Living the urban adventure in Beijing

Things have come full circle in Chile and sundry thoughts on a famous US Statesman:

2009-08-24T16:42:00.000-07:00

While I’m on the subject of Chile, I could note that things have recently come full circle with respect to the country’s politics. In 2006, for only the second time in the country’s history, Chile elected a Socialist President, Michelle Bachelet (see the above photo). And this Socialist candidate received a much stronger popular mandate than did Allende in 1970. Bachelet won 53.5% of the popular vote in the run-off election, defeating the ex-Senator and billionaire businessman Sebastian Peñera, who ran as the center-right candidate.

Bachelet’s election is notable not just because she ran as a Socialist candidate, albeit a moderate one who pledged to continue free market policies, while boosting social benefits to address the country’s staggering socio-economic inequality (Chile ranks near the top of the world in this area). Chile is still a very conservative place socially and the influence of the Catholic Church remains quite strong. Thus getting a woman elected as President of the country is pretty remarkable. And this particular woman is a separated mother of three and self-described agnostic to boot.

Bachelet’s father served as a high-ranking officer in the Chilean Air Force and was one of the few people in the military who supported Allende’s Government. Allende thus put him in charge of food distribution during the last chaotic year of his administration. Following the coup, Bachelet’s father was arrested for treason and then died of heart attack while in custody.

Bachelet and her mother were then arrested and taken, blindfolded, to the Villa Grimaldi, which was Santiago’s notorious secret detention center. There they were separated and tortured. Bachelet was 22 at that time. Thanks to sympathetic people in the military, she was able to join her brother in exile in Australia.

Bachelet then spent some years in East Germany, where she resumed and completed her medical studies and had her first child. When Bachelet returned to Chile in 1979 to practice medicine, she naturally became involved in the political opposition to General Pinochet’s dictatorship (the old buzzard's photo below).

In addition to being a fully qualified pediatrician and epidemiologist, Bachelet has studied military strategy. Indeed, during the 1990s she attended Chiles prestigious National Academy for Strategic and Policy Studies and graduated at the top of her class. Before becoming president, Bachelet served as Health and then Defense Minister in President Ricardo Lagos’s centrist government (Bachelet succeeded Lagos as President). And last but certainly not least, Bachelet is also multilingual. In addition to her native Spanish, she is fluent in Portaguese, German, English, and French.

In short, Michelle Bachelet is someone I’d be delighted to have running my country. Before doing this post, I’d known that she was Chile’s first woman president and a Socialist, but that was about it. After doing further research on Bachelet’s life and background for this post, I have to confess that she now ranks as one of my favorite women on the planet.

If Bachelet is one of my new heroes (or heroines), one of the main authors of her previous suffering, Henry Kissinger, has to rank as one of the public figures I most utterly and deeply loathe. In fact, I dislike Kissinger even more intensely than I dislike Richard Nixon.

To be sure, we now know from Haldeman’s diaries just how foul-mouthed, bigoted, and anti-Semetic Nixon really was. However, I’ve always felt that the President was in some ways a tragic figure. Here was a man who was intensely private, shy and awkward—you could say he was the antithesis of Bill Clinton—but was driven by his ambition to enter a profession which he tempermentally had absolutely no business being in.

Regarding Nixon’s awkwardness one story, which I believe comes from Ricahrd Reeves recent biography, says it all. During his first term, the President wanted to change the night-stand in the White House master bedroom. When discussing this matter with their wife, most husbands would tell their better half, “Hey honey, I’d like to change the nightstand in our bedroom.” Not Nixon: he wrote a memo to Pat saying something like, “RN would like to change the nightstand in the White House master bedroom”. Yes in these written communications, Nixon usually referred to himself in the third person, using the abbreviation “RN”.

I believe that Kissinger, by contrast, always was and remains up to this day a sneaky, conniving, power-hungry prick. This is a man whose operative philosophy could be summed up as “Kindness doesn’t get you very far on the dockyards of Marsielle”.

Kissinger’s oft-noted ruthlessness in dealing with colleagues pre-dated his time in the White House and State Department. He detested his boss at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs, a courtly southern gentlemen scholar named Robert Bowie, who was very much Kissinger’s opposite in every way. The eminity between them, which was largely fueled by Kissinger’s arrogance, pettiness, and paranoia, became pathologically intense. Things got so bad that both men would ask their secretaries to check and see if the other was in the hallway before they went out to use the can.

Of course, Chileans like Bachelet were not the only victims of Kissinger’s obsession with acting tough in order to preserve US “credibility”. Over a million Vietnamese perished thanks to the intensive 1968-1974 US bombing of both the country, an action which simply delayed the inevitable collapse of the corrupt and rickety Thieu client regime.

Moreover, the US invasion of Cambodia was a big factor in both strengthening and radicalizing the Khemer Rogue. As William Shawcross argued long ago in his still seminal book, SIDESHOW, Nixon and Kissinger bear some responsibility for what was the worst auto-genocide in human history. A disclosure alert is in order here: a very close friend from my undergraduate USC days, Craig Etcheson, has been playing a key role in the war crimes tribunal currently underway in Phnom Penh against the surviving members of the Khemer Rogue leadership.

Finally, Kissinger’s tendency to see every conflict in the third world through the prism of the US-Soviet global rivalry led to the covert CIA intervention into post-colonial Angola. This happened during Kissinger’s final years in power and is not that well known—John Stockwell, who led the CIA effort on the ground, wrote an excellent book about it, IN SEARCH OF ENEMIES—but certainly ranks up there as one of the former Secretary of State’s major crimes.

This intervention, in which the US at one point inserted South African mercenaries into Angola, helped spawn a prolonged and bloody civil war. While the conflict came to an end some years, after the US backed UNITA rebel group finally threw in the towel, scores Angolans are still being killed and mained by landmines planted during the struggle.

Kissinger’s influence did wane some in the 1980s. According to a fascinating article that appeared recently in the February 12, 2009 issue VANITY FAIR INSERT by James Mann, President Ronald Reagan ignored both his and Nixon’s urgings to rebuff Mikhail Gorbachev’s overtures to the West. Both men forcefully argued that Gorbachev was a sham and not a genuine reformer. However, Reagan followed his instincts, which told him that the new Soviet leader was the real deal (he didn’t though “look into his soul” when they met!). I’ve never cared much for Reagan, but the Gipper really deserves a lot of credit here for helping to improve American-Russian relations at the end of the Cold War.

Unfortunately, Kissinger made something of comeback during the second Bush Administration. According to press reports, Kissinger’s strong advice to stay the course in Iraq carried a lot of weight among both senior Bush officials and the President. In offering his sage wisdom, Kissinger essentially reiterated the thinking in his infamous “Salt Peanuts” memo, which argued that quickly pulling out of Vietnam was like feeding the American people “salt peanuts”.

Fortunately, like Chile, the US has now recently undergone regime change. With the new Obama Administration, perhaps the malign influence of this Mestopholian character over US foreign policy and public life has finally come to an end. And not a moment too soon!!!

Something to Look Forward to at Next Year’s Bookworm Literary Festival:

2009-08-24T16:18:00.000-07:00

After the Mo Yan talk or one of the other events, the owner of the Bookworm, Alexandra Pearson, passed on some very good news regarding next year’s international literary festival. They’re apparently talking to the Chilean Embassy about sponsoring a visit by Isabelle Allende (伊莎贝尔啊连德) to the 2010 Literary Festival (see the above photo).

Allende is one of my favorite novelists. She has been hailed as a “genius” by the LOS ANGELES TIMES and is the first woman to receive the Gabriela Mistral Order. Her novels and other books have been translated into more than 30 languages and sold 51 million copies worldwide. I’m thus going to take a quick break from discussing things China-related and sieze the opportunity to write about one of my favorite individuals on the planet.

Readers who are familiar with recent Chilean (智利) history certainly know about Salvador Allende (see the photo above). For those who don’t, he was Latin America’s first democratically elected Socialist President. To be sure, Allende came to power in 1970 under rather special circumstances. He won a plurality of the vote in a three-way contest—the non-Socialist vote was split between the centrist and right candidates.

The Chilean Congress then chose him as President after some rather complex negotiations and following the CIA-backed kidnapping and assassination of General René Schneider. Schneider felt that Chile’s military should uphold the country’s democratic constitution and believed that the Congress should, as it had in the past, select the top vote winner. Popular disgust over Schneider’s murder had the immediate impact of getting the Congress to select Allende as President. However, over the long run, Schneider’s assassination paved the way for the 1973 military coup (军事政变) and Pinochet dictatorship (专政).

Of course this coup was actively supported by the Nixon Administration. Indeed, by all accounts, Nixon (尼克松) went ballistic over Allende’s election, referring to him as “that SOB” to the American Ambassador to the country, Edward Korry. Allende’s election also prompted this notable comment from Henry Kissinger (基辛格): “I don’t see why we have to let a country go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible.”

Thus the Nixon Administration exerted considerable economic pressure on Chile following Allende’s election. These measures included cutting off credits and trade and funding the opposition, notably the crippling 1973 truckers’ strike. Such actions certainly added to the problems created by Allende’s populist economic policies, which spawned high inflation, and the pressure exerted by his radical supporters for an accelerated socialist transformation of the country. All of this polarized Chile and alienated the middle classes. After the coup occurred, Kissinger proudly boasted, “We set the limits of diversity.”

I mention Salvador Allende because he and Isabelle Allende are indeed related. The novelist’s father, the Chilean diplomat Tomas Allende—he served as Chile’s ambassador to Peru—was Salvador Allende’s cousin, making Isabelle his first cousin removed. Isabelle mainly grew up outside of Chile. After marrying her first husband, she lived in and outside of Chile, working for the UN, doing free-lance journalism, and translating English language romantic novels into Spanish, including ones written by Barbara Cartland. Allende was fired from that last job because she changed the stories in these novels in ways that turned their heroines into stronger and more independent women.

The military coup, which led to arrest, torture, and murder of thousands of Chileans, naturally had a great personal impact on Allende. For a brief time, she helped leftist opponents of the Pinochet dictatorship flee from Chile. She had to do this herself after receiving death threats. Allende moved to Venezuela, where she worked as a journalist and wrote her first novel, THE HOUSE OF SPIRITS, which was published in 1982.

This novel tells the story of Trueba family, focusing on three generations of Trueba women. It chronicles their lives in a fictional Latin American country—this place, of course, bears more than a passing resemblance to Chile—from the post-colonial era up through the modern day populist upheavels and military repression. The book certainly has a great deal of Latin American “magical realism” literary style and is also one of the most accessible and easy to read examples of this genre.

THE HOUSE OF SPIRITS became an instant best-seller after it was published. Critics also hailed it as the best Chilean novel of 1982. Thus the work turned Allende overnight into a literary superstar. She then moved to America and became a US citizen in 2003 (she lives with her second husband, an attorney, in California).

Allende’s subsequent novels include OF LOVE AND SHADOWS (1995), which dealt with military rule in Chile. She also wrote a wonderful historical novel, set in both Chile and Gold Rush California, DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE (1999). The legendary Gold Rush bandit, Joaquin Marietta, is more than a minor character in character in this novel, and Allende has an interesting take on this mythic Robin Hood-like figure.

In addition to these novels, I have also read Allende’s big Dickensian Novel in the US, THE INFINITE PLAN (1991) (it’s also a cracking good read!). Alas, I have not had the chance to read her other work—as one of my T-shirts proclaims, “So many books, so little time!” One work that is definitely on my list is, PAULA (1995), which is a memoir of Allende’s childhood and subsequent work as a journalist in Santiago.

This book intrigues me because it is not written as a conventional autobiography. It is rather written as a letter to her daughter, who tragically died in a hospital in Spain. The girl had porphyria and passed away after lapsing into coma, which was caused by botched medication.

I actually had the good fortune to see Isabelle Allende in person many, many years ago, in 1991, and vaguely remember her talking about this book, which she was in the middle of writing at that time. I was then a visiting assistant professor in the Government Department at Cornell University. Every year Cornell University would ask its graduate student association to invite some famous individual—writer, scientist, activist, etc.—to visit the campus and deliver an address.

The guest in 1991 happened to be Isabelle Allende. At that time I had read THE HOUSE SPIRITS and OF LOVE AND SHADOWS. Seeing Allende was a fantastic experience, on a par with seeing Mo Yan, although the setting was a big auditorium, rather than a small and intimate bookstore. She had a very striking kind of Latin beauty and tremendous natural charisma. I persuaded a graduate student friend, who studied Latin American politics, to accompany me to the talk. He was reluctant to go, but then spent the next few days raving about this event.

I thus can hardly wait to see Allende again. If she does indeed come, I’ll rush down to the Bookworm right after the tickets for that and other events go on sale and get a place!

Since this is a post about non-Chinese stuff, there isn’t much Mandarin vocabulary here. As with the previous posts, the Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

伊莎贝尔啊连德 (yi1sha1bei4 er3a1lian2de2).
智利 (zhi4li4).
军事政变 (jun1shi2zheng4bian4). This literally means “Military (军事) government (政) change (变)”.
专政(zhuan1zheng4). The first character on its own can mean “tyrannical, aribitrary,” as well as “focused, monopolized, and concentrated”. The second character, 政, is the first half of the Chinese word for “government/seat of government” (政府; zheng4fu3).
尼克松 (ni2ke4song1).
基辛格 (ji1xin1ge2).

Ninety Minutes with Howard Goldblatt:

2009-05-15T01:21:00.000-07:00

Those of us who saw Mo Yan at the Bookworm were given a double treat, as the Chinese author was joined by his translator (翻译家), Howard Goldblatt. Goldblatt is currently research professor of Chinese language and literature at Notre Dame. In addition to Yan's writing, he has translated the work of many other contemporary Chinese novelists.

Thanks to Goldblatt's efforts in this area, many previously unknown young Chinese writers have been introduced to English speaking readers. One such writer is the author of the novel, BEIJING DOLL (北京娃娃), Chun Sue (春树). Chun wrote this book, which is largely based on her own life as a rebellious (叛逆的) fourteen year-old adolescent girl (女孩儿) living in Beijing’s Haidian (海淀) district (区), when she was just eighteen years old

Goldblatt has also translated two novels by one of my favorite living Chinese writers, Su Tong (苏童). These include Tong's early, very macrabre and utterly bleak story, RICE (米), and his latest novel to be translated into English, MY LIFE AS EMPEROR (我的帝王生涯).

The latter book is not a cheery tale, but it's by far and away the most optimistic of Tong's works. After losing his kingdom and doing a brief stint as tight-rope walker in a circus troupe, the previously cruel and dissolute Emperor Duanbai becomes a monk at the Bitter Bamboo Mountain Monastery. The former Emperor, who is now a better human being, passes his days at the monastery reading Confucius’s (孔子) ANALECTS (论语) and practicing his tight-rope walking.

The novel is narrated in retrospect by the ex-sovereign. In the last sentence, the ex-ruler makes the following memorable verdict on the ANALECTS: “Sometimes I feel that this sagely book holds all the wisdom of the world; sometimes I don't get anything at all out of it”.

Finally, Goldblatt has translated the latest Chinese novel that has created a big stir outside of the Middle Kingdom, THE WOLF TOTEM (狼图腾). This book was published here in 2004, and its author is an ex-Red Guardsman (红卫兵) who was sent to Inner Mongolia (内蒙古) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The author originally wrote the book under the pseudonym of Jiang Rong (姜戎); however, last year he disclosed his real name, Lu Jiamin (路加敏). Lu is in his early 60's and used to teach political economy.

Goldblatt briefly mentioned this last novel during his Bookworm talk. Although THE WOLF TOTEM was published here—a sign that things here with respect to freedom of expression are improving—it has been a very controversial book that people have either loved or hated. Goldblatt noted that while many Chinese critics called Lu a “crypto-fascist” (法西斯), Jonathan Mirsky hailed THE WOLF TOTEM as the “book of the year”.

In any case, I suspect that despite his problems, Lu is now laughing all the way to the bank. THE WOLF TOTEM sold 4 million copies in its first year of publication in China. The novel then created a literary sensation (轰动文坛的作品) in the West, with Penguin offering Lu $100,000 for worldwide English translation rights. And Bertelsmann paid him 20,000 Euros for the German translation rights.

Goldblatt noted that he is currently in the middle of translating THE SANDALWOOD TORTURE into English and said that he anticipates that, as in China, readers in the West will either love or hate this book. And alluding to the title of LIFE AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT, Goldblatt quipped that after having translated four of Yan's novels and many of his short stories, “Mo Yan is wearing me out” (doing these Mo Yan posts has worn me out too!!).

While translating literature from a language that is related to English, like German, is certainly not easy, it's a walk on the beach compared with translating from Mandarin to English. In an interview with the local expat magazine, THE BEIJINGER, given some time before the Bookworm event, Goldblatt stated, “The two languages are so dissimilar that one frequently has to consider ways to turn what the author wrote into what the author meant” He added, “Translating Chinese requires a keener sense of creativity than most languages.”

As if that wasn't enough, Goldblatt noted that Yan's novels present some very unique translation problems. One is the writing style. At one point in the talk, Goldblatt noted that people have said that “Yan has never met an adjective (形容词) that he didn't like”. Goldblatt thus said that he constantly fights with his editors over paring down the number of adjectives in his translations of Yan's writing.

Goldblatt also said that the vocabularly in two of Yan's novels, RED SORGHUM and THE REPUBLIC OF WINE (国酒) created a lot of translation difficulties. Much of the former novel's plot (情节) revolves around the fight waged by different guerilla (游击队员) groups against the Japanese during the War of Resistance against Japanese Agression (抗日战争).

Goldblatt informed us that he had to ask Yan lots of questions about the weapons described in this part of the novel, as many of them were traditional Chinese muskets (火枪) and other very archaic guns. The Chinese words for these and many of the other weapons in Yan's novel had no English-language equivalents. Goldblatt added that in some cases, Yan had to ask soldiers about these arms before he could answer his translator's querries.

Visitors to Beijing and expats living here who are interested in this matter should head over to the capital's military museum (军事博物馆). There you can see first hand the kind of motely arsenal the guerilla fighters, including those in the fabled 8th Route Army (八路军), had to use against their much better equipped Japanese foes. These weapons included not only ancient muskets, but spears (矛; 长枪) and scythes (大镰刀) as well.

As Max Hastings notes in his riveting new book about the last year of World War II in the Pacific, NEMESIS, that the Communist guerillas received no material backing from Stalin (斯大林), who bet on the Nationalists (国民党) right up to the end of the war. The guerillas thus had to make do with what weapons they could make on their or capture from the Japanese.

I could add here that RED SORGHUM provides a revisionist account of this struggle, much like Yan's later novel, THE SANDALWOOD TORTURE, did for the story of resistance to German imperialism in early 20th century Shandong Province. The guerilla fighters are split into different groups who spend as much time fighting each other as they do the Japanese. And some people do collaborate with the invaders. The Chinese have a special term for such folks, namely “hanjian” 汉奸, which also means all-around bad person and “traitor” (they were also called “running dogs” [走狗] and, more politely, Japanese collaborators [和日本人合作的中国人]).

Goldblatt noted that the vocabulary in THE RPEUBLIC OF WINE presented similar translation problems. This novel parodies key aspects of Chinese society (中国的社会), particularly its obsession with gourmandry (美食) and commodification of alcohol (酒), with a bit of cannibalism (食人者) thrown into the mix. Goldblatt said that he had to constantly ask Yan about all the obscure liquors referred in this novel. And to make things even harder, some of the drinks mentioned in it were completely fictional, invented by Yan himself.

Like the author he has translated, Goldblatt comes across as a very modest and completely unprentious individual. For example, he said that he never reads his own translations after they're done. Goldblatt stated that if he reads the first page of such work, he'll be “crest-fallen (垂头丧气) over all of the errors”. And since Goldblatt avoided a lot of training in current academic literary theory and criticism in coming to translate Chinese fiction, his writing is free of post-modernist mumbo-jumbo.

Goldblatt told an interesting story about his first meeting with Yan. The two were at some conference, and Yan studiously ignored him for nearly an hour (Yan said that he was too shy and felt too intimidated to approach Goldblatt). The two finally broke the ice by sharing a cigarette (抽烟)—like many males in China, Yan is a smoker. Goldblatt said at that time he had been trying to quit smoking for three years and that this incident further prolonged that struggle. However, as Yan put it, “So many years of friendship (友谊; you3yi4) started by a humble cigarette”. And they say smoking is bad for you!!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

翻译家 (fan1yi4jia1). “翻译” is the verb “translate”, while “家” is the suffix denoting that someone is a qualified expert to do such work.
北京娃娃 (Bei3jing1wa2wa5). “北京” is the Chinese word for “Beijing” and literally means “Northern (北) Capital (京)” (the City of Nanjing is the Southern [南; nan2] Capital [京]). “娃娃” means “doll”.
春树. The pinyin of this name is really “Chun1Shu4”, with the first character meaning “spring” and the second one “tree”.
叛逆的 (pan3ni4de5).
女孩儿 (nü3hai2er2).
海淀 (hai3dian4). “海” on its own means “sea”, while “淀” is the Chinese word for “shallow lake”. This part of Beijing, which covers the northwest part of the capital, has a number of small and shallow lakes. It is also home to three of China’s best Universities—People’s University (人民大学; ren2min2da4xue2), Peking University (北大; bei3da4) and Tsinghua University (清华大学; qing1hua4da4xue2).
区 (qu1).
苏童. Like 莫言, this is a pen name; the author's real name is 童忠贵 (tong2zhong1gui4).
米 (mi3). Due to its distinctive asterisk shape, this is one of the easiest Chinese characters to remember.
我的帝王生涯 (wo3de4di4wang2sheng1ya2). “帝王” means “emperor” (皇帝 [huang2di4] is another word for “monarch” or “king”). “生涯” means “career”, so the novel's title can be literally translated as “My Career as Emperor”.
孔子 (kong3zi3).
论语 (lun2yu3).
狼图腾 (lang2tu2teng2). The left-hand side of the “wolf” character (狼) has the “dog” radical, providing a clue about its meaning. “图腾” is the word for “totem”, and the first character, “图”, forms part of the Chinese word for map, “地图” (di4tu2).
红卫兵 (hong2wei4bing1). “红” on its own means “red” and here of course symbolizes the revolution (革命; ge2ming4). “卫” on its own means sanitary/sanitation, and 兵 is a word for “soldier”.
内蒙古 (nei4meng3gu3). “内” is the Chinese word for “inner”; hence “underwear” is called “内裤” (nei4ku4), or “inner (内) pants (裤)”.
法西斯 (fa3xi1si1). Since “fascism” is a foreign word, this character triplet is a transliteration and it actually kind of sounds like the way “fascism” is said in English.
轰动文坛的作品 (hong1dong4wen2 tan2de5zuo4pin3). “轰动” on its own is a verb meaning to “cause a sensation”.
形容词 (xing2rong2ci2).
国酒 (guo2jiu3). “国” on its own means “nation” or “kingdom”, while “酒” is the word for “liquor/alcohol”.
情节 (qing2jie2).
游击队员 (you2ji1dui4yuan2). This character combination is a good illustration of why Mandarin is typically a very logical language. “游” on its own means “swim”, while “击” means “strike” or “attack”. As Mao famously said, guerillas are like fish in the population sea and attack enemy forces at times and places of their own choosing. “队员” means “team member”. All of this stands in sharp contrast to the English language: the word “guerilla” is a French import, so by itself provides little clue about its meaning.
抗日战争 (kang4ri4zhan4zheng1). “抗” by itself means “anti-” or “resist”, “日” is the shortened form word for “Japan” (日本; ri4ben3), and “战争” is the word for “war”.
火枪 (huo3qiang1). “火” is the Chinese word for “fire” (as in “smoke and fire”), while “枪” has several meanings, one of which is “gun”.
军事博物馆 (jun1shi4bo2wu4guan3). “军事” is the Chinese word for “military” and “博物馆” is the word for “museum”.
八路军 (ba1lu4jun1). “八” is the Chinese word for “8”, “路” means “route/road”, and “军” on its own means “army”.
矛; 长枪 (mao2; chang2qiang1).
大镰刀 (da4lian2dao1). “大” means “big”, while “刀” by itself means “knife”.
斯大林 (si1da4lin2).
国民党 (guo2min2dang3). The last character, “党”, is the Chinese word for political party.
走狗 (zou3gou3). “走” is “running” here, while “狗” means “dog”.
和日本人合作的中国人 (he2ri4ben3ren2he2zuo4de5zhong1guo2ren2). This is translated from Mandarin as “Chinese (中国人) collaborators (合作) with the Japanese (日本人)”.
中国的社会 (zhong1guo2de5she4hui4). “中国的” is “Chinese”, while “社会” is “society”.
美食 (mei3shi2). This literally means “beautiful/delicious (美) eating (食)”.
酒 (jiu3).
食人者 (shi2ren2zhe3). Or, more literally, “eating (人) person (食) kind of individual (者)”. Once again, Mandarin is such a logical language!!
垂头丧气 (chui2tou2sang4qi4). “垂头” means to “hang one's head down”.
抽烟 (chou1yan1). “烟” on its own means “smoke”.
友谊 (you3yi4). The first character “友” forms half of the Chinese word for “friend”, which is “朋友” (peng2you3).

A Word about the Mo Yan Phrase:

2009-05-15T01:18:00.000-07:00

In an earlier blog post, I noted that Yan had made an interesting comment about a main character in LIFE AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT, a fellow nick-named “blue-face”, on account of the peculiar birthmark on his face. The guy was described as being a “Stone in an outhouse, hard and stinky”. One of my Chinese friends translated this sentence into Mandarin a week after the post appeared. Her translation is as follows: “茅房里的石头，又臭又硬” (mao2fang2li3de5shi2tou2, you4chou4you4ying4). “茅房” is the word for “outhouse”, “石头” is the word for stone, “里的” is the word for “inside of”, “臭” is the word for “stinky”, “硬” is the word for “hard”, and “又” is “and/also”. A reader named “Bokane” has offered almost the same translation, but with a different word for “outhouse,” namely “茅坑” (mao2keng1). It was good to get the latter comment and I look forward to receiving more feedback on my blog in the future.

Ninety minutes with Mo Yan (莫言), 3: The novelist and the Computer (小说家和电脑):

2009-05-15T00:59:00.000-07:00

Nearly all of us today write on the computer and find that doing this really boosts our productivity. For years now I've composed on the computer screen and have limited the pre-computer writing activity to making some basic notes or a bare outline. Using the computer makes it far easier to correct, cut and paste, and the like.

However, Yan is an exception to this rule. Yan said at the Bookworm event that he had spent some five years writing with a computer. But he then quit, feeling that it sapped his creativity (创造力). Thus Yan wrote his latest novel, LIFE AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT, entirely by hand, using brush and ink on traditional Chinese paper.

This novel has some 500,000 Chinese characters, which amounts to around 400 pages of prose after being translated into English. While Yan said he had been thinking about this book for some four decades, he was able to do the actual writing in just 43 days!

Yan added that he had been bird-dogged for many by a computer company who wanted him to endorse their PC brand. These people felt that being able say, “Mo Yan writes using our computer” would make for very good publicity. However, Yan said that when the word got out about the way he wrote LIFE AND DEATH AND WEARING ME OUT, these people quit bothering him.

Just three Chinese words in this post: 小说家 (xiao3shuo1jia1) or novelist, 电脑 (dian4nao3), which literally means “electronic (电) brain (脑), and 创造力 (chuang4zao4li4).

Ninety minutes with Mo Yan (莫言), 2: Influences on his work:

2009-05-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

In addition to discussing his two recent novels, LIFE AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT and THE SANDALWOOD TORTURE at this year's Bookworm International Literary, Mo Yan talked about what has influenced him the most as a writer. And for me, getting the chance to ask him a question about this matter made the talk even more memorable.

As I noted in the previous post, Yan doesn't have much formal education. He was kicked out of elementary school during the 5th Grade for smoking a cigarette and never went to college or a university. It comes then as no surpise, that the biggest influence (影响) on his work has been the story telling narratives spun by ordinary people, Laobaixing (老百姓), in his home town of Gaomi (高密) in Shandong (山东) province.

All writers are certainly influenced by their immediate surroundings and draw from them. However, I suspect this is especially so for Mo Yan. In any case, Yan emphatically stated that afternoon that his fiction has first and foremost drawn upon the oral histories told by his hometown's Laobaixing. He further stated that writers are like bandits and stake out their own territory.

If that's the case, then Yan has surely claimed Gaomi (高密) and the surrounding area, which is located near Qingdao (青岛). He has done so in much the same way as Raymond Chandler claimed Los Angeles, circa 1938-1953, Zhang Ailing (张爱玲) claimed 1930s and 1940s Shanghai and Günter claimed Danzig (present-day Gdansk) before and during the Second World War. And since Yan's writing draws so heavily from this area's folk drama, it's very colloquial (口语的; 通俗的) and coarse, as well as not so grammatically correct.

Yan stated that critics (文艺评论家) who fault him for having a rough and unpolished (粗糙) writing style (风格) miss the point of his writing, which is to use the language of the local Laobaixing (老百姓). Thus Yan's work is peppered with lots of Shandong dialect (山东话) and its peculiar slang (俚语; 口语) words.

One commentary I read on the internet while doing a bit of research for this and the other Mo Yan posts called his style a “skillful imitation of folk opera—a splendid street performance full of sound and imagery leaving nothing to the imagination.” This commentary noted that Yan has been heavily influenced by this area of Shandong Province's unique form of opera. This opera has a so-called “cat tone”—as one might guess, the singing mimicks a cat's yowling—and is performed at funerals, weddings and religious ceremonies.

The commentary, which was done by Yue Tao, the Chinese Affairs coordinator at Leiden University in the Netherlands, added that the roughness of Yan's language and its lowbrow style “charms many Chinese”. And referring to THE SANDALWOOD TORTURE, Tao added that because of this style, the novel “is not a clichéd (陈词滥调) anti-colonial (抗殖民) class struggle (阶级斗争) story (故事)”.

Of course the grandfather of Yan's writing style is the great early 20th Century Chinese author Lu Xun (鲁迅). Xun vigorously championed replacing classical Chinese (古文), which had previously been used in literary writing, with ordinary vernacular (白话) language.

During his talk, Yan also noted that Lu was one inspiration behind his recent novel, THE SANDALWOOD TORTURE. As I mentioned in the previous blog post, Yan stated that one purpose of this work was to mediate on the morality of capital punishment. Yan thus mentioned in his talk the famous incident that caused Lu to give up a career in medicine and turn to writing. After moving to Japan in 1906, where he lived for several years, Lu saw, in an early movie theater, a crude newsreel showing a Chinese man being beheaded (斩首) by the Russians to serve as an “example” to the local people. The writer was upset not just by the execution (处决), but by the large numbers of Chinese people watching and enjoying the spectacle.

The Wikipedia entry on Lu Xun also mentions this event and quotes Lu's feelings about it. Lu wrote that the Chinese spectators were “physically healthy” but “their expressions revealed all too clearly that spiritually, they were calloused and numb”. Yan noted in his talk that after this incident, Lu decided that he should try to cure the sick minds of the Chinese through his writing, rather than heal their bodies.

In making this comment, Yan noted that since his novels contain a lot of violence, many critics have speculated that he himself is a cruel and violent individual. However, Yan told us that he is really a very timid (胆小) person. As Yan put it, “I dare not even kill a chicken”.

Yan mentioned another Chinese literary influence on his work during the talk. This writer is the Qing Dynasty author, Pu Songling (蒲松龄), who wrote a book entitled STRANGE STORIES FROM A CHINESE STUDIO (聊斋志异). These tales featured animals turning into humans, particularly foxes becoming women. Yan stated his tale of reincarnation in LIFE AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT, in which the protagonist is successively reborn as different animals, was partially inspired by Pu's work.

The highlight of the talk for me was getting the opportunity to ask Yan a question—indeed, there was time for just one question and I got to ask it. The works of Yan I have read, RED SORGHUM and the short story compilation, SHIFOU, YOU'LL DO ANYTHING FOR A LAUGH, had always struck me as being quite similar to 1970s and 1980s Latin American “magical realism” fiction. I really didn't know before asking this question that Yan has, in fact, been dubbed as China's answer to the leading exponent of “magical realism,” the great Columbian (哥伦比亚) novelist and Nobel Prize laureate, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (马尔克斯).

Yan stated that he has indeed read Marquez and has been influenced by the author's work (since Yan doesn't know any foreign languages, he reads Chinese translations of this literature). In particular, he said that it took him slightly more than two decades to get through Marquez's most famous novel (小说), ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE (百年孤獨). After hearing that, I didn't feel quite so bad about my initial struggles to read that book. It was only after the second go that I was able to appreciate that ONE HUNRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE is indeed a great work of literature. However, I still believe that Marquez's later and other well-known novel, LOVE IN THE TIME CHOLERA (霍乱时期的爱情) is much more accessible.

In talking about Marquez's work, Yan told us that he finally finished ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE after 21 years because he had been invited to a conference in Tokyo in which Maquez was the other featured writer. Yan said that since Marquez was going to be there, he felt that he'd better finish reading the novel.

Yan also said that he likes the American author William Faulkner (福克纳). But he also confessed to struggling with Faulkner's best known novel, THE SOUND AND THE FURY. Indeed, Yan said that unlike the Marquez novel, he has never been able to finish that work. Yan added that he would probably never finish this novel, as Faulkner has long been dead, so there is no chance of appearing with him at a conference (I have to confess that I've never been able to get into Faulkner—too many long sentences, too much Southern Gothic for my liking!).

Yan's answer to my question shows that he is a very modest and self-deprecating kind of individual. Unlike many authors who become insufferably pretentious after achieving fame, Yan doesn't seem to have a pretentious bone in his body. He's still very much a laobaixing, but a laobaixing who just happens to be one of China's and indeed the world's greatest writers.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

影响 (ying3xiang3). “影” on its own means “shadow” and it appears in the Chinese word for movie, “电影” (dian4ying3), which literally means “electronic (电) shadow (影)”. “响” on its own means “sound” or “resonate”.
口语; 通俗的 (kou3yu3; tong1su2de). “口语” can also be translated as “oral (口) language”, with the “口” character resembling an opening, like a mouth. “通” is the word for “common”, while the “俗” character appears in the Chinese word for “custom(s)” (风俗; feng1su2).
文艺评论家 (wen2yi4ping2lun4jia1). “文艺” means “literature and art”, while “评论” is one Chinese word for “criticize” or “criticism”; the other two are “批评” (pi1ping2) 批判 (pi1pan4). The “家” suffix denotes that someone who is a qualified expert to do a particular task.
粗糙 (cu1cao1). One could also say that Yan's writing lacks embellishment or refinement. These adjectives can be translated into Mandarin as “加修饰” (jia1xiu1shi4).
风格 (feng1ge2). Unlike English, Mandarin has separate words for writing and artistic style, or “风格”, and style, as in clothing style. The word for the latter is “样式” (yang4shi4).
俚语; 口语 (li3yu3; kou3yu3). “语” is in the Chinese word for language “语言”. Readers can notice that the “口” character appears at the bottom right hand side of “语” and at the bottom of “言”, providing a clue about the meaning of these characters.
陈词滥调 (chen1ci2lan4diao4). This is also the Chinese word for “hackneyed” and “stale” (in the verbal sense).
抗殖民 (kang4zhi2min2). “抗” means “anti-/against”, while “殖民” is the word for “colonial”.
阶级斗争 (jie1ji2dou4zheng1). “阶级” is the word for “class”, while “争” means “struggle” and appears in the Chinese term for “war/conflict” (战争; zhan4zheng1).
故事 (gu4shi4).
古文 (gu3wen2). This literally means “very old/ancient/classical (古) language (文)”.
白话 (bai2hua4). And this term literally means “plain/pure (白) speech/talk (话)”. “白” is also the word for “white”.
斩首 (zhan3shou3). “斩” on its own means “chop”, while “首” is one Chinese word for “head” (“头” [tou2] is more commonly used in other phrases and sentences).
处决 (chu3jue2).
胆小 (dan3xiao3). “胆” on its own means “courage” and “audacity”, while “小” is one way of saying “small”. So the term literally means “lacking/small in courage”.
聊斋志异 (liao4zhai1zhi4yi4). “聊” on its own mean “to converse” or “conversation” and “斋” is a shortened form of the word for “studio” (吃斋; chi1zhai1). “志异” is the word for “fabulous tales”.
哥伦比亚 (ge1lun2bi3ya4). This transliteration actually sounds pretty much like “Columbia”. 马尔克斯 (ma3er2ke4si1). It's very important to say the rising tone “er” “尔” here; otherwise your Chinese listeners might think you're talking about Karl Marx. The Chinese transliterations of Marquez and Marx's names sound almost alike, with the former being “马克思” (ma3ke4si1). The Chinese word for “Marxism” is “马克思主义” (ma3ke4si1zhu3yi4). “主义” means “ism” or “doctrine”.
小说 (xiao3shuo1). This literally means “small (小) speaking (说);” since many novels are hardly small, the logic behind this character combination, unlike many of the others in Mandarin, has always baffled me.
百年孤獨 (bai3nian2gu1du2). “百年” means “100 (白) years (年)”, while “孤獨” means “solitude”.
霍乱时期的爱情 (huo4luan4dshi2qi1de 5ai4qing2). “霍乱” is cholera, “时期” means “time” in the sense of a period or era, and “爱情” is “love affair”.
福克纳 (fu2ke4na4).

Ninety Minutes with Mo Yan (莫言), I: The Author Talks About two of His Recent Novels:

2009-05-05T21:27:00.000-07:00

The San Litun (三里屯) street on the east side of Beijing, near Chaoyang Park, is known mainly for its bars and, more recently, the brand-spanking new and very upscale Village Shopping Mall. However, one of the best things about this area is arguably the small independent bookstore located at the south end of the so-called “bar street”. The name of this place is the “Bookworm”.

Its owner is a 50-something British expat named Alexandra Pearson. Her establishment is not only a small but good independent bookstore, but also functions as a lending library and is a pretty nice restaurant and bar to boot. The food is good and, compared to other upscale Western dining establishments in the capital, not that pricey. Moreover, there are plenty of comfortable seats and sofas in one of the back rooms, wireless internet, and excellent techno and acid jazz music in the background. All of this makes the Bookworm a good place to spend a cold winter afternoon reading a book or surfing the web over one or two or three lattes (or a bit of wine).

But the best thing about the Bookworm is the annual literary festival (读书节) it holds in March. Last year I got to see Rob Gifford, NPR's former China correspondent, talk about and then sign his terrific new book, CHINA ROAD. And this year I heard Jasper Becker discuss his great new history of Beijing, CITY OF HEAVENLY TRANQUILITY (I've referred to that work quite often in recent blog posts).

However, the high point of this year's festival came after the Becker talk. I and the small handful of other people lucky enough to have gotten tickets for the event—it sold out very quickly—got to spend a little over ninety minutes with the Chinese novelist Mo Yan (莫言) and his English translator, Howard Goldblatt. A recent photo of Yan is at the top of this blog post.

Mo Yan is arguably China's greatest living novelist. This year he won the Newman Prize and last year, he was the first mainland Chinese writer invited to give the keynote address at the Modern Language Association's annual convention (he addressed the 2008 San Francisco meeting). And Yan is the one mainland China writer who has a decent shot at winning the Nobel Prize for literature. Thus seeing Yan in person and listening to him discuss his work has to rank as one of the high points of my ongoing China adventure.

Mo Yan is best known for his early big, sprawling epic novel (史诗著作) RED SORGHUM (红高粱), mainly because it was made into film by Zhang Yimou (张艺谋) starring Gong Li (巩俐) (see the above photos). Most of his subsequent novels have been translated into English, including THE REPUBLIC OF WINE (酒国), THE GARLIC BALLADS (天堂蒜台之歌), BIG BREASTS AND WIDE HIPS (丰乳肥臀) and LIFE AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT (生死疲劳).

The first two novels translated after RED SORGHUM, THE GARLIC BALLADS and THE REPUBLIC OF WINE, were relatively short satires and lacked the former's historical breath. By contrast, BIG BREAST AND WIDE HIPS, whose story focuses on a family of women, is a generally unflattering romp through the first half of 20th Century China. Yan's latest novel to be translated, LIFE AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT, does the same thing for the New China.

Yan spent nearly all of his time discussing LIFE AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT and the novel Goldblatt is currently translating, THE SANDALWOOD TORTURE (檀香刑) (Yan finished writing the latter novel in 2001). Like most of Yan's fiction, both novels are set in his Shandong Province hometown of Gaomi (高密). However, the second one is more historical, with the story taking place during the Boxer (义和拳) Rebellion.

The Boxer Rebellion originated in Shandong (山东) Province and was sparked by resistance to German colonization of this area. One well known legacy of German imperialism in China is the famous Qingdao (青岛) beer. The Germans built the Qingdao brewery in that city, along with many lovely old buildings, including the Governor's Mansion, several churches (教堂), and a number of villas (别墅). This architecture, along with the beer, beautiful seaside, and relatively clear air, make Qingdao one of China's most attractive cities.

In addition to bringing beer to China, the Germans also built a railroad (铁路) from Qingdao to Jinan (济南), which is the capital of and largest city in Shandong Province. Yan talked about why the peasants became very angry about the construction of the railroad. His interesting and frank comments differed greatly from what the history textbooks (历史课本) here have to say about this matter.

Yan said that the peasants struggled against the Germans not because they opposed imperialism—indeed, many had no concept of what that meant—but because the railroad was built through graveyards (墓地). It was thus seen as disturbing the area's “feng shui” (风水) or harmony, both with nature and the people's dead ancestors. So the Germans would build the railroad during the day, only to have much of that construction dismantled by the peasants during the night.

Yan noted that the peasants were initially terrified of the railroad. In particular, they could not fathom how such heavy object like a train (火车) could move so fast on its own. The farmers wondered what kind food the train ate, while the area's bandits were convinced that the engines (发动机) of the locomotives (火车头) were filled with gold (金).

The Germans brutally suppressed this uprising, torturing and then cruelly executing its ringleaders, much like they did to the rebelling Nanimbian tribesmen in Southwest Africa during the so-called “Hottentot War”. Interestingly enough, I vaguely remember reading in the excellent German newspaper, DIE ZEIT, that the latter effort was led by close relative of the future Nazi Reichsmarschall Herman Göring.

But to be fair and even-handed here, every other colonial power during this time behaved in a similar fashion. During the Boer War, for example, the British herded Boer women and children into squalid concentration camps, where large numbers perished from disease and inadequate food. And the Americans slaughtered a quarter million Filipinos in surpressing the struggle for independence that broke out in Philippines during the Spanish American War's not so splendid aftermath (William Hay referred to the conflict as “That Splendid Little War”—a sick joke if there ever was one!!).

Of course, graphic violence and torture is nothing new to Yan's fiction. In RED SORGHUM, one of the main characters, the leader of one of the anti-Japanese guerilla groups, is flayed alive by the Japanese (this scene comes near the end of Zhang Yimou's film adaptation of the book). However, in this newer novel, the theme of execution (处决) plays a much more central role. At least during his talk, Yan stated emphatically that he wanted to create characters that would make his novel a meditation on the morality of capital punishment.

After making this comment, Yan talked at length about the history of executions in China, especially how they could be seen as theatrical events. In particular, the criminals who were about to be executed were expected to perform. Yan stated that such performances mainly consisted of reciting two lines from Song Dynasty (宋朝) operas. One went, “If you cut off my head, it will only leave scars on both sides”, while the other one was, “In 20 years, I'll be another great guy!”

According to Yan, if the condemned uttered these lines with the requisite sang foid, they would receive a big round of applause from the crowd. Yan went on to say that while a lot is known about the behavior of crowds and the condemned at public executions, the executioners have largely been ignored, adding that he wondered whether or not they had “bad dreams” (不好的梦). Thus one of main characters in THE SANDALWOOD TORTURE is an executioner (刽子手).

I suspect that very few of China's current executioners actually have bad dreams over their work. At least the one interviewed in Sang Ye's terrific compilation of interviews, CHINA CANDID: THE PEOPLE ON THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC, seemed to have no qualms about his job (that interview is entitled “Parting Shot”). Indeed, the very matter of fact and clinical way he describes the execution process is really chilling and disturbing, probably far more so than Yan's prose in THE SANDALWOOD TORTURE, which Goldblatt at one point called “stomach-turning”.

I should say here that CHINA CANDID really is a must-read book. All of the interviews in it are very illuminating, dealing with a wide range of issues, including migrant workers, parents organizing over their abducted children, the problems of the handicapped, and the winners from China's economic reforms. But be warned, a few of the conversations are, like the one with the executioner, very unsettling to say the least. This is particularly true regarding the interview with a Shenzhen hooker, who uses extremely frank and graphic language in talking about her work.

I thus expect that once THE SANDALWOOD TORTURE has been translated, people outside of China will either love it or hate it. Not only does it have the “stomach turning” descriptions of executions, but all of this is juxtaposed against a love story!

The same can also certainly be said for the most recent Mo Yan novel to be translated into English, LIFE AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT. This story is set in the Cultural Revolution (文化大革命) and decade that preceded it. When he wasn't discussing THE SANDALWOOD TORTURE, Yan talked about this book, particularly how it was rooted in his childhood memories of that period of time.

One of the novel's main characters is based on a fellow who had a cart in Yan's old village. Yan said that this man was called “Blueface” because of a peculiar birthmark on his face. He added that Blueface was a very stubborn individual, citing a Chinese saying to describe him, “Stone in the outhouse, hard and stinky” (at least that's how the translator at the talk put it; none of my Chinese friends have been able to give me the Mandarin equivalent).

Yan stated that unlike everyone else in the village, Blueface didn't belong to any collective unit. He and his family thus faced a lot of social pressure from the other villagers, particularly during the Cultural Revolution. At that point, this pressure became so great that Blueface hanged himself. Yan said that he opposed Blueface as a child, but now thinks that this man did the right thing in resisting the pressure to conform.

Yan further noted that during this period, the village chief exercised very tight control over the villager's lives. Farmers went to the fields to work in the morning after the village chief rang a bell. And the farmers could not go to the market without the chief's permission. As Yan put it, discipline in the collective was very much like that of a military unit.

Today, of course, things are completely different and rural residents enjoy much personal freedom in going about their day-to-day lives. This important change is frequently overlooked or downplayed by western critics of China, including several of my own friends back in the states.

The potagonist (主人公) of LIFE AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT is a landowner who is executed in the 1950s. Yan stated that many mistakes were made during this period and that lots innocent people were persecuted. In the novel, the landowner appeals to the lord of the underworld to get reborn as a human being so he can return to the village and take his revenge.

However, over the next 50 years, he is instead reborn as four animals—pig (猪), dog (狗), horse (马), and monkey (猴子)—before being reborn as a human being. And when he is finally reborn as a human being, he is given an abnormally large head (头)! Yan noted that this death and rebirth form a circle, further adding that Chinese peasant life is also like a circle. He sees the changes in China through the eyes of different animals and in this latest novel, animals often take over the narrative from human beings.

This is not the first time in Yan's fiction that animals have assumed a quasi-human nature. One of the most violent and disturbing scenes in RED SORGHUM is the attack mounted by a pack of wild dogs against the small village at the center of the novel's story. In this particular passage, the leader of the dog pack is turned into a clever and astute field commander who outwits the villagers.

Yan stated that his fascination with animals and the role they play in his fiction is very much rooted in his childhood. He was kicked out of school during the 5th grade for smoking a cigarette. Yan said that he then spent most of his adolescence tending farm animals. In fact, Yan noted that during this period, he had far more interaction with animals than he did with humans and barely remembers his classmates. He added that this made him appreciate just how clever some of these animals are, especially pigs.

During the Cultural Revolution, Yan became a farmer, but then joined the People's Liberation Army (PLA; 人民解放军) in 1976. He first served in a cultural affairs unit and was subsequently appointed to teach literature at the PLA cultural Academy in 1981. There he began writing fiction and the rest, as they say, is history!

According to a statement I shagged off of the internet from Howard Goldblatt, LIFE IS AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT “puts a human (and frequently bestial) face on the revolution and is replete with the dark humor, metafictional insertions, and fantasies that Yan's readers have come to expect and enjoy.” And the NEW YORK TIMES says that LIFE AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT is a “wildly visionary and creative novel”.

So perhaps this book will help Yan win a Nobel Prize for literature. In any case, I'm looking forward to reading the English translation of 生死疲劳 (LIFE AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT) in the not too distant future and certainly hope to someday read it, along with most of Yan's other work, in Chinese (I have read RED SORGHUM and his collection of short stories, also translated by Goldblatt, SHIFOU, YOU’LL DO ANYTIHING FOR A LAUGH).

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

莫言 (mo4yan2). This is his “pen name,”which means “not to speak”. His real name is管谟业 (guan3mo2ye4).
读书节 (du2shu1jie2). “读书” also means “to study” or “to study a book”, while “节” is the Mandarin word for “festival”.
史诗著作 (shi3shi1zhu4zuo4). According to my very literary Chinese friend, Lu Hongyan (路红艳), the Chinese wouldn't regard RED SORGHUM as an “epic” work. That honor would be reserved for a classic like DREAM OF RED CHAMBERS (红楼梦; hong2lou2meng4).
红高粱 (hong2gao1liang5). “红” means “red” and “高粱” is the word for “sorghum”.
酒国 (jiu3guo2). “酒” is the general Chinese term for alcoholic beverage, while “国” is a shortened form of the word for “nation” or “kingdom”, “国家” (guo2jia1).
天堂蒜台之歌 (tian1tang2suan3tai2zhi1ge1). “蒜” is the shortened form of garlic, but when put with “台” or, less frequently “苔” (tai2; this word can mean “moss”), it's another vegetable. “之” is a shortened form of the word “between” or “among” (之间; zhi1jian1), while “歌” is the noun “song”.
丰乳肥臀 (feng1ru3fei2tun2). “丰” means “bountiful” and “乳” is shortened form of the word for “breast”, or “乳房” (ru3fang2). “肥” is the noun “fat”, so the Chinese expression for losing weight, “减肥” (jian3fei2) means “lose fat”. Mandarin has a different character for the adjective “fat”, which is “胖” (pang4). “臀” doesn't actually mean “hips”, but is instead the noun “buttocks” or “ass”. So literally translated, this novel's title is “Bountiful Breasts, Fat Ass”.
生死疲劳 (sheng1si3pi2lao2). “生” is a shortened form of the word for “life” (生活; sheng1huo2) and “死” means “death”. “疲劳” functions both as the adjective “weary” and the noun “fatigue”.
檀香刑 (tan2xiang1xing2). “檀香” menas “sandalwood”, while “刑” is the word for “punishment”.
义和拳 (yi4he2quan2). The real Chinese name for the Boxers is the Society of Righteous Fists; “义和” means “righteous” and “拳” functions as three nouns, namely “fist”, “boxing”, and “pugilism”. The character for “hand” (手; shou3) at the bottom of this character provides a clue about its meaning.
教堂 (jiao4tang2).
别墅 (bie2shu4).
铁路 (tie3lu4). This literally means “iron (铁) road/path (路)”.
历史课本 (li4shi3ke4ben3). “历史” is the word for “history,” while “课本” is the word for “textbook”.
墓地 (mu4di4).
火车 (huo3che1). This combination literally means “fire (火) vehicle” (车).
发动机 (fa1dong4ji1).
火车头 (huo3che1tou2). Literally translated, this means “train (火车) head (头)”. This “头” is human/animal anatomy “head”, not to someone in charge of an organization or task. 金 (jin1).
处决 (chu3jue2). This word is the noun form of the verb “execute(d)”, which is 处死(了) (chu3si3[le5])
宋朝 (Song4chao2). “朝” is the word for “dynasty”.
不好的梦 (bu4hao3de5meng4). “不好” means “bad/no good”, while “梦” is the word for dreams. The Chinese word for “nightmare” is 噩梦 (e4meng4). “噩” on its own is “shocking”.
刽子手 (gui4zi5shou3). “死刑执行人” (si3xing4zhi2xing2ren2) is a more formal, written term for these individuals; “死刑” means “death (死) penalty/punishment (刑)”.
文化大革命 (wen2hua4da4ge2ming4). “文化” means “culture/cultural”, “大” “big”, and “革命” “revolution”.
主人公 (zhu3ren2gong1). The Chinese word for “antagonist” is “反面人物” and the “反” in this word means “to oppose” or “rebel”. An ordinary character in a work of fiction is a “人物” (ren2wu4), while a “cast of characters” is a “人物表”. And a “minor character” is a “次要人物” (ci4yao4ren2wu4). Finally, the word for “role” is “角色” (jue2se4).
猪 (zhu1).
狗 (gou3).
马 (ma3).
猴子 (hou3zi5).
人民解放军 (ren2min2jie3fang4jun1). “人民” stands for “people”, “解放” “liberation”, and “军” for “army”. Thus the Chinese name for the famous World War II 8th Route Army is 八 (8) 路 (route) 军 (army) (ba1lu4jun1). “Military” is “军事” (jun1shi4) or, more literally, “army (军) matters/affairs (事)”.

Neighborhood Flowering Peach Blossoms: Both the Plant and the Human Variety!

2009-04-29T17:00:00.000-07:00

During my last medical checkup, the doctor told me to get more exercise. So now that the weather has improved, I've been taking a brisk one-hour walk around the immediate neighborhood after getting home from work. I always bring along my camera because you never know when a nice photo opportunity will come up.

The photo above was taken about two weeks ago, during a stroll down the Dongzhimen Dajie—this particular spot on the street is about 10 minutes by foot from my apartment. The two ladies in the photo above are strangers. I saw them sitting in front of a restaurant and since they are very lovely, I naturally wanted to take their picture. As the photo indicates, they were quite happy to be photographed by this laowai.

This stretch of the Dongzhimen Dajie is home to lots of other restaurants and is called the “Ghost Street” or “Guijie” (簋街). According to my Chinese friend Lu Hongyan (路红颜), there's an interesting story behind this name. Beijing's old city wall used to run along this street, and many traders would do illegal just outside of it. Since they conducted this activity in the early morning, just before the sun came up, and also wore white clothes, they literally looked like ghosts.

However, the character in front of “街”, or “street”, doesn't actually mean “ghost”. It is rather the word for the dinner set of a ghost; it can also stand for a round mouthed food vessel with two or four loop handles. Another Chinese friend informs that people felt that “鬼街”, or literally “ghost street” was just terrifying (恐怖). I could add that “鬼” and “簋” have the same pronunciation: both are a rising and falling tone “gui”, so it can be rather confusing!

I spent the last part of that evening's walk doing a brisk walk through the local neighborhood park, Nanguan Gongyuan (南管公园). It's not as large or famous as Ritan Park, but serves as a kind of community recreation center for this densely populated Dongzhimen neighborhood. And from late March through the middle of April, the park has some lovely flowering peaches. Some photos of them and other blooms are below. All of them are now gone.

As this post is short and mainly photographic, there's no Chinese today. The pinyin, minus the tones, is in the text for all of the vocabulary, save for “恐怖”. That word is a falling and rising tone “kong” and falling tone “bu”.

The many other charms of Ritan Park:

2009-04-27T00:47:00.000-07:00

Ritan Park's charms extend well beyond its spring blooms, which last from around late March through about the first two weeks of April. Even before the blooms come out, if the weather isn't really cold, a fair number of people will be out about in the park. So it's usually a great place to watch ordinary Chinese people, who are called here “Laobaixing” (老百姓), relaxing and having fun.

Ritan's sacrificial alter (祭坛) is surrounded by a lengthy circular wall. Since the space within the confines of this wall is fairly large and open—there are no trees and bushes here, as the surface is all stone—the area is a favorite spot for people to practice playing badminton (打羽毛球). I took some photos of a mother (母亲) and her daughter (女儿) doing that on a relatively warm early winter day in early February. Two of these photos are at the top of the post.

Other people, mainly older folks, were playing cards and Chinese encirclement chess, “weiqi” (围棋), better known in the West as “Go”. The photo below is a shot of a group of seniors (老年人) playing cards (打纸牌).

Once the weather begins to warm up around the end of March, even more people go to the park on the weekend. One area that always has a crowd is Ritan's recreation area, which is located at the northeast corner of the park. This spot has some exercise equipment (健身器材) as well as ping pong (乒乓球) tables. As the photo below indicates, people use the equipment more as a place to play (玩) and have some fun, rather than for doing some hard-core exercise (锻炼; 运动).

This is definitely not the case for the park's state of the art climbing wall (攀岩墙). The people who use it are definitely very serious about improving their vertical climbing and scaling technique. When the weather warms up, there are always at least three people scrambling up the wall all through any given Saturday or Sunday. And while all of the routes are fairly challenging, one is especially so. It features an overhang, with a 30º backward inclining slope, jutting out from the vertical wall.

Whenever I go here, I always see a pair of young and rather attractive Chinese gals at the climbing wall. One of them will be scaling up the wall, while the other will be handling the safety rope/pulley. If my memory serves me correctly, one of these ladies actually once made it up the climbing wall's most difficult route. I shot these the photos of them below on my last trip to the park, when I took the spring bloom pictures that appeared in the previous blog post.

Many younger couples with small children bring their kids to Ritan Park, even during the winter, provided the weather isn't too cold. The top two photos below were shot on such a day in early February (in fact, the same day the earlier shots in this post were taken). And of course, when the weather warms up, more families with small children are out and about. The other two photos below were shot duirng a rather nice afternoon in the middle of March. As the Chinese would say, these youngsters were “非常非常可爱”, or “really, really cute”.

As was noted in my previous blog post, there's small hill at the center of Ritan Park. If it's a relatively clear day, you'll have swell view of the Beijing Central Business District (CBD) highrises from the top. The tallest structure in the photo below is the soon to be opened Traders Hotel. The new CCTV tower is just over to its left in the picture.

Once you've had your fill of enjoying Ritan's spring blooms and other flora, gazing at its older historic buildings, looking at the locals, and observing Beijing's new skyline, you can stop and rest and have a drink at the Stone Boat Café.

As the café’s photo indicates, the building really does look like the famous stone boat moored at Kunming Lake (昆明湖) in the Summer Palace (颐和园). This particular stone boat sits on the west side of a shallow pond. Ritan's small hill and rockery (假山) rises above the north of the pond. The Chinese word for “rockery” literally means “fake (假) mountain (山)” because a rockery was meant to be a mountain in miniature. The photo of this particular miniature mountain below was shot from one of the Stone Boat Café’s windows.

An attractive pavilion graces the other side of the pond (its southeast corner). This structure is set amidst some very nice willow trees. There's a photo of it below.

Ritan Park is located a bit north of the Nr. 1 subway line. You can walk there in about 20 minutes from the Jianguomen (建国门) subway station. It's also very near a restaurant that is a long-standing Beijing expat institution, Paul's Steak and Eggs American style diner. Ironically, the fellow who owns it, Paul, isn't actually from the US, but is instead a French Canadian from Quebec.

In any case, his restaurant serves big and hearty American-style breakfasts that come with a bottomless cup of coffee. And when the weather is nice, they put plenty of tables out on the sidewalk, so patrons can dine outside and enjoy the warmth and sunshine. The restaurant is very easy to find: just walk around to the back of the very prominent Friendship Store (友谊商店). You can't miss the latter when walking down the wide Jianguo Dajie Boulevard.

This part of Beijing is home to many foreign diplomatic embassies (大使馆). Among them are the the Sri Lankan, Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Singaporean Embassies (the US Embassy used to here as well, but has since moved). I think the last embassy is housed in a rather cool building, so there's a photo of it below. The two towers poking above it are the Twins Mall, which is one of the many high rises lining this part of the Jianguo Dajie. This Embassy neighborhood, however, is a very quiet area with lots and lots of big and leafy trees.

So here is my suggestion for a perfect way to spend an early April Saturday or Sunday. Begin with a leisurely breakfast outdoors at Paul's Steak and Eggs. After breakfast, head over to Ritan Park, stroll about, look at and enjoy the blooms, do some people watching, and take in and get a feel for the history of the place from its older buildings and structures (see the photo below). Then top it off by having sitting down and having a leisurely drink at the Stone Boat Café. It just doesn't get any better than that!!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

老百姓 (lao3bai2xing4). As noted in a previous post, “老百姓” literally means “old (老) 100 (百) name/ed (姓)”. There are just 100 old and common family names in China, such as “Liu” (刘), “Zhang” (张), “Chen” (陈), and the like. Hence “old 100 names” came to be a slang term for very ordinary people.
祭坛 (hu4tan2).
打羽毛球 (da3yu3mao2qiu2). “打” is the word for “play”, while “羽毛球” means “badminton”.
母亲 (mu3qin1). The word for “mum” or “mom” is “妈妈” (ma1ma5).
女儿 (nü3er2).
围棋 (wei2qi2). “围” on its own means “encirclement/surround”; “棋” is the “chess” suffix character.
老年人 (lao3nian2ren2). “老” of course means “old”, “年” is the word for year, and “人” is the word for “person”.
打纸牌 (da3zhi3pai2). “打” is the word for “play” here, while “纸牌” means cards, i.e. in the sense of a deck of playing cards.
健身器材 (jian4shen1qi4cai2). This literally means “fitness (健身) appliance (器材)”.
乒乓球 (ping1pang1qiu2). If you look at the first two characters, they together form a picture that rather resembles two people playing ping pong.
玩 (wan2).
锻炼 (duan4lian4).
运动 (yun4dong4). This is also the verb “to move about”.
攀岩墙 (pan1yan2qiang2). “攀岩” means “rock climbing”, while “墙” means “wall”.
非常非常可爱 (fei1chang2fei1chang2ke3ai4). “非常非常” is “really, really/very, very”, while “可爱” is the word for “cute/adorable”.
昆明湖 (kun1ming2hu2). “昆明” is the name of the Yunnan (云南) Province’s capital city; “湖” is the Chinese word for “lake”.
颐和园 (yi2he2yuan2).
友谊商店 (you3yi4shang1dian4). “友谊” means “friendship”, while “商店” is the word for “store” (as in “shop” or “business”).
大使馆 (da4shi3guan3).

Spring Blooms in Ritan Park:

2009-04-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

T. S. Eliot's acid poetic commentary on modern life, “Wasteland”, begins with the line “April is the cruelest month”. I doubt if Mr. Eliot ever set foot in Beijing during April (四月). Far from being the “cruelest month”, April is one of the best times to be in the capital. The frigid cold of winter has finally ended, while the stifling heat of summer is still another month or two away.

For a brief period, Beijing's weather is actually quite pleasant. To be sure, the occasional sandstorm, or shachenbao (沙尘暴), does blow through the city; however, after having lived here now for three years, I think all those “sandstorm” stories are somewhat exaggerated! But most of the time it's pleasantly warm or comfortably cool and we get quite a few clear “blue sky” (晴天) days. And best of all, the trees and flowers all begin blooming (树和花都开花了) in late March. Thus through the first half of April, Beijing's parks are ablaze with color.

Ritan Park is one of the best places to look at and take photos of all this spring color. The prettiest (最漂亮的) blooms are in the park's southeast corner. The pair of photos at the top of the post were shot there 2-3 weeks ago. The bush with the yellow color is forsythia, and this plant is native to China and Korea. The Chinese call it “Yingchunhua” (迎春花), which means “Welcoming Spring Flower”. The tree with the white blossoms is a Magnolia Dudenta, and the Chinese call this tree a “Baiyulan” (白玉兰), or “White Jade Orchid”. When this tree is blooming, that name is certainly more appropriate.

The deep pink or scarlet colored bush in the top photos is some kind of flowering peach. The juxtaposition between it and the forsythia is nothing short of spectacular. And anyone who walks up the small hill in the park's center will be able to see more beautiful flowers. The first photo below is a shot of that hill and the pavilion on its top; the second photo is a shot of these flowers with the pavilion in the background.

The rest of the park also has some nice blooms, though not as spectacular as the ones in the southeast corner or up on hill. There's a photo below.

The gate in the photo above provides a clue as to the main function of the park in Old China, which was to serve as the Temple of the Sun. The “Ri” (日) in the park's name means “sun”, while “tan” (坛) is one of many Chinese words for “temple”. This park, along with four others—Zhongshan, now named after the founder of Republican China, Sun Zhongshan (孙中山) (中山), Ditan (Temple of the Earth) (地坛), Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) (天坛), and Yuetan (Temple of the Moon) (月坛)—are located at Beijing's cardinal points. Ritan, Ditan, Yuetan, and Tiantan are respectively located at the city's east, north, west, and south points, while Zhongshan is at the center, next to the Forbidden City (故宫).

Thus Ritan Park used to be a place where the Emperor (皇帝) carried out solemn religious ceremonies. But now it is a place for the residents of the capital to relax and play. More on that in my next post!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

四月 (si4yue4). Since China's calendar used to be a lunar calendar, the character for “month”, “月”, also means “moon” in Mandarin. In marked contrast to English and most other Western languages, Mandarin doesn't have specific names for each month. April is literally “fourth month”; the same goes for the other months. Thus January is “first month”, or “一月” and so on.
沙尘暴 (sha1chen2bao4). “沙” means “sand”, “尘” means “dirt/dust”, and “暴” in this context means “storm”. It can also mean “violent/violence”.
晴天 (qing2tian1). This literally means “clear (晴) day/sky (天)”.
树和花都开花了 (shu4he2hua1dou1kai1hua1le5). The word order here is pretty much the same as it is in English: “树 (trees) 和 (and) 花 (flowers) 都 (all) 开 (a shortened form of begin, 开始 [kai1shi3]) 花了 (blooming). “花” can serve as both the verb “to bloom” and noun “bloom”, as well being the noun for “flower”.
最漂亮的 (zui4piao4liang5de5). “最” means “most”, while “漂亮的” is the Chinese word for pretty. The adjective is used for women and natural scenery, particulary landscape and plants.
故宫 (gu4gong1).
皇帝 (huang2di4).

Compared to other kinds of Chinese Opera, Peking Opera doesn't have a long History:

2009-04-19T17:15:00.000-07:00

In addition to Peking Opera, China boasts several regional kinds of opera. These include Sichuan Opera (川剧), Shanghai Opera (沪剧), and Hebei Opera (河北梆子). These types of opera may not be as well-known as Beijing Opera, but they have a much longer history. All of them started many centuries ago.

By contrast, Peking Opera emerged relatively late in Chinese history. Indeed, it dates only to the mid-18th Century, which is fairly recent for a country with a 5,000 year history. It began when the Qing Dynasty (清朝) Emperor Qian Long (乾隆), whose picture is at the top of this post, observed four large Anhui Province (安徽) Opera troupes (班) perform during one of his inspection tours of Southern China. He invited these troupes up to Beijing to set up shop and the rest, as they, is history!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

川剧 (chuan1ju4). 川 is an abbreviated form of 四川 (si4chuan1) Province, which literally means “four (四) waters (川), while “居” on its own means “theatrical play”.
沪剧 (hu4ju4). “沪” is an older name for Shanghai (上海; shang4hai3). The city's modern name means “up (上) from the sea (海)”.
河北梆子 (he2bei3bang1zi3). “河北” is the name of Hebei Province and it means “north of the river,”namely the Yellow River (黄河; huang2 [Yellow] he2 [River]).
清朝 (qing1chao2). “清” is the name of the dynasty, which means “pure”, while “朝” is the Chinese word for “dynasty”.
班 (ban1).

Peking Opera Lives on—in the Movies, that is:

2009-04-16T20:10:00.000-07:00

Peking Opera may be slowly dying on the live stage, but it does briefly flicker back to life every now and then on the silver screen (my apologies for the lame pun!). In particular, the art form holds a special fascination for one of China's most important and internationally well-known film directors, Chen Kaige (陈凯歌).

Indeed, it was Chen's 1993 movie about Peking Opera, “Farewell My Concubine” (霸王别姬), which made the director famous in the West. This epic film (史诗电影; shi3shi1dian4ying3; 史诗 means “epic”) charts the careers of two Peking Opera male stars from the early and tumultuous days of Republican China up through the chaotic upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and it, along with the early work of Zhang Yimou (张艺谋), put Chinese cinema in the international spotlight.

In his latest film, whose English title is “Forever Enthralled”, Chen returns to the subject of Peking Opera. Since this film is about the famous Peking Opera star, Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳), its Chinese title is “Mei Lanfang”. Li Ming (黎明) stars as Mei Lanfang, while Zhang Ziyi (章子怡), who is much better known outside of China, plays opposite him as film's leading actress (see the photos at the top of this post).

The real life Mei Lanfang specialized in so-called “nandan” (男旦) Peking Opera roles. As the photo of Mei below indicates, these men took on young female roles—“男旦” literally means “man-woman” in this context. Normal acting is difficult enough, but I'm sure it's a walk in the park compared to doing this kind of cross-gender performance. As one can imagine, being a “男旦” required a special kind of technical artistry and skill.

The Dowager Empress Cixi (慈禧) was especially enamoured of these female impersonators. Peking Opera flourished during her long reign, which lasted from the late 19th Century through the first years of the 20th Century. During this period, the opera troupes naturally sought to put on lots of plays featuring legendary and patriotic heroines.

One such opera was “Hua Mulan (花木兰) Joins the Army.” This opera was based on a very well-known story from traditional Chinese culture. Hua was a famous heroine who disguised herself as a man and became a soldier, taking the place of her father in the army. She then proceeded to achieve great feats in war. You could call her a Chinese Joan of Arc, but unlike the French maiden, she tried to hide her feminne identity.

Mei Lanfang specialized in other types of roles. In fact, he is perhaps best known for his moving portrayel of the “Beauty Yu” in the Peking Opera “Farewell My Concubine” (see the illustration below). And, yes, this is the same “Farewell my Concubine” Opera that serves as the focal point of Chen Kaige's earlier film about the art form. Mei was especially known for his smoothness, poise, and perfect timing. His style was so highly regarded that it became referred as the “Mei School” in Peking Opera circles.

The general Chinese public retained a keen interest in the “男旦” performers up through the 1930s, even after the emergence of China's film industry, which was centered in Shanghai, created lots of glamorous female movie stars. Indeed, during this decade, the readers of a popular magazine were polled as to who were China's top “男旦” opera singers. Mei Lanfang was one of the four winners. Mei and the other three top vote getters did a famous group photograph in which they all wore dark business suits.

In addition to achieving fame within China, Mei was the first Peking Opera star to achieve international recognition. He toured the world during the 1930s. During his visit to the United States, Mei became good friends with Charlies Chaplin. He was also welcomed in Hollywood (好莱坞) by Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, who managed to get him cast in several small film roles.

Mei was lionized not only in the capitalist west, but in the Soviet Union as well, where he received a bust of Lenin (列宁) after performing in Moscow. There he won the admiration of both Sergie Eisenstein and Bertolt Brecht.

In fact, in his new history of Beijing, CITY OF HEAVENLY TRANQUITY, Jasper Becker argues that seeing Mei inspired Bertolt Brecht to develop his “verfremendungseffekt”, or “alienation effect”, theory of drama. In doing this, Becker claims that Brecht “completely misunderstood the art form (Peking Opera). He thought that the heavily stylized stagecraft, the patently unrealistic gestures that actors used to signal things like riding a horse or walking, was a deliberate effort to destroy any sense of illusion or escapism.”

The inversion of gender roles in Peking Opera was not limited to men playing younger women. In this topsy-turvy world, especially talented young female performers took on roles as older men. Since such characters were always older men, these ladies were called Laosheng (老生), or “old man”. Zhang Ziyi’s character in “Forever Enthralled” is a “老生”.

When Chen began thinking about this film project many years ago, he wanted the Hong Kong actor, Zhang Guorong (张国荣), better known in the West as Leslie Chueng, to play the role of Mei Lanfang. In my previous blog post, I noted that Zhang was the male lead in Wang Kar Wai's early breakthrough film, “Days of Being Wild”. However, in April of 2003, this great actor committed suicide (自杀) by leaping out of the window of a luxury hotel in Hong Kong. The photo below is a group shot with Chen, who is in the center of the picture, and the cast of “Mei Lanfang” (Zhang Ziyi is off to his side).

Chen had wanted to cast Zhang in his new film because he had starred as one of the two male opera performers in “Farewell my Concubine”. Unlike his partner, who marries the film's female lead actress (住女角), Gong Li (巩俐), this performer is not attracted to women. In fact, there is more than subtle hint of homoeroticism in the relationship between this pair. And Zhang Guorong was himself a homosexual (同性恋者); however, from what I've read and my Chinese friends have told me, being gay had nothing to do with his suicide.

One of the most powerful scenes in “Farewell my Concubine” comes toward the end of the movie, during the Cultural Revolution (文化大革命). The two opera performers are subjected to a “struggle session” (被批斗). In order to curry favor (拍马屁) with the Red Guards (红卫兵), the singer who is married denounces his wife, calling her a whore (破鞋)—they had first met at the high class brothel (妓院) where she worked as a prostitute—and saying that he had never loved her. His wife is naturally devastated by these statements. Thus when he returns home from the struggle session, he finds that she has hanged herself from the ceiling of their Siheyuan house.

Chen's frank depiction of the Cultural Revolution's excesses is more than just little autobiographical. Chen himself became a Red Guard during this period at the age of 14. He denounced the work of his father, who was then a prominent film director, as “subversive” (颠覆) (Chen's mother was a well-known film and TV actress). Chen has said that while his father has long since forgiven him for that behavior, he still deeply regrets what he did.

Fortunately, everyone in China, from the leaders down the ordinary people, all agree that the Cultural Revolution was a huge mistake. Something like it is thus very unlikely to ever happen here again.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

霸王别姬 (ba4wang3bie2ji1).
史诗电影 (shi3shi1dian4ying3). “史诗电影” is the Chnese word for “epic”.
慈禧 (Ci2xi3).
好莱坞 (hao3lai2wu4).
列宁 (lie4ning2).
自杀 (zi4sha1). “自” is a shortened form of the word “oneself”, “自己” (zi4ji3), while “杀” is the verb “murdered”.
住女角 (zhu4nü3jue2).
同性恋者 (tong2xing4lian4zhe3). The Chinese word for “lesbian” is “拉拉” (la1la1). These two characters are also the verb for “pull” or “drag along”. According to a Chinese friend, “拉拉” is used mainly by young people, and no standard term exists yet in Mandarin for “lesbian”. An older way of saying it is “女是个女同性恋” (nü3shi4ge4nü3tong2xing4lian4), which also means “female comrad”.
文化大革命 (wen2hua4da4ge2ming4). “文化” means “cultural”, “大” “great”, and “革命” “revolution”.
被批斗 (bei4pi1dou4).
拍马屁 (pai4ma3pi4). This literally means “petting (拍) the horse's (马) rear (屁)”. It can be translated into English not just as “curry favor”, but “kissing butt” and “licking someone else's boots” as well. “屁” on its own can mean “fart” and “rubbish”.

红卫兵 (hong2wei4bing1). “红” is the word for “red”, while “卫兵” is “guard”.
破鞋 (po4xie2). For some reason, the Chinese literally refer to such a woman as a “broken (破) shoe (鞋)”. Rather like the English slang phrase “damaged goods”, I suppose.
妓院 (ji4yuan2). This is a much more descriptive term than its English equivalent, as it literally means “place (院) of prostitutes (妓)”.
颠覆 (dian1fu4).

The locals may not like his work, but the Architect who designed this Structure is one Lucky Fellow (很幸运的人):

2009-04-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

Most people will instantly recognize the structure in the bottom top photo. It is Beijing's other iconic modern building, the new CCTV tower, which is located in the capital's Central Business District. The tower is nestled among 300 skyscrapers (大楼; 摩天大厦), hardly any of which stood prior to 1997. The old CCTV tower, which on the opposite side of town, just west of lovely Yuyuantan Park, is in the other photo shown above.

Whatever one might think about this structure, “boring” or “uninteresting” (没有意思) are the last adjectives that could be used to describe it. The tower is shaped like a double Z, while its large and dramatic cantilevered overhang and legs have a diamond-like facade. This novel design necessitated the use of never before tried building techniques during the tower's actual construction. And it comes as no surprise that the project's price tag amounted to hefty $600 million.

The new TV tower (电视大楼) is one of the world's largest buildings, even bigger than Chicago's Sears Tower. It is 750 feet high and its total area would cover forty soccer fields. Some 10,000 CCTV staff will work here, while 2000 visitors are expected to drop by the tower every day. And its elevator (电梯) sysem is said to be bigger than that of any other building in the world.

I actually rather like the TV tower and was relieved to hear that fire, which completely gutted the adjacent hotel, didn't seriously damage the structure. People familiar with this story know that the blaze was caused by some high-powered fireworks set off at the end of this year's Spring Festival holiday. Even though the police told the CCTV officials not to set them off, they went ahead and did so anyway. These folks are now in a lot of trouble!

But I seem to be one of the few people in Beijing who thinks that the new CCTV tower is a really cool building. Even most of the laowai living here don't seem care much for it. And all of my Chinese friends and acquaintances believe that the tower is a very strange building. In particular, they think that since the various towers lean forward toward each other, the structure must be inherently unstable (东倒西歪). They thus compare it to Italy's famous leaning tower of Pisa. And one friend informs me that the locals often refer to the building as the “big underpants” (大裤衩).

The designer of the Tower, the German architect Ole Sheeren, who works in Dutch superstar architect Rem Koolhaas's Office for Modern Architecture, has defended his design, comparing it to a “Giant Hutong in the Sky.” Of course, having this hutong in the sky doesn't even begin to make up for the mass destruction of the capital's historic siheyuan architecture and neighborhoods that has occurred over the past decade. In any case, very few Chinese people appear to be convinced by this argument.

However, one person who surely buys it is Sheeren's new girlfriend, the movie star (电影明星) Zhang Manyu (张曼玉), better known in the west as Maggie Cheung (their photos are below). Since Zhang is one of the loveliest women on the planet—she is beautiful in a quintessentially Chinese way—I suspect that Sheeren isn't much bothered by what other folks in the Middle Kingdom think about his design concept.

Zhang is a Hong Kong native (香港人) and has been starring in films for over two decades—she is currently 43 years old. Sheerer is actually her junior—he is 37 years old—and the Chinese call this kind of relationship “older sister (姐) younger brother (弟) affection (恋)”.

Zhang got her start playing not very serious eye candy roles in the Hong Kong action (枪战电影; 功夫电影) movies of the 1980s. I happen to really love this film genre (一种电影; 一类电影). And in fact, one of my all-time favorite Hong Kong action films starred Zhang, Michelle Yeoh (杨紫琼), and the late Mei Yanfang (梅艳芳), who died of cervical cancer and went by the English name of Anita Mui (Mui was also a pop music superstar). All Hong Kong action films were completely over the top, but this particular one was especially so. The plot (结构), if you could call it that, featured these three nubile and scantily clad superwomen kicking butt. Great fun to watch!

Zhang subsequently became something of a muse for the iconoclastic Hong Kong film director Wang Jiawei (王家卫), who is better known in the west as Wang Kar Wai. She was the main supporting actress in Wang’s first breakthrough film, “Days of Being Wild” (阿飞正传), where she plays the ex-girlfriend of the film's male lead, the noted Hong Kong actor, Zhang Guorong (张国荣), or Leslie Cheung.

I haven't seen this particular film, but have heard that it's very good. According to the plot summary I read on the internet, Cheung's character in the film—he goes by the English names of “York” or “Yuddy”—is a handsome playboy (花花公子) who has a very cavalier attitude toward his women. The film begins with him casting aside Zhang. She subsequently suffers an emotional breakdown, but receives solace from and has a near romance with a cop named Tide, who is played by Liu Dehua (刘德华), or Andy Lau.

Yuddy's next target (目标) is a vivacious cabaret dancer played by the Suzhou born actress, Liu Jialing (刘嘉玲), better known in the west as Carina Lau. However, Yuddy quickly becomes bored with this relationship and dumps her soon enough. He then enters a downward, self-destructive spiral. As the film draws to an end, the viewers learn that Yuddy's instinct for romantic cruelty and inability to commit stem from his conflicted feelings regarding his adoptive mother, who is a former prostitute (妓女), and his biological mother, who is a Filipino aristocrat.

Zhang got the lead female role (女主角) in the film Wang did as a followup to “Days of Being Wild,” “In the Mood for Love” (花样年华). I saw this movie when it was first released in 2000 while living in Los Angeles. Like “Days of Being Wild,” it's about the inability of people to find romantic love and establish lasting relationships.

“In the Mood for Love” is set in 1962 Hong Kong. The male lead (男主角) character (角色), played by the dashing Liang Chao Wei (梁朝伟), is a journalist (记者). He and Zhang are both married and also happen to be next door neighbors. We hardly see Zhang and Liang's spouses in the film. Their absence from the film—we get a fleeting glimpse every now and then—and other subtle hints tell us that they are both having affairs (婚外情).

Zhang and Liang react to this infedility and the loneliness that goes with by quickly entering into a romantic relationship, which is initally completely platonic (柏拉图式). In particular, Zhang tries to help Liang with the novel (小说) that he is struggling to write, even though she's just an ordinary housewife and knows nothing about literature.

However, toward the end of the film, they do make love (做爱). It is tribute to Wang's subtletly as a director that they're never shown actually having intercourse—before they bed down together, Zhang wears a beautiful red qipao (旗袍) silk dress and they listen to romantic Spanish music (see the poster below). But shortly after this happens, before the relationship can develop into something that is strong and permanent, Liang is sent by his newspaper to cover (报道) the Vietnam War (越南战争).

When the film ends, Liang has returned to Hong Kong. Both he and Zhang have ended their earlier marriages. Zhang now has a child and we know that Liang is its father. The the movie concludes with Liang futilely looking for Zhang in her old apartment. He can't find her because he look for Zhang in her old apartment. However, she is in his old apartment, holding the small boy who is the product of their earlier one-night stand. Thus the film is ambiguous right up to the end: we never really know if Zhang and Liang are able to connect with each other.

I've watched this film a number of times after seeing it in the theater on videocassette and DVD and it gets better and better with each viewing. I love how Wang uses the strength of Zhang and Liang's terrific acting to narrate the story, particularly the way he weaves their mundane and ordinary day-to-day activities into the mix. The latter includes Liang hunting and pecking away on his big, old-fashioned Chinese typewriter both at work and as he tries, without much success, to write his novel, as well as Zhang's nightly visits to the nearby noodle shop.

Zhang starred in several other Wang films, including the final installment of the triology that began with “Days of Being Wild,” the 2004 film, “2046”. I must confess to having missed that movie as well, although it's certainly on my large and ever growing backlog of must see movies. However, I did catch the film Zhang did in France, “Irma Vep,” while being married to its director, Olivier Assayas (they got divorced after two years, but breakup was amicable).

“Irma Vep”is based on a French comic book (漫画书) action heroine (女主人公). The above poster doesn’t exaggerate: Zhang really does spend most of her time in the film dressed in the tight, black-leather body suit. The outfit reminded me a lot of the ones Diana Rigg donned when she played amateur sleuth, Mrs. Emma Peel, in that great 1960s British spy show, “The Avengers”.

In addition to being gorgeous and a talented actress, I suspect that Zhang is a pretty smart gal to boot. She's at least smart enough to be very multilingual. Cantonese (广东话) is her native language and she is fluent in both Mandarin and Shanghaihua (all of these Chinese dialects are really foreign languages in relation to each, much like French is to Spanish). Zhang also speaks good English and excellent French.

So I wouldn't be at all surprised if Zhang masters German (德语) in the not too distant future (it's a safe bet that she will master it sooner than Sheerer does either Mandarin or Cantonese!). I'm sure she already knows how to say “Ich liebe dich” (我爱你; I love you) to her new beau.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

很幸运的人 (hen3xing4yun4de5ren2). “幸运” is the word for “lucky”, while “人” means “person” or “fellow”. “很” is the word for “very” and “的” is the Mandarin possessive, serving the same function as the apostrophe in English writing.
大楼 (da4lou2). This best translated as “high rise”, or more literally, “big (大) rise (楼)”.
摩天大厦 (mo2tian1da4sha4). This is the nearest equivalent to “skyscraper”; “天” can mean both “sky/heaven” and “day”.
没有意思 (mei2you3yi4si5). “没有” means “not have” or “lacking”, while “意思” means “interesting” and “to be of interest”.
电视楼 (dian4shi4lou2). As noted in an earlier post, the “电视” “television” character combination literally means “electric vision”.

电梯 (dian4ti). “电” by itself means “electric power”, while “梯” can mean “ladder” or “stairs”.

东倒西歪 (dong1dao4xi1wai1). “倒” on its own is the verb “to topple” or “fall over”. According to my good Chinese friend, Zeng Lin (曾琳), the Chinese have another more slangy term for badly built/unsound structures, namely “豆腐渣工程” (dou4fu5zha1gong1cheng) or literally “tofu (豆腐) engineered (渣工程)”. For example you could say, “四川 (si4chuan1; Sichuan) 建筑 (jian4zhu; buildings) 没有 (mei2you3; not have) 钢铁 (gang1tie3; steel) 构 (gou4; frame), 所以 (suo3yi3; so) 地震发生的时候 (di4zhen4; earthquake; fa1sheng1; occurred/struck; de5shi2hou2 when), 它们 (ta1men1; they) 都 (dou1; all) 倒了 (dao3le5; toppled down).”
大裤衩 (da4ku4cha3). “裤衩” means “underpants”.
电影明星 (dian4ying3ming2xing1). “电影” is the word for “film”, while “明星” is the word for “star”.
香港人 (xiang1gang3ren2). The “香” in the Chinese name for Hong Kong means “fragrent”, while “港” is the word for harbor. Mandarin is sooooo much easier than English when it comes to naming people from other countries. Whereas English has a bewildering variety of ways to do this—Spaniard vs. German, for example—in Chinese you just put the character for “person”, “人”, after the country’s name. So Spaniards are “西班牙人” (xi1ban1ya2ren2) and Germans are “德国人” (de2guo2ren2).
枪战电影 (qiang1zhan4dian4ying3). This literally means “shooting (枪) battle (战) movie (电影)”. And of course the over top gun play and shootouts were staple features of most Hong Kong films from the 1980s. In fact, I remember the trailer for one such film, “Time and Tide” boasting, “No crouching tiger, no hidden dragon. But one helluva of a lot of bullets! Sometimes you can't tell who's shooting who!!” For readers wondering about the Chinese name of John Woo, who directed famous 枪战电影 starring Jackie Chan (成龙; cheng2long2) like “Supercop” and “Hardboiled”, it's 吴宇森 (wu2yu2sen1).

功夫电影 (gong1fu5dian4ying3). “功夫” means “kung fu”. Most of the Hong Kong films that weren’t 枪战电影 were kung fu movies. I use these two terms for Hong Kong action movies as all of the action was shooting or kung fu fighting. The Chinese call other action films, such as Western action films, 动作片子 (dong4zuo4pian1zi1). This is a word-for-word translation of “action (动作) movie (片子)”.
姐弟恋 (jie3di4lian4).
一种电影 (yi1zhong3dian4ying3). “种” also means “species”.
一类电影 (yi1lei4dian4ying3). “类” is word for “type”, as in “type of”.
杨紫琼 (yang2zi3qiong2). “杨” is a very common Chinese family name.
结构 (jie2gou4).
阿飞正传 (a1fei1zheng4zhuan4). This title literally means “The true story of Ah Fei”.
花花公子 (hua1hau1gong1zi5). This literally means “flower flower Prince”.
目标 (mu4biao1).
妓女 (ji4nü3). The Chinese call a woman with very bad morals, i.e. someone who English speakers would call “slut”, a “破鞋” (po4xie2), which literally means “broken shoe”.
女主角 (nü3zhu4jue2). “女” is the word for “woman”, “主” means “main” here, and “角” is a shortened version of the word for “part”, “role”, or “character” (角色; jue2se4).
花样年华 (hua1yang4nian2hua2). This title is quite different from “In the Mood for Love”; it can be translated as “Beauty/Splendor (花样) of Time/Age (年华)”.
男主角 (nan2zhu4jue2). “男” is the word for “man”. It consists of two characters, “田” (“field”) at the top and “力” (“power”) running down from it. My first and only Chinese teacher once told me this character symbolizes that men are the “power in the field”.
记者 (ji4zhe3). “记” on its own means “to remember”, while “者” is another suffix, like “师” (shi1), indicating a profession. So journalist in Chinese literally means “memory profession”. Not too far off the mark as a job description.

婚外情 (hun1wai4qing2). Literally means “marriage (婚) outside (外) affection (情)”.
柏拉图式 (bo2la1tu2shi4). “柏拉图” is the word for Platonic; “式” on its own means “style”.
小说 (xiao3shuo1). These two characters literally mean “small (小)” + the verb “to speak (说)”.

做爱 (zuo4ai4). The Chinese say it exactly as we do: “做” means “do/make”, while “爱” means “love” (both a noun and verb).
报道 (bao4dao4). “报” is part of the “报纸” (bao4 [report]zhi3 [paper]) character combination for newspaper and means “report”, while “道” on its own normally means “corridor” or “path”. However, here is means “verbal communication”.
越南战争 (yue4nan3zhan4zheng1). “越南” is the word for Vietnam, while “战争” means “war”.
漫画书 (man4hua4shu1). “漫画” means “caricature”, while “书” is the word for book.
女主人公 (nü3zhu4ren2gong1).
广东话 (guang3dong1hua4). 广东 Province, which is literally “wide (广) east (东)” is where Cantonese is spoken. “话” is the word for “speech”. So Shanghaihua means “Shanghai speech/talk”. Since Mandarin is the language spoken by all Chinese—in theory at least—it literally means “common (普通; pu3tong1) speech/language (话)”.
德语 (de2yu3). “德” stands for “German” here and “语” for “language”.
我爱你 (wo3ai4ni3). “我” is “I” (said like “Wah”), “爱” is “love” (said like “eye”), and “你” is “you” (said like “knee”).

Urban Renewal, the National Performing Arts Center, and Beijing Opera's Struggle to Survive:

2009-04-09T22:20:00.000-07:00

People who live in Beijing will certainly know where I shot the two photos above, as will the many visitors to the capital last summer making the obligatory stop at Tian'anmen Square. It's the area south of the Tian'anmen Square's Qianmen (前门), or “front gate”.

As part of its campaign to remake Beijing before the Olympic Games, Beijing's municipal government, as well as China's national government, decided that this area needed a major facelift. Thus most of the old buildings, including many old siheyuan (四合院) neighborhoods (邻近), were torn down. In fact, Michael Meyer lived in a siheyuan in this area while teaching at the local Coal Lane elementary school (小学) and writing his great new book about all of this, THE LAST DAYS OLD BEIJING.

To be fair, this bit of urban renewal could have been much worse. To start with, the Qianmen Dajie wasn't turned into a four lane boulevard for automobile traffic. It was instead made into a pedestrian mall (步行街). Moreover, as the photos above indicate, the new buildings have an older traditional look, so the street looks very much it did in the 1920s and 1930s.

When I shot these photos last fall, most of the buildings were still empty. However, I do look forward to returning here when new shops, bars, coffee houses and restaurants open up (if they haven't already).

Unfortunately, the old siheyuans, many of which were certainly run-down (很破) could be seen as substandared housing, were not the only structures razed during this area’s recent makeover. Jasper Becker writes in his terrific new history of Beijing, CITY OF HEAVENLY TRANQUILITY, that this part of Beijing, which locals call the Dashilan (大栅栏), was home to a large number of Peking Opera theaters (京剧院). All of them are now gone.

The gentrification of the Qianmen Dajie provides yet another vivid reminder of the increasingly marginal status of Peking Opera, which I wrote about in one of my Changyucheng village blog posts. The building in the photo below is another symbol of the this art form's struggle to survive.

People who are familiar with Beijing will instantly recognize this very avant garde (前卫派; 先锋派) structure, which is the National Performing Arts Center (国家大剧院). The Center is located on a prime bit of real estate just southwest of the Forbidden City, behind the Great Hall of the People (人民大会堂) and opposite the so-called Zhongnanhai (中南海). The Zhongnanhai is where China's leaders live and work.

We largely have China's former President, Jiang Zemin (江泽民), to thank for the National Performing Arts Center's unusual design. According to Jasper Becker, Zemin fell in love with I. M. Pei's “Pyramid” at the Louvre (卢浮宫) and wanted Beijing to have something equally iconic (标志性) and recognizeable. He thus took the unusual step of personally intervening to ensure that the avant garde design proposed by the French architect, Paul Andreu, was chosen for the theater.

The choice of Andreu as the theater's architect had more than a bit of irony to it. Before doing this project, Andreu had focused on designing airport halls. These included the hall for the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, which collapsed some time after being built, killing a number of Chinese passengers.

Like Andreu's other buildings, the National Performing Arts Center is an innovative (创新) glass (玻璃) and steel (钢铁) construction. It's most striking and recognizeable feature, the roof (屋顶), is made out of titanium (钛) and glass. The theater's other notable design characteristic, not visible from the outside, is its entrance, which is a tunnel (隧道) under a lake.

As Becker notes, this design was very controversial. Indeed, when its selection was announced, 108 of China's most prominent architects (建筑师) signed a protest letter stating that such an important should not be the work of foreigner, particularly one who flouted the Middle Kingdom's long-standing architectural traditions. For example, they noted that tombs (坟墓) are the only Chinese buildings one enters through an underground tunnel.

These feelings are shared by ordinary Chinese people. All of my friends, for example, use adjectives like “strange” (奇怪) and “unusual” (稀奇) to describe the building. Due to its roof, one popular nickname for the Performing Arts Center is the “egg” (鸡蛋). Unlike the the “bird’s nest” (鸟巢) nickname for the Olympic Stadium, which stems from its nest-like steel mesh exterior, the “egg” is not a term of endearment.

According to Becker, the National Performing Arts Center is also referred to as the “turd” (一团粪), although I've never heard it called that. But one of my Chinese friends, a very lovely, sweet, and clever young lady, who's a software engineer, wrote that the building's roof makes the Center look like a half-submerged ball floating in water (水上浮着半个球).

Big posters (海报) publicizing events at the National Performing Arts Center often grace the walls of practically every Beijing subway station. Most of these performances are by well-known Western performing artists and musical groups. The latter typically include world famous orchestras, such as the London Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and the like. So it is Western artists and performce art, not Chinese artists and performance art, that is showcased on the Center's four stages (yes, it has four stages with total seating that can seat altogether 2,700 people).

For example, last Monday, which was the Tomb Sweeping Day (清明节) holiday, I noticed a poster for an April-May Opera Festival at the Center while leaving the Military Museum subway station (I was on my way to Yuyuantan Park to photograph the cheery blossoms; more on that in a future post). Four of the five operas to be staged were the Western opera classics: “Tosca” (托斯卡), “La Boheme” (技术家生涯), “Turandot” (图兰朵), and “Carmen” (卡门). The festival’s sole Chinese opera was “Red Guards on Honghu Lake” (洪湖赤卫).

The National Performing Arts Center is thus holding an opera festival that doesn't include a single Peking Opera performance! More evidence, as if that were really needed, that Peking Opera is struggling to survive.

Notwithstanding all of the criticism of the “egg”, some of my friends, including the Irish attorney, Diarmuid O'Brien, who got me the free tickets for the China vs. Germany and US vs. Spain Olympic Basketball games last summer, say that it really is stunning once you get inside (Diarmuid, alas, has left Beijing to live and work in Madrid). The acoustics are supposed to be especially good, though I doubt if they match those of the Forbidden City Concert Hall (中山公园音乐堂) in nearby Zhongshan Park.

In any case, now that my income has improved, I can actually afford to go there every once in a while—ticket prices for the operas in the April May festival ran from 100 all the way up to 640 RMB. The National Performaning Arts Center is here to stay, so I might as well take advantage of it. Who knows, maybe I’ll have come all the way to China to see … the New York Philharmonic!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

前门 (qian2men2).
四合院 (si4he2yuan2).
邻近 (lin2jin4). “邻” on its own means “neighbor”.
小学 (xiao3xue2).
很破 (hen3po4). “破” is the Chinese word for “worn”, so if somone’s shirt (衬衫; chen4shan1) has lots of holes or is really frayed, then it’s “很破”.
步行街 (bu4xing2jie1). This literally means “pedestrian (步行) street (街)”. “行人” is another way of saying “pedestrian” in Chinese.
大栅栏 (da4shi2la4).
京剧院 (jing1ju4yuan2).
前卫派 (qian2wei4pai4) 先锋派 (xian1feng1pai4). “前卫” and “先锋” also both mean “vanguard” and are commonly used in military Mandarin.
国家大剧院 (guo2jia1da4ju4yuan2). “国家” means “national”, “大” “big”, and “剧院” “theater”.
人民大会堂 (ren2min2da4hui4tang2). The word here is quite different from the English translation: “people (人民) great (大) hall (会堂)”. And the word for “hall” combines the characters for “meeting” (会) and “hall” or “temple” (堂). “堂” appears in the Chinese word for “church”, which is “教堂” (jiao4tang2).
中南海 (zhong1nan2hai3).
卢浮宫 (lu2fu2gong1). For those interested, the Chinese word for pyramid is 金字塔 (jin1zi4ta3).
标志性 (biao1zhi1xing4). Chinese speakers would thus say, “故宫是北京的标志性的建筑” (gu4gong1 [Forbidden City] shi4 [is] bei3jing1de5 [Beijing] 5biao1zhi1xing4de5 [icon/iconic] jian4zhu4 [building]).
创新 (chuang4xin1). The noun “innovation” is “革新” (ge2xin1).
玻璃 (bo1li2). Bear in mind that you never say in Chinese, “I'd like a glass (玻璃) of milk.” You instead always say, “I'd like a cup of milk” or “我要一杯牛奶” (wo3 [I] yao4 [want] yi1 [1; a] bei1 [cup] niu2nai3 [cow's milk]).
钢铁 (gang1tie3).
屋顶 (wu1ding3).
钛 (tai4). The left side “metal” radical gives you a clue about the meaning, while right hand “太” (tai4) character within the character tells you how to say it.
隧道 (sui4dao4). “道” by itself means “corridor”.
建筑师 (jian4zhu4shi1). “建筑” by itself means “building”, while “师” is a suffix denoting a profession, as in “teacher”, or “老师” (lao3shi1).
坟墓 (fen2mu4).
奇怪 (qi2guai4).
稀奇 (xi1qi2).
鸡蛋 (ji1dan4). While English speakers refer to chicken eggs as just plain “eggs,” Mandarin is more specific, calling them what they are 鸡 (chicken) 蛋 (egg[s]).

鸟巢 (niao3chao3).
一团粪 (yi1tuan2fen4).
水上浮fu2着半个球) (shui3shang4fu2zhe5ban4ge4qiu2). Here is yet another good illustration of how Mandarin word is sooo different from English word order. This phrase literally reads, “water (水) on (上) floating (浮) continuously (着) half (半) ball (个球)”. In other words, the object, the “ball”, goes at the end, not the beginning.
海报 (hai3bao4).
清明节 (qing2ming2jie2). Actually the words “tomb-sweeping” don't appear in the Mandarin term for this festival. “清明” really means “lucid” (as in mind) or “peaceful” (as in times) (“节” is the word for “festival”). But since Chinese people traditionally sweep the tombs of dead ancestors and then leave gifts for them, the holday is called “tomb sweeping day” in the West.
托斯卡 (tuo1si1ka3).
技术家生涯 (ji4shu4jia1sheng1ya2). Unlike the Chinese titles for the other Western Operas, this one summarizes what La Boheme is more or less about: “Talented/skilled (技术) household (家生) on the edge (涯)”.
图兰朵 (tu2lan3duo3).
卡门 (ka3men2).
洪湖赤卫队(hong2,vast/big,hu2, chi4 “red”, wei4 dui4; ). “洪湖” is the name of the lake, while 赤卫队 is another term for “Red Guards”. As stated in an earlier blog post, they’re also referred to as 红卫兵 (hong2wei4bing1).
中山公园音乐堂 (zhong1shan1gong1yuan2yue4tang2). This place is called the “Forbidden City Concert Hall” in English because it’s next to the Forbidden City (故宫; gu4gong1). However, the Chinese name is “Zhongshan (中山) Park (公园) Concert Hall (乐堂)”, as the hall is in Zhongshan Park. While Zhongshan Park is very lovely and one of my favorite Beijing places, few foreigners know about. However, everyone knows about the Forbidden City, so that name is used in the English translation.

If You're Looking for Eating Adventures of a New and Different Kind …”:

2009-04-07T22:47:00.000-07:00

… then China is the place for you! Getting served the whole chicken, including the head and feet, is just the beginning of your interesting gastronomic experiences (经历) here.

This because China has long faced a basic problem: while its population is large, the amount of arable land (可耕之地) in the country is relatively small. In fact, since most of the Middle Kingdom consists of mountains and desert, crops (庄稼) can be grown (種) on just 10-15% of its total land area.

Thus China has always had what some observers have called a “famine (饥荒) cuisine (烹饪法)”. That is to say that any plant (植物), animal (动物), or animal parts that are in the least bit edible do get eaten.

In Yuannan (云南) Province, for example, which is very mountainous and has little arable land, insects play more than a minor role in the regional fare. I actually ate bee (密封) larva (幼虫) when dining with a Chinese friend at a Yunnan restaurant located near the Second Foreign Langauges University (二外) (I taught English there during my first year in Beijing).

I have to say that it didn't taste all that bad. In fact, were it not for the seasoning on the larva, the stuff probably would have been completely lacking in taste. The same can be said for the fly (苍蝇) larva (or pupa) I had sampled at the Mono Lake Visitor Center in California before coming to China.

The park ranger informed us that the Piute Indians (印第安人) gathered and then dried the fly pupa from Mono Lake. The lake (湖) has lots and lots of flies, providing plenty of food for the masses of migrating birds who stop there on the Pacific flyway.

The only notable thing about the fly pupa was its crunch. The ranger also told us that this food is extremely high in protein (蛋白质) and has virtually no fat (肥) or cholesterol (胆固醇). The same could probably be said about the bee larva. But I remember that it was rather expensive, so I doubt if the growing numbers of overweight Chinese people suffering from high cholesterol will soon be adopting an all bee larva diet!

Yunnan cuisine also features lots of exotic mushrooms (蘑菇) and other wild greens. One of Beijing's best Yunnan dining spots is Hou Hai’s South Silk Road Restauarant. For some reason, these dishes are translated on the menu from Chinese into English as “Stir Fried Wikipedia”! Leaving aside this “Chinglish”, the restaurant is really worth a visit. It has outdoor dining by Hou Hai's southernmost lake and the food, especially the pork ribs in pu'er tea, is to die for (超好吃). But be warned: it's pretty spicy (很辣).

I also twice dined on sea sponges during my first year in China, when I lived and worked in Henan (河南) Province. The first time was at a Zhengzhou (郑州) Muslim Restaurant—our school took us there for dinner, following a day trip to the Yellow River. The second time was at a National Day banquet organized by the Hennan Provincial Government that was held at Zhengzhou's swank Sofitel Hotel. I and a few other teachers were invited to go and represent the school at this event. The school, I might further add, made a special point of including two very cute young blondes in our delegation.

Sea sponges are aptly named. Eating these little critters really is like eating a sponge, particularly an old and rubbery sponge that's seen way too much heavy duty cleaning action around the kitchen. So during my first go with the sponges, I literally felt like gagging after taking just one bite. Indeed, had there not been other people at the table, I would have spat it out faster than a snitch turning state's evidence.

When the sea sponges were served during the National Day Banquet, I thought, “Well, why not give it the old college try”. This was, after all, the Sofitel, and I figured that their expert kitchen staff might be able to turn the humble sponge into the marine delicacy it's reputed to be. And the rest of the dinner was outstanding—it was hands down the best meal I had in Henan all that year.

Alas, no such luck. Once again, I couldn't get more than a single bit down. I thus concluded that the problem with Muslim restaurant wasn’t the saurce or anything like that. The problem is simply that sea sponges just taste really awful.

My Middle Kingdom culinary adventures haven't gone beyond eating bee larva and sea sponges. However, some foreign friends and acquaintances have scaled far greater heights when it comes to eating what most of us would consider utterly disgusting fare. For example, during my first year in China, one of my fellow teachers dined on sheep's testicles (睾丸). This fellow was back in the states after just one term, and perhaps this dining experience had something to do with his quick departure from China!

Another colleague from that school, who stuck it out here for another two years, albeit first Fujian and then in Shanghai, before going to Ethiopia to teach law, was voted by her colleagues the instructor most likely to eat strange and interesting dishes. This lady, who is a delightful 50-something lawyer from South Carolina, feasted on grilled sheep eyes, fried silk worms (炸蚕), and fried apples (炸苹果) with ants (蚂蚁).

Even more bizarre culinary adventures await those who travel to Mongolia (蒙古). At least this is what I can surmise from an utterly hilarious article Tim Wu posted in the online SLATE magazine in September of last year. In particular, Mongolian diary culture is very different from that of the West. As Wu notes, there's a good reason why we stick to drinking milk from a cow (牛奶): “most other types of milk are absolutely disgusting”. They all get “under your skin in a special diary sort of way.”

This is especially true for camel's (骆驼奶) milk, which Wu states has a very “musky” flavor and is like “drinking bottled smoke”. He adds, “I finally understand why Camel is a brand of cigarettes (抽烟)”. According to Wu, while Yak (牦牛奶) milk isn't too bad when served warm, mare's milk (马奶) tends to be very salty, giving a whole meaning to the phrase “acquired taste.”

However, mare's milk is a lot more drinkable after being fermented (发酵) into alcohol (酒); moreover, imbiding it is a sure-fire way of getting drunk in a hurry (很快喝醉). I suspect it also beats drinking the local vodka (伏特加). Wu notes his Mongolian host went out of his way to flavor the vodka with a few live beetles (甲虫), as if to add a “Ghenghis Khan (成吉思汗) touch to the whole thing”.

Mongolia is a very diary-centric place—most of China's milk is produced just across the border, in adjacent Inner Mongolia Province, around the city of Hohhut (呼和浩特)—so cheese (奶酪) is a big part of the Mongolian diet. Unfortunately, Wu notes that nearly all of it is “hard as a rock and as acidic as battery acid.” It thus not only tastes bad, but eating it is “rather exhausting” to boot.

But the high point, if one can call it that, of Wu's adventure was getting served an entire sheep. In China, by contrast, while you usually get the whole chicken, you very seldom, if ever, get served the whole sheep, at least nothing beyond the eyes and testicles, along with the parts we westerners normally eat, such as the leg.

This particular sheep was boiled in a large vat warmed up by burning dung. Wu notes that while the stomach and heart were the “highlights” the lungs “had a spongy texture” that made them hard to bite through. And after eating the fatty intestines and connecting flesh, he “felt, for the first time, what 19th century writers refer to as ‘rising bile.’”

Wu provides the following memorable verdict on this experience: it was “like a horror film (恐怖电影), except that I am eating the special effects (特技)”. Yum, yum, I can now hardly wait to visit Mongolia!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

经历 (jing1li4). This just refers to life experiences. Mandarin has a separate word for “work experience”, which is 经验 (jing1yan4). And when using this word, be sure you say “历” in a fourth, not a third tone. Otherwise, your Chinese listener think you're talking about your manager (经理; jing1li3) at work.
可耕之地 (ke3geng1zhi1di4). “可耕” means “arable”.
庄稼 (zhuang1jia1). “Harvest” is 收获 (shou1huo4).
種 (zhong4).
饥荒 (ji1huang1). “饥” means “starving”, while “荒” by itself can mean “waste”, “desert”, and “desolate”. The Mandarin word for “hungry” is “饿” (e4), while starve to death is “饿死了” (e4si3le5). This term can mean literally and figuratively “starving to death”.
烹饪法 (peng1ren4fa3). “烹” on its own can be translated as “cook”, “boil”, or “stir fry with sauce”; “饪” can also be translated as “cook”. “法” means “method” or “approach”.
植物 (zhi2wu4). This literally means “established (fixed) living thing.”
动物 (dong4wu4). And this literally means “moving living thing.”
云南 (yun2nan2). Translated word for word, it means “south of the clouds”.
密封 (mi4feng1). “Honey” is 蜂蜜 (feng1mi4). I should also note that unlike people in the west, Chinese people never refer to their adult loved ones as “honey.” They instead say “宝贝”, which means “baby” and “darling”. And husbands call their wives “老婆” (lao3po2), while wives call their husbands “老公” (lao3gong1).
幼虫 (you4chong2). “幼” means “young”, while “虫” means “insect/worm”.
二外 (er4wai4).
苍蝇 (cang1ying5).
印第安人 (yin4di4an1ren2). This word refers to “Native Amercans”, not to people from India. The latter are called “印度人” (yin4du4ren2); “India” is “印度”.
湖 (hu2). This character is quite similar to the one for the Chinese family name “胡”, as as in the country's current President, 胡锦涛 (hu2jin3tao1). The character for “lake” differs from the proper name because it has the “water/liquid” radical on its left side. That provides a clue about the meaning.
肥 (fei2). The Chinese word for “lose weight, “减肥” (jian3fei2) really means “lose fat”.
蛋白质(dan4bai2zhi4). Literally translated, this means “egg (蛋) white (白) matter (质)”.
胆固醇 (dan3gu4chun2). “胆” on its own means “gall bladder” and “gall”, as in “audicity”, “固” is “originally”, “as a matter of course”, or “solid”, while “醇” can be translated as “mellow”, as in “mellow wine”.
蘑菇 (mo2gu5).
超好吃 (chao1hao3chi1). This means “super good tasting”. Something that just “tastes good” or “delicious” is simply “好吃”. You can also say “非常好吃”, “really, really good”, “特好吃” (te4hao3chi1), “particularly/especially good”, or “好好吃”. The latter phrase can’t be directly translated; it’s just another way of saying something is really good.
很辣 (hen3la4). Since Sichuan people love spicy food, women from there are called “辣妹”, or “spicy girl/spicy little sister”.
河南 (he2nan2). This name just means “south of the river,” i.e. the Yellow River, or “黄河” (huang2he2). “河” is the Chinese word for “river”.
郑州 (zheng4zhou1). Zhengzhou is the provincial capital of Henan.
睾丸 (gao1wan2).
炸蚕 (zha4can2). “炸” is the word for “fry/fried”. The second character can also be written as “蠶”.
炸苹果 (zha4ping2guo3).
蚂蚁 (ma3yi3).
蒙古 (men3gu3).
牛奶 (niu2nai3). “牛” is “cow”, while “奶” is “milk”.
骆驼奶 (luo4tuo5nai3). “骆驼” is the word for “camel”.
抽烟 (chou1yan1). “烟” means smoke and the “火” (huo3) character within this character, which means “fire”, gives a clue about its meaning.
马奶 (ma3nai3). “马” is not only the word for horse, but is also a Chinese family name.
牦牛奶 (mao2niu2nai3). “牦牛” is the word for “yak”.
发酵 (fa1jiao4).
酒 (jiu3). “酒” is a suffix that appears in all terms for alcoholic beverages, like “beer” (啤酒; pi2jiu3), “wine” (葡萄酒; pu2tao2jiu3), or literally “grape (葡萄) alchohol”, and last but certainly not least, that infamous and to my mind (and most other laowai), disgusting clear spirit, “baijiu” (白酒), or “white alcohol”.
很快喝醉 (hen3kuai4he1zui4). “很快” means “very fast”, while “喝醉” is the word for “drunk”. “喝” on its own means “to drink”.
伏特加 (fu2te4jia1).
甲虫 (jia3chong3). “甲” means “first in a series”, while “虫” means “insect/worm”.
成吉思汗 (cheng2ji2si1han2).
呼和浩特 (hu1he2hao4te4).
奶酪 (nai3lao4).
恐怖电影 (kong3bu4dian4ying3). “恐怖” is the word for “horror”, while “电影” means “film/movie”.
特技 (te4ji4). “特” is a shortened for of the word “special” (特别; te4bie2), while “技” is the word for “skill”. It's used to form the word for “technology”, which is “技术” (ji4shu4).

“As Long as You Don't Serve the Chicken that Way!”

2009-04-02T22:11:00.000-07:00

While I generally really like the food in China, there is one aspect of Chinese cusine I still can't get used to. I'm talking about the way chicken is served here. If you order a chicken, chances are you'll get the whole chicken, including not just the chicken breast (鸡胸) and leg and thigh (鸡腿), but the feet (鸡爪) and head as well.

I had my first experience of this kind during my first year in China, when I taught English at a no-name university located in a small city in Henan Province. One day I had lunch with a student friend at a restaurant (饭馆) located near the university's main entrance. Another Chinese friend had told me that the restaurant's country style chicken was really tasty, so we ordered it as our main dish.

When we got the chicken, it was cut into pieces that were swimming in some kind of brownish sauce in a large bowl. I put my chopsticks (筷子) into the bowl and picked what seemed to be a big chunk of meet only to find the chicken's head, complete with its beak (鸡嘴) and eyes (眼睛), staring at me. I must say that the sauce and chicken tasted pretty good, even if all the chicken meat (鸡肉) came with quite a few bones (骨头) (the same holds true for the fish [鱼肉] here).

Ever since that day, I've pretty much stuck to Kung Pa chicken (宫爆鸡丁) when ordering chicken dishes at restaurants. However, for our lunch at Changyucheng village, we were served country style chicken. I suspect it was slaughtered, plucked, and cooked that very morning. And once again, I could see the head and feet, so I gave it a pass, even though I'm sure it was, like the rest of our food, very good.

A few days before going on this trip, I watched my DVD of Roman Polanski's film noir classic, “Chinatown”. The chicken reminded one of Jack Nicholson's many great lines in that movie. “Chinatown” is set in 1930s Los Angeles (洛杉矶) and Nicholson plays a private detective (私人侦探) named Jake Gittes.

Gittes begins the movie by investigating what appears to be an ordinary matrimonial case, albeit one involving Hollis Mullray, the chief engineer at the city's water and power department. The close resemblance between this name and that of William Mullholland, the famed real life water and power engineer from that period, is no accident. But he is quickly drawn into a sinister web of intrigue (阴谋) spun by a powerful behind the scenes hegemon, Noah Cross, who is brilliantly played by the aged John Huston.

Cross not only seeks to control Los Angeles's water supply—he murders (被杀) Mullray because the chief engineer opposes his plans—but has also had an incestuous (乱伦的关系) relationship with his daughter Evelyn (Faye Dunaway). Cross wants to establish contact with his “other” daughter.

He thus gets an actress to impersonate Mrs. Mullray, and this woman then hires Gittes to tail the chief engineer, saying that she believes that her husband is having an affair (婚外情). Mullray married Cross's daughter and took care of the girl Evelyn gave birth to after she was raped (强暴) by her father (when the film begins, this daughter is a young woman).

After murdering Mullray, Cross hires Gittes to try and find his second daughter. Gittes mistakenly believes that Mullray was actually having an affair (婚外情) with this lady before he was murdered. At this point, of course, he doesn't know that Mullray was killed by Cross. Cross invites Gittes over to lunch at his private club on Catalina Island and serves him fish, with the heads. Cross says, “I think they (the fish) should be served with the heads.” Gittes responds, “That's fine, as long as you don't serve the chicken that way!”

One of the things I love about Gittes is that he is such a complete smart-ass (具有讽刺性). In this respect, he's very much like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, although, unlike Marlowe, he does matrimonial work and is proud of it. As Alain Silver writes in his entry on “Chinatown” in the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM NOIR, Gittes is very much a “two-bit gumshoe”.

Early on the film, Gittes gets his nose (鼻子) slashed (割) by one of Cross's goons (打手) while snooping about a reservoir (贮水池)—after Mullray is murdered he begins to suspect that something fishy (可疑) is going on with LA's water. Nicholson thus spends much of the film with his nose heavily bandaged (用绷带包着).

Toward the end of the movie, the actress who impersonated Mrs. Mullray is murdered, and Gittes is lured to her place by LA police detective Lou Escobar. Escobar's partner sees Gittes' nose and asks him, “What happened to your nose, Gittes? Did someone slam the bedroom door (卧室门) on it?” To which Gittes responds, “No, your wife got excited (激动) and crossed her legs (盘腿) a little too fast, know what I mean pal.”

The title of this film is very ironic (片名很有讽刺意味) because only its last few minutes actually take place in LA's Chinatown (唐人街). At the end of the film, Gittes has not only failed to persuade the police that Cross murdered Mullray and is scheming to control the water supply, but his efforts to aid Evelyn Mullray lead to her getting killed. The film ends Gittes' two associates leading him away from the scene and one of them telling him, “Forget it (忘了吧; 别去想) Jake, it's Chinatown.”

In Polanski's film, then, Chinatown is not a place but a metaphor (隐喻) for sordid and corrupt things (很腐败的事情), like Cross's efforts to seize the city's water, that go on and remained concealed under the surface. The Chinese would say that such matters are “内幕”, which literally means “inside the curtain” and is the Madnarin equivalent to the English expression “behind the curtain”.

“Chinatown” was released in 1974. Its screening thus came not only on the heels of the Watergate scandal and coverup, but the earlier coverups and secrecy on the Vietnam War perpetrated by both the Nixon and Johnson Administrations. And given what we now know about the lies and deception preceding the second Iraq War, not to mention the clandestine rendition and torture of terrorist suspects, “Chinatown” really does resonates with today's political climate as well. Even worse, much like Gittes' associate, the Obama (奥巴马) Administration's attitude regarding all this seems to be, “Forget it, it's Chinatown.”

That's more than a little unfortunate, as many of the officials, notably convicted perjurer Elliot Abrams, who were deeply involved in the Reagan Administration's Iran-Contra scandal, subsequently held key posts in the second Bush Administration. It's clear that failure to come come to grips with the past— what the Germans call “vergangenheitsbewägung”—ensures that history will repeat itself. The same, of course, can be said for the Middle Kingdom. We'll see if China's film industry manages in the future to produce its own version of “Chinatown”.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

鸡胸 (ji1xiong1). As is often the case in Chinese, there's a separate word for a woman's breasts, “乳房” (ru3fang2).
鸡腿 (ji1tui3). “腿” is the Chinese word for “leg”, and a human leg is also called a “腿”.
鸡爪 (ji1zhua2). “鸡” is the word for “chicken”, while “爪” is the word for “claw” or “talon”. The character actually looks like a claw too!
饭馆 (fan4guan3). “饭” is one word for food, and the left side of the character has the cooking ladle radical. “馆” on its own can mean any public building.
筷子 (kuai4zi5).
鸡嘴 (niao3zui3). “嘴” can mean “mouth”, “snout”, or “bill”.
眼睛 (yan3jing1). “眼” on its own can also mean “hole” or “aperture”, while “睛” means “eyeball”.
鸡肉 (ji1rou4). As noted in earlier posts, “肉” is the Chinese word for “meat”.
骨头 (gu3tou2).
鱼肉 (yu2rou4). As with chicken, the same logic applies to fish. Unlike English speakers, Chinese people say they’re eating fish (鱼) meat (肉), rather than just “fish”. For readers who are interested, “fishing” in Mandarin is “钓鱼” (diao4yu2).
宫爆鸡丁 (gong1bao4ji1ding4). A big reason we laowai like eating this dish because the chicken meat consists of diced chicken breast without any bones. Plus all the peanuts (花生; hua1sheng1) help make it really.
洛杉矶 (luo4shan1ji1). The Chinese word for “Hollywood” is “好莱坞” (hao3lai2wu1).
私人侦探 (si1ren2zhen1tan1). “私人” is the “private” part of “private detective”, while “侦探” means “do detective work” or “spy”. “侦” by itself means “investigate”.
阴谋 (yin1mou2). This word can also mean “plot”.
被杀 (bei4sha1). “被” is used in Chinese passive voice sentences, typically when something bad occurs to some or something, such as being murdered (杀). “Kill” or “murder” can also be translated into Mandarin as “暗杀”.
乱伦的关系 (luan4lun2de5guan1xi1). In addition to “incest,” “乱伦” can mean to violate a natural law. “关系” is the Chinese word for “relationship”. Of course when Gittes confronts Evelyn Mullray about her daughter, she famously says, “She’s my sister … She’s my daughter … She’s my sister … She’s my sister and my daughter!!”
婚外情 (hun2wai5qing2). This literally means “marriage” (婚) “outside” (外) “affection” (情).
强暴 (qiang2bao4). “强” means “strong”, while “爆” is the Mandarin word for “violent.”
具有讽刺性 (ju4you3feng3ci4xing4). This means that someone's verbal speech is full of sarcasm and irony; it's about the closest way of translating “smart-ass” into Mandarin. “讽刺” can also be translated as “ironic.”
鼻子 (bi2zi5).
割 (ge1).
打手 (da3shou3). This literally means “hit (打) hand (手)”, and can be also be translated as “thug” or “roughneck”.
贮水池 (zhu4shui3chi2). “Dam” is “水坝” (shui3ba4).
可疑 (ke3yi2). If you're saying this word, be sure to say the second character as a rising, not a falling rising tone. Otherwise, a Chinese person will think you’re saying “可以” (ke3yi3), which means “can” in the sense of getting formal permission to do something.
用绷带包着 (yong4beng1dai4bao1zhao). This literally means “wrapped (带包着) in bandages” (绷).
卧室门 (wo4shi4men2). “卧室” is the room for “bedroom”, “门” is the word for “gate” and “door”. It actually looks like a gate or door.
激动 (ji1dong4). If one is romantically attracted to someone, Mandarin speakers will use the verb “心动” (xin1dong4), which means that the person’s heart (心) moved (动).
盘腿 (pan2tui3). I got this word for a Chinesepod.com upper intermediate lesson about yoga (瑜伽; yu2jia1), but I suspect it's used in this context as well.
片名很有讽刺意味 (pian4ming2hen3feng3ci4yi4wei4). This phrase basically means that the movie's (片) name/title (名) has (有) an ironic (讽刺) meaning/flavor (意味).
唐人街 (tang2ren2jie1). The Mandarin word for town doesn’t appear in this character combination. Literally translated they mean, “Street (街) of boastful (唐; also the name of Chinese imperial dynasty) people (人)”.
忘了吧 (wang4le5ba5). This just means “forget” (忘了) it”; “吧” is a suggestive particle used when issuing suggestions or mild commands.
别去想 (bie2qu4xiang3). “别去想” can mean “forget about it”. However, it can also mean “Don't (别) think (想) about it”.
隐喻 (yin3yu4).
很腐败的事情 (hen3fu3bai4de5shi4qing2). “腐败” is the word for “corrupt” and can also be translated as “rotten” or “putrid”. “事情” means “matter” or “affair”.
内幕 (nei4mu4). “内幕” is the Chinese equivalent to the English “behind the curtain”; however, Mandarin speakers say “inside (内) the curtain (幕)”.
奥巴马 (ao4ba5ma3). At least this translition sounds pretty much like Obama's name; the same can't be said for his predecssor's Chinese name “布什” (bu4shi2), which is pronounced like “Boo-sure.”

A Visit to Changyucheng (长峪城) Village, Local Opera and Reflections on a Struggling Art Form:

2009-03-30T22:06:00.000-07:00

In addition to lunch, the Changyucheng villagers treated us to a performance of their own particular kind of opera. This event took place in the village's combined Buddhist and Daoist Temple—one of the earlier Changyucheng posts (March 11th) has photos and a bit of text about this place. The temple has a small outdoor stage, so it also serves as a theater and concert space.

The musicians (业余乐师) in the second photo at the top of the post were mainly playing traditional Chinese musical instruments. These included a stringed instrument that is a kind of miniature cello and sits on a musician's lap (二胡). Another one was the Chinese-style bamboo flute (笛子). And one person was knocking pieces of wood together as of way of keeping rhythm. Since this action is akin to clapping, the English term for instrument is “clapper;” according to a Chinese friend, the Mandarin term is “快板”.

This miniature orchestra also had a pair of small drums (鼓). However, one instrument typically heard in Beijing Opera (京剧) performances isn't in the photo. I'm talking about the loud and clanging cymbals (钹; 铙). At least I don't remember hearing them being played during the village opera performance.

The other photo above is a shot of one of the singers. According to my Chinese friend, Lu Hong Yan (路红艳), the Chinese just call the singers and musicians “performers”, or “表演” (this is also the verb “to perform”). These people can also be seen as performing a kind of folk art, which Mandarin speakers call “民间艺术”. The first two characters literally mean “between the people”, so this suffix is used in other “folk” type vocabulary, such as “folk music” (民间音乐), “folk stories” (民间故事), and “folk literature” (民间文学). The characters 艺术 form the word for “art.”

We spent about an hour or so watching the villagers perform. Our guide, Hong Gao, informed us that this village developed its own distinctive style of opera, due to its location on the old Silk Road trading route (see my March 1st post about Changyucheng). Since none of us, even the people who spoke pretty good Chinese, could really follow what the singers were saying, Gao provided capsule summaries of the lyrics. These stories naturally all took place in old China and were about Emperors (皇帝) and Emperesses (皇后), along with their concubines (妾), eunuchs (太监), and ministers.

For me at least, the real highlight of this part of our Changyucheng tour came after all the performances were finished. We got to go inside the small room backstage where the singers put on and took off their makeup. As one can tell from the photo at the top of this blog, every singer's face is elaborately painted. After the other members of our group left the room, I got this photo of an older male performer taking off his makeup (卸妆). I think he had played the emperor in one of the operas.

The age of this man, as well as the musicians, underscores a sad fact about Chinese opera, including Beijing Opera: it really is struggling to survive as an art form. Nearly all of my younger Chinese friends and acquaintances tell me that they never watch Beijing Opera. They all say that they find the lyrics, which are sung in a very high-pitched voice, extremely hard to understand. And they also believe that the stories are very dull and slow moving.

Indeed, after living here for four years, I am struck by the fact that when it comes to popular entertainment, the Middle Kingdom's youth, well at least its urban youth, mainly prefer foreign imports over traditional Chinese popular culture, including Beijing Opera.

This is especially true for TV shows, and like Americans, Chinese people watch lots of television. Chinese Central TV (CCTV) broadcasts quite a few historical drama type shows depicting pre-revolutionary China, particularly the struggle against the Japanese and Guomingdang (国民党) during the 1930s and 1940s. None of my friends has ever mentioned this programming or any other CCTV shows when I ask them about what they watch. They instead mainly view American TV shows downloaded (下载) from the internet (网络).

For example, “Friends” (六人行) is hugely popular here. “Prison Break”, which had its final season last year, also has a large following in China. Alas, many Chinese people think that watching this program is a good way to learn English! Other heavily watched shows include “Desperate Housewives” (绝望的主妇) and “The OC”. Finally, South Korean soap operas, which the Chinese call “韩剧”, have a large audience among younger Chinese women. The same can be said for similar programs from Taiwan.

With respect to films, China does produce a few films (电影; 片子) every year that are genuine blockbusters with respect to their movie theater viewing audience. One was the Hong Kong director John Woo's adaptation of the famous literary classic, “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” (三国演义), or “Red Cliff” (赤壁), starring Liang Chao Wei (梁朝伟) and the gorgeous Taiwanese fashion model (模特儿) turned actress, Lin Zhi Ling (林志玲). Another was the hilarious romantic comedy, “If You are the One” (非诚勿扰) starring another beautiful Taiwanese actress, Shu Qi (舒淇), and one of China's most famous male comic actors, Ge You (葛优) (I'll be doing a post on this movie at some future date).

But the limited number of Hollywood films that are screened here—China still places strict limits on film imports—typically do as well as, if not better, than their Chinese blockbuster counterparts at the box office. This goes for worthy films like “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “The Reader”, as well truly awful swill, like that recent Will Smith vehicle, “Hancock”, and the newest installment of “The Mummy”. The latest James Bond movies, with Daniel Craig as “007” (零零七), were also very popular here. And in most DVD shops, I find that the selection of foreign films, particularly American movies, is greater than the selection of Chinese films.

When it comes to music, young Chinese people mainly prefer pop music (流行乐). Very few of them listen to older Chinese classical music (中国古典乐). Chinese pop singers, particularly Jay Chou (周杰伦) from Taiwan, do have a huge following. But if you translated the lyrics of their songs into English, they would certainly sound pretty much like standard Ameircan pop music tunes. And hip hop style music and the kind of music dance numbers done by Beyoncé, Britney Spears, and the like have caught on big in China as well (the same is true for music videos, although the Chinese ones that I have seen are really pretty lame).

Thus Beijing Opera's Chinese audience now consists largely of older people, like the memorable “old widow” next door neighbor from Michael Meyer's terrific new book about life in Beijing's siheyuan (四合院) houses and hutong (胡同) alleys. As was mentioned in an earlier post, this lady kept her TV tuned all day to a Beijing Opera Channel (for those expats living here who are interested, it's Channel 11). She thus became very irate when the small electric heater Meyer bought for his room blew out the siheyuan's fusebox and interrupted this programming.

To be sure, some foreign tourists go to live Beijing Opera performances while visiting China. However, these people certainly can't understand the subtleties of Beijing Opera. I have to confess that I don't either. I'll also confess to not having seen a single Beijing Opera during my 3+ years of living in the capital. Moreover, the foreign tourist audience doesn't come close to offsetting the steep decline in Chinese viewership. And very few of the old pensioners, who make up the bulk of Beijing Opera's diehard Chinese fans, can afford to pay the ticket prices theaters must charge in order to make money from staging live opera performances.

Beijing Opera is still officially touted as a Chinese “national treasure”; however, as Jasper Becker notes in his recent book, CITY OF HEAVENLY TRANQUILITY, most of the few remaining state opera troupes are gradually going bust (破产). They not only face dwindling audiences, but declining state subsidies (补贴) as well.

I would thus be willing to bet that in another 20-30 years, after most of the audience and performers for traditional Chinese Opera have passed away (出世), live performances of this art will be few and far between. I am thus very glad to have had the opportunity to see one version of it performed live during my visit to Changyucheng Village. I'll truly remember it as another highlight of my ongoing China adventure.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

业余乐师 (ye4yu2yue4shi1). “业余” means “part-time”, so the Chinese word for “part-time work” is 业余工作 (ye4yu2gong1zuo4), while 乐师 is one word for “musician”. Truly expert and professional muscians are called “音乐家” (yin1yue4jia1).
二胡 (er4hu2).
笛子 (di2zi5).
快板 (kuai4ban3). The first character is the Chinese word for “fast”, while the second can mean “board”. “Blackboard” is thus 黑 (hei1; black) 板.
鼓 (gu3).
京剧 (jing1ju4). “京”, of course, is the second character in 北京 (bei3jing1), or literally translated, “northern capital”, while 剧 can be translated here as “stage.”
钹; 铙 (bo2; nao2). “铙” are large cymbals. The left hand side of both characters has the metal radical, which provides a clue about their meaning (it really narrows it down, he! he!).
表演 (biao3yan3).
民间艺术 (min2jian1yi4shu4).
民间音乐 (min2jian1yin1yue4). “音乐” is the Chinese word for “music”.
民间故事 (min2jian1gu4shi4). “故事” is the Chinese word for “story”.
民间文学 (min2jian1wen2xue2). “文学” is the Chinese word for “literature.”
皇帝 (huang2di4).
皇后 (huang2hou4). Literally translated, “皇后” means “behind the Emperor.” Language often reflects underlying social realities and this phrase says much about the subordinate position of women in old China. Throughout China's long history, only one woman, the Tang Dynasty (唐朝; tang2chao2) Empress 武则天 (wu3ze2tian1), has officially ruled the country.
妾 (qie4).
太监 (tai4jian4).
卸妆 (xie4zhuang1). The opposite of taking off makeup, i.e. putting it on, is “化妆” (hua4zhuang1) (this term applies to actors, actresses, and women). “Cosmetics” is “化妆品” (hua4zhuang1pin3).
下载 (xia4zai4).
网络 (wang3luo4). “网” is the Chinese word for “net”, and the character really looks like a “net”.
六人行 (liu4ren2xing2). For some reason, this show's title isn't literally translated into Mandarin as “Friends” (朋友; peng2you3), but as “Six (六) People (人) O.K./Good (行)”. That's actually a more informative title!
绝望的主妇 (jue2wang1de5zhu4fu4). Unlike the show “Friends,” this is a literal translation: 绝望 means “desperate”, while 主妇 is the Mandarin word for “housewife”.
韩剧 (han2ju4). “韩” appears in the Chinese name for South Korea, which is 韩国 (han2guo2), while 剧 in this context means “program”.
电影; 片子 (dian4ying3; pian4zi5). “电影” literally means “electric (电) shadow (影)” and the right side of the “影” character does resemble a shadow. “片子” is the term for “movie” and can also mean “blockbuster movie”.
三国演义 (san1guo2yan3yi1).
赤壁 (chi4bi4). “壁” also means “screen”, as in Beihai Park's famous Nine (久; jiu3) Dragon (龙; long2) Screen (壁; bi4).
模特儿 (mo2te4er5).
非诚勿扰 (fei1cheng2wu4rao3).
零零七 (ling2ling2qi1). This literally means “007”.
流行乐 (liu2xing2yue4). “流行” means “popular”.
中国古典乐 (zhong1guo2gu4dian3yue). “中国” of course means “China,” while “古典” is the Mandarin word for “classical”.
周杰伦 (zhou1jie2lun2).
四合院 (si4he2yuan2).
胡同 (hu2tong2).
破产 (po4chan3).
补贴 (bu3tie1).
出世 (chu1shi4). This term literally means “depart (出) from the world (世)”. The verb “to die” is “死” (si3). The Chinese regard “four” (四) as an unlucky number because its pronunciation, a fourth tone “si”, is almost the same as “死”

A Trip to Changyucheng (长峪城) Village, People:

2009-03-22T20:05:00.000-07:00

Most of our time indoors during the visit to Changyucheng Village was spent making dumplings and then eating them, along with lots of other food, for lunch. We did all this in the house described in the previous blog post. That was the first stop in our tour.

The photo shows several members of our group watching—the three people on the right are Filipinos—one of the locals demonstrate the art of making dumplings (包饺子). This lady is doing the first stage of making the dumpling, namely rolling the wrappers (来擀皮儿). I have to say, this gal was a real pro (饺子能手) when it came to making dumplings!

After the wrappers were rolled and cut up into individual dumpling sizes, it was out turn to participate in the dumpling making. We got to stuff the stuff the wrappers and then close them. You do this by first spreading the wrapping on your hand, then put in the filling, and lastly fold the wrapper over the filling and then tightly pinch the edges. Or, as the Chinese would say, “先把皮儿摊在手上, 然后放陷儿, 再把边儿捏紧”.

Like everything else in the Spring Festival celebrations, eating dumplings has lots of symbolism. Dumplings, or to use the Chinese word, Jiao(3)zi(5) (饺子), are shaped like the gold (金) and silver (银) ingots that were used as money in ancient China. Thus making dumplings both symbolizes and is supposed to bring families prosperity (富足) and good luck (福气).

Indeed, making dumplings is the first thing families usually do after the fifth day of the Chinese New Year, or the so-called “Broken Five” (破五) Festival. Our guide, Hong Gao, told us that during the first five days of the Spring Festival, families are supposed to observe some rather strict rules. Women can't visit their parents, children shouldn't cry, no one should utter inauspicious words, and neighbors aren't supposed to quarrel. It's also forbidden to break any tools or furniture, see a doctor, do needlework, use scissors, or sweep the floor. And one is not allowed to eat thin porridge for breakfast (that's one don't I could comply with!!).

However, on the fifth day of the Spring Festival, all these rules can finally be broken. In addition to feasting on dumplings, people remove the offerings placed on the household alters for deceased ancestors (ancestor worship remains quite strong here). Other normal tasks, such as doing business, can also be resumed after the five day Spring Festival hiatus.

There are three basic kinds of dumplings in China: boiled (水饺), steamed (蒸饺), and ones that are fried in a skillet (锅贴). English speakers call the third kind of dumpling “pot stickers”, and that's what the Chinese call them as well: “锅” (guo3) means “pot” or “skillet” while “帖” (tie1) is the word for “stick.”

I prefer the “锅贴” dumplings; however, “水饺” dumplings are what people here usually eat during the Spring Festival and that's what we had for lunch. These dumplings came with the two most commonly used fillings, namely pork (猪肉) and greens (青菜). Of course there are many other kinds of fillings put into dumplings. These include chicken (鸡肉), mutton (羊肉), shrimp (小虾), and mushrooms (蘑菇).

The meal also included chicken, fresh greens and vegetables (蔬菜), tofu (豆腐), toasted almonds (烤杏仁), rice (米饭), potatoes (土豆), noodles (面), and quite possibly some other dishes I've forgotten about. Since this house didn't have a kitchen, the food was prepared somewhere else and brought in through the front door (前门).

Hong Gao told us that all of the food served for lunch was grown in the village. I mentioned the almond trees (杏树) in earlier post and could see how this place would have them. And there were plenty chicken coops in the village. However, I didn't notice any greenhouses (花房), which would have been the only place where vegetables could be grown in the winter, during our stroll about this place. Perhaps they were located somewhere outside of the village.

The comment about the food made it clear that the people of Changyucheng Village are largely self-sufficient when it comes to food. I'm certain this is as much a matter of necessity as it is of choice. After we left the western outskirts of Beijing, it took us some 90 minutes to reach the village. During that time, we didn't pass through large any towns, so there are probably no big stores within easy driving distance from Changyucheng Village. And very few, if any, of its residents have access to a car or some other kind of vehicle.

This isolation really distinguishes these people from their counterparts in North America. Even people who live way out in the sticks in Wyoming and Montana can hop in their car or, in the case of many of these folks, pickup truck, and drive themselves into the nearest town or city of any size.

To be sure, it might take them several hours to do this. But they can at least go on their own to the nearest big supermarket and store to stock up on food and other necessities. I suspect someone periodically drives a vehicle to a store at the edge of Beijing or over to Changping—also more than hour away from Changyucheng Village—to pick up stuff such as toilet paper, hardware, and the like.

We did our stroll through the village after finishing lunch. Along the way, we met a few more of the local people. One of them is the elderly fellow in the photo below. We were told that this senior (老年人) is 84 years old. Hong Gao, our tour guide, is on the left side of the picture, while the lady on the right side, whose English name is Cathy, works for Hong Kong Government's office in Beijing.

The building on the right of the photo is this old fellow's house. If you look hard, you can see a small dog standing at the base of the wall. This spot in the wall had a small hole, and the dog kept going in and out of the house through that hole. As the Chinese would say, this little canine friend (狗) was 很可爱!

As this post and the previous posts have made clear, the people of Changyucheng are not at all affluent. But this didn't prevent them from being incredibly welcoming and generous hosts for our little group. Their hospitality (好客) will go down as one of many highlights in my China adventure.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

包饺子 (bao1jiao3zi5). The verb “包” means to “stuff” or “package” (this character also is the noun “package” and “bag”). Since making 饺子 mainly involves stuffing different kinds of filling into the wrapping, Mandarin speakers use this verb rather than “make”, or 做 (zuo4).
来擀皮儿 (lai2gan3pi2er5). In addition to “wrapping,” “皮” has several other meanings, including human “skin” (皮肤; pi2fu1) and the “leather” in “leather bag” (皮包)
饺子能手 (jiao3zi5neng2shou3). “能手” literally means “capable hands”, and is used to refer not just to people who are able to work with their hands, but who are also good at everyday chores. People who are skilled at doing more specialized tasks are called a “高手” (gao1shou3), which literally means “high (高) hand (手)”. It's customarily translated as “master.” So a chess master is a “国际象棋高手” (guo2ji4xiang4qi2); “国际象棋” is the Mandarin word for western or “international” (国际) chess. Chinese chess is “中国象棋” (zhong1gu2xiang4qi2). As noted in a very recent post, 中国 means “China”, or “Middle (中) Kingdom (国)”.
先把皮儿摊在手上, 然后放馅儿, 再把边捏紧 (xian1ba3pi2er5tan1zai5shou3shang4, ran2hou4fang4xian4er, zai4ba3bian1nie1jin3). “先” means “first,” while “把” is a particle emphasizing the noun it precedes, in this case “皮儿”. It has no equivalent in English—it would be like saying “First, especially the wrapper …,” and of course we don’t say it that way. Since there are no hard and fast rules about its use, we loawai have a hard time knowing when to say it. Native Mandarin speakers, of course, know instinctively when to do so. “摊” means to “spread out,” while “在手上” means “on (在 and 上) the hand (手).” “然后” is “then” and “放馅儿” is “stick into.” “再” is the word for “then” when you do one action, as in these dumpling making steps, right after another action. And “边捏紧” means “pinch (捏) edges (边) tightly (紧).”
金 (jin1). For those who are wondering, a “gold medal” is a 金牌 (jin1pai2); “牌”, of course, is the word for “medal”.
银 (yin2). Since historically the Chinese used silver coins, the character “银” is in the Chinese word for “bank”, “银行”.
富足 (fu4zu2).
福气 (fu2qi4).
破五 (po4wu3). “破” is the word for “break” or “smash”, while “五” means “five”.
水饺 (shui3jiao3). “水” is the character for “water.”
蒸饺 (zheng1jiao3). And “蒸”, of course, means “steamed.”
猪肉 (zhu1rou4). “猪” means “pig,” while “肉” means “meat,” so together they mean “pork.”
青菜 (qing1cai4).
羊肉 (yang2rou4). The same logic applies with “mutton” as it does with “pork.” Mandarin combines the character for “sheep” (羊) with “meat” (肉).
小虾 (xiao3xia1).
蘑菇 (mo2gu1).
蔬菜 (shu1cai4).
豆腐 (dou4fu5).
烤杏仁 (kao3xing4ren2).
米饭 (mi3fan4). The second character refers to cooked food, so 米饭 really means “cooked rice.”
土豆 (tu3dou4). “土” means “soil” or “earth”, while “豆” is the word for “bean.”
面 (mian4).
前门 (mian2men2). “前” means “before” or “in front of,” while “门” is the word for “door” and “gate.” The latter character actually looks like a door or a gate.
杏树 (xing4shu4). “树” is the word for “tree.”
花房 (hua1fang2). “花” is normally the word for “flower”, but here it stands for the “green” in “greenhouse.”
老年人 (lao3nian2ren2). Translated word for word, this means “old year person.”
很可爱 (hen3ke3ai4). “爱” is the verb “to love” and when combined with “可”, it becomes the adjective “loveable.” This adjective is typically applied to just young children and pets.
好客 (hao3ke4). “好” means “good,” while “客” is a shortened for of the word for “guest,” i.e. 客人 (ke4ren2). So it literally means “good to guests.”

A Trip to Changyucheng (长峪城) Village, Interiors: Inside One of the Homes (在一个房子的里边)

2009-03-19T18:14:00.000-07:00

Another highlight of our visit to Changyucheng was going inside one of the village's houses. They naturally showcased the nicest dwelling in the village. The exterior can be seen in the photo above, and this shot appears in an earlier post about the village. We spent over an hour here, making dumplings and then eating them, along with lots of other food, for lunch. I'll have more to say about that in the next post.

We spent most of our time in a large that functioned as a sitting room (客厅), bedroom (卧室) and dining room. I also popped inside a small bedroom off to its side to take some pictures (they're below). The house may have had another room, but I'm not sure. That other room, if it did exist, was certainly very small.

One part of large, multipurpose room off to the right of the doorway in the photo above had two or three old style brick beds (火抗)—the ones that are heated up at night with firewood. As I noted in an earlier post, that's why stacks of firewood are scattered all over the village.

I didn't see a stove inside this place, nor any sign of some other means of heating the place up. So the beds seemed to be the only way to keep the dwelling warm and cozy during this area’s bitterly cold winters. The beds were not very wide; they were certainly no larger than a twin bed back in the states. They thus functioned not only as beds (床), but also as sofas (沙发). After our walk through the village was finished, we all sat down on them and had some Nescafe before boarding the bus to return home.

A low table, much like an American style coffee table, was placed in front of one these sofa-type beds. According to my good friend, Lu Hong Yan (路红艳), the Chinese term for such tables doesn't use the character for table, 桌子. They are instead called 茶几, which can be literally translated as “tea device.” That's because the teapots used for brewing tea leaves are typically placed on these tables.

Finally, as one can see from the photo below, the walls of this room were adorned with Chinese Communist Party poster art (画).

The dining area was toward the back of the large room. This part of the house was away from the window, so it was fairly dark. Lighting was provided by several bare bulbs sticking down from the ceiling and through the thick, white-colored wallpaper-like (壁纸) material covering both the ceiling and the walls. Interestingly enough, these light bulbs (灯泡) were not the older round types, but newer energy saving ones.

In addition to these state of the art light bulbs, the sitting room also boasted a relatively new TV set (电视) and DVD player (DVD机). So while this house was lacked any kind of modern heating (暖气) system, it did have what passed for a state of the art home entertainment center.

You observe these contradictions all the time while living in China. For me, as well as many other expats, this blend of backwardness and modernity is a big reason why the Middle Kingdom such a fascinating place. At least fascinating enough for us to want to continue living here and put up with the occasional “bad China day”.

The small bedroom was on the left side of the doorway entrance to the large room in the house. You can see that room's windows (窗) on the left side of the photo at the top of this blog post. The photo below is a picture of those same windows, along with bed in front of them, shot from within the room.

The bedroom also had a small writing desk (书桌) wedged between the foot of the bed and one of the room's walls. There was a mirror (镜子) on the table resting against the wall (墙). And in this room, the poster art consisted of a landscape painting, rather than portraits of revolutionary leaders.

The dwelling didn't have an indoor bathroom. There were instead two outhouses (厕所) in the courtyard area to the left of the dwelling's entrance; a small chicken coop (鸡笼) stood in the center of courtyard. As one might suspect, the toilets in the outhouses were not western-style toilets, but “squatty potties” (蹲便).

While I have never gotten used to using these little bowls of heaven, many Chinese people actually prefer them over Western-style toilets (马桶). They believe that they are more sanitary, and I'd have to say that they have point (有道理) here. Not sitting on a toilet seat rim used by lots of other people reduces the chance of picking up whatever infections or other bad things they might pass on. And I read somewhere that when Mao visited the Soviet Union to meet with Stalin (斯大林) shortly after founding New China, he could not get used to the pedestal toilets in his villa. He also didn’t care much for the soft bed either.

In many Chinese farming villages, particularly the poorer ones, the excrement (分辨) deposited in such latrines is still collected at night and put into the soil as fertilizer (I'm not sure about Changyucheng Village and didn't bother to ask). Poor farmers, of course, lack access to and can not afford to buy chemical fertilizer. They thus have little choice but recycle human and animal waster in this manner. And this process can also be seen as turning the food growing and consumption process into a closed circle: human beings, as well as animals, consume what's grown in the soil and then discharge their wastes back into the soil so that it more food can be grown in it.

Because this material was put into the fields at night, it's referred to as “night soil” in books written about China by Western authors. However, one of my Chinese friends informed me that the Mandarin word for “night soil”, 肥料, which literally means “rich material.” Jasper Becker notes in his book, CITY OF HEAVENLY TRANQUILITY, that as late as the 1920s and 1930s—at that time, the ancient city of Beijing was still almost entirely intact—this “rich material” was carted out of the capital to be used in the nearby farms.

The courtyard area outside the dwelling also blended the new in with the old. For example, one of the outhouses had a washing machine (洗衣机). I also saw a pair of what appeared to be solar (太阳) heated water tanks (水箱) on their roofs. However, this outside area also had the dwelling's only sink/washbasin (洗手池; 洗碗池) and water faucet (水龙头). For some reason, I didn't bother to take any photos here.

There was an electric water dispenser inside the house, so one could get a hot cup of tea without having to go outside. But washing one's hands necessitated a short trip to the outside washbasin. And since it was the middle of winter, the water in the basin was frozen (冰) solid.

The lifestyles of most of Chinese urban dwellers (城里人), particularly those in country's rapidly growing middle (中产阶级) and upper middle classes, not to mention the rising number of those who are rich (有钱), at least somewhat approximate those of their counterparts in highly developed economies. But the same can't be said for rural China's rural residents. My visit to Changyucheng Village made it clear to this laowai that China still has a long way to go before its overall living standards catch up to those in Europe, North America, Japan, and South Korea.

The good news, however, is that immense progress has been made here since the reform and opening up policy. Following 1979, over 200 hundred million people have been lifted out of absolute poverty. Nothing quite like this has happened in recent global history. And as I noted in several previous posts, the current government is making a genuine and serious effort to improve the lives of China's farmers. I am therefore confident that in the future, things can only get better in places like Changyucheng Village.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

在一个房子的里边 (zai4yi1ge4fang2zi5li3bian1): “房子” is the Chinese word for “house” or “dwelling,” while “里边” means “inside (of a place or space)”.
客厅 (ke3ting1). “Outer room for guests” is a more literal translation of this character combination.
卧室 (wo4shi4). 室 is a suffix that appears in many Mandarin words for different types of a room. “Office,” for example, is 办公室 (ban4gong1shi4).
床 (chuang2).
火炕 (huo3kang4).
沙发 (sha1fa1). This is an excellent example of a foreign word transliteration. Translated word for word, these characters mean “sand” (沙) “to happen” (发). As I think I noted in a much earlier post, anytime you run across a nonsensical character combination, it's almost certainly some foreign word transliterated into Mandarin. Then you have to figure what foreign word the characters sound like when said together. Not so hard to do with 沙发, but many other times, that's easier said than done!
桌子 (zhuo1zi5).
茶几 (cha2ji1).
画 (hua4). This word usually means picture, and the character pretty much looks like a framed picture. The verb to “draw” is simply 画画. Mandarin does have a word for poster, 海报 (hai3bao4), but after looking at my photo, 路红艳 told me that 画, not 海报, is the word Chinese people for such art.
壁纸 (bi4zhi3). “壁” means “screen”, while 纸 means paper. The left side of the character 纸 contains the silk “radical”, which provides a clue as to the meaning, namely something made out of woven material (at least that was the case for ancient paper).
灯泡 (deng1pao4). “灯” is the word for “light,” so if want someone to turn of the lights, tell them, “清关灯” (qin2guan1deng1). The first two characters are the words for “please” and “turn off.” Interestingly enough, 灯泡 is also a slang Chinese term for “chaperone.”
电视 (dian4shi4). This character combination, which means “electric vision”, is yet another example of how Mandarin vocabulary is usually much more logical than English vocabulary.
DVD机 (DVDji1). As noted in a previous blog post, 机 is a suffix that appears in many words having to do with mechanical devices, as is the case for another character combination that appears later on in the post, 洗衣机 (xi3yi1ji1). “洗” means “wash”, 衣is a shortened form of the word for clothes (衣服; yi1fu5), so when combined with “机”, they all mean “washing machine”. And yes, Mandarin is starting to incorporate some foreign words without transliterating them into characters. Many of these words are computer program names, like Excel. If you want to tell someone to open up Excel, just say “开Excel;” 开 (kai1) is the Chinese word for start or open.
暖气 (nuan3qi4).
窗 (chuang1). Since “窗” and “床” differ only in their tones, it's easy to be misunderstood—one might get the tone wrong and say, “I'm sitting on the window”, when you really mean to say, “I'm sitting on the bed.”
书桌 (shu1zhuo1). “书” is the Chinese word for book, so this combination literally means “book table.”
镜子 (jing4zi5).
墙 (qiang2).
厕所 (ce4suo3).
鸡笼 (ji1long2). “鸡” is the Chinese word for a live chicken. Chicken meat, on the other hand, is 鸡肉 (ji1rou4). So chicken soup is said as “chicken meat soup”, or 鸡肉汤; the last character, a rising tone “tang,” means “soup”.
蹲便 (dun1bian4).
马桶 (ma3tong1).
有道理 (you3dao4li3). “有” means “have”, while 道理 is the word for “point.”
斯大林 (si1da4lin2). At least this transliteration sounds somewhat like Stalin's name; the same can’t be said for the one for that of his arch geopolitical rival, Adolf Hitler. The Nazi dictator's Chinese name, 希特勒 (xi1te4le4) is said like “she t-eh l-eh.”
粪便 (fen4bian4).
肥料 (fei2liao4).
太阳 (tai4yang2). For those who are interested, “solar power” is 太阳能 (能 is a rising tone “neng”).
水箱 (shui3xiang1). “水” means “water”, while 箱 appears in the Chinese word for refrigerator, or 冰箱, which literally means “ice (冰) box/container (箱)”. “冰” is also one way of saying that water is frozen solid, so ice cubes are 冰块 (bing1kuai4; 块 is the Mandarin word for “piece”).
洗碗池 (xi3wan3chi2). English speakers would call this the “kitchen sink”; in Chinese it means “dishes (碗) washing (洗) basin (池)”.
洗手池 (xi3shou3chi2). And this means “hands (手) washing (洗) basin (池)”.
水龙头 (shui3long2tou2). For some reason, the Chinese decided to combine the characters for “dragon” (龙) and “head” (头) with “water” (水) to form the word for water faucet or spigot. Perhaps they thought that such devices really do look like a dragon's head!
城里人 (cheng2li3ren2). “城” is the shortened form of the word for city (城市; cheng2shi4), “里” means “inside,” and “人” stands for “person.” So the combination literally means “city inside person.”
中产阶级 (zhong1chan3jie2ji2). “中” is the word for “middle” and also appears in the Mandarin name for China, “中国,” which literally means “Middle Kingdom.” “产” means “produce”, while 阶级 is the word for “social class.” Thus the working class is called the 工人 (gong1ren2; or worker) 阶级, while the capitalist bourgeoisie is the 资产阶级. Readers might remember from the previous post that the first character is in the character combination, 资本 (zi1ben3), for “capital.”
有钱 (you3qian2). This literally means “have” (有) money (钱)”.

A Trip to Changyucheng (长峪城) Village, Exteriors: The Castle Gate and a Cultural Revolution Legacy (文化大革命遗留下来的)

2009-03-17T18:01:00.000-07:00

Near the end of our stroll through the village, we passed under one of the old castle gates. Readers who've been following the earlier posts about Changyucheng will remember that this place was an old castle. The garrisons manning the nearby section of the Great Wall lived here.

While the actual gates are gone, the arch above them still exists. And this arch provided us with a potent visual symbol not only of China's old history, but also of its tumultuous recent past. I know it might be hard to see on this web-sized photo, but if readers look really hard, they can make out a face on the arch. This face belongs to none other than the Great Helmsman, Chairman Mao (毛泽东).

The 1960s was a particularly dark (黑暗) decade (十年) for China. It began with the culmination of perhaps the greatest famine in modern world history, the one brought on by the Great Leap Forward (大跃进). An estimated 20-30 million people starved to death (饿死了) thanks to that harebrained effort industrialize China overnight. Then after a brief interlude of stability and relative prosperity, the latter half of the decade was marked by the chaos of the Cultural Revolution (文化大革命).

Few if any places in China were not affected by this huge social upheaval (社会动乱). Changyucheng Village was no exception. Mao's now barely visible and faded portrait was painted on the arch by the Red Guards (红卫兵) sent to there to live among and learn from the farmers (农民).

I've done more than a bit of thinking about this picture on the arch. I believe that the portrait of Mao may have helped spare this little remnant from the old castle from being torn down. As anyone familiar with the Cultural Revolution well knows, these years were immensely destructive to China's old cultural heritage. The Red Guards were determined to smash the “four olds” (破四旧), namely old ideas (旧思想), old culture (旧文化), old customs (旧习惯), and old habits (旧风俗).

The British journalist Jasper Becker has written a terrific new book on the history of Beijing, CITY OF HEAVENLY TRANQUILITY. He notes that in one month alone, the so-called “Bloody August” of 1966, the Red Guards ransacked 33,000 houses in Beijing and destroyed 3 million tons of books (that's right folks, 3 million tons, not 3 thousand tons). And many other valuable relics—vases, statues, furniture, and the like—were smashed up.

The Shanghai Museum's priceless collection of pottery, vases, and other relics was saved only through the cleverness of its curator, Ma Chengyuan (马承源). At that time, Ma was 70 years old and had finely honed his survival skills. Before the Red Guards could make it to the Museum to destroy the collection, Ma dressed his staff in Red Guard outfits and had them paint Maoist slogans all over the cupboards and display cases. When the real Red Guards showed up, they were told they had arrived too late. And in any case, these people refrained from breaking open the cases in which the treasures were stored, as doing so would have involved physically attacking Mao's words.

To be sure, the Maoist portrait on the arch was not a clever stratagem aimed at sparing the structure from revolutionary destruction. But I can't help but think that it had that impact, even if such an outcome was far removed from the ideals and intentions of the Red Guards who painted it up there in the first place.

So the arch still stands and provides visitors to the village with a powerful reminder of China's distant and not so distant past.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

文化大革命遗留下来的 (wen2hua4da4ge2min4yi2liu2xia4lai2de5). As noted in earlier posts, 文化 stands for “culture,” while 大革命 means “great revolution.” According to my good friend, 路红艳 (lu4hong2yan4), “legacy” should be translated here as 遗留下来的.
毛泽东 (mao2ze2dong1). “毛” is the family name—the family name precedes the given names in Chinese names—while “泽东” means “light of the east.”
黑暗 (hei1an4). According to several Chinese friends, unlike their English counterparts, Mandarin speakers never use this adjective to describe the weather, as in “It's a dark day.” It's only used in connection with historical periods and actions. For example, you can say 黑暗的行为 (hei1an4de5xing2wei4). This literally means “dark deeds;” “ 行为” has several meanings, including “action”, “deed,” “conduct,” and “behavior.”
十年 (shi2nian2). “十” means “ten” and “年” “year”, so this character pairing is, like most of he ones in Mandarin, very logical. The 1960s in Chinese is 六十年代 (the 六十 combination is the word for “60”, while the character, “dai”, means “generation”).
大跃进 (da4yue4jin4). “大” means “big” or “great”, “跃” means “jump” or “leap,” while “进” can be translated as “advance” or “enter.”
饿死了 (e4si3le5). “饿”, which is pronounced like “eh”, is the Chinese word for “hungry”, while 死 means “to die” and “death.”
社会动乱 (she4hui4dong4luan4). “社会” is the word for “social” and “society,” while “动乱” can also literally be translated as “reckless motion.” By itself, “乱” means “reckless” or “wild.” So children who are wildly running about are 乱跑 (luan4pao4; 跑is the verb “to run”), while people making wild and reckless statements are 乱说 (luan4shuo1; 说 is the very “to say”). And Mandarin has a very peculiar four character phrase—these are called 成语 (cheng2yu3)—for a thoroughly muddled situation: 乱七八糟. When translated word for word, it reads “reckless, 7, 8, terrible”.
红卫兵 (hong2wei4bing1). “红” is the word for “red” and, of course, symbolizes the revolution. “卫” usually means “sanitary”, but in this context stands for “protect.” And “兵” is a shortened form of the word for “soldier” (士兵; shi1bing1).
农民 (nong2min2).
破四旧 (po4si4jiu4). “破” means “smash” or “break”, “四” means “four”, while “旧” is the adjective for “old.” However, this “old” is applied only to things, not living beings. For the latter, the Chinese say “老”.
旧思想 (jiu4si1xiang3).
旧文化 (jiu4wen2hua4).
旧习惯 (jiu4xi2guan4).
旧风俗 (jiu4feng1su2).
马承源 (ma3cheng2yuan2). This family name, 马, is also the Chinese word for “horse.”

A Trip to Changyucheng (长峪城) Village, Exteriors: The All-in-One Temple:

2009-03-11T18:59:00.001-07:00

After passing by the ruined school buildings, we arrived at the village's temple. This Temple serves as both a Buddhist Temple (佛寺) and Daoist Temple (道观). The photo above shows its main entrance.

The villagers put on a little show of its own kind of opera for our group. During a break in the performance, I wandered over to the Temple's exit, which provided a nice frame for the tree in the immediate background.

I'll have more to say about the opera and the people of Changyucheng village shortly. But there’s one more post left to go about the village's exteriors.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

佛寺 (fo2si4).
道观 (dao4guan4). In one of the mysteries that is Chinese, Mandarin has separate characters for Buddhist (佛) temples (寺) and Daoist (道) temples (观). And if that's not confusing enough, a Confucian temple is a 孔庙 (kong3miao3), with first character standing for Confucian and the second standing for “temple”. And the Temple of Heaven is the 天坛 (tian1tan2)—天 means “heaven” here, while 坛 is the character in this word for “temple.”

A Trip to Changyucheng (长峪城) Village, Exteriors: An Abandoned School House, 农民工, and reflections on rural China:

2009-03-11T18:37:00.000-07:00

During our stroll through the village, we passed by the buildings in the photo above. As one can tell from the appearance of their roofs, doors, and windows, they hadn't been used in quite a while. When I asked our guide, Hong Gao, about them, he said that they had once been the village school.

At one time 100 or more students attended classes in the village school. But now the school is closed because very few younger adults, including young couples with children, live in Changyucheng Village. These people have moved to Beijing, Changping, and other nearby cities because they offer more work opportunities (工作机会). Villagers can make much more money working in factories and other businesses, even on construction sites, than they can by farming here.

As my previous blog posts and photos about this place emphasized, it's clearly very difficult to earn a decent income as a farmer in Changyucheng Village. The growing season is short, the plots of land are very small, and the variety of crops that can be grown here are limited.

I just finished reading Michael Meyer's fantastic book, THE LAST DAYS OF OLD BEIJING, about the capital’s vanishing hutong (胡同) alleys and siheyuan (四合院) courtyard houses. Meyer lived in a siheyuan south of Tian’anmen Square and the book is based on this experience. It has a memorable cast of characters. One of my favorites is Meyer's neighbor, an old woman who turned her TV set on all day to a Beijing Opera (京剧) Channel. She became very irate when the small electric heater Meyer bought for his room blew out the Siheyuan's fuse box and interrupted this programming. Hell hath no fury greater than that of an elderly Chinese lady deprived of her Beijing Opera broadcast!

Another memorable character is a young shaved noodle chef named “Soldier Liu”. He got this name because he had served in the PLA. Soldier Liu's family hailed from a small farming village in Shanxi Province. At one point, Meyer took a trip to Soldier Liu's village, which is located near Pingyao, one of China's last cities with intact ancient walls. Pingyao is also where Zhang Yi Mou shot his film “Raise the Red Lantern” (大红灯笼高高挂). Soldier Liu's sister remained in the village after her brother and parents moved to Beijing to set up their noodle restaurant in Meyer's neighborhood.

When Meyer met this woman, she informed him, “Everyone except the elderly have moved to the towns.” Soldier Liu's sister added, “In fact, this has always been a prosperous village … things have never been that bad here. It's just that people know they can make more money in the city.”

The same holds true even in provinces like Hunan, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, all of which are blessed with good soil, abundant water, and a year around growing season. These places have also seen massive migration (移居) from rural to urban areas. The Chinese call these migrant workers 农民工. Those from relatively prosperous rural areas can still earn much greater incomes doing factory (工厂) assembly line or construction work than they can from farming.

Over the past 1-2 decades the 农民工 has sent vast sums back to their villages. These remittances have made it possible for them build better houses in their hometowns. The money has also enabled the 农民工 to send their sons and daughters to high school—in China free universal education extends only through middle-school. After that, families must pay tuition. While it's not a lot of money, it can be a major burden for poor families. These children can now at least contemplate going on to a college or university. Finally, the extra cash has been used to buy small luxuries, such as motor scooters.

Last Sunday, March 8th, I took a stroll down one of favorite nearby places, the wide 国子监 alley by the Confucian Temple. I did a post a while back on coffee culture coming to this place and will be shortly doing a follow up story on it. The 农民工in the photo below are construction workers. Interestingly enough, they were doing a project which involved restoring old Siheyuan housing rather than replacing it with new high rises (I'll have more to say about that soon as well).

I asked one of the younger fellows about his old home town (老家). He mentioned a place in surrounding Hebei Province and added that his parents were farmers. In Hebei Province, as well as in neighboring Shanxi and Shaanxi Provinces, farmers are literally running out of water for their crops. Indeed, this whole area of China, including Beijing, is facing a looming ecological disaster brought on by severe water shortages.

I shot this 农民工 photo in West Beijing, just east of the Muxidi Subway station while on my way to the city's incredible Capital Museum (首都博物馆). My colleague Mike Watts mischievously suggested that the photo's caption should read, “A Hard Day at the Office”.

And in fact, these people do lead incredibly hard lives. To start with, those who are married often leave their spouses and children behind when they move to the cities. It's not just men who do this, but women as well. Many females do assembly line work in textile and electronics factories, while in Beijing, large numbers of women from poor Anhui Province work as maids. Indeed, when I lived at Erwai, I had a maid who happened to be from that province. We often chatted a bit in Chinese—she naturally spoke no English—and this lady informed me once that her son and husband were back in Anhui.

To be sure, lots of villages share Changyucheng's lack of very young people. However, there are many others where the children have stayed behind in their villages after one or both of their parents have moved to the cities to work. I vaguely recall hearing on a Chinese TV newscast one night several years ago that 25 percent of China's children are being raised by a single parent or their grandparents.

This happens mainly because of China's system of residence permits (户口). In order to get a Beijing residence permit, one pretty much has to be born in the city. Either that, or you need to have studied at one of the capital's many universities and then and worked here for some length of time. The same goes Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and other cities that are highly sought after as places to live.

While the 农民工 and other individuals can move to and live in Beijing without a residence permit, not having this document makes them second class citizens. To start with, they’re deprived a certain welfare benefits and other services. More importantly, they have to pay tuition if their children attend elementary and middle schools in the city.

The cities are reluctant to let anyone and everyone get a residence permit. In particular, they fear that granting migrant workers residence status will place a severe strain on social services, especially education. And this fear is somewhat justified. For example, in her excellent recent book, THE CHINA PRICE, Alexandra Harney notes that one Chinese city actually did suspend tuition for the children of non-residence permit holding families. This experiment was quickly ended after the crunch on school finances became too great.

On top of that, the 农民工 face considerable prejudice (偏见) from city-dwellers. Most urban Chinese regard these people as uncouth and uncultured country bumpkins (乡巴佬). I must say that I sometimes get exasperated with these people. This typically happens on a crowded bus or subway car. The 农民工 often plop their trademark big plastic zipped collapsing bags—these function as both a suitcase and duffle bag—in the middle of the aisle or near the doorway of crowded buses or subway cars. This cheap luggage and shabby attire makes it easy to spot the 农民工; Mike Watts calls them the “village people”.

And now the 农民工 are bearing the brunt of the Middle Kingdom's current economic downturn. Even during China's boom times, they were often seen as expendable and faced very bad working conditions. Now it has been estimated that some 20 million of 农民工 have lost their jobs due to the mass closure of factories producing export goods.

All of the news reports I have read make it clear that very few of these people are happy about the prospect of becoming farmers once again. A 农民工 quoted in one story bluntly stated, “I hate working in the fields!” And who could blame him for feeling that way?!

Over the past few decades, China has certainly undergone rapid and massive urbanization, the likes of which the world has rarely seen. Nevertheless, over half of the country's population still lives in rural areas. That's still clearly far too many people. China could grow as much food as it does now and grow it more efficiently with a far smaller number of farmers.

With the downturn in the coastal export-oriented manufacturing sector, it seems like the old model of using urban factory work to absorb the surplus rural population is no longer viable. However, every crisis present opportunities and this one is no exception. Another way of dealing with the problem of too many farmers, which would also be far less socially disruptive, would be to allow for greater rural entrepreneurship in the form of small-scale factories, workshops, and other businesses.

As Huang Yasheng, who teaches at MIT's Sloan School has argued in his recent and brilliant study, CAPITALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS (the title can be translated as 有中国特色资本主义), this was actually done during the 1980s in the early stages of the opening up and reform process. So-called Town and Village Enterprises flourished in China's poorest provinces, like Guizhou, Yunnan, and Gansu.

These privately owned business lifted large numbers of people out of rural poverty. They also played a major in making wealth and incomes more equal during the 1980s. In the 1990s, by contrast, when the focus shifted to urban areas, income inequality quickly rose, turning China into one of the world's least egalitarian countries.

The country's current leadership has recognized these problems and sought to address them in the so-called “New Socialist Countryside” (社会主义新农村) policy. And the next steps it takes in this direction will determine the future trajectory of China for many decades to come.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

长峪城 (chang2yu3cheng2).
工作机会 (gong1zuo4ji1hui4). As noted in a very recent blog post, 工作 is both the verb and noun “work”. Thus 机会 is opportunity.
胡同 (hu2tong2).
四合院 (si4he2yuan2).
京剧 (jing1ju4).
刘士兵 (liu2shi4bing1). The first character is the Chinese proper name “Liu,” while the other two is the word for common soldier. In China, one’s title, as well as the “Mr./Mrs.”, comes after one’s proper name. Hence the department in my company is called 杨经理 (Yang2jing1li3); the last two characters mean “manager.” And my Erwai students called me 高老师 (Gao1lao3shi1), or “Teacher Gao”. Gao was the first character in my Chinese name, 高德伟, or gao1de2wei3; my first and only Chinese teacher from my Henan days gave me this name and it means “great in moral stature.” I now have to do my best to live up to it!!
大红灯龙高高挂 (da4hong2deng1long2gao1gao1gua4). The first four characters means big red lantern—the character for “dragon”, 龙, is thrown in with that noun—while 高高 means “very high”. Mandarin speakers will often repeat and adjective for emphasis. Finally, 挂 is the verb to raise or hang.
移居 (yi2ju1). According to my Chinese friend, 路红艳 (lu4hong2yan4), 移居 is more appropriate to use than the Chinese word for “emigrate” (移民; yi2min2, or literally “move people”) here. That's because people who 移民 plan to or have the ability to settle permanently in the places they move to. As noted later on this post, this isn’t the case for the 农民工.
农民工 (nong2min2gong1). 农民 is the word for “farmer,” while 工 is a shortened form of the Chinese word for worker, 工人 (gong1ren2).
国子监 (guo2zi5jian1).
老家 (lao3jia1). 老 means “old”, while 家 is a shortened form of the word for hometown, 家乡 (jia1xiang1).
首都博物馆 (shou3du1bo2wu4guan3). The first two characters form the Mandarin word for capital, while the last three are the word for museum.
户口 (hu4kou3).
偏见 (pian1jian4).
乡吧佬 (xiang1ba5lao3). There are two other words for this expression. One used by Beijing inhabitants is 土佬冒 (tu3lao3mao4). The first two characters literally mean “old soil/earth.” You can also say 乡下佬. But whatever term you use, all of them are fairly insulting. Again, many thanks to 路红艳 for helping me out here.
有中国特色资本主义 (you3zhong1guo2te4se4zi1zhu3yi4). Really informed and perceptive readers will note that the title of Huang's book is a clever play on the Chinese phrase “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (有中国特色社会主义). In both these phrases, the first character is the verb “to have”, while the second and third characters stand for “China” (literally “Middle Kingdom”). 特色 means “special feature”—you could say 堵车 (du3che1; traffic jam[s]) are now a special feature of Beijing (是北京的特色). 资本 is the Chinese word for capital, while 主义 means doctrine. So put together, they mean “capitalism.” And when combined with 主义, 社会, which means “society”, becomes “socialism.”
社会主义新农村 (she4hui4zhu3yi4xin1nong2cun1). Here as in so many other cases, Chinese word order is the opposite of English word order. Literally translated, the phrase means “Socialism” (社会主义) “new” (新) “countryside/villages” (农村).

A Trip to Changyucheng (长峪城) Village, Exteriors: A bit of Color

2009-03-05T17:28:00.001-08:00

One could get the impression from the photos in the previous two blog posts that Changyucheng village is a very drab and colorless place. However, not everything was tawny and beige/light brownish colored. A few of the houses, including the one we dined in for lunch, were painted in bright colors (see the photo above).

Meanwhile, the doorway and panel in the photos below also enlivened things up a bit.

Since this is a very short post focusing on photos, there is no Chinese translation!

A Trip to Changyucheng (长峪城) Village, Exteriors: Bundles of Wood, Grist Mills, Mules, and Mountains

2009-03-03T18:33:00.000-08:00

This summer people all over the world could see on their television sets how Beijing has changed and modernized at lightening fast speed in recent years. And the same can certainly be said for most of China’s other major cities.

In Changyucheng village, however, signs of this kind of change were few a far between. The only examples were the satellite dish located near the village's administrative office, some solar powered lights, and a few pieces of brand new outdoor exercise equipment.

This equipment was located at the spot where our bus parked and dropped us off. The village thus had a small outdoor exercise area, which was more than a little ironic, seeing as a) most of the people living here are rather old (more on that in a later post) and b) get plenty of exercise doing normal farm chores. In fact, they are certainly way more physically active than your average Chinese Yuppie (小资) living in Beijing.

Our guide, Hong Gao, told us that the solar powered lights and exercise equipment had been recently installed by the Beijing Government—this place is part of the self-governing Beijing municipality. Thanks to its history, the Beijing Government views Changyucheng Village as a tourist attraction and has tried to spruce the place up a bit.

However, save for the minor modern touches, I'm pretty certain that the village looks very much like it looked in the 1950s and 1960s. So coming here was very a lot like going back in time. For example, one thing that was much more conspicuous than the lights or exercise equipment was all the big bundles of wood beside the houses and stacked against and on top of the stone fences (see the photo at the top of the blog post). When I asked our guide, Hong Gao, about this, he replied that the wood was used for heating.

None of the houses, it turns out, have any kind of normal heating, not even coal stoves. But all of them do have old-fashioned brick beds (火炕). The wood is burned in these beds to keep people warm and cozy at night. Since the village is located in the mountains, winters here are even colder than in Beijing. And gets mighty cold during the winter down in Beijing!!

Despite being nestled in the mountains, Changyucheng is a farming village. People here grow wheat (小麦) and corn (玉米). An old-fashioned stone grist mill (磨粉机 or 磨粉面) is used to grind the corn and wheat. I saw two of these grist mills during our stroll through the village and one of them is in the photo below.

Indeed, modern farm equipment (农业机械) was conspicuous in its absence. I didn't see a single tractor (农用拖拉机), not even an old beat up one, during our visit here. Of course, the plots farmed in the village are quite small, so farm machinery wouldn't be of much in this place. I did see plenty of donkeys (驴) and/or mules (骡子). Readers can tell from the grist mill photo that the mill's heavy grindstone (轮形磨石) is pulled by these donkeys or mules.

For some reason, I didn't do any close up photos of them and can't really tell the difference between the two animals. So readers will have to settle for the photo below. It was shot from a very low ridge overlooking some of the houses and the courtyard where two of the animals were standing about.

The old-fashioned grist mills and farm animals brought back one of my most vivid memories of Henan Province—I spent my first year in China there. Henan is the most densely populated province in the Middle Kingdom and has largely been bypassed by the country's recent economic boom. The main reason for this is that too many of its people farm very small plots of land. One day, when riding the bus from Zhengzhou back to my then hometown, nearby Xinzheng City, I noticed some farmers separating wheat from the chaff by hand.

The last two photos in this blog post will provide readers with a first better impression of Changyucheng Village's physical environment. One photo is looking east, while the other is looking west. Both were taken from more or less than same place. It's obvious that there are not a lot of houses extending either direction. The photos thus make it clear that Changyucheng Village's valley isn't much of a valley.

Thus the amount of land for growing wheat, corn, and vegetables (青菜) is quite small. While some almond (杏树 xing4shu4) and fruit trees (果树) grow on the lower mountain slopes, there really isn't much in the way of a crop surplus to be sold on the market. I'll have more to say about that and how it's affected the village and our visit to it very shortly. Stay tuned!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

长峪城 (chang2yu3cheng2).
小资 (xiao3zi1). The first character is one Chinese word for “small”, while the second character appears in the word for wages/income (工资; the second character is gong1). Hence it also means “petty bourgeoisie”. However, in the new China, it has increasingly been used to refer to young urban people who hang out at coffee bars and yearn for a hip, sophisticated, and affluent lifestyle—in other words, “yuppies” (at least this is what one Chinesepod.com listening lesson claimed). Who says that socio-economic change and changes in language are unrelated?!!
火炕 (huo3kang4).
小麦 (xiao3mai4).
玉米 (yu4mi3).
磨粉机 (mo2fen3ji1) 磨面机 (the middle character is mian4). 磨 is a shortened form of the word for grindstone (see below), while 粉 can be translated as powder—it also appears in the Chinese word for chalk (粉笔; fen3bi3)—and 机 is a character that appears in most words describing instruments or machines. One example is the word for mobile phone, or 手机, which literally means hand-held (shou3) machine/device.
农业机械 (nong2ye4ji1xie4). The first two characters mean “agricultural”, while the latter two mean “equipment.”
农用拖拉机 (nong2yong4tuo1la1ji1). This literally means tractor (拖拉机) used (用) in farming (农).
驴 (lü2).
骡子 (luo2zi5). Both this and the above character contain a character within the character, i.e. the one for “horse” (马; ma3), which provides a clue about its meaning.
轮形磨石 (lun2xing2mo2shi2). The first two characters mean “round shape”, while the last two mean “grinding stone” (石 is the Chinese word for stone/rock). For those who are curious, Mandarin does have an equivalent to the English idiom “nose to the grindstone.” It's 埋头苦干 (mai2tou2ku3gan4). This literally means to be “immersed in difficult work.” The first two characters alone mean “up to one's ears”, “Up to one’s ears in work” is 正埋头工作 (zheng4mai2tou2 gong1 zuo4). The first character means “in the middle of,” while the last two mean “work” (both the noun and the verb).

青菜 (qing1cai4).
杏树 (xing4shu4).
果树 (guo3shu4).

I would like to thank my wonderful friend 路红艳 (lu4hong2yan4) for helping me translate some of the less common words, especially “grist mill.”

A Trip to Changyucheng (长峪城) village: The Place and its History

2009-03-01T22:28:00.000-08:00

In addition to going to two temple fairs during this last Spring Festival, I did a short day trip outside of Beijing. I went with a group of 16 other people to 长峪城 village. This name literally means “Long Valley Castle.”

The photo at the top of this post shows why this place is called “Long Valley Castle” village. No, that wall isn't part of the Great Wall of China (长城). It is a remnant of the old Ming Dynasty castle (城堡) that was built here before the village.

As one call tell from the way the wall snakes up the hill, this castle occupied a much larger area than its run of the mill Medieval European counterpart (everything here, from the population to the monuments, is oversized!). The castle was used to shelter the garrison manning the nearby section of the Great Wall. If the sentries stationed on the Great Wall spotted invaders, the main body of troops would be rushed there to man the defenses.

The village is located in the mountains northwest of Beijing and is about 100 kilometers from the capital. The city of Changping (昌平), which is home to the famous Ming Tombs (明坟墓), is just beyond the first mountain pass (山口) beyond the village. This mountain pass was the place where the ancient “Silk Road” (丝绸之路) trade route met the Great Wall and passed through it on to Beijing.

This trip was organized by a Chinese travel agency whose name is “90 percent travel.” Like yours truly, the young Chinese fellow in charge of this activity, Hong Gao, studied at the University of Southern California (USC), and I found out about this excursion through the Beijing USC alumni chapter.

The other 16 people making this trip were also all laowai, save for a young Chinese lady from Hong Kong; she works in the Hong Kong Government's Beijing office. The other laowai included a few fellow Yanks, as well as people from Britain, the Philippines, Nigeria, Sweden, and Australia.

The trip cost 250 RMB ($36-37). It included transportation to and from 长峪成, lunch, which included dumplings and local food, a guided walking tour around the village, and a performance by the local people of the village's unique brand of Chinese opera.

I'll have more to say about all this in the next few blog posts. There will also be lots more photos of this place and its people. Stay tuned!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

长峪城 (chang2yu3cheng2). As noted in the text, this name literally means “long” (长) “valley” (峪) “castle” (城). The latter character is a shortened form of the word “castle”, which can also be said as 城堡 (the second character is a falling/rising tone “bao”). By itself, 城 commonly means “wall”, so the Great Wall of China is the 长城, or literally “long wall”—it is, of course, very, very long indeed! And the Chinese word for “city” combines 城 with the character 市 (shi4). Since the latter character means “market”, the character combination for city literally means “walled market.”
明坟墓 (ming2fen2mu4). Readers who looked at the previous blog post will know that 明 means “bright”, so the Ming Dynasty (明朝), was literally the “bright” or “brilliant” dynasty (the character 明 appears in the Mandarin word for “clever”, 聪明 [cong1ming2]). The last two characters in 明坟墓 mean “tomb.”
山口 (shan1kou3). The first character is the Chinese word for “mountain”. As one can see, it looks like a mountain. The second character by itself means “mouth” or “opening.” Since a mountain pass is an opening between two mountains, 口 is combined with 山 to form the Chinese word for “mountain pass.”
丝绸之路 (si1chou2zhi1lu4). 丝 means silk and looks a bit like two strands of thread, while 路 is the basic Mandarin term for “road” or “route.”

My first Chinese Temple Fair: Last year's visit to the Chang Dian (厂甸) Temple Fair

2009-02-22T21:16:00.001-08:00

While I went to the Ditan Park Temple Fair last year, my first temple fair in 2008—and during my stay in China for that matter—was the one at Chang Dian. This temple fair is held on a small stretch of the Nanxinhua Jie (南新华街). This street is located south of the Nr. 2 subway line's Hepingmen (和平门) subway station. The part of the road closed off to traffic for the temple fair ran south from the subway station to the Luo Ma Dajie (骡马大街).

I went to the Chang Dian Temple with a Chinese friend. This person is a young lady named Li Na (李娜) who graduated last year from the Beijing Forestry University, where she studied human resource management. I got to know Li Na because she worked as an intern (实习生) in our company's HR (人力资源) department. This extremely bright and attractive young lady is now working for a rival company, the French integrated oil well and borehole services provider giant, Schlumberger.

Like the Ditan Park Temple Fair, the one at Chang Dian typically very, very crowded. The photo above shows the “people mountain, people sea” (人山人海) milling about on the Nanxinhua Jie. That shot was taken from an outside stairwell leading up to a Teahouse (茶馆) on the second floor of a building on the west side of the Nanxinhua Jie.

This particular point on the Nanxinhua Jie has two alleys running off it to its east and west. The first alley is home to lots of art galleries (画廊) and art bookstores (美术书店). You can see this alley in the middle of the photo at the top of this blog post. Li Na and I visited a couple of these galleries later on that afternoon. I found that the art and other items they had for sale were way out of my price range. Even the cheapest teacups (茶杯) and small, Chinese style handheld fans (折扇) cost 30 RMB ($4.40 at the current exchange rate). This stuff is a lot cheaper at most normal stores and shops.

The paintings and sculptures were even more exorbitantly priced. A small jade (玉) sculpture (雕) of a miniature lion (狮子) cost 50,000 RMB ($7,300). Most of the paintings Li Na and I saw were what the Chinese call “国画”. This art depicts traditional Chinese landscapes, namely misty mountains, trees, rivers and lakes. The average asking price for these paintings was 360,000 RMB ($52,600).

And of course no Chinese art gallery would be complete without some calligraphy (书法). I remember that the price for one piece of calligraphy that had just four characters (汉字) was 120,000 RMB ($17,500). As the Chinese would say, “这么贵!” or “so expensive!”

The other alley running off to the west mainly had teashops (茶店) and teahouses. Li Na and I walked into a couple of these teashops. In one of them, a Latvian (拉脱维亚人) fellow was trying to communicate with the shopkeeper, or “Laoban”, with hand gestures, as he couldn't speak any Mandarin (普通话). This man also couldn't speak any English, but like most people from the Baltic states he could speak German (德语). So I stepped in and put my rusty German to use and translated (翻译) from German to Mandarin and back. After we were done, the Laoban complimented me on my Chinese, saying it was “挺好”, or “pretty good.”

I bought some “pu'er” tea (普洱茶) at the other tea shop we visited while strolling down the alley. This type of tea is grown in southwestern China, mainly in Yunnan (云南) province. It's a very dark tea and is sold in chunks. I've tried many kinds of tea since coming here and think that pu'er is hands-down the Middle-Kingdom's best drinking (最好喝) tea. It has a really nice woodsy (木头) flavor (味道). I've also heard that drinking it is very good for your health.

Unfortunately, pu'er tea is rather expensive. I bought a not too small chunk for 20 RMB after Li Na informed me that this price wasn't too steep. Due to its good flavor and health benefits, more and more Chinese people are drinking pu'er tea. This consumer trend has made the folks who sell it quite rich.

One of my former Erwai teacher colleagues, tall and thin fellow from Seattle named Scott Searer who sold tea there before coming to China, knows one China's biggest pu'er merchants. Scott calls this fellow the “pu'er king” and informed me once that this merchant has a very rare antique Ming Dynasty (明朝) table (桌子) in his apartment. This table alone would fetch more money if it was sold than would the “pu'er” king's expensive luxury apartment. He could certainly afford to purchase that 国画 and 书法 sold in Chang Dian's art galleries.

The photo above was shot in the teahouse and teashop alley. While there were plenty of people strolling about there, it wasn't nearly as crowded as the Nanxinhuan Jie. I could actually walk up the street food vendors and buy some food. It was past noon by the time we started walking back down the alley and I was really hungry. So Li Na and I stopped and I bought a 煎饼果子, which is a thin pancake wrapped around a vegetable and egg filling. They're pretty tasty snacks and the photo below shows them being made.

Other kinds of food for sale included not only the usual grilled lamb kabobs, but a Xinjian Province specialty, 新疆糟糕, which is nuts and dried fruit, mainly raisins and apricots, held together by jujube paste. The vendors selling this snack did not have their own stands. They instead threaded their way through the 人山人海 and hawked their big slabs of 新疆糟糕—this stuff comes in slabs and the vendors cut off pieces of it for their customers—from pushcarts. They were thus 手推车卖盒饭人.

Like other temple fairs, lots of stuff was for sale at the Chang Dian Temple Fair. The stand in the photo below was selling Beijing Opera Masks (京剧面具). And people looking for a different and special kind of pet could buy live grasshoppers (蚱蜢) in a bottle.

By around 3:00 or 3:30 in the afternoon, Li Na and I had seen all we wanted to see at the Chang Dian Temple Fair. Rather than going right to the Hepingmen Subway station, we decided to stroll over to Tian’anmen (天安门) square. We first walked north up the Beixinhua Jie and then headed east along the Western Changan Jie (西长安街). While walking along the latter street, we passed by the outer wall of China's equivalent to the US White House, the so-called Zhongnanhai (中南海). This closely guarded compound is where the Middle Kingdom's top leaders have their villas and offices. It gets its name from being located around the small lake that lies just south of Beihai Park (南海 means south lake).

After we got to Tian'anmen Square, I asked Li Na to pose for a photo. She really has a lovely face and this shot got the skin tones just right!

That structure in the background of this photo is Tian'anmen Square's Monument to People's Heroes (人民英雄纪念碑). This particular monument was designed by the brilliant Chinese architect, Liang Sicheng (梁思成). Liang was China's first western trained architect, and he studied at the University of Pennsylvania during the 1920s. He remained in China after 1949 and was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution (文化大革命). Like many other people who suffered during this dark episode in China's history, Liang was subsequently rehabilitated (he died toward the end of the Cultural Revolution).

It was certainly good to go to Chang Dian not only to experience my first Temple Fair since arriving in China, but also to see the area, particularly its art galleries and teahouse and teashops. I look forward to making future visits to this place.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

厂甸 (chang3dian3).
李娜 (li3na4).
实习生 (shi2xi2sheng1).
人力资源 (ren2li4zi1yuan2). The first two characters literally mean “human/person power,” while the latter two are the Mandarin word for “resources.”
人山人海 (ren2shan1ren2hai3).
茶馆 (cha2guan3).
画廊 (hua4lang2). The first character is the Mandarin word for “painting” and looks somewhat like a framed picture.
美术书店 (mei3shu4shu1dian4). The first two characters literally mean the “beautiful arts,” while the latter two mean “bookstore”. 书 is the Chinese word for book.
茶杯 (cha2bei1).
折扇 (zhe3shan4).
玉 (yu4).
雕 (diao1).
狮子 (shi1zi5).
国画 (guo2hua4). The first character means “nation/country” or “national.”
书法 (shu1fa3).
汉字 (han4zi4).
这么贵 (zhe4me5gui4). The last character is the word for “expensive.” If you’re haggling with shopkeepers (老板, lao3ban3), this is a very handy phrase!
茶店 (cha2dian4).
拉脱维业人 (la1tuo1wei2ye4ren2). The last character, which resembles a crude stick drawing of a human being, is the Chinese word for person. It's a classic illustration of what might be called a “picture” character.
普通话 (pu3tong1hua4). These characters should be literally translated as “common” or “universal” language/speech.
德语 (de2yu3).
翻译 (fan1yi4).
挺好 (ting3hao3).
普洱茶 (pu3er3cha2).
明朝 (ming2chao2). The first character means “bright” and is also the given name of China's most famous basketball star, the Houston Rockets center, 姚明 (Yao2 Ming2).
桌子 (zhuo1zi5).
煎饼果子 (jian1bing1guo3zi5).
新疆糟糕 (xin1jiang1zao3gao1). The first two characters form the name of Xinjiang province.
手推车卖盒饭人 (shou3tui1che1mai4hefan4ren2). The first three characters are “pushcart,” the fourth one is the Chinese word for “sell”. When 卖 is combined with the next two characters and the character for person, they together mean “food vendor.”
京剧面具 (jing1ju4mian4ju4). According to a Chinese friend, a more frequently way of saying Bejing Opera Masks, at least in oral speech, is 脸谱 (lian3pu3).
蚱蜢 (zha4meng2).
天安门 (tian1an1men2).
西长安街 (xi1chang2an1jie1). The middle two characters mean “eternal peace.”
中海南 (zhong1hai3nan2). This compound surrounds a pair of lakes just south of Beihai Park.
人民英雄纪念碑 (ren2min2ying2xiong2ji4nian2bei1). Monument to people's heroes.
文化大革命 (wen2hua4da4ge2ming4). 文化 means “culture/cultural,” 大 means big or great, and 革命 is the Mandarin word for revolution. Mandarin word order takes some getting used to!!

Another Spring Festival, Another Ditan Park (地坛公园) Temple Fair (庙会), VI: People (人民)

2009-02-18T21:05:00.000-08:00

Alone among the four parks arranged around Beijing's four cardinal points, Ditan Park remains a functioning temple and place of worship for Daoist believers. While there are still a fair number of Daoists (道教徒) in China, Daoism (道教) has been largely eclipsed by Buddhism (佛教), Christianity (基督教), and Islam (伊斯兰教). However, unlike these other faiths, which were imported from outside of China, Daoism is the Middle Kingdom's only major home-grown religion.

During the Temple Fair, Ditan Park's sacrificial alter (祭坛) is open only to Daoist worshipers. The photo above shows these people engaged in worship (崇拜). They lighted incense sticks, bowed down to worship (鞠躬) and paid respects to the gods and their dead ancestors (祭祀).

However, well over 90 percent of the visitors to the Temple Fair go there to have fun, not to worship. That said, the folks I photographed below—they are definitely what the Chinese would call 老百姓, or “ordinary people”—seemed rather glum. I photographed them because they were holding those fake flowers (假花) and wheat sheaves (假麦秆) mentioned in that very recent post about things for sale at the Ditan Park Temple Fair. According to my good and very clever Chinese friend, 路红艳, the wheat sheaves are carried home because they symbolize a good harvest (丰收) and wealth (财富).

Finally, at both this year and last year's Temple Fairs, one could spot some odd local life here and there. A few of the younger teenage and twenty-something visitors put on garishly colored and spiked hairdo (爆炸式头发) style wigs.

Like many Chinese people who agree to be photographed by laowai, the fellow in photo below did the V for victory sign. If the photo were larger, you could easily tell that he was wearing a rug over his real hair—readers will just have to take my word for it here. In any case, he surely put on the spiked hair just for fun and as a joke; it certainly wasn't done to convey feelings of anger and alienation.

This is not to say that the “punk” (朋克) look and scene is entirely absent in China. One day, while riding the 107 bus back home from Hou Hai (后海), I spotted five or so “punks” standing on the Goulou Dajie (鼓楼大街). These people were the real deal—they had Mohawk (莫霍克) hairdos and wore black leather trousers (黑色的裤子) and jackets (黑色的夹克). This clothing had the trademark white metal studs.

I vaguely recall that these punks were all fellows. They certainly looked a bit fierce and scary (凶狠) and one clearly wouldn't want to have his/her daughter dating any one of them. Being in a crowded and moving bus, I didn't have the chance to take a photo, and I suspect that doing so would not have been a good idea anyway.

The numbers of young Chinese who are angry and alienated is certainly growing at the moment. People looking for a good literary depiction of such youth here in the capital should read Chun Sue’s recent novel, BEIJING DOLL, which has been translated from Mandarin by the estimable Howard Goldblatt (he has also translated the work of Su Tong and Mo Yan, who were mentioned in an earlier, very recent post). And the city has a thriving underground hard rock scene.

That said, fortunately the whole punk skinhead culture has yet to catch on here the way it has in parts of Europe and North America. China remains a rather socially conservative place, too conservative to tolerate that kind of thing. However, the Middle Kingdom is undergoing rapid social change and while most of these changes are for the better, some of them are not.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

地坛公园 (di4tan2gong1yuan2).
庙会 (miao3hui4).
人民 (ren2min2).
道教徒 (dao4jiao4tu2).
道教 (dao4jiao4).
佛教徒 (fo2jiao4).
基督教 (ji1du1jiao4).
伊斯兰教 (yi1si1lan2jiao4).
祭坛 (ji4tan2).
崇拜 (chong2bai4).
鞠躬 (ju1gong3).
祭祀 (ji4si4).
老百姓 (lao3bai3xing4). As stated in an earlier post, this literally means “old one hundred names.” Since there are only about 100 commonly used family names in China, this term came to denote ordinary people.
假花 (jia3hua1). The first character means fake, the second means flower.
假麦秆 (jia3mai4gan3). Again, the first character stands for fake, the second two for sheaf of wheat.
路红艳 (lu4hong2yan4).
丰收 (feng1shou1).
财富 (cai2fu4).
爆炸式头发 (bao4zha2shi4tou2fa1). This literally means “exploding” (爆炸) style (式) hair (头发).
朋克 (peng2ke4).
后海 (hou4hai3). For those not familiar with Beijing, this area is the capital's new bar district and entertainment zone. It's centered around the two long and narrow lakes located north of Beihai Park.
鼓楼大街 (gu3lou2da4). 鼓楼 is the Mandarin word for Bell Tower, which lies at the end of the 鼓楼大街, or street. In ancient Beijing, the Bell and Drum Towers were the tallest structures in the city.
莫霍克 (mo4huo4ke4).
黑色的裤子 (hei1se4de5pi2ku4zi5).
黑色的皮夹克 (hei1se4de5pi2jia1ke4).
凶狠 (xiong3hen3).

Another Spring Festival, Another Ditan Park (地坛公园) Temple Fair (庙会), V: Entertainment! (文娱活动)

2009-02-16T22:03:00.000-08:00

One big reason why Temple Fairs are a popular family outing here in Beijing is that they feature lots of entertainment and fun activities. The fun activities include being carried about in a traditional, red-colored sedan (轿子). While carrying sedan around a small circle, the carriers (轿夫) will rock it back and forth once or twice.

The rocking brought back to my mind that memorable opening scene in Zhang Yi Mou's (张艺谋) early classic film “Red Sorghum” (红高粱). Fellow Zhang Yi Mou film aficionados will remember that the movie opens with the lovely Gong Li (巩俐) being taken to marry the local winemaker. She does not love this man, who is old and a leper to boot, but her father has been promised a mule if his daughter marries the winemaker.

On the way over to the groom's house, the sedan bearers rock the sedan and sing raucous songs. When they get to the sorghum field—the local wine is made from sorghum—the area's most notorious bandit holds up the party and abducts the bride from the sedan. She is then rescued by one of the sedan bearers, only to then be raped (被强奸了) by him.

This fellow, incidentally, is the narrator's grandfather both in the film and the Mo Yan (莫言) novel. The film just draws upon a few incidents and parts of Yan’s novel, which is a big, complicated and sprawling work of fiction. The novel's narrative style is also quite a bit like the “magical realist” fiction done by Latin American writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabelle Allende (at least in her first novel, THE HOUSE OF SPIRITS), Jose Donoso, and the like.

Well, time to get off that tangent and back to the Ditan Park Temple Fair. At last year's Ditan Park Temple Fair, I saw young kids having loads of fun on an ice slide (冰滑梯). As the photo below shows, there was an ice carving (冰雕) of the five circle Olympic logo (奥运五环标志). However, this particular ride was missing in the 2009 Ditan Park Temple Fair.

There were also plenty of games (游戏), particularly around the fenced area below the worship alter (more on that in the next post). Lots of stuffed animals (布娃娃) were hanging down from top of these game stands. I would be willing to bet a month's salary that these stuffed animals were prizes (奖品) for winning contestants. These animals, I might add, included teddy bears (玩具熊).

In addition to all the games, this part of Ditan Park had a number of outdoor stages (户外舞台). Visitors to the Temple Fair could watch performers (演员) sing (唱歌) (at both the 2008 and 2009 Temple Fairs), juggle (玩抛杂耍) (2009 Temple Fair), toss tall wooden poles (扔木柱) to each other, and dance (跳舞). Speaking of the latter, the 2008 Temple Fair featured scantily clad (穿的衣服很少) Xinjiang (新疆) female dancers (女舞蹈演员). However, I didn't see such ladies dancing at this year’s Temple Fair; perhaps they performed (表演) another day.

The performance in the photo below was a two person act. A young woman sang folk songs, while a Mao (毛泽东) look alike walked about the stage and smiled and waved to the crowd. I suspect, my readers will have a hard time recognizing this fellow in the photo below. It is times like these that make me really regret not having a telephoto lens for my camera.

And last but certainly not least, both this year and last year's Ditan Park Temple Fair featured an entirely different kind of entertainment. Needless to say, I didn't go in, as it seemed like a complete rip-off. But the posters (海报) provided me with some rather interesting and good photo opportunities.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

地坛公园 (di4tan2gong1yuan2).
庙会 (miao3hui4).
文娱活动 (wen2yu2huo2dong4).
轿子 (jiao4zi5).
轿夫 (jiao4fu1).
红高粱 (hong2gao1liang5).
巩俐 (gong3li4).
被强奸 (bei4qiang2jian1). The first character is used in Chinese passive voice sentences, typically when something bad happens, as in “My bike was stolen” (我的自行车被偷了; wo3de5zi4xing2che1bei4tou1le5). 我的 is the word for my, 自行车 is the word for bike, while 被偷了 means stolen. This, of course, occurs routinely in Beijing.
冰滑梯 (bing1hua2ti1). 冰 means ice, while 滑梯 is the word for children's slide.
冰雕 (bing1diao1). The city of Ha'erbin (哈尔滨), which is way north of Beijing and has bitterly cold winters, holds a famous ice sculpture festival (冰雕节) every winter.
奥运五环标志 (ao4yun4wu3huan2biao1zhi4). 奥运 means “Olympic”, 五 is “five,” 环 is “ring”, and 标志 is the word for “symbol.”
游戏 (you2xi4).
布娃娃 (bu4wa2wa2). The first character has several meanings, two of which are “cloth” and “cotton.”
奖品 (jian3pin3).
玩具熊 (wan2ju4xiong2). Translated word for word, this means “toy (玩具) bear (熊)”.
户外舞台 (hu4wai4wu3tai2).
演员 (yan3yuan2).
唱歌 (chang4ge1).
玩抛杂耍 (wan2pao1za1shua3). According to a very good Chinese friend, since juggling isn't that popular in China, this English word is almost impossible to translate into Mandarin. 玩 means play, 抛 is one Chinese word for “throw,” while 杂耍 means “acrobatics.”
扔木柱 (reng1mu4zhu4). 扔 is one word for “throw” or “toss”, while 木柱 means pole.
穿的衣服很少 (chuan1de5yi1fu5hen3shao3). Translated word for word, this means “worn” (穿的) clothes (衣服) very few (很少)”. One problem with learning Chinese is getting used to a very different word order!
女舞蹈演员 (nü3wu3dao3yan3yuan2). 女 is the Mandarin word for “female.”
表演 (biao3yan3).
毛泽东 (mao2ze2dong1). The 泽 in the Great Helmsman's name can be either the noun “marsh” or the verbs “enrich” or “favor.” The last character means “east.” I think everyone can figure what Mao's parents had in mind when they choose this name for their son!
海报 (hao3bao4). For those readers who are curious, the Mandarin word for snake is 蛇 (she2) and a poisonous snake is a 毒蛇 (du2she2). These snakes were 缠绕 (chan2rao3)—wrapped around—these attractive and scantily clad women. I remember that one issue of China's closest thing to a Western style skin magazine, 男人装 (nan2ren2zhuang1), “For Him”, magazine did this kind of photo spread (I didn't buy it, a Chinese friend showed it to me!)

Another Spring Festival, Another Ditan Park (地坛公园) Temple Fair (庙会), IV: Things for sale (卖的东西)

2009-02-12T16:14:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in the first blog post about the Ditan Park Temple Fair, lots of stuff is for sale here. The items range from fairly nice arts and crafts, like the wood carvings in the photo above, to the downright cheap and kitschy (as in the photo below). Readers will remember that the fellow with horns in front of the stand (摊子) from the earlier post about the year of the cow.

In addition to the crafts and kitsch, Temple Fair goers can purchase flowers and stalks of wheat (or is that barley? Who knows?). However, these flowers were not real, but paper flowers, and the wheat or barley stalks were made out of plastic. How fitting for a country literally swimming in fake things (很假的东西), ranging from Rolex watches to pirated DVDs!

Another Spring Festival, Another Ditan Park (地坛公园) Temple Fair (庙会), III: Lanterns (红灯笼) and fans (折扇) galore

2009-02-09T22:50:00.000-08:00

As the photo from last year's Ditan Park Temple fair indicates, big lanterns, or 红灯笼, are strung up across the old trees over every path in the park. These lanterns are very much like the ones in Zhang Yi Mou's (张艺谋) classic film, “Raise the Red Lantern” (大红灯笼高高挂). They certainly lend a festival atmosphere (节日气氛) air to the Temple Fair. And this year's Ditan Park Temple Fair not only featured the Red Lanterns, but had lots of very large Chinese-style hand-held fans (折扇) as well.

Another Spring Festival, Another Ditan Park (地坛公园) Temple Fair (庙会), II: Year of the Ox (牛年)

2009-02-09T22:45:00.001-08:00

Since 2009 is the year of the ox in Chinese zodiac, a friendly blown up cow greeted masses as they entered Ditan Park for this year's Temple Fair. In keeping with the ox spirit, many people, such as the vendor in the photo below, wore little cow horns. And these are red-colored not to make them look like satanic horns, but because Chinese people believe that red (红) is an especially lucky color.

Another Spring Festival, Another Ditan Park (地坛公园) Temple Fair (庙会), I: 今年的庙会更是人山人海

2009-02-09T22:28:00.000-08:00

“Temple Fairs” are an important part of the Spring Festival celebrations in Beijing and most other places in China. With the exception of Shanghai—one of my Chinese friends who lives there informs me that Temple Fairs are not big in that city—lots of people here make going to these fairs a family outing during the Spring Festival. One could certainly call this behavior a 传统风俗, or custom handed down by tradition.

Temple Fairs offer something for every member of the family, adults and children alike. First, they typically have lots of different kinds of entertainment (文娱活动) and performances (表演) such as singing (唱歌), dancing (跳舞) (yes, the dancing includes “lion dancing” [狮子舞]), juggling, and the like. Families can also enjoy various games (游戏), amusements (游乐), and rides. And vendors set up lots of small stands (摊子) so people can purchase merchandise, especially arts and crafts. And last but certainly not least, there is always lots of street food for sale as well.

As the “Temple” part of “Temple Fair” implies, many temples, both Daoist and Buddhist, put on these fairs. For example, Beijing's oldest Daoist Temple, the White Cloud Temple (白云观), holds an annual Temple Fair during the Spring Festival. I visited this temple before the 2007 Spring Festival and while it's certainly very interesting and worth seeing, it's far from where I live and rather difficult to find. Since Ditan Park is very near Dongzhimen, I've opted over the past two years to go that particular Daoist Temple's Temple Fair. And in 2008 I attended another Temple Fair in Chang Dian (厂甸), which is located south of Tian'anmen Square.

I'll be talking about the Chang Dian Temple Fair in a future blog post. However, in this blog post and the next five which follow, I'll be doing what might be called a series of photographic essays on the Ditan Park Temple Fair.

The two photos above illustrate one defining feature of the Ditan Park Temple Fair: it is very, very, very crowded. Mandarin has lots of so-called chengyu(s) (成语), which are basically four character expressions that are similar to idioms in the English language. One great chengyu is 人山人海, which literally means “people mountain, people sea.” And as the two photos above make clear, the Ditan Park Temple Fair definitely has 人山人海.

The first photo, shot during this year's Temple Fair, shows the mountain and sea of people streaming into Ditan Park. I was in the middle of these hordes, shuffling slowly along. And yes, Chinese people normally tend to walk slowly—this can be very aggravating in subway stations, particularly if you're rushing to catch the next train—so a huge crowd will cause pedestrian movement to slow to a crawl. The other photo, shot from an Andingmen Road pedestrian overpass after I left last year's Ditan Park Temple Fair, shows the masses streaming out of the park's attractive west gate entrance.

So if you have any problem with being packed into a big crowd and being shoved and jostled about by other people, then going to a Temple Fair might not be your cup of tea. My good CNLC colleague Richard Janosy told me that an estimated 660,000 people attended the Ditan Park Temple Fair one day during last year's Spring Festival. To put that figure in perspective, the metropolitan area population of my Fresno, CA hometown is about 550,000 people. And these people are spread out over a 100+ square mile area, not compressed into a space the size of two or three medium sized city blocks.

That said, if you stay off the Ditan Park's main paths, you will have space to stand and walk about without bumping into other people. One such place is a building complex flanking Ditan's main sacrificial alter. As the photo below indicates, this place has a very nice moon-shaped gate.

Spring Festival at Nan Guan Park (南管公园):

2009-02-08T22:24:00.000-08:00

Nan Guan Park is one of the many reasons why I really like living in Dongzhimen and continue to put up with the high cost of housing there. This small park is located just west of the Russian Embassy (俄罗斯大使馆) and is a five minute walk from my apartment community.

A good part of Nan Guan Park is taken up by a shallow pool located in the middle of the park. The pool's bottom is lined with concrete. As the above photo shows, this pool is drained during the winter. That's too bad, as the water would be frozen solid from December through February and would make for a nice outdoor ice rink. The area off to the side of tree on the left part of the photo has some grass, old trees, and walking paths. There's also a large plaza and play area.

The plaza area has two large open spaces where people do ballroom dancing and hold aerobics classes both during the day and evening when the weather is warmer. As the photos below indicate, this part of the park also has lots of small concrete tables flanked by concrete pillars. Vine-covered concrete rafters vines span these pillars.

From mid-Spring through early Fall this part of the park is a very lively (很热闹) place indeed. But even in the middle of winter, during the day at least, you'll still find people out and about and enjoying themselves in the park. Most of them are older men: lots of retired (退休) people live in this neighborhood. The two chaps in the photo below are doing what many elderly Chinese men do in their spare time, namely playing “Go”, or Chinese encirclement chess (围棋).

Of course you can always find at least one group of people playing mahjong (麻将). The photos above and below were shot on second day of this year's Spring Festival (the one at the top of the post was taken last year).

During my stroll about the park that day, I did notice a game of cards, probably poker (扑克), being played at one of the tables. However, the light color of the table's concrete surface and bright sunlight made it impossible to take good photos of the cards being laid out. But I did get some decent shots of the fellow below, who was playing with special kind of yoyo. This yoyo went back and forth on the string connecting the two handles in this fellow's hands.

There were a few couples with small children strolling about the park. I noticed the little girl in the photo below while walking over to the park. Like me, this child and her parents were on their way to Nan Guan's southwest entrance. She looked really cute all bundled up in her pink wool cap (帽子) and scarf (围巾). I couldn't resist taking a shot this child and her parents were more than happy to let me photograph her. This little child struck and good pose and certainly appears to be a natural when it comes hamming it up! 非常非常可爱!

In a little a more than a month from now, the spring blooms will be out in Nan Guan Park. And with the better weather, a lot more of the locals will be enjoying this pleasant patch of greenery in central Beijing. I'll certainly be out there with my camera to record more of it.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

南管公园 (nan2guan3gong1yuan2). The last two characters form the Mandarin word for “public park,” while the first is the word for “south.”
俄罗斯大使馆 (e2luo2si1da4shi4guan3). The first three characters for the Mandarin word for “Russia,” while the other three mean “embassy.”
很热闹 (hen3re4nao4).
退休 (tui4xiu1).
围棋 (wei2qi2).
麻将 (ma2jiang1).
扑克 (pu1ke4).
帽子 (mao4zi5).
围巾 (wei2jin1). This character pairing is yet another example of how Mandarin is a very logical language. By itself “围” means to surround/encircle, while “巾” means “cloth.”
非常非常可爱 (fei1chang2fei1chang2ke3ai4). Really, really adorable/cute/lovable.

Spring Festival Gifts and New Year's Money:

2009-02-04T22:28:00.000-08:00

In addition to setting off lots of fireworks, eating plenty of dumplings (吃饺子), watching TV (看电视), and playing poker (扑克) and mahjong (麻将), Chinese people give each other gifts (礼物) during the Spring Festival. However, this gift giving differs from the kind of gift-giving that occurs back in the states around Christmas time.

The presents adults typically give to one another are depicted in the photo above. Yes, we're talking about fruit packaged in brightly colored boxes. This shot was taken in front of the small green-grocers shop near the Dongzhimen subway station that is a 10 minute walk south of my apartment community. I was on my way to the subway station when I noticed the boxes and decided to stop and take a picture of them.

While adults give each other fruit, children receive cash from their parents and older relatives. This money is called “New Year's cash” (压岁钱) or “lucky money.” I've read and been told that this practice dates back to an old Chinese folk legend. According to this legend, the money was used as a protective charm (护身符) to scare off a monster that tries to harm small children on the night before the Lunar New Year.

As time passed, this custom came to be seen as auspicious and lucky in other ways. In particular, the Chinese believed that people who give money will be very lucky (行大运) and more likely to become rich (发大财). Hence, the New Year's Cash is also called Lucky Money.

Chinese superstitions regarding numbers and colors are very much a part of Lucky Money gift giving tradition. Since red is seen as the most auspicious of all colors, the cash is given to the children in red envelopes. People also try very hard to ensure that the cash given is in crisp new bills. And the numbers on the bills also have to be in a rising sequence, so as to show that the recipient and giver's wealth and fortune will rise over time.

Finally, money is never given in denominations having the number four. Four (四) is a very inauspicious number because its pronunciation is quite similar to the Mandarin word for “death” (死). Both words are pronounced as “si”, which sounds kind of like an “s” sound, as in sing, followed by an “uh” sound. The only difference is that 四 is said in a falling tone, while 死 is said in a falling and rising tone.

Another interesting part of this custom is that children must give this money back to their parents if their mother gives birth to a new brother or sister within the New Year. The Chinese call this obligation 礼尚往来, which can be translated either as “courtesy demands reciprocity” or “what goes around, comes around.” Thanks to the one-child policy, this doesn't happen very much anymore.

Over the past few days, I asked a number of my Chinese friends what children here do with all their “lucky money”. As Chinese families become more affluent, the cash in those red envelopes often amounts to several thousand RMB. I wondered whether or not the children could freely spend these funds.

The answer everyone gave me to that question was “certainly not.” Rather than being spent, practically all of the “Lucky Money” is set aside and deposited in a real bank or secure piggy bank at home. The funds are then used to purchase school supplies and provide a fund for high school and, in many cases, university tuition (in China free universal education extends only through middle school [初中]; high schools [高中] charge tuition [学费]).

I really think the “Lucky Money” custom is something that should emulated in America during Christmas. I have to make a confession here: I've really come to loathe Christmas in my middle age. While I mainly resent all the contrived happiness that comes with season, I also find the whole gift-giving routine to be incredibly stressful. Since most American children, especially kids from affluent households who are often spoiled rotten as it is, already have everything, it's very difficult to buy them material things they will appreciate for any length of time.

By contrast, the Chinese “Lucky Money” custom teaches children some important lessons about life. Those who will be joined by a new sibling are taught the importance of reciprocity and how different generations should be obligated to help one another. And those who get to keep their money are taught at an early age the values of thrift and saving. In particular, they are told early on that it's better to defer immediate consumption and gratification in order to pay for things that will yield much bigger benefits over the long-term.

Indeed, if what my friends told me is anything to go on, China's young children do acquire something of a “saving mentality” early on. For example, when I asked them if Chinese kids resent not being able to quickly blow all their cash, they all told me that wasn't the case. Indeed, the children are typically quite happy to have this money set aside.

Thus Chinese people become militant savers at a very early age. I'll be talking more about this behavior and how it contrasts with Americans’ free-spending habits—well up to the latest recession that is—in a later blog post. Stay tuned!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

吃饺子 (jiao3zi5). The first character is the Mandarin word for “eat,” while the other two characters is the word for “dumpling.” There are three kinds of 饺子: 水饺 (shui3jiao3), or boiled dumplings; 蒸饺 (zheng1jiao3), or steamed dumplings; and 锅贴 (guo3tie1), or pan-fried dumplings. The first character in the last category actually means pot/pan, while the second means to stick, so Chinese name is actually very similar to the name commonly given to these dumplings by American English speakers, i.e. “pot-stickers.”
看电视 (kan4dian4shi4). The first character means “watch” or “read.” The Chinese word for television combines the character for “power/electric power” (电) with the word for “vision” (视). Very logical!
扑克 (pu1ke4).
麻将 (ma1jiang1).
礼物 (li3wu4).
压岁钱 (ya1sui4qian2).
护身符 (hu4shen1fu2).
行大运 (xing2da4yun4).
发大财 (fa1da4cai2).
礼尚往来 (li3shang4wang3lai2).
初中 (chu1zhong1).
高中 (gao1zhong1).
学费 (xue2fei4).

Chinese New Year's Debris

2009-02-01T22:33:00.000-08:00

The above photos were shot in my apartment community's inner courtyard. Yes, all these tiny bits of paper and red plastic wrappings in the top two photos were from firecrackers (鞭炮) that had been lit during the previous evening(s). The bottom photo, of course, is all the boxes and garbage from the firecrackers, piled against the community's small guardhouse.

If last year's Spring Festival is any guide, this mess will be cleaned up quickly enough. But from January 25th through the end of the month, the firecracker wrappings literally covered the ground like shell casings from some fierce wartime battle. And during that week, my neighborhood sounded like a war-zone.

Actually, I really didn't mind the noise all that much. And the fact that so many people were setting off firecrackers in the courtyard and on the streets lent a distinctively disorganized Chinese air to the whole proceedings.

Moreover, the cold snap, which I wrote about in an earlier blog post, finally eased a bit on the evening of the 26th. I finished watching THE HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (十面埋伏) a bit before midnight and went out to the enclosed balcony that off my master bedroom to watch the show (since the enclosed balcony's walls are very thin, it can be quite chilly during really cold weather).

I'm on the third floor, so I had a pretty view of the fireworks (焰火) exploding over the siheyuans (四合院) on the opposite side of the Dongzhimen Beixiao Jie. The show matched or exceeded any 4th of July celebration I have ever seen back in the states. And that’s really not surprising—the Chinese did, after all, invent gunpowder and firecrackers, so why should I have expected anything less than the spectacular?!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

鞭炮 (bian1pao4).
十面埋伏 (shi2mian4li3fu2). These characters mean “10” (十), “face/sphere/area” (面), and, according to a Chinese friend, 埋伏 can be translated as ambush. In any case, the Chinese and English names for this Zhang Yi Mou (张艺谋) film are completely different.
焰火 (yan4hou3).
四合院 (si4he2yuan4).

Hutong/siheyuan urchins (小淘气)

2009-02-01T22:23:00.001-08:00

When I did that Chinese New Year's Eve hutong/siheyuan walk, I didn't bring my camera along. Deciding to go there was done on the spur of the moment, and I was too lazy to go back to my apartment and get my camera. But since I'm on the subject of hutong/siheyuan life and haven't included any of my own photography in recent blog posts, here are some earlier photos of neighborhood children.

The little girl was sitting on the entrance steps of a Dongzhimen Beixiao Jie store across the street from my apartment complex. I think some fellows in that store or an adjacent one were playing mahjong (麻将). She was very into whatever it was she was doing and didn't notice me as I took her picture.

I shot this picture while walking along the Dongsi Bei Jie (东四北街) one October morning last fall. For some reason, many Chinese children and adults like to do the “V for Victory” sign when posing for us laowai photographers. The older girl, standing behind younger child making that sign was trying, without much success, to get the child on the left to pose for the shot.

This photo was taken last summer, about a month before the Olympic Games started. A good friend and old colleague from my Henan days, Jacqueline Baker, came to Beijing and stayed with me for a couple of days. We were walking toward the café, 喜鹊咖啡馆, that was mentioned in my December 1, 2008 blog post. These three children had just been playing a game and the little girl in the middle was clearly directing the activity. In China girls rule!!!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

小淘气 (xiao3tao2qi4). Actually, this word has more of negative meaning, denoting a naughty child. I suspect that none of these children are very naughty.
麻将 (ma2jiang4).
东四北街 (dong1si4bei3jie1). The first characters mean “east” and “fourth”, while the last two mean “north” and “street.”
喜鹊咖啡馆 (xi3que4ka1fei1guan3). As was mentioned in the December 1, 2008 post, the first two characters mean “magpie”. While a Western person might not want to go to a place called “magpie coffee”—the third and fourth characters mean “coffee” and when combined with the last one, you have the Chinese word for coffee café—these birds are seen by Chinese people as being magical little critters. By contrast, Westerners see them as being thieving and obnoxious little critters.

Kids Playing Marbles in one of the Hutongs across the street from where I live:

2009-02-01T22:11:00.000-08:00

The Spring Festival came early this year in China. The timing of this event is determined by the lunar calendar and it typically falls around the middle of February. In 2009, however, the Spring Festival began on January 26th. Three days before the holiday started, the temperature here plunged, as a cold front from Siberia hit Beijing.

This freezing weather was accompanied by strong, gusty winds. Lying in my bed before going to sleep, I could hear the wind howling and whistling in between the high rise apartment buildings in the neighborhood. I would be massively understating things to say that during those three mornings, the trek from my apartment to the bus stop and short walk to the office after getting off the bus wasn't a very pleasant experience.

It was still cold and windy when I returned home from the office on Saturday, January 25th to begin my week-long Spring Festival Holiday. I thus headed over to a warm place, namely the nearby Oriental Kenzo Shopping Mall, to have some lunch and then spend several hours drinking coffee and reading a book. I had planned on having an early dinner at one of the neighborhood’s two Russian restaurants—the Russian Embassy is a 10 minute walk from my apartment complex—before heading back to my warm apartment to spend the night unwinding with a beer or two and a DVD.

However, while returning from the mall to my apartment, I noticed that it had become a bit warmer. More importantly, the wind had died down. And since I had spent most of the past week sitting on my butt in front of the computer, it occurred to me that it would be really good to take a walk and get some exercise.

Fortunately, my immediate neighborhood is a wonderful place to stroll about. In particular, I love walking through the narrow hutong (胡同) alleys and siheyuans (四合院) that are across the street on the north side of the Dongzhimen Beixiaojie, or 东直门北小街 (up through the 1990s, the area south of this street was also all siheyuans and hutongs). I hardly ever see any other laowai walking about there, even though lots of us live in the Dongzhimen area. That's really a shame because the street life there is always very interesting.

This particular late afternoon-early evening was no exception, even though many of the residents had clearly gone back to their old hometowns (老家) for the Spring Festival (春节). Normally, these hutongs are filled with pedestrians at this hour; however, on this particular day, just a few cyclists and pedestrians were out and about.

Nonetheless, I did see three locals, all of whom were small children, doing something which made me want stop and observe them for a bit. And seeing them clearly having a lot of fun doing what they were doing caused me to think about their lives vs. the lives of more affluent children in the West and here in China.

The three kids—two boys and a girl—were no more than 10 years old (more on their age in a minute). The girl and one of the boys were rather chubby; the Chinese often call such children “小胖” or “little fatty.” Much of the time, this is actually a term of endearment, as if to say the child is very cute and lovable (很可爱).

These children, who were bundled up for the cold weather, were certainly very cute and lovable. They were playing a game of marbles. They had just two marbles, and both of the marbles were small and scruffy “cats-eye” marbles (I recall from my now very distant childhood that such marbles weren't highly prized, particularly compared to big and bright “purie” marbles). They rolled the marbles down the alley and on to the sand and dirt near the adjacent siheyuan's outer wall and entrance.

Even though these kids had the simplest of toys, they were clearly have a wonderful time, running back and forth, talking in animated voices, and laughing loudly all the while. I stopped and watched them for a few minutes. Before leaving the scene, during a pause in their activity, I asked the girl, “你几岁?” (How are old are you?) She replied in English, “nine.” And when I told her, “你们都很可爱,” (you are all very cute/lovable), she again replied in English by saying “thank you.”

The families who live in these siheyuans are clearly not at all affluent. In fact, they're what the Chinese call 老百姓. Literally translated it means “old hundred names,” but it's really an idiomatic term for very ordinary people. Since there are only around 100 old family names in China—刘, 陈, 曾, 李, and the like—common folks who are neither well off nor really poor are called 老百姓.

After resuming my stroll through the hutongs, I thought some about the contrast between these children and kids from affluent families in the West and here in China. Unlike these siheyuan children, the latter have all kinds of toys and gadgets—game boys, palm pilots, you name it. They also typically have lots of cash to blow at the mall. Yet despite having all these things, many of them are bored and unhappy and lead fairly empty lives. I would bet that the trio I bumped into that day are more content and happier than most of their materially better off counterparts in both China and the West.

Now I don't for one minute want to glamorize siheyuan life. To be sure, there are some very nice siheyuans near the Confucian Temple on the 国子监 not too far from where I live in Dongzhimen. Indeed, such places have now become upscale housing for rich Chinese people and laowai. However, most of these structures are very cramped and have little privacy. And they also typically lack central heating and, in many cases, indoor plumbing as well.

It's thus not at all surprising that many young people prefer living in newer apartment buildings. For example, one evening my neighbors across the hall in my apartment community invited me over for tea and watermelon. They had several foreign visitors staying with them for a few days and wanted some translation help. We talked for several hours and they told me what the immediate area used to look like. Although the husband and wife clearly missed living in the old siheyuan, their teenage daughter, who is a cute and very pleasant young lady, said that she preferred their new digs.

As China continues to develop and modernize at a rapid pace, it faces many social challenges. As I see it, one of the biggest social challenges will be striking a balance between obtaining Western style affluence and avoiding some of the bad things that go with it. In the meantime I look forward to more strolls around those hutongs and siheyuan across the street.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

胡同 (hu2tong2).
四合院 (si4he2yuan4) These characters literally mean “courtyard house.”
东直门北小街 (dong1zhi2men2bei3xiao3jie1).
老家 (lao3jia1).
春节 (chun1jie2).
小胖 (xiao3pang4).
很可爱 (hen3ke3ai4).
你几岁 (ni3ji3sui4).
老百姓 (lao3bai3xing4).
刘 (liu2).
陈 (chen2).
曾 (zeng1).
李 (li3).
国子监 (guo2zi3jian1).

China's response to the crisis: Will we all be soon speaking Chinese (我们快能用汉语说话了吗？)?

2009-01-22T22:53:00.000-08:00

China's current leaders may not be warm and cuddly fellows, but when it comes to economic and social policy, they manage, more often than not, to do the right thing. This includes fairly recent reversals of some very bad policies enacted during the 1990s by the country's previous leadership. And now, in order to respond to the current economic crisis, China will institute a massive stimulus package that dwarfs what is being proposed by the Obama (奥巴马) administration.

After China's economic growth (经济增长) slowed dramatically last fall, the Government announced that it would spend an estimated 4 trillion RMB, or $586 billion, over the upcoming year on a wide variety of infrastructure and social welfare projects. That's an enormous sum for any country, but especially for one whose GDP is still less than half that of the United States. And that figure has more recently gone up to over $800 billion.

I should say a brief word or two about how economists typically go about comparing the GDPs of different countries, as it's not as simple a matter as one might think. You could, of course, calculate China's GDP in dollars simply by using the current dollar-RMB exchange rate. If that's done, the country's GDP amounts to $3.3 trillion.

However, this approach overlooks the fact that the cost of living here, particularly for non-traded services, is much lower than it is in the US. For example getting a haircut in the next door hair salon costs me 15 RMB, or just under $3 at the current exchange rate (back in Henan, I spent under 10 RMB). In the US even a basic, no-frills haircut costs at least $11-12. Failing to take such price differences into account seriously understates Chinese living standards and, by extension, the country's GDP.

International economists adjust for such differences by using the so-called purchasing power parity (PPP) formula. This idea takes into account the lower cost of living and adjusts it as if all income is spent on local goods.

Thus the long-run PPP equilibrium exchange rates between currencies will often differ from their short-term nominal rates. In fact, when viewed in this way, the RMB remains substantially undervalued—perhaps by as much as 50 percent—against the greenback, even after its recent appreciation. According to information I shagged off the internet, calculating China's GDP using a PPP approach, just about doubles the above figure, to $7.1 trillion.

So it can be inferred from all of this that China’s GDP is probably higher than $3.3 trillion. Of course, PPP is a long-run theory. Moreover, Chinese wages are also much lower than in the US and other developed economies.

Finally, one should also be cautious about the official Chinese economic data. For example, I recall hearing a year or so ago the government suddenly announce that it had underestimated the size of the retail sector. Anyone who lives here can't help but notice all of the small mom and pop stores, little restaurants, and the like in Beijing and other Chinese cities. Thus China's retail sector certainly is enormous. So after the State Planning Commission re-calculated its size, it substantially boosted its estimate of China's GDP.

So China's GDP is probably somewhere between $3.3 and $7.1 trillion. But even if we accept the latter high figure, the Chinese stimulus package is still much greater relative to the national economy than the one being proposed by Obama. The $800 billion plus that will be spent next year represents over 10% of China’s GDP. By contrast, Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package—it may get a bit larger over the next few months—is spread out over the next two years and accounts for just 2.5-3.0% of the US economy's estimated $14 trillion plus GDP.

To be sure, some economists argue that the $800 billion figure for China's stimulus package is a bit high, noting that some of this spending was already in the budget. However, shaving a $100 billion or so off the Chinese spending figure still leaves China's stimulus package much bigger than the US stimulus package when measured against the size of its economy.

Moreover, payroll and business tax cuts account for a good chunk of the Obama stimulus package. In fact, word has it that funds for mass transportation projects, which American could desperately use more of, is being reduced to make room for these tax cuts.

The problem with doing this is twofold. First, there's no guarantee that people will spend these tax cuts or rebates. In fact, given the uncertainty about employment, better off consumers are more likely to save this extra cash for a rainy day, rather than spend it. And with consumers reluctant to buy things, especially expensive big-ticket items, it's unlikely that businesses will use their tax breaks to expand production by hiring more workers.

China's stimulus package, on the other hand, is driven entirely by government spending. While much of this money will be spent on infrastructure projects—expanded subways, railways, bridges, airports, and the like—some of the funds will be spent on social welfare projects. In particular, the government has made continuing to improve rural health care a key priority (a major effort to do this was started a few years ago as part of the “New Socialist Countryside” initiative [社会主义新农村]).

Compared to the US, the Chinese Government has several key things going for it in its efforts to stimulate its economy. To start with, even though tax revenues have fallen rapidly since this fall, China's national debt remains small, particularly compared to America's. Since the latter ballooned during the last eight years, mainly on account of tax cuts, the Iraq War, and big increases in overall defense spending, Louis XV’s famous comment, “Apres Moi L'Deluge,” is a fitting epitaph for George W. Bush's Presidency.

Not only is the Chinese Government in a better position than its American counterpart to spend money, it also has, when it comes to building infrastructure, a lot more “shovel ready” projects on which money can be spent. For example, here in Beijing work will be accelerated on three new subway lines being built within the city. The same goes for several lines that will connect Beijing with outlying cities, such as Changping.

Recent historical experience suggests that spending money on these projects will help boost China's economy. After the 1997 Asian financial crisis broke out, the Chinese Government earmarked large sums to accelerate construction of the country's huge highway and toll road system. This move is seen as playing a large role in maintaining economic growth in 1998 and 1999.

The Chinese Government also has much more leverage in the monetary policy area. Indeed, as recently as last summer, China's Central Bank (中央银行) was raising interest rates in an effort to cool down the economy. Now that it has confronted, practically overnight, the opposite problem, the Central Bank has significantly reversed course. However, according to one article I shagged off the internet, monetary policy here is still just “moderately loose” and thus still has some traction.

By contrast, the Fed in the US has cut interest rates to practically zero, so it can't lower borrowing costs any further. But despite these efforts and the rapid increase in America's money supply, banks are still reluctant to loan money and credit remains scarce. In other words, the Fed is pretty much shooting blanks at the moment.

Moreover, the fact that banks in China are state controlled gives the government enormous leverage over the financial system. For example, before the current crisis broke out, China's Central Bank required banks to hand over nearly 1/5 of their deposits. The Central Bank used this money to buy foreign bonds, especially US Treasury Bills, in order to prevent the RMB from appreciating and harming Chinese exporters.

Now, however, China's Central Bank is reducing these long-standing requirements on Chinese banks. It is instead pushing them to lend more money within China. In particular, banks are being ordered make more loans to small and medium-sized industries—precisely the ones that have been hardest hit by the downturn in exports.

America's recent banking bailout provides the US Government with the opportunity to exercise similar leverage over the financial system. The US Government could now, as Roosevelt did during the height of Great Depression, when a third of the banking system had effectively been nationalized, demand that financial institutions lend money in return for receiving help from Washington. Of course the Bush Administration resisted, mainly for ideological reasons, any attempt to tie strings to its $700 billion TARP bailout plan. Hopefully, Obama will reverse course here.

To be sure, Obama will face intense political pressure to limit the size of his fiscal stimulus plan in the face of long-term fears regarding US budgets deficits and rising national debt. However, the US Government does have one remaining trump card to play here, namely the continued willingness of foreigners to loan money to the US. While China's appetite for US debt appears to be diminishing—readers can refer to Keith Bradsher’s excellent January 8th NEW YORK TIMES article on this matter—investors in the troubled Euro zone are still eager to snap up US Treasury Bonds and securities.

The fact that the US is able to continue to find foreign lenders for its debt is one thing setting it apart from Asian countries in the late 1990s, Argentina in 2000, and the new financial basket cases on the euro-zone's periphery, Ukraine and Latvia. Another key difference is that unlike these countries, the US debt is denominated in its own currency. Thus a falling greenback, which would boost American exports and stimulate the economy, will not increase the size of the US debt.

America's budget deficits will certainly have to be addressed some time in the future. Continued large-scale borrow from foreign lenders also will also undermine the dollar’s position as a reserve currency over the long-run. However, at the present moment, the greenback is actually appreciating against other currencies.

Indeed, as former IMF chief economist and now Harvard Professor Ken Rogoff puts it, with more than a little touch of gallows humor, “The more we screw up, the more the world seems to like us.” And long before this financial crisis, my former UCLA colleague turned chaired Harvard professor, Jeff Frieden, argued that the dollar's future as a main reserve currency is uncertain at best (this outstanding scholar and all-around mensch's musings on the latest crisis can be accessed at http://www.bigthink.com/user/jeff-frieden). Finally, addressing America's immediate and very severe economic crisis should now have priority over long-term worries regarding the dollar's future as an international currency.

Thus Obama should emulate China's boldness when it comes to devising a stimulus plan for the US economy. As his own chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, has declared, “In this crisis, doing too little poses a greater risk than doing too much.”

Even though the US doesn't have all that many “shovel ready” infrastructure projects to spend money on at the moment, a strong case can certainly be made for long-term spending in this area. And over the short-term, money could go to help people in need, particularly ones who've lost health insurance, and assist America's financially strapped states.

Indeed, as I write these words, my home state of California faces a $41 billion deficit, or half of the state's total annual revenues. In a very short time, California will literally go broke and unable to pay its bills. The tax increases and spending cuts needed to close this gap certainly won't do Golden State's economy, which already has one of the highest unemployment rates in America, any good.

I suspect that if Obama errs on the side of caution while China forges boldly ahead with its economic stimulus, then the long American Century will give way sooner rather than later to the Chinese Century. I want to emphasize that such a prospect doesn't disturb me as much as it might disturb other Americans. But if it does happen, all of us might want to begin learning a bit of 汉语. Or, as was asked in the title for this post, 我们快能用汉语说话了吗?

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

我们快能用汉语说话了吗 (wo3men1kuai4neng2yong4han4yu3shuo1hua4le5ma5).
奥巴马 (ao4ba5ma3) Save for the fact that the first character, 奥, is pronounced like the “ou” in “ouch,” this is actually a pretty good transliteration of “Obama.” It's certainly better the Chinese characters for President Bush's last name, 布什, which sounds like “Boo Sure.” The senior is Bush is just called 老布什, or literally “old Bush.”
经济增长 (jing1ji4zeng1zhang3) The first two characters mean “economy” while the other two mean “growth” (in this kind of sentence).
社会主义新农村 (she4hui4zhu3yi4xin1nong2cun2) The first four characters comprise the Chinese word for “socialism”, while the fifth character means “new”. The last two characters can mean both “countryside” and “rural/farming village.”
Apres Moi L'Deluge: My historically knowledgeable readers—and those who can speak some French—will know that this statement in English is “After me, the Deluge.” Louis XV wasn't much of a monarch, but he could see pretty clearly the direction France was heading after his death. Epitaph in Chinese is 墓志铭 (mu4zhi4ming2).
中央银行 (zhong1yang1yin2hang2) The first two characters is one way of saying “central” in Chinese, while the latter two is the Chinese word for “bank.”

I'd like thank my good colleague (同事; tong2shi4), 姚玲玲 (yao2ling2ling2) and 路红艳 (lu4hong2yan4) for helping me with some of the above vocabulary.

How is China affected by the economic crisis (经济危机)?

2009-01-11T14:53:00.000-08:00

My readers who follow the economic headlines know full well that like the rest of the world, China has been greatly affected by the current global economic and financial crisis (财政危机). Economic growth, which had been averaging churning along at double-digit rates over the past few years, has slowed dramatically. It's estimated that China's economy will expand by no more than 7% in 2009. And more and more forecasts call for significantly lower growth.

Americans would be delighted if the US economy, which contracted during the last two quarters and is expected to shrink through the first half of 2009, was expanding at a 5-7% annual clip. However, the 7% growth figure is something of a critical number here in China. Economists have argued that unless the Chinese economy grows by at least 7% every year, it won't be able to provide jobs for all the new people entering the labor.

My own first hand observations, particularly the stories I hear from Chinese friends, tells me that the job market here has indeed deteriorated significantly for new entrants to the labor market. The sophomore students I taught two years ago at the Second Beijing Foreign Languages University (二外) are now looking for work. While most of them have had at least a few interviews, very few have found jobs. And we're now moving past the first peak hiring season, i.e. the late fall and early winter (the other is the early spring).

Many of my former 二外 students majored in finance. These job-hunters are having an especially hard time finding positions. They're all naturally keen to find positions in banks and other financial businesses like security and brokerage firms. However, very few of these companies are hiring people at the moment; indeed, many are getting rid of staff (more on that below).

However, university students who majored in technical fields are also scrambling to find work. One of my good Chinese friends works at a sister company—both our firms are China National Petroleum Company subsidiaries (分公司) doing bore-hole and well testing and servicing work—as a recruiter in their HR (人力资源) department. My friend said that they were swamped with applicants at job fairs this fall.

I spent much of last week helping to do English assessments on job candidates for my company. For readers wondering about this, our firm's clients are all foreign clients, and the language of the international oil business is, of course, English. Hence anyone hired here must be able to speak at least intermediate level English. Most of our recruits were completing their M.S. degrees from the China National Petroleum University (a few were completing doctoral degrees). This place is the country's top institution for studying petrology, petroleum engineering, and the like. One of the people we interviewed told us that many of his classmates were having difficulty finding jobs, despite their high-powered educational backgrounds.

China's manufacturing industries that depended heavily on exports (出口) to the US have certainly been hard hit by the sharp downturn in the American economy. Scores of small toy (玩具) factories (工厂) in Guangdong province have gone bankrupt (破产). And lots of what are called 农民工—factory workers from small villages who leave their families to live in cities without permanent residence permits—have lost their jobs (失业了). These men are returning home early for the Spring Festival.

The crisis has affected not just manufacturers, but the banking and financial sector as well. A very good Chinese friend of mine works at Hong Kong Shanghai Commercial Bank (HSBC), which is one of China's leading commercial and investment banks. She recently informed me that HSBC's Hong Kong Branch has shed some 10,000 employees.

My friend told me that HSBC had invested heavily in Australian securities. The bank thus lost lots of money when the Aussie $ plunged, causing the value of these Aussie $ denominated assets to fall sharply. My friend added that HSBC also had some money invested in Madoff's funds. It looks like this swindler's tentacles reached very far and wide indeed.

Thanks to the problems in the financial sector and a bearish stock market—the latter downturn preceded the crisis in the US—many urban middle class Chinese people have seen their nest eggs dwindle. My friend at HSBC, for example, has seen the value of her savings' stock portfolio has shrunk by more than half, from 70,000 to 30,000 RMB (at the current exchange rate, that's $10,250 to $4,400).

In the past few years, buying property has become an attractive investment strategy for middle- and upper-middle class Chinese city-dwellers. Housing prices have risen sharply in Beijing and other big cities over the past decade. For example, the Irish lawyer, Diarmuid O’Brien, who got me the tickets to the Olympic Basketball games, bought an apartment in Beijing's exclusive Central Business District (国贸) area. The apartment's market value has risen several times over this period, and Diarmuid was getting lots of calls or sms mobile phone message every day from people interested in buying the place.

It now appears that this long run-up in property asset values is coming to an end. People who thought that housing prices would keep rising forever are learning the hard way that in the investment (投资) world, when asset prices skyrocket, they often come back down to earth a bit. Indeed, THE ECONOMIST ran a story late last year about apartment prices falling from 15,000 RMB per square to 9,000 RMB per square meter in an exclusive Hai Dian District apartment community. The angry buyers sued the developers over this sudden collapse in the value of their properties.

A fellow laowai colleague at the company I work for named John Gormican is married to a Chinese woman, Rebecca, who has a real estate business. When I sent him an IM about THE ECONOMIST story the other day, he replied that yes, his wife had heard many similar stories. John added that they “were expecting it to be slow after Olympic Games, but not like this.”

Rebecca is lucky. Her business is a one-woman show, which she runs from out of her apartment. Since Rebecca's overhead is absolutely minimal, she won't have a lot of problems weathering this downturn. The same, however, can't be said large big real estate companies. John anticipates that many of them will soon be facing big problems.

The economic slowdown is also affecting foreign companies. I have a Chinese friend who works at another integrated well services provider, the French giant Schlumberger, the second largest firm in the business after Halliburton. She informed me several weeks ago, when we were exchanging IM's, that Schlumberger recently moved out of its old China corporate headquarters in the expensive Lido area near the Holiday Inn. They did so mainly to cut back on costs.

Schlumberger's new headquarters—or “operations base” as they now call it—is located in an old factory building converted into an office space. The new digs are not only fairly crummy, but also very hard to find. My friend told me that visiting client spent over an hour trying to locate this place and was not very happy about that.

One of my laowai friends living in Shanghai has a boyfriend who is an engineer in GM's China operations. She informs me that GM has, is or will be stopping production altogether or cutting it “way down” for two weeks here. VW, the biggest foreign car manufacturer in China, is supposedly doing the same.

Even the IT sector is being affected by the current economic problems. One of my Chinese friends, a very pretty and delightful young lady, is a software engineer at a Japanese IT firm. During a recent night out, she informed me that recently business has been really slow at her company, so she isn't very busy and has a lot of down time at work.

Lastly, as one would expect during an economic crunch, the hospitality business is really suffering at the moment. I have breakfast once or twice a month at Paul's Steak and Eggs restaurant. This place is very popular with Beijing's expat community, and I enjoy hearing the patrons, as well as the owner, a French-Canadian named Paul, chat about business conditions in the capital. During my last visit on January 3, I overheard Paul noting that the occupancy rate at the luxury Ritz-Carlton Hotel is now just 15%. The Ritz Carlton and several other luxury hotels have fired their executive chefs.

The current problems in the hotel business are exacerbated by the overbuilding that took during the run-up to the Olympic Games. This surplus capacity is especially severe in the high-end housing area. Lots of luxury full-service apartments and other less expensive but still arguably upscale housing, built to accommodate wealthy tourists and business guests coming to Beijing for the Olympics, now stands vacant.

However, the glut in high end housing and the overall drop in apartment prices can also be seen as a silver lining in Beijing and China's overall cloudy economy. Laowai and Chinese people who hold on to their jobs or are even lucky enough to get better paying positions, will be able, for the first time in recent memory, to find nice housing at relatively affordable prices.

Finally, a few people I know have remained unaffected by the economic downturn. One of my Chinese friends is an HR consultant at Hewlett Packard—yes, they have an HR consulting branch here in China. She does lots of work advising state owned enterprises and was recently put in charge of a big project near Xinzheng City in Henan Province (I spent my first year in China living in Xinzheng City). This lady informed me that business remains brisk and they were paid their usual annual Christmas bonus this year.

Throughout the first half of last year, many people speculated that China and India might somehow get “decoupled” from the brewing global economic crisis (THE ECONOMIST magazine was a prominent proponent of this view). It now looks like such thinking will have to be put on ice. China will definitely feel some economic pain over the next year. The good news for the country is that it's arguably in a much better position to respond to the crunch than is the US. I'll have more to say on that in my next post.

经济危机 (jing1ji4wei1ji1). 经济 is economy or economic, while 危机 is crisis.
财政危机 (cai2zheng4wei1ji1). 财政 is financial (another word for financial is 财金 [cai2jin1]).
二外 (er4wai4).
人力资源 (ren2li4zi1yuan2). 人力 literally means “human power,” while 资源 means resource(s).
分公司 (fen1gong1si1).
出口 (chu1kou3).
玩具 (wan2ju4).
工厂 (gong1chang3).
破产 (po4chan3).
失业了 (shi1ye4le5).
投资 (tou2zi1).
地产 (di4chan3).
国贸 (guo2mao4).

Chinese Santas (中国圣诞老人) and "Christmas with Chinese characteristics" (中国圣诞的特色)

2009-01-05T21:43:00.000-08:00

Well another Christmas in China has come and gone—2008 marked my fourth Christmas in a row here—and I would be remiss not to include at least one post about the holiday in this blog.

As the photos above make clear, Santa Claus is alive and well in China. Both of these pictures were shot in front of a large children's toy store located in the middle of Beijing's famous 王府井 pedestrian shopping mall.

In this particular display, Santa Claus was flanked by another Christmas icon, Frosty the Snowman. I could add that one would have a very difficult time building a real snowman in Beijing right now, as there's virtually no snow on the ground.

Winters here are both bitterly cold and very dry—this part of China receives three quarters of its precipitation in July and August. We did get some snow around the 25th of December during my first year in Beijing, when I taught English at the Second Foreign Language University (二外). However, that was the only white Christmas I've had in China.

In my own neighborhood, practically all of the restaurants on the “Ghost Street” (簋街) were festooned with big cutout Santa Claus faces. And one of them had a plastic Santa Claus playing a saxophone standing beside its front door. Readers will also notice the decorated Christmas tree (圣诞树). During the Christmas season lots of public places, particularly the lobbies of high rise building and shopping malls, sport large Christmas trees. The high-rise office tower I work in, for example, had a Christmas tree.

But while the Chinese and American plastic and cardboard Santas are pretty much alike, the same can't be said for the live Santas. Since St. Nick is a plump old fellow, live Santas in America tend to be fat and puffy-faced 50- and 60-something men.

As the film director John Waters wrote in his hilarious essay, “Why I love Christmas,” for chubby older men who like fondling little kids, playing Mr. Claus is a dream job. I suspect that most American parents are now reluctant to let their young ones sit in some stranger Santa's lap. By contrast, during my first year in China, when I lived in rural Henan province, I was struck by how eager and willing Chinese parents were to let us laowai hold their small children.

Since very few older Chinese men are really fat, there aren't very many suitable live Santas in China. The country is certainly suffering from epidemic of childhood obesity—Chinese children have fallen in love with junk food (垃圾食品) and spend too much time sitting on their butts playing computer games or watching TV. However, unlike older folks in America, most Chinese adults are not overweight. The same also goes for the laowai here: you can distinguish long-term expats living in Beijing from visiting tourists by the size of their waistlines. For example, I've gone down one pant size since living here.

So you won't see very many male Santas around Christmas in Chinese stores and shopping malls. Chinese Santas are typically pretty young girls (小姐or 女孩儿). The limited supply of chubby 50- and 60-something Chinese men certainly isn't the only reason why most Chinese Santas are cute little 小姐. The other reason is that Chinese merchants discovered some time ago that putting a sexy babe in front of product display is a sure-fire way of boosting sales.

Thus while China's female Santas wear the traditional Santa cap and red coat, their waist down garb consists of a short miniskirt. The two young lady Santas in the photo below were pushing different types of drinks in front of 二外’s small convenience store located on the east side of the campus.

For most Chinese people Christmas is mainly about Santa and Christmas trees rather than the baby in the manger (耶稣). To be sure, the number of Christians (基督徒) in China is now growing rapidly; these people also enjoy much more freedom to worship than was the case in the past. And the churches (教堂) are always jam-packed for Christmas Eve (平安夜) services.

This is especially true for places like the lovely North Cathedral, which located just north of the 王府井 mall. According to one a former 二外German teacher colleague who's Catholic, if you want to go there on 平安夜, then you'd better make reservations well in advance.

Many Chinese people who go to Church on 平安夜 do so mainly to enjoy the special shows that are an integral part of these services. These shows include singing—Chinese people love to sing—dancing, and other performances. At least this is what the laowai named John, who is one-half of the duo doing intermediate and upper intermediate Chinesepod.com Mandarin listening lessons, said in a recent lesson about 平安夜 (their URL is www.chinesepod.com and it's the best study aid out there for learning Mandarin).

Before moving to Shanghai—Chinesepod's excellent listening lessons are broadcast from there—John helped organize Christmas Eve services at his Catholic Church at Hangzhou. He notes at the end of the 平安夜 listening lesson that putting together such events was always pretty hectic and crazy. John adds that because of these programs, many young urban Chinese people think that it's real hip and cool (酷) to go Church on 平安夜, even if they don't attend services any other time of the year.

For China's Buddhists (佛教徒), who still considerably outnumber the country's Christians, Christmas has no meaning. These people generally don't even celebrate the commercial side of the Christmas. For example, when my good colleague and friend, Mike Watts, asked his Buddhist girlfriend if she wanted a present, the answer was “no.”

But for non-religious (不信教 or 没有信仰; 我也是) Chinese people, who still comprise a majority of the population, gift (礼物) giving at Christmas has caught on big-time. This is especially true in the large cities, where the western influence is greatest. The large shopping malls and department stores are always jammed with people during the weeks and days leading up to Christmas. This year I gave the ladies in my office chocolate, also gave two very special lady friends chocolate, and bought English language novels for several of my former 二外 students.

I could add that one will hear lots of Christmas music, albeit of an entirely secular nature, while window shopping in the department stores and malls. One song, “Jingle Bells,” is usually sung in Chinese, and the refrain “Jingle Bells/Jingle Bells” is 丁东/丁东. Most of the others are sung in English—you'll often hear “Silver Bells” and “We wish you a Merry Christmas.”

Chinese people living Beijing and other big cities who don't go Church on 平安夜often have dinner and drinks with friends that night. Indeed, restaurants and bars are always very crowded on the evening of the 24th, making the mood and atmosphere (气氛) very lively (热闹).

Ironically, 平安夜 in Chinese literally means “peaceful/quiet night,” and here in China, this particular evening is anything but quiet and silent. It's the actual Christmas day that's peaceful and quiet (maybe they should call it, 平安天, or peaceful day). Unlike the Western New Year's Day, Christmas day isn't a holiday here, so if it falls on a weekday, people are at their jobs, rather than relaxing and celebrating. The Chinese company I work for gives the foreign employees, including a Muslim fellow from Yemen, Christmas Day off. However, when I taught at Erwai, I spent Christmas day teaching English.

While Laowai typically opt for a traditional Christmas meal, such as turkey (伙计)—restaurants like Paul's Steak and Eggs, typically charge 100-200 RMB for such a dinner—most of the natives go to a Chinese restaurant. In particular, Chinese people really hate eating turkey (火鸡). All my Chinese friends believe it's bland and tasteless and to dry to boot. I couldn't agree more and have always thought that turkey is what one gets served Sunday afternoons at college dormitories as punishment for hanging around on the weekend. I think Beijing Duck (北京烤鸭), which I really love to eat, would be a great alternative to turkey!

Interestingly enough, one Western restaurant that is exception to this rule is Pizza Hut. Despite its relatively high prices, Pizza Hut is hugely popular in China and has lots of franchises in Beijing and other big Chinese cities. While spending my 2006 平安夜 people watching in the big 东安 shopping mall on the north side of 王府井, I noticed a huge line snaking down the hall from the entrance of the mall’s Pizza Hut. Mini-skirted 小姐 Santas were passing out menus to the people waiting in line.

So like most everything else in China, Christmas here is a fascinating mix of Western influences and Chinese characteristics. The holiday also illustrates just how rapidly the country is changing. Even though I'm a bit late in doing this, I wish all my readers a belated merry Christmas (圣诞节快乐) and happy New Year (新年快乐).

I'm now putting the Pinyin, or Romanized spelling of the Chinese characters that appear in my blog posts at the bottom of the posts. The number 1 is a flat tone, 2 a rising tone, 3 a falling and rising tone, 4 a falling tone, and 5 a neutral tone. The characters are in the order in which they appeared in the post.

圣诞老人 (sheng4dan4lao3ren2). The first two characters mean Christmas, while the last two mean old person.
中国圣诞的特色 (zhong1guo2sheng4dan4de5te4se4). Readers who are fellow sinoafficionados will notice that this Chinese is a play on the phrase, “Socialism with Chinese characteristics”—有中国特色社会主义 (you3zhong1guo2te4se4she4hui4zhu3 yi2). 中国 is the Chinese name for China, and it literally means “Middle (中) Kingdom (国).” 特色 means special feature(s) or characteristic(s). And 社会 is “society/social,” while 主义 means “socialism.”
王府井 (wang2fu3jing3).
二外 (er4wai4).
簋街 (gui3jie1). The first character actually doesn't mean ghost, which is鬼 and has the same tone and pinyin. It instead can mean a ghost's dinner set or an ancient cooking and eating vessel.
圣诞树 (sheng4dan4shu4). 树 means tree.
垃圾食品 (la1ji1shi2pin3). 垃圾 is garbage, 食品 is a general term for food.
小姐 (xiao3jie2).
女孩儿 (nü3hai2er2).
耶稣 (ye1su1).
基督徒 (ji1du1tu2).
教堂 (jiao4tang2).
平安夜 (ping2an1ye4).
不信教 (bu4xin4jiao4) 没有信仰 (mei2you3xin4yang3). 不信 is “not to believe” and 没有 is “not to have.” 我也是 (wo3ye3shi4) means the “the same goes for me.”
礼物 (li3wu4).
丁东 (ding1dong1). This is another transliteration, as 丁 means “nail” and 东 means “east.”
气氛 (qi4fen5).
热闹 (re4nao4).
火鸡 (huo3ji1).
北京烤鸭 (bei3jing1kao3ya2). The first two characters stand for Beijing, the second for roast, and the last for duck.
东安 (dong1an1).
新年 (xin1nian2).
快乐 (kuai4le4). This can mean both “happy” and “merry.”

Zhang Ai Ling’s words to live by may not apply to life (at least my life), but they do fit something else

2008-12-28T19:01:00.001-08:00

I am by nature pessimistic, rather than optimistic. That was especially true during the last few years of my life in America. Back in the United States, I was a struggling member of the academic lumpenproletariat and had little stability or certainty with respect to employment. At the same time, I was marooned in a very conservative city that doesn't have much to offer in the way cultural and intellectual stimulation.

If that wasn't enough, I had two close shaves with being shot at and killed. As a native New Yorker friend of mine quipped, I attracted bullets while living in the US (this happened in my hometown and during a brief and very unhappy stint of living in Los Angeles). One of the many nice things about being in Beijing is the absence of violent crime; I'll have more to say about that in another post.

My outlook on life has brightened considerably since moving to China and particularly since relocating to Beijing. My life here is certainly not as rich as it was back in the states with respect to material possessions. But I feel much more at home in this vibrant and cosmopolitan city, which is filled with history and culture. I can also enjoy its urban amenities at a fraction of what it would cost to live even in the Twin Cities, Portland or Seattle, much less Los Angeles or New York. But best of all, by living in China, I can see first-hand how this fascinating country and society is literally changing at the speed of light.

Although I don't make lots of money, my income, particularly relative to my expenses, is pretty good. I can live quite comfortably and still send large sums back to the US in order to build up a nest egg for a house and my retirement. And most importantly, I have lots of wonderful friends in Beijing—mainly Chinese, but some laowai as well. In my old home town, on the other hand, I always felt like an outsider, even among that city's small and hunkered down bohemian and politically progressive community.

So my life in Beijing doesn't resemble, even at a distance, a bright beautiful gown. However, you could certainly call it a somewhat worn, but still very comfortable and snugly warm cardigan sweater. And I plan on wearing that sweater for another three or four years before trading it in for life back in the states.

Speaking of life back in the states, America's current economic woes makes it look more and more likely that this decision is as much a matter of necessity as it is a matter of choice (of course, the global economic crisis is affecting China, and I'll pass on some of my first impressions about that soon). Reflecting on the current dark economic times in the US, it occurred to me that Zhang Ai Ling's “Words to Live By” are really a very good metaphor for the root cause of America's economic problems.

I'm referring, of course, to those financial “innovations” that promised to both minimize risk and deliver handsome returns to investors. In particular, all those derivatives, as well as the securitization of sub-prime home mortgages, looked like bright and beautiful gowns from a distance. But they were all along crawling with lice. Indeed, one could add that these lice were carrying a really bad contagious disease, like say, typhus, and that the little critters spread the contagion throughout the US economy.

I take a backseat to no one when it comes to loathing President Bush. I'm confident that he will be remembered as being hands-down absolutely the worst President in American history (he's certainly up against some mighty stiff competition here). However, I don't think Bush is mainly to blame for the country's economic woes. When Bush declared in late 2007 that the economy was “excellent,” he was just being his usual clueless self.

However, the majority of economists who failed to see or downplayed the housing bubble should have known better. The data clearly showed, in real time, not only that a bubble did exist, but that the longer it went on, the more painful the consequences would be once it popped (as all bubbles do). This myopia is even more baffling in the view of the fact that the dot.com bubble was hardly ancient history.

Being a pessimistic by nature, I believed from the beginning that the big run up in housing asset prices didn't bode well for the long-term health of the US economy. To be sure, this view was based mainly on my gut feeling. I know something about economics, but am certainly no expert and can't claim any special insight here.

However, some economists, people who are infinitely more clever individuals than yours truly, did see big trouble on the horizon. These folks included Dean Baker, who wrote about it in CALCULATED RISK, this year's Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, recent Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, and NYU's Nouriel Roubini. As Krugman declared back in August of 2007, “Americans make a living selling each others houses, paid for with money borrowed from the Chinese. Somehow that doesn't seem like a sustainable lifestyle.”

Of course, at that time, Krugman and the others who warned about bubble trouble were derided as Cassandra-like “bubbleheads.” And one of the biggest deniers was the man with the most influence over the US economy, namely former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. For this reason, the maestro, or better put, maestro no more, should bear the biggest blame for the US economy’s current woes.

To start with, Greenspan's Fed facilitated the rise in housing asset prices by pumping massive liquidity into markets. At the same time, the Fed Chairman used his immense prestige to help block any effort to regulate derivatives trading, the subprime market, and the like. Indeed, Greenspan claimed only a few years ago that derivatives had made the financial system “more resilient.” And in 2007 he insisted that a “national severe price distortion [with respect to housing] seems most unlikely.”

Well, the October Case-Shiller index drop in US nationwide housing prices was the biggest on record. I'm certain that Greenspan's comment on housing prices is certain to rank right up there with General George Armstrong Custer's statement, “The US Calvary is the Indian's best friend”, in the annals of expert misinformation.

I couldn't resist putting that photo of a very befuddled looking Greenspan at the top of this blog post. The former Fed Chairman now admits that his earlier firm belief that markets could police themselves was … well … kind of wrong.

In his extremely fawning book on Greenspan, Bob Woodward called this man a “maestro.” I think it is now clear that Stephen Roach, who is the Managing Director and Chief Executive at Morgan Stanley, was more on the mark when he called Greenspan a “serial bubble blower” some years ago. And now that these bubbles have all burst, the truest verdict on the former Fed Chairman is that offered by Steve Goldstein of Market Watch: “For a man who was once remarkably hard to decipher, Alan Greenspan is now as clear as an empty Lehman Brothers office.”

As my colleague Mike Watts, who has no love whatsoever for investment bankers and financiers, told me when he read this quote (also from Krugman's blog) and saw the photo, “Now that's absolute, utter class!!”

Zhang Ai Ling's Words to Live By

2008-12-22T19:35:00.000-08:00

生命是一袭华美的袍子，里面爬满了虱子. For those readers who are interested, the pinyin and tones of this quote, as well as the other characters in this post, are for the most part listed below the main text body.

The gist of this quotation from Zhang Ai Ling (张爱玲) (see the two photos above) is as follows: “Life on the outside appears to be a bright and beautiful gown, but this gown is really crawling with lice.” While this is certainly not a cheery view of human existence, one can't really blame Zhang, who was one of China's greatest 20th century novelists, for uttering such sentiments. Her life was very much like a gown that from a distance appears to be beautiful, but when looked at closely is really crawling with lice.

Zhang was born in 1920 in Shanghai into a famous aristocratic family. Her grandfather, Zhang Peilun, was the son-in-law of the 1ate-19th Century statesman and high ranking Qing Dynasty official, Li Hongzhan. But while Zhang's childhood material circumstances were good enough, saying that her relations with her parents were “troubled” would be massively understating things.

When Zhang was five her father took in a concubine and then quickly became addicted to opium. Her mother reacted by leaving the family to tour Europe for four years. Despite having bound feet, she was one of the first Chinese women to ski in the Alps. She returned only after her husband promised to quit smoking opium and throw out of the concubine; however, the two divorced in 1930.

Zhang's father then married his concubine. Zhang did not get along with her step mother, and her father, who was a violent patriarch, beat and imprisoned his daughter for six months when she 18 over some perceived minor slight to his second wife.

Even at a young age, Zhang displayed considerable literary talent, and her writing provided an escape from her unhappy childhood. She was also intensely ambitious, declaring in 1944, “To be famous, I must hurry. If it comes too late, it will not bring me much happiness … Hurry, hurry, or it will be too late, too late!”

Zhang didn't have to worry. She became famous overnight in 1944 when her first writing, which was penned in 1943-1944, was published. Much of her most famous work, including “Love in a Fallen City” (倾城之恋) and “The Golden Cangue” (金锁记), were written during this first burst of creativity. The first edition of her collected short stories sold out in four days after it was published in 1944.

Zhang's early writing established her as the most important literary chronicler of life in 1940s Shanghai. Her stories focused on men and women struggling to deal with the day-to-day dislocations brought on by war and modernization. For example, in the short story, “Sealed Off,” two Shanghai strangers, an unhappily married man and a lonely single woman taking a tram, are drawn into a dreamlike conversation as their car is being searched by Japanese troops.

The Taiwanese film director, Li An (李安), whose previous films include “Brokeback Mountain” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” has recently sparked a revival of interest in Zhang Ai Ling with his film adaptation of one her most famous short novellas, “Lust, Caution” (色戒).

In this story, a young college student, played by the beautiful Tang Wei (汤唯), is sent by an anti-Japanese resistance group to seduce a top official in the collaborationist Chinese Government so he can be assassinated. However, it is the student who winds up being seduced by the official, played with reptilian charm by the still very dashing Liang Chao Wei (梁朝伟). At the end of the story, in a self-destructive change of heart, the student warns her prey of his imminent danger, thereby allowing him to narrowly escape the trap that has been set for him and dooming herself and her comrades.

The story 色戒 illustrates another notable feature of Zhang's work, namely the extreme economy of her prose. Zhang uses no more 15,000 characters to write an intensely atmospheric and tautly plotted espionage story that morphs into an erotically charged story of seduction. The novella, which has been reprinted by Penguin Books, is a mere 33 pages long.

Indeed, in contrast to most film adaptations, Li An actually added material to the literary work on which his film was based. For example, the very disturbing scene in which the student follows her prey into a Japanese military brothel and sings to him in a private room does not appear in Zhang's novella.

I think that Li An's film is certainly a terrific adaptation of 色戒. In particular, it depicts very well the sinister and harsh atmosphere of the collaborator’s villa, together with his grasping wife (brilliantly portrayed by Joan Chen) and mahjong (麻将) playing female friends.

But one thing the film doesn't convey, that is captured in Zhang's prose, is the collaborator's warped sense of triumph after the assassination plot is foiled and his temptress turned mistress and her friends have been executed. Zhang chillingly writes:

“He was not optimistic about the way the war was going, and had no idea how it would turn out for him. But now that he had enjoyed the love of a beautiful woman, he could die happy—without regret. He could feel her shadow forever near him, comforting him. Even though she had hated him at the end, she had at least felt something. And now he possessed her utterly, primitively—as a hunter does his quarry, a tiger his kill. Alive, her body belonged to him; dead, she was his ghost.”

Liang Chao Wei is a great actor and does as good a job as could be done in conveying, with his body language and facial expressions, the collaborator's conflicted state of mind after his subordinate informs him about the arrest and execution of the student and her friends. But the scene lacks the devastating punch of Zhang's writing. And putting the above comments into the film with a voice over narration would be awkward and a bit contrived and artificial to boot.

While Zhang achieved early literary fame, she never had a very happy life. She was particularly unfortunate when it came to her relations with men. Her first husband, Hu Lan Cheng (胡兰成), whom she secretly married in the winter of 1944, was very much like the collaborator in 色戒. This man served as the Chief of the Judiciary in Wang Jingwei's collaborationist Chinese Government.

Indeed, when Zhang and Hu married, she was still technically a student. Zhang had a semester of coursework to do at St. John's University in Shanghai but was forced for financial reasons to suspend her studies. And after Zhang's writing made her instantly famous, she never finished her studies. 色戒 is thus a very autobiographical story. And even though Hu was a Japanese collaborator—the Chinese refer to these folks as 汉奸—Zhang married him because he was a very handsome, elegant, and cultured literatus.

Unfortunately, Hu was not only a 汉奸, but an incorrigible philanderer to boot. In fact, when Zhang married Hu, he was still married to his third wife; hence, their secret wedding and common-law marriage. In 1945 Hu moved to Wuhan to work for a newspaper and while staying in a hospital, he seduced a 17 year old nurse. And when the war ended, Zhang's husband fled to Wenzhou. He had yet another extra-marital affair, or 婚外情，while hiding in that city.

Zhang moved to Hong Kong five years after her and Hu divorced in 1947. In 1955 she left China for good to move to the United and a year later, married the prominent American scriptwriter, Ferdinand Reyher, who was several decades older than Zhang. This second husband suffered a series of strokes in 1961 and 1962, which left him paralyzed. He then died in 1967.

While living in the United States, Zhang wrote film scripts, translated her earlier fiction and other Chinese novels into English, and held brief visiting appointments at Radcliffe College and Berkeley. She kept up this work after permanently relocating to Los Angeles in 1972, but became increasingly reclusive. She died there in 1995 as a lonely old woman.

So Zhang's life was indeed much like a beautiful garment that, when closely examined, is crawling with lice. To be sure, she made some bad choices and was to some extent the author of her own misery. However, this behavior, particularly her first disastrous marriage was also in no small measure related to her very unhappy childhood over which she had no control. As Marx famously insisted, men do make history, but can't choose the circumstances in which they make it.

Fortunately, Zhang bequeathed a great literary legacy to the world. I've already read some of it in translation, including, of course, 色戒, and can hardly wait to read her work in Mandarin in the not too distant future.

A change in this blog's format:

A number of friends, readers, and critics—these categories of course are not mutually exclusive—have told me that putting the pinyin and tones of Chinese characters after the characters is distracting and breaks up my writing's lovely flow (he! he!). So from now on, I'm going to put the pinyin, i.e. the way the characters are spelled in the Roman alphabet, along with their tones, below the main text body.

I hope this blog will get a few laowai and China and people back in the states interested in learning Mandarin and give them a bit of help in doing so.

Mandarin has five tones and the tone of each character is the number after its pinyin. 1 is a flat tone, 2 is a rising tone, 3 is a falling and rising tone, 4 is a falling tone, and 5 is a neutral tone. The characters below appear in the order in which they appeared in the blog post:

生命是一袭华美的袍子，里面爬满了虱子: sheng1 ming4 shi4 yi4 xi2 hua2 mei3 de5 pao2 zi5, li3 mian4 pa2 man3 le5 shi4 zi5
张爱玲: Zhang1Ai4Ling2
倾城之恋: Qing1Cheng2Zhi31Lian4
金锁记: Jin1Suo3Ji3
李安: Li3An1
色戒: Se4Jie4
汤唯: Tang1Wei2
梁朝伟: Liang2Chao2Wei3
麻将: ma2jiang4
胡兰成: Hu2Lan2Cheng2
汉奸: han4jian4
婚外请: hun1wai4qing2; literally translated, it means “marriage outside love.” As in so many other cases, Mandarin word order is a bit different from English word order.

Another type of Vehicle(s) you never see in China

2008-12-21T22:59:00.000-08:00

While this is still fresh in my mind, I can make one note of one other vehicle you'd never see in China. I'm talking about motor homes (房车, rising tone “fang” and flat “che”) and trailers. During my visit to America, I saw more than a few RVs parked in suburban driveways. And the fact that they're parked in a suburban driveway is one big reason why hardly anyone in China owns a motor home or trailer.

In contrast to America, there is very little residential parking space in Chinese cities. Even many of the newer apartment complexes don't have underground parking garages, or 地下停车场 (falling tone “di” and “xia”, rising tone “ting” and the last character is a falling and rising tone “chang”). And of course Chinese cities are too built up to have space for big open parking lots, especially in and around their centers.

For example, my complex in Dongzhimen doesn't have an underground parking garage. The same goes for nearly all of the other complexes nearby. And people only recently moved into these buildings, in 2003 or thereabouts. The one exception is the recently completed “Naga Life” luxury apartment community; I'll talk about this place in a future post.

Thus nearly everyone in my building and the other nearby buildings who have cars have to find a place on the street. Most park them on the wide alley, which used to be a hutong back when all the residential buildings were siheyuan courtyard houses just east of the Dongzhimen Dajie or “Ghost Street.”

A few of them can purchase spots. These places come with a bar which is locked in an upright position when the parking place is vacated to prevent other cars from using the spot when the owner is away. But most car-owners have to hunt for a place to park their cars.

In fact, one former student from the language center where I teach on Sundays lives in my neighborhood and owns a car. This fellow was a manager in a private company and I recall him having an SUV—yes there are a few them parked around where I live. He once told me that he wasn't able to purchase a parking spot, adding that it was a real hassle trying to find a place to park every evening in the neighborhood.

And even if you're lucky enough to be in a new building with an underground parking garage, you'll have to pay a lot of money to park your vehicle inside the garage. In America, of course, apartment and condominium complexes with undergraduate parking garages typically give tenants/owners at least one free parking space. However, my colleague here at CNLC, Yao Ling Ling, informs me that she has been paying 500 RMB (around $70 at the current exchange rate) a month for a parking space.

Yao and her husband now intend to buy this parking space. To do so, they'll have to pay 120,000 RMB, or around $18,000 at the current dollar-RMB exchange rate. That's more than they paid for their car, so as Yao told me, it's a good thing they don't have a second car!!

Thus if one did own a motor home or trailer in China, you would certainly spend a small fortune parking a vehicle that typically isn't driven/used all that much. It comes then as no surprise that Chinese nature reserves don't have campgrounds for motor homes and trailers. People who visit places like 云台山 (rising tone “yun” and “tai” and flat tone “shan”), Henan Province's most famous nature preserve, stay in a hotel.

I also don't recall seeing any tent campgrounds there either. And I suspect this is the case for most Chinese nature preserves or national parks. For example, my Chinese friend and language partner, Vivian Wang, told me that one can't pitch in tent anywhere near beautiful 九寨沟 National Park’s gorgeous, multicolored lakes. 九 (falling and rising tone jiu) 寨 (falling tone zhai) 沟 (flat tone gou), which means “Nine Stockade Gully,” is located in Western Sichuan Province and in addition to its lakes, boasts waterfalls, high rugged peaks, and immense glaciers.

Despite the restrictions on tent camping—扎营, a flat tone “zha” and rising tone “ying”—backpacking is gaining popularity in China. Indeed, there's a store selling backpacking gear, tents, and other equipment on the Dongsishitiao Beidajie not too far from where I live in Dongzhimen.

One place people backpack and camp at are the mountains around 九寨沟 (these peaks are also quite beautiful and spectacular). At least I remember seeing a party of backpackers on a CCTV 9 “Travelogue” show about this area. And the more rugged and less heavily visited parts of the Great Wall outside of Beijing, like 司马台(flat tone “si”, falling and rising tone “ma”, and rising tone “tai”) are popular backpacking and camping destinations. Peter Hessler, the author of RIVER TOWN and ORACLE BONES was found of camping at the Great Wall when he lived in Beijing.

In fact, one of my Chinese acquaintances, Phyllis Yu, runs an outdoor travel adventure service called “Pixie Adventures”. There are lots of really cool looking trips on the “Pixie Adventures” website (www.pixieadventures.com). The one that caught my eye was an extended trek through Sichuan's high mountains. I recall reading that the altitude through most of this jaunt stays at or above 12,000 feet.

REI has now opened a store in my hometown. I paid it visit during my late November-early December vacation back to the states and bought a pair of nice hiking boots that were on sale (I have large feet, so it's next to impossible to shoes that will fit me here). People who have read my personal introduction in this blog know that I love to hike in the mountains and did lots of trekking in California’s High Sierra Nevada. Now that I have a good pair of boots and possibly have found the right group trip, it's the Sichuan Mountains or bust!

A Final Word on "Pickup Truck" in Mandarin, Plus More Transliteration Mysteries

2008-12-21T22:49:00.000-08:00

In an earlier post, “More on those darn pickup trucks,” I stated that Mandarin has no word for “pickup truck”. I further wrote that the absence of this word is no doubt related to scarcity of such vehicles on the Middle Kingdom’s roads and highways.

I'd still stand by the second claim. You don't see very many pickup trucks here in China. In particular, there are hardly of them in the big cities. Again, practically all of China's city-dwellers live in apartments and hence have no need for such a vehicle to do things like hauling out trash from the yard. And in the countryside, an American style pickup would be prohibitively expensive for most farmers, who typically make just a 1,000 or so RMB per month (that's about $200 at the current exchange rate). These folks are lucky to have a tractor big enough to pull a cart with all their produce into the nearest town or city.

I now vaguely remember seeing some pickup truck like vehicles during my first year in China. I then lived in a relatively small city, 新郑市 (flat tone “xin” and falling tone “zheng” and “shi”), located in rural Henan Province. However, these vehicles were not only smaller than American-style pickup trucks, but many also had just three wheels—one in the front and two in the back.

Of course most of the farmers drove their tractors into the city or, in other cases, used three-wheeled bicycle carts and horse and mule-drawn wagons to get their fruit and vegetables into town.

Indeed, a fellow teacher that year hitched a ride, or perhaps better put, passed out, in one of those tractor drawn carts after drinking large quantities of that disgusting Chinese liquor, 白酒. The first character is a rising tone “bai” and means “white,” while the second character is a falling and rising tone “jiu” and means liquor. The stuff is typically distilled from corn or wheat is 50 proof. I'll have more to say about it in another post.

Getting back to pickup trucks, my first supposition about there being no word for this vehicle in the Chinese language is wrong. One of my excellent former Erwai students, 侯坤 (falling tone “hou” and flat tone “kun”), has informed that yes, Mandarin does have a word for pickup truck. It's 皮卡, or a rising tone “pi” and a falling and rising tone “ka.”

The first character is pronounced like “pee”, while the second character is pronounced like “k-ah.” The character 皮 means “leather,” so the Mandarin word for leather belt, for example, is 皮带 (the second character is a falling tone “dai,” which is pronounced as “die”). 卡 is the first character in basic Chinese word for truck, or 卡车—the second character, a flat tone “che”, refers to any kind of moving land vehicle.

So, in other words, literally translated, 皮卡 means “leather truck.” Of course, this character combination wasn't chosen because these trucks are made out of leather. The pairing is chosen because it sounds like the “pickup” part of “pickup truck.” As I noted in an earlier post, since Mandarin writing is based on characters, it's not easy for the language to absorb words from foreign tongues. The only way to do this is to find some character combination that sounds like the way the word is spoken in its native language (or, in many cases, given its status as the world's language, English).

Thus whenever one runs across a really nonsensical character combination, chances are the combination is some foreign word. This pairing of Mandarin characters to sound like foreign words is called “transliteration.” The problem is that in many transliteration cases, it's not immediately obvious what's being transliterated.

The Chinese word for pickup truck is a case in point. Once you know what the characters mean, you'll probably say, “Yeah, that kind of sounds like pickup truck.” However, it's certainly not immediately obvious. Fortunately, one has a clue here, namely the 卡 character, to tell you that we're talking about some kind of truck.

But no such clue exists in the transliteration for “jeep”, or 吉普. The first character is a rising tone “ji,” while the second character is a falling and rising tone “pu.” The first character is pronounced like the “gee” in “gee whiz,” while the second character is said like the “pooh” in “Winnie the Pooh.”

“吉” is a Chinese family name and is also an archaic term for “lucky,” while 谱 means “common” or “universal.” Thus the meaning of these characters gives no clue about the transliteration’s meaning. And the pronunciation of these characters doesn't help much either, as the word jeep is missing the “pooh” vowel sound.

There are certainly some transliterations that sound exactly like the foreign word equivalents. For example, the Chinese word for the African country Sudan is 苏丹 (flat tone “su” and falling tone “dan”). The first character appears in the name of the famous city in Jiangsu Province, Suzhou, while the second character is one of the Chinese words for red (and is a popular girl's name). And the Middle Eastern country, Yemen, is 也门. The first character, a falling and rising tone “ye”, is pronounced like “yeah”, while the second character, a rising tone “men,” is pronounced like “mun.” Together they mean, “also gate.”

In other cases, the transliteration of foreign country names is not an exact match, but pretty close to it. Malaysia is a case in point. It’s 马来西亚. “马” is a rising and falling tone “ma” and is pronounced like “ma” in “mama”, “来” is a rising tone “lai” and is pronounced like “lie,” “西” is a flat tone “xi” and is pronounced like “she”, and “亚” is a falling tone “ya” and is pronounced like “yah.” Together literally they mean “horse come west Asia;” however, any reasonably intelligent person would be able to guess it means Malaysia.

Other transliterations of foreign country names are not so obvious. For example, one could probably, albeit with some difficulty, guess that 法国 (falling and rising tone “fa” and rising tone “guo”) is France. This is because the second character means “country” and the first character, which is pronounced like “fah,” kind of sounds like France. This character means “rule”, so France in Chinese literally means “rule nation.”

That's an odd name for a country that from the late 18th through the mid-19th century experienced three revolutions and whose people even today still protest at the drop of a hat. It would be better to give this name to Germany, but that country is 德国—the first character, a rising tone, “de”, is pronounced like “duh.” It means “virtue,” and kind of sounds like the “Deutsch” part of “Deutschland,” which is the German name for Germany. So according to the Mandarin naming scheme, the French follow rules, while the Germans are virtuous. Go figure!

While one might be able to figure out that 法国 means France, I suspect that nobody could guess about the meaning of 西班牙. “班” is flat “ban” is a pronounced like “b-ah-n,” while 牙is a rising tone “ya” and is pronounced like “y-ah.” 班 is one of the characters in the character combination for “go to work,” 上班, while 呀 is the Chinese word for teeth. The pronunciation bears only a passing resemblance to the way Spain is said in English and has an even more tenuous relationship to its Spanish name, “Espana.”

The same could be said for the Chinese name for Indonesia, which is “印尼”—a falling tone “yi” and a rising tone “ni”. This is clearly a transliteration from the English name of the country, as the first character is pronounced like the “E” in “E.R.” and second is pronounced like “knee.” I suspect this has nothing in common with the way Indonesia is said in Bahasa, the country's official language (I did a quick web search on this matter, but couldn't find get that information).

Finally, to end this discussion, there is one transliteration of a country name that is not as literal it could be. I'm talking about the Chinese name for America’s northern neighbor, Canada. It's 加拿大 in Mandarin. The characters are a flat one “jia,” meaning “add to/addition,” a rising tone “na”, meaning “take/hold, and a falling “da”, meaning “big” (in terms of size, not quantity). While this kind of sounds like “Canada”—gee-ah n-ah d-ah—the character trio, 看那大, sounds almost exactly the way “Canada” is said by English speakers. As noted above the last character is a falling tone “da”; the first one is a falling tone “kan” and the second is a rising tone “na”.

When learning a foreign language, one necessarily engages in word sleuthing. Good and really serious students will try to learn words from their context, rather than looking them up in a dictionary and trying to memorize them.

This is especially true with Mandarin. And this is really the case when it comes to learning the language's characters. This discussion has tried to show that one can turn this task into a fun and interesting activity. And since Mandarin is such a bloody difficult language to master for non-native speakers, you might as well try to have some fun while learning it!

Yet more bloody trailers

2008-12-06T20:56:00.000-08:00

I'm about ready to head back to my current home, i.e. China, but did manage to squeeze in a viewing of the new James Bond film, "A Quantum of Solace," during my visit back to the states. In an earlier "reverse culture shock" posting, I kvetched about all the idiotic trailers one has endure before viewing a film in a movie theater here--cinema goers in China are spared all of that. Well, the new Bond was preceded by no less than SIX TRAILERS! Again, these were all almost certainly films with utterly no artistic or cinematic merit whatsoever. One of them, for example, was Adam Sandler's latest pathetic stab a comedic acting. I don't believe this man is even remotely funny and he's hands down the most obnoxious human being on the planet to boot.

Fortunately, the new Bond film was worth putting up with all this pre-screening pelf. I thought Pierce Brosnan was a very good Bond, but Daniel Craig is even better. As the critics have said, he's certainly the most pyschologically interesting and complex Bond so far. One other notable feature of this film is that is skipped altogether two staple elements of earlier 007 movies. One was the flirtatious banter with Moneypenny that preceded 007 being briefed by "M" on his new mission (the first Moneypenny, the Canadian born actress, Lois Maxwell, passed away last year). The other was the 007's obligatory visit to "Q" to be equipped with all kinds of devilishly clever weapons and gadgets.

I'm returning to China in a few days and look forward to leaving the film trailers behind me!

Coffee Culture comes to the 国子监 street

2008-12-01T19:43:00.000-08:00

In an earlier post, put on the blog just before I returned to America for a visit, I wrote about a cool coffee café, “Waiting for Godot,” which is located just west of the Nr. 5 Line Beixinqiao Subway Station. A bit north of this place, on the 国子监街 (rising tone “guo”, falling and rising tone “zi”, and flat tone “jian”) street, are a number of other cool coffee cafés.

The 国子监 is more a wide alley than it is a street, and is one of my favorite places in Beijing. The Confucian Temple, or 孔庙 (falling and rising tone “kong” and “miao”), is located on its east end. Farther down the street are three coffee cafés. One of them, “Crown Coffee”, is shown in the two photos above. The two young ladies were clearly having a nice time relaxing over their lattes or whatever it was they were drinking.

However, my favorite café is the one shown in the photo below. I now go there sometimes for breakfast, as they have bacon, eggs, toast, and one cup of coffee for 30 RMB deal. The café’s interior features some nice art, sky-lights in the roof, exposed beams running below the ceiling, and nice, comfortable couches to sit in and spend an afternoon reading and book and sipping coffee. I definitely intend to spend some more time there.

Readers who know a bit of Mandarin will immediately notice that the English title of this place differs completely from its Chinese title. “喜鹊" (falling and rising tone “xi” and falling tone “que”) of course means “magpie” in Mandarin. I guess they figured that laowai wouldn't want to go into a place called “Magpie Coffee!”

Actually, my Chinese friend, Vivian Wang, has informed me that Magpies are seen as a magical bird here in China. This has to do with an ancient love story in which magpies formed a bridge enabling a pair of lovers to connect with each other. No wonder this place has such a Chinese name (难怪这个地方有这个中文的名字).

Reverse Culture Shock III: Going to an American Movie Theater

2008-11-29T14:50:00.000-08:00

I got another bit of reverse culture shock a couple of days ago which has definitley made me miss one aspect of movie-watching in China. This happened when I went to see Kevin Smith’s new film, “Zack and Miri make a Porno.” As usual, I got to the River View Shopping Mall’s Edwards Multiplex Cinema a bit early and plopped down into my plush reclining seat only to endear 10-15 minutes of commercials and movie trailers.

The commercials were totally moronic appeals to buy coke, beauty products, and computer games and software. This was followed by five or so trailers of upcoming films, all of which I’m sure have no redeeming cinematic merit whatsoever.

Two stick out in my mind. One was an idiotic comedy starring Anne Hathaway, fresh from her triumph as Agent 99 in “Get Smart”, about a pair of beautiful young women cat-fighting over reserving a room in a posh New York hotel for their respective weddings. The other movie, “Confessions of a Shop-aholic”, is yet another Jerry Bruckheimer atrocity about … you guessed it, some dumb but beautiful shopping obsessed bimbo. Perhaps Bruckheimer is making a lame effort to rouse the now suddenly frugal American consumers back into their big-spending habits just as the US economy slides into the dreaded liquidity trap. In any case, given the economic hard times ordinary Americans are now enduring, screening such a film at this particular moment strikes me as being rather obscene.

The nice thing about watching movies in China is that cinema goers are spared all of this pre-screening pelf. I’ve now seen about a half dozen films in various movie theaters in Beijing, and none of these movies was every preceded by a trailer for another film, much less advertising for products.

On the other hand, a movie like “Zack and Miri” would, due to its content, certainly never ever make it on to the Middle Kingdom’s movie screens. But notwithstanding its title and some of the things that happen in the film, “Zack and Miri” is hardly pornographic. Kudos to Kevin Smith for turning a tale about two down and out people making a cheap porno flick in order to get some cash—both have dead-end, low-paying jobs and face imminent eviction from the apartment they share—into a rather sweet romance and love story. And compared to "Confessions of Shopaholic", "Zack and Miri" is much more in sync with today's troubled economic times.

While Seth Rogin and Elizabeth Banks are Zack and Miri, the rest of the cast includes two people from Clerks I and Clerks II. One is the fellow, minus his long hair, who played “Jay”, or “12-Step”, one of the two dope dealers in these films who hang out in front of the convenience store in Clerks I and the fast food joint, "Mooby's", in Clerks II (his partner, “Silent Bob”, was played by Kevin Smith). And the actor who starred as the wonderfully misanthropic Randall Graves in Clerks I and Clerks II, is also in “Zack and Miri” as Zack and Miri’s video camera man.

However, my fellow laowai Kevin Smith aficionados need not despair. It will certainly be possible to download “Zack and Miri” from the internet and I have no doubt that DVDs of this movie will be showing up very soon, if they haven’t already, in DVD shops. I had no trouble buying a DVD of “Clerks II”, which, after all, featured a bit of “inter-species erotica”. Kevin Smith fans will know what I’m talking about and the rest of you can figure it out on your own, although what was actually shown in that particular scene wasn’t at all explicit (at least they didn’t get any complaints from the Humane Society).

In the meantime, I’ll continue enjoying viewing mainly Chinese movies in the cinema without the highly annoying pre-screening commercials and trailers.