Reveille, reveille! or perhaps not....

As far as I can tell, there is a general ban on trumpets, trombones, and other brass instruments. There isn't much to a Chinese marching band, I guess.

The Cup of Coffee...

....that sustained me through the mind numbing throes of the final draft of my thesis:

Eating Korean in Chinese

I love this little Korean place that is bird flu alley (thus named because of all of the chickens in cages and ducks with their feet tied together for sale there). It's tiny and run by this Korean guy who is super nice. There was also an old Korean lady that used to work there that would give me free food sometimes. While of I was eating she would bring me a little dish of whatever someone else in the restaurant had ordered, or she would slip a little triangle shaped rice and kimchi roll into my to go order and not let me pay for it. She was awesome, didn't speak a word of Chinese but always smiled at me. I love going there because the food is good, and also because the people are nice and not sullen (like a lot of Chinese waiters). Anyhoo, that day I had a tuna and veggie roll. Every meal comes with little dishes of different kinds of food. This day it was potato sticks, pickled radish, egg and onion omelette, and bugs of some sort. No, not bugs, tiny shrimps!










Me: It was you wasn't it?! Just admit your guilt and I'll let you go!!!
Him: No! No! There's been some mistake! I'm innocent I tell you!!!



Me: Mister Tough Guy, eh? Well if you want to play tough, we can play tough!
Him: No! No! Listen to me! I'm innocent!



Me: It doesn't have to be like this. Tell me what I want to know, and everything will be forgotten.
Him: I'm telling you, I don't know nothing!



Me: It pains me to do this, but you leave me no other option!
Him: blub blub, gurgle....

A Collection

Illustration Friday:

Flawed
Climbing
Pale
Contained
Resolve
Clandestine

Misc:

The Squid and the Birthday Cake

Sketches

Angsty College Sketches

Folding Book 2

Shipwreck and Salvation

Salvation!

I think this is the chain that is attempting to challenge Starbuck's domination of the Chinese over-priced coffee drink market.

I like them. Their coffee is good, the internet is a bit slow, the brownie sucked. But on the whole it's decent, and it's closer and less crowded than Starbuck's. Plus, when you walk in the barrista's all call out "Hello Welcome to Costa", but because of their accents it sounds as though they are saying something in Japanese or Korean. It took me a few times of hearing it and thinking "that's strange, I guess they must have a lot of Japanese customers" before I realized what they were actually saying.

Breakfast Deliciousness!

Man, there is nothing better on a warm summer morning than a huge bowl of noodles in soup with a big pile of pickled vegetable on top. Add a little chili sauce and dash of salty vinegar, and maybe a soft poached egg and you're in heaven.

These noodles are available right outside the main gate of my apartment complex. It's a little stand with a couple of tables and benches and an umbrella, crowded up against a wall in the little alley. The couple that runs it live right across the alley in another complex. After I finished my noodles, the lady and one of their friends both criticized the way I was carrying my school bag on my bike. They then helped me arrange it better so it wouldn't get stolen while I road along. Basically this consisted of putting the strap around the seat post, but it was nice of them to warn me.

All the ways China will kill you: part zwei

Now, this picture seems rather boring doesn't it? Just a tree branch and a dark city street. I wish that there were a biker riding along the little bike lane here to illustrate just how high (or rather, low) this thick brain-bashing limb is. Which is not very high. In fact I think it's the crack your skull open while riding a bike height exactly. Seriously, if you're not paying attention you're going to end up on your back on the street while a stampede of cyclists ride over you. There is another one that is even lower, but it's on the other side of the street.

If you're feeling a little short on reading material...

...stop here. Or at any one of the three little stands that are all within spitting distance of each other. They have magazines galore, usually some gum, a thing of lollipops, sometimes bottled tea and water, and China mobile cellphone cards for sale. Sometimes, the more entrepreneurial will also have a little crock pot full of corn on the cob or zongzi (little pyramids of rice with any variety of fillings, wrapped in leaves and steamed).

The day before yesterday, I stopped by this stand to buy a refill card for my cellphone. Unfortunately the laoban was engaged in a raging card game with a crowd through the window on the opposite side. I had to yell "laoban!" (which just means owner/manager /boss guy) until he came over to my side, still holding his hand of cards with a very unhappy look on his face. I almost laughed, but I didn't. This guy had been very nice to me before. When I first got here and didn't know how to recharge my cellphone, he just took it from me without a word and did all the work. I guess he must get that a lot since his stand is right next to the foreign students dormitory of Nanjing University.

No Reason to Get Lost

This is a street sign in China. They are very useful when there is one. The street name connected to the arrows is the street you are on. It is pointing towards the next intersection, and what two streets you will encounter if you turn right or left, and the name at the bottom of the sign is the nearest street you just came from. Unfortunately these only label the main streets, and there might be any number of tiny streets and back alleys that aren't clearly marked. When I was looking for my gym for the first time last year, I couldn't for the life of me find it, and they had to send a little Chinese girl out into the pouring rain (wearing high heels) to guide me in.

Everyone Deserves a Stolen Clown Bike

This is my trusty bicycle. It has gotten me all around Nanjing. And it hasn't been stolen! (knock on wood) I think I can chalk it up to the kryptonite u-lock I brought over with me. I like using a lock that was more expensive than the bike itself. I would be pretty bummed if that lock was stolen. I'm also going to miss this bike when I go. The back brake screeches like a banshee now, but I still love it.

Of course it would only be karma if my bike were taken. Apparently the street I bought it on is famous for selling stolen bikes. But when I bought it, it looked brand new, so I'm not sure if mine was a stolen bike or not. I call it a clown bike because I am so used to riding a road bike, that this sort of upright posture while riding seems really funny to me. I feel like there should be circus music playing whenever I ride.

I've also mastered the Chinese Moving Bike Mounting Move. What you do is stand on the left side of the bike and put your left foot on the pedal and scoot along and then when you have enough momentum you swing your right leg over the middle of the bike to the right pedal (if you have a man's bike you swing your leg over the back tire). It's harder than it sounds.

My Favorite Street in China

I love Hankou Lu. I love it more than any other street in Nanjing. Although I am also a big fan of Zhongshan Lu. But for tiny interesting shops, interesting food and sights, this is the street for me. And the good part is really only a block long! It's amazing and cool and filled with good things to eat and buy. This is what I love about China, the hundreds of small businesses and eateries all crammed into 100-200 yards. It so much more stimulating than an American street.


Of course that giant building going up in the background will probably squeeze out the tiny fruit stand huddled at its foot. It was already forced to move once. It used to be right next door to the bakery. I like this fruit stand, it's run mostly by women, and they will often round down your purchase price to the nearest kuai. Which is nice.

A ubiquitous sight on a Chinese street:
I think they build everything with these red bricks. I've never actually seen so many cranes in all of my life. They're everywhere, you can't turn around without seeing this:


Need some radish? Or maybe some live eels? What about some congealed duck blood? Any part of a pig that you can think of? Live chickens, fresh noodles, fresh tofu, live fish?

If so, then you should head to the wet market on Hankou Lu. It's below the fancier supermarket, Suguo. If you look in my last post, that picture from across the bakery shows the supermarket and the wet market directly below. I like the wet market, I buy veggies there. I am a little grossed out by the blood and fish scales on the ground though.

A Love Hate Relationship

Yesterday morning I was having breakfast at a bakery on Hankou Lu. I sat at the window looking out on the constantly busy street and thought about next month. I'll be leaving China and coming home and it struck me that I will really miss being here. I will be relieved to leave as well, but I will miss it too. It's exciting, and dirty, and difficult and wonderful at the same time. Where else can you buy women's panties from an old lady on the side of the road? Where else will the old beggar out front of the bakery offer to watch your bike and bags so you don't have to lock it up and drag them inside with you? And where else can you actually trust this guy to watch your things? Where else can you have this:


across from this:
and next to this:



No, that is not bark, that is human hair from the barber shop next door.


I love this. I love the contrast and contradiction. It's fascinating, and will probably soon disappear. I'm grateful to have been able to see this. It's been a great source of creativity for me.

Throwing Bottles at Monks

“We thought Western media is very objective,” said Chou Wu, a 28-year-old working on his doctorate in material science, “and what it turned out is that Western media is even more biased than Chinese media. They’re no better, and even more, they’re against us.”

Once again, I find this hilarious. I think it's funny because of the last sentence, which I think is key to this whole thing. The perception of bias is probably based on the fact that the western media isn't saying things that these people want to hear. It's unpleasant to think that your government is shipping Han people into Tibet in order to take over culturally. It's not easy to admit that your government is cracking down on religious freedom. It's not nice for your country to be the bad guy. Trust me, as an American, I know. I don't automatically assume, however, that the European media is biased.

This is what happens when people identify too closely with their governments:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/education/29student.html?hp

All the ways China will kill you

So this morning, it's warm and the sun is shining, I've opened my windows and I sit drinking tea and working on a paper. I hear this strange motor noise, and my nose starts to burn. There is a strange sour chemically odor wafting in through the open windows. I lean out of the window to see what's going on and I see three men accompanying a cart that is all rigged out with hoses and a motor and big buckets of white liquid. See below:





They are spraying generous amounts of this white liquid on all the plants. I can only assume that it is some sort of pesticide.


Sometimes, when I'm biking across town through a thick fog of pollution， I think that living in China has probably shortened my life by a couple of years. Of course it's been so fascinating that it's probably worth it. I'm ok with giving up a couple of years to be able to eat 新疆炒面 and 麻辣烫。

Western Media Lies!

"The French really make Chinese people angry,"said Zhou Shuyang, a 22-year-old student. "And we don't want to be treated this way by the Western media, which lies. If we were allowed, a lot of people would join in protests, and I would as well."

I found this quote to be outrageously funny. It was in an article about the Olympic protests, I can't remember which newspaper. Maybe the Guardian or Der Spiegel. Of course the western media lies. Sometimes. But usually not intentionally, I hope. Sometimes it's horribly biased, and sometimes it only shows the stories that are marketable. But it's a whole lot better than the government controlling the content of the media. There is such a disconnect between our understandings of the role of media in our respective societies. Since the media is so tightly controlled by the government here in China, most Chinese just assume that it is that way elsewhere. My speaking partner told me the other day that the media is called the throat of the party. She also mentioned that she had recently seen an article that said that the US government was telling the US media to only show coverage of Olympic protests and to not show coverage of people supporting the Olympics. How ridiculous is that?

What I thought was especially funny about the above quote, besides the western media lies part, was the "If we were allowed, a lot of people would join in protests" bit. It's just so ironic. Freedom to do things, like a freedom of the press, may lead to lies sometimes, but freedom of assembly would also allow you to protest those lies.

Politics and the Olympics

There have been a lot of complaints about western media and western politicians using the Olympics for political gains. The Chinese are very vociferous in their protests that the Olympics should be about athletics and competition, and friendship between countries etc. I agree, it should be about those things. What I find interesting (and irritating), is that while China doesn't want westerners (or anyone, for that matter) to use the Olympics politically, they have no problem using it for their own political purposes. They really want to use this (political) opportunity to whitewash China's image abroad.



I think this picture says it all: If you want to love the Olympics you had better love China too.

Why I hate the American Media

We have this incredible freedom, which living in China has really made me appreciate, and what do we do with it? Fear monger! Yes people, Costco limits the amount of rice a person can buy per visit to 80 pounds and all of a sudden it's time to stockpile food. It makes good financial sense! And if you look at the stories underneath:

1) loading up your pantry to lower your budget. Yes, middle America! Buy huge bags of rice and beans, which you will never eat, and then go back to your frozen pizzas and doritos! But miraculously you will lower your expenditures on groceries.

and my favorite:

2) Humanity has had brush with extinction.

Subtext: we're all going to starve to death. Especially you, if you don't get down to the nearest Sam's Club and buy a 24 pack case of canned stew and a gallon jar of jelly beans.

People are actually hungry in some places, and we are talking about loading up our pantries to lower our budgets. Listen, food should cost money. It should cost more money than it does now, and we should stop being so wasteful. That's the real way to lower your budget. Not stockpiling food and driving prices up further for the least fortunate among us.

And yahoo's webpage is total rubbish. I hope they go under soon.

Riding through a storm of fiber glass

It is now summer here. Nanjing is one of those places that turns from rainy and cold one week, to hot and summery the next. My speaking tutor, Yan Huanhuan, had been telling me recently about this stuff that the trees put off during the hot weather, and that she likes to wear a face mask when she's out and about. I had chalked it up to Chinese paranoia about health (i.e. drinking hot water, not going out with your hair wet, wearing more clothes, especially socks, etc). But yesterday I was on my bike riding across town to my gym, and the wind was blowing. And this stuff, which was in piles on the sides of the road, was floating all around. I looked down at one point, and there were all these hairs on my jacket, and I though, ew, I must have biked past a hair salon while they were sweeping the cuttings out onto the street (which is pretty gross, you can find piles of hair on the sidewalks outside of salons). But then I realized what it was. Just like she said it would, it got in my nose. But worst of all, it got into my eyes. The stuff isn't pollen, it's more like really fine hairs about half an inch long. It's like fiber glass, like the fibers of insulation. It gets everywhere and itches and burns, and makes your eyes all swollen. I'll try to get a picture of it to post here. Next time a Chinese person tells me about health tips I won't dismiss it, like I did this. But I don't really know what there is to be done about it, besides wearing a hazmat suit whenever I go outside.

Coming home late

Lately I've been spending a lot of time in my office. Mostly because I find my little apartment depressing and there is only so much time you can spend at the gym. While I'm in my office I should be working on my thesis, the deadline for which is looming in about a week and half. But instead I watch Jon Stewart and read the NYT.

But that's not what I wanted to write about. What I wanted to write about is what it's like to live in a 小区 in China. I live in what would be a considered an apartment complex in the states. But here it is walled off from the street on two sides, and from the other apartment complexes on the other two sides. There are two gates (as far as I know), one on Hankou Lu and the other on the tiny alley where Swede and Kraut is (the german restaurant) and Hong Bang (my tailor's nemesis) has his sweatshop. The gate on Hankou Lu is guarded by a family consisting of a 3 people who all live in the same room which is located right by the gate. It closes at 8:30pm and from then on you have to ride/walk around to get to the other main gate that is big enough for a car to drive through. There are no cars allowed into the 小区， unless you are moving something big and need the car to get close to the building. There is no parking inside. Only paths and bicycles and trees with people's underwear hanging on lines between them.

If you are unlucky enough to come home so late that the main gate has closed (11pm-ish) then you have to abandon your bike outside the safety of walls for the night. To get inside you have to go through a little door that leads to a tiny room where the gate guard is asleep in a bunk bed. The room reeks of gasoline because his moped is also parked inside. How he got it in there I have no idea. Then there is another little door that leads to the guardroom. Usually just a little room where during the day the gate guard and his buddies sit and drink tea and smoke cigarettes while listening to screeching old timey chinese music.

Most recently though, late at night, around 1:00am, when I get home and creep through the guards bedroom, this room has been packed with middle aged men in military uniforms smoking up a storm. It's a funny situation. I'm surprised, they're surprised, and we all try to pretend that the other isn't there.

Getting a Haircut in China

I have curly hair, so getting a haircut here in China is a bit of a crapshoot. Actually it's a little like jumping off a high cliff with a tiny pool of deep water somewhere at the bottom. So you set yourself up on the cliff edge, trying to increase your odds of hitting the water by going to a reputable looking salon, and then you just have to jump. And let the stylist cut with his own free will (after he has retrieved his cutting utensils from a huge locked suitcase.) My last haircut adventure here turned out badly, with one side turning out longer than the other. That guy seemed to be trying to cut off every bit of curl. He would cut a little, and then try to smooth it down flat, and then cut a little bit more. I had to stop him, or I would have ended up bald.

But this new guy seemed okay. And I was semi-satisfied with the result. It's still a little wonky, and he used thinning scissors (!!!!) all over my head, which isn't good for my curls. Makes them a little too wispy at the ends to look right. But it's better than last time, for sure.

Another interesting thing, haircut prices are determined by the level of complexity of the cut. I didn't know that when I first came in, so I chose the 30 yuan option. Afterwards my stylist said that my haircut should have been a 50 yuan cut, since doing the sideburn hair right was tricky and required more time. Ah well. Next time.

Recipes! Rezepte! Receitas!

Chicken Soup and Baked Apples
Black Bean Soup with Cilantro and Lime
Ginger Chicken Soup
Creamy Tomato Soup with Goat Cheese
Modified Taco Salad

Lonely Times French Toast
Sticky Date Pudding Cake
Quick Oatmeal Pancakes with Yogurt Topping
Dutch Baby German Pancakes

This is just another view of the country side. A lot of farming that is done here is called garden farming. Every bit of available land is cultivated in a very intensive manner. I read the other day that the amount of fertilizer that Chinese farmers use on their fields is twice the world average. It's a very strange sort of landscape. Nothing appears to have escaped being touched and changed by people. You can be driving along a twisty mountain road and a tiny little opening in the rock wall (a miniscule valley of sorts) will be planted with some sort of vegetable. Then you will realize that the bushes all around are not just random bushes, they are tea bushes. It's a little overwhelming.

Deep-fried Goodness

This is bits of deep-fried dough that are pressed together with sugar and oil. That's my best guess anyway. It's sort of like a rice crispie treat. But not as good.

I love big tour groups. Especially if they are wearing matching hats...or as in this case, matching rain slickers. (Sorry this isn't right side up.) The lady with the umbrella is saying something along the lines of "go in, have a look."

A Minibus, Three Province Adventure

All it takes is a minibus and a patient, Chinese, chain-smoking professional minibus driver, and you have the ingredients for an epic adventure through the Chinese countryside.

Riding a Bike in China

The trick to riding a bike safely (relatively anyways) is to keep moving, have a functioning bell, not make any sudden turns or stops, and to act predictably. And also to keep an eye out for the buses. As my friend Charlotte said, they are the only silent things here.

Riding a bike across town is like one big game of chicken. If you are determined to have your way, the other person will yield. Or you will have both slowed down enough that a collision isn't terribly painful.

Riding in a Cab

Where do you cross the street in China? Anywhere you feel like it. This was taken in a cab on my way from the Nanjing train station to my apartment. It doesn't quite convey the sense of danger that you feel when riding in cab here, but maybe it can give you a faint idea. This ride was pretty tame actually. No near death collisions to speak of. It wasn't rush hour. But the cab driver was pretty amusing. He told me that driving would be better if the population of China was "less by half". And then he reconsidered and revised his number downward, saying that 500 million would actually be plenty.

I'm in love with the ladies room in Narita airport

Not actually in China, but I wish it was.

chinese socks rock

Now these socks should really be ankle height nylons, but I was cold and I only had these in my gym bag. I love that it's possible to to dress however you like and not be able to tell if they are staring at me because of my clothes, or because I am foreign. Or maybe it's because, as I was told twice in the same conversation, my feet are too big.