Rain, Rain

On Friday, something rare happened in Beijing – it rained. I’ve been in China since August and it has only rained twice and snowed once. The last time it rained was sometime before Halloween.

Beijing, like several other parts of China, is experiencing desertification. The Gobi Desert consumes about 3,600 square kilometers (2,250square miles) of grassland a year. So, slowly, a lot of China is becoming a desert.

There are, of course, efforts to stop this. The main way seems to be tree planting. Since 1981, about 64 billion trees have beenplanted. However, not every sapling lives. So, I don’t know how many of this huge number of trees is still around today. The Chinese government does saythat their efforts restore between 40,000 and 70,000 square kilometers (25,000to 43,750 square miles) of land each year.

The world is watching China’s desertification reversal measures. If these measures are successful, other countries will be able to adapt them to their own situations. Good luck China!

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To see a gallery of striking images of China's desertification, check out this series of photos by Sean Gallagher. 

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Big in China

I don’t know how to put this but, in China, I’m kind of a big deal. Well, not really. But, people do stare at me a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. I get stared at more here than the rest of my life combined.  Let me tell you a story to put this into perspective for you.

Recently, my husband, my mother-in-law, and I all went to the Great Wall. The Great Wall is a world renowned site, which attracts a huge amount of tourists every year. These tourists are both international and domestic tourists. Anyway, as we were admiring the Wall and taking pictures, a Chinese man approached my husband, Luiz, and asked “Will you take a picture?”  Now, if this was anywhere else, Luiz would have snapped a pic of the man and his family on the Great Wall and been done. Being China, however, this was not the case.  It turns out that the man wanted to take a picture of his son with Luiz. When my mother-in-law and I came a little closer to see what was happening, the man realized that there were three Westerners, not one. So, he eagerly asked if all three of us would be in the picture with his son. This man got distracted from the Great Wall of China to take a picture of three Western looking strangers.  Welcome to my life!

I’d like to say that this is the first time this has happened but, it’s not. I’ve been photographed by strangers several times. I’ve even been videotaped.  I also get stared at pretty much everywhere I go. Overall, most of the time, I don’t really pay attention to it. I do get nervous if I’m out alone and a group of men are staring too much. But, thus far, nothing has happened. In reality, most people take a second look and then ignore me. It’s only a special few who really stare at or photograph foreign strangers.

After looking at the numbers, it’s really not surprising that people have such a reaction to Westerners. From what I’ve read online, China has less than a million foreigners of all ethnicities. So, out of 1.3 billion people, that makes foreigners less than 0.07% of the population. It would be like if I saw an alien walk down my street. I’ve seen them depicted in movies but, never in real life. If this happened, I’d probably take some pictures too.  

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Contraband

Going to the post office in China is not like going to the post office elsewhere. I’ve mailed things from post offices in the US, South Korea, Brazil, and Spain. None of these countries have a system remotely like the Chinese postal system.

On Saturday, I went to the local post office to mail a few gifts the US. I knew from reading a book on Chinese culture that my package would be inspected so, I didn’t box anything up. I just brought my gifts and packing tape in a bag and planned on buying a box at the post office.

At the post office, I stood in line at the counter to buy my box. When I spoke to the clerk, I showed her the size box I wanted and waited. She waited too. After a confused minute of staring at each other, she finally indicated that she wanted to see what I intended to send. I showed her, thinking that she just wanted to see if everything would fit into the box. That’s not what she wanted at all. The woman looked at my items, very carefully, and started putting things into three piles. Finally, she pointed to one pile and say “Ok.” Then, she asked me what some other items were and, after I told her, she put them into the other pile. Next, she pointed at this pile and said “No.”

It turns out that almost none of my items were able to be sent through the mail system. From the way the woman acted, you would have thought I was trying to send a box of rattle snakes and plutonium. In reality, my banned items struck me as very tame. Here is a list of my banned items:

- Chocolate Chinese New Year Coins

- Two red envelopes which each contained a $10 USD bill.

- Face Cream (still sealed)

- A decorative, souvenir plate that said “Beijing” and had pandas on it

- Peanut flavored Chinese candy

Only two items, a t-shirt and some children’s art paper, were approved. The art paper, however, needed special approval from a second clerk because the pack came with a wooden stylus.  I ended up not bothering to send these items because it didn’t seem worth it to me to only mail 1/3 of the gifts.

After I checked the Chinese postal service site, I did find a list of prohibited items. It turns out that the Chinese postal system is surprisingly strict. They do not allow anything edible or any type of currency to be sent. So, that explains the red envelopes with cash and the candy. I cannot, however, figure out why the face cream and the souvenir plate were denied.

I know from having mail sent to me that packages sent into China are inspected. But, it turns out that packages leaving China are just as closely monitored. I’ll keep that in mind the next time I want to send a gift home. 

The Logo for the Chinese Postal System

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Picture Source: http://www.synotrip.com/china-travel/practical-info/mail-and-shipping

Hot Pot = Hot Mess

The Swiss have their fondue. The Chinese, on the other hand, have hot pot. Hot pot is a dish where various meats, fish, vegetables, dumplings, and noodles are cooked in a communal, tabletop cauldron full of broth. Each region has a variation and it is mostly a winter dish.

For the last 1,000 years or so, the Chinese have been making hot pot. Based on my recent hot pot experience, it’s a good thing that the Chinese have other talents and specialties.

Recently, I tried hot pot at a restaurant called Dong LaiShun Muslim Restaurant. We ordered one of their combo meals for two. It was a bit expensive for Beijing, almost $50USD for the combo. To put this into perspective, we can usually eat a delicious lunch, with enough leftovers for a second meal, for around $20. So, this meal was about twice as expensive as a typical Chinese lunch. Unfortunately, it was less than half as good.

Our food wasn’t exactly terrible. It didn’t taste disgusting or foul. It was just tasteless. Our broth tasted like plain water. The meat, vegetables, and noodles also seemed to have absolutely no spices or seasonings. Plus, the meat had a really weird, sort of wild taste to it. The menu said lamb but, this meat did not taste like something that came from a farm. I imagine that is how lion would taste.

The restaurant is a very popular place. I’ve been there once before but, I left when I was told there was a two hour wait. So, it seems like others like the restaurant. I wonder if maybe they altered the meal in an attempt to suit our Western palates. I can’t imagine Chinese people, with their yummy, flavorful food, finding this bland meal acceptable.

If you come and visit me in Beijing, I’ll take you to the Peak. But, I will not take you to Dong Lai Shun Muslim Restaurant. 

Our Entire Meal 

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A Close Up of the Meal

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The Menu

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The Hot Pot Cauldron

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Deceptive Pinyin

Walking around Beijing, one doesn’t see much English. About 90% of the signs are in English. So, I was delighted when I saw that street signs and subway signs have the Roman alphabet under the Chinese characters. I now could identify where I lived and what subway station I needed to get off at.

Well, my delight lasted until the first time I got into a cab. I tried telling the cab driver the name of my street and he had no idea what I was saying. Finally, I gave him my Chinese ID and he was able to read my address. That’s when I had my first inkling that my pronunciation was even worse than I thought.

Later, I was telling my co-worker the story to try and see why the cab driver couldn’t understand me. I told my co-worker that I live on Tiancun Road, near the Yuquanlu subway station. I pronounced the names, phonetically, as tee-ahn-coon and you-kwan-loo.  It turns out that I was wrong: the names are tee-ahn-soon and you-chawn-loo.  My co-worker told me that I wasn’t pronouncing the Pinyin correctly.

After our conversation, I went to look up Pinyin. I’d heard of it but, I didn’t really know what it was. Pinyin is the system of Romanizing Chinese characters. It’s sorta phonetic but, not in the way that an English speaker would assume. There are some sounds in Chinese that aren’t going to be adequately expressed by anything A-Z so, different sounds are assigned to some letters and letter combinations. This is one reason (of many) that my pronunciation was so bad.

Pinyin is used for more than just signs. It is the way that Chinese speakers type using a regular computer. To type in Chinese, you have to have a program installed that recognizes Chinese, like on Microsoft Word. Then, you type what you want in Pinyin and a list of characters appears that have spellings matching what you typed in. Last, you pick the correct character and move on to the next word.

In addition to being used for typing, Pinyin is used to teach children to read Chinese characters. This is because Chinese characters contain no clues about pronunciation. So, first, children learn to read Pinyin. Then, they learn to read Chinese characters using flashcards with Chinese characters and Pinyin underneath.

Overall, Pinyin is pretty useful. I just wish it made more sense to me.

An Example of Pronunciation Differences between Pinyin and English

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Trying to type Beijing in Chinese characters in MS Word.

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Pinyin Pronunciation Guide Source: http://chinaculturecorner.com/2013/09/22/pronouncing-chinese-pinyin/