It’s gone on long enough: I’ve been in China for six months and existed on a vocabulary of roughly five hundred Chinese words plus a handful of characters to get by. My ineptitude is beginning to make me feel like a social pariah in expat circles (all my rugby pals are fluent or close to it, the gits) as well as severely limiting my ability to befriend local people. It makes me highly envious when I see a Westerner and a local happily chatting to each other in Mandarin and I feel rather rude that I’m unable to do the same after being here for so long. So I’ve finally bitten the bullet and shelled out hen duo qien (a shed load of money) on a course of Chinese lessons – see, they’re paying for themselves already.

Before I continue I should point out that, up to now, I have made at least some effort to learn:  every ‘China veteran’ we met while we were in South East Asia recommended that learning a few words and characters would make life immeasurably easier, not to mention ingratiating us with the locals (they weren’t wrong either – we arrived from northern Vietnam via a fairly remote border crossing and my first few days are a blur of gesticulating with hotel owners and playing ‘guess the meat’ in roadside restaurants. So I took their advice, downloaded a series of self-study podcasts, and spent many an hour lying on rickety Vietnamese beds learning the basics.

Unfortunately, though, the language course I selected had some strange priorities when it came to deciding the most useful words and phrases for its students to master. For example, by the time I crossed into China I had reached lesson twenty-two, and I knew how to say, ‘No, I would not like to come back to your place for a coffee’ but I still hadn’t been taught the phrases ‘I want a hotel room’ or ‘can I have the bill’. Or even ‘yes please’. Consequently I formed some odd preconceptions and was almost disappointed when nobody tried to chat me up immediately after I crossed the border.

The other problem with self-study pod casts is that, if somebody answers my perfectly crafted questions in any way other than I’ve been taught by the robotic voice of my podcast, I haven’t got a clue what they’re saying. On top of this, (due to the afore mentioned fact that most Beijing expats speak decent Chinese), once I’ve rattled of the two or three sentences I’m comfortable with, the person I’m addressing assumes that I’m all but fluent and often launches into a happy flow of Mandarin to which I can neither understand nor respond. This is a particular problem in taxis and I have perfected the art of lasting for ten or fifteen minutes pretending that I fully understand their one-way conversation through a series of smiles, nods and vague grunts.

In a nutshell, the self-study isn’t really doing it for me and I wouldn’t want to put a language partner through the pain of an hour’s worth of my tortured muttering just yet, so last week I attended my first one-on-one ‘Intensive Spoken Mandarin’ lesson (intensive being the operative word).

Despite dark warnings from expat friends that Chinese language schools are not all they should be, my inexhaustibly cheerful and enthusiastic teacher immediately proved her worth. She performed minor miracles by forcing me not to speak English, at all, for two full hours, and drilling Mandarin words, phrases and pronunciations into me by asking me to repeat them again and again. If I screw up the same word three times she makes me sing a song, which is a remarkably strong incentive for both of us to work hard.

At the moment the characters are the bit that’s killing me – who decided it was a good idea to have a different symbol for every single word? – and it is tempting to just learn just the basics and leave it at that. But considering how often I’ve have a laugh over a bad Chinglish translation or strangely pronounced English word since we crossed the border (my personal favourite: ‘cripples and retards toilet’), it is only fair that I put the boot on the other foot and learn to make myself understood.

Look what I’ve got! Just bought this baby today, a top quality folding bike. Breaks are shonky but feeling more like a beijinger!

Welcome to the Year of the Tiger!

Although New Year’s eve waslast night, I got my first taste of New Year celebrations, Chinese style, on the way home from work last Monday: I was in the process of crossing the dual carriage way to get to my bus stop, and something rolled into the road and hit my foot. ‘That looks a bit like a firework’ I thought, but, being in the middle of a dual carriageway, I didn’t stop to investigate. Turns out it was a firework - about ten seconds later it exploded into a shower of blue and green sparks that lit up the road and sent a couple of cars swerving onto the grass verge. As I tottered towards the bus, eardrums ringing, I spotted the culprits -  group of old ladies huddled outside an aparment block lighting roman candles on the side of the road. The one in question had misfired, but not to worry, they had (literally) hundreds more where that came from and it was only a bit of practice for the main event.

For the past week or so, in the run up to Chinese New Year and the beginning of Spring Festival, Beijing’s skylines (not to mention the Beijing pavements and main roads) have been illuminated by some pretty impressive DIY pyrotechnic displays, so we were expecting something spectacular on the day itself. But not quite as spectacular, or terrifying, as it actually turned out to be.

Last night, to see in the Year of the Tiger, Beijing turned into a marginally less traumatic version of the Western Front. From the early afternoon, the streets began to empty of traffic. People would sporadically pop out of their apartment blocks to throw a string of extremely loud firecrackers onto the pavement and watch them take out a couple of dogs and maybe a tourist, and by late afternoon almost every shop, bank, kiosk and restaurant had closed its doors to allow the staff to go home to their families.

By the time we headed out of the apartment in the early evening there were rocket launches happening on evey corner, the sky was a sea of sparks and the air was think with the small of gunpowder. We stopped on the corner of our road to watch a group of guys letting of ffirecrackers until I took a direct hit to the eye, at which point we decided that underground travel might be the safest way to get to the Hutong we were headed for so we legged it to the subway. As usual, we were the only people who seemend to show any nervous reaction to the carnage: there were kids, old people and small dogs everywhere and none of them so much as flinched, even if they were actually holding a screaming, blazing heavy-duty firework as it went off (which seemed to be standard practice).

Apart from bleeding eardrums, we arrived safely at our friend’s apartment for a new year’s eve celebration which was authentic in every way apart from the fact  75% of the guests were westerners: two girls were churning out homemade jiao zi (meat dumplings that are the equivalent of Christmas turkey) and a tray kept appearing laden with shots of bai jiu, a very popular Chinese liquor which tastes like soil and acts like liquid nitrogen. As midnight approached we’d drunk enough of it to make jumping down onto the rickety balcony to get a better view of the fireworks a good idea.

And at midnight, everything went crackers. The sky turned into a riot of noise and colour as milions and millios of fireworks exploded across the city to bring inthe new year. Being seven stories up, I have no idea how many of them were part of organised displays and how many were DIY jobs, but they couldn’t have looked better. Seeing a city of sixteen million illuminated by the multi-coloured blaze of a billion fireworks is not really something you can describe very well, so I shall let Jamas’s photos do the talking - as always, the Chinese outdid themselves.

Happy New Year, China.

 

We’re back in the swing of things here in Beijing, and so far it’s been a surprisingly smooth ride.  We’ve moved into a fantastic apartment in a lively part of town, we’ve got great views over the city and best of all we no longer eat supper sitting on the end of the bed.

Not wanting to tempt fate, but it’s been a remarkable easy couple of weeks.  Before Christmas on average I’d have one or two ‘bad china days’ a week – where something pissed me off – be it a bureaucratic process for a trivial means, or just general the rudeness and lack of manners of Beijing’s masses.  Somehow, however the city feels different now we’re back.  The air is clear and crisp, the sun is shining and I’m pretty sure – but don’t quote me on this – that the lady in the police station even smiled when we registered our papers.  We got our internet connection installed today and the engineer was 15 minutes early.  What’s going on China?  You’ve changed.

Perhaps the upbeat mood in the city is because it’s Chinese New Year this weekend (imagine Christmas 10 times over).  As I peer out over Beijing this evening I can see the sparkle of fireworks all over the city as our fellow city dwellers practice ahead of the main event on Saturday.  Jeannie and I will be heading to Houhai – a huge lake in the city surrounded by narrow Hutongs and open-air beer houses.  We’ll be filling our bellies with dumplings and watching the fireworks over Beijing’s ancient drum and bell towers as we welcome in the Tiger Year.

Our Zodiac looks promising for 2010 – we’ve been told to “express our talents” and in return a “long-awaited opportunity will knock on your door”.  The prediction also gave us permission to party.  Lots.  Next on the list: find a talent to express whilst partying…

 

Hello readers, it’s a rather festive, de-mob happy James here penning the final blog post of the year whilst humming along to “Do they know it’s Christmas?”.  If ‘they’ in question are the Chinese then the answer is oh yes, they know it’s Christmas.  Sure, in a straw poll you’d undoubtedly discover that not many people here have heard of comrade J. Christ, but nonetheless over the last week Beijing’s gone potty for crimbo.

They’re not alone – our festive countdown has also well and truly begun: today is our 309th day away from home and it’s also our last day here in Beijing.  In 4 hours we’ll be on a plane bound for Blighty.  We’re coming home three days early thanks to the ungrateful sods who dish out drinks and peanuts for BA.  Striking for 12 days?  Really?  Has the UK gone French whilst we’ve been away?  This last minute change in plan has forced me to brave Beijing’s minus 5 chill to finish collecting tat to offer to loved ones as gifts (chairman Mao fridge magnet anyone?).  The shopping malls are decked out with trees and fake snow, the shop assistants are dressed up as Santa and the Chinese interpretations of Christmas hits blast relentlessly from tannoys all over the city.  There’s even a life-sized wobbling Santa model which has be causing much amusement – guys stand next to old saint Nick and put on their steeliest poker faces whilst their wives take a snap for the family album.  Then there’s the kangaroos wearing Santa hats…

We’re ready to depart: we’ve packed our rucksacks, our apartment’s been stuffed into boxes and Jeannie’s just landed an awesome new job for January.  We’ve even got a plan for 2010 – we’ve coming back to Beijing, we’re going to spend more time exploring China then take a two month break to travel some more before finally returning to the UK in September.  So we’ve not quite finished this traveling malarkey yet.

We need to shoot, we’ve got a plane to catch.  Before we do, I thought I’d share an interesting stat from the blog with you. I bet you can’t guess what the most popular search term people have typed into Google to find our blog. It’s actually quite ironic given what we’ve been up to over the last year.  Got it yet?  No? Here it is:

“alcohol ruins life”

Try Googling it, you’ll find us.

Merry Christmas.

Despite the lack of carols, trees and fairy light in Beijing, James and I have spent the last fortnight preparing for Christmas. Kind of. As you might be aware I’m not usually the most festive elf on the block, but this year I’m really looking forward to it, partly because we’re popping home to see everybody and partly because I’ve not been bombarded with Christmas paraphernalia in every shop, office block and on every street corner for the past three months, so when James downloaded a CD of carols and last weekend it was actually exciting to crack open the mulled Tsing Tao and start the countdown.

Last weekend we went on a Christmas shopping mission to Panjiayuan, Beijing’s most ecletic antiques market, which houses a truly amazing array of tat ranging from the very expensive and interesting to the truly shit. Here’s a small selection of what you can find: first editions of Mao’s Little Red Book, teapots, old propaganda posters, fake Ming pottery with suspiciously neat chips and cracks, fireworks, silk prints, dragon puppets, cookery books with titles like ‘100 Ways with Dog’, Brownie cameras, gramaphones, more teapots, calligraphy sets, Chairman Mao waving arm alarm clocks, wthnic minority fancy dress outfits, Jinseng, jade jewelry and a plethora of other stuff recovered from heaven knows where – I wish I knew something about antiques. James was supposed to be doing his Christmas shopping but I somehow ended up buying four large sackfuls of crap which will undoubtedly end up on YOUR mantelpieces after Christmas, so watch out if I run at you with a teapot-shaped present, it cost 30p and will look hideous in any location except on a shelf along with 3,200 similar teapots, where it looked antiquey and cool.

James, myself and the teapots will all fly home in 10 days so I’m well and truly on the final countdown at school: I spent this morning having flashbacks to my childhood as I taught my classes how to turn a piece of white paper into an over-sized snowflake…strangely enough it’s still a highly satisfying activity…you never know quite how it’s going to look until you open the folds of the paper and find all those nice, symmetrical curves and edges. I’m also teaching them ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ but, in the interests of having an easy last two weeks in the classroom, I’ve elaborated somewhat on the ramifications of not being good – in my version Santa will still come, but he’ll attack you in your sleep. ‘Not being good’ is defined by talking in English class.

This weekend’s activities include dinner with the rugby girls followed by a pie and ale night on Saturday. The pies are cooked by an Australian chef who used to be the personal chef of thge Dutch royal family so I’ve been on a starvation diet for three days. Mmmm, pies.

Right, off to class, see you in a week or two, and start clearing that mantelpiece (I’m taslking to you Grandma, time to relegate the teletubby sculpture to the loft)…

Whilst Ebeneezer Ivanov has been bah-humbugging in Beijing, Matt and I have had a cracking time in Xi’an, home to China’s infamous army – the Terracotta Warriors. We shot down on Monday morning and spent three snowy nights in a cosy hostel in a traditional Chinese townhouse. Even though we are well and truly out of the tourist season and despite the freezing temperatures the hostel was busy with the familiar atmosphere of travellers coming and going. It was great to return the lifestyle we’ve grown to love over the last year. Read the rest of this entry »

I’d like to add a bad tempered caveat to James’ previous post – snow is crap. Cold and crap. Unless you’re ski-ing, when it serves a purpose, but there are no hills in a fifty mile radius of here.

Sorry, but as the festive season approaches my mood generally plummets anyway (the plummeting is exponential to the number of time I hear Noddy Holder’s moronic screeching in one day), and since I am stuck in the freezing wastes of Beijing while James and Matt are cavorting with Pandas and pretty backpackers in Xi’an, I’m in a particularly Ebeneezer-like mood. The snow appeared in earnest last Tuesday, when we woke up to find a good five inches had fallen, and since then it has been absolutely Baltic, so much so that there are still frozen piles it littering the road (a week after it fell). I walked to work this morning wearing almost everything I own, looking like the Michelin Man but feeling less hypothermic than the rest of the week, and when I got there, as usual, all the windows were open despite the radiators being on. Why? Why?  Is it a test of character? Are we supposed to be acclimatising? I think it might be the latter, because every time I mention the cold to a ‘veteran’ expat (somebody who’s been here for more than 12 months) they chuckle happily and say ‘it’s only November now, wait ’til winter really sets in’ as though they are Punxutawney Phil, or Nostrudamus, and can predict future climate. I do admit, though, that the snow made everything look very, very pretty, and it gave me loads of material in class since we’ve doing weather at the moment.

Anyway, apart from the cold (and my annoyance about missing the jolly to Xi’an), Beijing is treating us both well and time is racing by towards our flight home for Christmas (five weeks from today), which is odd since we’re so much into the routine of our temporary existence here. My students and I have got used to each other and I actually find myself enjoying most of the lessons, rugby is a nice combination of exercise and weekend alcohol excesses, we’re both able to hold a decent conversation in Chinese, and we can now look forward to food shopping without fear of accidentally buying a packet of chicken’s ovaries or pig’s pituitary glands, or something. Negotiations have opened regarding what to do/where to go/how to earn a lot of money in a very short time without breaking the law after Christmas; we’ve pretty much agreed that we want to head back to Beijing, but every so often something will happen to make us want to run away screaming and never return. Today, that something was queuing in the bank for over an hour then them closing for lunch before I got served, but then I bought roast chestnuts on the way home and met my friends for dumplings, and once my fingers had thawed out I decided I was making a fuss about nothing. I am English, and queuing is what we do better than anyone else in the world.

Ho ho ho, merry christmas!  Ok, it’s a little premature but I’m feeling rather festive here in ‘jingers thanks to the recent snowfall that’s coated the normally grey city with a couple of inches of white icing.  Our friend Matt (Skeath, from Vodafone) has come out to sample the wonders of China (he didn’t believe you’re allowed to shit in the streets and had to witness it for himself) so I’ve taken a few days out to see Beijing’s sights in the freezing snow. Read the rest of this entry »

For the past month we’ve been enjoying the kind of weather that makes even a city as urbanised as Beijing look rather lovely. The days are getting shorter and cooler, but the weird summery pollution haze that hung over August and September has disappeared, the sky is a ridiculous shade of blue, the trees are slowly undressing and the sweet potato, chestnut and satsuma vendors are lining the streets outside every subway station, making everything smell Autumnal. I haven’t even seen a little kid shitting in the middle of the pavement recently. It’s almost paradise.

Thanks to the National Holiday and a half-day week last week we’ve had plenty of opportunity to enjoy it, and we seriously made up for our neglect of sightseeing while mum was here. As well as the great wall we managed to squeeze all of the following sights, which, to avoid boring you rigid, I’ve attempted to describe in fifteen words or fewer:

The Summer Palace – built by a mad, megalomaniac empress, beautiful lake, nice crazy paving, fifteen million people there.

The Forbidden City – absolutely enormous, eight thousand rooms, austere atmosphere, fifteen million people there.

Tiannamen Square – Imposing, grey, brings to mind the worst of China, flags everywhere, fifteen million people there.

China National Art Gallery – fascinating exhibition on 60 years of communism (we think. The signs were in Mandarin).

The Temple of Heaven – gorgeous grounds, lots of people dancing, singing and strolling around, peaceful despite the crowds.

The Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium – Immense, but depressingly unused. I got more excited than James and mum.

Jingshan Park – lovely little park with an amazing view of the Forbidden City. Fab.

Houhai District – sat on a roof terrace bar drinking beer and watching pigeon fanciers at work. Clever pigeons.

The Confucian Temple – crowd-free temple of learning and music, very reverential towards the great man.

Wangfujing shopping district – mum nearly shed tears over the loss of communist values. A commercial frenzy.

Here’s a small selection of the photos – apologies that they’re not up to usual standards; James was busy working many days so I took most of them.