Jean-Guy!'s Blog

Leaving Nasu

2009-07-04T15:06:00.000-07:00

On a chair in Niki Museum

(Please note that this was posted 36 hours after originally intended)

Hello everyone!

I mentioned in my previous post that we saw some fireflies on our first night in Nasu. I was able to snag one of Renato's photos of them. :)

Fireflies

04 July 2009 was a wonderful day in Nasu! We did many things and even took a few photos along the way. :)

After breakfast at Arutany guest house, we made our way to Niki Museum, dedicated to the works of the French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle. I'm afraid that I have no appreciation for most modern art, but I know many women who would apprecaite seeing her feminine artwork. Some of her art seems to have been crafted in anguish, and that is the stuff I found most disturbing among the pieces of hers which were present. She and her life-long partner createed many large outdoor works, including many both inspired by, and quite close to each other, in Tuscany.

The entrance to Niki Museum's property

The entrance to the museum-proper

Murasaki Shikibu

After that, we went for lunch where I had among my dishes one of my favourite Japanese foods, konnyaku. Yum yum! :) Leo basically passed-out for the entire time we were at lunch.

This is where we ate lunch

The god of fortune

Yum yum!

What is Stu studying?

What are those cranes doing??!?

After lunch we drove to a different place in Nasu (which is like a large rural connection of small villages) to see, and maybe enter, some onsen (hot springs, 温泉). After driving for some time, we found a place which apparently is the source of water for many of the onsen in the area. Its strong aroma of sulphur may serve as a deterrent for many tourists, but the area was relatively busy. We encountered a relatively long (but thin) snake along the way so we changed our route. The meeting with the sname was serendipitous because we eventually made our way along the alternate route to the Onsen Shrine (温泉神社).

After taking photos of the main shrine, we descended some stairs and made our way to a distinctly Buddhist area. From there we saw many statues of the bodhisattva Jizo (地蔵, Skt. Ksatriya) along with a sacred stone which, according to legend, had previously been a fox with nine tails. According to Hanako, the legend indicates that the fox was defeated only after she had been shot by 8000 arrows. This didn't kill her, so she was bound by a Buddhist monk and was subsequently turned into a stone at the source of the sulphurous onsen.

After leaving this area we decided to go to one of the local onsen, Ka No Yu (鹿の湯; I'm not sure the Romaji are correct). Sorry ladies, but I wasn't allowed to take any photos inside. To prepare for my entry into the onsen, I had applied in the morning a waterproof bandage to my right calf in order to cover my tattoo (tattoos are relatively taboo in Japan, and they are aparently forbidden at most, if not all, onsen).

After Renato and I entered the 42-degree Celcius pool, which seated four comfortably, I had the strangest feeling that my back was much more sensitive to the hot water than the rest of my body. Every time I'd further my immersion into the pool, the part of my back at the top level of the water was in pain. I thought that I'd perhaps acquired some strange medical condition by which my back had become incredibly sensitive to hot water! Or perhaps the temperature of the air immediately above the water was so much cooler than the hot water (at my back) that the temperature differential was causing pain as I bobbed up and down. Then a nice gentleman pointed-out that I was immersed precisely where the HOTHOTHOT water was being poured into the onsen. Onto my back. Oy.

After that was solved, Renato and I had a wonderful conversation with two Japanese gentlemen, one of whom was perhaps in his early 60s, and who had visited almost 50 countries, and the other of whom was probably in his early to mid-thirties, and who'd lived in Autsralia throughout eight years. Renato's Japanese is worlds beyond mine, so the first part of the conversation was mostly in Japanese, but the conversation eventually turned towards being mostly in English.

After about half an hour in the onsen, we left for our next meal, which consisted of steak made from Japanese beef and veggies. Oh, my, that was wonderful steak. After sending the steak to be cooked well done (mine was done medium despite my request), it was incredibly good. The ony drawback is the amount of fat in it. Mine was cooked well enough that the fat had been rendered from the meat, but it was served in the small cow-shaped grill in which it had been cooked, so the porous meat served as a fat-sponge. It was still quite tasty and tender, and the fat which hadn't been rendered from the meat was quite well charred. Yum yum!

We decided to return to the village where we'd gone to the onsen because, on our way to dinner, we saw a couple of stores which offered local alcohols. We chose the second one we'd seen wen leaving the village, and that turned-out to be quite serendipitous. The gentleman who owned the store was not only quite knowledgeable about the sakes, but he was also incredibly friendly. We ultimately spent quite a bit of money there, and we shared a bottle of sake last night with the wonderful owner of the guest house where we are staying in Nasu.

Well, it's almost time for breakfast so I'd better wrap-up this post with a bunch of photos from in and around Nasu. :) I hope to be able to post again when I'm in Nikko.

Nasu Stained-Glass Museum

Foot-onsen

Inside the Onsen Jinja (温泉神社)

Outside the Onsen Jinja (温泉神社)

The fox-turned-stone

Many statues of Jizo

The nine-tailed fox

Where we bought our sake

The man from whom we bought our sake and his wife

Nasu (那須)

2009-07-03T02:05:00.000-07:00

The Chocolate Moose and me

Hello again everyone!

Yesterday I got a chance to meet for lunch a friend of mine from Canada, Mike. I hope he's able to attend a little get-together we're having somewhere on Monday.

Karaoke Mike and me

Renato, Hanako, Leo, and I have arrive in Nasu. Our guest-house has wi-fi so I'm able to post the few photos I've taken so far. One of the things about travelling with good company is that I tend to take fewer photos than I normally might. We've got a full day here tomorrow so I hope to get quite a few good shots. :)

Our guest-house, Arutany

On our way to Nasu, we passed Utsunomiya where we ate some gyoza, Japanese dumplings. The batch we ate at the first place was quite yummy; at the second place, not so much.

The second-best gyoza in Utsunomiya

More of Utsunomiya

This evening we ate dinner at an Italian restaurant, where we had gnocchi, lasagna, and two types of pizza. For dessert, I had chocolate mousse. Renato and I agree that this is among the best Italian food either of us has had anywhere.

This evening our wonderful host at Arutany in Nasu brought us to see fireflies after we returned from dinner. I'm afraid that I was unable to get any half-decent shots of fireflies, although Renato got a really good one. :)

Anyway, I have included the requisite photos of things which wouldn't make much sense in a Canadian context, with the exception of the blotting paper below. (I included it here because I didn't realise that I was buying men's blotting paper for a woman. :D)

This defies rational explanation

Park your automobiles, bicycles, and jet airplanes here

Canadian Spirit Gallery

Spinatch for the biznatch

Blotting paper

In Japan Again, Part 1

2009-07-01T17:15:00.000-07:00

Good times with good friends

Hello, everyone! It's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but I've had my walls to the ball, or something like that. Thanks to Jim Anchower over at The Onion for that. :D

I'm in Japan right now and it's fun as usual here. It's still Canada Day in Canada while I write this. I had the great fortune of being able to celebrate by firstly attending at Meiji University a lecture given by my friend and calligraphic classmate Fred Thompson, a returned professor of Architecture from Univeristy of Waterloo. His lecture was about the design of crematoria, columbaria, and graveyards in Sweden shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. In particular, a Swedish acrhitect whose name eludes me for the moment ran slightly afoul of the Lutheran Church with his design.

Anyway, I'm always glad to meet my friends in a variety of places whom I know in otherwise relatively limited contexts. If I weren't so dense, though, I'd have had a photo taken with him.

Before coming to Japan, I attended a wedding in Vancouver. However, because my schedule is relatively tight, I was able to stay only for two nights. The wedding was fun and I was able to reconnect with another Waterloo graduate after not seeing him for about twelve years. Aagain, because I'm an idiot, I missed several good opportunities for photos with friends while I was in Vancouver.

My flight from Vancouver to Japan had a stop-over at Seattle-Tacoma Internaltional Airport (Sea-Tac). While I was awaiting my flight to Sea-Tac, I saw my friends Robert and Rowena, who were also to fly thither for their trans-Atlantic flight to Paris. We had photos taken together with their camera because mine was acting-up, so I have no photos of this meeting to post for the time being.

After flying to Japan on a flight where they seem to have lost my vegetarian meal request, I arrived safely at Narita Airport. I must say that my arrival went perfectly; I'm unable to think of a smoother experience of flying and passing through customs / security than this one. While in the greater Tokyo area, I'm staying with Renato, Hanako, and Leo in Aoyama. It's a great location and they're great hosts, so things are wonderful here. The only issue I have with Japan at the moment is that I decided to come during rainy / cloudy season. I don't expect to see much sun ....

After the lecture yesterday, I went for dinner with some friends, most of whom I know from Waterloo and one of whom I met during my trip to Japan in 2008. :) Anyway, those of you who have subscribed to my blog may be interested to see some photos, so here they are!

Interesting sculpture at Sea-Tac

Hey! It's my gate!

'As Know As'

Um

Harajuku

Gothic & Lolita

Gen-en & Sandy!

Yu, Liz, & Allen

Who's photographing whom?

Gen-en, Sandy, & Me

Great Jobs To Be Found In China!

2007-07-06T09:26:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

I thought I'd share with you some of the more fabulous jobs to be found in China.

Fuwuyuan, Friendship Store
Duties: Being rude to customers; preventing customers from searching the shelves for the things which they need
Perqs: On-the-job nose-picking

Fuwuyuan, BLCU's Conference Centre's Restaurant
Duties: Being rude to customers; giving among the poorest service in the Greater Beijing Area; opening automatic doors for customers
Perqs: On-the-job nose-picking

Door-opener, Library
Duties: Passing students without library cards through the turnstiles when the automatic doors are abitrarily and mysteriously closed
Perqs: Mafaning students simply because they haven't yet gotten their student cards and can't speak Chinese, while allowing hassle-free entry to any native speaker of Mandarin, regardless of whether or not they're affiliated with BLCU; on-the-job nose-picking

'The Crying Baby Gets Milk'

2007-07-04T01:13:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone!

I've finally convinced the head fuwuyuan at my dormitory to allow me to stay for the last six days of my programme. I think that she finally understands that my programme is quite different from the short-term programme offered at BLCU. I don't want to go into too many details about this; however, my situation is quite different from that of the short-term programme. I think that she thought that my sense of entitlement was too high until I explained that the short-term programme's exam results shall be available either tomorrow or on Friday, whereas mine shan't be available until 20 July. I am booked here until 21 July. Only six weeks of complaining were required for that. I think that that's a record in China.

Although I have complained much, I have tried to resist the urge to yell and whine while complaining. However, one of the advisors for international students told me that I need to do that if I want to stay at all. I was prepared to do that but, in the end, I ended-up being quite Canadian. I didn't whine to the person who could possibly do something about it; I whined only to those who couldn't.

Views Of Campus

2007-06-28T21:11:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

I'm going to keep this post relatively short because I've got much to do in the next couple of weeks. For those of you who don't know, I'm returning to Canada on 21 July and I'm trying to secure employment before I leave China.

Classical Chinese (Gudai Hanyu, 古代汉语)
On Tuesday I wrote the final exam for my Intro To Classical Chinese 1 (古代汉语上). The course required learning little grammar but many new words. I had to learn Gudai Hanyu words, many of the modern meanings of which I had also to learn. I think that taking such a course is a good way to learn vocabulary; however, in my case, it may have been too little, too late. With any luck, I passed the course. :)

That I've studied Japanese and Korean was somewhat helpful because modern uses of some of the older Chinese vocabulary, which may not be in use in modern Chinese, have retained their meanings in modern Korean and Japanese (albeit with different pronunciations). For example, one Chinese verb for 'drink' is '饮' (traditional form: '飲'). The character representing this verb is still in use in Japanese to mean 'drink' ('飲む') despite not being in common use in modern Mandarin. I'm not able to say anything about other forms of Chinese; perhaps someone in the know about Fujian Chinese (福建华，闽南华) can shed some light on the modern use of this verb in 'Fukinese'. ('That Fukin language.' I never tire of that joke. :D)

Visit From An Old Friend
Several weeks ago, a friend of mine from UW, Qin, with whom I shared my first work term, came to work for a week in Google's office in Beijing. It's a ten- or fifteen-minute walk down the rod, so I was able to hook-up with him a couple of times. He gave me a short tour of Google's office in Beijing at lunch one day, then we went for dinner at a local Japanese restaurant.

Housing
I have an update on my housing situation. It turns-out that I'm going to have to move again, for the last six days of being in China. I'll probably be travelling throughout most of that time, to Datong (大同) and Qingdao (Tsingtao, like the beer, 青岛). Although that technically leaves me without a place at which to store my stuff, I think I can find one or two inexpensive storage spaces. That said, the housing situation isn't any less stupid.

Class Photo
Yesterday, a class photo was taken. Not everybody was present for the photo. For that matter, not everyone who'd attended lectures that day was present for the photo. Take a look at the girl in the middle, Maria. For those of you who know my sister Melanie, don't you think they look a bit alike? :)

Calligraphy Class Photo
Well, another semester of calligraphy has just wrapped-up and we got a class photo. Students in the photo have come from Japan, Viet Nam, Sweden, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and, of course, Canada.

Campus Pics
Despite how much I have complained about some of the silly situations I've encountered in China, I want to share with you how beautiful our campus is. I hope that University Of Waterloo can look this good at some time in the future.

Despite the fact that this university specialises in the teaching of languages (not just Mandarin), the campus's signs are rife with misspelt words.

Is this Popeye's travel agency?

WTF?

On-campus Restaurants
Our campus has many cafeterias and restaurants. My favourite is a place called 'Momoya' ('桃屋'), a Japanese-style restaurant which also serves some Chinese dishes. It's not overly expensive (except for the cheese sticks ;D) and the Japanese dishes are more authentic than most of those in Kitchener-Waterloo. Below is a photo of me with the current cast of regular fuwuyuan. They like me and I love them. :D

Student (whose name I haven't yet learnt), 杨大山, me, 梅子, and 红波

I fear that this is only one of the misspellings on the various menus at Momoya

Another of the restaurants on our campus is the restaurant at our campus's conference centre. the service there is sometimes barely passable but, most of the time, is outright poor. However,some of the dishes served there are tasty, so we sometimes tolerate the crappy service and somewhat high prices.

One of the last times we went, we were greeted at the front door be a fuwuyuan who was gracious enough to open the automatic door for us. Yes, she extended her hand for to activate the motion sensor, which then caused the door to be opened. I have yet to see a more useless job, but I have no doubt that such a one exists in China. Oh, when we left the restaurant after dinner, we witnessed her watering the plastic plants (which are native to Gansu and Xi'an, I think).

Japanese Language Partner
Some of you may know that I've also been trying to reclaim some of my Japanese. Since last Fall, I've had a Japanese language partner named Rie (理恵). I'm afraid that our meeting yesterday may have been the last one before we return to our respective countries, although I hope we can meet again for a meal before we both depart. A couple of times, Rie brought her Korean former roommate, Juhyun (주현), including to yesterday's meeting.

Juhyun, Rie, and me

Well, that's it for now. I hope to be able to post again soon!

Housing Mafan

2007-06-14T00:08:00.000-07:00

Hello again, everyone!

I have updated information about my housing situation. However, the update is really only a clarification of the situation, not the resolution of it.

The date '15 July 2007', the last day of my programme, according to my acceptance notice, is a magical date decreed by the C.S.C. ('China Scholarship Council', not 'Computer Science Club'). From what I've learnt the school has no say in the selection of that date. However, the school had the opportunity to make the last day of our programme coincide with the last day of the scholarship.

That the administration for my year-long programme for international students chose not to do so shows a marked lack of concern for said students. Many of the students who are here internationally are studying here on scholarships precisely because they are unable to study here otherwise. Some students, such as myself, were unable to specify the return dates for their return tickets because some governmental organisation may have purchased the tickets on their behalf, specifying as the return date the last day of study on the admission notice.

Forcing students to change their plans for travelling at the students' own expense is, in my opinion, not the most fruitful way to improve or maintain one's reputation. By not starting the semester one week earlier than it did, this school has demonstrated that it is unable to cope with the pressures of planning the most essential dates of the school year with its international students in mind. Based on that alone, I can recommend that a student may find a better programme at other universities in the neighbourhood. (I have other reasons for making that recommendation, but this administrational gaffe is sufficient.)

The administration for the educational wing of this university did not inform the administration for the housing wing that our programmes do not end on the last day indicated on the admission notice but, rather, until seven or eight days later. The situation with my housing has not changed because a summer programme is scheduled to start immediately after I am currently scheduled to vacate my premises, and the school has to make available enough rooms for those students. I need to wait until 29 or 30 June to be able to ask for a six-day extension and learn whether a room shall be available.

Neither I nor my classmates need absolutely to remain in China until our grades are distributed. However, that option was not made clear to us until yesterday. Because of that lack of information, the school effectively forced me to shell-out 540 RMB ($75 Cdn) to change my flight.

T.I.C.

Scholastic Mafan

2007-05-30T06:01:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone!

Recent events have inspired me to write a rant about the mafan at my school. Some of the mafan is typical of universities everywhere so I'll confine my comments to mafan which I think even University of Waterloo would avoid, if it could possibly get itself into this situation.

Here's the scoop: when I was accepted into my programme for studying Mandarin at BLCU, the admission notice which was sent to me had as its ending date '15 July 2007'. That is, all examinations would be written and grades delivered by 15 July.

Nope. I was wrong to assume that any university with so many international students would have set in stone at an early date its times for examinations, holidays, and grade reports. It seems that BLCU, with the highest number of foreign students of any university in China, is not able to guarantee that the dates on its admission notices are final. I've recently learnt that my grades won't be available until 20 July, and the date which owes to have been on my admission notice is actually 23 July 2007.

The first thing I must note here is that the school actually had not yet decided by the end of April the day on which students in my program would be able to receive their grades. University of Waterloo publishes such important dates at least a year beforehand. I don't know why BLCU couldn't decide upon a date ands stick to it. It's not as if anything new popped up.

Another thing is that they probably should also tell their students upon arrival the exact dates of the holidays for that they may prepare for seven or eight consecutive days of school during the May and October holidays, holidays which are apparently mechanically computed and could easily be brought to the attention of foreigners. No other country in the world celebrates both of those holidays (May Day is popular, 01 October is not), and no other country celebrates in the way China does. We're foreigners, not amoebae: we don't learn by osmosis.

This 'glitch' in the date on the admission notice has two consequences for me. Firstly, the flight, which was booked for me by TravelCuts on behalf of the Canadian government, now has to be changed at my expense. I actually had to change it anyway because someone at TravelCuts made a mistake. Here's a short excerpt from my side of my e-mail exchange with the travel agent last summer.

--

Below, you wrote 'Please ensure you change your return date prior to the date I picked. Be sure of your date but do not wait until the last minute because the fee is based on availabilty.'. Do you mean 'Please ensure you change your return date (from 05 July 2007) prior to the date I picked (05 July 2007).'? Sorry, I'm a bit confused. My programme actually ends on 15 July, so I'm going to have to change the date anyway, and I'd prefer to avoid the $100 surcharge for changing the return date.

--

In short, she booked my return flight for 05 July without actually consulting me about the return date. Her response was 'oh, you can change it later', and didn't address the fact that I would have to pay to change the date. (It cost $75 Cdn.) I fully intend to send to the department responsible for the scholarship the (paltry) bill for $75. At this point, I'm really desperate for cash and $75 is still $75. Whether the Canadian government wants to challenge either TravelCuts or the Chinese government for that amount of cash is not my problem.

That she made a mistake doesn't matter in this case. A bigger problem for all of those at this university in my scholarship programme is that we all must change our tickets if we wish to actually receive our grades in person. Beyond our programme, it's potentially a problem for all international students here.

The second consequence for anyone who had made arrangements to be here only until 15 July, especially for those in school residences, is that we now have to deal with the consequences of one arm of a Chinese institution changing its policies without notifying the other arms. That is, the academic arm, which changed the dates for our programme, have not informed the residences of this change. What that means for me is that I'm not able to guarantee that I'll be able to stay in my room until I have to leave and, even then, my scholarship probably won't cover the basic per-day expense covered for every other day this year. I won't learn until 30 June whether I am able to extend my stay by another six days, which is two days shy of the new end-date for the programme but six days beyond the old date. HOW IN HELL DOES THAT WORK??????? I was told my the head fuwuyuan at my building that they won't know about new students coming (dates, room availability, &c.) until 30 June. How can they not know that? Besides, how can they be admitting masses of new students before the ends of the other programmes? How can a university with this number of international students foul-up things so badly?

T.I.C.

Return To Japan (Part 2)

2007-05-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 24 February
Kyoto (京都)
I left Tokyo (東京) early on the morning of 23 February. Because I had my handy-dandy JR Pass, I was able to take the Shinkansen to Kyoto for free. The ride took less than three hours and was uneventful.

After I arrived, I met Liz at the main station. She was actually there for a meeting with her supervisor and a professor from Tokyo who had to leave Kyoto later that day. A few days earlier, Liz told me that her erstwhile housemate (and friend of both of ours), Sandy, was actually scheduled to leave Kyoto a few hours after my planned arrival. We were able to meet her for lunch / snacks, after which we'd part from her.

Astroboy at Kyoto Eki

One sky-way at Kyoto Eki

One of the day-markets near the station

Liz, Sandy, and me

Enya's all over the place

Um

Sunday, 25 February
Nara
On the day after I arrived in Kyoto, Liz and I took a day-trip to the ancient former capital, Nara. Nara is home to a few of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites. It's also home to a large number of complacent deer. The following photos and movies are a random mish-mash taken throughout the day.

One of the major sights to be seen is a large Sakyamuni Buddha. Although it's larger than the Amida Butsu in Kamakura, I prefer the one in Kamakura.

NTT DoCoMo Promotion 1

NTT DoCoMo Promotion 2

NTT DoCoMo Promotion 3

Angry, deer?

The o-sembe train

Deer Harassment, Part 1

Deer Harassment, Part 2

Deer Harassment, Part 3

'Just buying some post cards, deer.'

You're welcome!

Ornery creature

Reproduction of Kamakura's Daibutsu, complete with building

Reproduction of Nara's Daibutsu

A true sign of enlightenment

Reputed to be the nostril of a buddha, and big enough for the Daibutsu's finger

The sound of lunch

Camera-hog^H^H^Hdeer

That deer looks photo-shopped

'Anything tasty in here?'

'Just a box.'

'Here's where all the tasty stuff is! It's high in iron, too!'

'If you leave my bag's straps alone, I'll give you some o-sembe.'

Mochi-making in progress

Return To Kyoto
Liz and I returned to Kyoto for a dinner with a number of former exchange students from Japan. Some of them completed only Master's programmes, whereas others finished Ph. D.s. Liz has remained in contact with them since they were in Canada during the 2002-2003 school year; I'm quite glad for that because I now have renewed contact with them.

Yoko, me, Liz, Shingo, Hiroshi, and Daisuke

Kyoto Tower, not too far from Kyoto Station

Japan's latest funny-men, part 1

Shingo and Daisuke continue their comedic banter

Monday, 26 February
Uji (宇治)
When I went to visit Kyoto, Liz and Taka lived in a suburb of Kyoto called Uji. This small city is one of the most historic places in Japan, and is home to two of the 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Kyoto.

In mid-morning, Taka returned from a research trip in Great Britain. After Taka's return, he, Liz, and I went to a local restaurant for lunch, followed by green tea mochi desserts (Uji is also famous for its teas). After dessert, Liz and I ventured-out on a walking tour of Uji while Taka went to the lab to do more work.

For those of you who have heard of The Tale Of Genji, it is reputed to be the first novel written, and was penned by a woman whose pen-name is Murasaki, after one of the charcters in the book. The book documents the adventures of Genji and his involvement in imperial intrigues in ancient feudal Japan. The book's chapters were written as separate little stories; some of the chapters take place in Uji.

One of our stops along the way was at the Genji Museum. Because it was Monday, the museum was closed. Ah, well. At least Ghibli was open when I went on the preceding Monday.

World Heritage Site right this way!

Longest-continuously-maintained wooden building in Japan, possibly the world

Genji

宇治里有山有水

Also in Uji is the famed Byodo-in (平等院), another UNESCO World Heritage Site. Anyone who's got access to the ten-yen coin can take a look at it -- it's that important. The Phoenix Hall, dedicated to Amida Butsu, was built in 1053 and is the only original building still extant. Althoguh we arrived near the end of the day, Liz and I were still able to enter and go through the on-site museum. While we were there, we met two women from Taiwan who were touring Kyoto.

Peek-a-boo!

10-yen coin shot

On our way out of that part of Uji, we encountered a couple of interesting sculptures.

Murasaki

Back To Kyoto
Because Taka was only to be around for one night, Liz decided not to join me and our Canadian friend Bonsai-superstar for dinner on Monday evening. Although I didn't ask him, I am pretty sure that Bonsai-superstar would not have cared to have a photo taken with me; he doesn't strike me as that kind of guy. He's got an interesting blog about living in Japan. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to spend too much time with him.

Tuesday, 27 February
Daitoku-ji (大徳寺)
On Tuesday, I set-out on my own to visit a couple of places about which I'd read in my Lonely Planet Guide for Japan. The first was a complex of independent temples called Daitoku-ji. It's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Kinkaku-ji (金閣寺)
One of my primary reasons for visiting Kyoto was to see, with my own eyes, Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion Temple. The temple itself has a long history, into which I won't delve here because I'm lazy. However, one point of interest is that the pavilion itself has been recontructed because the original was destroyed by arson in the 1950s.

Again, I encountered a Mandarin-speaking tour group. This one came from Shanghai, although the persons in the group came from many neighbouring provinces. From what I understand, the companyfor which they work paid for a trip to Japan for them and their families, although my Mandarin at the time was worse than it is now. However, I understood what their tour guide told their translator in Japanese, and then waht their translator said in Mandarin. Some of it was 'simplified', for lack of a more politic term. They were all very nice and friendly, and I was glad to meet them.

Where is it?
Oh, it's in that direction

Not far now ...

Almost there

Just a few more steps

Ah, supplication

Tea room

Intermission
I was to meet Liz and some of her friends for dinner that night. Until then, I had some time to kill so I leisurelily made my way to the apointed meeting place. I saw a few things along the way, including the outside of Nijo-jo (see below).

How is that pronounced, anyway?

From a train platform in Kyoto

Self-cleaning public auto toilet, complete with instructions

He's got doppelgangers around the world

Dolls' Festival Dinner
Hina Matsuri (雛祭)
that evening, I went with Liz to a former home-stay 'mother' of hers, Haishi-san, not too far from Nijo-jo (see my entry below). Haishi-san previously worked as a translator of written works from English into Japanese. Also in attendance was another of the home-stay mom's former students, a South African named Viki.

Haishi-san and her husband are very generous. She gave each of us a decorative (and probably quite expensive) bowl, and he gave each of us an autographed copy of his recent book about Japanese culture, along with a lecture about the making of tenkoku (篆刻).

Haishi-san, me, Liz, and Viki

Gion (祇園)
After dinner, Liz and I walked to nearby Gion. For those of you familiar with Arthur Golden's Memoirs Of A Geisha, much of what happened during Sayuri's life after she went to the geisha-house takes place in this part of Kyoto. Although much of it looks ultra-modern, its side-streets maintain a feeling of the Meiji Era. I was fortunate enough to see some geisha plying their trade in the area. For those of you who are wondering, I didn't photograph any of them.

Take a look at this boy's pants

Wednesday, 28 February
Hiroshima (広島)
On my last full day in Japan, I took a day-trip to Hiroshima (because I could). Equipped with my trusty-rusty JR Pass, I obtained a last-minute (smoking-car) ticket on the Shinkansen to Hiroshima. The ride took only around two hours. Immediately after I arrived, I promptly lost my JR Pass. Not cool. I can imagine only that the shallow pockets of the jeans I had purchased in China finally failed me, and that the pass fell from the pocket. I would have to find some way to return to Kyoto once I was done with my business in Hiroshima.

All of the sights I wanted to see in Hiroshima are located in the Peace Memorial Park, which is a short ride westward from the JR station by streetcar. I won't go into great detail about most of the sights but, at the very least, I'll name them. I visited: A-Bomb Dome; Cenotaph, Flame Of Peace; Hiroshima National Peace Memorial For The Atomic Bomb Victims; Korean A-Bomb Memorial; Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound; and Peace Memorial Museum.

The A-Bomb Dome is the first place which I visited. It really looks to me like something out of Miyazaki's films of dystopian futures. It was a governmental administrative building until the bomb exploded almost directly above it. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site documenting the horrors of war. However, this place serves best as an introduction to the displays I later saw at the museums.

Ground Zero: The A-Bomb Dome

Children's Peace Memorial

Paper cranes from around the word, inspired by Sadako's Story

Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound

Korean Memorial

Korean Memorial, Part 2

After visiting the other sights, I finally made my way to the Peace Memorial Museum. It's got to be the single most depressing place I've visited to date.

Niji-jo (二条城)
After returning from Hiroshima, I made my way speedily towards Nijo-jo, Tokugawa's palace in Kyoto. It's listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it's definitely worth seeing. I highly recommend that if any of you wants to go that you arrive long before 4:00 P.M. The building of the palace closes at 4:00, and everyone is required to leave the palace's grounds by 5:00 P.M.

Because I arrived so late in the day (due to my stupidity), I had only 15 minutes to see the palace, then an hour to wander through the beautiful garden. Arriving so late in the day was especially stupid because I missed by ten minutes entering Nijo-jo on the previous day. I had forgotten the importance of Nijo-jo when I looked at its name on the bus-map of the city which I had. I had forgotten that I'd marked it in my Lonely Planet Japan as a place to visit in Kyoto. I'd have been more embarrassed had I twice missed entering it. The first few photos below are from the previous day, when I had actually missed the 'last call' for tickets. I missed the 'last call' because I was taking those photos.

Spot the error

Rectum? Nearly killed'im.

Biiiiiiig walls

Swans

Big doors? Little guys

Glorious Jacob's Ladder

After Nijo-jo, I met Liz and two of her lab-mates for dinner, including one from Henan, a Chinese province. On our way to dinner, we encountered the beautiful sign below.

Hat-fishing prohibited

The Return To Beijing
My return to China was marked by mafan even before I stepped onto the plane. New security measures, mirroring those I encountered in Toronto when I left Canada for studying in China, were in their first day of implementation in Kansai Airport. Lines were really long, and I didn't have much time to relax before I was to board my plane. our return trip was also via Yantai. After I re-boarded the plane in Yantai, I witnessed a really cute conversation between one of the stewardesses and a young boy. I'm afraid that I didn't photograph the best parts of the conversation because my camera was giving me some mafan. Below is the only shot I got. :)

At Beijing's airport, when I was about to leave for Kansai Airport, I was taken to the remote outpost from which my plane would fly. The bus which took us to the location had a notice exhorting passengers to sit. I photographed that notice but, at the time, I didn't think to photograph the inside of the bus. I remembered after returning from Kansai Airport. Please note the absence of seating. Readers who are literate in Chinese will also note that the sign is translated properly. It's a semantic problem.

All in all, I really enjoyed the respite from China's mafan which I had in Japan. My biggest problem was the culture shock which I experienced after returning to Beijing. Take care, all!

J-Pan: Land Of Rising Fun (Part 1)

2007-05-26T07:55:00.000-07:00

Heya, folks! Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this post, I'd like to share with you the idea of moving from 'language partners' to 'language threesome', an idea upon which occurred to me while talking to my friend Carolyn (another Canadian from Vancouver).

Oh, I received my results from the HSK. I've gotten Level 3 of 11. My grammar's at Level 4 but I did poorly enough on the rest of the test to get only Level 3 overall. I'll write it again on 24 June.

Please note that this post contains only information about the part of my trip to Japan which was based in Tokyo. My next post shall contain the part of my trip based in Kyoto.

Preparations
Before going to Japan, I went to a building in Beijing's Chaoyang District to buy a two-week JR Pass. With the JR Pass, one is able to travel on (most of) Japan Rail's lines for free. Well, I guess it's not quite for free because all such travel is pre-paid.

The process for buying the JR Pass is a bit more complicated than it seems at first blush. Firstly, one must either be a non-national of Japan who is going to Japan for a visit, neither for study nor for work, or a Japanese national who satisfies some confusing set of criteria. Secondly, one must buy a ticket before going to Japan, and then exchange it for the JR Pass when one wishes to start using it. One is not able to buy the ticket in Japan: one must first buy the ticket outside of Japan for either one, two, or three weeks of travel. I bought a ticket for two weeks of virtually unlimited travel by train.

Tokyo
Thursday, 15 February
On the morning of 15 February, I flew from Beijing via Yantai to Kansai airport in Osaka. During our lay-over in Yantai, I met a nice Chinese gentleman who works for a large Japanese company which has a presence in China. He was on his way to Osaka to visit his Japanese wife, who was due to give birth later that day.

Immediately after passing through customs at Kansai Airport, I exchanged my JR ticket for a JR Pass and made my way to Tokyo. I rode the Shinkansen (Japan's Bullet Train, 新幹線) for the first time for to ultimately meet Renato and Hanako at Harajuku Station in Tokyo. Because Renato's a Canadian diplomat, they live in a Canadian-style town-house in the Aoyama District (青山区) of Tokyo. They proceeded to host me in Tokyo throughout the next eight nights.

Friday, 16 February
Akihabara (秋葉原)
Renato was able to take the day from work so the three of us ventured forth to Akihabara in order to find for ourselves a maid cafe (メード·カフェ). I must admit that I'm a bit baffled by the inconsistency of a conservative society which supports things like maid cafes. Here's the scoop: young waitresses dress as French maids for serving customers. They 'accidentally' drop things on the floor with frightening frequency (I wouldn't want them transporting my glassware) and bend-over to fetch them. Some maid cafes offer something called 'fu-fu' service (フーフー·サービス), during which they spoon-feed to customers hot beverages while blowing on them for cooling said beverages.

We finally found a maid who was able to bring us to her cafe. After we arrived, we discovered that we were brought not to a maid cafe but, rather, to an anime cafe. the idea is similar to that of a maid cafe, except that some of the waitresses are dressed as school-girls from anime. I really can't understand how these places can be popular as they are. After we had our fill of beverages (and the maids and school-girls), we made our way to Odaiba.

Not the maid cafe to which we went

Odaiba (大台場, I think)
Odaiba is a part of Tokyo built on reclaimed land. According to some persons with whom I've spoken recently, pretty much all land-reclamations are sinking slowly, being reclaimed by the sea. At Odaiba we were able to visit Fuji Television's studio / museum. I recognised a few of the characters but I have to admit that I've never seen any of the shows. After visiting the studio, we went to Venus Fort (ビーナスフォート), which is a mall with pseudo-Renaissance architecture and expensive stores.

At Fuji Television

Not 'Fishland' -- read it again

Am I in New York?

Rainbow Bridge, if I remember correctly

'For good times, make it Suntory times'

Venus Fort

Wedding bench

Men's, Ladie's, and Baby Changer

After we ate at a food court which specialises in ramen, we made our way to fetch Renato's former tutor of Japanese, Machiko. She was scheduled to stay with us throughout two nights.

Saturday, 17 February
Kamakura (鎌倉)
Daibutsu-ji (大仏寺)
Early on the morning of 17 February, we four adventurers took a day-trip to visit temples in Kamakura, one of Japan's ancient former capitals. Not long after he arrived in Japan, Renato was able to obtain a vehicle at a very low price ('free' is cheap) . He drove we four rode to Kamakura in it. Our first stop was at the temple housing the large statue of the Amitabha (Amida Butsu, 阿弥陀仏) , which is the largest outdoor sitting Buddha in Japan. It wasn't an 'outdoor' statue until more a typhoon washed-away the building housing it more than 500 years ago.

I first visited Kamakura in 2003 near the end of a programme in which I participated, the Humanistic Buddhist Monastic Life Programme. I didn't yet own a digital camera at that time so this time I re-took a number of photos for which I have prints in Canada.

Hanako, Renato, Machiko, and me

Hase-dera (長谷寺)
Another temple which I visited in 2003 and revisited this year is Hase-dera, the home of a tall statue of Avalokitesvara (Kannon, 観音). I felt last time, as this time, that it is a very lush and green temple. I especially like the carp, which are not green.

Groovy tree

KITTY!

Not Hawkeye Pierce

KOI!

After Hase-dera, we found lunch at a local restaurant. Later, we went to a third temple, the name of which I don't remember. While we were there, we had the good fortune of witnessing part of a traditional Japanese wedding ceremony. Finally, we did a bit of shopping before we returned to Tokyo.

TOTORO!

Amish Cooking Kamakura

Sunday, 18 February
Shinjuku (新宿)
Machiko was scheduled to return to her home on Sunday so Renato gave her a ride to Shinjuku Station. I took that opportunity to return to one of my favourite city-districts in the world.

While I was in Shinjuku I heard much Mandarin being spoken. I encountered one tourist group and I think another pair of individuals who were travelling independently of the group.

My first stop was at the seven-floor Kinokuniya (紀伊国屋) at Takashimaya (高島屋) Times Square. I bought many books which are unavailable in either Canada or in China, including a large number for studying Japanese language.

After leaving Kinokuniya, I took a look around Shinjuku to see what had changed. A Krispy Kreme was apparently added about six months beforehand. The line for doughnuts was crazily long! It was long enough that I had originally thought that the shop was new.

Renato told me that he occasionally goes to buy a single doughnut. While he waits in line to order, a free sample is given to him. Having gotten what he came to get, he then leaves. I think that the system works really well for him. :)

After wandering a bit, I decided to go to the revisit the first place at which I ate in Tokyo in 2003, an Irish pub called The Dubliners. I've learnt that it's now part of a chain, and that two or three others exist in the greater Tokyo area.

I am in New York!

Line for Krispy Kreme

Monday, 19 February
Asakusa (浅草)
Early in the morning I took the Ginza Line from Omote-sando (表三度) to Asakusa Station to meet my friend Chikako for a day of travelling around the greater Tokyo area. She's appeared on my blog previously as one of my classmates from my calligraphy class in BLCU; this semester, she's also one of my classmates in Classical Chinese. The first item on our agenda for the day was to go to Asakusa to visit the Kannon Temple.

I first visited the temple in 2003 when I attended the HBMLP. Again, I re-took a large number of photos for which I have prints in Canada.

Asahi Super-dry

Chikako, me, and the Colour Checker

Kitties! Well, one of them is, anyway

Jizo (I think) on the left, Kannon on the right

Cool tree

In the neighbourhood of Asakusa, Chikako and I tried to go to a famous restaurant which serves okonomiyaki (お好み焼き), named Sometaro. I'm afraid that it's closed on Mondays, so we were forced to go elsewhere for lunch.

Oranges in front of Sometaro

Me and Chikako in front of Sometaro

Studio Ghibli's Museum (スタジオ·ジブリの美術館)
After lunch, we took the almost hour-long trip to Mitake (御岳) to go to Studio Ghibli's Museum. For those of you who don't know, Studio Ghibli is Miyazaki Hayao's studio which made the movies Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro, Laputa, Castle In The Sky, and Kiki's Delivery Service. For any fan, or any casual viewer of those movies for that matter, this is a must-see. However, I don't think that anyone above the age of 14 will want to go more than once.

In a park near the museum

Black torii in the neighbourhood

Porco Rosso frying sausages in a cast-irony skillet

The local cat-bus

Tokyo Tower
After the return train ride to Central Tokyo, Chikako asked me whether I'd like to go to any other place. I asked her whether she'd accompany me to Tokyo Tower, and she agreed. From the top of the Tower I was able to use my mini-tripod to take a number of night-shots of Tokyo from a high vantage point.

Because neither of us speaks the other's native language well, we used Mandarin almost exclusively throughout the day to communicate with each other. Although we heard Mandarin in virtually every place to which we went throughout the day, the high point of the day (with respect to Mandarin) came when someone overheard us and used Mandarin to ask us for directions to the nearest subway station.

No, wait, I'm in Paris

National Diet Building

Tuesday, 20 February
On Tuesday, I went to a nearby part of Tokyo to meet my good friend Shoichi for lunch. I first met Shoichi in Fall 2000 when he was studying Political Science at University of Waterloo while being stationed in Canada as a diplomat. After he graduated in 2002, he was stationed at Japan's embassy in Ottawa until he was transferred to India. He is currently stationed in another part of Japan's international affairs division.

Because I'm stupid, I completely forgot about the camera I had with me and so I have no photo of the two of us. However, for those of you who know him, he is virtually ageless. He certainly hasn't visibly aged since I last saw him in 2002, except that he perhaps has two more grey hairs on his head. He is still the intelligent, charming, and thoughtful person I met years ago.

After having lunch with Shoichi, I did nothing of great import throughout the day. It was good day for relaxing, especially because rain was falling.

Wednesday, 21 February
Shibuya (渋谷)
I decided that because I missed a few things in Tokyo a few years ago that I really owed to see them on my latest trip. I went to shibuya to seek-out a few things. What I found include love hotels, a statue of a dog, and the Salt And Tobacco Museum.

Love hotels are basically hotels for which a couple may pay by the hour. They're a lot nicer-looking than the ones in Hong Kong. The statue is called Hachiko-zo (ハチ公像); it's dedicated to a loyal dog who daily continued to await his master's return at Shibuya station until his own death, eleven years after his master's.

The Salt And Tobacco Museum. Wow. My first thought: 'What a strange combination.'. I still think that it's a strange combination. Basically, it's like two museums in one, with another area for special exhibits. I first visited the special exhibit, which was dedicated to the upcoming Dolls' Festival (03 March's Hina Matsuri, ひな祭り). Next, I saw exhibits dedicated to Japan's long history of harvesting salt from seaweed. Finally, I saw a shrine to the history of tobacco use in Japan, including a large number of posters for various forms of tobacco from around the world.

'Where is The Doctor?'

Famous intersection, not busy as seen on television

Miniature museum at Shibuya Station

Hachiko-zo

Hourly Rates

Love hotel in Shibuya

Return To Ginza (銀座)
After leaving Shibuya, I made my trumphant return to Ginza. I revisited the Sony Building and Ginza United Church, which was a Methodist church until the founding of the United Church in 1925. Believe it or not, the United Church was formed in Canada as a union of the Methodist, Congregationalist, and Presbyterian churches. The moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Canada at the time was Rev. Charles Gordon, a.k.a. Ralph Connor, the author of The Man From Glengarry, and Canada's internationally most famous author at the turn of the twentieth century. He was born in Sandringham, Ontario, just oustide of my home town, Maxville.

Most importantly, however, the Colour Checker was able to stop Godzilla (ゴジラ) from destroying Ginza (again). It was too late to save Ginza from Gamera (ガメラ).

Glico

Ginza United Church

Later that day, I met my friend Kyle in Akihabara for dinner before he returned to Tsukuba (筑波). Because I'm an idiot, I forgot to have a photo of the two of us taken.

Maids in Akihabara

Thusrday, 22 February
Nikko (日光)
Nikko is the site of the tomb of one of the most interesting and influential persons in Japanese history, Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康). In the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, after centuries of internecine fighting, he succeeded in uniting Japan militarily. He also succeeded in isolating Japan from the rest of the world for three and half centuries, outlawing Christianity throughout all of that time. His character was the inspiration for James Clavell's novel, Shogun. Despite the disdain held for the book by Japanese historians, it's reputed to have generated more international interest in Japanese history than any single other source.

Nikko is about a two-hour trip north of Tokyo. Emperor Hirohito took refuge in Nikko during the bombing of Tokyo in World War II. Another claim to fame for Nikko is that it is the home of a really old Buddhist monastery which was founded by the great monk Shodo Shonin (衝動承認, I think) in 782 C.E..

While I was in Nikko, I encountered a Taiwanese tour group along with some other Taiwanese individuals. While I was in Japan, almost no day went by without me hearing some Mandarin.

Enya's in Japan?

Where Shodo Shonin was reputed to be carried across by two serpents

Shodo Shonin

I really feel lazy with respect to typing this part of my entry. I really want to talk about the different parts of the complex of temples and shrines which I visited here, but I can't bring myself to do it I think that anyone who has access to my webpage also has access to Google for searching for 'Nikko'. :P The only information I feel like adding right now, besides a few captions to the photos, is that this is one of the many World Heritage Sites I've visited in Japan.

Five-storey Pagoda

Tokugawa

'Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil'

'We love hockey'

'Please do not litter. Keep NIKKO tidy' (Jap.: 'Please take your garbage home with you')

Friday, 23 February
Roppongi
After a few weeks of trying to contact her, I finally contacted a Japanese friend of mine named Yukiko. Her parents live in Kobe; I figured that if I were to meet her at all in Japan, I'd meet her in Kobe. As it turns-out, she had just moved to Tokyo to start a job doing software development for Goldman-Sachs. We agreed to meet at Roppongi Hills in Roppongi.

As it turns-out, Roppongi Hills has a large sculpture of a spider which looks like the one in front of the National Art Gallery Of Canada. As far as I know, they have the same scultpor. I'm afraid that even though Roppongi Hills has a really tall tower, I wasn't able to take any good high-altitude shots of the city due to rain. After having lunch at a Chinese restaurant, we took a trip to the upper reaches of Roppongi Hills. After taking a look at the cloudy city, we spent several hours in a gallery for modern art.

Yes, it's an international company

Roppongi spider (Yukiko's in the bottom-left corner with an umbrella)

Me and Yukiko

The Last Supper
After a bit of trying, I finally contacted our old friend Makiko. We met her back in the 2000-2001 school year when she was doing a master's degree at UW. She's been working for J.P. Morgan in Tokyo since then. This was my first time to see her face-to-face since we whiled-away the summer of 2001.

Renato, Hanako, Kat, Paul, me, and Mak-Tak

Interesting circular entrance

Oh, my!

To be concluded ....

Midterm Blues

2007-05-13T23:24:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

I had my midterms last week. As expected, I was slaughtered; I am pleasantly surprised that I passed all of them. (Comprehensive (Written Comp (综合) - 65 * 80%, Oral (口语) - 72 * 20%) - 66; Reading Comprehension (阅读) - 65; Listening Comprehension (听力)- 70.) One of my marks (Listening) actually rose from last semester; according to the instructor, I did better on the difficult part of the exam than on the simple part.

As far as I'm concerned, the Listening Comprehension course is useful for three things: a) training for on-the-spot translation; b) listening to radio broadcasts; and c) writing Listening Comprehension exams. If the exam's recorded voices are so swift that native speakers have trouble understanding them, then it's not a fair gauge of our listening ability. If the only way to study properly for this exam is by listening to the lessons afresh because many of the questions on the exam are lifted directly from the recordings for the lessons, and we're able to answer correctly a large number of questions before we even hear them, then the exam is again not a useful gauge of our listening ability. What would be more useful is a (small) class in which we do nothing but talk.

I guess that's enough of my idle ranting for now. Talk to you soon!

Botanical Garden

2007-05-12T23:54:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone!

Yesterday I took a trip to the botanical garden just east of Xiang Shan, which I visited last 11/11. The park was really nice and really huge. After four or five hours, I was able to see only about half of it.

I learnt after arriving that on the grounds is Wofo Si (卧佛寺), the Reclining Buddha Temple. In it is a pavilion with a display of a number of reclining Buddhas ('Buddha' here is capitalised because the 'Reclining Buddha' is always an image of the Sakyamuni Buddha at his parinirvana). The display contains a photos of a number of reclining Buddhas from around China, many of which I saw in technicolour during my trip to Gansu province at the beginning of May.

The Botanical Garden also houses a pavilion dedicated to 09 December 1935, the date of a large series of protests in Beijing against the Japanese occupation of 'Manchuguo'.

Anyway, this post exists merely to display some photos from yesterday's excursion. :) TTFN!

Lei and her husband, Feng, and half of me

Random guy who wanted a photo with me

Fragrant Grass

Stone grapes

Stone 'food'

A truly golden fish

What is a 'thunb'?

09 December Memorial

The Television Fairy

2007-05-09T01:42:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone. Not much time has passed since my last post; I thought I'd get some things out of the way, now that I have a bit of a lull in the storm.

As some of you know, I have been on television a couple of times since I came to China. My first appearance was in a competition for Chinese Arts held at my school. The show was broadcast over Beijing Television (BTV).

The second appearance was recorded on 18 March, and was broadcast on Chinese Educational Television 1 (BETV 1) on 26 March. The purpose of the show is for helping high school seniors (and their parents) to choose a university major. The major featured in the episode in which I appeared is Chinese calligraphy. I appeared with with the show's host, a professor from Capital Normal University (首都师范大学), and two middle-school students who study calligraphy.

Before I could go onto television, I had to both consult with the show's producer and host, and also be outfitted for the part. For the outfitting, we went to Panjia Yuan (潘家园). Panjia Yuan is a market where one may buy myriad things, including clothing, books, items for calligraphy, among other things. I've included in this post a few photos of Panjia Yuan.

As it turns-out, I'll be on television at least another two times. Two weeks ago, when I arrived at my calligraphy class, a television crew awaited our arrival. I have no idea for which television show we were filmed, let alone for which station. And I've been maneuvered into being on television yet again; I'll be filmed next Wednesday evening. Aiya!

The professor, the producer, and me

Hong Kong, And Guangzhou Revisited

2007-05-09T01:37:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! I've decided to clean-up my act and get-around to posting photos from the trips I took a few months ago. I went to Hong Kong on 09 February, stayed at Cheryl's family home for four nights, returned to Mainland China on 13 February (in Guangzhou), and finally arrived in Beijing on 14 February. I flew to GZ instead of directly to HK for two reasons: firstly, flying to GZ and then taking a train to HK is a few hundred kuai less expensive than flying directly to HK but, more importantly, I wanted to make an overnight stop in GZ to visit a friend and former house-mate. Because I'm stupid, I didn't have a photo taken with said former house-mate so I don't have a photo to share with all y'all. I hope that the photos I took during my five nights in HK make-up for it. :)

Day 0
I arrived in Guanzhou's airport at around 2:00 P.M., or so. Because I had previously been to Guangzhou, I know my way around the relevant parts of GZ for travelling to HK. I eventually made my way to HK by train, via Shenzhen. I arrived at around 6:00 P.M. and made my way to Mong Kok, which is where I had arranged to meet Cheryl. In Mong Kok, I found a store selling 'previously enjoyed' BlackBerry devices, for to replace the one which broke very early on Christmas morning. After meeting Cheryl at approximately 10:00, we made our way to her home.

Day 1
On my first full day in HK, we deicded to take the Peak Tram. The Peak Tram is about a hunderd years old and has yet to have an accident. the first problem we had to solve was to find the base of the Peak Tram. We ultimately made our way to a park at the base of Victoria Peak.

While walking around the park on the Peak, we encountered a few interesting things, including a couple of hawks sparring (or doing something else!) in mid-air. :) Throughout the day, we travelled by peak tram, ferry, subway, public light bus, city bus, and taxi. :)

A very British sign

Construction?

Banyan vines

Better than the Peak's Burger King, I suspect

City-scape

Checker-scape

While we were walking through the neighbourhood containing this cathedral, we encountered a fake Buddhist monk. Ivy and I encountered one in GZ -- seeing an able-bodied person posing as a monastic instead of working was a bit depressing.

Smog

Cheryl's cousin KT's birthday is on 14 February. Because that fell on a Thursday this year, he deicded to have a little birthday celebration on the preceding weekend. A few of us had ramen for dinner followed by karaoke for 20. :D Much fun was had by all.

Day 2
After a night of partying, Cheryl and I took an early trip to Lantau Island to see the large Buddha. It's one of the largest Buddhas in the world, but it's got nothing on the one at Leshan, in China. After touring the compound for a while, we shared a vegetarian meal which was included as part of our admission.

Day 3
On the third full day of my stay, Cheryl and I did a bit of shopping for sunglasses and BlackBerry devices before heading to the world's tallest escalator. It's actually a series of small escalators linked in a sequence. In the morning, they head downwards but, at around noon, they reverse direction.

Throughout the preceding few days, I had seen many ads for the new museum dedicated to Sun Yat-sen. While riding the escalator for fun, we encountered signs pointing us towards the museum. Although the museum contained some interesting articles of clothing and writing, it was surprisingly uninformative with respect to his life and his multiple wives. I bought a souvenir for myself (a Sun Yat-pen), but I lost it shortly afer the current semester started. :(

Not Ottawa's Elgin Street

Sun Yat-sen and me

Sun Yat-sen and Cheryl

Day 4
I left Cheryl's place shortly before noon on my last day in HK. I took a train to GZ and went to the hotel at which Wan, one of my friends, had booked on my behalf. After I settled and had a shower, I went to another part of town to meet her for dinner. I'm afraid that I'm stupid, and I forgot to remove my camera from my bag for a photo with her. :( Ah well. Next time ....

Epilogue
The Prisoner Of Azkaban is on TV while I type this entry. I just realised that Hermione Granger is a wee-atch.

Hong Kong is also not free of interesting and funny signs and sights. Here you go! 'Til next time, keep your head high and keep your stick on the ice.

Cotton Tree Drive Marriage Registry

I apparently didn't need to go to Disneyland

Um

This gentleman looks quite pleased with himself

Part-time pedestrians prohibited

Guangzhou, Take 1

2007-05-09T00:08:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone! I realise that I haven't posted in a while but I've been busy travelling and madly preparing for my midterm exams. I glad to say that I've finished writing my midterms, although I think that my results for the Comprehensive and the Oral are not too good.

Back in December, on the weekend before Christmas, I visited Guangzhou (广州) for several reasons, two of which are Ivy and Tina. Both of them are natives of Guangzhou, and I know both of them from Waterloo, but neither knew the other until I introduced them during my first visit to Guangzhou. Even that was a chance meeting on the street while I was walking with Tina and some of her friends the day after the day I spent with Ivy. I'm swiftly learning that, even in China, I can't really go to too many places without bumping into someone whom I know. :)

Day 0
Immediately after disembarking from the plane, I found an airport transit service which would bring me to Guangzhou. I rode the airport transit bus beside a girl named Coral (not Carol). After I arrived in Guangzhou, at approximately 7:00, I sought one of the hotels which Ivy found on my behalf in a more modern part of Guangzhou, called Tianhe (天河). I decided to walk a bit and explore my territory.

Guangzhou's Tianhe District, at night

Day 1
The next day, I saw Ivy, whom I originally met through the Buddha's Light Community at UW. We firstly had an early lunch , then headed to Guangxiao Temple (光孝寺). After taking a brief look at that temple, we headed to the Temple Of The Six Banyan Trees (六榕寺). The 'Great Sixth' patriarch of Linji (Rinzai, 临济), Ven. Huineng (慧能法师), is reputed to have taught at these two temples, and others, throughout the last thirty years of his life. His mummy is apparently on display at a temple in the vicinity of Guangzhou, but I didn't learn that until early January.

Neither Canadian nor from Vancouver, according to the sign

Ivy and me

Me with the Colour Checker at Guangxiao Si

The Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra at one of the temples

Turtles, turtles, rah rah rah!

Where's Waldo?

After visiting those two historically important Buddhist temples, we then vetured towards an old mosque. The current mosque apparently dates from the Qing Dynasty, but legend holds that it was established in 627 C.E., before the death of The Prophet, by one of his uncles. At least, that's what Lonely Planet China indicates. Because this is not so much a touristy spot as a place of worship, we were not allowed to enter.

From there, we proceeded to a Daoist temple devoted to the Five Immortals who are reputed to have founded Guangzhou in the 12th century, or so. Of course, that's right around the time when many individuals were pushed out of Cenral China (near Xi'an) by ancestors of the Manchus. The Immortals are reputed to have arrived in five goat-drawn chariots.

Statue of the Five Immortals

Reputed to be a foot-print of one of the Immortals

After seeing the Daoist temple, we headed to Guangzhou's memorial for one of my personal heroes, Sun Yat-sen. Sun Yat-sen is seen as a hero on both sides of the Strait of Taiwan. He was a champion of equality, human rights, and social justice. He is a rarity in the history of modern China because he is revered both by followers of the CCP and the GMD. During his exile in Japan, he was known as 'Nakayama' ('Zhongshan',中山), and many things around China are named after him using this name. He was known by other names throughout his life, but the one best known in the West is Sun Yat-sen. I'd recommend reading more about this important figure in Wikipedia to get an idea about his life and times. I don't really trust Wikipedia, but it's a good place at which to start looking for references.

Ivy with the Colour Checker in front of the Sun Yat-sen Memorial

A banyan

From Sun Yat-sen's Memorial, we took a short walk to a park dedicated to the goats which pulled the celestial chariots of the Five Immortals. The status featured below was built in the 1950s. The statue is labelled as the 'Five Rams', but some of the are most definitely female, and they're not sheep (from which we would distinguish goats in English).

Also in the park is the Guangzhou City Museum. We wanted to visit but, because we arrived at the park late in the day, the museum had already closed.

Celestials giving grain to local farmers

Guangzhou City Museum

Day 2
On my second day in Guangzhou, I met another friend whom I met in Waterloo, Tina. Although she's not a Buddhist, I met her through UW's other Chinese Buddhist organisation, UW Tzu-chi (UW Ciji, 慈济). Although she was born in Guangzhou, her family relocated to Shenzhen (深圳) before she went alone to Canada.

Together, Tina and I went to only one historical monnument. The monument commemorates the deaths of 72 peasants during a socialist uprising in Guangzhou in 1895, which was instigagted by Sun Yat-sen. While we were here, we were able to see some interesting phallic proletariat artwork. We also saw some of the most interesting literal tranlations of signs I've seen in China.

Tina and me

Phallic rifle

Practitioners of gongfu and taiji

It's up there!

Sino-North Korean Memorial

Puppy!

Prince Charming? Don't kiss that! You don't know where he's been!

Funny

Funnier

After seeing the 'Blood-Condensed' places at the memorial, we met some of Tina's former cohorts for lunch. I'm afraid that I remember the name of Xiao Bai, but no others. :( They are all quite friendly and intelligent, and I was happy to meet them.

Xiao Bai, shei, shei, Tina, and Me

While I was exiting one of Guangzhou's subway stations with Tina, I saw the ad below for an off-colour brand of tooth paste. The name 'Darlie' apparently used to be slightly different (hint: replace the 'l' with a 'k', and you'll get the right idea). The erstwhile name was considered to be too racist but, apparently, the logo was not. It's kinda funny to see this, from a Canadian's perspective, especially because this kind of thing would not fly in current-day Canada (or the U.S.). I guess China really doesn't have the same cultural sensitivities which we have in my part of North America. I decided to buy a tube of said brand because I thought it'd be funny. What was funniest is that I found the 'whitening' type.

Finally, at Beijing's airport, shortly after I boarded the airport shuttle, I saw this wonderfully translated sign.

One last note: It seems that anyone trying to sell a 'hot' computer in Guangzhou has a larger English vocabulary than the standard hawkers anywhere in China. Standard English consists of one piece of vocabulary: 'hello'. In Guangzhou, two other pieces exist: 'sir' and 'computer', yielding sentenes like 'hello, 'hello sir hello', 'hello sir computer hello', and 'computer sir hello'.

That's it for this post, folks! Smell ya later!

Juicy Hongluo Si

2007-04-27T20:58:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone!

Our class recently took a trip to a couple of places in the greater Beijing area. Our first stop was at Hongluo Si (红螺寺), a large temple complex which is approximately 40 km from the Fifth Ring Road encircling Beijing. According to my instructor, it's the largest such temple in China north of the Yellow River. Among its older treasures are a statue of Maitreya Buddha (the buddha of the next age) surrounded by the 500 Arhats and the famed Guanyin Temple. Its more recent treasures include a Mutianyu-esque 'Alpine Slide'.

After leaving Hongluo Si we went to a juice factory for a buffet-style lunch and a tour of the facility.

I don't really have much to say about either place so I'll let the photos do the talking. :)

Maitreya, the buddha of the next age

One of the 500 Arhats

His name-plate

More Arhats

Arhats with the Colour Checker

Be careful!

Ready ... aim ... fire!

Yahr!

Termi-what?

Mine!

1020 ban class photo

Taking care of the bamboo

Pee-nguin

Our tour guides

Dinner Party And Mutianyu Great Wall

2007-04-22T06:46:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone! I'm sorry for taking a while to post again -- I've recently been busy with several different little projects and also with preparing for the HSK (Mandarin Proficiency Test, 汉语水平考试). I didn't do so well on the HSK but I didn't expect to do well. I shall write it again in June, and then again in October after I return to Canada.

Before I continue with this post, I shall bring to your attention the unfortunate but inevitable death of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., the author of Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast Of Champions. I highly recommend that each of you read at least one of his novels.

Dinner Party
On 14 April, Cheryl, Courtney, and Dean hosted an expensive dinner party at Cheryl's home. According to them, Dean provided the good cooking, Courtney provided the expertise relate to wines, and Cheryl provided the locale. I didn't try the wine, but I did partake in some non-alcoholic beer. :)

Aiya!

Axel, Richard, Genjirou, Debi, Courtney, Cheryl, and Jeanette

Jiji, me, and something alcohol-free

Dean and Alice

From one of Sam's student's, 'Kinki'

Sam and Sam

Cheryl, Sam, and Me

Mutianyu Great Wall (慕田峪长城)

On 21 April, we took a school-organised trip to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. The most amazing thing for me about this section of the Great Wall, and the main reason why I wanted to go on this trip, is that a 'toboggan' may be ridden on the trip downward. It's really crass and funny, so I just had to ride it. Otherwise, the trip was basically an outing with friends.

De toboggan, Boss!

Bactrian and Fortrian

Jeanette, me, and Guo Laoshi, our advisor

A class picture, of sorts: Said, Jeanette, Jinchuan, Sergey, and me

Jeanette, Sherlyn, and Llana

Guards, seemingly off-duty, and Sherlyn

My new buddy, a small lizard

How much for this section of the wall?

Tee hee hee!

Masaki, me, and Da Miyuki

Jeanette with the Colour Checker

Me with the Colour Checker

China's Wonderland? Super-luge?

So it goes

This sign defies adequate description

A far-out way of mounting something

I thought I already saw the best cable car

Um

State-Run Tourist Development All-Around Store

Class Birthday

2007-04-07T22:12:00.000-07:00

On 21 December 2006, one of my classmates hosted at his apartment a birthday party for three of our classmates. We certainly have some silly characters in our class, most of whom were able to attend this birthday party. Two of our three instructors were in attendance: Zhang Laoshi, who teaches the 'Comprehensive' class, and Deng Laoshi, who teaches the 'Listening Comprehension' class.

Jeanette, Dean, and me

Amid and her daddy, Amir

Amid's mum, Avital, and me

Many of our class's members, in random order: Jinchuan, Francesca, someone who's not in our class, Timud, Maria's forehead, Jishun, Zhang Laoshi, Natalie, Deng Laoshi, Niels, Jeanette, Listiya, Sabin, Sano-san, and Sergey

Deng Laoshi and Amid

Deng Laoshi and me

Me, Zhang Laoshi, and Niels

Sabine and me

Factory 798, Hot Pot, And Camera Heaven

2007-04-07T21:07:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

I have only a short entry here. In December an Australian friend of mine named Darren, who was an exchange student at Waterloo from University of Queensland, in Brisbane, came to Beijing for a couple of weeks on behalf of his American-based company. While he was here, we did a bunch of things together.

Factory 798

Firstly, we took a trip to Beijing's haven of modern Chinese art, Factory 798. The Factory is a complex of buildings in which local artists acted as squatters for to prevent the destruction of the buildings during Beijing's effort to modernise. The Factory now houses some of the most interesting and exciting art in China. Six of us (Cheryl, Darren, Jeanette, Llana, Sherlyn, and I) took a day-trip on 09 December 2006 to see what all the fuss was about.

The black-rimmed photos were taken by Darren, who's a bit of a photography buff. He's got an interesting array of cameras which he brings with him on his trips and he showed us how some of the more obscure ones work. The black-rimmed photos below were taken by Darren with his camera.

Interestingly enough, although the normal Chinese term for defaecating involves 'pulling bowels', the Chinese in the sign below ('Please don't pull the bowels') doesn't contain that term. I especially like the moustache and facial expression on the pile of yellow poo.

Interesting mural

Darren photographing Cheryl photographing me photographing Darren ...

Six brave adventurers: Sherlyn, Jeanette, Darren, Cheryl, me, and Llana

Mote it be?

Hot Pot
Later that evening, a group of us went for hot pot and a full-body massage, and much fun was had by all. :)

Before

After

Camera City
On the following Day, Darren and I took a trip to a mall which services camera buffs. Darren wanted to see whether he could find a good deal while he was in Beijing, and I thought I'd like to take advantage of being able to go with a friendly aficionado and learn a bit more about photography.

Me and the Colour Checker in front of the camera city

Darren and the Colour Checker in front of the camera city

Me and Darren, with no Colour Checker in sight

Tea House

2007-04-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

Hello again. This Stu, your correspondent in China coming to you live (or half-dead) from Beijing. I'm blocked again. I really don't know what criteria are used for blocking whole swaths of web sites. This post concerns primarily a trip which our class took to a tea house in the Fall. Before I get into that, I want to tell you about a few things which have occurred to me lately.

Firstly, throughout the last month, I've allowed the mafan in China to really get to me. Going to relatively mafan-free zones, such as Hong Kong and Japan. Their mafan is different and much less prevalent. It's like the mafan in China accumulated as pain might accumulate from peing poked repeatedly in the same place (Chinese water torture?). Going to the other places was like covering the wound with a bandage but allowing the wound to fester. Once I returned, the bandage was removed and the poking resumed on a wound which was in worse shape than previously. After giving it a lot of thought, and going through a phase with high blood pressure, I understand the situation much better and I'm feeling better now.

One of the things which has been bothering me about China is that the persons here claim to put great stock in certain ideas of community and helping each other, yet almost every individual thinks that he or she is not subject to most of those ideas at arbitrary times of their choosing. Once I penetrated the seeming contradiction, I understood why I was so bothered by my helplessness to explain or overcome this attitude of the general populace. Thus I was able to put things into perspective.

Oh, one last note: before the seven-day-long break for Labour Day (01-07 May) we have eight contiguous days of lectures (23-30 April). 嗨.

Cha Lou
A few days after Cheryl and I returned from our trip to Xi'an, our classes took a previously planned trip to visit Lao3 She3 Cha2 Lou2 (老舍茶楼). Lao She was one of China's most famous authors in the twentieth century. The tea house is located near Tian'an Men Square, which I've still yet to visit. We saw a number of acrobatic and acting performances there, all of which were quite interesting. I took many photos for such a short span of time and I'm happy to share some of them with you here.

Jeanette and me

Some members of my class, from left to right: Jeanette, Said, Parviz, Zhang Laoshi, Jishun, Maria, Francesca, Listiya, and Reiko.

Opening ceremonies

Opening acrobatics

And in the red corner ...

Kicking bowls onto his head

Mmmmm ... pretzels

Magician and mucisian (whistling)

The Monkey King taking the tar out of 18 monks

Internex-Lax

2007-04-02T00:33:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone. Magically, my blog has become unblocked in China. I guess it's like an April Fools' Day joke which took more than a week to tell. :P

Blocked Again!

2007-03-31T21:04:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone.

My blog is once again blocked within China. That doesn't prevent me from posting but it has two direct consequences which come to mind. Firstly, none of my friends who are within China are able to see it unless they use some tunneling technology. Secondly, because of Blogger's interface for moderating comments, I am able to approve comments for moderation but I am unable to leave my own. I have a comment to which I want to respond but I currently have no vehicle for doing so within the 'Comments' section of a particular post. In case you're wondering why I'm mentioning this now, I have a comment which I've not yet moderated because I wish to respond to it. I'd rather not post the comment within the body of a post because I don't want the comment to become lost, and that is why I also don't want to post the response to the comment anywhere else.

Xi'an Addendum

2007-03-25T23:21:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone!

I almost forgot to mention the souvenir I bought for Liam Q., in Xi'an. It's the deck of cards featured on the left in the photo featured here. The name is really funny on many levels, especially if one considers homophony due to elision. :)

Xi'an And Hua Shan

2007-03-24T03:33:00.000-07:00

Xi'an And Hua Shan
Hello, everyone! I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but I've been busy as all hell, if you know what I mean. Since I last posted on my blog, I've been to Guangzhou (again) and Hong Kong, along with a two-week-long trip to Japan. However, in this posting, I have written about Xi'an, the most ancient former capital of a unified China. I have also adorned the page with many of the 750+ photos taken on this trip by me and Cheryl. My photos from this trip are available at http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~scepollo/images/ChinaTrips/Xian.

Before I get into that, I'd like to tell all y'all that I'm going to be on television at 20:00 BST on Monday, 26 March 2007, on CETV 1 (Chinese Educational Television 1). It's a show designed to help Mainland Chinese high school seniors to select a major for university. The major featured in this episode is Chinese calligraphy.

Hua2 Shan1 (华山)
Cheryl and I embarked in November on a trip to Xi1'an1 (西安) and Hua Shan, both of which are located in Sha'an3xi1 (陕西) province. We rode the overnight soft-sleeper on Friday, 17 November, to arrive in Xi'an on the morning of 18 November. Immediately after arriving we secured transit towards Hua Shan for a short overnight trip thither. The two-hour train ride cost 16 RMB, or a bit more than $2.25 Cdn -- not a bad deal.

Before actually taking the next train, however, we decided to look for a good hotel in which to stay after returning from Hua Shan. Cheryl had a lead from the Lonely Planet Guide to China: Lu4 Dao3 (绿岛) Hotel. After briefly investigating the place, we decided to return thither on the next day, after returning from Hua Shan. After riding the train to Hua Shan area, we rode a 'black' taxi to the base of Hua Shan. We found another hotel, also listed in the Lonely Planet guide, and secured lodgings there. Shortly after that, we embarked upon the four-to-six-hour-long climb of the first peak of Hua Shan.

Hua Shan is widely considered to be the most important mountain in all of Daoism. For centuries, its beauty has captivated painters and authors alike, and its likeness has been captured in widely reproduced paintings. A pilgrimage to and up Hua Shan is deemed to be very important.

For those who are not so interested in Daoism, Hua Shan has other appeals. Not only is it considered to be one of the difficult climbs in China for the average person, but one may be rewarded at the dawn after an overnight climb by a spectacular view from above the clouds and smog (from Xi'an, due west of Hua Shan).

Hua Shan has many peaks, and to climb all peaks takes approximately eight hours. Because Cheryl and I started so late in the day, we decided that we'd try to secure another place of lodging atop one of the peaks, in addition to our 'base camp'. :) At one point, when we stopped for a meal, we even bought some headlights (literally to be strapped to our heads) for that we might later be able to see after nightfall. The locals were remarking at how 'strong' I must be for wearing short pants at that time of the year (‘I’m Canadian!’). If I had worn long pants, I'd have died from the heat I generated while climbing. At one point, I doffed my 'hoodie' sweater and steam rose from my t-shirt. I also dropped my BlackBerry device into a water drainage ditch at the side of the path. If ever a comical movie about my life is made, I shall have to include a scene where I'm frantically running DOWN the mountain to try to stop my sliding BlackBerry. By the way, my BlackBerry device survived that four-foot drop onto solid stone followed by a 100-foot slide, and continued to function until Christmas Day.

At that point, my legs were so tired that I felt like giving-up. I tried going further for a few hundred metres, but I eventually had to return to base camp. Cheryl continued to the top with both of our cameras, where she was rewarded with both a wonderful view at dawn and an unpleasant experience. I won't describe the event because that's Cheryl's story to tell. I'm glad to say that she's all right.

I had gone almost four kilometres up the mountain (not directly upward) before I was forced to stop. To this day, I don't know whether not having my bag with me would have been helpful. All I know is that I shall need to be in better shape by the time I try to tackle Tai4 Shan1 (泰山).

While I was descending the mountain, I encountered small groups of old and young Daoist monks. Apparently, some of the younger monks were making a pilgrimage. I walked past them and I encountered another monk who was descending at the same time. I spoke to him throughout more than an hour. While we descended the mountain, I tried hard to pierce his local accent to understand what he was explaining anent the fundamentals of Daoism.

I returned to our hotel room and did some of my homework. After many hours, I finally received a message from Cheryl. She told me that she had secured a place on or near one of the peaks, and that she was preparing to awaken early for to see the sunrise.

The next morning, I tried to contact her but I received no responses to any of my missives. I figured that we were just having problems with reception, as we'd had on the previous night. I tried to prevent myself from worrying by writing post cards. At 11:45, 15 minutes before check-out time, I went to the concierge to ask for help and to figure-out what to do. He tried to assure me that there was no problem, and that I could check-out and wait for Cheryl in the lobby. I'm glad that Cheryl gave me the receipt!

Finally, at approximately 12:30, after I'd told the concierge that I was going to head-out towards Hua Shan to try and find Cheryl, she appeared. It turns-out that both batteries for her phone had died and she'd spent much time exploring. Because of the unpleasant experience to which I've made reference, she didn't sleep at all.

We returned to the local train station via another 'black' cab, for which we were overcharged, and then purchased tickets for Xi'an. The tickets we purchased had, printed on them, 'wu2 zuo4' (无座), which we thought might have meant 'no seats'. Given that Cheryl had not slept, and had climbed much more than I had throughout the previous 24 hours, I was quite worried about her. As it turns-out, the phrase means 'no assigned seating'. We had a hard time finding adjacent seats which were empty. It's not that each seat was occupied by one person. Rather, many persons were sprawled over multiple seats. We had to wait for one person to take pity on our poor state (with two heavy bags each) to allow us to sit. Sitting in that railway car reinforced in me the fact that, despite Beijing's veneer, China is still a third-world nation.

Cheryl, eagerly anticipating our arrival at Hua Shan
Sage advice
Ye olde Colour Checker

'Now that I've finally ditched that Stu guy, where am I going to go?'

'It's over there!'

Cool D00D In Xi'an

Xi'an, Part Deux
We returned to Xi'an on the Sunday of that weekend. We decided to take it easy, and investigate only a couple of things. We were both quite pooped and we wanted to have a fresh start for Monday. After securing for ourselves a room for two nights and booking a one-day guided tour of places east of the city, we went to the Muslim Quarter of the old city for food and a little bit of exploration.

I bought a few souvenirs in the small bazaar next to the Great Mosque. The best souvenir is one which I purchased for a former co-worker. I've included a photo of it below. I also purchased some over-priced ocarinas for myself and others.

Hua2qing1 Pool (华清池简介), Lin2tong2 Museum (临潼博物馆), Qin2 Shi3huang2 Ling2 (秦始皇陵), and Bing1ma3 Yong3 (兵马俑)
Early the next morning we embarked upon a one-day English-language tour of some historic sites east of the city. Our group had seven adventurers: a middle-aged couple from South Africa, a young couple from England, a French man, Cheryl, and me. Our tour guide's English was quite good; I had no problems understanding her. Our French companion, on the other hand, had some problems. Because I am Canadian, and I hail from a bilingual part of Canada, I was expected to be able to speak French well. I had little desire to study French until long after I started attending university. Because I've also lived in a mostly monolingual part of Canada throughout the 15 years before I came to China, I have also not been practising my French. Anyway, I did what I could to at least make what she was saying understood to the French man, even if my French was ungrammatical and my choice of words was poor.

Our tour guide

The first place to which we went on our tour is Huaqing Pool. Huaqing has a long history, going back to the Ming Dynasty, but the most recent famous event which happened at the pool is what is commonly called the 'Xi'an Incident'. In December 1936, two of the GMD's (KMT's, 国民党's) generals, under Chiang Kai-shek (蒋介石), decided that they'd had enough of the GMD trying to fight both the Japanese invaders and the Communists (CCP, Chinese Communist Party), but especially with Chiang Kai-shek's refusal to co-operate with the CCP. They and some of their troops stormed the pool, where Chiang had been vacationing / holding his field office, in the middle of the night. Before they could capture him at the compound, Chiang fled into the hills surrounding the compound. He was eventually captured several hours later. The CCP (Zhou Enlai (周恩来) in particular, I believe) helped the GMD to bargain for Chiang's release. As part of that deal, the GMD was to work with the CCP to fight the foreign invaders. The rest, as they say, is history.

The hot spring itself is reputed to have therapeutic effects. I was able to wash my hands in the spring water for a measly five kuai. The water was definitely quite different from the water in Beijing. :)

Please grant me some sort of supplication!
Enh, I like your sister more, anyway

After visiting the pool we went to the Lin Tong Museum, at which a relic of the Buddha's is reputed to be stored. On display at the front gate of the museum are two lions which are reputed to give good fortune is one rubs one of them in the right spot, and in the right way. ;) One of them is supposed to be rubbed only by men, the other only by women. Rubbing one part of a stone lion is supposed to bring a different kind of good luck from rubbing a different part of it. After spending no more than an hour at that museum, we were taken to a place which sells jade jewelry made from locally mined stones. I presume that the prices are artificially jacked-up and that the tour guide received a premium for each item sold to our group. The jade marketeers even gave us conveniently numbered 'coupons' for keeping track of the sales. After that short excursion, we embarked upon Qin Shihuang Ling (the tomb of the first emperor of Qin, 秦始皇陵). We didn't spend much time there either for we were to see his terra cotta army in the afternoon.

This is the lion which women are supposed to rub for good luck
Qin's mausoleum mound
Courtin' the ladies

While I was in the area around Xi'an I made some amazing anthropological observations. Firstly, at Hua Shan, I noted that the Chinese lack of respect for queues (and signs telling persons not to do certain things) is universal. What I witnessed when we were preparing to leave the tomb for lunch was absolutely astounding. While Cheryl and I were making our way toward the bus, some women caught sight of 'foreigners' and accosted us for to sell things. They wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. We were the first two of the seven adventurers to reach the tour bus. When we entered the bus, the women who were hawking wares tried to CLIMB INTO THE BUS WITH US! We were able to push them (gently) out the door and then close the door behind us. The South Africans were not so fortunate. For a few minutes after we closed the door to the vehicle, the old ladies continued to try to sell us things through the door. The South Africans then spent ten minutes fighting their way through the ladies, all the while trying to be polite. Then the English couple returned. Funnily enough, the French man had no issues brushing them off and entering the vehicle, if I remember correctly. :)

Crazy ladies

While we were at the tomb we encountered many vendors selling pomegranates. At that time, we learnt that pomegranates are one of the area's staples. At lunch, Cheryl and I decided to try pomegranate chicken. It wasn't worth paying five times what we'd pay in Beijing for a similar dish without pomegranates.

Pomegranate Chicken! Yum yum!

Also at lunch I learnt that the young English man in our group could speak better French than I so I delegated to him the responsibility for translation into French.

After lunch, we went to see the famed terra cotta army. It is definitely quite impressive: Qin was so concerned about his enemies attacking him in the afterlife that he had artisans construct a terra cotta army to protect him from his enemies. The warriors face the east, which is the direction from which his enemies in the phenomenal world would strike. At least 10000 such warriors have been found. Some of them are lowly warriors, others are officers, yet others are servants. The army itself is a few kilometres from Qin's tomb. I won't describe too much of it here because pretty much all of the information which I am able to give is available on the internet, and it is in much greater detail.

Ancient and modern warriors
Modern orange peel

Our return trip to the hotel took almost two hours. The first hour, or so, was spent driving to a location half a block from the hotel. The next hour was spent trying to go that other half-block towards the hotel. 'What's the problem?', you might ask. The problem is twofold. Firstly, if the police were to catch the driver allowing us to disembark from the bus at that location, they would have enforced a by-law via which would require the driver to pay more than 200 RMB. Secondly, one of our number had to go to the washroom badly before we arrived at the intersection. For a change, I was not the one who had to go. Rather, Cheryl had to fight to put on-hold the 'call of nature' (thanks to Ben Edlund and Henry Gilroy for the inspiration on that one). That traffic jam was one of the other amazing anthropologically significant events I've witnessed since coming to China. I couldn't believe how cars' drivers were jockeying for position and trying to push their way through the crowd. Our group's biggest problem is that we had a tour mini-bus instead of a car. We were stuck for almost an hour going the wrong way at an intersection because we were too big to make a sharp turn and nobody else would allow us to pass.

After we finally arrived we dumped our things into our room and went to find a restaurant which our tour guide recommended. It's an all-you-can-eat place for only 20 kuai ($3 Cdn, or so). Cheryl and I decided that we weren't too tired for a little more walking, so we decided to hike 30-40 minutes to the trendy part of town where the restaurant is located. Night had fallen by the time we finally left the hotel. On the way to the restaurant, we encountered many 'beauty salons' with purple lighting. We're quite certain that they served another purpose, especially because each of them was equipped with a poorly concealed bed in the back.

When we walked down the street towards our ultimate destination we passed a number of different shops and restaurants. We even passed a restaurant which claimed to serve 'Typical Fast Food'. We joked that that would be the place where we'd eat. When we finally arrived at the place about which the tour guide had told us, we sere surprised that such a place could survive as an all-you-can-eat-for-20-kuai place. We asked the fuwuyuan about that, and we were taken outside to the place next door for 'Typical fast Food'. :) Some of the food wasn't bad, and I was able to eat my fill for 22 kuai (their prices had increased). During our meal, I had fun playing with a child at the next table. I'm glad that the child was fascinated and laughing, and not crying, because the child's father turned-out to be army personnel. After that, we walked a little bit on the main drag and then returned to our hotel for an early night.

Xi'an, Take Three
The Drum Tower
Our last full day in Xi’an was a whirlwind tour of many famous historical sites. We officially checked-out of the hotel but store the bulk of our luggage there because of its proximity to the train station. After that, we took a cab to the vicinity of the Drum Tower at the centre of the old city. Before going to the Drum Tower, however, we decided to grab some ‘food’ at McDonald’s. Some McMuffins, McHashbrowns, and McCoffee&Tea later, we made our way to the Drum Tower. I’m afraid that they wouldn’t allow us to play any of the drums at the Tower. We arrived when things were still quite quiet, and other tourists like ourselves were still sparse.

The Great Mosque (西安清真寺)
After we left the Drum Tower we made our way to the Great Mosque. Since the Tang Dynasty, more than one thousand years ago, when Xi’an was at one end of the Silk Road, Xi’an has had a mosque of some sort at this location. The current compound dates back to the Qing Dynasty (I think) and governmental funds have been allotted each year, since the rise to power of the CCP, to the expansion of the Mosque.

The Mosque’s architecture is an interesting blend of Chinese and Muslim architecture, owing to many Middle Eastern and Central Asian influences. The Mosque has not only Chinese steles anent Islam, but also Arabic ones as well. What’s a stele, you might ask? I have a section on the topic later in this post. The Mosque itself is beautiful. It’s also got by far the best-kept bathrooms within Xi’an’s city walls.

Large Wild Goose Pagoda (大雁塔)
After we finished investigating the Great Mosque, we took a taxi to the location on our itinerary furthest from the train station, for that we may work our way back to the station (and our hotel). The Large Wild Goose Pagoda is not a ‘large pagoda’ named for a wild goose but a pagoda named for a ‘large wild goose’. I am certain of this because the Small Wild Goose Pagoda is much larger than the Large Wild Goose Pagoda.

In front of the Large Wild Goose Pagoda is a large statue of Xuan Zang, the famous monk featured in the story ‘Journey To The West’. In his real-life story, he travelled along the Silk Road to India to fetch Buddhist scriptures and commentaries for translation. He spent seventeen years as a ‘guest’ of an Indian prince or king before finally being released to return to China with wagonloads of material. After he returned, a translational facility was set-up at the Large Wild Goose Pagoda, and the scriptures themselves were stored at the Small Wild Goose Pagoda (I think).

Sha’anxi History Museum (陕西历史博物馆)
After leaving the Large Wild Goose Pagoda we went to the Sha’anxi History Museum. At the museum we saw many things related to the terra cotta army, the Han Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty, spanning a period of more than one thousand years. According to the either the Lonely Planet Guide To China or the Rough Guide To China (I don’t remember which), the Sha’anxi History Museum has a large exhibit of Buddhist artwork. I found only a small exhibit. I have no idea whether what I saw was what was described in the book.

A couple of weeks later I saw myself on television. I was a friend’s home while a show was being broadcast about terra cotta warriors being on display in Taiwan. I saw the back of my head and part of my profile, from when I was admiring an exhibit at the Museum, on television. That was my first television appearance in China. :)

Giant lion on guard for thee

SIM Card Interlude
After we left the Museum we took a short trip to a local temple which is reputed to be the only functioning Buddhist temple in Xi’an. After a short visit to the temple’s book store we decided to grab a short lunch before heading to our next destination, the Small Wild Goose Pagoda.

After we ate lunch I decided that I really should recharge my SIM card. It had been exhausted a day or two before by a phone call from Canada. Roaming prices in China are not cheap. On the previous night I tried to buy a 50-kuai SIM recharge. The vendor said ’55 kuai’. I said ‘screw you’ and left. The vendors already make a premium on every recharge they sell but some vendors appear to be greedy. I guess he doesn’t have much competition. Anyway, after finishing lunch I went to buy one and I was told ’52 kuai’. ‘Why? In Beijing, if a card costs “50 kuai” we pay “50 kuai”’. The response? ‘Beijing is Beijing, Xi’an is Xi’an.’ I can describe them only as 小人 or 坏人.

Small Wild Goose Pagoda (小雁塔)
Cheryl and I stalked away from the vendor in disgust after I purchased the recharge. We decided to walk to the Small Wild Goose Pagoda from where we were. Our estimate was about 40 minutes of walking, based on our map, and it was reasonably accurate. Because the Pavilion was in such a state of disrepair, due in part to an ancient earthquake, we weren’t allowed to climb it. We stayed only for a short time before heading-out to the Forest Of Steles.

Forest Of Steles (Bei1 Lin2, 碑林)
We then headed to a museum dedicated to the preservation of large stone tablets called steles. Such tablets are usually stored upright and have engraved upon their faces either scriptures or philosophical works. One of the great collections of steles at the Forest is a complete collection of the Confucian Analects, carved during the Qing Dynasty.

Possibly the most important one, however, is a stele which was unearthed either during the Ming Dynasty or the Qing. The tablet contains the essentials of Christian thought and it has engraved in approximately 781 C.E., about 150 years after Nestorian Christianity first made an appearance in Tang Dynasty Xi’an via the Silk Road. For those of you who don’t know, the Nestorians were reviled by the orthodoxy at the time because of their idea that Christ was of two natures. As it turns out, heterodoxy these days claims that Christ _is_ of two natures, both fully human and fully divine. How these can be combined into one being is one of the Mysteries. To those who aren’t Christian philosophers or theologians, the difference between Nestorian Christianity and the heterodoxy of the day may seem very unimportant but, at the time, many persons were killed over what looks like a small difference in belief. When Nestorian Christianity was dying in Europe and Asia Minor, practitioners fled eastward. Until this tablet was uncovered, only speculation on the part of the Jesuits had indicated that Christianity had made any inroads into China. Now, the belief that Christianity had a small but strong following in Ancient China is widely accepted. By the way, the Nestorian (or Assyrian) Church still exists and, according to the materials from a course which I took a year ago, there has been some discussion about reuniting it with the Orthodox Churches.

The Nestorian Tablet
Groovy writing
The Rich-meister: makin' copies!

The Wall
After leaving Bei Lin, we climbed the city’s wall. Apparently, when construction isn’t being conducted, one may rent a bicycle and ride around the city at the level of the wall. Of course, we weren’t allowed to do that. I think that we might have been able to rent the bicycles, but we wouldn’t have been allowed to go far.

The current city wall datedback to the Ming Dynasty (I think). It replaced a much older city wall which was in disrepair.

Twins?

Guard-house, from the ground
Hotel, Revisited
After spending about an hour atop the wall, Cheryl and I high-tailed it to the hotel where our stuff was stored. We rented a room for an hour (that’s the first time I’ve ever rented a room by the hour ;D) for to freshen-up before heading to the train station for our overnight return train ride.

Our hotel at night
Good-bye!

Engrish And Cultural Oddities
We witnessed some most wonderful signs and sights during our trip. I want to share some of them with you, my readers.

Okay, I won't
Sooo ... exactly where is the washroom?

I don't need any concussions, thanks
From Disney's 'Pimpin' Mickey' line
I don't know what we caught this guy doing, but he's got a twin in Kyoto, another ancient former capital
Now that you mention it ....
Woohoo! UWCCCh and the Colour Checker!
Recyclables, Toxic Waste, Others
I tried to find the atypical type, but was unsuccessful

Obviously a sacred place
Otherwise we'd have anarchy

How many toilets does this country have? At least 20.

Far in, man!
Far out, dude!
I never realised bathrooms could be so dangerous
It's self-explanatory. Really.
Um

Mafan (麻烦)

2007-01-14T07:15:00.000-08:00

Trips To Various Places
Much time has passed since my last post. I've finished my obligations for the Fall semester, and I am eagerly awaiting the results from my exams. Since my last post, I've gone to Xi'an (西安) and Guangzhou (广州). I think that I shall use my next post to talk about them. For now, check-out my photos.

Crimmus
After lectures ended on Monday 25 December 2006, a cadre of Canadian students (and one Brit) went to an establishment called 'Paul's Steak And Eggs' for Christmas lunch. The owner is reportedly from Edmonton, although I haven't had a chance to verify this rumour. For dinner, Cheryl organised an outing for approximately twenty of us, including Ali, to a Cantonese-style restaurant. Mmmmm ... gooooood. div align="justify">
Liz And Taka, And My Broken Anka
My good friends Liz and Taka came from Japan to visit Beijing (and me) on 28 December, and they returned to Japan on 31 December. I had planned to be a good host for them because, relatively speaking, Beijing's now my home turf. I met them at the airport, and we hopped onto airport transit to go to Beijing Station, near to which their hotel is located. (Aside: airport transit costs 16 kuai; take it if you need to go inside the city from the airport. One may expect to pay ~80 kuai if one takes a legitimate cab, or much more if one either takes a 'black' / illegal cab or goes with an unscrupulous driver of a legal cab. Cabs in Beijing are legal cabs if and only if the number on the licence plate begins with '京B'.)

Anyway, after more than an hour on the airport transit vehicle, we finally arrived at Beijing Station. I stepped from the bus onto ... an uneven part of the sidewalk. Before I describe the story more, I need to stress that I really should have looked exactly where I was to step because I'm in China and I'm unable to trust any sidewalk. Certainly, if one is concerned about stepping into someone else's spittle, then one needs to look at the ground while one walks; the same is doubly true when one alights from some sort of transit onto Beijing's characteristically unstable sidewalks.

In this case, the sidewalk itself was in good condition but it was poorly designed. A tree was growing out of the sidewalk in a square of dirt around which the sidewalk was built to accommodate the tree. When I alit from the bus, the edge of my left foot landed on the edge of the concrete ring around the dirt. My ankle then twisted. I learnt later that I broke the lower tip of my left fibula; I suspect that the tip of the fibula scored the aforementioned edge of concrete, and that's what caused the break. The break is not too serious; I've not worn any sort of cast at all.

I continued to hobble-along with Liz and Taka, blissfully unaware of the extent of the damage. I firstly accompanied them to their hotel, and then we took the subway to a place where we might eat Beijing Duck (北京烤鸭). At the entrance of the subway, I saw that one of Beijing's many street-side vendors was selling tensor bandages. How serendipitous! After we rode the subway to Wangfu Jing (王府井), we ate Beijing duck, after which I went homeward.

The next morning was a different story: when I awakened at 6:00, I was unable to stand on my foot. I sent a message to my good friend and classmate, Jeanette, to enlist her aid. I had many reasons for enlisting the aid of Jeanette, not the least of which is that I knew that she knows the location of the on-campus medical clinic. After lectures had finished for the day, Jeanette brought me food and she helped me with translation at both the on-campus clinic and at the hospital to which we eventually went. Jeanette truly is my shining star.

We encountered a few T.I.C. ('This Is China', for those of you joining us now) moments throughout the day, but I don't think that I shall describe them here. After that day, my ankle has improved. The sprain is not yet gone, but I expect it to be gone after another week.

On the Saturday, while I was walking on my way to meet Jeanette, Liz, and Taka for dinner, I encountered my good friend Genjirou. I invited him to join us for a good meal at a Dai (傣) Minority-nationality restaurant to which he introduced me. Genjirou's Chinese is really fluent, and his English is quite good, too. He ordered a number of tasty dishes on our behalf, and we all had a really good time.

Liz and Taka went to see a few sights while they were here; I regret not being able to act as some sort of tour guide. Even without my injury, I'd have some problems given my schedule of classes, which I shall describe in the last section of this posting.

Debi's Birthday

Debi Blizard,one of the other Canadians here at BLCU, celebrated her twenty-fourth birthday this week. Happy Birthday, Debi! We celebrated by going to a Buddhist Vegetarian restaurant. To date, it's the most expensive restaurant in Beijing at which I've eaten. We had vegetarian Beijing Duck! Yum yum!

'80s Hair
Beijing seems to be afflicted with some severe cases of '80s hair. If you see someone sporting an '80s 'do, please report it immediately Beijing's Centre for Disease Control.

Locked Doors And Stupid Service Persons
I had to knock on the door to enter my dorm building tonight. The on-duty fuwuyuan (服务员), who was in an adjoining room and not in the room in which she was supposed to stay, asked 'Why didn't you ring the door bell?'. My response to that was 'I pressed the button twice, and it didn't work.'. She then came to look at the button and said to me, as if she were talking to a stupid person, 'You see that light on the button? If it's a red light, the button works. It's not on right now.'. My response was 'That's why I knocked on the door.'. She then said 'You don't have to knock so loudly; all you have to do is rattle the door.' My response was 'I didn't know that at the time.'. This is not the first time I've encountered her stupidity. I have no qualms using the word 'stupid' because she's both unintelligent and mean-spirited. I'd be more charitable if she were actually nice. 'Fuwuyuan' may be translated as 'service person', but it's like I'm causing her trouble every time I ask her to do her job. This was very mafan, and that leads me directly into ...

Mafan
ma'fan (麻烦): (adj) troublesome, inconvenient; (v) trouble, bother, to put somebody to trouble. (Courtesy of Oxford Concise English-Chinese / Chinese-English Dictionary) Somehow, this dictionary entry doesn't do the word justice. It's really difficult to translate into English. Reportedly, an incredibly similar-sounding word exists in Arabic, and it is used by speakers of Hebrew in Israel to describe bothersome situations.

Why is it so difficult to translate? Any single word is insufficient to capture the essence of 'mafan', although I think that 'vexing' is a particularly good word for it. I hope to demonstrate the meaning of mafan by giving a few examples.

To help illustrate the meaning of 'mafan', I've included a letter which I sent to my academic advisor at University of Waterloo, Mavis.

--

Hello, Mavis.

I've finally sent the package. Every day here seems like an adventure; rather trying to do something, no matter how trivial, is an adventure. I was going to send the package yesterday but, when I arrived at the post office, I discovered that I'd forgotten the cheques at home. Today, I went to withdraw money from the post office's ATM but I had some issues: the machine didn't want to give me money from my MasterCard after it had started the transaction, and then it ate my Visa card during the transaction of my second attempt at actually obtaining money for postage. I had to waste another half-hour just having my card returned to me. I paid $25 Cdn for the postage, and it should arrive at St. Paul's late this week.

Yesterday, I had my forms with me and I decided to complete them in the building where I take my lectures because it is open on Saturdays and it has places where I may sit. I went to my classroom to spend ten minutes completing the forms. They must have seen me on the security camera when I entered the room because three minutes after I entered the room one of the cleaning persons kicked me out of the room (and then proceeded to lock it). I went downstairs to the main lobby and sat on the stairs there next to a security guard. He seemed to have no problem with me sitting on the stairs, but another member of the security staff must have complained because a boy (I have no better way to describe him), who I think was just an off-duty guard, told me that it wasn't all right to sit on the stairs. Argh!

These are not isolated incidents. Each thing in this country seems to be designed: a) to give someone a sense of superiority; and b) to inconvenience everyone to distract them from actually working efficiently. Even at the post office today, when I was trying to get an envelope for the package, the person who actually sells envelopes told me to buy an envelope at the place where I'd pay for postage. _That_ person sold me an envelope, but told me to go elsewhere to complete the envelope. I have no idea why she had me complete the address on the envelope because that envelope was immediately put inside _another_ envelope, upon which I had to rewrite the address!!!! WTF??? WHYYYYYYY????? Something which should have taken me ten minutes, _including_ standing in line, instead took me more than an hour. Soooooooooooooooooo stupid!

And this is just two days' worth of inconvenience. I expect more this evening.

I hope that things are going better for you. :)

Take care.

- S2

--

We all know the answer to the question 'WHYYYYYYY?????': T.I.C.. In fact, much as anything which happens to any person may be explained by 'it's his karma', any mafan which has no rational explanation may be explained by the magical 'T.I.C.'. The last few weeks have been quite mafan for me, although I don't need to appeal to T.I.C. to explain all of it. The first bit of mafan is that my BlackBerry device has finally bitten the dust. After dropping it several times, including at Huashan when I was in Xi'an and its environs, I seem to have cracked the board inside. I was able to recover some of the data but, currently, the data are sitting on my computer in an inaccessible form. That's mafan. It's self-induced mafan, but it's still mafan.

My next example illustrates that mafan which comes from external sources is not confined to the post office. When I went with Cheryl to return my broken humidifier to the local shopping centre, we had to speak to various fuwuyuan and security guards no fewer than ten times to successfully return my item and get a replacement. Firstly, we went to the store at which I purchased the device. The store is on the second floor of the building. We were told by the security guard at the store's entrance that we had to return to the first floor and find a particular booth. This was Encounter #1 / Person #1. We returned to the first floor to get a replacement. No dice; I had to get a form stating that I was returning this humidifier in exchange for another, and this was Encounter #2 / Person #2. After obtaining this receipt, we proudly marched to the second floor to enter the store through its main entrance. Uh-uh: the guard informed us that we had to enter the store via its exit and then proceed to the counter; I thought that that was a stupid idea because the counter where I'd purchased the device was right at the main entrance. That was Encounter #3 / Person #1. We then went to enter through the back of the store, and encountered another guard there, yielding Encounter #4 / Person #3. He told us what to do in a very thick Beijing accent, which sounds as if one's speaking with marbles in one's mouth. Cheryl and I parsed things differently, so we didn't know to where we had to take the humidifier. The guard repeated things, thus giving us Encounter #5 / Person #3. We walked against the flow of over-crowded and too-narrow payment aisles to the in-store counter at which I had paid for the machine. We spoke to one person at the desk, and we were told to speak to someone else, thus giving us Encounter #6 / Person #4. That person, in turn, referred us to someone else, who finally helped us. That gives us Encounters #7 and #8 / Persons #5 and #6.

Because the store had no more humidifiers in that model, I had to pay the difference between the two models. I thought that that wouldn't be a problem. then I wa informed that the easiest way to do it (for the employees, anyway) was for me to purchase the new one, and then return the first for a refund. sigh I purchased the new device, then we returned to the first floor with a receipt from the last fuwuyuan to help us. While walking out of the store, I had to get the guard with marbles to stamp my receipt, indicating that I'd purchased the thing (what-ever). Encounter #9 / Person #3. We returned to the counter for me to collect my refund. Encounter #10 / Person #1. The fuwuyuan from upstairs apparently didn't sign the receipt; Cheryl returned upstairs on my behalf to obtain the fuwuyuan's signature, and thus absorbed some encounters on my behalf. I think that all of you readers shall agree that that is mafan.

What's more mafan is the situation related to my last two weeks of lectures for the semester. I was fully prepared for lectures on Christmas Day. Even though I'm now a Buddhist, and not a Christian, I'm not really accustomed to going to lectures on Christmas Day (I've heard that it hurts only the first time). However, I was interested to see whether I'd feel any different about it, so I was actually looking forward to it. On 11 or 12 December, we (the foreign students) learnt that we would have classes for seven contiguous days, starting on Monday, 25 December 2006, taking us through 30 and 31 December 2006. My first thought was 'WTF? Liz and Taka are coming on that weekend!'. My next thought was 'We shall have seven contiguous days of classes, followed by three days of vacation, followed by our last two days of lectures.'. Wow, that's possibly the best way to screw-up any plan for studying, especially given that we weren't notified about it until the last minute. My teachers seemed genuinely surprised that this was to happen, so I have to wonder how many persons actually expected it. I have been informed by a friend of mine who is native to China that everyone was expecting this, and that I should just become accustomed to this. Accustomed to what? Last-minute mafan? That week, I experienced a bunch of other mafan as well, which served only to fan the flames of mafan.

My final example of mafan for this posting is that I now have to change lodgings. On Saturday, I saw Genjirou with his suitcase outside our dormitory building. He told me that we all have to leave because of renovations. I told him 'Really? Only two or three days ago I was offered a room on the second or third floor, should I want to move away from the relatively noisier first floor.'. Genjirou told me that they'd told him at 9:00 P.M. on the previous evening that he would have to relocate within a week to another residence. Did the housing office make that decision at 8:00 that evening, so they couldn't have told him that more than a week before he was required to have completely vacated the premises? I asked one of the fuwuyuan in my building about it, and I was told that he must move, but I'm not required to move. I didn't understand her explanation of that, but I thought no more of it. When I told this to Genjirou a bit later, he asked the fuwuyuan. She told him a slightly more complete story than I had previously understood: the students whose scholarships cover the full cost of the residence in our building have to move before others do for that they have first choice of where to go; the others, who have had to pay for their housing, either in full or in part, shall be forced to leave afterwards. I shudder to think of what might have happened had I left for parts unknown immediately after my last exam. Until I move, I shall have no idea whither I shall relocate.

Lest We Forget

2006-11-11T00:37:00.000-08:00

I dedicate this post to the brave men and women who have served to preserve our peace and freedom. Hell, I dedicate all of my posts to them, but today's Remembrance Day.

A dope trailer's no place for a kitty, Julian

Calligraphy / Shufa (书法）
As some of you know, I've been interested and involved in East Asian calligraphy throughout the last seven years. After coming to Beijing, I found an instructor to teach me something about Chinese styles. Most of the time, he has our (Friday-afternoon) class copying the works of Ouyang Xun (欧阳询), but we sometimes depart into interesting digressions. Our instructor is a native of Beijing, but he speaks some Japanese and he spent six years in Poland! He's also a master of Chinese watercolour painting (中画的画家). My class here in China reminds me in many ways of my class in Waterloo, under Noriko Maeda (前田典子).

Our teacher, Pu3 Shi2 Lao3shi1 (溥石老师)

Me and my classmates

Chikako and Cheryl taking advantage of the heating system in the classroom

Tianjin, Revisited
Not literally: I only recently gained access to Cheryl's photos from our trip to Tianjin. Here are some of my faves.

I like the dude with the shades

That's a big inkstone / suzuri / yan4tai2 (砚台)

Me and Sally at Ancient Culture Street

It's still not the CN tower

Cool paper cuttings

Cheryl's Birthday Dinners (Reprise)
I now have copies of photos from Cheryl's various birthday dinners. See whether you are able to figure-out what the heck happened at them. :)

Dinner #1

Some of Cheryl's classmates

Me, with more of Cheryl's classmates

Yet more of Cheryl's classmates

What are Samuel and Stuart doing?

I still don't know but, Xin1di4, you're next!

Queen for a day

It's Not Easy Being Green

Dinner #2

Da cake!

Beihai
On 28 October, Cheryl and I went to Beihai. It was loads of fun, but I don't really have too much to say about it. I'll allow the photos do most of the speaking. :)

I think that this has something to do with inexhaustible resources: Three heads and six arms

The White Pagoda

The Wrath Of The White Pagoda

White Pagoda III: Freddy's Dead

Night Of The Living White Pagoda

A Self-Portrait Of The Photographer As A Young Woman

The Colour-Checker without and with flash

Peek-a-boo!

Cool Arch

Xiang Shan (香山)
Today I went to Xiang Shan with one of my language partners (who's also a friend, not just a language partner), Cui1 Qian4 (崔倩). She's a third-year student of Electrical Engineering at the Science And Technology University, Ke1ji4 Da4xue2 (科技大学). I was supposed to go with both her and her friend, Li3 Hai3ying1 (李海鹰), but Haiying was informed yesterday about a meeting which she had to attend today. Haiying is a third-year student at the Geological Sciences University, Di4zhi4 Da4xue2 (地质大学). (Aside: Haiying had heard of UW before I had mentioned it because of UW's strong research programme in Earth Sciences, especially ground-water work.) Qian and I had a lot of fun today; because nothing really extraordinary happened, I'll allow the photos do most of the talking.

Throng

Thronger

Throngest

Qian

Ah, Colour-Checker

No post of mine would really be complete without the obligatory section containing strange signs and cultural oddities.

They start them here early, don't they?

How many toilets have they GOT in this country?

Passenger no entry