City of the Eternal Spring (Festival)

I have just returned from Kunming, aka The City of the Eternal Spring. Kunming is the capital of Yunnan province in the south-west of China, an hour flight from Chongqing. I was there to bask in the sunshine… oh and to catch-up with my AYAD mates. It also happened to be Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) while I was there.

The highlights of the weekend were many and varied:

The Friends!
Catching up with my friends is always fun. I really like them and we always have a good laugh together. We did conclude however that approximately 80% of our conversation consists of talk about food.

The Sunshine!
Please excuse the expression but the weather in Kunming kicks the ass of the weather in Chongqing. There is no other way to say it. The damp, grey weather here had been getting me down and a few days in Kunming was the perfect antidote. Not only were the skies clear and sunny… but it was actually WARM! I’m talking 20 degrees plus. The whole time.

The Food! (1)
Although smaller than Chongqing, Kunming is a more cosmopolitan city with many more expats (many of whom are students). This means more ‘western’ style restaurants and cafes. I enjoy Chinese food but I also like a change. In Kunming we ate at Korean, Italian and French restaurants.

The Food! (2)
Tanja (aka the Hostest with the Mostest) is a bit of a gourmand and we were well looked after. Particular highlights were the dahl and the Bailey’s-white chocolate cheesecake. Honourable mentions to the crepes and the custard.

The Hump!
A backpacker hostel/bar right in the centre of town with a roof-top beer garden affording a magnificent view of the city was the perfect way to wile away a sunny afternoon. They don’t have backpackers in Chongqing and they certainly don’t have hostels. I’m told ‘The Hump’ refers to a nickname the RAF gave the Himalayas during WW2 on their supply runs from India to Kunming.

Now to the lowlights…

The Massage!
Normally a massage would be on the ‘highlights list’ however for reasons that will become obvious this particular one didn’t. We decided we’d have a Blind Foot Massage ie. a foot massage given by blind folks. It was all well and good until the blind bloke’s hand strayed above my ankle and he started to piss himself laughing. He said something to the others and they all began to laugh too. I’m fairly sure it was about my shapely calves although I didn’t hear the Chinese word for ‘fat’. Nb/ yes I had shaved my legs.

The Fireworks!
Fireworks are in the top three of my Favourite Things EVER List so again it’s a little unusual that they’ve made it here. However it was scary. Very scary.

Apparently there has been a ban on using fireworks for the past 12 years but this year the ban was lifted allowing ‘registered sellers’ to sell ‘registered fireworks’. All I can say is YEH RIGHT as I can’t imagine the authorities having allowed twelve-year-olds to sell fireworks off a trestle down a side street. We were hoping for a big display put on by the city (like you’d get back home) however there was nothing of the sort. Instead we had to contend with dodging incredibly dangerous fireworks in residential areas, sometimes being wielded by children who were barely out of nappies. We were honestly quite anxious about walking around as the potential for injury or DEATH was huge. The noise was amazing and it was like being in a warzone. The sound was deafening at midnight and we didn’t dare venture outside at that point – even watching from the window felt a little scary!

Chinese New Year was NOT at all what I expected. The city was virtually deserted as people returned to their hometowns for a big family get-together and a huge meal on New Year’s Eve. We wandered around the city for a while in the evening but the danger factor with the fireworks and the fact that there didn’t seem to be any official celebrations drove us back home.

Because of the holiday many shops, restaurants and businesses had closed for the week and since returning to Chongqing I’ve found that it’s much the same here (all this time off is great for employees - I have a week off too - but not so fun when your only set of sheets is at the laundry which is closed until next week…) The streets of Kunming were like a ghost town with shutters down on most shops and little traffic, and because of this I probably didn’t get a realistic look at the city.

You may gather from my list of lowlights - consisting only of a massage and fireworks - that I had a great time in Kunming. Our time was spent mainly eating, drinking and laughing. We didn’t really do much in the way of touristy-stuff but that’s not unusual for the Worst Tourists Ever™.

(almost) A Seasoned Performer

We had our fabulous Spring Festival Performance last week. You will be pleased to hear that we won third prize. Well, technically we won first prize, but there were five first prizes and we won the third first prize. Confused yet? The performance which won the first first prize had a REAL LIVE dog on stage at one point. The beautiful, well-behaved golden retriever may have swayed the judges slightly - even though one of our team, my dance partner Jimmy Shanghai, was a judge. Go figure. Third prize consisted of a hair drier each. This certainly beats last year's prize which apparently consisted of six rolls of toilet paper and 5L of cooking oil each.

Jimmy Shanghai is quite a character, a fairly senior figure despite his relatively young age. He has a cheeky grin and the slick looks of a used-car salesman. Jimmy had a habit of turning up to our afternoon rehearsals reeking of baijiu and unable to remember the dance steps. I half jokingly suggested he refrain from drinking on the day of the concert in order to give a better performance. That day at lunchtime, despite the fact that all the other Chinese men were having a beer or two, Jimmy pointed out that he’d taken my advice and remained on the wagon.

The concert took all afternoon on Tuesday and in fact most of Tuesday morning was spent rehearsing, dressing and having our make-up done. The Australian men in particular were not keen on wearing full make-up for the first time, however the Chinese men seemed entirely used to it and didn't bitch and moan at all.

We were the seventh team to perform, out of fourteen, and I was fairly certain that I was going to be bored by the end and want to leave. However it was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it. Acts included singing, dancing, comedy skits (one taking the piss out of the Chinese soccer team - apparently they are a national embarrassment who are always losing to the Koreans?!), a group of retirees dressed up as Russians dancing and miming, and some Chinese teachers dressed up as dancing cowgirls.

As I mentioned in an earlier post we did a song and dance routine including a medley of five songs (three in Chinese and two in English) with accompanying dance moves. It was all very YTT and although I bitched and moaned through the entire rehearsal process I had a really good time at the performance.

That said I nearly had a hissy fit and had to remove myself from the temporary green room earlier in the day when the top Chinese knob decided that he would be involved in the performance. On the DAY OF THE PERFORMANCE. This was despite not having attended any of the 20 hrs or so of rehearsals, not knowing the songs, the dance moves or having a costume. Being the top knob no-one told him he couldn't be involved (save face, etc etc) but I was ropable and had to leave the room before I said something and caused a scene. It turned out that the Chinese managed to accommodate him by suggesting he just come on stage for the final song, wearing his suit. It all worked out okay in the end and we came away with the hair driers.

By the way... I have a copy of the performance on dvd. It will be closely guarded and unlikely to see the light of day.

Superstardom is Tough

I wish I'd been keeping count of the number of times I've been on tv since arriving here. Apparently it happened again last night. The count is sure to be into double figures by now. Seriously. There seems to be a crew at every function I go to and a camera without fail gets jammed in my face. Evidently the presence of a young female laowai is a newsworthy event. Last night's effort was at a Municipal Government Spring Festival Concert that we attended on Monday afternoon.

Reggie didn't quite believe me when I told her how famous I am in Chongqing. Okay 'famous' is probably a bit of an exaggeration but I'm certainly on the telly with surprising regularity. She changed her tune soon enough... within 48 hours of her arrival in China we were accosted by a crew in the Forbidden City.

It was actually quite an interesting story… we were in the ‘Hall of the Clocks’ where an elderly Chinese gentleman with a tag around his neck proclaiming him a volunteer was explaining to us the history of a particular sun dial. I noticed that a crew was filming us and as we left the building they chased after us. Reggie thought they were just regular student scammers so she kept walking trying to ignore them (students constantly approach in the Forbidden City asking you to visit their art exhibitions) but I recognized them as the crew so stopped to hear what they had to say. It turns out they were from the Discovery Channel filming a documentary about the old guy – a retiree of 73 years of age, he’d been learning English for four months in preparation for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. And his English was terrific, I was really surprised he'd only been learning for four months. He was volunteering at the Forbidden City in order to practice his English and improve his skills. Apparently learning English in preparation for the Olympics has become a common past-time for retirees who have plenty of time on their hands and like to make themselves feel useful.

Anyway, the Discovery Channel being an international network, we were asked to sign a release allowing the use of our image in their program… a practice unhead of in Chongqing!

RECAP: New Year's Eve

For NYE Reggie & I were in Xian where we had met up with some other friends of mine, making a group of five Aussie girls. The Chinese don't really celebrate New Year's like we do (as their New Year is later) so it was fairly quiet in town and we figured we’d just find a bar and have a few drinks.

We set out quite early (7pm-ish) and found that most bars didn’t open til 8pm. We eventually found one that was open and as it fit our criteria (ie. open and serving drinks) we decided that it would do.

It turns out that five white girls entering a bar certainly turns heads, as just about everyone in the place came over to have a look at us. Seriously. It was like we were a zoo exhibit or something. We were shown to a table and asked what we wanted to drink... you’d think that ordering a drink in a bar would be straightforward enough but apparently not.

In China you can't just order a mixed drink ie. vodka and lemonade, you have to order a WHOLE BOTTLE of the spirit and then buy the mixers separately. As it was still early we decided we'd order beers instead. For some reason though they wouldn't sell us beers unless we bought a DOZEN. Bizzaro. There was a drinks menu but being in Chinese we couldn't understand any of it except for B52s... so we ordered one of them each. Out came the shots as expected but we didn’t want to be drinking them all night so we needed to expand our horizons a little. We just took a punt and pointed at something in the same section of the drinks menu and ended up with green cocktail-type things.

While we were waiting for our drinks a woman came up and asked whether we wanted "some guys to come and sit with us?" We were already feeling uncomfortable as it was with everyone staring at us so it was at about that point that we decided we were ready to move on somewhere else. After finishing our drinks we got up to leave only to be told that we couldn't. We weren’t allowed to leave the bar! It was a bit difficult to understand the reasoning but we were told it was not safe to leave and we would have to stay. Of course I just headed for the door and eventually the manager led us out the back entrance. I have no idea what that was about but we later realised we were too slow, we should have said we'd stay if they gave us free drinks!

We ended up at a massive underground club where the music was dodgy but after succumbing and ordering the vodka by the bottle, well two bottles later the music didn't seem to worry us much and we were up on the podium dancing. We’d had to go through a metal detector on the way in which was a first for me, but the crowd was very well behaved and the people were all pretty friendly. Chinese bars are so funny, really different and great for people-watching. We had our own waiter who would appear from nowhere to fill our glasses as soon as they were empty even though the vodka and mixers were on the table and we were perfectly capable of doing it ourselves. We never had to go to the bar and every time we ordered a bottle of vodka we got a big bowl of fruit salad too! Bonus! They had go-go dancers up on various podiums around the place and as it was a huge club and very crowded, no-one seemed to give the five white girls a second glance. There was a countdown at midnight but it certainly wasn’t a big deal and after that the music improved a lot.

Unfortunately there were no kebab vans on the way home but there were plenty of street stalls and between us we had a couple of bowls of dumpling soup and fried sandwiches liberally coated with chilli... a more than suitable alternative!

RECAP: Christmas

A quick note on how I spent Christmas 2005…

The Chinese don’t celebrate Christmas so in many ways it was just another day. That said, they are beginning to latch onto the commercial possibilities of the holiday, with lots of Santa figures, tinsel, decorations etc all over the place. Of course there are no religious icons about but the Chinese do seem to worship Santa with religious fervour.

Being a multicultural office we'd decorated with a tree, wreath, fairy lights, tinsel etc. The Chinese staff seemed to really get into it - I'm not sure whether this was for our benefit (ie. whether they believed it was very important to us) or whether it was because they really enjoyed the chance to celebrate a 'Western' holiday. Perhaps it was a combination of both. We also had a Kris Kringle and a Christmas party, both with surprise visits from Santa.

At the Christmas party the Australians on the team really got into the the spirit of Christmas with a surprise performance of Carols. Please note we did this for the benefit of our Chinese colleagues and not for personal enjoyment. The Chinese thought it was just fantastic and we caught them completely off guard. The fact that we'd kept such a good secret (in a country where there really are no secrets) distracted somewhat from our terrible singing.

Christmas is becoming an excuse for a party, and the Chinese can party with the best of them. I spent the day of Christmas Eve just wandering around the Chongqing city centre enjoying the atmosphere. The city was packed with people, a lot of families and a lot of children. There were vendors everywhere selling helium balloons, inflatable hammers, Santa hats, silly string and that foamy, aerosol snow. The city was primed to go off that night but unfortunately I had to miss it as I had an evening flight to Beijing.

I met Reggie at the airport (fresh off the plane from Australia) and we made it to our hotel in time for the midnight countdown. Yes, the Chinese count down to midnight on Christmas Eve in the same way we count down on New Year’s Eve. There was quite a ruckus after the countdown with fireworks and balloons but we missed most of the fun as we were checking into the hotel!

After a bit of a lie in on Christmas morning we decided we’d treat ourselves with room service/breakfast in bed which was a huge mistake… rubbery eggs and leathery bacon, anyone? We unwrapped presents before hitting the streets where the sun was shining despite the freezing temperatures. It didn’t snow which was slightly disappointing as neither of us have ever experienced a White Christmas. In fact it didn’t snow at all while we were in Beijing.

We ended up having lunch in the food court of a massive shopping mall (fried dumplings and roti bread) and I asked Reggie whether she ever imagined that she’d be having her Christmas lunch in a food court IN CHINA. I certainly didn’t.

After lunch we headed to the Silk Market for a while, it was actually a great day to go as there were virtually no other foreigners about! The Silk Market is a massive market complex where you can buy just about anything. Reggie was very impressed with my bargaining skills and I was horrified by hers!

For dinner we headed to Beihei Park, a big park in the centre of Beijing. In the middle of the park, on an island in the centre of a lake, is a Fang Shan restaurant aka Imperial Court Food. This is a very fancy restaurant serving the type of food that was presented to the Chinese Emperors. This food was never available to regular people and is now considered gourmet in China. The restaurant itself was quite spectacular with lots of gilded gold and a Chinese-style throne in one little nook. The food was okay though I think the Imperial chefs must have spent more time on presentation than anything, as the food was very beautiful. Our one concession to it being Christmas was a nice bottle of Australian red to accompany our meal.

All Singing, All Dancing...

In China the working year is slightly different to our own, as with Christmas not being a holiday the year begins and ends with ‘Spring Festival’ or Chinese New Year. Spring Festival this year falls on Jan 29th – a rapidly approaching date.

Last week my Project held its Annual Review which was followed by the annual Spring Festival Party hosted by a local university. We were told a couple of days before that we would need to prepare a performance for the concert, and duly the Chinese and Australian team-members decided that we would sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ together in both English and Chinese. We had a hastily convened rehearsal in the office after lunch one day and with that felt confident enough that we wouldn’t embarrass ourselves.

Come Thursday night we arrived for the concert only to see an additional item on the programme… “Australian Advisors Performance”… this was in addition to our group ‘Auld Lang Syne’ effort. When we queried this we were told it was a ‘surprise’. NOT A VERY NICE ONE.

So with no preparation time, no music, and no talent we got up and performed the first verses of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and ‘Advance Australia Fair’. They were the only songs we could think of at the time and we certainly did not do them justice. Stunned silence greeted the end of our performance. Seriously. One or two people clapped but that was it. An Australian colleague later suggested that we should have refused to do the ‘surprise’ performance but I think it was better that we did. Now they will believe us when we say we don’t like singing and aren’t very good at it.

The Chinese absolutely love performing and they generally can carry a tune. They just don’t believe us when we tell them that Australians don’t like singing and don’t do it very often. Unless we’re super drunk. No matter how many times we explain this to the Chinese they just don’t seem to believe it. One of my more naive colleagues was simply shocked when I told her this. She wanted to know what we do at ‘banquets and concerts’ if we don’t sing?

Other performances were much more warmly received. A ‘famous’ piano accordion bloke and a couple of professional singers topped the bill (see what we were up against?), while everyone else had the benefit of a karaoke machine. Why no-one offered us this little gift from the heavens is anyone’s guess.

Unfortunately the story does not end there. For next week the Chongqing Municipal Education Commission will hold its Spring Festival Concert and this time there is more at stake. This time it is a competition between the various departments and thus must be taken very VERY seriously.

For the past couple of weeks our Chinese team members have been putting together lists of songs, downloading music (legally, I’m sure... this is China afterall... hardly anything is pirated), compiling lyrics etc etc. Yesterday we were called for a rehearsal, and not in the office after lunch. This time we piled into a mini bus and were taken to a local university where we had the rehearsal room to ourselves.

For the next TWO AND THREE QUARTER HOURS we were held captive, learning to sing five new songs. Three songs in Chinese and two in English. The singing teacher (yes, we have a professional teacher) suggested that the Australians could mime the Chinese words, or just sing “la la la” in key. I would if I could. The English songs we will perform are ‘Click Go The Shears’ which is inexplicably popular in Chinese (I’d love to get my hands on an English translation of their version to see what they’re actually singing about) and 'Waltzing Matilda'. We will only need to sing the first verse and chorus, as our performance is limited to five minutes in length. We were also going to do 'I Still Call Australia Home' but something needed to be cut and it was decided this song was the most difficult. My Australian boss wanted to know why we couldn’t do ‘Lonesome Tonight’, his karaoke song of choice, but we just couldn’t find the Aussie connection.

So we stood around in the freezing rehearsal room (ie. windows open, unheated, can-see-your-breath cold) learning the words and the keys etc etc. By the end of the rehearsal we were confident enough that we would be okay. Only to be told we were expected back the following day AND EVERY DAY FOR THE NEXT WEEK for further practice. Including the weekend. We’ll see about that.

Just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse… SURPRISE… they did. After a run through of our repertoire at today’s second rehearsal I thought we were going well, and might even get out within an hour. You know, to get back to the office to do some work. Wrong again. For then we had to learn the accompanying DANCE MOVES.

I fear it shall be a very long week.

(Performance is next Tuesday. Report to follow. No more singing/dancing after that. Ever)

Give Them Some Credit

I feel as though I didn’t really do justice to the Terracotta Warriors in my post about Xian. This was my second visit to the Warriors and I was no less impressed the second time around. The Terracotta Army really is an incredible sight and the sheer scale of the site lends an appreciation to the work that must have gone into creating it some 2000 years ago… and the egos involved. There are literally thousands of Warriors in a number of pits, each Warrior slightly larger than life-size and each with unique features.

It is still an active archaeological site and being able to see the Warriors as they were found, broken and covered in dirt, makes you realise the magnitude of the restoration job. It must vary from incredibly frustrating to incredibly rewarding trying to put all the pieces together.

I also couldn’t help but spare a thought for the farmers who made the initial discovery. Digging a well on their farm in 1974 they made one of the most important historical discoveries in recent times. I wonder how they felt – excitement or dread (“there goes the farm”).

Cure All

I have been feeling a little homesick for the past week or so, since Reggie left last weekend. It is the first time I've been homesick since arriving here and I've been told it's a fairly common reaction when a visitor leaves. I also figure it's a bit of the post-Christmas blues and also probably a touch of seasonal depression brought about by the grey weather here in Chongqing.

I went for a walk on Friday night and as I did I came up with a list of things I miss about home which I had planned to post here. As I wandered back home I passed by the Cotton Club (Since 2005), the bar in the basement of my building. The bar manager saw me wandering past and came out to say hello, along with two of his bar staff. The girl gave me a hug and told me that she missed me (it'd been a whole week since I'd been there) and the boys shook my hand and asked me if I'd be coming down for a drink later.

Turns out I don't need to write that list any more.

Photos

I've added some more photos to my online collection.

Check them out here.

The Joy of Specs

Before Christmas I bought some new glasses.

They are red and I quite like them. They say 'News' on the side of them rather than 'Prada' but perhaps this means that Uncle Rupert will give me a job when I get home?

And... they cost me ONE TENTH what I paid for my last pair in Australia. I think I'll stock up.

Holidays (but you'll find it's mainly about food)

I have just returned to work after a two week break during which I met up with Reggie and travelled to Beijing and Xian.

Beijing

Beijing was very cold but it was dry (ie. no rain/snow) and the skies were generally clear and blue. This was a very pleasant change from Chongqing which is always grey, overcast and wet.

A list of things we did in Beijing:

(a) Walked. A lot.
We walked around a lot just exploring which was quite nice in the daytime but became much colder once the sun went down.

(b) Ate. A lot.
I took the opportunity while in Beijing to eat a variety of different foods. Beijing is much more international than Chongqing where the options are largely limited to Chinese cuisine (there are a few nice Japanese and Korean restaurants, and one Thai). I really enjoyed a meal of Indian which just isn’t available in Chongqing. We ate at a couple of fancy Chinese restaurants sampling different regional varieties of Chinese food and we also ate a lot of jiaozi (dumplings)… a Beijing specialty.

(c) Shopped. A lot.
We both stocked up on dvds and cds and Reggie managed to purchase a number of crappy souvenirs at the markets to bring home to friends. I bought some new sneakers which was a necessity as in Chongqing I can’t buy shoes that fit me.

At one stage these three activities blended in a beautiful union as we were wandering around the city. We happened to stumble upon a small corner store which we entered in the hope of buying some water. Once inside we discovered that the very unassuming shopfront was a façade hiding a well-stocked WESTERN SUPERMARKET!!! They sold a huge variety of cheeses, dips (yes, dip!), imported chocolate biscuits such as Tim Tams, Mint Slices etc, breakfast cereals etc etc etc. It was just about the highlight of my day and I would have bought up big if it weren’t for that pesky 20kg luggage limit. I restricted my purchases to a box of Weetbix (exotic!) which I am planning to ration out over the next three months.

A list of things we DIDN’T do in Beijing:

(a) Visit the Great Wall.
I am pretty sure my mum will kill me when she hears about this. Reggie bought a “I Climbed The Great Wall” t-shirt in the hope of fooling her.

Xian

Next it was on to Xian where it was snowing as our plane landed. It didn’t snow again but that’s not to say the weather improved much – it was colder than Beijing and not very pleasant. After checking in to our hotel and running the gauntlet of little urchins begging for change outside our hotel, Reggie and I had some fried dumplings for breakfast (yeh!) before meeting up with some of my AYAD friends.

Of course the main attraction in Xian is the Terracotta Warriors and despite being the worst tourists in the world (collectively, all of us) we managed to organize ourselves a driver and head out there to see the ‘eighth wonder of the world’. I want to know just how many ‘eighth wonders’ are there exactly?

We decided to hire our own driver so that we could just go out to the warriors (about 45 mins out of the city centre) and not have to stop at every second plastic jade stand or ‘counterfeit warrior’ shop on the way (yes, there were really shops selling ‘counterfeit’ warriors) or other dodgy tourist attractions like the old Neolithic village etc etc. Been there, done that etc. When we got out to the warriors we deflected all offers of an English guide to show us around, instead going it alone. I am pretty sure that as we knocked back one especially pleadingly persistent guide she was muttering ‘stupid bloody tourists’ under her breath.

That evening was New Years Eve and given the length of this post already I will save that story for another time. Suffice to say the whole next day was spent in bed recovering. We did get up at 7(pm) for dinner at the ‘famous’ Dumpling Restaurant where we were served a series of beautifully crafted jiaozi. They were little pieces of art shaped in many cases to describe what was in them ie. one of the sweet dumplings looked exactly like a walnut and others were shaped like pigs, rabbits and various vegetables. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to take a photo.

Xian is home to a large Muslim population and has a Muslim Quarter in the city centre. This is perhaps the most interesting part of town, where the streets are lined with stalls selling all types of colourful dried fruits, spices and sweets, vendors barbequing fish and lamb skewers marinated in delicious middle eastern spices and bustling markets selling a variety of things ranging from unique crafts to tacky souvenirs. The Muslim influence in the area is probably most evident in the food, with a real difference from ‘typical’ Chinese food in the flavours. I felt as though I didn’t spend enough time in this area and certainly didn’t get to sample enough of the food!

Happy New Year

A belated Happy New Year to all.

Obviously my list of resolutions did not include "update blog more regularly".

In fact I have totally neglected to make any resolutions at all. Any suggestions welcome.

Will be back with a more substantial post asap.