Eric's Beijing Diary

Click picture for larger image.
La Bamba. Ten kuai for the burrito, and five for the Tsingtao. An average meal at one of the expat bars on Wudaokou runs about 30 to 40 RMB. But La Bamba has specials on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The other places have special offers too, so if you get familiar with them, you can eat pretty well for not much money. Since I moved out to Fragrant Hills, I have gotten used to ordering a plate of vegetables at one of the local Chinese restaurants. I have been trying to avoid eating too much meat, especially red meat. When I first came to China, I was confused by the vegetable orders at Chinese restaurants. Chinese people don't eat fresh vegetable salads much. They prefer their vegetables lghtly cooked. They're sitting in oil when they serve them to you, so I always assumed they were fried. But I think some of them are actually boiled and served in oil to enhance the taste. I prefer them without the oil, but even with the oil, they are probably a healthier meal than pork and eggplant or something.

But the expat bars in Wudaokou (I mean both coffee bars, and the other kind, like LUSH) do have pretty good food--it's just a little expensive, so you have to watch for the special deals. You don't see too many specials on pizza, but I don't eat pizza anyway, unless I am with a group. But there are some pretty good sandwich specials. For example, the main sandwiches at Lush are on sale for 20 RMB every day between two o'clock and four o'clock. In the morning. I don't get that special very often. Subway has two for one specials every Monday. The Bridge Cafe doesn't have that many specials, but I have a VIP card their so I guess it evens out. And if all else fails, a bowl of oyako donburi at the little Japanese cafe above KFC near the light rail station is only 20 RMB. It's pretty good stuff, and it fills you up.

Got that news that Google had shut down their Chinese portal (google.cn) as of 3 o'clock this morning. All approaches to that site are automatically routed to Google Hong Kong (google.hk). Clever move. Technically, since Google only ever agreed to filter the Chinese site, not the others, and since they have now shut that site down, they are not in violation. China doesn't see it that way, and it remains to be seen how they will respond, but if they make a war out of this, I think they will lose.

What they cannot do:

1. Shut down Google Hong Kong. Same country, different systems. The Beijing government has no authority to govern the Internet in Hong Kong.
   
   
2. Force Google to implement filtering on Google Hong Kong. Again, same reason.
   
   
3. Shut down Google.com (the main site), or other sites, such as google.ca, the one I usually use. These sites are not hosted in China, and China has no control over them.

What they can do.

1. Block access to google.hk for Internet users on the mainland.
   
   
2. Block access to one or more other Google sites (such as google.com or, perish the thought, Gmail).
   
   
3. Force Google to shutter their other business efforts in China.

As I said, if the Chinese government decides to make a war out of this, I really think they will lose. There are getting to be more and more options for those who want to get around the great firewall of China. Had the tuna sandwich special with Zhou Tao at La Bamba this evening, and we were talking about this. One possibility he mentioned was virtual private servers.

Bottom line: China can cause trouble for Google, but not enough trouble to turn this around. Filtering is over. It's the price China paid for hacking Gmail. I don't say that the government of China ordered the recent attempt to hack the private email accounts of human rights activists. But there is strong evidence that they were at least complicit in that effort. Google has never felt comfortable about filtering search results. And they have taken a lot of criticism for it, mostly from people who don't live in China, and don't realize that only google.cn was filtered. The other Google sites (like www.google.com) were never filtered, and were all easily accessible from China. Nevertheless, Google had agreed to filter, and they didn't really have an easy way to backtrack as long as China was being so good to them. The hacking event gave them their chance. They are not afraid of what they might lose, because they know what they cannot lose. Google has been looking for an excuse to do this for a long time, and China unwisely gave it to them. The netizens of China will be the better for it.

Dwight sent me a notice about the display at the Capital Museum on Matteo Ricci. He sent it to me quite awhile ago, but I kept putting it off, because I was so busy with moving. Leave it to me to wait until the very last day.

It was really worth it. Interesting..this display was put together by Ricci's home town in Italy. It was very well done, and gives lots of insight into the man and the world he lived in, both before and after he came to China.

Ricci had considerable sympathy with Confucianism, although he felt that it did not go far enough (because Confucius did not address matters beyond the grave). But Ricci was quite vigorously opposed to Buddhism, which he saw as not only antithetical to Christianity, but antithetical to China. UnChinese, in other words. It is a very intriguing perspective, because in today's China, Buddhism is often portrayed as a "Chinese" religion. History tells us otherwise.

Matteo Ricci also made an interesting observation of life on this earth. He said that we should not pay too much attention to the length of this life, because in comparison to eternity, the difference between a "long" life and a "short" life is pretty insignificant. But he hurried to point out that way we live this life is extremely important, because it has so much to do with what kind of life we will live after we pass from this world.

Ricci tended to view ancestor worship as a relatively benign expression of reverence for ones ancestors. I do not agree. It may appear that way on the surface, but I grew up in the countryside of Northern Japan, where ancestor worship is (or at least was) very prevalent. Ancestor worship is religion. And it is definitely not Christian.

Well, I thought I pretty much had my stuff down to what I could carry myself to James' place--my cooking utensils and stuff are at my neighbor's place in the foreign teachers' dormitory. But I was left with a little too much for one person to take on the subway, so I called Rachel and Eason. It was a good thing, because Eason happened to have the day to take Rachel to the hospital for her checkup (she is expecting a baby), so they were able to come right over. Really speeded up the process of getting the last stuff out of my apartment.

Six years. Well, not exactly. I started out in the apartment next door, and took the chance to move to this one when they did the remodeling three years ago. But once more, it is time to move. When I came to Beijing six years ago, I thought perhaps I would be in Beijing for quite some time. Now everything is up in the air. But putting aside the question of whether to stay in Beijing, or look for work somewhere else in China, I always knew that my stay at the university would be temporary. Foreign teachers just are not regarded as permanent fixtures on a Chinese university campus. They don't all have rules like the one at Beihang (that foreign teachers over 55 cannot be given contracts), but in the past they have tended to discourage foreigners from staying too long. That is changing, but slowly.

No matter. As I said, I knew all that when I came here, (even though I was not aware of this specific rule). And I took great pains to keep informed of what was going on, so that my departure would not be a last minute surprise (as is often the case). I had plenty of time to prepare for this, but not because the university went out of their way to tell me. But they have been quite patient with me--my contract expired in January, and it is already the middle of March, so I leave without any complaints. It has been a good six years. It's time for something new.

Charley brought his company car and helped me take my books to Fragrant Hills. My new neighbor had said I could store my books there until my apartment opens up. I am going to have to farm my stuff out to different friends until I can get moved into my apartment. But the books are the most critical, mainly because they are, well, books. But also because books are heavy, and they would not be that easy for me to handle on my own a little at a time. This way, when I get ready to move in, I will just have to carry them downstairs.

After we got back and Charley left, Forrest showed up with his car to help me carry a bunch of clothes over to Shannon's place. The clothes are much easier to handle, because I went to Walmart and bought some vacuum seal bags. I don't know if they have those in the States now--I imagine they would. They look like giant ziplock sandwich bags, except that they have a valve on the side, and come with a pump. You put the clothes in, seal the zip lock, screw the pump into the valve, and pump the air out. Turns a big bundle of clothes into a neat little package.

After we were finished, I told Forrest to drop me off at the sky bridge opposite the North Gate, since he was heading west. As I came down from the sky bridge and headed toward the North Gate, I noticed a new bookstore I had not seen before. Not much chance of finding something in English, but I entered anyway, just to see. Lucky me, I found one paperback book: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. I couldn't pass it up. Not that I really need another book... I found myself mentally searching for one small corner in one of those ten boxes. Just big enough for one little Latin classic from the battlefields of ancient Rome, that has fought its way through the centuries to be waiting here for me on a Sunday evening in Beijing. Could I just ignore such valiant chivalry, and walk away? For eighteen kuai? Unthinkable.

Charley and I went back out to Fragrant Hills today to visit the lady who runs the second place Mary showed me. I don't know how I am going to do it, but I am determined to wait for that place. It's a lot nicer than either of the other places, and the rent (700 RMB) is fair, I think. More than the first place but less than the second place. And the landlady is a life long resident of this community. Very polite and friendly. The problem, of course, is that there will be a two or three week space of time between when I move out, and when I can move in. I'll deal with it.

Met Charley out at Fragrant Hills today. He found a place that is a little larger than either of the two places I have looked at, and is available immediately. It has two beds. His idea is for us to split the rent, because he likes to come out to the hills to hike on weekends. I avoid hiking on weekends, because armies of people come out from the city, and it is really crowded, especially when the weather is sunny, which is most of the time. Just not sure about this idea, but it is worth considering.

Wednesday. Went to Fragrant Hills to meet Mary. I am interested in being near the mountain, but the place we looked at the other day was just too tiny. Today she took me to another place with a bunch of small studio apartments. The lady who runs the place is really nice, and I like the setup. Small, to be sure, but the rent is very reasonable, and it has separate little kitchen, a hot shower, and a wardrobe. Problem is, there won't be anything open until the first of April. I don't think I can wait that long. The International office is being patient with me, but I am supposed to have moved by now. I don't feel too guilty about it, because I am sure they won't be needing the room for another teacher until next fall, and, after all, I have been here for six years. Nevertheless, it is a little uncomfortable, since I don't work for the Software College anymore.

Took the Line 10 subway to Jinsong this evening to check out the place where James lives. It's a long ride, but much less than it would have been before the Olympics, when Line 10 built. Takes about an hour to get from where James lives to the Subway station at Zhichunlu, near the South Gate of my university. That's long, but Fragrant Hills is not exactly close. Right now, I would say it's a toss up. The room that James has for me is more comfortable, but the little hole in the wall in Fragrant Hills is a stone's throw from the West Gate of the Botanical gardens.