The pictures are out – I’m a fashion superstar. My picture is nestled on page 83 of the extremely popular magazine ‘Ping Wei’ (which translates roughly to ‘taste’) – think ‘Vogue’. Without being able to provide you the picture, I understand this is much less exciting for you than it is for me, but I promise to find a scanner (my office doesn’t have one?) and get it posted soon!
In the picture I’m sitting on the step-like seats of our auditorium with a real life model and 2 fellow Chinese teachers pretending to watch a movie. Beneath the picture is an arrow pointing to an article which mentions Brad Pitt (his name accentuated because it is the only words not in Chinese characters in the entire magazine). I like to think they made a mistake and just assumed it was Brad Pitt in the photo, but really my article was just above that one.
I’m thinking of demanding money for public appearances now.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Better than a casino
If you want to do some serious gambling, skip Vegas and Atlantic City and come to Shanghai. Nothing beats the rush of buying a pirated DVD and popping it into the player, eagerly wondering if it will work at all. Pirated DVDs are everywhere, not just sold off the back of some entrepreneur’s bicycle, but in established stores with proper entrances and posted hours!
One such store, located inside the walls of the ancient Jing’an Temple with an entrance next to a famed Shanghai Friendship Store, supplies me with all my DVDs. They cost 8RMB for ‘low quality’ and 15RMB for ‘high quality’, but the quality rating doesn’t mean much. Most of the DVD’s I’ve bought have worked perfectly with the odd exceptions – On my copy of The Assassination of Jesse James not only was it impossible to turn the subtitles off, but the subtitles were for some other movie (and a rather crude and violent sounding one at that).
The funniest part is, there are pirated DVD brands. On the box there will sometimes be a sticker or a mark of some kind, denoting who produced this illegal copy. The quality of the DVDs with ‘the smiley face’ and’ the McDonalds logo’ have been so overwhelmingly superior, I struggle to imagine why I won’t buy them exclusively in the future.
In China piracy is so rampant, that the DVD’s and Theatre editions are released at the same time. There is no sense in waiting a few months to release legal DVD’s, because by that time everyone will already own illegal copies. These DVD stores exist, and not in secret, selling pirated wares while the police to nothing. Amazing as it seems, it works for me. On my way home from work tonight I’m going to roll the dice and pick up a copy of the rest of the Oscar winning films –as long as they have a happy faced logo on them.
One such store, located inside the walls of the ancient Jing’an Temple with an entrance next to a famed Shanghai Friendship Store, supplies me with all my DVDs. They cost 8RMB for ‘low quality’ and 15RMB for ‘high quality’, but the quality rating doesn’t mean much. Most of the DVD’s I’ve bought have worked perfectly with the odd exceptions – On my copy of The Assassination of Jesse James not only was it impossible to turn the subtitles off, but the subtitles were for some other movie (and a rather crude and violent sounding one at that).
The funniest part is, there are pirated DVD brands. On the box there will sometimes be a sticker or a mark of some kind, denoting who produced this illegal copy. The quality of the DVDs with ‘the smiley face’ and’ the McDonalds logo’ have been so overwhelmingly superior, I struggle to imagine why I won’t buy them exclusively in the future.
In China piracy is so rampant, that the DVD’s and Theatre editions are released at the same time. There is no sense in waiting a few months to release legal DVD’s, because by that time everyone will already own illegal copies. These DVD stores exist, and not in secret, selling pirated wares while the police to nothing. Amazing as it seems, it works for me. On my way home from work tonight I’m going to roll the dice and pick up a copy of the rest of the Oscar winning films –as long as they have a happy faced logo on them.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Mandarin
Jan 1, 2008: Dan’s New Years Resolution is to learn Chinese
Feb 7, 2008: Dan’s Chinese New Years Resolution is to learn Chinese
Feb 18, 2008: Dan begins Chinese Lessons for the first time
I am exhausted. Last week I began taking Mandarin lessons for the first time and my body, my mind, and my mouth are tired. Beginner class starts at 9am sharp. Every morning I haul myself out of bed and fight through the rush hour traffic to
work, not doubting for a second that 1.3 billion people live in this country. After class, which is about 11, I have an hour and a half before I start teaching. The idea is that I visit the gym next to my building that I just joined, but the reality is I’m so tired, I just find a couch hidden by a plant in the corner and nap. Work lets out around 9:30 at night, when I go home to make dinner and read a book for a bit, there isn’t enough time to watch a movie before bedtime. Repeating this process all week, I thought I’d be given a reprieve on Saturday, my weekend, but the gods who control these things are cruel, and I was asked to come in on Saturday to cover for a sick co-worker. Sunday indeed was my day of rest.
The Chinese lessons are fascinating, if not difficult. In the beginner class, we are learning tones, the basis for the entire language. The grammar isn’t difficult, there is no verb tense and you can just combine words together to mix their meanings – breakfast literally means “Morning Rice”. The tricky part is that there are 5 tones, 6 if you count the absence of tone, and if you pick the wrong tone for a word (or just mispronounce it), nobody will have the slightest idea what you’re talking about. Mandarin has no pity. At 10am the introductory class starts, which covers a lot more grammar and vocabulary. I’m learning slowly but surely, and my pronunciation is miles better than it was.
I can’t have a conversation yet, but if I keep this up, I think I’ll be able to communicate on the street at least. I can sort of order food already, knowing the words for ‘beef’, ‘chicken’, ‘rice’, ‘noodles’ and having earned a black-belt in pointing-at-food. However this leaves me with little in terms of variety or specialty dishes, so I’m still hungry to learn more. My goal is to learn enough pronunciation in the next 2 weeks to stop coming to the 9am class, restoring balance to my life (and stop everyone from greeting me with “Dan, you look exhausted!’)
Feb 7, 2008: Dan’s Chinese New Years Resolution is to learn Chinese
Feb 18, 2008: Dan begins Chinese Lessons for the first time
I am exhausted. Last week I began taking Mandarin lessons for the first time and my body, my mind, and my mouth are tired. Beginner class starts at 9am sharp. Every morning I haul myself out of bed and fight through the rush hour traffic to
work, not doubting for a second that 1.3 billion people live in this country. After class, which is about 11, I have an hour and a half before I start teaching. The idea is that I visit the gym next to my building that I just joined, but the reality is I’m so tired, I just find a couch hidden by a plant in the corner and nap. Work lets out around 9:30 at night, when I go home to make dinner and read a book for a bit, there isn’t enough time to watch a movie before bedtime. Repeating this process all week, I thought I’d be given a reprieve on Saturday, my weekend, but the gods who control these things are cruel, and I was asked to come in on Saturday to cover for a sick co-worker. Sunday indeed was my day of rest.The Chinese lessons are fascinating, if not difficult. In the beginner class, we are learning tones, the basis for the entire language. The grammar isn’t difficult, there is no verb tense and you can just combine words together to mix their meanings – breakfast literally means “Morning Rice”. The tricky part is that there are 5 tones, 6 if you count the absence of tone, and if you pick the wrong tone for a word (or just mispronounce it), nobody will have the slightest idea what you’re talking about. Mandarin has no pity. At 10am the introductory class starts, which covers a lot more grammar and vocabulary. I’m learning slowly but surely, and my pronunciation is miles better than it was.
I can’t have a conversation yet, but if I keep this up, I think I’ll be able to communicate on the street at least. I can sort of order food already, knowing the words for ‘beef’, ‘chicken’, ‘rice’, ‘noodles’ and having earned a black-belt in pointing-at-food. However this leaves me with little in terms of variety or specialty dishes, so I’m still hungry to learn more. My goal is to learn enough pronunciation in the next 2 weeks to stop coming to the 9am class, restoring balance to my life (and stop everyone from greeting me with “Dan, you look exhausted!’)
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Night Biking
I've been having trouble accessing my blog this week, plus I've started taking Chinese lessons, which explains the lack of posts this week. I hope to have more next week:
Our 3rd day in Yangshuo my travel partner and myself checked out of our hotel in the city and into a hostel about 3 miles outside the city, nestled along the banks of the sleepy Li River and the towering mountains. After dropping our bags, we rented bikes and set out north along the river to find the old ‘dragon’ bridge which is one of the few traditional bridges still standing in the region.
The countryside itself was wonderful, as we passed fallow fields of rice patties, water buffalo, and orange orchards. We stopped to admire each, stealing oranges and eating them on the riverbanks, pondering the age of the mountains and what the area had been like 1000 years ago. I almost found inner peace, almost.
I should have known we were in for it when I discovered my travel buddy hadn’t learned to ride a bike until she was 19 – understandable for someone who grew up in hilly San Francisco. Not noticing any discernable problems with her bike riding abilities (it is, after all ‘like riding a bike’), we decided to try something cute and return home on the other side of the river, crossing back at a bridge later on down the river.
This decision proved to be our undoing. As the road got smaller and smaller, my travel partner found it harder and harder to maintain control and not fall off the road, ending with us actually walking our bikes. It began to get dark, and we were still on the wrong side of the river when we found a long paved road perfect for riding on and making up time! The road, which we took for our salvation, proved a false prophet, as it didn’t end at a bridge – it just ended at the riverbank. A man soon emerged from a hut with a small boat and ferried us across, directing us further down the river to reach our hostel. Had we gone not more than 25 yards around the bend the other direction we would have been sitting at the hostel, but we took his advice and went blindly the wrong way. And it got dark.
And as it got dark my travel mate continued to struggle riding her bike. Tempers never flared, but moral plummeted – or at least for some, it was a beautiful stretch of land and against the deep evening sky the towers hung stunningly above us. Eventually we came out at a road and asked directions from a restaurant owner, where we discovered we were clear on the wrong side of town (and 2 miles south of it at that!). With help of a friendly
motorbike who lit our way though the Yangshuo night along a busy highway we biked to the city center, but were still 3 miles from our hotel with no further means of lighting our ride home.
Inspiration struck in the form of a tuk-tuk – an oversized 3 wheel ATV with a trunk like an old army truck, covered by a high arching canvas. For 50 RMB (about 7 bucks), we hitched a ride, bikes and all, back to our hostel. It felt like we were riding in a Red Army truck rolling through the countryside when we hit the dirt road. It was the prefect ending to a prefect adventure – my travel partner did not agree.
Our 3rd day in Yangshuo my travel partner and myself checked out of our hotel in the city and into a hostel about 3 miles outside the city, nestled along the banks of the sleepy Li River and the towering mountains. After dropping our bags, we rented bikes and set out north along the river to find the old ‘dragon’ bridge which is one of the few traditional bridges still standing in the region.The countryside itself was wonderful, as we passed fallow fields of rice patties, water buffalo, and orange orchards. We stopped to admire each, stealing oranges and eating them on the riverbanks, pondering the age of the mountains and what the area had been like 1000 years ago. I almost found inner peace, almost.
I should have known we were in for it when I discovered my travel buddy hadn’t learned to ride a bike until she was 19 – understandable for someone who grew up in hilly San Francisco. Not noticing any discernable problems with her bike riding abilities (it is, after all ‘like riding a bike’), we decided to try something cute and return home on the other side of the river, crossing back at a bridge later on down the river.
This decision proved to be our undoing. As the road got smaller and smaller, my travel partner found it harder and harder to maintain control and not fall off the road, ending with us actually walking our bikes. It began to get dark, and we were still on the wrong side of the river when we found a long paved road perfect for riding on and making up time! The road, which we took for our salvation, proved a false prophet, as it didn’t end at a bridge – it just ended at the riverbank. A man soon emerged from a hut with a small boat and ferried us across, directing us further down the river to reach our hostel. Had we gone not more than 25 yards around the bend the other direction we would have been sitting at the hostel, but we took his advice and went blindly the wrong way. And it got dark.
And as it got dark my travel mate continued to struggle riding her bike. Tempers never flared, but moral plummeted – or at least for some, it was a beautiful stretch of land and against the deep evening sky the towers hung stunningly above us. Eventually we came out at a road and asked directions from a restaurant owner, where we discovered we were clear on the wrong side of town (and 2 miles south of it at that!). With help of a friendly
motorbike who lit our way though the Yangshuo night along a busy highway we biked to the city center, but were still 3 miles from our hotel with no further means of lighting our ride home.Inspiration struck in the form of a tuk-tuk – an oversized 3 wheel ATV with a trunk like an old army truck, covered by a high arching canvas. For 50 RMB (about 7 bucks), we hitched a ride, bikes and all, back to our hostel. It felt like we were riding in a Red Army truck rolling through the countryside when we hit the dirt road. It was the prefect ending to a prefect adventure – my travel partner did not agree.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
The Cooking School
The best thing I did in Yangshuo was attend a Chinese cooking school located in an old farmhouse out in the countryside. The head chef was Chinese, but had studied in Australia for a few years, so her English was quite good. After a tour of the local produce and poultry market we were driven to the farmhouse where everything was prepared, right down to the ingredients and our own wok.
The market was a hoot, not that I hadn’t stumbled across one of these large, dark, teaming markets before, but this time I had a guide. She pointed out what this and that odd vegetable was (lettuce stock and bamboo beans), bought some ingredients for our meal including a live fish (well it was, until they diced it up before our eyes… after selecting it the butcher calmly stood there with a fish in a plastic bag flapping crazily while he haggled over the price!). From there we drove the 5 miles outside town to the farmhouse.
We made 5 dishes – steamed stuffed vegetables, garlic fried greens, eggplant Yangshuo style, chicken with cashew and beer fish (a local specialty). In addition to learning how to prepare all these dishes, we had a small feast after class to sample the fruits of our labors. As it turns out, I had known nothing about Chinese cooking – all my stir fries were basically Mexican food with soy sauce (and I think I just insulted Mexican food). The true secret appears to be oyster sauce, because we used it in basically every dish. What is the best news? I can cook Chinese food now! I’ve been eating homemade Chinese food all week since I got back and it’s delicious!!!
The market was a hoot, not that I hadn’t stumbled across one of these large, dark, teaming markets before, but this time I had a guide. She pointed out what this and that odd vegetable was (lettuce stock and bamboo beans), bought some ingredients for our meal including a live fish (well it was, until they diced it up before our eyes… after selecting it the butcher calmly stood there with a fish in a plastic bag flapping crazily while he haggled over the price!). From there we drove the 5 miles outside town to the farmhouse.
We made 5 dishes – steamed stuffed vegetables, garlic fried greens, eggplant Yangshuo style, chicken with cashew and beer fish (a local specialty). In addition to learning how to prepare all these dishes, we had a small feast after class to sample the fruits of our labors. As it turns out, I had known nothing about Chinese cooking – all my stir fries were basically Mexican food with soy sauce (and I think I just insulted Mexican food). The true secret appears to be oyster sauce, because we used it in basically every dish. What is the best news? I can cook Chinese food now! I’ve been eating homemade Chinese food all week since I got back and it’s delicious!!!
Friday, February 15, 2008
Chinese Near Year
Having received a week of vacation in honor of this holiday, it seems only right to elaborate on the celebration itself. This massive holiday which comprises of family, friends and feasting sends millions of Chinese in motion every February, filling every train, plane.
As you should know from eating at a Chinese restaurant at least once in your life – each year is assigned a different animal mascot for a 12 year cycle. This is the year of the Rat, my year. After speaking with a Chinese girl yesterday, apparently having it be ‘your year’ is not all that good. If I don’t wear something red every day, it will bring bad luck – my Red Sox t-shirt
might get smelly in a hurry. Because of the sheer impossibility of this task, and because even wearing red can’t deter all disasters that come with it being ‘my year’, I am supposed to have a very difficult year full of stress (but am more than happy to report none so far…. Oh gosh, I think I just jinxed it!). Thankfully just because it is the year of the rat doesn’t mean people sell rats as souvenirs or pets.
The most obvious think about Chinese New Year is, first and foremost, this is a loud holiday. The noise is said to scare away evil spirits – I think people just like it when things go BOOM. The Chinese will set off firecrackers whenever they want, meaning the party doesn’t have to stop. In America, we celebrate with fireworks, which I don’t need to tell you were invented over here and are quite pretty, however in China they have fireworks, but prefer firecrackers, the big
difference being it’s all the bang without any of the glitz or glamour, plus anyone can do it. By the 2nd day, the streets were littered with red confetti, a testiment to the noisy explosions which had come before. People the past week or so have had no reservations about detonating firecrackers at noon, midnight or five AM. Sleeping was at a premium, but the celebrations were not episodes of drunken debauchery. Instead they were genuinely happy (sober-enough) people with friends and family enjoying mankind’s ability to blow stuff up and make really loud noises – which I think everyone can relate too.
The pinnacle of the festivities is watching the dragon dancers bless the homes. I was lucky enough to stumble across numerous dragon dance teams, increasing my understanding of what makes a good and bad presentation. All the parties were of at least 2 dragons, and up to 6, each elaborately decorated with brightly colored scales, and comprised of two men – the head and the butt. In addition there was always a large drum and some cymbals, and one group even had a trombone to play music to accompany the dances. None of this really mattered however – all that really mattered was how many firecrackers the host had.
The dragons would dance in front of the house while the band played, and firecrackers were thrown at the dragon’s feet creating a deafening series of explosions. The more firecrackers the
house had, the longer the celebration, the luckier the house would be – one dance went on for 5 minutes of non-stop firecrackers. After that the dragons enter the home, bless the house, and then retreat for more firecrackers and dancing before moving on. Occasionally people will hold bags of food out the second (or 3rd) story window of an apartment, so the dragons must work together to form a human pyramid which one of them climbs to reach, and eat, the food.
The spectacle of the holiday is fantastic, with stunningly beautiful dragon dances and the volume of noise from the firecrackers. It wasn’t insanity, like I had expecting, as people seemed content to enjoy their time with their friends and family. I remember first celebrating this holiday in London, which was insanity with thousands of people cramming into a small Chinatown to watch a few dragons shuffle about. This was much less stressful, and therefore more enjoyable. I even ate the traditional dumplings on New Years Day!
As you should know from eating at a Chinese restaurant at least once in your life – each year is assigned a different animal mascot for a 12 year cycle. This is the year of the Rat, my year. After speaking with a Chinese girl yesterday, apparently having it be ‘your year’ is not all that good. If I don’t wear something red every day, it will bring bad luck – my Red Sox t-shirt
might get smelly in a hurry. Because of the sheer impossibility of this task, and because even wearing red can’t deter all disasters that come with it being ‘my year’, I am supposed to have a very difficult year full of stress (but am more than happy to report none so far…. Oh gosh, I think I just jinxed it!). Thankfully just because it is the year of the rat doesn’t mean people sell rats as souvenirs or pets.The most obvious think about Chinese New Year is, first and foremost, this is a loud holiday. The noise is said to scare away evil spirits – I think people just like it when things go BOOM. The Chinese will set off firecrackers whenever they want, meaning the party doesn’t have to stop. In America, we celebrate with fireworks, which I don’t need to tell you were invented over here and are quite pretty, however in China they have fireworks, but prefer firecrackers, the big
difference being it’s all the bang without any of the glitz or glamour, plus anyone can do it. By the 2nd day, the streets were littered with red confetti, a testiment to the noisy explosions which had come before. People the past week or so have had no reservations about detonating firecrackers at noon, midnight or five AM. Sleeping was at a premium, but the celebrations were not episodes of drunken debauchery. Instead they were genuinely happy (sober-enough) people with friends and family enjoying mankind’s ability to blow stuff up and make really loud noises – which I think everyone can relate too.The pinnacle of the festivities is watching the dragon dancers bless the homes. I was lucky enough to stumble across numerous dragon dance teams, increasing my understanding of what makes a good and bad presentation. All the parties were of at least 2 dragons, and up to 6, each elaborately decorated with brightly colored scales, and comprised of two men – the head and the butt. In addition there was always a large drum and some cymbals, and one group even had a trombone to play music to accompany the dances. None of this really mattered however – all that really mattered was how many firecrackers the host had.
The dragons would dance in front of the house while the band played, and firecrackers were thrown at the dragon’s feet creating a deafening series of explosions. The more firecrackers the
house had, the longer the celebration, the luckier the house would be – one dance went on for 5 minutes of non-stop firecrackers. After that the dragons enter the home, bless the house, and then retreat for more firecrackers and dancing before moving on. Occasionally people will hold bags of food out the second (or 3rd) story window of an apartment, so the dragons must work together to form a human pyramid which one of them climbs to reach, and eat, the food.The spectacle of the holiday is fantastic, with stunningly beautiful dragon dances and the volume of noise from the firecrackers. It wasn’t insanity, like I had expecting, as people seemed content to enjoy their time with their friends and family. I remember first celebrating this holiday in London, which was insanity with thousands of people cramming into a small Chinatown to watch a few dragons shuffle about. This was much less stressful, and therefore more enjoyable. I even ate the traditional dumplings on New Years Day!
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Mountains beyond Mountains
Yangshuo is a small tourist city located at the confluence of two rivers among dazzling limestone peaks; and also is where I spent my past week of vacation. Splitting time between the trinket shops and western-aimed bars and restaurants of the downtown and the sublimely refreshing haze of endless mountains in the countryside, my travel buddy and I biked, sailed, cooked and ate our way though the Chinese New Year.
While the city of Yangshuo is the namesake of an ancient people, today it houses souvenir shops where bargaining seems to result in the very opposite, and bars serve both western and Chinese style food, neither of which is all that impressive. Picturesque enough, with cobble stoned streets and long pedestrian thoroughfares; the city has just enough charm and scenery that it may be forgiven for the western imposition on the town. As thumping nightclubs usurp calm cafes, and shopping gives way to the people of the night, the extent of the tourism is revealed by the spiraling drink prices. As they say, “a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to stay there.” We didn’t; we moved to a hostel in the countryside after 2 nights – it was perfect.
The countryside is full of level farmland and orchards punctuated by steep limestone karsts reaching hundreds of feet into the sky. The ground is either quite flat or extremely vertical, allowing easygoing bike rides snaking along riverbanks and between monolithic stone towers. In some places the rivers melt into the future rice patty beds, crossing the man-made banks and footpaths. In other places where the limestone cliffs protrude up and up from the water, an imposing closeness looms on the small bamboo boats that sputtered along beneath the walls. Emblazoned as the image on the back of the 20RMB note, the scenery in the countryside is more than enough to make Yangshuo one of the top destinations in China.
The weather was disappointing, better than the snow Shanghai had received before we left, but hardly the weather you’d expect for a February vacation, much less for a trip during ‘Spring Festival’. It remained consistently cloudy, with some days being less cloudy than others. Direct sunlight was out of the question, and my scarf and winter cap never left my side. It never snowed or rained and the mountainsides were covered with greenery from the near-tropical foliage, but the endless haze and lack of fresh plants created an all too familiar feeling of dreary Shanghai. Yet despite the weather, the awe striking beauty of the place was evident, causing my desire to return for a long weekend when the sun is shinning the rice patties and pumpkin flowers are in bloom.
While the city of Yangshuo is the namesake of an ancient people, today it houses souvenir shops where bargaining seems to result in the very opposite, and bars serve both western and Chinese style food, neither of which is all that impressive. Picturesque enough, with cobble stoned streets and long pedestrian thoroughfares; the city has just enough charm and scenery that it may be forgiven for the western imposition on the town. As thumping nightclubs usurp calm cafes, and shopping gives way to the people of the night, the extent of the tourism is revealed by the spiraling drink prices. As they say, “a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to stay there.” We didn’t; we moved to a hostel in the countryside after 2 nights – it was perfect.
The countryside is full of level farmland and orchards punctuated by steep limestone karsts reaching hundreds of feet into the sky. The ground is either quite flat or extremely vertical, allowing easygoing bike rides snaking along riverbanks and between monolithic stone towers. In some places the rivers melt into the future rice patty beds, crossing the man-made banks and footpaths. In other places where the limestone cliffs protrude up and up from the water, an imposing closeness looms on the small bamboo boats that sputtered along beneath the walls. Emblazoned as the image on the back of the 20RMB note, the scenery in the countryside is more than enough to make Yangshuo one of the top destinations in China.
The weather was disappointing, better than the snow Shanghai had received before we left, but hardly the weather you’d expect for a February vacation, much less for a trip during ‘Spring Festival’. It remained consistently cloudy, with some days being less cloudy than others. Direct sunlight was out of the question, and my scarf and winter cap never left my side. It never snowed or rained and the mountainsides were covered with greenery from the near-tropical foliage, but the endless haze and lack of fresh plants created an all too familiar feeling of dreary Shanghai. Yet despite the weather, the awe striking beauty of the place was evident, causing my desire to return for a long weekend when the sun is shinning the rice patties and pumpkin flowers are in bloom.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Loose Ends
Leaving for the national week long Chinese New Year Holiday tomorrow, I realize that this will be my last post for a week. I am pleased to report that I believe to have found the perfect hostel for my vacation by recomendation of a friend. The sadder news is that the wheather in China won't be great and large parts of the country still have massive travel problems due to China's inability to cope with a spat of bad wheather (they're calling it the worst national disaster in history - I call it a dusting of snow). I expcet a good trip.I'm posting the photos from my 'Laser Strike' excursion I went on last month. Its taken a while to get the photo's, but now that I have them, they're worth the wait.
Chinese New Years is like our Christmas festival in most conceivable ways. The entire country is off work, people travel home to be with their family, there is ritualized food, people celibrate with lights (or in China, firecrackers). The office is closing in 1/2 an hour, most people are already gone. I have 5 day off work sandwiched around a weekend - but its not quite that simple. In China, for every holiday you have off work, there is a weekend you must 'make up' the time off. Most of the country did not have last Saturday or Sunday off, as they were working to offset the vacation they were taking for the New Year. It seems silly to me (why not just give people off??), but its the way its done in China. There are lanterns everywhere, and the malls have fake cherry trees in pink foliage out, so the city does look more festive. I'll let you know how celibrating it in Guilin goes.
Last thought - Yes I watched the Patriots game from a bar at 7am, then had to teach 5 classes that afternoon, that was awful.
Friday, February 1, 2008
The Snow and the Ice
It has continued to snow in Shanghai the past couple of days, maybe an inch in total, most of it turning slushy by mid morning. I don't believe the Shanghainese are prepared for snow in any way, shape or form. I saw a pack of men dressed in army fatigue yesterday sweeping snow off the sidewalk in front of a bank - with brooms made of twigs. Twig brooms are the broom of choice for the Chinese, just like they are for wicked witches, but when it comes to snow shoveling they are pretty horrendous. I also saw men with spaded dirt shovels trying to clear the snow, to no avail. The best tool anyone had was a flat board attached to a long shaft, which at least allowed them to shove the snow out of the way. I do believe there isn't a single snow shovel in Shanghai.
Having returned from Harbin near a week ago and not having related the best parts of it too you, I feel negligent in my blogging duties. Last Sunday featured the most amazing man-made winter specticle I have ever seen.
Having returned from Harbin near a week ago and not having related the best parts of it too you, I feel negligent in my blogging duties. Last Sunday featured the most amazing man-made winter specticle I have ever seen.The morning consited of going to the river to watch 'winter swimming'. Grown men and women vollentarliy went swimming and diving into a hole cut in the otherwise frozen Harbin River, while we shivered watching them. With temperatures hovering just below 0 degrees F its a wonder none of them died upon contacting the water, especially concidering that one of the swimers was 70. The swimming hole was a cut into the ice and surrounded by boats, all frozen into the water, on which the audience could stand and be cold, but at least dry. The L Street Brownies have nothing on these chaps.
The Chinese appreciate razzle, dazzle and bright lights, where as I am more in tune with classical beauty, which may explain why I liked the Snow Sculputre Park so much. With pure white snow being carved into tremendously beautiful statues, it seemed an ode to classical Greek sculpture of marble gods. As a medium I'd never seen sculpted before, the resulting statues were as diverse as they were beautiful. One wall was a 300 square foot relief of Napoleon and his armies sweeping across Europe, while another display was an entire small Chinese village made of snow (complete with tractor). The largest statue was over a football field in length and over 10 stories tall, all made of snow! It had 2 churches on top, a classic French Gothic church and Mont Mare of Paris, along with statues of post-impressionist 
paintings. It was massive! and wasn't even the best statue in the park, not even close. That honor went to the recreation of the Forbiden City, complete with snow slides. There were smaller, more skillfully done statues, entered into the official competition for judging, which rank among the most astounding artwork my beady eyes have ever beheld. My two favorites are shown here; children sledding down a roof, which can only be seen from the other side, and a girl sitting at the back of optical illusion-like rings. The contrast between the brilliant blue sky that day (a far departure from Shanghai) and the stark white medium of the statues worked to compound my appreciation for the other. Daylight was the right time to see this.
paintings. It was massive! and wasn't even the best statue in the park, not even close. That honor went to the recreation of the Forbiden City, complete with snow slides. There were smaller, more skillfully done statues, entered into the official competition for judging, which rank among the most astounding artwork my beady eyes have ever beheld. My two favorites are shown here; children sledding down a roof, which can only be seen from the other side, and a girl sitting at the back of optical illusion-like rings. The contrast between the brilliant blue sky that day (a far departure from Shanghai) and the stark white medium of the statues worked to compound my appreciation for the other. Daylight was the right time to see this. That night, in sharp contrast to the sublime beauty of the ivory snow sculptures, I stood in the presence of neon ice palaces and Las Vegas worthy obolisks. The Ice and Snow Wonderland might have been prettier during the day, at least by my standards, but the Chinese love it at night when they an turn on thier thousands of neon lights embedded in the sculptures. Inside the grand Chinese gateway 
and past another Forbidden City (this time of ice), London was represented by ice versions of Westminster Abby and Tower Bridge (in honor of the 2012 Olympic Games). There were massive ice sculputres stretching out as far as I could see into the dark, frozen night. Two of these, however, shown above the rest - the tribute to Versailles (complete with skating ring for performances in front) and the Acropolys in Athens including the Parthanon on top. So high that it was visible across the river, the Acroppolis shone almost as impressive as the origional, not for the design or execution as much as sheer amazement that someone decided to make it. Bright enough to make Times Square look like a dark alley, it was day for night as the lights sparkled through their icey enclosures. Although I didn't envy obscene light displays, the atmosphere and the showmanship of the place more than made up for it - it is quite a show.
The next day we went home, our plane was delayed 6 hours due to snow in Shanghai, but 'the
dude abides'. It was funny to think that despite standing in freezing temperatures for a weekend, I saw no new snow, while at the same time Shanghai saw its first snow in memory. Harbin lived up to its billing as a wintery wonderland, offering fantastic sights and good winter fun with the only price being the monotonous and unrelenting cold, which may have left the biggest impression of them all.
and past another Forbidden City (this time of ice), London was represented by ice versions of Westminster Abby and Tower Bridge (in honor of the 2012 Olympic Games). There were massive ice sculputres stretching out as far as I could see into the dark, frozen night. Two of these, however, shown above the rest - the tribute to Versailles (complete with skating ring for performances in front) and the Acropolys in Athens including the Parthanon on top. So high that it was visible across the river, the Acroppolis shone almost as impressive as the origional, not for the design or execution as much as sheer amazement that someone decided to make it. Bright enough to make Times Square look like a dark alley, it was day for night as the lights sparkled through their icey enclosures. Although I didn't envy obscene light displays, the atmosphere and the showmanship of the place more than made up for it - it is quite a show.The next day we went home, our plane was delayed 6 hours due to snow in Shanghai, but 'the
dude abides'. It was funny to think that despite standing in freezing temperatures for a weekend, I saw no new snow, while at the same time Shanghai saw its first snow in memory. Harbin lived up to its billing as a wintery wonderland, offering fantastic sights and good winter fun with the only price being the monotonous and unrelenting cold, which may have left the biggest impression of them all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)