The adventures of a self-declared permanent student

Here comes the big one ...

August 27th – Summer Palace

Today I made the trek to the Summer Palace, a one-hour bus ride out of the city, with some friends I have made here: Severine, Kevin & Janna from France and Maria from Germany. Maria has lived for a year in Thailand and is going to school in Beijing, kind of like what I’ll be doing in Shanghai. Severine is on the last leg of her journey of about 5 months around more rural areas of China, and Kevin & Janna are both here on vacation for about a month. We ended up in the same room and have spent the last couple of days together. It’s been very fun! Last night was Oren’s birthday, a guy from Israel who has spent the last two months working in a restaurant in a village in Mongolia. He has some fascinating stories and has done his best to live on as little as possible, including leaving today on a 44 hour train ride without a seat (ie, he’ll sit on the floor unless something else becomes available, but he’s fighting for the same spots as everyone else). I believe that he plans to find his way into Tibet somehow, and we all wished him luck. His friends know that if they do not hear from him in a few weeks, to call the local authorities and try to get him out of prison. Everyone here agreed that he’s nuts, but from some of the things he’s done, it’s not too out of character.

Anyways, back to the Summer Palace: it’s a beautiful walk, with some stunning architecture, and after you wander through the main part of the palace, and get all worn out, you get to the lake and realize that you’re not even halfway through what the summer palace has to offer. Down by the water is where all of the Chinese tourists & locals hang out, play cards, have lunch and just relax. There is a lot of sitting down and relaxing here. People sit on railings, on stone curbs, you name it, if it looks like it could be a seat, it probably is. I have definitely taken advantage of the sitting down culture of walking through the palaces and temples. It’s a great break from the sweltering heat, reaching 32 or 33, but so humid that I’m not 5 minutes out of my air-conditioned room that I’m sweating. (Right now I’m sitting in the air conditioned restaurant next door that has a plug, unlike the room, that only has one in the bathroom, and as much as I like to sit on the toilet and type … I don’t think so!). The vendors sell pop (like Fanta!) & noodles for 5 yuan a pop. It’s less than a dollar Canadian, but it’s a total rip off when you can get a pop for 2 yuan at the hostel and noodles for about the same at the local supermarket.

After completely exhausting ourselves by walking around for hours, we decided to take the bus home, only we were at the wrong exit, and to return to the exit that we arrived through would mean to walk back the exact same way that we came (did I mention we were collapsing with every step?). So, we went to the “customer complaint department” (written in English), assuming that someone spoke English, and one guy did. After consulting with about 10 different people, he let us know what bus to take and where to transfer. We asked him to write it in Chinese so that we could ask someone on the bus to help us out if we needed it. Although we were a bit of a pain in the but, the attendant on the bus and the driver were all very helpful. Maria can read a bit of Mandarin and as the stop popped up on the bus’ display, she let us know, as did the driver and the attendant. We got off, and my orienteering skills came in handy on the rest of the route, finding where the connecting bus was and using the stops along the way to get us home. Without asking for help, we managed to finish the trip unscathed, but worn out, and we all had hot showers and a bit of a nap before dinner at the “Pass By Bar”, which was good but disappointing because a bottle (our size bottle) was 18 yuan, when for something twice the size is 3 yuan at the hostel. Crazy rip-off.

I wasn’t feeling so well again tonight, so instead of heading out to a tea-house (which I regret, but only that I haven’t gone yet. I would not have enjoyed myself) I went to bed as did Maria who hadn’t slept much because of the jet-lag. The other three (Severine, Kevin & Janna) went to the tea-house and then a club called Banana where they stayed until about 6:30 am. Severine left for the Great Wall trip at about 6:40, and I hope she’s doing well today & not too hungover & tired!

August 28, 2005

Today I went to the Temple of Heaven, a 20 minute bus ride from the hostel. It is a beautiful garden-based worship area used by the emperors to pray for safe & healthy harvests and has a lot of symbolic references to the relationship between heaven, earth & everything in it. It was definitely one of the more beautiful and tranquil things I’ve seen. I arrived early enough that there weren’t very many tourists, but there was no lack of people, many locals were around, and playing games & singing. The music was incredible traditional music, with people gathered around singing along, but the person suggesting the song was in the middle singing with the 2 or 3 person ensemble (of a ukulele type string instrument and a single string instrument that looked home-made, but very versatile). I caught about 10 seconds of a young girl singing along when I came upon a smaller more isolated group from the main stretch of road. I was the only one, I think, who did not know these songs, and an older man beside me smiled and clapped with me. They either thought that I was nuts or that I was great. I’ll never know. I wandered around as much as I could, but it was so hot, I stopped often to sit down and write in my journal or eat a few crackers & peanuts. The gardens themselves were beautiful. Everything was very deliberately placed, trees, paths (not unlike the rest of the city) and the rows upon rows of trees were just beautiful, and often hid the pathways filled with more people. I really like finding the paths that lead off of the main tourist trails, as they are much more peaceful and often much more beautiful. I can understand why people would spend an afternoon just sitting and interacting with other people there.

As I traveled in a kind-of big circle around the temple of Heaven (it took me a while at first because the directions were horrible – if the north gate was to the left, it didn’t mean that it was directly to the left, it meant that you had to turn left before making another turn – often unlabelled – to find the North Gate). The Western area of the temple was one of the last places I traveled to, and also the least interesting, mostly because I didn’t have a through ticket, so couldn’t see the couple of pavilions that were there. I don’t regret it, though, because if it was like the Summer Palace, they’re not essential, and the one main attraction is the view of the Hall of Good Harvest, which is under renovation for the 2008 Olympics, so the view from the circular mound (where most of the tourists stopped) was of scaffolding with a pretty roof. Not the most photogenic of spots.

After I left I decided to see the market across the street of the East Gate. Holy Cow. It’s indoors, 2 floors, and more stuff than you could possibly imagine. Trinkets, hair accessories, purses, shoes, dresses, winter clothes, suits (which were not cheap, at least not cheap if you paid the ticket price of 2000 Yuan – about $350 – but you’re supposed to bargain), telescopes, electronics, phones, luggage, t-shirts, Burberry Everything! I would have bought a few things, but I think that I’ll have no problem finding something similar in Shanghai, so I’ll save my luggage space until then. After that, I came home on the bus (with no help at all! And I didn’t even get lost!), had a bit of a nap, then a snack of some noodles (the kind you can get at Food Basics for 3/$1.00). Then writing this! I had to wait a while anyways, because the hot water was VERY hot.

Hot water is something that is also usually readily available for those who bring their own tea & noodles to the train station or even here at the hostel. There are vats sitting every morning on the main floor for my tea, which I take to breakfast (they only provide a kind of juice that is supposed to be orange juice, but is more a mixture of tang and mango juice – weird). Breakfast itself is either Chinese or Western (you choose). The Western breakfast is an egg (over easy) with 3 pieces of toast, butter, jam, and some type of meat side dish. It was a deep fried chicken strip (really thin one) one day, hot-dogs & onions another day, and sausages a third. The Chinese breakfast is about 9 dumplings and a really bland porridge, which wasn’t that bad when I had it (on the 29th, it was a toasted sesame bun with a kind of meat, maybe lamb, with lettuce and an egg with hot soy milk), It took me a few days, but I eventually branched out for the Chinese breakfast. And I always thought that I’d be adventurous. It’s just weird when you have no other choice but to eat the local food. I still haven’t mustered up the courage to buy food from a stall on the road. Not like a small restaurant, but a window to the street that serves food on a walk-by basis. Kind of like the McDonald’s walk-by window, only less clean, and with weirder stuff.

For dinner, Severine, Maria and I went to a small restaurant, where the beer was cheaper than water (2.5 Yuan ~ 40 cents for almost a liter). We had 3 dishes, a noodle & egg dish in a tomato sauce, a rice & lamb dish and grilled eggplant, peppers, onions and tomatoes. It was delicious! The whole meal cost us 30 Yuan, about $5, for all three of us together. And had we not had the beer or pop (which was more expensive than beer), it would have been closer to 20-23 Yuan. I say less than $2 for dinner is pretty cool. What was more interesting about dinner was not the food, but the clear fact that the family that ran the restaurant also lived in the building, with the 3 rooms branching off of the dining room leading to small bedrooms. A little girl was running around trying to get the older boys working in the restaurant to play with her, which they did when they weren’t busy, and it was really neat to see the family dynamic while we had dinner. Social relationships are just so different.

Some observations:
The trendy haircut right now for the “cool” kids is the old-school 80’s rocker. I think the girls look like Jem (of Jem & the Holograms), and some of them perm it kind of curly like dread locks. There’s also a large Elvis fascination with the guys.

Hand holding: Many people hold hands with friends. Boys with boys, girls with girls. It’s not sexual, but definitely more tactile than in the west. I asked a friend about it and he explained that often good friends will hold hands as they walk down the street. Period. There’s nothing more to it than that, but something that definitely caught my eye.

Exercise: There are a number of outdoor exercise facilities that look a lot like jungle gyms for adults. It’s often very busy after dinner when people are home from work, and it’s very social and group oriented. I’ve only seen a couple of people running in the mornings; the majority participates in this type of slower, social exercise. Traveling to the great wall we passed many restaurants whose staff was all outside together doing their morning exercises. Many older people will do it outside of their home or apartment buildings, or go for a walk backwards. It’s weird to see, but is completely unavoidable.

Nighttime: In the evening, the busy streets become busier. The exercise gyms become occupied; people sit outside stores & restaurants & play cards & games, some just sit there. The streets become alive at dusk, but dead by midnight. It’s a small window, but very lively.

posted by Jenn @ 9:31 p.m.