Just a Note

Somehow, access to charlesinea.blogspot.com has been blocked from the apartment complex. I am not sure if it works elsewhere in China, but it may have gone on their bad list for some ridiculous reason. I am still able to edit and upload new posts to blogger.com, but I cannot view my own page.

10/26 Thursday

I now have Skype, and have purchased a Skype phone, so I can call the States using VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol), which is really cheap ($.02 per minute). I spent my entire morning trying to download the program because the file kept of getting timed out due to a slow connection. I had to try about 7 different download sites before I could establish a strong enough link.

In the afternoon I took the subway out to Jun Shi Bo Wu Guan, or the Military Museum, but I was heading for the park behind it, called Yu Yuan Tan. After skirting some incredibly daunting and massive military buildings around the museum, I came to the park. As I had remembered from the year before, this park was a hot spot for kite flying and dog walking. All sorts of dogs were there (I saw a Jack Russell Terrier last year there), and there were tons of kites in the sky, some of which looked like airplanes, and others were more traditional, brightly colored with streamers. There is a massive bell there with the national anthem inscribed on it, March of the Volunteers, complete with notes. Written by Tian Han (lyrics) and Nie Er (music) in 1935, the anthem recalls the bravery of the Chinese people in defending their nation during the 1930's against Japanese invasion in the northeast. The song was banned during the Cultural Revolution, but was later reinstated as the national anthem.

On the way home from the park, I stopped at Xiu Shui Jie, the Silk Market. Here I was able to buy my Skype phone and a little mouse for my computer (the mouse says 'Sony' on it, but there's no way it's real). I was able to bargain both down from 450 yuan to 220. Luckily, both pieces of hardware work.

Colm and I went out for another foot massage today but at another place near the apartment complex. This place was a bit less upscale, but not sketchy, and it was cool because you get to watch a movie during the massage. They have a selection of about 200+ DVD's in the lobby to choose from; of course they are all bootleg, but they work. Colm and I watched Formula 51, in which Samuel L. Jackson is a drug chemist escaping a female assassin in Britain. It was pretty funny.

10/25 Wednesday

I decided to go to Tian Tan, or the Temple of Heaven, by public bus. The bus was easy to use, and only cost 1 yuan. It was pretty slow though, so I think the subway is a much better option. Unfortunately, the subway doesn't go down to that area.

At Tian Tan I walked around the entire park, which is 273 hectares, and saw people practicing Tai Chi, Kung Fu, and various traditional Chinese instruments. At one point I thought I heard repeated gun shots, but no one seemed to be scared by the noise, and as i approached the the source, i eventually saw that it was a man with an enormous whip breaking the sound barrier with each snap. At one point he took up another whip and was doing them both at once, making twice the amount of loud reports. There were many poor people there collecting bottles from tourists so they could bring the plastic back to a recycling center and make some money. This seems to be the main collection system for plastics and other recyclables, and I haven't seen a formal recycling service yet. The man in the picture, a bottle collector, has a little bird with him, to which he was whistling earlier, and it can be seen hanging in the blue cloth-covered cage above him (well, no, you cannot really see it, but it's in there). Many people bring their caged birds to the park, and you can hear them all singing in areas where they're hanging.

On the bus ride back, I stepped on a woman's foot by accident, but ended up talked to her for a while after apologizing. I guess that's one way to meet people!

I went to a dumpling shop for dinner, across from the prestigious Peninsula Hotel in Wang Fu Jing, and had some shrimp wonton soup. The soup was terribly plain, but after adding a touch of soy sauce and some chili paste it was very good. I usually go to this restaurant at around 9:00, and by then they've sold out of most of the things on the menu.

10/24 Tuesday

I slept until 7:30 and woke up to finish my Da Chen book, Colors of the Mountain (highly recommended). I then went back to sleep until 12:00.

Colm took me out to see the Cummins distribution center in Beijing. It was located outside the city in Kai Fa Qu, a Special Economic Zone, which is a business area with tax incentives and an independent power system. I got to go into the Cummins building and see some of the people I met at the Xin Jiang restaurant. We were asking around for people who might be interested in getting some English language practice with me, and there was certainly a demand. We toured the repair and testing center there, and I saw some gigantic engines, ones that could crank out over 2000 horse power. These are used in dump trucks and heavy vehicles. I also saw some of the Cummins power generation units, which are engines that generate electricity. These are used as back up generators in hospitals and other important buildings, as well as to power house lights and utilities in some rural areas of China. Apparently the power generation units are really selling well because the industry and demand for electricity is far outstripping the country's power capabilities and infrastructure.

There was a ping pong table right off the floor of the warehouse, where employees often play. I was very excited about this, and I think it will give me another way to connect to the people working there. In terms of helping some of the employees with their English, there is an idea in the works to have a conference room turned into a lunch room one day a week, where we will be able to talk in english and maybe do some exercises.

Colm took me out for a foot massage at a chain of reputable massage places called Dragonfly. There are hundreds and hundreds of massage places in Beijing, but many are 'sketchy', as in you may be paying for much more than a massage. The foot massage was really nice, with relaxing music, and dimmed lights. My back has been hurting a lot, so I really need to get a back massage at some point.

On the way back from the massage, we stopped to check out a new chic-looking hotel. It had some cool architecture including an open central part (with small l.e.d. lights dangling down by threads) surrounded by a couple floors of rooms, a book bar with comfy seats surrounded by book shelves, water pools that would eventually have fish, and bathrooms that had circular basin tubs and tons of glass. The woman who showed us around said that there weren't any other 'boutique' hotels like this in Beijing.

I started reading a book I brought along called North Korea by Bruce Cumings, published in '04. It is quite interesting so far. Apparently North Korean men must serve in the military from 18 years of age for 8 years, the first 6 of which they are not allowed any leave or to see/call their families. Women also serve, but for a shorter term of 6 years. Out of a population of 23 million, 7 million are in the armed forces. It is thus called a 'garrison' state.

10/23 Monday

I woke early and read my book by Da Chen about his childhood in a small provincial town in the south of China. I am still waking up kinda early due to jet lag.

Colm's driver took me to the technology sector Zhong Guan Cun and I took my laptop along to see if it could be fixed. I eventually found the place that Colm's cleaning lady had recommended amidst hundreds of other stalls in the main 8-story building. The place was a proclaimed 'computer hospital'. They took a look at my laptop and told me that they couldn't fix it because they didn't have the right part, but they could remedy my problem by giving the case a full cleaning. They were able to remove a couple bunches of dog hair/ dust, and in the end, it made the fan problem slightly less audible. During the cleaning I went to look for a lens hood for my camera, and stopped in one Canon shop to look. Their prices were too high but I got to talk to a young guy there, 24, about his life. We talked for about 45 mins. in Chinese and English about our lives in our respective countries before I had to go pick up my laptop. The more I talk to average Chinese people, the more odd stereotypes I hear placed on America. For instance, this guy thought that Americans are all shy, that we all have guns in their homes to protect ourselves from other Americans with guns, and that we are all pretty rich and like to attend professional basketball games.

Looking around the other floors in that main building in Zhong Guan Cun, I noticed a big change: no more pirated software. In years past, there had been piles and piles of pirated Windows, Norton Anti-Virus, Photoshop, Half Life 2, and whatever other applications and games you can think of. I was looking to buy a bootleg copy of Windows, but upon asking (i had been looking without success) where I could find software, I was directed to a lone booth that had certificates of authenticity hanging over it for licensed software. The games and applications were still cheaper than in the US but the variety was small and it didn't compare to the stuff I could get a year ago for $1-$2. I suppose the government had some sort of crack down on the piracy rings, and has made digital property rights a bit more strict. I bet that if I look hard enough I will still be able to find what I am looking for though.

I bought a really nice jacket in the evening for around $30 USD, but I doubt I could get it below $100 in the US. I was wearing a t-shirt and it was getting cold out, so I looked at a couple of the many small stores selling shoddily made clothing for about $5 and under. I tried on at least a dozen different types of jackets and sweaters at these places, but none of them fit well, and I thought the colors were ugly. I finally came across a real Chinese clothing store that specialized in blazers, sports coats, and other upper end apparel. I found an appealing jacket and got it and was happily warm on the way home. It is nice enough that I can use it for anything but formal dress.

At night I fell asleep while watching a really funny new Jackie Chan movie, Rob-B-Hood (international English title), but I paused it before I fell asleep so I could watch the rest another time.

10/22 Sunday

Today I was very surprised to wake up and see, out the window, the blue sky above me. When I was here in 2005 I saw the sky approximately 6 times in 2 months. I knew it would be a great day to take pictures.

While exploring to take pictures, I bought a bag, which has a Mao Ze Dong quote on it, Wei Ren Min Fu Wu, which means do good service for the people (serve the people!). It has a large red Chinese military star on it. The starting price was 75 yuan, but I managed to bargain it down to 20 (<$3.00). Near the stalls selling the bags and other trinkets, there were some food stalls with kebab sticks with skewered starfish, larvae, bugs, and still-moving scorpions. I don't think that any of those will ever be on my menu.

I was able to take some really cool pictures of a crew demolishing an old apartment building, as well as many pictures down central Beijing's many but diminishing hutongs (narrow alleyways). They are destroying many of them in favor of new apartment buildings. I also came across a few dogs in the hutongs and got some pictures of them.

I met Colm's cleaning lady today (called Ayi, or aunt) and we talked a lot while she was tidying things up in the apartment. She doesn't know much English so we spoke in Chinese. I told her it was alright to leave some of my clothes how they were (in a heap) but she scolded me about it and folded them anyways. I showed her some pictures of the things I had seen during the day, and we talked about what I was doing the next couple of days. I told her that I was going to the technology sector, Zhong Guan Cun, tomorrow, and that was going to bring my laptop along to see if anyone would be able to fix it. One of the fans inside (I think the video card fan) makes a terrible amount of noise when it spins up and makes it so that I cannot fall asleep with it on. It is also really annoying when I am trying to do something nearby. I opened it about a month ago and tried to access the fan, but found that I could access all the fans except for the one that was making noise. Ayi told me that her son used to work for an electronics company and that he had some friends in Zhong Guan Cun who might be able to help me out when I went there. She called her son and had him speak to me and then she wrote down directions to get to one of his friend's shops in Zhong Guan Cun.

In the evening Colm came back with a couple of bags from Ikea containing candles and seat covers for the floor. He had invited a bunch of people (~8) over for a dinner party, so we set up the apartment, moved the furniture a little, set up candles, laid the seat covers on the floors for sitting, and went shopping for food and drinks. I got to meet a few interns at Cummins, who are more near my age than Colm's colleagues I met at the Xin Jian restaurant, and found that they were all really nice. We had pizza delivered to the apartment and watched King of Gamblers, a classic Hong Kongese movie, while eating.

After the movie, we walked to Tian An Men and past it, talking the entire way. We took some pictures at Tian An Men (Colm's the other other white guy in the picture), and finally got back to the apartment at around 10:30.

10/21 Saturday

This morning I woke up at around 8:00 after falling asleep at 4:00. Colm got up soon after and we talked, over chocolate milk, about everything ranging from my plans in China, to my plans for the future, law school/business school/graduate school, and the things I could potentially do in China. One idea we came up with, since I randomly packed a pair of soccer cleats (I found them in my closet while packing and thought, 'hey, these are really nice cleats and not too used, and hey, I really like soccer and so do people in china.' So in the bag they went...), is to sponsor a couple of schools outside of Beijing (1.5 hours) that can hardly afford books, in order to build soccer fields for them as well as buy them uniforms and soccer balls and to teach them how to play the game. I went to a sports store and found that a decent soccer ball costs around $5 while shirts will cost even less.

I met a man named Zhu Wei in the late morning, a friend and colleague of Colm at Cummins Engine Company. He used to be a lawyer but is now an engineer of sorts. He has recently been the technology mastermind behind a project to install GPS broadcasting units on Cummins driven busses and trucks so that the company can track and respond to their breakdowns. Sensors in the engine would also gather and send information on the cause of the problem so that a repair crew could come fully prepared to the scene of the breakdown. This project is the first of its kind in the world; not even the American Cummins division has such a system.

I went exploring around Wang Fu Jing later in the morning, heading north then west then south. I was looking for good spots to take pictures, as well as places to eat. In terms of picture taking, the smog in the city is pretty bad so I am not sure pictures will come out very well, and well, there's no 'heavy smog' preset on my camera. Maybe 'cloudy' will do the job.

On the main concourse in Wang Fu Jing I met a pair of kids from Taft school. They noticed my Choate track jacket and came up to meet me. Apparently there is a group of about 60 students, most of whom are juniors and seniors, doing an entire year abroad in China from a few boarding schools including Taft, Deerfield, and Loomis Chaffee. I got their cell phone numbers and I plan to hang out with them at some point during an upcoming weekend when they have time off.

For lunch I went down an alley way off Wang Fu Jing, in fact the same one I went down for breakfast my first day. I went into a different shop and ordered a dish of cold pickled vegetables for 3 yuan. I actually didn't quite know what I was ordering, but I knew it was some type of vegetable, according to the Chinese characters, and I hadn't had very much in the way of vegetable matter since I'd arrived, and I wanted some. I looked it up in my dictionary after eating it to discover what it was. I think that is a good way of trying things out because I won't have any pre determined notions about what I am eating. 20 minutes after I ate my veggies, my stomach began to hurt for around 5 minutes, but the ache resulted in nothing more. I had heard that the vegetables bought on the street can sometimes be grown in very dirty water. As of now, I still have much faith in the strength of my stomach.

I wanted a day pack to travel around the city with, so I tried to buy a messenger bag at a shop near the pickled vegetable restaurant, but the salesman was driving an extremely hard bargain and wouldn't let me get away with only paying 100 yuan for a 108 yuan bag (i had already bargained it down from 135). I am going to find another bag tomorrow that isn't quite as expensive, maybe one of the canvas Mao Ze Dong bags.

In the evening we met up with a bunch of Colm's work partners, who are mostly Chinese, and went to a Xin Jiang style restaurant on the other side of Beijing. The Xin Jiang province is in the north west and is therefore heavily influenced by the Middle East. It is also home of the ethnic group the Uighurs. People from that part of China can look almost Caucasian but speak Chinese. We had lamb kebob, lamb leg, Chinese wine (lots of 'cheers!' and 'bottoms up!'), and many other dishes while watching an elaborate show of belly dancing and a Uighur trio of guitars and drummer. At the dinner, I met a man named Huang Bo, with whom I may be working in the future, assisting him and helping him with his English. He manages a significant part of the Cummins company in China, and seems like a very nice man. He showed me some pictures of his cute baby daughter at the Chinese seaside.

After dinner we went to do karaoke. Unfortunately this is where I really started to feel the age gap with Colm and his business buddies (all 30's-40's), because everyone started singing 80s English songs, most of which I didn't really know. We also sang some Chinese songs, a few of which I knew from my previous trips to China. So far, I feel that my karaoke experiences in Japan and Korea have been better, but maybe when I get a chance to sing with some people my age that will change.

I am beginning to brush the rust off my Chinese, and hopefully I will be at a good level again in a few weeks time.

*Sorry about the delay on the post. I had some computer trouble this morning and had to do a system restore.

*I will post some pictures of the dinner as soon as I am able to upload them.

10/20 Friday

Colm was gone when I woke up at 9:00. I showered and prepared for my first day in Beijing.

I first went to find a notebook and a pen, which were found pretty easily. Near the shop I was confronted by a group of 5 students who wanted me to fill out a small survey about the 2008 Olympics and my thoughts on it. The questions dealt with climbing a mountain and how it is a symbol of the Olympics. It asked questions such as 'do you like mountain climbing?' and 'is the struggle to climb a mountain characteristic of the games in the Olympics?'. They thanked me and continued on their hunt for more people to interview.

I went to find some breakfast, wandering down a small street off of the main concourse in Wang Fu Jing. I went into a non-descript little restaurant where there were dumplings being cooked immediately inside, the steam rising into the street. I ordered 10 meat and vegetable dumplings for 4 yuan, $.50, and ate them there with vinegar/soy sauce. Because I was extremely hungry, and also because they were probably decent quality, I found the dumplings quite delicious. I purchased a bag of 10 meat buns for 3 yuan to go and ate them while walking. Although the restaurant was a bit sketchy by most standards, I am still alive as of yet and I haven't gotten sick. Colm recommended I eat at places like this because I can "afford" to get sick where as he couldn't because his work would pile up. Luckily my stomach seems quite strong and this will allow me to eat on a budget.

After breakfast I wanted to find a China Construction Bank (affiliated with Bank of America, so no ATM service charge). I found one west of Wang Fu Jing, towards the Forbidden City, but it was still being built. I asked a man inside where another one was and was pointed in its general direction. On the way, I encountered two girls who asked me if I needed help finding anything, so I told them I was looking for the bank and they took me to the nearest one. They asked me all sorts of questions about what I was doing in China. It turns out they are college students at the Number Two Chinese Language University, and had taken the day off. They thought that I was in my 20's and were surprised to find that I had just graduated from high school. They also helped my find a lower priced SIM card for a mobile phone (I had looked at a few beforehand, but they said the cheapest I had found was still expensive). After buying the SIM card, they wanted to have some tea so we went to a second-floor tea house in the Wang Fu Jing area. We had jasmine tea and a bowl of fruit and split the price at the end.

The girls taught me some Chinese phrases, and also a little bit about their situation in college, which seems quite different from that of American students. One of the girls was planning on becoming a tour guide for English speakers, and told me that during one's last year or two in college, one did a lot of practical experience work instead of attending classes. For instance, that day, she had given a tour in the morning instead of going to class. They gave me their contact information and helped me get onto the subway heading for the American Embassy. They told me to call if I ever needed help. Colm had warned me about random girls wanting to get to know me, because the intent isn't always good, but I thought these two were quite genuine, and didn't want anything more.

The subway ride to the embassy area took about 7 minutes from Wang Fu Jing. The American embassy was hard to get into, and I had to show my passport at least 10 times to guards before I made it in. I registered as an expat in Beijing and got all the paperwork necessary to complete and send my absentee ballot. The woman at the window inside the embassy was very helpful and gave me some tips on living in Beijing. She said that I reminded her of her son. She also told me to pick up a copy of Insider's Guide to Beijing 2007, which I did, and it seems to be an amazingly good guide to all social activity, as well as everything else, in Beijing.

I stopped at the Silk Alley on the way back to Wang Fu Jing, to look at the mountains of fake merchandise (they now have all sorts of fake iPods), the swarms of English speaking tourist, and also at some artwork. I found a painting I especially liked which was a picture depicting a Cultural Revolution era red guard youth standing with an AK-47 slung over her shoulder with a peeling wall poster of the Chinese character for war in the background. In Silk Alley, The sales people claim to want to give you a better price if you speak Chinese, but I am positive that you'll get charged more no matter what if you look like a tourist. And I certainly do.

I rode the subway back to Wang Fu Jing and headed to Colm's apartment. I went to the Wang Fu Jing underground mall on the way to get some lunch/dinner. Colm had showed me a cheap place to eat called "Mega Bite", which was a series of food vendors tucked away at the back of the mall. I had to buy a charge card at the front desk of Mega Bite which I was to use at the various vendors to buy my food. I spent 10 yuan on a plate of Shanghai Rice, which was rice with sausages, and a fried egg on top, and a bowl of cold soup.

I then returned to Colm's apartment and contacted the teacher I will be staying with to tell her I had arrived safely.

I now have a cell phone, Colm's old one, but with the new SIM card I bought today.

Arrived in one piece

I got to the airport using a Primetime van which was very convenient and fast.

JFK wasn't too bad, the only bump being that security confiscated my water bottle, and then wouldn't let me chug it on the spot (I would have to do it in the main terminal before security), as though I was about to ingest some liquid explosive before getting on the plane. So I had to buy another overpriced one near my gate, which makes me wonder if that was their original intent.

I managed to get a bulkhead seat on the plane, and everything was going well until my neighbor sat down, holding his infant child who was already crying. At this point I put on my headphones and kept them on for the rest of the flight. On then main screen in the cabin (this plane didn't have any personal seat-back TVs), I watched RV, which was funny in a trashy way, a Chinese movie called Blue Love, which was actually pretty good, a Japanese movie that I didn't catch the name of, and MI:III, which I missed the ending of. I didn't touch any of the airplane food.

After 13 hours of being terribly uncomfortable we touched down in Beijing at 6:00pm. Customs was unusually fast, but my bag didn't show up on the luggage belt for a good 25 minutes. Although it is brand new, this 5500 cu. in. backpack was noticeably scuffed up. I also found that it smelled a bit perfumey and the front compartment was moist to the touch. Upon opening the compartment I discovered that my shampoo had exploded all over my toiletries bag (lovely). Everything else was in good order.

Colm Rafferty, the Choate alum with whom I am staying, sent his driver to pick me up at the airport. The driver was there holding a sign with my name on it. He drove me into the main part of the city, quite near Tian An Men square, to a place called Wang Fu Jing. We went into an apartment complex there and I was dropped off in front of a building called the Millennium Tower Apartments. There I met Colm and took my baggage up to his apartment on the 8th floor.

I was starving and he hadn't had any dinner, so he suggested we go out to eat. Since Colm had been eating Chinese food all day at a meeting in the Chinese White House, we went to a close by Outback Steakhouse.

I hadn't gotten much sleep on the plane, so after talking with Colm for a while and registering at the apartment complex's main desk, I washed my face (showering could wait), brushed my teeth, and went to sleep on his couch.

Welcome Post, Pre Departure

Umbrella emails and Facebook and long MSN conversations aren't very practical, so I have decided to try out a web log. I think that this will be the best way to keep everyone updated on my travels in China.

As many of you know, I have been working for 2 months here in Connecticut after returning from Japan. Here are a few things I learned during this time:

I have come to know what working 2 jobs a day feels like, sometimes totaling 13 hours from dawn 'till dusk. It is painful. Especially if one job involves counting reels, tubes, and bags of unthinkable amounts of circuits, fuses, diodes, LEDs, transistors, and capacitors for hours on end in terrible work conditions (no running water (i.e. a porta-potty), no circulation/AC/Heat, and for a while, no lights), and the other involves dealing with senile movie patrons who lose their ticket within 10 feet of the box office, or think they've handed you a $20 when in fact they've only handed you a $10 and believe you're trying to rip them off, or spill popcorn all down the isle. That is real pain.

I have come to know what it is like to make a good amount of money. It is nice. Especially when I can buy myself an iPod and a Digital SLR camera for China, and still have plenty of booty left over to actually live there.

I have come to know what it is like to receive a lot less than I actually earn, due to taxes, even though I've worked my ass off. It is disheartening. Especially when the largest portion, Social Security taxes, are either going to pay for something I won't have in 50 years, or towards our worthwhile (not) billion-dollar-a-day war in Iraq.

I have come to know what it is like to be alone in a familiar place, and to be too occupied by work to make a connection before it's too late. It sucks. Especially when it came time for everyone to pack off to college, the isolation became all too palpable. Luckily, I have been semi-saved by the internet, and can keep my social web alive via email, facebook, and MSN.

I have come to know what having a driver's license feels like, and having a sometimes available car. It is pure freedom. Especially when you have places to go to with friends, or a job to go to, or just want to go find a spot to take some nice pictures.

I have come to know what a car accident feels like...Well, what falling asleep at the wheel and waking up with grass and hay flying up at the windshield like rushing water feels like, and realizing, 'OMG I just missed a telephone by about 5 feet and that it's a good thing I ended up in this field instead of someone's kitchen or off a bridge or into someone else's car!' And finally, 'Damn...My insurance rate is going to go up a ton.' It is like a nightmare come horribly true.

I have come to know a new dog in my family, by the name of Ping (平, balance and harmony). He is really cute and active. We like to call him 'gnip' at home (backwards 'ping', pronounced like nip). He looks like a girl, because he looks as though he is wearing mascara and he is quite petite and feminine.

I have come to know there are a lot of people out there in the world who are more than willing to help me in my quest to explore China.