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

The In-Between, and Foreign Snake-Heads

     The changes that have come in just one week have been incremental, yet life-changing. For one, I now have most of the essentials I still needed: comfy shoes for schlepping, a camera for photo-documentation, a visa and Pepto-Bismol (for obvious reasons...) The most important and least tangible, though, is a place to stay! For July and August, my family friends are so generously hosting me in their spare apartment. Having a room for those two months, though, meant that I needed to find somewhere to live in June. I have spent the last month contacting homestay agencies, responding to online ads, researching hostels and apartments, all in the pursuit of housing that was convenient, affordable, safe. The most important criterion in my mind, though, was food. Primal, I know, but when considering that I've never lived on my own and have predominantly relied on others to feed me, figuring out how I'm going to eat for two and a half months has been constantly on my mind. What's more, while I know I can rise to the challenge, the prospect of going to a Chinese market, finding ingredients I recognize and can use, potentially bartering for products in Chinese, finding utensils to cook with, etc. on my own sounds overwhelming. That said, Chinese restaurants are extremely affordable and abundant by Western standards, so many of my Chinese friends have advised against even attempting to cook for myself. 

     In short, the horror of starving alone drove my search to find a host family who will feed me, love me, correct my Chinese, let me play violin, and be close to my internship site. Call it fear of commitment, but the idea of signing up to live in someone's home based on such superficial knowledge of him or her (location, occupation, number of rooms in the home, the assurance that "you will be safe anytime in his house") is a huge leap of faith. So over the course of a month, I emailed back and forth with agencies and my own contacts, trying to find a situation that didn't require me to a) work as a maid, b) spend a certain number of hours per week volunteering, c) commute for over an hour. 

     After changing my mind at least four times, I rejected all of my options and wrote to a woman whose homestay offer I originally decided against because it was outside my budget. She wrote back that she had already agreed to host another student, but could contact her friend. Seeing as at that moment I had no leads and ten days to figure out where I would be moving to, there seemed to be no downside to asking. As it were, her friend's home is quite close to where I'll be working, she is happy for me to practice violin, her rate is much lower--and it includes meals. Here's what sealed the deal for me, though: the friend is a nutritionist and reportedly makes "very authentic" and "delicious" Beijing cuisine. To quote Elsa Schiaparelli, "Eating is not merely a material pleasure. Eating well gives a spectacular joy to life and contributes immensely to goodwill and happy companionship. It is of great importance to the morale." I would argue that having authentic and delicious Chinese food is imperative if I am to succeed this summer. 

     It's no guarantee that this homestay is going to be completely smooth sailing, and I'm optimistic I'll learn a lot from my host family members as well as my own mistakes. From their messages, they seem very kind, and even if the homestay goes terribly, I have a back-up couch to crash (and as always I'm sure it will make for some interesting stories). Nevertheless, I can't fully explain what what an incredible relief it is to know that I at least have a place to go when I arrive in Beijing.

    On a slightly different note, recent incidents involving foreigners in China (a British tourist's sexual harassment of a Chinese woman, and Russian cellist's mockery of a Chinese woman on a train, both captured on video) has sparked Chinese national outcry, and perhaps xenophobia. After the former incident, many Chinese micro-bloggers voiced angry opposition to foreigners in their country, most notably CCTV host Yang Rui, who wrote that those who can't find work in the US or EU come to China to "grab our money, engage in human trafficking" and called for his country-fellows to "cut off the foreign snake heads." Now, the Chinese government has launched a 100 day campaign to drive out foreigners who have entered and work in the country illegally. 

     Disturbing as all of this is, from what I have heard, the anti-foreigner sentiment hasn't manifested itself in the form of violence; if anything, the police are just profiling passerby (what else is new?) and randomly demanding to see passports. It's unfortunate that the stories about conflict between Chinese and foreigners are the ones that are being highlighted in China (for there are many positive stories that are under the radar) but it makes sense that the Chinese government encourages it as a way to set the country apart (and over) the West. Personally, I'm just hoping that xenophobia doesn't further escalate in the pursuit of a unified China. My new goal is to show at least one person in China that foreigners aren't all that bad.

     (Six days until departure!)

Audrey

In the News:

Before China's Transition, A Wave of Nationalism

Because every blog needs a first post.

I should have realized it was only a matter of time before I created another blog.

     My consciousness of a world greater than Austin, Texas, came with my ten-month immersion in an all-girl's high school in Japan. Selected by my high school faculty to represent the school abroad at our Japanese sister school, I learned enough Japanese to ask the time and took off for Japan in September 2007 with newly-purchased knee socks, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and little idea of what to expect. From the moment I arrived, I was plunged into Japan, living with two host families over the course of the exchange and taking all of my classes in Japanese. Through battling rogue robotic toilets and learning the hard way the custom of eating everything on my plate, I became fluent in Japanese, discovered the differences (and samenesses) of Japanese and American culture, and began to realize the magnitude of opportunities awaiting those willing to take a chance. 

     I recorded my time in Japan through The Tokyo Blog. The Tokyo Blog was originally intended to inform my family and friends; as my posts and pictures became more extensive, though, my readership expanded to friends of friends, peers, my school, my community, and beyond. At the time, I thought I was simply chronicling the experience to entertain and update my readers. Now, I realize that writing about my successes and mishaps was just as much for my own benefit--to process, debrief, and remember. Rather than dreading my next language- or custom-related shortcoming, I began to eagerly try new things, knowing that the worst mistakes make for the best stories.

     After I returned to the States for my junior year of high school, I abandoned my years of studying Spanish for Chinese. Japanese characters come from the Chinese writing system, and after learning about 400 or 500 characters in Japan (and recalling the labors of conjugating the subjunctive tense in Spanish) it seemed like an obvious choice. Whether it was it was the recent experience of picking up language quickly, the writing system overlap with Japanese, or the lack of verb conjugation in Chinese, I found Chinese coming naturally to me. 

     I got a taste of China in the summer of 2009 when I spent a month going from city to city taking language classes and seeing the sights. While I remember vividly sweating buckets on Great Wall, bartering furiously at the Silk Market, and dressing up in Beijing opera costume and makeup, just as striking was the pollution that reduced the line of vision to about half a mile and my host sister's complaints about the cruelty of her peers in their pursuit to attend a good university. That summer, ethnic riots in Xinjiang (a northeastern region of China) incited the Chinese government's nation-wide shutdown of Facebook. That smog, cut-throat competition, and censorship are realities for millions is distressing; however, understanding the historical, political, social, and cultural elements that have made China what it is today is also incredibly fascinating to me. 

     Now, I am a rising junior at Wellesley College double-majoring in East Asian Linguistics and Music. (East Asian Linguistics is an individual major, i.e. one I am creating myself that combines Japanese and Chinese languages and cultures with pure linguistics, as well as classes that address the two.) This summer I will be spending 10 weeks as an intern at the Beijing Bureau of ABC News and living with a host family. My hope is that this blog will be informative, meaningful, and entertaining for the reader--and at the very least, that it will document what is certain to be a unique experience for me.

     (13 days until departure!)


Audrey


In the News:
Beijing Pledges to Clean Out Illegal Foreigners