Love Beijing, Love Beijing Not

Three weeks of vacationing in Tamaqua after an 18-month work stint in Beijing allowed me to get back into an American swing of things. It also had me missing certain aspects of life in Beijing and made me realize there were just some things I could live without, no matter what continent I’m on.

MISSED ABOUT BEIJING
Public Transportation
My commute to work in the morning is made easy by Beijing’s public transportation network. After leaving my apartment, I walk about a half football field’s distance before arriving at my nearest subway entrance, take the train for 15 minutes, then jump on a bus which drops me off right in front of my office. In all, it takes about 40 minutes, most of which is spent waiting for the train or bus. A one-way subway ticket costs about $0.30; bus fares are $0.15.

Bargaining
Nothing beats naming your own price. When shopping in Beijing’s many street markets, where knock-off products are aplenty, you can basically do just that, but not without a fight. The basic assumption among local vendors is that all foreigners are “rich.” As such, they’ll do anything and everything they can to squeeze as much money out of you as possible. Prices are usually inflated 500-700% of what they are worth, so verbally arguing about the cost and quality or showing a sudden disinterest can usually get the price bargained down to something more reasonable.

Tailor-made Clothes
I’ve never been a big fan of clothes shopping. The crowds, lack of desired sizes and time commitment has always been a deterrent to venturing to any mall. The same is true in China, except here those three factors are compounded by the fact that my Mandarin is far below par.

My solution: have most of my clothes tailor made. Tailors are numerous in Beijing, so I can have dress shirts made for the perfect fit at the perfect price, about $14. Tailor-made suits cost around $90, depending on the fabric.

COULD LIVE WITHOUT
Spitting
Many a time I’ve been walking along the streets of Beijing admiring the buildings, people watching and enjoying the weather only to have the moment shattered by a loud ackkkk-tooof as someone gurgles up something from their throat and hawks it to the ground. Yes, I’ve almost been spit on.

Apparently, it’s very therapeutic and good for your health, but it’s also downright disgusting.

Cranky Cab Drivers
I won’t go as far as calling Beijing cab drivers racist, but from time to time they definitely discriminate against foreigners. Too often, open cabs have driven right past me or friends only to stop a few yards away to pick up Chinese passengers. I’ve actually run up to taxis in the process of dropping passengers off and had the driver wave his hand, give me the stink face and then drive down the street to pick up other non-foreign passengers.

From time to time, cab drivers will tell me to get out of their cab after I tell them my desired destination because traffic in that area will be too heavy or they simply don’t want to go to that part of town.

Rush Hour Traffic
Growing up in the calm hills of northeast Pennsylvania, I was never able to experience the chaotic-yet-comfortable big city life. Now I get to feel it every day. The only downside is that come rush hour all 13 million Beijing residents seem to be going exactly where I want to go, which delays me anywhere from 10 minutes to over an hour.

I’ve spent the better part of two years standing while taking the subway in the morning to work, although I’ve started coming in later to avoid the morning rush. And buses feel more like sardine cans on wheels with people smooshed up against the large glass windows.

Smog
The air quality in Beijing at times can be a major pain, especially for someone with allergies as annoying as mine. In the two years of living in Beijing, there have been a noticeable number of days where I’ve just stayed indoors because the sky was an apocalyptic-looking red, brown or gray or I couldn’t see the buildings across the street from my apartment.

While back in the States, the cough I’d developed in Beijing, which I had just assumed was due to poor health and the frigid winters, vanished. I’m back in Beijing, and, after a few days of murky skies when I got back in mid-February, so is the cough. But since the alternative to solving this problem is to go back home or live in a bubble, I’ll just grin, bear it and keep on wheezing.

GRAY AREA
Blocked Internet
I’m up in the air about not having unlimited access to the Internet. Most American social networking sites – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the like – are blocked for a variety of political reasons I won’t get into.

But as inconvenient as it’s been, I feel like I have much more control over my life. Not being able to check Facebook, without the use of certain Great-Firewall-of-China- bypassing software, means I don’t spend hours on end checking up on friends’ profiles. And the friends that really matter have made it a point to keep in touch with me through this old thing called e-mail.

I will say that I miss YouTube, because watching Charlie bite fingers or anesthesia-induced David after the dentist never gets old.

Last Snow of the Season

While I've already put my heavy winter jacket away for the year, I'm putting up some pics from the last snow of the season. Just when temperatures appeared to be on the rise when I got back to Beijing a cold front moved in and the government shot its iodine rockets to seed the clouds to make it rain/snow/precipitate to alleviate the drought conditions in Beijing. I took my new Canon 500D out for a spin to test it out in the wintery conditions and snap a few shots -- proof that it actually snowed in Beijing this year.

I spent the afternoon walking around Hou Hai, the lake area just north of the Forbidden City, taking pictures and enjoying the snow. It may not have been the snowstorms that I witnessed while visiting home, but it was still nice to walk around in it and not have to worry about shoveling later.




SNOW WRITER: Just like in America, they write in the snow. Possible translation: Clean me!


LONG LINE: Taking a ride in a rickshaw through the hutong near Hou Hai is always fun. In the cold weather... maybe not so much


STONE COLD: A few stone statues at one of the bars


SNOW FUN: Finally, someone used the snow wisely and made a snowman. The few times that it's snowed, I haven't seen enough of these guys around the city


SHENGDAN LAOREN: Santa with Chinese characteristics


WHITE LAKE: Snow covered Hou Hai and the the drum and bell tower in the background

Smog On, Smog Off

I knew I was back in Beijing, after a few weeks of much needed vacationing at home, not by the number of Chinese people around me or the Chinese characters on every sign but by the thick cloud of smog hovering in the air.

“Welcome back Brandon,” I thought to myself. The depressing haze made me want to jump on the first plane bound State-side for another few weeks of vacation and blue skies.

Pollution is a serious problem in Beijing, but when you have millions of cars jamming the streets, what can you expect?

The day after I returned to China, the pollution level in the capital city went “beyond measurable pollution levels,” according the U.S. embassy which tracks these levels daily. Chinese officials warned people, especially the elderly, to stay indoors. I wanted to do the same, but, alas, three weeks of vacation meant I would be missed at work.

Luckily, most of my commute to work was underground – a subway took me across the city where I caught a bus to the Beijing Review compound. The time spent aboveground was depressing with visibility limited to a few hundred yards, the sky a disgusting brownish orange. People covered their mouths and nostrils with medical masks, scarves, newspapers or whatever they could get their hands on. You would have thought SARS or swine flu had broken out again.

As far as health risks go, the smog hasn’t been directly related to any deaths (that I know of or was able to find in online research), although I’m sure long-term exposure can result in a variety of ailments. When I was home from January to February the cough I’d developed while living in Beijing -- which I just assumed was because of my weak immune system, allergies or inability to adapt to city life -- vanished. Two days after returning to Beijing, that cough was back along with acute pains in my chest. It must be my foreign lungs, since most of my Chinese colleagues and friends seem immune to the pollution, or are much better at faking health.

These smoggy skies are the most depressing and annoying part about living in Beijing. At times it feels like living through the apocalypse, sans mushroom clouds and radioactive wastelands. I’m 24 and when the sky is brown I get short-winded walking up six flights of stairs to my apartment. That’s not because I’m overweight or out of shape -- I actually live a relatively healthy lifestyle due to a lack of fried foods, donuts and other delicacies of the Coal Region -- it’s because of the air. So maybe I’ll need another vacation, this time to an island in the south Pacific, sooner than I expected.

Home for the Chinese Holiday

With shovel in hand and Penn State winter cap on my head, I looked at the fluffy white sidewalk at the side of my house in Tamaqua. I’d been greeted that morning to three inches of snow. This was three inches on top of the roughly foot of snow that had been leftover from the snow showers we’d received throughout the winter.

My parents grumbled about the weekly winter weather with wishes that the cold season would come to a close. I, however, was euphoric. Snow, snow, glorious snow. It was a sensation I hadn’t experienced in my second home, Beijing, for close to a year. This winter in China has been cold with temperatures hovering around 10 degrees Fahrenheit but lacking of any snow. And I could see why – all the snow that should have fallen in Beijing had apparently been re-routed to Tamaqua and the rest of northeast Pennsylvania.

I’d forgotten how strenuous shoveling can get, but I was glad to be home. Back in China, it was the Spring Festival holiday, where the country’s population of 1.3 billion uplifts itself from its place of employment and journeys to hometowns across the country. Since all my Chinese co-workers and friends were visiting their families, I decided that I’d do the same and throw in a few weeks of vacation to make the trip home – 14 hours in the air – worth it. Vacationing in Tamaqua in winter, what a concept.

It had been close to a year and a half since I was home and in that time a lot had changed. My brother had graduated from high school, my cousin had a baby and most of my friends from college were now spread out over most of the United States. But a lot remained unchanged. Tamaqua, for the most part, was the same as I had left it. My Mom still had her big blue van. And my room was all but untouched, including my soft-as-a-cloud bed (my bed in Beijing is comparable to a rock complete with bumps of algae, or at the very least a few planks of wood).

The agenda for my three-week vacation was simple: I would do as little work as possible, eat as much American/Coal Region cuisine as possible, and just relax in front of my parent’s big screen TV. Life in Beijing is both tiring and lacking of any decent American meals, i.e. cheeseburgers, fried food and desserts. And Chinese television is non-sensical – even if I understood the language, I doubt I’d find the programs as interesting as medical dramas like House or anything on the Game Show Network.

As I sat on my couch for most of the three-weeks, pierogies and hoagies never tasted so good, and American television never as entertaining. Even the commercials, which for years had annoyed me, now seemed clever. I even considered buying the Shakeweight, now wildly popular, I’m assuming based on advertisements.

For gifts, I limited myself to buying a few red rabbits (it is the Year of the Rabbit, after all) and terracotta warrior statues. Miniature Mao Zedong trinkets didn’t go over so well the last time I was home – one of my friends proudly displayed his statue at work only to be asked if he was a communist – so any resemblances of the Chairman remained in China.

I also brought home bottles of baijiu, white rice wine considered the vodka of China, although the only similarities baijiu shares with vodka is the color. The taste is horrendous – imagine what battery acid would taste like; that’s baijiu -- and sits atop my list of worst tasting anythings ever list. With one sip, you feel it fall all the way into your stomach, like a bomb about to cause serious damage to your digestive system. And having given a few bottles to a few friends, I now think that I may have fewer friends in general. In my defense, I was only trying to share some Chinese culture.

Before I could say “halupki” my trip was over and I was China bound once more. I’d seen my family, visited friends in New York City, Washington, D.C., State College and everywhere in between, and stuffed my face with all the food I’d missed since moving abroad.

In retrospect, the three weeks at home may have been a bit much – the reverse culture shock I’d experienced at home had turned into a normal routine as I remembered how great America is and how inconvenient it can be to be an expat in Beijing. But it also helped renew the sense of adventure that is living in China and made me enthusiastic about the months and possible years ahead living abroad.


GROUP PHOTO: It's a tradition at every family gathering to have a photo of all the "kids," Taylors and Olseskis. These group photos were still taken while I was in China, but in my stead one of my cousins, Megan and Jonathan, would hold up a photo of me. It was nice to be home, in person, for this new photo


NEW FAMILY MEMBER: Last spring, my cousin Megan had a baby: Bentley. I was a little nervous meeting him for the first time, since he's had a whole year to get to know everyone else in the family and choose favorites but I think he liked me


LITTLE HELPER: Every time my dad or anyone in the family tries to do work, there's always a cat willing to lend a paw


CHRISTMAS IN FEBRUARY: My parents kept the Christmas tree up and even had a few presents for me since I haven't celebrated a proper Christmas in two years


THAT CAT: Our cat TC loves attention. I could tell he missed me, since he would follow me around the house to make sure I wasn't leaving

Castles in the Snow

HARBIN -- Snow and Ice World -- Part 3 of 3

Most impressive of my two-day trip were the castles, temples and towers of the Ice and Snow World. Each structure was made from blocks of ice carved out of the solidly frozen Songhua River that runs north of city center. In my youth, my dad and I had struggled to make small, two-room buildings out of packed snow. Seeing entire castles that resembled those in Europe, in size and grandeur, made these childhood efforts seem trivial.

As night descended, the lights within each ice block that formed the foundation, walls and spires of the buildings were illuminated in an aurora borealis of colors. Against the snow-white ground with the colorful lights dancing about, it felt like I’d slipped into a life-sized snow globe – a machine in the distance dispersing freshly made snow completed the scene.

By the end of the trip, my feet were frozen, my hands sore and my nose red like Rudolph the Reindeer’s, but I had a slew of great photos and a new found respect for the word “cold.” And like my other foreign friends who have visited the ice festival, I can check Harbin off my list of travel destinations and fondly remember the fun I’d had in the snow and ice of the northern city while enjoying warmer climates in the winters to come.


GLACIAL CASTLES:


TOWERS OF ICE:


BIG, COLD BEER:


COLD DINO:


ICE SLIDE:


YAK ATTACK:


DOUBLE TROUBLE:


ALL LIT UP:

Tiger, Tiger

HARBIN-- Tiger Park -- Part 2 of 3

Harbin is home to one of the largest tiger preserves in the world. The preserve is home to hundreds of Siberian tigers and a few other wild cats – panthers, lions, and ligers included. The tigers were split up into different holding areas a few acres in size and allowed to roam around. Buses rigged with bars over the windows took us through the various areas as the driver tried not to run over any of the precious beasts. Most of the tigers were indifferent to our presence, but a few pawed the bus or grunted if it slowed down.

In the largest area, our bus pulled into a large open area and stopped. Tigers started moving our way in all directions. A second car entered the area and the tigers perked up. The car pulled up beside our bus and the driver opened his door quickly and threw something onto the top of the vehicle. It was a live chicken. Feeding time.

Two tigers jumped for the bird, which tried to flap away, but soon found itself in the jaws of a third tiger. A few more chickens and pheasants were thrown atop the car, meeting similar fates as the first. But this was just part of the tour – for a fee, tourists could pay for slabs of meat ($7) or live chickens ($14), pheasants ($14), goats ($90) and even cattle ($200). Call it cruel, but it made the experience a bit more realistic in terms of watching the tigers pounce their prey.



CAT NAP: One of the tigers sits atop a rock, indifferent to the bus fully of tasty tourists, which I happened to be in, not 10 feet away


SPOTS AMONG THE SNOW: Each holding area had a certain number of tigers. The largest had about 30


BIG SCRATCHING POST: A tiger scratches into a tree in one of the holding pens. It's funny how these big cats imitate smaller domesticated cats


LOUNGING AROUND: A tiger shows off his/her better side for a bus full of tourists


PRICE FOR FOOD: Call it what you want, tigers need to eat too


SNOW WHITE: The tiger preserve had Siberian white tigers in special pens


HERE KITTY, KITTY: Some of the tigers were a bit camera shy, or annoyed with all the tourists trying to get their photos


UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL: One tiger found our bus interesting enough to get a close up look

Ice, Ice Baby

HARBIN-- Zhaolin Park -- Part 1 of 3

Winter in Beijing this year has been a complete let down. Last year, we in Beijing were treated to two major snow storms by Christmas. This year, we had a 30-second flurry just before New Year's and that was about it. I almost feel like I'm getting ripped off -- Beijing has the cold weather associated with winter, often times dropping into negative territory, but snow is rare. As a native of northeast Pennsylvania and the many Nor Easters we get, when it gets cold there needs to be snow. No exceptions.

So to fulfill that part of me that craves the frigid fluffy white stuff I took matters into my own hands and headed north -- to Harbin.

Harbin is China's largest northern city, in Heilongjiang Province. The city is heavily influenced by Russia and has all the Western features associated with a city in Europe.

But aside from being cold and having some decent architecture Harbin is known for its annual Ice Festival.

Last year, I opted out of taking a journey north to see the snow and ice -- I was just getting started with my job and was short on cash and the urge to spend any unnecessary time in the cold. But this year, with no snow, a little extra cash on hand and the desire to do some traveling, I decided to man up.

With new Timberland boots (fur included), a nice new [fake] down winter jacket and three pairs of thermals, I was fairly certain I'd survive the two day trip I had planned.

The high speed train I'd booked -- 8 hours from Beijing to Harbin -- arrived around 4 p.m. It was relatively dark by then and perfect for visiting Zhaolin Park for the night-time ice sculptures on display.

Temperatures were about -30 degrees C or roughly -22 F.




LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON: The ice sculptures came in different sizes, most close to life size


FUN WITH BOB: I was surprised to see these two characters at the Ice Fest. But American cartoons are wildly popular in China, so it figures


WHO?: An ice owl, one of the any animal sculptures at Zhaolin



BRIDGE MAY BE ICE: A bridge across the small creek in Zhaolin was made completely of ice


COOL PAVILION: A typical pavilion and pathway found in most Chinese parks... made of ice






TEMPLE OF ICE: Many of the sculptures were of well-known landmarks in China and around the world, like this one of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing


COLD AS ICE: A passageway made of ice






CARE FOR SOME COLD?: A Care Bear ice sculpture