck Christmas dinner, where everyone would cook/bring stuff that was at least peripherally related to our countries of origin. Shanghai apartments (much less the dorm where I live) are not suited for the Dickensian dinner spectacular we had envisioned-- no ovens, and moreover, no space. Fortunately, a classmate happened to be from the Basque region of Spain.
A little background on the Basques before I tell you why this is relevant. Essentially they're a minority ethnic group living in Spain, best-known here in the U.S. for their sometimes violent separatist ambitions, especially those of the terrorist ETA. Think of them as the Spanish IRA.
Anyway, it turns out all the Basques in Shanghai (there are apparently quite a few) had pooled their money into a sort of timeshare on a really awesome house in the French concession district. Our Basque friend was nice enough to hook us all up. So on Christmas eve, I joined a couple dozen foreign friends in putting together an eclectic feast of Persian-style kabobs, coconut shrimp, Korean rice wraps, some kind of shredded chicken dish from Colombia and yes, a whole turkey with stuffing, which is not easy to come by in China. A few of the Basques were there to share dinner with us. I half-hoped a heated discussion would break out, but the mood was jovial and the only real conflict happened when the time came to carve the turkey.
"Let me do it," said my friend P., who grew up on a farm in rural Scotland and seems to know all there is to know about birthing, milking, killing and carving animals.
"I'm the man of the house. I'm going to do it." quoth the Basque.
"But you've never seen a turkey before," P. protested.
"Hey!" he said, turning and raising the carving knife. "It's just a big cheecken."
That kind of logic is hard to argue with. We ate, drank, held an impromptu dance competition and the night ended with karaoke, as many great nights in Shanghai do.
2) New Year's: I spent this New Year's Eve in Beijing with the Boyfriend, who took me to the two-story (!!) home of an American friend. The place quickly filled up with other Americans, mostly BF's classmates. It was a surreal moment-- like being at a house party back in college, except the whole place is full of white people speaking very good Mandarin.
There was no TV or radio and we neglected to synchronize our watches. The result was that we ended up counting down to midnight 5 different times, each to appease someone who knew their own watch was correct. At around 12:40 (or 12:36 or 12:44...) we left to chase a cab in the cold Beijing night.
3) Inauguration: I'm sad I wasn't in China for Chinese New Year, but being able to be here for inauguration kind of made up for it... many of you guys were probably there as well, so you know how it was. The first thing I want to comment on was how incredibly friendly everyone was. Coming from Shanghai it was a little funny to see people complaining about the metro being crowded, but even though it was a little more packed than usual, people were giving up their seats, chatting with each other and helping kids get on and off the trains. I've never seen DCers so happy and amiable despite the cold weather and ridiculous crowds. My friend U. (a recent college grad who works for a non-profit in the city) chalked it up to the Obama effect. I'm a little less optimistic-- I think the atmosphere had more to do with the influx of friendly outsiders than the lessening surliness of actual Washingtonians. Either that or the city just benefits when all the Republicans stay home (or take vacations and rent out their flats.)
We spent much of the day on the parade route, playing word games to pass the time with newly made friends and periodically invading CVS for a little warmth. I must say, I felt bad for the employees of that particular CVS... people were picnicking in the aisles, unwrapping and putting on socks and generally running amuck. One old lady had actually rolled up her pants and was lotioning herself with some "free moisturizer samples."
Where we were, the crowd was overwhelmingly black, and I suppose that's the closest I'll ever get to knowing what it was like to be part of the civil rights movement. When I headed back home on the metro, my limbs felt more stiff from the cold than they ever have in my life-- which is saying a lot, considering a couple of weeks ago I spent a few days in an icy wonderland just south of Siberia. That story will be my next post.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
I’ve been mumbling for a long time about moving out of my dorm room and sharing an apartment with some Chinese students, in the interest of gaining a kitchen and improving my language skills. In fact, none of my Chinese friends or acquaintances are currently looking for a roommate, and besides that I am too cheap to leave my current dorm-style housing, which is paid for by my scholarship and perfectly comfortable. So it’s actually unlikely that this will take place, at least not before February/not before I find some kind of steady job.
Despite all this, I haven’t stopped mumbling. The reason is that I’ve begun to notice some of my foreign friends and acquaintances react in a peculiar, bizarrely uniform way. Sample conversation:
Me: So I really want to move out and get some Chinese roommates. I think it would really help my Mandarin along.
Friend: No, you don’t want to do that.
Me: Why?
Friend: uh… I’ve just heard a lot of bad things. There are a lot of, uh, cultural barriers. And they’re just not clean.
Me: Well, I lived with a girl from Sichuan province for like 4 or 5 months in Hong Kong and it was fine.
Friend: Oh. Well, whatever.
At the end of this conversation, which I’ve had more than a couple of times in the past month, a sublime feeling of satisfaction always wells inside me—the kind of bliss that can only stem from making other people feel very uncomfortable.
But seriously, why are some people so racist? It’s beyond me how foreigners who have lived in China for years and speak very good Mandarin can find it so hard to form relationships with local people or even let go of unfounded preconceptions. Sure, China as a country is dirtier than the average western nation, but hey, welcome to the developing world. As far as I know, this has no real bearing on how clean/dirty the average Chinese person is at home.
My maternal aunt’s house in India, for instance, despite not having a garbage disposal, showers, western toilets, a washer/dryer or any kind of insect-repelling modern convenience, is the world’s most immaculate environment. Why? Because she has the world’s worst case of obsessive compulsive disorder. Also take into account that she lives in Bangalore, where you can find human (and cow) feces on the street.
R., my Sichuanese (former) roommate, was clean to a more normal extent. In fact, the first couple months that I lived with her, I continually worried that my own lack of neatness as a roommate would change her opinion of all Americans, or worse, all Indians. The first fear was eventually assuaged when I discovered that most of her preconceptions about Americans had already been set in stone by the TV show Friends (In fact, I never managed to convince her that at home I don’t hang out in an East Village coffee shop all day or bring a different guy back to my fabulous apartment every week), but the second one stuck around.
This was mostly because I kept running into Chinese people who referred to Indians/dark-skinned people as dirty, unhygienic, etc. Bafflingly, they would even say these things to my face, as though the stereotype had such a sound basis in fact that it could not be construed as an insult.
The whole “unclean” stereotype works the other way too. My mother, for instance, thinks the whole cast of Friends may as well be prostitutes. She also would probably have stormed my college apartment with a can of bleach if she knew that American BOYS were showering in our bathroom.
Unfortunately, and perhaps ironically, my living habits actually are pretty terrible. I eat fried food really late at night, do laundry so infrequently it’s embarrassing, and shed more hair than a black lab with alopecia. I also stay out all night, sleep til noon, and do many other questionable things that R., an overachieving law student, (who spoke lovely, British-accented English despite never having left China) probably thought were super gross.
I briefly tried to clean up my act, but hey, I have to be me. R. was much too nice to say a bad word about anything. To compensate, I tried to buy her a lot of food and help her with English whenever I could. If she brought home some new stereotype about the bad habits of Indian-Americans living in Hong Kong, maybe she also told her friends that we are a generous, good-hearted people.
Despite all this, I haven’t stopped mumbling. The reason is that I’ve begun to notice some of my foreign friends and acquaintances react in a peculiar, bizarrely uniform way. Sample conversation:
Me: So I really want to move out and get some Chinese roommates. I think it would really help my Mandarin along.
Friend: No, you don’t want to do that.
Me: Why?
Friend: uh… I’ve just heard a lot of bad things. There are a lot of, uh, cultural barriers. And they’re just not clean.
Me: Well, I lived with a girl from Sichuan province for like 4 or 5 months in Hong Kong and it was fine.
Friend: Oh. Well, whatever.
At the end of this conversation, which I’ve had more than a couple of times in the past month, a sublime feeling of satisfaction always wells inside me—the kind of bliss that can only stem from making other people feel very uncomfortable.
But seriously, why are some people so racist? It’s beyond me how foreigners who have lived in China for years and speak very good Mandarin can find it so hard to form relationships with local people or even let go of unfounded preconceptions. Sure, China as a country is dirtier than the average western nation, but hey, welcome to the developing world. As far as I know, this has no real bearing on how clean/dirty the average Chinese person is at home.
My maternal aunt’s house in India, for instance, despite not having a garbage disposal, showers, western toilets, a washer/dryer or any kind of insect-repelling modern convenience, is the world’s most immaculate environment. Why? Because she has the world’s worst case of obsessive compulsive disorder. Also take into account that she lives in Bangalore, where you can find human (and cow) feces on the street.
R., my Sichuanese (former) roommate, was clean to a more normal extent. In fact, the first couple months that I lived with her, I continually worried that my own lack of neatness as a roommate would change her opinion of all Americans, or worse, all Indians. The first fear was eventually assuaged when I discovered that most of her preconceptions about Americans had already been set in stone by the TV show Friends (In fact, I never managed to convince her that at home I don’t hang out in an East Village coffee shop all day or bring a different guy back to my fabulous apartment every week), but the second one stuck around.
This was mostly because I kept running into Chinese people who referred to Indians/dark-skinned people as dirty, unhygienic, etc. Bafflingly, they would even say these things to my face, as though the stereotype had such a sound basis in fact that it could not be construed as an insult.
The whole “unclean” stereotype works the other way too. My mother, for instance, thinks the whole cast of Friends may as well be prostitutes. She also would probably have stormed my college apartment with a can of bleach if she knew that American BOYS were showering in our bathroom.
Unfortunately, and perhaps ironically, my living habits actually are pretty terrible. I eat fried food really late at night, do laundry so infrequently it’s embarrassing, and shed more hair than a black lab with alopecia. I also stay out all night, sleep til noon, and do many other questionable things that R., an overachieving law student, (who spoke lovely, British-accented English despite never having left China) probably thought were super gross.
I briefly tried to clean up my act, but hey, I have to be me. R. was much too nice to say a bad word about anything. To compensate, I tried to buy her a lot of food and help her with English whenever I could. If she brought home some new stereotype about the bad habits of Indian-Americans living in Hong Kong, maybe she also told her friends that we are a generous, good-hearted people.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
The Great Shoe Adventure
[note: decided to move the 中文 posts over to http://xiaonainiu.blogspot.com/ if anyone is interested. they are still 真无聊。]
Though my mom continues to suspect otherwise, Shanghai is not, in fact, a fishing village. It's probably China's most cosmopolitan, westernized city, so we have pretty much everything here that you can find States-side-- cheez wiz, New York-style pizza, hair salons that specialize in African hair, slurpies, SUVs, etc. etc. Right now, as I'm typing this, I'm sitting in a Starbucks staring out the window at a giant Hooters, so that should give you an idea.
But of course, because this isn't the U.S., not every western convenience is quite up to snuff, and the ones that are tend to be pricey. No matter-- I didn't come all the way to China just to keep living my American life. (Though I've spent more time at this Starbucks than I care to admit...) But there are a few things I really do miss. Guacamole, for one thing. Being able to read the newspaper is another (but hopefully I'll get there in time.) But so far, the biggest obstacle has been my feet.
At home, I'm a size 8 1/2, which is certainly not petite, but also not gigantic. I can basically walk into any shoestore and find shoes that fit, no problem. Even when I lived in Hong Kong, most mom & pop shoe shops carried at least some shoes that would fit me.
Not in Shanghai. The problem isn't just that there doesn't seem to be a single shoeshop in this city that carries size 40 (8 1/2). It's that every time I look for one, I get openly ridiculed, mocked and pitied. I've never been that insecure about my body, but I must admit it's kind of a shock being here. In America, land of the obese, I am medium-sized. Some may even say slender, compact, aerodynamic. In China? I am a giant, brown godzilla.
Sample exchange (translated from the Mandarin, in which it's even more awkward)--
[I walk into a shoe store]
me: excuse me, do you guys have size 40 in... anything?
salesperson 1: 40? really? like 4-0?
me: yes, size 40.
salesperson 1: No, I don't think we have that. [yells] do we have any size 40s?
salespeople 2,3,4: 40?? No way, we don't have 40. Why would we have that?
[cue unabashed cracking up and talking about me in the Shanghai dialect, which I cannot understand]
me: ok, thanks, I'll go now.
salesperson 1: hang on, why don't you try the 36?
me: 36? There's no way that'll fit.
salesperson: come on, just try it. Very pretty. It will suit you.
me: BYE.
(For some reason, they always try to get you to try 2 sizes smaller, as if somehow those will magically expand once they hit my feet.)
About 7 weeks into my stay here, the situation was getting desperate. I'm not a shoe-horse, actually, I tend to buy one pair of flats and wear them everywhere. Unfortunately, my current pair of flats looked like a squirrel had tried to chew through the heels, then gave up halfway because they were just too gross. So I decided to endure the humiliation and keep trying. By sheer luck, I stumbled into a shoe stand near the city's fabric market where the lady had a pair of cheap black flats in my size. I knew they would wear out in a couple of months, but still-- it was great to find anything.
Unfortunately, I think she could smell my desperation. She tried to charge me 5 times what the shoes were worth and I ended up yelling at her and stalking away.
Later, I made the mistake of recounting this story to W., a Chinese friend. W. is about 5 ft tall with the hands and feet of a mid-sized elf. She insisted that Chinese people don't necessarily prize small feet (not true) and very kindly offered to take me to some kind of secret shoe warehouse where they had all kinds of sizes. I agreed.
The warehouse did end up having big shoes-- but only hideous ones. Feeling guilty because W. had brought me all the way there, I picked up a pair of black fake leather flats with a small bow on them. (only semi-fugly). They ended up costing about $20-- with an air of disgust, the salesperson claimed that larger shoes just cost more and there was nothing she could do. W. ended up buying three other pairs of tiny, doll-like shoes, all adorable and less than $4.
Feeling like a sad Cinderella in reverse, (Cindy was, after all, the one with the petite feet that fit the glass slipper. The ugly stepsisters were the ones who couldn't squeeze inside) I resigned myself to wearing flip flops through the winter, or at least until I could scrape up enough cash to order shoes from the States online. It was then, when I had just about given up, that I finally got lucky.
There it was, nestled between a noodle restaurant and a fake antique shop on an unassuming sidestreet in the Bund district. I told myself it was the last shoestore I would walk into. I had planned to abandon my shoe hunt, but the knee-high suede boots in the window looked so cute I figured I could go in for a few minutes-- just to look.
Inside, I pulled a pair of pink kitten heels off the rack and noticed something strange. They looked, well, BIG. What's more, so were the rest of the shoes. I began trying them on-- ballerina flats, wedge sandals, black Mary Jane pumps-- they all fit. The saleslady just smiled blithely at me.
"Excuse me, but what's with this store?" I asked her.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the shoes are all really big, don't you think? Who buys these?"
"Oh," she said. "We specialize in sizes 38 and up. What size are you?"
"40."
"Oh, well then you're our 平均."
"平均? What does that mean?"
"Average," she said in English. "You're the average size."
There's no chance of me ever being average or normal in Shanghai. But it was a comfort to discover, in the 20 square feet of her shoe store, I could be something other than godzilla.
Though my mom continues to suspect otherwise, Shanghai is not, in fact, a fishing village. It's probably China's most cosmopolitan, westernized city, so we have pretty much everything here that you can find States-side-- cheez wiz, New York-style pizza, hair salons that specialize in African hair, slurpies, SUVs, etc. etc. Right now, as I'm typing this, I'm sitting in a Starbucks staring out the window at a giant Hooters, so that should give you an idea.
But of course, because this isn't the U.S., not every western convenience is quite up to snuff, and the ones that are tend to be pricey. No matter-- I didn't come all the way to China just to keep living my American life. (Though I've spent more time at this Starbucks than I care to admit...) But there are a few things I really do miss. Guacamole, for one thing. Being able to read the newspaper is another (but hopefully I'll get there in time.) But so far, the biggest obstacle has been my feet.
At home, I'm a size 8 1/2, which is certainly not petite, but also not gigantic. I can basically walk into any shoestore and find shoes that fit, no problem. Even when I lived in Hong Kong, most mom & pop shoe shops carried at least some shoes that would fit me.
Not in Shanghai. The problem isn't just that there doesn't seem to be a single shoeshop in this city that carries size 40 (8 1/2). It's that every time I look for one, I get openly ridiculed, mocked and pitied. I've never been that insecure about my body, but I must admit it's kind of a shock being here. In America, land of the obese, I am medium-sized. Some may even say slender, compact, aerodynamic. In China? I am a giant, brown godzilla.
Sample exchange (translated from the Mandarin, in which it's even more awkward)--
[I walk into a shoe store]
me: excuse me, do you guys have size 40 in... anything?
salesperson 1: 40? really? like 4-0?
me: yes, size 40.
salesperson 1: No, I don't think we have that. [yells] do we have any size 40s?
salespeople 2,3,4: 40?? No way, we don't have 40. Why would we have that?
[cue unabashed cracking up and talking about me in the Shanghai dialect, which I cannot understand]
me: ok, thanks, I'll go now.
salesperson 1: hang on, why don't you try the 36?
me: 36? There's no way that'll fit.
salesperson: come on, just try it. Very pretty. It will suit you.
me: BYE.
(For some reason, they always try to get you to try 2 sizes smaller, as if somehow those will magically expand once they hit my feet.)
About 7 weeks into my stay here, the situation was getting desperate. I'm not a shoe-horse, actually, I tend to buy one pair of flats and wear them everywhere. Unfortunately, my current pair of flats looked like a squirrel had tried to chew through the heels, then gave up halfway because they were just too gross. So I decided to endure the humiliation and keep trying. By sheer luck, I stumbled into a shoe stand near the city's fabric market where the lady had a pair of cheap black flats in my size. I knew they would wear out in a couple of months, but still-- it was great to find anything.
Unfortunately, I think she could smell my desperation. She tried to charge me 5 times what the shoes were worth and I ended up yelling at her and stalking away.
Later, I made the mistake of recounting this story to W., a Chinese friend. W. is about 5 ft tall with the hands and feet of a mid-sized elf. She insisted that Chinese people don't necessarily prize small feet (not true) and very kindly offered to take me to some kind of secret shoe warehouse where they had all kinds of sizes. I agreed.
The warehouse did end up having big shoes-- but only hideous ones. Feeling guilty because W. had brought me all the way there, I picked up a pair of black fake leather flats with a small bow on them. (only semi-fugly). They ended up costing about $20-- with an air of disgust, the salesperson claimed that larger shoes just cost more and there was nothing she could do. W. ended up buying three other pairs of tiny, doll-like shoes, all adorable and less than $4.
Feeling like a sad Cinderella in reverse, (Cindy was, after all, the one with the petite feet that fit the glass slipper. The ugly stepsisters were the ones who couldn't squeeze inside) I resigned myself to wearing flip flops through the winter, or at least until I could scrape up enough cash to order shoes from the States online. It was then, when I had just about given up, that I finally got lucky.
There it was, nestled between a noodle restaurant and a fake antique shop on an unassuming sidestreet in the Bund district. I told myself it was the last shoestore I would walk into. I had planned to abandon my shoe hunt, but the knee-high suede boots in the window looked so cute I figured I could go in for a few minutes-- just to look.
Inside, I pulled a pair of pink kitten heels off the rack and noticed something strange. They looked, well, BIG. What's more, so were the rest of the shoes. I began trying them on-- ballerina flats, wedge sandals, black Mary Jane pumps-- they all fit. The saleslady just smiled blithely at me.
"Excuse me, but what's with this store?" I asked her.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the shoes are all really big, don't you think? Who buys these?"
"Oh," she said. "We specialize in sizes 38 and up. What size are you?"
"40."
"Oh, well then you're our 平均."
"平均? What does that mean?"
"Average," she said in English. "You're the average size."
There's no chance of me ever being average or normal in Shanghai. But it was a comfort to discover, in the 20 square feet of her shoe store, I could be something other than godzilla.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Hey friends. Ok, so the entry after this I will talk about my recent trip to Xinjiang, but I decided I am going to try to blog in Chinese from time to time... I hope it will help me improve my language and further destroy my internet persona. These entries will be short & simple as my vocab is limited. They also probably won't be earth-shattering. 会说汉语的人（Chinese speakers) please feel free to correct my poor grammar/word usage/etc. I will also translate into English. Here goes!
为什么都的中国人好像以为都的印度人会跳舞？中国朋友们：这事是不对！可能印度的电影常常来电视上。可是,不忘了，印度的演员和真的印度人有很大的分别。
我买东西的时候，我常常说我是印度人，不是美国人，因为我觉得售货员给美国人比较高的价格。（对不对？）但是，结果是点麻烦的。当时售货员总是问我“印度人啊？你会跳舞！” 那么我总得说“对啊，印度的跳舞很有名。可是不多的印度人会跳舞。譬如，这个印度人不会跳舞！”
他一点也不明白，只说 “什么？你是不是真的印度人？跳舞吧!"
我不是猩猩！！
Translation--
Why do Chinese people think all Indians can dance? Chinese friends-- it's not true. Maybe Indian movies appear frequently on TV. But， don't forget, there's a big difference between Indian actors and real Indians.
When I go shopping, I often say I'm Indian, not American, because I think salespeople charge Americans higher prices (right?) But the result is a bit annoying. At that time, the salesperson always asks me "Oh, you're Indian? You know how to dance!" So I have to say "Yes, Indian dance is very famous, but not many Indians know how to dance. For example, this Indian does not know how to dance!"
The salesperson doesn't understand even a little, just says, "What? Are you a real Indian person or not? Dance!"
I'm not an orangutan!!
--
Anyway, I hope that wasn't embarrassingly bad. I'll wait for the result.
为什么都的中国人好像以为都的印度人会跳舞？中国朋友们：这事是不对！可能印度的电影常常来电视上。可是,不忘了，印度的演员和真的印度人有很大的分别。
我买东西的时候，我常常说我是印度人，不是美国人，因为我觉得售货员给美国人比较高的价格。（对不对？）但是，结果是点麻烦的。当时售货员总是问我“印度人啊？你会跳舞！” 那么我总得说“对啊，印度的跳舞很有名。可是不多的印度人会跳舞。譬如，这个印度人不会跳舞！”
他一点也不明白，只说 “什么？你是不是真的印度人？跳舞吧!"
我不是猩猩！！
Translation--
Why do Chinese people think all Indians can dance? Chinese friends-- it's not true. Maybe Indian movies appear frequently on TV. But， don't forget, there's a big difference between Indian actors and real Indians.
When I go shopping, I often say I'm Indian, not American, because I think salespeople charge Americans higher prices (right?) But the result is a bit annoying. At that time, the salesperson always asks me "Oh, you're Indian? You know how to dance!" So I have to say "Yes, Indian dance is very famous, but not many Indians know how to dance. For example, this Indian does not know how to dance!"
The salesperson doesn't understand even a little, just says, "What? Are you a real Indian person or not? Dance!"
I'm not an orangutan!!
--
Anyway, I hope that wasn't embarrassingly bad. I'll wait for the result.
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