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| A few weeks ago, I went to the city of Wuhu in Anhui province to visit
my friends, Easten, Lydia, and Leslie. Wuhu is a relatively quick
five-hour train ride northwest of Shanghai, although I bought the
cheapest tickets and my butt was aching by the time I arrived.
The cheapest train tickets are called “ying zhuo,” seats which are
hard, lack leg-space, and not nearly wide enough for comfort.
Anhui is one of the poorer provinces on China’s east side. The
train ride provided a good opportunity to get a glimpse of the
countryside and see how the vast majority of China’s population lives.
In Anhui, I stayed with my good friend, Easten, who is working at Anhui
Normal Univeristy as an English teacher. This trip opened my eyes
to a lot of new things in China, as I realized more and more that
Shanghai is, in many ways, an atypical Chinese city. Although one
of the more wealthy cities in Anhui province, it is not quite the same
fast paced, money-driven city that Shanghai is. Taxis cost less
than half the cost of Shanghai taxis, and restaurants are only a
fraction of the cost as well. While in Wuhu, I was able to hang
out with many of Easten’s students from Anhui Normal. This made
me realize that although I have been living in China for over three
months, the large majority of my friends and people I interact with on
a daily basis speak English. Not only was this a good chance to
practice Chinese, but it also presented a good opportunity to dialogue
and get their perspective on things.
We went out to a restaurant to experience some of Wuhu’s “xiaolong bao”
(mini bite-sized steamed pork buns), which the locals insisted were
better than Shanghai’s. I looooove xiaolong bao. If made
correctly, good xiaolong bao will have soup inside with the meat that
gushes out when you puncture the thin skin. I always wondered how
they got the soup inside the bun…is it injected with a needle?
The quality may not have been too much different than Shanghai, but the
price certainly was: 5 RMB (approx $0.65USD) for one basket!
Me and some of Easten's students. The white guy's name is Dan, he's Easten's fellow teacher.
Among other things I did that weekend, I got a chance to experience
drinking tea Chinese-style. Easten has become quite the
connoisseur of Chinese tea and is a member of a local tea house.
Apparently, there are a lot of rules and steps to follow when mixing
and pouring the tea. There are even special rules about how
sniff, hold, and drink the cup of tea. I guess that’s why the
call it a tea ceremony. And ofcourse what kind of trip would it
be if we didn’t go out for karaoke. I think we pretty much
exhausted the English music selection. I really need to learn
some Chinese songs so next time I’ll be better prepared.
Above: At the tea house. Note that I am holding the cup correctly. Left to right: Leslie, Me, Dan, Lydia, Easten.
Below: Easten's David Tao impression impresses Leslie, while Lydia finds more music.
The only unfortunate thing about this trip was that it was raining
pretty much the whole weekend, so I didn’t really get a chance to see
too much of the city itself. Oh well, Wuhu’s only five hours
away, another time!
Finally I must tell one crazy story before I finish this post.
Most people know that I can be a pretty absent-minded person, so it may
come as no surprise that I was having so much fun that I missed my
train back to Shanghai. I rushed to the train station only to see
the last car pull away from the station. After finding out that
the last bus had already left for the day, my only options were to take
a slow train later that night, or wait for the next day. Neither
of these were options since I had to get back to Shanghai for class the
next morning.
As I walked out of the train station, trying to figure out how solve
this dilemma, a man standing by a motorcycle beckoned for me, saying
“Shanghai, Shanghai over here.” I wondered how he knew I needed
to go to Shanghai, but I guess it was pretty obvious from me
frantically running around and now sporting a dejected looking
face. He said, “90 RMB (approx. $11USD) and I can take you back
to Shanghai by tonight.” Ofcourse, I thought this is probably a
deal too good to be true, but then again 90 RMB is a lot of money for
locals. Without too many other options, I decided to hop on his
bike and take a chance.
The biker drove me to the edge of the city and dropped my off by the
highway. There, I was to wait with group of other people that had
also missed the train were waiting for a bus to come by bound for
Shanghai. After waiting for an hour on the highway shoulder
(thank God it wasn’t raining), an ominous-looking bus with dark tinted
windows pulled over to the shoulder just long enough for me and a few
others to jump on quickly.
Waiting for the bus to Shanghai. Squatting and reading the paper is a common sight.
When I got on the bus, I was shocked. If you are familiar with
the Chinatown bus in the U.S. this operation is ten times worse.
The poorly ventilated air inside was thick with cigarette smoke and the
interior was stacked with rows upon rows of bunks and surely over safe
capacity. The vast majority of the passengers were probably low-wage
workers and looked upon me as a curious specimen. I had to fight
for a little space on a bunk in the back of the bus; the other four
people I shared the back bunk with obviously did not want to give up
any more of the little space they had.
A
view from inside the bus: note the stacks of bunks. After I took
this picture, I realized that its probably best not to flash my fancy
looking digital camera.
The bus pulled away from the side of the road and thus began the long
journey back to Shanghai. We drove, sometimes on local roads
(probably to avoid expensive tolls) and sometimes on highways, stopping
occasionally to drop people off by the side of the road, as there are
no bus stations for such a bus. We did stop by at a rest area for
dinner, and it resembled what I image a Communist-era canteen would
look like. I did get to chatting with the passenger next to me, a
migrant construction worker, and that passed the time a little
quicker. He was totally fascinated that I was an American who
looked and spoke Chinese. He kept saying, “…but you don’t look
American…” (apparently a lot of people here think Americans only look
white). After seven hours, we finally arrived in Shanghai.
I got dropped off with a few others, then flagged a taxi to take me
home.
As with many things in China, there are legal ways do things, and there
are illegal ways to do things. You can buy real Nike sneakers or
fake Nike sneakers. You can buy real DVDs or you can buy
bootlegs. You can legal transportation, or you can take illegal
transportation. I unknowingly found my way onto what they call a
“hei ce” or “black bus.” For many locals, this is a more
affordable way to travel. The 90 RMB I paid was almost definitely
an outrageously inflated price. However, these buses do not abide
by regulations such as passenger capacity, time schedules, or
insurance. It is definitely a more dangerous way to travel, and I
think next time I will stick to legal transportation.
As with fake sneakers and bootleg DVDs, the government is officially
against these types of transportation. The big question
concerning illegal operations in China is, if China truly wants to
improve its image to the outside world as a safe place for foreign
investment, then why isn’t there more of an effort to shut these
operations down? Case and point: consider the famous Xiangyang
market (where everyone’s fake Northface jackets used to come from) that
shut down last year only to reopen in five or six different locations
across Shanghai. A similar thing happened to markets in Beijing.
One reason for allowing illegal operations, people propose, is that
China is greedy. They argue that Chinese people love to make
money, and shutting down these types of black operations would hamper
the opportunity for China to get richer. As the case with the
fake-goods markets, illegal operations are a good way to make money off
of foreigners.
However, on the other hand, if illegal operations, which are rampant
across China, were to be shut down, many, many people would be without
a job. Thus the second reason these illegal operations are still
running is not that China is greedy, but rather that China needs to do
this to survive. The government turns a blind eye to illegal
operations because this is one way that people keep themselves
fed. If they were to be shut down, the government would have a
much larger problem providing them with jobs. Numerous locals
have told me the biggest problem facing China is not Taiwan or
challenging the U.S., it’s feeding its people.
Now, I’m not saying its one way or the other. The answer probably
lies somewhere in the middle. However, I could not even imagine
the second option until I got away from wealthy Shanghai. I’ve
written a lot about China’s growth and growth potential, and that’s
been easy for me to see while I’ve been living in Shanghai. After
this trip to Wuhu, I realized that its unrealistic to base my entire view and
perspective of China on Shanghai alone. Theres so much more to China than just Shanghai!
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| Wow...I have not updated in over a month!
China's traffic and transportation system has been on my mind recently,
and I've wanted to write on it for a while now. Perhaps its
unfair to say China's traffic, since I have only really observed
Shanghai, and Shanghai is a pretty atypical Chinese city.
Atypical because of its intense corporatization, commercialization,
capitalization, communicationization, cosmopolitanization...I'm just
making up 'c' letter words now but you get the idea. Notice
Communization isn't one of the words I made up and used.
Although China is still very much a Communist state, it is quite simple
to walk around and live the Shanghai life and actually not really
notice anything resembling an Orwellian Communist society.
Shanghai is China's window for the outside world. When outside
people want to see what China is like, they first must look through
Shanghai. Because Shanghai is China's symbol and icon of
continuing economic development over the past 25 years, there are so
many things here that set it apart from the rest of China.
Besides the Olympics in 2008, Shanghai is set to host the world fair in
2010. As such, there has been an ongoing campaign to shape up
this city and make it presentable to the world. Shanghai's
traffic and transportation system is something that I have noticed is a
symbol of that development.
Lets start with pedestrian traffic. The most common way of
getting around in any large city is on foot, and China is no
exception. However, most cities do not find their streets as
crowded as you do here. When there are so many people, its very
hard to control and regulate. J-walking is not such a big deal in
the U.S. I've never seen anyone get ticketed for it in the
States, but people generally abide by the rules cross streets at
crosswalks and then only when the light turns. In China, it is a
different story. People here cross streets at will regardless of
crosswalks or sometimes even regardless of oncoming traffic. This
may all seem very messy and disorderly, but somehow a sort of implicit
understanding of traffic rules has developed here. However, the
government truly wants to change this messy pedestrian image and are
trying desperately to educate the public on pedestrian etiquette.
My dad told me that for one day all the police came out in force and
started handing out tickets to people that j-walked in an effort to
teach the public not to do that. Needless to say, it didn't go
over too well with the public. Right now in Shanghai at the
busier intersections, there are two or three traffic directors on each
corner during rush hour. They are there to control the crowd and
make sure people only cross when the signal changes. I saw an
fiery elderly lady get into a shoving match with one of these traffic
directors the other day because she was trying to cross the street
against the light. Sometimes I think old ladies have the hardest
time adjusting to this new image China.
Bikes and scooters: One of the most conveneint and popular ways to get
around the
city is by bike or scooter. The streets here have special
bike/scooter lanes on the side designated for the grand masses of these
lighter vehicles. They are not supposed to be allowed on
sidewalks, but like pedestrians, they don't always follow the
rules. For
instance, the other day, I was crossing the street at a corner when a
scooter barrels around the corner and crosses right behind me, missing
hitting me by inches. In the U.S. that would have been a near
death (or hospital visit) experience. In Shanghai, that is no big
thing. The driver of the scooter has calculated in his head
exactly my speed and how much space to give me and give himself.
Everything is fine as long as I walk at a constant pace. God
forbid that the driver slow down a little bit because that would make
him too passive a driver, and passive drivers don't stand a chance in
China.
Cars are status symbols in China. If you have a car, that
means you've made it, especially if it is a foreign import. There
are all types of cars on the streets: imports like toyotas, audis,
buicks, volkswagens, renaults, and indigenous cars like
"cherrys." The difficulty with owning a car is its incredible
cost and upkeep. There are high taxes on imports, which can range
to ore than double the cost. American cars are the largest and
most expensive, and thus they hold higher status compared with the rest
of the cars. Buicks and Cadillacs are considered high end luxury
cars here. Many people that can afford cars or have
companies that afford them cars also hire chauffeurs as well.
Labor is cheap, and jobs must be created. A friend once
told me that the level of development of a Chinese city by
looking at the car to taxi ratio. A higher ratio of cars
indicates that there are numerous wealthy people that can afford
cars. Shanghai definetely has a very high number of cars, and
that ratio will continue to rise.
Due to countless conversations with taxi drivers, I could write an
entire article on taxis, but I'll try to keep it short here.
Taxis are plentiful in Shanghai, and the price is relatively cheap
compared with western standards. Meters start at 11RMB during the
day ($1.25) and most places within Shanghai should cost less than
30RMB. You can pay with either cash or swipe a transit
card. By the way, transit cards (called jiaotong ka) are
amazing. You can pay for taxis, buses, and the metro all with the
same convenient card. For locals, it is still quite expensive for
the everday person to ride taxis, and buses continue to be the
preferred method of transportation. Few taxi drivers own
their own business and most belong to one of a few large taxi
companies. Each taxi driver has a rating out of 5 stars. I
have never seen a five star driver, and even four star drivers are
quite rare. Two and three star drivers are quite common.
Stars are obtained by passing exams that test their driving skills,
knowledge of the roads, and even language competency. For
instance, some level of English language competency is required for 3
star drivers. Each driver also has a serial number. This
number, depending on
how high or low, indicates how long they've been driving
for. A driver I had today had a number in the 5,000s, which means
he has probably been driving for around 20 years. I believe the
newest drivers are in the 290,000 range right now. This number is
also used so unsatisfied customers can report drivers that they had
problems with. You can usually tell the quality of a driver by
how many stars they have and how low their serial number is. For
instance, a driver with few stars and a very high number means they are
inexperienced and probably do not know the roads well. A driver
with few stars and a very low number indicates that while they are very
experienced, they will probably provide poor customer service.
The best drivers I have found are the ones that have many stars, yet
also have very high numbers. They have worked hard to climb the
system fast. Taxis are plentiful right now and usually it is not
difficult to find one and flag it down (depending on the weather and
time of day). However, with the completion of five more metro
lines in Shanghai, demand for taxis will drop considerably.
Buses in Shanghai are also a symbol of development. Right now,
buses are the most economic and popular form of public
transportation. Most rides cost 2RMB ($0.25). It is also a
very popular form of transportation because it is much more
comprehensive than the metro. Shanghai has a very efficient and
comprehensive network of bus lines. In addition, the buses come
often; at least one every ten minutes.
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| I have been in China for more than three weeks now, and I am slowly
starting to adjust and get into a rhythm of life. In the first
few weeks, I have been busy adjusting to student life. I withdrew
from Jiaotong University's Chinese language program and enrolled in
East China Normal University's Chinese language, where all of my
friends that studied in Shanghai attended. Jiaotong University,
although one of the top schools in China, is traditionally a science
and technology school. Although they have great facilities and
ample funding, I've heard that because East China Normal is a teaching
university, the quality of the teaching there is higher.
So, I started my Chinese classes at East China Normal University (ECNU)
week and a half ago, and so far it has been pretty manageable.
Surprisingly, a large portion of the student body in my language
program are Korean. There are probably around 600 students
enrolled in the program, and a good 30-40% are Koreans. On the
most part, they are extremely cliquey and love to gather in clumps and
speak Korean amongst themselves. There is also a sizeable
Japanese population in the program as well, but they are better about
blending in with the rest of the population. There are people
from all over the world in this program, including Europe, Africa,
South America, and the United States. Most people I have
encountered have been very friendly, and I hope I will be able make
some good friends. I am impressed that for a number of the
students, Chinese is their third or fourth language (English is their
second). The Langauge Program is in a walled off corner of ECNU's
campus (I heard it used to be a
Middle School) and is, for the large part, isolated from the local
students.
During registration, it was required that I take a diagnostic test in
order to be placed in the appropriate difficulty level (Level 1, 2, or
3). The first part of the diagnostic was an oral interview with a
teacher, which I approached confidently. We talked about the hot
Shanghai weather, my family, my impression of Shanghai, and why I am in
China. I felt like I was building a pretty good rapport with the
the teacher conducting my diagnostic. The smile on her face
indicated that she was obviously impressed with my speaking
ability. When our conversation ended, she suggested that I would
probably be placed in one of the Level 3 classes where they students
learn Chinese literature and idioms. I was quite flattered that
she thought so highly of my speaking ability, but knowing that my
reading and writing were a bit rusty, I told her that it would perhaps
be more appropriate to be placed in a Level 2 intermediate class.
She then pulled out a level 2 textbook and asked me to read an
excerpt...uh oh...My brain strained to remember words that I last used
nine or ten years ago in Chinese school. I managed to pick out
three or four familiar words in the first few sentences. The
teacher was obviously not impressed, and the look on her face had
changed considerably to that of concern. She took out a Level 1
textbook and had me read an excerpt, where I managed to pick out maybe
six words in the first few sentences. With a sigh, the
teacher declared that although my speaking and listening ability
are fine, unfortunately I do not know enough characters to handle a
Level 2 class. Thus, I am now registered in a Level 1 class,
where, in all honesty, I probably belong. The teacher left me
with this: because I have a solid foundation with my speaking ability,
if I put the effort in, I could probably learn enough characters to
move to a much higher level later. I hope I have enough
flashcards for the amount of characters I plan on learning!
My placement is somewhat of a blow to my pride. Comparatively, I
know I used to be pretty good in Chinese school because they always had
those class rankings. I hated those class rankings because I was
never number one...or number two...but I was still pretty high. I
was a perennial candidate for the 'yian jiang bi sai' (speech contest),
and I have Chinese school trophies to show for it. I sacrificed
many a Saturday forgoing cartoons and playing outside for the sake of
cramming for exams. Were all those years of Sunday afternoon
Chinese school classes all for naught? I remember years ago, my
mom told me that one day I would value Chinese and appreciate them
pushing me to work hard in Chinese school or else I would regret
it. I hate to say it...
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| So, I finally got off my butt
and decided to upload some pictures of the vacation...2 weeks
late! Sorry! I'll post again this weekend on what I've been
up to these last few weeks. For now, enjoy the pics!
Above: The Tour Group,
top left Uncle Austin, Auntie Theresa, Uncle Vincent, Me, Dad, Mrs.
Chuang, and Rev. Chuang. Bottom row: Auntie Margaret, and my Mom.
Below: West lake in Hangzhou.
Below: Beautiful scenic Huangshan. This is where all the Chinese paintings of mountains come from.
Above: The sunrise on
Huangshan is a big deal because it isn't always visible due to poor
weather, clouds, fog, etc. The weather was poor that day and we
waited and waited for the sun to bust through the fog and come out over
the horizon. It finally did. I have a crazy story about
this, maybe I'll post about it sometime if I can.
Above: Me and my family at the summit.
Below: Me in front of one of Huangshan's giant precipices.
Above: Qiandao Lake...what used to be thousands of mountaintops and hilltops are now islands.
Below: Me posing at one of the scenic points at Qiandao Lake.
Above: One of the
tourist attractions at Qiandao was this pool of starving fish. 10
RMB got you a bag of treats to throw at the fish. They're so
hungry the all swarm the fish crackers you throw in the pool. And
then we go ooOOooohh aaAAAaaahhh when they fight over the food.
Below: Last but not least, I promised a picture of the 29th floor
highrise apartment. This is just the living room. Yes, it
is pretty incredible...I'm not gonna lie, I live like a king here.
I know half the people that
read xangas (including me) don't even read the entries, and just look
at pics, so I'll try to post some more sometime. Perhaps someday
I'll even post a video!!
Ok...lets not get too ahead of ourselves, I'm somewhat computer and
technology inept.
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| I just got back from my trip to Huangshan and all I can say is that
China has some beautiful places. In actuality, our trip led us to
three different places in five days: Hangzhou, Huanshan, and
Qiandao. I went with my parents as part of a small tour group
arranged by my parents' friends.
They love tour groups in Asia. In America, I don't ever remember
going on a vacation with a tour group. Here, however, it almost
seems like people don't go on vacation by themselves.
They sign up for a tour group, usually with a complete package
including hotel, transportation, tour guide, itinerary, etc. You
know the stereotypical Japanese tour group with old ladies armed with
cameras being herded around by a tour guide waving a little red flag
and screaming into a megaphone? Well they seemed to be everywhere
we went in China...and we were one of them! There were Korean
groups, Japanese groups, Taiwaneses groups, groups with old women,
groups with young
families and little kids, even a few groups of white people.
Everywhere we went, we were surrounded by other tour groups. Even
for us, every different location we went to, we were led by a local
tour guide
bearing official China tour guide ID badges. Although, to our
credit, our tour leaders were above the level of obnoxious flag waving
and megaphone blaring type.
Although I was dreading the notion of spending 5 days with my parents
and their friends, the trip actually went quite well and I got along
nicely with my parents' friends. Perhaps I've grown up a little
bit and can appreciate hanging out with them on their level. On
the other hand, at times, this group of 50 year olds my parents' age
acted surprisingly like my people my age do. They like to joke
around, laugh, and have fun just like we do! In fact, I have
video footage of them rocking on seesaws and pumping on swingsets in a
childrens' playground. Perhaps the generation gap between my
parents and I is decreasing as I get older and they...get older?
Besides my my parents and I, our tour group consisted of three other
couples. I brought my videocamera along and played the role of
cameraman. Hopefully I will have the chance to go through footage
and compile a little video or something.
Let me tell you a little bit about what we saw. Our first stop
was Hangzhou, which is one of China's fastest growing cities. One
of Deng
Xiaoping's Special Economic Zone projects from the 1980s, they have a
fast growing
population of 7 million already. There's so much development
going on in this city: there were so many building projects and highway
construction going on around this city. Boasting the newest taxis
in all of China, almost all the taxis I saw were
Volkswagen Passats. What I liked about this city was that
although it is quite densely urbanized, they still make it a point to
keep the city green and have trees planted everywhere. While
here, our group hit up all the tourist traps: buddhist temple, garden,
night market, and boatride on the lake. It was fun, but it was so
hot (36-38 celcius!). I was relieved to hear that our next stop
would be alot cooler.
Our next stop was Huangshan...simply beautiful. I always thought
Chinese people just didn't know how to paint mountains because
mountains in the U.S. never looked like the mountains
in Chinese paintings. Honestly, before this trip, I had no idea
what Huangshan was, let alone what it looked like. You know those
Chinese paintings of steep black rock mountains and surrounded by seas
of clouds and those 'banzai trees' growing out of the rocks? That
is exactly what Huangshan looks like. Huangshan isn't known for
being particurly tall, but it is famous because of its beauty.
Roads only go halfway up
the mountain, and our little blue tourbus dropped us off and we boarded
a 50 passenger gondola car that carried us the rest of the way to the
top. At the top of the mountain, we hiked on prepaved paths
leading to scenic points. It was very much like a national park
in the U.S. except much more crowded and much more developed and
commercialized. By developed and commercialized, I mean there
were little booths everywhere on the mountain with vendors hawking
goods. Not to take away from the beauty of the scenery, the stone
brick paths and and hotels at the peak did remind me that the economic
side of the tourism industry is very much a part of Huangshan as
well. We stayed overnight at a hotel on top of the mountain and
the next morning witnessed sunrise on the peak.
One surprising factoid: everything on Huangshan is carried up by
manpower. They must need hundreds of people hiking up and down
the mountain everyday just to keep the mountain running. Whether
it be food, equipment, dirty laundry, construction materials,
everything that is used on the peak is carried up the mountain by pure
human labor. While hiking on the peak, it was common to see these
laborers with a bamboo pole across their back and one large bundle
suspended at each end. My first thought was: what a serious
misallocation of human resources! Certainly it is cheaper, even
in China, to have equipment lifted to the peak by the same gondola cars
that carry tourists to the top. My dad explained it to me this
way and I quickly understood the reasoning. If they don't employ
people to carry things up the mountain, those people won't have a
job. While China's economy is growing at a rapid pace, its
population is so big, that it is still not as efficient as the U.S.
economy. If technology and capital growth reach its potential,
and the labor force is employed more effeciently (e.g. utilizing the
gondola instead of using human labor to transport things to the top of
the mountain) China's gross output would be astronomical. That is
why there is so much hype about China. However, as long as
Huangshan uses human mules, China's potential still will not be met.
Our final stop on the trip was Qiandao Hu (Thousand Island
Lake). This lake is really something. I was puzzled as to
why there would be a random lake with more than a thousand islands
populating it. Was it some kind of volcanic crater? Was it
something to do with glacial movement? Fifty years ago, there was
no lake there. In fact, there was only a river running through
this hillrange dotted with thousands of villages and hamlets. In
1959, the government built dams, moved the population out, and flooded
this area to generate hydroelectric power. The 1078 islands in
this lake are what used to be mountain and hilltops in this
valley. Was it worth it to flood the valley? In addition to
hydroelectric power, Qiandao Hu is also a major source of tourism in
the area. Our group chartered a boat, which took us to a few of
the islands specifically catered for tourism. I was very
impressed with how clean the parks on the islands were
maintained...ofcourse, vendors, peddlers, and hawkers included.
All in all, the trip was very much worthwhile and very
educational. Even driving through the countryside, I saw a lot of
development on one end, and boondock country bumpkin village living on
the other end, often right next to each other. In addition, it
was well worth spending time with my parents. I was completely
exhausted by the end of the trip. I've been in China for almost a
week now, but I've hardly had a chance to explore what Shanghai has to
offer. Hopefully I will have a chance to look around this week
before classes start. A few of you guys have asked what my place
looks like. I'll be sure to
post some pics of my place and the trip when I figure out how. I
know how boring pic-less blogs are!
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