茶房 (cháfáng, Tea House)

Lin Yut*ng's Art of Loafing was one of the first pieces of Chinese literature I ever sampled. I don't think he was from anywhere near Sichuan but there are many serious students of this art here, whiling away the hours in the tea houses that seem to be on every other street. You can get plain or fancy tea for five to twenty five kuai, and free refills of hot water all afternoon long. You can pay a few kuai more for a deck of cards or a set of ma jiang tiles, and some places serve snacks as well. The outdoor tea houses lend a leisurely quality to a street, similar to a park or green area.

China, while not being a great place for wine, is a fantastic place for tea so I'm trying to develop a tea palate. This glass of maofeng had strong but slightly unbalanced flavour, making me think of cut grass and tomatoes:

气车 (qìchē、 bus)

The buses here are the most crowded I've ever seen, even compared to India. Before I was working I could avoid taking them during the busy times but am now figuring out crowded bus protocol. The 56 is usually so packed with people in the morning that only a few can squeeze in the front door. The driver leaves the back door open so people can board there, and then bus money and swipe cards get passed via many hands to the ticket guy at the front. The swipe cards then get passed back to their owners. If you have boarded at the front of the bus, at each stop you shuffle back a bit to position yourself near the exit by the time you reach your stop. As the bus slows down, people near the door start asking each other, 想不想?(xiăng bù xiăng, do you want to get off here) so that the passengers who plan to exit are not blocked.

Getting lost is very easy, because instead of the streets laying in a grid they radiate out from the centre. A map of the city looks like a ratty spider's web, anchored by the three ring roads. It is therefore very hard to tell which direction you are facing. One of the most helpful things for getting un-lost is a bus stop, because they usually have a city map with the relevant bus lines drawn out. The list of stops is a little more challenging to read but with a few basic characters you can figure out quite a bit:

北(bĕi, north)
南(nán, south)
西(xī, west)
东(dōng, east)
路(lù, street)
街(jiē, street)
大(dà、big)
小(xiăo, small)
门(mén, gate)
桥(qiáo, bridge)
环(huán, ring)

Many, many place names and streets contain these characters. The 环(huán) is for figuring out where you are in relation to the nearest ring road, e.g: 一环路(yī huán lù), first ring road.

My junior high students reportedly do not believe I am western, because I am 温柔(wēnroú, gentle). Last week this really bothered me, this week I am over it...teaching is great therapy for culture shock because it forces you to focus on other people.

望江公园(wàng jiāng gōngyuán), River Viewing Park

Due to leaving my keys at home today (sigh) I get to spend some time in this park near where I live. This first picture is the view of the park from across the river. I cross this bridge to get to the park, passing kite and sugarcane sellers:


The park is full of huge bunches of bamboo and the trees flanking a little creek are full of cranes. Their cries are strange; I have never heard birds make noise like that before. It also takes me a while to figure out what is making the noise since the bamboo is so dense. They almost sound like turkeys.

There are several tea house areas in the park full of mostly older people drinking tea and playing ma jiang - in one place the tiles keep up a constant rattle. In another square dedicated to the Chinese poet Xue Tao some people are playing the erhu, and one man is practicing calligraphy.

The official translation of the park's name - River Viewing Park - is pretty bland compared to the Chinese name. The 望 wàng part is the same as the 望 in the word for hope, so it should feel more like river gazing/desiring park. There is a museum-y section in the park as well but I didn't have enough cash to buy a ticket. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of it.

This is the ear cleaning man, with his tools of the trade. (I am sorry I didn't get a better picture.) He goes to a place like a park or tea house where people are at leisure and advertises by clanging the long metal rods together.

Shopping

These outdoor residential markets are open all week and have noticeably fresher and nicer vegetables than the supermarkets at cheaper prices, but buying them is a bit more complicated. You need to be able to ask the price, which is usually per 斤(jīn) 、about one pound. 好多(hăoduō) is Sichuan hua (dialect) for 多少(duōshăo), or how much. The only other Sichuan hua I can now recognize is shao3 de2 for 知道(zhīdao, know).

China is supposed to be a paradise for shoppers – so much stuff, for so little money compared to whatever Western country you hail from. I am still learning to do it – I need to avoid shopping when I don’t have the energy to bargain and lapse into the 'accept the foreigner price’ mode. For clothes, the sizes are varying degrees of tiny, and you also need to be prepared for clothes that are not clean when you first buy them. You might also need to squeeze through a crowded multistory complex of booths until you find the one small thing you are looking for, and perhaps see a rat killed while you browse (happened the other day on Computer Street). Other than that, yep, lots of stuff for not much money compared to home.

I am in the middle of my second bad cold in two months and feel as grey as the weather, and am working now which makes being sick that much less convenient. My TESOL course said that six weeks is the average time to end up in the pit of culture shock before you start coming out of it. I hope it does not get much worse.

View from Jiuyan Bridge

Also added a new link - a city guide wiki from some U of W students on exchange here. I really like how detailed the guide is about the university neighborhood, which is close to the office where I work.

Some people have been asking about what apartments are like here. Here is a real estate site with prices and pictures.

Please Keep Off the Grass

We breathe the same air, and we share the same future.
Treat our homeland with tenderness so that it will be forever green.
Love me in the way you love yourself.
You are the angel of civilization; I am the darling of it,.

Please Embosom the Greenland.
Treasure the plants, and not trample please.
Protect Trees and care for Human
Care for life.
Cherish Your Homeland
Create Beautifu Environment

(This found poem comes from the signs in the garden of a local apartment complex.)

Visa run, Part III - Returning Home

Really wish I could spend more time in Hong Kong, which is one of the world's most disctinctive cities - what other place would have the same combination of traditional Chinese characters and English street signs everywhere? The people do feel less friendly compared to back in Sichuan though. (Or maybe I have an 'I don't speak Cantonese' aura.)

Back in Shenzhen I go to the Lowu Commercial Center, an enormous shopping place five or six stories high which is right past customs at the railway station. I don't like this place as much as I had hoped - the 'hello, missy, what you buy' is really aggressive and I end up doing menu roulette at the lunch place - pointing to a random item I can't read. Bad idea in China, though it could have been worse - a pile of little whole fish fried in a yellow bean sauce. On the way home I fly Sichuan airlines, which has average flight attendants and food.