Archive for the ‘Reflections’ Category

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Saving money and living better?

December 21st, 2009 by Johanna | Leave comments | Filed in China, Reflections, USA! USA!

Finally found a decent apartment for a decent price with decent roommates in a decent location. My bedroom is pretty small, my mattress a bit firm (but not plywood), and my window nook/balcony nonexistent, but I am satisfied. And moved in! It feels good to be organized again and not living out of three suitcases.

My apartment, besides being in a rather upscale complex, complete with a courtyard garden, is also right down the street from a Walmart, where I immediately went to pick up some food and personal necessities. It got me thinking: Because China is usually backwards, is Walmart still evil as it is in the States? I don’t know what the impact Beijing Walmarts have had on the local stores; my feeling is that it hasn’t been very big. Prices are already low, and I can’t imagine Walmart prices being significantly lower that people would brave Beijing’s inconvenient transportation system just to save a few yuan, especially when Wu-Marts, Chaoshifas and Carrefours are themselves everywhere. Besides, with everything Walmart sells made in China, it’s not like shopping there is bad for the economy.

I got myself a down pillow for 79kuai at Walmart. Score!

Things to take away from China’s birthday party

October 9th, 2009 by Johanna | Leave comments | Filed in China, Reflections

Nothing like a good op-ed piece and a national birthday to reawaken my pro-China inclinations. The Grand Parade was certainly magnificent (you can always count on China to put on an over-the-top spectacle), but still super dry and hella boring. The only highlights were:

  1. When, during the flag-raising ceremony, the soldier threw the flag into the air (at about 7:35 in the video). That is just cool.
  2. When the all-female brigade passed by, Hu Jintao cracked a smile for the first time and started applauding. Who doesn’t like hundreds of rifle-toting women in blue uniform dresses marching in a unison bloc?
  3. The nukes. On parade.

As for the op-ed, it should provide a cursory introduction to the fundamental ideas behind China’s actions, as well as a reminder that China does have veritable ideals of its own, fashioned from its millennia of history. They force my mind to bend in ways that my mind can’t (much like physics), but only time will tell if they will deliver. Cynics and critics still have a lot to say about China’s actual adherence and belief in those eight ideas (China’s selection of facts, the CCP’s performance legitimacy belies the party-state it set up), but the PRC is just 60 years old. While it has made some very rapid changes and progress in some areas, it remains — almost frustratingly — slow in reforming other areas.

Thoughts from my balcony

August 11th, 2009 by Johanna | Leave comments | Filed in China, Life, Reflections

I’m enjoying the Beijing night one last time from my balcony. I haven’t sat out here in forever, it seems, which makes me realize how long I’ve been here — long enough to undergo changes in behavior. Sitting on the balcony at night right before I went to bed was one of my favorite things about living here. It still is, but Beijing nights are no longer as cool as they used to be when I first got here. Plus we started staying out later, and I usually just went straight to bed after getting home and showering.

Today was actually probably the hottest day that I can recall. Tomorrow is supposed to be just as hot, around 35 degrees Celsius. But it feels nice right now, though not very much breeze. I’ve said this a gajillion times already, but I’m going to say it again: I can’t believe this is it and it’s over. Time flies. It feels like it’s been such a short time, but thinking back to the beginning — what did I know then? How did I imagine this would be? — it was so long ago and different.

Datong: Really is all the same

August 8th, 2009 by Johanna | Leave comments | Filed in China, Reflections, Travels

Just back from Datong. I need to go meet a friend, though, but here are a few thoughts:

Datong, briefly: It’s nasty and dirty. China is, in general, but Datong is nasty and dirty in a different way. Shanxi is infamous for its coal mines, and the dust from the coal supposedly blankets the whole province. I don’t know if the dust in Datong was coal, though, it was mostly just very fine dirt. I suspect it was everywhere because Datong seemed to be tearing up all of its roads. Everywhere we went, we would drive at least on two really really bumpy dirt roads that looked to be once paved. Our hotel room had a bunch of bugs, including roaches. There also is no ice cream in Datong, which I will elaborate on later.

China, generally: My mini-holidays are over, and the next time I travel somewhere, it will be to go home. Getting out of Beijing has made me realize how spoiled this city has made me, though. Which is interesting to think because of how living in Beijing has made me realize how spoiled the States has made me. Beijing has culture; I mean, it has different people from different backgrounds, and they all clash with each other. At the same time, Beijing is still Beijing, still China, and it is so without losing its identity and history. It is surely changing rapidly, but getting lost in its hutongs will still transport you back in time. Datong was uninspiring, everywhere the same. In Beijing, vendors at markets vary very little, and the whole city of Datong was like that. Every store on a street by our hotel was a little convenience shop (more on this later). Another street was all mian guan (restaurants selling noodles). Of course, Datong is not a big city like Beijing. Perhaps it’s a good sign of progress that China has cities like Beijing, which was so different just 30 years ago. But, though cities are always ahead of the wave, they are not necessarily harbingers of the future.

Heading for the home stretch

August 5th, 2009 by Johanna | Leave comments | Filed in China, Reflections, Shenanigans, Work

It’s hard to believe that my summer in Beijing is nearing the end. I leave a week from tomorrow. It’s already August, but I have had no concept of time here. It doesn’t feel like I will be going home soon–probably because I can’t fathom that I’ve already been here for 10 weeks. These weeks have flown, and it seems like I just arrived. And yet, it feels like I’ve been here for forever.

I don’t want to dwell on this too much because it’s making me really sad.

I have been super-uber busy these past couple of weeks. I caught a minor cold a few weeks back and have been recovering since. Chris and I took a long weekend to Dandong, and I just found out yesterday that my uncle has been staying there for the past month or so. We came back, did our last burger story, wrapped up the internship with an evaluation-presentation, celebrated our last day with some coworkers (including a new one, with whom Chris is infatuated), then took off for Qingdao for another long weekend. (More on Qingdao later.) Chris and I returned yesterday evening for his final dinner (hotpot) in China, celebrated in the company of our closest work friends, and then a few rounds of beer. Now he’s gone, and it hasn’t quite hit me.

Tonight, Pang Li and I will try to get tickets to see Up, which just came out here.

Tomorrow, I’m off to Datong with Catherine, the last remaining intern. We plan to come back Saturday.

Catherine heads back to the States on Monday.

Meanwhile, I still have one more hamburger story to write for work and perhaps some stuff on Dandong or Qingdao. I have many, many pictures I need to post.

State media taboos

August 5th, 2009 by Johanna | Leave comments | Filed in China, Media, Reflections, Work

I’ve been censored!

I almost made it two whole months!

But finally, it’s happened!

Something I wrote did not fly with the powers-that-be who mine articles for personal opinions at China.org.cn. Unbeknownst to me, I had inserted “personal opinion” into an article I wrote on two Swiss photographers, Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer. Personal opinion is a huge no-no in traditional journalism. I was pretty embarrassed. (more…)

Are we tools?

July 15th, 2009 by Johanna | Leave comments | Filed in China, Reflections, Work

Hung out with the foreigners from the office today after work. As usual, had very interesting conversations that provided intriguing perspectives on the motherland. Then met some more foreigners from the States who were here interning with some city planning folks. Made me wonder:

As Westerners, we tend to think of our Chinese colleagues as rather incompetent: disorganized, dysfunctional and just plain clueless. How much does work frustrate me? How often do I think that what I am handed is just plain bad journalism? How often do I think that no one knows what he’s talking about (no one knows what he’s talking about)? About every other sentence.

The city planners we met had their own complaints about Beijing’s highways and building spacing. Of course, no one is going to listen to them. The truth is, China just works, even without us Westerners meddling in their established modus operandi. It was quite astonishing to me that we even met a couple of foreigners in a random beer garden on a random street in the outskirts of the Haidian district. China is inviting so many foreigners into its bowels — and for what? Certainly not to heed our advice and knowledge. Perhaps it is in its Chinese off-handed way? But more likely, it is another case of maintaining mian zi, where China wants to appear inviting and open.

And perhaps it actually is inviting and open. China’s murky like that. It doesn’t appear to be, but you can never be quite sure. There are so many vagueries that even the Chinese can’t explain it. They are so deferential to foreigners and, yet, will never believe foreigners to be their equals in ideas and outlook. Foreigners are simply foreign, incapable of understanding. China must be the loneliest country.

Anyway. Why am I here? Can I change China for the better? Or am I simply living off the government’s auspices and getting the vacation of a lifetime for little more than helping the Chinese appear like they’re making overtures to the West?

Chinese opinion pieces

July 9th, 2009 by Johanna | Leave comments | Filed in China, Reflections, Work

Here is an example of a routine polishing job:

Democracy and freedom, as essential elements of a modern civil society, have already been recognized by the Chinese government…

Recognized, though apparently not put into practice. But a little recognition can go a long way.

At any rate, the piece it comes from was written by a lecturer at Beijing University of Chemical Technology on Rebiya Kadeer.

The most frustrating thing about work is the amount of misinformation and lack of clarity in many of the stories being put out by my company. Many of the people we work with are not journalists, just translators; and I am just polishing, not editing.

More firsts

June 14th, 2009 by Johanna | Leave comments | Filed in China, Life, Reflections, Shenanigans

What a weekend! Work kept us busy with all these fun activities. Thursday night was our karaoke/office “Idol” competition (First #1) — which I am proud to say, my roommate has made it to the final round based on his performance of Stray Cats’ “Stray Cat Strut.”

Then Friday afternoon, we boarded a bus to Hongluo Mountain for a work retreat (First #2). We were also given 170 kuai to spend at the hotel, which bought me two games of bowling, a round (?) of archery (First #3) and a 30 minute back massage (First #4), with almost 40 kuai leftover. That doesn’t include the joy of having my coworkers’ company nor the joy of making new friends with the folks at the railway bureau in the Song and Dance Room. Now they knew how to do karaoke.

The next morning, we began ascending the mountain bright and early. There is also a Buddhist temple near the foot of the mountain and a Tian Men (Heaven’s Gate) at the very top. Rather stupidly, I was ill-prepared. I should have known Chinese mountains (First #5) are not like American mountains. There are no cutbacks and footpaths; rather, there are stairs more or less straight to the top. St. Peter wasn’t there to greet me when I made it, either.

But the real adventure was coming down the mountain. There was an “Alpine Coaster” about half-way up the mountain, and the name pretty much says it all. They strap people into these individual cars and then link the cars together to form a train. A guy in the first car works the breaks, and luckily for us, our driver’s breaks were broken. It was like a real roller coaster!

Today, Chris and I checked out the Silk Market and South Chaoyang District. We got badminton gear and played some pick-up badminton (First #6) at The Place, which was actually a really cool place to be. The Place is a shopping mall, I think, with mostly Western clothing stores; I saw a Zara, Guess, Jack n Jones, Mango and French Connection. But there are these three or four giant LCD screens covering a huge open plaza where kids and their parents were throwing these big disks. Essentially, each of these discs is made of plastic balloon stuff wrapped around a hoola hoop with a little bit of air inside. A grand staircase overlooking the plaza provided a great place for couples and friends to sit and people-watch. Also, a Juice Avenue stand had really kick-ass Hong Kong-style boba. It was a great night at The Place.

That’s another thing about China that I love: People go outside and hang out at night. Not at a bar or a friend’s house, but just outside — on the sidewalks, in the hutongs, on the outdoor plaza of some shopping mall. They’ll throw around some cheap toy, play pickup badminton or a game a chess, or just talk — in Chinese, they call it liao tian (??), or chatting the day away. It’s a sense of camaraderie and of simple pleasures that completely erases all notion of an earlier time when business and brusqueness ruled the day. It’s where you discover the heart of the Chinese.

An introduction to the dark side

June 9th, 2009 by Johanna | Leave comments | Filed in China, Media, Reflections, Work

On the surface, China doesn’t feel all that different from the States. Except for the occasional culture shock, I barely notice I’m in a different country. For one thing, my routine is pretty much the same: I wake up, go to work, come home and eventually find dinner somewhere. I ate out all the time back home, and I eat out all the time here. I’m so used to hearing Chinese back home that it goes in one ear here and out the other.

But every once in a while, something comes up to remind me that I am living in a tightly controlled country: The guards standing at every entrance to every parking lot and building. A popular Web site that I can’t access. The six security cameras that watch and record my every move at work.

Then there was an assignment I got for work today. I was asked to look over it and see if I wanted to polish it — if I did, I would receive monetary compensation. A little strange, I thought, considering my manager had been handing me stories all last week to polish without giving me a choice or any money. Then again, she gave my roommate yesterday some cash after he finished a story involving government workers’ kids. The UNC alum who now works for the company told us that this kind of compensation is nothing unusual.

She also once advised that the answer is always yes here. We will be asked if we wanted to do something — go on a trip, participate in a KTV party, polish a story — and the correct answer is yes. After skimming the story in question, though, I wanted to say no. There was something fishy about it. In fact, it wasn’t even a story; it was a fabricated transcript of a discussion on the Falun Gong that allegedly included scholars from all over the world. (more…)

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