Some days from this last week, scrambled.

Today is International Women's Day. Here in China women (most likely white-collar women) are allowed to leave work at lunch time and have the rest of the day to do as they please. In Russia as reported by the Moscow Times, "On this spring day, representatives of the fair sex will not be punished for minor traffic violations...In some places they congratulate the women drivers, and in other places they even give them small presents such as festive postcards with the traffic police insignia or small bouquets of flowers." I shall hope that I recieve something special today when I venture out to by a textbook for my Chinese lesson for later this week.

Here is bus on its way to the subway. To get to my lesson I must traverse great distances of concrete and traffice, squeeze my way through multitudes just to stand in the subway train for a rather long time. It takes 1 to 2 hours by subway and bus to get to the Chinese Government Social Welfare Old People's Accomodation (senior citizen's home) On Monday I started my first Chinese lesson with "Tommy." Tommy is a friend of Haiyan and her family in her hometown in Sichuan Province. He is a 79 year old artist who has lived on and off in the U.S. teaching traditional Chinese art in Kansas, California, and Texas. His english is, of course, very good. He wrote a published auto-biography in English, haven't yet asked him about it. Despite the journey, I arrived to his beautiful little senior home among your typical Beijing neighborhood of dirty-looking apartment towers and narrow alleys lined with fruit carts and shops. Tommy's little dorm-style room was lit by a large window and warmed with dark wood furniture and a few of his bronze sculptures. This is "Don't fence me in" He pointed to a 2 foot sculpture of burly man emerging from a pile of rubble holding a spike and chisel. "Do you know?" Then he began to sing very animatedly an American war-era song called "Dont Fence me in." I didn't know it.
Tommy will be a good teacher for me. He has offered to help me with anything I should need in Beijing. He has already sought out a local violin shop for me and we will go after the next lesson.
As for the rest of the week I have been busying myself in novelties of my new routine which include: a.) Jogging around the neighborhood to visit the park many older people gather every morning to sing songs in a white stone pagoda, where they can ballroom dance on a basketball court, and where women practice their fan dances, and where random older individuals can perform a series of arm swinging and bending for exercise. b.) Teaching with these girls everyday (Memory and Ann) ...
and generally finding that teaching, despite the occasional yelling, feels rather natural. c.) Haiyan and I have a very nice domestic relationship. (we've actually never gone out anywhere together, because she gets home at 6 30 and after we eat dinner she should usually study for her upcoming PhD entrance exam) .

We swap cooking dinner for each other. Last night I went all out and made a four course meal for her when she got home.

We sit and have tea in the living room and talk about Chinese stuff.

And on one really fun occasion last week we watched an incredible movie by one of my favorite directors. Its rough translation is "Riding alone for thousands of miles" by director Zhang Yimou. Its my new favorite movie even though I could understand but about 0.9% percent of it. I picked it up at random from a pirated DVD peddler on the street, had no idea what it was about apart from the little boy and older man smilng on the cover. I showed Haiyan and she got rather excited because its title refers to a ancient festival play in Yunnan province (which happens to be my destination of choice when my vacation comes around). It is about a stern and stoic Japanese man who tries to salvage his damaged relationship with his dying son by visiting an actor of this ancient play Yunnan province. Most of the scenes flashed back and forth bewtween the stark urban landscape of a big city in Japan and the snow-capped mountain villages of Yunnan. Its rather funny because the Japanese man cannot speak Chinese, and he is in the backwater of China, which an array of cameras and devices looped around his neck. The film is really about the desire to communicate, both emotionally and physically. The movie's english subtitles weren't existent as promised on the backcover, a problem I usually find with Chinese DVDs, so Haiyan periodically translated it for me, which added a funny extra dimension to our experience watching this movie about people who cannot communicate.

So we have our first date on Friday to see ancient Kunqu Opera, the predecessor to the more famous Beijing Opera. Kunqu is the oldest form of opera in all of China dating back to the 14th century. Its considered more literary, romantic, and technically challenging than most operatic forms because it is the "mother of Chinese opera." It suffered much suppression from the 18th century onward, because audiences were considered to unsophisticated to understand it, then of course in the Cultural Revolution it was almost completely obliterated. Now, the Chinese governement has much interest in preserving it and funds Kunqu opera institutes and promotes its revival. In 2001, UNESCO named it was one of the masterpieces in a global cultural preservation program known as "The Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity."

This is the website for the 2005 selections. You can see the selections according to regrion on the right. I find it rather entertaining.

http://www.unesco.org/culture/intangible-heritage/index.htm

""Wahxen Figures"" and "Intangible Heritage" Exhibits at the National Museum

On Wednesday I went to the National Museum. (Actually the above photo is not the museum, but it looks just like it, so...) I paid 30 RMB for about 6 or 7 exhibits as indicated on the ticket, but in reality there were only 3 exhibits. At the entrance of each exhibit they waved the entry ticket at me and punched my card about 5-8 times, three times five is fifeteen, but I only went into 3 halls, anyway. They also make everyone check their bags. You must check everything except the camera. In fact I was urged to take the camera, which is almost opposite from any museums I have ever been to. So, I did as the err..Chinese do and took pictures of most of the stuff on display. Here are the Highlights:

Exquisite silk and jewelry work from the Mongol minority of Inner Mongolia. (mannequins from Dillard's).

Super awesome portable deck chair.

Super complicated loom. Actually, I would tell you where its from, indeed, where any of this stuff is really from and the interesting reasons why they are on display, if I knew, but only one of the exhibits was in English (Treasures from the washrooms of the Qu Dynasty).

Chicken Ship. I think the paddles are adorable.

There were some big pictures of some of China's 56 minority races. I find the minority cultures terribly interesting as do most of the Han Chinese (majority). Tibetans, the most well-known minority. In fact all of the "minorities" have a very distinst culture and language indecipherable from Mandarin Chinese. Some are very isolated from modern culture, yet they are thought of as Chinese all the same. There is an effort to preserve this heritage on the part of the Chinese government, but this project might take the form of anthropological tourism. Not entirely a bad thing, I suppose, but its one method of preservation.

3 of the 10 Different, Important Government Officials. It's my suspecion that they made the same government official and just changed his expression several times or gave him a mustache and/or glasses.

< Karl Marx, father of Proletariat Revolution.

>>Jackie Chan, father of kicking ass.

Mao Zedong (right) and Zhao Enlai (or Jiang Zemin or Deng Xiaoping) I am supposed to know this!

1992 Chinese Olympic Medalist in Dart Gun. There were a whole bevy of Chinese athletes, including some little known over-seas Chinese athletes, such as David Beckham, Michael Jordan, and Pele. As one exits the Chinese National Museum Wahxen Figure Exhibit foreigners, Americans particularly, may find themselves refreshed to be greeted by some grotesque likenesses of some vaguely recognizable Hollywood stars, such as Robin Williams, Marilyn Monroe, and Albert Einstein. And the Chinese's favorite American, and the latest addition to the hall as indicated by his marginal placement by the exit door, Bill Gates! I didn't get the picture for some reason, even though many people were taking his picture.

The most immediate room upon exiting the Wahxen Exhibit.

Meandering through Wangfujing Dajie and the Moat Garden

Wangfujing Dajie is the over the top fake-o-rama shopping plaza a little east of the Forbidden City. Its not all fake, there are a few real fancy stores mixed inbetween. There are maybe 3 "chopstick stores" within 100 feet of each other. I bought a little turtle to set my chop sticks on. I had tried to have lunch in large glitzy mall with an elaborate food court with a myriad of delicious looking (clean looking) asian cuisines. I say tried because I bought a little spinach (different than American spinach, much bigger with fatter stems) and a palm sized chinese spring onion pancake, seemed simple enough in my pansy state of food sensitivity. I couldn't even finish it before I started burbing up terrible things. So in need of nourishment I bought a dry piece of sunflower bread and ate it walking down the street.

A spasm inducing mega-tron

Some chatting bike cops, they look cuter and more cuddlier than ours.

Cop walking along the gate of the Forbidden City.

Imperial City moat garden blanketed in snow. This garden is being spruced up for the Olympics. Amazing there were not more people here; just to the left of the bridge is the Imperial City wall, and beyond the wall are about 100, 000 Chinese people walking about, yet here it is quiet. Must be the delicate balance of the landscaping...or some such.

I love that the man who took this photo did so at such unconventional angles.

The moat itself and the Forbidden City gate in the background.

Bird cage delivery bike.

The sickness

After my relatively leisurely first few days, after being swept to elborate dinner after dinner, and on one occassion cajoled by 2 of my British collagues to drink ba jiu (Chinese "white whiskey") in a steamy and filthy little restaurant near the school as they filled me in on all of the outrageous gossip about the school directors, leaving me very sick to the point where I missed a kindergarden class the next morning (I was supposed to observe it, not teach it), well eventually I started teaching classes on Saturday. I teach 6 classes on Saturday and Sunday and 2 classes everyday during the week, except for Tuesday (today) my day off. The first few days of teaching went great. I have a class of 4/5 year olds who are adorable and constantly frightened by my big strange face in their face saying incomprehensible things. My other classes are 8-11 year olds, of decent english ability. I work with a Chinese teacher in the class, who

explains most of the activities and exercises, and meanings of words. Her name is Memory, odd no? Memory speaks english fairly well, but I think a lot of my meaning is lost on her. I am not sure she is telling the kids what I am really saying. Another of my Chinese teachers is Lily.

Apart from being extremely busy with these classes, I have been very sick with nausea and lethargy. I believe my stomach is over-whelmed with the food here. On Saturday night I was feeling great. I went jogging (my first jog around the neighborhood drew many doubletakes and stares), I played on the adult playground and had lots of energy. Then we ate dinner. Haiyan had made pork tongue and cauliflower dressed with slices of gelatinous pure pork fat that she brought back with her from her hometown (nearly 3 weeks ago!). I had begun to eat before I had asked her what it was. It didn't taste that bad, but when she told me, I knew I would feel the affects. The next morning I ate a small bit of walnuts and oatmeal, then almost immediately my stomach expanded so much that I could barely button my pants. Worried and dismayed by this condition, and with the whole day ahead of me, I set off for class. I started my 8 am class with tons of energy and fun, despite my turbulent stomach

(<---From one of the many student-teacher dinners this week: chicken stew topped with chunks of blood gelatin)

and being rather uncomfortable in my pants, and the students were happy and eager. Then by the last period I could not stand up without being hit with a wave of nausea. Despite the fact that I had told her I wasn't feeling well, Lily had not shown up to the last class opting to catch up on paper work, so I was left struggling to explain the activities in my sick, desperate state to children who probably found me incomprehensible. I had the kids read random things from the book for the last fifeteen minutes. I don't know if they knew the difference, but it was a very bad situation.

(something with chicken feet and beaks in it)

So I came home and slept from 5pm to 12 oclock the next afternoon. Woke up, vomited, felt a tad better, and went to teach another class. A day later, I am feeling better, my stomach is normal sized, but I have zero appetite, which is rather unusual. I took a stoll in a little shopping district last night. There was a food market with fruit and nut displays in the front. So tempted to find something I could tolerate, I headed in, but was soon struck by the putrid smell of blood (like a room of wet coins). Beyond the fruit stands was a huge hall of red glistening flesh and organs splayed out on tables being picked over by the locals. Blood and liquid was dripping from the tables to the concrete floor. I nearly vomited right there. If I had not already felt so sensitive, I think I could have taken a look around the meat room just for eccentricity of it, but I had to bolt out of the door. It will take me a while to get my stomach back where I can be adventurous with food again, but I will be nibbling dry baguettes for a while, unfortunately.

Its difficult to isolate oneself from smells in this town. Though I believe the air in ShiJingShan is rather clear of the *smell* of pollution, everywhere on the sidewalks food is being cooked in large barrels: sweet potatoes, sugar popcorn, sticky candy, corn on the cob. And though these smell really good to me usually, in my current state any food smell is offending. But there is one smell I truly despise, even when healthy. On a few occasions, smack in the middle of the sidewalk, I have come across a homeless and/or extremely poor person who has set up a little grill made out of a paint can. Right on top of these very industrial looking coals they have placed slices of "thousand year old" eggs and very very cheap and smelly weiners. Thousand year eggs are basically hard boiled eggs that have been injected with salt and pickled in a potent black vinegar for so long that the color of the yoke and flesh turn into a swirl of turqoise and dark grey. They are truly foul. The sight of these poor peddlars trying to sell these disgusting snacks is rather sad. No one buys them, and they sit there sizzling until the peddlars themselves eat them.

Well, today is my first day-off. My stomach is about 60%, but it is snowing outside, so I should make my way slowly to the subway and spend the afternoon padding around Beijing. Maybe (most likely) popping into the foreginer district near the embassies to perchance get a drink of pepto-bismal.

Tian'anmen

I took a few hours before class today to pop down to Beijing to see Tian'anmen Square. Haiyan had recommended a traditional culture exhibit at the National Museum, but I spent most of my time wandering around the front part of the Forbidden City looking at the people looking at the Forbidden City. I didn't go in yet because it is an all day affair and I only had an hour or so.

No eave and corner of Tian'anmen architecture is unmajestic and under-whelming
The first gate of the Forbidden City (Imperial Palace), which is the most popular site on the four corners of Tian'anmen Sqaure (Gate of Heavenly Peace).Now I have my own Lion Head with Mao in the background shot.
Before entering the main gate of the Forbidden City you can dress up like Qing Dynasty empresses/ors. These girls giggled as they tripped about on the crazy platforms that the royal ladies once wore. They look like fat ice skates. People gather around the photo set up to laugh at those that get their pictures taken in costume. The robes are only front facing, so when the wind blows you can see their blue jeans. That's the rearend of a really gooofy looking horse dummy. If your a boy they wheel it out so you can straddle it in your picture.For some reason there were many astro-turfed basketball courts in front of the Forbidden City. These soldiers kept queing up, then getting out of que, then slapping each other around, and most of them were laughing and being very un-soldier like.
All babies in this city are by law to be over bundled even when its not that cold outside and to the point of immobility.

Looking South to the Monument to People's Heros, which I didn't get to before being overtaken by 2 female English students from Xi'an outside of the National Museum. They smiled and asked me where I was from and charmed me into conversation. Then they ushered me into a art gallery gave me jasmine tea in a dixie cup and showed me every single piece of art and explained thoroughly its relevance to Chinese culture. The art gallery was empty when we went in. But after awhile I turned around to find I was not alone. Other students had found other foreign tourists and were showing them every piece of art work as well. I bought a silk painting of 2 Peking dogs (Its the year of the dog, they stand for honesty and luck (I notice that nearly everything stands for luck)) for my grandma's birthday (she has a hundred dogs). Its cool though, I got the girls mobile numbers and an offer to see the district were they live. I think this was because I will be living here instead of passing through.

So all that was in the span of an hour!

A Rare Clear Day

I awoke to a view I was told by the foreign teachers I wouldn't see for weeks, a **clear** blue sky. I should know not to listen to them. I have read and have heard from Haiyan and Mr. Li that in autumn the Beijing sky's blueness is described as "tall". I can only think think that this tallness assumes the color's proximity to the deep blue of the upper atmosphere, reaching closer to space. The spring sky at its best, according to this rare day of clarity, is pale and gauzy and fleeting. As I type this now at 6pm a haze is diseminating over the city. But at least for most of the day I was offered a glimpse of the mountains
Today was my first day of observation at Aihua Academy. I headed out at 9:30 am. The school is tucked in an alley behind a wall of apartment complexes. On the other side is a howling thorough fare teeming with buses, cars, bicycles, tricycles, scooters, peddlers selling steamed yams out of charred barrels, magazine and paper peddlers, and the Subway line that I will be taking to school everyday. Its amazingly only 1 stop from the apartment. 3 RMB per ride, which is about 40 U.S. cents.
My first time to behold the Morning Exercises in the courtyard of Aihua. All Chinese students have morning exercises, which range from calistinics, to aerobics, to simply forming up and marching in place. Here the students are in "Military Training" which is just a discipline exercise of standing in lines and intermittantly thrusting ones arms out straight and turning directions every 3 minutes while in between listening to the leader yelling commands. Its not a very vigorous exercise. Occasionally, the leader told the students to shake out their legs in between long sessions of standing like ramrods. So the kids reluctantly wiggled a little bit.

I observed 3 classes today participating a little bit to lead a memorization game called "What has Finlay's brother got?" The kids yell "HEllo!" at the top of their lungs when we walked in. Some adorable little girls ran up to me a put their bundled up arms half way around me. I could not stop smiling during class it was so cute!!!!!

I'm looking out "my" window....

...Upon a six lane highway. It's almost 10 in the morning. Squat trucks and cars are passing. There is a ferris wheel and some amusement park roller coasters in the hazy, smoggy distance, endless clusters of 20 story apartment towers, there are some faint outlines of mountains very near. I am very surprised to see the mountains. They are as tall as the Catalinas in Tucson, but a little closer to me. Everything is rendered soft by the haze. The sky is a dull white.

This is a paper cut on the parlor window, decorations from the New Year. There is a basketball court down below. I watched a lady jogg slowly around the tower, a promising track for running.

My breakfast: oranges, dumplings, bok choy, tomatoes, and my favorite sesame oil chilli sauce. (I actually made this) Haiyan leaves to catch the train at 7 am.

My room. I really like the hard flat Chinese style bed.

The beautiful office (Haiyan's bedroom), from where I type this. I am using Robert's pretty fast PC, but all the script is in Chinese. I have to guess at the right prompts. Haiyan is going to stay in this room now. That's her little bed. She gave me the bedroom, which is rather spacious. She would have it no other way.

Even the laudrey-hanging room has an amazing view. With all of the changing flights hysteria in the states I never got my luggage (2 huge suitcases and my bike!) I will probably be wearing this shirt and socks for a while.

This is the court yard/parking area in between the apartment clusters. I walk towards the green building to get to the street.

Here is the fairly busy street I live off of. Haven't really been out yet expect for standing outside waiting to be picked up by Aihua to register my foreigner status at the police station. They didn't arrive because they thought I was sleeping in. But at least I got to people watch, and be watched by people. They like to look slyly out of the side of there eyes. When I smile they in turn light up, or shyly giggle. I am trying to say "Ni hao" without actually thinking "Hello"

Here is one of the many three-wheeled motorcycle taxis. This one was rather shiny looking. Others were a little raggedy and clunky. I can't wait to crawl in the little space inclosed in the back for a ride. There were many heavy duty bicycles too, some of which had huge carpeted pallets attched to the back.

bonus: Some scenes from the journey...

The route from San Francisco to Beijing skims the continents of the Pacfic coast, along Alaska, across the Bering Sea, over Siberia (shown here) and across the vast ice sheets of the sub-Arctic ocean. This was an astounding sight. This planet is unbelievable, I spent hours looking out that window.

The frozen Bering Sea

Shiny Beijing Airport people mover. This was the glitzy part of the terminal. Standing in line at the less glitzy, more solemn customs and visa checkpoint, I wanted to take a picture of the mega screen with red scrolling English text that stated the rights of the "State Organ" to prevent foreigners from compromising the frontier, which might result in the "disposal" of said foreigner...but I was too scared.

We walked out of the airport and I was immediately hit with the smell of burning of various materials, ranging from tires and plastic, to food. I was going to ask what's that smell, but then I realized that would get me laughed at, because that's the smell of Beijing.

The van ride on the Ring Road freeway was brisk, we passed clusters of skyscrappers rendered sci-fi through the smog. And stanger-- along a stretch of the highway there were some, I am guessing, open-air factories (?) were men in helmets and protective gear torched big pieces of metal and bustled about under a fountain sparks.

Well, that was the first 20 hours. I will now brave the unknown and go for a walk, hoping not to get lost before I must be picked up to go to the Police Station, where I will under go a medical examination and other procedures that according to Finlay "scare the hell out" of you.

Tonight, there is a banquet with the school Directors. I suspect they will try to get me drunk, as is the tradition at banquets. It's rude not to join in on the toast, but I hope they will go easy on me because I want to be concsious to meet with Haiyan's friend who will be visiting and sleeping over later tonight.

I hope to write about Haiyan more later. She was a very accomodating host, very sweet. Upon entering the house she gave slippers and promptly made me tea. Later, she made me a fried egg (best I have ever had) and warm soup with chinese greens. She apologizes for her English, but I think it is very good. If I need to slow down or use different words she kind of indicates that she is confused with her expression. I am so lucky that she can help me get things sorted out here. I would be baffled without her. We have tiny difficulties communicating, mostly giggling.

(Hope this blog post turns out alright. I can only post. I myself can not access the website to see what it looks like, for reasons I haven't yet figured out.)