The Great Knot – A day with the Beijing Hikers
Monday, July 26th, 2010 in: News, Travel
I had heard of the Beijing Hikers shortly after arriving in the city, but didn’t know much about them until last week. As usual, I required a little push out the door to take that first step, and as usual, I was glad I did. Megan had been out with them once before and offered to bring me along for this weekend’s trip to the Great Wall, a section known as the Beijing Knot, where three sections of the wall come together.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERjHDFwy00M (more…)
中国农业大学 － China Agricultural University
Monday, July 26th, 2010 in: News, Travel
So, I can’t believe it took me so long to find this place, considering I was walking by it my very first week here on the way to the bank and the China Mobile shop. The entrance to the school is a little intimidating, with a huge marble statue of Chairman Mao with his coattails billowing in the wind just beyond the gates. Of course, the guards do little more than idly watch people go in and out of the gates. (more…)
Life in Beijing – Wudaokou
Sunday, July 18th, 2010 in: News, Travel
Beijing is an interesting city, distinctly Chinese but still different from the other parts of the country I’ve visited. Sprawling like LA, multicultural like SF, crowded like Tokyo, but with pockets of “real China” poking out here and there. Only a couple miles from the old Olympic village, our school is just outside the 4th ring road, in an area with a high concentration of schools. A college town within the city, the major hub for foreign student activity is Wudaokou. Located around a subway station by the same name, Wudaokou is teeming with students from all over the world, walking, talking, shopping, eating, drinking and dancing. The first day I arrived, it was Wudaokou’s night market that I walked through searching for the school. That doesn’t feel so long ago as I stride down the wide avenue, dodging cyclists and careless motorists roaring through the intersection. It’s still strange and foreign, yet comfortably familiar. It was 6 weeks ago I first walked through this crowd. So close to home, I feel as if I haven’t spent much time in Wudaokou, but the time I have been there has been memorable:
Beer pong and watching the American soccer matches at Pyro Pizza. Sweaty crowded dancing at Propaganda next door. Tasty but overpriced western food at Lush. Mediocre Mexican at La Bamba. Studying at Bridge Cafe along with 50 other silent students. The Japanese curry place where everything but the curry is pretty good. The vegetarian restaurant where everything is good and nothing is meat. The beggars shaking their cups absent-mindedly at you, threading the crowd of makeshift stalls selling all sorts of fake goods, scattering when the cops come to check their vendors licenses. Affordable-tasting sushi at affordable prices at Isshin, ogling the pets for sale next door. Enjoying a hookah with a burger at Lush. KTV at the U-Center and all the drinking that goes along with it…
Wudaokou is a place where the students go to play, to enjoy their youth and their ever-regenerating livers.
Fixing a Computer in Beijing
Sunday, July 18th, 2010 in: News, Travel
Two weeks into my stay in Beijing, the new Dell laptop I bought back in January decided to stop working suddenly, claiming that it couldn’t find the hard drive. Having only backed up about half of my travel photos with grandpa, I was promptly shitting bricks until I took it in to a local computer shop and was able to access my data and back everything up to a friend’s external drive. A sigh of relief was followed by a creeping realization that the problem was likely one of the other hardware components in the computer. Crap, this isn’t going to be an easy fix.
It seems that I’m pursuing a degree in understatement. (more…)
Field Trip to 龙庆峡 Longqingxia
Sunday, July 18th, 2010 in: News, Travel
It seems every month or two, the school takes a Friday off to take us on a field trip. Having not left the city since arriving in Beijing, I was excited to breathe in some country air. The bus ride was about an hour and a half, which seems to be the magic number for getting far enough away from Beijing that you forget you’re within spitting distance of the most densely populated part of China. We arrived to the place, nestled in the mountains that miraculously spring up outside the reach of the city.
There was a small touristy area leading up from the parking lot, some sort of park. A slide of some sort snaked its way around the valley from the dam resting at the top of the hill. Everyone seemed excited to ride the slide on the way out, but it looked like the carts on it weren’t going terribly fast, like a crippled roller coaster. I’m sure there would be more interesting attractions on the way down.
The Roast Duck Story – 烤鸭故事
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 in: News, Travel
有一天，我的朋友说我“一起去吃烤鸭吧。”他听说有一家饭店叫“大董，”他家有北京最好吃的烤鸭。我们到了以后，他们告诉我们要等三十几分钟。一边等一边看菜单。一个服务员过来问我们“你们要不要烤鸭？”我们当然要吃烤鸭，点了一只。
以后，我们等到了坐位坐下了，服务员问我们“你们要水吗？”我们回答“要。”我们觉得在这么贵的饭店这样的问题优点儿奇怪。他又过来，给我们看一瓶水就想介绍一种很贵的酒。 二十分钟后，服务员又过来，告诉我们“你们还没点烤鸭，如果你们要吃，要再等四十五分钟。”我们有点儿生气了，我的朋友一边站起来一边说“我们来这儿就是为了吃烤鸭。我们坐下以前已经点了。如果没有我们就去别的饭店。”最后他们告诉我们“你们的烤鸭就好了。请等十五分钟。”
我们又坐下了，点了别的菜。那家的烤鸭非常好吃，不过别的菜很一般，还买很贵。 买单的时候，明白了那个水是一瓶八十快钱。但是我们已经喝完了两瓶啊！下一次去饭店的时候，如果服务员问我们”你要不要水？“我们就会说”我们要免费的。”
Towards the end of my first month here, one of my friends suggested we go out for Peking Duck. A place called Dadong is apparently famous for its roast duck, so we decided to go there with a group of friends. Close to Wangfujing in the center of the city, Dadong is a pretty fancy place. I was wowed with the interior design and layout when we stepped off the elevator–an open kitchen solely for roasting ducks in huge fire pits was humming away in the center of the main room, surrounded by a moat and stools for people to wait. We grabbed a seat and a menu and soaked in the rich atmosphere. A waitress came up and asked if we wanted a duck, since they were made to order. It was our purpose for coming in the first place, so we placed an order for one duck. She jotted it down and walked away.
About 20 minutes later we sat down to our table, a waiter came and asked if we wanted water, to which we answered “yes.” We thought it was kind of a strange question to ask at such a fancy restaurant, but in China, all sorts of weird things happen. He reappeared carrying a bottle he displayed as if it were an expensive wine. I almost heard the money leak from my wallet as he opened it before any of us could comment on it. The old water bait-and-switch: ask if the customer wants water, and then give them the most absurdly expensive bottle in your arsenal. It’s nothing short of obnoxious, and I wish I could say this is the last time I’ve fallen victim to it. When we got the bill, the damage was 80 kuai (about $13) for each of the two bottles we were given.
Some more time passed and another waitress came up and said that we hadn’t yet ordered a duck, and if we wanted one it would be another 45 minute wait. We got a little irritated and explained that we’d already ordered when we were waiting, and we had come only for the duck; if we had to wait that long we’d just go to another restaurant. After much hand-wringing and back and forth, we stood up to leave and they hurriedly told us they “found” us a duck, and it would only take another 15 minutes. We sat down to the other dishes we’d ordered, which were exceedingly ordinary, considering the expectations I’d built up around the atmosphere and price of the meal. The duck was pretty good, and the presentation was splendid, but the value just wasn’t there.
So if you’re looking for good Kaoya in Beijing, I can’t recommend Dadong; there are much cheaper alternatives out there that are just as good, if not better. The nice atmosphere can’t make up for the unremarkable menu and unpleasant service.
Life in Beijing – Erlizhuang
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 in: News, Travel
Erlizhuang is the bus station out in front of our school, a rather popular bus terminal which is pretty convenient for us when we’re trying to get to other parts of town. Unfortunately, the transportation system here isn’t entirely foreigner-friendly, and all the bus stops are flooded with Chinese characters. To me this is a kind of a blessing, because it forces me to acquaint myself with destination names. It’s really nice that there are several buses that go past Mudanyuan, a convenient subway station. It’s not so nice that there are only a few buses that run to Wudaokou and Beida (Peking University), and they run with such infrequency that it’s really a pain in the butt, necessitating a bike if you really intend to go to these places regularly. I’m tempted to get a bike, but the cheap ones are complete crap and I’m only here for a couple months, which makes it harder to rationalize the purchase.
One of my fellow students (and an awesome person), Vanessa had offered her neat banana-yellow bike to me when she leaves town. It’s a cheap model, but it’ll get me from A to B. She had it parked at Beida, and showed it to me one day. A few days later, I saw her off at the train station, and decided to pick the bike up on the way home. Of course, when I got to where it had been parked, it was no where to be seen. Her crappy yellow bike (OK it was nice for a cheap bike but it was still a junker) had been stolen, despite being locked up. Next to where her bike had been was Dan’s bike, which he had abandoned almost a month ago. Sigh. I walked to the bus stop to get a ride home, and the infrequency of the route made itself apparent. I gave up after 45 minutes and caught a cab home. Lame.
Back to Erlizhuang, there’s actually quite a few attractions in the neighborhood we’ve been left to discover for ourselves. The school does its job but doesn’t provide much support outside of the classroom unless you directly request it, and when they do try to help it rarely seems to go as planned. The healthy heaping of restaurants in the area can keep you buried up to your eyeballs for years in Chinese food, although don’t expect the rice you ordered to go with your sweet and sour pork to arrive in a timely fashion. Rumor has it that rice is considered “peasant food” and is only used to help fill you up if the main dishes you order aren’t enough to do the trick. Service is generally lacking in one way or another in China, it’s been described as “a constant barrage of failed attempts at being thoughtful about the way customers are treated.” I prefer the phrasing “a slew of creative ways to dampen the customer experience.” From the aforementioned rice issue to toilets begging you not to poop in them to dishes ordered that never arrived, just don’t expect to be wowed here and you’ll never be too disappointed.
This is once again turning into a rant, stop distracting me!
There’s a small side street off 志新西路, Zhixinxi road that is home to a small piece of real China, replete with small shops and street-side fruit vendors. The 小吃 (snack) hole in the wall we frequent is located there, our main supplier of 卷饼，凉皮 and 肉夹谟 (our favorite lunch items, costing roughly a quarter apiece). Further down the street is a restaurant where me and the guys would often relax at a table outside, eating 串儿 (meat on a stick), drinking beer, and shooting the shit. The locals are all pretty friendly, especially the restaurant owners, who seem to take great pride in their food and beer and that us foreigners keep coming back to patronize their establishment.
The Agricultural University down the street has become a recent favorite hangout, I’ll talk about that in another post. Happiness Cafe down the road (where I first met Bill and Adrien my first night in the Jing) is a nice spot to study, but the owner has just closed down shop for a week to turn the place into a restaurant, damnit. I’ve talked with him a little bit, I’ll explain that later as well.
Down the street from Happiness Cafe is a restaurant we’ve loving nicknamed 拉肚子 (diarrhea) after one of our classmates suffered a bout of “the doots” after eating there. It’s actually a nice cheap little place, and the mousey fuwuyuan who seems to run the joint always takes good care of us foreign retards.
There’s a lovely pool hall in the basement of the hotel next door. Why is there a hotel right next door to our school which is attached to a Super 8? Why is there a restaurant in every other building? Are there really so many people that go out to eat that can keep these places in business? What’s the deal here?
OK I give up for now. The short version is that for all its flaws, I like this neighborhood. It’s quiet but not too quiet, and there’s plenty of local flavor to keep things interesting without being too obnoxious.
Happiness Cafe
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010 in: News, Travel
Wang Xing, the owner of Happiness Cafe, is in his early 30’s. A young entrepreneur from a long line of entrepreneurs, he owns two Xi’an style noodle shops in the Houhai neighborhood of Beijing, close to where he lives. The cafe, as he says, is 只是玩儿的地方，just a place to play for him. He’s often found sitting on the couch, playing on the computer or messing with new electronic toys. The first day I arrived, he was installing a karaoke machine, and Bill and Adrien were creating playlists for American songs. Every so often I’ll be alone in the cafe with him, and he’ll strike up a conversation. Our first exchange went something like this:
Him: 什么什么什么什么什么
Me: Uh, Ting bu dong 🙁
Him: 啊, *walks away*
Our subsequent exchanges were much more fruitful, as I had clearly been applying myself to my Chinese studies. The second time we talked consisted of me mostly asking him to repeat himself, furiously scrambling to look up words in my phone. Nevertheless, I was miraculously able to learn everything in the first paragraph of this post, and also that his nephew was living in LA, studying film studio design. Our conversation ended on a rather awkward note, as he noticed that I had been reading a Japanese novel (Children by Isaka Kotaro) and asked me about my Japanese studies, concluding with 我不喜欢日本人, I don’t like Japanese, noting the long history of occupation in the last century. A friend of his came in and they started talking, leaving me hanging just a bit. The Japanese occupation is just something you best not discuss in China: little good can come of it. Besides, my Chinese is nowhere good enough to make a salient point on the matter.
It was a while before we’d talk again; the summer heat made it hard to stay long in a cafe, and the new crowd of classmates were a much more active crowd, much more keen on playing soccer and slacklining at the nearby universities than studying in a coffee shop. Finally I had a quiet day to myself, and decided to head over to Happiness for a spell.
Wang Xing was in his usual spot on the couch, with just a couple other customers sipping drinks upstairs. Shortly after I sat down, he came over and struck up another conversation, excited to have my input about his upcoming overhaul. The cafe was turning into a Xi’an snack shop, and he was going to repaint everything. What colors do I recommend? What do you think of this pattern for the server’s aprons? He showed me some photos from Xi’an so I could get an idea of what a traditional restaurant is like where he’s from. He likes the combination of East and Western influences, he tells me, and he wants to know if I have any suggestions for making the restaurant more appealing to the local foreigner crowd. I’m still lacking in my ability to express myself, but I feel more at ease in the conversation. I tell him I’ll help him later put together a good menu, easy to understand for future generations of students. Wang Xing is a good guy, even if he is a little misguided about Japanese people.
The Insiders
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010 in: Current Events, News
New climbing video from Big Up Productions, probably my favorite climbing video production company. These kids are STRONG, it’s going to be really interesting to see where they take the sport in the next decade or two. Exciting stuff, my hands are all sweaty. I think I’ll be going going to the gym tomorrow.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml-rxMwcaf0
update: I did go to the gym, and managed to sprain my wrist something fierce. Looks like I’ll be taking a few forced rest days before I can get back on the wall. Been a tough week!
2nd update: My sprain might have actually been a break of some kind. Lots of tiny bones in the wrist. I’ve been taping it and it’s almost back to normal a month or so later.
China Observations: Cinder blocks
Thursday, July 1st, 2010 in: News, Travel
One thing I noticed driving through the countryside here is the prevalence of cinder blocks as the go-to building material. Almost every house being built in the countryside is made from these things. Everywhere we went we either saw fresh blocks drying in the sun, or stacks of them piled up next to unfinished buildings. I don’t know if they bother to fill them in order to reinforce or insulate them at all. This makes me worry about the infrastructure of China, and the speed with which it’s being built up. Are they taking the time to do things properly, or are they just in such a rush to look developed that they overlook the mishandled construction of the buildings in the countryside. Isn’t this the kind of building that consistently falls over in an earthquake, as evidenced by the tragedies of 2008 and again earlier this year? Cinder blocks are heavy, especially when they fall on you.
Just a thought.
