31 July 2006

Back in Beijing

Returning to Beijing felt a little like returning home - what had been alien a month ago is now familiar and comfortable, especially in comparison to Chengdu, out in the western provinces.

First order of business upon return was the Great Wall - because if you come to China and don't go, they make fun of you and take away your passport ("No more travel for you, you cretin! If you can't be trusted to travel responsibly...").

The Great Wall is called Changcheng in Chinese, and they started working on one section of the original wall around 2000 years ago during the Qin dynasty (same guy with the Terra Cotta warriors). One of the legends is that in addition to dirt and stone, the bones of the workers (peasants and political prisoners) are in the core of the wall.

The section we visited is at Badaling, and it was built during the Ming dynasty, and then restored in the 1950s and again in the 1980s. When you climb upon the wall you can turn either left or right. Right will take you on a more leisurely stroll, and left is the more difficult climb. Everyone turned left, of course. As far as I can tell, a big chunk of this portion of the wall is basically up. Like at a good 40 degree angle. No, I wasn't there with my protractor and compass, but let's just say it was a steep angle, shall we? There's a railing, but it was obviously designed with someone much shorter than I am in mind, as I spent a lot of time bent nearly double. And before you say anything, I'd like to point out that many of the Chinese people on the wall were hunched over, too.

Where the wall wasn't sloping upward were sets of stairs, many of which seemed to go straight upward at a 90 degree angle. And if that's not enough fun, the steps were uneven, some a few inches high and some as high as my knee. I did not travel all the way to the end of the restored portion, but I did pass three watchtowers, which I felt was a respectable distance. It was a rainy day, so it was cool (yay!) and misty, which made for lowered visibility, especially the higher you climbed. So, here are some pictures, but the caveat is that I did the best under the circumstances. And also it's very difficult to convey the depth of stairs, so you don't really get a sense of the view downward or of the death defying and exhilarating experience I found it to be. I am also no longer afraid of the elliptical machine at my gym - it doesn't begin to get close to the wall.




I will also add this: there's a Starbucks at the wall. Does anyone doubt the strength of capitalism? And if that's not enough, then there are all the vendors on the wall selling "I climbed the wall t-shirts. Yes, I bought one. Silly question.

In the afternoon we visited one of the Ming tombs - apparently 13 of the 16 Ming emperors are buried in these sites. They are based on a Confucian layout, and only three are open to the public. Only one has been fully excavated, and that's the one we didn't go to. The one we visited is Chang Ling, and is the burial place of emperor Yongle. It's in a pretty spot, but otherwise it wasn't very exciting - the emperor is under a burial mound at the bank, and it's covered with trees and grass. There was a museum with some really pretty artifacts, which you can see in these pictures here.

29 July 2006

Chengdu Tea House

On one of our last nights in Chengdu (don't remember date, sorry), we went to a tea house. I was sort of expecting that it was going to be like a coffee house - we'd have tea, there'd be munchies, we'd sit and enjoy each other's company, and then return to our hotel. Well, I was definitely wrong. I don't know if this place was typical of teahouses (in fact, in retrospect, I suspect not. The guidebook said something about how tea houses are places where people sit for hours playing cards or mah jong, and as you'll see, that definitely wasn't happening here), but we had tea, and then there was a show. Within seconds of sitting down, we were offered massages, which I did not have, although a couple of other people in our party did. It was actually pretty funny to see - these three guys standing behind our friends massaging their heads.

The show itself was kind of like a variety show (the Chinese equivalent of Ed Sullivan?) with all kinds of dances, a magic show, music, etc. There were two sets of traditional dances, there was a magician (it loses a bit of something when you can't understand the patter) a gentleman who played traditional Chinese instruments, an woman who did shadow puppets with her hands, and something called vanishing faces.

The traditional instrument that has always fascinated me the most is the erhu. A few years ago I had a chance to see Lang Lang play in Philadelphia, and as an encore, he brought his father out on the stage to accompany him. His father played the erhu, and it was just lovely. The music at the Chengdu tea house wasn't as wonderful as what Lang Lang and his father played, but I'm not complaining.

There were also "tea pourers". I'm just going to let the picture tell that tale.

The last act was something called vanishing faces. Basically, there are dancers onstage in elaborate constumes wearing masks, and they dance to traditional music (actually, it wasn't so traditional, now that I think on it. It was more sort of cheesy 70s tv drama theme show-y. With a smidge of Chinese for flavor). There was also flame spitting, but that wasn't the coolest part. The coolest part is that while they were dancing, they would tap their forehead and a new mask would appear. I have no idea how they did it. I do have a couple of half-baked theories, of course.

15 July - Wenshu monastery


This is a Zen Buddhist temple in Chengdu. Our bus driver dropped us off at the end of the street, which was blocked off by construction - they were completely redoing the road. Completely. We walked through the construction to the Temple, where we got a chance to walk around. This temple was founded during the Sui dynasty (581-619, one of the shorter ones. The dynasties average about 300 years each, and there's about ten major dynasties from the beginning of their history until the fall of the Qing in 1911). The temple was destroyed during the Ming dynasty and then rebuilt during the Qing. It has five temples within its walls, and is an active site for worship. We saw a monk leading people in chant/prayer, and saw many people bowing and worship at the different temples/Buddhas within.

This is a temple that was well protected during the Cultural revolution, so it remains mostly intact from when it was rebuilt in about 1680. I can certainly see how this would be a lovely spot for contemplation and meditation away from the city noises - it's right in the city, but once inside you don't really hear any noise - an oasis of calm amidst a busy metropolis.

Dujiangyan Irrigation Project

It was a little unclear what we were going to do this day (Bastille day! A big bonjour to my French amis out there), except that I think we were told we’d be going to a mountain to see a temple. As it always is in Chengdu in the summer (subtropical climate, I remind you) it was REALLY hot and humid. We got to the bus and drove for nearly two hours to this dam/irrigation project. According to the my Lonely Planet guide:
“The Dujiangyan irrigation Project was undertaken in the 3rd century BC by famed prefect and engineer Li Bing to divert the fast-flowing Min River (Min He) into irrigation canals. Min River was subject to flooding at this point, yet when it subsided, droughts could ensue. A weir system was built to split the force of the river and a trunk canal was cut through a mountain to irrigate the Chengdu plain.
“Li Bing’s most brilliant idea was to devise an annual maintenance plan to remove silt build-up. Thus the mighty Min was tamed, with a temple erected in AD 168 to commemorate the occasion.” (p. 724)

It was pretty hazy, even up in the mountains, so my pictures didn’t come out as well as I’d like, but you’ll get the idea. The bamboo rope bridges are as scary as they look, I’ll have you know. It was still pretty fun to cross, despite repeated Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom flashbacks (yes, I know, that was India. Same basic concept, only we didn’t have deranged priests chasing us. That I know of). At any rate, at the other end of the second bamboo bridge is a temple built into the mountain. To be honest, what I remember is stairs. Lots and lots of stairs. Uneven stairs. The temple was really pretty, but its unclear whether it was a Buddhist or a Daoist temple – perhaps it was Daoists, because it seemed like there were lots of different gods being worshipped there, but my eye is very unpracticed, so basically what do I know? We weren’t really able to find the top of the temple (you just go up, basically), but we did get directions froma woman as to where we could find a Mao statue. Why is this interesting? Because I was able to understand her when she said Mao’s name – I could pick it out of all the other stuff she was saying, which I thought was pretty cool.

Anyway, I was a mite grumpy at the dam (I was worried about all the climbing because I was just getting over a cold), but it was a nice day nonetheless, and people were still talking to me at the end of the day, so I can’t have been too awful.

Haggling


Haggling is expected here at all the street markets, and boy are there a lot of them. There are also tons of indoor markets as well. In these markets, you can find row upon row and stall upon stall of … well, frankly, Chinese crap. Chopsticks, fake Jade figurines, bracelets, stamps (so you can stamp your “Chinese” name on paper or something. They’re called chops), all kinds of Buddhas: traditional Buddhas, happy Buddha … I saw one that was just a Buddha head, and you could turn it around and see a variety of different facial expressions: happy, angry, sad, stricken, bemused … ok, I just threw those last two in there, but I wanted to be sure you were paying attention. You can get all kinds of Mao paraphernalia, including a lighter with his face on it. When you open the lighter, it plays the Communist anthem. It is quite possible the schlockiest thing in China, and I really want one. Darn the TSA and their pesky rules!

You can’t really go anywhere in these markets without someone trying to get your attention to sell you something. “Hello lady, look-a here.” “You friend, give you nice price.” I bought a packet of postcards the other day. The woman started out by asking 150 yuan, which is about $18. Needless to say, I wasn’t about to purchase postcards for $18, even if they were gorgeous. Anyway, I offered 20, and she started to come down in price. I stayed at 20 yuan, saying that’s all the money I had. At one point she said “Now you come up , you offer more”. Now here’s the key – and I kind of wish I’d had this lesson before I bought my car: Walk away. I told the woman I just had 20 yuan and I walked away, to which she said “ok, ok,” and I got the postcards for 20 yuan. Here’s the kicker – I think someone else in our group had gotten them for 10, and I was kind of mad. The bottom line of haggling is you really just need to be happy with the price you got if it’s something you want. Walking away is a really good technique though – I’ve found that for stuff I don’t even want, I’ve got people chasing me down to give me a lower price. While at the Muslim market in Xi’an (an experience, and if you ever get a chance to go, walk all the way through once, figure out what you want, and then go back and bargain), I was looking for a mah jong set for a friend. Most of the sets were plastic and not very nice. Some were what looked like bamboo and bone, but since I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, I couldn’t be sure. The only thing I had to go on was the memory I have of my parent’s mah jong set which is actually quite nice with lovely images on the tiles. So I used that as a comparison against the sets I was seeing in this market. Most of them were nowhere near as nice as the one I remembered – they had fewer tiles, the tiles were smaller, the bone layer was very thin, and often they looked they weren’t attached very well to the bamboo. Plus, the pictures were often not very nice and not pretty, and were small and hard to see. So I finally found one I could potentially consider purchasing, and it came in quite a nice wooden box. So I asked how much, and he started off at something like 500 yuan, which was ridiculous, and $60 to boot so of course I said (playing the haggling game, of course) that it was too much. He offered something slightly lower, pointing out the nice wooden box (not, please note, anything redeeming about the actual mah jong set), and told me it was a good bargain. I didn’t particularly think so, and we went back and forth a couple of times. I then decided it was too much money for what it was, and not very nice, so I told him I wasn’t interested and I walked away. He started hollering numbers at me as I walked away: “250!” “200!” “Ok, 100!” It was quite a drastic reduction. I was not tempted by shoddy merchandise … no I walked away, and bought shoddy merchandise somewhere else. Don’t ask me what, I don’t remember.

I found shopping at the markets a little stressful, because for me, shopping is a tactile experience; I just have to touch. The second you touch something, the merchants are on you trying to sell it to you. The big thing at the Muslim market was silk pillow covers. I don’t know if they were actually silk, but some of them were quite pretty. Whenever I looked at them, because I wanted to see what they had to offer in the way of color and design, the merchant would come over to me and give me a running commentary on what each pillowcase design was: “Bamboo. Birds. Red. Dragon.” These were all things I could plainly see, and yet I got the information. I suppose it is part of the patter. It’s not unlike car shopping, I guess In the case of car shopping you get the rundown of all the features: 50 million horsepower! 20 cylinder engine! Sushi chef in the trunk! GPS system and satellite tv on the dash. With silk pillow covers you have far fewer options, so the salesperson is reduced to pointing out the obvious.

28 July 2006

13 July 2006 - Pandas!!!

It began pouring practically the moment we left the hotel to go to the Panda reserve. I think pandas are native to this province, partly because a lot of bamboo grows here (I'm speaking from my vast biological and plant knowledge here). At the preserve they are doing a lot of research and are trying to repopulate pandas in China. They have a nursery for newborn pandas, and throughout the park you can see lots of pandas at different stages of life. There weren't any infants there, that I could see, and In don't hink they are born until later in July or in August. They also had red pandas, which were definitely not as appreciated as the other kinds of pandas. No red panda stuffed toys in the gift shop, to be sure. However, the red pandas are adorable - about the size of small to medium sized dogs. They look a lot more racoonish than I expected, with long, fuzzy, ringed tails.



We saw a few of them scuffling and playing, but I wasn't fast enough with my camera (between the umbrella, the tissues, the bottle of water and the camera, which I was trying desperately not to drop, it was very hard to get the best pictures).

Then we were off to see some serious panda. They were just so cute and magnificent at the same time. I was interested to note that we all spoke in hushed tones around the pandas, as if we didn't want to disturb them. I got a couple of pictures of some sleeping (so cute!!), but the highlight was getting the chance to actually touch the panda. For a donation, you can get into the panda area. While he is sitting on what I can only describe as his little panda throne and chomping away on some bamboo, you can crouch behind him, pet him and have your picture taken. How cool is that???!! You can't get anywhere near them at the National Zoo. I'm so spoiled now, I can just see it - I'll make catty remarks about how you can't touch the pandas whenever I go. Kidding! Anyway, it was a phenomenal experience, and I don't care that it was wet and I had a bit of a cold, because I will never be able to do something like that again. And to think I almost didn't do it!

Du Fu's Thatched Cottage




Du Fu was a Tang Dynasty poet (712-770), who was actually born in a different province, but left to travel around CHina. He was captured by rebels and he eventually fled to Chengdu, where he lived in a thatched cottage for four years, where he wrote more than 200 poems. It's actually a park, with lots of walkways, a beautiful pond and a tea garden. There was a big pagoda called the Ten Thousand Buddha Tower,
and some really interesting statues that may have been petrified wood, may have been some kind of stone or wood, but were at least pretty cool.



It was really pretty there, but it was so hot that day it was sort of hard to enjoy the day. I wandered around with another Fulbrighter for most of the day, and then towards the end of the afternoon, we sat and had popsicles (yes, we each had two) in the tea house.

A poem:

Song of the Autumn Wind and the Straw Hut

An autumn wind ripped clear
Three Layers of Thatch from my hut
Spreading it over the river,
Along the banks, into the marsh
Or driving it up into branches
Of tall trees.

Over from the south village ran
A bunch of boys, seeing me old
And feeble, stealing the thatch
In front of my eyes; hauling it
off to their bamboo grove, I
shouting at them until my mouth
Was dry, throat sore; then
Going inside with a sigh, leaning
On my stick; the gale stopped
But black clouds gathered
Hastening the night.

I looked at my bedding quilt, now
As cold as iron, all torn with
The restless feet of my children;
Rain streamed through the roof
Like unbroken strings of hemp
Drenching all, and I pondered on
How much sleep I had lost since
This rebellion began, hoping
The night would pass swiftly
Wondering in my dream whether
It would be possible to build
An immense house with thousands
Of rooms, where all who needed
Could take shelter; a mansion
As solid as a hill, not fearing
Wind or rain; then thinking how
If only such could be,
Would I be content to see my poor hut
Demolished with I myself
Frozen to death.

26 July 2006

12 July 2006 - Sichuan Normal University

We arrived here about 9:30 am, and got a brief introduction from a student of the English department. Her English was excellent. The campus is one of several, and there is another one that is under construction. This was our first full day in Chengdu, and I think we were wholly unprepared for the heat and humidity. Ok, I was unprepared for the heat and humidity.

What is interesting about the campus is that it is almost like a university/college town all enclosed within the unversity walls. We didn't get a chance to see any classrooms (they were doing student registration, I think), or dorms, but we did get a chance to see the buildings, including a primary school, a nursery school, and housing for retired teachers, who still do work/research on the campus. It was very hazy that day because it was so humid, so my pictures have a misty/grayish (or greyish, if you will) quality.

They had a wall that displayed the history of China:





They also took us to the second campus, but like the first, we didn't get a chance to see anything other than the outside. It may be a key university of the western provinces, but it is hard to tell, because we didn't see any classrooms, talk to any teachers, or any other students.

Here was my favorite building of the school:

Random thoughts on Chengdu...and I do mean random

Chengdu is the capital of Sichaun province, and while my guide book says it's a smaller city than Xi'an, it seems a lot bigger. It actually reminds me of New York, although I couldn't really say why, even if pressed. Maybe it's because the buildings are tall here (in contrast with the buildings in Beijing, which are wider than they are tall in many instances), and the area we are in has lots and lots of high end stores, including a Japanese department store called Seibu, which is across the street from our hotel. It might also be the sort of sour milk smell one has in cities in the mornings during the summer that makes me a bit nostaligic for NYC. Or it could be dementia, who knows?

It's incredibly hot and humid in Chengdu - it's a subtropical climate. You only have to stand outside for 10 seconds before you're drenched in sweat. I bought a pretty blue fan in the Muslim Market in Xi'an that've been using a lot.

Driving (or rather, riding) on the bus in Chengdu has been an experience. ON the way to the Sichuan Province Ed. dept, the bus driver had to ask for directions a bunch of times, and did about four or five u-turns, which on a bus is pretty impressive. As far as I can tell, you can't really make left turns here, but you can do u-turns. We got up to about 15, I think. The other thing that is terrifying is that cars don't give right of way to pedestrians (that seems to be par for the course in China), there are thousands of bicycles and modpeds in the streets, and buses and cars actually seem to keep going to make sure they occupy every inch of space they can on the road. They will get incredibly close to the next vehicle (think inches...no centimeters). When our bus driver executes u-turns frequently it looks as if there's going to be an accident because there are cars behind us and on all sides. The lane markings also seem to be somewhat optional.

I will say this for Chengdu - for all the busy streets there are a lot of great pedestrian overpasses that go in all kinds of directions so that you can wander from one side of the street to another without worrying about getting hit by a car. This is definitely an improvement over Xi'an, where there aren't even traffic lights or walk/don't walk signs. The intersection that we had to cross from our hotel in Xi'an to get inside the old city walls was the most hair-raising intersection I've ever had to cross, and we did it multiple times on a daily basis.

Leaving Xian for Chengdu (in the Sichuan Province) - 11 July 2006

We got our wake up call at 4:30 am, which is just so very early in the morning. (I suppose I could comfort myself with the idea that it was 4:30pm the previous afternoon on the East coast?) Xi'an had no traffic at all at that time. The city was barely waking up. At the airport check in was so easy, and there was hardly anyone there either, which was in stark contrast with the Beijing airport.

We arrived at the Chengdu airport around 9:30 am, I think and we were all definitely ready for a nap, no question. We got on our bus and were taken into the city, and we checked into our hotel, which was right across the street from an enormous Crowne Plaza Holiday Inn (I didn't realize those two companies were connected, I never really thought of them as being in the same class of hotels). Our hotel is right around the corner from a pedestrian mall/shopping area. Basically it's outdoors - as if they took all the stores in a mall and removed the walls and roof.



We went to lunch, and our first Sichuan food experience was not a success. Let me start by saying that Sichuan (you may be more familiar with it as Szechuan) province is VERY hot, and the food is as well, because, as our guide explained: "In order to get the sweat, you have to eat the hot, spicy food." However, they don't just do hot, spicy food in Sichuan. The very first dish they put down in front of us was chicken feet. Then they followed that with a bowl of tripe. Um, yum. I did not taste the chicken feet, I'll be honest. They looked like chicken feet, and were plae white and kind of pimply. I was willing to try stuff, because hey, half the reason we were there was for a cultural exchange, but they were chicken feet. Someone in our group did try them, and she said that they tasted just like you'd expect them to: like knuckles. Again, mm, yum. There was also some kind of pale green bumpy thing which they said was bitter herb. One person at our table tried it, and he said it was really bitter indeed. There was edamame, which I actually kind of liked - I didn't know they were a form of soy bean until later, but that was definitely something to try again in the future. There were a number of very spicy dishes that were so spicy that I couldn't eat them, and there was a dish of what they called bullfrog, which I actually thought was pretty good. It's hard to describe it, but it has a similar texture to crab, although the flavor isn't quite as strong. There were also a number of dumpling type foods that were quite good. They also had a bunch of bean curd/paste things that were really sweet, although they were brought out in the middle of the meal. Generally, the Chinese don't really do desert, although they do have these sweet courses in the middle of the meal. You always know the meal is over when they bring out the watermelon. However, that hasn't stopped Haagen Dazs from opening several stores in China - one in Chengdu and one in Beijing (that I saw - there could have been more, but I didn't see any).

After the meal we went to the Sichuan Province Department of Education, even though we thought we were going to have a free afternoon. I don't know if I said it, but in China there are three levels of control over education: National, provincial and local (cities, villages). In all honesty, I didn't get a whole lot out of the meeting with the dept. of ed folks, because I was so tired, but also becuase there were translation problems. Our guide, Jim, didn't know he was going to have to translate, so he was unprepared to do it. Plus it's really hard, I would imagine. I also think that some of the numbers and details we got weren't entirely accurate.

What I did learn that was interesting was that Sichuan has the second largest Tibetan population outside of Tibet and 75% of the population in this province is rural. They also have a much smaller teacher/student ratio (about 1 to 22, which is more than half what it was in Beijing or Xi'an, where it was about 1 to 50 or 60). I wonder how much of the rural population is really attending school.

Shaanxi Provincial History Museum

We were supposed to go to this museum on the previous day, but for some reason we didn't - I think it had something to do with the bus. I'm not sure which day we went, but it may have been the 9th. Anyway, the museum is organized chronologically, and by dynasty. The exhibits are comprised mostly of artifacts from each dynasty, and they actually go from prehistoric times. They did have four terra cotta soldiers so you could see them from close up, which was neat, plus some kneeling figures from Qin's tomb. There was a lot of stuff from the Tang dynasty, especially the tricolor pottery stuff that they are best known for. They didn't have a lot of the stuff that I consider typically Ming - the blue and white vases, in fact they only had one. I think this is partly because the museum focused primarily on stuff found in Shaanxhi Province and the Ming and Qing dynasties had their capital in Beijing, whereas dynasties like the Qin, Han and Tang all had their capitals in Xi'an. I felt like there should have been more stuff there, but it was a nice museum in the end. There wasn't a whole lot of written history (but what they did have was both in Chinese and English, which was cool) for us to read, but the stuff was pretty neat:

Pictures! How do you know for sure you're in China?

When you see this:


12 July 2006

University of International Studies, Xian

The University of International Studies in Xian is about 20 minutes outside of the city, maybe a little further. it is an enormous campus that is actually surrounded by several other enormous schools. This school specializes in foreign languages. We strolled around the campus a bit, and then met with the dean of the English department. He had some interesting things to say, but I was most interested in how he got his job. What I've noticed is taht there are lots and lots of people working everywhere. We went into a coffee shop, and there were about six people working there. it seemed as if one or two people took orders and made the drinks, while the other 3-4 stood around, cleared tables, etc. There are always people cleaning the streets (essentially by hand, or with brooms), and usually several per block. In fact, they often will have an umbrella under which to stand when they aren't cleaning the streets.

So my question is this: How do people get their jobs? Are they assigned to a particular field? A specific type of job? Do they choose? The dean said where he had worked, but hadn't really explained the process of how he got the jobs in the first place. This will have to be determined at some point!!

In the afternoon, we went to another Key School (these are the showcase schools). This was another high school, and it had many campuses around Xian. It is obviously very wealthy, or at least, someone put a heck of a lot of money into it, as have all the school we've seen. We had an opportunity to talk to some students, which was VERY cool, and as always, my favorite part of these trips. It's a shame that most of these schools are out for the summer, and we won't be able to talk with asw many students anymore.

The young woman I spoke with had chosen Helen as her American name, because she thought Helen Keller was "cute". I'm not sure what she meant by cute, but I'm thinking it's not the same as what we mean by cute.

We talked a little bit about her school and what she was studying (biology, chemistry, physics, English, Chinese, PE (yes, that's what she said), and computer science). She like computer science and English the best. She also said she had a hard time with English at first because she couldn't figure out the tenses. Apparently they don't have tenses in Chinese the way we do in English, so she spoke "always in the present tense."

We got started on Harry Potter - she's read them all, some in both English and Chinese. She is very mad at Snape right now, but I told her (thanks, Jason and Doug!) that we have to trust Dumbledore. (A little somethin' for the HP fans)

Anyway, that was definitely the highlight of the afternoon. We went to see the other campus of the school (big, wealthy, stuff, very little in the way of student work, except in the art room). It bothers me greatly that there doesn't seem to be a coherent history or Social science program in Chinese schools. In seems to be done sort of as an aside in both English and Chinese, but not at all in the way we do it. (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, btw, just a different thing) I also thing there is a lto more focus on pre-1911 history (pre the fall of the last Imperial dynasty) than on history since 1949 (beginning of what they call "new China"). Now in theory, one could argue that our hsitory classes, function similarly, but I think there's a great distinction there. We tend to teach our history warts (pimples might be more appropraite in contract with China's 5000 year history) and all, and I don't think that's really done here. A lot of people still seem to really love Mao (while many also seem to dislike him intensely, let's look at that too). Anyway, I'm still baffled. They seem very, very proud of their ancient past. The Tang dynasty (618-907 CE, if this History & Civ of China book is to be trusted) comes up a lot as the Golden Age of China. It is a puzzle to which I don't believe we'll get a satisfying answer.

Hot Springs/Huaqing Pool

After the T-C warriors, we went to the Hot Springs (over 100 degrees plus that day, no less. Nothing says "cool" like some hot springs). It turns out they were no longer in use, just a shadow of their former selves, as the case may be. They were used mostly by the Tang emperors (and empresses), and were actually in quite a beautiful setting at the base of a mountain. Chiang Kai-Shek stayed there during the 1930s and set up headquarters there. They so called "Xian incident" occurred here. It's a bit confusing as to what it actually is, based on the references I have here, which includes a "History and Civilization of China" book published in China. Based on the language, it's a direct translation from the Chinese (it's quite an atrocious translation, actually), and there's definitely a pro-Communist bias (shocking, I know). As near as I can tell, the Xian incident is a struggle between Communist forces and nationalist forces, all of which occurred at the same time the Japanese were in China. There was a lot of consternation about the lack of attention being paid to that fact among both the Nationalist and Communist forces, as well as the Soviets. (Japanese forces in China could have been a prelude to invasion of the Soviet Union, something they had been worried about since at least 1905 and the Russo-Japanese War.) Not very informative, I know, but it's kind of difficult when most of my options are in Chinese, and are ... shall we say a little biased? Take the following as an example:

"In June 1946, because of the perfidius Kuomintang, an all-out civil war broke out." (p. 232, The History and Civilization of China. Can't tell author, it's in Chinese!) The italics are my emphasis.

Anyway, you see the dilemma.

Terra Cotta Soldiers

The day we went here it was INCREDIBLY hot (actually, the guide book says that Xian is "bloody hot"). It was about an hours drive from our hotel. The soldiers were found by four peasants who were digging a hole for a well in 1974. They had the foresight to stop digging and contact some kind of authority to say "Hey, we found something!"

When you enter the parking lot there is an enormous statue of Qin Shihuang (1st emperor of Qin). We walked about maybe an eighth, maybe a quarter of a mile to the actual museum and the sites of the digs. They are still in the process of digging out all of the soldiers, but they think there may be as many as 7,800 in all. Qin Shihuang (not easy to type!) was apparently obsessed with his death (the idea of it), and had people start constructing the tomb well before his death. One reason for this obsession may be that he was an unusually cruel leader (well, ok, let's think about that, maybe he was just a wee bit worse than usual for the time, which was about 210 BCE), as was his son. The Qin dynasty was one of the shortest dynasties.

Once you enter the main park there are three main buildings. The one straight ahead contains the bulk of the soldiers. They are mostly facing eastward, because Qin Shihuang thought his enemies would come from that direction (perhaps he meant us?). As with everything in China, this main building was crowded at first. The first pit/vault is so large that even though there are large numbers of peole, it's actually possible to spread out and get a little personal space (a difficult thing in China. The concept of personal space here is verrrry than in the US). We entered the pit and most of the soldiers were facing us, although some are facing sideways. (I don't know why, so please don't ask) The picture everyone wants is the one where you face the whole pit. It took a ton of pictures, and I think some of them came out ok. I tried to get individual faces, because apparently each soldier is modeled on the faces of the builders. It was difficult because so many people kept bumping into me. In fact, at one point I was kneeling down to take a picture of one of the group of soldiers, and a tour guide backed over me. He was concentrating on whatever he was talking about with his group.

What is amazing and astonishing is not only the sheer number of soldiers, bt the fact that so many of them are still in such good shape. Ok, sure, so many of them are missing heads, and some of them are missing their hands, and they are all missing their weapons, but don't forget, these guys are over 2,000 years old.

The whole experience is kind of surreal, actually. Here's this emperor who manages to unit feudal China, who orders the building of his mausoleum to begin as soon as he becomes emperor. Besides the Egyptians, who does that? You'd have to be pretty damn morbid to have that be your focus. Of course, as I'm writing this, I'm reading about this in the book I bought at the shop ("Awakened: Qin's Terra Cotta Army", Shaanxi Travel and Tourism Press), and I see that later dynasties did this practice too (Han, Tang). I guess when you live in dangerous times and your empire could be overthrown by peasant revolt at any minute, this is probably a prudent course of action.

Qin Shihuang's tomb is actually 1 and a half kilometers to the west. Legen has it that Qin built his mausoleum with a river of mercury in it and arrows that would shoot out of the walls to protect against theives. Since the Chinese government isn't certain about whether or not this is true, they are moving very slowly on the excavation of the tomb. A river of mercury after 2000 years has got to be detectable in the environment, doesn't it?

Some stats about the tombs: (sorry for the metric)

Vault/pit 1: 210 meters long, 60 meters wide. About 6000 soldiers in vault one. Not all have been unearthed (it's an active archaeological site, although we didn't see anyone working when we were there).

Vault/pit 2: 1000 figures

Vault/pit 3: 68 figures, one war chariot

I did mention I had a ton of pics, I'll bore you with them when I return.

Xian

This is really the end of the world – the Silk Road ends (and I suppose, begins) here. At least according to the Chinese. There’s a statue facing west that marks the beginning of the Silk Road. The statue is of a general, and don’t ask me what his name is because I don’t know – they told us on the bus on the way from the airport, and I didn’t have anything to write with at the time. The central part of the city is surrounded by a wall. The wall was built on the foundations of the old walls of the Tang dynasty forbidden city (more on the Tang later, REALLY) by the Ming dynasty. It’s quite a thick wall (two chariots can drive abreast on it, should they choose. And if you happen to have a chariot handy, I suppose), and pretty high as well. (have pics, I think). Our hotel looks out on a portion of the wall, and we actually have a great room right in the front of the building on the 7th floor, so we can see all sorts of things from here. Every night they have what can only be described as a big conga line party. It’s basically a big dance party that goes around the park for hours and hours. Well, it’s probably not as long as all that, but it seems like it goes on for hours. Luckily I’m still so exhausted in the evenings that basically I get into bed and I try to read my book and I can’t keep my eyes open. Next thing I know it’s morning. As I type, they are out there right now partying up a storm.

Xian has a relatively large Muslim population for China (the Hui people). Apparently, Xian also has a large Christian population. Inside the wall in the older part of the city is an interesting combination of ultra modern and ultra expensive stores. They have a fancy schmancy mall that reminds me of Tysons II. Ferragamo, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Versace and Ralph Lauren. You get the idea. Further on down the main road is the Bell Tower. It was built in the 14th century and then rebuilt in 1739. They ring the bell at about 8 o’clock each night, and you can hear it from quite a ways away over the din of the city. It is quite a deep sound. If you walk a little further beyond the Bell Tower off to the left is the Drum Tower. It is smaller than the Bell Tower, and marks the Muslim Quarter. There is an alleyway off from the tower that is called the “Muslim Market”. There is stall upon stall of Chinese crap. (have pics) Mah jong sets? They have about fifty billion. Mostly those are plastic crap, although some people are claiming they are bone and bamboo. They have lots of stalls with Chinese art, some of which is really nice, and some of which is not. There are lots of silk pillow covers, which I am quite tempted to buy, but I’m afraid I’ll get a gorgeous one that won’t go with my couch, so I think I’ll just not buy one. There was one thing we looked at today that I was SOOOOO tempted to buy. It was a lighter with Mao’s picture on the front. When you opened the lighter, it starts playing the anthem. You can buy just about ANYTHING you want with Mao’s picture on it. Not sure how that goes along with the whole communism thing he tried to get going, but I have a feeling he’d probably think that this was cool. Actually, I know he would – he would totally dig the fact that his face is on every piece of kitsch in China. What is incredibly disconcerting about the Muslim market is that you cannot touch anything without a vendor coming up to you and saying “You like, give you good price. Cheap. You name price.” It’s getting to the point where I’d really like to go somewhere without having someone come up to me and offer to give me a good price. Several times when I was looking at the silk pillow covers, the vendor would come up to me and start a running commentary on what was on the cover. “Bamboo”, “flowers”, “birds”. It’s a bit odd. You have to haggle for everything, and I’m just not sure if I’m any good at it. At this point I think that things are cheap enough that it really doesn’t matter, but you have to haggle no matter what. They offer a price, and you have to offer half, and then they offer a price, and so on. I hate it, really. I never really know when to stop, or when it’s appropriate. I’m sure that I could have gotten better prices for a lot of the stuff, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.

11 July 2006

Chengdu

Arrived safely in Chengdu. Surprisingly, it's a much larger city than I think any of us had been expecting. It reminds me of New York in a lot of ways - especially this morning when I went out at 7:30 to Starbucks (I was desperate, ok?). At any rate, not much time this morning, because we're off to Chengdu Normal University (I think) in a little while. Apparently in what can only be Chinese logic, I can't access my e-mail, but I can access blogger. I will update with more stuff later, I have a ton of stuff to post.

4 July Geely University

Geely Automotive University is about is about an hour and a half outside of Beijing by bus. It seemed to be really far away, but traffic was really horrible, as we’ve come to expect from Beijing. They have about 20,000 students, and expect about 10,000 more to enroll next year. They recruit their students, and are a private university. Geely automotive group is a (shocking, I know) car manufacturing company. Their cars look a little bit like Toyotas (ok, that may be blasphemy, but it’s the best I can do on such short notice). They have invested their profit into creating this university, which has 16 colleges/schools, including the following:

a. Euro-American colleges (specializes in training young people to go abroad to further their studies)
b. Foreign language school
c. Law
d. Finance
e. Journalism
f. Automobile building (natch. One would HOPE that there would be an automotive school in a university funded by an automotive company!!!)

Geely means “Great Fortune” in Chinese, and with good reason. The campus is quite large, and it is vastly undeveloped at the moment. They are in the process of building their library, which has a distinct resemblance to the Capitol building in DC. I’m not sure if I got a picture of it…in all honesty, I am writing this days after the visit, and so my memory of the event is a bit fuzzy. I did take notes, so no fear, dear readers.

Geely is a private and independent car company, a rarity in China, to be sure. Most other companies work in a joint venture with the government. I think most businesses in China are still joint venture, although many more are becoming private, I think. The leader of our group, Jian Wang, is one of the founders of the university, along with the Vice President, Professor Chen. Prof. Chen spent two years at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, and his English was excellent. Prof. Chen was among those who were to be “re-educated” by the Red Guard and his own students during the Cultural Revolution. What I find interesting about many of these experiences is that the people who were affected by this (Jian is one of those, more on that later), often will mention what happened to them in a casual way and then not want to discuss it any further. I completely understand them not wanting to discuss it, but I’m kind of surprised they’d mention it at all, especially given how private so many people are here. Anyway we got a ton of statistics about university life in China, and I promise I won’t bore you with them.

We did learn some interesting things about Chinese language instruction: in the 1950s and 60s, Chinese language instruction was really disjointed – you learn a particular set of things at the primary level, and then when you go onto the next level, you go back to the beginning, and so on and et cetera. (Sound familiar?) Zhou Enlai (who is quite revered in China… more on him later), said that language instruction in China needed to follow the “One Dragon” approach – you start at the head and continue in an organized fashion to the tail, making sure that it’s all connected and that it makes sense. I thought this was wonderful, and BOY do we need that in the States. And not just for language instruction, but for history instruction as well. Why is it, exactly, that school children need US history three times? Why do they have to learn about Egypt twice? Why not have an organized set of curricula that spirals upward and toward a common goal of creating a functioning citizen. More on that thought later too. I know, I’m making lots of promises.

Anyway, I think the best part about the whole trip to the university was the opportunity we had to meet with a student at the university. We met a young woman named Maggie who was incredibly sweet. She was at the end of her first year of studies. She was studying English, and was of course, very modest about her knowledge of the language. She reminded me of several students that I have had in the past – she was very chatty about everything. She is one of those students who in the States would probably talk all the time in class (and about nothing, really), but you can’t be mad at her because she’s just so sweet. She took us on a tour of the campus (a brief one, it was BLOODY hot that day, and incredibly smoggy…they ain’t got nothin’ on LA), and then we went back to the conference room. She was supposed to give a speech at their graduation ceremony which was held that afternoon. Turns out we were invited to that ceremony, which I was pretty horrified about, because we didn’t know that we’d been invited, and I was wearing jeans, as were many other people. Anyway, she asked if we would listen to her practice her speech. We said sure, and asked her if she’d written it, and she said no, her teacher had written it, and just told her to give the speech. She gave us the speech, and it was really wonderful. Pam gave her a couple of pencils as a thank you gift, and Maggie ran off to the store to get us these little friendship/luck charms.

03 July 2006

DISASTER!!!

I dropped my camera. Now it doesn’t seem to show anything on the LCD screen. Nothing. Nada. Zip. The good news is that I still have the old pictures, and I can still see those, but the camera seems to no longer be able to take new pictures. More good news: I hear they have cameras in China. We're going to the mall after dinner to see if A) they can fix my camera, and if not 2) I can buy a new one. :( Just in time to go to Xi'an and see the Terra Cotta Warriors.

DISASTER!!!

I dropped my camera. Now it doesn’t seem to show anything on the LCD screen. Nothing. Nada. Zip. The good news is that I still have the old pictures, and I can still see those, but the camera seems to no longer be able to take new pictures. More good news: I hear they have cameras in China. We're going to the mall after dinner to see if A) they can fix my camera, and if not 2) I can buy a new one. :( Just in time to go to Xi'an and see the Terra Cotta Warriors.

**** UPDATE ****

We went to Wangfujing Market (a pedestrian mall not far from our hotel) to see if they would be able to fix my camera. They said no. I'm convinced, however, that the only reason they did was because it was easier than trying to explain to me (who understands not a word of Chinese) otherwise. I ended up having to buy a new one. This new one has 5 megapixels - one whole extra one from my old. Woohoo!!

02 July 2006

Chinese Education

On Friday (which was Thursday night for you folks!), we went to Beijing Number 12 Secondary School. The school is for students who wish to pursue an education beyond the nine compulsory years of education, which begin at about age 5. The school we were in was a model/sample school, which means that it is probably one of the best secondary schools in Beijing, perhaps even in China. The school has 2000 students between the ages of 15 and 18. There is about 160 (plus) staff. Anyone going to secondary school (above and beyond the 9 years) is trying to get into a university, and almost 100% of the students in this school go on to college/university.

Just to give you an idea - every student must take an entrance examination to get into colleges or university in China. The exams take place over the course of several days, and the pressure on the students to perform well is intense. Students come out of the exams weeping from the strain. And on a side note, they recently mandated that you can't have air conditioning in the urban school exams, to make it "equal" with the rural schools, who don't have air conditioning. Right. Because that's the only thing that is different between the schools in the cities and the rural provinces. In Beijing and Shanghai, 70-80% of students who take the entrance examinations pass, whereas in the provinces, there's a 30% pass rate. And it's the air conditioning. Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "no child left behind", doesn't it?

Anyway, students in China take three main courses in their schools: Math, Chinese and English. At this school they have one slot in the afternoons for an elective, which could include one of the following: Something call Science, which encompasses physics, chemistry and biology, or something call Art, which encompasses history, philosophy and politics. At Beijing No. 12, students could also take psychology (the only other course that was mentioned specifically), and are required to take something called "Body Shaping", which is a combination of dance, martial arts and ballet. As part of their graduation requirements, they have to create and perform a group dance, and in order to receive passing marks, their peers have to say it's good.

A typical day goes something (sort of) like this:

7:35: school starts. Periods are 40 minutes (which is shorter than at other schools)

They will have two periods, and then at 9am they will have their morning body exercise (which is graded).

Periods 3 and 4 will follow soon after, and then there's "eye exercises" after that, to prevent becoming near sighted. I haven't decided whether this is successful - I see glasses a lot, but then I see a lot of people without, so it's hard to tell.

Between 12 and 2 they have break/lunch/nap, and then between 2 - 3:30 there are two more periods. After 3:30 would be the elective class. If they live on campus (at this school about 1000 students do), they would do sports. We saw students playing basketball, mostly, and some doing some dance stuff, but we were there during break, rather than during the sports period later in the day. We saw facilities for track, soccer, swimming, and dance. Others who don't live on campus would go home. In the evenings between 6:30 and 9:30 is a self-study period to do homework. Some teachers stay on campus to help the students work.

Students stay in one classroom, and teachers travel from room to room instead of the other way around. Teachers teach about two classes a day, but they have a total of 120 students.

What's unclear to me is how that really works - if they are really only taking 3 courses, plus an elective, it seems like there are too many periods in the day. There wasn't enough time to ask enough questions, really.

Students are in school from 1 September until 10 July. They have a six week break in the summer, plus two one week breaks, one in October (Independence day) and one in May (National Workers Day). They also have occasional days here and there, much like our Columbus Day (surely not Chiang Kai Shek day?).

We asked about discipline: apparently they have a problem with mobile phones, the way we do. Teachers can take away the phones until graduation (!! Imagine trying that in the States!). There is a problem with girlfriends and boyfriends (and that was as explicit as the assistant principal at the school would get. I'm assuming there's more to it than just "you can't have a boyfriend/girlfriend", but you know what happens when I assume, right?), and parents and teachers work together to stop it, because it interferes with studying. (remember the exams?) We asked about drug problems, and were told "No.", with no further explanation. Fighting is a problem, however.

There's more about teachers in China, and I will keep you posted on that later. I've bored you enough.


Chinese/English phrase of the day: "Do Not Distrub" (read it carefully!)

01 July 2006

Hope this works...

Ok, first of all, I hope that this post works...no censoring, please! Second of all, most of the options on this webpage are in Chinese, so I hope when it comes time to post, I click the correct button!

Anyway, we have had an incredible few days! First impressions: It is very, very polluted, and I have had a minor sore throat until today, when I noticed that suddenly I didn't. So my body has finally realized that pollution is the word of the day, and therefore we must adjust. Everything is HUGE - the streets are very broad, and the buildings are very large. Mentally I'm associating this with Soviet architecture, not thatt I have a whole lot of experience with Soviet architecture, but that's what I'm going with. Even the distances are vast. A block is about a half mile long. So we are about blocks or so from Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City, which is about 1.5 miles.

The people are FASCINATED by us. Yesterday we walked down to Tienanmen Square, and were stopped many times by people wanting to have their picture takenwith us. They have no problems just stopping us and asking for a picture. They also have no problems touching - their sense of personal space is a lot different than ours is. And it was HOT yesterday (90 + degrees and sunny), so that personal space thing was kind of an issue. The other interesting thing is the pointing and staring. There's a lot of it. You know, we kind of stand out. And many, many, many people would turn around to stare at us. Several children pointed at us and brought us to the attention ofwhomever they were travelling with. Apparently the pointing and staring thing is ok. It's disconcerting. They all want to say "hello" and ask us where we are going and where we are from...many of them speak far better English than I speak Chinese. (I've gotten down "Hello" and "Thank you").

By the way, my favorite person in Beijing is the woman who brings me coffee in the hotel restaurant in the mornings. And she knows it. I've been practicing my "Thank you" on her quite frequently.

Today we visited the Forbidden City. It is VAST. And that word doesn't even begin to describe the size of this place. And we didn't even examine the buildings off to the sides, such as the concubine quarters, we just walked straight through (a distance of about 3.5 miles or so, I think). I was disappointed because much of the City is being restored (for the '08 Olympics, of course. And there are people out hawking souvenirs ALREADY), so many of the buildings are behind scaffolding. What has been restored is beautiful. I took about 75 pictures (really), and I am not sure if they all will be good - the problem I had is two-fold. One, I'm sure you are aware of: there are a lot of people in China. So there are a lot of people in every single place you go, so therefore, there will be a lot of people in the pictures. It's just unavoidable. The good news is that you might actually be able to get a sense of scale. The other problem I had goes back to the vastness of the buildings - you just can't get far enough away from them to really get the whole building into the picture. So I did the best I could, and then I bought postcards. You'll have to wait on pictures until I return, however.

Tomorrow we have two lectures - one with the vice minister of education, and the other with the vice president of the China Women's Federation, and those both will be about education. More later on that, and about our visit to the school yesterday (fascinating! can I use that word too much, do you think?).