Year of the Dragon

This week, I went to meet a college friend that is now doing a master’s degree at Renmin University (Literally: the People’s University). Renmin was founded by the Communist Party at around the same time that they founded the People’s Republic, and unlike the more famous Tsinghua and Beida, it’s not yet very international, and packs a lot more students in a relatively small campus. This, of course, results in an endless stream of wonderful stories that have turned her into one of my favorite sources of information about the secret lives of Chinese people (okay, maybe not so secret sometimes). 

It was raining when I came out of the subway station, so I was unlucky enough to miss one of the more typical sights right outside campus: a group of women carrying their young babies, seemingly just sitting on the side of the street. To the untrained eye (mine) they may look like a bunch of moms getting some not-so-fresh air for their kids outside, but turns out they are the city’s fake student ID and diploma vending mafia. A Chinese law protects women that have children under one year from being imprisoned for petty crimes, and as you can imagine, this creates all the wrong incentives, as well as a powerful young mom cosa nostra. 

These “guerrilla moms,” as they are despectively called, have kid after kid (unregistered, as having more than one is also illegal) so they can keep the business going, unpunished. The IDs are sometimes bought by people that want to get train discounts and such. The diplomas, which go for about USD$300, are reputedly perfect-looking and probably used for darker purposes. The children are born in violation of the one-child policy and thus unable to obtain a registration or “hukou” so they don’t have access to basic government services including the public education system. 

Other common sights around campus make for what my friend calls the “most interesting commute in the world.” As she crosses a small green on her way to class, she’ll see the typical early morning Chinese activities that include sword-waving, dancing in perfectly coordinated groups, and tai chi. But she also gets another surreal treat: students, standing on their room with their books, loudly screaming English sentences. “HIS DOG’S NAME IS SPOT!” This is apparently a radical English learning technique developed by one of the professors, and since the kids packed eight to a room in the dorms, it’s no wonder they have to go outside for their screaming sessions. 

And speaking of dorms, that’s its own set of interesting stories. I have come to appreciate more and more the luxuries we have going to school in the States, and the incredibly silly things that we all whined about. Space is really at a premium, which is why walking around at night on weekends will likely interrupt several young couples’ make out sessions. Since the dorms don’t have desks, a seat in one of the libraries is hot real estate, and almost impossible to find on any regular week day.

Additionally, students get charged for everything. They have to use their student ID to take showers, which I imagine tend to be short since they get charged by the amount of water they use, as well as the amount of data when they go online, and the electricity that is consumed in their dorm (which is why few AC units often stay off through the hot summers). None of this is particularly expensive, but Big Brother knows how long you shower.  

Bureaucracy can move at a glacial pace, especially for the international students, since all sorts of extra requirements, and probably bribes, are required to get anything done. My poor friend did not get her official card for about three weeks, so she could no turn on the water for a shower. She went to a nearby gym the whole time. The good thing is that bribes can sometimes work to their advantage, like the time she was let into her room despite getting there after curfew (11 pm, I think) because she regularly buys the security guards cigarettes and she is now a favorite.

My friend has learned the hard way that you do not write an essay critical of Mao in a Chinese college class, and that studying law as an undergrad is a bad idea (unless you really like memorizing the entire civil code word by word). She also says that the weekly Friday night “English Corner” gathering around the central fountain is a great way to meet hundreds of Chinese people really eager to talk to you, but highly recommends not publicly sharing your phone number for anyone to take unless you want to get phone calls for months of people that want to be friends. 

For the first time in my life, I have almost unlimited amounts of unstructured time and a total lack of direct social pressure. Before, there was always school or a job, and even during breaks or as a kid, a family around me to dictate what I was supposed to do: when to get up, what to wear to the dinner table, how often to shower and brush my teeth. I am now as far away from anything I’ve known as is geographically possible. I am living a strange sort of consequence-free life, where other than occasionally calling home to confirm that I am still alive, there is absolutely nothing I HAVE to do. I could probably spend the next ten months watching pirated DVDs of I Love Lucy and not only would no one know, I could get on a plane, head back to my reality, and try to get a real grown up job lying about all the meaningful and life-altering experiences I had during my post-grad fellowship.

I was afraid of what that could mean in real life for me. Would I devolve into a far from home couch potato, sleeping until noon every day and looking at cat videos on YouTube? Would I sleep on my own pile of unwashed laundry and only interact with the McDonald’s delivery guy? (Yes guys, McDonalds delivers here.) Would I go to bars every night to get drunk and get hit on by sketchy expats from every European country? This little pressure could reveal some ugly sides of me, but as it turns out, they haven’t been so bad, just a little… how would you call it, lame?

Where exactly my project is going to end up is still in its defining stages, as I’ve run into frustrating dead ends and my tendency to be constantly filled with self-doubt and indecisiveness has not gotten any better with a college diploma. However, being on my own for the first time is teaching me things I didn’t know about myself, the most surprising of which is my desperate need for domesticity. It’s really scary, actually, it seems that I have been a dormant homemaker all these years.

I should have suspected it on my trip to Ikea, during the first week in my new place. Having never been particularly fond of buying things, I don’t think I had ever felt the uncontrolled agony of desire that the maze-like Swedish store provoked in me. The fact that everything was so cheap only made it worse, as I could theoretically buy anything I wanted. I found myself having brutal internal battles, trying to convince my brain that no, I did not need that beautiful spice rack because I didn’t even own any spices yet (in fact, I owned only one suitcase’s worth of clothing). In the end, I won a few hard battles, but lost more than I like to think about. I got there meaning to buy only some sheets, but  left with candles, curtains for my room and many daydreams about my future kitchen’s color scheme.

The two happiest purchases I’ve made since February were a coffee maker and a new mop. The coffee maker is easily predictable, of course Colombian me would miss coffee enough to finally find an affordable machine on Amazon.cn. The mop is a different story. Mops seem to be everywhere in China, there’s even a blog dedicated to their ubiquitous presence. We just had a normal one at home, that was painfully difficult to clean and a little icky, so I finally decided to invest a new fancy sponge contraption that squeezes out the water with a little lever. My roommate Jess and I have been binding over our newfound joy in mopping and marveling at our sparking clean floors ever since. We could probably star in a 1950s Pinesol commercial.

In the weeks since I started classes I’ve developed a little bit of a routine. Most days I come home and I cook some lunch for myself. Despite the fact that I could eat out for an almost ridiculous low price, I’ve come to look forward to stopping by the market, staring unnecessarily long at all the unknown vegetables and settling for something safe, then getting home and flipping through iTunes looking for an NPR podcast to listen to while I cook. My meals have gotten a little more adventurous as my trust in my culinary abilities increases, and this week I decided it was time to be really bold and subject other people to eating my food.

I am admittedly a rookie in this dinner party thing, so I invited the easiest possible group to please: a mix of my various Chinese friends, from random Starbucks acquaintances to email pen-pals. I figured if anything went horribly wrong, they would generously attribute my failings as a cook and a host to cultural differences or the bland and unsatisfying nature of Western food. I picked a crowd-pleaser menu that they probably hadn’t tried before, and I asked them to get here around 7 o’clock for chili and quesadillas.

Despite the fact that I started scrubbing, cutting and prepping as soon as I got home from school at 1pm, I still somehow managed to not be finished cooking by the time people showed up. The kitchen looked as if a nuclear explosion had just taken place in there (I’m sure my sister Mariana will happily share horror stories about what happens when I attempt to cook… I am famous for ignoring the wash-as-you-go method, and all methods in general, really). I forgot that I didn’t have enough bowls for everyone, so I had to do it college tailgate-style and serve everyone chili in paper cups. I couldn’t find sour cream so I served my nachos with whipping cream. But despite these and other failings, I still had the pleasure of watching a group of Chinese people devour quesadillas for the first time (using chopsticks, naturally) and declare that they “look like Chinese food” (a very high compliment indeed) and that they were “derricious.” They even complimented my vanilla-scented Ikea candles. It was really, really fun.

I look forward to doing it again. Next time, I might even take some real pictures of the food I made, and be one of those blogger people that post pictures of their food. (I did say that this much time could reveal pretty scary sides of me). For now, enjoy some crappy cellphone photos: 

Mmmm black mushroom quesadillas with chopsticks. 

Today was one of those good, solid China days when I remember why packing up one day and moving to Beijing without a clear plan and a single word of Mandarin was, against all odds, the greatest possible idea.  

It went well from the start. I left the house at 9 am and met with my friend Andrés. On the way to the bus station, we saw a Chihuahua wearing a medical face mask. People here wear those often as a way to protect themselves from the awful smog, but this is the first canine version I’ve seen. Please tell me this isn’t just great/insane:

Since neither of us speaks Chinese, getting to our destination, which included three English and pinyin-free bus transfers, was an act of faith. We managed to find our way, mostly thanks to locals that were fascinated with the lone Westerners in those parts of outer Beijing, and took it upon themselves to find out where we were going and make sure we got off at the right station. The bus ride itself was eventful: we drove past an unfinished and abandoned knockoff Disney World that I had already read about, we saw a couple of spectacular stretches of the Great Wall, and we even saw a camel.

Shaky picture from the bus. That would have been the Cinderella castle of “Wonderland,” now abandoned. 

After over two hours of travel, we finally got off where we needed to be, which we only knew to be the right spot because the bus driver yelled at us and pointed to the door (where else could these foreigners possibly be going if not to the trogolodyte caves?). A local guy with a car harassed us until we agreed to let him drive us the 3 km to the entrance of the caves for 10 yuan, and on the way we commented on how barren and lonely the area looked, we didn’t see a single human being on the way there.

Though not one of the main tourist attractions near Beijing, the thousand-year old Guyaju caves were very interesting. Once a group of high schoolers left, we had them all to ourselves, which is an unusual and nice feeling in China.

We had lunch and a nice nap in the sun on one of the terraces in the mountain, and then started looking in the distance at the little town by the foot of the hill. I pointed out it looked very odd and non-Chinese. The houses, with pointed triangular roofs and lots of spaces between them looked too large and Western for such a small village. We could see no people at all, and oddest of all, there was a blue church right in the middle of the town, which Andres described as “very fake-looking.” I pulled out my glasses, and the more we stared at the village the stranger it seemed. Next to the church, a string of buildings made a very recognizable main street. They were painted in bold colors, something we’d never seen in gray, gray China before. “It looks like one of those old cowboy villages,” I said. Cue ominous music.

A CHURCH?!! In a Chinese village? And no people? Something strange is happening here. 

On the way back, we decided to take a little detour and check out what was going on in that strange ghost town. This was the entrance to the town, which begins to explain what exactly is going on:

Please notice that everyone in the add is blonde, blue eyed. Not that that’s at all unusual in Chinese advertising. 

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[For more pictures, skip the rant and go to the end]

I’m sure entire books have been written exploring whether the massive investments that cities and countries make to host events like the Olympics or the World Cup make financial sense in the long run. So I’m not going to waste space by trying to make a reasoned argument on the subject, as I know very little about it. However, I visited Beijing’s Olympic Park today and it got me thinking about how the infrastructure changes involved can really change the feel of a city.

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From the title, I know you think I’m going to write another whiny post about Beijing traffic. Alas, not this time! Just want to show you some pictures of Beijing’s most inspiring Daoist temple (which inspired me, for example, not to join Daoism). 

The temple is divided into the 76 different departments of the Daoist pantheon, which I understand to be something like a much better organized and more bureaucratic Catholic hell, where people are given different types of punishment according to their relative offenses (English explanations were limited, don’t take my word for it).

The entire periphery of the temple is divided into small rooms with life-sized dioramas of what can happen to you after you die, depending on how nice and well-behaved you were while you were alive. So you get a sense of what this is like, imagine a wax museum version of the least pleasant third of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. Some of the offices are the Department for Inflicting Fifteen Kinds of Violent Death, the Department of Abortions, the Department for Wandering Ghosts or the Final Indictment Department. They include the following pleasant sights: 

With equal importance and their own god alloted, the departments of Signing Documents and the Department of Confiscating Unwarranted Property were also there to terrify humans about the awful things that can happen to them in the afterlife. No photos of those, as all those people doing paperwork might be too intense for my blog audience to handle. 

In their own extra large hall and with a real human to yell at me for taking pictures, these guys, Bi Gang, the Civil God of Wealth, and Zhao Gongming, the Military God of Wealth, carry out their job of “making profits on a fair competition basis in any commercial transaction.” Looks like Daoist gods could probably get a job in many a government agency back in the States. They’re probably a little to free-market for China right now, however.

And one last picture that, though not as entertaning, I really like. There are these red square tiles with a woven silk ribbon attached to them that people leave in sacred places asking for something in prayer. I have seen them both in Buddhist and Daoist temples, but I don’t know very much about either religion yet, something I hope to fix while I’m here.

There are thousands of these in Dongyue, and since it had snowed the night before, they actually looked quite beautiful. The tiles were an important reminder that what felt to me like the Madame Tusseaud’s of absurd physical punishment is actually a spiritual place for many people. I need to remember not to become like the Chinese tourists taking pictures during mass at Notre Dame, which annoyed me so much at the time. It’s not like our places of worship are any less entertaining or strange looking (Have you seen gargoyles lately? or that guy nailed to a wooden cross? Gruesome.)