Sunday, March 26, 2006
Tu bu 徒步
Hiking.
A weekend of tu bu in nearby Zhejiang province with 17 new Chinese friends turned out to be the perfect microcosm of China as a whole: enthusiastic ideas, poorly executed by people with an unending supply of energy.
An NI colleague, Forest, invited us to join his hiking club for a trip to Long Wang Mt. (OK, so with the name. Long Wang might raise a tee-hee out of the less mature readers of the blog, but in Chinese it means Dragon King.) The 20 of us, including one leather-vested driver, boarded a bus Friday night after work. The canary yellow bus was complete with too-small-for-westerners seats, a flat panel TV and a microphone set on the 'echo' effect. That's right folks - KTV! That's Chinese for karaoke. Completely sober, the group went through introductions and started singing. When it was our turn, we opted for "Happy Birthday" encored with "Shengri Kuaile" (which you remember from previous blog is the same song). After 5 hours we pulled into an unnamed village in Zhejiang province southwest of Shanghai. We arrived at about 1am and immediately set up camp for the night in a schoolyard.
Forest's stereo provided an unwelcome 6am Chinese candy pop wake-up call and we grabbed the provided breakfast (hard boiled eggs, congee - rice oatmeal thing, tofu, seaweed, fried peanuts and baozi - steamed bread buns) at a small restaurant. The bus took us through dragon gates to the base of the hike. We were off - and FAST. It seemed to us that the Chinese style of hiking is to climb hard for about 30 minutes and then stop for a 5 minute smoke break. We knew this could not be sustainable, so we hung back taking in the gorgeous waterfall that was marked as the origin of the Huangpu River (the same polluted mudslide that oozes through downtown Shanghai). Here though it was clean enough to drink (we didn't). We were told to try and keep up, it would be a long day. We breathed deeply. We were just glad to be outside.
Some basic hiking etiquette has apparently not made it to China: the pack-out what you pack-in golden rule of leaving no trace behind in the outdoors that is (usually) religiously followed in other parts of the world is discouragingly ignored in China. The entire trail was littered with cigarette butts, used water bottles, and coke cans. The piles of trash diminished the liberating feeling of getting outside of the city and breathing fresh air for the first time in over two months. We were also able to confirm that the sky is indeed blue, not the grayish-yellow hue that pervades the Shanghai skies.
The Chinese may have invented paper, iron casting and the abacus, but the concept of the switchback never took. For whatever reason, the Chinese method of hiking to the top of a peak is to take the most direct route, and head straight up ... sometimes at a 45 degree angle in this particular case. Long Wang Mt. was not very high (1400m), but the straight, steady, steep climb was a good challenge. Going down was no different, except even steeper. With such a big group, and ridiculously steep, loose descents it took us several hours to descend what could have easily been covered in half the time with the benefit of a few switchbacks. Also, the ground on the way down was covered in 6" tall trees. We were told to put on our pants. "Mei you" we responded, don't have. So they called over a translator, and they had been understood. We only brought shorts. After 4 hours of stumbling down the 50% grade our legs and hands were scraped and bleeding. The guide kept looking at us and shaking his head. Crazy Westerners.
We had been DYING in the city to go out and get lost in the woods, but as darkness fell that seemed like exactly what was going on. Oh, we were going somewhere, but not too fast. We were at the front of the pack by now, it seemed that taking it easy in the beginning had started to pay off after 12 hours. It started to rain and we cut through a random bamboo forest until we finally found the right trail and ended up safely at camp for a much appreciated dinner of Chinese BBQ (pork and shrimp on a skewer) with local beer. We introduced the group to the American camping tradition of smores, which were greatly appreciated and instantly devoured. We tried to teach them "marshmallow" but its a difficult word to explain when the first half refers to ankle deep mud and the second has really no meaning at all. We sipped from a flask of Chivas until bedtime. Camp was a tarp on a barn floor since it was raining. 13 hours of hiking, the pork, scotch, marshmallows and beer and we were out.
The next morning was sunny again and we started off with some group exercise, typical Sunday morning style. The schedule promised "hike through bamboo forest then descending dam by rope". Well, we never really got to the bamboo forest bit (guess we covered that the night before) but there was some impressive repelling going on down a 40m dam. Tim made the trip down in the harness, but I was content to sit and watch (there is something about no western health care for the surrounding 300km that inspires one to turn down a suspicious climbing rope holding your life dangling over a bed of rocks). We trekked 30 minutes from there to the waiting bus (and lunch!) and then started home.
The people we met were all extremely nice and interesting. "Smile Doll" who took tons of pictures, "Bu Gaoxing (lit: not happy)" had a badass attitude and brought the flask, Scott was the stereotypical round guy with the kungfu movie demeanor. There was a yoga/fitness instructor who smoked, the leader in all camouflage, a 56 year old guide who was constantly 2 km ahead of us until he disappeared and we were lost in the dark, Forest's girlfriend Sunny whose English was excellent but wouldn't talk to us but could belt out Mariah Carey's HERO while descending a mountain, and more people we want to get to know even better.
Camping in China is not easy, there's really no national park or trail system. Going with a group (of Chinese at that) made it possible for us. We were the first foreigners to ever accompany them on a trip, and we are grateful they gave us the opportunity to get out there. We hope we can make another trip with them in the future, but in the meantime we need to train for the hors categorie climbs!
A weekend of tu bu in nearby Zhejiang province with 17 new Chinese friends turned out to be the perfect microcosm of China as a whole: enthusiastic ideas, poorly executed by people with an unending supply of energy.
An NI colleague, Forest, invited us to join his hiking club for a trip to Long Wang Mt. (OK, so with the name. Long Wang might raise a tee-hee out of the less mature readers of the blog, but in Chinese it means Dragon King.) The 20 of us, including one leather-vested driver, boarded a bus Friday night after work. The canary yellow bus was complete with too-small-for-westerners seats, a flat panel TV and a microphone set on the 'echo' effect. That's right folks - KTV! That's Chinese for karaoke. Completely sober, the group went through introductions and started singing. When it was our turn, we opted for "Happy Birthday" encored with "Shengri Kuaile" (which you remember from previous blog is the same song). After 5 hours we pulled into an unnamed village in Zhejiang province southwest of Shanghai. We arrived at about 1am and immediately set up camp for the night in a schoolyard.
Forest's stereo provided an unwelcome 6am Chinese candy pop wake-up call and we grabbed the provided breakfast (hard boiled eggs, congee - rice oatmeal thing, tofu, seaweed, fried peanuts and baozi - steamed bread buns) at a small restaurant. The bus took us through dragon gates to the base of the hike. We were off - and FAST. It seemed to us that the Chinese style of hiking is to climb hard for about 30 minutes and then stop for a 5 minute smoke break. We knew this could not be sustainable, so we hung back taking in the gorgeous waterfall that was marked as the origin of the Huangpu River (the same polluted mudslide that oozes through downtown Shanghai). Here though it was clean enough to drink (we didn't). We were told to try and keep up, it would be a long day. We breathed deeply. We were just glad to be outside.
Some basic hiking etiquette has apparently not made it to China: the pack-out what you pack-in golden rule of leaving no trace behind in the outdoors that is (usually) religiously followed in other parts of the world is discouragingly ignored in China. The entire trail was littered with cigarette butts, used water bottles, and coke cans. The piles of trash diminished the liberating feeling of getting outside of the city and breathing fresh air for the first time in over two months. We were also able to confirm that the sky is indeed blue, not the grayish-yellow hue that pervades the Shanghai skies.
The Chinese may have invented paper, iron casting and the abacus, but the concept of the switchback never took. For whatever reason, the Chinese method of hiking to the top of a peak is to take the most direct route, and head straight up ... sometimes at a 45 degree angle in this particular case. Long Wang Mt. was not very high (1400m), but the straight, steady, steep climb was a good challenge. Going down was no different, except even steeper. With such a big group, and ridiculously steep, loose descents it took us several hours to descend what could have easily been covered in half the time with the benefit of a few switchbacks. Also, the ground on the way down was covered in 6" tall trees. We were told to put on our pants. "Mei you" we responded, don't have. So they called over a translator, and they had been understood. We only brought shorts. After 4 hours of stumbling down the 50% grade our legs and hands were scraped and bleeding. The guide kept looking at us and shaking his head. Crazy Westerners.
We had been DYING in the city to go out and get lost in the woods, but as darkness fell that seemed like exactly what was going on. Oh, we were going somewhere, but not too fast. We were at the front of the pack by now, it seemed that taking it easy in the beginning had started to pay off after 12 hours. It started to rain and we cut through a random bamboo forest until we finally found the right trail and ended up safely at camp for a much appreciated dinner of Chinese BBQ (pork and shrimp on a skewer) with local beer. We introduced the group to the American camping tradition of smores, which were greatly appreciated and instantly devoured. We tried to teach them "marshmallow" but its a difficult word to explain when the first half refers to ankle deep mud and the second has really no meaning at all. We sipped from a flask of Chivas until bedtime. Camp was a tarp on a barn floor since it was raining. 13 hours of hiking, the pork, scotch, marshmallows and beer and we were out.
The next morning was sunny again and we started off with some group exercise, typical Sunday morning style. The schedule promised "hike through bamboo forest then descending dam by rope". Well, we never really got to the bamboo forest bit (guess we covered that the night before) but there was some impressive repelling going on down a 40m dam. Tim made the trip down in the harness, but I was content to sit and watch (there is something about no western health care for the surrounding 300km that inspires one to turn down a suspicious climbing rope holding your life dangling over a bed of rocks). We trekked 30 minutes from there to the waiting bus (and lunch!) and then started home.
The people we met were all extremely nice and interesting. "Smile Doll" who took tons of pictures, "Bu Gaoxing (lit: not happy)" had a badass attitude and brought the flask, Scott was the stereotypical round guy with the kungfu movie demeanor. There was a yoga/fitness instructor who smoked, the leader in all camouflage, a 56 year old guide who was constantly 2 km ahead of us until he disappeared and we were lost in the dark, Forest's girlfriend Sunny whose English was excellent but wouldn't talk to us but could belt out Mariah Carey's HERO while descending a mountain, and more people we want to get to know even better.
Camping in China is not easy, there's really no national park or trail system. Going with a group (of Chinese at that) made it possible for us. We were the first foreigners to ever accompany them on a trip, and we are grateful they gave us the opportunity to get out there. We hope we can make another trip with them in the future, but in the meantime we need to train for the hors categorie climbs!
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Jin tian 今天
Today.
I've had a few requests for a post that chronicles a typical 'day in the Shanghai life' of Tim, so here goes. Jin tian, the alarm will go off around 6:45, but we'll lay in bed till about 7. The question of the morning, in our unintelligible Spandarlish (Spanish/Mandarin/English) hybrid: "do you feel like putonghua haishi ejercicio". For those uninitiated to Spandarlish, "do you feel like studying Chinese or doing some exercises". There is usually only time for one or the other. Today was 30 minutes of yoga followed by some sit-ups and push-ups. I feel like my body has aged 10 years of the past 2 months as these few minutes of moderate exercise in the morning a couple times a week is pretty much the extent of my physical activity.
Over a quick breakfast of granola, yogurt and fruit (some things never change), Laurel and I pull 3 new Chinese words off our word-of-the-day calendar. At 3 words a day, my goal is to have 1000 characters memorized after year #1 resulting in a basic level of language proficiency. Right now we're up to around 200. Laurel can read and write, while I've resigned myself to being only half-literate. The only thing I can write is my name.
Out the door around 8:30, I either grab a cab for the 10 min drive to work, or hop on my bike for the 20 min ride. Today was a cab day, so I spend the 10 minutes flipping through my Chinese flash cards and making small talk with the cabbie. The cab drivers pull up to 24-hr shifts, so if you get one at the end of his day, he may be pretty loopy, which helps explain the quality of driving in Shanghai.
At work around 9 (anything earlier than 8:30 and I have to unlock the doors to the office) I start my work day. Nothing terribly exciting here; responding to emails, performing design reviews, having meetings (though not as much as in the US), and occasionally giving training presentations. I really like my job. It is about the most ideal situation I could think of, and I feel like I'm already making a big difference. My whole team usually eats lunch together from 12-1 at one of the numerous restaurants within walking distance. Ranging from 6元-15元 ($0.75-$2.00) for anything from a bowl of noodles to a nice multi-dish family style meal, there is really no need to even bother bringing your own lunch. In fact, it's supposed to be against the rules of the building to bring your own lunch in, as Chinese dishes tend to be very fragrant and can smell up the whole 37-story office building that NI-Shanghai is located in.
The afternoon will fly by at work with the occasional power outage or flood (ok, this only happened one time), and my work day typically ends around 6. Home by 6:30. Tonight is Mandarin tutor night, so "Kitty" will come by from 7-9. We meet with her twice a week.
A couple days a week I either take an early morning or late evening conference call to catch the folks back in the US during their normal work day. Tonight I have one final 10pm call before heading off to bed at 11 to do it all over again.
There you have it. I don't think any two days have been alike yet, but that's about as typical a week day as I could come up with. Stay tuned for a weekend post.
I've had a few requests for a post that chronicles a typical 'day in the Shanghai life' of Tim, so here goes. Jin tian, the alarm will go off around 6:45, but we'll lay in bed till about 7. The question of the morning, in our unintelligible Spandarlish (Spanish/Mandarin/English) hybrid: "do you feel like putonghua haishi ejercicio". For those uninitiated to Spandarlish, "do you feel like studying Chinese or doing some exercises". There is usually only time for one or the other. Today was 30 minutes of yoga followed by some sit-ups and push-ups. I feel like my body has aged 10 years of the past 2 months as these few minutes of moderate exercise in the morning a couple times a week is pretty much the extent of my physical activity.
Over a quick breakfast of granola, yogurt and fruit (some things never change), Laurel and I pull 3 new Chinese words off our word-of-the-day calendar. At 3 words a day, my goal is to have 1000 characters memorized after year #1 resulting in a basic level of language proficiency. Right now we're up to around 200. Laurel can read and write, while I've resigned myself to being only half-literate. The only thing I can write is my name.
Out the door around 8:30, I either grab a cab for the 10 min drive to work, or hop on my bike for the 20 min ride. Today was a cab day, so I spend the 10 minutes flipping through my Chinese flash cards and making small talk with the cabbie. The cab drivers pull up to 24-hr shifts, so if you get one at the end of his day, he may be pretty loopy, which helps explain the quality of driving in Shanghai.
At work around 9 (anything earlier than 8:30 and I have to unlock the doors to the office) I start my work day. Nothing terribly exciting here; responding to emails, performing design reviews, having meetings (though not as much as in the US), and occasionally giving training presentations. I really like my job. It is about the most ideal situation I could think of, and I feel like I'm already making a big difference. My whole team usually eats lunch together from 12-1 at one of the numerous restaurants within walking distance. Ranging from 6元-15元 ($0.75-$2.00) for anything from a bowl of noodles to a nice multi-dish family style meal, there is really no need to even bother bringing your own lunch. In fact, it's supposed to be against the rules of the building to bring your own lunch in, as Chinese dishes tend to be very fragrant and can smell up the whole 37-story office building that NI-Shanghai is located in.
The afternoon will fly by at work with the occasional power outage or flood (ok, this only happened one time), and my work day typically ends around 6. Home by 6:30. Tonight is Mandarin tutor night, so "Kitty" will come by from 7-9. We meet with her twice a week.
A couple days a week I either take an early morning or late evening conference call to catch the folks back in the US during their normal work day. Tonight I have one final 10pm call before heading off to bed at 11 to do it all over again.
There you have it. I don't think any two days have been alike yet, but that's about as typical a week day as I could come up with. Stay tuned for a weekend post.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Banlangen 板蓝根
Chinese Herbal Remedy.
Tim has been sick for a week so this morning when I started to feel a little tickle in my throat and a ringing in my ears, all I could think is that I was in for a little cold. We do not have access to echinacea, and I could tell the 3 liters of orange/grape juice a day method was not very successful for Tim (we were in all weekend!). What to do in the land of eastern medicine?? And so we consulted Heng, seen chomping a paczki in previous post, whose parents are doctors. Ah, the answer we were looking for: Banlangen. Available over-the-counter at all corner pharmacies (what isn't available over the counter here?) for 6.5元, banlangen comes in individual packet powder form, 10 to a box. Just mix it with hot water for a sweet tea that I am told will boost the immune system and help you avoid cold. I'll let you know how it goes. I've already had 3 of these today, and I am feeling alright... :-)
Tim has been sick for a week so this morning when I started to feel a little tickle in my throat and a ringing in my ears, all I could think is that I was in for a little cold. We do not have access to echinacea, and I could tell the 3 liters of orange/grape juice a day method was not very successful for Tim (we were in all weekend!). What to do in the land of eastern medicine?? And so we consulted Heng, seen chomping a paczki in previous post, whose parents are doctors. Ah, the answer we were looking for: Banlangen. Available over-the-counter at all corner pharmacies (what isn't available over the counter here?) for 6.5元, banlangen comes in individual packet powder form, 10 to a box. Just mix it with hot water for a sweet tea that I am told will boost the immune system and help you avoid cold. I'll let you know how it goes. I've already had 3 of these today, and I am feeling alright... :-)
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Pang Xingqi'er 胖星期二
Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Martes Grasa.
This week while New Orleans was partying (we saw it on TV), sixth street was packed, beads were flying for boobies and all my Detroit and Chicago friends were chowing down on some 46g of fat Paczkis from Polish town, I was trying to explain the traditions behind this last day before the beginning of lent to some Chinese. Pang Xingqi'er, I explained to the baker while I was buying 12 red bean filled doughnuts (a Chinese paczki!), is a special day in America where we eat lots of food and have a big party. Tomorrow, we will not eat much (how to say 'fast' in Chinese, I do not know - I think it is a foreign concept...). Something seemed lost in translation there. I attempted the explanation again as I was handing out the greasy sugar-covered gut bombs to Tim's friends after lunch. Again, blank stares. Maybe it was the double translation from Mardi Gras to Fat Tuesday to Pang Xingqi'er. Oh well. Two thumbs up for the red bean paczkis, the strangest flavor yet since old SJB was selling the prune filled ones in grade school.
Shi Tian Mu 石天慕
My Chinese Name.
After much heated debate, and the rejection of several options that either translated poorly, were more a woman's name, or "sounded communist" my work group helped me settle on Shi Tian Mu. It obviously bears some resemblance to my English name (in Chinese the surname comes first, so think Stelzer Tim), and is supposedly quite literary, meaning I am lucky and the gods admire me. At least that's what they tell me. For all I know, it could mean "silly foreign fool". Credit goes to Xenia for coming up with the idea. She has quite the nack for providing American's with Chinese names, as she had previously chosen Luo Lan (罗兰) for Laurel.
After much heated debate, and the rejection of several options that either translated poorly, were more a woman's name, or "sounded communist" my work group helped me settle on Shi Tian Mu. It obviously bears some resemblance to my English name (in Chinese the surname comes first, so think Stelzer Tim), and is supposedly quite literary, meaning I am lucky and the gods admire me. At least that's what they tell me. For all I know, it could mean "silly foreign fool". Credit goes to Xenia for coming up with the idea. She has quite the nack for providing American's with Chinese names, as she had previously chosen Luo Lan (罗兰) for Laurel.
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