message to sky: stop snowing, and get warm soon!

For some reason, I've just become tired of the cold weather.  it's just... every day here, the temps hover around the mid-30's, and then drop below freezing at night.  Every once in a while, it snows (it snowed again yesterday - very pretty, but still snow!)  My thought is, if I can't go skiing, then it might as well be really warm with green leaves and sunshine.  I keep hopefully checking out trees to see if I can see signs of buds, and keep staring at the grass to see if it might have gotten just that much greener overnight.  So far, no luck.  I'm still wearing my winter parka and gloves around - forgot the gloves today, actually, but that was by accident - my watch alarm clock decided to stop working last night, so my classmate had to call me this morning at 10:00 to find out why I wasn't in class - it was because I was still in bed, sound asleep.  Made it to class in record time though, but without my gloves.  I swear, it was the alarm clock's fault and not my own - one of my projects for this weekend is going to be to find a new watch with functioning alarm clock.

 

Not much new else to report.  We have midterms coming up week after next, which are guaranteed to be no fun at all.  No more random livestock sightings, so things are calming down on that front.  The treadmill still shocks me every time I go to the gym - I swear, there is a positive correlation between how fast you run and how fast the static electricity builds up - it really encourages you to walk slowly and never run at all, because then your shock risk is pretty much zero.  Not really the kind of equipment you want to have in a gym - maybe I'll try the stationary bike today.  The one nice thing about the treadmills is that you can watch TV.  The choice of television shows is pretty much always the same.  There are eight TVs total, I think - one is showing a cop show, sometimes featuring Jackie Chan.  One is a soap opera featuring the love lives of top executives.  One is a family drama of some type.  One is CCTV5, the sports channel, which recently has alternated between swimming, gymnastics, and NBA highlights.  One is the nature program channel, which the other day featured a program on wild boars being trained to jump through flaming hoops.  I don't know if that adds up to eight or not, but the other TVs are usually switched off.  Oh - and there is also the celebrity news channel, usually featuring Zhang Ziyi.

 

Off now to go run some errands, and maybe see if I can find a watch.  when will it ever get warmer here??? 

random chickens and other interesting things

My blog is back!  That is, I can see it again.  Sometimes, I think China is governed less by law and more by whim - we were actually discussing in class today the difference between 法执 and 人执 - authority exercised by rule of law, or rule of whoever happens to be in charge at the time.  In studying intellectual property, it's become clear to me that the laws are haphazardly enforced, if enforced at all - and if one court happens to take up an intellectual property case, it's for political expediency, legal window-dressing - nowhere near the serious crackdown that, ideally, a complete rewriting of the legal code should lead to.  Along the same lines, China currently has a constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech and expression of religion.  That China is anything but a free and open society goes without saying - yet, it's all there on paper.  I've always been fascinated by trying to figure out what Chinese characters stand for - there is the character, and then there is the idea it represents.  When you study the Chinese legal system, you come up against 空话 - literally, "empty words" - again and again.  Characters that have no meaning, because they represent nothing.  Laws that have no meaning, because there is no one to enforce them.  There's some sort of metaphor I'm totally missing here, and I keep trying to think of it - but anyway, being in China has made me realize how cool the rule of law actually is (and that's just me being way too dorky) - but I wish there were more of it here.

 

On a completely different note, when I was leaving the computer lab the other day, I saw a chicken.  Seeing a chicken in and of itself is not that remarkable an event.  I've seen lots of chickens before, most of them confined to farms, where chickens are supposed to live.  Chickens are not supposed to roam freely around college campuses.  I looked around the courtyard where I spotted the chicken to see if I could find a chicken coop which this chicken might have escaped from - no luck.  No signs of any other chickens at all.  The chicken seemed not at all disturbed by my presence, and continued strolling across the courtyard as if I weren't even there at all.  For some reason, I've spent a lot of time wondering where that chicken may have come from - mostly, I think, because I haven't had any opportunity to talk about it with my classmates - I haven't really felt like translating the chicken story into Chinese.  I tried telling one person, but by the time I managed to convey what I had seen - namely, a live chicken, walking around - and where I saw it - right outside the computer center - ten minutes had elapsed, and I really didn't feel like getting into the whole "what was a chicken doing outside the computer center?" especially when I feared the answer was going to be "well, you said it was just walking around, right?"  yes, of course - but why?

 

In other random news, my roommate and her colleagues decided to get drunk at work yesterday afternoon - just when you think you can predict the course of events that things are going to take in China, you are proven wrong again and again - and she came home determined to practice her English, which she is usually too shy to do.  Northeastern Chinese have a legendary tolerance for alcohol, the women being no exception, and I am very worried that my roommate could drink me under the table - actually, not only worried that my roommate COULD drink me under the table, but that my roommate is GOING to drink me under the table, and soon.  She threatened me with Chinese red wine this afternoon, after I told her I didn't like drinking whiskey - "Red wine is red wine - how could Chinese red wine be any different?"  I don't know, but if there's a way, the Chinese will find it.  I seriously think alcohol is the best promotor of cultural exchange, for better or for worse.  Last night, my roommate learned how to conjugate the verb "to drink" - "I drink so much I got drunk?" "No no no!  I DRANK so much I got drunk." "D-r-a-n-k 吗?" "对了!"  and I learned... I learned that drinking on a Tuesday is generally not the best idea - but it can be a lot of fun!

a question of translation-

Weekends are always a good time to watch movies around here, and when movies are involved, subtitles are also inevitably involved.  This is because not only are Chinese movies generally incomprehensible to Americans because of the speed of the dialogue, Chinese movies are incomprehensible because they usually make no sense at all, and you need all the help you can get to understand the plot.  Not that American movies make that much sense to Chinese viewers - take what we watched on Friday night, for example.  While Americans may be able to place "Blue Crush" and "Rambo: First Blood" into their proper context (sort of...), for someone who grew up in China on the other hand, trying to figure out what girl surfers on Hawaii have to do with psychologically disturbed Vietnam vets in the Oregon wilderness might be more than a little confusing.  Actually, when you start thinking about what those two movies say about American culture... no wonder no one really understands us. 

 

Saturday night we watched "Team America: World Police", whose subtitles tried desperately to stay as PG as they could.  The title song was translated into "America: That's Great!" (more or less), while other blasphemous language generally came out as "Good heavens!"  Apparently, if you want to hear how Chinese really swear, you need to watch gangster movies from Hong Kong, and then hit the pause button a lot, because when people swear, they swear quickly, and then the fighting starts.  I bet I'd surprise a lot of people if I started walking around talking like a Cantonese drug runner... much more fun than what I actually should be studying, which is medical terminology from our field trip to the provincial hospital last Thursday.  Off to go remind myself how to say "emergency room" in Chinese...

snow again!

It snowed last night... again!  Sometimes I think spring is just around the corner, and sometimes (like today) I wake up to the sound of people shoveling ice off the roof (and listening to the sound of the ice crashing down six stories below).  China is a very random place... was brought home to me again today while sitting in the internet cafe looking at potential vacation plans.  A man walked over to the wall to my left with a chisel, and proceeded to chisel a six-inch diameter hole in the wall.  Once the hole was opened, water then poured in from the outside down the wall and into a bucket.  I've never seen a man randomly chisel a hole through a wall before.

 

OK - this is a short entry, as i have to go meet my roommate to discuss more travel plans.  more later!

该页无法显示

Right now I am dealing with the odd experience of not being able to read my own blog.  I've heard that, for whatever reason, the minds behind the great firewall of China occasionally decide to block Blogger.  For whatever weird reason, I can access Blogger just fine - just, when I try to click on my own blog (or anything ending with blogspot.com), I get the following error message: 该页无法显示 (This page cannot be displayed).  I'm hoping that this post will post, because I'm assuming that this is a problem originating in China, not with Blogger.  Very weird, and also more than slightly annoying!

 

In other news, I've been fighting a cold all week (not fun) and right now I think I'm going to go back to the dorm and take a nap before the cold wins.  I have calligraphy class tonight, then LOTS of reading for "special" class (I'm taking a total of four classes - one-on-one class, which is my class on intellectual property rights; one-on-two class, which is where I learn how to pronounce words - I have a major problem with pronunciation.  This is frustrating, because I can read and understand stuff really well - just can't pronounce it.  So, it's hard to convince people you actually know what's going on when you sound like you don't have a clue...; literature class, where we read short stories - v. good class so far; and "special" class.  "Special" class is an all-around hodgepodge of "interesting" topics in current China ( i.e. what the government-issued textbook tells us are "interesting" topics in current China - why study Taiwan when you can study the educational system, etc. etc.) - I sort of have a love-hate relationship with this class, as sometimes I think the words we're learning are pretty useful, and I like the opportunity to read a lot of stuff, because I can read a lot better than I can speak... but sometimes I think it's just the worst class ever.  We had a test on Wednesday and we get the results back tomorrow - we'll see what I think of that class then!

 

ok - off to get dinner.  hope you all can read this!

 

 

 

...and property rights for all!

I was originally going to title this post "Cat in the Elevator", as yesterday, when I went to the gym, a small cat walked into the elevator in the lobby.  It was an interesting elevator ride up, and made me think about how different cultures react to things that are slightly out of the ordinary.  For instance, there is no way that Germans would have allowed the cat to get on the elevator in the first place.  In the German mindset, cats do not belong in elevators.  Cats belong outside.  But the Chinese just seemed to take it in stride, and were generally bemused by the whole thing.  People remarked how the cat looked hungry, and how it probably just wanted to go for a ride.  I was just hoping it didn't have rabies.  I don't think it ever made it into the gym itself, but it was a good break from the routine of everyday elevator rides.  The elevator at the gym is incredibly, incredibly slow, which is another one of the quirky things about the gym, apart from the static electricity shocks you get from the treadmills.  Apparently there are stairs, but according to one of my classmates who dared to take the stairs yesterday, they are dark and covered with broken glass.  I'll be riding the slow elevator with the cat.

 

Yesterday's announcement about the protection of private property rights in China, though, displaced the cat excitement.  My one-on-one teacher, who I am slowly starting to like more and more, came to class very excited today.  He gets really excited about the role of the legal system in protecting individual rights, and is one of the all-too-few people in China who really understands that individual property rights and human rights are very closely related.  Any time Xinhua comes out with a special Internet page dedicated to the theme of "Know Your Rights" (more or less): http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2007-03/16/content_5818133.htm - it's huge.  Of course, it remains to be seen whether the law will be enforced, but as my teacher explained to me, private property is now protected by law - theoretically, it should hinder developers in their relentless pursuit of "拆迁" - chai qian - destruction of property and relocation of people for the developers' own private gain.  We will see (or probably won't see, since it probably won't be reported on) whether or not this legislation will be effective.  The one question I asked my teacher was, "well, doesn't this go against one of the basic tenets of Communism, which is that all property belongs to the state?"  "Well, yes it does," he replied.  "China is basically returning to the system it had 100 years ago."  In effect, guaranteeing private property rights for landowners takes the "commune" out of "communism", which is why the law was vehemently opposed by a lot of the old Party hardliners.  Very interesting stuff!  (As an aside, vehicle owners are protected as well - previously, no matter what, a car had to be taken off the road after 15 years.  Now, it can stay on the road as long as it passes inspection.  I think this aspect of the law has less to do with private property, and more to do with the fact that Chinese people just really love their cars).

 

So, just something to keep an eye on and know about.  Not as cute as the cat in the elevator, but a lot more important!

Happy San Patrick's Day!

Man... I am tired right now!  Last night has got to be one of the more original ways I've ever spent celebrating St. Patrick's Day, and also one of the more fun.  It started out with a determination to only watch movies in English, as I think my classmates and I (well, me for sure) are slowly starting to rebel against all things Chinese.  (I found spaghetti and pesto sauce in the "imported foods" section of the supermarket today and was very, very excited).  In any case, the first movie was "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" followed by "Boondock Saints" in honor of St. Patrick's Day.  Both really worth watching, even though there was no Guinness to be found in any supermarket on campus - and we looked really hard for it.

 

After watching the movie we went to a club called "Box" which is why I'm having a really hard time staying awake while typing this.  I really need some KFC coffee... it was a pretty small club with a dance floor, and a banner on the wall proudly proclaiming, "Happy San Patrick's Day!"  They were also handing out stickers with the same motto printed underneath an Irish flag.  Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day, and most everyone was wearing the Irish flag, except the Russian women, who really didn't have any clothing to stick it to.  Last night was the first time I ever saw a camoflage miniskirt paired with pink stiletto-heel boots.  I don't know what the Russian fashion magazines are printing these days, but it has got to be something interesting!

 

We got back to the dorm about 3:00 AM this morning, which is why I'm having a really hard time focusing on typing this blog entry.  I really don't do well with lack of sleep.  ok.  must... focus.... time to head back to the dorm and find people to eat dinner with, and then start doing homework and figuring out spring break trip plans.  need to wake up soon!

Puzzling stuff...

Yesterday, my one-on-one teacher came to class with some medicine that a friend of his had recently ordered on the Internet.  The medicine had been shipped from a company in California called EFT (you can check out their website at http://www.ef2t.com), and contained a package of herbal tea, herbal supplement drops (referred to on the package as "cell nutrition") and a vial of colloidal silver drops.  He can speak some English, but asked me for help in translating the package directions.  The whole thing seemed kind of fishy, so after class got out I went online to try and see what I could find out about the EFT company and colloidal silver.

 

It's clearly an enormous scam, as both the FDA and the NIH clearly say on their websites that colloidal silver is not only not effective at treating the numerous ailments they say it's good for, but can actually be harmful in large doses - to the point where it can (irreversibly) turn your skin a silvery-gray color.  I just didn't know what to say to my teacher, as he was surprised I had never heard of the company (the Chinese website advertises that EFT is a nationally recognized company in the United States), and I think his friend had spent an exorbitant amount of money on it - RMB 30,000 for a set of ten boxes.  30,000 is a tremendous amount of money for a Chinese person - it's not exactly cheap by American standards, either.  It made me really, really angry that scams like that exist (the scamming company is run by an expat Chinese, who is basically advertising on his website that since he's tremendously successful and wealthy in the United States, he must be selling something good).

 

I've tried searching for the EFT Company on the Better Business Bureau website, but with no success (even though their website says they're listed).  Going on the FTC, FDA, and NIH websites made me realize what a wealth of information is out there - but also made me realize how hard it is for someone who doesn't speak English, and who doesn't know that these organizations even exist, to be able to find them.  Access to information is so tightly controlled in China that it would be ridiculous if it weren't so frustrating.  People just literally have no way of knowing about a tremendous amount of stuff that's out there - everything from political history to musicians - I found out the other night that my roommate, who's 25, had never heard of Bob Dylan.  I quickly got out my Ipod (I do have SOME good music on my Ipod...) - and it was just the most amazing thing to try and translate the story of the Hurricane into Chinese (v. difficult!). 

 

I am now in the process of sending some English websites to my one-on-one teacher, in the hopes that he'll be able to puzzle through them - he said that if he has enough time, he should be able to translate the general meaning.  I also found the U.S. Patent Office for Kids website, which I think I'm going to send to him - it's actually got some good stuff for me on it, as well.  I'm debating sending him the "Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids" website, as I don't know if he would find it insulting, or interesting.  It's become more and more obvious for me the longer I've been here that the Chinese really have no idea how the US government really functions (not that anyone really knows how our government functions, including those in government...)  It's just incredibly complicated, and I keep looking for civic guides for Chinese immigrants - I would love to find a website written in Chinese directed at immigrants to the US telling them how the whole system works, because I think he'd find it really interesting - as would I.  For now, if you're interested, you can see a simple explanation of the project I'm currently working on (the Chinese version) at http://www.uspto.gov/go/kids/kidantipiracy.htm.  If you look at the right-hand side where it asks you "Can You Tell What's Wrong?" ...that's what I'm working on!

 

ok... before this gets way too long, I'm going to go get lunch!  more later-

waffles and salt trucks

I am gradually starting to realize that I am too old to do homework.  Or at least, that is the best excuse I can come up with for not wanting to write sentences including all of the grammar points we study each day in literature class, or not wanting to write compositions entitled, "Why The United States Educational System Is Different From China".  There's just so much more interesting stuff out there that I want to do!

 

One thing that helps make homework more tolerable, though, is being able to sip a cappucino while doing it.  This morning I headed out to Hamamas, a nearby cafe jointly-owned by a Taiwanese woman and a guy from Polynesia (or was it Tahiti? I forget what the book said...)  In any case, they not only had cappucinos, but also waffles, omelets, and chicken salad wraps - v. good!  It made writing sentences like, "要是有钱，何至于开那么旧的汽车？" which translates roughly into: "If I had money, why would I be driving such an old car?"  At least, that's what I hope it translates into... my attempt to be creative while writing grammar sentences sometimes gets me into trouble.

 

One last thing before I head back to the dorm to keep studying - I forgot to mention that on Saturday night, after we got back from skiing, I saw my first salt truck.  It was four guys standing in the back of a pickup truck with shovels, tossing rock salt onto the road.  It wasn't glamorous, but it got the job done, which I guess is the way a lot of things work in China.

 

The last, last thing I almost forgot to say (and then I'm really going to start studying...) on our way to the gym yesterday, Ed and I passed a guy dressed up as a space alien handing out flyers for something or other.  Ed pointed out as we passed him that it was hard to figure out what people were staring longer at - the spacesuit clad alien complete with helmet, or us.  Just goes to prove something which I have long suspected - when it comes to blond, blue-eyed people and space aliens, sometimes, it seems like there's not much difference at all.

Ed's here!

I don't know which is more exciting news - the fact that I went skiing on Saturday, or the fact that my friend Ed just arrived in Harbin - it is SO nice to see a familiar face from home, and I get to speak English with him, which is an added bonus.  Hooray!

 

This weekend was crazy in a both fun and stressful way.  Friday night I watched Jackass II with a bunch of my classmates - I was the only girl.  It was very interesting to see how the Americans and Chinese reacted differently to the various stunts.  There were things that the Chinese students just didn't get at all, but in the end, I found out the one thing that everyone agrees on: grown men unexpectedly getting whacked in the nuts is absolutely hilarious.

 

Saturday morning I woke up at 5:45 in the morning to head out to go skiing.  There were 23 students total who signed up to go on the ski trip - trying to organize 23 people to do anything, let alone rally to head out to the Chinese wilderness to go skiing, is an interesting challenge.  Fortunately, we all made it out and made it back with only minor glitches - it was an awesome day.  The train to Yabuli left Harbin at 8:00 - after a quick breakfast at KFC (for some people) we were ready to go.  The train ride there was pretty uneventful - I sat across from three older people who alternated between looking out of the window and looking at me - and we got to Yabuli around 11:00.  Chaos then ensued while trying to buy return tickets - as I feared, we were only able to get standing tickets - and involved serious amounts of elbowing and cash-waving before the woman behind the counter took notice of us.  My roommate had arranged a small bus to take us out to the ski area, which was located about 15 miles out of town.  One of my goals for the trip was to pass a donkey-pulled cart on my way to go skiing.  This didn't happen on the way TO the area, but in the afternoon, as we were just getting back into town, out the window on the right side of the bus I saw... a cart being pulled by a donkey!  Goal achieved.

 

Donkeys aside, the driver drove remarkably fast given the road conditions (and the fact that the drifting snow had turned the two-lane road into a one-lane road), but we arrived just fine, and went in search of tickets.  Chaos again ensued while my roommate made several phone calls to find the woman with whom she had negotiated our discounted group lift ticket price with.  In China, almost every price is negotiable, including alpine lift tickets.  We had 17 people buy 4 hour passes, and 6 people buy 2 hour passes.  23 people packed into a small room waving money and trying to figure out what they want to do = stress.  It all settled down in the end, though, and we went off in search of rental equipment.

 

In the US, they make you sign complicated liability release forms, and adjust to a T the settings on your bindings before they release you out onto the hill.  In China, they give you a pair of boots (mine were Technicas, one missing a buckle, the other missing a strap), a pair of poles, and a pair of skis (Volkls - not bad, though the binding mountings were about a centimeter off).  Not until I went outside to put the skis on did I discover that they hadn't adjusted the bindings for me - apparently, in China, this is something you do yourself - or in my case, have the security guard checking lift tickets do it for you.  This is the first time a man in uniform has adjusted my bindings, and he was really, really nice about it.  Against all odds, the skis worked great, and never flew off at unexpected times (which was good, because there were no liability release forms.  I think in China, your arrival in the country means you've basically accepted that whatever happens to you is pretty much your own fault...)

 

The chairlift was fine, and never stopped once.  I think in China, if you miss the chairlift or fall down, you just try and get out of the way as best you can without getting clocked in the head by the passing chairs.  I think the fact that the chairlift was incredibly slow helped here - it took about 15 minutes to get to the top of the mountain, which really wasn't that high - more than Pat's Peak less than Sunapee size.  It was decently steep, though, and the fact that it wasn't groomed at all made it even more challenging.  It was awesome - there were three trails open - two intermediate, one advanced.  There was no easy way down, as a couple people found out the hard way - oddly enough, the bunny hill was located at the top of the mountain (complete with agonizingly slow pomalift), and the only easy way down was to take the chairlift.  There was one section of the trail where all the snow had been completely blown off, leaving only hardpack underneath - there was an "alternate route" covered in four feet of powder, but that was also a bit tricky to negotiate - I fell once, which was a bad idea.  It was freezing cold, and alternately sunny and gusting snow squalls, but it was FUN.  I LOVE SKIING! 

 

Our train back left Yabuli station at 5:44, and it quickly turned into a race against time to make the train.  Our goal was to leave at 4:30, which is when the last skier made it back to the base lodge.  quick quick!  returned all rental equipment, and left the ski area gates at 4:55.  Yikes!  Our bus driver understood our predicament, and responded accordingly.  floor it!  all sorts of Volkswagens, trucks, and donkeys were passed in the supreme attempt to get us to the station on time.  We got there at 5:20 - time to spare!  Apart from a shouting/wrestling match which erupted on the platform between a group of about six people over I'm not sure what, (none of it involving any of us, fortunately!) we got on the train with no problems at all.  Of course, we didn't have seats, which led to people making one of two decisions:

 

1) Leaning against one of the seats in the middle of the car, and slowly getting to know the people around you, until they gradually move over and let you squeeze onto the seat next to them.  People are pretty good about letting you sit in their seat when they get up to use the bathroom or go to the snack car.  Speaking of the snack car, the other choice you can make when faced with three hours of standing on the train is...

 

2) Go and get drunk in the snack car (This is not the choice I made, but was v. popular among some (all) of the boys).  There also apparently was a drinking competition between two of the guys and an older Chinese man, who made disparaging remarks about the ability of Americans to hold their liquor.  Given the state the guys were in when they got off the train, the older guy was remarkably prescient.  Fortunately, all 23 of us made it off the train and back to campus.  It was a very long, very busy day, but all in all, very fun!  In contrast, Sunday was very boring... for me, it was mostly a very long, much needed nap.  So in sum: I would not travel all the way to China just to go skiing - but if you're in China, and are within striking range of Yabuli, you should definitely go!  It has all the character that modern American alpine areas are missing with all their glitz and high-speed quads (at Yabuli, the roof of the rental shop was leaking onto the rental counter, and none of the lights were working - using a squat toilet in the dark while wearing ski boots was an adventure indeed...!) - if you want to find the true roots of skiing, I think the true roots can still be found in China - if what you're looking for is the pure joy of falling speed and mountains, then you can definitely find it here!

skiing!

The past day has been a frenzy of ski-trip preparation.  My roommate has been wonderful in all of this - making phone calls, tracking down ticket prices, figuring out train schedules... she's psyched to go skiing as well, though describes her ski technique as "human bowling".  We woke up at 6:30 this morning to head down to the train station to buy tickets to Yabuli - we got seats for 22 people on the way there, but the way back remains to be seen - we may be standing for three hours, which I haven't dared to tell anyone yet.  Oh well - it will be a true Chinese experience (though not one of the better ones).

 

I'm psyched that we got 22 people to sign up to go, though - about equal numbers of Americans and Chinese roommates.  The CET office is reimbursing us 200 kuai each for the adventure, which makes a huge difference to the Chinese roommates - the whole experience of organizing the ski trip reminded me once again how huge the difference is between dollars and renminbi - the train tickets cost 30 kuai each way, or just under $4.00, which seems like nothing to an American, but then, I paid 1.8 kuai for my lunch today (about 20 cents).  When you relativize the costs, you quickly realize that one afternoon of skiing (260 kuai) costs the equivalent of an entire month's worth of meals for a Chinese student (or more).  Some students are more well-off than others, but no one here is throwing money around.  It's a good wake-up call, and something to think about when I'm standing on the train for three hours.

 

This will probably be the last chance I get to write anything before Sunday when we get back - off now to take a tour of the library and get my very own library card (v. excited about that, although apparently the English books are limited to nothing but Dickens and Shakespeare).  wish me luck with the skiing!

Helena make dots

A couple of observations today:

 

1.  I miss salt and sand on ice.  Even though salt kills grass, and is generally bad for the environment in large quantities, and sand gets all over your shoes and gets tracked around everywhere, every time I slip and almost fall on the inch-thick solid ice coating on the sidewalks around here... I miss the brisk efficiency of New England snow removal.  I found out a few days ago who's responsible for removing the snow on campus - groups of students required to show up and shovel.  I thought for a second what would happen if Williams suddenly decided to save money by no longer using salt or sand, and forcing the students to form work brigades for snow removal.  When you start directly comparing China to the United States, it very quickly becomes obvious what enormous differences remain.  It's very easy to get very frustrated very quickly if you keep saying, "well, where I'm from, there's no way we would put up with [inse rt any one of about ten million things here]."  For example, in China, you can't flush toilet paper down the toilet - the plumbing systems here can't handle it.  Instead, you put the toilet paper in a wastepaper basket next to the toilet.  I swear, when I get home I am going to spend an entire afternoon just flushing toilet paper down the toilet - just because I can.

 

2. All of the female Russian exchange students here dress like prostitutes.  It is amazing - the temperature today hovered around the high-teens low-20s, and these girls are walking around in high fake-leather boots, black nylons, and miniskirts (not to mention tight low-cut shirts and eyeliner).  The Russian guys dress like total slobs in oversized sweatshirts and jeans.  Every time I think I've seen the most incredibly inappropriate outfit ever, another one comes along - tight black nylon pants with rhinestones on the back pockets?  Who wears that to class?  Russian women.  I mean, not to stereotype or paint with a broad brush, but really...

 

The plan for tonight is calligraphy class - it's an elective class that meets twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.  Tuesday night our instructor told us about the five different kind of dots it's possible to make in the Chinese language - to give you an example, if you look at the characters 江，心，家，冰，and 羊, you'll find examples of all the different kinds of dots.  Tuesday night, the instructor only talked about the dots, but didn't let us actually draw them.  Yesterday, we went downtown and bought brushes, and tonight we finally get to start making dots on our own.  Not all five kinds, though - according to our instructor, we'll only be practicing the most basic kind of dot - and we won't be writing characters, only dots.  It will be two hours of attempting to make the perfect dot tonight - we'll see how it goes!

 

ok - now off to do some homework, if I can manage to make it back to the dorm without slipping on the ice.  OH - I ALMOST FORGOT.  I'M GOING SKIING AT YABULI ON SATURDAY!  SKIING SKIING SKIING!  Snow is actually supposed to be pretty good - they had a huge blizzard in parts of northeastern China last weekend (we only got five inches, but a lot of places got a lot more) - apparently conditions are as good as they've been all year.  I will be sure to take lots of pictures, and hopefully will figure out how to post them online.  Can't wait to check out a Chinese ski area - should be fun!

got research?

I am currently sitting in the computer lab in the university (where it is prohibited to smoke or play computer games, at least in theory - no smoking, but a lot of computer games going on... at least it's quiet!)  Anyway, the point of me being here is to gain access to CNKI, the Chinese academic answer to Google.  In theory (a lot of things in China work perfectly in theory...) I should be able to access the site and download articles on the assignment given to us by our teacher - "The Treatment of Intellectuals During the Cultural Revolution".  Unfortunately, even after successfully finding and accessing the site, all the servers seem to be busy, which kicks me onto a page where I have absolutely no idea what's going on... so as I'm typing this, I'm also waiting for the page I want to (hopefully) load.

 

In other news, the snow is slowly starting to melt - it's much warmer today than yesterday, fortunately!  One interesting thing about the snow is that it allowed me an insight into the Chinese snow-removal system - since it doesn't snow here that often (winter being an exceptionally dry time of year), there are no snowplows to speak of.  I was watching a news broadcast yesterday which showed a truck with a large rotating brush in front being used to clear the busiest intersections - the thing looked like it would be more suited to sweeping a tennis court, however - it was hopelessly outmatched by five inches of snow.  There are no snowblowers or sidewalk plows, or road salt, or sand - the snow is removed by what looks like neighborhood teams - groups of about 20 people working together to shovel snow off the sidewalk.  I need to ask my roommate how those teams are organized and what they're called - they look like all volunteers.  According to the news broadcast, they even called in local PLA troops to help shovel - because when you run out of volunteers, that's the only place to turn.  Snow really does seem like an unusual event around here - traffic comes to a total standstill, busses run off schedule - the only thing that remains the same is cars refusing to stop at intersections - that's considered usual behavior, though when there's snow they're much more insistent about it, and the horn is more urgently used.  Not only are they not going to stop, even if they wanted to, there's absolutely no way they could.

 

Last night I was involved in an international conflict of sorts, involving the guys who live in the suite across the hall from me.  I was summoned urgently at around 10:00 last night to help them determine where the awful smell was coming from.  Was it coming from the room on the left or the room on the right?  Who was the culprit?  An initial scan revealed that neither room smelled that great - there was a prevailing odor of old socks.  Sneakers were promptly put out on the windowsill in response to my evaluation, and I returned to my room.  That's about the extent of my excitement for last night - also, I had Korean food for dinner, which was really good.

 

OK - now back to try and figure out the website.  It is currently yelling this at me: 提示: 勾选多个数据库后,点击按钮进行跨库检索;直接点击库名,进入单库检索!  Do you know what that means?  I don't either, and I'm going home to take a nap before the gym.  zai jian!

snow and fireworks

The thing I think I love the most about China is its potential for amazing contrasts.  Not only between the rich and poor, city and country, but between the environment and the people.  Sometimes, things just seem out of whack. 

 

Yesterday was the fifteenth and last day of the Chinese New Year.  It's traditional on this day to set off tons of fireworks, as it's the last day the government permits the willful lighting of small, colorful explosives in residential areas.  Yesterday also happened to be, at least in Harbin, a day of driving, blinding snow and sub-zero temperatures.  One might think that this would deter people from going outside and aiming Roman candles at neighboring apartment buildings.  However, as my walk to dinner proved, this was not the case.  People were sticking the fireworks in the snow, and using the snow as a base to light them off.  It was totally surreal - I cannot state enough how incredibly freezing cold it was outside, and how hard the snow was falling (and it wasn't friendly fluffy snow, it was freezing-cold ice-pellety low humidity type of snow) - the gusting winds alone should have prevented people from lighting fireworks.  But it didn't.  The fifteenth day of the New Year is the traditional time to light fireworks, and come hell or high water (or blizzard conditions), fireworks were going to be lit.  Sometimes this place makes you kind of wonder, but it's an amazing place just the same.

 

So, all in all, we got about five inches of snow last night, which today gradually changed into darker shades of gray on top from the air pollution.  hello, coal dust!  Even skiing at Weston, with the combined effects of the Mass Pike, 128, and the diesel engines on the commuter rail line, the snow never looked that bad.  You could see it when you cleaned your bases, but it wasn't like the snow was gray on top.  Or maybe that's just because I was only there for night skiing... but still.  The arctic winds and bitter cold temperatures today did kind of make me homesick for Prospect - for a second, I wish I had skis to strap on and cruise around the snow covered soccer fields - but then, this is absolutely the slowest kind of snow to ski on, and with the way the wind was gusting... I went to the gym this afternoon instead, which was much more comfy.

 

The gym is pretty comparable to Gold's at home - slightly smaller, but with fewer people.  There's yoga and spinning classes which I haven't tried yet, but might in the future, and treadmills, exercise bikes, and elliptical machines.  The one nice thing about it is that there aren't any of the gym-troll ex-linebacker types you find stalking the basement of Gold's - not to say there aren't the "look at me and my muscles" types, but they just don't have the same kind of massive physical presence.  Also, they can't come up and hit on me because of the language barrier, which is nice.  Even though I can speak some Chinese, I can quickly pretend I can't, if need be.

 

One very strange thing my friend saw before we started working out today was a woman standing stark naked in the locker room wrapping Saran Wrap around her arms and stomach.  When my friend asked her what she was doing, she replied that if you wrap Saran Wrap around the parts of your body where you want to lose weight, and then go work out, those body parts will become smaller.  This would seem like an isolated case, except my roommate also showed up on the first day we shared a room with a similar roll of Saran Wrap, and the identical reason for why she was using it.  I could just stare in disbelief - it's not only wrong to believe that wrapping Saran Wrap around your arms will make them skinnier, it's potentially dangerous.  I don't know which celebrity or health guru is telling the Chinese nation that Saran Wrap is a shortcut to a well-shaped body, but they seem to be all-too effective in getting the message across.  Very, very strange.

 

Off now to shower and do homework - one more thing though - watched Pride and Prejudice last night (English with Chinese subtitles) with my roommate and a couple of her friends - they all loved 达西先生 (Mr. Darcy) - it appears that his appeal knows no national boundaries!  ahhhh.... Mr. Darcy.... when are you coming to China???

 

 

P.S.

Oh - totally forgot to write about KFC Coffee in the last post, despite KFC being where I had breakfast this morning, because it's the closest thing to campus (that I've found so far) that sells coffee).  I need to broaden my horizons soon and head out in search of more "genuine" and local cafes, but it is REALLY cold here, and KFC is about as far as I want to go right now!  Dinner will be both cheaper and more noodly, however.  I'm not going to eat at KFC every day!

KFC Coffee and DJ Fridays

Friday night, my friend Sandy and I were determined to eat something other than Chinese food.  I like Chinese food, but after an entire week of eating it morning, noon, and night, we decided that we needed a change.  Our student handbook had an Indian restaurant listed that they said was really good.  So we wrote down the address, hailed a cab, and went off in search of 印度街 - "Indian Street" - where the restaurant was located.

 

Upon reaching "Indian Street" we discovered that although the restaurants name was still written on the building, the building itself was for rent.  Not to worry - there were two other Indian restaurants nearby.  Upon closer inspection, however, they too turned out to be for rent.  Not only were there no Indian restaurants on Indian street, there was very little that was Indian in nature at all.  There were a couple of stands selling cheap Russian knickknacks (let me know if anyone wants matroshka (sp?) dolls or Stalin ashtrays, because they're for sale everywhere here... apparently you can buy Russian everything here because we're so close to the border, including vodka, chocolate, and machine guns... but I think I'm just going to stick with the dolls, and possibly a fur hat if it doesn't get warmer soon).  In any case, Indian street was a huge disappointment.  I thought I'd ask someone if there was anywhere nearby that we could get Indian food - maybe the restaurant had moved? - so I asked a guy selling Russian miscellania if there was another Indian restaurant around, and he pointed me in a vague direction "up the street to the right".  So Sandy and I went out in search of "up the street to the right", and after asking another street vendor, found the place they were pointing us to.  Oddly enough, there was a sign that looked like a "TGI Friday's" sign out front.  What was a TGI Friday's doing in Harbin?  Sure enough, upon closer inspection, TGI Friday's wasn't doing anything in Harbin, but that wasn't stopping "DJ Friday's" from attempting trademark infringement.  (As an aside, apparently a few years ago there was a Starbucks in Harbin near the train station that did excellent business... the only problem was, the real Starbucks knew nothing of their existence, and when they found out about it, they were forced to change their name to "USABucks".  I'm not kidding.  I now need to go to "USABucks...)

 

So, back to the story.  Not only did "DJ Friday's" not have Indian food, but they didn't have anything resembling real TGI Friday's food either (TGI Friday's in the US not really being known for selling chicken feet, which were prominently on display in the buffet line).  Bitterly disappointed, we hailed another cab, telling the driver to take us to the main shopping street downtown, "to a place that has Western food, and not too expensive."  Taking a cab in China is always kind of a gamble, as you're never really sure if the cabbie is going to help you out or rip you off (and possibly both at the same time).  But this cabbie drove us right to a restaurant advertising "Western Food" in the window, and even though it turned out to be a Chinese interpretation of Western food ( i.e. the pizza was a little strange), there were no noodles, which was the main point of the trip.  "No jiaozi, baozi or mian!" was our motto, and in that respect, we succeeded!

 

After dinner we walked through the main shopping area, called 中央大街 - Zhongyang Dajie, or "Central Avenue" (don't know the exact translation) - lots of old Russian architecture, which was much prettier and more well preserved than I had anticipated - also very well-lit until 9:00, when they turned the spotlights off (on the dot!  fortunately, the streetlights still worked).  We walked down to the Songhua River, famous for the benzene spill in the fall of 2005, and the reason I don't eat fish here (or drink the water).  There was remarkably little water in the river - winter is a very dry season, and apparently the rains don't start until summer, when there is so much rain that they have had very serious floods in the past, the most recent being in 1998, when the water rose all the way up to the university (we're located a couple of miles uphill and out of town).  Don't worry, Mom - I will have left here before the risk of flooding starts again!

 

Yesterday I didn't do much - went out and bought a bunch of pirated DVDs at a (literally) underground market - Dreamgirls, a Russian movie, a German movie, "Blue Crush" (I know it's a ridiculous movie, but it cost less than a dollar, so why not?), and the best movie by far - "Infernal Affairs" (无间到), a movie from Hong Kong which "The Departed" was apparently based on.  I wound up watching it last night with a bunch of my classmates and roommates - after we figured out how to change the audio track from Japanese into Chinese, it was great (pirated DVDs are kind of tweaky like that - the main menu options don't really match the actual DVD, so even though you think it's only in Japanese, if you press enough buttons, you can usually get it to do what you want.  A lot of things in China are like that, actually). 

 

ok - now off to do some grocery shopping and buckle down and study this afternoon.  studying starts... now!

friday!

Not much new to write today - the first week of classes is over - hooray!  just checking news here online before I head back to the dorm to do laundry and take a nap.  Hopefully I will be inspired to write more tomorrow, but for now... zzzzzzz.

New Contact Info

New cell phone: 011 86 138 0457 1759

New room phone: 011 86 451 8640 0720

 

New address:

 

Helena Johnson  江文兰

Harbin Institute of Technology, Dorm 6

23 Gongjian Street, Nangang District

Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China  150001

 

中华人民共和国

黑龙江省 哈尔滨市 南岗区工建街23号

哈尔滨工业大学 第六公寓 150001

江文兰 Helena Johnson

 

let me know if you're sending me stuff, so I'll know to look for it!  send me anything American!  I miss it all!

 

 

 

 

Mongolians in White Sox Caps

The blog entry I wrote yesterday didn't go through, for some reason.  Don't worry - you didn't miss much.  Today's doesn't promise to be much better, as I've been wasting incredible amounts of time so far just looking at random stuff on the Internet - mostly because I'm actually supposed to be doing research.  We're supposed to be researching the effect that missionaries had on Chinese education in the late 19th century... I am reading the Drudge Report.

 

One of the advantages of studying in Harbin (?) is that we are close to the Mongolian border.  At least, closer to the Mongolian border than I've ever been so far.  As such, yesterday I saw my first Mongolians.  For some reason (and this is really kind of dumb), I always envisioned Mongolians as still wearing the clothing favored by Genghis Khan - fur kilts, long spears.  I know - this is completely wrong.  (but wouldn't it be cool if it were true?)  I was kind of disappointed, though, to find that Westernization has even extended into Mongolia - I've always dreamed, for some reason, of Mongolia being the last Wild Frontier - this is probably extremely ethnocentrist and ignorant, but still... White Sox caps?  where is there left to go to get away from it all???

 

In other news, today I finally succeeded in getting a new SIM card for my phone.  This was not achieved without some stress, and would never have been possible without my roommate (I really like my roommate).  So, our first stop this morning was the campus phone office, home of the Woman I Don't Like.  She was actually also very unhelpful to my roommate, so nice to see she's an equal opportunity ignorer.  The campus phone office didn't have the cheapest card (which my roommate knew about because she'd helped a friend of hers buy one last weekend) so we headed into town to a bigger China Mobile office in search of the widest selection of SIM cards (buying a SIM card is similar to buying a calling plan in the United States - imagine if there were only Verizon, and they had about 50 different plans with 50 different options, some publicized, some not, and not available in every store.  This is really what makes China interesting!)  Anyway, about five minutes after we arrived at the store, a shouting match erupted between a woman waiting in line and a security guard.  Apparently (this I learned from my roommate), the woman accused the security guard of pushing her down when she was standing in line.  I have never seen a grown woman kick a grown man in the shins before - until this afternoon.  If I could only have understood what she was saying, I would have learned a lot of new and interesting words.  As it was, I could only watch her yell. 

 

When it came to be my turn, my roommate did all the talking.  At first, they made a copy of my passport, as every Chinese citizen who wants to get a SIM card has to provide a copy of their official ID (called a Shenfenzheng).  Since I don't have a Shenfenzheng, I used my passport instead.  This was all fine, until we found out that if you want the cheapest plan (8 kuai a month, or a little over $1.00), you can't use a foreign ID.  This seemed unfair to both my roommate and me, until the woman behind the counter offered an alternative - if I paid an extra 20 kuai (a little over $2.50), I wouldn't have to provide any ID at all.  I'm not quite sure how this system works, but such is the way with a lot of things in China - if you can't go through the door, go through the window.  So, long story short, I have a new cell phone number, and I will post it shortly.

 

OK - now off to get actual work done (maybe).  new contact info to follow shortly.