The Epicurean After the Storm

With Ai Weiwei

     Last week was a hectic one at work, as apart from covering the flooding (see the previous post) ABC Beijing was working overtime to produce a segment for Nightline on Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei. The piece aired last Friday in conjunction with the US premiere of "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry", an award-winning documentary about his art and activism. (It's a really fascinating and well-made documentary--I recommend you see it if you have a chance!) The team met him at his home and studio in Beijing, and I got the chance to be a fly on the wall during his interview. For someone the Chinese government considers such a threat, he's very level and calm, up-in-arms in the most unassuming of ways. We got to see his studio, the list of names of the students who died in the Sichuan earthquake he compiled, and his many cats, including the one that opens doors. Afterward, we all took pictures with him, and he gave us painted sunflower seeds (from his famous exhibition in London's Tate Modern). Before I got my photo taken with Ai Weiwei, he stopped and fixed my smudged lipstick--after that I was especially starstruck. ("One of China's most prominent political dissidents fixed my makeup! Ahhh!")

Inside Ai Weiwei's courtyard

Ai Weiwei and Gloria in front of the list of the names of
the students who died in the Sichuan earthquake

Inside Ai Weiwei's personal gallery

Making the magic

     After I wrapped up writing an article on Chinese students using forged materials to get into foreign colleges Friday night, I left the office and met up for dinner with my friend Aaron, who was in Beijing with his family after his brother's wedding in China. Aaron is from Austin, plays with me in the MIT orchestra, and was the one who introduced me to swing dancing. After having Japanese food, we were ambling down the street when, out of nowhere, we heard the strains of country music. Sure that we were mistaken, we crossed the street to a Chinese bar, following the sound of the music to its source--none other than an authentic bluegrass band, complete with banjo, harmonica, and a drawling singer. So blown away by the improbability of these circumstances, we decided to take full advantage of the situation and did what anyone else would--go up in front of the stage and dance to the blues under the spotlight. While I'm sure we astounded the bar's employees, clientele, and even the band, I like to think we livened the place up a bit (one couple came up and joined us!). When the song finished, we got a hearty round of applause and a "Thanks to the dancers!" from the band, and so we bid everyone farewell and booked it out of there. 

     In anticipation of the opening ceremony for the Olympics, Sha, Tianzi, and Peter (a Beijinger who also went to our high school) went to karaoke, and so Aaron and I joined them after leaving the band. As someone who has spent an extended period of time in Japan, the birthplace of karaoke, one would think that I have a natural inclination for the pastime. I'll just come out and say, though, that as I traveled toward the karaoke place, I couldn't help thinking, "Why would you ever want to hear songs sung worse than their original performances?" My reservations and disdain quickly dissipated after I found that what we all lacked in vocal ability we made up for with enthusiasm (and to be fair, Peter, who was in the high school madrigals and now sings in his college's choir, is actually a wonderful singer). We had fun cutting loose, and cheering on each other's attempts to capture the subtleties of Stevie Wonder, Selena Gomez, "Last Christmas", Bruno Mars, Frank Sinatra, Jay Zhou, and this gem:

     I unexpectedly received critical acclaim for my rendition of Beyonce's "Single Ladies"; other highlights included Aaron's freeform interpretation of an eighties song that randomly showed up in the mix, and Sha's duet with himself, in which he demonstrated incredible vocal range singing both male and female vocals of a Chinese pop song.

With Tianzi

     We must have had fun after all, as we left karaoke at three in the morning and went straight to bed headed over to the apartment to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics. (Unfortunately, London time doesn't line up very well with normal waking hours in Beijing.) While I wouldn't go so far as to say I was disappointed by the show, there's no doubt that the Beijing '08 opening ceremony set the bar extremely high (arguably too high for many, many reasons). While I thought that London's show was definitely more "human" and had fun and impressive elements (the James Bond and Mr. Bean sketches, the swing-dancing nurses, the torch design) I felt it lacked unity and fluidity. It seemed that the many individual aspects and people on display were scattered and at times distracted from the larger intent behind their performance--in other words, there was so much "stuff" going on that I was just confused a lot of the time. That said, it definitely had British flavor, just as the show in 2008 was decidedly Chinese.

Me, Tianzi, Sha, Peter
"We survived the Olympic opening ceremony"

     Anyway, we made it to the Parade of Nations (6 am) when everyone decided to "take a forty minute nap" and then get up for the lighting of the torch. As you can imagine, that didn't pan out as expected, and we ended up watching the replay when we all woke up later that afternoon (which in retrospect, would have been the obvious thing to do in the first place). Aaron, who was scheduled to meet his family at 7:30 that morning to hike the Great Wall had disappeared by the time we woke up. (We all agreed that two hours of sleep and then a polluted trek to the Great Wall was a recipe for disaster, but rumor has it that he's still alive.) Unfazed, Sha, Tianzi, Peter, and I went out for amazing Indian food for "lunch" (4 pm), and then parted ways. 

     The next day I went out with Wurihan for lunch and souvenir shopping. She and I get along so well for a long list of reasons, but our mutual love of good food is a not insignificant one. We have resolved to embark on a "food tour" of Beijing's best eats for the rest of my time here, so on Sunday we stuffed ourselves silly at a delicious Taiwanese restaurant, and spent the rest of the day wondering if we would ever be hungry again.

Wurihan poised to dig in

Dessert - a mountain of red and green
sweet beans with tapioca and shaved ice.
Rest assured that we made it disappear.

We wandered around Nanluoguxiang, the area with many courtyard homes and small shops, and ended up both running into people we know. I was amazed that, in a city so huge as Beijing, she and I could each bump into local friends--it's a small world after all. That night, she and I met up with Tina, the previous ABC intern, who will be leaving Beijing this weekend. Hanging out with both of them and remembering that I myself only have a week and a half left makes me realize that going home, something I am eagerly awaiting, will still be bittersweet.

In The News:
Hackers Linked To China’s Army Seen From EU To D.C.
"Greyjing"? Air pollution fouls Beijing's name
Asahi Shimbun correspondent beaten by Chinese police

Fever and Flood

     I wish I could claim that my three week absence from blogging was entirely due to being caught up in an amazing adventure, too immersed in the real world to stop for the virtual one. As it were, though, of the last twenty-one days, ten of them I spent being horrendously, dreadfully ill, in pajamas for days on end trying to remember what health felt like. After developing enormous lymph nodes, a very high fever and body aches, I went to an international clinic, where the doctor diagnosed me with a cold. After a week of bedrest and constant hydration, I wasn't anywhere close to being better, and so went back to the clinic, only to discover that I actually had strep throat. While I enjoyed a movie and TV marathon, being sick away from home, especially in a foreign country, was a really long, miserable, and lonely experience which I do not recommend and do not want to repeat. It was also especially disappointing to spend days on end feeling that the world was going by without me--I missed out on going to work and gallivanting in Beijing with my roommates Sha, Ricky, and Calvin (who have all since left).

With Sha, his dad, and Ricky

Walking around the Olympic facilities at night

Water Cube

With members of the Wellesley Club of Beijing

     I'm back on my feet now, though, and have been doing a host of fun things like touring the US Embassy with the Wellesley Club of Beijing, going to see Brave, eating out-of-this-world ramen, attending a solo swing dance class with Clare, gorging myself on Russian food with Wurihan, and of course staying busy keeping up with the news.

  This last weekend's news was fairly monumental, though as everything unfolded I had no idea of the scale. I had planned to spend last Saturday finally having a "treat yourself" day, complete with souvenir-shopping, delicious food, a much-needed massage and pedicure. Thus, that morning I was very disheartened to look out the window and see--nothing. A thick haze had engulfed the city, making it impossible to see past one block. I checked the air quality index--in the 370's ("Hazardous", according to the monitor)."Not in my lungs," I thought, and with that my self-indulgent day out on the town turned into a much less thrilling day cooped up in the apartment. I was glad to when rain started falling that afternoon, hopeful that it would clear up the air.

Remember this photo from last post?

Same view, this time with heavy pollution

      Little did I know that as I sulked at home, Beijing was facing its heaviest rains since 1951. While my neighborhood was relatively fine, some areas of the city were desecrated by the flooding. There have been a stream of pictures and videos of collapsed roads, cars barely visible above the waters, houses turned to rubble. The aftermath of the rains has caused an uproar online; microbloggers are bemoaning the antiquated city sewer systems, which are to blame for much of the flooding, and also expressing doubts that the government is being honest about the death toll (officially reported to be 37 people dead). Many are angry that a government which has spent billions on glamorous projects like the Olympic facilities would neglect something so fundamental as infrastructure. 

     ABC visited one of the villages that was hit the hardest, and I wrote an article about the scene: In Beijing, Doubt Grows as Thousands Struggle to Rebuild After Floods. Wading through piles of muck, we spoke with locals who saw their homes and livelihoods swept away before their eyes. Looking at the destruction, I had no idea how one could even imagine the rebuilding process--there seemed to be neither beginning nor end to the mess. When asked if the government was doing enough to help them, all of the residents we spoke with immediately said no. They'll be sleeping on cots in tents in a schoolyard until they have a place to call home again, and it's really impossible to know when that will be.

In The News:

North Korean Mystery Woman Is Leader Kim Jong Un’s Wife

A Change of Scenery, or Scorpions on a Stick

     The changes that can happen in a week are really astounding. Last Friday was the Dragon Boat Festival, a nationally observed holiday that meant a three-day weekend for me. That Friday morning I woke up in a state of despair, though, having no weekend plans or people to meet. My attempts to tag along with my housemates, the two American guys, were quickly shut down:

     *after knocking multiple times and clearing my throat*

     "Hey, what are y'all up to today? Can I tag along?"

    "Uh, well, I'm going to go get lunch with my girlfriend, and Matt is going to a friend's birthday party, so, uh, yeah..."

     While that plan quickly fell apart, I was shamelessly undeterred by rejection and so texted Wilson to find out if I could crash his weekend plans. Sure enough, he graciously invited me to his friend's birthday celebration that evening, where I met a host of his friends, Chinese and non-Chinese alike. I spent a lot of the night talking with his girlfriend Wurihan and her friend Bai Dian Dian. They were a ton of fun to talk to, Bai Dian Dian (whose name literally translates as White Spot-Spot) putting on airs in a mock-British accent and Wurihan telling me about life in inner Mongolia, where she is from. The two also taught me some Chinese slang that would never come up in class--using 屄 (pronounced bī, meaning "vagina"--or a more colorful version of the word) as an intensifying suffix. For instance:

     Declaring that someone is 很二 (hěn èr), or "very two", like the number, is to say that he or she is very stupid. To really emphasize how idiotic he or she is, though, you could call this person 二屄 (èr bī), or "double vagina". which is much like calling him or her a "stupid dumbass". There are a slew of other combinations, including 傻屄 (shǎ bī), meaning "stupid dumbass" and 装屄 (zhuāng bī), meaning "pretentious ass" or "poser". 

     My personal favorite, though, is 牛屄 (niú bī) or "cow c---". 

     "Cow c---?!" you exclaim in hushed tones, anxiously glancing at passerby. "What an appalling and deplorable thing to say!" 

    "No, my dear friend, in fact I think you are the biggest cow c--- I know," I cheerfully reply. "You amaze me." 
     
     In fact, niú bī is a wonderful thing to be, as it means a very confident, impressive, or daring person (think "total badass").

     As you can tell, it was a fun (and informative) evening, and I'm looking forward to seeing Wilson and my new friends again.

***

~ THE MOVE ~

     While there's a very high chance a different writer could seamlessly integrate this into the flow of this blog post, moving out of my host family's home was so sudden that maybe this is appropriate.

      In short: I moved, and I am glad of it!

The view from the apartment. The building that looks like it
is leaning is the CCTV building, headquarters for
China's national news station

    Sha, whose family so kindly offered to host me in their spare apartment for the month of July, told me I could move in earlier than anticipated. I was at first on the fence about moving in early, as I still had a week left with my host family and was somewhat daunted by the thought of living alone; however, it soon became increasingly evident that I would be in higher spirits if I had my own space. My host family is very kind and had my best interests at heart, but there were a lot of things we didn't see eye-to-eye on and rubbed me the wrong way. My host mocking the way I speak Chinese in a high-pitched voice and telling me that I should call him if I needed to talk to Chinese people while I was out "since Chinese people won't understand you when you speak" definitely undermined my confidence. He and his mother standing over me and militantly demanding that I eat all the food they put in front of me (often two or three times what I could feasibly eat, and frequently too oily, spicy, and/or fat-laden for my taste) got old very quickly. Feeling that I had to defend everything I did or said because he would quickly look for any fallacies in my logic made me just want to hole up in my room a lot of the time. 

     So when given the chance to have some privacy (and room I could take a full step in), I decided that my concern about offending my host family shouldn't take precedence. I dropped some hints that I would be moving out early, and when Saturday rolled around, Sha came over and helped me move out. My host family wasn't around, so I called to let them know I was leaving, but told them I would come over the next day to say goodbye. When I went over Sunday night after shopping at the outdoor market by their house, we had a really nice conversation over dinner, my hosts lauding my produce selection and telling me that I was welcome to come over anytime. I think this is the best possible outcome--we left on really great terms and still have a positive relationship, but are not encroaching on each other's space.

I can't say I'll miss the elevator.

Especially when I'm trading it in for this.

Sha with the groceries

     Speaking of space (and also autonomy), I am thrilled to now have tons of it! The apartment is lavish, in a word, with marble floors, beautiful decor, a king-sized bed--I am truly living high on the hog. I've certainly been eased into the perils of living alone. After I arrived on Saturday, Sha took me to Sanlitun, an enormous shopping district with high-end designer stores neighboring an enormous counterfeit goods market. After we explored the shops for hours, we stopped by a Westernized grocery, where I splurged on luxuries like olive oil and cheddar cheese, among a few other things, spending about $20 total. In contrast, I spent under $5 at the open-air food market by my host family's house the next day on broccoli, potatoes, garlic, onions, tomatoes, carrots, bananas, mangos, orange juice, dried noodles, and Chinese spices. 

Isn't this food beautiful?

Caught in the rain after gallivanting in Sanlitun

I have since recreated the fateful "spaghetti" with
non-vermicelli noodles, yielding much
more delicious results

     The abundance and freshness of the food I bought with comparatively so little money has inspired me to experiment in the kitchen, so far with mostly positive results. I tried to make spaghetti with tomato sauce from scratch--in lieu of basil and oregano I threw in some Chinese spices, which actually were very delicious. Where I went wrong was with the noodles, though--it turns out that the noodles I bought were vermicelli, which did not mix well with the sauce at all. Still, I am optimistic that my trial and error will yield some interesting and fruitful results, if not a food blog (perhaps a "failed-food blog").

     The craziest thing happened soon after the move--after the so-so swing dancing experience last time (so-so because I had to wander around dark alleyways in the dead of night) I realized one of the other (few) swing dancing venues in Beijing is a five-minute walk away from the apartment. So, Monday night I ventured out with very low expectations for what I might find. As soon as I arrived, I edged over the dance floor, working up the courage and energy to ask someone to dance. Glancing around, I noticed a girl about my age who also seemed to have come alone. We made knowing eye contact--the kind that says, "I don't know anyone here, but I'm friendly and not psychotic! Let's talk!" and so I ended up meeting Clare. There were so many coincidences that it seemed like destiny--Clare, who just graduated from Stanford, arrived in Beijing last week where she is interning and came to the swing place alone that night in search of dancing and friends. We ended up leaving together and discovered that she lives in the building next to mine, and that she will be going to Harvard for grad school--in other words, fate has intertwined us as friends! I was so thrilled to meet her, and we have since set a regular dance date. We went swing dancing again last night and met a bunch of new people, and our next plan is to try joining the public waltz group that happens in the park. We can't stop marveling at how friendly the dance scene is here, and I can't stop marveling that I met Clare!

     While my workplace is about evenly split between Chinese and non-Chinese people, the language of the office is English, and so I haven't quite been getting the full immersion experience. I was discouraged that my Chinese hasn't been improving as quickly as I had hoped, so I took matters into my own hands and spent this last week contacting Chinese schools and tutors. I really wanted to find the best teacher possible, and so I had lessons with a few this week and called Chinese schools to learn more about their programs. I have trouble committing, especially to programs that require you to pay for hours and hours of classes at one time, if I feel that there might be a better option. Also complicating things is the fact that I am working full-time, so I don't have tons of free time to commute back and forth between the apartment, my workplace, and a school (while also managing to practice violin, work out, chill out...) 

     After meeting with two tutors who weren't up to snuff and still reluctant to commit to an inflexible class schedule, I was a bit disheartened. Then, out of the blue, a woman named Joyce I had previously written to texted me asking if I was still interested in working with her. I decided that there was no downside to meeting her for a trial lesson--after all, even if we didn't click I would still probably learn something. To my great surprise, she was anything but incompetent, having successfully tutored other students, and I got a sense that she was willing to work really hard to help me improve. She seems serious but kind, professional but understanding--perhaps the biggest sign that it was destiny is that we have identical work schedules, so it's easy to coordinate meetings. We had our first lesson last week, and I'm optimistic that I'm going to learn a lot!

Sha, Joyce, Tianzi, Jerry, me

     This last weekend I met Sha, Jerry, Tianzi and Joyce (all students from my high school) for dinner. After eating we wandered around Wangfujing, whose streets of tightly packed shops and vendors boast food not intended for the squeamish or faint of heart. While I had heard that China's cuisine includes a variety of delicacies not consumed in the West, nothing prepared me for turning the corner and suddenly coming face-to-face with a bucket of scorpions on a stick, still snapping mid-air. (Be forewarned that I have posted photographic and video evidence!) Next to the scorpions were some centipedes and crickets, and for the particularly famished, a few starfish and seahorses. While I pride myself on taking risks, I passed on the bug-kabobs (which they fry in front of you)--I am happy to remain simply a scorpion spectator.

The gang at Wangfujing

These scorpions were still wriggling, a fact I try
not to reflect on before bed.

     The other particularly unlikely element of this weekend was seeing an opera in Beijing--but not Beijing opera (which is a completely separate art form). Sha and I went to the National Centre for the Performing Arts and saw Wagner's Tannhäuser, sung by Chinese opera singers. It was a fun challenge for me to try to figure out what was going on in the Chinese-subtitled German-language opera. The singers were fantastic, and in a time when many American opera companies are struggling to make ends meet, seeing the huge cast in their elaborate costumes on the lavishly-designed set--coupled with Wagner's brilliant music--was an overwhelming experience.

At the National Centre for the Performing Arts

     Sha's friend Ricky, a rising sophomore at my old high school, is visiting Beijing for the next two weeks, so the two have moved into the apartment with me. While it's not quite the same solitude of living alone, they have (so far) greatly exceeded my expectations for teenage boy roommates--we haven't burned the place down yet, and if the apartment smells like anything, it's cologne, and thankfully not a locker room. I'm excited about this living arrangement--I feel that a crazy story or two is inevitable.

In the News: 

China says hijacking foiled in troubled Xinjiang

Apple Pays $60 Million for iPad Name in China (I wrote this one!)

China hails space mission's success as crew returns to Earth

N. Korea Girl Dies Saving Kim Portraits