Eric's Beijing Diary

I went behind Fragrant Hills Park today and hiked up over the mountain to Badachu. Lots of old structures, but the pagoda pictured here looks brand new. Not sure what's up with that. But the park is very pretty. Still like my side of the mountain better though. I don't know...maybe if I lived over there, I would be thinking of reasons why that side of the mountain is better. Doubt it, though. To much glitzy commercialism. A lady with some horses tried to hit me up to take a ride. I told her that it was my first trip there so I wanted to walk down. She told me that she would give me a ride, then bring me back. Well, I figured that might not be too bad. Only 10 kuai. But once I got in the saddle, she started telling me that it would cost me 10 kuai to go, and another 10 kuai to come back. I got off.

In one sense I don't blame her. Usually, tourists climb the mountain, and they are tired, so they want to ride down. So she didn't want to bring me back up. But it's her dishonesty that bothered me. She knew that if she told me the truth, I wouldn't take the ride.

Actually, I should have just refused in the first place. Most people climb up the mountain, and then they are tired and they want to ride down. But I came over the mountain from the other side, so I was starting at the top. I had never been to the bottom of the mountain or anywhere in between, and I wanted to see it. Anyway, as I said, too much commercialism. I get tired of that stuff really quickly.

When I got to the bottom of the hill, I decided to take the bus back, because I was tired, and not really in the mood for hiking back over the mountain. After a few stops a whole bunch of school kids in their uniforms got on the bus. One of them happened to be the little boy whose family I lived with last year in the village behind Fragrant Hills Park. What are the odds of that? I didn't recognize him at first, although he looked familiar (they all do). But when he said my Chinese name, I knew it had to be him.

In other news, China released three of the four Japanese nationals they had arrested. They couldn't release the fourth one, because when Japan released the sailors on that fishing vessel, they held the captain for awhile longer. So I would expect to see the fourth Japanese national released in another week or two. We'll see.

Construction continues in the park. Last minute preparations for the October First holiday. October First is National Day in China. You could call it China's "Independence Day," but that's not what they call it here.

In China, it's mainly just a holiday. There isn't a lot of patriotic music in China. But more than that, even though many Chinese people love their country, they don't have the same emotional feeling about 1949 that Americans have about 1776. Americans regard 1776 as the birth of their country. But no one in China would allow you to say that China is only 61 years old. And while the regime change a half-century ago did bring a measure of stability, it also brought a lot of pain. So people just don't have the same sentimental feeling about it that Americans feel. That doesn't mean that Chinese people are not sentimental about their country. I encounter a range of sentiments, actually. Some are quite disgusted with the way things are, some hopeful, and some philosophical. But even those who are very into being Chinese do not tend to associate that feeling with the First of October. October First celebrates a party taking power, not the birth of a country.

That being said, the mood in China is generally positive. The fact that China has enjoyed almost a generation of unbroken economic growth probably has a lot to do with that.

Stopped at the Bridge Cafe before Church this morning. An expat I have talked to several times before came in and sat down. I handed him the Wall Street Journal. He said, "I'm not interested."

I asked him why not. He said, "I worked on Wall Street for 27 years. Nothing ever changes." I told him about one of my former neighbors in the Foreign Teachers' Dormitory at Beihang University who had written a book that discourages any stock investment. My stock broker friend said, "I tell people the same thing. The thing that finally convinced me is when I noticed that 92 percent of the money was being made by 8 percent of the investors."

The current disillusionment with Wall Street is understandable. But what would replace it? When I talk to young people in China about the dangers of speculation masked as investment, it goes in one ear and out the other. China has been seeing consistant economic growth for longer than most of my students have been alive.

I was riding the subway this evening when a guy came up to me to practice his English.

"Where are you from?"

I told him I was from Japan.

"Oh, your English is quite good!"

I don't hear that one very often, but I'll take every compliment I can get.

Three items in the news today. One of the young hikers who had strayed into Iran territory and been arrested as a spy was released. Four Japanese people who had strayed into a military in China were arrested. And Japan announced that the captain of the fishing vessel that rammed a Japanese Coast Guard ship would be returned to China. Not sure what connection, if any, exists between events, but I can't help wondering.

The Dialogue program the other day contained what I thought was a veiled threat. It looks like that threat has been carried out. If you're not that interested in this issue, the Dialogue program might not be that interesting to you. But it is (to me) a startling display of the siege mentality that can develop in a country where only one line of thinking is allowed. Can you imagine a conversation like this on a national network news program in the United States or Japan?

This morning, I went to the McDonald's restaurant nearby for breakfast. Egg sandwich and coffee for 6 RMB. That's not a bad deal. And this place is near the Hills, so it is a bit remote from the city, which means that it is usually not crowded. It's a really good place to study--except for one thing. They only have one song. I'm serious. One song. Over and over again. Every day, all day long.

It's not the first time I have had this happen in China. From time to time, I have to talk to the manager at a coffee bar and ask them to change the music. Some managers pick a song for the day in the morning and just run it on an infinite loop all day. I don't know how people can stand it. I look around me and never see anyone else complaining. I guess Chinese people are just more used to being programmed or something, I don't know. It drives me nuts. To me, it's a form of torture. But usually, when I bring it to the manager's attention, they will do something about it. But at this McDonald's, they just apologize and tell me that's the only song they have. Every day. all day long. Over, and over, and over again.

A couple of my former graduate students came out today. This is the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday. The actual day was yesterday, I think. It is August 15th on the Chinese Calendar. A beautiful full moon.

My students both went to Japan as interns while they were doing their graduate work at the Software College, so they both have good jobs. I find this pattern to be very consistent. If I have students who tend toward research in the field of Computer Science, I encourage them to go to America, because the Americans have lots of research funds from which to create graduate assistanceships for Chinese students. But for students who show a talent for software engineering, I always encourage them to go to Tokyo. The ones who go to Tokyo always get good jobs when they come back to China (if they come back to China--some, like Piano, have elected to stay in Japan), because they are in demand by Japanese companies.

When I encourage sofware engineering students to go to Japan, the most common response is, "We don't like Japanese," or some such thing. Those who manage to rise above this always come out ahead. Unfortunately, the recent economic downturn has sharply reduced the number available internships. This does not prevent students from soliciting their own work in Japan, but they aren't having it handed to them quite as easily as before.

Got an email from a university professor in the United States who read my post responding to the article in the Global Times by Eric Fish.

I don't have comments open on my blog, mainly, I guess, because I am afraid it would take a lot of time to monitor comments, and because most comments I read on the Internet seem to be rather mindless and trivial. But Carolyn's email was informative and fair, so with her permission, I am going to put her comments here:

Thanks for your interesting blog; I got caught up in it after reading your review of Mao's Last Dancer.

I read quickly so forgive if I haven't quite gotten your Eric Fish point. i just want to leave a quick message about a memory from my time teaching English at Renda in 1993.

In the "Foreign Expert" building where many of us teachers lived, we had at least two and probably more who were teaching as well as holding evening parties for their students . I knew and enjoyed talking to the (very pleasant) woman most known for her parties. The parties had Christian themes, and three or four of our mutual students often attended. One of my homesick students found the message of Christian hope comforting to her life and was drawn to the parties. I don't remember too much about how other students reacted to those evenings, but I do remember that they considered the talk to be overtly aimed toward religious persuasion and that they believed the government would not approve of these sessions.

And actually, a younger colleague of that woman disappeared from our building (and from his class), so students claimed, having been sent home from China. The conviction among them was that the government had probably known about the "subterfuge" of the ostensibly fun parties (held, obviously by some of those hired to teach English), and that the young man had been kicked out of the country on a trumped-up charge but actually for being an underground religious proselytizer.

Now, backwards to be sure, I'll reread your blog.

Carolyn Ericksen Hill

Thanks, Carolyn

It happened again today. I had just gotten off the bus from Fragrant Hills, when a lady came up to me.

"You should go to Joy City." She was referring to the new shopping mall in Xidan. I really am not much of a shopper--I think I have been to the shopping district in Xidan once or twice since I came to Beijing.

This afternoon, when I was waiting for the bus to come back out to Fragrant Hills, I met the same lady. What are the odds of that? She said, "You should go to Joy City." She even told me what bus to take. Well, maybe I will. I'm not in a hurry, though.

That's the headline on the op ed page of the China Daily today. I have been following this story for a few days, because it has to do with a relationship that is naturally of interest to me. I was born and raised in Japan, and I live in China. But the article, written by Feng Zhoukui, was hopelessly unhistorical:

When the US decided to return the occupied Okinawa to Japan in 1972, the Diaoyu Islands and adjacent islets, which belong to China, were also handed over to Tokyo. In so doing, the US wanted to prevent China and Japan from getting too close and bring ties between the two countries under its control. Washington's viciously conceived move, a tactic often employed by imperialists, proved useful in serving its interests in the past decades.

Such nonsense has to be an embarrassment to the China Daily. The agreement between the United States and Japan returning Okinawa to Japan was signed in 1971 before Nixon's trip to China. What are the odds that they Americans would take part of Okinawa and give it to "Red" China, a country with which the Americans had no diplomatic relations? It's absurd. The United States returned those islands to Japan for one simple reason: It was Japan that they had taken them from after World War II, and they had no interest in the islands themselves. To take a couple obscure islands that were considered part of Okinawa and give them to a third party would have placed the United States in the middle of an issue they did not want to be involved in. It's possible the young man who wrote this article was born after the Cultural Revolution, and perhaps even after the end of the Cold War. Still, his ignorance is distracting. The China Daily would be well advised to limit its editorial page to writers who have at least a middle school knowledge of Chinese history.

Labels: Japan

China and Japan have locked horns again. A few days ago, a Chinese trawler rammed a Japanese Coast Guard vessel. The Japanese confiscated the vessel and arrested the captain. He is currently awaiting the decision of prosecutors. So I picked up today's paper and read this:

China has repeatedly lodged protests to Japan over the incident, and all Chinese people, including compatriots living overseas, have denounced Japan's illegal moves, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said on Monday.

So all ethnic Chinese the world over have exactly the same opinion about this issue? It's not unusual to see this kind of statement in the Chinese media. The government decides what everyone is supposed to believe, then announces to the world what "all Chinese people" think. This includes all ethnic Chinese throughout the world. Of course this kind of statement is ridiculous when applied to all ethnic Chinese. But within China, the government strictly controls information, so the opinions of Chinese people tend to be much more uniform. In an amusing example of this, Han Han, noted Chinese blogger describes his attempt to post a comment about the issue on a forum:

A friend asked me how I haven't commented on the Diaoyu Islands incident, and suggested I take a few shots at Japan. I told him that while I myself may not have my own land to stand on, I care a lot about issues of territory. I first read about the incident on an online forum, and quite righteously posted, "Protect the Diaoyu Islands." However, this resulted in the forum telling me that my attempted sentence contained illegal content, and suggested that I change it. After puzzling over this for a while, I changed the sentence to read, "Protect the Senkaku Islands [the Japanese name for the Diaoyu Islands]," and the message was published without a hitch.

The islands Japan calls "Senkaku" have been administered by Japan since they took over them in 1895, except for the quarter century following World War II. The United States administered these islands after World War II because they were considered part of Okinawa, which was occupied by the Americans until the early Seventies. At the time that Okinawa was returned to Japan, these islands were returned along with Okinawa. But the problem is that just about this time, word came that these islands might be sitting on a huge reserve of oil. Needless to say, China and Taiwan suddenly became very interested. One can be sympathetic with China's territorial concerns, given the history of relations between China and Japan, but it does appear that the fishing boat skipper in this instance did ram a Japanese Coast Guard vessel, and I don't see why he should get off without some consequence. If the Japanese don't take some action, what respect will anyone have for them? If a Japanese fisherman rammed a Chinese Coast Guard boat, would the Chinese just let him go?

Labels: Japan

Books. Funny how they just sort of tend to increase. Beijing doesn't have an abundance of used bookstores, especially for English language books. But there are a few, and new books are often quite cheap. I don't know...somehow they gather. Before I came to Beijing, I was worried that I would not be able to get books, but I have not had any problem. I went through these the other day, but I couldn't manage to find more than a couple that I was quite sure I would never need. Every time I move, I end up selling or giving away lots of books. But as time goes on, the number of books I am not quite ready to part with also tends to go up.

Now the current rage is e-books, and the much of the discussion is how they will replace traditional paper books. I am skeptical, but I have to say, I wouldn't mind seeing it move in that direction at least a little. I don't like reading online, though. The Internet is a great source for books, but I tend to print them out one chapter at a time and read them at the coffee bar or something. I rather think books will be my curse for sometime to come.

Went to the Haidian Church English Fellowship this morning. Pastor Wu is doing his doctorate at Fuller now, so he brings some of their professors over here once in awhile. The speaker today was introduced as a professor from the Christian Psychology Department, so I thought it was going to be a yawner. What are the odds of getting an expository sermon from a psychologist? But I actually liked this guy. His presentation was not what you would expect. He talked about growing up in a one parent family, and how his church sort of took his family under their wing. His point was that the everyone in the church must be involved in meeting the needs of the body. He made the point that his family was not taken care of by the government, but by the church. It was a wholesome message, really, and very important for China, where there are just so many people, and those who have special needs can easily get lost in the crowd.

Beautiful day today. We hiked up over the north ridge, and down into Cherry Valley, which is one of the prettiest spots in the Western Hills. I chose this hike today because the trail head is about a ten minute walk from my place, but mainly because I really like Cherry Valley. Fortunately, Jacky is a pretty good photographer, and he had his camera with him, so we got some pretty good pictures.

Autumn is almost upon us, but it was pretty hot today. But once we got down into Cherry Valley, it was cool and breezy. Cherry Valley is deep in a ravine that seems to be naturally air conditioned.

I usually try to stay away from the Hills on the weekend, because there are so many people out here. But for those who don't live here, the only time they can come out here is on Saturday. So I decided to do an afternoon hike. People start going home after noon, so it gradually gets less and less congested. And most people had already hiked up the trail by the time we started.

We are thinking of moving the Saturday evening Bible study to Fragrant Hills. That would be easier for me, but Fragrant Hills is a long way from where most people live. There is a subway extension planned to come out here (which I dread), but right now, the only way to get here is by bus.

If you come to Fragrant Hills, I recommend that you come on a weekday evening. The buses back toward town run until 10 pm, so you can easily be here until dark. If you start hiking just as the sun is starting to lower, and you are here on a week day, most folks will be heading home. There are plenty of places that are pretty quiet. But definitely do not miss the bus back to town, because the only hotels out here are resort hotels, like the one designed by I. M. Pei, and they are not cheap.

They're doing some building in the park. Building a new set of steps going up the mountain, I guess. This kind of thing always makes me nervous, because it suggests that they are trying to get ready to accommodate a lot more people. The subway is coming out this way. I guess I shouldn't be so selfish, because there are a lot of working people in Beijing who really need a place to "get away" so to speak. But it just isn't going to be the same if this place gets swallowed up by the urban sprawl afflicting Beijing. The whole thing is aggravated by the fact that the government seems to think that they will have less trouble managing the countryside if they can encourage everyone to move to the cities. Madness. Better enjoy it while I have it.

I lost one of my Chinese textbooks today. I took the bus to McDonald's to get some breakfast and do some studying. As soon as I got off the bus, I realized I had left my book on the bus. Nothing for it. What hope do you have if you leave your book in a bus? Can't chase it down. Fortunately it was not an expensive book.

After studying for a few hours, I came out and walked to the bus stop. Can you believe I got on the very same bus I had ridden that morning? What are the odds of that? As soon as the ticket lady saw me, she said, "I have your book." She had left it at the other end of the line. She told me to come back to the bus yard at Fragrant Hills in the afternoon. Jordan came out today, and after we had eaten lunch, we walked over to the bus yard, and there it was. God was looking out for me. Guess He wants me to take that book a little more seriously.

Today is my last day in the drip room. One of the aids set the drip up a little bit. Yesterday it was really slow--took about two hours. When I came in yesterday, I heard one of the people talking about me. He said, "Even the foreigner has a cold." He was across the room from me, so I didn't say anything, but if he had been closer, I would have told him that if I had a cold, I wouldn't be in this place. I can never quite get people who go to the hospital when they have a cold. What does it accomplish, except to spread their sickness, and perhaps get more sick themselves? When I have a cold, I drink lots of fluid and go to bed. Mostly fruit juices, but hot water is good, too. I don't like hospitals. But the drip room is not that bad a place, I guess, except that these village people have not developed the custom of covering their mouths when they cough.

Last night I had Charley take me over to one of the Peking University hospitals across from my old university. I have some sort of infection on my foot. I had been trying to treat it as a fungus, but it wasn't responding, so I am thinking it must be some sort of staph infection or something.

We went in, but the regular area was closed, and when I told them at the emergency area that I had had this thing for at least three weeks, they told me that I should come back the next morning. Charley then suggested that we try to find a clinic out by Fragrant Hills. I said I didn't know of any, but Charley managed to find one close to my house.

This morning I went in, and the doctor prescribed an antibiotic drip (they like drips in China) as well as some pills. I went into the drip room this morning to get my dose. The drip room reminds me of a beauty parlor. A bunch of neighborhood ladies getting their fix of whatever and chatting with each other.

Went to the English corner this evening. Been a while since I showed up there. It isn't quite as close now that I live out at the Hills.

Somehow, we got into a discussion about baijiu. In China, baijiu is a generic term for distilled spirits. The most well known is Moutai, but there are a number of varieties.

The problem is with the nomenclature. Bai means "white," and jiu means "alcohol." Hongjiu is the Chinese word for red wine (hong means "red"). So it is understandable that if hongjiu translates to "red wine," baijiu should translate to "white wine." But the Chinese word for white wine is actually bai putao jiu. I was explaining this to them. I said, "If you want to offer a foreigner distilled spirits, don't say, 'Would you like some white wine?' They will misunderstand you. Baijiu is definitely NOT white wine."

What should we say?

I said, "Repeat after me. ROCKET FUEL."

"How do you spell it?"

"R-O-C-K-E-T F-U-E-L."

"What kind of rocket fuel do you like?"

I said, "Well, I really don't like rocket fuel. A little wine is OK, but I stay away from baijiu."