Happy New Year

After two days of hermit like existence puttering around the apartment in my new massage pajamas, IMing/emailing with friends, reading books and magazines and watching a random assortment of DVDs, all in an attempt to recuperate my stomach, it turns out, what I really needed, was a night on the town.

Fortunately, my coworkers had made plans for us to go out on NYE. My hotpot coworker family picked me up and we met with Guo Xin and her husband at a large shopping mall called The Place. Not an imaginative name but it gets to the point. Between the two Place buildings is the extremely large LED Sky Screen - 2,296' long, 88' wide by 80' high and is second largest in the world (Las Vegas has the largest). It faces downwards creating a virtual ceiling not unlike what one might imagine of the ceiling at Hogswart. The images changed from a cosmos theme to an Olympics skydiving theme to random people walking around above your head. Under this canopy, Coca-Cola was setting up to host some sort of special NYE event. From the second floor of the mall you could see over the wall to the show, but after checking in before and after dinner and STILL nothing was happening, we gave up on it. It was cold and the hotpot family needed to head home.


Guo Xin, her husband Kevin and I taxied over to a foreigner bar called The Rickshaw to ring in the New Year. The music was great 80's hits, it was just crowded enough, wasn't too loud but of course, it was very smokey - all in all, a nice place for New Years Eve. There was an impromptu countdown, clinking of glasses all around and then the DJ put on Auld Lang Syne. 2008 had been aptly ushered in and it was time to grab a taxi to head home. Mission accomplished.




Wishing everyone a safe and happy New Year Eve and wonderful 2008!

Chinese Massage aka ticklish torture

China has newly decided that the country will have a three-day holiday for the western New Years. However, unlike a conventional western holiday, the days off are Sunday-Tuesday but you have to work on Saturday. I'm not sure how they justify the trade-off, but there it is. This is a photo of our office building. We are on the 12th flr but keep in mind, there is no 4th flr - four in Chinese means death and is an unlucky number - and no13th flr. Our floor is about equal to the grey stripe on the building behind it.

After work on Saturday, Guo Xin and I went to have Chinese massage. The only thing I knew about this form of massage is that they concentrate on the meridians of your body which are all represented in your feet. Thus a lot of attention is given to your feet and then they work their way up your legs, back and finally head. It is an extremely ticklish undertaking. Fortunately, we were in the same room with our respective masseuses (mine male, hers female) so I had a translator. Not only was it ticklish but sometimes it hurt too. Both sensations distractions from what should be a relaxing experience.

I also opted for a treatment, which I have heard called "cupping" and Guo Xin referred to as "that awful thing". At any rate, I figured I'd try it. Glass globes are heated and then quickly placed on your back causing your skin to be sucked into the opening of the globes. This is supposed to be good if you have a cold because it sucks the "cold" out of your body. If you your body feels "heavy", it will make it "lighter". I don't have a cold, but figured lightening is never a bad thing. It wasn't terribly painful but after the allotted ten minutes (and for my masseuse, his allotted smoke-break if his gum chewing was any indication), I was happy to have them removed. The more "cold" you have in your body, the more purple the spots on your back will be. Apparently, I did not have a lot of "cold" in me. Good to know - and for a while I'll have big red circles on my back as a reminder.

Note: An internet search produced this explanation: "This technique draws the skin and the muscle into the cup through suction. The skin under the cup often turns red purple signifying a blockage of Qi correlating to the problematic and congested areas. Cupping is a method of treating disease which cause local congestion, drawing up underlying tissues and forming blood stasis. Cupping is particularly good for treatment of pain, gastro-intestinal disorders, chronic bronchitis, asthma and paralysis, arthritic pain and muscle spasms along with many other ailments."

Photo: I snapped this picture in the Xi'an youth hostel bar. It is such a great ad - perhaps it's saying that drinking their coffee will have the same effect as Chinese "cupping".

Home Sweet (hotpot) Home

It's nice how unexpected little surprises can pop up. Friday was a long and quiet day at work and I actually wasn't feeling too well stomach-wise, maybe too much caffeine and too many butter cookies (lovely western diet). Right before the end of the work day, our finance office Zhao Min invited me home to have dinner with her family. She thought it would be nice for me to see how a Chinese family lives - how right she is.

Probably because she heard me talk about hotpot, she thought that would be a nice dinner to make, though not the spicy variety I'd had before. In her snow-dirty car (where else in the world can snow make your car dirty), we drove to her apartment, stopping first at a small vegetable market were I amused the locals by taking a picture of mushrooms, then driving through the campus of one of the two largest universities in BJ - the current head of China is a graduate. Apparently, graduates from this Univ. go to work in the government, and graduates from the other Univ. go overseas.

Making up the rest of Zhao Min's family is her husband, an accountant, her 9 year old daughter and their very excitable golden retriever Lucky. Their apartment is tiny with two bedrooms, one bath, one very small living space and a small kitchen. The family had spent four years living/working in Botswana so Zhao Min and both her husband, and especially her daughter, speak very good English. It was a nice dinner where we cooked meat, fried tofu, fish balls, and leafy greens in boiling water and then dipped them in a sauce of sesame paste and some sort of pickled (?) tofu. They also had me try a spicy beef ligament side dish (too chewy) and a hot drink made from rice alcohol and "nutritious ingredients" boiled with dried seasoned plums. It was sweet and salty. They also had me try a medicinal alcohol from Russia which was much sweeter like a port. As Zhao Min's husband described it, eating around a hotpot is a very warm, relaxing and friendly way to eat with friends and family. I'd have to agree.

Presentation Day

Most of the day today was spent at Dandelion School. A new member of the Mercy Corps Scotland board of trustees is in Beijing visiting her daughter for the holidays. Our Mercy Corps US CEO met Kathy and suggested she contact Mercy Corps China while she was in town. And she did. We threw together a couple power point presentations and met her and her husband at Dandelion School to tell them all about our country programs. Because of my English language skills, I was unanimously voted the presenter with my colleagues as back-up. It went really, well with Kathy and her husband asking many questions and in turn, I learned a lot from their visit. They have a long history in the development world with work at DFID, WHO and the like. They spent many years living in India before moving back to London. While Kathy admitted that her husband would have been a first choice to be on the board, he is now working full time on economic advising on immigration issues for Parliament. Very interesting couple and it sounded like MC China made a good impression on them. Who knows, perhaps that will lead to greater enthusiasm and support for our programs from Headquarters PDX and Scotland.

Boxing Day

So I have never celebrated Boxing Day, but when I suggested to my coworkers that we delay Christmas until the 26th when everyone would be back in the office, one of them said "isn't there a day called Boxing Day?" So, that is what we celebrated - without a clue as to how. For our version, in the afternoon we took pictures around the tree and they each gave me a small gift: instant coffee, chrysanthemum tea, assorted little butter cookies and a couple chocolate bars. Kind of a theme.

This evening, I had plans to meet Peter and Charmaine Smythe for a Peking Duck dinner. I asked my coworkers for suggestions and suddenly the plan took on a mind of its own. Five of us trekked off to dinner with directions and coupon in hand. Kong Zhen insisted on driving, and now I have experienced rush-hour traffic in Beijing. Having allotted over an hour to get across town, Qin Liang and I ended up jumping out of the car mid-road, crossing lanes and hurtling a small divide in order to catch the nearest subway stop. Even then, arriving late to meet the Smythes. Kong Zhen parked and grabbed the subway as well.

The restaurant was located on the third floor of a large shopping mall, and was fairly good. I have lost some of my taste for the food so I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I normally would. The Smythes said it was similar to the duck they've had in Australia.

It was a long day but a good night on the the town and thus a Boxing Day well spent.

Christmas Day

The day dawned on a decidedly dreary day - natural haze, smog or both, I can't say. At any rate I caught myself wondering, partly out loud, how I could be seeing a full moon so frequently. And then I realized, that I was looking at the sun. Hazy sun, hazy moon, they look so similar. All I know is that the sunlight in Beijing casts a dim, gray hue onto everything it touches. I'm using this as an excuse for why I haven't taken many photos. To borrow from the great Simon and Garfunkel, it truly is a "hazy shade of winter". Grey, grey, grey. (This is a great web site I found that talks about the air quality: http://pyongyangsquare.com/beijingair/?m=200712 )

After listening to some Christmasy tunes courtesy of NPR's web site, I headed out in the world. I met up with an Australian couple who I barely knew but we had decided to spent Christmas together. I met the husband briefly on my Burning Man trip. Upon hearing that he and his wife were planning on traveling, via land, from Dublin to Singapore, on their way back to Melbourne, and would be stopping in Mongolia and Beijing in December, I suggested we keep in touch and see if we could meet up. And lo' and behold, we did. As with everyone I've met from Melbourne, Peter and Charmaine are great, friendly people.

We spent the day walking around Beijing, freezing. We visited the Jingshan park where you climb a man-made hill to look out over the Forbidden City - which we could barely see due to the haze (see pic of P & C above). I guided them to the Hutong neighborhood where we sought refuge from the cold in a tea shop with a very enthusiastic tea lady who seemed to provide a bottomless pot of tea and gave us eggs hard boiled in tea (though they were very salty so I'm not sure the cooking method was entirely true). It was a long day and so we parted ways, with them going to check out a famous night market and me heading home. And that, dear reader, was Christmas.

Alternative Christmas Eve

While Beijingers are rumored to be out whooping it up on Christmas eve (both the believers and non-believers), I have been struck down with yet another bout of, I'm guessing, food related woes. While similar to the last occurence in Sichuan, this time was more debilitating and unpleasant. Needless to say, I stayed in all day though by afternoon, I was able to move from the bed out to the couch. I am really hoping this is the end of it and that I feel much better tomorrow. The plan is for me to meet up with an Australian couple who are visiting Beijing for several days. I met the husband at Burning Man and when he mentioned that he and his wife would be moving from Dublin back to Melbourne, doing most of the trip by land and stopping in Ulan Bataar and Beijing, I suggested we meet up. Since Mongolia is no long on my itinerary, Beijing it is.

So I hope Christmas Eve finds you better off than me. I had planned to find a church service for this tonight, but that didn't happen. Not even any Christmas tunes for my evening. Maybe I'll hear some tomorrow.

Sunday Subway & Sanlitun

It was Sunday in Beijing and what was this lone expat to do but continue her quest to navigate the city. Today's self imposed challenge was to conquer the subway system, find a shop/cafe called The Bookworm in the foreign district Sanlitun and then get home again.

I live right on one of the new subway lines and opted for the station located at the Walmart up the street. I popped into Walmart to get a view of the place that Kate said had caused her to break down in tears, and upon seeing the throng of shoppers, I can easily see why. I walked right back out.

The subway is really cheap in a move to encourage people to stop driving - another of the city's improvement plans pre-Olympics. There are four lines currently, with several more in production including one going out to the airport. On this Sunday at 11am it was crowded and vaguely reminiscent of my crammed experiences in Tokyo (though fortunately, that was only for a couple stations). Upon reaching my destination, consulting several street maps, the position of the sun, and my sense of direction, I set out to find The Bookworm. And after several attempts going down various side streets, mission accomplished. It's a lending library of sorts for expats that doubles and triples as a restaurant and bar. The food was pricey and not very inspiring. After my break, I began walking to see what all the fuss was about the foreign district. It seemed pretty quiet on this Sunday afternoon given its raucous reputation.

Completely exhausted, I finally found another subway station but the line I wanted was closed at this stop, so I opted for another one and although it circled way out into northern Beijing, worked just fine. Unfortunately, upon exiting the station, I took a wrong turn and ended up on the second floor of the dreaded Walmart. Much like an Ikea, you are forced to wind down in a spiral before finally escaping to the street. One last little excursion to a basement grocery store in my apartment complex, and I was safely back in my 11th storey apartment looking out on two other immense apartment buildings - I think there are ten in all and each one is around 26 stories tall. It's kind of a mini-city. I'll try to get a photo at some point.

Bicycling in Beijing

China is known for its images of the bicycling masses. And even in a modern, road clogged, exhaust-filled metropolis like Beijing, a substantial amount of people still commute this way - some as their only form of transportation. Granted many of these are electric bicycles which don't require any pedaling.

On Saturday, with naive bravery and an "I think I can" spirit, I set out to join the horde. Mind you, I am now happily tucked away in Kate's toasty-warm apartment in an enormous apartment complex and so would have easily stayed here all day if I hadn't made plans with Guo Xin to visit the Lama Temple (pic of Guo Xin at the temple). I also have Kate's bicycle and figured I needed to get out there and learn to navigate Beijing. After consulting various maps, writing down landmarks and street names, I headed out. It was quite an experience.

Prior to this outing, I had been very impressed with the Zen like way all the cars, buses, taxis, pedestrians and bikers are able to flow in traffic without major incidents - because outwardly it looks like barely controlled chaos. But then, I became part of the Zen. The trick seems to be to ride slowly, and to remain always present to everything around you. Daydreaming could be costly. The one good thing about the roads in Beijing is that there are always very wide bike lanes and on some roads, the lane is separated by a median. This doesn't mean cars don't use these lanes to access the buildings along them, but it cuts down on the hazards of moving vehicles.

So besides going slow, the other things to remember is that bikes do NOT have right of way. No one does. You go when it seems like a good idea - i.e. when you won't get hit. On my way home from the Lama Temple it was rush hour (even on a Saturday) and dodging taxis and buses got a little ridiculous, but there is safety in numbers so along with my fellow bikers, I safely made it back to the refuge and HEAT (it was freezing out there) of my new home.

Feet, Feet, Feet.

On Friday, our small staff went out for their weekly staff lunch. While in Sichuan I had managed to dodge what Guo Xin called "pigs feet soup" however she assured me that the meat was sliced up and I would like it. So when at lunch she said, "Let's order pigs feet. I think you will like it", how could I say no. Much like a Jedi master, the power of suggestion is strong in that one, Guo Xin. When the feet arrived, they looked like feet, sans hoof. But what was a poor foreigner to do? I plucked one up with my chopped sticks, asked the required question "What parts do I eat?" and dove in. Perhaps, my squimish reflexes were weakened by hunger but as I explored the soft tissue, extracted the meta-tarsals and ate it, I was only vaguely aware that this really could be considered gross. It actually tasted quite good. The tissue was like nothing I've had before. It was stewed to within an inch of its life so that everything just fell away and melted in your mouth. It wasn't squishy like fat, stringy like tendon or hard like gristle. Yet it had no texture like meat. Guo Xin said it's collagen and good for your skin (nice added persuasive measure!) And while I wouldn't run out and order more, I have survived to add another "try it once" oddity to my food list.

And while we are on the subject of feet and bones. I will borrow from the next day's events. At lunch on Saturday (more about that day in the next post) I tried both "chicken claw" and "steamed chicken soft bone". Not as pleasant an experience as the pig foot. The claw was fried similarly to a chicken wing, but after some attempts at removing anything edible from it, I left the rest on my plate. Kinda gross. After my first bite of "soft bone" which really was not that soft and I mistakenly thought I'd gotten a bad piece and put it on my plate, I was instructed to actually chomp on the thing. So I grabbed another and did, but ew, no flavor and you just feel like you are crunching through something that shouldn't be eaten. Guo Xin hazarded a guess that it may be a chicken knee - something hard but not calcified. Two more tries to add to the list...

The Great Wall

Day two (Thursday) of playing tourist. Today with our hired driver we conquered the Great Wall, or at least successfully navigated our ascent and descent. The part that was most amazing to me was that the wall is built at the highest crest of very steep mountains. For us modern folks getting up there was an effort and they not only did not have our conveniences but were lugging building materials with them.

Although this portion of the wall has both an enclosed tram and a ski-lift to get you up to it, we opted to walk up and take the toboggan down. It really does seem like a bit of an amusement park when viewed that way. Also, you must first traverse the gauntlet of sellers who apparently get more and more aggressive as you near the tram departure point. I didn't have to go that direction but Gretchen - upon twisting her ankle and forgoing the walk back to the toboggan - came down via the tram and had to navigate her way through the horde.

The views were rather spectacular up on the wall, and more than once we voiced happiness that this was the "slack" season, meaning cooler temps and hardly anyone on the wall. I would hate to be there when the sweaty crowds take over.

After the wall, our driver took us to a hot pot establishment. However, due to our combined lack of communication skills, we were left to his choice of ordering. We can only hazard a guess to why he ordered the quantity or type of hot pot but we ended up with a very spicy one that had that Sichuan mouth numbing element. It was less than enjoyable.

Today (Friday) begins the second part of my trip - holding down the fort (office). Kate is gone, Gretchen left this morning, today I move into Kate's apartment, and, at work, start the job of making sure things get done...

Beijing Tourist Day 1

After a uneventful flight back, save for what I suspect was a plane full of first time fliers from Xichang, we are back in Beijing. Gretchen and I are now staying several nights at a hotel in the area called Hutong. It is a great location. Near the center of the city, surrounded by the single story, gray buildings along labyrinth-type streets which at night light up with traditional red lanterns marking open businesses, it definitely has that "China" ambiance.

After one day of office flurry to get everything done before Gretchen is finished with her assignment and Kate departs for home-leave, I am spending two days with Gretchen as a tourist. On the 21st I move into Kate's apartment for the duration of my stay. I had a tutorial on how to order water, operate the Chinese remotes, locate the Walmart (yep) and met both the elevator lady and the management staff. I also have use of her bicycle which should be very interesting.

As tourists today, we visited and hiked around the vast Summer Palace site and then walked through both the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. It was a lot to take in but well worth it. With the number of domestic tourists we saw on a weekday afternoon, I can't imagine what high season or the Olympics will be like (according to the signs at the ticket offices, we are in the "slack" period of the tourist season - how appropriate for Portlanders). Tomorrow we are going to a section of The Great Wall and if energy permits may hit another temple or two.

And tonight we are going out for the well-known hot pot dinner in the Hutong!

The downside of good food

...but not a good night. Sparing the details, either the food from yesterday or maybe a build up of spices, but my body was having nothing of it. It was a fit-full night and a morning spent in my room, near the security of a western toilet, while the others attended another meeting. I have lost my taste, and sight and smell for that matter, for the food.

We have spent 2 1/2 days at the hotel prepping for the M&E workshop that will be held this weekend. I am still avoiding anything that seems questionable. When your gut says no, it means hell no. Kate thinks it’s the water as she has had a seriously upset stomach for the past 24 hours. Fortunately, the rest of our group is hardier than we are. While this is still a good experience, we were all cheered a bit to have our return trip plans finalized today – back in Beijing the afternoon of the 17th.

Monitoring & Evaluation

Our hotel comes with a breakfast of warm soy milk, hard boiled eggs, several stir-fried dishes, steamed buns and rice porridge – a hardy breakfast to face a morning at the program work station. Sporting two pairs of socks, three pairs of long underwear, jeans, three tops, coat, hat, scarf and gloves, my toes only went numb for a little while.

We spent the rest of the day in another meeting at the much warmer and more comfortable hotel. What were we doing in these meetings? My coworker Gretchen is working with the staff to revise the indicators they are using to monitor and evaluate the process and progress of the program. A second part of the program is to train capable youth in the villages to be peer educators in turn transferring information about sexual and reproductive health, and warn about the dangers of alcohol and drug abuse to other youth in their villages.

It was a long but good day…

On the road again...

This morning I accompanied Kate to fetch the steamed buns for our morning meeting. Unfortunately the local steam bun ladies did not have any buckwheat but we had corn, sweet ones filled with red bean paste, and pork. Going and getting them was the best part.

We drove three hours through the winding mountainous countryside to Zhao Jue. The scenes along included forests, lakes, countryside, and small mud and brick villages where cows, goats, chickens, dogs, children and villagers walked along the road. The men and women dress nearly the same except the women wear a turban-like hat of bright sturdy fabric and when it gets cold everyone wears heavy, blue wool capes. We made one rest stop so that those feeling car-sick could get air and unfortunately, I had to deal with another trough toilet though this one had the added bonus of a flowing stream of water.

After lunch at the hotel we visited the Yi Center work station where our program is located. Lunch was good except a mistake in translation caused Kate to order her favorite soup with the addition of pork intestine. I tried a piece and while the taste was fine, because of the chewy texture, it found its way to the napkin in my pocket.

A short bumpy ride later and we arrived in the small village containing our program where Yi girls complete several months of general courses (Mandarin and Yi language, life skills, math, and agriculture) and then attend a couple months of vocational training at a nearby center or learn more agricultural skills. Those completing vocational training, they will generally work in a factory.

We are in store for some long cold days at the school…time to double up on long underwear and socks.

Snow & Sichuan

So the title doesn't necessarily go together but I figured I'd report on two things in one posting. By the way, it's interesting to note that I can post and edit on blogspot but I am actually blocked from reading my own blog. Apparently it has only been recently that China has warmed up to bloggers. I guess they are still not keen on this site - perhaps it's too many sites to monitor.

Anyway, Monday morning Beijing woke up to snow! I guess this is a rarity for Beijing considering it is very dry in the winter. It made for horrible visibility and thus things were uncharacteristically chaotic at the airport where we were to travel to Sichuan today. Finally after several gate changes: our boarding pass said one gate, the monitors said another gate, but in the end our flight was posted at still a different gate. Other than that it was a very smooth trip. We flew three hours to Chengdu where we met up with the director of the Yi Center who we work with and flew with him 1 hr to Xichang. We are staying in a rather posh hotel which I guess is cheap in price though while doing some exercises on the floor, there was a fairly heavy sewage stench floating along the ground. For dinner we went to a traditional bbq hole-in-the-wall. It was interesting while driving through the streets to the hotel at night, the street scenes could have been many places in the Asian world with lots of motorbikes parked in front of stores and restaurant fronts that rolled up during the day and down at night.

The bbq was really good. A perpetually hot middle (see photo next week) section with a bowl of soup on top and they bring plate after plate of meat, tofu and vegetables to cook on it. Sort of hibachi style but not directly on a flame. After your piece of food is cooked you lightly coat it in a small bowl in front of you filled with soy meal and added chili. Hidden in one of the bbq dishes was an interesting spice used in this region. I bought some dried beans at the airport coated with sugar and this spice. Fan Fan had warned me about it and I have to say I'm not a fan. The spiciness I don't mind. It's the part where it numbs your mouth which is rather disturbing. And then there's that omnipresent MSG flavor which has yet to grow on me.

Thoroughly stuffed and tired we parted ways with promises of buckwheat steamed buns at tomorrow's breakfast meeting. After which we will hop in cars for a windy 3 hr drive to the remote village where our Yi minority girl's education program is located. Stay tuned!

An Afternoon with Fan Fan

I spent much of the day today with my graduate school friend and former housemate Fan Fan. We hadn't seen each other for over two years, but as is usually the case between friends, it felt like no time had passed. Fan Fan is a Beijing native and very knowledgeable of her city. She took me to one of her favorite restaurants where we dined on pigeon (which she assured me was bred for eating - see photo - yes, that's it's head), fish which I learned had been swimming in a tank nearby prior to our arrival, melt-in-your-mouth beef, chicken soup (which was a lot of blue-ish skin and bones but very tasty) and some vegetables. And she ordered me a taro root drink which is apparently unique to this restaurant - it was hot and pretty good due to it being mixed with a bit of coconut milk. I think the pigeon would have tasted great if I could have figured out how to eat it. But this clumsy American diner could not find the tiny pieces of meat so I let Fan Fan work on it. I equally had trouble with my soup and as Fan Fan told me, if the bones were too much trouble just eat the broth, so I did. The rest of it was pretty easy to master and we left very, very satisfied.







Next, Fan Fan took me to a shopping district and showed me the shops that sold traditional fare like cloth, foods (oh, I could have tried everything in there!), toy puzzles, Beijing candy (a google search says it's made with hawthorn berries), chopsticks, and the oldest department store with a large iron bust of the "ideal" worker in front. We also stopped into the Olympics 2008 gift shop. They are really gearing up. On this afternoon, Adidas was promoting their sponsorship all along the shopping street. Apparently, a lot of the people out shopping were domestic tourists visiting Beijing.







After my introduction to shopping, we walked some of the neighboring tree lined streets past various government offices. Lastly we visited the famed hutong area which was full of domestic tourist groups and rickshaw touts. It was very nice to have my own private tour guide to deal with them. While in the hutong area, we visited a house/gardens which is supposed to be the oldest intact residence (though no longer one) of it's kind. It was a very impressive mix of traditional buildings, rock formations and a large pond. I imagine if it weren't winter, it would have been even more impressive (and less cold!)







On our way to get a taxi, Fan Fan pointed out a project of the department of sports and fitness (if that's the right name) where they have bolted exercise equipment on the sidewalk so anyone can get physical activity (see photo). It was pretty great idea - though at that moment, the only people using them were us.







Tomorrow my crew is off to Sichuan for the next segment of the adventure...

East & West in One Day

This morning, Kate took Gretchen and me to the Dirt Market. It is a weekend shopping extravaganza with stalls and stalls of Chinese...everything. There are name stamps, tin wind-up toys, boxes, paintings, scrolls, clothes, coins, military paraphernalia, wooden jewelry boxes, furniture, jade, Buddha statues, cloth, chop sticks, dolls...the list goes on and on. Some of it is very cool and some very kitchy. Kate and Gretchen had great success Christmas shopping where my goal was more reconnaissance since I'll be here a while.



As the morning wore on, the market became increasingly crowded and because it is outside, I became increasingly cold. Despite long underwear and wool socks, after three hours of exposure all my toes were numb and I resorted to hopping up and down, stamping my feet and running in place to try to encourage blood to my extremities. I considered jumping jacks but social decorum prevailed considering I seemed to be the only person engaged in cold-averting exercises. But finally the shopping was complete and we made our way to the hutong area of the city characterized by one-story neighborhoods with winding alley ways. Kate took us to a rustic but warmer Malaysian restaurant where we happily scarfed down spicy, oh-so-good, food.



This evening we three along with another colleague, attended Handel's Messiah performed by the international festival choir of Beijing. The conductor and the four soloists were guest performers. It was a little surreal to suddenly be surrounded by mostly westerners after a week of feeling very much like a foreigner. After the concert we walked through the deserted Forbidden City grounds and along a river to the main streets to catch a cab. It will be interesting to return to the Forbidden City during the day when it is full of tourists, but at night in the dimly lit quiet, the buildings and thick high walls were extremely majestic.

Food, Food, Food

Most people would agree that one of the best parts about traveling is the food. And in Beijing, you are hardly disappointed. I have eaten so well since I've been here. I've dined on Japanese, Chinese and Malaysian food and it's all been absolutely delicious. Yum. In fact the worst food I've had was eating muesli and boxed milk for a makeshift dinner - the best thing I could find at the on-site western grocery store on the Friendship Hotel compound.

Last Friday, a great reprieve from an all day work meeting was a large lunch of Chinese food including the famous Peking Duck which lives up to it's reputation. I wish I'd taken a photo, but should I have it again, I'll be sure to post one. But a brief description: you take a very thin rice crepe, put a few pieces of roast duck, some hoisin sauce, green onion strips and a strip of cucumber on it, fold it up and mmmmm, so good. We also had eggplant, a spicy mushroom dish, deep fried rib meat, beef and hot peppers, and a cellophane noodle salad with assorted veggies.

Yesterday I tried the Chinese buffet breakfast at the Friendship Palace (again part of the whole Friendship compound). Pretty much anything I'd never had before or couldn't identify, I tried: cooked ox tongue, steamed buns, fried rice ball (which was mashed rice), egg custard, rice porridge, and various vegetables.

The First Week

Already it is Friday. Wednesday was spent in the office on the 12th floor of a high rise near where I am staying. I'm becoming very adept at the frogger game of crossing four roads. Two are big roads and two contain four lanes of traffic going in each direction. Fortunately, it not terribly difficult and when in doubt, I surreptiously attachment myself to a local going in the same direction. Safety in numbers.

Japanese food seems to be popular. I base this on eating at Japanese restaurants for both lunch and dinner on my first day. And let me tell you, these folks can put it away! I was informed that although it's a lot of food, it's healthy food. I declined to comment on the butter drenched asparagus and the greasy (but tasty) tempura. It's a mixed blessing knowing too much.

Thursday was a very interesting, albeit, very frigid day. We took a taxi across town to visit one of our programs. It's a school that focuses on education for migrant youth. We have a pilot studying underway with a subset of the students to get them educated in not only common courses (math, language et) but in vocational and life skills so that some day they can seek skilled employment versus becoming part of the unskilled labor force. While a complicated undertaking, the details of which I will not go into here, there has been positive feedback from students and supporting partners.

The school itself was very interesting. Inside a compound, they have been slowly improving conditions to include things like trees (see picture, if I get it posted), heat, hot water, murals (also see photo), new classrooms and turning a storage building into a place for congregating as a school and where the kids can play during inclement weather. The founder/head mistress of the school is amazing. She is a tall, very friendly, intelligent woman with amazing English skills. I believe she is a former professor who upon learning about the plight of migrant youth took it upon herself to get the resources to start the school. It is in it's third year of operation. Our meeting, wrapped in our coats, hats and gloves left us chilled to the bone by the end of the day but it was a great visit. We had lunch with the pilot proram students who were very friendly and even spoke a few words of English. They have come to Beijing with their families from all over China. The one very peculiar experience my HQ coworker and I had (it's nice to be able to share these experiences with someone!) is using the girls' restroom facilities. I've never been in one like it - and honestly, wouldn't mind not doing so again. Imagine two tile lined troughs going up each side of the room. Intermittently, a wall separates different "stalls". There is no door and except for the partitions, there are not other barriers in the room. You straddle the trough and squat in full view and smell of everything that is already in it. Tissues go in a small trash can in each stall.

Maiden Voyage

This is not only my first visit to this country, but also my very first blog entry. We'll see if I stick with this form of journaling or go back to the time-honored mass-email approach.



My flights went very well however, I should have suspected a rocky take off, not just because of the torrential rains, but because while washing my hands in the restroom at the airport, a woman ran in and threw up in the basin next to me. I guess she didn't have an enjoyable landing. Fortunately, my seat mate was ideal for our turbulent take off - and might I add I HATE turbulence. There is nothing to make you more keenly aware that you have no control over your fate as you and your stomach rise and fall and the cabin of the plane thrash back and forth in the bucket of bolts known as your aircraft. I try to remember that the flight attendants and pilots did not get up that morning fearing their work day. They know the plane will stay in the air, and I should too. Be that as it may, I couldn't help but visit adverse scenarios in my head as I clamped my eyes shut and held onto the arm rests. My seat mate, as I mentioned, was a good companion at this juncture because as a staff sergeant with the air force had flown in all sorts of planes in all sorts of situations. It was very comforting to have him tell me about landing in a spiral descent in Afghanistan, coming in at a 90 degree angle to the ground in order to avoid being shot down. I figure if planes (granted a different plane) can maneuver like that, then we should be able to summit the storm. And we did.



The rest of the flight was uneventful. Good food, boring movies, caught up on technical reading, did crosswords and pretty soon we were in Narita and then Beijing. While in line for the Beijing flight I struck up a conversation with an extremely tall woman who had been on my Portland flight. She works for an NGO for disabled students and has lived in China for 9 years. Unfortunately, this trip back signaled the end of her time in China since poisoning by pesticide tainted wheat gluten had caused her to become seriously ill and after 3 months of recuperation in Portland she was returning long enough to pack up and move back to the states. At any rate, she helped guide me through the airport to the taxi and gave me contact information to visit her should I have time.



I am staying in an extended stay hotel apartment (though from the toys in the entry way indicate long term tenants) which while not glamorous is very warm and comfortable. They leave a hot thermos of water every morning, there is a refrigerator and I have discovered the few English language TV channels. Now to get the rest of my bearings...