It's Good to Be King

Another week; another weekend; another chance to take a day trip to a new place in the city. This week I finally got around to checking out the Museum of the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King, which is just across from the main gate of Yuexiu Park. Ready for a 100 word history lesson?

西汉南越王博物馆

It's the second century BCE. The Han Dynasty rules from its capital in Chang'an. Like other large Chinese dynasties, however, the Han have some difficulty controlling the far-off edges of the empire. In the south, throughout what is now Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan provinces and northern Vietnam, the Nanyue Kingdom is ruled by five generations of the Zhao family. Zhao Mo is the second king of Nanyue and when he dies in 122 BCE, he gets buried in style. We're talking a suit of over 2,000 jade pieces sewn together with silk thread, jade carvings, bronze and pottery goods, a chariot, ten attendants and four concubines. The tomb was discovered in the 1980s by construction workers.

the excavated tomb

Okay, that's all the history I'm going to make you sit through. You can start paying attention again. I'm afraid my pictures are terrible because I forgot my camera and had to use my phone's tiny camera, but I have a guessing game for you and a bad joke for you to make up for it.

First: the guessing game. There is a lovely collection of 200 of these at the Museum (not from the tomb, just sharing exhibit space). So, who can tell me ... what are they?

Hint: you own one. It just looks different.

Now, the museum was quite nice, and looking at artifact after artifact after jade disk after incense burner is a grand tribute to the artistry of people in times long past. But, clearly, the best part of any museum is the children's area. There was a station to make your own rubbings!

Here's my coworker making a rubbing!

There was sadly no paper left in the bin, so we hunted through our purses like the female pack-rats we are for paper we could use. I, curses, had just cleaned out my purse, and all I could find was one sticky note and the receipt from my trip to the bank last week.

This reminds me of girl scouts.

In the gift shop was the usual assortment of jade, sandalwood, ceramics, kitschy playing cards, and not-so-handmade handicrafts. I bought some postcards. I've begun to think about what little trinkets I'll be taking back to my friends and family. Most of you are easy, but some of you are darn hard to shop for (I'm talking to you, Dad. If only I could find a Chinese plumb bob).

Did someone say jade?

Last, but not least:  a joke. If you laugh at it, you may be the first (cracks me up, though, which doesn't say much about my sense of humor...) What sound does a three-legged pot make when you hit it?

DING!

人山人海

I'd like to teach you a Chinese idiom today. Unlike many of the idioms my various Chinese professors tried to teach me, this one is actually quite useful. Here it is: 人山人海(ren shan ren hai). What does it mean? Well, literally, 'person mountain person sea,' and as a comprehensible English phrase 'people from the mountains to the sea,' and thus you can see it is meant to describe large crowds of people.

I read today that the UN's State of World Cities report for 2010 pegs the population of the Pearl River Delta (that's basically the triangle formed by Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Macao, plus the outlying areas) at approximately 120 million. That's right. The urban agglomeration I live in has a population 3.5 times that of all of Canada. I know I complain a lot about the endless city, the pollution, the crowds, the noise, &c. This is why.  I'm not sure I could ever acclimate to this life (certainly not in one year).

Let's take a little stroll.

So to get away from the skyscrapers for a little while, today I hopped a bus to Xiaozhou (小洲). Xiaozhou dates to the Yuan Dynasty and is notable for its old network of canals and its newer artsy vibe. You can get there on a Guangzhou city bus in about 45 progressively bumpy minutes. I enjoyed watching the scenery change from skyscrapers and wide roads to crumbling little shops and narrow streets.

boats in a canal

Once in Xiaozhou, I felt very out-of-place, wandering at random down little side alleys and gardens, but I also immediately spotted one other foreign visitor and a group of Chinese tourists, so clearly the locals must be used to having strangers poking around.

a gate

Time for the photo tour! Pull up a chair and settle in.

Here, have a fake stump.

Xiaozhou is full of those tiny narrow alleys that squeeze between buildings and make me feel like I'm in a maze. A really cool maze, where you turn a corner and find four old ladies playing mahjong under a slowly turning fan (but they didn't want me to take their picture).

That tiny white sign is advertising broadband.

There are also little landscaped gardens that just pop up unexpectedly. As it was two o'clock-ish, there were of course people taking a siesta in the shade. It's 90 degrees today.

I wish I was that comfortable sleeping in public.

Formal Chinese-style gardens are growing on me. Normally, I find controlled nature to be a poor substitute for the heart-crushing beauty of the real thing, but many of the Chinese gardens I have seen have a way of feeling like human space molded to fit nature and not the other way around. Also, pagodas make me think of lazy afternoon tea on a warm day. This fits my mental image of my perfect sepia-tinted life as a lady of luxury and leisure in the early 20th century (why not the 18th century? you who know me may ask. The 18th century is lovely, yes, but in my perfect dream past life, I want to be able [or nearly able] to vote).

Back on topic. Xiaozhou has an eclectic blend of architecture and architectural adornment. This ranges from the traditional:

This could be any time in the last century, if it wasn't in color.

to the traditional in an entirely different sense:

Well hello, Comrade Mao

to the quirky and modern, which reflects Xiaozhou's current reputation as an artistic village.

It's an eagle? Watching TV? Whatever, it's cute.

And winding like milky green ribbons through all of this are the old canals, crisscrossed by numerous bridges, some no more than plywood covered bamboo poles and others sturdy and solid stone.

Not the prettiest, but the easiest to photograph.

And that was my visit to Xiaozhou. It was midafternoon, so I didn't get to try any of the little local eateries. I was tempted, though, because I saw one of my new vocabulary words advertised at one: 毛血旺(mao xue wang). It's preserved duck's blood and eel stew (and is actually a Sichuan specialty). Any takers? Alright, yes, I was kidding, I am not at all tempted to try that, any more than I am tempted to try the famous Cantonese dish "Tiger fighting Dragon" (it's a braised snake and cat combo). My interesting food item of the day was this:

Look, Ma, it's 5% juice. That's healthy, right?

"Pear and Sea Coconut Drink," with bonus  red date and Chinese wolfberry flavors. Sadly, it mostly takes like sugar. Way too much sugar. Under the sugar, you can taste the pear and the red dates (aka jujubes). I'm still not entirely sure what a Sea Coconut tastes like, but thanks to Wikipedia I know it comes from an endangered tree native to the Seychelles and is used in both Traditional Chinese Medicine and Cantonese cuisine. I also learned that a wolfberry is the same this as a goji berry, and that goji berry is a modern loanword from the Chinese name for the fruit, gouqi (it's a superfruit! it needs an exotic name! we can't call it a wolfberry, those are so common they grow on hedges in England!).

I also managed to get my hands on a bag of mini marshmallows at a quite low price last time I was at the Park'n'Shop (I've decided my preference of Park'n'Shop over the other international stores is that the name reminds my subconscious of Shop'n'Save, which is associated with childhood memories of Damariscotta). So, what's a former girl scout to do with a bag of mini marshmallows? Grab a toothpick, a candle, a Hershey's bar and the closest thing to graham crackers she can find (uh... oat biscuits) and make s'mores.

S'MORES, FTW

Ah, delicious. I'm looking forward to some camping in August, but I'm also aware that I may be planning too much for August. It feels so far away, because it's when I'll be home, the concept of which seems so far away, but in reality it is getting quite close. My contract ends in less than 50 days, and I'm beginning to feel the internal twinges of 'oh, I'll miss this when I'm gone' (usually food related moments). It's not enough to change my mind and stay, though. I am looking forward to August -- a reenactment, a baby shower, hopefully a new job, blueberry season, and maybe some camping/time up to camp. Yeah, it's going to be good.

Beggars and BMWs

I have money on my mind today. There are a number of reasons for this.

One, my ‘to do’ list tells me that I need to go to the bank soon and wire some more money home if I want to be able to pay my student loans at the end of the month.  This is a fun activity, involving a trip to the bank, a long wait (because there is always a long wait at the bank), a long form, a couple more forms, repeated assurances to the teller that you know your bank doesn't have a swift code and yes, you know it's entirely your own fault if the money disappears in transit, and finally, the fun on knowing you get to do it again, because you're only allowed to transfer 500 USD per day.

Two, I’ve been asked four or five times what my plans are for after my contract ends, and I haven’t really decided yet. It honestly depends on whether I have a job lined up for next year (and what that job is). If I do, then I might feel comfortable blowing some savings on traveling. If I don’t, then I want to find the cheapest route home as soon as possible and get cracking on the job hunt. So I was idly looking at plane ticket prices last night. Then, I saw that Cathay Pacific is having a summer sale on business class fares. So I checked out the price of a Hong Kong to New York ticket, just out of curiosity, and perhaps because it’s been a life dream to someday find out what it’s like to fly business class [because let’s face it: first class is a myth, like Atlantis. You “know” it’s up there in the front of the plane somewhere, but you’ve never seen it, and you don’t know anyone who’s ever been there]. Well, it was the cheapest business class fare I’ve ever seen, only about three times the price of economy, but still somewhere in the neighborhood of ridiculous. Then, I read all about the amenities of business class. Lay-flat seat, normal plug-in for your laptop, an “amenity kit” full of helpful things, like lotion to combat airplane dry skin and a toothbrush and toothpaste, creatively described food, a storage cupboard for your book, glasses, mp3 player, etc, a privacy screen in case you want to pretend you’re alone on the plane, and (best part) a sticker you can stick to your privacy screen that says “please don’t wake me” if you just want to sleep and not be bothered by offers of hot towels or champagne. Seriously (well ok, I made that last bit up. Not any of the component pieces – the Do Not Disturb sticker, hot towel, and champagne all exist in business class, but I don’t think they really occur as in my scenario). So, while the price is still ridiculous, I can’t help but sigh like the protagonist in a dime-store romance at the thought of 15 hours of that, instead of the glowingly described ‘six inches of recline and four-way tilt headrest’ of economy class (disclaimer: I flew Cathay Pacific to get here, and of my five flights between the US and China, I think it was the most comfortable. And the personal TV screen with choose-your-own viewing options is nice). Oh, and for the frugal traveler out there, I found the cheapest business class fare on Turkish Airlines. Yes, you have to change planes in Istanbul.

Three, I tried to help a new coworker get internet set up at her apartment yesterday (alas, it was not successful. My Chinese was enough to figure out the problem, but not enough to solve the problem. She needs someone who can argue with pushy salespeople. That’s not really in my English skillset). While we were in China Telecom waiting for a free salesperson, I glanced at the display of smartphones. Several of my coworkers have recently bought the Galaxy tablet phone, or whatever it’s called, and part of me is a little jealous. It’s so slick and shiny and multi-functional and twenty-first century.  On the other hand, it costs upwards of 3,000 yuan, which is about what I just spent on a week’s vacation to Hainan. Also, I’m not sure it would work back home, which would make it a really bad deal. Part of me is seriously considering a tablet computer or a smart phone. I would like the convenience of extremely portable computing. On the other hand, I fear the brain-rotting effects of touch-screen stupid games. Also, I don’t want to compose long written works with my fingertip or a touch-screen keypad, nor do I want to carry around an external keyboard (rather defeats the purpose, doesn’t it). So I remain indecisive. I predict I’ll make a decision sometime in 2014 (if the world doesn’t end first).

Four, and this is what my brain keeps coming back to whenever I take out my wallet or think about the ridiculously expensive things that I could buy, easily or with a little saving effort, a couple weeks ago, local coworker friend of mine was telling me about a friend of hers who manages a Subway. During our conversation, she happened to mention that the employees at the Subway make 5 yuan per hour, and that this is a pretty standard wage for fast-food workers. Let’s put this in perspective, shall we? At 5 yuan/hour, working 40 hours/week, your weekly paycheck (ignoring all taxes) would come to 200 yuan. Assuming you work year round with no vacations, you will make 10,400 yuan per year, or, put another way, about 1645 USD. That’s less than I make in a month. Now, I realize that there is a wage gap between the income of a fast food worker and a teacher in the US, but let’s compare. A fast food worker making minimum wage in Maine ($7.50/hr), working the same amount of time and also ignoring any taxes, would make 15600 USD.  Google tells me that the average salary of a teacher in Maine is 45110 USD. This means, where a Subway worker in Guangzhou makes about 8% of a teacher’s salary, a Subway worker in Maine makes 35% of a teacher’s salary. It’s a much smaller gap. Of course, this data is skewed, because I’m not just a teacher. Local teachers make much, much less than I do. I’m a “foreign expert,” employed by an international private company which caters to an extremely wealthy clientele. I don’t have any definite data on local teacher salaries, but based on estimates from my local coworkers, I’d imagine we’d we looking at a fast food worker:teacher ratio of about 15-25%. And fast-food workers are hardly the low point of the scale, just as teachers are hardly the high point. What is the significance of this extreme income range? I don’t know. But, it’s very interesting to think about, isn’t it?

My new coworker (I actually have four new coworkers this week, but only one has the desk next to mine) is from England. We were chatting about our homes, and when I mentioned I was from small town New England, she asked if it was really like it was in the movies and on TV. So while I was telling her about the beautiful lakes and lighthouses and pretentious ivy-covered colleges, I also told her about rural poverty and heat assistance and the free and reduced price lunch program. You know, the parts of daily life in Maine that don’t make it into the quaint New England towns of television. I’ve never been poor. I’ve never not had something I’ve needed. I’ve rarely not had something I wanted. Still, I’ve grown up close to it, and while I wouldn’t say I’ve been entirely successful, I feel like I have something of an appreciation of the value of money. My students here are from wealthy families. They see beggars in the street and eat hamburgers that represent half a day’s pay to the person who made it. I wonder if they will someday know what money is worth.

Sun, Sand, Waves ... Relaxation

So that's what a holiday feels like.  I'd begun to forget.
I spent the last week on Hainan Island, in and around the beach resort town of Sanya.

This describes my mood all week.

Now, given the abundance of signs like this one:

Simplified Chinese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, Russian, and English

I can forgive you if you think Hainan Island must be up near the Russian border. But, no, it's just a very popular vacation destination for Russians. I lost count of how many times I had to blink stupidly at waitresses, vendors, or hawkers and say "I'm sorry, I don't speak Russian" in Chinese. Actually, i only chanced upon two other English-speaking couples/families in my week on the island. Also, I resisted the urge to ask my Russian deck-chair neighbors their thoughts on Putin's re-election. No one wants to think about politics on holiday, after all. I, for one, am very strongly not thinking about the voting results out of North Carolina. Actually, Hainan is about as far south as you can go in China, diving the South China Sea from the Gulf of Tonkin.

It's like Canadians flocking to Key West.

Anyway, I did a lot of things, and had a lot of fun, and did a lot of relaxing (despite never  sleeping later than 8am). During all of that, I took about 170 pictures. So, rather than talk you to death about it, please enjoy this video slideshow of events. If for some reason the embedded video is not working, you can view it here.

I had a lovely time and I am very happy I went. My sunburn isn't all that bad, considering how hot and sunny it was and how much time I spent in the sun during the heat of the day (interesting note: Sanya's latitude is 18*15'12" N, making it the closest I've ever been to the equator). Now that I am back in Guangzhou, I am staving off the post-vacation blues with reruns of Hawaii Five-O and the comforting (and terrifying) knowledge that my work here in GZ ends in just 9 more weeks. And, as the Tolkien quote on my wall says, wither then? I cannot say.

Length of time left in China < Time it took the Mayflower to cross the Atlantic

This is a Rolling Stop Post

Not much time to write this week, as I head out tomorrow morning for a week-long vacation to Hainan Island. You'll be hearing all about that next week, though.

This week was all the fun of a usual week, with one extra day off. Yesterday was Labor Day, but as Tuesday is our normal day off, we had Friday off instead. The kids, of course, had to go to school on Saturday to make up for their missed weekday, so our classes moved to Monday ... well anyway, it was the usual mess of a shifted schedule which all worked out in the end. Also at work, we've finally gotten two new teachers to replace ones who have finished their contracts and left. We haven't had anyone new since January and we've been rather desperately understaffed. One had to immediately turn around and go to Shanghai for processing, like my incoming group did back in July, but the other is being processed here and so has been observing classes and completing induction training at the center. My flatmate and I dragged her over to Taojin for some falafel last night. Yum, falafel. I'd say I'm going to miss my Mr. Shawarma, but didn't I read an article about a falafel maker in the Portland Press Herald last week? One can only hope.

Dim Sum. It's what's for breakfast.

On extra-day-off Friday, a group of us went out for dim sum for breakfast. You may not know this, but dim sum is apparently supposed to be breakfast food. I wholeheartedly approve of this, but what this probably just means is that I will eat dim sum at any time. I think it was actually an outing of the beginner-level EF Chinese class that I managed to get invited to/invited myself along to, so we practiced our basic Chinese, learned how to properly prepare and serve tea, Cantonese style, and discussed the history of dim sum (supposedly it dates from the Qing Dynasty) and learned what it means when a Chinese person taps twice on the table with two fingers (here's a hint: it does not mean 'hit me').

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. (just kidding. It's not Earl Grey.)

After dim sum, I did a bit of shopping (sunscreen. some new sandals. the usual weekly necessity of food). Then, as I walked back toward the most convenient bus stop, I saw this:

It's 1:45pm.

I picked up my pace a bit, and you know what? I almost made it to the station. I was maybe 100 meters shy when the skies opened up. Of course, the morning weather had been fine and I hadn't planned to be out too long, and I left my little collapsing umbrella at work and I didn't want to carry my long one around all morning so ... I didn't have an umbrella.

Also, I need to clean my camera's lens.

Luckily, some nice women working in a shop of some sort (high end skin care/makeup, I think. A Japanese brand, maybe?) dragged me in as wet-cat me sidled passed their door. I was trying to get closer to my goal by hugging the shopfronts, underneath the slight overhang of their overhead signs, but the gaps between buildings were double strength rain+drip. They were very nice ladies, and gave me a stool and a cup of water and discovered I spoke Chinese. They insisted I couldn't go out in the rain, chided me for not carrying an umbrella in Guangzhou in the Spring, and interrogated me with the usual questions. Where are you from? When did you get to China? Where did you learn Chinese? Do you have a boyfriend? Are you looking for a Chinese boyfriend? What's your type? How tall are you? What do you weigh? How old are you? What do you do?  I answered them all, except my weight and my ideal boyfriend type. Then they tried to teach me to sing along to the Chinese pop music playing on the radio. I really can't sing in any language. Eventually the rain lightened up a bit, and I thanked them for their hospitality, then managed to hot-foot it to the bus stop and get home.

Seriously, 2:00 in the afternoon.

That's it for this week, except to say gosh, I hope it doesn't rain all week in Sanya.