welcome

Originally uploaded by a little coffee

Chris and I made it pack safe and sound to Anyang from the Shaolin Temple. With a frigid welcome by a Siberian winds, too!

After looking through the few pictures I took, my suspicions were confirmed. I am templed out. (Nearly all the pictures inside the temple Chris took). After you’ve seen a couple temples in China, they all start to blend together. Or at least they do to me, with my un-nuanced understanding of Buddhism. Like the lama temple in Beijing, like the temples in Yunnan, there was the red walled complex with some tall trees inside and some colorful, angry, big sculptures guarding the monastery (and/or the dharma), incense burning before statues of the Buddha or bodhisattva that people bowed their heads to.

What was different about Shaolin was that it was built a good distance outside any city and nestled in the Song mountains. The “complex” I’ll say was also huge, the better to accommodate the crowds of people. Also, the kung-fu.

After Chris and I visited the temple and walked around for a bit (and the chill and drizzle hit us) we checked out the kung-fu show. We waited outside for several minutes as more and more people gathered around us, pressing ever closer, waiting for the doors to open. If Chris hadn’t been holding my hand, I might well have been pushed down and then trampled on by Doodles stampeding to get inside the the show room for a seat. We, being towards the front, survived and got our seats.

It was pretty awesome watching what they young boys and men could do with their bodies. And no, no one kung fued each other. The Lonely Planet sums it up, “Much wushu- athletic Chinese martial arts of the performance variety- is in evidence in nearby schools, but there’s little true gong fu, which requires not just a track suit but years of patience and gruelling physical and mental study.”

Wushu seems to be what we got- a lot of the routines we watched was out right yoga poses or something similar set to bad Chinese pop music (one song, in English, was all about the awesomeness of Shaolin gong fu) and flashing pink, green and white lights. And this woman who continuously, annoyingly had to narrate the whole thing. (We didn’t catch a single word but understood what was happening). But if a man can run up and twirl around a free standing pole or brake a thin metal bar over his head, then I’m impressed.

Photos are posted at my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/christinabrandon/

Weeee! Chris and I are headed to the Shaolin Temple for the weekend to check out the famous kung-fu monks we’ve been hearing so much about. The temple is also surrounded by mountains, which gives us a much needed break from the flat concrete and smoggy haze of Anyang. Now, if we can manage to navigate Zhengzhou this time, we’re all set!

Happy Weekend!

 Chris and I spent two weeks in Qingdao soaking in the beach, cafes, pizza, and English-language bookshops. We meandered through the parks, the Tsingtao Beer Brewery museum, and took a ferry to a nearby island to explore a different beach. But most of the two weeks was simply relaxing in the atmosphere of this very unDoodle-like city. By some miracle, Qingdao has preserved much of its old German-style architecture, unlike the rest of the country where historic buildings are systematically destroyed and replaced by an ugly tile monstrosity that itself will be demolished and replaced by another ugly in ten years. 

From one of the three mushroom tops at Signal Hill Park, we admired a sunset view of the city. On one side: the sea rolling onto the hot, sandy beaches of the Old Town, where most of the German architecture stands. Crisp, licorice red roofs atop vanilla buildings peaked out from swaths of trees. Viewed this way from above or from the Little Qingdao peninsula that juts into the sea away from the city, Qingdao looks like a Mediterranean town. This alone made us love the city more. 

On the other side: sprawling east of the Old City is the land of shiny high rises with tinted, reflective windows that are standard everywhere else in China. Beijing, Yantai, Dandong, even outside Anyang there are these anonymous office and condo buildings. But this less pretty new side is where the bookshops and cafes were. And where we spent much of our time, happily stretching out for a couple hours in a quiet, clean, comfortable place. This was our luxurious escape from the months in Anyang.

Like most tourists, Chris and I found sweet digs in the Old Town. We stayed at Kai Yue, a hostel built from an old church. To anyone going to Qingdao, I recommend this place. It revelled in its oldness. Creaky hardwood floors, chipped and cracking in places, decorative woodwork on the doors and moldings on the ceiling, colorful vintage furniture in two lounges. Bizarre murals on one wall, old post-its with scribbled messages in Chinese on another. In the middle of the night, the staff left only one light on on our floor at the end of the hall near the bathroom (the all the rooms on the fourth floor shared a bathroom). Walking back to my room after a bathroom trip towards the gape of darkness at the far end, I imagined ghosts emerging from the maroon carpet to tickle my legs.

The hostel’s restaurant/lounge, though, appeared recently remodeled. Framed or matted photographs hung on lilac walls, latte and turquoise colored chairs gathered around hardwood tables on which rested a lamp and/or tea lights. They had a full bar, pool table and dart board. Before or after venturing into the hot sun, we spent a lot of time in the spacious lounge, reading and relaxing while nibbling on french fries, occasionally ordering a surprisingly good margarita pizza and (me) indulging in their tasty, inexpensive coffee.

After a few days, we discovered the nearby bus 228 took as directly to the new part of town (cafe! books!) or a transfer point to hitch bus 317 to our favorite beach far on the east skirts of town, away from the crush at the beaches closest to the Old Town. We spent a couple days some blindingly hot, others cloudy and rainy, at the beaches of Shilaoren. 2.5km stretch of sand and waves. This was Chris’s favorite part of the trip, battling the waves. Qingdao experienced a stretch of cloudy, rainy weather (which coincided with the typhoon that hit China further south) which turned the lapping waves into a ferocious force. In water barely waist high, tumultuous waves would crash against you, chucking you this way or that. In Chris’s case- turning his body a reddish purple color.

“Poseidon calls me to battle!” he announced, hurling himself against the wave while gobbling lots of saltwater because his mouth hung open from the sound effects he was making during the charge, “Hoo-ah!” Glub glub glub.

Being mortal, I could only take so much on those stormy days and escaped Poseidon’s clutches without war wounds. When resting from battle, Chris let me bury him in the sand or we dug holes until the sea called us and we went charging in.

On brighter beach days, with more people about, we noticed gobs of Doodle children, ages just-started-walking up to seven, eight sans any scrap of clothes. (Also 14 year-olds squatting and peeing into the sand). Not even the pretense of clothes like the glorified bib that many Doodle babies wear. Beaches in Qingdao were more progressive than those of Yantai. Plenty of girls and ladies ran about in swimsuits. Even a few obvious foreigners wore their itty bitty bikinis. 

Several different nights Chris and I strolled down to the waterfront in the Old Town where the smallest but probably most crowded beaches are. Even at night with only the hazy orange glow from the street lights, people swam in the sea or trolled the tidal pools hidden amongst the boulder clusters on the beach, hunting for treasure. Dozens of street vendors pedalled seashell jewelry, pearls, and a yellowish fruit that looked like an obese porcupine. 

After a day of heavy walking and book buying, Chris and I ate a picnic of cheese, bread and yogurt near the Olympic sailing beach and watched as people bought paper lanterns and sent them floating into the night sky like miniature hot air balloons. After a while, a section of sky above Qingdao was dotted with pricks of light. Further away in the Old Town you could just make-out the lanterns flickering above the haze of light pollution, like lightning bugs blinking up in the trees in your neighbor’s yard.

In this small coastal city, Chris and I noticed something odd about the Doodles. Besides that it’s socially acceptable for old, bei jiu gut men to wear clinging, leave-nothing-to-the-imagination speedos or almost-speedos (the swimsuit equivalent of boxer briefs), they travel in packs. Hoards. You see this in Anyang. Minus the speedos. Groups of five, eight, twelve men (usually well above 35) crowded on a sliver of sidewalk around a Chinese chess board. At any point before dark, you’ll pass three or five groups just in the seven minute walk to the supermarket. It’s incredibly rare to see a woman encroaching in this boys game. On most days, you won’t see groups of women hunched over a chess board or a card game like the men. 

In Yantai, these groups of men trampled through the sand, spitting, yelling, scratching themselves, on their way to the water or the Chinese chess game they set up somewhere on the beach. Younger men were mostly with a girl or a family, though there were a few packs roaming around. Even odder- the lack of women of any age on the beach. And those on the beach were fully clothed except a few little girls in pigtails. Almost zero grown women in bathing suits! Even the women splashing around in the water were wearing street clothes while the men the same age were diving into the waves and strutting their stuff up and down Yantai.

What the hell? Where were the beach babes? Vendors flocking around the beach sold bathing suits. Conservative one-pieces or tankinis with skirts or shorts to conceal the crotch area. No itty bitty string bikinis here although the men were romping around in a lot less. This was ludicrous! Was I going to be the only woman on the beach in an actual bathing suit?

Turns out not. Sort of. A group of five girls, late teens/early twenties, came by. The all wore swimsuits though they went to great lengths to hide this. One girl kept an inner tube around her waist while the others kept thin towels tightly wrapped around themselves. One, wearing a cute, not-too-revealing two piece shucked her towel for all of thirty giggly seconds before wrapping it tightly back around herself like a blanket. This was too much.

“Fine! I guess I will be the only woman in a proper swimsuit!” I said as I pulled my dress off and proceeded to lounge in my simple black two piece with a skirt-bottom. 

I might as well have announced “Let the ogling begin!”

Anyone that passed, a big group of dudes in almost-speedos elbowing each other, a couple, a group of girlfriends, all did double takes and blatantly stared at me in their blatant, Doodley way. Prior to the strip down, Chris and I only got cursory glances from passersby, not full on stares. What could it have been? The even whiter skin of my belly, the moderately revealing two piece? Boobs? What? 

Here, it’s socially acceptable for women to where  super short shorts that barely cover butt cheeks, to wear transparent skirts and shirts that clearly display underwear, but my two piece, modest by American standards in that it actually conceals more than a bra and panties, is scandalous? To quote Michelle Tanner from Full House, “PUH-LEEZ!“

This could be miss reading the situation entirely, but to Chris and me, this illustrated the conservative boys club patriarchy still heavily greasing the wheel in China.

I wondered what it’s like in Qingdao: Bigger City of European Influence?

 **The next few posts will be highlights from our trip so far**

After a few-hour nap following our 7:17 AM arrival in Dandong from Beijing, Chris and I zigzagged around the small river city until we found the Museum to Commemorate U.S. Aggression (also known as the Korean War). 

The museum is set on a large hill or small mountain with steep stone stairs you must climb before reaching this fortress-looking musuem. After spending a couple hours inside, it seems that by the defensive, fortified position of the museum, China is making a tacit statement about the Korean War. 

The displays, with loads of photographs, old weaponry and uniforms from both sides, some letters, and (mostly) good English translations were well done. And it was a fascinating romp into the Doodle brain. I didn’t know much about the Korean War going into the museum, but so much of the information they included was immediately suspect, and after Wikipediaing it, complete lies. Conspicuously absent was any information critiquing the Chinese/North Korean side, let alone a display not glorifying (their side) of the war. The Chinese soldiers were always “brave”, “heroic”, “unbreakable” who slayed thousands and hundreds of thousands of “enemies.” They did no wrong. They even treated their prisoners of war with perfect care and attention (one of the complete lies), while the Americans and their cohorts were nasty and brutal imperialists. And did nothing but evil.

While we examined the displays and dozens of Doodle tour groups milled around us, a man approached Chris.

“Where you from?”

“America,” Chris says with an annoyed, apprehensive eye roll. We are in a museum that clearly displays how evil Americans are.

“Ah! Like in the war.” He points around the room. “We are enemies!”  His enthused voice booms around the room.

“Uh. Not now.” Discomfort increasing.

“Hah hah hah! We are enemies!” Boom boom boom. 

Chris points at the ground and firmly repeats “Not now” before turning his back and drifting away from the man, who then found me and asked me where I was from. Thankfully, he didn’t repeat the “enemies” bit though I expected him too. 

For the following hours in the museum, we felt even more conspicuous than usually, but no one else approached us, though we got pointed at plenty of times.

Later that evening, we walked down to Dandong’s lakefront to ogle North Korea. A single bridge in Dandong, the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, links the two countries. Just by comparing the riverfronts, we see a stark difference between the two countries. China is bustling with activity. A long (several kilometer ?) riverfront path teaming with people, boat tours, cafes, restaurants, lush public squares where people (mostly adults) play hackysack, badminton or practice tai chi.  North Korea is silent except the hurky-jerky movement of a crane and a few burping smoke stacks.

Chris and I are now on the last stop of our Summer Tour, the delightful seaside city of Qingdao. We’ve had a great trip so far from the historical sightseeing in Beijing to hiking up the Great Wall near Dandong. Our only bust so far has been in Dalian, which is soooooo not the awesome beach city we were led to believe. We bailed after a day to ferry over to Yantai where we spent a day meandering through parks and beaches. We’ve been in Qingdao just two full days and already have sustained multiple sun burns so today we’ve spent the better part of the afternoon hiding indoors.

Here are a couple pics from our trip so far.

Summer Palace view from Kunming Lake (Beijing)

Grrrah! The Doodle Net or WordPress is being stupid right now. I can’t post any more pictures. Bastards. Will try again soon!

Because of classes, Chris and I could only spend two full days in Beijing. No worries, though, because we’ll be going back at some point. The reason for our impromptu trip was Chris’s soon-expiring passport needed to be renewed by the end of the month so Friday morning we spent over twenty minutes (and a whole lotta money) in a cab going from roughly the center of town to the northeast of town (whose municipality is about the size of Belgium) to the new embassy, a tiny gray single-story structure surrounded by towering glass and steel skyscrapers.

That was my first and strongest impression about China’s capital. All the new, tremendous buildings, wide streets, and relatively controlled traffic. “Where are we, Germany?” I asked at one point. They even have a new, slick, clean subway that makes Chicago’s look unfit for the garbage dump. Many of the new buildings had a European flair with domes and columns. You had to wander down narrow alleys for the hutong, Beijing’s old architecture. There! That’s the familiar China.  Sweaty, cramped restaurants, with questionably clean surfaces and hard chairs, the sloppy, stinky trash piles. Beijingers lounging outside with their shirts rolled up, faces puckers in sweat from the humidity.

Our hostel was just a skip away from a new shopping center. Two Five story shopping malls across the street from each other. One selling top end designer goods like Hugo Boss, Louis Vuitton, and friends while the other contained the more affordable chain stores we get in Anyang. And western restaurants galore! Our first meal in Beijing was a giant, cheesey, thick crust pizza from Pizza Hut. This was the first pizza we’ve had since Kunming (February) and it was damn delicious. There was also a Dairy Queen we indulged in (sadly, though, lacking most of the blizzard candy toppings) and a Starbucks which was even more overpriced than usual.

We only had time for a couple of the attractions like the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square. I remember my father saying something like (ten years ago) he had to risk his life to cross the street to get to Tienanmen? That is the Doodle way I know, but they sent me into a tizzy with these nifty underground pedestrian walkways so traffic can continue steadily onwards.

The Forbidden City was massive. About 90% of the rooms around the periphery were closed with a few having been converted into museums for something like The History of Chinese Music. Then there were the big attraction rooms: where the emperor slept, where the emperor rested and received officials who kowtowed before him, where the emperor actually conducted business with these officials, the emperor’s throne room. Honestly, I got bored walking through this sprawling place (it took us a couple hours) to get to the rooms where you could actually see anything besides the red City walls. And to actually see anything in those rooms you had to jostle the other tourists and occasionally press your nose against a piece of dirty class, or peer into a darkened room to get a mediocre glimpse of the emperor’s throne.

What else did we do? Tienanmen Square which was, you know, Tienanmen square, the Night Market I remember from a story NBC did during the Olympics. Come here for a variety of local dishes including scorpions, insects and sheep penis. (See entry below for more details). Also the Beijing Museum of Natural history, which enticed us with it’s new exhibition on Mammoths and evolution, but was too small and in need of upkeep (like washing the Plexiglas from obscuring fingerprints), all in Chinese, a giant disappointment. We walked through the neighboring Temple of Heaven Park, a beautiful spacious park that enveloped city blocks so the emperor could make his ritual sacrifices to the various gods. We also wandered around Qianmen, a big square only a little south of Tienanmen. It looks like the main drag was recently renovated and some traditional Chinese architecture restored. Now there just needs to be more shops and restaurants besides the H&M. (Yes! I went shopping at H&M!)

We were too rushed and not wanting to be at the Great Wall on a crowded Saturday so we’re saving that, the Summer Palace, and oodles of other things for our next visit.

Near where Chris and I stayed in Beijing is the Donhuamen Night Market (which I’m pretty sure NBC did a segment on during the Olympics). Vendors at this market, in their red aprons and hats, sell omnipresent noodle dishes, steamed or fried dumplings, and skewers. Skewers everywhere with their poky little ends wanting to take someones eyeball out. They’re all over the campus backstreets in Anyang: fried meat on a stick, tofu on a stick, cauliflower and other vegetables on a stick. Only on this street just off a major shopping plaza (two new, five story malls with Louis Vuitton, Hugo Boss, Armani, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, and (oh yes) Starbucks) you can by water beetles on a stick, scorpions on a stick, an assortment of other crunchy bugs, something that maybe baby squids, and sheep penis.

“Penis! Penis! Penis!” One vendor bellowed.

The Chinese are aggressive sellers. If they see you even think about lingering before their goods, they’ll single you out and start barking prices at you.

“You like pineapple, lady? 15 yuan!” It’s best that you ignore them. Try.

Good fun, prowling the market that I’ll guess was about half the length of a city block. Prices were high compared to what we pay for similar food in Anyang. Chris and I did a major fauxpaux though. We neglected to confirm the price of a noodle dish with vegetables we ordered and ended being charged an outrageous price. (Unless you’re at a department store or a proper restaurant that have their prices clearly listed, always, always, always ask how much something costs first). Luckily, the vendors all have signs posted above their stalls with prices so Chris quickly added up the cost and found that the four fingered wench who sold our noodles was trying to rip us off 30 yuan (a hefty amount of money especially for street food). Ha! Suck it lady! We’re not stupid foreigners anymore! We slammed down the money we actually did owe her and left.

a tasty snack...

dessert

I haven’t updated in a while but I have a good reason! 

Chris and I are in Beijing!

A week or so ago, the incompetent toolbox in the school’s foreign affairs office told him he needed to renew his passport before the end of June otherwise he won’t get his resident permit and so will be banished back to his homeland. (His passport expires before the end of the next contract period). Never mind that classes go until the end of June and who knows how long it’ll actually take to get a new passport from the U.S. government.

We got lucky with timing. Thursday was Dragon Boat Festival so classes for Thursday and Friday were canceled. (Tuesday night we were informed that Friday classes would be held on Sunday instead. Thanks for the heads up, Anyang Normal University. We already bought our train tickets and booked a place to stay.)

So here we are! Enjoying breakfast before hopping on a train back to sweaty Anyang. 

Will add posts on our short trip soon!

Finally!  We now have the last legs for our Spring Festival Holiday up on Snapfish.  Whew.  We’re not to blame this time- it was the Snapfish’s fault for refusing to upload.  Sigh… but Dali and Lijiang are up now.  Hope you likey!  (Dali was my favorite city).

password again: chinaphotos