BITE MY NECK.

This one's for Dugan. And Barbara Mann.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/2134693.stm

The Time I Almost Got Deported

So yesterday, I ran into some trouble with the police. (Quite unusual for me, I know).

"Aliens" in China on a non-tourist visa are required to register for a permanent residence permit (sort of like getting your green card). You have 30 days to do this before your visa expires. In order to register, you must submit to a health examination to check that you are in good health and aren't bringing any dangerous diseases or conditions to the Chinese populace, which according to the government, is completely devoid of things like AIDS and STDs, of course. Additionally, you must register at your local police station and obtain a temporary residence permit, just so they have you on record, or something. So those things are time-consuming and inconvenient, so about 2 weeks ago I finally got them all sorted out. So then, the next step (apparently) was to go to the Tsinghua University Foreign Student's Office, where they can help you start your visa registration process. The way this office works is as follows: Doors open at "9 am." This actually means 9:30 or 9:45, whenever somebody feels like it. Therefore, around 7:30 am, people start to amass outside the doors. When they open, there is a crazed rush to the desks. Running, pushing, shouting, shoving things in peoples faces, climbing over the desk and chairs to be closer to the workers--all permissible.

So after I had been to this office several times, I thought I had successfully started my registration process. At least, I had a little piece of paper that said because I had started it before the day my visa expired, I was fine. OR SO I THOUGHT!!

They kept telling me to come back every few days to do some other piece of the process, so yesterday when I when back, they told me there was no way they could help me because my visa had expired.

Well, no shit my visa is expired! I fucking KNOW that, and that is why I have been here FIVE TIMES THIS WEEK. Maybe if your office had any SEMBLANCE of organization or efficiency, you wouldn't have LOST ME, and i wouldn't be an ILLEGAL ALIEN.

So now I'm told I have to go to my local police station, obtain a new temporary residence permit, then go to the city Public Security Bureau and register. It's 3 pm on a Sunday, everything closes at 5 pm, and then there is a week-long holiday. F-ing great.

Go to the local police station, hand over my passport and previous registration, which is ripped up. A new one is printed and stamped. "Can I have that, please? I need to go to the Public Security Bureau."

"No. You need to go to the somewhere somewhere and do the something something."

"I don't know what that is."

"You know, the somewheresomewhere. For the something."

"Um....but I was told I need to go to the PSB."

"No. The something."

By now I'm in tears, I have no idea what's going on, nobody speaks a word of English, I have an expired visa, and my passport has been confiscated, and I can't have it back. So then I try to leave and am told I can't. Oh-kaaaaaaay.

"Wait a little."

Having no other option, I wait two hours until the office closes. Then I'm told to go outside, where there is a police car waiting for me. My passport is handed to me through a window with bars, I'm told to give it to the police officer in the car, and then get in.

"Get in?"

"Get in."

They were being nice about it; everybody was smiling, but since I wasn't in on the joke, I didn't think it was all that hilarious.

30 minutes later, I'm delivered to the Haidian district police headquarters and led through a rat maze to an office,--"this is the crying foreigner"--where a really nice police officer talks with me, and then--this is the BEST PART--forces me to write a self criticism of why I allowed my visa to expire, and apologize. IN CHINESE.

"Statement for Overdue Stay: (You are required to state in detail reasons and responsibilities for your overdue stay in China as well as your attitude toward the penalties.)"

So I wrote out my little story, and then the guy told me to add at the end: "I know I am wrong, and I am very sorry. I am willing to accept the punishment."

Then, I was given a transcript of a supposed "interview" (let's call it an "interrogation") that this police officer did with me, where I admitted who I was, what I had done, and why, and told to sign it.

haHA! I love it. Then I was allowed to leave, and told to come back Oct 6, after the holiday. I don't know what will happen then. Probably "accept the punishment."

National Week

So this week is the National Holiday (marks the founding of the PRC in 1949) so everybody gets the week off. Naturally, wanting a break from studying, I'm going to attempt to travel a bit, but face two obstacles: 1) don't have a passport; it's been taken from me by the "Public Secuirty Bureau" to obtain my permanent residence permit. This makes it difficult to even travel domestically. But we're going to attempt. 2) every single person in the country tries to travel this week. So imagine Christmas, everybody going home for the holidays, planes and trains packed, flights delayed, everything disorganized, etc. Then, add ONE BILLION to that. US pop=300 million China pop=1.3 billion, right? Also consider the fact that their is virtually no air travel, and no personal cars, so everybody in the country is packed into the rail system. So I expect it will be quite an annoying and difficult week to travel.

We're going to Datong, a city in Shanxi province. Shanxi is a province to the southwest of Beijing, just south of Inner Mongolia and in the Yellow River Basin, and at the beginning of the desert. Apparently it's one of the poorer provinces in the country, and Datong is a major coal processing center, with the third largest coal strip mines in the world. It's also supposed to be a very polluted city. So why, you ask, would I ever want to go there? Nearby are the following: ancient Buddhist caves with rock carvings (a UNESCO world heritage site), a hanging monastery that's supposed to be cool, and one of the five sacred Buddhist mountains in China. So hopefully we'll be able to escape the pollution and the crowds at these sites.

But I think I've gotten pampered here in Beijing; where I live I don't attract nearly the amount of attention that I did in China the first time around. Not really looking forward to that part of traveling to China's less developed regions.
Shouts of HELLO!!!!! get tiresome. Listen, man, don't talk to me. You don't know me. You don't want me to reply, you just want to yell at me. HELLO! HELLO! Sometimes I want to turn around and just scream HELLO!!!! right back at them, in their faces. mostly i ignore it if possible.
I also really like, Look at her yellow hair! It is so....yellow!!! And, wow, our foreign friend knows how to use chopsticks!!!!! Yeah, what a fucking miracle, man, if I didn't know how to use chopsticks I would frigging starve to death in this country.

Anyways, pictures when I get back.

Par-tay

Last night our roof terrace was put to good use...we had our first party! This marks a very important landmark: we have enough friends to have a party!! Haha, definitely thought for a little while that we'd never get there. Our party was pretty small, but somehow today the house is a mess. Standard. The roof terrace was a delightful place to drink some beers, as anticipated when we first saw the house a month ago. Yay! Woke up not feeling so good today though....maybe next time a little less "white liquor." Hmm, maybe that's why I have a sore throat today, because my esophagus was burned to hell last night by the dinosaur piss I was taking shots of. I'll have to do further studies to corroborate this theory.

I;m blessed to know you~~

I LOVE these personal ads on beijinger.com:

who am I?
A tall girl of great intelligence with exotic looks (not like traditional petite Chinese girls)
An exuberant girlie with some fancy ideas, study hard and play hard, like doing workout, hiking, watching chicken flicks ,reading novesls and digest and embrace different cultures,like getting suntanned and eating yummy food and finding new friends from different cultural and social background.
A nice girl caring about her friends , like to do charity to the poor and underprivileged people, always makes her friends and folks laugh until they cannot stop, because she wanna make them happy when they are with her.

what kinds of friends am i seeking?
a sense of great humor, to be nice ,righteous and international minded, like to do some risky adventures in their lives, and wanna be blended with different cultures, , a fan of sports ( hehe, atheletic girls and boys are ideal company )like soothing and tranquil places when you wanna be alone for yourselves and wanna read your books. Like trying to do delicate homemade foods and drinks with your friends just for fun at spare time, like to share your unique opinions about life~~~~

I am writing this ad in the hope of finding some friends, Well, if you think you stack up to the “person”I list above, share some common interest with me and wanna be my friend, why not ad me in ur msn
vin_jade@hotmail.com, thank you

I think I'm going to message her some time: "Hi! Do you think we can watching some chicken flicks together?"

Dinosaurs!

I have perfected a number of my dinosaur impersonations. Obviously my specialty is still the velociraptor (claws poised for attack, prancing lightly across the floor, mad gleam in my eyes) but I'm also really good at the tyrannosaur, the pterodactyl (obvi) and working on an anklosaurus (but it's kind of hard when I lack the long barbed tail.)

Kimchi ice cream

Me: I want ice cream!!
Eunjee: Well, we have kimchi...

Kimchi and ice cream are not related!!! Frozen cream and sugar or pickled spicy cabbage....hmm....

censorship

What does the NY Times say today that China has blocked? I can't get the news!!!

Beware the Thief!

My beautiful bicycle that cost me less than 20 USD new, and broke every other day, has been abducted by thieves. It lasted about two weeks. Good thing I didn't pay much for it. I think next I will try for a "Wolfs Brand" bike. I hear they're quite popular.

Kaoya!

I am having so much fun here!

Today: 4 pm. Wake Up (alot of catching up from the past week and last night had to be done). 5 pm. arrive at Roast Duck Restaurant. 5:30 pm. Dine like emperors on magnificent and delicious Beijing Roast Duck. Order 3 bottles of "white liquor" and 15 beers. 6 pm. Drunk. 7 pm. Pay the bill. 35 kuai each for as much roast duck as you can eat and as much beer as you can drink. $6 US? How incredible is that?? 7:30 pm. Hit the bars with a bunch of boys from school. Discuss sex, economics, American politics, and international relations. Being around a group of people with a universal similar interest (can you guess what it is?) is really neat, and I like the fact that people aren't stuck up like I expected them to be. Most of them are older than I am (mid and late 20s?) and so have interesting experience and insight to share.

Chinese Are Smart

Things Chinese People Have Invented:
1. The Fire
2. The Wheel
3. The Noodle
4. The M.S.G.
5. The Squat
6. The Paper
7. The Printing Press
8. The Compass
9. The Fireworks

CuanDiXia Village

This past weekend we took a trip to the countryside. We went to a village in the mountains about 3 hours outside of Beijing that was constructed ~500 years ago in the Ming dynasty and was an important stop on the trade routes from provinces north of Beijing to the capital. The houses are all traditional style, with four rooms surrounding an open-air courtyard.



Look closely--you can see his split pants. (Chinese babies don't wear diapers, they just wear pants w/ no crotch, and get potty trained really early).


PICKLED LIZARD!!!








So we were hanging out on this mountain top by a temple over looking the village, and a local Chinese guy started talking to us.
"Where are you from?"
"The US."
"Hmm...the US. People in the US eat lots of beef."
"Yes...."
"People in China eat lots of pork."
"Yes, we know."
"Pigs are stupid. The reason Chinese people are stupid is because we eat too much pork!" He said this accusatorily, as if 1) we had somehow suggested that we thought Chinese people were stupid and as if 2) the reason they had to eat so much pork was because we were hording the world's entire supply of beef or something. On purpose.
So then, next:
"Why does your President Bush want to go to war so much? Why do you people just like conflict? We Chinese are very peaceful people. We have a saying, we will not kill on purpose or for food, but if a wild animal comes onto our land, we will kill it." Basically, attack only if threatened.
We didn't even try to argue that point....
And THEN, the crowning jewel:
"Do you know, America doesn't actually belong to you."
"Oh....? To whom does it belong, then."
"Well because you know, the real people of America are the American Indians. You people came from Europe and killed them all. And actually, the American Indians came from Asia, so actually America belongs to Asia."
Ok, OBVIOUSLY no point even attempting to defend ourselves against those very well thought out and well informed points, but they do raise some obvious counterpoints: 1) N. America was populated from Asia about 30,000 years ago 2) Europeans and other immigrants did do terrible things to the indigenous peoples in the area, no denying it, but have you HEARD of Tibet? 3) I personally did not kill any American Indians, and you personally did not walk across the land bridge in the Bering Sea; therefore, please don't act as though this is a personal vendetta.
So then, after that, this guy challenged our classmate Ben to an arm-wrestling match. Clearly, this was to prove the superiority of his race and country. It was a fight to the death. Observe his extremely serious expression while Ben appears to be having fun.



A Cultural-Revolution era slogan that still remains on the wall of a house. It reads, "Use Mao Zedong thought to arm our minds!!"

Some local fauna

This moth, I swear, was part grasshopper. I kid you not. It had enormously powerful legs and went leaping around all over the place when I tried to take a picture of it. Furthermore, it didn't seem to want to open its wings in order to have its portrait taken. What a jerk.

More Old Summer Palace Pictures

Old Summer Palace

The Old Summer Palace is located in the northwest corner of Beijing a couple of miles from where we live. It was originally constructed in the 1700s as an imperial summer retreat, and at its peak apparently had over 200 temples, palace buildings, and other structures surrounding hundred of lotus ponds and gardens. In the 1860s, the entire complex was burned and destroyed by French and British troops as part of the Opium War(s).

Now all that's left are the hundreds of lotus ponds and some piles of rocks in the trees. But it's pretty peaceful, with lots of old people just hanging out.



The remains of the imperial library.


Beijing water taxi.


Dried lotus flower pods.

Jerks!!!

Courtesy of Lauren Dennis we have the following news story:

Jerkface(s) of the Day Award: Everyone involved in the theft and subsequent destruction of a motorized wheelchair belonging to a woman with cerebral palsy in Cumberland, Md. First, two pre-teen girls stole the chair and took it for a joyride. Later, some unidentified man was seen riding around in it, until 23-year-old Wiliam J. White successfully offered that man a pack of cigarettes for it. White then sold the wheelchair to a friend for $165, and then later, when he learned through media reports that the wheelchair had been stolen, reportedly took the chair back and dumped it in a ditch, rendering it non-functional. Nice job, the lot of you. [Cumberland Times News]

Art Beijing

This week we went to Art Beijing, an exhibition of contemporary Chinese art. It was...interesting, certainly....

Prevalent images included: Mao, Red Guards, Communists soldiers, Karl Marx, young Chinese women in semi-pornographic poses, the Last Supper (in which the three pictures behind the "diners" would for some reason always be Marx, Lenin, and Mao), Andy Warhol-esque faces, Coca Cola, and Marilyn Monroe. Oh, and Hello Kitty. ("Hello, Kitty!!")

Does putting Mao's face and a Coke bottle together in an abstract painting make art?

A lot of the stuff was extremely reactionary and/or simply imitations of other art or cultural themes. A lot of the material was so stale (how many images of Mark, Lenin and Mao do I need to see? I know your country is Communist. I get it.) that it was easy to get fed up quickly. Moreover, so much of the symbolism was so overt it was sickening (ie, a flock of sheep in Tiananmen Square in front of the federal buildings. Chinese people have limited rights and are told how to think and act by the government??? Wait, really? I've honestly NEVER heard of that before. I'm so glad you brought it up subtly so I could really reflect on the situation.)



The photography exhibit was better, much better, than the art section, I thought, although maybe this just reflects my inability to properly appreciate fully the deep meaning of an image of Hello Kitty juxtaposed against AK-47s in a field of young Chinese schoolchildren wearing Red communist hats.

One of my favorite things was a set of pictures that used images of trash heaps to recreate traditional Chinese landscape water color paintings. Click on the pictures to enlarge and look closely.



And then I just really like this one.

Unite Your Thoughts!

In class today we were learning a grammatical structure using the word "to unite." So we gave some examples, ie, unite a country or unite a people. And then the teacher raised the following: Do you think that people's thoughts can be united? For instance, she said, Chinese people's thoughts are all united around the concept of the family as the center of societal organization. And then she said, do you think that by uniting people's thoughts, we can better manage society? If people's thoughts are all united, and their ways of life are similar, then societal organization will go more smoothly. She said, we Chinese, from the time we are very small, all learn to have united thoughts. She gave some examples about the nature of family and of collective identity in Chinese society.

I asked, is this your view or the government's view? Her response was basically, it doesn't matter. It is traditional for Chinese people's thoughts to be united around many issues and it is the nature of collectivist society. If the government further promotes thought unification as a means of managing and/or controlling society, this is just in keeping with tradition, and is thus perfectly acceptable.

I think we in the West always think that the Chinese think as we do: they are censored so thoroughly that they always say what they "should," no matter what the circumstances, but inside they have individual thoughts and views on all issues, the same as Americans; the only difference being that they are not free to express them as they choose. Now I don't actually think this is perfectly true: I think that "thought unification" really is so complete that the average person's views really are in keeping with society's and with the government's. Thus they don't toe the Party line, if you will, out of fear or repression or something like that, but because the Party line IS the collective view on any given issue.

Test-driving our cooking

Last night we made a deluxe stir fry and KIMCHI PANCAKE, which was AMAZING. If you've never had it, go to a Korean restaurant RIGHT NOW and order it. Or, just buy some kimchi, and put it in pancake batter, and fry it.



Then tonight we made dumpling soup, which was kind of good, except that the dumplings disintegrated and then we added bean sprouts, which made the whole thing taste like dirt.

Knives

We've been in the process of buying stuff for our kitchen in the hopes of someday being able to concoct something edible, ie, a delicious Asian meal. So we had everything we needed--pots, wok, chopsticks, dishes, spaulta, ladle, EVERYTHING, but we still needed knives. Chopping knives, paring knives, etc. So after we had asked at like 3 supermarkets, we began to get suspicious. Where are the knives??? Where can we buy them?
We finally hailed a taxi and were like, hello, do you know anywhere to buy knives? and can you take us there? The driver was quite pleasant and did not object to having two crazed knife-seeking foreigners in his vehicle. He took us to ANOTHER supermarket, where we looked and looked and finally asked.
The reply was, oh, you can't buy knives.
OOOOh-kaaaay....Why not?
Well, because of the Olympics.
OK, so there's NOWHERE we can go to buy a knife?
Nope, nowhere, sorry.
Like, not anywhere?
You'll be able to buy knives after the Paralympics are over on the 20th.

So in the entire city of Beijing, there is not one knife for sale for another month. GREAT. Yay for totalitarian governments who can restrict life in whatever way they choose at any moment, including forcing some poor starved foreigners to chop vegetables with a butter knife and scissors.

The Apt, cont

I love my room! It still needs curtains to hide Bambi and friend, and I wish the walls weren't made of a cement-like substance, so I could hang pictures. But it finally looks like a place were a person (such as myself) might live, rather than a bizarre Chinese jail cell.




Before and after's of our living room....with the best IKEA curtains ever! They also don't smell like mildew, a plus.

IKEA Beijing

So today we took a journey to...IKEA!!! It was so exciting...and it took us EIGHT HOURS. For real. And it's now three a.m., so it's taken me an additional 5 hours to inventory, unpack, put together, and arrange all the loot.


The most important aspect of our journey to IKEA was DEFINITELY, without a doubt, the Swedish meatballs and LINGONBERRIES!!! After thoroughly ravaging about 75% of the store, Eunjee and I were famished so we descended upon the cafeteria like crazed wildebeests at a water hole. We then proceeded to destroy all manner of gravlax, spaghetti, meatballs, LINGONBERRIES, mashed potatoes, salads, and desserts. It was the most delicious thing ever. After this deluxe feast, we returned to the store to amass more goods.

Swetty Girl

So one last thing before I go to sleep: I was on thebeijinger.com today, which has various Beijing-area classifieds, forums, blogs, event listings, etc, and I found the following ad. Personally, if I were looking for someone to date, it would DEFINITELY be someone swetty and cute. But that's just me.

my phone is awesome

I have a SICK new cell phone.

The number is 15010356916.

You can call me anytime now! If you buy Skype minutes, it's 2 cents a minutes to call me. (There's also unlimited country subscriptions for about $4/mo). Otherwise, it will probably cost you an arm and a leg. The end.

Scum!!!

So...don't be fooled by this bucolic scene, but the yellow buildings in the background is WHERE WE LIVE!!! This is the nicest view of any part of urban China that I've been able to capture, but it's really not the norm. Anyway, it's nice enough....

Note that we live on the top floor, as in, the roof, as in, look at all those beautious terraces up there in the smog!!!























The scum-encrusted pond in the little park near the villa. How charming.

Hot Pot

To celebrate finding our place, we went out for hot pot. Throw all the raw things in the "hot pot" and then fish around for them with chopsticks when they're done (you hope they're done). There was a delicious peanut sesame sauce for dipping in.










Actually it was more of a steam bath for Eunjee than anything else...but delicious nonetheless.

Bambi and Dolphins

Oh~! The other extremely weird thing about our apt is the odd choice of blinds. I was under the impression--apparently the WRONG impression--that blinds are a functional item, intended to block the sun from entering a room. It turns out, however, that blinds are a decorative item, and can best add to a room's ambiance if used as giant illuminated picture screens.

For instance, in my room, someone thought it would be pleasant to have lovely illuminated Bambis prancing in the window. Well, it is decidedly NOT pleasant. Actually it creeps me out to wake up in the morning and mistakenly believe for a few seconds that I am in a haunted woodland with crazed and rabid baby deers running around.

At least I don't wake up to a tropical paradise/aquarium like Eunjee does.

You can see the bars in the windows making shadow patterns on the blinds--a nice touch.