I’m a third of the way through my time here now. I’ve passed the two month mark. In our training before I left, I was told that I should expect a bit of a U curve in terms of my happiness overseas. That means at first you’re on a bit of a high, because what you’ve been looking forward to for months is finally here. You get to do cool stuff like go to the Forbidden City and see the Great Wall. You’re meeting new friends, buying cheap alcohol and having a great time. But then it starts to settle in that you’re away from everyone you love and you start to notice the annoying things about this crazy new world—like the fact that you can never get on a subway without being pushed around, and you have no idea what is in the contents of your food. Eventually, you come full circle as you start to get used to your new life; settle in and start to explore the things you didn’t expect to enjoy before you came, like the new fruits that come into season every week and the joy of a clear sky once in a month or so.
Because my brain likes to overthink things in minute detail, I think my u bend is actually an S bend, and it started from when I found out I’d be leaving. I was on a high, excited about going somewhere new and challenging, excited about the personal and professional gains and thrilled with the victory of winning the place. But then I started to worry about every possible negative thing—the smog, the big city atmosphere, the language barrier, the lack of a support network. Then when I finally got here I realised it’s no way near as bad as I thought it would be! This place is great fun! The friends I’m making are wonderful and there are so many things I can’t get at home. Even learning Mandarin is exciting and motivating.
This is where the S bend starts. Think an S lying on its side, so it kind of looks like a u and an n joined together. When I got here I was riding up the side of the u, and I am now afraid that I’m plateauing across the top of the n. The new exciting stuff is getting boring, and I’m starting to get sick of constantly dealing with my inability to communicate with everyone. I’m really really missing everyone at home, and I constantly think about the day when I’ll get to see them again.
Or maybe this is just a volatile ride—one week you’re flying high and the next week you can’t imagine how you will possibly make it to the end. Let’s hope so, because I really don’t want to slide down the other side of the n!
27 June 2012
23 June 2012
Camping at the Great Wall
(Continued from Great Wall part 1)
Then we decided to get a bit adventurous. My friends had a festival of birthdays (since when are there so many birthdays in June? ... that makes then September conceptions in case you couldn't work it out) so they decided to go away for a weekend to celebrate. What better thing to do to celebrate your birthday than go out to the hills, haul a 10kg pack up a mountain, get covered in sweat and dirt, sleep on a rock, wake up at 5am and repeat the whole thing again backwards? Yes! I say best birthday idea ever. So that's what we did.
I'm going to give some detail for those who are wishing to do a similar trip. We hired a driver with a small truck, only just big enough to accommodate all of us and our bags. We left Beijing in the middle of the day, stopping at Sanfo to hire some gear. Both the driver and the equipment hire were quite cheap—a few hundred kuai per person all up—and you can basically hire everything except boots. Unfortunately the gear is not particularly well designed for hiking (it's heavy and not weather-proof) but it's fine for a night.
Back to the exciting stuff. We went to 箭扣 (Jiankou, near the town of 西栅子村—Xizhazi), which is one of the most rugged sections of the Great Wall near Beijing. It took us two hours in our tiny van to get there—by which time all of our extremities had gone to sleep, which is really lucky because it was incredibly hot. That is, it was hot until it started raining. Pouring, actually. It was like we arrived in the mountains, and the sky broke in half. Thunder and lightning and huge gusts of wind. When we arrived at the little guesthouse (info here) at the bottom of the mountain the locals were actually laughing at us. Great Wall fail.
We ate. We waited. We lamented our forgotten raincoats safely in our dry wardrobes at home. We considered the likelihood of being struck by lightning on a tower. We drank beer to calm the sense of frustration.
Somebody must have prayed as well, because as suddenly as it had started, the inclement weather miraculously dissipated. What the? As it turns out, the rain was a godsend because it cooled the air to a bearable hiking temperature and, the best part, it cleared the smog completely! So my adventures at the Great Wall had now come full circle. And it was glorious:
And the best thing is ... I got a room with a view:
It's at this point, you inch yourself to make sure you're not dreaming and think: what an amazing adventure I'm on!
I'm going to give some detail for those who are wishing to do a similar trip. We hired a driver with a small truck, only just big enough to accommodate all of us and our bags. We left Beijing in the middle of the day, stopping at Sanfo to hire some gear. Both the driver and the equipment hire were quite cheap—a few hundred kuai per person all up—and you can basically hire everything except boots. Unfortunately the gear is not particularly well designed for hiking (it's heavy and not weather-proof) but it's fine for a night.
Back to the exciting stuff. We went to 箭扣 (Jiankou, near the town of 西栅子村—Xizhazi), which is one of the most rugged sections of the Great Wall near Beijing. It took us two hours in our tiny van to get there—by which time all of our extremities had gone to sleep, which is really lucky because it was incredibly hot. That is, it was hot until it started raining. Pouring, actually. It was like we arrived in the mountains, and the sky broke in half. Thunder and lightning and huge gusts of wind. When we arrived at the little guesthouse (info here) at the bottom of the mountain the locals were actually laughing at us. Great Wall fail.
We ate. We waited. We lamented our forgotten raincoats safely in our dry wardrobes at home. We considered the likelihood of being struck by lightning on a tower. We drank beer to calm the sense of frustration.
Somebody must have prayed as well, because as suddenly as it had started, the inclement weather miraculously dissipated. What the? As it turns out, the rain was a godsend because it cooled the air to a bearable hiking temperature and, the best part, it cleared the smog completely! So my adventures at the Great Wall had now come full circle. And it was glorious:
My first go at ... the Great Wall!
There's really only one thing to say about the Great Wall. It's spectacular! It's everything you expect it to be when you look at those pictures that fancy photographers post on their websites to make themselves seem well-travelled.
I've been now twice since I've been living in Beijing, and both have been very worthwhile. The first time I went with a tour group—Beijing Hikers—to 龙泉峪 (Longquanyu), which is an unrestored part of the wall (=crumbling rocks, overgrown shrubs and a whole lot of natural beauty). It was an incredibly smoggy day; in fact, according to the US Embassy live twitter feed on air quality, the air was 'hazardous'—i.e. the worst possible rating. If you're wondering how normal that is, I've seen 'hazardous' 2-3 times in the seven weeks I've been here. When it gets to that point, you can hardly see 500m in front of you and your nasal passages start to fill with gunk, so that you have to blow your nose once an hour just to breathe. That's the kind of pollution that gives you asthma even when you've never had it at home.
Anyway, back to the Great Wall. So when I first went there I couldn't see much for the haze. What I could see was pretty much like everything you see in pictures - long sweeping curves of wall that look like they've been painted by a Chinese water painter's brush tip, against a landscape that's dense with bright green forestation ... and tourists everywhere! The one thing that was actually surprising (that I hadn't noticed just from seeing pics) was the steepness of the mountains. The wall goes straight along the ridge line, which is incredibly jagged. It's like the teeth of a coarse saw if you look at it from the side. To give you an idea, the Chinese character for mountain is based on a pictograph and it looks like this: 山.
So walking along the Great Wall essentially involves going straight up a hill to the top, and then straight back down again. None of this faffing about zigzagging from left to right to make it easier on the old hammies. Nope, let's just go straight up the thing. It looks lovely from photographs but, to be honest, is not a particularly practical way to take on a mountain. What's even more amazing is ... they built a wall on it! Who's idea was that? Really, these mountains are virtually impassable anyway, it seems a little ridiculous when you get to the top to see they've built a wall that essentially goes vertically up the side of the mountain to keep out the 'invaders'.
But the climb is totally worth it. Check it out:
I've been now twice since I've been living in Beijing, and both have been very worthwhile. The first time I went with a tour group—Beijing Hikers—to 龙泉峪 (Longquanyu), which is an unrestored part of the wall (=crumbling rocks, overgrown shrubs and a whole lot of natural beauty). It was an incredibly smoggy day; in fact, according to the US Embassy live twitter feed on air quality, the air was 'hazardous'—i.e. the worst possible rating. If you're wondering how normal that is, I've seen 'hazardous' 2-3 times in the seven weeks I've been here. When it gets to that point, you can hardly see 500m in front of you and your nasal passages start to fill with gunk, so that you have to blow your nose once an hour just to breathe. That's the kind of pollution that gives you asthma even when you've never had it at home.
Anyway, back to the Great Wall. So when I first went there I couldn't see much for the haze. What I could see was pretty much like everything you see in pictures - long sweeping curves of wall that look like they've been painted by a Chinese water painter's brush tip, against a landscape that's dense with bright green forestation ... and tourists everywhere! The one thing that was actually surprising (that I hadn't noticed just from seeing pics) was the steepness of the mountains. The wall goes straight along the ridge line, which is incredibly jagged. It's like the teeth of a coarse saw if you look at it from the side. To give you an idea, the Chinese character for mountain is based on a pictograph and it looks like this: 山.
So walking along the Great Wall essentially involves going straight up a hill to the top, and then straight back down again. None of this faffing about zigzagging from left to right to make it easier on the old hammies. Nope, let's just go straight up the thing. It looks lovely from photographs but, to be honest, is not a particularly practical way to take on a mountain. What's even more amazing is ... they built a wall on it! Who's idea was that? Really, these mountains are virtually impassable anyway, it seems a little ridiculous when you get to the top to see they've built a wall that essentially goes vertically up the side of the mountain to keep out the 'invaders'.
But the climb is totally worth it. Check it out:
By the way, a small piece of trivia: the Great Wall is not visible from space. Google it.
(stay tuned for part two of the Great Wall series)
(stay tuned for part two of the Great Wall series)
16 June 2012
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ...
One of the best things about living in a place where 35 degrees in spring is a normal occurrence is that it gives you an excuse to eat ice cream whenever you like! And Beijing is a great place to eat ice cream.
Check it out:
And they're all pretty tasty! Well, except for the corn one. Who would have though, corn doesn't make good ice cream?
Check it out:
And they're all pretty tasty! Well, except for the corn one. Who would have though, corn doesn't make good ice cream?
15 June 2012
Beijing street food
Food is one of the best things about living in this city. My clothes are bearing the brunt of that - I'm sure I've put on a few kgs already! Since I spend so much time here thinking about, talking about and eating food, I thought I'd do a special blog post just to share some of the amazing things I've digested over the past 6 weeks.
I have no fridge, microwave or even sink in my workplace. So, given there's no possibility of bringing my own lunch to work, I've made it my mission to try as many local restaurants as I can, and sample as many dishes as possible. I started with a little corner which has a cluster of typical Beijing street food vendors. These stores are the kind that sell only one thing—like dumplings or pancake or some other tasty treat—but they have a few tables, stools and umbrellas out the front that look as if they have seen better days. You can get takeaway or, if one of the two or three tables is actually free, you can sit yourself down for a proper meal ... on a bright orange plastic plate. People look at me strangely when I sit down by myself, so I guess it's fairly uncommon to eat alone. Although, come to think of it, they could just be looking at me strangely because I'm white, a foot taller than most of them, and can't speak Chinese.
My first experience was with the baozi stall, which is staffed by a lovely young man who puts up with my barely. Baozi (包子) are fat little steamed buns. They're often filled with pork or vegetables, but can be filled with anything really. I know this because I did a cooking class where we made baozi! Check out that post here.
Baozi are the best thing in the whole world and they look like this:
Then next stop was the jiaozi place. Jiaozi (饺子) are a bit like baozi, in that they are small and delicious. Jiaozi are a bit like baozi that have grown too big for their clothes. It's as if they lived in Beijing too long and have therefore become a fatty mcfat fat, so their exterior has kind of become thin and stretched.
See? Just like an overweight baozi! (or maybe ... an overweight baozi that has subsequently lost a lot of weight and has developed flaps under its arms)
Next up is my rou bing (肉饼). I'd been eyeing off what looked to me like some kind of Chinese version of gozleme since I arrived. Not knowing the translation, or actually having any idea what it was, I politely asked the waitress if I could have a vegetarian one of those, and she started at me blankly. As it turns out, 肉饼 translates roughly to 'meat pancake'. Oh, riiiiight.
One of the other fascinating things about Beijing street food is that often the waitress will ask you whether you want a soup to 'drink' with your meal. The tasty looking orange soup you see in the picture is pumpkin congee.
Ok this is where things get weird. You can see that I started out with the things that looked relatively familiar, or at least easily identifiable. But, as I was determined to get through every shop in the street corner, I had to try the last one—lürou huoshao (驴肉火烧). Now, you've got to understand that, when you don't understand a word of Chinese, and can't read characters, it's not a matter of being able to chat to someone and figure out whether or not you feel like that particular morsel. You've just got to point and hope for the best. What I pointed at was this:
Pretty tasty-looking, right? I'm thinking it's corned beef. It looks like corned beef, tastes like corned beef. A bit strange that in China they have beef that's so similar to how Mum cooks it at home. And it's pretty tasty!
Off I trot back to work, where I've become accustomed to looking up the things I've eaten after every lunchtime. I start by googling 'Beijing meat sandwich'. Nothing looks similar to what I've just eaten. How about 'meat in pastry China'? Nope, that doesn't work either. Several more combinations of random words—Beijing street food, China corned beef, China beef brisket. Nothing. Oh, how about 'Beijing meat burger'? This is what I click on:
Ohhh ... donkey. Oopsie.
Baozi are the best thing in the whole world and they look like this:
Then next stop was the jiaozi place. Jiaozi (饺子) are a bit like baozi, in that they are small and delicious. Jiaozi are a bit like baozi that have grown too big for their clothes. It's as if they lived in Beijing too long and have therefore become a fatty mcfat fat, so their exterior has kind of become thin and stretched.
See? Just like an overweight baozi! (or maybe ... an overweight baozi that has subsequently lost a lot of weight and has developed flaps under its arms)
Next up is my rou bing (肉饼). I'd been eyeing off what looked to me like some kind of Chinese version of gozleme since I arrived. Not knowing the translation, or actually having any idea what it was, I politely asked the waitress if I could have a vegetarian one of those, and she started at me blankly. As it turns out, 肉饼 translates roughly to 'meat pancake'. Oh, riiiiight.
One of the other fascinating things about Beijing street food is that often the waitress will ask you whether you want a soup to 'drink' with your meal. The tasty looking orange soup you see in the picture is pumpkin congee.
Ok this is where things get weird. You can see that I started out with the things that looked relatively familiar, or at least easily identifiable. But, as I was determined to get through every shop in the street corner, I had to try the last one—lürou huoshao (驴肉火烧). Now, you've got to understand that, when you don't understand a word of Chinese, and can't read characters, it's not a matter of being able to chat to someone and figure out whether or not you feel like that particular morsel. You've just got to point and hope for the best. What I pointed at was this:
Pretty tasty-looking, right? I'm thinking it's corned beef. It looks like corned beef, tastes like corned beef. A bit strange that in China they have beef that's so similar to how Mum cooks it at home. And it's pretty tasty!
Off I trot back to work, where I've become accustomed to looking up the things I've eaten after every lunchtime. I start by googling 'Beijing meat sandwich'. Nothing looks similar to what I've just eaten. How about 'meat in pastry China'? Nope, that doesn't work either. Several more combinations of random words—Beijing street food, China corned beef, China beef brisket. Nothing. Oh, how about 'Beijing meat burger'? This is what I click on:
Ohhh ... donkey. Oopsie.
12 June 2012
How to make baozi
Step 1: Locate some flour and water. Might sound easy, but just imagine if the flour package was covered in scribbles that look like they should mean something to you but actually are just there to taunt you. Mush up flour and yeast so that it looks like a lump of pale-coloured excrement. Go have a glass of wine for an hour, your lump needs to rest.
Step 2: Locate some vegetables. Guess whether vegetables are actually grass or something edible. Mix up vegetables with some kind of protein.
Step 3: Wake up your dough by punching it. Roll it into little Mexican hats.
Step 4: With extreme difficulty, making sure you get filling all over your hands, face, hair and clothes, shove grass into flat baozi so it becomes round baozi. Cover it with muslin while you spend 20 excruciating minutes on each bun.
Step 5: Steal the teacher's baozi and pretend they were yours. Lap up the praise for your clever handiwork and then see how many baozi you can shove in your mouth at any one time. This will not get you as much praise as the teacher's handiwork, but it will be worthwhile nonetheless.
Post Script (24 June 2012): I made these at home and they were totally similar to the ones we did in class! My friends were super impressed :)
Step 2: Locate some vegetables. Guess whether vegetables are actually grass or something edible. Mix up vegetables with some kind of protein.
Step 3: Wake up your dough by punching it. Roll it into little Mexican hats.
Step 4: With extreme difficulty, making sure you get filling all over your hands, face, hair and clothes, shove grass into flat baozi so it becomes round baozi. Cover it with muslin while you spend 20 excruciating minutes on each bun.
Step 5: Steal the teacher's baozi and pretend they were yours. Lap up the praise for your clever handiwork and then see how many baozi you can shove in your mouth at any one time. This will not get you as much praise as the teacher's handiwork, but it will be worthwhile nonetheless.
Post Script (24 June 2012): I made these at home and they were totally similar to the ones we did in class! My friends were super impressed :)
7 June 2012
Things I miss most about home
There are a whole range of things that I thought I would miss from home during my time in Beijing—I thought I would be frustrated with the bustle of big city living, and I thought I would get sick of Chinese food, I thought I’d miss the clean streets and sanitised toilets of the West. But really, none of these things have bothered me too much! Living overseas is a fantastic way to get down to the things that are important to you.
So these are the things I miss most about home:
1. (this one’s a given, but worth repeating anyway) My wonderful family and friends, the laughs we have together, sharing their lives and experiences
2. Wine.
Oh how I miss the sweet popping sound (or slightly less romantic but more pragmatic click of the screwcap) of a newly opened bottle, and the first whiff of a succulent savoury pinot noir when I swirl it in my prized Riedel glasses. I miss lounging on my couch with a good book and a glass of red after work, and I miss catching up with my girlfriends over a glass of the local riesling. And don’t even mention the prospect of wine and cheese together! My twitter feed is constantly reminding me of the degustation dinners, harvest festivals and wine tours I’m missing out on while I’m here.
3. Cooking.
No matter how hard I try, I cannot break the barrier of comfort in a Chinese supermarket, much less in a Chinese kitchen. The foods that are available are so foreign to me that even a translator would make no difference. Despite being exceptionally willing to try new things (I’m munching on a punnet of bayberries as I type this), actually cooking them is a whole new level of challenge. I feel like I’m grabbing at a cloud that keeps disappearing through my fingertips. So I miss so much the experience of cooking at home—from being able to look up new recipes on my iPhone, to being able to find the ingredients I want in a supermarket, to having an oven and sizeable kitchen in which to prepared the food, to serving up a heartfelt meal to my friends and family (cf #1).
4. Being unable to communicate.
This one at least I can do something about! My Chinese lessons are going very well and my tutor is a little scared by the ferocity of my commitment to study. But still, every now and then I wouldn’t mind going into a shop and understanding what the assistant is saying. Just once or twice …
5. The natural environment.
To be truthful, my time out bush is limited even when I’m in Australia, so this one is definitely not a constant longing. It’s more of a surprising twinge I didn’t expect. Yesterday I was walking into my apartment block when I heard what I thought was the sound of a large bird. More likely it was the sound of a bike squealing or a gate swinging shut, but for a millisecond I was transported home to being awoken by the squawk of a cockatoo (which I have always hated). This made me realise that, in fact, there are no birds in Beijing (except the ones kept as ‘pets’ in miniscule cages that resemble torture chambers), and for the last month I have been awoken by a constant drone of car horns on the busy street.
I have managed to get out of the Beijing city bustle for a few short periods of time in the last month. And they have been wonderful! Luckily for me, next month I will be visiting the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. Plenty of natural environment for me there :)
6. (and this is a very distant fifth place) Work.
Not enough to want to go back to it, but just a teensy little bit.
So these are the things I miss most about home:
1. (this one’s a given, but worth repeating anyway) My wonderful family and friends, the laughs we have together, sharing their lives and experiences
2. Wine.
Oh how I miss the sweet popping sound (or slightly less romantic but more pragmatic click of the screwcap) of a newly opened bottle, and the first whiff of a succulent savoury pinot noir when I swirl it in my prized Riedel glasses. I miss lounging on my couch with a good book and a glass of red after work, and I miss catching up with my girlfriends over a glass of the local riesling. And don’t even mention the prospect of wine and cheese together! My twitter feed is constantly reminding me of the degustation dinners, harvest festivals and wine tours I’m missing out on while I’m here.
3. Cooking.
No matter how hard I try, I cannot break the barrier of comfort in a Chinese supermarket, much less in a Chinese kitchen. The foods that are available are so foreign to me that even a translator would make no difference. Despite being exceptionally willing to try new things (I’m munching on a punnet of bayberries as I type this), actually cooking them is a whole new level of challenge. I feel like I’m grabbing at a cloud that keeps disappearing through my fingertips. So I miss so much the experience of cooking at home—from being able to look up new recipes on my iPhone, to being able to find the ingredients I want in a supermarket, to having an oven and sizeable kitchen in which to prepared the food, to serving up a heartfelt meal to my friends and family (cf #1).
4. Being unable to communicate.
This one at least I can do something about! My Chinese lessons are going very well and my tutor is a little scared by the ferocity of my commitment to study. But still, every now and then I wouldn’t mind going into a shop and understanding what the assistant is saying. Just once or twice …
5. The natural environment.
To be truthful, my time out bush is limited even when I’m in Australia, so this one is definitely not a constant longing. It’s more of a surprising twinge I didn’t expect. Yesterday I was walking into my apartment block when I heard what I thought was the sound of a large bird. More likely it was the sound of a bike squealing or a gate swinging shut, but for a millisecond I was transported home to being awoken by the squawk of a cockatoo (which I have always hated). This made me realise that, in fact, there are no birds in Beijing (except the ones kept as ‘pets’ in miniscule cages that resemble torture chambers), and for the last month I have been awoken by a constant drone of car horns on the busy street.
I have managed to get out of the Beijing city bustle for a few short periods of time in the last month. And they have been wonderful! Luckily for me, next month I will be visiting the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. Plenty of natural environment for me there :)
6. (and this is a very distant fifth place) Work.
Not enough to want to go back to it, but just a teensy little bit.
Well, that's hardly anything to complain about, is it?
5 June 2012
Where does the smog come from?
And this is the same street on a slightly worse than average day (but certainly not the worst!):
The blue-sky days only happen once a fortnight, or once a week if I'm lucky!
I’ve been talking about the smog ever since I arrived here in Beijing, and I keep asking the question: where does it come from? Why do no other countries have such a dramatic problem?
I’ve finally found the answer in this article:
In January, a vice mayor of Beijing shared some figures for sources of Beijing air pollution. Of course, it is hard to independently verify these figures. But according to the local official, at least 22 per cent is from car emissions, 16.7 per cent from coal combustion, 16 per cent from building and road construction dust and particles, 6.3 per cent from industrial emissions, 4.5 from the burning of corn and wheat stocks and other activities in nearby rural areas. And 24.5 per cent of Beijing smog comes from surrounding urban and industrial areas, including Tianjin and Hebei. That’s what the vice mayor says, anyway.
…
Many Western cities have gone through a very polluted stage. London used to suffer very badly from “London fog,” which was really smog. At first, people didn’t know the major source of air pollution was burning coal; then they realized it was a big problem, and London gradually phased out coal-fired power plants within city limits. That greatly reduced the discharge of sulphur dioxide, starting in the 1950s. Los Angeles faced a different type of air pollution — it was less about coal and more about car emissions. The way that L.A. addressed air-quality problems was by increasing mileage standards and fuel quality [in California], and also by improving the emissions-control devices installed on cars.
Air pollution in China is such a big challenge because it’s a combination of these two sources — coal combustion and cars. The newer coal-fired power plants do have stricter emissions standards, but meanwhile the number of cars is still rising quickly in Beijing and other cities. Beijing’s current plan does call for phasing out coal combustion within the Fifth Ring Road [an expressway encircling the city] and also retiring older, more polluting cars soon. But the surrounding areas outside of Beijing still have considerably less stringent standards on coal and car emissions, so this is a challenge.
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