happy holidays!

I hope that wherever you may be, you feel safe, warm, and loved.  Best wishes for a great new year, and thanks for helping make mine so particularly meaningful.

oil country

i spent today wandering around doha, mainly in the "city center" mall (yeah, that's what it's called, and it has at least 3 adidas stores and 3 burger kings), and corniche, the pedestrian park area near the water. it was largely uneventful, except for the shock of seeing everybody in headscarves. i kept a vote in the mall for all of 5 minutes, and about 75% of the women had them, though people dressed in totally western, revealing clothing were present as well. what surprised me is that the headscarves that covered only the hair i barely noticed, but i was instinctively (and not rationally) a little frightened by the complete burkas, that leave just a slit for the eyes. i'm not sure why that is: 1) has the image propaganda gone to my head? emily moxley, a george w. bush success story... 2) am i more disturbed by the more that's covered, because for me it's symbolic of greater oppression?, or 3) does it just remind me of every hollywood mugger/murderer/thief that pulls on a ski mask to commit the crime? i tried to figure this one out, and i'm really just not sure... but after only a few hours in qatar, it's no longer strange to me to see women in burkas sipping out of a christmas-themed starbucks cup. tomorrow i go on a 4x4 trip in the desert dunes, and then continue on to england to be with the family for C*.

qatar!

I made it out of China alive!  The last few days were spent in Shanghai (I have never seen so many bulk candy stores) and an afternoon in Suzhou (famous for their gardens).  I really liked Shanghai for a somewhat inexplicable reason.  I felt less "on-edge" there, probably partially a result of the fact that it's a much more western city than anywhere else I've been in China.

I'm now in Qatar for 36 hours or so.  I was kindly warmed up to the "over-friendliness" of the men by my seat-mate on the plane.  He was from Jordan, probably 45, in China on vacation.  About a third of the way through the trip he started putting his hand on my back when I put my head on the seat tray to fall asleep.  That was weird.  He also suggested that we "see each other gain, which is easier, in Jordan or in the United States?"  I completely ignored that ridiculous question.

At customs in Doha I was grilled about CDs/DVDs, which I initially denied but then admitted having a few that I'd gotten from friends.  But then they just let me go through without asking to see them.  It was intimidating, and strange, at the same time.  I got in a taxi.  And the taxi driver asked me if I was married.  To which I answered, "Yes!  Yes I am married!  I will see my husband tomorrow."  Married for the next 36 hours...

hangzhou

I've spent the past day and a half in Hangzhou, a town about 2 to 3 hours from Shanghai, famous for it's West Lake, green tea, and silk.  I've had pretty bad weather, just drizzly, cold, and generally "winter" weather which isn't ideal for a town that's known for it's cruise around the lake and through the tea plantations.  Don't worry, I did those things anyway, and the (still) fall colors on the trees were beautiful.  Probably not as beautiful though as they would have been if the sun had been out.  In general, the town was nice, but nothing to write home about.  The only notable thing really was that they seem to have more (secular) Christmas cheer than even the U.S.  Every blasted restaurant seems to require that it's employees wear santa hats.  Which is hilarious.  Traditional Chinese costume below, santa hat up top.  It's like the full-body mullet.

yangshuo

I spent the last two days in Yangshuo.  Amazing place.  And just what I needed.  I loved biking through the rice fields amidst beautiful scenery, and staying in a family-run hostel that treated me like a family member as well.  I will put up my pictures eventually, but they really don't do the town justice, because 1) I lack a pollution filter (yes, even the outdoor cities of "only" 400,000 in China have pollution.  trivia: China has 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities.  and they're mostly places you haven't heard of; if i recall correctly, beijing, shanghai, etc don't even make the list.), but really they don't do it justice because 2) to appreciate a place like yangshuo, you really have to be there and feel the atmosphere, hear the silence except for the occasional hum of a passing motorbiker, and soak in the quiet.  i felt the same way about the great wall and the swiss alps, for what it's worth.  it's a rare place in china, indeed, where you can get away from the noise pollution.

 

the typical thing to do in the area is to take an 8 hour boat ride down the li river from guilin (closest airport) to yangshuo.  however, the river's too low right now for the trip, which was actually not a disappointment to me at all.  i don't think you have to take the boat ride to appreciate the scenery, and that's been ratified by a few I've spoken with who've done it.  but i wanted to do something on the river, so i took a short local trip on a bamboo raft.  i shared it with a chinese man "david" in town for business from shanghai.  david was neatly, nicely dressed like any of our fathers would be, and he loved practicing his english with me.  i actually didn't mind his fatherly treatment of me or acting interested in the camera pics he had of his three year old son.

 

when we got on the boat, "david" asked me what the name of such a vessel was in english.  i shrugged and said "bamboo raft?  is there a special name in chinese?" to which he responded, "$%^&*.  in english, it means 'bamboo ferry.'" ... chinese, very literal language...  you'd know that of course by looking at any restaurant menu or the translation of any monument or building (one of my personal favorites is the "wall of accumulated elegance," a fantastically eroded sedimentary rock wall in the forbidden city).

"david" was able to do a decent job of translating what they have named some of the rock structures ("looks like a camel" - true, it did, "looks like a man" - umm, ok...).  At the beginning of the ride I paid for it with two 20-yuan bills, and the woman turned it over and showed me that the picture on the bill was exactly what i was looking at.  when i returned, she showed me the bill again, telling me what i had given her was counterfeit.  there must be a lot of counterfeit money in china.  everywhere i went in beijing, no matter what i was buying, they checked the bills for authenticity.  i managed to get through nearly three months in beijing without accidentally using anything fake.  a guy i met in yangshuo had been swindled out of 500 yuan by a taxi driver when he first landed in the country.  he had gone to an ATM, pulled out some money, and when he tried to pay the taxi driver, the driver just kept taking a bill, looking at it (evidently switching it with a fake 100 he had), and handing it back saying it was fake.  andy was amazed at the time he had received fake money from an ATM, until our hostel owner put it together for us that the taxi driver was switching the money with his quick hands for counterfeit bills.  later in the day when i bought some awesome handwoven shoes, i was chatting with the woman and asked her about the prevalence of fake money.  i guess all the shopkeepers down there can tell instantly by touching it.  i can tell the difference when i compare my fake 20 with a real one, but would never be able to tell the difference if i didn't have a benchmark bill.

 

anyway, "david" and i had no way of knowing that the 20 the woman claimed i gave her was actually the one i gave her, or if she had switched it with another one.  but i happily gave her another 20, and commented to "david" on our walk back that i didn't mind so much even if she was "not being a friend" ("friend" or "not friend" was the way david phrased "honest worker" or "criminal") because i recognized i was lucky and came from a rich country.  this led to a conversation about how in china the cities are so different from the rural areas.  for perspective, stuart tells me the average rural chinese person makes about 200 yuan per month ($27).  david began speaking about his extremely poor hometown in rural anhui province.  i asked him more about his hometown and his family, and it came out that his older brother worked for a building company.  i was fearful he meant one of the miserably cold, poor construction workers that live on-site in pseudo-tent structures that i saw every step of every day in beijing, but identifying with david and the way i pictured his life based on his appearance and the way he described his job, i was hopeful that he meant he was a manager or office worker of some sort.  but then i asked about his sister, and he said she was 25 (despite all appearances, my age ;)) and worked in a clothes factory.  he said she "sews clothes."  at that point i thought he could only mean she worked in a sweatshop, and so i fearfully asked, "oh.  it is a very very hard job then?" "yes"  "many long hours?" "yes, many long hours."  it was heartwrenching to realize the background david must have come from, and that he was perhaps the chosen child that was sent to college to go earn money for the family.  now granted, i'm making that last part up about being the chosen child, but it was hard for me to hear how someone i identified so much with was actually so totally different and had a family that lived in miserable conditions.  the night before at dinner i had talked with some people about how anything that necessitates labor in china is dirt cheap, because labor is practically free.  they had said that westerners don't care about the sweatshops and they only care about getting goods for the lowest price possible.  i told them i wasn't sure i agreed.  while that may in the end be true, to begin with in our heads the low price isn't linked with the exploitation of the chinese workforce.  when i see a shirt that's cheap, i don't think about it being cheap because the people that made it are getting paid less than a dollar a day.  it may be that we'd still decide to buy the shirt even if we were thinking about what made it so cheap, but at least at present the only thing that can be corroborated is that the image/reality has not been branded into our minds.  i'm not sure how that exploitation can be fixed (wait, didn't marx have some ideas about that? ;)), but obviously first the two have to actually be linked in our heads.

 

that night i asked the hostel owner if i could cook with the family.  we had a great time cooking the 10 or so dishes together, and i got to see how to make some of the delicious chinese food they'd served us the night before.  a highlight was the sweet and sour chicken (housemates, you can look forward to the fire alarm going off when i attempt to fry the chicken for it upon return, as i've never successfully fried anything i don't think...).  while i was helping them i walked out the kitchen door to the back where a few family members were, and saw a fully membered but defeathered bloody chicken lying on the ground.  they looked at me, and must've assumed that i was horrified, because they said, "not for you, for us to eat!"  (little did they know i have the food standards of a cockroach and would've sat right down and eaten it with them.)  after returning to cooking, i saw them chop up the chicken, bone, beak, and all, and put it into a pot for some homemade hot pot (they had cabbage, radish, and bone with skimpy chicken for their hot pot).  the grandfather came in later and took out the beak to eat.  i was shocked not by the chicken, but that the quality of the food that i was served as a guest was so far superior to what they ate themselves.  especially because the night before we hadn't even finished half of what they served us, and then the mother just lopped all the leftovers into one soupy mess, rather than clearing the serving plates to the other room so that they could finish it off.

i popped for the taxi ride back to the airport with my 3 suitcases for my flight to hangzhou, and as the plane crested the smog layer i was greeted with a beautiful blue sky.  i had an amazing time in yangshuo, but it definitely confronted me with the two major things that concern me about china: it's total disregard for the environment and the rural poor.

yin and yang

Chinese culture emphasizes balancing forces, yin and yang if you will.
The hot pot restaurant that was near me gives you ice cream at the
end to balance the hot of the food you prepare at the table in the
boiling water. Yangshuo must be the yin to Beijing's yang for me. It
is the ice cream dessert after a long meal you cooked yourself.

Beijing inside all day; Yangshuo outside all day
Beijing horrified by how many hours the MSRA interns work; Yangshuo
horrified by the accident aftermath I saw, with fatalities.
Seriously, horrifying. I couldn't figure out why no one was hovering
over the man lying on the street and trying to help him when there had
clearly been an accident. Then, I knew. It was chilling.
In Beijing it takes me as long to get to the area of the city where we
played trivia as it takes to get from central Beijing to the next town
of 10 million plus. Yangshuo, biking city.
Beijing, mountains of recycling in carts pulled by bikers, written
about by American bloggers. Yangshuo, mounds of rock structures,
written about by Chinese poets. (can only be described in
pictures...check out google images of Guilin.)
Beijing, car taxis. Yangshuo, motorcycle taxis. And evidently the
horrifying incident wasn't horrible enough because I like the wind in
my ears :(.
Beijing, corporate ladder climbing. Yangshuo, rock climbing.
Beijing, hotel that makes me change rooms in the middle of the night.
Yangshuo, hostel that picks me up from the bus station and feeds me
delicious food.
Beijing river of people, Yangshuo Li River.
Beijing signature dish: Peking duck. Yangshuo: beer fish.
Beijing, carcasses carried on the road. Yangshuo, live squawking
ducks and roosters carried upside down by their legs.
Beijing, I could not speak the Chinese. Yangshuo, I still cannot
speak the Chinese.

last day

Well today was my last day at MSRA.  I spent most of it trying to sort through a bureaucratic nightmare complicated with a language barrier.  But then Lu Min and I celebrated the end of the nightmare with some KFC, which there are a lot of here.  It actually seems almost more Chinese than American to me at this point; they certainly have about 5x the density here.  But the KFC here doesn't have biscuits, which is, to quote Lu Min "a pity."

I'm off to travel for the week.  My itinerary takes me roughly to Guilin/Yangshuo (beautiful/majestic rock structures http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=guilin&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi), then up to Hangzhou (West Lake), then Suzhou (nice gardens) and finally Shanghai (heard of it?) before I exit the country.  I am overly excited about what will actually turn out to be my last Chinese experience: the magnetic, elevated train (Maglev) from downtown Shanghai to the airport, reaching speeds of something like 450 km/hr.  I am least excited about carrying a life's worth of stuff and the trip of a tourist's worth of junk around the world.

Things I will not miss about Beijing include the inefficiency, blood tofu, and trying to do anything at rush hour, on a holiday or weekend, or something that involves walking on to property owned by the Bank of China.  I will definitely miss my $1 noodle place next to work, the kindness of the Chinese, and the research support and advice I received at Microsoft.

Brooks article

Very interesting article about the China's work-hard mentality and growing role in the international scene: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04brooks.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

 

I have lots of thoughts about this that I started to put into a blog entry, but feel I can't post at the present time.  I will share in due time.

internet blocking

Why the BBC site is blocked in China: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1285915.stm

(Also, anybody that recognizes Taiwan as an independent nation doesn't have an embassy in China.)

Why Wikipedia is blocked in China: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong

I'm probably being tracked for having searched that term. There was an American women's group in Shanghai, that mainly has coffee hours, etc, but there must've been a questionable email on the group list somewhere that got picked up because people showed up at the last meeting and disbanded the coffee hour.

Why Blogspot is blocked in China: I'm sure there are many. Pick your poison.

I'm interested to see how dissidence is handled at the Olympics.