After five days of touring Xuzhou and celebrating the new year with Benson, Bridget and I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to hop a train to nearby Suzhou, an ancient city famous for its classic gardens. Several of them have even been declared UNESCO world heritage sites.
Finding that Suzhou has an ample supply of funky, cheap, centrally-located youth hostels to choose from, we easily convinced ourselves that the stressful second-language phone call to book ahead wasn't necessary. Well, it was. After dragging our suitcases down ten blocks of thousand-year-old hand-cut paving stones to our hostel of choice, the Mingtown, we were told that all their beds were booked up. The receptionist took pity on us and obligingly called around until she found us another hostel to stay at - the Suzhou Watertown Youth Hostel. We hailed the first cab we found and were there before we'd even ticked up one yuan on the flag fare. Although not as impressive as the Mingtown, which is in a richly furnished traditional courtyard house overlooking a canal on the most charming thousand-year-old street in the city, the Watertown is also a traditional house (in an ancient alley rather than an ancient canal street) and is walking distance from nearly everything worth seeing.
Still, we really had our hearts set on experiencing the different flavour of the Mingtown, so we went back and booked the next two free beds they had for tomorrow night, our last night in Suzhou. It's a bit of a hassle to pack up and move again, but it's also kind of cool to be getting a taste of a few different places and localizing ourselves to a couple of different bases while we're here.
There are many things in life where you get more for less, and hostel life is one of those things. For a fraction of the price of a hotel, a hostel can provide you with accommodation in an authentic, traditional house, complete with charming decor and gardens, antique furniture, a multilingual book and DVD library, wireless and broadband, a kitchen, a cafe, travel information, and a great base for meeting people. Hostels rock.
Chinese word of the day:
箱子
xiāng zi
Suitcase
Monday, February 7, 2011
A note
Lately I've been writing my posts as they come to me, instead of in order of occurrence, but I'm dating them so that they're posted in order. So it may not look like I'm posting much, but check back a bit - new posts may be popping up under earlier dates. I just wrote two new posts for January.
Also, it looks like the Great Firewall has figured out some new way to keep me off Facebook, so I may not be posting new photos or blog updates for a while. At least I can still access Blogger!
Also, it looks like the Great Firewall has figured out some new way to keep me off Facebook, so I may not be posting new photos or blog updates for a while. At least I can still access Blogger!
Friday, February 4, 2011
New Year's Eve
I woke up at the crack of dawn this morning to the sound of China exploding. It was still dark out, and people across the country were already up and launching a full-scale firecracker assault on the last few hours of the old year, chasing out the year of the tiger and welcoming in the year of the rabbit. Firecrackers blasted on all sides of our apartment, ricocheting and echoing off the concrete, at times alarmingly close. It never stopped. All day, Xuzhou hummed steadily with the constant rumble of faraway firecrackers, punctuated by sudden ear-splitting blasts from just next door or around the corner. It sounded like a war zone. Enough firecrackers and fireworks have been detonated here today to collapse several large buildings.
I dozed as long as I could through the noise, dreaming fitfully of earthquakes and guerrilla warfare, until Benson’s parents came in and told us we had to get up and get ready to go out. We threw on some clothes and slurped down a bowl of Benson’s mom’s freshly made, super tasty dumplings (filled with chives, egg, sweet potato noodles and ginger) and then the six of us squeezed into Benson’s cousin’s car to go meet up with the rest of the family at his uncle’s house in the countryside.
We arrived at a maze of simple concrete one- and two-storey homes and picked our way through the alleys, stopping a few times to greet old friends and neighbours who were out for walks or sitting out in their doorways. Arriving at a pair large metal double doors decorated with the ubiquitous red and gold paper character (?) on it, we stepped through and into a traditional Chinese courtyard home. We were greeted in the courtyard by Benson’s grandmother and several uncles and aunts, along with a hardy little Pekingese and a very agitated husky. A doorway on the right led to the kitchen, where a couple of the aunts were already preparing an elaborate lunch, and on the left a sun-drenched porch lay before the front door to the main house. We went inside, made introductions with the rest of the family and sat around for a bit chatting and eating sunflower seeds. Not long after, everyone got up and started getting ready to leave. We gathered, from their heavily Xuzhou-accented explanation, that we were going on a walk somewhere. Benson’s mother carried a few dumplings from breakfast in a plastic bag, and his father was carrying another bag that bulged with little slips of yellow paper.
We followed a narrow path out of the concrete village and into the dusty, brush-covered hills of the countryside. The sound of firecrackers never faded, echoing off the hills in the distance. After a few minutes, I noticed a cemetery ahead, and realized the family was going to pay respects to their ancestors. We bypassed a long stretch of neatly arranged headstones and wandered through a series of unmarked mounds of earth, the ground littered with white paper flowers, alcohol bottles, unsmoked cigarettes, dumplings and the scorched bits of red paper left by firecrackers, stopping eventually at one of the mounds. We all gathered around as Benson’s mother made a large pile of yellow paper, which represents money, and lit it on fire, sending it to the ancestors who’ve moved on to the afterlife. Everyone took turns kowtowing three times to the mound, and then they carefully stamped out the fire, moved on to another mound just behind us and repeated the ceremony. Leaving a couple of dumplings at each mound, we turned around and walked back.
Back at the house, we filled every piece of furniture in the living room and crowded around a little coffee table crowded with plates of fish, meat and veggies. We again found ourselves lacking a corkscrew for the wine, and I again was obliged to demonstrate my expertise at improvisational wine-bottle-opening. This time I used a chopstick. But it was all in vain, as the wine turned out to be completely undrinkable. Chinese wine, at prices as low as two or three dollars a bottle, seems to be such a great bargain until you actually drink it. Once in a while you find something that might be suitable for sangria or mulling, but most of them I wouldn’t drink if I were paid.
Anyway, after lunch we all sat around a while longer and then headed back to Benson’s house, where we rested up and prepared to conquer a huge New Year’s dinner of more fish, meat and veggies, washed down with bowls of Tsingtao. Benson’s mom was the only one brave enough to get into the baijiu (白酒, bái jiǔ, the excessively strong and unappetizing national booze). Then we all sat down on Benson’s parents’ bed to watch the annual New Year’s program on TV while firecrackers and fireworks continued to roar like gunfire around us until late into the night.
Chinese lesson of the day:
新年快乐
xīn nián kuài lè
Happy New Year!
I dozed as long as I could through the noise, dreaming fitfully of earthquakes and guerrilla warfare, until Benson’s parents came in and told us we had to get up and get ready to go out. We threw on some clothes and slurped down a bowl of Benson’s mom’s freshly made, super tasty dumplings (filled with chives, egg, sweet potato noodles and ginger) and then the six of us squeezed into Benson’s cousin’s car to go meet up with the rest of the family at his uncle’s house in the countryside.
We arrived at a maze of simple concrete one- and two-storey homes and picked our way through the alleys, stopping a few times to greet old friends and neighbours who were out for walks or sitting out in their doorways. Arriving at a pair large metal double doors decorated with the ubiquitous red and gold paper character (?) on it, we stepped through and into a traditional Chinese courtyard home. We were greeted in the courtyard by Benson’s grandmother and several uncles and aunts, along with a hardy little Pekingese and a very agitated husky. A doorway on the right led to the kitchen, where a couple of the aunts were already preparing an elaborate lunch, and on the left a sun-drenched porch lay before the front door to the main house. We went inside, made introductions with the rest of the family and sat around for a bit chatting and eating sunflower seeds. Not long after, everyone got up and started getting ready to leave. We gathered, from their heavily Xuzhou-accented explanation, that we were going on a walk somewhere. Benson’s mother carried a few dumplings from breakfast in a plastic bag, and his father was carrying another bag that bulged with little slips of yellow paper.
We followed a narrow path out of the concrete village and into the dusty, brush-covered hills of the countryside. The sound of firecrackers never faded, echoing off the hills in the distance. After a few minutes, I noticed a cemetery ahead, and realized the family was going to pay respects to their ancestors. We bypassed a long stretch of neatly arranged headstones and wandered through a series of unmarked mounds of earth, the ground littered with white paper flowers, alcohol bottles, unsmoked cigarettes, dumplings and the scorched bits of red paper left by firecrackers, stopping eventually at one of the mounds. We all gathered around as Benson’s mother made a large pile of yellow paper, which represents money, and lit it on fire, sending it to the ancestors who’ve moved on to the afterlife. Everyone took turns kowtowing three times to the mound, and then they carefully stamped out the fire, moved on to another mound just behind us and repeated the ceremony. Leaving a couple of dumplings at each mound, we turned around and walked back.
Back at the house, we filled every piece of furniture in the living room and crowded around a little coffee table crowded with plates of fish, meat and veggies. We again found ourselves lacking a corkscrew for the wine, and I again was obliged to demonstrate my expertise at improvisational wine-bottle-opening. This time I used a chopstick. But it was all in vain, as the wine turned out to be completely undrinkable. Chinese wine, at prices as low as two or three dollars a bottle, seems to be such a great bargain until you actually drink it. Once in a while you find something that might be suitable for sangria or mulling, but most of them I wouldn’t drink if I were paid.
Anyway, after lunch we all sat around a while longer and then headed back to Benson’s house, where we rested up and prepared to conquer a huge New Year’s dinner of more fish, meat and veggies, washed down with bowls of Tsingtao. Benson’s mom was the only one brave enough to get into the baijiu (白酒, bái jiǔ, the excessively strong and unappetizing national booze). Then we all sat down on Benson’s parents’ bed to watch the annual New Year’s program on TV while firecrackers and fireworks continued to roar like gunfire around us until late into the night.
Chinese lesson of the day:
新年快乐
xīn nián kuài lè
Happy New Year!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Xuzhou
My friend Benson invited me to spend Chinese New Year with him and his family, so after 11 days touring the highlights (and braving the public transit system) of Beijing I bade farewell to my friends there and hopped a plane to Xuzhou to meet him. I was somehow lucky enough to get here without encountering the crowds that notoriously fill airports and train stations every Spring Festival – kind of a shame, really, as it would have made for great blogging.
Xuzhou is quite different from the overwhelming metropolitan (and at times shamelessly touristy) experience of Beijing. Blue-collar and totally off the tourist map (save for one attraction, a recently unearthed 2000-year-old emperor’s tomb, which doesn’t seem to draw any foreigners), Xuzhou is refreshingly laid-back and real, and a good place to experience my first Chinese New Year in China. Oh, and it’s also got the craziest driving I’ve ever seen. I thought Chongqing was lawless. Pedestrians in Xuzhou wander casually through six-lane highways, where drivers frequently pull sudden u-turns without signalling, and motorcyclists, scooters and mopeds are apparently allowed to drive against traffic. Overpasses, underpasses and crosswalks simply do not exist. Sidewalks, narrow alleys and bustling outdoor markets are also fair game for drivers here; I almost got hit by a car driving down the sidewalk yesterday. Let’s hope I survive the next three days here.
Chinese lesson of the day:
冒险
mào xiǎn
Adventure (noun); to take risks (verb)
Xuzhou is quite different from the overwhelming metropolitan (and at times shamelessly touristy) experience of Beijing. Blue-collar and totally off the tourist map (save for one attraction, a recently unearthed 2000-year-old emperor’s tomb, which doesn’t seem to draw any foreigners), Xuzhou is refreshingly laid-back and real, and a good place to experience my first Chinese New Year in China. Oh, and it’s also got the craziest driving I’ve ever seen. I thought Chongqing was lawless. Pedestrians in Xuzhou wander casually through six-lane highways, where drivers frequently pull sudden u-turns without signalling, and motorcyclists, scooters and mopeds are apparently allowed to drive against traffic. Overpasses, underpasses and crosswalks simply do not exist. Sidewalks, narrow alleys and bustling outdoor markets are also fair game for drivers here; I almost got hit by a car driving down the sidewalk yesterday. Let’s hope I survive the next three days here.
Chinese lesson of the day:
冒险
mào xiǎn
Adventure (noun); to take risks (verb)
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Beijing
I’m lucky enough to have a good friend from Beijing whose family still lives there, so I arrived with someone to pick me up from the train station and a comfortable place to stay all lined up for me. I spent 11 days living with my friend’s parents on the 26th floor of an apartment compound for military retirees. I’d planned to visit a few of Beijing’s famous historical sites, but I knew it would be the everyday, mundane experiences – not the traditional dishes eaten or must-see tourist attractions visited – that would really make the trip.
I couldn’t have found a better place to stay. My friend’s parents spoiled me like I was their own granddaughter. I woke up every morning to a hot mug of tea and a full breakfast, which they would heap onto my plate until I couldn’t eat any more. Then, while I prepared for the day’s adventures, they’d help me figure out an itinerary and tell me which buses to take. They’d even walk me to the bus stop if they weren’t sure I could find it. They kept the house well-stocked with snacks, which they’d shove into my bag before I set out. And when I stumbled back at the end of the day, exhausted, footsore and frostbitten, they’d have a huge vegetarian dinner cooking. We’d chat over dinner, discuss the places I went to see, and then I’d stubbornly try to help with the dishes. After dinner, they’d try to get me to eat more snacks. I’m starting to get the impression that in China, “young” is synonymous with “underfed.” Older people are constantly urging you to eat more, more, more, even when you’re full to bursting.
As they didn’t speak any English at all, staying with the couple really put my Chinese to the test. It was my first time being completely immersed in the language, in a situation where there were no bilingual friends to act as translator and my English was truly useless. It went really well, actually – I was delighted by how well my mere one-and-a-half years of Chinese studies served me. For the first two days I even surprised myself with my fluency. I was able to talk around the gaps in my vocabulary without getting flustered and forgetting how to construct a sentence. But then it got difficult again, and the hesitation and mental blocks came back. I think that, being immersed like that, I learned so much so quickly that my brain was forced to go into assimilation mode for a while to make sense of all the new information, making on-the-spot recall difficult. I wonder if everyone goes through cycles like that in the second-language acquisition process.
One of the best things about going to Beijing (aside from the sheer fabulousness of the city itself) is that the standardized form of Mandarin we learn in school is based on the Beijing dialect, so communication with the locals was easy. It was such a relief to be able to converse smoothly with strangers and understand directions without having to decipher a heavy local accent. Even though everyone in the country understands standard Mandarin, they can’t all speak it, so I often encounter a one-way communication barrier where people can understand my Chinese but I can’t understand theirs. It can be very stressful. Coming from Chongqing, where this is a constant problem for me, this new clarity was a huge thrill. I’ve never enjoyed talking to strangers so much in my life as I did in Beijing. The sudden ease of communicating in a mutually intelligible dialect, and the compliments I got from Beijingers who were impressed to hear a foreigner speaking their dialect, gave me a huge confidence boost that had me chatting with everyone who gave me an opportunity. It really came in handy with all the aggressive hawkers, who’d lose interest in trying to hustle me as soon as they realized they could have a real conversation with me. My favourites were the young guys slinging dumplings and stinky tofu and bugs on skewers at Wangfujing snack street. Perusing all the crazy snacks, I was greeted with the usual catcalls of “HELLOOOO! Look-a-look! Delicious Beijing special treat!” But as soon as I walked up for a closer look and started asking questions in Chinese, they’d immediately drop the act and show a genuine interest in me, asking me where I was from, telling me my Chinese was awesome (很棒, hěn bàng!), flirting a bit and finding common ground with me.
Chinese word of the day:
双语
shuāng yǔ
Bilingual (adj) (lit., double language)
I couldn’t have found a better place to stay. My friend’s parents spoiled me like I was their own granddaughter. I woke up every morning to a hot mug of tea and a full breakfast, which they would heap onto my plate until I couldn’t eat any more. Then, while I prepared for the day’s adventures, they’d help me figure out an itinerary and tell me which buses to take. They’d even walk me to the bus stop if they weren’t sure I could find it. They kept the house well-stocked with snacks, which they’d shove into my bag before I set out. And when I stumbled back at the end of the day, exhausted, footsore and frostbitten, they’d have a huge vegetarian dinner cooking. We’d chat over dinner, discuss the places I went to see, and then I’d stubbornly try to help with the dishes. After dinner, they’d try to get me to eat more snacks. I’m starting to get the impression that in China, “young” is synonymous with “underfed.” Older people are constantly urging you to eat more, more, more, even when you’re full to bursting.
As they didn’t speak any English at all, staying with the couple really put my Chinese to the test. It was my first time being completely immersed in the language, in a situation where there were no bilingual friends to act as translator and my English was truly useless. It went really well, actually – I was delighted by how well my mere one-and-a-half years of Chinese studies served me. For the first two days I even surprised myself with my fluency. I was able to talk around the gaps in my vocabulary without getting flustered and forgetting how to construct a sentence. But then it got difficult again, and the hesitation and mental blocks came back. I think that, being immersed like that, I learned so much so quickly that my brain was forced to go into assimilation mode for a while to make sense of all the new information, making on-the-spot recall difficult. I wonder if everyone goes through cycles like that in the second-language acquisition process.
One of the best things about going to Beijing (aside from the sheer fabulousness of the city itself) is that the standardized form of Mandarin we learn in school is based on the Beijing dialect, so communication with the locals was easy. It was such a relief to be able to converse smoothly with strangers and understand directions without having to decipher a heavy local accent. Even though everyone in the country understands standard Mandarin, they can’t all speak it, so I often encounter a one-way communication barrier where people can understand my Chinese but I can’t understand theirs. It can be very stressful. Coming from Chongqing, where this is a constant problem for me, this new clarity was a huge thrill. I’ve never enjoyed talking to strangers so much in my life as I did in Beijing. The sudden ease of communicating in a mutually intelligible dialect, and the compliments I got from Beijingers who were impressed to hear a foreigner speaking their dialect, gave me a huge confidence boost that had me chatting with everyone who gave me an opportunity. It really came in handy with all the aggressive hawkers, who’d lose interest in trying to hustle me as soon as they realized they could have a real conversation with me. My favourites were the young guys slinging dumplings and stinky tofu and bugs on skewers at Wangfujing snack street. Perusing all the crazy snacks, I was greeted with the usual catcalls of “HELLOOOO! Look-a-look! Delicious Beijing special treat!” But as soon as I walked up for a closer look and started asking questions in Chinese, they’d immediately drop the act and show a genuine interest in me, asking me where I was from, telling me my Chinese was awesome (很棒, hěn bàng!), flirting a bit and finding common ground with me.
Chinese word of the day:
双语
shuāng yǔ
Bilingual (adj) (lit., double language)
Going off the rails on a Chinese train, cont'd
A few hours into the trip, one of the attendants came around to collect our tickets. The 12- or 13-year-old girl in the bunk below mine had apparently lost hers sometime after boarding the train, and, from what I understood, the staff suspected a scam and wanted to kick her off. The woman in the bunk opposite hers, a feisty Chongqing local, butted heads ferociously with the staff and the situation escalated into an ongoing saga that had the woman fielding phone calls every few minutes while various attendants and managers visited our bunk repeatedly to engage in yet another heated discussion with her. I gathered she wasn’t related to the girl, and possibly didn’t know her at all, but they were going to the same place and she decided to take charge of the situation. Between the Chinese-speaking foreigner, the silent, ticketless mystery girl, the fierce Chongqing lady and the loud drunk, ours was definitely the most interesting bunk in the car. As we neared Beijing and the situation with the ticketless girl was still not resolved, the staff became more agitated and began taking other passengers aside to press them for information that might help them decide whether or not the girl was scamming them for a free ride across the country. Eventually, they came for me.
After nearly a whole day listening to my bunkmates discuss every angle of the matter (and overhearing everyone else on the car gossiping about it), I’d pretty much tuned out the drama unfolding around me and was just keeping to myself, listening to the Cocteau Twins, and watching the poor farming villages go by. Then one of the attendants, a young girl with a mean, catty look behind her polite smile, came and told me they’d like to ask me some questions. Not knowing what else to do, I agreed, and she grabbed me by the arm and marched me through seven or eight cars to the dinner car, where several more attendants were waiting at a table. The ticketless girl was sitting alone at a table behind ours, looking blankly out the window. They obviously weren’t letting her leave.
They asked me to sit down and introduced me to the boss, a woman who appeared to be in her 30’s. They started asking me questions about the ticketless girl and the woman who’d taken on the role of her advocate, but I couldn’t make out the meaning of anything they said through my nervousness and their heavy Sichuan accents. They seemed intent on getting certain information. When it became clear to them that I had no idea what that information was and I could tell them nothing helpful, they thanked me with exasperated smiles and the mean-looking one grabbed me by the arm again and escorted me back to my car.
In the end, they never resolved the issue with the ticketless girl. She and the woman stayed on the train till we got to Beijing, where everyone wordlessly went on their way and the temporary relationships formed on the train dissolved as quickly as they’d formed. I arrived feeling like I’d just reached my second destination on the trip instead of my first. The train ride was a trip in itself.
Chinese lesson of the day:
奇怪
qí guài
Strange (adj)
After nearly a whole day listening to my bunkmates discuss every angle of the matter (and overhearing everyone else on the car gossiping about it), I’d pretty much tuned out the drama unfolding around me and was just keeping to myself, listening to the Cocteau Twins, and watching the poor farming villages go by. Then one of the attendants, a young girl with a mean, catty look behind her polite smile, came and told me they’d like to ask me some questions. Not knowing what else to do, I agreed, and she grabbed me by the arm and marched me through seven or eight cars to the dinner car, where several more attendants were waiting at a table. The ticketless girl was sitting alone at a table behind ours, looking blankly out the window. They obviously weren’t letting her leave.
They asked me to sit down and introduced me to the boss, a woman who appeared to be in her 30’s. They started asking me questions about the ticketless girl and the woman who’d taken on the role of her advocate, but I couldn’t make out the meaning of anything they said through my nervousness and their heavy Sichuan accents. They seemed intent on getting certain information. When it became clear to them that I had no idea what that information was and I could tell them nothing helpful, they thanked me with exasperated smiles and the mean-looking one grabbed me by the arm again and escorted me back to my car.
In the end, they never resolved the issue with the ticketless girl. She and the woman stayed on the train till we got to Beijing, where everyone wordlessly went on their way and the temporary relationships formed on the train dissolved as quickly as they’d formed. I arrived feeling like I’d just reached my second destination on the trip instead of my first. The train ride was a trip in itself.
Chinese lesson of the day:
奇怪
qí guài
Strange (adj)
Monday, January 24, 2011
Going off the rails on a Chinese train
Once again, I’ve been slacking on my blog. Sorry about that. I wrote my exams about 2 weeks ago after a week of intense cramming, and I think I managed to pass, but I won’t know until next semester, if they ever tell me at all. During this time, I was also trying to salvage my travel plans for the Spring Festival, which were rapidly unravelling. Taking advantage of my six-week vacation to travel in China seemed like a good idea; I mean, I’m in China with nothing to do, so naturally I should travel, right? Well, Spring Festival is also the largest annual human migration in the world – the time when the millions of migrant workers who’ve left their hometowns for a better income in the cities go home to spend Chinese New Year with their families. It’s nearly impossible to get a train anywhere; plane tickets double or triple in price.
I’d originally planned to spend a few days in Beijing, then fly to Japan and spend a week or two there, and then fly back to my friend’s hometown in Xuzhou to spend Chinese New Year with his family. Afterward I’d hoped to hop a train to nearby Suzhou or Hangzhou to spend a day or two soaking in the famous scenery (Suzhou is famous for its gardens and Hangzhou is known as the “Venice of China”), and then continue south to Shenzhen or Hong Kong before flying back to Chongqing. Japan ended up being impossibly expensive, eating up almost my entire travel budget and paralyzing my plans until I could cancel everything – a very expensive, time-consuming and depressing task. By the time I got that worked out, I’d decided to just spend some time in Beijing and then take a train to Xuzhou at the end of January, and I thought I’d break up the long, long train ride to Beijing with a stopover in Xi’an. Poor train scheduling to Xi’an ended up making things more complicated when it was supposed to make them simpler, so I dropped that idea and decided to fly to Beijing; I’d found a cheap ticket that would get me there in two hours for just 100 RMB (15 CAD) more than the cost of a train ticket. The website was confusing and the prices were climbing by the second (I could watch the numbers go up as I sat and looked at the page), so by the time I had a friend come over to help me the ticket was more than double the price of a train. So, after another split second change of plans, I ran out and bought a train ticket straight to Beijing; 31 hours. I was actually really lucky to get it only five days in advance – tickets generally sell out the day sales open, which is ten days in advance. I found myself a cheap plane ticket to Chongqing from Shenzhen and my holiday began to take shape again. Meanwhile, Beibei had become unnaturally subdued as all the shops and street stalls I’ve come to know and love pulled down their heavy steel shutters or just packed up and disappeared completely for the holidays. The campus turned into a creepy, deserted ghost town. I was anxious to leave.
The train station was overflowing, but I managed to get onto the train without any trouble or confusion. I must be getting better at this whole “not being a clueless foreigner” thing. I’d booked a “hard sleeper,” which, so I’m told, is exactly the same as a “soft sleeper” except there are three beds to a bunk instead of two, so it’s a little more crowded. But, clocking in at 440 RMB (about 66 CAD), half the price of the soft sleeper, I decided it was money well saved. Of course, my bunk was in the middle of the car, and to get to it I had to walk past about 30 pairs of stunned eyes. Everyone watched, riveted, as I fumbled conspicuously with my overstuffed suitcase. Then a girl about my age approached me in the corridor and struck up a conversation. Of course, everyone listened in, and word spread quickly through the car that there was a “waiguoren” who could speak Chinese on the train. I could hear everyone talking about me, but they all seemed to be saying good things, so I relaxed a bit. People kept dropping by to participate in the conversation and exchange a few words with the foreigner. They were all quite friendly, although I couldn’t understand what they were saying half the time as they were all Sichuan/Chongqing locals and spoke with a heavy accent.
Eventually I went back to the little table next to my bunk to have some dinner and was followed by the crazy drunk guy who’d been blundering around making a scene ever since he arrived. He made lively conversation with me while I tried to review some vocabulary and eat my dinner, spraying me with flecks of chewed-up betel nut as he spoke. He told me repeatedly that I was beautiful and then he called his wife and told her he was talking to a “foreign beauty,” gleefully reporting afterward how jealous she was. My other bunkmates joined in and we all talked for a while – I’m always amazed at the social ease of the people over here. I guess in a country this crowded, where maintaining personal space is impossible, you don’t really have the option of being hesitant to talk to people. Chatting with strangers is both a way of life and an art form over here. It’s funny – when I see fellow foreigners now, my first instinct is to run over and strike up a conversation, ask where they’re from, what their story is, and then I realize that that’s a very Chinese response. It’d be the last thing I’d be likely to do back home. Being in China has fundamentally changed the way I view social interaction. Not only do I have no choice but to talk to strangers here, it’s basically my entire purpose for being here. And the social interactions I have here, in my horribly inadequate Chinese or in someone else’s faltering English, are completely different from the culturally nuanced, socially molded conversations I have in my native language. Every conversation I have here is useful to me in some way – it’s never worth it to avoid them (unless you’re talking to a crazy drunk who’ll just end up following you around all night). And it’s changed the way I view awkwardness in social interaction, too. No social interaction in the world can be as awkward or intimidating as being interrogated in a heavily-accented version of your second language.
…to be continued.
Chinese word of the day:
尴尬
gān gà
Awkward (adj.)
I’d originally planned to spend a few days in Beijing, then fly to Japan and spend a week or two there, and then fly back to my friend’s hometown in Xuzhou to spend Chinese New Year with his family. Afterward I’d hoped to hop a train to nearby Suzhou or Hangzhou to spend a day or two soaking in the famous scenery (Suzhou is famous for its gardens and Hangzhou is known as the “Venice of China”), and then continue south to Shenzhen or Hong Kong before flying back to Chongqing. Japan ended up being impossibly expensive, eating up almost my entire travel budget and paralyzing my plans until I could cancel everything – a very expensive, time-consuming and depressing task. By the time I got that worked out, I’d decided to just spend some time in Beijing and then take a train to Xuzhou at the end of January, and I thought I’d break up the long, long train ride to Beijing with a stopover in Xi’an. Poor train scheduling to Xi’an ended up making things more complicated when it was supposed to make them simpler, so I dropped that idea and decided to fly to Beijing; I’d found a cheap ticket that would get me there in two hours for just 100 RMB (15 CAD) more than the cost of a train ticket. The website was confusing and the prices were climbing by the second (I could watch the numbers go up as I sat and looked at the page), so by the time I had a friend come over to help me the ticket was more than double the price of a train. So, after another split second change of plans, I ran out and bought a train ticket straight to Beijing; 31 hours. I was actually really lucky to get it only five days in advance – tickets generally sell out the day sales open, which is ten days in advance. I found myself a cheap plane ticket to Chongqing from Shenzhen and my holiday began to take shape again. Meanwhile, Beibei had become unnaturally subdued as all the shops and street stalls I’ve come to know and love pulled down their heavy steel shutters or just packed up and disappeared completely for the holidays. The campus turned into a creepy, deserted ghost town. I was anxious to leave.
The train station was overflowing, but I managed to get onto the train without any trouble or confusion. I must be getting better at this whole “not being a clueless foreigner” thing. I’d booked a “hard sleeper,” which, so I’m told, is exactly the same as a “soft sleeper” except there are three beds to a bunk instead of two, so it’s a little more crowded. But, clocking in at 440 RMB (about 66 CAD), half the price of the soft sleeper, I decided it was money well saved. Of course, my bunk was in the middle of the car, and to get to it I had to walk past about 30 pairs of stunned eyes. Everyone watched, riveted, as I fumbled conspicuously with my overstuffed suitcase. Then a girl about my age approached me in the corridor and struck up a conversation. Of course, everyone listened in, and word spread quickly through the car that there was a “waiguoren” who could speak Chinese on the train. I could hear everyone talking about me, but they all seemed to be saying good things, so I relaxed a bit. People kept dropping by to participate in the conversation and exchange a few words with the foreigner. They were all quite friendly, although I couldn’t understand what they were saying half the time as they were all Sichuan/Chongqing locals and spoke with a heavy accent.
Eventually I went back to the little table next to my bunk to have some dinner and was followed by the crazy drunk guy who’d been blundering around making a scene ever since he arrived. He made lively conversation with me while I tried to review some vocabulary and eat my dinner, spraying me with flecks of chewed-up betel nut as he spoke. He told me repeatedly that I was beautiful and then he called his wife and told her he was talking to a “foreign beauty,” gleefully reporting afterward how jealous she was. My other bunkmates joined in and we all talked for a while – I’m always amazed at the social ease of the people over here. I guess in a country this crowded, where maintaining personal space is impossible, you don’t really have the option of being hesitant to talk to people. Chatting with strangers is both a way of life and an art form over here. It’s funny – when I see fellow foreigners now, my first instinct is to run over and strike up a conversation, ask where they’re from, what their story is, and then I realize that that’s a very Chinese response. It’d be the last thing I’d be likely to do back home. Being in China has fundamentally changed the way I view social interaction. Not only do I have no choice but to talk to strangers here, it’s basically my entire purpose for being here. And the social interactions I have here, in my horribly inadequate Chinese or in someone else’s faltering English, are completely different from the culturally nuanced, socially molded conversations I have in my native language. Every conversation I have here is useful to me in some way – it’s never worth it to avoid them (unless you’re talking to a crazy drunk who’ll just end up following you around all night). And it’s changed the way I view awkwardness in social interaction, too. No social interaction in the world can be as awkward or intimidating as being interrogated in a heavily-accented version of your second language.
…to be continued.
Chinese word of the day:
尴尬
gān gà
Awkward (adj.)
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