What Did You Learn in School Today, Dear Little Boys of Mine? Part 1

(That song is for you, Bob.)

I suppose I should tell you, finally, a little more about this school.  Part 1 will deal with non-academic stuff.

RDFZ has about 5,000 students, but they’re not all here at this main campus.  My dorm is at the far western end of the campus.  The red box shows my apartment.  The front outside wall is where everyone parks their bikes – except a few of us who have apartments large enough to bring the bike inside.

Speaking of my dorm, I got great news yesterday, which I greeted initially with excitement, then cautious optimism:  I was told that the heat would come on in my dorm building November 1 – tomorrow!  This is a big deal.  It’s starting to get cold, and I’m usually wearing a sweatshirt and hat while in my apartment, which diminishes my exuberance.  The heat is off in all school buildings at this time, and students and teachers show up for work and spend the entire day in sweatshirts, jackets, hats, and scarves.  The heat is not scheduled to be turned on until November 15, and it will stay on for only 4 months, regardless of the weather.  They’ve made an exception for my dorm because it houses most of the foreign teachers, including VIPs such as the head of the AP program, head of the A-Level program, and the Special Advisor to the Principal (me).  The caution mentioned above is due to the fact that I have control over the fan only, not the temperature, and thus I don’t know how warm it really will be.

The school’s main entrance (east gate) has some philosophical commitments on decorative walls, and there’s a guard there to open the electric-powered gate when cars come in or out.  There was a nice tree-lined road going from the gate to the main buildings until they dug it up in preparation for construction of a new building.

As part of this construction project, a large ditch had to be dug.  They did not bring in a machine but rather used a large number of guys for this task.  Human labor is easy to come by.

Some knucklehead bus driver thought he could make it over the ditch.  He ought to be fired, but the people here are too nice to do something like that.

You soon reach a large circle with trees and perfect grass.  No one walks on the grass; everyone walks around the circle, and thus there are no foot-trodden, dirt paths.  Well, almost no one.  Tong Jing and I did read our books there one Sunday, sitting in the circle, and in all the time I’ve been here, I’ve seen no one else dare to trespass thusly.  Such rebels are we!

Looking out my dorm window (photo below), the most obvious attraction is the soccer field and track in the center of the school.  Straight ahead is the main teaching building, where there are 8 floors of classrooms and a few conference rooms.  To the left is the middle school building, and to the right is the ICC (International Curriculum Center) building.  Beyond ICC is the lab building (with the observatory).

On the other side of the main building, to the left, is the cafeteria (known here as the canteen).  The cafeteria building has 4 floors:  the first three are for food and the 4th has the main auditorium.  Each of the first 3 floors has a variety of different kinds of food, almost all of it Chinese.  It is the best cafeteria food I’ve ever consumed.  One station on the 2nd floor has a little western food (French fries and a couple other things), but I haven’t gone there, nor will I.  Often there are VIP visitors, and a very nice buffet with special food is presented in one of the side rooms on the 3rd floor.  Being a resident VIP, I often stroll in there to grab the good food.

To the left of the cafeteria is the music and arts building…

…and to the right of the cafeteria is a very nice library, which has many English language books.

There are quite a few separate programs ongoing simultaneously here and nearby.  Here are the ones I know about:

• Regular Middle School – Grades 6-8.
• Early Development – As it was started only 3 years ago, at the moment it contains only grades 6-8.
• Regular high school – Grades 9-12.
• A-Level – Grades 9-12 for good students intending to go to UK or other Commonwealth countries for college.
• AP School – Grades 11-12 (I think) for good students intending to go to US for college.
• Other campuses of RDFZ around Beijing.
• RDFZ United Schools, which puts this school at the top of the pyramid of several special schools throughout China
• Foreign schools – RDFZ is working on establishing international middle/high schools in several countries, including the US.

RDFZ is officially a public school, and thus is free.  Then again, the AP curriculum charges students for their participation, which helps fund the foreign teachers who come here to teach these courses.

Let me talk a little about the students.  Bottom line:  I don’t think I’ve ever encountered so many outwardly happy young kids in my life.  They’re always running around, playing games, laughing, working on projects, etc.  They definitely do not have the distractions of myriad electronic gadgets, at least not here at school; from discussions with students, this is usually the case at home, also.  (Yay for Cammer Unplugged!  Any of you students out there remember those times?)  Here’s a picture of some physics students trying to get a red lantern balloon, made of fire-proof paper and powered by hot air, into the air on the main field.  After I took the picture, I came over and pointed out a slit in the balloon that they had missed and suggested this was why it was soaring.

The girls are always walking or running hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm, and the guys often walk around with their arms around each other’s shoulders.  They are discouraged from using iPods and other personal music devices, and I’ve seen a student only 5 or 6 times with earplugs in his or her ears.

The kids are very active sports-wise.  There’s always something happening on the center field.  One day they had their own Olympics where different teams competed in a variety of events, including the relay…

… and standing distance jump.

Every day (and I suppose this will continue through winter!), students are called from their classes at 9:30 a.m. by the same march music over high quality and high volume speakers.  They exit the buildings and line up almost with military accuracy on the field.  On Mondays there’s a sort of assembly where they’re given announcements, schedule changes, an inspiring speech or two (often by selected students).  At these times, there is no talking among the students; they stand and listen politely, laughing or applauding when appropriate.  On the other days they do exercises as one huge group.

In Part 2, I’ll talk a bit about academics in general.  After that, I’ll tell you a little about my work here.

The Incredible Shrinking Man

No, this is not about my elusive extraordinary weight loss, which, at this writing, is still a mere illusion.

One of the most fascinating things about memory is its link to emotion:  things that you experience that have a strong emotional component stay with you forever.  When I was a kid, I saw this movie about a guy who went through a mist, then gradually over the next year started to shrink.  First, his shirts got a little bigger (though he accused his wife of picking up the wrong shirts at the cleaners).  He eventually got so small his wife put him in a doll house, but the cat attacked him.  So he scurried over to the basement steps, which he climbed down, but in the basement he had a run-in with a spider.  He crawled through a screen and fell into the grass where he continues to shrink.  That’s where the movie ends, with a quote from a poem, which I think was the first verse of Cecil Frances Alexander’s “Maker of Heaven and Earth,” inspired by Psalms, I suspect:

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

I saw this movie only once, but I believe I could recount almost every scene, thanks to its emotional impact on me.

All of that has absolutely nothing to do with this post.  A week ago I bought a package of small dish-drying towels (about 9” x 9”).  Below is a picture of one that just came out of the package, and to its right is one that I just washed.  Need I say more?

Love At First Bite (Conclusion)

Oh, yeah.  I forgot to tell you how my dentist appointment turned out.

I got instructions on which buses I could take, so I grabbed a bus and rode 4 stops to the dental school.  As expected, I went to the registration desk, gave them the name of the dentist I had an appointment with, paid my 10 yuan, received my little medical record booklet, then took the elevator to the 7th floor.  Except that I didn’t.

I rushed onto an open and crowded elevator (which had a young lady operating it), reached across the operator, and pushed the #7 button.  It didn’t light up, so I tried again.  Same thing.  The operator waved “No” at me, and everyone else looked at me as if I were an idiot.

So they took me to the 8th floor instead.  I got off, looked at the closing elevator door, and on it was a sign – NOT READABLE WHEN THE DOORS ARE OPEN – that indicated this elevator goes to only the even floors.  (For you math knuckleheads, 7 is an odd number.)

I figured it’d be easy to simply walk down one flight of stairs.  I figured wrong, and I wandered around the floor of this hospital and found no stairs.  Finally, I accosted a few people until I found one who understood my gestures that I wanted to go down 1 floor.  He pointed down a hall, gestured to the left, and I headed off.  I went exactly where he told me to go but I found neither elevator nor stairs.  Even though I arrived at the hospital early (unusual for me), I was now a little concerned that I’d be late for my appointment.

I broke down and asked another person, who personally took me to this tiny alcove with this tiny elevator that supposedly went down 1 floor – evidently the only way of physically moving from the 8th floor to the 7th (unless you’re Spiderman).

I found the 7th floor receptionist, checked in, and soon someone came and took me to a private room where Dr. Zhou greeted me warmly.  The procedure I was expecting should have taken only a few minutes, but the doc was thorough, to say the least.  There were two young assistants helping him, everyone but me wearing masks, so I couldn’t tell if they were cute or not (clearly the most important aspect of this visit), but they smiled at me with their eyes, so I concluded they must be cute because non-cute girls don’t smile as much.  (Of course, in reality, it’s a cart before the horse thing:  people who smile with any part of their face tend to look better than they would otherwise.)

While I was on my back in the chair, Dr. Gao (the woman who first introduced me to Dr. Zhou) came in to see how I was doing.  (I wondered how she got from one floor to the next.)  I learned the next day that she knew of my appointment time and had gone to the entrance of the hospital to wait for me to be sure I didn’t have any problems.  These people are amazing!

Everything went swimmingly, Dr. Zhou wrote in my medical book, gave me an invoice, and told me where to go pay.  I paid the 240 yuan bill (a little less than $40) and returned to him with my receipt.  He finished off some paperwork, waved goodbye and I left.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad experience at all, mostly because I was a VIP.  I don’t know if they have the same VIP system at regular hospitals, but I sure hope so.  I’m told those places can be crowded and that most people have to take off a day from work to see a doctor.  I also get the impression that there aren’t any private doctors (at least none that the teachers go to).  If you have a sprained ankle (which I do), you go to the hospital to see a doctor.  This ankle has been bothering me for a month (from ping pong, I guess), but someone told me that unless a medical situation gets worse, it’s best to just let things heal on their own.  So I still limp a little.

再见

P.S.  I start Chinese language tutoring Monday.

Bridge Over Troubled water – correction

D (for David) saw the original Bridge… post and the last photo allegedly displaying Arabic lettering.  He kindly offered the services of his sister who converted to Arabic or something, but in the interim, I got a laugh out of one of my friends telling me that the letters are not Arabic but stylized Chinese, simply a couple of characters, each repeated.  They suspect the owners were just trying to be cute or clever.  Oh, well.  Guess there’s no need to cover the manikins’ heads.  (Henry:  I’m surprised you didn’t catch this.)

When We Last Saw Our Hero…

I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to talk to you for a while.  Thank you all for asking about me.  Yes, I’m fine.  Don’t send the marines…not yet, anyway.  I have been swamped for about 10 days with a confluence of two enormous projects:  (1) College recs (recommendations, for the uninitiated) for 20 students, and (2) preparation for an important meeting with the boss.

College rec writing is one of two things high school teachers hate the most; the other is meetings.  Don’t get me wrong; we love the students and would (and do) anything for them, but rec writing is so tedious that, for any non-brain-dead person, it’s a bore.  I’m not certain how many I have left to do because 5 of the students who signed up with me last year either decided to go with someone else or decided not to apply early and I’ll get their request in a month or two.  I tend to make these recs personal so the reader at the college admissions office gets an idea of the warmth and humanity of the student, not just their academic achievements.  Anyway, 20 are done, and that’s a relief.

Regarding the other item, preparation for the boss, that will be described in a post very soon, as I’m ready now to discuss life here at the school, both for me and the students.

Anyway, when last we saw our hero, I was beginning Day 5 of the Chengdu visit.  This was my last day, and I had pretty much done all I could do that I wanted to do in the city itself.  It was too difficult to get to Emei Mountain where I could hire guys (Hua Gan) to carry me up in a chair between two poles, so I’ll have to do that next time.

After breakfast I went with my cigar and book to my now favorite little park across the intersection.  I was not alone, though:  (1) there was a tai chi teacher showing a 30-year-old woman some moves, and (2) a couple playing really bad badminton without a net.

I checked out and took a taxi to a middle class shopping area that was like an outdoor mall, i.e., lots of stores facing onto a wide walking street (no cars).  Higher quality stuff than I normally buy (which doesn’t mean much, of course, because anything over Wal Mart is above my budget).  There were some cute statues of shoppers, some with real people posing next to them.

It’s now about 11:30, and though my plane isn’t due to depart until 5:00, I’m bored and go to the airport, sure I can grab an earlier flight, knowing that there are 2 or 3 of the same airline leaving before 5.  Chengdu has a lot fewer foreigners than Beijing, and far fewer Chengduians speak English.  My taxi driver’s English was limited to “Welcome to Chengdu” so using my excellent charades skills, we got to the airport.  As we’re tearing down the highway toward the airport, I see a division in the road ahead, requiring us to know which terminal I needed.  Back and forth we went in charades and some Chinese dialect but with no success, so he aimed the car at the dividing barrier and came to a screeching halt right in front of it while cars sped past us on both sides, honking (which, of course, is no big deal in China).

We decided to go to the right.  We came up to the airline signs and saw “China Air.”  I told him that this was the place, but he wanted to make sure, so he got out of the cab, intending to come inside with me to make sure I found my airline.  Nice guy!  But the door where he parked was locked, so I headed toward the next one, waving at him that I was sure this was correct and that he should go on about his business.  He wanted to make sure, however, so he walked with me to the next entrance, occasionally looking back at his cab with a worried look.  Finally, at the next door, I convinced him that I was OK, so he waved goodbye and retreated to his taxi.

At the counter, I tried the best I could to inform the lady that I wanted an earlier flight, but she printed my 5:00 boarding pass anyway.  I tried to re-convey my desires, but her English was poor, so she asked me to step aside while a manager came.  He did, in 5 minutes.  He said all 3 flights before 5 are full.  I said I’d like to go to the gate and fly standby.  He said that’s impossible because I already checked my luggage and because all flights are oversold.  He waved for me to come around the counter and look at the computer screen, and one plane at a time he showed me that 174 seats were sold for the 171-seat planes.

This was all done with charm on both sides, and so I thanked him for his time, giving up.  Sitting around an airport for 4 hours in China is not an unusual thing.  Many were doing it.  When I was in Beijing’s airport, I noted how clean the bathrooms were – you always see people around China cleaning and picking up trash – but in Chengdu’s airport they were absolutely sparkling.  They were clearly fairly new, but still had the squatting stalls, not flush toilets.  I first ran into this type of stall in Carcassonne, France, and thought they must be some sort of weird shower or something.  (Later, back in Beijing, I asked a friend about these new stalls and she simply said Chinese are used to squatting.)  I read, listened to music, watched people, had a mediocre, overpriced lunch – standard airport fare – then took off at 5-something and got home on time.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip, full of interesting experiences that generated wonderful memories that I hope I’ll retain at least until I come down with Alzheimer’s.  The people in Chengdu were as friendly as can be, and I found them more laid back than Beijingers.  I wish I could have photographed all the wonderful people I ran across.  I’d like to remember their faces longer than my brain can.  (What?)  But I know it’s something akin to part of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle where the observer unintentionally becomes part of the observed system.  Taking photos during, or even immediately after, special social interactions taints the memories of those interactions.

Though I’m tempted to recommend Chengdu, and China in general, to all of you, this kind of traveling is not for the timid or paranoid.  To enjoy a foreign country that is not yet fully developed you have to set aside lots of your preconceived notions of what is important in life.  You have to be ready to tolerate long lines at times and many other little things that in America would drive you up the wall.  You have to look at life through the eyes of the locals, not your own, and then suddenly things that made no sense before make at least a little sense now.  You’re not going to change a 3,000 year old culture during a 3-week trip.  (It’s going to take me the full year.)  But if you can do these things, by all means come to China.  It is one of the most interesting places on Earth.

再见

Bridge Over Troubled Water

On Day 4 (Thursday, 10-04-12), Ms. X met me in the hotel lobby.  Because Mr. Y’s driver had the day off, he decided to drive us himself to Dujiangyan Dam, a very famous construction project, still in operation, that was built 3,400 years ago.  We drove for about 90 minutes, then pulled over at an intersection so another guy could hop in behind the wheel and drive us through town.  He evidently was a friend of Mr. Y and a big wig in this geographical area.  He took us to the main gate, walked Ms. X and me through the turnstile, and he and Mr. Y went off to have tea and conduct business while Ms. X and I strolled leisurely along the paths from one temple to the next.

It was very serene, and at the bottom the guys picked us up in the car and drove us to lunch.  This was the piece de resistance.  We viewed the available food the restaurant had to offer.  Everything was alive:  large fish in tubs, smaller fish in aquaria, chickens in cages, clams, crayfish, and other stuff in tubs.  The two other guys chose the animals we were to eat, then discussed with the owner how they wanted them cooked and with which vegetables; these, too, were outside for examination.

As we sat next to this raging river, 10-12 different dishes came out that we gobbled up.  We had (1) crayfish with onions and peppers in a dark brown, spicy sauce, (2) clams in a medium brown sauce, (3) chicken and taro root in a light brown sauce, (4) pickled green beans, (5) tofu in a spicy reddish brown sauce, (6) a wonderful fish with tomatoes and garlic in a medium brown sauce, (7) several other dishes I can’t remember, and (8) the specialty of this part of China, fried duck heads.  The duck heads were very good:  the meat inside was tender and tasty, and the skull, including the beak, as crunchy and tasty.  What a meal!

Early in this eating marathon a guy came up to the table with some stiff wires, some with white puffy stuff on the end.  I asked what he was selling and was told, “Nothing.  He’s here to clean your ears if you want him to.”  I declined.  Toward the end of the meal another guy came up with a big, white plastic bag over his shoulder and a hammer and chisel in his hand.  I asked if he were here to fix the table.  “No, he’s selling candy.  Want some?”  I acquiesced and the guy opened the bag and chiseled off chips of the beige, sticky candy a little like taffy.

Ms. X and I were taken to another part of the park where we walked around and took pictures.  The entire place is dedicated to the guy who 3,400 years ago came up with the idea for diverting the river to avoid flooding in the Chengdu plain.  The views were exquisite, but the most striking aspect of the afternoon was the sheer number of people everywhere.

Note how colorful the umbrellas are; by contrast, the vast majority of umbrellas on 5th Avenue in Manhattan are black.

After they dropped me off at my hotel, I went out to grab, finally, a sushi dinner and some New Zealand ice cream.  On the sidewalk where the previous night little dogs were playing was now an obstacle course for little kids on roller blades.  This was right next to a woman selling large dragon balloons.

Because I ate at a Muslim restaurant the previous night, a Muslim clothes store caught my eye, and I wondered why the manikins in the window, dressed so conservatively, did not have their heads covered.

再见

Dust to Dust

I hate to bring up this dust issue again (you know, don’t want to make a mountain out of a mole hill), but the more I think about it, the more it seems something like the opposite of the butterfly effect:  in this case, a major event (winds blowing from Mongolia) leads to a cascade of smaller events.

Here’s what I mean:  Because of the winds, I get a layer of dust on every horizontal surface within 2 days.  This in turn results in the following:

1. I close off my extra bedroom completely to slow down the dust going in there.  (Note that I didn’t say “stop.”)  This means I get less air flow through the apartment.

2. I now close all doors to the balconies when I leave the apartment, which means it’s stuffier when I return.  When I’m home, I close the balcony door in any room where I am not currently residing.

3. I have to wear the plastic/rubber sandals around the apartment so I don’t get my feet dirty.  If I get my feet dirty, (a) the tops of the sandals get dirty, and (b) the shower floor gets dirty.

4. I have to wash these sandals in my red bucket of water every couple of days to get the dirt off the bottom.  Otherwise, when I mop the floors, the sandals make them dirty immediately.  And while the sandals are drying, I can’t move around the apartment (because my feet would get dirty), so I have to remember to wash my sandals just before I’m ready to leave for the day.

5. Because my good clothes (i.e., everything but my shorts and T-shirts) are in the closed bedroom where the armoire is, I have to take off my sandals just as I enter that room so I don’t bring dust from the kitchen onto that now relatively clean floor.

6. I have to put almost everything in drawers or cabinets to keep dust from settling on them – things like my glasses, books, salt and pepper shakers, blank DVD+Rs, computer, cameras, etc.

7. When I AM home, I have to spend all my time listening at the door to see if someone is coming down the hallway to visit me so I can quickly dust off the kitchen table.

OK, that last one may be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the picture.  It has changed my life so that I now have to focus on things I never did before.  Like bringing a small package of tissues with me whenever I leave the apartment (which I finally remembered to do today!).

Note that I did not mention putting the fruit away that’s sitting on my table.  That’s because it has to be washed before eating anyway.  Speaking of which, at the store the other day I saw a bottle of soap that looked like liquid dish soap but was really for washing fruit.

Enough already about dust.

The big picture is that the basics of daily life in this country takes more time and effort than it does in America.  Much more time.  It takes a lot longer to buy a roll of paper towels and a dozen eggs (maybe 4 times as long), longer to get from point A to point B, longer to conduct business at a bank, clinic, everywhere.  I suspect that our initial reaction to this is pity for the people here because they don’t have as much leisure time as we do.  But what do we do with our extra time:  true, some people ride bikes (occasionally), fish, hike, read, etc.  Then again, a lot of Americans simply eat more, drink more, smoke cigars, get fat.  (Uh, oh.)  More TV, more computer games, other unproductive stuff.  If idle hands are indeed the devil’s playground, maybe having a difficult life keeps you out of trouble – to some degree, anyway.  At this point in time, the average person in China is in better physical (if not medical) shape than the average American.

As my Santa Barbara biking pal, Ed R., always tells me as I barely make it to the top, “Paul, the hills make you strong.”  (I then collapse flat-out on the pavement.)

Alone and Yet Alive

[First, I’d bet $100 none of you knows the origin of that song (or even that it existed).  I could have used Neil Diamond’s “Solitary Man” but that would have been too easy.  All kinds of weird lines in it, like “Oh, sepulchre!  My soul is still my body’s prisoner!”]

On my own for Day 3 in Chengdu.  After a restless night (maybe too much food and wine the night before), breakfast was the same as usual, with one amusing exception:  I set my book on one of the round tables while I went to get my gourmet treats, and when I returned (really, only 5 minutes later) it was gone and two 3-person (naturally) families were sitting at the table.  I looked at them quizzically and mimed reading a book.  Turns out one of them assumed that someone had forgotten it, and he put it on the front table by the restaurant’s entrance.  I retrieved it, joined them, ate, spoke a few words in English to the 12-year-old daughter, and left.  Attitude is everything.

For 90 minutes I walked around the neighborhood.  I sat on a stone stool on a tree-lined street watching people and writing in my journal.

At one point a guy with his grandchild in the back of his bicycle cart stopped right in front of me so he could tie up the curtains in the warming morning.

I came across a small parking lot that apparently had variable rates, depending on engine size.

The previous day, Ms. X had written in Chinese the names of a few places she thought I’d enjoy visiting this day, so I walked around Chengdu, stopping people at random and showing them what X had written.  Eventually I got to this tourist area called something like Broad-Narrow Street.  Mobs of people.

In the 60s, a common stereotype – is that redundant? – were Japanese tourists who always had expensive cameras and took each other’s picture in front of this and that and with whomever was around.  It’s clearly now the Chinese who’ve adopted this raison d’être.  Every few feet someone was posing in front of a statue, door, design, whatever.  The guys were always cool and stoic, and the girls, all ages, felt compelled to imitate Vanna White.  Once a girl posed as a one-legged Buddhist monk.

There was a guy selling something that looked like little flower corsages.

There was another guy selling homemade cigars.  (No, I refrained.  I’ve had homemade cigars before, but that’s another story.)

Lots of food everywhere.  It’s 1:00 and I’m hungry, of course.  I see this little stall where a guy is throwing some dough into a big wok.  The dough puffs up, and another guy cuts it open and puts some vegetable-looking stuff inside, then selling the thing for 10 yuan (a little over 60 cents).

I push my way to the front and wave my 10-yuan bill that a third guy grabs.  It looks like there’s a choice of 2 fillings:  the veggie stuff and some weird looking, raw meat stuff.  So just as it’s my turn to get one of these Chinese pita sandwiches, the veggie stuff gets too low and guy #2 has to make up a new batch.  He reaches under the counter and pulls out a handful of shredded veggies, then throws a cup of the clearly very spicy red sauce into the same bowl, then a handful of the raw meat stuff.  I wonder if I’ve finally made a serious culinary miscue.

He fills my puffed up dough with the new mixture and hands it to me.  The other customers around me stop doing whatever they’re doing and watch me.  Now I’m really worried.  I take a bite, and, yes, it’s a little spicy but I survive.  I smile at the crowd, make an “It’s good” face, and they laugh good-naturedly.  Ah, gourmet dining in the big city!

I hop in a taxi and head to an unusual (i.e., wild and crazy!) non-tourist shopping area called Lianhuachi to look for a mahjong set.  I’m really surprised to hear on the taxi’s radio an English language re-make of the 1960s Kingston Trio song “Seasons in the Sun.”  Weird.  (Bob F:  I wonder if you remember that one.)

Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of tiny shops and stalls cover a 4-square-block area selling all kinds of trinkets, scarves, “cashmere” shawls, wallets, you name it – except no mahjong set.  Not even a game shop where I can ask someone.  I walk up and down the corridors and streets for an hour.  Nothing.  My feet hurt, I’m tired, and I decide to catch a taxi back to the hotel.  I’m walking along the sidewalk and just after passing 3 shoe stores, all selling the same shoes, I come across a tiny alley (my weakness).

I saunter down the alley for about a block to its end and am rewarded by finally seeing a mahjong set – though 4 old people are using it to play the game.  I see that this establishment is a mahjong place, and I decide to investigate by approaching a middle-aged woman who’s sitting at a small table by herself with a computer.  She’s gotta be the one in charge.  But she doesn’t understand my excellent miming, so I call Tong Jing in Beijing, tell her the situation, and we agree that she’d talk to the woman and explain.  I come up to the woman again, holding out my cell phone.  Does she take it?  No.  She looks at it, then looks at me, then nothing.  I motion for her to take it.  Nothing.  I tell Tong Jing to start talking in Chinese, which she does, and I hold the phone up to the woman’s ear.

Finally a conversation begins.  But the woman didn’t take the phone, so I had to stoop over her, holding the phone to her ear – for 5 minutes!  My back hurts, my arm hurts, but finally she looks up at me with no expression, and I excitedly ask Tong Jing if she can now tell me where to buy a mahjong set.  She said that their “conversation” went nowhere because the woman doesn’t speak Mandarin and TJ doesn’t speak whatever the woman speaks.  Good grief.

Just as I’m about to give up, this 35-40 year-old guy approaches, frowning, apparently thinking I’m bothering the woman.  I quickly tell TJ to start talking and I hand him the phone.  Another “conversation” ensues, and after a few minutes, I get the phone back and say, “Well?”  TJ said she’s not sure but she thinks he’s going to take me to a store where I could buy a set.  He takes a step and motions for me to follow, which I do.

After 10 minutes we arrive at this tiny (6-foot x 6-foot) stall where they had mahjong sets exactly like the ones at the gaming place.  My friend discusses the price with the owner for a while, who then writes “100” on a piece of paper.  I didn’t want to embarrass my friend so I just nodded my head.  The set was in a red box, but they still looked around for a bag.  Not finding one, the owner’s wife picks up a bag with something she just bought in it, empties the bag, and puts the mahjong set in it.  After forcing my friend to take 10 yuan (he tried hard to refuse it but I insisted), I taxied back to the hotel.

This taxi driver was unique in that he’s the only person I’ve come across who, without provocation, starts criticizing the Communist Party, complaining that they just want to sell cars and don’t care about air quality or people’s health.  I get the impression that most people in China don’t think about the Communist Party or any other political stuff.  The middle class is busy making money and buying clothes, and the poor people are too busy just squeezing out an existence.  The rich people – well, maybe they ARE the Communist Party.  Who knows?

Dinner time.  I walk around the hotel’s neighborhood and see a few nice looking restaurants, but they don’t have any pictures showing so I shy away from them.  Tired, I decide to just get some sushi and go to bed.

On the way to the sushi place, however, I come across…yes, an alley.  After a couple minutes stroll there’s this tiny eating establishment (too small to be called an actual restaurant) with a guy making noodles in the window.  I don’t see any pictures, so I’m about to move on when a young woman comes out and invites me in.  Her head is covered and I deduce that she’s Muslim.  I remember that one of my favorite meals in China in 2007 was at a Muslim restaurant, so I go in.  Four tiny tables, each with 4 really tiny (4 x 12 inches) stools.  I look at the pictures (phew!) on the wall for about 5 minutes, trying to decide which may not be too spicy.

I order, food comes:  I chose wisely.  At the table in front of me are 3 people:  father, mother, and their 30-year-old daughter.  They do not look Chinese but some other ethnic group.  A little surly looking, rough.  All 3 are giving me sideways glances, apparently not happy that I’m there.  The daughter now overtly turns 180o on her stool and stares directly at me, then at my journal.  (I’m writing.)  I smile and hand her the journal, pointing to the writing and saying “English.”  She says nothing.  Finally she smiles, and she stares uncomprehendingly at the writing.  She takes my pen and tries to hand journal and pen to her father, motioning him to write something.  He, too, finally smiles, but declines.  I give “go ahead” motions to him, sort of insisting, and he ends up taking the journal, flipping to the back page, and writing about 7 or 8 characters, clearly not Chinese but apparently some version of Arabic.  At this writing I still don’t know what it says.  Anyone out there read “sort of Arabic”?

They leave so now it’s just me and this 90-year-old guy wearing a small, round, white hat.  He gets up and stands right next to my table, staring at my journal.  We smile at each other, he sits down at his table, I pay the bill, and he high-fives me as I walk out.

Four new friends.

    再见

Next to Godliness

We interrupt my 5-part travelogue of Chengdu with something completely unrelated but of momentous importance to me.  I mentioned earlier that D and I mopped my floors, which were covered with dust.  After doing so, the floors were like mirrors.

What I didn’t tell you was that 2 days later they again were covered in a layer of dust.  The rapidity with which the floors (and everything else with even a partially horizontal surface) was puzzling.  Through true Sherlockian efforts, I’ve come up with 2 explanations that together may account for this atmospherical phenomenon:  (1) prevailing winds blow north to south around here, bringing light-weight dirt from the Mongolian plains, and (2) in Beijing (and possibly other Chinese cities) they don’t use mulch around the thousands of planted trees, and thus the bare dirt blows free.  Interesting, eh?  I’m told the winds are worse in the spring.

I’ve been trying to get to mopping it again because the shoe tracks are, to say the least, unappealing.  So on the Saturday after I got back, Tong Jing and I went to our favorite Wal-Mart wannabe and bought some more supplies.  I hated to be extravagant, but I decided to buy another, better mop for $4.50 (with orange trim, no less), as well as other cleaning supplies.  There were fancier (i.e., normal American) sponge mops for about $19, but the store did not yet carry the replacement sponges.

And yesterday was the big day!  I mopped all floors but, most exciting, I cleaned the toilet, which I suspect hadn’t been done in years.  (I know, I know, why didn’t I do it the day I moved in.)  I could say it’s clean enough to eat off, but that seems a bit extreme.

I bought some cleanser, too, and made the bathroom sink sparkle.  Even my wife Sandy, the world’s most meticulous cleaner, would be proud.

One of the main reasons for going shopping that day, however, was to replace the totally useless toy dish rack that came with the apartment.  We walked up and down the aisles, asked people time and again, were sent in 4 different directions.  Incredible.  Finally we stumbled upon the only dish rack they had in this humungous store, but it was $15.50.  Can you believe it?!  So, after all that, I decided not to buy it, and we continued shopping.  I asked Tong Jing why there wasn’t a wider selection of such a common kitchen item, and she said that because there’s not much room in Chinese homes, families tend to wash and immediately dry their dishes.

Just as we were getting ready to check out, I realized that I was being foolish in not buying something I really needed, so I rationalized going back to get the dish rack by reminding myself how much money I saved by not buying the good mop.

By the way, I also stocked up on toothpaste – this time one that’s flavored with green tea.  (Probably actually CAUSES cavities.)  I figured that, as most meeting rooms already smell of green tea, no one would notice.  It reminds me somehow of this weird toothpaste my brother Barry use dto buy from New England or somewhere that turned your teeth black.  Yuck!

Exciting day, huh?  Perfect example of “everything’s relevant.”

 再见

If You Go Down to the Woods Today

[Barry:  You may be the only one who gets that reference.]

Day 2.  The buffet breakfast at a hotel in Sichuan is not like those at Western hotels.  Sure, there was a guy frying eggs – just like my children’s grandmother does, in ¼ inch of oil – but the rest is pickled this and spicy that.  No cereal.  A little fruit.

I chose a few things blindly, then saw a little girl filling her glass with some white liquid from a large, metal urn.  I followed suit, and, yes, it was milk, but it was also warm.  (Bedtime already?)

I went from the hotel into a light mist.  It rained/drizzled a little every day in Chengdu, but I also saw a bit of the sun each day, too.  Diagonally across the intersection was a small park, so I sat on a stone bench for over an hour, enjoying my cigar and book.

I mentioned earlier that I ran into someone (Ms. X) at RDFZ who was going to be in Chengdu visiting her family over the holiday.  As planned, she picked me up at 1:00 with a male friend (who had a car), her sister, and her middle school daughter.  We walked a block to grab a quick lunch.  I kept trying to determine when the bill would be delivered so I could contribute, but finally I discovered that the guy had already paid.

Off to Panda Park.  We drove an hour, parked, and approached the main gate.  I insisted (to X) that I pay for all the entrance fees, but it turned out there were none.  Another of X’s friends arranged for a special VIP visit for the 5 of us, and a Park employee met us at the gate, walked us through, and gave us a special guided tour.

But this wasn’t the ordinary tour.  One thing is clear about China:  knowing the right people is REALLY useful.  The guide took us deep into the giant panda rearing facility where no other guest ventured during the half hour we were in there.  While everyone else was standing in line to file past this window where the 1-month old pandas were, we donned blue protective coats and plastic gloves.  One by one, each of us got to sit in a chair and hold a 100-pound, 1-year old giant panda.  I don’t know what percentage of people coming to the Park have this opportunity, but it must be miniscule.

We were shown other pandas, including the relatively rare red panda.  It was a wonderful afternoon, and we were out by 6:00 p.m.

The guy drove us to an interesting part of Chengdu to a very nice restaurant where we were met by Mr. Y, the guy who set up the trip.  We were upstairs in a large but private room, and we chatted for a while with Y.  He was warm and charming, with a wonderful sense of humor.  We moved to the large, round table where we engorged ourselves for a few hours on 15-20 different dishes.  Boy, do these Chinese know how to throw a banquet!

One aspect of the meal I enjoyed a little too much was this wonderful red wine (imported, of course).  After everyone was full, Y asked me if I had had Dan Dan Mien (which means “noodles carried on a pole”).  I said I had not even heard of them, upon which he ordered 6 bowls of it.  The name comes from the old days when a guy would wander through the streets with a pole over his shoulder, a bucket hanging from each end.  In one bucket were the noodles and in the other some hot broth.  When he found a hungry soul, he’d put some noodles in the broth, then serve it.

After dinner the 6 of us walked through this busy ancient-style tourist area where there were hundreds of small shops, food stalls etc.  Ms. X and I wandered around while Y and the guy had tea.

Earlier in the evening, Mr. Y informed me that he liked to cook, and, of course, I said I did, too.  During our cheerful goodbyes, I reiterated my invitation to Y to let me cook for him if he gets to Beijing in the next 11 months.