Chengdu - Part II

Our hostel was in the small Tibetan part of the city. Walking around that area there were many men dressed in monks clothes that would come up to us with a picture of a burned down monastery accompanied by an explanation in Chinese and Tibetan. They would get fairly pushy, stroking your arm, and one even rubbed my belly. All this seemed kind of fishy, but we gave some money to one of them, and then subsequently tried to explain to all the rest that we'd already given their friend money and to leave us alone. The first day we had lunch at a Tibetan restaurant and they would walk inside and harass us. The Tibetan people working in the restaurant didn't take too kindly to them, which made us even more suspicious of what was going on. (There was also a shop we walked by where anyone could by monk's robes)

So basically we were good little tourists in Chengdu. We went to a mausoleum/museum/gardens commemorating Guan Yu, Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, who were these important guys during the 3 kingdoms period in China (~200 AD) who took an oath of brotherhood. Rememberance day in China (at least at int'l schools) is about these kindof guys. We also went to a Buddhist monastery where monks still live though its a tourist attraction, to a Tex-mex restaurant, and to see the pandas.

Chengdu - Part I - Getting There

This weekend I traveled to Chengdu with Jesse & Chris. Chengdu is the closest major city to Chongqing and is the capital of Sichuan province. We were supposed to leave at 5:50pm Thurs evening, but somebody (who shall remain nameless) was mistaken about which train station we were supposed to leave from. First, we went to the North Train Station, arriving at about 5:30, only to be told that there are no trains that go to Chengdu from there. We then taxied it to Chongqing North train station, getting there 2o minutes too late. In Chinese the 2 stations don't sound as similar as in English.

So we exchanged are tickets for the 12:30am train, which was a bad idea. Hindsight being as it is, the best thing would have been to take the 6:00 am train. Our tickets got us onto the train, but did not provide us with seats. This wouldn't have been all that bad, but keep in mind that we were on the train for 5 hours, and this train was filled with people who had already been on it for as long as 30 hours. It was loud, (what were these people talking about at 2:30 in the morning?) filled with smoke, (even the train employees were smoking at that time of night), and crammed tightly so that the aisles and spaces between cars were filled with seatless people.

Jesse was standing next to a baby, which was in its assless pants. This meant that he had a birds eye view of how babies in China relieve themselves on Chinese trains. At around 3:00, after a few stops, I managed to get a seat. Seated next to me was a wisp of a man, not much more than a skeleton, who looked slated to have died a few days beforehand. All in all, not a pleasant experience. Jesse said it was only his second worst train ride in China, so that gives me something to look forward to :P

TV Interview

Yesterday I had my five minutes of fame and was interviewed about Halloween. As we were waiting for the crew to set up the stage I was asked by some other people to enter a soundproof room and read a few lines of English. A couple of the lines had the acronym MUN, so I assume that refers to Model United Nations. I'd be interested to know where my voice will be heard.

For the Halloween interview there was also an Irish teacher with me. He carried most of the load answering questions, since he knew about the origins of Halloween, traditional legends and games etc... I didn't have anything nearly as interesting to talk about, just the basics of trick or treating costumes. Our interviewer was very nervous and she kept forgetting her questions and fumbling over her words. I think it was her first time interviewing people on camera. When the team is finished editing I will receive a copy of the interview.

Halloween and other developments

Last night I went to a Halloween party in the district closest to the school. It was at a restaurant called A Taste of Singapore. It's a foreigner friendly place with owners who speak English. The food was disappointing; a buffet with Western style Asian food... strange how the fake Chinese food costs more than the real food in China. My costume was a bit unimaginative, and I have just decided to name it Zionist Zvi.

On a different but related note, I may be interviewed on some school tv program run by journalism students from the university next door. They get different foreigners to talk about random Western things, and I will probably have a conversation about Halloween. So quick, tell me what fun things I should make up to tell them.

English Corner

My neighbour university is a foreign language institute. A couple of times a week they have an "English corner" where students come to practice speaking. Tonight I subjected myself to the onslaught of questions for the first time. There were the typical, mundane questions...where are you from, how long have you been in Chongqing, what do you like most about China... then there were some more interesting and in-depth questions.

One young lady lept out of the gates with "are you Christian?", to which I simply replied no, but then there was the follow up question "why not?"..... well you see my family is Jewish..."Is Jesus your God?" ... uhhhmmm no... "what do Jewish people believe in?"uuuhhhh, well............. etc.

Then there were a few who thought I should be an expert on the American financial crisis. All in all an interesting experience, but not one I really need to repeat.

Museum

Yesterday I finally went inside the museum that sits just outside the university campus. It commemorates a coal mine that was turned into a prison by the KMT. In November 1949 the Communists came and "liberated" Chongqing, but just before they arrived all the political prisoners in this jail were executed. Most of the museum is dedicated to pictures and stories of the prisoners who were killed. Not exactly the most fun thing to learn about on a Sunday afternoon. I managed to get off one picture inside the museum before security guards told me photographs are not permitted.

I’ve been meaning to write a longwinded account of my time here in CQ now that I’ve been here over a month. So here are some of my observations. More to common later.

The weather at the beginning of October here is still like the middle of summer in Toronto. Still highs in the low 20s for the next few days. I've been told that even in the winter it will remain humid here, and that the area only has 2 seasons, summer and winter. Of course their winter will feel like fall to me. The air is not too bad on the old campus, since there is so much foliage, but when I leave campus I can definitely feel a difference.

I like being on the old campus because it is fairly small and quiet, and is where all the graduate and post-graduate students take courses. The new campus is large and expansive. All the undergraduate courses are there, and in September you can see the freshmen marching around in their baggy army uniforms. All college students are supposed to go through a month of basic training, but it does not appear to be anything strenuous or useful.

Leaving campus one gets to experience the craziness of driving in China. CQ city probably has a population of about 12 million, but there is no subway system. More than half of the vehicles on the city road are buses. Lanes are simply suggestions, three lanes turn into four of five, passing on the shoulder is common place, as is driving on the wrong side of the road. Pedestrians don’t obey your signals, or you might just get run over by someone nonchalantly driving through a red. Using your horn is a must to let other drivers know you are simply there, or passing them so as to make sure that don’t change lanes into you.

The food here can be quite different than what you find in Toronto Chinese restaurats. Everywhere you go they ask if you want lajiao, which means a chilly pepper puree they enjoy spreading around. Even if you decline the food is most often spicy. There is also the special characteristic flavour of the area called mala, which means spicy and numbing. If you bite into the peppercorn that is used, an area of your mouth will get tingly and numb. Some aspects of the food are better and some are worse than the Chinese food usually found in Toronto; I won't be finding any Cantonese style dimsum or baked buns.

National Day Celebrations

Last night the foreign teachers were invited to a banquet by the Chongqing Department of Foreign Affairs. Turns out dinner was buffet style, and it was like going to the Mandarin but not having any tables to sit at. It was the most non-Chinese people I’d seen in Chongqing. At one point a trade commissioner from the Canadian consulate introduced himself, and in typically Canadian fashion was telling me and Jesse that there is an ice rink on the 6th floor of some building downtown where we can rent skates and hockey sticks. He said he was from Saskatchewan and looked to be about 6’5”, and also considering I don’t play hockey, so I’m not sure if I’ll be going to this ice rink anytime soon.

On a different note, the ladies who come to clean my room always seem to get a good laugh at my expense. Foreigners are still are a great source of amusement for people in this area of China. I am very good at hearing when someone is asking me if I understood （听懂了吗）, unfortunately at this point I don’t actually understand much more than that. I did understand that the cleaning ladies wanted me to open the windows of my room, which I’m not a huge fan of doing since there are no screens on windows anywhere… I’ve been told that mosquitoes survive year long here.

Gele Mountain

It seems I was lulled into a false sense of security by my first week in Chongqing. This week there will be highs between 34-37 degrees C, the warmest it’s been since I arrived. Today I went with a group of PhD students to climb Gele mountain, which is very close to the campus. Little did I know when I accepted the invitation a few days ago that the high for today would be 35. While walking up the mountain it was quite a bit cooler because of the forest, but I was still dripping buckets. One other good thing about being in the forest was that I was breathing the cleanest air one can get in the area. Spend a reasonable time breathing Chinese air and you appreciate why people are spitting all over the place.

When we finished climbing the mountain we arrived at what is called a nong jia le 农家乐. It was basically a huge house that some big shot in Sichuan lived in. It’s now been converted into a strange country style retreat, where city people with money go to on the weekends to eat, play mahjong/cards, and generally lounge around. They play a simplified version of mahjong in the area, where they win with hands that I’ve been taught aren’t worth anything, so it took me a little while to adjust strategies. They were quite impressed that I knew how to play, and they altered the rules a bit after I joked that their winning hands were so ugly.

Finally Teaching

Yesterday I began teaching the Oral Legal English class. It went fairly well considering that it was the first class and I had no idea what level the students would be at. There were about 40 people in the class, most of whom should just be in a regular English class. My students are lawyers, teachers, at least one judge, and post-graduate students. I may just be the youngest person in the room. They were all friendly, but it will be a challenge to get them to talk during class.

Mmm....

The foreign teachers and students were invited by the university for a mid-autumn festival lunch. The restaurant was very high class and quite the change from the whole-in-the-wall places which I’ve been frequenting with the other teachers. As a gift from the university we also all got about a months supply of moon cake.

Chongqing hills

The nickname for Chongqing is Mountain city. This is the view from the top of the Hotel for Foreign Guests, where I live.

Shapingba

Yesterday, the Laowai brigade took the bus to the centre of the Shapingba district of Chongqing. For a Wednesday afternoon there were a crazy amount of people just walking around like us. The mall had what seemed like hundreds of tiny clothing and shoe stores. At one point we came across a crowd of people only to realize they were watching a naked man bathing in fountain/waterfall, and then the ensuing capture by firefighters. We then had hotpot for the first time since arriving, which was very tasty and tolerably spicy when the non-spicy pot was ordered. We got a little lost trying to find the bus to take back to the university, but why bother traveling if you aren’t going to get lost once in a while?

Some pics

Here is a pic of Hong Kong, a pic of my gigantic bed, and the "kitchen" area.

Arrived

We arrived last night in Chongqing. There was a stopover in Hong Kong for a few hours, so we went to the Kowloon waterfront. A lot about it felt just like being home in Markham/Richmond Hill. My left ass cheek is still soar from all the sitting down.
My residence is much larger than I expected. There’s a living room, bedroom, washroom, and “kitchen” like thing, that really isn’t going to be useful for much of anything. I think I’ll basically be living in the bedroom. There is a huge king sized bed, and a lovely view of the outside of a building from my window.

The biggest city you've never heard of

The most populated municipality in China:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chongqing
http://mstforum.com.cn/images/cq/chongqing3-ChaotianmenPort.jpg

I've asked around about any interesting martial arts/artists in Chongqing and have only come up with one name. Lu Zijian is from the area, and is reportedly now 115 years old. Here is a video of him walking around, doing his thing, when he was 93:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr5vQm_i09I

How old is he really? Who knows, but I hope to still be able to move around like that at his age. I'm hoping that some of his students will be in the city, and maybe I'll have the opportunity to meet Lu.

VISA

Two days ago I finally received the papers I needed from China to apply for my work visa. Yesterday I went down to the Chinese consulate in Toronto to submit my application. It wasn't as bad as I expected, but it did take a few tries lining up before I got everything in order...and so my experience with Chinese bureaucracy begins.

Outside the consulate were the obligatory elderly Chinese women standing around being one with the universe, or as they like to call it, Falun Gong. Someone should show them it would be more beneficial if they could just stand up straight.

First Contact

In September I will be leaving for Chongqing, which is in south-central China, to teach at the Southwest University of Social Science and Law. I will be teaching legal seminars to grad students through the Osgoode teach-in-China program. Yesterday I had my first one-to-one contact with someone from Southwest U., so I decided that I would start up the blog. Stay tuned...