Archives for September 2008
Yancheng in Changzhou
This is the second day of my mega vacation. Don’t expect a post every day. I just have some free time, because I stayed in Changzhou. The Changzhou Guide Book I’ve been consulting mentioned the historical site of a 3,000-year old city called Yancheng. One of the book’s maps showed that Yancheng was in Wujin District, so I thought I would just ride my bike there. Ha! Things on a map always look closer and easier to find than they really are. Maps need to be bigger. Maps need to be the size of the city so you know exactly how far everything is.
Needless to say, I got lost, and being lost with a bike doesn’t make it easy to jump in a taxi and start over. After riding around the same block three or four times, I stopped to look at the map again, and a Chinese guy ran across the street to see what I needed. I told him I was looking for Yancheng, and he pointed right behind me. I had already found it, but I would have needed another three or four trips around the block to realize it.
Yancheng’s big draw is that it has three moats. Outside and inside the first moat are traditional buildings whose front steps are monopolized by modern day carnival games. If you want to venture into the inner moats, you have to pay an entrance fee. So I did and quickly found there was nothing there. It was just a park. A nice park, but come on… I’ve seen plenty of these already.
What is going on? Yesterday, the more convenient train ticket cost less, and now the more interesting outer city was free. Has the world gone mad? Is National Day really Opposite Day?
Gah! I can’t take it anymore!
No Babies in Wuxi
Today was the first day of a week-long holiday in celebration of China’s National Day (the PRC was founded on October 1, 1949; free history lessons courtesy of Clark Nielsen). Unfortunately, to deserve a whole week off, we had to attend school on Saturday and Sunday. Technically, then, we only get three days off. I see what you did there. Nonetheless, I plan on seeing some nearby cities, and the first was Wuxi.
My interest in Wuxi was sparked when I asked a friend if she would want to go somewhere with me. She mentioned a big Buddha statue in Wuxi that she has always wanted to see. After looking at some pictures, I really liked that idea, but the next day, my friend changed her mind. Apparently, if you visit this statue, you are obligated to come back the following two years and see it again. You have to. I understand cultural differences exist, but this I don’t get: you can either never go to the statue, or you can visit it three times? I’m willing to push my luck on this one.
So I went alone.
Asking somebody else to come was a possibility, I just suddenly felt like I needed to do this on my own. I needed to prove that I really am brave. I know, I know, I flew to China by myself, for heaven’s sake, but as soon as I got here, I hid in my apartment, too scared to go out and talk to people. And it’s still a problem. When I went to Pinghu, I paced in front of the bus station for five minutes before finally approaching the ticket counter! I may do a lot of adventurous things, but I also struggle with a lot of insecurities that have weighed on me my whole life.
This time, though, I was determined to break that. I marched up to the ticket counter and said, without hesitation, “I today want go Wuxi!” And when I got to Wuxi, instead of taking the easy way out by buying the same bus ticket back, I went to the train station and bought a train ticket. (Interesting fact: the bus cost 21 yuan and took an hour and a half to get there. The train was 12 yuan and only took 15 minutes.)
The Lingshan Grand Buddha was the only thing I wanted to see in Wuxi, but the park itself had a lot of other cool things in it (other statues, temples, museums, etc.) and was definitely worth the trip. Oh, enough talking already. Here are the pictures:
Doesn’t look too intimidating from afar.
But it’s actually pretty big: 88 meters.
I’m huge.
Street Cleaner Truck Turns Twelve
I brought a video camera to China, but I don’t like using it, because the thing’s big and clunky and draws too much attention to myself (and attention is something my cup already runneth over with). Just as well, because my computer doesn’t even have a Firewire drive, and oh boy, I’m not ready to start asking around for one of those. In the meantime, I used my digital camera to nab some footage of a street cleaner truck:
Happy birthday, streets of Changzhou!
TV Roundup
Wouldn’t it be great if I studied Chinese or practiced the guitar or cleaned my apartment in my down time? Yeah. Right. After teaching English and being a downtown spectacle all day, sometimes the best recourse is to spend a few hours before bed losing your mind in a TV show. And if I’ve come to do anything well in life, it’s staring at TV screens. Let’s discuss some recents:
Samantha Who (Season 1)
I’m embarrassed to admit I watched this one, but if I didn’t include it on the list, people might think I’m not a well-balanced individual. Of course, the fact that I can’t speak highly of the show nullifies my attempts to prove otherwise. And there you go. I like the idea of a recovering amnesiac who, episode by episode, uncovers more evidence that she was a total B before she turned sweet and naive, and episode by episode, falls back into old habits, but… it’s more tiring than it is funny. Christina Applegate’s character is like that nice but way too energetic girl in your class who you have to admire for her attitude but who drives you absolutely crazy. TV’s not supposed to drive you crazy, or if it is, it’s supposed to do it slowly and discretely.
The Office (Seasons 1-3)
Tomfoolery in the workplace is funny. Everyone loves being on the giving side of a prank, and it’s great to watch a show where people can take office pranks to extremes that would get normal people fired. This is why The Office should spend less time on romances and more time screwing with Dwight. I was very hesitant to give The Office a try, though. There is a Facebook application that posts random The Office quotes on your profile, but the quotes often end up being ridiculously long transcripts between two or even three characters. How is that even a quote anymore? Any show that has to retell that much information as a highlight can’t possibly be very good. And after watching the first two episodes, I couldn’t even stand Steve Carell. But then you realize all the other characters on the show find him rude and obnoxious, too, and suddenly everything he does is hilarious. It always helps to be in on the joke.
Arrested Development (Seasons 1-3)
Jason Bateman as Michael Bluth is the perfect straight man. Unlike Zeppo Marx, who was normal beyond forgettable, Bateman used the role of the normal one to smugly hand out insults that his spoiled, lazy, and seriously warped family members either don’t understand or absorb in amusing ways. Arrested Development is like a more mature, better-produced Malcom in the Middle, where, afterwards, you breathe a sigh of relief, “Thank goodness families like that don’t exist,” or, “Thank goodness the media hasn’t found mine.” Even the narrator gets time to joke around and contradicts what characters say or comments on how unfortunate it was to have to censor a particular word. It’s too bad Fox canceled the show, forcing the writers to rush the end of the story in Season 3, because it tainted what was otherwise a very clever and smart sitcom.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Seasons 1-4)
I am obligated to draw parallels between Seinfeld and Sunny in Philadelphia. Hey, you can’t write a review if you don’t. Those are the rules. While both shows are about a small group of friends who, by doing very little, still manage to ruin many people’s lives, Jerry’s gang at least had good intentions, and any bad luck incurred was purely accidental. The characters in Sunny in Philadelphia, on the other hand, are rude, selfish, horrible people whose every attempt to work as a team ends up in betrayal and sabotage. Did I mention they are horrible people? The reason this show works is because things rarely (or barely) work out for these people. They may win their bar back, but it involves breaking each others’ knees and drugging each other with cough syrup. And you say to yourself, “You know what? I don’t feel sorry for these people at all. In fact, their demise is kind of funny and well deserved. Ha!”
Origami Cats Like English, Too
I’m really glad the school provided me a book. Sure, it’s a bit lame, and the reading passages are the students’ least favorite part about class, but it gives me a basis. There’s usually a key word in the dialogue I can build off of, like talking about the names of the months when the word April comes up or articles of clothes from the word trousers.
So this week, Grade 4 is talking about trousers. Specifically, dirty trousers. I’m having the students take turns drawing clean clothes for a clean man and dirty clothes for a dirty man (who ends up looking like me). But in Grade 3, we’re making origami cat faces since the book’s dialogue is about making something (a cake, a plane, noodles, etc.). To solidify the concept, I periodically stop origami magic time and ask, “What are you doing?” and the students [ideally but not always] reply, “We’re making a cat!”
Slowly, week by week, I feel like I’m actually teaching.
The Laowai Luau
Every expat in China deals with this, and every expat in China who also runs a blog on the side eventually writes about it. Well, call me trendy and dress me up in ripped jeans, because it’s my turn.
I recently came across an article debating if the Chinese term “laowai” is offensive. Officially, foreigners are called “waiguoren,” but “laowai” is a more common word that gets applied to all white people. It’s not really bad in any sense—I say it all the time without guilt—but the way it’s used gets under your skin faster than hungry, hungry chiggers. Instead of calling you Mister or Teacher or Comrade or Hey Guy in Blue Shirt, Chinese people collectively fall back on Laowai. Even my students, who surely know my name by now, still yell at me outside of class, “Waiguoren! Hello!”
The problem with always being labeled as a foreigner is that many of us simply want to blend in. We work and live in China and have been for a while now, and the celebrity treatment gets old when, every time you go to the supermarket, at least one grown man carelessly blurts out, “Laowai!” He then turns to his friend, nudges him, points at you, and laughs. It’s this conditional follow-up that gives “laowai” its negative connotation. They could say anything—and, in fact, often say “hello” instead—but as long as it’s accompanied by a nudge/point/laugh combo, it comes across as ridicule. Why do they laugh?
I asked a Chinese friend if there was an opposite word to “laowai” so I had something to retaliate with, a c-c-c-c-combo breaker, if you will. She had nothing for me. While you can always say “zhongguoren” (meaning Chinese person) to combat the lesser-used “waiguoren,” there’s no rhyming, snarky response to “laowai.” I think they did this on purpose.
Faith Restored
The three-month marker is fast approaching, and yet I find I’m still too nervous to practice Chinese with Chinese people. It’s scary going into the bus station to buy a ticket knowing any deviation from what you’ve studied is going to completely throw you off. The only people I’m comfortable talking with are taxi drivers (who knows why), but it nonetheless takes me a long time to muster the guts to ask, “Have you eaten yet?” Somewhere along the way, I think I may have picked up the misconception that everyone is over critical of my Chinese… and maybe even my being here at all.
On the way back from Pinghu, however, I had an experience that helped restore some faith in my situation. The bus I took was headed to Nanjing, but I, obviously, only wanted to go to Changzhou. So I asked the bus driver if he would let me know when we stopped at my destination. He went a step further and assigned me a travel buddy, someone who was also going to Changzhou.
It’s a good thing I had that travel buddy, because the bus dropped us off on the freeway outside the city. Yeah… I wouldn’t want to be there by myself. While the two of us walked to find a shuttle, the guy started talking to me, asking about how long I had been in China, what I did, why I was coming to Changzhou. I had to kind of guess what he was asking, but I was usually spot-on, and by the time we found a shuttle, I wasn’t so nervous about speaking Chinese with him.
I made the mistake, though, of asking the shuttle driver how much it would cost to go downtown or go directly to the school. Downtown was cheaper, so I requested that. This really worried the driver, because he wasn’t sure if I knew how far downtown was from the school and if I could get there on my own. When we finally arrived at Nan Da Jie, the driver shook my hand and bid me good luck, and then I realized something: there are actually decent people here who don’t just want to badger me with their hellos but who want to help and are interested in my well-being. Life is good, after all.
Take me to Pinghu
Yesterday was Mid-Autumn Day. I asked some of my friends what the “deal” is with Mid-Autumn Day, and they said it’s when you eat moon cake and look at the moon. Is it sad that I immediately thought of the Harvest Moon games? Tell me this is normal.
The school gave me a three-day weekend for the festival. Rather than spend all three days watching Arrested Development and eating Snickers (both of which I need to cut back on), I decided to visit a friend I met in Hefei who now lives in a little port town called Pinghu four hours from Changzhou. So without further adieu, Pinghu:
There was a small amusement park at the town’s port, but it was a sad spectacle. One of the pool tables was so badly warped, no matter how you hit the balls, they always rolled back into the middle. Oh, and what gallery is complete without a picture of a temple or pagoda:
No more pictures!
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