There is one apple store in all of China

So after a brief hiatus of getting settled in, I'm back. I had some computer problems earlier so I had a hard time connecting with the rest of the world. Essentially, my Mac power cord made this wonderful popping sound and stopped working. At first we went to this electronics super mall in the "downtown" area of my district. Though, to use to term downtown is deceiving. Beijing is so big that many locals have yet to see districts (boroughs) other than their own and those adjacent to their own. My current district, haidian district, is one of the largest districts with a population that is about the size of San Francisco and Seattle combined. Anyway, the shocking thing about this electronics super mall really wasn't a mall. It was more like a permanent flea market of bargaining, pushing, shoving, and fighting for a price that you want. There were more than 5 buildings, each at least 8 floors high of various "authorized resellers" (or so they say) of mac, pc, camera, and other electronic products. I went to 5 different "mac" sellers each giving me a different price for a mac charger with a base price of 120 dollars and a max price of 150 dollars.

Some buildings were so filled with people and products that I couldn't see the windows, and even my local friend who was taking me got lost in the building sometimes. Counters and booths arise in this flea market mall without any system of organization. There was no thematic division of products, and even the painted arrows on the ground that was supposed to lead me to exits faded into piles of boxes. This is the part of chinese culture that totally defies my vision of the Chinese etched in my mind from 6th grade history classes.

Before, when I thought chinese, I either thought of Tang Dynasty confucian order or of a photo of the transcontinental railroad workers with their tents all neatly lined up along the edge of the tracks. Beijing has been quite the opposite. Despite the rigidly organized political system, Beijing Culture is still very much like a jungle. One example of this is that Beijing does not really use street addresses. Everyone orients themselves according to major landmarks, labeled communities, or public transportation routes. If i asked a taxi driver to take me to a particular street intersection, I really only have a 20% chance of him actually knowing where to take me. For example, when I was trying to find my bank- i was told to go to the about 50 meters north of the east gate of Tsinghua University. If one does not have local knowledge of the area, then one is pretty much left on the outer fabric of society. It's even harder not knowing chinese. Now, my chinese isn't anywhere near native speaking, but at least I could make it out of that electronics super mall alive. I can only imagine how much harder it would have been for someone who has no chinese experience to try and navigate that bustling modern flea market.

Eventually, i gave up on this mall and tried to find a real mac owned mac store instead of tying to deal with people trying to gouge me on what they just called the "inherent expense" associated with using apple products.


there is one apple store in china. one. and it opened last July.


ONE apple store, in ALL of china.

Luckily, it was in Beijing. But it was also located an hour away in the Sanlitun Area of Beijing in Chaoyang district, the largest district in Beijing adjacent to Haidian. Seeing Sanlitun was like walking into a different China. It was a China filled with expensive Gucci bags, europeans, Americans,  and western architecture.



At any rate. I went to the apple store. They gave me a new charger, and my computer is all better.

The day after was the last day of the Olympics and my roommates told me that they were all going to go to the closing ceremony for the olympics.

So we ate dinner



(Shrimp ball soup, scrambled eggs and tomato, sauteed chinese broccoli, chinese radish salad, corn, and rice.)

and hopped on the train to head to the closing ceremony.



Now. I thought this train was crowded, but this was only the tip of the iceberg. My body was politely pressed against the people next to me as I tried to take a picture. Yet, when this picture was taken, it was a few minutes before rush hour. come rush hour, the train becomes packed solid. There is also no particular etiquette when it comes to sitting on mass public transportation other than push or be pushed. I went to pick up my friend from the airport during rush hour a couple days ago and I ended up using her luggage as a battering ram to push through a mass of people blocking the door as i tried to get off at my stop. XIA CHE (I'm GETTING OFF) - yelled and the people didnt move! They clung to their spaces because they knew if they moved, there was a chance that they wouldn't get back on the train. The subway has by far been the most harrowing part of china so far. People waiting to cross the street in the middle of the street is harrowing as well- but I'll describe that later.

Eventually, we made it to the Tiananmen square stop and left the subway. At first, i was little confused. i thought we were going to the Birds Nest. No no- my roommates told me. "We're going to Tiananmen Square, Birds nest tickets cost 1200 USD. The ceremony at Tiananmen is free."

Tiananmen was astounding. It was a testament to a city that has for the last 1000 years had a population of at least 10 million people. The buildings surrounding the Forbidden City (gu gong) and Tiananmen were monolithic. It was almost as if buildings had to be constructed that big in order to convey a sense of authority over such a large population. Red lanterns lit our pathway to the square and despite the splendor of my surroundings I could only focus on how many people were around me. The streets were full. The busses were full. With the exception of a few pockets of space people were densely piled into this antihill of a city. I can now understand why nationalism and group mentality/ethics is so important to the Chinese people. There are just so many of them that having an individualistic mentality, one that focuses on how special one person is, just doesn't work out. There is ALWAYS somebody out there that could rival you--so everyone might as well identify as part of a strong group. At the same time, wandering in this mob of people also presented the impression that these people didn't really identify as part of a cohesive group. I realize that this was just because I was evaluting China and chinese people based upon general manners, courtesies, and customs that we have in the West. In China- it's okay to push around your fellow chinese to get where you need to go, because they will do the same to you.

After a about 20 minutes of pushing, we made it to the front of the square and - here is what we saw.




With that- I leave you folks. I need to go find a futon.

I just saw my first Ping Pong injury on Chinese Television

When I arrived I was hoping not to be shocked too much by the culture. Regardless, I am shocked. I suppose its just the little things that shock me more. When I started writing this entry, I was sitting in a French Bakery and using free wifi in the "International" part of town. Might I clarify, by international, beijingers tend to mean Koreans. There's a very cosmopolitan area in the Chaoyang district filled with many travelers, but most of the locals are chinese. For further clarification, when I say that the international part of town has many Koreans, I mean that maybe there is a visible korean population of about 10%. China is just so big and has...many chinese people.

Anyway, I was eating "cream cheese bread" and a blueberry pastry while watching Olympic Power Walking on TV. Somehow, the pastry still tasted chinese. There wasn't the same kind of sweetness that you would find in a Western Bakery.

oh oh oh--

I had my first Chinese meal two days ago. I had it at a Chain "Zhou" (粥）or porridge restaurant that somewhat resembles a chinese Denny's. It's open 24 hours and has a seemingly endless menu. Except- unlike Denny's and American Chain restaurants, this Zhou place and other Chain restaurants are actually more respected in China, and for good reason--their food isn't chain-restaurant-horrible. Plus, because it's a porridge place, their food is generally not too greasy. They have so many different varieties of porridge that can either be served warm or cold. Generally, a the porridge is made by boiling rice with excess water to form a thick soup from the starch that comes from the rice. They then boil in the other ingredients to form different types of porridge. They have sweet fruit porridges. Thats what I had first - a cold sweet (but not too sweet) mango porridge. It was quite a refreshing lunch on the hot day that it was.



They had salty porridges, porridges with meat, bitter porridges, and what was cool about their menu was that it a little note saying what the porridge was good for, as in "Ginger, onion porridge- Good for digestion and energy" or something like that.


It was a good way to get settled into the city and find a place that i could hang out 24 hours a day.

Anyway- where was I...

oh- i mentioned that in my last entry I was looking for an apartment. I found one, but this was actually the most shocking thing that I have experienced in the culture so far. My apartment that I will be living during the academic year is not far from this French Bakery. It's owned by this Korean national married to a Chinese girl. They are currently in the process of moving out to go to a smaller apartment about a block away. He spoke a little english, but If i didn't already know some chinese, i think it would have been pretty horrific. You see- people in China are not a big fan of month to month payments, of anything. There are no monthly cell phone payments, there are no monthly water, heating, or electricity payments, not even internet. Even rent is not paid month to month. Everything that i have run into so far has been based of of a "pre-paid" system. I pay rent in 4-6 month increments, I have to add money to my prepaid cell phone every once and a while to make sure i can receive calls, I make prepaid internet connection and landline payments at a little machine in the bank next to my building that ensure my internet for a certain period of time, I make prepaid electricity payments are a little meter behind my building, and I have to pay my water bill whenever a guy shows up and nocks at my door, asking for a payment. There is not the same level of customer trust here in China, and using a system of prepaid things prevents sellers from being short changed. That being said-credit cards are also very rarely used here. Most places dont even have a credit card machine, unless you go to a really big department store. Everything is generally paid with a cash payment--including my rent. My first payment is 30,000RMB (4838 dollars) (to be split among my two roommates and me).

Having this whole pre-paid business changes the way how everything runs. People don't spend as much when they dont need to, and there ends up not being much being mailed to you in bills, and because of that, there tends to not be much mail. I have yet to see a mail man or anyone check their mail. of course, this just means i get to pay more and more ATM conversion fees in pulling out ridiculous amounts of cash in order to pay my bills.

So- In order to help pay for these bills I've decided to get a job at a bar.




I guess it really isnt much of a bar, per se. Rather, its more of a lounge. (As an interesting linguistic note: the Chinese refer to places that serve drinks generally as "ba-" or bars. There are waters ba-s, coffee ba-s, juice ba-s, and plain alcohol ba-s.)

Anyway, This bar teaches english classes with alcohol. I think its really ingenious. I've met some cool locals, and the manager is very nice. I am scheduled to teach for two hours every thursday evening. I teach conversational english while encouraging my students to buy beer.

yeah woo yeah.

Round ONE

Well—I made it, and I do not want to want to see the inside of an airplane for a long time. I flew out of SFO Monday afternoon at 2:00pm transferred planes in Tokyo and arrived in Beijing Wednesday night at 10:10pm. The flight to Tokyo was quite unpleasant. Let me clarify, it was pleasant for the first 5 hours, and then became gradually more unpleasant from then on. For the first for hours I was kept amused by in-flight computer screen, its wide selection of movies, and myspace like games. I was even more delighted at the my opportunity to see two movies I hadn’t been able to see in the US before leaving: Iron Man…and Kung Fu Panda. Cute as the movies were, my head began to hurt from the five hours of television and by then I was longing for sleep that I could never get. I did not sleep on my way to China. Though, I suppose that the sleep deprivation fueled the euphoria I had once I got into the country.

After making it through customs, a friend of a Glen Butterworth, met me at the airport and took me to my temporary housing. I could feel the heavy air as I stared out the taxi window. Traffic was heavy on the way to my apartment because of events going on at the Birds Nest stadium. It was 77 degrees when I arrived and I could see the smog in the air as it was lit up by the ambient light of the city. I haven’t yet plunged into an asthmatic arrest just yet, so keep your fingers crossed for me. The trip from the airport to my temp. apartment just made me realize how big Beijing is. It is….huge. There are patches of the city that look suburban—short buildings, residential housing, and then patches of buildings the size of downtown Seattle scattered throughout the city. I felt so insignificant. Everywhere I turned I felt dwarfed by the masses of people, and it wasn’t even daytime! Anyway, my friend took me to the place I would be staying, and she explained to me that I would be (at least for the time being) living with two female Chinese college students. The apartment is not too big. Two bedrooms. The two girls share the larger room and I have the small one, and I cannot even fathom how Chinese everything is.

There’s a difference between seeing the flashiness of some Chinese performance, and then becoming part of a Chinese household. I felt as though Amy Tan came up to me and hit me with the Joy Luck Club. The apartment is hot and humid. It sits on the middle of the 16th floor of a special residence building for Tsinghua University Professors. The smell of dried gensing and tea welcomed me as I glided wandered through the apartment that was clad in various shades of unexciting brown. Chinese households are not known for deviating far from earth tones.

The kitchen made me smile. A lone wok sit on top of a gas stove. An unplugged rice-cooker sit in the back right corner of the room. There was one knife sitting on the drying rack—a large butcher knife, and I had a lovely view of the brown and grey walls of the building next door through the window. The kitchen smelled as if soy sauce had been seared into the walls. Opposite the rice-cooker, there was a toaster. It didn’t seem like it got much use.

And now—

I sit in the living room. Hoping one of my roommates will wake up and let me know how this city works. I have a strange feeling that they might have left for work already and I have to tackle this city on my own.

Until then—

George

Hurry Up Please. It's Time.

Monday-Thursday, the Lemieux Library main floor closes at 10:00pm. Trish, the librarian with short librarian hair and semi-thick late 80s glasses, flashes the lights and smiles and smiles at me, the quasi-regular among the stacks. Public safety starts patrolling the halls looking for people hiding among the books, and sometimes I hope that they actually find some lemming hidden within the mazes of literary theory. Maybe then some epic battle will play out in the library with a young reader fighting for her/his/z’s right to live among the books. Pages will be called to arms and public safety will roll through the aisles on book carts wielding heavy fines and copies of the OED. Oh, if only Lemieux library was such a drama. But, come 10:00pm, there is no fuss. Despite the myths that the Stranger puts out about how the 4th floor of the library is one of the number one gay cruising spots in Seattle, Lemieux quietly closes its doors.

Aside from this weird association that I have with the library closing and last call my mind drifted to a second thought today (because I really only average about two thoughts an evening on a good day). I noticed that this was the first time I walked home in the evening while it was raining this summer. For some reason, I really don’t mind rain in the evening. Rain in the evening is just—right. People are all away in their homes, the streets are empty, and I feel like I’m in some surreal world when I walk through it. Water is falling from the sky, people are hiding in their houses, and it’s only a slight dampness in my shoe that reminds me I am just walking through rain.

It’s been 5 days since I started this entry on July 31st. I can still remember that feeling of feeling my last drops of Seattle rain for the next year. I’m sitting on the plane now, riding the aeronautic waves back to San Jose. I said my last goodbyes and the final countdown has begun. I talked to my dad on the phone before I boarded the airplane. He had this loveydovey voice on when he asked me if I wanted Chinese food after landing. I told him yes, laughing a little. It’s been
Seven months since I’ve last seen my family in person.

Living in apart from my family has been my regular practice for the last couple years. To me, it’s nothing out of the ordinary, and to many urbanite and suburbanite families it isn’t unexpected. But having talked with a few friends who did not have urban, modern (not in a technological sense, but in the alienated commodified, disenchanted sense), lives – I was surprised to find that there are people in the world who don’t feel alienated, commodified, or disenchanted. This was mindblowing to me. I mean, these friends saw the world through a lens of close community that I thought modernism had destroyed. I guess, there are a few surviving strongeholds of such thoughts left in the United States.

When I talked about feeling alone in the anonymity of urban life, my friends talked about the troubles of never being able to find privacy in the small communities they came from. At the same time, they saw the world as positive. Apparently, I’m also a cynical person. I thought I had my head in the clouds, but apparently, because I believe that urbanites are all alienated and disenchanted at some level – I’m cynical. Haha. Oh well. I thought I was just a realist, but then again not everyone experiences my reality.

From this ,I spent much of the recent weeks understanding the process of how I learn things. To meet and speak with people who had such different views than I did, e.g. a happy-positive outlook on life, was just crazy to me. I suppose that’s what people mean when they mean learning. These conversations were a great reminder to me of my need to account for not so critical perspectives on society.

It’s a funny paradox though: me going to a university and hoping to improve the world in a “just and humane way” is ultimately an acceptance that there is negativity in the world. Now, there are several theories which state the value of a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, if I want to be the vice president of a company, I will strive for and imagine myself as a vice president. Evidently, people who think in such ways have a significantly higher chance of becoming a vice president of a company than those who do not place themselves in such a mental state. But does this same process work for social justice? Should I believe that the world is wonderful simply because there’s a higher probability that the world will actually get better?

I’m not sure I can do that.

I’m a strategist. I need to know that the path of progress is challenging and that it will destroy me. Action for the sake of improving the lives of others is really all the motivation I need. Of course, I realize that sometimes, a positive outlook is necessary , I just need to stay in touch with the problem. I guess I might be more down to earth than I thought. Either that, or negative encouragement seems to work better on me. Or maybe I’m just foolish enough to think I can take on the “man” on the “man’s” terms. Yeah—my heads still in the clouds. Still in the clouds.