10 Sep 2005
It’s now been nearly 2 months since we arrived, and I think we can say we have now settled in. The main indicator for that was doing a touristy thing this morning – which I’ll get to.
The climate here in September is lovely – a warm dry Autumn, with perfect temperatures for sitting outside at restaurants, or walking, or cycling. Indeed, being able to walk with the kids is essential, so when our double stroller started disintegrating because of the rough pavements, we were worried. A friend had a number in her phone of a “Michelle” who was good at finding things for babies – but we were certain this would be a challenge even beyond her. Not only did we want a double stroller (in a country with a one child policy…) – but we also wanted it to be a jogging stroller – one that has 3 wheels, each like small bike tyres – quite popular in the States, but we hadn’t seen any here! Most surprisingly, Michelle had one, and at a remarkably cheap price – and it has worked fantastically. Known as our Beijing Buggy, it has doubled-up as our shopping cart too! Just a minor hitch last week when I went to pump up the tires and discovered a different valve – but that led to an interesting trip to a bike shop, where I also bought a baby seat for my bike.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve found ourselves needing to get used to fewer things. The beds here are very hard which was too much, though we found something like a thin fouton – which we have on top of the bed! The vast majority of people are so very friendly, but there is the proportion that are not. We’re not sure if it is unfriendliness, or different customs. For instance, it always seems that they want to be first onto a lift, or through a door. The extreme case is when you get into a lift with your kids, and the person in the lift looks at you as if you should have waited for the next one! Mind you, my most embarassing moment as a foreigner was at a store, when another foreigner was unbelievably rude to an Asian lady who jumped the queue by accident – he was far ruder than a different Asian lady that whom I jumped in a queue!
`We have been able to get coverage of New Orleans. On TV, we get both CNN International and BBC World. On the web, some websites are blocked (e.g. BBC, Yahoo news), though MSNBC has been the most reliable for us. It’s odd being so far away from it now, with colleagues even in Austin being touched by the refugees – as well as family or friends in the city. I can’t think of anything else suitable to say about the whole tragedy.
Our dining (and related) experiences continue to be interesting. Close to work, I have found a restauarant on the university campus. It’s a bit like a canteen, with enough seats for probably over 200 people. All around the edges are lots of different stalls selling their food. I was satisfied with the first stall – where I watched them handroll 15 dumplings, with an assortment of meat and veggies, and then boil them. Very tasty! At the other end of the scale, we’ve found a couple more new restaurants close to home that have Western food. We’ve been to our “local” Chinese about once a week, and now each time we go in, they just pick up Samuel and look after him while we eat! And generally, Bailey makes friends with some other customers, so that we can eat in peace. We have had a babysitter one night when we went out to eat by ourselves, and then stopped for a foot massage on the way home at a reputable massage shop. I mention that because in our neighbourhood, there are several massage parlours, with masseuses who very aggressively try to beckon (or drag…) single men into their stores for massage – though treat me surprisingly different when I am either with Janet, or Bailey! Well, our reputable massage was very relaxing (I nodded off…)– but including shoulders and legs too! Janet’s likely to return – as they are much cheaper during the day. This has also been where we have tried our limited language skills – with mixed results. It’s so difficult! At one restaurant, we asked for some milk, and a glass of hot milk came. We wanted cold. “Liang” means cold, but with a different tone, it means “two”. So, it takes a while to convince them what we want… Of course, there is another word for each – “bin” also means cold, and “er” also means two!
In some cases, hand signals prevail. Shortly having got in a taxi one night, Bailey complains she feels sick. Desperate hand motions to a confused taxi driver get us over to the side of the road, and we get Bailey out of the car before she is sick. One relieved taxi driver!! Taxis are convenient, but there is a definite convenience in having your own, and we might look into having a car for one day a week through an agency. When shopping, they will wait for you. They generally know where they need to go (not the same with all taxis…). They are probably better drivers, with seatbelts in the car! We still need to make that happen.
One hint we have learnt about taxis is to look at the registration number of the driver. There are about 250,000 registered taxi drivers. If their licence number is over 200,000 – they are new and might not know where to go! They might drive the oldest taxi, but they’ve probably just got it from the old timer who has just upgraded. Sometimes, some drivers won’t take you. We still haven’t worked that one out…
There are lots of cheap DVDs for sale here, and it’s very difficult to tell if they are legal or not. The major stores (e.g. WalMart) sell them for about the same price as some street sellers. The legitimate ones might have printed on it “not for export out of China” – but who knows! I’m pretty sure we’ve got some illegal ones though. Shrek with no sound, ANTZ, which in fact had The Bugs Life on the disk, Madagascar – which was labelled on thecase as being R-rated, but we haven’t found anything like that yet! There were some TV series in the States that we loved to watch – but generally on DVD after they were over. Our favorite two were Alias and 24. The DVDs in the states for these had been made by the TV company, and had extra bits. The ones here are just recorded off TV… But it works! Is it illegal??
My work involves some really fun stuff. I’ve been trying to locate a well, close to Beijing, that we can use for testing. Some of the local companies have them, so I’ve been visiting a few. I have one local engineer working for me (Xu ZhiYu – known as Da Yu, for which I am grateful!). We’ve visited several places, where 95% of the conversations have been in Chinese, and Da Yu kindly translates for me once in a while. I was the guest of honor at a lunch at a training college. Some of these wells are owned by the competitor of my company, but the competitors here love to copy our tools… – so I feel like I’m playing with the dragon!! There is one rig by the side of the main road that we take to work every day, and no one knew anything about it. It’s close to the Olympic site. So, one day, Da Yu and I jump in a car to find out! It actually takes us a while to find the rig, but after seeing it over a football field, and then walking through a building site, we get there. It’s pretty deserted – looks like nothing has moved there in a year, but everything is still there. Turns out it drilled a 4000m well which was hoping to be a geothermal well for the Olympic village, but it turned out it was “cold”. The well wasn’t really appropriate for our needs – and the likelihood of getting the Chinese Olympic committee to lend me a well in their Olympic village was a bit slim!! Otherwise, work has its ups and downs, but the locals seem as frustrated as me, and this is nothing that I haven’t seen in other countries – I think it’s just the initial obstacles when setting anything up. I have started cycling to work, but that is worth a note all to itself!
And so now to this morning’s adventure. We went on a Hutong tour in the center of the city. The Hutongs are the old-style streets and housing that have all but disappeared from Beijing with its modernization. Our tour was on a pedicab – which must have been hard work for the driver as all four of us were in one! We visited an old lady’s 3-room home, which was very smart, and probably better than the norm. She did not have running water, and had to burn coal in the winter to keep warm. However, she did have a computer – and used it to play the Chinese game Mah Jong! She loved Bailey and Samuel, and they spent some time playing. We visited the local Kindergarten, which was much bigger than the other buildings. Prior to 1949, this house was reserved for scholars, but now it was a school. Kindergarten starts here at age 3. Next was a local opera house, which had started life as a Guildhall. We think it was funded by the people to house family visiting the city, but something might have got lost in translation. The opera house was very ornate – and with a screen for English subtitles! However, I explained to our guide that our need for subtitles in an opera was little to do with the language in which it was being sung! It was a simple morning, and a good first attempt at tourism with the kids. As we cycled around, we’d catch someone at a distance calling their neighbour to look at our kids. People wanted to take photographs of them. Of course – the kids love it!!
So, I will end with the story of our favorite tea. It is a bottled green tea, and does not have sugar added. We drink it cold from the fridge. We have only really found it at Carrefour – one of the large supermarkets in town – but nowhere else! So, we were really excited when we learnt Carrefour was starting a delivery service, then dismayed when this tea was not on their list. But then the problem – all the characters on the tea are Chinese – so we can’t tell anyone what it is! We’ve tried talking to people at the store, but it didn’t help. Well, today we have our Carrefour delivery, and we asked them! It’s called Cha Li Wan, they tell us, and we can add it to our order, even if it’s not on their list! Sounds great – we’ll find out in a week or two if it actually works.
All for now, and if you are interested – check out my Beijing Bike Blog – coming soon!!
Peter, Janet, Bailey and Samuel.
The Adventures of the Cajunlimeys 