More Pictures

Just posted a few more pictures to my Flickr site. There should be more photos in the near future. I just need to caption them.

Oh, and we're going to the Great Wall tomorrow.

Miscellanea

• Before heading out to one of the tourist sites for the day, my wife and I stopped into the local Subway to get some sandwiches for the road. The staff there had perfectly functional English (as far as ordering sandwiches goes) which was both surprising and wonderful.
  We finished paying for our sandwiches and thanked the gal in Chinese, using one of the few phrases we can manage at this point.
  
  Oddly, she answered back "gracias".

• There's a somewhat impromptu market across the street from where we are staying and while strolling through there Katie found some serving dinnerware that were exactly in the same style as our current dishes. Since spying these, she has been making plans to figure out how to get them back home in one piece since similar goods in the US are much more expensive.
  
  Just how similar are these items compared to what we can buy at Target back home? Well, not only do they look identical but they have the text "Target" and their logo inked onto the bottom of each item. I don't know if these are stolen, factory rejects, or knock-offs and I don't know if it really matters.

• There are a wide variety of markets here and depending on the expected clientel, the approach in bargaining with a merchant varies. A few days ago we were at a tourist hot-spot: the Pearl Market (the market sells more than pearls but is famous for said goods). The merchants there are used to dealing with foreigners who have cash to burn and mark-up their items accordingly. Katie was interested in some scrolls and we were able to negotiate the price down from 350 yuan to 250 yuan. Along the way from the opening price to the final price we were given counter offers:
  
  310- "This is 'friend' price."
  
  280- "This what locals pay."
  
  260- "This is good deal."
  
  255- "250 is unlucky Chinese number." (This was my favorite)
  
  After scowling and laughing my way through the string of counter-offers our original offer was accepted and I felt pretty good about holding steady. I knew we didn't do a fantastic job of negotiating but we were new at this. I didn't realize how horridly we had been ripped-off until our host who was there with us showed us some silk clothing she had purchased while waiting for us.
  
  Original price: 380 yuan
  
  Final price: 50 yuan (and she thinks she could have gone lower)

• One more thing on the pearl market: the merchants are VERY aggressive. As soon as the white-skinned people show up they spring out of their stalls and loudly begin their sales pitch. Irritatingly, most begin with, "Hello, friend...". I felt like a carcass being picked over with vulture-merchants all simlutaneously moving in for the kill. The worst were those the physically pulled on me or that followed us long past we had left the area of their stalls. There were several that ignored us and were busy reading newspapers, magazines, and books. I felt like I should buy something, anything, from them to reward their non-aggressiveness and teach all the others a lesson.
  
  Alternatively, I've been trying to think of a way that I could be equally annoying to the merchants and make it very clear to them that I am not interested in anything they are selling and highly disapprove of their behavior. I've decided that I need to carry a small squirt-gun and every time one of them jumps out in front of me and opens her mouth to say, "Hello, fri....", right then I'll squirt her in the face. True, this does sort of escalate matters and will probably result in a yelling match in several different languages but it would be funny for at least a few moments.
  
  Overall, I don't think the merchants would be very happy with me and would feel I had done something rude. At least, then, there would be equality between us and we could both go home unhappy.

Disposable Lifestyle

As I've written before, the car is not the primary means of transportation for most people living in Beijing. Public transportation and bicycles/scooters by far outstrip the number of cars on the road. In light of this, I find it very odd that there are NO trashy cars on the road. All of them look very nice and appear to be well maintained. This is very odd in light of the fact that almost all of the bicycles are in horrid disrepair.

Looking over a typical bike rack, about 15% appear to be newer bikes in good shape. The rest are rusting hulks that I'm surprised work at all. These bikes could all use a new chain, new gears and a thorough cleaning and lubing. Walking the streets here, though, I've seen only one bicycle repair shop. For whatever reason, cars get maintained and bicycles don't . I don't know if bicycle repairs are just beyond the means of most bike owners (which would not be the case for car owners) or if it is cheaper to just buy a new bike when the old one completely fails. You would think that if your bike was your main means of transportation that you would maintain it.

This serves to highlight an aspect of Chinese culture that seems widespread: the lack of planning/maintenance. More so than the US, a lot of life here seems to be one-use and disposable. I've always thought of China as a resource-strapped country but I was clearly wrong about this. The Chinese here may keep items in disrepair longer but, for the most part, they don't seem to take this one step further and do things like preventative maintenance (like lubing their bikes).

Another great example: there are two elevators in the apartment building in which we are staying. The two of them are never both working and this seems to be by design. In the few days we've been here, we've ridden on both; one day the left-hand one will be working, the next day its the right-hand one. I have no idea why this is; Katie guessed that maybe the electrical system isn't up to the task of running both simultaneously. Whatever the reason, it is clear that mechanically both elevators work fine, just not at the same time.

Why is this? Why, in one of the largest cities in the world, does there appear to be a profound lack of planning by its citizens. I am at a loss for a good answer.

Chinese Playgroups

One of the problems with the one-child policy in China is the ease at which that one child can become the center of the family's existence. With no siblings to compete for attention and resources, it is easy to see how a child could grow up not understanding that the world does not revolve around him or her. I was impressed to learn that many parents have developed at least one specific way to combat this: playgroups.

Every afternoon after school classes get out, a group of children gather in the apartment complex courtyard and bring a toy out to play. The goal is to provide socialization where each child is not the center of the interaction. In effect, the children all grow into a much larger family for a few hours and must learn together about things like sharing, playing nice with others, and learning how to relate in a positive way to their peers.

I think this is a great idea and am VERY impressed with whoever came up with it. I hope it will be able to serve its purpose well and that this generation of children will have some balance to their lives.

Christmas in Beijing

As you might expect in a country that doesn't have the Western cultural heritage, Christmas is a bit different than it is in the States. Oddly, Christmas isn't absent from the culture entirely, though our friends here say that this addition has occurred in the past several years or so. In all the shopping centers we've visited the past few days, Christmas carols (in English) have been playing and many of the stores have the visage of Santa Claus festooned about with the words "Merry Christmas" written beneath his head.

All of this is facade, though. In my interaction with a few Chinese people here nobody knows why Christmas is celebrated or even what day the holiday is on. Those Christmas carols playing in the store, even if the shoppers do know English, any kind of comprehension is completely lost on them. (This was evidenced by a game of Christmas carol pictionary we played with some Chinese students where Frosty was portrayed as a VERY fat man and Rudolph was also also man but with a red nose). There is no "reason for the season" here except a completely commercial exercise that most don't formally celebrate. It is like the top, superficial layer of holiday has been scrapped off and spread over the culture here.

Here, Santa Claus is the main image of Christmas and very few have any reason to believe that there is something wrong with this.

Photos!

I've (finally) updated my Flickr stream with a handfull for photos from our stay here.

(One of our friends here said that she checked my photos often. This made me feel bad because my stream has been dormant for quite some time, getting close to a year. To make it up to her, my plan is to retroactively stream in some photos I've taken over this previous year. Keep your eyes peeled for that in the months to come.)

Rules of the Road

As in many countries throughout the world, traffic in Beijing is something very different than what I am used to in the USA. Calling it chaotic, dangerous, or lawless, though at least true on the surface, is missing the point. As I've been walking around the neighborhood and dealing with street crossings myself I've been trying to determine the governing principles for how traffic works here. I haven't come up with anything definitive but here's what I have seen.

Despite some of the other moving "violations", cars and buses follow the traffic lights pretty well, actually. In fact, the more I think about it, I would say they do just as good as many in Wichita which is to say that there are plenty of people running reds as the light is changing, some getting an early start, and many switching lanes in the intersection. Out on the freeway, though, the similarities dissappear quickly. Blinkers are optional (though I have seen a fair number using them, much to my surprise) and weaving through traffic at high speeds is the norm. There is not such thing as following distance and I haven't seen anybody moderating their speed for legal reasons. I have seen several police cars out on the road but I have never seen anybody being pulled over for traffic violations. Though I don't know any Beijing traffic laws, I'm guessing the situation is similar to how such matters work in the US: the written law aside, in practice the police prosecute only the gross offenders. Again, just a guess.

The much more interesting and puzzling role in traffic goes to the two-wheeled vehicles and pedestrians. There are a lot of bicycles in Beijing; not as many as I would have guessed but still way more than in any US city I have visited or even heard about. At the subway station there is a covered parking area that can hold several hundred bikes. In front of the apartment building there is a bike rack with at least another hundred parked. Bicycles are used in virtually everyway a car would be in the US. I've seen bicycles (well, tricycles technically) with large trailers hauling goods, bikes with a seat on the back for a second passenger to ride side-saddle, bikes with a street vendors cooking grill, fuel, and ingredients ready to go.

Also of GREAT interest to me are battery-powered bikes that are relatively common here. They travel fairly quickly (more quickly than most of the recreation-speed pedalers out on the road, at least), run silently and don't require any pedaling. I have desired such a bicycle of my own back home and have looked into the few brands and conversion kits that exist in the US. If it wouldn't be so expensive to ship back, I would buy one here. My guess is that one in 15 bicycles here in Beijing is battery-powered.

Lastly, there are very few scooters or motorcycles. When I visited Taiwain about a decade ago, they were the predominant form of street transportation. I don't know exactly why, but they aren't very popular up here. I would say that one in every 40 two-wheeled vehicle is a gas-powered scooter or motorcycle. Most are on the smaller side (maybe not even 50cc) though I have seen larger scooters like my own and even one full-fledged sport bike. I asked my hosts about this and their guess was the weather made travelling at high speeds in the cold air too chilling for most people.

Anyway, back to traffic. Though cars more or less follow the traffic signals, bicycles and pedestrians categorically do not. Due to the large intersections, there are actually separate lights for the pedestrians and bicycles but both are essentially ignored. Bicycles in particular seem to do whatever they please. They will move through the intersectionin whatever manner they feel is most expediant and won't hesitate to change directions, move diagonally through multiple lanes, or pool in an island in the middle of the intersection waiting for an opening. They are the true lawless on the road, most never moving more than a fast jog yet permeating the traffic of cars and buses and moving in their own way.

The pedestrians, though equally independent of the law, have a much simplier behavior: they cross the street whenever and wherever they feel like it. Pedestrians collect at the corners and once a large enough group has assembled and an opening presents itself, the group will move. The crossing can take place roughly when the signals indicate but not necessarily so. If a group has collected at a corner and a self-appointed leader begins crossing, more often than not the group will move with him or her, regardless of the traffic; there is safety in numbers. Sometimes there will be defectors who decides the "leader" has made a bad choice and will themselves wait for a better opportunity and/or another pack to cross with. There are often lone-wolf pedestrians who seem not to care for life and limb and will step out into traffic given even the slightest opening. The long and short of it is that there is nearly a steady stream of pedestrians flowing through the intersections most of the time.

Given all of this, there are two obvious questions: how is every intersection not a tangled mess all the time and how are traffic accidents not horribly common? Though I haven't reached any conlcusions I feel highly confident in, it is clear that traffic here is much more of a negotiation than a matter of law. Sometimes the bus yields to the pedestrians, sometimes the pedestrians scatter to make way for the bus. If the way seems clear, the bicycles may start and if left-turning traffic shows up in front of them, they may stop or they may work their way through it and force the cars to yield. The mystery to me is how the negotiation is communicated, how the deal is struck and who has the upper-hand at any given time. It is clear by the lack of serious accidents (I haven't seen any collisions other than pedestrains bumping into each other) that the system works fairly well, but for an outsider like me, the workings of the system are non-obvious. In fact, it is probably more dangerous for me simply because I can't communicate appropriately during these traffic negotiations.

Though all of these may seem to inefficient or unsafe I could not easily say that this is the case. It seems to work well for them and not having to wait your turn at intersections (for bicycles and pedestrians at least) IS more efficient. I guess the BIG sacrifice made is that of corporate responsiblity. In a very real sense, any problems you may have out on the road are nobody's fault but your own. There is no real assignment of blame if something goes wrong, no legitmate cries that the other party broke the rules. At the end of the day, you are the sole party responsible for getting where you need to go safely.

All that said, I still think I like law-based traffic better. At least until I figure out how to make things work for me here and each street-crossing isn't and adventure.

Everyday Adventure

Going outside feels risky.

I'm not worried about being mugged or my pocket being picked. I'm worried about the truth of my complete inability to survive on my own in Beijing being clearly seen by all the people I pass on the street everyday. I don't say a word, I try to look confident but I know I'm a sham. I'm a fish out of water praying that nobody notices my gills and fins flailing around trying to find some way to survive. I try to pretend that I know my way around, that I understand how traffic works and when it is OK and not OK to cross the street, that I can manage to get to where I need to go without incident. None of these are true.

I seek to be unobtrusive, to blend in with the crowd but this is a fantasy. I'm a tall white man in the middle of the the capital of China. I am staying in the university district so there are other non-Asians walking about but this doesn't change how I feel. Everybody stares. They're looking for the slightest sign of my ineptitude so that they can laugh or yell at me and let me know that I'm not fooling anyone.

I can't say more than "hello", "goodbye", "thank you" and count to four in Chinese. I don't know if you knew this, but these words don't get you very far in life. Yesterday, with great trepidation and anxiety, my wife and went to a Chinese restaurant on our own to have lunch. We faked our way through the process of getting seated and managed to order food from the pictures menu quite easily. Then the waitress asked a question.

My wife and I stared blankly. She repeated the question and we looked at her and shrugged. We pulled out the phrase book and leafed our way through it, her looking over our shoulders, looking at the printed Chinese translations. After a few more futile attempts, she gave up and left us. Tea and then the food we had ordered came. When it didn't seem that any rice was coming my wife suggested I ask for some. Ask for rice with the meal in China? Really? Well, we did seem to be lacking this key item so I pulled out the phrase book and used bilingual dictionary in the back to find the word for rice.

There is was. That word that she had been saying over and over again. She was asking if we wanted any rice. I flagged her down and foolishly pointed to the Chinese script in the dictionary. She gave us a frustrated smile and in short time we had two bowls of rice.

We are helpless here. Our adventure in eating out ended well, I suppose. We got food, we paid for it and we were only a minor hassle to the restaurant staff. The whole, time, though, I was on edge. How did we pay the check? Is this number on the check our total or our table number? Are they going to overcharge us? How much was each of these dishes again? All of this in what must be one of the most trivial transactions that can be made.

Living everyday in a place like this would be days and days filled with confusion, frustration, anxiety and helplessness. How do you survive in a place where you worry about not being able to buy groceries? It is humbling to have the cultural skills of a four-year-old. It is stressful to be in such a position and have the responsiblities of an adult. Only by the grace of God, could we survive in such a life.

Energy in Beijing

With climate change, renewable energy, and emissions control all the rage in the western media these days, China has been receiving a fair share of focus regarding its development and energy policy. The arguement that it and India are making revolves around the fact that the western world has polluted the whole globe into this mess and that it should be ones making the biggest changes in carbon emissions as it is the most developed and able to do so. The implicit corollary to this stance is that India and China should be allowed to pollute just as agressively as the the US and Europe did in the past so that they too can bring about industrial and economic development without the undo burden of trying to do so in an environmentally sound manner.

With oil prices having risen dramatically in the past decade or so and all the industrial development in China I would have expected energy costs to be at a premuim. Based on talks with my hosts, I would have to say that I am very wrong. They say that their utility bills are a negligible cost in living here in Beijing. Last night I learned that $60 (US) is sufficient to cover electricity for three months or so. (Fun fact for the day: in this apartment complex, the electricity is pre-paid. There's a little card reader next to the meter and you "charge-up" the meter with a special card loaded electricity credits.) We've been told that there is no need to worry about leaving lights on, using lots of hot water, or turning the heat up when it gets cold at night. Granted, their apartment isn't very large (I'm going to guess 500 square feet) and there are only two of them but a similar living situation in the US would not lead to such a care-free atitude when it comes to paying the power bill.

The cause of low energy costs is both mysterious and obvious. The obvious part strikes you immediately upon landing in the city: the air is very polluted nearly all the time. China has abundant coal resources and does whatever it takes to provide the power to keep the industrial wheels turning. Vendors on the street burn charcoal and coal to keep their food warm and smokestacks in the area seem to almost always been emitting...something.

The mysterious part (or maybe "perplexing" would be a better word) is that, without outside information, you would never guess that the world is growing more concerned about the need for clean energy. Something that is so pressing and important in my life back in the US doesn't seem to bear any notice here. I would guess that Beijing residents here would prefer to have cleaner air (and may downright enjoy the improvement during August when the Olympics are here) but I don't know what price (not just financial) they would be willing to pay to have clear skies. Or, more specifically, I don't know if anybody really cares right now as the rapid economic development seems to be bringing welcome improvement in lifestyle.

I don't know what the implications of this is, but I would feel safe in saying that the citizens of China are probably not the ones who will be leading the charge toward a change in energy policy. I'm also going to guess that the Chinese government is more concerned with modernization and is willing to deal with the pollution problem later. We'll see in the long-term how all of this shapes up; right now I'm not optimistic.

Made in China

I've heard it many times in many places but the reality is sinking in now that I can see it for myself: labor in China is cheap. Our hosts have a cleaning lady who comes by twice a weak to clean their apartment. They are not rich by any measure but the cost of having her come and do some of the housework is affordable, especially in light of the benefit of having those hours they would have spent cleaning now free for other pursuits. There are car washes out on the street where, in the dead of winter, several guys will clean your car for you with buckets of soapy water and rags. The garabage man is a large flat-beg truck with a guy or two who toss bags of trash onto the bed. Everywhere there are people doing manual labor in situations that you just don't see in the USA. This cheap labor is the driving force behind so many companies moving manufacturing over to China. All other factors aside, it is actually possible to assemble a large force of labors who will, by hand, do just about anything that needs doing. And they will do it at a price that is cheaper than automation anywhere else in the world can provide.

Part of the cause of the cheap labor is the large migrant work force that occupies many of the cities. These migrants are almost always from the rural areas where the opportunities for livelihood consist of farming, and, like in the USA, many of the younger people are looking for something more rewarding than tilling the soil. In China, though, the government requires you to be registered and residing in a certain city and you are not technically allowed to work outside that area. But, like the traffic laws here, the letter of the law and reality are not necessarily highly related. Many of the workers from the cities are essentially illegal immigrants working for low wages because it is better than not having any work at all back in the country. The opportunities are in the cities and even if it isn't 100% legal, they come anyway trying to make a better life. Think of this as the same problem the US has with Mexico but without the international border.

I'm sure there are many other complexities I don't understand right now and that this is not the whole story but it is one significant factor influencing the labor market in major Chinese cities. Obviously, there are jobs that will never be able to be done manually (making computer chips, for example) and until China embraces automation, companies in such lines of business will be few and far between. In the mean time, the "Made in China" label will continue to be the results of millions and millions of labors hand-working products into existance.

What Day Is It Again?

We have arrived in Beijing and travel was incident free. Well, almost.

Snow in the "mid-west" (is Kansas part of the mid-west?) kept the flight schedules volatile Saturday morning when we were trying to fly out of Wichita. There was very little snow falling there but apparently in Chicago (our connecting destination) there was trouble and our flight was delayed almost two hours. United, though, did an excellent job of making the delay bearable by not having us board the plane until we had an arrival slot in Chicago. They even went one step further by monitoring all our connecting flights and re-booking travellers on the spot before we had even left. I didn't expect this level of service from the notorious airline.

Our flight out of Chicago was not delayed and shrunk our generous three hour lay-over into less than an hour. We caught the flight and joined the mass of college students returning home for Christmas break. Seriously, all of economy-class save a dozen or so people were non-white, twenty-somethings. Speaking of economy-class, we didn't get to see the upper-deck on our 747 but the announcements mentioned passengers in "suites" and it was clear that their experience was quite different than ours. The simple fact that a full plane left very little room for us in economy to even get up and walk around made me realize that we really were travelling the modern equivalent of steerage class. Not that I'm bitter; even that next class up from us cost several thousand more per ticket.

Compared to my previous trans-Pacific flights, time passed very quickly. I spent most of my time watching the in-flight movies and playing video games on a recently received Gameboy Advance. Katie says I'm addicted but I insist I can stop any time. Just got to do this one more thing then I'll be done. I promise. For real this time.

Our flight left Saturday morning, we arrived in Beijing Sunday evening and as I write this, are enjoying Monday morning, the first full day here in China. We'll see if my body can make it through the day without jet-lag taking over.

In just one week...

...my wife and I will be in Beijing. We're going out to visit some friends for a while and are eagerly awaiting the trip. The run-up these past few weeks has been surprisingly un-stressful. We've got a suitcase full of food items that they cannot get there, chocolate chips making up large portion so far. We've each purchased our long underwear to deal with the cold (particularly if we take a trip up to Harbin, one of the major cities in the far north).

All of this planning is taking place during the already busy holiday season which is a big part of the reason I haven't been faithful in posting. We've just this past week finished getting gift for everybody and are still working on making arrangements for the time we are gone. Getting out of work has not been a big deal for us but it helps that we have been planning on the trip for most of this year.

So that's the story. Oh, and my brother and his wife should be having their first-born any day now. Lots of excite in the family right now.