Market at Southgate

Actually, the New South Gate. I found this market, which is close to my office and my gym, the usual way - by walking in the opposite direction of people carrying bags of food. It is bigger, busier, and dirtier than the market in my old neighborhood.

Fresh noodles in different lengths, jiaozi skins, and made to order chao shou (wontons):


Beans, chilies, garlic and ginger, eggs, and fermented chili and bean pastes:



Preserved and marinated vegetables:



I prefer buying chickens and rabbits here rather than at the big grocery stores because you are buying fresh animals from the farmers rather than mass produced meat, though in the summer I am leery of carcasses that have been sitting in the unrefrigerated case all day. A bird usually includes the head, feet, and internal organs with any partly formed eggs. Sellers will cut up your purchase as you request, though no matter how many elbow-chopping motions I make I have never been able to convey the idea that I want it cut at the joints. I always tell them to keep the head. When they hand you your change, it is often damp from the meat.



Bigger animals are displayed on hooks, and you tell the seller which part you want and they chop it up for you. Below is pork; beef is also sold here and once a severed goat's head advertised that goat meat was available.



Soybean products - various types of tofu and bean sprouts:



This month, oranges are the main attraction at the fruit stands.

From a Student

Respectable Ms. S:
I'm so sorry that I have to ask for a leave. Yesterday the doctor gave a notice to me that I have something wrong with my boo blood and I have to do some examine about it. Because I am a flight student. So I have to do the things doctor arquirst me to Please forgive my absence and I'll come back as soon as possible. I hope you will will let me come into the classroom. Thank you!

Your Student
------------
November 14th

I let him in.

Mongolian Salty Milk Tea

This is a comforting drink on a chilly morning. I got it in powdered form as a gift from one of my students. Think my tastes are adapting because when I first arrived here I would have spit out something that tasted like this, but now I like it.

Aviation University

Am now living and teaching at the Aviation University in Guanghan, where China's commercial pilots are trained. China is facing a great shortage of pilots, who have to know English, so there are many students and lots of work - I have three hundred and sixty three first year students from all over the country. In their English classes taught by locals the students are given three days to memorize several paragraphs of English. These students are all reciting their passages:


Aircraft engine maintenance building:


The grounds are really nice, though have an under construction feel. The new library:


The students have to keep up a demanding physical program, including workouts on equipment to train their balance and control. Behind the propeller-like swings you can see both fixed and free rolling wheels that the students have to be able to control.


My students brought me to try these out one day and it was very fun, though I didn't try to spin one all the way around.

Software

Like the movies that you can buy for 4 rmb on the street corner, most software comes from a dao ban die – pirated disk. An operating system or new virus software is about 15-20 rmb usually, but I was trying to find zhen ban – the non-pirated version. After asking around Computer City I found someone selling the authorized version of XP Pro…for two thousand rmb. Yes, one hundred times the street price and about level with an average person’s monthly salary here. Perhaps a local could bargain for more of a discount than I managed, but no wonder nobody buys the real stuff.

Biennale

Chengdu's biannual art show is held far south of the centre, in the heart of our high tech district which to this foreigner is confusing to navigate and has the feel of being permanently under construction. It is a fitting location for the show, which has the theme Reboot. Many of the works were very new, created within the past year or so.



Much of the art was uses traditional media and techniques depicting modern themes, or modern media with a very tradtional feel. One example is this piece of plexiglass pierced with holes; the shadow on the wall makes the image:



There were some interesting pieces that mixed an image with sculpture. Here is one with a virus theme:



Texture and Light:




This is the final frame from a series called Entertainment Family: Demolition by Zhou Yong. The character is one we see on many traditional buildings that are fated to be torn down.

FIFA Women's World Cup

The first round of the women's world cup 'football' playoffs concluded this week.(Everyone here learns British English.) The last game in town was between Canda and Australia, and was delayed a day because of the typhoon in Eastern China. I got a ticket with a face value of 60 rmb for 20 from a scalper, but only made the last half of the game due to work. Australia had just scored for a 1-1 tie when I arrived.



The audience of 29000 was very into the game, and there were drummers in the stands that would stir up the crowd during rushes (if that is what you call it in soccer). One guy sitting just below me was making impassioned comments that made everyone else around us laugh. Most seemed to be cheering Australia though.



The Canadian team had several near misses during the second half and managed to score near the end of the game for a 2-1 lead.



Canadians showing support:



For some unknown soccer reason, the game was extended by three minutes after regulation and the Aussies managed to tie it up.



The game ended with a 2-2 tie. The Canadians needed a win to advance to the next level of the tournament, and there were a lot of tears after having come so close. Australian fans celebrating:

Home base

Very glad to be back and settled for a while. This is supposed to be the hottest part of the year, and we get rain showers almost every afternoon and it feels tropical. We can buy mitao ('honey' peaches) on the streets now, and white pomegranates. I found figs the other day too.

Caught in the rain at Tianfu Square:

The Summer Palace

The Summer Palace is more like a park, very cool and pleasant compared to the heat of the city centre. I grab a bus from Qianmen, near where I am staying, which takes over an hour to arrive. The above, I believe, is the Garden of Harmonious Interests.

View of Kunming Lake from Longevity Hill:



View from the lake of the Tower of Offering Incense, with a temple behind it.



Lotus flowers on Kunming Lake:



Traditional musicians playing in the Hall of Eternal Ripples. (Who makes up/translates these names? Seriously, who?)



Lovely and peaceful place, my favourite spot in Beijing so far.

Wangfujing and Donghuamen

This is a night market and snack street area to the east of the Forbidden City. The snack street has some good things but is mainly for shock value – you can watch a grill guy putting live scorpions on skewers. You can get really good chuar there (triple the cost of chuar at home) as well as grilled corn, takoyaki, and a very good sandwich that was like a cross between shawarma and a guo kui. I got some shan xi dao shao mian (shanxi style knife-cut noodles) which just made me homesick for the Chengdu version.

The tourist requisite scorpion picture:



The foreigner gouging is rampant here, worse than India. The convenience stores and restaurants along the hostel street have English signs and most services charge outrageous prices: sixty kuai for a 40 minute foot massage, seven kuai per kg for laundry, two kuai to send a one page fax. When I ask at the hostel about a cab to the airport they want to charge 150 kuai to call me a taxi, a fifty percent markup. The girl suggests I walk a couple blocks to the main road to flag my own cab and offers to write ‘I would like to go to the airport’ in Chinese for me. (No, that's OK, thanks.) Next time I am going to find a hotel that Chinese people stay at.

Tian An Men Square by night

Monument to the People's Heroes



Beijing has several of these Olympic Countdown billboards. (Chengdu has at least one as well.) This one is in front of the Great Hall of the People.

Quanjude

The little area-specific tourist map I got at my hostel shows a ‘roast duck restaurant’. I was very happy to find it was a branch of Quanjude, the quintessential Beijing roast duck.

Quanjude is famous not only because of the food but because it was a favourite of Zhou Enlai. The second floor has a ‘history wall’ with pictures and autographs of famous people who have eaten there. (The ambassador who wrote, ‘Very good restoron! Many happy!’ should have used his or her own language.) I got there early and walked past a row of a dozen servers who each greeted me.


A carver slicing up my half duck. You could hear the skin crackle while he was doing it. I had to flap an arm to get him to give me the wing. He finished, with a flourish, by adding the head which I nibbled on but didn't eat much of. The duck came with the traditional accoutrements - hoisin (maybe tianmianjiang) and slivered scallions as well as ketchup, shredded lettuce, and a little dish of sliced peppers, garlic, and pickles. The garlic was an inspired addition, great with the skin. They bring a little bowl of nearly white duck broth at the end. Some things are so good you don't notice you are getting full and when I left I felt like I would never have to eat again.

Forbidden City

Beijing's 'Ancient Palace' (GuGong) is among the world's largest and most elaborate, and is about six hundred years old. The complex also houses the Palace Museum. Getting in is 60 rmb, which does not include admission to other museums in the vicinity. (The audio guides are 10 rmb for Chinese and 40 for other languages.) It also does not include admission, after you get inside, to the hall of jewellery and the hall of clocks and watches. Anyways, it is undoubtedly a magnificent place to visit both for the buildings and for the contents. I spent most of a day there and did not get through all the areas that are open to the public.

Meridian Gate, with its five stone bridges:



The largest and grandest buildings are in the Outer Court. I found the smaller palaces and living areas with their gardens in the inner court much more interesting. My audio guide was supposed to sense where I was and could tell stories associated with a location wherever I wandered. It worked more than half the time.




Right most dragon of the mosaic Nine Dragon Screen, one of three or four in China. A dragon is the Emperor's symbol.



The Hall of Clocks and Watches was among the most interesting of the museum exhibits. I love old machines and many of them had moving birds, flowers, and other figures. (They were not running when displayed, but there was a movie that showed some of the collection in motion.) The pottery was also really fascinating - I love how something so beautiful and delicate has survived for centuries. Some of the neatest stuff in that exhibit was the shards and pieces from kilns in different parts of China showing the different styles.

The tiled roofs and painted eaves are the most gorgeous features of the buildings. The number of gargoyles indicate the building's rank in the complex; the highest number is 11. The gargoyles also keep the tiles in place.



The Crystal Palace, unfinished when the Qing Dynasty fell. According to my audio guide it was supposed to have a moat and double glass walls filled with fish.

Tian An Men Square

Took a few days out of my trip home to visit the nation’s capital. I am staying at the Far East hostel, because it is close to Tian An Men and is supposedly the best in the city. It is five times the cost of Mix in my hometown. North Americans are fascinated with history, since we don't have much, and my Dujiangyan visit was the only real history I'd seen in China so far though I've been living here for six months. Beijing oozes history, both ancient and modern though it is hard to know how much of it is really old. Tian An Men was completely rebuilt in the 70s even though the original was over 500 years old.

Mao overlooking Tian An Men Square:



Mao's Tomb, like much of the Forbidden City, is under renos and is closed til later this fall. Outside are statues celebrating the revolution.



The most interesting thing about Tian An Men Square are the people. In the morning, it is full of mostly Chinese tour groups and people taking pictures with the monuments. They are wearing identical hats or scarves and are following flags. In the evening, people come with their families to relax. There are dozens of kites flying and the monuments are illuminated. There are lots of foreigners here too, almost as many as in Hong Kong. I saw a family with the father wearing the skullcap, the mother wearing hijab, and the little daughter wearing lighted devil horns.