The Other Side - CovidSchooling in Beijing, China

An almost empty flight bound for Beijing in late January. Photo: Matt Prichard

A look at how parents, teachers and students around the world are coping with schooling during a global pandemic.

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NOTE: One thing we see with the coronavirus crisis is that the rules and expectations change daily, if not hourly. As I was doing the final edit of this article on the morning of Saturday, April 4 (Australian time), theBeijing teacher I had interviewed was changing her plans for the weekend and following week. I have kept the interview as planned, and added an update at the end. 

For those wondering why a different name was used, some of the teachers I spoke with (both in Asia and in Western countries) have requested anonymity as they don't want to be seen as speaking for their schools. I'm fine with that as it allows them to speak more freely.

When I first interviewed Anna (not her real name) at her home in Beijing, China, her 6-year-old daughter had a Zoom call scheduled with her class.

“But it’s not working very well,” Anna said. “I hate e-learning.”  

Her family comprises of herself, a secondary school teacher at an international school in the country’s capital; her husband who is self-employed in the hospitality industry; and their daughter. They also have an ayi – literally “aunt” in Chinese and the name given to domestic helpers – to assist.

Anna is on her second teaching stint in China, where she has notched up more than a decade, and she was in the country during the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.

She says she became aware of this new coronavirus sometime in January when it was being reported in the news, and it became a topic of conversation.

“We heard, ‘oh, there’s a new mystery flu in Wuhan,’ and we started saying, ‘is this going to be another SARS?”

Schools e-mailed parents, explaining they were monitoring the situation and detailing the plans they had put in place, she says. A few days later, as they learned a little more, restrictions began to be placed on who could go on campus.

“There were some school events that got cancelled because they didn’t want parents on the campus. The parents that came in to pick up their kids were instructed to leave immediately and at morning drop of, they couldn’t come in.

“At that point, they were checking the temperature of everyone coming in, and asking people to put hand sanitiser on to come into the school.”

Following the lessons Asia learned during the SARS outbreak, “China got serious much faster this time,” Anna says.

“By January 24, they had shut down a city. Then a couple of days later, they had shut down the entire province of that city and started daily reporting how many cases there were. I think they learned from SARS, and also from other epidemics that have happened.”

Spring Festival, the Chinese New Year break during which millions of Chinese travel, was very early this year, falling on January 25. Anna and family were overseas, and extended their holiday for a few extra days, knowing that the life they returned to in Beijing would be very different.

“But I just wanted to be home,” she says. “This is home for us. I was finding it really hard teaching online from our holiday.”

Once home in Beijing, e-teaching didn’t become instantly easier. For the first three weeks, Anna felt she was doing a lot more work than in a normal school week, but it got easier as her school changed guidelines, she says.

The lack of face-to-face contact with students makes follow-up difficult and time-consuming, she says.

“You message the students, and you don’t hear back so you have to email, and copy the parents. A friend in Shanghai said the amount of work they’re doing just chasing up kids constantly is insane. Every day, they’re following up with kids and it’s so much work.”

As for teaching her daughter, Anna says she has cried “so much” while trying to teach her.

“It is incredibly hard. I hate it. Because it’s hard to give all my attention to work [teaching], and it’s hard to give all my attention to school. She always wants something. She always needs me.

“She’s six, so she has a hard time focusing. At first, she was really excited that mom was going to be her teacher. But the reality set in and there were so many changes those first few weeks, of what e-learning was going to look like for our school, that it got difficult to keep up.

“It’s hard for me to sit down with her because a lot of the times, her Zoom calls are at the same times as I have classes. I can’t sit down with her to do her work when I have to do my own.

She and her husband “gave up” on the assigned lessons but read books with their daughter each day and use math resources they have. Anna hopes to have more time later to catch her daughter up with her proscribed learning. The 6-year-old also gets Chinese practice with the ayi and her friends, and sometimes watches Chinese TV.”

China did not put the capital, Beijing, into lockdown, but enforced social distancing and people were asked to stay home.

“Most people stayed home because they didn’t want to get the virus” Anna says, and the compliance with the request was also partly cultural.

In China, “it’s more about the collective good than the individual good. I think that’s why some of the Western countries have had a harder time with it, because you take care of yourself first, before the collective.

“But in a lot of Asian countries, like China and South Korea, it’s more about the collective and the common good.

People didn’t like staying in their apartments but did, regardless, she says. Another factor was that when the situation became severe in Wuhan, some residents were locked into their apartments, so there was a sense in Beijing of staying in voluntarily rather than being forced to.

Beijingers now feel the worst is over and people can relax, and are going out more, while all wearing masks.

Since our first interview last week, Beijing has announced seniors could return to school from April 27, with a full return taking place grade by grade. There are many new rules and safeguards in place.

“Hours are restricted to 9:30 to 3:30,” Anna says. “Students have to stay one meter apart at all times. Everyone must wear masks at all times. The windows have to stay open.

“Right now I have to start reporting my temperature twice a day through a survey on our school WeChat account. If I do not do 14 consecutive days I will not be allowed to return yet. The school has to be inspected multiple times before they officially allow us to have our students back on campus.

“So it looks like I will be working on campus to teach one class in person, and teaching the rest of my classes from a classroom or office but remotely. There are still a lot of kinks being worked out.”

UPDATE, 18/04/2020

Anna was informed by her school on Friday night that she would be expected on campus on Monday, to teach remotely from the school, and sent training that needed to be completed first over the weekend.

She says she had “kinda been wanting for this anyway” as it had been so hard to work at home with her daughter present and incredibly uncomfortable chairs.

“I’m looking forward to getting back to my school and my ergonomic desk chair, and just being in the environment that makes me want to be a teacher, and not the environment that makes me want to relax and get out in my yard, and start crocheting and knitting.”

Kiwi in the kitchen . . .

just a quick link to my first article for China Daily

I am astonished by the food level here - better than Korea, and I am not sure why that surprises me . . .

A great day at The Great Wall . . .

The number one recommendation in the Lonely Planet guide to China is one most visitors also have at the top of their personal list – the Great Wall. On my first, very brief visit to Beijing close to a decade ago, I visited the wall, as do most tourists, I am sure. Alas, like many of those tourists, my visit was much less enjoyable than I had anticipated. My tour, again like many others, seemed more geared toward steering the tourist dollar to vast halls of souvenirs, jade factory outlets and Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners than to experiencing the man-made wonder that is the Wall. The LP guide has a first person tale of woe titled “Badaling Blues (or Journey to the Great Mall)” in which an 8-hour trip included a mere 75 minutes on the Wall, completely missed the Ming Tombs on the tour guide’s advice but managed to fit in two jade factories, a dried fruit and roast duck shop, and an exhibition on Tibetan culture where the writer was asked to sign a Buddhist talisman then belatedly told the cost.

My own tour years ago was similar except with different outlets and it’s well known the tour guides get a commission for the people they funnel through such places, particularly if they spend well. There was a video making the rounds of the Interwebs here last month that showed a tour guide aggressively berating his group at such a store because they weren’t spending enough.

If one wants to avoid such annoyances, it’s easy enough to take a bus to the Wall, though you’ll need to take a taxi or minibus for the last part of the journey so may have to negotiate that price once there. Or, for those who want comfort and control of their itinerary, there are plenty of taxi services or cars and drivers willing to take you wherever you wish to go. They’re easily found under services on the Web site thebeijinger.com.

I’d decided to visit the Wall when a Kiwi friend came to visit, and she arrived Friday night. I had been in touch via e-mail with a driver I liked the sound of and ended up booking him to collect my friend from the airport also, as it was much simpler than her having to negotiate getting a taxi in a country and language she didn’t know, and the cost was about the same. It also meant I could work that day as her flight was due in shortly before I expected to finish work, meaning we could enjoy a full two-day weekend together before I needed to get back to work.

All of which went exactly as planned, and my friend was happy to have no hassles at this end after a 14-hour flight from Sydney. The driver sent me a text from the airport when they made contact and they arrived at the apartment/work complex 15 minutes after my part of the paper had been put to bed.

We’d decided to go to the Great Wall on her first Sunday here and I’d booked the driver for that, intending to visit the Mutianyu section and the Ming Tombs, which are on the way and often part of any tour to the Wall. My first time, I went to the Badaling section, which was very crowded and had very aggressive hawkers, plus stopped by the Ming Tombs without being overly impressed. Then, last week, I decided it was a little silly to take a car for only two so invited two friends to join us and, preferring hedonism to history, changed the Ming Tombs visit to a stop at a restaurant I’d heard wonderful things about, The Schoolhouse at Mutianyu.

Saturday we spent wandering a small part of the inner city, enjoying lunch at Xiao Wang’s Home Restaurant in Ritan Park (hot and sour soup, beef with coriander and asparagus grilled with garlic eaten on a patio overlooking the park), then strolling through the park before looking at the Alien’s Street market (in the heart of the Russian area where you’ll see more furs than you could imagine), picking up a few essentials at Jenny Lou’s - a grocery store with lots of imported goods - and looking through the Silk Market before taking the subway home tired and footsore.

Sunday dawned fine and hot, as was expected as the country endures a heatwave, though with the customary smog-filled sky. (There have been some beautifully clear skies since I have been here but I have come to learn they are the exception and the norm is the smog. Thus far, my asthma seems better than when I lived in Seoul but I’m sure the long-term health effects here must add up.) We breakfasted on fresh fruit and yogurt, filled a cooler bag with bottles of water we’d put in the freezer the night before, met my friends downstairs and found our driver waiting at the compound gate.

Less than an hour later, we had passed Beijing’s 6^th Ring Road and were driving along picturesque tree-lined country roads, often bordered by streams and with camping grounds and makeshift pools dotted among the farmlands and occasional massive factory complexes. Roadside stalls all along the way sold fresh produce (it’s stone fruit season at present and there were also many cornfields along our route, with many stallkeepers grilling the cobs on the spot) and there were also a good number of “picking farms,” where I guess you could pick your own fruit. The further we got from the city, the clearer the air became and we fantasized about living in the country while knowing, just as clearly as China’s millions of migrant workers know, that the best money is to be made in the city, especially for us “foreign experts.”

Within about an hour and a half, we’d reached Mutianyu where the first things we noticed were a Subway/Baskin Robbins restaurant and a pizza outlet. I remember, back in 1993 when crossing the equator while sailing from Thailand to Kenya, I’d half expected to see a floating McDonald’s or Pizza Hut straddling the hemispheres – it’s probably even more likely these days.

My three friends decided they wanted to take the cable car up to the ridgeline on which we could see the wall and its Ming-dynasty guard houses, but I had been given a stout wooden walking staff the previous week by a colleague who was leaving to take a job in Melbourne (first traveling by trains from Beijing to London) and I wanted to walk to the Wall. Our driver, James, escorted us to the ticket booths, where we brought tickets according to our choices (45 yuan entry for everyone plus 60 for a one-way cable car ride for my friends). Another colleague had urged us to take the toboggan chute down from the Wall and we were told we could get tickets for that at the top.

My friends headed for the cable car and I started walking, and was instantly pleased I’d made the choice as the beginning of my path passed through a series of caves full of stunning stalagmite and stalactite structures. They were not part of the Great Wall pathway itself but came before the entrance, as did several exhibition halls of similar natural sculptures plus various quartz formations and fossils. I would never had known they were there without choosing to walk.

An amazing fossil - I took this just before being told, "No photos" - a common occurrence

I was also sending photos and texts to a friend in the U.S. as I explored, which caused me to feel a little conflicted about the ubiquitous role of the Internet in our lives these days (a little less ubiquitous here where we have the Great Firewall of China, but never too far away, regardless). On one hand, it was great to be able to share some of the experience and the stunning scenery with a friend far away who may never see it in person (and who amused me highly by asking what was on the ridgeline after I’d said I was on my way to the Great Wall), on the other I wondered if I was removing myself from the immediacy of the experience by framing it for someone else’s eyes. I guess, as a writer, I tend to do that most of the time anyway, and my compromise was to put away the phone once I began my ascent proper, apart from using the camera to take photos (I’d left my camera in the car). 

"Beautiful scenery, what is on top of the ridge?"
The Great Wall of China, d-oh."

The walk was enjoyable and I was pleased to see how clean the pathways were, kept that way by workers I saw along the way sweeping and tidying and, I hope, also by the frequent trashcans along the way and exhortations to keep the environment clean. The first part of the path I took consisted of several flights of very steep steps that quickly got my heart rate up and having the Hari Raj stick (so named for the colleague who bequeathed it to me) made the climb much easier.

Once atop the wall itself, I headed in the direction I thought the cable car would terminate and walked up and down several sections as they undulated along the ridgeline, interrupted every so often with guard towers that looked out over the mountains on either side. Having passed two guard towers, I looked back to see a cable car behind me so retraced my steps, then saw when I’d gone another two towers past my starting point that the large cable car was in the direction I’d first thought. So, back up and down and down and up again, til I met my friends and turned around again to head to where the toboggan chute originated. By this time, we’d been on the Wall a couple of hours and were getting hungry so decided to head back down and meet our driver.

Vendors atop the Wall encouraged walkers to buy cold water, beer, ice blocks or souvenirs, all of which they’d ferried up earlier in the day. (A local I talked with while my friends were having name stamps carved once back below said they carried them up rather than take the cable car as the cable car cost would have wiped out a good deal of profit). I have two friends who collect fridge magnets so bought them each a Great Wall magnet from the Great Wall.

We then bought tickets from the Beijing Mutianyu Great Wall Speed Chute Amusement Co. Ltd. (60 yuan), boarded our toboggans, had the braking mechanism explained, were told to keep our distance from the toboggan in front and to lean into the corners. I left some time and distance between me and the toboggan before mine so I could test the speed without having to worry about bumping my friend but, even with the brake fully released, there was little danger of flying out of the chute. I quickly gained on my friends who were stuck behind a woman who shouldn’t have been allowed the controls of anything faster than a supermarket trolley and we all had to ride our brakes to keep to her sedate speed. It was fun, but I’d probably have been just as happy walking down by a different trail.

Once back near the entrance, I took my friends to explore the waterfall cave, which would be a shame to miss but wasn’t obvious unless you knew it was there or stumbled across it, as I had.

Back to the car and a 5-10 minute drive and we arrived at The Schoolhouse at Mutianyu. I’d been intrigued by this place since I’d seen an advertisement for weekend grills there with live jazz in the evening and did a little research. It turns out it’s a restaurant in an old schoolhouse attached to an eco-retreat where much of the restaurant’s food is grown. Slow food, locally sourced produce, environmentally aware and, I’d read, wonderful meals, attracted me much more than the tombs of some ancient Ming Emperors.

I made a good call. 

We asked for an outdoor rooftop table and sat down to school-paper placemats and crayons with which to draw on them and were given menus with covers made of previous diners’ drawings. The major difficulty was deciding what to eat as everything looked so good but the two friends who also live in Beijing and I had decided by now that we would return to Mutianyu each season to see how it changed so we would have at least three more chances to sample the Schoolhouse’s menu while doing so.

I chose the salad of the day – fresh greens with smoked duck breast – my Kiwi friend chose a burger and surprised our American friends by NOT wanting it with cheese (gasp!) or bacon (horror!) and the others ordered grilled duck breast with polenta fries and mushroom risotto with a duck confit. Nachos and a tasty home-made salsa full of fresh coriander were brought as a complimentary appetizer and roast garlic in oil and balsamic served with tiny rolls came with the mains. My salad was excellent and my friends ate every bite of their dishes also but enjoyed them too much to offer to share. Two of us finished with affogatos while the others shared a thick coffee-caramel milkshake for dessert. 

I’d noticed a gallery downstairs and a sign saying there would be a glass-blowing demonstration so we took our unfinished drinks and headed down there in time to get seats front and center and were treated to an artist at work. The gaffer (glass-blower) started in the industry at age 17 and has been working at the art for 17 years now and was both extremely skilled and a relaxed performer. He explained to the audience each step of the way and his assistant, a young American from Rhode Island, and an English-speaking Chinese staff member did the same for us English-speakers. It was fascinating to watch a blob of glass be transformed into a beautiful vase that needed another 20 hours of slow cooling in an annealing kiln before being able to be handled. To demonstrate how hot the completed work was, the artist put a piece of newspaper inside it, which quickly burst into flame. 

My friend bought a beautiful art sculpture of lovebirds to take home with her and many others in the audience bought items from the gallery I was tempted by some of the hand-blown glassware but suspected I would only break them and then be heart-broken to have done so.

I had wanted to look at the accommodation while there but the Maitre ‘d explained it was in an adjacent village so I will return another time to check that out. Instead, we rejoined our driver for our return trip, by which the roads had become much more busy and we had one nervous encounter with a bus trying to edge us out on one side while a cement mixer barreled down on us at speed on the other. I’m sometimes happy to have become almost blase to such driving in the years I’ve spent in Asia.

As for our driver, we were very happy with his driving, his attitude and his company and the cost of hiring him for 10 hours, including tolls, fuel and parking was less than $US100. I will happily use the service again. 

Back home, we rested a few hours before regrouping at my apartment for Thai Green Curry Chicken and a salad, after which we all called it an early night.

I look forward to returning to both the Great Wall and the Schoolhouse in autumn to experience the beauty of the trees changing color, then going back again in winter when it’s snow covered and in spring when it bursts back to life.And, of course, enjoying the seasonal specials at the restaurant.

Future Adventures, Part IV . . .

I've been in China almost a month now and have not yet been out of Beijing, as there is so much for me to explore here and much to learn in case of the day-to-day logistics of life. I got to the courtyard outside the Forbidden City - No. 3 on the Lonely Planet's guide to China I am taking these "30 Top Experiences" from, and will wait for my fabulous wahine toa (woman warrior in Te Reo Maori) friend to visit early next month to explore the Palace Museum, which is what they call the inner city.

With my work schedule being night shifts Sunday through Thursday and a 1700 start on Sundays, I almost have a three-day weekend each week so, from next month, will plan at least one mini-trip each month. My first, in August, will be back to Seoul rather than traveling here in China as there are a few loose ends I need to tie up there and people to see.

But, on with the Lonely Planet recommendations:

21. Labrang Monastery, Xiahe, Gansu

From Lonely Planet:

"If you can't make it to Tibet, visit this more accessible part of the historic Tibetan region of Amdo in Gansu. One moment you are in Han China, the next you are virtually in Tibet."

There is a Monlam (Great Prayer) Festival in the Tibetan New Year, which will be early March next year and seems an ideal time to visit, so I have time to decide on this one.

22. Dunhuang, Gansu

Also in Gansu but a long way from Xiahe and the Labrang Monastery, Dunhuang was a major stop and natural staging post on the Silk Road. Also known as Sha Zhou, or the city of sands, Dunhuang is an oasis on the edge of stunning desertscapes. Images online show the city and Crescent Lake nestled among soaring sand dunes and caravans of people on camels traversing the desert.

An added extra is the Magoa Caves, also known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, one of the greatest repositories of Buddhist art anywhere, and the lesser-visited Western Thousand Buddha Caves, that are excavated out of the cliffs. 

There is an airport at Dunhuang and I can't resist the idea of being part of a camel caravan so I think this one makes the "to do" list.

23. Cycling Yangshuo, Guanxi

Guanxi is also home to the Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces, where I definitely intend to go, and the two are reasonably close. A recommended half-day trip is to board a bamboo raft with bike from Yangshuo to Xingping (15 km) then cycle back south, crossing the Li River by ferry just past Fuli then again by bridge just out of Yangshuo.

That sounds a great mini-trip to combine with the rice terraces -- I just need to research the best time of year to do so. There's an airport near Guilin, which is about midway between the two sites.

24. Mt Kailash, Western Tibet

Mount Kailash is not only considered sacred to four religions (Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and the shamanic Bon-po) but is the source of four major Asian rivers -- the Indus, the Sutlej (a tributary of the Indus), the Brahmaputra and the Karnali (a major tributary of the Ganges).

Buddhists believe a "kora," or pilgrimage around the mountain (three days is the recommended time for travelers but most Tibetans complete it in a 15-hour day), can atone for the sins of a lifetime. (I wonder if that includes sins not yet committed?) Others simply believe the journey will bring good fortune.

Interestingly, Lonely Planet says nomad tents along the walk provide beer as well as other snacks and beverages -- I can see this becoming a Tibetan adventure reminiscent of "The Way," although the ashes will be metaphorical ones of my many sins.

I may have to do this one.


Nos 26 through 30 still to come . . .

Tea and Sympathy . . .

It's the rainy season here in North China, although South China is experiencing a heat wave and droughts, and I woke this morning to another day of constant rain. I was tempted to have a lazy day and stay indoors but broke the top of my glass teapot so decided to venture to Sihui market again to buy a replacement and stock up on some tea. Sihui is a huge market that has it all, including a meat market, a tea market, spices, clothing and household goods, and seems to be a supplier to hotels and restaurants as well as the individuals who go there. I went there last week to purchase linens and bath mats for my apartment and left with a teapot also that was exactly what I'd been looking for at a fraction of the price I'd seen elsewhere (25 kwai rather than 200 and up). At that price, I didn't mind making the trip to replace it.

The shopkeeper recognized me from last week, which probably isn't too surprising as I didn't see another foreign face on either trip, so poured me a small glass cup of green tea (the cup was almost a shot size, but far more elegant) and gestured for me to sit down. Again not surprisingly, she had next to no English and my Putonghua is still non-existent (I keep answering in Korean by accident) so our transaction was conducted mainly in mime, with a few quick looks at my phrase book or referral to my Pleco app. But we got along swimmingly.

I wanted to buy some loose tea as well, and had established last week that she didn't stock chamomile, so I settled on chrysanthemum, of which she had several different types, sorted according to the age and quality of the flowers. I chose some small, high-quality flowers and she told me the price per kilo. A kilo is a lot of tea but, as I said, these markets deal with a lot of wholesale customers. She understood the English for half, but not quarter, so we settled on half-half and she showed me the .25 weight on her scales as she scooped it into a bag for me. She then offered another flower I have yet to work out (the name sounded like huanggang but huang simply means yellow so I'll look more carefully at it once I return home). I wasn't sure so she brewed a pot of the two mixed for me to taste.

And introduced me to the Art of Tea - a serious business in China.

Having read about the Art of Tea on a friend's blog, I already knew brewing tea was an act of ceremony and it was here also, even though performed in a brisker fashion for this laowai. The flowers were placed in a pot and hot water added, then the first brew was poured out on the tea pets.

The tea tray, with tea pets in front left corner

Yes, I said tea pets.

As explained in Brian's blog:

A tea pet symbolises wealth and fortune and is basically a small work of art made of different kinds of clay, just like the tea pots, and is normally placed on a tea tray. During the ceremony, tea is poured over them and over time they darken and mature into …errr… darker and more mature – and even coloured and shiny – tea pets! (I told you it was messy!) Many people have large collections of them. A popular type is Jinchan (a type of three-legged toad, which is said to be able to spit out money - perhaps because it sounds like jinqian - meaning money!

Being an animal lover, I was happy to meet some tea pets myself.

She then refilled the pot, let it sit a little, then poured me a  cup of the tea, which did taste much better than chrysanthemum on its own. She then explained, mainly with gestures and examples, that if I refilled the water more than three times, I should remove or replace the yellow flowers after the third time. And, because I had explained when I arrived that I had broken the lid of last week's teapot, she also told me to hold the top on when I poured my tea. I shall obey both directions faithfully.

I bought 250 grams of the yellow flowers also, paid and thanked her and headed home with a quick stop at the spice store for a large tub of Tom Yum paste.

I could easily start collecting teapots living here.

  
Another successful mission in The China Project . . .


NB: "Tea and Sympathy" is one of my favorite Janis Ian songs, of which the lyrics are particularly meaningful to me right now.

The winter unpack . . .

One of the amazing staff members from our international office called this morning to tell me I had packages (she actually said a package but I was expecting the plural so misheard her). I asked for a trolley, which she borrowed from the construction team on the sixth floor, and went across expecting to collect the things I left at a friend’s home in Seoul last week and he shipped earlier this week with an arrival date of today.

Instead, I found the box I shipped before I left, “slow shipping” that the post office told me would take two months.

I’m excited about what I thought I would need but could wait on til then, have given up on live blogging on the iPhone, so will do a delayed live blog here.

Going for the scissors . . .

I open it and the first things I see are my cowgal boots, hot water bottle, favorite scarf, Korean wine bottle covers from Barbara and Cheryl Scott and my wish book. All good, but I may have to buy some wine (and not drink it) for the covers. [Which reminds me, beloved, do you still have my bottle of wine? It’s special and needs to be sent somewhere.] I also have to make Fred’s second hot water bottle cover – even if he gives it away to a cat again.

This is becoming like an excavation – I remove the top layer and find more. More scarves, all with memories. And a book that a wonderful, unexpected friend sent me about Kiwis called “Fly” – thank you Kelly, it will go on my wall. And the Good Neighbor Awards booklet – I left the big-ass plaque with a friend but it’s nice to have a reminder. And [by the way, readers, as an editor, I abhor starting sentences with “and’” or “but.” But this is a blog] “The No-Excuses Cookbook” my cuzzy-sis Tania gave me. Memories are made of this . . .

All filed – time for the next layer.

A galot skirt I bought from a designer I interviewed and fell in love with on Jeju-do. A pair of winter pjs I picked up from the Thrift Shop and a crocheted skirt that is far too young for me, but what the hey. You only live once and I like it. It looks great over thick tights in winter.

Next layer, and there’s the thing I’ve been waiting for. Everyone has told me how cold it gets here in winter and that I need a good jacket, I just unpacked and hung my quilted London Fog jacket – I think I’ll survive the cold, if not the smog.

Next layer – shorts, yoga pants, my favorite suede jacket and a pair of skorts. The shorts, yoga pants and skorts aren’t for winter exactly, but I gained weight in my last two months in Korea and knew I would lose it when happy (note to Stuart, alcohol doesn’t solve problems, but it does let you put them on hold until you can solve them).

The next layer is much more exciting. The Harley Owners Group Touring Handbook Bill gave me when I borrowed/stole his brother’s bike and did 6,000 miles in three months (Bill is part of my US family and considers me a hobo or carpetbagger, which is probably correct), a favorite top I bought at Portobello Market in London and another fave I bought in Indonesia. Plus a few other things I love, a cotton top that will be perfect for Beijing’s heat, a skirt that is business-like so useful, and a dress that works for summer or winter..

Time for the last layer.

Another quilted jacket (I do think ahead sometimes), and a sequined cocktail dress (because every female motorcycle rider needs a sequined cocktail dress). Plus a “Power Strip” (workout thing, so I can fit the skorts again), a very old diary, “The Complete Yachtmaster” by Tom Cunliffe (just in case I decide to run away to sea again), and the big-ass medal the four star gave me in Seoul and I thought I had lost.

I didn’t lose it – I packed it!

Looking forward to the other boxes . . .

Tranquility amongst the throngs . . .

Yesterday, I decided it was time to take a break from my shopping tour and see some of historical Beijing. After days of heavy, haze-filled skies, we had heavy downpours throughout the previous day and night and I woke to beautifully clear skies with the sun shining – perfect weather for exploring the city’s grandeur. What could be grander, I thought, than the Forbidden City, which the Lonely Planet guide has listed as No. 3 on it’s 30 Top Experiences.

(And yes, I still have to write up No.s 21 thru 30, and I plan to get on to that this week.)

Beijing’s subway and bus networks are well laid out and simple to use, as long as you know where you wish to go. All stops are announced in Mandarin, which the Chinese call Putonghua (common speech), and English and every bus stop has a name, as do all the subway stations, obviously. The nearest subway station to my home is a transfer between two lines, which gives me multiple options of how to get to and from different places.

From here to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square is simply eight stops south, a quick line transfer and two or three stops west, depending on which side you wish to approach the two from. (Everyone gives directions in terms of compass points here and the exits from the subway stops are also labeled that way, making it easy to guess the correct exit once you have your bearings.)

So, about 1030 on a Tuesday morning, I hopped the subway to Tiananmen East, and exited on the Forbidden City side of the street to hordes of people. And I do mean hordes, there were tour groups everywhere, school groups from all over the world, families with children and the occasional independent traveler like me. Exiting the steps from the subway was an exercise in itself, as waiting for the throng were vendors selling maps, water, food, ice blocks, trinkets, hats of many kinds and traditional Chinese dress style headbands. Plus many, mainly young, Chinese offering tours of the Forbidden City in fluent English and many other tongues. I’m an old hand at turning down such offers unless I really want to avail myself of them, so simply smiled, held up my hand and said xiexie, wo bu yao (thank you, no). I’d already decided I would use an audio tour for the site, as I could easily ignore that if I wished. 

Leaving the subway

The first thing one comes across is Tiananmen itself, for which the square opposite is named. The name Tiananmen is made up of the Chinese characters for “heaven,” “gate” and “peace,” therefore in English it is known as The Gate of Heavenly Peace, although the original Chinese name is longer and has its own history attached. It’s an impressive building - 66 meters long, 37 m wide and 32 m high, with a portrait of Mao Zedong above the main archway and large red flags flying at either end. The largest and center of five archways was used only for Ming and Qing emperors while the smaller ancillary arches were used by ministers and officials.  A moat in front of the gate is crossed by carved marble bridges, with the widest central bridge again reserved for the emperor.

It's possible to climb the tower above the gate for a small fee, but free to walk through to the Forbidden City which sits nestled behind.  I decided to leave the tower for another visit and headed through the gate with the crowd, wondering if it was some sort of holiday as there seemed to be many school-age children visiting. Chinese use umbrellas to protect them from the sun, so avoiding a spike in the head or eye required full vigilance. 

 

Crossing the moat to walk through Tiananmen

 Once inside and across the forecourt to where one buys tickets for the Palace Museum, as the Forbidden City is known, I realized it was too hot to wait in such a long, slow-moving line so decided to explore the surrounding area instead. To the east was an extension of the Palace Moat, where I was slightly tempted to don traditional garb and have my photo taken, while on the west I found Zhongshan Park, where there was no queue for tickets (Y3/48 cents admission, Y5/80 cents if you wanted to see the flower exhibitions also). I paid my 5 kwai and walked through the gate, where I found my own version of heavenly peace - just a few people meandering through lush gardens, relaxing in pagodas or cruising on the water in peddle- or battery-powered boats. I was thrilled to find such a tranquil spot in the very center of this bustling city.

A close-up of a building outside the Palace Museum

A wall of the Forbidden City

The moat to the east

Inside Zhongshan Park

Chinese opera singers accompanied by a piano accordion - I also saw a couple playing hulusi - an instrument with three bamboo pipes that pass through a gourdwind chest. It felt rude to photograph them so I simply enjoyed the music.

Detail of one of the many gateways

lotus pool

the Waterside Plants Pavilion

I spent a peaceful few hours strolling around the park and will no doubt go there for some peace when the city center gets too crowded for me, and plan to go boating there with a friend who is coming to visit in August.

I will return to tour the Forbidden City, but plan to do so early in a bid to beat the worst of the crowds, which I have been told will continue throughout the summer.

The Dorm . . .

Part of the employment package here is housing, complete with furnishings and utilities. A friend worked here many years ago so I’d already seen what was on offer and I do like my new place. I like it most because it is mine. (Yes, I do realize it isn’t really, but read on.)

Sometimes (most times?), I’m the world’s best chameleon, or perhaps a cuckoo. I learned the skill while young. When you grow up in a dysfunctional household, you learn to find other places to be safe. My older brother turned to God, the next older brother turned to crime and charm, we all found our own ways to survive. (Irish families tend to tend toward God and crime, when you merge the two, you get to work at the Vatican.) I made myself welcome at friends’ homes, where their parents were happy they had a friend with such nice manners. I watched, listened, and learned to fit in.

It’s a skill that has served me well in my subsequent travels.

I’ve never really felt at home though. I’ve always (almost always) been welcome and I have homes all over the world that I am part of, but they belong to someone else. So I watch, listen, and bring to the table the version of myself that best fits the environment. I don’t even realize I’m doing it most times, it’s an unconscious survival technique, but it works. It’s taken me across oceans, countries and professions, and won me surrogate family across the world, but it’s always been someone else’s home.

This home is mine. Not technically, of course, it belongs to my employer, so probably belongs to the State, but it’s mine as long as I do my job competently. I plan to do my job much better than competently, so this is mine while I do. And I like it.

I have a good friend who teaches at Hanguk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul and she lives in also, and she has half the area I have, plus has to pay her own utilities (if you’re monitoring this, dear employer, please don’t get any ideas). I’m in the same complex as the paper (two minutes walk) and in a 10-story “Foreign Expert Building.” With seven apartments on each floor, that’s a good number of foreign experts, but I don’t know my own neighbors yet. I do know the cool kids and the problem children – those are the ones to meet first.

So, welcome to my home. I’m on the 7^th floor and overlook a middle/high school, which is kinda cool. I especially like the sports days – having grown up watching Chinese gymnasts on TV, I expected it to be an innate trait. It isn’t. Chinese youngsters are just as clumsy as the young of every other species, but I like that they laugh with each other when they fail to achieve the elegant dismount from the parallel bars (I like even more that the gym teacher smiles and pats them on the back for trying).

I have a large fridge/freezer, which I am covering with pictures. There’s a Ranger banner on the front that I was given at the VFW in Leesville, Louisiana, and pics from Bonnie and Granddot that were waiting for me when I arrived. Also some pics from a palace in Korea that I wrote a story for before I left. I went to IKEA yesterday and bought containers so I now have food in there also. The freezer? So far, just vegetable scraps to make stock for soups – I hear it gets kinda cold here in winter.

Then we have the kitchen. I may need to purchase more storage space here. It came with utensils and a pot or two, but few people cook here so I’ve already replaced a few things. I cooked last night for my Seednee friends, which needed a new wok and some kitchen tools. It’s a little less than I would design, but I can do dinner on a camp stove if needed, so can cope with this. Let’s call it a work in progress.

Bathroom – adequate, I need to replace the skanky shower curtain and get the fan fixed.

Spare room – where I will sleep when visitors vist – two large bookcases, writing desk, coffee table, sofa, flat screen TV. I tested the sofa by lying on it to see if it was comfortable enough to sleep on, and promptly fell asleep. I guess that’s a “yes.” I haven’t worked out the TV yet, but just noticed it isn’t plugged in – could that be the reason it doesn’t work? Oh, I forgot, curtains and air conditioning, this is okay.

My room – a king size bed, two bedside cabinets and two huge closets. And air con.

A colleague told me I could choose to live out and get a housing allowance instead of staying in “the dorm.” I see no reason to do so and have to negotiate all that is involved in paying rent and utilities in a language I don’t yet know, and until I do, the comfort of living in works for me.

Accepting guests, if anyone wants to visit . . .  

Beijing Shopping 101 . . .

With all the costs involved in relocating from Korea to China, I’ve arrived here with enough to get by until my first payday, but with a need to be frugal. That has not only been easy to do here, but has turned out to be a great thing as I have spent my first few weeks perusing the many markets and stores making notes and comparing prices, rather than simply buying the first item I see and regretting it when I find a much better deal. I’m also taking notes and making lists for the friends who come to visit so I can steer them to the best places for whatever it is they want to buy, see or do.

Again, my colleague Brian, who leaves Monday, has been an enormous help not only with directions to the places the Chinese go to shop, rather than the more expensive Western haunts, but by demystifying Beijing’s bus system for me. The city also has an excellent subway system, but traveling by bus allows me to get more of a sense of where I am and the ability to more easily navigate the city. That will be crucial if I do decide to buy a motorbike here but, for now, I prefer to travel by foot and bus where possible, so I have the time to observe and become part of my new environment.

On Tuesday, on my first bus ride, Brian escorted me to a food market at Liangmaqiao where we didn’t see another Westerner but where many of the vendors knew him. He pointed out the best stalls to buy mushrooms (so many varieties to be had), vegetables, foreign food items (yes, there are some things I can’t do without), fish, chicken and pork. There is also a fantastic fruit store immediately opposite that also sells nuts and seeds. All only 5 stops from my home by bus, at the cost of only 1 or 2 kwai (the local word for yuan or renminbi, with 1 kwai being equal to about 16 cents US). 

I was initially impressed that the small supermarket right near the China Daily complex had such a good selection of things, but have now found a hypermarket (Wu Mart) 15 minutes walk away and an upmarket Japanese department store with supermarket (Ito Yokado) another five minutes beyond that. There’s a Carrefour four bus stops away in one direction and an Ikea six stops away in another. I’ve spent much of this week walking up and down aisles seeing what each place stocks and noting down prices. Wu Mart is where I’ll do most of my day to day shopping and Ito Yokado is a good option for special treats. Carrefour and Ikea both have things I plan to buy, including imported food items, but I also have a Chinese market that sells household goods, clothes and shoes to check out, now that I’ve noted the prices in the stores.

One thing I’ve been blown away by is the selection of fresh produce available here. I’d been worried about what I could eat before I arrived, and listened to and read too many horror stories of what I daren’t eat. Some of them were sensible, and I’ll no doubt continue to avoid street food, but there is so much else available. My breakfast each morning, despite watching my kwai, has been fresh fruit – always mango, lychees and blueberries plus either nectarine, peach, banana or whatever looks best and is cheapest when I’m buying and yoghurt. Lunch is either a quick stirfry of vegetables or a sandwich or wrap and most nights I eat dinner at the canteen, which is reasonably healthy, tasty and, best of all, free (we get one free meal there a day, Monday to Friday). 

A typical breakfast tray, before preparation

Tomorrow will be my first time cooking dinner here for friends, the Australian couple who live one floor down from me, and I look forward to visiting the market to get all I need to make a Thai vegetable curry -- mushrooms, eggplant, green or snake beans, tomatoes and maybe some squash -- and fresh fruit to follow.

the vege vendor at the market

the mushroom lady's offerings

a selection of tomato types at Carrefour

part of the fruit selection at Carrefour

This is a gourmand’s paradise, at least in summer, and I look forward to making yummy soups to keep me warm through winter.

One week in . . .

It’s been just over a week since I landed in Beijing, something I realized yesterday when the morning routine in the schoolyard my apartment watches over changed. Each weekday morning, I’ve watched the school assemble for mass calisthenics, coached by a teacher on the stage, pepped up by a few of their peers joining him to lead the routines and overseen by what must be class leaders or monitors, fellow who wear armbands and stand at the front of each group observing (perhaps not completely the synchronized fun I first took this for, but I’m still all for the daily exercises).

Yesterday was different, and a colleague whose apartment also oversees the school told me each Monday is the same. This time, when the music announced assembly (the day is broken up by musical interludes, which I guess mark different lesson times or breaks – they continue into the evening but the school also continues into the evening, with what look to be classes or meetings of adults), it was for a more solemn occasion. The students again formed into lines before the stage, but this time the national anthem (I assume) was played as three students raised the national flag behind the stage. There was then a type of prize-giving ceremony, with some students called to the stage where they were given what appeared to be a certificate of some sort.

It’s interesting being here as an observer, especially at this stage when I have almost none of the language with which to communicate, and I can’t help but compare and contrast what I see and am told with Korea, as well as other countries in which I have lived and traveled. I watch the students as they play and interact in the schoolyard and on the street, watch the men (it always seems to be men) play board games on the street (yesterday I passed two who had used broken brick to draw a board on the road and were using pieces of brick and torn up paper as their pieces), the grandparents and parents play with the children and family members care for the elderly. Much of life is lived on the streets, particularly in the heat of summer, and the many parks near my home and further afield are filled with people playing, talking, exercising or simply resting in the shade. Of course, there is also food everywhere, from fully-decked restaurants through shop-front eateries, take-out windows and street vendors. (There’s going to be a lot of blog posts about food – it’s an important part of my life.) It’s not unusual to see a couple or group find makeshift chairs and picnic on the sidewalk or wherever they happen to be.

Beijing is chaotic, noisy and undeniably dirty, but I feel very much at home here. There’s not the sense of pali, pali (hurry, hurry) one finds in Korea, nor do I sense the same anxiety one often encounters there. If I were to describe how the Chinese I have seen appear to live their lives, and this is definitely only a first impression, I would say they do so with gusto. They seem to grab this crazy world we all share and try to squeeze every last drop from it. I’ll be the first to admit that can cause a multitude of its own problems, but I see every day in the stories we run how the country as a whole is trying to come to terms with itself and apply reasonable limits. I watch the process with great interest.

Perhaps that is why I feel so at home here, apart from the welcome and professionalism I have experienced from my colleagues and work superiors – I am by nature an observer and there is so much to observe here. One friend teased me, when I announced I was moving here, that only I “could see moving to China as the route to freedom. Or sweetness, or even taste.” But so far, that is exactly what I am finding, the freedom to be myself without expectations from anyone else, because I am completely unknown, the freedom to work well and to the best of my ability, because that is why I was employed (it’s a sad indictment of many workplaces that that is often not the case) and the freedom and inspiration to write. As for sweetness, I find that each day in my interactions with my Chinese colleagues, neighbors and strangers on the street, who are often transformed by a simple smile and greeting from this laowai who can’t even speak their language, in watching workmates practice Tai Chi in our beautiful garden or Chinese practice in the park, and in watching the families care for each other and spend quality time together.

As for taste, that’s a whole other blog or 50, but suffice to say, I’m living well and loving life.