One of the biggest challenges for me has been adjusting to the fact that there is very little planning done here. Things are often pulled together at the last minute, and people don't communicate ahead of time to facilitate things happening in a certain way or at a certain time.
It's Monday morning. I just received an invitation, from an American couple, for a cocktail party on Friday night. I know they'll have a full house.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Tiffany's
There's a Tiffany's store in the Oriental Plaza shopping mall in the middle of Beijing, next to the Grand Hyatt. This week I went in to find out how much it would cost to have the crystal of my watch replaced (it cracked recently when it fell out of my pocket, and now there are several lines running across it and a 4 mm hole in it). The staff made some inquiries and told me that it would cost 1500RMB (approximately US$220) and take over six months, as the watch would need to be sent to America.
There's a great watch repair stand in Grand Central station that replaces watch crystals in a matter of days, at very reasonable prices. If I can't get a good watch repair recommendation here I'll be taking my watch to NY to be fixed. I'm not sure when exactly that will be, but on my next trip to NY you can expect me to find my way to Grand Central.
Maybe I'll combine the visit with a slice of Junior's Cheesecake in the basement.
There's a great watch repair stand in Grand Central station that replaces watch crystals in a matter of days, at very reasonable prices. If I can't get a good watch repair recommendation here I'll be taking my watch to NY to be fixed. I'm not sure when exactly that will be, but on my next trip to NY you can expect me to find my way to Grand Central.
Maybe I'll combine the visit with a slice of Junior's Cheesecake in the basement.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Apple Store
China's first Apple store opened yesterday (Saturday) in the middle of an outdoor shopping mall in the Sanlitun neighborhood. The line started the night before, with people camping outside the store in order to be at the front of the line. The store opened to applause and excitement at 10am, and by 10pm over 6,000 people had passed through it's doors.
The store entrance is on the ground floor, with computers, iPods and other items on display. The Genius Bar, software and other items are on the second floor. Apple brought U.S. employees to Beijing to train local staff in customer service and the 'Apple way.'
Sunflowers
The man at the local stand where I buy fruit recognizes me now. He knows I'll look at other fruit, maybe buy a few peaches or a papaya, but I'll also pick up a few watermelons to tap them and listen to the sound before I choose which one I want to be eating for the next couple of days.
As I was paying for my fruit yesterday I looked at a nearby table to see curious-looking round flat black disks. It took me a moment to realize what they were. Sunflowers, with dried petals.
Stores do sell sunflower seeds in pre-measured plastic bags here, just as in the U.S. However some places also sell them dried but still on the flower. Why bother with plastic when this package is ready for the compost pile?
As I was paying for my fruit yesterday I looked at a nearby table to see curious-looking round flat black disks. It took me a moment to realize what they were. Sunflowers, with dried petals.
Stores do sell sunflower seeds in pre-measured plastic bags here, just as in the U.S. However some places also sell them dried but still on the flower. Why bother with plastic when this package is ready for the compost pile?
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Ben & Jerry's
There's a grocery store in the basement at Oriental Plaza shopping center in the middle of Beijing, right next to Wanfujing. There are a lot of imported foods. They even have Been & Jerry's. Chubby Hubby, Vanilla Heathbar Crunch, Cherry Garcia, Phish Food, Butter Pecan, Chocolate Fudge Brownie - all in pint-sized containers. I wasn't looking for it, indeed I was only there to accompany a friend who is staying in a nearby hotel. But it was Ben & Jerry's, sitting there in the freezer section and looking out at me wondering where I've been all these months.
My sweet tooth has been taking a holiday recently so I didn't feel motivated to buy ice cream and try to transport it home without it melting. That's just as well. At 75 RMB per pint, Ben & Jerry's would be an expensive habit to take up ($10.98/pint, at the current exchange rate of 6.833RMB/$1).
My sweet tooth has been taking a holiday recently so I didn't feel motivated to buy ice cream and try to transport it home without it melting. That's just as well. At 75 RMB per pint, Ben & Jerry's would be an expensive habit to take up ($10.98/pint, at the current exchange rate of 6.833RMB/$1).
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Long and deep and hard - hai!
This morning I went out rowing in a dragon boat with a group of 13 others, a mix of Chinese and foreigners (Aussie, Dutch, Canadian and U.S.). The group met at a restaurant at the north edge of Houhai (one of the manmade lakes in central Beijing), which has a variety of boats and kayaks for rent. After stretching out, being given our oars and having the correct way to hold the oar and row demonstrated for us it was time to board the boat, regulars in front and newcomers in the back. We sat, two to a row, behind each other on hard wooden benches, with life jackets underneath us as seat cushions.
After we pushed off from the dock we got into position, with one hand on the end of the oar, another right above the paddle, and when the boat captain told us to row we bent forward at the hips and put our oars into the water, pulled them back behind us and up, then repeated the entire motion. As the captain counted we all attempting to row in time, following the paddling rhythm of the people at the front of the boat. Splashing the people in front of us and behind was inevitable, but it's a beautiful warm day, and we could see the sky, so the occasion splashes felt refreshing as we paddled around the lake.
At various times we did different rowing drills or the the captain shouted rowing chants. When he yelled "Long and deep and hard" we replied "Hai." When he yelled "Jia you" (translation - add oil) we yelled back "Jia you!" As we rowed around the lake onlookers cheered and shouted us on: "Jai you!"
Our captain moved me forward in the boat twice, once forward one row, then forward two rows and to the other side. After we were out of the boat and changed into dry clothes he commented that this was only my first time, I just need to practice and I'll get better. I'm looking forward to proving him right.
The dragon boat crew meets twice each week during nice weather. Usually they compete in games all across China during the summer, with sponsors paying the travel costs. Unfortunately those types of games are not permitted this year because of the upcoming Olympics, but it would be fun to compete as part of the crew next year. In the meantime, I look forward to going back to play again.
Jia you!
After we pushed off from the dock we got into position, with one hand on the end of the oar, another right above the paddle, and when the boat captain told us to row we bent forward at the hips and put our oars into the water, pulled them back behind us and up, then repeated the entire motion. As the captain counted we all attempting to row in time, following the paddling rhythm of the people at the front of the boat. Splashing the people in front of us and behind was inevitable, but it's a beautiful warm day, and we could see the sky, so the occasion splashes felt refreshing as we paddled around the lake.
At various times we did different rowing drills or the the captain shouted rowing chants. When he yelled "Long and deep and hard" we replied "Hai." When he yelled "Jia you" (translation - add oil) we yelled back "Jia you!" As we rowed around the lake onlookers cheered and shouted us on: "Jai you!"
Our captain moved me forward in the boat twice, once forward one row, then forward two rows and to the other side. After we were out of the boat and changed into dry clothes he commented that this was only my first time, I just need to practice and I'll get better. I'm looking forward to proving him right.
The dragon boat crew meets twice each week during nice weather. Usually they compete in games all across China during the summer, with sponsors paying the travel costs. Unfortunately those types of games are not permitted this year because of the upcoming Olympics, but it would be fun to compete as part of the crew next year. In the meantime, I look forward to going back to play again.
Jia you!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
KTV
Many Chinese people enjoy karaoke, called KTV here. There are karaoke places all over town, chains or independent locations, where people go with colleagues, family and friends. The experience is different than in the U.S. Here you aren't in a large room for everyone in the place to watch, laugh and point as you publicly humiliate yourself. No. Instead, you are taken to a small room, the size dependent on the number of people in your party, with sofas, tables, a large screen in the front of the room, menus filled with many food and drink options, and a computer screen from which you can peruse the extensive library of song options. Some places have panels in each of the walls of the rooms with buttons to raise or lower the volume, skip a song, or call our waiter or room attendant.
The group I was with was made up of some Chinese-Americans here on business, some of their local Beijing colleagues and another local friend; she and I had both been introduced to one the visitors by a former classmate of his, an Italian friend who is out of town this month. I was the only non-Chinese and non-native Chinese speaker. Putonghua was the main language for the evening, though some of the Chinese-Americans switched between Mandarin and Cantonese.
After our group of nine was shown to a small room and settled in (we were given tokens, similar to gambling chips at a casino but round with the thickness of a Fender guitar pick, which we could exchange for food and beverages; my understanding is that the number of tokens we received was based on the room type and the length of time we'd be there) we ordered drinks (Tsingtao beer, soda and water) from our waiter, and people crowded around the computer to choose songs. At first I didn't see any in English, but that was because you needed to be able to page through the menu and read enough Chinese to find the English songs. At a later point in the evening a friend found them for me, after one of the men kept taunting me that "you aren't really Chinese until you've sung KTV." Most of the English songs were from modern artists whose music I don't know well (Britney, Ashlee Simpson, Boyz2Men, Linkin Park, Celine Dion) but I did eventually find two songs I thought I'd be able to sing.
As each Chinese song came up there were shouts, hoots and hollers as people jockeyed for the microphones. They were good. I felt like I was the only one in the room who didn't know all of the songs. As I watched the characters float along the bottom of the screen I was excited if there were any that I could read ('bu,' 'shuai,' 'zi' and 'yi' were all used repeatedly). Some songs had repetitious choruses that I was able to mimic, though i had to ask friends to explain what the songs were about. Most of them were sad and somewhat sappy ballads but there was one fun song about a crazy kid that had a good beat, a fun video and a significant amount of repetition. One of my new friends said she's going to look into getting me a CD of some of the songs so that I can learn the lyrics and be able to sing along better on our next outing.
When my two songs came up I quickly learned that karaoke labels cannot be trusted: the song listing may have said that "Paint It Black" was by the Rolling Stones and "Whenever, Wherever" was by Shakira but the videos showed Chinese singers performing them and the lyrics written on the screen did not match the lyrics in the versions I usually hear. I tried to follow along but it was a stretch.
Some Chinese songs had two sets of lyrics, one set written in blue and another in pink. I asked if one was for a woman and the other a man. No. One was for Mandarin and the other for Cantonese. Um, aren't both languages written with the same set of characters? Yes. But sometimes the song doesn't sound as good in the other language with the original lyrics so they are changed to fit the language and the music. That's something I could only learn in a karaoke booth filled with Chinese friends.
Another noteworthy observation was that some of the characters shown looked different, more detailed, than most of the characters I'm used to seeing. Many of the karaoke videos are produced in Taiwan, where traditional Chinese characters are still in use. In the 1950s the government created a set of simplified characters, made by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the characters, in an effort to increase literacy. Taiwan, Hong Kong, and many other overseas Chinese communities still use the traditional forms. This meant that the foreigners in my group could read the characters on the screen but one of the locals couldn't.
Later in the evening some of our group went off to order more refreshments. The waiter soon came by with trays filled with more Tsingtao, glasses of fresh watermelon juice and lemonade, and bowls of noodles for a few in the group who were feeling peckish. The watermelon juice tasted fresh. It was good.
At one point I saw two of the men in a corner, shouting in fun and saying things I couldn't understand and pushing their hands in front of them while changing the number of fingers shown. It looked similar to Rock, Paper, Scissors. I leaned over and asked my neighbor for an explanation. It's a drinking game. One guy yelled a number (zero, five, ten, fifteen or twenty) and both splayed their fingers to indicate a quantity. If the total number of fingers shown equaled the amount shouted then the point went to the challenger. If they didn't then the point went to the leader. Two lost rounds in a row meant you had to drink. I should be able to follow that so I listened closer. Nope, I didn't understand. I turned to my neighbor with a look of confusion on my face. The guys were playing in Cantonese. Oh.
The experience was actually....fun. I'll be doing it again. In the meantime I need to practice, so does anyone know where I can go to download some Chinese karaoke videos, preferably with pinyin below the characters and a soundtrack with vocals?
The group I was with was made up of some Chinese-Americans here on business, some of their local Beijing colleagues and another local friend; she and I had both been introduced to one the visitors by a former classmate of his, an Italian friend who is out of town this month. I was the only non-Chinese and non-native Chinese speaker. Putonghua was the main language for the evening, though some of the Chinese-Americans switched between Mandarin and Cantonese.
After our group of nine was shown to a small room and settled in (we were given tokens, similar to gambling chips at a casino but round with the thickness of a Fender guitar pick, which we could exchange for food and beverages; my understanding is that the number of tokens we received was based on the room type and the length of time we'd be there) we ordered drinks (Tsingtao beer, soda and water) from our waiter, and people crowded around the computer to choose songs. At first I didn't see any in English, but that was because you needed to be able to page through the menu and read enough Chinese to find the English songs. At a later point in the evening a friend found them for me, after one of the men kept taunting me that "you aren't really Chinese until you've sung KTV." Most of the English songs were from modern artists whose music I don't know well (Britney, Ashlee Simpson, Boyz2Men, Linkin Park, Celine Dion) but I did eventually find two songs I thought I'd be able to sing.
As each Chinese song came up there were shouts, hoots and hollers as people jockeyed for the microphones. They were good. I felt like I was the only one in the room who didn't know all of the songs. As I watched the characters float along the bottom of the screen I was excited if there were any that I could read ('bu,' 'shuai,' 'zi' and 'yi' were all used repeatedly). Some songs had repetitious choruses that I was able to mimic, though i had to ask friends to explain what the songs were about. Most of them were sad and somewhat sappy ballads but there was one fun song about a crazy kid that had a good beat, a fun video and a significant amount of repetition. One of my new friends said she's going to look into getting me a CD of some of the songs so that I can learn the lyrics and be able to sing along better on our next outing.
When my two songs came up I quickly learned that karaoke labels cannot be trusted: the song listing may have said that "Paint It Black" was by the Rolling Stones and "Whenever, Wherever" was by Shakira but the videos showed Chinese singers performing them and the lyrics written on the screen did not match the lyrics in the versions I usually hear. I tried to follow along but it was a stretch.
Some Chinese songs had two sets of lyrics, one set written in blue and another in pink. I asked if one was for a woman and the other a man. No. One was for Mandarin and the other for Cantonese. Um, aren't both languages written with the same set of characters? Yes. But sometimes the song doesn't sound as good in the other language with the original lyrics so they are changed to fit the language and the music. That's something I could only learn in a karaoke booth filled with Chinese friends.
Another noteworthy observation was that some of the characters shown looked different, more detailed, than most of the characters I'm used to seeing. Many of the karaoke videos are produced in Taiwan, where traditional Chinese characters are still in use. In the 1950s the government created a set of simplified characters, made by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the characters, in an effort to increase literacy. Taiwan, Hong Kong, and many other overseas Chinese communities still use the traditional forms. This meant that the foreigners in my group could read the characters on the screen but one of the locals couldn't.
Later in the evening some of our group went off to order more refreshments. The waiter soon came by with trays filled with more Tsingtao, glasses of fresh watermelon juice and lemonade, and bowls of noodles for a few in the group who were feeling peckish. The watermelon juice tasted fresh. It was good.
At one point I saw two of the men in a corner, shouting in fun and saying things I couldn't understand and pushing their hands in front of them while changing the number of fingers shown. It looked similar to Rock, Paper, Scissors. I leaned over and asked my neighbor for an explanation. It's a drinking game. One guy yelled a number (zero, five, ten, fifteen or twenty) and both splayed their fingers to indicate a quantity. If the total number of fingers shown equaled the amount shouted then the point went to the challenger. If they didn't then the point went to the leader. Two lost rounds in a row meant you had to drink. I should be able to follow that so I listened closer. Nope, I didn't understand. I turned to my neighbor with a look of confusion on my face. The guys were playing in Cantonese. Oh.
The experience was actually....fun. I'll be doing it again. In the meantime I need to practice, so does anyone know where I can go to download some Chinese karaoke videos, preferably with pinyin below the characters and a soundtrack with vocals?
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