Journey to the East

A Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to all of you! In China, like everywhere else I guess, there’s always a special kind of air you feel on holidays. Today there was an almost tangible sense of the holiday atmosphere in Ji’nan. Spirits seemed to run high all over the town, buoyed by incredibly blue skies and beautiful sunshine. The weather was too perfect today, so much so that I felt guilty staying inside (indeed, many of my Chinese friends told me when I talked to them today that they took this opportunity to get out and go to the zoo or to the park). And so, of course, I went out to seek what I could of the holiday.

And what does one do as an American on this traditional Chinese autumnal festival? You import your own American autumnal traditions, of course: We played football. Yep, we walked across the street to the large open parking lot in front of Hero Mountain and threw the football, which made for an incredible and pleasant September afternoon. I found it somehow appropriate that on this holiday, which is not unlike Thanksgiving Day in its sentiment, we marked the day the way that many Americans do on Thanksgiving at home: tossing around the pigskin.

All around the park, people were out doing the same as we were: enjoying a beautiful day. On the way to throw the ball, we passed various clusters of activity. Amateur opera troops had set up shop and were drawing crowds with their performances. Groups of people with colored scarves or flags were waving them around as they did line dancing to blaring Chinese Pop tunes. Kite-fliers were out in abundance. The roller-skating rink in the middle of the park was PACKED with skaters. People were flocking up the mountain, making an effort to get to the summit and gaze out. Something was going on almost EVERYWHERE today.

As afternoon began to fade in to evening, we all headed for  a favorite dumpling restaurant for a big holiday dinner. We weren’t the only ones with this idea, though. The restaurant was crowded and buzzing. Like us, many of the patrons were out enjoying a lively holiday meal. Again, in places so boisterous it’s hard not feel like the excitement of the celebration, or the “holiday spirit” if you will, is something you could literally feel or take hold of. At times like these I always feel like I’m (tangentially or not) sharing in some larger part of the Chinese experience. It’s a good feeling, like I’m very connected to the place where I am, and I’m always grateful for moments like these.

On the way home from dinner tonight, I caught a glimpse of the moon. As Mid-Autumn Festival is centered around the moon, moon-gazing is one of the many past-times you’re supposed to enjoy on this day (An aside: My roommate, Chris, told me that at his University Chinese class they were asked share– in Chinese of course– what folklore existed about the moon respective home countries. Lacking a better response, he apparently talked about werewolves, much to the amusement of his teacher. Later, when asked to explain how Americans feel when they look at the moon, Chris apparently responded– after a moment of trying to think of something to say– “Because we’ve sent a man up there, we look at the moon and feel very proud,” which apparently prompted the teacher to laugh and confirm that there was an American flag planted somewhere up there). So, of course I took a moment to take a good look. The moon tonight (fittingly) was round, bright and beautiful as it sat up above the top of Hero Mountain. The skies which had been so clear and blue during the day had deepened into an inky navy blue dotted with stars. Of course, wrapped up in the spirit of the day and also in a bit of nostalgia, I felt like this was the perfect end to the day.

Tomorrow we’ll go back to work and before too long will come my much awaited trip to the Three Gorges. All of this means that I’ll probably be M.I.A. for a while, but stick around as updates will surely come upon my return. Until next time!

So, today is Mid-Autumn Festival. Plans for later aren’t exactly  clear yet, but I think that some friends and I will get together to have dinner, eat mooncakes and possibly climb Hero Mountain. The story of Mid-Autumn Festival is best summarized on Wikipedia, and I won’t try to do it justice since all of the details of the myth are pretty intricate. Basically, it involves a beautiful woman living on a palace on the moon with a magical rabbit who makes her immortality pills as she awaits the arrival of her lover. Pretty nuts, right? In any case… in the spirit of the holiday, I thought I’d post some pictures of the main attraction of the Mid-Autumn Festival: Mooncakes.

Today, rain swept into Ji’nan. With it came an awakening: cold weather will soon be here. The drizzle was nothing terribly new (much of late July and August here were marked by overcast skies and buckets of rain). Unlike the showers of summer– which only made the air steamy, and the city feel like a greenhouse– the rain brought a chill with it. Suddenly, temperatures dropped into the low 60s and I found myself wearing long pants and a sweatshirt.

Is this the end of the warm weather I’ve been living with since nearly May? Last year, it was almost November before the seasons really turned. In this sense, there really wasn’t a long Autumn and vaguely warm weather lingered on until nearly Halloween. For the temperature to drop so dramatically now seems premature. To be sure, it would be nice to get away from the searing heat that has characterized this city over the past several months BUT, I can’t say that I’m looking forward to the full plunge back into winter (the last one here was perhaps the longest and coldest of my life). Nonetheless, as previously noted, Ji’nan is beginning to take note of the change of seasons, and it won’t be long now before the warmer days are really over for good.

The end of this week marks the start of a nice little vacation for Chinese National Day. As I mentioned before, I’ll be headed with some friends to take a cruise down the Yangtze River’s Three Gorges area starting in Wuhan and ending in Chongqing. We’re also trying to work in a side-trip to Chengdu (and possibly to the panda reserve there). Stay tuned as plans get more specific. I’ll be sure to fill in the pre-trip itinerary soon.

Here’s a look at my new apartment. On the whole, I’d say it’s a little more cozy (even if that means it’s a little smaller) than my previous apartment, and I definitely think it’s got a certain charm to it. These pictures come courtesy of my friends Mackenzie and Joanna (who actually lived here until the end of the semester when we moved in).

You can also see some more of their photos of the place where I now live here. Unfortunately, at this point I haven’t been able to get any good pictures of what the place looks like now that we’ve moved in (though, really, little has actually changed). Hopefully I’ll be able to give a better look at both the apartment and the neighborhood before too long.

Today, my second semester at Aston officially came to a close. It passed, even more than the first, incredibly quickly. There is, I’m sure, some wholly appropriate metaphor I could use here, comparing my time here with the wind: the semester began in March as a frigid gust, and blew through the spring into the summer as a swiftly moving current of warm air. In any case, I’ve been here for a year now, and while in some cases that both seems like and is a very long time, I find myself often thinking that it seems precisely the opposite.

One of the interesting things about working for a school whose employees work, by and large, on six month contracts is that people come and go rather quickly. If you stay around for a year or so, you become one of the veteran staff members. I find myself going into the third term of working at Aston as one of the most experienced teachers in the city of Ji’nan. That’s an odd feeling for me. Suddenly, I’m one of the one who’s answering questions about where to go, what to do about lessons, who to call to ask certain questions and the like. A year’s worth of accumulated experience goes a long way, I’ve found, but it still doesn’t seem possible that I should be the one helping the new recruits find their footing in this city.

I’ll also have to be learning some new tricks myself. After a year out on the west end of Ji’nan, in an apartment complex on a street called DiKou Lu (堤口路), I’ll be moving tomorrow to a new neighborhood and a new apartment. The new place is on YingXiong Shan Lu (英雄山路) literally, “Hero Mountain Street,” so named because of it’s proximity to the aforementioned mountain.  It’s one I know well, as my friends Mackenzie and Joanna lived there up until this point. Now, I’ll live within close walking distance of a pretty attractive area of Ji’nan (the mountain is surrounded by a big park, the entrance of which is on my new street), as well as Ji’nan’s Culture Market (where one can buy lots of nice calligraphy, pottery, jewelry and antiques), the Provincial Sports Center (where all the local team’s home soccer matches are played), and a pretty good and diverse restaurant street with a large decorative archway. It will be a nice setting to live in, and I’m looking forward to setting up shop over there.

It’s not insignificant to me, and perhaps a little fitting, that my last night in this apartment comes one year to the day after I left the United States, and mere hours after completing my original year-long contract with Aston. My change in apartments, in a way, closes one chapter of my time here. The experiences, I think, bookend each other very nicely.  As my friend Chris put it: it is a break in continuity within greater continuity. I will remain in Ji’nan, but under different circumstances, which will allow for new and varied adventures and opportunities for exploration.

It also seems fitting that this should occur on the brink of Fall’s arrival, which is itself (even in East China) a season of great change. In Ji’nan, September’s imminent arrival marks the end of a brief “rainy season.” For much of August, the city was caught in a drizzle. Now (though the rain continues to fall every now and then), the city has dried somewhat, and the sweltering heat of summer has subsided. While it is by no means truly fall yet, you can feel a sense that soon, the long summer will be over. Slowly but surely, these signs are beginning to emerge: mooncakes have returned to display cases in grocery stores in anticipation of Mid-Autumn Festival, roasted sweet potato vendors are beginning to pop up again, fall clothing items are beginning to pop up in department stores, public schools have started their academic years, university students have returned to campus. Very soon, the season will have completely changed, and we’ll all be looking at another Ji’nan winter. From where I sit now it’s hard to imagine, but as I’ve learned in a year here change comes quickly. More to come soon.

Ok, so I’ve gotten kind of behind on the blog (No big surprise here, right?). An explanation is in order. It’s pretty simple, actually: As is often the case over here, the website just ceased to work, meaning I couldn’t log in to update. So here I am, much later, trying to fill in all of the blanks for about a month. I guess, I’ll go for the lightning review… Here goes nothing, then:

Summer is coming to an apex here in Ji’nan. For one thing, the temperatures continue to be blazing hot. Venture outside your apartment for any reason, and you’re sure to return sweating copiously (and I mean it. I have to take a change of shirts when I ride my bike in to work to avoid having to teach all day in a shirt that’s drenched with sweat). Inside my apartment, my air-conditioning unit runs constantly, keeping my room not unlike the inside of a refrigerator unit. Understandably, when it is so hot outside (and I’m not exaggerating when I say that it’s been well over 90 degrees on average) it’s hard to summon up the wherewithal to get out and do things. Despite this, however, I’ve been managing to continue to play in weekly pick-up soccer games. In fact, my foreign friends and I have become regulars. When it’s not blazing hot, it’s usually raining buckets. Ji’nan doesn’t have a monsoon season on the order of Southeast Asia (or anywhere close), but there is a “rainy season,” which is pretty much the entire month of August. Several times in the last month or so, I have walked outside to find my neighborhood completely flooded with rainwater. When it rains here it rains VERY hard. Runoff spills out into the streets. Gutters overflow… as (occasionally) do sewers. It’s unlike rain that I’ve encountered elsewhere because of it’s intensity. The storms come in short, violent bursts and drop tons of water on the city and then go just as quickly. In merely the span of fifteen or twenty minutes, streets will be covered in water.

It’s not really that surprising then, that everyone here seems to want to flock toward cooler climates. During the past several weeks of classes, my students have told me that they’ve all been to many of the various beaches in the area at places like Yantai, Rizhao, Weihai, and of course Qingdao. August seems to be summer vacation time for most Chinese people, and many of my classes were missing students over the past several weeks due to family beach trips. Foreign teachers are no exception to this rule. My friends and I have made two trips to Qingdao in a month (one that I described previously and another last week to get back to the beach and visit Qingdao’s “Beer Festival” which is basically the Chinese version of Oktoberfest… this will be described in detail in following entries, I promise). Each time, I’ve returned to Ji’nan feeling refreshed, so I am convinced that the ocean air does me quite a lot of good.

Summer will linger here for several more weeks. If last fall is any indication, it will be Halloween before the weather really turns here, and then the weather will turn abruptly. The arrival of fall brings a lot with it: new colleagues, new classes, cooler temperatures, and the opportunity to get out and travel again. I’ll get some time off for China’s National Day in October that I can use to take a trip (might head down to Sichuan province to see the very famous national panda reserve). I’m hoping that I’ll get a chance to take some trips further afield this fall (Inner Mongolia’s grasslands come to mind for one), but much depends on scheduling.

Now that the blog is operational again, I’ll get some pictures of Qingdao and Beer Fest posted ASAP. No more excuses. Until then, stay tuned.

So my very good friends, Kenzie and Joanna, are also doing the whole blog thing. They’ve got a pretty great website that is definitely worth checking out. It’s a good read, AND they’ve got TONS of pictures posted. Take a look. More on my own adventure to come. Stay tuned…

The weather outside is stifling. The A/C units in school are running full-blast all the time. By the time I get to school, I’m drenched with sweat and look like I’ve been swimming. Must be summer in East China. Must be time for a blog update. First, let me apologize for falling completely off the map for a while. Like the weather, which has grown stifling and lazy, I too have been going through some sort of writing doldrums. I simply wasn’t able to muster up the time (or maybe the effort) to set anything down to writing. So, as you can see, there’s been a bit of a lag here… sorry. That’s pretty much my fault.  This isn’t to say that there’s nothing going on. It’s been a busy time here: midterms, family visits, the World Cup, grading, etc.. Lots of things have been happening all at once. Suddenly, Ji’nan’s short but sweet spring became a hot, lazy summer. We’re now in the midst of July, which is very much high summer here in Ji’nan (actually it has been high summer for a while, summer being one of the longer seasons here).

Summer in Ji’nan is strange when you consider just how cold it was here during winer (which still seems like it was only a very short time ago). In January I would have never imagined that this city could be so hot. And yet, it is. While having to bundle up to spare yourself from frigid and icy winds and temperatures well below freezing in winter, I would have laughed at the idea that summer temperatures rarely dip below 90 degrees here. To call the heat oppressive is not an understatement.

But even though it can feel pretty unbearable, the warm weather has its selling points. Warm weather means that you can do things outside. Unlike in the winter when I was confined to the indoors, trying to keep out of the intense cold, summer lends itself to being outdoors. Now, it’s really easy to go take a bike ride, or a walk through the springs, or to sit outside near one of the springs and draw (I’ve only done this once or twice, but it was fun when I did). At least once a week, I’ve started to play soccer at a local university which has a full-sized, artificial turf field. We’ve had some really great pick-up games against the students who attend and it’s been a a really good way to get some exercise. It’s fun to be able to stay outdoors at night, too. It’s not an uncommon sight to walk out of the gates of my neighborhood to find some of the women who live here sitting out and playing cards together, or to find others in lawn chairs simply out chatting and enjoying a breeze every now and then. Often, I’m able to spend a good, warm night in Quancheng Square, relaxing and hanging out with friends. On nights like this we’ve chatted, played soccer in the square, attemped to fly kites, and watched the fountain displays that go off on either end of the square at night. This would have been unthinkable in January, but on a warm night in June or July it’s been great to be able to sit out and enjoy the outdoors.

Locals are out, too. On any given night, it’s not uncommon  to find lots of people out in the square doing any number of things: practicing calligraphy, ballroom dancing, in-line skating (this is VERY popular, especially with little kids who go zooming around lines of cones doing all kinds of crazy footwork), tai chi, playing with skip-its (SKIP-ITS?!?!?! Remember those? They advertised constantly on Saturday morning TV when I was a kid. They’re HUGE over here during these night-time congregations), line-dancing, playing hackey-sack, fishing, martial arts, etc. It’s fun just to sit and watch. As with almost everywhere in this city it seems amazing that there are so many people in one place, and that they are all in the midst of doing so many different things. There’s a tangible buzz in the square at night. It’s a nice feeling.

Eating outside is a big part of summer, too. Curbside restaurants have popped up everywhere. At dusk, tables and stools appear out of nowhere. Suddenly, sidewalks are filled with outdoor cafes and diners. People flock to these impromptu restaurants to eat Chinese style barbecue (lamb kebabs, mostly) and boiled peanuts and drink beer. The center of town is full of places just like this (one of the best being a place we call “the pool,” which is basically a restaurant next to a local swimming hole, where you can eat tasty, cheap food and watch the old men of the neighborhood swim laps). It’s become a favorite past-time of mine to go with friends to Old Ji’nan, find one of these places, and eat next to the canal there. Summer favorite foods like cold noodles, barbecue, crayfish boils and cold plum juice have replaced the heavier, warmer foods of winter, and with an abundance of fresh peaches, melons, and cherries to be bought at fruit stands, it’s easy to get a taste of summer through local produce.

Soon, we’ll be giving final exams and wrapping up yet another semester here. Soon, I’ll have been here for a year. One year. Doesn’t seem like it could even be. And yet… time here has gone so fast. There’s plenty more adventure yet to come, though, some of it almost immediately. After this weekend, a few friends and I are heading out to coastal town of Qingdao for a day or two to relax and check out the beach. Should be a fun trip. Stay tuned for reports on that, and more, later.

So, the match is over. It’s early. VERY early. Naturally, Aston’s foreign staff got together to watch. How could we not? There was so much riding on it: bragging rights, national pride, 6 months worth of build-up. We viewed the match at a local BBQ place. It was a nice setting: outside seating, bigscreen TV, grilled meat and beer at the ready. A very nice place to watch the game. There’s something about watching a sporting event outside that feels pretty stellar. China is an excellent place to do this, as there are a great number of restaurants with outdoor seating (or which are based entirely outdoors to begin with). There are problems, however, with watching such a late game in a public place. The game began at 2:30AM, and it began to take it’s toll on the staff of the place. The owner (who had only the night before agreed to let us watch the entire match at his restaurant) seemed a little perturbed that we insisted on calling his bluff and staying until the match was over at just past 4:30AM. Despite agreeing to let us watch the match– and reaffirming his commitment several times throughout– continually tried to get us to leave (first at halftime, then with ten minutes remaining, then with five, etc.). In the end, it worked. We got to see the game, and everyone had a pretty good time.

As for the game itself? At the end of a 1-1 draw, we Americans looked pretty cocky, our British co-workers dispirited. My own thoughts are that I’m proud that the US held it’s own with the English squad that was supposed to crush us. I also think that such expectations were wildly unrealistic to begin with. The US is no longer an international punching bag. We haven’t been for a while. Those who were surprised that the US played tough seem not to have been paying much attention. Those who think that this result means that the US suddenly could make a deep run into this tournament may not have been paying attention either: we always thought we could get to the knockout rounds of the tournament. We’re not overachieving. I also refuse to dismiss the whole tie as a result of a fluke goal. There was more to this game than that. In any case, I’m proud of the effort, and hopeful that the team will soon get a chance to continue to impress.

More on summer in Ji’nan will come later. There’s a lot going on here. Hopefully, I’ll have more in a bit. Stay tuned…

Sometimes, living in a foreign country, one feels a bit disconnected from the rest of the world. This is especially the case when news media (print, radio, televised or otherwise) is delivered in a language you are still a relative beginner at– while my Chinese is, no doubt, much improved I still wouldn’t presume to understand lots of what I hear on the radio or see on TV. Similarly, the news reflects concerns of domestic importance. Any news of things that are important within the United States have to be gleaned from reading American papers online or watching rebroadcasts of US TV shows. In essence, it’s a little hard to keep up. Even in an age of instant communication and previously unthought of connectedness, it’s hard to get the exact slant on things which are happening in the US with any kind of accuracy or insightful perspective.

Truly international events, however, are a different story. Take, for instance, the FIFA World Cup. Despite not having a team in the field this year (China’s men’s team is notoriously bad; I have seen grown men spit on the ground and declare their matches unwatchable), China is totally obsessed with international football’s largest event. I am prone to think that events like this, because of the magnitude of their scale and the global nature of their context, are somewhat magical. Surely this is what those who make money off of this event want me to think. I agree that, in some senses, talking about the  pageantry and passion of the World Cup is hackneyed and trite. However, it’s hard not to feel that way given the way China has fascinated itself with this tournament.

The buildup for the event has been going on forever. As early as the start of May, we began to see signs of growing anticipation here in Ji’nan. Restaurants started working the cup into their advertisements. Pepsi issued an ad featuring the most notable players in the game (Didier Drogba, Lionel Messi, Frank Lampard, Fernando Torres) which was put on a HUGE billboard near Quancheng Square. Stores have begun to offer team gear (replica jerseys, t-shirts, polos, jackets, etc.; I intend to buy one of the (high quality) knockoff US jerseys that are being sold for very cheap at one of the soccer shops) and people in the streets have been wearing lots of soccer themed gear. McDonald’s– ever the barometer for important events– began to offer collectable World Cup glasses, “South African BBQ” flavored chicken wings, World Cup themed kids’ meal toys, and 24 hours of continuous cup coverage on the flatscreen TVs in every restaurant. From a commercial standpoint, this is a big deal in China.

From the cynical perspective, it would be easy to say that that’s really all this is to most Chinese people: a money-maker for people who can use the cup for advertising. Several of my roommate’s adult students have stated this opinion: this tournament is only really important to people who can use it to sell food, merchandise, or airtime. This seems, however, to undercut the sincerity with which people seem to follow the sport here. My roommate, Chris, recently purchased a replica jersey for the Spanish squad which has attracted lots of attention from people when worn in public. These folks know their stuff, and they are VERY enthusiastic about the tournament. Even though China does not have a stake in this year’s cup, they are all VERY excited to see the sport played on it’s highest level, and each interested person we meet seems to have one team or another which they are choosing to follow. Barbeque joints in the area are setting up bigscreen TVs and putting out tables outdoors to accomodate lots of viewers. Last night we watched the opening match of the cup between South Africa and Mexico at one of these local places, and the excitement there was palpable. There was a sizable crowd, all seated pretty close to the TV. They watched intently. They cheered for goals. The groaned for botched plays. They were absolutely into the match. To say that this event only really matters from a financial point of view just seems to completely miss the point. People here really do seem to care about this stuff. A lot.

Even my students at Aston seem to have caught cup fever. I made a point to casually mention that I would be watching matches during my classes this weekend. Many of the students (mostly the boys) went absolutely berserk when they heard, and started excitedly spouting off times for the start of matches, asking me who I would support (as if there was a doubt I’d be pulling for my home country), and talking about random teams, players, and pieces of trivia. Cup fever is hitting even in the schools.

Of course, the Aston staff has its own particular reasons to care so much about the tournament this year. Our blend of staff here is pretty unique: Native English speakers from many different countries work at Aston. Primarily though, Aston employs people from two places: the US and the UK. As you can imagine, the announcement of the group pairings caused quite a stir in January when it was revealed that the US and England would not only be in the same group together, but would be the first matchup either team would face in the tournament. There’s been a persistent stream of trash-talking that has gone on ever since. One of my British co-workers has dubbed the event “Independence Day 2,” and we’ve all been trying to make our boldest displays of national pride lately (as an aside, the Brits here have been so dismissive of the US squad that if we win tonight, I think I will become the most obnoxious and boastful winner in the history of sporting events). So tonight, at 2:3o in the morning, we’ll all meet up at shaokao (Chinese BBQ) restaurant that has graciously agreed to stay open late enough for us to watch the game, and the months of casual harassment will come to a head.  Should be a lot of fun. More to report later.