Tasty

Restaurants in China tend to use images of the animals they serve on their signs. So a restaurant specialising in chicken will use a photo of a rooster, one specialising in beef will have a picture of a cow, etc.

I walked past this restaurant yesterday....

Need a closer look?



And yes, apparently the sign says "Doggy Hotpot".

Let the Sun Shine!

I have just noticed in the pictures of the plant market, below, that the sky is clear and the sun is shining. I took these photos about four weeks ago (lucky I did, the market now gone forever...) and in that time the weather has changed. We no longer have a sky. Chongqing is known for it's fog/smog/generally poor air quality and as it is now I can't see the other side of the river from my apartment. Yesterday I woke to a complete 'white out' - I couldn't see a single thing out any of my windows. I was literally in the clouds. Eerie and somewhat disconcerting!

VALE The Plant Market

One of my favourite things so far in Chongqing has been the discovery of a plant market in the vacant lot opposite my apartment block.

When I moved in I was somewhat thankful for the massive vacant block just across the road. The land is large enough for at least three skyscraper/apartment buildings much like the one I live in and I even wonder whether they will have emerged before my time here is up. At the moment though the land is clear and affords me a wonderful view across the Yangtze (river view, anyone?!) and into the neon-lit Nanping district.

Used as a parking lot during the week, on Sundays the site is magically transformed into an incredible plant market. Most of you will be aware that I’m by no means a greenthumb and the thought of a plant market is not something that would usually excite me. For some reason though I just love this market and have visited it every weekend since first discovering its existence.

I think part of the appeal is that it’s so random and chaotic. Vendors lay out their wares on the ground as there are no trestles or tables, and they stand around or squat nearby smoking and chatting. There seems to be no order or aisles but people seem to move in a relatively orderly fashion through the block. It pays to be very careful about where you step as I can see that it would be quite easy to do an ankle on the uneven ground which is merely the rubble and rubbish that covers the block. The market is always absolutely jam packed with people and it tends to spill out onto the street outside the lot, where more vendors line the road with greenery.

And everything really is green. Being such a big, dirty, polluted city I think this may be a further appeal of the market. There are more plants than I can possibly list, from trees to potted plants to flowers to shrubs. I have seen bamboo, ferns, orchids, roses, bonsai and just about everything else you could imagine. You can buy tiny plants to put in a fish tank and you can buy pots, soil, spades and seeds. There are a number of stalls selling beautiful rocks ranging from pebbles to boulders that come on wooden display stands and if you happen to buy a seedling you can get someone to pot it while you wait.

It was love at first sight for me when I saw the orchids. I convinced myself that an orchid would be a stupid purchase given I’m only here for a short period and I’d probably kill the damn thing anyway. I figured that it wasn’t worth the expense but when I enquired as to the price and found it was only 20rmb I didn’t even bother bargaining and bought one on the spot. After purchasing a pot I had shelled out a total of $4.15 (Australian dollars) which is less than the price of a bunch of flowers. I accept that I am a child of the disposable generation and when this orchid dies I will console myself with the purchase of a new one!

NOTE 27/11/2005: I wrote this three weeks ago and just haven’t got around to posting it. In that time the plant market has disappeared. I noticed two weeks ago that a team of men were filling the hole in the brick wall surrounding the vacant block that served as the entrance to the market. Why use cyclone fencing when you can build a wall?! There is no longer any access to the block and the market has vanished. I suspect that the block will be developed shortly. Vendors still line my street with plants etc on a Sunday but it’s not as big or as diverse. By the way... a couple of the flowers have fallen off but the orchid is still alive and kicking.

Keep Smiling

One of my Chinese colleagues just addressed me as "Happy Girl".
That sure made me laugh.

Pandas are cute and I am famous

Chengdu is world renowned for its Giant Panda Breeding Research Base so naturally this was our first stop during my recent weekend in Chengdu. Aside from catching up with my friends, the pandas are the main reason that I wanted to visit Chengdu.

Before I write anything else I think it is important to mention just how CUTE pandas are. They are really, really, really cute. Really. They are so ungainly and clumsy looking, yet obviously very strong and nimble. One of my AYAD mates - who is in China working on a Panda Ecotourism project in Shaanxi Province - told us that pandas are virtually double jointed all over which explains why they look so clumsy yet never seem to tumble much.

The centre in Chengdu is very well set up and the pandas are treated like kings. They have large enclosures with play equipment in them and a seemingly never-ending supply of bamboo to chew on.

The centre is home to dozens of adult and sub-adult Giant Pandas and smaller Red Pandas. I wouldn't be surprised if the red pandas suffer a bit of an inferiority complex as they are sometimes referred to as 'lesser pandas' and their enclosure is set back a bit and would be easy to miss. We made a point of visiting them first before heading to the Giant Pandas, just so they'd know they're important too.

The Giant Pandas are amazing, they just make your heart melt. We were fortunate to see one young adult panda in a playful mood, climbing around and jumping on his sleeping mother. Another climbed to the highest point of the play equipment where he had a scratch and then promptly fell asleep in the most precarious of positions. We also saw a baby panda which was sleeping next to its mother in a glassed-in enclosure. It was about the size of a Sherrin and just so cute. We considered creating a diversion and breaking in to steal it but as it turns out we didn’t need to create a diversion. The Chinese managed pretty well on their own.

Every now and then one stumbles into a chaotic situation and wonders what on earth just happened, and how. This was to be our feeling about what happened next at the panda centre. Upon leaving the panda nursery we stumbled into the midst of a large press conference. Being a group of young foreigners we were asked to take part and were duly pushed through the crowd to the front. I can’t say exactly what the press conference was about but it was the launch of a website and it had something to do with the Beijing Olympics and the Giant Panda being announced as one of five Olympic mascots. I found out later that was the day marking 1000 days to the beginning of the Olympics and also the day the Olympic mascots were launched.

There were a bank of laptops set up and after a series of VIPS (World Ping Pong Champions (male & female, both Chinese); head of the Atlanta Olympics; famous panda researcher) and children in panda suits signed into the new website we were ushered over to sign in. There was A LOT of media and they all recorded for posterity the young Aussies playing around on the new website. When I say A LOT I mean about 10-15 camera crews, plus photographers, radio and print journalists. A dream job for a publicist really – pandas, Olympics and foreigners… does it get any better?! There was also a webcam set up which linked to a shot of a couple of pandas playing around with a giant (panda) sized keyboard. I saw this shot on the front page of one of the Chengdu papers the next day. In fact all the papers had a picture of the pandas on the front and I’ve got to say I’m not disappointed that they chose to run with them rather than pictures of US!

After the official presentations were finished we were accosted by the media pack and interviewed for both tv and radio. We were asked what we thought of the pandas and Chengdu and whether we had planned to be there for such a special occasion (just pure luck!). It was crazy, we were treated like rock stars. At one stage, when we thought things had died down and our day had returned to normalcy a press photographer walked up to us with his zoom lens and took a photo right in our face. We were just standing chatting and we all burst into laughter as he wandered off. Now I know how Madonna feels.

That evening one of my friends received a call from one of her Chinese colleagues half-way across the country. He was ringing to say he’d just seen us on tv. Turns out we are media stars... may explain all the stares we received in Chengdu?!

The Chengdu Report

I spent last weekend in Chengdu with the express purpose of catching up with my AYAD mates and visiting the renowned panda breeding centre. Chengdu is the nearest city to Chongqing and the capital of neighbouring Sichuan province. Chongqing was the largest city in Sichuan until 1997 when it became its own municipality (ie. managed by the Central Government) leaving Chengdu as the major city. Some Chongqing natives have told me they really like Chengdu however others appear to have a distinct disdain for it. When I mentioned to one of my Chinese colleagues that I would be spending a weekend there she queried why I was spending so long, suggested I only needed half a day to see the pandas, and recommended that I go to Shanghai instead. I didn’t bother explaining to her that Shanghai is a long long long way away and anyway, I’ve already been there!

I skipped off work early on Friday afternoon in order to catch the bus to Chengdu. I discovered that the hotel just across the road from my apartment building has a twice daily coach service and while it was slightly more expensive (about $5 more) than a regular bus it was a nicer ride and way too convenient to pass up.

The bus ride took about 4.5 hours and when I arrived in Chengdu I made my way to the hostel. This was the first time I’ve stayed in a backpacker’s hostel in China and while it was simple it was remarkably clean and very very cheap.

Chengdu is a fairly central location for the four of us on assignments here in south-west China so we decided it would make a good meeting place for a weekend away. Sichuan is the home of the Giant Panda and Chengdu is world renowned for its Giant Panda Breeding Centre – so naturally this was our first stop. Cute pandas were only part of it - we got a lot more than we bargained for on our visit. Stay tuned for more details (oooh suspense!).

After the excitement of the panda centre we decided that a bit of serenity was in order so we headed to Wen Shu Monastery, the largest Buddhist monastery in Chengdu. We arrived in time for the monk’s lunch time... while avoiding various OH&S issues (ie. managing not to trip and break their necks on dodgy construction sites) the orange-clad monks headed for the lunch hall for a spot of chanting and rice. We headed to the restaurant within the temple where we were served I Can’t Believe It’s Not Fish and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Beef (mashed potato and tofu, respectively). It was actually a really tasty meal if you don’t count the pumpkin and banana-flavoured dessert rice-concoction.

Our afternoon was spent wandering through the city and the Tibetan district. If anyone had been after Tibetan arts/crafts, monks clothes, blenders (for your yak milk smoothie, perhaps?) or witches hats this was the place to be. This sequence of shops continued for about 4 blocks with shop after shop selling one or the other and nothing else. A curious mix, indeed. After wandering through the area for a while we noticed that it seemed that we were being followed by two Chinese Mafioso dudes (bad suits and big hair). I’m not sure what they were doing exactly but nothing sinister happened and they ended their pursuit when we left the district.

The evening was spent kicking back Melbourne-style (ie. on dingy couches in a dimly-lit bar) for pre-dinner drinks before heading to Grandma’s Kitchen for dinner. I know that eating hamburgers and apple pie shouldn’t be a highlight but after eating rice and hotpot* for six weeks it was a welcome change. We gorged ourselves silly at this American-style café and even returned the following morning for breakfast (mmm, pancakes!). Chengdu is smaller than Chongqing but appears to be more of an international city, I would suggest due to the numbers of tourists attracted by the pandas and also the fact that Chengdu is one of the few gateways to Tibet. There were several bars, restaurants and coffee shops aimed at the expat market which we simply don’t have in Chongqing. This can be good or bad depending on your mood, but we certainly all enjoyed catching up over a big meal of western-style food! Being more slightly international it also meant that I could buy shoes (yeah!), something I can't easily do in Chongqing.

Catching up with my friends was just fantastic, I think we all enjoyed being able to share our experience of China so far and debrief a bit. It’s reassuring to know that we are all dealing with similar issues and it was also great to just be able to chat and talk about nothing in our unique Aussie way. We are all looking forward to the next catch up – most likely Xian for New Year’s Eve.

* Okay, I've only had hotpot once.

Coming soon...

Stand by for news from Chengdu...

Diplomacy 101

Note to all budding young diplomats...

The headphones from a translation device fit perfectly into an iPod.
I'm not suggesting anything. It's just an observation, you know.

Must be the glasses

I have just been told by one of the Chinese bosses that I look like Harry Potter. I mentioned that Harry Potter is a boy and perhaps he meant I look like Harry's friend Hermione? But no, I look like Harry. The statement was qualified with "Harry looks like a girl" and "You are very beautiful".

Umm... okay.

Weekend Fun

Moving to China I expected to have a lot of spare time to myself. Not speaking the language and not having my family and friends nearby, I figured that I would have a lot of quiet time to reflect on my experience and maybe learn Mandarin or something useful like that.

Turns out I was wrong.

As it happens I work in a very social environment where weekend activities such as local sightseeing and parties are arranged amongst both local and Australian staff. In addition I have a network of inbuilt friends that have been inherited from various others who have preceeded me in Chongqing, including my mum, so a lot of time has been spent catching up with these people too. Weekends so far have been jam-packed with not a moment to spare, and at this rate I am going to need to check in for some R+R on my return to Australia.

Last weekend my Chinese colleagues arranged a trip to the new Chongqing Three Gorges Museum. Located in People’s Square, the Museum is brand-spanking new having only opened three or four months ago.

I had never been to People’s Square before so that in itself was good to see. People’s Square is a big (massive) open space where people just seem to sit around and hang out, much like a big concreted park. In the evenings people gather for dancing which is something I’ve not yet witnessed but would like to – I’ve seen similar on a smaller scale and it looked like something that was a cross between tai chi and line dancing. People’s Square is bordered at one end by the Great Hall, an older Chinese style building that is used for concerts and performances, and at the other end by the Museum.

I was impressed by both the design and the content of the new museum. The entry foyer of the museum is a glass atrium which has water running down the outside of it – a great effect that reminded me of the water wall at the National Gallery in Melbourne. The museum is massive, covering the history of Chongqing and the Three Gorges from the geology and ecology of the area to the relocation of millions of people for the dam project, from archelogy to social history and everything in between. Admittedly it was a little bizarre to see ancient relics preserved alongside displays advocating the engineering of the massive dam project but I suppose at least the history of the area is being recognised even if it has been flooded in the name of progress.

One of the highlights of the Museum was the 360degree movie theatre showing a trip through the Three Gorges. Helicopters and river boats were used to make the film and it felt like you were actually there travelling through the Gorges. At the end of the film the helicopter flies right through the city centre of Chongqing and I was able to pick my apartment building, although it was mid-construction with a crane sitting on top of it at that stage! Just about everything in the museum was in both Chinese and English and the scale of the place was amazing. I think I only saw about an eighth of the museum so a return trip or two is certainly on the cards.

That evening I welcomed everyone to my apartment for a Housewarming Party. Being a fairly small one-bedroom apartment it was pretty full and people ended up sitting on the floor in the living room. Being a housewarming party I received a number of gifts:

A bag of oranges

A set of plastic coathangers (very clever gift if you ask me)

Three helium balloons (one rooster-shaped – year of the rooster)

One inflatable hammer approx. 1 metre in length. Contains a bell and squeaks whenever it hits anything

Three bunches of flowers

Two boxes of chocolates

Two bags of lollies

This weekend another outing was scheduled by the local staff. In a case of excellent timing that just doesn’t seem to happen in Melbourne, for the third week in a row a rainy week became a sunny weekend. Clear, blue skies are a real rarity in Chongqing which is typically overcast with fog and pollution, so sunny days are all the more appreciated. Just because it was sunny and warm however doesn’t mean that the skies were clear…

We took advantage of this t-shirt weather by visiting South Mountain Park where we visited Lao Jun Temple and the ‘Golden Eagle’. Lao Jun is a Taoist temple that sits on the top of a hill and can only be reached by climbing about a bizillion very steep, very tiny steps. Having not done much in the way of exercise since my arrival in China, and being on the tail end of a head cold, I thought I was going to die on the way up. The incense and super-huge candles being burned outside the temple didn’t much help my lungs either. The views would have been magnificent from the top of the hill, across the Jialing River and the city skyline, had everything not been blanketed under a layer of white smog.
Typical Chongqing.

The highlight at the temple as far as I was concerned was the Chinese tourist at the top muttering under her breath – I thought she was cursing the group of us as foreigners for being disrespectful or something but it turns out she was muttering in wonder about why our Chinese hosts would bother taking us there!

The Golden Eagle, again, was at the top of around a bizillion stairs. This time even steeper and in one stretch there wasn’t even any stairs, just a steep, muddy slope. The hand rails had eroded or disappeared altogether so just the stumps of the iron posts remained which made the going pretty tough. I’m not too sure what the significance of the giant golden eagle is however it would have been a magnificent lookout across the city if we could have seen anything. Apparently it’s a bit of a lover’s lane with little heart-shaped padlocks hooked all around the rails – they sell the locks at a little stall at the base of the eagle and couples hook them onto the rails to symbolise their love. Aww… Again the highlight for me was the comment by some local people about our mixed group of foreigners and Chinese. Apparently they thought we were either very rich or very stupid for needing so many tour guides.

The evening was spent at the apartment of one of the Australian advisers… the Hospitality adviser funnily enough. He cooked a feast of Indian food (he’d brought the spices etc from Australia) which was a real luxury. The Chinese enjoyed the new flavours and the Australians certainly appreciated a taste of home (funny how Indian food is a taste of home?!)

Next weekend I will take a break from the local sightseeing and head further afield, heading to Chengdu to catch up with some of my AYAD mates. Surely more stories to follow!

Noice.

Rocked up to work to find mouse poo all over my desk.
Just thought I'd share that.

SMS

I was asked today via SMS from a friend in Australia the best and worst things about living in China. There are so many things I could have written however within the limitations of SMS I came up with the following concise response:
Best... food, shopping, where I live is ace. Worst... spitting, smoking, being ripped off because I'm a foreigner and the language barrier.