Everyone in China is on vacation for the National Day Holiday-a celebration of the founding of the PRC. Everyone is off from work for a full week. I will be heading to Fujian province later today for 6 days to visit with a Chinese friend of mine. Here is a map of China and its 23 provinces (click to enlarge). You can also see the 2 Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau. National Day is celebrated by everyone except the 23rd province...that rebellious child Taiwan. I live in Jiangxi (pronounced Jiangshi) province in the capital city of Nanchang which is for some reason not on the map and I will be heading to Fujian province later today for 6 days to visit with a Chinese friend of mine. We will go to Fuzhou (pronounced Fudzjou), the capital city of Fujian, also not on the map, and we will go to Xiamen (pronounced Shiamen) which is on the map and purportedly has beautiful beaches--though most Chinese do not know how to swim and think it's very dangerous to swim and as you may recall my earlier post, they aren't too fond of the sun either, so the beaches may be empty. I also plan to climb the famous Wuyi mountain range in Fujian. If any of you have seen Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and remember the last scene in the movie where the girl jumps off the top of a mountain where there is a temple, apparently I will get to see several Buddhist temples just like it on these mountains. In honor of National Day, here are a few pictures from the Bayi Square in the center of Nanchang-my city and the birthplace of the Chinese Red Army. There is a big flag monument you can see in 2 pictures, some red flags, a big red star, and a big Wal-Mart...all appropriate symbols of China.
I got a chance to discuss some interesting things about family relations in China. Some things you probably already know, most Chinese parents work long hours so they are raised by the grandparents. Many if not most Chinese fathers and mothers do not live in the same province b/c it's very difficult to find jobs in general, so the husbands and wives only see each other 2-3 times a year (perhaps this explains the proliferation of pink houses...). B/c of the extreme level of competitiveness in the job market, children starting at age 12 are often sent off to a different province (i.e. state) for middle and high school-boarding schools. But even with all this, the level of family respect is very interesting. I asked what would happen if a girl became pregnant and she was not married. The girl's and boy's parents would discuss together on whether they agree that the girl and boy should get married. Most importantly, the boy's parents would decide whether they think the girl is good enough for their boy. If they don't think so, they will tell her to get lost. At this point, the girl's parents would usually try to pressure her to get an abortion unless they want her to keep the baby. If she does not want an abortion, they will kick her out and never talk to her again. If the boy and girl do not agree to all this, and instead want to get married--this is unheard of, the idea of not agreeing with your parents but I had to inquire for sake of full disclosure and understanding--then they would be cut off from both families who would never speak to them again. If a girl has the baby, the next decision comes, whether to keep the baby. A certain Houdini may find this interesting. Very often, the girl would be against an abortion but would not want to keep the baby so they will often just drop off the baby at the train station or hospital or bus station or police station or in the middle of the street. This is very convenient b/c then people that want to have a child but cannot can just pick it up, fill out some forms that take 30 minutes to do, and it's their baby. I asked if there is any legal concerns for the new mother, and was faced with blank expressions and finally explanations that no, of course not, this is normal. You gotta love the efficiency, in America, if someone wants to abandon their baby, they gotta give it to DCFS which will stick it into a foster home for probably 3 years while they process paperwork or whatever it is they do and then they will spend a long time hassling prospective adoptive parents with interviews and home visits b4 they can adopt the baby...
Well I don't have a pic of this one but it sounds very fnucked up. So apparently at the most high end restaurants you can get a true delicacy. Have you ever seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom?--the scene where they are served monkey brains? Well apparently, that's not good enough for China, b/c monkey brains are not tasty when they are not fresh...You can go into a restaurant, they have round tables with several holes in the table. They stick live (!) monkeys under the table, they are tied up and they affix their heads through the holes and cut off the top of the skull (now we are talking more Hannibal Lecter style) so you can take a knife and your chop sticks and start munching away at the live monkey brain. When I commented that perhaps this is a little inhumane to the monkey, I was informed that it's very humane b/c the way they cut off the top of the skull makes it to where the monkey does not feel any pain and it's basically paralyzed, it just looks at you, so it's ok. I did not get a chance to get any comments from the monkeys...
Eating in China is very interesting. It's a communal affair. Many dishes are ordered and are brought to the table and placed in the middle and everyone reaches with their chopsticks and gets all they want and either puts it in their mouth or puts some on top of the rice that's in the little bowl in front of everyone. So you do get your own little bowl of rice. Since you lick the chopstics, this may be a bit unsanitary, but I've not gotten sick yet. The food is amazingly good and bears very little resemblance to Chinese food in the US. I don't know if I could even eat at Chinese restaurants again in the States. I don't eat meat, but those that do run into one unfortunate practice of Chinese cooking. When an animal is cut into pieces, it is literally cut into pieces--meaning that a big knife is used to chop a chicken into whatever size pieces are desired, with no care as to the location of the bones. So if you order any meat dish, you will find randomly assorted pieces of bone throughout your food. And yes, some foods are a little exotic, at least for those eating meat. I've been in one restaurant which for various reasons which will become clear, was hidden from view and you had to knock on the door to be let in. Once inside, you may order a number of unusual meat dishes, such as dog, donkey, scorpion, silk worm and various endangered birds. The endangered birds are illegal to kill and hence the restaurant is hidden from view, but the other members of my party apparently liked the bald eagle or whatever it is that they ate. Another popular delicacy are "Century Eggs". See the picture below of century egg and cow stomach soup. These are normal chicken eggs that--while still raw--are buried into the ground for 100 days. At that point they are nice and black as you can see and then they are finally cooked. Apparently the flavor is rather foul and sulphuric but is very delicious?!
Some things that are similar and some things that are different about the college life here...the dorms are very similar except that students must get in before 11pm every night when they lock the outside doors. Also guys are never allowed in the girls' rooms unless it's "you brother or he only stays for 20 minutes to get something done". When I said that should be enough time to "get something done", they didn't really understand...There is no drinking age so everyone can drink, but all the students seem to be too focused on studying to get hammered all the time like they do in the U.S. Parties are pretty rare. Many boys don't want a girlfriend b/c it costs too much to have one and takes too much time away from studying...Some other things...I played basketball today with several guys I met at a nearby college. There are about 20 outdoor courts there and no one ever keeps score, and I am actually a very good player here! I am almost always the tallest one and can drive through everyone since I always have at least 50 pounds on anyone. Things that are different about basketball here: no one keeps score, if a cell phone rings, all play stops and you must check who called, a break may randomly be called b/c someone gets tired, when a water break happens, several guys will smoke a cigarette. It seems about 30-40% of the guys smoke and no girls ever smoke, that would be very unattractive and terrible. Girls generally don't like to drink beer but if they do drink they try to drink very little b/c of a very important reason: they are afraid their cheeks will turn red!?
Who says China is not super environmentally friendly? For one thing, you can't get a plastic-or any other kind-of bag at any supermarket or Walmart without paying 10 jiao for each one. For another, take a look at this to-go method. Chinese restaurants don't waste cardboard or styrofoam boxes and instead just shove everything you ordered into one little plastic bag (that you hope has no hole in it)...
Well my trip to the DVD store was rather interesting. An American I met here showed me the DVD store downtown. At first it looks like a normal store, just extremely small with only about 30-40 movies for sale and they all seem rather expensive (about 40 yuan each or $6, so perhaps that's not all that expensive). No one seems to be interested in any of these movies. But for some reason one wall of the store has no movies on it, but instead has a very large hanging painting. The American pulls back the cloth painting and we see a much larger back room with many more movies and many people perusing. Here the movies are only 8 yuan or $1.25 each and many new releases are available, including Dark Knight and others that are still in theaters in the States. All are very professionally wrapped and sealed as you can see on the pictures below. And all are available in English with Chinese subtitles. One thing is different though...click on the Evan Almighty picture below and you will note that the movie description must have been translated from Chinese. I wonder why they keep all their newest releases that cost so little in a hidden back room? I am sure there's no reason besides keeping away the thieves or perhaps pirates.
So this is the (in)famous Chinese squat toilet. Almost all the toilets in China are like this. Only a few places, such as the Beijing international airport and foreign teachers' (like mine) apartments have western-style toilets. It is of course very good for your elimination to use such a toilet since it forces you into the "primitive man" pose whereby the fecal matter can excrete much more efficiently; this pose is physiologically correct way to move the bowels and is of course much cleaner since your ass does not actually touch anything. You almost need not use any toilet paper when defecating in such a position (ever wonder why dogs and cats don't need to wipe their butts?); perhaps this is why I never see toilet paper in Chinese bathrooms? However, I don't think this toilet would be a big hit in the US of A for several reasons: (a) Americans are used to having copious reading material by their toilets at home and this precious reading time would be gone, (b) the American diet often leads to constipation and this toilet definitely works your leg muscles and one would get very tired if the shitting took too long, and (c) many Americans are very fat and would fall in the hole after a few seconds of squatting.
So as you can see from this picture on my campus, Chinese girls do not like catching a tan. On this very sunny day (or as sunny as it can be here, considering the pollution), most girls carry an umbrella. When I asked one of my new Chinese male friends whether the boys also use umbrellas, he laughed at me and said of course not, the boys are manly, instead of umbrellas they get skin nourishing and pore cleansing lotion for their face to keep their faces nice and smooth in the sun...
Finally got the internet up and running again after 4 days offline. According to my Chinese co-worker who I am supposed to call whenever there is a problem, the internet people on campus do not know what the problem is and they need to negotiate with a third party but the third party says it is not their fault. After hearing this for 3 days I told him to just call them again and tell them just to get my internet to work because I must have it for class. He suggested we walk to the office where I paid for the internet, and when we did it turned out they merely lost my information (?) Anyway, now it is working and I can catch up on some posts. I was surprised to see exactly how few people speak English and also how difficult it is for Chinese people to understand anything I say in Chinese. Many of them completely shut down and seemingly do not even try to understand me. The good news is that there always some English major students who do speak fair English and are extremely motivated to learn. There are 7 universities all within a 4 square mile radius and whenever I am in the area at least one student will run up to me and want to "be my friend". This has been very helpful since they take me around the city to wherever I need to go, plus they insist on paying for everything, no matter how hard I resist. When I do go the supermarket by myself, I have to try to understand what something is by the feel and look of it. The few products that do have some English writing on them are clearly not translated by good English speakers. Take a look at the translation on this bag of sugar free oatmeal (click to enlarge):
What exactly does this mean: "the finger does not increase whatever external sweet copy"? The money situation is rather interesting as well. Similar to the Eurodollar (€), the RMB aka Yuan aka Kuai comes in notes of 100, 50, 20, 10, 5 as well as a coin for 1. The similarity ends there. There are also paper notes for the
Jiao which are the smaller denomination, each Jiao is worth 1/10 of a Yuan. There are 5, 2 and 1 Jiao notes. Here is a picture of a 5 Yuan note and one of a 5 Jiao note. Apparently sometimes tourists who try to be tricky by exchanging money on the street at "better" rates are given Jiao notes instead of Yuan notes...
To add to the confusion, there are coins for both the Yuan and the Jiao, see below. The top right coin is the 1 Yuan coin worth 10 times as much as the 1 Jiao coin on the top left and 2x as much as the 5 jiao coin on the bottom right. Also, as you can see the 1 Jiao coin has been changed in recent years to be much thinner and smaller than the old 1 Jiao coin, but about 3 times as heavy. To further add to the confusion, there are also Fen, which are worth 1/100th of a Yuan and they also have paper notes of 5, 2 and 1 as well as coins of the same value. There is apparently a big problem dealing with all these small denomination coins, so much so that there is a big shortage of coins and banks now charge a 1 Yuan fee for every 50 coins they count and many vendors will only give you change in napkins and candy! Here's the link: http://english.hanban.edu.cn/english/China/232499.htm maybe someone can help me do an embedded link, I've tried some scripts but keep getting errors.