Looong weekend

Well, we're becoming quite the experts on Beijing duck, since tonight we had dinner at the popular Da Dong Roast Duck restaurant with a woman I met at Alvin Ailey last month. Having a native Chinese speaker at the table meant we got all the right foods (as opposed to our usual point-and-order method, which has resulted in some odd combinations that probably had restaurant staff doubled over laughing in the kitchen). In addition to the bird and fixings, we had duck feet, duck liver, tofu, spicy chicken and cabbage, with papaya porridge and a fruit plate for dessert.

My students are both taking the SAT on Saturday, one in Macao and the other in Hong Kong, since there were no spots left in Beijing. One student is already in Macao, while the other went home yesterday before flying to Hong Kong tomorrow. Since neither will return to class until Tuesday, it seems I have the next few days off.

China Fun Fact: The Chinese economy grew 11.5% in the third quarter, compared to 4.9% in the U.S.

Reading Rainbow

Nothing too eventful lately. Thursday was Thanksgiving, of course – or was it really on Friday? – so we observed it by going out for duck again. In the spirit of Thanksgiving excess we ordered not one bird but two, and there were no leftovers.

Twice over the weekend I went to Beijing International Book City, the largest book warehouse in Asia and possibly the world. Fortunately it’s nearby, just a 30-kuai cab ride outside my already very suburban neighborhood. Despite offering books from more than 800 domestic and international publishers, the place was curiously empty. Brian observed that the Chinese government might be less concerned with turning a profit on the world’s largest book center than with advertising the fact that it’s in China. It only opened on November 8, however, so maybe more customers are on the way.


The English-language section included literary classics, popular fiction, political memoirs, textbooks, SparkNotes and Far Side collections. The selection of children’s books – including the Berenstain Bears, the Magic School Bus, Beatrix Potter and Goosebumps – was more extensive than what I’ve seen in most bookstores here or at home. Other books on the shelves: The Art of War, The Wealth of Nations, Gossip Girl – sharp drop in cultural value there, I know – Shopaholic, Harry Potter and the very thick Chinese-English Dictionary for Mechanical Engineering. You get the idea. Where we really cleaned up, though, was in the DVD section. I walked away with Casablanca, Woman of the Year, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and three Looney Tunes volumes, while Niall bought a Hitchcock box set – 34 films for $25.

China Fun Fact: Not so much fun as depressing - Mongolia's street children fight for survival.

Quack quack, gobble gobble

Thursday night I attended a media panel hosted by Danwei, an excellent Chinese media blog. It included representatives from GroupM, Google and Edelman as well as Mei Fong from the Wall Street Journal's Beijing bureau. The idea was to explain each company's recruiting process. The advice we heard from Mei Fong was consistent with everything else I've heard: There is no set path into journalism, develop specialized knowledge, don't go into it for the money, etc. Except for her, the speakers were mediocre. Mostly I wanted to check out Beijing's aspiring young journalist crowd – which as it turns out is no different from similar crowds anywhere else in the world, albeit slightly better traveled. Plus, we got goodie bags.

We had pork at lunch in the dining hall on Friday – my favorite! Don't know why I felt the need to share that. Speaking of food, last night we had our first Peking duck, a fitting substitute for turkey this week (although many American restaurants around town are offering full Thanksgiving dinners).

China Fun Fact: Marriage-age men outnumber women by 18 million (122:100) in the countryside.

China Road

On Monday I attended a book talk by NPR correspondent Rob Gifford, whose book China Road chronicles his two-month journey along Route 312 (similar to Route 66 in the U.S.) from Shanghai to the Kazakhstan border. The event, held at the Beijing Bookworm, was packed with journalists and Sinophiles, so much so that many of us had to listen to the audio from the next room.

“My experience in China” books are a dime a dozen, but it’s a good concept and Gifford made an interesting presentation. He read one passage that took place in 2005, around the time the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith was released. He’s walking along the road in a small town when he comes across two young Chinese men, who strike up a conversation. He asks them what they do for a living and is caught off guard when they show him their product samples and tell him they’re the Gobi Desert representatives for Amway. He later accompanies them to a meeting aimed at recruiting more Amway salesmen. I couldn’t really afford the book, so here’s a loosely paraphrased excerpt:

Ren Wei stood up in front of the room. He thanked everyone for coming, thanked Teacher Hu and finally thanked Our Foreign Friend, Mr. Smith. I wasn’t sure what to think. Perhaps they thought every foreigner was named Smith, or perhaps, even in the Gobi Desert, they were confusing me with Brad Pitt. The 20 or so people in attendance continued in turn, each one thanking Ren Wei, Teacher Hu and Mr. Smith.

Then Teacher Hu rose to speak. “My grandchildren will remember my name,” he said earnestly, “because I will change our family’s fortunes. I will make money. But I will do more than that. I will give back to society, maybe build a school – because we all have a duty to give back to society, dui bu dui?”

“Dui, dui, dui,” the crowd nodded approvingly.

Teacher Hu continued to build momentum, articulating the Chinese Dream: “You can have the car, the apartment, the respect. You too can succeed. You too can be empowered. Don’t settle for cha bu duo. Don’t settle for ‘more or less.’ You deserve better.”

The book is filled with anecdotes like that. Gifford concludes that China can continue to pursue its current political and economic course in the short- to medium term, but risks imploding if it experiences an economic shock or other adverse event that interrupts its astonishing growth. As long as people’s lives are improving every year, even marginally, they will tolerate China’s shortcomings; otherwise, the whole system could come crashing down. The example Gifford cited was Indonesia, which put up with Suharto for 30 years but swiftly toppled him after the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

In the long term, however, China faces larger problems. Chinese universities are churning out 5 million graduates each year, but even its booming economy can’t employ them all. University graduates are working as street sweepers in some cities. What happens when you have an educated and underemployed population? This does not portend well for the CCP.

China Fun Fact: According to World Bank figures, China has lifted 400 million people from poverty (less than $1/day) since 1978.

Qingdao

Going to Qingdao and back in 48 hours (photos here):

Step 1: Take the overnight train Friday night. After the first couple hours, this was no fun at all and I don’t recommend it – especially since we had seats and not bunks, the lights never went off and despite it being an eight-hour overnight trip it was still standing room only. The hours between 3 and 5 a.m. were especially tough.

Step 2: Check into the hostel and crash for a few hours, then meet up with the rest of your group. There were eight of us total: me, Brian, Niall, three teachers from Zhengzhou that Brian and I met in Shanghai (Anna, David and Edmund) and two Japanese teachers at their school (Yuko and Kaoru).

Step 3: Walk through the market, where you can not only find scorpion, but choose which live scorpions you want skewered in particular. There are bowls crawling with them.

Step 4: Eat.

Step 5: Visit the Tsingtao Brewery. Qingdao, which was under German control from 1898 to 1914, is known for three things: seafood, Taoism and Tsingtao Beer.

Step 6. Since Tsingtao runs so freely, purchase individual one-liter plastic bags filled directly from kegs. Insert straw.

Step 7: Hike up to the Qingdao TV tower, which changes color but isn’t really worth paying for the view from the top when it’s just as good from the base.

Step 8. Eat.

Step 9. Upgrade to 2.5-liter bags.

Step 10. Wake up and enjoy an American breakfast with eggs, toast, ham, bacon and hash browns, which is astonishingly cheap compared to Beijing prices.

Step 11. Follow that up with sushi.

Step 12. Say goodbye to Zhengzhou friends, who are leaving on an earlier train; walk along the beach and visit the Qingdao aquarium.

Step 13. Eat.

Step 14. Skip the overnight train in favor of the vastly more expensive (but worth it just this once) six-hour bullet train, which is amazing: there’s room to stretch out, the seats recline and staff serve you bottled water from Tibet. Seriously, Amtrak could learn a thing or two. The Western-style toilet is still gross, but that’s train travel everywhere in the world.

China Fun Fact: In 2006, Tsingtao Beer brewed 460 million tons, yielding $4 billion in revenue and $84.5 million in profit.

Mini-break

It's been quiet on campus this week since students are taking exams, so my life has been quiet as well. On Tuesday Niall, Brian and I went to see Ang Lee's World War II drama Lust, Caution, with the most graphic sex scenes excised by the Chinese film board (or as Brian put it, "a little more caution, a little less lust"). I went downtown early so I could stop at the train station; while on the bus a student from my school sat down next to me and struck up a conversation, upon which every head turned to stare at us. He was recently on exchange in Virginia, where he studied at George Mason University and his host family dutifully took him to their church every week. He graduates high school this year and plans to take the SAT and TOEFL. This is the third student I've met who wants to attend New York University. 4,000 schools in the U.S. and everyone in China wants to go to the same one.

This weekend we're going to Qingdao, a Taoist town on the Yellow Sea (Olympic sailing will take place there). Unfortunately we got stuck with seats on the overnight train, so we leave tonight and arrive at 6:45 Saturday morning, but at least we'll be up bright and early! We're meeting up with some friends who teach in Zhengzhou.

YouTube is back, by the way.

China Fun Fact: China has 106 billionaires (the U.S. has 946).

Mid-terms

November already! Hard to believe. Students have mid-terms this week (some as many as eight), which means no class Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. We'll probably take the opportunity to travel somewhere, but where and how remain up in the air.

This afternoon I went for a badly needed haircut and then to the bank -- mundane activities, I know, but in China they become mini-adventures. At the bank I withdrew all the money from my WITT account, including my airfare reimbursement, and deposited it into my own account; 12,000 yuan in 100-yuan bills makes a tall pile. The first time I deposited a few thousand yuan I felt self-conscious carrying so much money -- that is, until I saw people come up to the counter with stuffed gym bags. On the way back I stopped in at a massage place to check out the prices, and ended up staying for a 30-minute back massage which cost RMB 25 (about $3). This may become a weekly indulgence.

Photos from the CCTV Tower this weekend are here.

China Fun Fact: The U.S. and China have agreed to establish a direct phone line between their respective defense ministries, the first China has ever opened at that level with another country.