Can you Find Good Dim Sum in Beijing?

One of my favorite things to do when I travel is to search for new, interesting and delicious foods. As my time in Beijing was wound down, I wanted to see if I could get a couple more good meals before I came home. I had never eaten dim sum in China, so I decided to see if I could find a good restaurant in Beijing. Southern China is more famous for dim sum, but I assumed that you could find some if you knew where to look. I asked my Korean classmate Sangchul, who had been in the Beijing longer than I had, where to find some good dim sum restaurants in the city. He recommended Din Tai Feng (鼎泰丰). It was located on the 6^th floor of the Xinguang Tiandi (新光天地) shopping center, one of the best in the city. The restaurant was a little expensive, he said, but it was worth it.

Because she didn’t have anything better to do and because she knew she would be hungry, Roberta agreed to go to Din Tai Feng with me. We planned to meet at 7:45 at BLCU’s south gate, but by the time we got in the taxi to leave, it was closer to 8:15. We ran into a huge traffic jam, so it was after nine o’clock by the time we finally arrived at the shopping center. The taxi driver dropped us off in front, and we headed for the front door.

Entering through tall glass doors, we slipped into one of the elevators immediately to the right, only to realize that the elevator traveled exclusively between the ground floor and the parking garages. Oops. Embarrassed at our recklessness, we hopped off the elevator one floor below and caught a return elevator back to where we started. We knew there had to be a different way to the restaurant, so we made our way into the store in front of us.

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The Silk Street Market (Last Day, Part 2)

The second part of my great last day took place at the Silk Street market. At one point, if you had asked me if the market was a must-see place for travelers going to Beijing, I would have told you that it’s interesting, but not that great. After visiting the market this time, I would say that it’s a great experience and you should go. I recommend spending a couple hours there, especially if you aren’t tired from walking for hours before you get there.

The Silk Street market is a multi-story version of a street market. Inside you will find every type of Chinese souvenir that you could possibly want—fans, statuettes, key chains, t-shirts, etc. The market is also well-known among tourists as a good place to buy false luxury brand goods including clothing, electronic goods and jewelry. You can purchase tailor-made suits, custom-fit and ready to pick up within three days. You pick out the material you want, get measured and the suit will be ready in three days. Be sure to not pay more than half up front in order to make sure that the suit is ready when you come back. Express orders can be made, for a price.

 When you go to the market, be sure to bargain hard. The vendors won’t sell you anything at a loss, so don’t feel bad about walking away after offering a price that seems ridiculously low. You will be called back if they can make even a little money. The next stall has the same stuff and each vendor is under intense pressure to survive. The game can be fun, and it is easy to spend hours there if you enjoy negotiating.

As you walk in the front door of the market, there is a large red sign that gives you a general idea of what is sold on each floor. These are useful if you know what you’re looking for. If not, it’s fun to just wander into the aisles and just get a feel for the market. You can use the elevators near the main entrance to change floors and there are also escalators in the center of the market.

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Small-Town Beijing (Last Day, Part 1)

Have you ever had a day that you still cannot believe happened? My last full day in Beijing was like that. After finally getting to bed at 5am the night before, I woke up at 10am with big plans for my last day. There were still a couple of things I needed to buy for my family so I decided to go to the Silk Street market, a famous place in Beijing where foreigners go to bargain for cheap knock-offs of luxury brand goods. My second goal was to get a haircut. I hadn’t been to the barber in a while, and I figured that between my mediocre language skills and the natural flair for creativity that most hairstylists have, I might end up with a haircut worth writing about.

BLCU is in the northwestern part of Beijing, and the market is about an hour away by metro, a couple miles east of Tiananmen Square. (I always reference Tiananmen, because on a map of Beijing, Tiananmen sits at the center of the rectangular city that surrounds it). By taxi, it is about 15 miles (22km +/-) and I was too cheap to get a taxi by myself (A taxi costs about $10 US, and the train, $0.30). So I took the train.

There were seventeen stops between me and my destination, plus two transfers, so the trip was going to take a little over an hour. I hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning, and there was only one stop after the second transfer, so I decided to skip the last stop and walk to the market. That way I could get something to eat and see a new neighborhood (another opportunity to wander). Including the subway ride, the walking and lunch, I expected to be at the market by 1pm.

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Two Observations about PDX

After a 24-hour voyage, I made it back in Portland on Friday evening. I have a few more stories about China to share with you over the next couple days, but I will also be looking for other adventures around the Pacific Northwest. More on that in the future. For now, these are my first two impressions about Portland: it has better air and is much more polite than Beijing.

The best thing about arriving back in Portland, other than seeing friends and family, is that I can breathe easily again. You cannot see the air in Portland, and that is a wonderful thing. I enjoyed my run yesterday morning because when I took a deep breath, my lungs did not feel like they were under siege. If you breathe the air here all the time, you might not realize that Portland air has a smooth, velvety finish, similar to a fine whisky. Beijing air is more like a cheap bottle of convenience-store gut-rot. It makes you cough and sputter if you try to breathe too deeply.

A common sight, until the rainy season. . .

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Why Would Anyone Want to Study Chinese?

Some of you have asked me why people come to BLCU for a one-month (or longer) intensive Chinese language study. I’ve been meaning to write about the topic for a while—sorry for the delay. Here are some of my classmates’ stories (unfortunately, I didn’t have pictures of everyone).

The first student I want to introduce to you is Lee Dong-Deuk. Lee is a 53 year-old businessman from Seoul, South Korea. Twenty years ago, he started a business importing wall coverings into South Korea (the company’s website is here). Lee is taking a month off from the day to day operations of the company to come here and study. Lee has studied Chinese in Korea for the last two years with an online Chinese teacher. He is studying because he likes languages and also because he sees potential business opportunities in China. He knows that being able to speak Mandarin will help him build relationships and conduct negotiations with Chinese buyers and suppliers.

Lee

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Bright Lights and Late Nights

On Tuesday night after finals, everyone wanted to go out to celebrate, so we decided to go to Houhai district to celebrate. I’m not going to tell you all the details, but if you ever want to go out drinking and dancing, Houhai is not a bad place to do that. The area consists of dozens of small bars that line the edges of a lake. At night it is a sea of flashing lights and blaring music.

Our group consisted of about 20 Italians, four Spaniards, one Greek (Konstantina, my one and only Greek friend), one Irish guy and one American. We ended up outside a place called Reggae Bar, and that night there happened to be a couple guitarists playing flamenco inside.  Upon hearing the music, the Spaniards set to dancing in the streets. The Italians sat down on the couches that were outside the bar’s door, not quite yet ready to dance.

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Exporting America

The other night, I managed to catch up with some Italian friends for the last couple songs of a night out singing karaoke. When I got there, they wanted to sing an American song so that I could sing along with them. They started scrolling through some American songs—I think they picked one by the Black-Eyed Peas—and they were surprised when I said I didn’t know it. “But how can you not know it? You’re American!” was the remark that captured the sentiment of the group. I was a little embarrassed and I pretended it was just that one song, but I doubt they believed my act. The truth is, this group of Italian twenty-somethings knew way more about recent American pop music than I did.

KTV in Beijing

In addition to music, I also found out that American television and movies are very popular abroad. On our long bus ride back from the Inner Mongolia trip, one of the conversation topics that came up was American television and cinema. Shows like the OC, CSI, Calfornication, Sex and the City, The Sopranos and Twilight were all well-known by my classmates. So were the Simpsons. I laughed when they said that they think of Americans as rich, beautiful people who live in on either of the coasts (of course, they also stereotype American tourists as being fat and loud). They wanted to visit California, because on television it looked like such a great place to be. I assured them that everything they see on TV is true.

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Staying Alive on Beijing's Streets

If you are a person who believes that risking your life makes you feel alive, then you ought to come to China and cross a busy street during rush hour. Why? Let’s just say that traffic in China is a lot more ‘free-flowing’ than in the states. By free-flowing, I mean that drivers there tend to follow the traffic laws, unless they decide the rules aren’t convenient. If you could stand at an intersection and watch traffic for a while, you would see that red lights usually mean stop, cars usually stay in their lanes and bikes and motorcycles usually go in the same direction as the rest of the traffic. However, you would also see that at certain times during the day, many of the rules are thrown out the window and chaos reigns. Check out the video to see what I mean.

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Despedidos (Farewells)

This post I dedicate to all my new friends, especially my Spanish friends—Silvia, Daniel, Luis, Susana and Konstantina (not quite Spanish, but close enough), os echo de menos.

One of the most difficult parts of coming to a place like BLCU for a month is that time goes by so quickly, and just when you are beginning to make good friends, you have to say farewell and go back to your own countries. At the end of each of the last several days, I have had to say goodbye to lots of new friends, wondering each time if it would be the last time I ever saw them. We always hope to meet again, but the truth is that you never know, so you wish each other the best in life, wherever it may take you.

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Living Behind the Great Firewall

One of the things that US media frequently mentions is the issue of internet censorship in China. This year, Google got into a row with the Chinese government over Google’s refusal block some of the search results that the Chinese government deems too sensitive for the general public (things got so bad at one point that Google announced it was pulling out of China completely. The company and the government have since reached some type of agreement, though I expect the tensions to arise again in the future). 

If you search for Tiananmen square, for example, you get lots of search results about the square’s history, design, annual visitors, etc. However, if you add 1989 to the search, you get a message that Google is not available. If you try to go back to the search page, you get the same message and will have to wait a few minutes for Google’s services to return. On Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, you can search for Tiananmen 1989, but if you click on any result that has ‘protests’ or ‘massacre’ in the description, you get nowhere.

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Who are You? Names in China

If you ever decide to study Chinese, as a foreigner one of the first things the teacher will do is help you select a Chinese name. It is tradition that everyone who studies the language has a Chinese name. Students also learn to write their name in characters (hanzi), and the name will stick with you for as long as you study Chinese. I suppose it’s possible to change it, but I don’t know many people who have.

You might find it interesting to know how the teachers come up with the names. There are two parts to the name, and the family name is written first, unlike in most countries in the West. Some students, from Korea and Japan in particular, already have names that can be written in traditional Chinese characters. The pronunciation is different, but the meaning is the same. Park Junwoo becomes Piao Junyou, for example. For people from other countries, the teacher often takes the first couple letters of each of your first and last names and tries to find names that sound similar to those syllables and also have a nice meaning. For example, Jennie Griffen becomes Zhen Gui, which sounds like Jenny and means ‘really honorable.’

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Chinglish of the Day

Two more interesting translations. I know some people who would like to have "infiniti" hair (I think).

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The Old Summer Palace

A couple of Sundays ago, Antonella, Roberta and I visited the old summer palace. Many Americans (and others) come to Beijing and visit the new summer palace as part of the standard Beijing tour (as touristy as it is, the new summer palace is certainly something I recommend). Fewer go to visit the old one. If you come to Beijing and have time, the old summer palace is a nice place to visit. Just don’t do it on a Sunday afternoon.

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Finals

The gray air was back this morning, just in time for our final exams. Appropriate, if you ask me.  Our program had three classes (listening comprehension, speaking and reading) and thus three finals. As I have said before, the classes were hard. The finals were no different, and  I went into them resigned to fail each one.

Our listening comprehension final took place last Thursday. I’m still convinced that the teacher didn’t tell us about it beforehand, but then again, in the past I had misunderstood at least two (out of 4) homework assignments in that class. For the final exam, I was shooting for anything above zero—and I did it! I don’t think I passed, but for me the point of coming to China was to improve, not to pass a test. So I guess you could say I succeeded.

Our listening teacher. . .Don't ask me what she said

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Blue Skies!

After raining all day yesterday, the sun came out in full force today. I was delighted to see that Beijing has a brilliant blue sky. I have never seen it like that here. It was amazing to see the transformation of the city. You could easily see for miles. When you live in Portland or Boston or Dayton, it’s hard to appreciate how well you can see. Imagine living in Portland and not being able to see anything east of the Willamette from Washington park. If Portland had Beijing-type air, some people might not even know that Mount Hood existed!

Given the fact that it was so beautiful outside, I had to take a walk. It would have been better for my test score tomorrow to stay in and study, but when the air is clear, don't waste it! Today’s wander was not that exciting, but it was good exercise. I headed east from the university along Qinghua East road for a few miles until I ran into the Olympic Park.

A spectacular day at Olympic Park

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A Quick Dorm Tour and the Flaming Shirt Incident

Someone asked me what my accommodations were like over here. They’re nothing extravagant. I live on the 14th (top) floor of Dormitory 1, where they put the scholarship students because they can charge more for the other, nicer dorms. For me, the location is great. I can sleep in until seven o’clock and still easily get to class on time.

My room is a double room, but I haven’t seen any clues that my roommate exists, other than the bicycle and clothes rack in the middle of the room. I did find a receipt dated July 19, one week before I arrived, so maybe he’s just traveling. Who knows? It’s good for me that he’s gone because I don’t sleep much here and would probably bother him when studying or writing at night. The room isn’t bad. The bed is a bit lumpy for my tastes, and the pillow more so. I have air conditioning for those days when it gets really hot outside, but most of the time I just leave the window open. The a/c dries out the air and gives me a cough.

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Shortcut, my a--!

I had planned to tell you today about our trip to Inner Mongolia, starting at the beginning of the trip. However, the trip home was so interesting that I wanted to tell it first.

On our trip up to Inner Mongolia, we had seen hundreds of trucks stopped on the freeway that leads to Beijing. Coming back to BLCU, our dear leader, hoping to avoid the traffic, instructed the driver to take a different route, one that cut through the mountains and would drop us  right into Beijing. We would be able to avoid the traffic jam on the main road and save ourselves a couple hours road time. If only it were that simple.

Shortly after we left Datong, we pulled off at a small rest stop to use the bathroom. The guide told us it would be six hours before we stopped again, because along this back road there were not going any good places to stop (he was wrong, there were plenty of bushes along the road). This sounded a little ominous, but I didn’t worry too much about it. Driving tractor growing up had seasoned me for long periods of sitting. However, once we got back on the road, I quickly realized that we were in for a long day.

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I'm Crook (really!)

I've got one more quick story for the week, and then I’m headed out of town for the weekend. BLCU organized an optional field trip for us to the province of Inner Mongolia, and spending two nights in a yurt on the Mongolian grasslands is something that everyone should do at least once in their life, or so I’ve been told. One of the lessons from our reading textbook was about this particular excursion, which the school offers every year. It promised us blue skies, white clouds, green grassy plains and herdsmen singing traditional Mongolian folk songs. When we get back, I’ll let you know if they were telling us the truth.

The trip aside, today’s story is about languages. More specifically, it’s about English and the diversity within the language. My friend Roberta, an Italian who sits next to me in class, asked me if I would understand her if she said “I’m crook.” I told her no. You can say “I’m a crook” or “I’m crooked” (though who would ever say either?), but “I’m crook” doesn’t really mean anything to me.

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There are No Atheists in Chinese Class

Have you ever heard that "there are no atheists in a foxhole”? For anyone who hasn’t heard the phrase before, I’ll explain it. A foxhole, as you might guess, is a burrow that a fox digs in the ground for a home. In this case, though, it also refers to a small enclosure or shallow trench dug into the ground by soldiers on the battlefield. Often not much larger than the soldiers themselves, these spaces provide a minimum amount of cover from enemy fire. When under attack, soldiers may rise up out of the hole to fire on the enemy and quickly slip back down into the tenuous safety that the foxhole provides. Foxholes can be dug quickly and can be used as a last resort if better cover is not available during a battle. To be under attack with nothing but a foxhole for protection is terribly frightening experience, one that can rattle even the bravest soldiers.

The phrase "there are no atheists in a foxhole” refers to the fact that the fear while under attack is so strong that even the most staunch atheist is willing to pray to God for safety and deliverance from the battle. Today I am proposing a new version. In my case,it is more appropriate to say “there are no atheists in Chinese class” (especially in listening comprehension). You might ask, how in the world could that phrase be related to Chinese class?

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Wandering where Tiananmen is. . . (with pictures)

When you go out wandering, sometimes you find hidden treasures, and sometimes you just get sore feet. Yesterday (Saturday), I got both.

My first adventure of the weekend was to walk from BLCU to Tiananmen Square. After checking Google maps to get a general idea of how to get there, I set out walking to see what I could find. One of my favorite ways to explore a city is on foot. When you forego the comfort of a taxi or even the subway, you get to see how people live, and you don’t just see the parts of the city that every other tourist sees. Of course, when you walk around in places that don’t get many tourists, you get lots of curious stares. Especially from small kids. In Beijing, some of the kids are not sure what to think when they see a tall, blondish foreigner strolling by. I think that while I was walking yesterday,  I heard one shout “Look mom! A foreigner!” (Don’t quote me on that though, my Chinese isn’t that good yet. Just ask my listening comprehension teacher).

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