Archives for Category "China"
Chinese Souvenirs: Hangzhou Yarn Dolls
When I went to Hangzhou, I was on the lookout for a gift for somebody back in Changzhou. A booth near West Lake was selling these yarn dolls (and the dolls were surely a Hangzhou original, as they had “Hangzhou” written all over the tag and never appeared in any other city). The doll was perfect, but I didn’t want to buy one just yet and carry it around the whole day, so I passed.
Several hours later, I hadn’t seen another doll shop anywhere. I was beginning to regret not buying one earlier. I kept walking around the lake, though, killing my feet and hoping the next booth would have them. No luck. I finally gave up and headed towards my hostel, bitter that I’d found no gift.
But at night, on a street near my hostel, Hangzhou opens up a huge market. And every other booth was selling the dolls! Great… I just had to wear myself out looking for these during the day when they were in abundance right here. I bought a blue one and a pink one. The blue doll was for me. I gave the pink doll to a girl who, a month later, ended up being my girlfriend.
Chinese Souvenirs: Kites
Every city has to have one unique souvenir. Xi’an had kites. Well… there were a few vendors in Shanghai selling the same kites, but they wanted 150 yuan for them. In Xi’an, the starting price was 20, and they were everywhere. The kites are small, come in packs of 10 or 30, and are flown in one long strand. My brother has some great footage of them in action in his Xi’an video (starts at 1:15).
Amusingly, a lot of the kites ended up getting let go. Okay, that’s not very amusing, but hear me out. At the top of the drum towers, you’d look out across the city, and every other tree would be covered in discarded kites. Because of the design of the kites, it almost looked like an intentional decoration. It sure livened up all the construction.
Chinese Souvenirs: Changzhou Combs
I’ve already brought up Changzhou combs before, but as part of my recent string of souvenir posts, now’s a good time for a revisit. They mean a lot to me, after all, since they’re one of the few unique handicrafts from the area. I loved going into the comb stores and browsing through their huge inventories. It was like being a kid again in a baseball card shop. The combs are apparently magical, too. From the pamphlet:
It has been proved by modern medicine that often combing one’s hair with this kind of combs can ease one’s headache and sleeplessness and can refresh one’s mind, combing one’s hair with this kind of combs can also make one hear and see well.
I bought and was given many a comb while in Changzhou, but the set pictured has the most sentimental value. It was from a student. He presented it to me the day after his classmates were total brats during our last lesson together. It was sad, because, in class, he tried so hard to get them to be quiet. They wouldn’t, of course, and I finally had to cancel the game and do mundane vocabulary drills. Though he never said it, the combs felt like an apology on his class’s behalf.
Chinese Souvenirs: Money Cats
I know, the money cat (Maneki Neko) actually derives from Japanese origins. But it’s so commonplace in China, as well, you see one in just about every restaurant or shop. While the cat does come as a solid figurine, it’s more popular to get one with a motorized arm that waves forward and backward.
For the longest time, I thought the cat was knocking. When I finally asked someone about it, they beamed, “Give me money!” In many Asian cultures, the “come here” gesture is done with the palm facing outward (the opposite of what we would do). So the cat isn’t knocking or waving; it’s saying, “Come here and spend money.”
I bought this particular cat from the silk market in Beijing. The vendor was a young girl who seemed almost reluctant to sell it, like she didn’t want to part with it. Maybe it was all business tact, but if I asked about the cat, I was received with a lot of, “Uh…” instead of the usual, “Cheaper, cheaper!” When we finally agreed on a price, she gave the cat a hug and a kiss before putting it away in a bag. I bet she cries about that cat every night.
Chinese Souvenirs: Knots
One of the most widely available souvenirs in China is the knot (中国结, or zhong guo jie). How can you look at that and not think of China? It’s such a popular decoration (for good luck, as I’ve been told, which is really no surprise), three different people gave one to me in the span of two weeks.
In 2006, before I left a summer camp in Hefei to go teach in Wuwei, the director gave my brother and me a medium-sized knot. When we were getting ready to leave Wuwei, one of our students gave each of us a small Chinese knot. Two other students pitched in for a gigantic one. I’m sure the kid who gave us the small one felt foolish. What he doesn’t know is that the small one is my favorite.
Crossing the Street in China
The following video doesn’t highlight the most chaotic moments of crossing a Chinese street. This is just a normal day in Changzhou, after all. But count how many close calls you see. It’ll be fun!
How to Remember Chinese Tone Order
There are four tones in Chinese, they’re numbered from one to four, and Chinese speakers often refer to them as “first tone, second tone, etc.” To review, the first tone is flat , the second rises , the third dips , and the fourth falls .
Okay… that’s swell and all, but how do you remember which one is first and which one is fourth? It’s easy to get them mixed up and makes reading typed-out pinyin a pain (wo3 yao4 gen1 ni3 shuo1 hua4).
Then one day, I wrote the tone markings side by side: . Revelation time! They looked like a minus M, or -M. The M can even stand for Mandarin. The minus stands for… look, I’m not going to do all the work. Now, whenever I forget if the falling tone is second or fourth, I just have to think of it as it fits into the -M formula.
The Best Amusement Park in Xuzhou
One weekend, a friend and I decided to visit Xuzhou, a city in northern Jiangsu province. Xuzhou is significantly bigger than Changzhou, though it has very little going for it. They do have a small terracotta warrior museum, but the city itself just felt very sleepy and boring.
While there, we walked around the city’s lake and came across a small amusement park. This particular ride made me laugh, and I had to get a video of it:
It’s a little hard to tell from the video, but the ride is playing the song “It’s a Small World,” and the people in the carts are shooting animals and dinosaurs with laser guns.
