Random Chongqing Photos-
Top： View from my host family’s living room window.
Bottom: The Jialing River 嘉陵江.

Reading Comprehension (Rant?):

I have taken it upon myself to translate a passage from our “Reading Comprehension” text book. This passage is what one whole lesson revolves around (the vocab, the grammar, the plot etc.). It’s not a long passage, but instead of being culturally and historically significant (we have yet to read about any dynasties, ancient Chinese customs, folk tales etc.) we read a dramatic/self-criticizing passage with some sort of propagandist motives. Plus this passage is just downright ridiculous. Pay attention to how much emphasis is placed on studying and school:

Chinese level 301, Duxie Textbook: Lesson 8 page 76

Questioning Oneself 反省Fan3 xing3

(taken from “Hongxiu Tianxiang Wenxue” website, written by Whyyuwen)

A game is used for entertainment and relaxation. Never glorify it as the focus of your mind. Otherwise, you will very quickly understand what one calls regret.

My dear…(please don’t mind me if I call you that, because there’s a reason behind it). I think about those days, that fateful coincidence, when I met you in the computer, and then like an enchanter of souls you hooked my heart so deeply, infatuating me… You also seemed like a kind passerby helping me out, I was extremely moved. Little by little I realized that I kind of wasn’t able to leave you. From time to time your frame would flash into my mind. Sometimes I would even great you in my dreams. I like a certain beauty, it’s called artistic conception; I like a certain feeling, it’s called freedom; I like a certain a delight, it’s called wandering; I like even more a certain facial expression; it’s called arrogance. You have everything I like, and you didn’t save these things for yourself, but gave them all to me. Your picture, full of artistic conception like a piece of nature full of beautiful scenery, attracts me. You generously granted me power, allowing me to experience what one calls bossiness, what one calls success. And this success seems to come faster than that in reality. For all these years, you supported me as always, lovingly cared for me, and this never changed. Tell me just how could I not call you “my dear”?

However, “my dear”, I would like for you to first forgive me, even though I am so unwilling to do so, I have made the decision to say bye bye to you. For a little while you probably won’t be able to understand why I did this, but slowly you will get it. No one can be together forever.

We have been “friends” for so long, you also should know me, even though I haven’t gone through hell and high water for you, but I have at least have had a heart of undying loyalty to you. Since I have met you I haven’t made any other “friends.” Even though they have tried their best to tempt me, I never did make “friends” with them. All of this is because of you. But I wasn’t able to kill two birds with one stone. Although you have seen me earn success and earn a place in your world, you haven’t seen how black and blue reality has beaten me, how it’s made me worthless. Because the world is ruthless, it won’t recognize the friend I have in you. The more I get out of you, the more reality takes from me. I have no power to withstand it. I thought this over through and through before making this terrible parting decision.

I remember after making friends with you, I was basically with you every day. As long as I had time, I would see you. I would say that it was like every moment with you counted. Maybe it’s because I was with you too long, like being in another world altogether, after coming back to reality I discovered that all my friends treat me like an alien. The act like I am some unknown stranger to them. One time, just after we had finished our “date”, as soon as I came out of the internet café I ran into them. Smiling, one of them said to me “Xiao Yu, What have you been up to lately? You’ve gotten skinny! Heard that you’ve gotten rich in the internet café! When the day comes that you strike it rich, don’t forget your buddies!” Then another said “Oh yeah, today the math teacher was looking for you, but you weren’t there. You were in the internet café all along!” They walked away laughing and talking amongst themselves. Hearing this was like a blow to the head. That happy feeling a moment ago had utterly vanished. I know they’re making fun of me, ridiculing me, and I have no strength to say anything back. Suddenly I remembered that the day before yesterday our math teacher had us do a set of test questions. I knew that I must have done badly, that must be why he was looking for me. It made me feel as if I had fallen from the top of a mountain, smashing: in to pieces.

I sucked it up and went to school. Like last time, the math teacher really let me have it, my heart ached. As I got home I ran into Dad, the first thing he said to me was “Son, it’s about time you get your hair cut.” I managed to say:

“Didn’t I just have it cut?”

“You just got it cut and it’s already that long?”

I went straight to my room to look in the mirror. Besides my hair I almost couldn’t see my face! My hair was blocking my fair, just like a hoodlum!

“This is me?” I asked myself.

Also, I had gotten incredibly skinny, this is no good news considering I was nowhere near fat before. It wasn’t until then that I realized I should cut my hair and gain some weight. To be honest with you, being “friends” with you this long, I actually almost forgot that drastic bodily changes were the cost of our relationship.

This isn’t too bad, even worse was that final exam.

Those few days before the test, I hadn’t reviewed properly for any of the subjects, they felt like a big mountain weighing on top of me, preventing me from catching my breath. Every time I felt tired from studying I would think of you. Then I saw all my classmates working so hard to prepare for the exam, I got rid of any idea I had to see you and kept studying. But good times don’t last long, once I’d see a problem I couldn’t solve, my head would hurt. I really wanted to get it out of my system, in the end I did secretly “meet up with you”. Honestly speaking, in your world I have even more success and freedom. No one but me can understand that. But do you know my grade for that exam? I failed all three subjects! I hurt more than ever, you probably don’t know what this means for me, that exam wiped clean my records! I am one of the class’s good students. Now that I have failed three subjects, tell me how is one supposed to even raise one’s head? As soon as other people ask me what happened, I will make up some kind of elaborate excuse to get them off my back. I know I am making up a crazy reason because I didn’t do well. I know that I am not only lying to them but also to myself. The sole thing that comforts me, is that after he found out, Dad said “Son, don’t worry! Just take it as a lesson, like a mirror, reminding you to not make the same mistake twice!” As soon as I heard this, I felt my eyes swelling with hot tears, I couldn’t think of anything to say, all I could do was bite my lip and force the tears back.

Honestly speaking, I was ready to be properly scolded, I didn’t think Dad would say anything like that. Maybe I was truly wrong, and truly should reflect on my actions. The me that used to get good grades now fails three subjects! Therefore, I have decided to find the cause of this problem. What I didn’t think would happen was that after examining all the uncertainties, you were actually the cause! It wasn’t until that point that I had that feeling of sudden realization! Really those on the outside of our friendship could have known! I know that I am a person thirsting for success and others’ approval. That imaginary world of yours was able to quickly sate my thirst. This gave me a confident feeling of triumph. I think that must have been what so deeply attracted me, what made me unable to pull myself away, and also what lead me to “dating” you every day. One date was several hours. Sometimes, just to get close to you, I would save all my down time for you. Because of this, my study time decreased by several hours, and I slowly fell behind, leading me to my present predicament.

Once I understood, I decided that I need to part ways with you. I will do my best to cut down my time “with you”. I think you already feel this. I have put most of my time back into studying now. After two months, I realized that I have returned back to my normal self. My grades are gradually going up. My body is much healthier. I have made up with my friends too. This kind of joy is something I can’t get from you, and at the same time it’s what I truly want. My dear, please forgive me. I hope that you can face our relationship. Actually, I ought to face you. Your purpose is only for entertainment and relaxation. Never allow others to become dependent on you. I will control myself; meeting with you occasionally is still alright. But it will never again be as frequent as before.

Ok my dear, that’s all I’ll say. I am still young, the road ahead of me is the most important! We will have our time in the future.

(If you didn’t get it, the guy was “dating” a computer game!)

Stuff I ask myself: If this “dating” went on for so long, wouldn’t you think the parents would have intervened somehow? Wouldn’t the friends have done something more than just randomly mock their old friend who clearly has a problem with computer game addiction? If you were addicted to computer games, would failing some test questions in math really make you rethink your life? Why didn’t the dad ask his son to cut his hair earlier (if it wasn’t obvious before, clearly there are some issues at home!)?

And this is what I ALWAYS find myself asking during the lesson: Why are we reading this? Is this to encourage us to stay away from (the) internet (cafes) and focus more on our studies, what are we 12? Shouldn’t we at least be reading Chinese works written by well-known authors? Even Mao Zedong wouldn’t hurt!

Top Photo: A man walking between two abandoned pools. The buildings in the background are very typical Chongqing apartment blocks. But during this trip there seem to be fewer and fewer.
Second Row left: A couple overlooking a piece of undeveloped land near Chongqing’s city center.
Second Row right: Zhaozhao and my host sister.
Third Row left: Looking up within the bamboo grove on the Chuan Mei 川美 campus.
Third Row right: Looking across one of the bridges over the Jialing River 嘉陵江.
Bottom Row left: People playing (and watching) an afternoon game of cards on the street.
Bottom Row right: People drinking tea and playing chess in a local park.

Over the May holidays (Labor Day) I went to see my host family in Chongqing. I was looking forward to a week lounging around doing absolutely nothing. The week before I had contracted tonsillitis, so I even had an excuse not to eat any of the outrageously spicy local Chongqing cuisine. My host family was busy as usual. They welcomed my lounging around the house, as they didn’t feel like they needed to take me anywhere or change any of their plans. My tonsillitis still allowed me to talk, and didn’t leave me bedridden so I actually got to take in my host family’s daily life. I walked my host sister to her after school classes and picked her up from school. She’s seven now, much taller than I remember but still just as sassy! If I wasn’t reading, spiffying up my Chinese penmanship, or sleeping, I was either chatting with the housekeeper (we call her Ayi 阿姨“auntie”) or taking little strolls around the neighborhood. I think I spent that week emulating a retired old Chinese person. My Chongqing dialect even started to come back (it helped that I did some research before returning this time).

One day I did go out and meet up with an old friend. She, Zhaozhao 趙曌, was the host sister of my Brazilian classmate at No. 8 Middle School. I literally (and I mean that) squeezed myself onto a jam-packed bus to get to her university located on the outskirts of Chongqing. I actually flew into the bus because of the building pressure of bodies behind me. Somehow I managed to get a seat near the window at the very back. Thank god! It was hot outside already, I don’t know what I would have done if I had to stand for an hour in that sweltering sweatbox of a so-called bus.  It did remind me of my high school exchange though, that sort of thing happened on a daily basis.

Zhaozhao met me at the bus stop, showed me around “university town”, and took me to lunch. University town is the name for a cluster of different university campuses located just outside Chongqing. They have a communal shopping center which seems to be where all the students congregate. Zhaozhao studies TV and film production at one of the universities. We had a great time catching up. Zhaozhao had done an AFS exchange to Norway two years ago, I could tell that she’s changed! Last time I saw her she was getting ready to leave China. She seems much more open and relaxed. She had a lot of good things to say about her year in Norway. Now when we talk about China/Chinese culture there are much more things we agree on.

Next, we met Zhaozhao’s friends and went for coffee in this neat little café close to the Sichuan University of Fine Art. Most of Zhaozhao’s friends are relaxed like her. They don’t remind me of other Chinese university students at all! I really felt at home with them. I felt like we were all old friends. The campus of Sichuan University of Fine Art, sometimes called Chuan Mei 川美, is so interesting! It’s a very new campus with a strikingly stylish modern design. The grounds have preserved the farm that once took up the majority of the campus. As they showed me around we heard the mooing of cows and the squawking of geese. There was a pretty bamboo grove and even some working rice fields. Zhaozhao and her friends were complaining because the Chongqing TV Channel had “exposed” Chuan Mei’s grounds as a “free park,” thus attracting many city dwellers for a city escape during the weekends.

Zhaozhao’s friend, who I had known as “Mushroom” Mogu 蘑菇, because of her old hairstyle back when I first met her, took us on a tour of her studio. She is a really talented painter! I remember back (three years ago) when I first met her, she always carrying a sketchbook. I never saw her oil paintings though! They’re modern, yet very tasteful and interesting, nothing obscene. In fact, all of the art I saw at Chuan Mei seemed very creative. From what I saw, it didn’t seem like a school that was focused only on training students in artistic technique, but also encouraging creativity (I was a bit surprised to be honest).

In the evening, we had dinner at Zhaozhao’s friends’ shared apartment near the communal shopping center. The area around their apartment complex is still undeveloped. You have a great view of green mountains and fields just outside their window. They chose to live in an apartment that has not been finished (most new apartments in China come with the bare minimum, no tile flooring just concrete, a toilet, a shower, but no air-conditioning or stove), yet, making their rent super cheap! Everyone living their has done something different to their room to cover up the bare rough concrete flooring. Some put down those foam puzzle piece looking pads that you seen in Kindergarten or pre-schools. One guy actually got linoleum put it. Another had bamboo matting and taped up magazine pages. Each room was decorated very artistically, giving one an idea of what the inhabitant is like. Still it was a big apartment, with five bedrooms (one was actually a tiny storeroom, just big enough for a cot, off the balcony that a girl had turned into a bedroom, talk about compact living!).  

Zhaozhao’s friend cooked a lovely dinner. We spent the night talking openly about Chinese culture, politics, and gossip. I really enjoyed listening to the latest gossip about people I’d never met before. I felt like I was getting such a different kind of cultural experience. All the drama, who did what (I liked hearing this part, because you get to know what is acceptable/unacceptable in a circle of people), when, how? Oh it was great.

The rest of my trip was spent comfortably within the air-conditioned walls of my host family’s apartment. I continued on with my life as a retired old Chinese person. It was just what I needed.　During this vacation I realized just how much more I enjoy Southern Chinese living than Northern (Beijing is in the north). Chongqing is always green. It gets cold, but not nearly as cold as Beijing. The South is incredibly hot and humid, but at least you have air-conditioning (Beijing also gets unbearably dry and hot during the summer months). Also, the pace just seems slower in Chongqing. People seem to be more friendly and welcoming than those up North. Zhaozhao is convinced that his has to do with Southerners eating more peppers and living in a warmer climate than Northerners (this may be because the Chinese word for “welcoming,” “enthusiastic,” or “warm-hearted” is 熱情 meaning “hot feeling”). I don’t know about that, but I can see where she’s coming from.

Scroll down for my written post on my trip to Japan and more photos.

Top photo: altar at the temple and shrine dedicated to the “water trade” in Osaka
2nd row left: sake donated as an offering to a shrine in Tokyo
2nd row right: painted door at a temple in Kyoto
3rd row left: window display with ikebana (the art of flower arrangement) in Kyoto
3rd row center: shrine of Gion in Kyoto
3rd row right: bamboo grove on the grounds of a shrine, Kyoto
4th row left: temple, Kyoto
4th row center: vending machine selling books on the Tokyo underground
4th row right: blowfish in a fish tank outside a restaurant in Tokyo

See below for my post about my trip to Japan and more photos

Top: One of the many temples in Kyoto
2nd row left: another shot of the same temple pictured above
2nd row right: shrine in Gion devoted especially to beauty
3rd row left: the alleyways of Gion where the geisha live
bottom row left: matcha green tea served with little cakes in a teahouse on a lake in a Tokyo park.
bottom row right: fish pond in Kyoto

See post below for details of my trip to Japan and more photos.

Photos:

Top: Our youth hostel near Asakusa during our second half of our stay in Tokyo.
2nd row left: foot of the statue at the Shinto shrine of unborn children.
2nd row right: altar at a shrine in Asakusa with Japanese raccoon statue
3rd row left： the miniature Mt. Fuji in the yard of our youth hostel.
3rd row right: view of Tokyo tower taken from the Mori art museum
Bottom row left: cigarette vending machine, Tokyo
Bottom row center: posing with Xenia in front of an Ay-o painting
Bottom row right: in front of Tokyo tower

Ok now I am finally getting to the Japan portion of my Chinese New Year vacation in February!

photos:

top: view of Tokyo taken from the City Hall building.
2nd row left: famous Harajuku shopping area
2nd row right: woman dressed in a kimono in Tokyo’s Ginza district
3rd row left: near the harbor area of Tokyo
3rd row center: wagashi a Japanese sweet cake, that come in many different designs, often taken with tea
3rd row right: the Tsukiji fish market
Bottom left: wood votive placards (on the back of which prayers are written) hung outside a Shinto shrine
bottom right: koi pond

Initially I was worried that our trip to Japan would not live up to the trip we had in Korea. I was also afraid that the whole wonderment of Japan was overhyped. Turns out, it wasn’t at all overhyped. Xenia and I ended up having a blast. We spent close to three weeks in Japan. Most of which we were in Tokyo, we spent about five days in Kyoto (while one of which was a day trip to Osaka).

I am not even sure how to begin describing our trip. Japan is everything they say it is, clean, crowded, quiet, safe, expensive, convenient, strange, historical, modern etc.  It was shocking how clean it is in Tokyo especially after coming to China. I can’t recall seeing any litter. People are very polite.

One of the many stark contrasts with China is that the subway is virtually silent. Hardly anyone will dare to answer a phone call, so most people text instead. Other than that everyone seems to be pouring over petite hand-size books (bookstores provide complimentary paper covers so others can’t see what you’re reading) or reading a manga (Japanese comics) book as thick as a phonebook. I did notice that men were even reading manga porn out in the open on the subway. No one seemed to disapprove either! We took the subway just about everywhere (taxis are atrociously expensive), so we had ample time for observation.

Our trip began in a dingy cheap youth hostel in the north eastern part of Tokyo, dubbed “old Tokyo” where the buildings do not reach skyscraper height. It was a very quiet neighborhood full of old people, a perfect place to walk around and get oriented before diving into the hustle and bustle of the inner city. The youth hostel was less than nice, but it was cheap and that’s all that mattered. It did, however, have great toilets. The seats were heated for the winter! At first everyone seems to think this is “weird”, but believe me, you get used to it real fast! Also, we did have to take our shoes off at the entrance of the youth hostel.  Most of the occupants were drunken foreigners, and the sitting room was always full of the same dumb sounding westerners (you should have heard the strange [often drunken] stuff people were saying).  Thus we were very motivated to get out and explore!

Just about everything that is listed in the lonely planet guidebook for Tokyo, we have done. Every night we came back to the hostel pooped. Luckily, Xenia and I had our friends Hiroshi, Shinichi, and Koichi to hang with when we explored the city. They liked going out and exploring with us because they are all from commuter cities on the outskirts of Tokyo. 

In Tokyo we saw many many many museums. My favorite was the Tokyo National Museum located in the middle of Ueno park. We were there until closing time and we managed to see only one building. The museum is full of samurai armor, samurai swords, traditional clothing, paintings, ceramics, calligraphy, sculpture, and slightly creepy Noh (a type of Japanese theatre) masks. I lost track of time, it was just like my 5^th grade dream come true. All things quintessentially Japanese in one space! I didn’t realize how much time we’d spent there until the PA sounded for closing time.

Besides museums we saw a lot of temples. There are two types of Temples in Japan: Buddhist and Shinto. Shinto is the native, very animistic, religion of Japan. Shinto temples are technically called Shrines, and are believed to be the home of the god enshrined. I found the Shinto shrines to be very fascinating. They all had their own stories and purposes. People would go to pray at different shrines fro different purposes, depending on the gods residing there. Apparently there are over 8 million Shinto gods. We visited quite a few temples throughout our entire trip (most of the more famous ones), some of which include the god of feminine beauty, the patron god of the Asakusa area of Tokyo, the god of unborn children, the god of travel, the god of the city of Kyoto to name a few. Each one reminded me of a bit of a Studio Ghibli film. All of the Shrines were in a style of traditional Japanese architecture and most had amazing gardens.

We did not do tea ceremony whilst in Japan (it’s very expensive) but we were served matcha (a type of green tea) in a traditional setting at a teahouse on a lake in a Tokyo park, and in a temple in Kyoto. I did eat sushi though, despite all the warnings of radiation. I figure, I have no idea when I will be in Japan next, might as well eat the sushi when I know I have the chance. We ate at the counter of a little family run place near the big Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo (famous for its huge fresh caught fish and early morning auctions). Japanese food was also another fun part about the trip, and I can’t ever recall a time when I was disappointed with what we were eating. Even the “fast food” katsudon seemed heavenly. Definitely not nearly as oily as Chinese food! The food we ate in Japan always seemed crisp and fresh, it always felt healthy.

In order to get to Kyoto on the cheap, we took a 9 hour night bus. It was not comfortable at all. Both of us hardly slept, and the air was very dry from the air conditioning. We needed about a day of recovery each way. But it was well worth it because of Kyoto’s old architecture and scenery. We couch surfed in Kyoto, which was a bit rough (cheap travelers can’t be choosers) because the man we stayed with had to leave his house everyday by 8am. Kyoto winter mornings aren’t the warmest! Again, thankfully Xenia and I had my friend (whom I met in Chongqing during my high school AFS exchange year) Yui to take us around.

Kyoto was more urban than I thought. I guess I had watched Memoirs of a Geisha too many times. There is most certainly a city in Kyoto. The older parts of Kyoto tend to be on the outskirts, or in patches around the city. The Gion quarter where all the geisha live was just as I had thought it to be.  The streets were incredibly narrow, and as you walk down the tiny streets you are surrounded by little shut up houses that seemed to be packed in like an overstuffed bookshelf. Xenia and I knew that there were geisha behind some of the sliding doors of those houses. It was a funny feeling, as if they were deliberately hiding.

Some of the best temples and gardens that we saw were in Kyoto. It’s difficult for me to describe them so I will have to just resort to posting my photos of these places. One night the man who we couchsurfed with took us to an outdoor hot spring up in the mountains just outside Kyoto.  The winter night air was perfect for a hot spring.

The only thing I wish we hadn’t done was go to Osaka. I feel like there was more in Kyoto that Xenia and I hadn’t yet seen. My friend Yui suggested that we go visit, but I found it to be very similar to Tokyo. It was just an urban sprawl with not much to see. Yui is from Osaka (which is just an hour’s train ride from Kyoto) but she wasn’t able to think of anything fun for us to do other than go see the big Osaka castle (which was only reconstructed in 1932). Other than that there was only shopping, which was not in our budget, and eating (I have to admit that the Osaka “octopus balls” are delicious). We did see a very small shrine dedicated to those who work in the “water trade” (sex trade). To pay your respects you had to throw water on the already moss covered Buddha statue. Oddly enough one side of the temple was Buddhist while the other was Shinto. We eventually ran out of things to do and just ended up in this time warp of a café. Everything including the faded pink phone at the counter looked straight out of the early 70s.

During our second half in Tokyo we stayed in a much nicer youth hostel in the same neighborhood as our previous Tokyo hostel. It’s the only hostel in Tokyo that is located in a traditional style Japanese home. Most of the staff seemed very nice at first, but overtime we quickly realized how anal retentive some of the staff were about rules. Nevertheless the hostel was gorgeous and I wanted to move in. There is a huge hill of stones in the backyard that people had carted over from Mount Fuji in the old days for worship. Now it is illegal to climb on the site as it is holy/historic. Technically the little hill is a miniature Mount Fuji.  The only ones who can get away with climbing on the big old mossy hill are the local cats. It was at this hostel, that Xenia and I made a great Australian friend who accompanied us on most of our last Tokyo adventures.

One of our great last Tokyo adventures was going to the bar in which Lost in Translation was filmed. You felt like you had just stepped into the movie, and what a nice hotel. Every one of the staff of the hotel was gorgeous. Not to mention that the view from the bar was spectacular. The duck fat French fries that I had were to die for. I can’t believe the man next to me (who ordered a $50 burger that came with the fries) didn’t finish his. I even said to him “Oh you should try those fries, they’re so good!” (hint hint if you don’t want them please give them to me!). He didn’t take the hint but he did agree.

a triptych from Jackie and Caroline’s visit to Beijing.

Scenery from my last trip to Shanghai

I almost completely forgot about this! A few weeks back Xenia and her friend (visiting from Germany) passed by a ghost-amusement park on their bus coming back from the Great Wall into Beijing. When Xenia got home she looked up the unfinished/abandoned theme park grounds and we all decided on a day to grab our cameras and go exploring.

Apparently there were two attempts to complete this park, both of which ended because funds ran dry. What was planned to be the biggest amusement park in Asia now sits, unfenced, just outside the sixth ring road (there are 5 ring roads encircling the city of Beijing, the ring road closest to the center is for some reason called the “2nd ring road”, a varying amount of space lies between each ring) waiting to be explored. You should have seen the looks of bewilderment we got from our fellow passengers as we got off the bus in what seems to be a no-man’s-land full of grey and near empty villages.

The park has a façade that looks like a pinkish castle. Not far behind this pinkish façade, in the middle of a then dead cornfield, is a huge structure made only out of metal beams in the shape of a large warehouse.   There were a few people standing around at the opening in the pinkish castle façade, but they seemed to preoccupied playing darts with an oversized metal blow gun. As we passed them, we were in awe of the huge Disney-like concrete castle structure looming far behind the metal beam warehouse.  We hurried towards the ghostly post-apocalyptic structure, snapping pictures along the way. We were all afraid that we would somehow be removed from the premises before we could reach it.

Finally, we made it to the base of the castle, but we soon discovered that it was situated upon a concrete dungeon by which there was no means to mount the thing! Jeffrey, the tallest of us, was able to scramble up (with the help of my lift) from a pile of rocks we had brought together in the ditch around the base of the castle. Next, he pulled me up. Then after several frightful attempts, and under the watchful eye of an idle old man dressed in a Mao suit and his dog, we were able to lift the very red-faced and frightened (to death!) Xenia. However, Xenia’s friend was certain that she wouldn’t make it, even after considerable goading, indeed she never made it up. It was at then that we noticed a man on a red motor scooter approaching from the distant castle façade.

I urged Jeffrey and Xenia to quickly look around the castle while they still had time, then I turned to Flavia (Xenia’s friend) who was standing timidly near the base of the castle that I would stay with her since she can’t speak Chinese. Besides us and the man approaching there didn’t seem to be anyone else for miles around. To be honest, I was a bit nervous because dusk was upon us, I didn’t know what the man wanted, and technically we were trespassing.

He was close enough now that I could see he was carrying a very long metal pole, for what purpose I couldn’t tell, but I could imagine! I turned around briefly to shout to Jeffrey and Xenia that we had company who seemed to be carrying a long metal stick. He had already parked his scooter by the time I turned round. He did not seem threatening just a bit bothered. In Chinese he asked me to come down. His tone of voice was calm, I assured Flavia that things were fine.  I yelled back at Jeffrey and Xenia to take their last pictures because we would have to leave soon.

He asked me again in Chinese to get off the castle. I shrugged my shoulders dramatically and responded in loud and gesticulative English, “You SHOW me how to come DOWN?”  He rolled his eyes, another stupid foreigner climbing up on the castle again. He pointed at a sign that read in badly spray painted Chinese “Photography Forbidden! Climb At Your Own Risk!” and said “You can’t take pictures here, come down now, come on.” Once again I played dumb foreigner, “You SHOW ME climb DOWN?” He looked at Flavia. She shrugged. He rolled his eyes once more before, running, jumping, and with great poise hoisting himself up onto my level. He went straight for Xenia and Jeffrey who were out of sight behind me. A few moments passed before he herded Xenia and Jeffrey over towards me.  For the last time, I feigned non-Chinese speaker and motioned for him to show us how to get down.  He showed us how to face the wall, lower ourselves down as far as we could, push off the wall, and let go.  He went first. I was the last to climb down.

Just as I hit the ground I shouted in Chinese “Success!” The man looked dumbfounded. I hope that for a second he thought the castle had some kind of magic property that rendered foreigners fluent in Chinese once they had clambered down. “Thank you so much for helping us get down from your nice castle,” I continued. His eyes widened. “You mean….you could speak Chinese the whole time!?” I nodded laughing. “Then what were you doing speaking English to me?” He was smiling now too. “Well, how else was I supposed to buy my friends time to take some photos?” He started laughing. I then knew we were in the clear, hurray no legal issues!

The man and I made some small talk as we all walked back to the entrance through the dead corn field. Lots of people have come to photograph the place over the past years. The theme park will probably never be completed, but turned into “some other enterprise” (even though farmers had already reclaimed a big portion of the land). The long metal stick he was carrying was not intended for swatting human trespassers. It was actually the blow gun we had seen earlier, meant for keeping birds off the metal beam warehouse structure. Thankfully we weren’t used for target practice! At the gate he smiled and waved us off.  We walked back to our bus stop happy to have made the trip even if it was cut a bit short.

Picture: A postcard I scanned of one of the galleries we visited in 草場地 Cao Chang Di.

I am sorry that I have not updated this blog in quite a while, I have been busy as usual. School things are starting to add up at the moment. Midterms start next week (one oral, one written) so everyone has been busy reviewing and memorizing countless words and grammatical structures. Everything is just the same as last term, memorize memorize memorize, regurgitate! It’s kind of a fun challenge to stretch your memory like this. Spending afternoons perfecting one’s handwriting, fitting characters neatly into their respective squares on each paper, composing (purposefully provocative) sentences for the teacher to read (I have been told “You don’t think like others, it’s … good”). Thankfully Beijing’s weather has started to behave. The pollution has been replaced by blue skies and strong wind, sometimes my windows rattle throughout the whole night.

My two delightful friends Jackie and Caroline just visited me all the way from Los Angeles/London. They stopped in Beijing on their way to Seoul, Korea.  Although they were only here for a fleeting 3 days we managed to fit a lot in. We visited Tian’an Men, the Forbidden City, and a big clothing market just after we dropped their luggage off at my place. There wasn’t a hint of jetlag at all from these two, let alone culture shock. They had such a positive attitude to the quirkiness (dirty/polluted/crowded) of Beijing.

On the second day of their visit we had a great Korean lunch in 望京 Wangjing (Beijing’s Korean area) at a 紫霞門  Zixiamen (a very tasty restaurant with a wonderful lunch special). We laughed at how my favorite restaurant in Beijing is actually a Korean restaurant (according to the photos along the bathroom wall it’s so popular that even Korean pop stars will eat their while they are in Beijing). Then we took a taxi to this part of Beijing that I have only heard of, called 草場地 Cao Chang Di, where all these artists have studios and galleries. All the galleries we went to had been designed in grey brick which is a signature of the artist Ai Wei Wei.

It was very windy and dust was kicking up everywhere, but all the galleries were designed in a box-shape so each had a hidden courtyard that we could duck into. These grey brick, smooth, modern-looking galleries were all juxtaposed with cheap-looking shops and apartment buildings.  Although we weren’t near the center of the city (actually we were closer to the airport) so all the buildings around weren’t tall at all, which made me feel like we were in a completely different city other than Beijing. Most of the people on the streets and in the shops had quite a “countryside” look to them.

The most impressive piece of art was in the GalerieUrsMeile, it was an installation (The Nightmare by Li Zhanyang) of a little chinese girl wearing a backpack and standing in the center of a pile of old textbooks, exercise papers, and work books. She was looking up to the ceiling from which backpacks seem to be floating down and circling up above her. Aside from a few more pieces that was basically all the art in the entire gallery.

A person working in another gallery told us where Ai Wei Wei’s studio is located. It wasn’t far, just down the street actually, we decided to go see what we could see. We walked to the place where the woman had told us, there wasn’t much. Just an intersection, and across the street was a windowless building under construction. Then we began to notice all the white security cameras on various fixtures: traffic signal, street signs, street lights, doorways etc. They were all pointing in the same direction. They were fixed on a nondescript blue door way. We surmised that this probably was Ai Wei Wei’s studio because instead of a street name (normally written in Chinese characters) it just read “FAKE”. Caroline, Jackie and I stood outside wondering if it’s truly his studio. I decided that I would leave a note of well-wishing to him (Ai Wei Wei is currently under house arrest because he has spoken out against / generally offended that Chinese government) and slip it under the door. I ripped out a page from my address book and wrote a quick “艾未未，加油！別放棄自信！” (Ai Wei Wei, You can do it! Don’t  Lose Confidence!). I slipped a note under the door which quickly blew up and into a corner of the gate, I bent down to grab it when the gate opened. It was a woman, she greeted us politely (in perfect English) and asked what we were doing. I was actually flustered, a bit embarrassed, I instantly regretted writing the note. I apologetically explained that I just wanted to pass on a note of encouragement to Ai Wei Wei. She said that he wasn’t in. (Obviously he’s under house arrest!). I apologized again, she smiled, took the note, and said it was alright. We said goodbye, she closed the door, and we went on our way.  I wondered if that sort of thing happened often, and whether his studio staff found it irritating. Jackie and Caroline assured me that what I did was just a nice gesture and I shouldn’t be embarrassed….still…

That day ended with a rousing session of late night karaoke. Nothing like singing loudly with your friends to help you forget the embarrassment of the day!

The next day Caroline fell ill after we visited the nearby Tibetan Buddhist Lama Temple. She rested in bed, while Jackie cooked some nice Korean “you –eat-this-when-you’re-sick” miso soup (with mushrooms, tofu, bean sprouts, and green onions). I somehow managed to burn some rice. We chatted, looked at magazines, took a walk, and watched a bit of Twister. Jackie is a fashion student with soft spot for dogs, so on our walk we had a particularly silly time spotting dogs while also observing the ridiculous outfits that some Chinese grandmas dare to wear (we were inspired by this website: http://accidentalchinesehipsters.tumblr.com/ ).

Unfortunately our good times came to an end when Jackie and Caroline left yesterday. Back to reality!