Have I mentioned yet that I hate Chinese breakfast? In Penglai we were served corn porridge, fish-flavored corn cakes, and some greasy long bread. What Eric, did you just say fish-flavored corn cakes? Why yes, I did in fact. Imagine a small disc of cornbread. Now, salt it up something fierce and add fish flavor. Bam, Chinese coastal breakfast. I am convinced that it can somehow be quantitavely found that Chinese breakfast sucks more than a Western breakfast, be it bacon and eggs, cereal, or cinnamon-sugar toast. Maybe someone can do a study determing what induces more endorphins, the Western breakfast in a Chinese person or the Chinese breakfast in a Western person. I've got $50 says my side wins.
The "charter fishing" expedition was not what I thought it would be. We got in an extremely rickety looking boat and pushed off from the beach. A one-paddle system was used, and it basically involved rotating the oar on a knob while it was out of the water then giving it a quick jiggle while in. It's hard to explain without a picture or drawing, and not really worth it either. Suffice to say that this exact same technology was likely in use several millennia ago. Anyhow, as we boarded our boat with a few "crew" members, we started out to the sea and what I thought was going to be a short trip out to one of the powerboats anchored off shore. Well, we got to them, then went past them. On the way we ran into a rock that was just inches below the water. It made a most satisfyingly movie-sounding grating noise, just like you would imagine if a wooden hull were splitting open. If we had been going any decent sort of speed it might have done just that, but since our top speed was never more than a couple knots (a knot is 1.15 landlubber miles per hour) it was not a significant threat. In case you were wondering, there was absolutely no form of life preservers on our vessel. To give you an idea what our brave ship and its motley crew looked like, I give you this picture:
The girl standing in the top left seemed to operate the restaurant where we ate all our meals, and the guy squatting may or may not be related to the woman who owned the house/hotel place we stayed at, but he certainly worked for her. The man chilling in the boat might have owned the boat or something, he was just along for the ride. The front right is Shino probably looking at a starfish (海星, literally 'sea star') or one of the various other sea creautres we captured. Here you can also sea basically how most of the day was spent; Shino and I looked for cool things to play with as described in the last post, while our hosts took the time to fish. The older guy sat looking contemplative for much of the time.
Here is also where we get to the "Pains" part of the title, the Trains and Automobiles having already been covered. I didn't wear sunscreen. Well, I put it on well after I was burnt. Oddly enough though, I actually tanned. The burn wore off quite quickly and I tanned a reasonable amount, finally getting in both a true farmer's tan and sandal tan. Shino got a tan too, which turned out to be a major bummer for her. Here, the lighter and whiter the better. Thanks to cultural imperialism and the power of the marketing department, America has already won the hearts and minds of young Chinese. Not only is McDonald's everywhere, the proportion of white people in advertising to the amount living here is ridiculously high compared to all minorities in America featured in ads. After a couple hours frying in the sun and harvesting creatures, we returned to dry land.
After a nap and dinner, we returned to the beach. We held a funeral for animals so unceremoniously starved or suffocated to death by burying them a few inches deep in some sand. Once again I tried out some night photography, and was pretty happy with how this one turned out. I still need to get better at manipulating the angle of the camera, both for snapshots and long exposure pictures, but oh well. I suppose that just means I need to take more pictures and practice. In continuing the trend of getting very little sleep, we were once again forced to go to sleep early to make the 5:00 AM wakeup to be out of our room by 5:30 and make the bus at 6:00 that would take us to Qingdao.
We got on the bus and there were only 2 other people on. We left at a few minutes past 6 and there were at most 10 on. We pulled out of the station, and hit the open road. Sort of.
As soon as we got to the main through street we slowed to not more than 5 mph, probably slower, and just sort of idled along. I asked Shino why this was, and she responded quite matter-of-factually that the driver was trying to pick up more passengers, like some sort of long-distance taxi. The thing is, this tactic was wildly successful. We picked up half a dozen more people before getting to a highway. Once traveling, we kept getting more people every so often. Just people who were headed to Qingdao and wanted to hitch a ride (for the regular ticket price of course) flagging down our bus. It did add a small amount of time to the ride, but for a minibus like we were on, I think it worked quite well as a system. It is also not the same as making a Greyhound pull over because while we were on a 'highway' this was closer to the Wisconsin roads labeled Conty K that never have a limit higher than 55mph and you frequently have to go slower because of all the small towns scattered about. This was not some hitchhiking hippie hopping a bus blazing down I-90. Also on this ride, the bus driver was actually kind enough to give us some entertainment, putting on two movies, the first being
Police Story 3: Supercop featuring Jackie Chan and the other was of the Governator's best ever,
True Lies. I Mystery Scienced the first half of Supercop much to Shino's delight. She, in addition to my tutor, some teachers, and quite possibly a majority of Chinese youth believe that English is genuinely a pleasant-sounding language. I have tried to convince her otherwise, including using some French, but to no avail.
Perhaps I have not stated it here, but traffic in this country is crazy. That over-quoted Pirates of the Caribbean line about guidelines is genuinely true here. After arriving in Tianjin Monday morning, by the time we got a taxi it was 4:00 AM. As usual, the city was pretty bright, the ambient light mixing with pollution to give a sense of constant sunrise. (Did you know that even our sunrises are as brilliant as they are because of pollution? Rewind a few hundred years before the Industrial Revolution, and with only natural particles in the sky, the brilliant oranges and purples would have been less common. The reason has to do with the tiny pieces reflecting light or something, I read it in my Physics textbook freshman year.) While we were in the taxi on the way to my dorm, we stopped at a red light. A car across from us approached and also stopped. Then, 3 cars--all vacant taxis and all in quick succession--flew through the intersection. They came from behind, left, and right, and thankfully at different times. This was also not anything like aggressively running an amber and gunning it to beat the light. The light was as red as a commie and was not going anywhere soon. Still, 60% of all the cars that came to the intersection simply blew straight by. Yes, it was 4:00 AM, but still, if they had come at exactly the same time, it would have been game over for someone. These were two fairly main roads intersecting. In addition to this, some genius decided that it would be awesome to program lights to give a
green dot and green arrow in both directions at the same time. Now, obviously human restraint keeps from rush-hour pileups, but it is still rather suspect. Honking is quite standard and lanes are wimps. So when I tell you that our bus nearly rear-ended a car while arriving in Qingdao, don't be too surprised. The bus stopped short and started choking up, and everyone was jerked forward into the seat in front of them. In accordance with true non-OSHA standards, the 'co-pilot' of the bus, basically the ticket collecting guy that worked for the company, was standing up in the mini-stairwell at the front. Like any bus, the windshield was one giant piece of some sort of clear plexiglass or plastic. And because corners were cut on every aspect of production, this was not the sturdiest windshield. I think you can see where I'm going here. He did not quite smash through the windshield. Rather, he headbutted it and it cracked in a quite impressive fashion.
ASIAN MAN USES HEADBUTT ON THE WINDSHIELD!
IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE!
he too-fragile bus got us to Qingdao before noon and our train did not depart until after 8:00PM. We had almost 9 hours. The first course of action however was to eat a delicious delicious lunch at the McDonalds less than a block away from where we were dropped off, and literally across the street from the beach. I have already extolled the virtues of the food here, but there is another thing which contributes to their trendiness here; they are in premier locations and extremely large. I have not yet seen a McDonald's which does not have 2 stories. Almost all of them have been located on major street corners, with the second floor having an entirely glass wraparound wall, so you can sit
and watch the city outside as you eat. The exact same applies for KFC. It is simply a classier experience here. One difference however is the size of the drinks. The large ("upsize" on the receipt) here is a medium in America, and the small here is a kid's size, which is basically the same as a small. For anyone curious, McDonald's does not actually serve a drink called a "small" in some locations, though a kid size is always available.
After the quick refueling, we went to the waterfront, where many Chinese were milling about
on a sort of balcony overlooking the beach. In the 30-yard walk over, I see a little kid holding his dad's hand with a t-shirt on it and lettering. For a split second, I can see YA in collegiate block lettering in an arc, red letters on a gray shirt. Yale, I'm thinking. I guess someone's dad got a good American education. It says YAMP. On the actual beach, thousands of volunteers had gathered to clear away a massive algal bloom in the harbor where the Olympic rowing events are to be held. Thousands of volunteers, and that one earthmover I previously mentioned. The video is up and you can see the sea of workers grabbing and bagging the stuff, as well as one of the backhoe doing one full removal. In the video of the volunteers on the beach, there is actually a second beach with a few hundred more volunteers that extends beyond the natural sort of pier that juts out. After marveling at the sight and taking in the scenery for a couple minutes, we walked over to the pier then back, bought some shells that might make for some nice tacky jewelery for my sisters, and finding some shade on the beach for yet another nap. (Detect a theme here?) This time I wore sunscreen. This all took a surprisingly long time, and when I came to, it was almost dinnertime. Naturally, this meant more seafood. Only this time, it was a dumpling place so it was slightly more tolerable. By the end of dinner it was time to hail a cab to get to the train station, which is where I took the movie I have on my webspace. This was not as crowded, and was a little less dirty than the Tianjin West station. Well, not the bathrooms. I have had the unfortunate experience of taking a leak in a Chinese train station, and there is really not much to say, it's all about smell. Just entering it was enough to make a small child pass out. Once I did, I held my breath as long as I could. It was like someone decided it would be a great idea to take all the latrines in all the summer camps in the US, put them in the same place, then never clean or empty them. Furthermore, privacy is apparently not too important to some people. On my way to a stall (the urinal trough looked suspect, though I later regretted not choosing it) I passed an occupied stall. In it was a man, clearly using the stall for the intended purpose of going no. 2, to put it delicately. Now, how do I know this? Well, it would probably be because
he did not close the stall door and was staring out as he was squatting over the toilet. Yes, he looked at me. It was rather unnerving. He had a frown on his face, though I think it may have stemmed from the fact that he happened to be in that foul-smelling place, or because he saw a white man, or because well... yeah... Anyhow I booked it out of there. I planned on giving my hands a thorough scrubbing at the sink, until I discovered there was no soap. And it's a wonder I only had to take one vaccination shot according to the CDC's recommendations for this country.
With ticket in hand and methane in lungs, I boarded the train. We found our seats. Now I stated earlier that a hard seat is something like purgatory. Allow me to elaborate. You have a seat about as wide as an airplane seat, and half as comfortable. You are sitting directly opposite from a frowning middle aged Chinese man who when he sleeps is snoring, nose straight up in the air. Also, if we both sat at perfectly right angles with knees directly toward each other, they would touch. If you are lucky (I was) you are on the side of the train with two columns of seats instead of 3. There is a tiny table attached to the side of the train, which most people use as a pillow anyway. I found the 13 hour flight from Chicago to Beijing infinitely more enjoyable. The lack of space creates pains in aches in entirely new muscles in your body. Before I could settle into all the glory of this authentic experience however, Shino pulled out her purse and said "I'm going to tell you a secret." Oh wonderful I'm thinking, she is going to show me some ridiculously cutesy thing she bought me or maybe we actually got upgraded to sleeper class as we had tried to do.
No such luck. What followed was one of the most confusing five minutes of my life. This was about as jarring as when the Camp Anokijig waterfront staff start doing a massive waterfront manhunt for my sister because they think she drowned and they gather the entire camp into the cafeteria to take role while you try not to cry. Not as sad, but about as shocking.
Shino opened her bag, and unzipped an inner pocket. She pulled out a shiny and very official looking card.
Cool I thought, a passport? "这是什么？" What is this, I ask her. I can read the last of the three biggest characters, and it alone basically means ID card. I have no clue what the first two are, or what the bottom line means.
"It's my identity card. I'm in the army."
Oh hey, that's cool I mean it's like the reserves or something right? I open it up.
Hmmmm. I can read her birthday, sex, name, ethnic group, and home location. Some of the stuff I can't read. Mostly, it's the important things I can't read. I'm very nervous; this looks very, very official. I start looking for any chance it's forged, look for a phony photo, but the emobssing is real and as far as this untrained eye goes, everything is in order. I start talking quickly, and asking lots of questions.
Do they pay you? Have you been through basic training? What rank are you? Some others too, I can't remember them anymore. I reiterate the pay question a couple times, and reassure her I don't want to know how much, just if she's paid or it's like a loyalty-to-your-country type deal.
She tells me she pays the army. I think: this is most unusual. Where is this going?
I don't know if she understood the other question or just decides to tell me: "Do you know what level I am? Do you know what this is?" She points to the bottom right box. 上尉. The first character, 上, is a prefix or suffix in tons of words, and often means above, higher, etc... I have never seen the second character in my life. She goes to her cell phone and looks it up.
上尉
Captain
My friend is a captain in the People's Liberation Army. "Shit, Eric, you are very dumb." is all I can think. Her mom and dad both work for the army. Her dad was an officer on a ship and was part of the Second Artillery. Her family is set. No wonder she's in the army. In
China Road the author talked about how now it was the best and brightest being encouraged to join the Communist Party. Was the same true of the army? Was it a bad idea to look up the word for "propaganda" on your cell phone and ask her what she thinks of it? While you were at her house no less? And why did you have to drop in unsubtle references to voting while there too?
She presses on. "Do you want to know what I do? What my job is?" I think I said yes. She doesn't know how to say it, and pulls up her cell phone again. I'm not looking at the character this time, just the English definitions. There are at least half a dozen. I'm looking at a few.
intelligence agent; emissary; spy; espionage; covert
Blown away only begins to describe it. I just kept looking at the ID, and then looking at the cell phone. I look at her. She is smiling, I think. I don't know what is going to happen. For the first time ever, I am paralyzed with fear. I know I can't run, I'm on a moving train and hundreds of kilometers from everything I have on this continent, in this hemisphere. She literally knows where I live. Up until this point, the CCP, Red Army, and secret police had all been jokes. Sitting in the seat, I am slowly beginning to consider the possibility that at the very best I will be deported. I get other thoughts too.
The smile gets bigger.
Finally, she says two magic words: "It's fake." I immediately believe her, because I so desperately want to. I ask her why she has it, and she says that it is in case she ever gets into a "situation" where she needs it, and it also lets her into some places like some parks for free. I ask where she got it; she borrowed her aunt's uniform for the photo. Her mother has a friend in the clerical office. It was easy. The next five minutes are spent in quiet relief. We then get on to more hangman (she actually beats me once) and sleeping. The hours pass quickly for the first half,then the second half turns into a mental fight to try to sleep, and stay sane while awake. I also have something from the window poking my side.
We finally arrive close to 4:00 AM. We have to walk a few minutes to a main road so as not to take one of the "seedy" taxis hanging around the train station. I get back to my dorm at 4:15, knowing I have to get up in less than 4 hours. Incredibly, I beat my roommate back by only 15 minutes, as he walks in while I'm still awake. It turned out his train was delayed 3 hours. I successfully wake up in time for class, and along with a few other students sleep through most of lecture perhaps not to the surprised of anyone, teachers included.
A good weekend, and I'm back to being only a week behind in updating now!
Most Chinese restaurants have the look and feel of any hole-in-the wall establishment, with interior decorating that usually includes newspaper on the floors to catch and cover any massive stains, as well as faded advertising on the walls which hasn't been changed in the last 10 years. Naturally there are more upscale restaurants, and this is precisely where Pizza Hut fits in. The lighting is slightly dimmed by design, unlike in their American counterparts where the luminosity and wall coloring makes you feel like you're in the devil's antechamber. The clientele is also markedly different. We ate at a non-peak hour that was around 3pm or so and at least 50% of the tables were still full. Most all of the tables were filled by groups of people approximately my age or a little older, and at least 2/3 of the patrons were women. Shino informed me that at dinner time the place would be completely swamped. The actual menu was pretty classy, and had some interesting menu items, including "Rise of the Oriental Hero." They also had a positively delicious supreme pizza on the menu. Shino's aunt (this one lives in Beijing, the Tianjin one is different) treated us, and made me eat 5 of the 8 pieces. Not that I was complaining; it was incredible. We also ordered chicken wings, and they tasted as great as they do in America. They had real American soups too, including clam chowder which I hate, and other thick soups. In China, a soup is basically hot water with salt, oil, and either dough, tomato & egg, or one other relatively tasteless and unfilling thing. The idea of a soup that is almost a meal by itself is extremely foreign here.
