Standard and Normal, Thank Heaven

The internet is fixed! The washing machine is fixed! I have an avocado and some cheddar cheese in the kitchen! The trees and verdantly green and the flowers are in riotous bloom, but the temperature has been in the seventies. Life is back to being okay. Today and yesterday, I even got to run errands and bum around like it really was my days off. In short: it was lovely.

B.A.T and cheddar on wheat with  mustard, anyone?

Yesterday, my friends and I went to the fabric market again. I bought a couple meters of some lovely brown linen. For those of you at home who routinely buy fabric: wanna guess what I paid for it? Then we all wandered up to the top floor, where we found a tailor's shop and flipped through pattern books. I decided to have my linen made into some pants. We'll see how they come out.

The Grandview is one of the skyscrapers on the left.

Today I hopped the bus over to the Grandview Mall to do some grocery shopping. Our little local supermarket is currently gutted and undergoing renovations. While I was there, I went down to my favorite juice place and got a watermelon smoothie. It's possible that I've been to this juice stall a few too many times in the past three and a half months. The counter man recognizes me. Today, I ordered my smoothie, and he smiled and rung me up and relayed my order to the back, and then belatedly asked me if I wanted the small size. Because, I always get the small size. Then while I waited, we had a chat. He commented that I was alone today (I'm usually with one or more of my friends), then he asked me if I was from New York (probably remembering that the fluent Chinese speaker of my group is a New Yorker). I explained where I was from (Maine, which is NE of New York, but doesn't have any cities, and is in fact full of mountains and water and trees, and is very beautiful). I asked if he'd ever been to the US (no, but he'd like to), and then we discussed the weather outside (the juice stand is in a basement food court). He asked if it was hot. I said of course it was hot, it's always hot in GZ. Then my smoothie was ready, and goodbye. In other words, I successfully exchanged small talk in Chinese for a good four minutes. I should probably not be as proud of that as I am.

Canal? Urbanized river? Who knows?

I walked back to my neighborhood from the malls, and I detoured down Guangzhou Dadao to come back via Shuiyin Lu. This makes my walk maybe 15 minutes longer, but it's scenic, and it also takes me passed the locally-famous milk store, the vegetable market, and a barbecued meats shop that a friend swears in the best in the district. Here, I bought some honey barbecued pork (oh my goodness, it's delicious. I stir-fried it with some noodles, bean sprouts, and garlic chives). Of course, I couldn't remember how to say it, but everyone loves the Pointing Method! I politely pointed and asked the name. The woman at the front told me, then I asked how much it was. She replied, then commented as an aside to the man standing next to her that my Chinese was so "biaozhun" (standard). I smile/grimaced and asked for half a jin. (What is a jin 斤? 500g or a pound, it depends on which dictionary you ask. Half a jin is my favorite quantity to order. Half a jin of scallion pancake, half a jin of bean sprouts, half a jin of dumplings, half a jin of noodles. Hmm. I wonder what half a jin of gin looks like?) What can I say? All my Chinese comes from textbooks, and textbooks that teach standard Mandarin, to boot.  I know exactly three exclamations, two of which I'm pretty sure are the Chinese equivalents of "oh golly gee" and "darn it."

Fengxing milk, photo from That's PRD magazine.

So many of my interactions with Chinese people follow a predicable pattern: I'm kinda inarticulate and unable to easily communicate, but I somehow manage to convey my point, and they are a little bit surprised that I am able to communicate at all. Or, more rarely, I'm completely reaching beyond my abilities, and we just end up staring helplessly at each other until I say 'sorry, forget it' and come back later with fluent help (of course, sometimes I blunder forward anyway, and end up with shiny new cell phone plans...). I wonder, though, why locals are so often surprised. Foreigners who speak Chinese aren't that rare. Is it, perhaps, just the cognitive dissonance of expecting a foreign language and hearing Chinese? I don't know the answer. Maybe next time I'm chatting with someone, I'll ask.

No one expects the random photo of a temple!

I'll leave you with one last type scene from my day. I was in the elevator heading back to my apartment and I had a grandfather-grandson pair for company. The grandfather was encouraging the little boy to practice his English on me. He said hello. I smiled and said hello back. Then the grandfather was encouraging him, saying 'what else has your English teacher taught you to ask?' and the little kid is contorting his face and squirming all round, finally shouting sheepishly, "I forgot!" which makes his grandfather and I both laugh. Oh, little kids. Such cuties.

The (Continuing) Unboiled Dumpling Adventures

My first time in China, I formed a central philosophy for living here: you have got to get used to being partially successful in your endeavors. Trying to be completely successful is like trying to be perfect – it just is not going to happen, and you will make yourself crazy trying.

I went a little crazy last week; I think you all saw that. For my credit, it really was a lot of crap to deal with all at once. On the other hand, I was letting my negativity overshadow the positives. For instance: I went to see the Vienna Boy’s Choir at the GZ opera house last Saturday. It was a lovely night: cool (as in a pleasant summer evening, not Maine in mid-October cool) and clear, with a mostly-full moon. The opera house is down by the river in Zhujiang New Town. There were hoards of people in the park there. Some were there to see the large fountain (the type that has a programmed routine), some to see the Star Trek-esque park architecture, some to gawk at the clearest view of the Canton Tower I’ve seen yet, others watching a concert in a large amphitheater, more watching a shadow-puppet show projected onto the exterior walls of the opera house. It was festive and cheerful. I didn’t have my camera, but perhaps I will venture out that way again some evening and try to get some pictures for you. It really is indescribable. The concert itself was lovely, and even with the slight headache of trying to get back to our district (we caught the very last subway train of the evening, along with several hundred of our very closest friends), it was an excellent evening.

So last week wasn’t a total bust, and this week I’ve still had several problems, but I’m not in so dark a place. It’s hot again, which I can’t fix but it really isn’t that bad. My internet still doesn’t work, but I got a native-Chinese speaking friend to go be a little more insistent with the China Telecom office, and I’ve got one more solution to try on my own before they’ll send over a repairman. My washing machine is still inoperable, but our landlady has at least tentatively responded that she will have someone come look at it.

Actually, the only problem I did solve this week was my non-working cell phone, and that brings us back to my Living In China Philosophy. Those of you who read this blog in 2009 may remember the story of the unboiled dumplings. For those who haven’t heard this story: the first time I tried to buy some dumplings, I was asked a question that I didn’t understand, so I answered ‘no’ at random (I figure no is often safer than yes). The question was “Do you want these boiled?” and the result was that I bought 29 raw dumplings. Luckily, I was able to cook them, and the next time, I was prepared for the question. Thus, the Dumpling Adventure went down in my books as a win. Was I completely successful? No. But, did I accomplish my central goal? Yes. Let’s face it: if everything went according to plan, life would be boring.

This is the attitude I am choosing to bring to my adventure of solving the cell phone issue. First, I went to the little place where I usually recharge my minutes, and told them my phone would not make phone calls. They had no idea how to help me, so I said thank you and left. There is a China Mobile store about a block away from my apartment, so I went there next. It is very large inside, with several distinct sections. I stood in the door looking stupid, trying to decipher signs, until I was waved over to the Information desk (ok, yes, it said Information in English. But, it was on the bottom, below the counter, not on a hanging sign overhead like every other sign in the store). Now, don’t let the English signage confuse you: no one here speaks any useful amount of English. A very kind and patient woman helped me figure out my problem, which turns out to be that my SIM card is fine, but my phone itself was dead/broken. So, I need a new phone. Ok, that’s fine, I guess. She directs me over to the display of phones. Like phone stores everywhere, there are a lot of really slick models, up to and including Blackberries and iPhones. I have neither the desire nor the budget for a 3,000 kuai phone, so I hunt around the nearly indecipherable displays of tech specs for a model that is a little more pedestrian. I find one for 299 yuan, which isn’t nothing but isn’t terrible, either. Now, I’m being ignored at this point. While normally this makes me quite happy (have you ever trying browsing electric tea kettles, frying pans, or even the plastic baggies aisle while being “helpfully assisted” by one or more clerks? It’s really annoying), I actually want to buy something here, and there’s no one to help me. So I go back to information, but the kind and patient woman is helping another customer with what looks like a receipt that is, no joke, longer than she is tall. She looked like one of those pictures of Santa Claus with his naughty/nice list. There is now another employee at Information, so I tell him that I need to buy a phone, how do I do that. He looks at me like I’ve just asked how to tie my shoelaces, or something, but then asked which model I want. Ok, really? Its name is in Chinese, and I can’t read the characters. I’m going to need to employ the point-and-say-“that one” method, but we’re not actually standing at the display. So he leads me to the counter in the back of the store, where there is a list of models, and I can point. The clerk there writes the info on a little piece of paper, then I’m following Information dude back to his desk. Hmm, ok. Now, Information dude hands me a form, and tells me to write three numbers. Say what? Passwords? What passwords? I write three random numbers (my passport number, my home phone number, my own cell number) and he types them in his computer and then crosses out one and three. Ahah, he’s looking for numbers that I’ve dialed on my cell. So I dreg out some phone numbers I’ve called (I don’t know why. All I can think of is security, to make sure I hadn’t stolen the SIM card). Then he’s asking for my passport and the SIM card and making photocopies. He prints me out a wait-in-line ticket and waves me off the a row of employees at desks with computers.

At this point, I still don’t have a new phone and I’m really confused as to why it is so complicated. It’s not like the US, where we have plans and contracts and junk like that. I literally just need a new physical new phone. But it is shortly my turn, and I am helping another woman (who literally did a double-take when she saw I was a foreigner and then tentatively asked me if I spoke Mandarin) figure out which part of my name is my surname and which is my given name. Then I tell her my address. And now I’m beginning to get it, and if you’ve already figured out what I’m doing, you’re quicker on the uptake than me. Anyway, I sign some papers, finally get to pay for my phone, and get a receipt to take back to the back counter, where they exchange it for a phone. They put in the SIM card, ask me to make a call to make sure it works, and I’m finally free to go.

So, do you get how this adventure was only semi-successful? Yes, that’s right, I inadvertently bought an internet-capable phone and signed up for a plan (I’m pretty sure, anyway). So, on the one hand, I have a working phone again, mission accomplished. On the other hand, I’m paying for 3G service, which I hadn’t intended. I’m going to count it as a win overall. I actually kind of like my new phone (it’s got a color screen and the buttons are easier to click than my last one), and if I never get my internet fixed, it might be nice to have it on my phone. Sure, there’s no access to hotmail, gmail, facebook, or hulu. But there’s always the New York Times, right?

Ok, that’s quite enough for now. I’ve got to go hand wash some laundry in the sink.

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

It has not been a good week.

The “unseasonably cool” weather, which was pleasantly in the mid-seventies, has ended and Guangzhou is having an Indian summer – it’s back to the high eighties/low nineties, high humidity, and moody low lying clouds that loiter about the skyscrapers dithering about if and when to rain.

So I am sticky and hot, and disinclined to be cheerful in the face of challenges. So of course, it is time for things to go wrong. First, I had my first round of parent-teacher meetings at school. These actually went well, after a stumbling start. Lucky for me, I have more this coming weekend. Then, the toilet in my apartment abruptly stopped working. Now, I’m not an inept girl when faced with plumbing issues, but my abilities end at plungers and fiddling with bits in the tank to get the water to stop running. Having exhausted my skillset without solving the problem, I was forced to consult outside help. So down to the building management office I went, where I explained the issue [don’t get too excited: they speak English there] and they sent a plumber. Now, the plumber doesn’t speak English, but he fiddled about for a while, and then explained  the problem in basic language. I thought I was following along fine, but then he asked me if I wanted him to do what he was explaining/half miming (my comprehension was ‘moving the toilet to get at … in the area below the toilet). And I was confused, because, well, yes? Of course I want you to fix my toilet? What, am I really going to say ‘No, thanks, that’s too much effort; I’ll just live without a functioning toilet in my apartment?’’ So, I caved and called my Chinese-speaking friend and did the classic “you tell my friend, then give me back the phone, and she’ll tell me, and then I’ll tell her my reply, and give you back the phone for her to translate.” I really need to get on with some hardcore Chinese lessons. Long story short, we arranged for the plumber to come back at 4:30 to do this whole shebang. (It turns out to be a huge clog, which I will not describe because I am trying to erase the memory from my mind, but now everything is fixed.)

This allowed me a few hours to attempt my other major problem of the day: our internet doesn’t work. Now, it stopped working last Friday evening. This had happened to a friend of ours a week or two ago, and it was because the automatic bill payments she’d set up were in fact not working, and so she was two months overdue and they cut her off.  We figured we had the same problem (bank transfers won’t work here if your name isn’t a perfect match to the name on your bank account, and Chinese people cannot handle English names, just like English people can’t handle Chinese names). So, on Saturday evening, after work, we went to China Telecom and paid our bill. They said service would be back on in half an hour. It still wasn’t on in an hour. It wasn’t on the next day. It wasn’t on on Monday or Tuesday. At this point, I’ve exhausted my ‘fixing the computer’ skills, which are slightly more extensive than my plumbing skills, but still pretty inept. All I can find is that the computer can’t detect the IP settings, and there may be a problem with the DNS server. On Wednesday, in our next free time, we went back to China Telecom. Now, they’ve got to be tired of seeing me. No one there speaks any English, and dealing with my limited Chinese skills has to be just as trying for them as it is for me.  I explained our problem as best I could, and they gave me a helpless look, and gave me a phone number for IT help, where they supposedly speak English. Now, I say ‘supposedly’ because I have called this number about twenty-five times since yesterday and have yet to have anyone answer in any language. And now, my phone is malfunctioning. It isn’t reading any bars of service, even when my flatmate’s identical phone is right next to it with five bars.

However, this is not the end of my litany of issues. Last night, after the plumber left and I’d tried the IT line a few more times, I did a load of laundry so I’d have some clean uniforms to wear. Our washing machine has been finicky since we moved in: sometimes it won’t run the spin cycle and you have to trick it into running or just hand-squeeze your clothes before hanging them up. Last night, though, it hit a new low point when it refused to run the rinse cycle, or even to drain. So I fished my clothes out of the soup, wrung them as dry as I could with my hands, and hung them up. Today it is pouring rain and misty, and the humidity feels like I’m living underwater. Suffice it to say, my laundry is still on the wet side of damp. And the washing machine still hasn’t drained. Sigh.

All in all, I managed to solve only one of my problems this weekend. I managed to connect to the internet at work long enough to check my email and see that my family enjoyed a beautiful weekend up to camp, and that the trees are turning lovely colors. Fall is well underway. I feel like I’m in an eternal dog days of August. Oh, but how I miss home at the moment. I’m not hugely homesick, that is, I’m not feeling an urge to flee, but I feel out of touch. Part of this is the strange weather, part is the long period of non-communication I’ve had without internet access, and part is a feeling that my grand adventure of living in Guangzhou is not contributing to my life in the ways I expected it to do.

On the upside, what with National Day holiday and a weekend of placement testing instead of classes, I got to go to church two Sundays in a row. The Guangzhou International Christian Fellowship is quite large and a little bit… I don’t even know. Modern, perhaps? Certainly the music is a little more gospel/Christian rock than I’m used to. The minister also mentioned the Devil and the spiritual war for possession of mankind’s souls about 100% more frequently than those topics have come up in my past 23 years of church-going. On the positive side, the minster has a Scottish accent and the sermon was thought-provoking, and I actually caught some references from my current Read-the-Bible project (for those keeping up at home: We’re up to First Samuel today. We’ll be 25% of the way through the Book by the end of the month). Anyway, the sermon topic was decisions. As in, we have to make them. We have to make them all the time, and the decisions we make have consequences. Then the minister challenged us to examine the decisions we’d made in the past week or month or year and decide how we felt about them. Coming to Guangzhou? I’m still okay with this decision, even if it’s not quite what I imagined. I may not be learning the lessons I expected, but oh, I am learning lessons.

Well, this post is already much too long, so I will end here. Hopefully, by next week, I’ll have some happier stories to tell and news of my successful internet/phone/washing machine fixing strategies. Before I go, though, I just want to wish everyone in the US a happy National Coming Out week. It’s a hard decision, to live openly, especially when you don’t know the people around you very well, or you live in a conservative society, or a foreign country. But some decisions have to be made.

Layers, Palimpsests, and the Weight of a Billion Footsteps

I had a five day vacation this week, in honor of China's National Day on October 1st. As the many red and gold banners around town remind me, this is the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic. It seems so small an age, 62, for a country with such a long history.

Now, five days off, you'd think I would have many, many stories of wild travels to tell. However, I chose to stay in Guangzhou and get to know my city a little better. That is how I found myself, Monday afternoon, walking down Beijing Lu, a pedestrian shopping street. Let me give you an idea of it's age: it's been a paved road for 1,000 years or so. How can we know this? Ah, well, that's the neat part. In the middle of the street is a display of an excavation of the road (you are literally looking down into the excavation), showing the different paving layers of the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.

On Tuesday, I actually left the city and went to Foshan. Now, the fun bit about Foshan is that you can actually ride the subway all the way there. There is an inter-city line, and the round trip only cost me 12.5 kuai. Foshan is currently a city of just under a million residents, and is a lovely place known for the Foshan Ancestral Temple, a few very picturesque Ming-Qing gardens, and as one of the ancient pottery centers of China. I visited the temple, where I saw a lion dance and a bit of Cantonese opera as well as some lovely architecture (and posed for a picture for a tween-aged girl and her sister, like the celebrity foreigner I am). Then I caught the bus out to the Nanfeng Ancient Kiln. This is a dragon kiln that has been in continuous use for 500 years. There is quite the nice area built around it to explore the history of ceramics.

Ancient streets and ancient kilns. Ancient temples and ancient culture. China is ancient! But China is also modern. I can see three high-rise construction sites from my window. I can catch an inter-city subway. I can watch Jet Li star in a re-imaging of the White Snake story at the cinema on a millenia-old street, in a city that has been continuously occupied for two thousand years.

This is what fascinates me about China: not so much the juxtaposition of old and new, not modernity with Chinese characteristics or the exoticism of the Chinese past, but the the fact that China is layers upon layers. The current "layer" might be 62 this year, but we don't have to dig very far (or at all) to find more history than you can use. At Nanfeng Kiln, there was a mural made of broken pottery shards from the last four dynasties. On my way to Beijing Lu, I found a Buddhist Temple full of intricate and beautiful sculptures and murals, and it wasn't even on my map.

China has, and has always had, a careful relationship with history. New dynasties were always sure to begin by writing a new official history (which clearly showed their right to power, incidentally) and then destroying the source materials, so that the official history was the only history. Modern China is careful to acknowledge their grand history, but equally careful to disavow the destructive nature of feudalism.

The way China treats historical sites and artifacts can be shocking, at first. Sections of the Great Wall have been re-paved to be easier (safer) for tourists. The Three Gorges Dam project permanently flooded historic sites. Beijing Lu was partially excavated and a little exhibit made, but there is still a McDonalds thirty meters away.

This is the way it is, and I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. China is a living, breathing, constantly evolving place. This is home to more than a billion people. They are aware of their historical legacy (how can they not be? it is, as we've seen, all around them) and every day, they are adding to that history. Oh, but it's a heady feeling to be part of this world.