Ok, back in Beijing...

So what to say? In order to live with Rae, I moved out of my crappy rez room into an even crappier appartment. My room doesn't even have a desk... or a table... not really happy about that situation.

Last week Rae and I were walking through campus, moving some of my things to the new apartment when a guy came up to me and asked if I was from North America. This is one of the most annoying questions... anyway, this time it turned out that there was some profit in it. He told me that he would give me RMB100 to speak into a microphone for 30 minutes to record my voice for some phone thing. I agreed and we started to walk with him.

After a short period of awkward scilence, he asked me if he could ask a question. The question, it turned out, was whether America would ever let a piece of its territory separate and declare independence (this was a clear reference to Taiwan, as Rae had mentioned that she was from Taiwan). I said of course they would and pointed to the example of Peurto Rico, which holds periodic referenda on exactly that issue. Surprised but unphased, he attributed this more liberal stance to the differences betweend Eastern and Western culture. I then went on the offenisve and brought up the independence of Singapore from Malaysia and asked him if they were infact Eastern. He shut up.

The arrogance and ignorance of people here, and university students in particular, is shocking. I know I have said it many times before, but I just can't stand people who know nothing about the world making gradiose statements about culture and countries and the like. It is people like this who know that their media is controlled and censored, but agree with it for the sake of the strength of the motherland. The thing I will miss the least when I go home, less even than the unbreathable air, is the people.

This weekend has been the Christmas weekend. Naturally, we don't get any time off, but this is still a time of year that foreigners like to have parties. On friday Rae wanted to have a big night, so she brought her friend Kimberly and got a bunch of people from my class and their friends to go out for Karaoke. The place we went, although (or perhaps because) it was Korean run, had lots of relatively recent and good English songs. I had a good time singing them as well as trying ot sing a few Chinese ones.

Saturday was a slow day of recovery from the night before, but that night I got a text message from Max inviting me to his English teacher's house for a party. It was surprisingly good. Most of the people there were young university grads from the West who had come to China to learn Chinese. Some were more or less done with their studies and had moved on to working at Chinese companies here in Beijing. It was fun to exchange stories about China and my recent trip to Taiwan etc...

Sunday my classmate Kevin had a party. It was a proper Christmas party with a Christmas tree, gift giving and even potato latkes! There, I met a French guy who went to the Lycee Francais in New York. It was fun to talk about New York. I really hope I have a chance to live there again... in the near future... Much of the rest of the party was spent watching "Love, Actually". Even though it is a hopelessly syropy movie, it was still quite enjoyable to watch. In the end after most people had left, Kevin broke out the microphone and we started singing Karaoke again. I did my best to sing Chinese songs, but not knowing the tunes and many of the characters, I can't say I did very well.

School is winding up... I am trying to get ready to go home... Of course, I am quite worried about what I will do when I get there. First, I don't have anywhere to live. Second, I don't have a job. My sister has offered me to stay at her place until I get something else, but I am reluctant to accept her offer as her hospitality has a way of turning into hostility quickly and without warning. While this still remains my default option, I will try to secure something a little more welcoming in the meantime. On the job front, I am at a loss. I don't have very much experience in anything other than teaching and I don't know if I can find a job in teaching. I think I might sign up at a temp agency when I get back and see how that works, but it of course would be better to get something a little bit more stable.

Either way, being back in Vancouver where I am not a novelty and where I can breathe without damaging my health will be nice.

lets see how it goes...

Wow, it has been about a month since I have updated this blog. I have some time now so I will try to put down as much as possible.

Rae came on Dec 2. When I was buying flowers to give her at the airport, I also found a guy to drive me there and back for less than the price of the cab. This was good because I wanted to do that anyway.

In the car on the way to the airport, I talked to the driver about the changes in China since his childhood. When he was growing up, everything was rationed. If you wanted to buy something, money wasn't enough, you also needed the right ration coupons. However, everything was very cheap and the largest bill was a $10 (almost exactly 1 euro). He was about 40 years old.

I met rae coming out of customs. She was tired, but happy to see me. She was definately a sight for sore eyes. There had been times when I didn't know when we would see eachother next so it was really nice to have here there.

On the way back home, after hearing that she was from Taiwan, the driver tried to convince Rae that Taiwan was a part of China. Of course, as usual, this was done by someone who didn't have any knowledge whatsoever about Taiwan. He didn't even know the language they spoke there, just that they were an inalieable part of China. Of course he is typical of an arrogant, ignorant mainlander.

That night Rae and I went out for a drink with Neal the Bangladeshis next door, and the Koreans in my class. They were all interested in Rae, but we had to go to bed early to catch our morning flight.

When we got into Shenzhen, it was like going to another country. Everything was more colourful. The air was warmer, and surprisingly, much cleaner. We (Rae, Neal, and myself) checked into a hotel in the dongmen district of Shenzhen. It is a major shopping area so we had lots of fun walking around all the malls, stalls, stores and markets. We also went for dim sum and foot massages. Then we went to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is still as big and impressive as it has always been. We walked around Kowloon and Central again. Neal was very impressed and took lots of pictures. Since it was Neal's birthday, we went to a nice Thai restaurant in Soho... the food was great but expensive... everything was at least five times as much as it would be in Beijing. The problem with Hong Kong dollars is that because they are almost the same as RMB, you can't fool yourself with the exchange rate, you know what you are spending. Either way, the food was great and we had a good time.

That night, I went for a walk with Neal around Kowloon. It is always just so impressive to see the density of that place. We talked about China. We agreed that Hong Kong is a very different place, a place that is infinately more pleasant, civilised, and efficient.

The next day we went to Taiwan. Rae's brother (Billy) and his girlfriend (Becky) met us at the airport. They were friendly and nice. They spoke really fast so I didn't get everything they were saying, but I could get enough to communicate. They didn't speak much English. They took us out to a nice coffee shop where we had bubble tea and some snacks.

On the drive from the airport the first thing that I noticed is that everything is smaller in Taiwan than in China. The buildings, the roads, etc... Of couse, this is because Taiwan's government is not in the practice of expropriating people's land and giving it to big developers. It gives the city (Taoyuan) a more human scale and feel. The next thing I notices is that there are 7-11s everywhere. There were 4 on a 5 block stretch of Rae's brother's street alone, and that is not counting the other companies' convienience stores.

The other major impression that I got that night is that Taiwan is a much more open place than mainland China. The normal 50 channel tv package that Billy and Becky had had no fewer than five English channels (including CNN), three Japanese channels and a Korean channel. Apart from the foreign channels, there were also a few channels in both Hokkien and Hakka, as well as an aboriginal channel. Most of these had Chinese subtitiles to help people understand. This is very very different from the mainland where the only non-Manadin language channel is run by the government and makes all of their own (terrible propagandistic bullshit) programming. On the occasion that they do show foreign shows (usually Korean dramas) they will be dubbed into Chinese. The news, of course, is much more lively there with several different competing channels with different political views.

The next day Rae and I went to Becky's hair salon to get our hair done. I got a cool haircut, probably the best one I have had in a while and rae got a cool style. Then, we took the train into Taipei feeling like the most stylish people around.

Taipei is a very lively city. It is not nearly as dense as Hong Kong, but it still has several neighbourhoods full of shops and people. The first one we went to was Nanyangjie. It is a whole area full of "Buxiban" or cram schools. Most of these teach English, and to my surprise a similar nuber teach Japanese. Having so many schools in the area of course means that the streets are full of students walking around and, because it is Taiwan, lots of snack stalls. Since we didn't really have anything to do in this area, we had some snacks and caught a bus for Taipei 101.

As soon as we got close to the building we got off the bus to walk and see the neigbourhood. It turned out to be really upscale. there were lots of nice brick apartment buildings with doormen. It had a bit of an upper west side feeling with all the nice restaurants and boutiques.

When we finally got to Taipei 101, it was impressive. It was all lit up because it was night and it looked really cool. However, there were no other tall buildings in the area. Actually, there are very few tall buildings in Taipei in general, way less than in KL, for example. The whole thing is really just a stunt to get Taiwan on the map, but it didn't work. Most people don't know that the tallest building in the world is in Taiwan, and anyway, there will be ones higher in Shanghai, NY, and Dubai within the next 5 years.

We didn't actually go to the top. It was a cloudy night and the visibility would not have been great so we just walked around in the mall instead. The mall was impressive. Well designed, high quality and full of expensive shops. Not that I would buy anything there, but it was nice.

After the tower, we got on a subway and went to Ximending. This area used to be full of Japanese when the island was under their control. Now, the area is a massive night market. There were so many shops and food stalls. Unfortunately, since we were fresh off the boat from mainland China we thought everything was too expensive and didn't buy anything, however, we noticed that the clothes were much nicer than those in Shenzhen, and much much nicer than those in Beijing.

We left that area to go meet Billy and Becky and their friend in the north of the city. There, they took us to a hot spring area on a hill. Rae and I got a private room that had a bathtub full of spring water. It was really nice and relaxing after a big day of walking. After the hottub, we joined Billy and Becky and their friend for dinner. We all slept in the car on the way home. I felt bad for Billy having to drive the whole way. When we got home at 3 am, we went straight to sleep.

The next day we got up late and drove back to Taipei. We went to see the Chaing Kai Shek memorial. It was big and monumental without being communist. That was refreshing. It also pleasantly free of the everpresent crowds of peasant tourists that plague Tiananmen square. From there we drove around Taipei for a while and ended up at the mall with the big sphere. It was meh...

That night we went to Zhongli, the city next to Taoyuan to meet some of Rae's friends. Everyone was surprised to meet a foreigner who could speak Chinese. Of course, I shared the face by attributing everything to Rae's exceptional teaching skills. We talked a bit about Taiwan and Canada. I found that people in Taiwan are much more informed about the world than mainlanders, they also don't have the frightening nationalism. Most interestingly, people had very positive views of Japan. They saw it as a modern and hightly advanced country that had produced an attractive popular culture, not as a bunch of evil murderers.

That night, the biggest test was getting along with Rae's aunt and uncle. They owned the cafe and were there with Rae's friends. They also turned out to be very nice and friendly. They had been successful with their businesses and they had a sort of confidence about them that made them impressive as people.

Hm, this is getting very long... from here I will just do the highlights.

We went to Taizhong (Taichung in Wade-Giles). There, Rae's cousin got us a great room on the 23rd floor of a 5 star hotel. Unfortunately, because we were so busy, we didn't have any time to properly enjoy it. As soon as we got in, we went out with my friend from first year (Foundations) in Vancouver, Kai. He has been living there teaching English for about 6 months now and he seemed to be happy to see someone from home. We swapped stories about living on different sides of the straight. While readers of this blog will know my common complaints about China, his complaints were that because people dressed too well it was hard to tell who was rich and who was just middle class... um... that is a problem I would love to have...

The next day we met rae's cousin and her husband. He is working at a company that makes gambling machines and because of trade and cooperation with American companies, he is able to speak English quite well. They took us to an old city called Lugang to see some old temples. It turned out that they temples were very similar to those we had seen in Penang, only a bit older. Of course, since this was taiwan, we ate lots of snacks. This time it was mostly seafood related and, of course, delicious.

That night, we met up with Rae's friend (Christy) from university (both UBC and Kaohsiung) and Kai and we went out for a drink at a super classy bar. The bar was like a 60s style LA ranch house with a swimming pool, only it was purpose built as a bar. Very cool. With the coolness came the prices... the same as a cool place in Yaletown... ouch. Anyway, sometimes it is nice to be at a place where good scotch is one of the cheapest things on the menu.

The next day, Christy and her friend came and picked us up and we drove out to the mountains. We saw "sun moon lake" which was pretty and then we went to the aboriginal cultural village, which was better than I was expecting. We ended it all, as always, with dinner in the night market eating our way from stall to stall.

The next day we went down to Kaohsiung. Kaohsiung is not as developed as the northern cities and is definately a city built around scooters. We rented one and went around seeing the sights. Unfortunately, our money ran out quickly and we had to head back up to Taoyuan after only one day, although before we left, we went up the tallest building in town (one of the 20 tallest in the world). It was a bit depressing because the building was pretty much abandoned... there was no need for an 85 story building in Kaohsiung... who knew?

The last few days were dedicated to family visits. I met lots of Rae's relatives. They were all really friendly to me. The only problem was that Rae's grandparents can't speak any Mandarin so we couldnt' really communicate. I think they also didn't really know what to make of me as a foreigner. Language not withstanding, we got on ok. I made lots of invitations to show people around Vancouver... invitations I might have to honour... and people were very nice to me.

Then, my Taiwan trip came to an end and after a short stop in Shenzhen, I came back to Beijing and real life...

More on real life next time...