Brrrr, it's cold in Beijing

Salutations from the Great city of Beijing where the Red Mao reigns over all. I keep on reading all

 

these articles about China in the news on The NY Times and the Economist about China. Essentially I think the media has hooked onto a newly developed fear of Chinese domination. However this isn't something new the concept has been around for ages. What happens to world order when the hegemon (US) is no longer a hegemon? The most commonly perceived country is China, due to its economic capacity in the wealth of its population size. Whether or not China could mobilize these masses to the work force was another story . Now whether that be politically, economically or most undoubtedly culturally, the media is amid a feeding frenzy on the possibilities for the future, as China's economy skyrockets past that of the United States, the most recent economic power. Reading about all of this can get a bit depressing, seeing as I am from the U.S. and currently I'm in China.

The most recent article to catch my eye was about the internationalization of the "Redback" Mao into the world economy, having the Chinese yuan set as the standard for monetary values, a position the US Greenback currently holds. I scream a silent (No!) in my head while merely reading the article. It would be strange to have some other standard than that of my beloved Greenback. The same as it would be strange to think of anything inherently Chinese in culture and values as the accepted Standard.

I feel like I'm a walking product of classes with Lorenzini and Lomperis (Political Thought of Asia). I think about this stuff tooo much! Ok, here we go. I've always heard that China is a society based on harmony. The most valued thing in Asian society is Harmony, the most valued thing in Western Society is freedom...there by ipso facto Colombo Calypso--haha--Asian societies are community driven while Western societies are intrinsically individually driven. Of course there are the exceptions in both societies but anyway....

Let's take the idea of responses toward the recent North Korea conundrum, the west (particularly the Obama Administration) is/was mystified and agitated about the talks with China on the matter. They couldn't understand whyyyy China took so long to respond, was so hard to get a hold of, and didn't want to sharply reprimand the North Koreans (essentially the western approach). What was China's method in all of this? To Assure the North Koreans that their security was not going to be affected--a unique harmony-based Asian approach. Is this absurd? No, when you think about it, China's not being stubborn they are just thinking about things in a different manner.

Now relating all of this mumbo jumbo to my class room is interesting. When I first arrived I took a training course in which I had a nutty/cool teacher named Chuck who forewarned us that Chinese are very competitive and individualistically based in the classroom. He said this because students would deliberately hold questions until after the class so that they could gain an upper edge against all the other students. However on the less mature level, I think this concept still holds true. I like my primary school kids, and competition is always a way to keep them engaged while learning new concepts. Every day, I divide my class into 3 groups and those groups compete against each other to get rewards from their TA in the end. Generally there is a certain level of cheating by whispering answers that goes on in the classroom. I would never give kids on the other team the right answer so that they could get a point. This is precisely what happens in all of my classes, there is inter-team/group cheating even when it could hamper one of the teams. A whispers to B and B's team wins. This isn't just cases of friendship its whole groups. haha I don't know how to explain it much better than that but it makes me laugh and I enjoy it.

...On a much darker note, its getting very close to Christmas and surprisingly it is not completely uncommon to see Christmas decorations sold and already put up. My friends an I are planning on a X-mas day meal or "X'mas" as was so fondly displayed in a prominently western shopping area. I've started listening to TSO (Trans-Siberian Orchestra for all you newbies) and thinking about the lack of Christmas cookies I will be able to eat. Note to self, NEVER miss Christmas again. I want some Orange Tea Cookies...yum! Another note to self; please take many pictures of Xmas decorations this weekend. Oh, and p.s. I might begin work for a Chinese movie star if everything pans out.

Soo lets talk about China

Sooo everybody I would like to talk about China, the country and statistics....and then a homey touch of my favorite food baozi

Anywho, moving on soooo China, Modern day China, that is. China is an up and coming economic superpower that rivals and surpasses even the former hegemonic power of the United States. Boasting a population of about 1,330,141,256 people.....lets take a look at the U.S.'s population at a staggering 310,232,862. Essentially China has a good BILLION plus people on us. Now that statistically we've settled that China has an enormous population, just image on 1 Billion plus people is dispersed about a region, even one as large as the landmass of China. In China, the cities are very important bustling centers of the country. When people living in rural areas were allowed to migrate to the cities after the reign of Mao, the cities began to double and triple in size. Cities could be considered small countries.

Take for instance Beijing, home of 20 million plus people (according to the Chinese -recently the census happened so this could be reliable). Try to picture living in a city that large. For me, it is still a bit un-imagineable to think that that many people live in one city. The largest city I had ever lived in was Santiago, population of around 7 million people. Beijing trumps Santiago times 3! No matter how extensive the subway system is, it still cannot compensate for how long travel will take. For me to travel from West Beijing to East Beijing, it would easily take me over an hour and a half. This is with me living a 5 minute walk from my apartment to the subway station. My old apartment was a 15-25 minute bus ride TO the subway. Driving in a taxi (chuzu qiche 出租车) during rush hour could easily take you about 2 hours to get to your destination, even if it wasn't very far away.

Now, Beijing isn't even the largest city in the country, the city that holds that title is Shanghai. Navigation in Beijing is a nightmare, so navigation in Shanghai can only be more of a nightmare. So taking this into consideration, just because there is an incident in Beijing, doesn't mean that the incident happened down the street from me. Nor does it mean that I will even hear about the incident in the news until you tell me. Ahaha. case and point, (no offense mom, I love you!) my mother sent me an article about "the world's longest traffic jam" that happened in Beijing where people were in a jam for approximately 9 days. No, I hadn't heard of anything of the sort. This just means that traffic was really really bad for about 9 days. ....Is that unusual? No. Soooo, if you see an article about Wu Dao Kou, or Wudaokou, then I might have heard about it. If not then I don't know what you are talking about. ahaha

China is  such a large country that it has very diverse cuisine, which if you've talked to me much, you would know that it's not really my favorite. There are plenty of dishes of the Northern style that I like, but equally there are plenty that I will not touch. People rave about Peking Duck in China, which is fairly good and appetizing, however this is not what floats my boat. What does is, 包子 or Baozi, essentially they are dumplings filled with meats, vegetables or egg and are the most scrumptious when eaten with soy vinegar.

 

This is a bag of baozi that I used to get at least once a day from my local baozi woman. Seriously I've never had baozi better than hers. It didn't always look like baozi but it always tasted better than baozi. They vary in size and in fillings but generally are always good. Here's a picture of how baozi normally looks... So essentially, I love my baozi (which I can find no good street baozi in Wudaokou) and I really like the strange fruit and juice selections. I've discovered pamelos, what I describe as a cross between a grapefruit and an orange. I buy them whole, peel them and eat it throughout the week. Other big fruits in China include dragonfruit, hawthorn berries and peaches (you can find many different peach juices here. Hawthorn berries are puzzling because I find the actual fruit disgusting but the juice amazingly delicious. The other type of juice that I've only seen here is Sea-Buckthorn juice....yes sea-buckthorn juice. I can't find it everywhere, some random street vendors have it but I think it's delicious. It tricks you though because it looks like orange juice. The 'sea-buckthorn berry' is found on cliff environments and must go through an intense juicing process because it is normally an oily berry. Don't let that throw you off the juice is actually pretty good.

Ok, thats all for now folks BYE!

It's definitely December

So sorry everybody for not writing a whole lot! I've been sick quite a lot, including the majority of November. I recieved medical attention so the worst of it is over and I'm doing much better. By the way, if you are ever in Beijing and need a doctor for any reason, just go to any of the area hospitals. Near me there were at least 3. I chose to go to the Sino-Japanese Friendship hospital near Hepingli. There was a nice International Wing where the majority of the staff spoke English and spoke it well. Even the nurses were able to speak English. I was in and out in about 30 minutes. The most costly thing about the visit was my prescription. Next time I get sick, I will probably choose to go to a cheaper specifically Chinese hospital so I can spend even less. Anywhoooo, enough of the depressing stuff

Moving on, October ended with a BanG! Halloween! Even though many Chinese do not celebrate Halloween, there were plenty of places that sponsored and joined in the festivities! All of my friends and I went out for a night of good fun on Halloween. I was a pirate-ess, along for my good friend Cady. I realized that my roommate Erin has a secret turned not-so-much-a-secret-anymore of a burning love for face paint. She whipped out a picture on her phone of herself earlier this year in full avatar body/face paint. She REALLY looked like an avatar!. So needless to say, face paint was a part of her attire for the evening as she dawned a mime outfit. Other friends included Beethoven, David Bowie, Peter Pan and a Frenchman (James) complete with a baguette. 


So Halloween was a lot of fun, then I was sick for about three weeks, and when I was finally better and I was able to celebrate my birthday! Yes, now officially I'm an old woman at the ripe old age of 23, it's all downhill from here. 23 might as well be 25, which fully qualifies me as an adult and therefore means I might as well be 30...or 40... Anyway, my birthday weekend was fun, my friends and I went out to a club and then on my actual birthday my friends took me out to eat for dinner and for breakfast!

....thats all I got for now....I'm boring.