System of a Down

In the city there is a system for everything. Sometimes this is good, sometimes this is bad. I'll be honest, the metro system is pretty amazing. For a flat fee of 2 yuan (20p) you can travel anywhere you like in the system. When I was last here 2 years ago, there were 3 metro lines. When I arrived 2 months ago there were 7 lines, now there are 8 lines. One day I walked into the metro and another line had simply appeared as if it had always existed. All the maps in the carriages showed the new line, the stations all had signs pointing to the new platforms through tunnels that I had never noticed before. I have to assume that it is my lack of Mandarin that meant I wasn't expecting this, rather than magic. Even the shiny metro system is rammed full to capacity at rush hour though, Beijing simply has too many people. Rapid economic development has caused a mass influx of people to the city, but the city hasn't yet grown to accomodate them. For those of you who think the one child policy is harsh, come to China and see for yourself. A Chinese friend told me that President Bush was once set for a journey to China to press them about relaxation of the one child policy. The Chinese realised this and first sent him on a visit to the beautiful city of Xi'an before his arrival in Beijing. Xi'an, well-known for its terracotta warriors, is said to be even more densely populated than Beijing. By the time he reached Beijing, he didn't mention a word about the policy.



Then there are bad systems. Today I tried to buy a bottle of vodka in Walmart. (Don't worry China isn't turning me to drink) Firstly I had to summon a member of staff to take the bottle off the shelf for me, because it was behind an unstaffed counter. Then it turns out that vodka is one of the mystery items in the store that you must pay for on the spot rather than at the main checkout. Other items that logically fit into this category are humidifiers that play music, face cream, USB sticks and irons. However for things like bedding, live animals and heaters, you should pay at the main checkout. Duh, isn't it obvious? Unfortunately she wasn't authorised to use the "on the spot" till in this part of store. Neither were the 3 other people who were working nearby. They then summoned the man who was authorised to use the phone so that he could call the nearest person who was authorised to use the till. By this point I didn't really want the vodka anymore, but it felt like I had to finish what I had started. Then at the final till I had to separate out the items that I had paid for already from the ones where I hadn't, complete with a receipt for each item to prove it. Isn't Walmart American?

Life With the Wei Family

National Day had its ups and downs, a sense of unease at being a foreigner surrounded by nationalistic fervour (down) and an eight day holiday only two weeks into term (up). Here I want to focus on how I filled the up. I was lucky enough to go to the Great Wall of China with some of the other teachers, but not as most tourists experience it.

We went to an unrestored section of wall and stayed overnight in the rural mountain village of Sancha with the Wei family. A friend of the family drove us from Huairou city and we chatted in Mandarin with him about his love of English football and how Huairou had the best walnuts in the whole of China. It was only the next day that we realised this is what we were saying, but it didn’t stop our enthusiasm. The family were very welcoming as we arrived and we sat down to lunch in their concrete yard, looking down into the valley across peasant farms and the odd donkey. The whole time we were there was a brilliant escape from city life and pollution. Life with the Weis was certainly relaxed. It turns out that the China expert from the New Yorker magazine (Peter Hessler) also used to stay with them. In the evening, Wei Ziqi (the father) proudly showed us some articles and books in English written about the family. It was a really strange experience to be able to read all the details of the family life, with the main characters sitting around us, gauging our reactions. I wondered if they knew what the articles said, whether they would still be happy to show us. The articles mentioned that their son Wei Jia (12yrs old) had been very ill as a child and that Peter had saved his life by arranging for him to be accepted to a hospital in Beijing. He was a very jolly little kid, playing football with us during the day and encouraging us to play Chinese drinking games in the evening (likely so that the family could make a small mark up on the beer, but at 25 pence per bottle total we really didn't mind). Wei Jia was quite tubby and skipped out of his job of guiding us to the Wall on the first day, simply telling us always take the righthand turns. Two hours later we were completely lost in the Chinese forest, with only some rather odd looking bugs and a lot of trees for company. We eventually reached the top of the mountain and a break in the trees to see the Wall looking at us from the other side of the valley. We headed down for dinner and went back to the find the Wall the next morning. It was very treacherous and overgrown, nothing like the sanitised version that I was used to. A sadder side of the articles concerned Wei Ziqi’s brother. I had seen him about the courtyard, but he didn’t reply when I greeted him. Only through reading did I find out that he was mentally handicapped and had lived with the family all his life. Nobody in the village knew his real name, even to the family he was simply shazi (idiot). The family had once had to leave him at the government offices nearby to force them to pay the family some maintenance money to care for him. Apparently before the introduction of iodised salt to people in rural areas, this kind of birth defect was common, with most villages having one or several shazi. However, I should also make clear that he seemed perfectly happy in himself. I saw him a few times milling about the village near the house, seemingly quite content. The villagers all seemed quite used to him and let him about his business. I was certainly sad to have to leave Sancha so soon and I hope that I can return there in the Spring. Overall my 2 day break to Sancha cost me about £17, including all the food, accommodation and transport. All the food was delicious and well prepared, none of us got ill. We could tell it was all fresh because it was generally wandering about the buildings until a few minutes before dinner!!

Long Time No See! - 好久不见！

So there are three reasons why I haven’t written here in a while. Firstly, my last post on this “unsearcheable” blog attracted 11,000 views and as cool as I am, I don’t have that many friends. Hence, please be polite and generic, anything you say on the Internet should be seen as open to the world (irony that I’m writing this through a proxy). Secondly, I have been working and playing hard. Thirdly, it was National Day in China and so I didn’t want to blog anything at all. Security was so tight that I couldn’t even get into my own office without clearance.

I’ve found that moving country is a great way to try a whole new set of stuff. My old routine is gone (a surprisingly powerful factor) and I’m used to looking stupid without feeling bad. I have sung karaoke three times now and tried football (I still hate it), badminton and basketball. I also tried volleyball, our laowai team was sufficiently bad that Chinese students stopped to take photos. There was however a disproportionate amount of celebration the first time that we managed to return the ball. Simplistically, attitudes towards us on campus tend to be curious and good natured. Today, I sat on centre court at the China Open and saw Djokavic and Dementieva play (80 yuan = £7). I’ve never taken the slightest interest in these things in the UK, I can’t really explain why I’m so open to them now. I was conscious that my life at university in the UK had become very 2D, I didn’t really do much. In my spare time I just mooched about or watched re-runs of TV shows. It seemed fine at the time.

How is my Chinese going? Well, my friends are British, American, Canadian, Ukrainian, Korean and Swiss. My Mandarin is getting good for haggling, taxis and food, but that’s it. Today I bought myself a coursebook for a series of Chinese lessons (汉语口语二) at a school just off campus as an incentive. I also bought a Learn Japanese book (みなの日本語一)as a break, I don’t want to get Chinesed out. No they aren’t the same. Japanese has no tones, did I mention that whoever invented tonal languages was an idiot?

I feel this post has been a kind of plinky plonky this is how I am post, sorry if it bored you. Tough really if you are reading this sentence.