A Remembrance of Things Past, and almost as long.

Sorry for these epic, week-spanning posts. I'll try to write more regularly and in smaller chunks.

7/31?

Beijing weather

I think I wrote this on Tuesday, but I didn't get around to posting it. Of course it's raining again as I write now.

"I'm in the middle of the most dramatic storm I've ever seen, and that includes tennis ball-sized hail hitting Oak Ridge. Lighting flashes every couple of seconds and thunder rolls and crashes ceaselessly. The wind is whistling in the windows, and I didn't think to close the one opened a crack to dry laundry until the clothes on the line had been completely soaked through. The rain hitting the ground 14 floors down sounds like a river.

Strange city, Beijing. Tomorrow will be hazy and hot, I bet."

We had several nights of miserable weather. I was caught out in it one evening, coming back from a window shopping/exploring trip. I was completely soaked through, biking through puddles several inches deep. The water that's on the ground is filthy, of course, but the stuff falling from the sky leaves crusty deposits when it dries, so it can't be much better.

8/1?

Shopping in Xidan

I think I went window shopping on Wednesday. I went to an area called Xidan, on the southwest corner of downtown whereas I live somewhat northeast of the downtown area. The trek over probably took an hour. I had to get to the subway, take it and a transfer for 30 minutes, and then make my way to the surface.

The first mall I went to was maybe 7 levels tall, almost all underground. It seemed to sell mostly clothing, but there were some stalls selling mixed junk and an electronics store that was filled with empty shelves. I bought some blank DVDs by the disk to backup my hard drive and keep some of the many movies I've been downloading, but that was it. I asked the price on a few items, like a thin black tie that had a small gold crown at the tip, but the $8 quote scared me off. I was starving, so I found the food court. I ate at a pretty standard 'homestyle' restaurant, picking through my stir-fried chicken and cucumber as I looked down at the ice skating rink on the level below. There were little kids skating around in helmets under the eyes of staffers, slightly older kids being coached individually on hockey skills and figure skating, and a couple of young couples just skating in circles and holding hands. I remember having more observations at the time, but the only thing that sticks with me is the idea that the figure skating girls and the hockey boy were all awfully young to be training in a sport so specifically. After eating I wandered the mall a bit more, running across a Nightmare Before Christmas store. I checked it out, and it was actually an entire store selling Nightmare movie paraphernalia. Strange that a market for that exists, but sorta cool.

I went to a department store next, which was just as horrible as the one I visited when I bought my harmonica (which is, by the way, sitting inactive because of a faulty 7 hole draw. I guess that's what I get for spending $5 on a harmonica). Everything was shiny, new, and probably more expensive than it'd be in the US. I exited quickly.

The next place I stopped was probably the mall I'd heard about. It was jam-packed with people and vendors on the ground floor, and seemed more like a market than an American-style mall. I found a piercing stall and tried to find a shorter barbell for my eyebrow, but the owner didn't have any the right size. He was, however, piercing a Chinese guy's ear without wearing gloves or probably taking much else in the way of precautions. Oh, I had washed my cellphone in my pants earlier in the week, disabling it, so I had been using my Fan Xie's old phone with my SIM card. The battery was about to die and he'd lost the charger, so that was one of my missions for the day. I found the charger I needed and got the store down to a near-reasonable price, then caved and bought the damn thing for $4 when I could have gotten it for $3. I have limited patience for that kind of haggling, but I guess I should just accept that I'm poor, too, and it's a fact of life here and be ruthless. I climbed the stairs to some of the upper levels where they focused on clothes. I found a tie identical to the one I'd seen before for half the price. As I walked away the lady called after me that she'd give it to me for $3, which was tempting. The only things I was really looking for were military surplus clothing and come counterfeit Converses, but the mall started closing before I found what I wanted. I'll go back later, I'm sure, but not before checking out some markets closer to home.

It was drizzling and dark when I left the mall, and by the time I got out of the subway it was storming. Fortunately I'd anticipated this and brought my waterproof camping bag in addition to my backpack, so all of the electronics and my wallet went into it and then in the backpack before I biked through the rain and puddles, fortunately helmeted and lighted. I had to stop at the office to pick up my laptop before going home. I wrapped grocery bags around the laptop case and stuck it in my backpack, then squished my way back out into the black and wet.

8/3

On Friday went to yoga in the middle of the day so that I'd be able to go out soon after work. That meant arriving at the office early enough that no one commented when I left for the class. After work I went home and changed, killed a bit of time, then headed out to Mao Livehouse for the Ramones tribute. I misjudged the time it'd take to ride a bus at 6PM on a Friday (which was an excruciating experience I'll try not to repeat), and so didn't really have a chance to get dinner beforehand as I'd planned. So I bought some Oreos and ate them instead, hoping the sugar would get me through.

Ramones tribute

There was a small crowd outside of the venue. I paid my 40RMB cover, a bit of a gamble, and wandered in. The interior is simple. There's a bar and some tables, a foosball setup, plus a staircase that leads to an upstairs lounge area. When I say lounge I mean there were a couple of couches; this place was not fancy. I went into the room with the stage, which was beginning to fill up, and hung around to people watch. Most of the crowd were fairly normal looking Chinese my age. There were a few Chinese wearing the punk uniform, and there were a handful of Westerners punked out to varying degrees. My only gesture to the evening was to wear my red boots instead of sneakers, a decision that I'd be grateful for later.

The first band was ok, but the crowd wasn't really into it. The second band was ok, too, but the place had been filling up and was starting to get excited. Both of these bands seemed to be suffering from superfluous members, like a keyboardist or an extra guitarist.

The third band, The K, was great, and by then the crowd was wired. So when the band started into a fast ska riff the already hopping (literally) crowd up front started moshing. I was right in the middle of it, and as I've mentioned before I'm bigger than most around me. The only people there who were larger were other Westerners, so as we bounced off of each other and shoving people around I gave better than I got. The previous band, incidentally, had thrown bananas out into the crowd, some of which had remained on the floor, adding an interesting variation to the mosh pit. One thing that's always amazed me in my limited experience with wailing on people at shows is how strong a camaraderie it produces. Afterwards you chat with the neighbors who you'd been standing silently next to before you started shoving them into each other. If someone falls there are instantly hands reaching to pull them up and people circle around them for protection. Someone lost a cellphone and one of the moshers spent the next 10 minutes going person to person until he found its owner. There's a code and there's etiquette and what some people might see as violence seems to create a weird community.

(Incidentally, while looking for more info on The K, I found a post online on a guy's blog that said: "One sign that the band was a hit was that a lot of crazy moshing was going on in the middle of the hall near the stage, as drunken young men, both Chinese and foreign, got caught up in a whirlpool of energy that had collected there." This amuses me because I think there might have been one drunk guy in the whole group. Ah well, I guess. The same guy expressed his doubts that the Ramones were punk, so what does he know. Also? The person who was probably moshing most enthusiastically was a five-foot-nothing asian girl. Drunken young men my ass.)

The fourth band wasn't really punk and I didn't care for them at all, so I wandered out to the bar section and had a drink, giving my exploding eardrums a quick break. I went back in time to see the 5th band, SKO, start. They were obviously popular; the crowd was out of control, but I didn't like them as much. I actually bailed about halfway through their set, before the headliners started, after maybe 3 hours at the show. I'd soaked my shirt through with sweat, my lungs were exploding, and my ears hurt. It took me a while to realize that the lung thing was probably caused by dancing in a room filled with smoke. So I started walking, trying to find a bus stop that was still in service that had a night line running closer to my place. I finally gave up and caught a cab so that I'd make it back before the elevators shut down for the evening, which I did, but only after running from the cab and even then only barely.

8/4
Slow day. Woke up late, went to my neighborhood Korean place to feed my spicy beef soup addiction. Went home, watched movies, and read Ilium. I was planning on going to sleep around 10 to wake up early on Sunday, but because of my book that ended up being closer to 2.

8/5

I woke up after a few hours, at 5:30, to meet people to go hiking. We were meeting at work at 7, but I wanted to get breakfast and pack some lunch before then, so I budgeted extra time. As I'd been told, but hadn't really seen before, in the mornings a lot of restaurants convert to breakfast places.

Fighting for change

I found one nearby and ordered a basket of dumplings and a bowl of rice porridge, plus one the fried dough sticks I saw people around me eating but hadn't tried. I did this without a menu, because they didn't have one, and all in Chinese. That's relevant because after I ordered another basket of dumplings to pack for my lunch and asked for the bill the waitress silently held up fingers. Because I'm foolish I haven't yet learned the Chinese method of finger counting and using hands to indicate numbers, which is radically different from our own and involves fists and making crosses and such. So, again in Chinese, I ask her to say the number. I think she says 7RMB, so I give her a 10. Then she says that it isn't enough, and says 12. I assume I'd misheard before because she'd muttered, and I give her 22 to make the change easier. 12 is a bit steep, but whatever. She walks off, and I sit there waiting. I see her doing other things, smiling oddly, not bringing me my change, so I call her and say that I've given her 22, not 12. She still doesn't bring any change, so I grab my bag and walk to the front of the restaurant where she's hanging out with other employees. I say that I'd given her 22RMB and I ask for the difference. She reaches into a box and gives me 2RMB, smiling at me. I'm standing with the employees, and I loudly list everything I'd just eaten, saying that it definitely wasn't 20RMB in total. The little old lady making dumplings, probably the manager, repeats my order, saying that adds up to 9.5 and tells the waitress to give me my change. I think to myself that 9.5 is almost exactly what I'd expected to pay, and hold out my hand to the waitress. She still doesn't do anything, smiling this whole time, and after a moment one of the other waitresses reaches into the box and gives me the rest of my money.

Ok. If I were a fresh off the boat newbie speaking loudly with a phrasebook I can see trying to rip me off for a few yuan. But I ordered in Chinese without a menu, so I'm not clueless and I'm not new, and when she tried to scam me I confronted her. Wouldn't the correct response be, "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you gave me 12, my mistake?" Even then she would have been up 2.5RMB over the actual cost of my meal and I would have walked away happy at getting my change. But instead she just gave me her stupid grin as I made a scene and eventually got shot down by her boss and lost her 'tip'. I'm not quite sure how losing face works, but I'm hoping getting confronted and defeated by a laowai in front of your coworkers counts. Idiot.

I got to work and Alessandro, a UNIDO employee who'd just come back from a month's leave in Italy, was late. Hedda came, and she brought along another Norwegian from a different UN group. We went up to the office and had coffee as we waited, which was more funny than anything else, as Alessandro had asked me on Saturday whether the early meeting time would mean I was uninterested. Alessandro showed up 30 minutes later and we went down to meet him. He was driving his Land Cruiser, and his black lab Bookie was in the back, so we loaded up and headed out.

We drove maybe 40 miles out of Beijing to a place called Miyun. The Great Wall runs nearby, but we were just there to hike along the river. It was nice to get out of the city and listen to running water and insects instead of cars. The rocks looked raw and young, and vegetation grew green over everything. The haze here smelled like plants instead of city, and the effect of mist on mountains is much more interesting than it is on buildings.

Pictures of the walk.. I also updated the construction section on the pics page. I'll try to figure out a way to date my most recent changes so the new pictures can be found at a glance.