Portraits of a hutong

Last weekend I visited Shique Hutong to try my hand at portrait photography. In case you don't know what a hutong is or how to wikipedia, it is a traditional community (especially in Beijing) characterized by winding, narrow streets and small communes where extended families would live. At least, that's my definition. They're where you can go to find pre-skyscraper Beijing, but they're becoming endangered as they're torn down in the name of modernization. However, there's also a movement to commercialize them for tourists and also the renovate parts with swanky new clubs, artsy spots, etc.

Anyway, I spent a few hours taking shots, practicing how to ask for permission to take photos, and looking not-at-all creepy. Here are a few of my favorites:

Six days of blue and counting

Beijing is notorious for its hazy skies. For the 2008 Olympic Games, I remember hearing how they'd temporarily closed factories and limited automobile traffic in an effort to improve athlete performance and public perception with cleared skies.

Unfortunately, however, the skies have returned to their hazy status. I know you're thinking, "But you're from Oregon! Shouldn't you be used to gray skies?" Well, there's a difference between cloudy skies and "mashed potato" skies:

"Mashed potato sky", livefrombeijing.com

I don't think that factory pollution has everything to do with the low visibility. Much of it is due (I think) to the sand and dust from nearby deserts (though we could get on the subject of desertification, I'll abstain) coupled with vast city construction (over 50% of construction sites don't meet environmentally friendly standards). Plus, Beijing has a fantastic public transit system with  subway trains packed much of the day and roads lined with bicycles and filled buses, so at least they're trying to reduce pollution output (though 1000 cars are added daily to Beijing streets). But Beijing (and China in general) is growing and needs to fuel that growth, so it's hard to demand that they cease production. And I hear that they're setting new environmental standards, though--like everywhere--setting standards is not the same as implementing them.

Back to the skies. In the last decade there have been only four 30-day stretches of clear skies. I'm not sure what is qualified as "clear" or what other metrics are used, but given my short time here, I can verify that the skies are usually mashed potato-y. The benefit to this consistently murky extreme is that when we do swing to the other extreme of sapphire skies, we enjoy it even more (you can tell, as I've mentioned that in here and have a photographical comparison here).

Which brings me to this week. We're on day six of our shocking streak of blue skies! It's wonderful! And we have had weather in the mid- to high-70s! To enjoy this special treat, Tanu and I visited a park on campus during lunch and shared the gorgeous weather with other celebrants. Here are some photos for your viewing pleasure:

Bluuuuuuuue.

Now scroll back up to the photo of the hazy sky for comparison. It's jolting.

Also, I found what could be a fair blog about Beijing/China's environment at http://www.livefrombeijing.com/. It's written by an American environmental engineer in China.

"Hello, how ErHu?"

While I rode my bike across campus this evening, I saw a student orchestra rehearsing. Pangs of nostalgia hit me- there are few experiences comparable to being part of a surging, pulsating musical group. In response to my initial desire to join the group, my responses were (in this order):

1) I don't have my violin in China. (well maybe I could borrow one)

2) I can't devote an evening to rehearsal, let alone all the at-home practicing involved. (that is always a drawback)

3) I wouldn't be able to follow directions from the loudspeaker-yielding conductor. (but music is an international language!)

4) I can already play the violin. Shouldn't I take the opportunity to learn new things?

hmm.. this last one hit a chord (*wink). As part of my eternal quest to be proficient at all things, I did have a few hunches recently to learn how to play the Erhu ("are who"), or Chinese violin. 

"Yeah, but how can I do that? Sure I'm in China, but I'll have to find the Chinese Craigslist or something."

Just a few minutes later, I was walking through my dorm hallway when I saw this sign (heh.):

Do I wanna learn some Chinese violin?? Do I ever!

So I sent an email off to the poster to inquire about lesson(s)! We'll see what arrangements can be made. She did say that if I can teach her something cool then we could trade lessons. She might already know violin, and realistically she prolly wouldn't consider biomedical engineering research "cool" (or useful for her), so I may end up shelling out some dough.

Of course, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. I am here to do BME research, so I'll have to consider if I can reasonably balance research with a weekly lesson. But I'm thinking I could...

Beijing Photowalk, part 1 [UPDATED]

I love my iphone. That's an understatement, really, considering how much we've gone through. Each generation has been my faithful companion, and the picture skills of the latest gen have really shone. However, well, sometimes there are limitations to the iphone. There, I said it. Although it's better than any point-and-shoot I've ever had, I have no control over its camera functions except digital zoom and some focus.

So I got an SLR. And my iphone is alright with it. We talked it over.

And tonight I went on my first photo shoot with new SLR (the iphone chaperoned us). Tanu found a group on facebook called "Beijing Photowalks." It's a small group of foto aficionados who go around Beijing for photo shoots. Some of the participants have lived here for several years, so they have LOTS of good ideas in mind.

Tonight we went to the National Center for the Performing Arts, or "The Egg" (lots of new structures in Beijing have nicknames: Bird's Nest and WaterCube are internationally known; "Pants" and "Egg" are lesser-known). It's adjacent to the Forbidden City and Tianenmen Square and has been surrounded by some controversy, for its proximity to historic sites and its designer (a DUTCH fellow!).

THE EGG

part of THE EGG

Adjacent to the Center is the Great Hall of the People, which may be where the Chinese Congress meets.

Afterwards, I walked along the wall to the Forbidden City and got this shot.

brick wall!

and don't worry, iphone and I are doing well. I won't be sleeping on the couch tonight.




Update: Photowalk with Trey Ratcliffe of stuckincustoms.com a few days later. The sky was blue with scattered clouds (!) and I got some great shots:

Train Travel in China - II

The ride to Xi'an from Beijing was eventful to say the least.
We enjoyed our 2 day trip to Xi'an and did all the touristy things as Warren had blogged about earlier.

After a ginormous hot pot lunch on Saturday, we were ready to head back home. However, we were already traumatized by our first train experience and absolutely did not want to be late. We did not want to run or get wounded on our way to the train.

We left the hot pot place at 4pm. The interesting thing in China is that cab drivers change shifts right before rush hour (which starts at 5-5:30ish). As luck we would have it we were trying to flag down a cab during this shift change time. Being at a busy intersection with *two* white foreigners sadly did not aid us in hailing a cab. So we took the bus to the "nearest" stop to our hostel. By this time Warren, Kristin and I were getting nervous. Our train was at 6:40pm. And we could not afford to miss it. We got off the bus, much further away from the hostel than we thought we were. We then speed walked next to the Xi'an city wall for a good 20 minutes. Kristin was pretty torn between trying to decide if she wanted to know the time or if she didn't. We got to a busy street and got this rickshaw-taxi hybrid after much haggling. It was quite a thrilling rough ride back to the hostel including going the wrong way on a one-way street.

Hybrid rickshaw

 We got to the hostel around 5:15. Then our Chinese friend told us that we are close to the train station and we should wait at the hostel rather than at the train station. Though that statement should have ideally calmed us down, we were still nervous about being late for our train. However, the temptation of free wi-fi won us over and we stayed at the hostel. We picked up some candy for the train ride and then took a cab to the train station. To the credit of our friend, it did take us only 10-15 minutes to get there.

Picture doesn't show the people sleeping at the station

But Xi'an was a rude shock compared to Beijing. Beijing though crowded was a well designed, spread out railway station which Xi'an most definitely was not. It was crowded, your face in someone else's shoulder crowded. To get through the line, I had to climb onto one of the security guard stands so as to not get crushed by the crowd. The guard was *not happy* about that, but her incomprehensible Chinese words were drowned out as I was one with the crowd. I tried to get a picture of the train station but it came out too blurry. It took us about 15 minutes to navigate the crowds and get to the train. The people jam at Xi'an was worse than the people jam at the Great Wall. We made it to the train sweaty, smelly and somewhat in shock with 15 minutes to spare.

Hard sleeper. Courtesy: Google images

We were given different seats so had to exchange with fellow passenger. We also had this cute 3.5 yr old Chinese boy in our compartment. He kept blabbering on with a 3 yr olds vocabulary which we still failed to understand. The hyper boy took the longest to fall asleep. But this train ride was not as pleasant as the first one. The seats were not as comfortable and you could hear way too many people snoring. We did make it back in time though and Kristin apparently gave a stellar lab presentation at 11:30am :)

Mid-autumn party, courtesy Sigma-Aldrich

It’s Mid-Autumn Festival, which means MOON CAKES! all the time!! My only disappointment is the lack of chocolate content.

Yesterday lab mates told me how a chemical supplier gave us a bunch of gift certificates as thanks for our orders (um, Atlanta Sigma-Aldrich vendors, are you reading this?) so we decided to have a lil Mid-Autumn party funded by the supplier. To get to lab mate’s apartment, we all road our bikes like the Buttercream Gang across town where we met friends who’d done the grocery shopping.

Mates prepared some common things, like vegetarian meatballs and fried chicken (and moon cakes!), and then some more uncommon (to me) dishes: bean skin, duck stomach, fungus things, (duck?) liver, jellyfish. To prove that I’m not a finicky eater, I did at least try all of the dishes. I think Tanu enjoyed eating the jellyfish mostly to make me squirm (and squirm I did).

Sometimes I feel like what my nephew Logan (1 yr old) must feel: where he’s around people he knows, but doesn’t understand a thing they’re saying except occasionally his name. But tonight I didn’t feel isolated; although I understood only some of what they said, we still chatted in English and Chinese, talked/laughed about the people dancing on the tv, and generally had a fantastic time.

But I was mostly stricken by how wonderful my friends are. I have to admit that before moving here, I was afraid that I’d be with stick-in-the mud over-studying Chinese lab mates. One of the perceptions I’ve looked forward to in/validating is the homogeneity and demeanor of Chinese people. The reality is that (at least) my lab mates are helpful, compassionate, and funny (and hard-working!). I mean, there’s always at least one person in lab who’s humming or singing The Phantom of the Opera. I think I’ve found my niche.

To cap off the evening, we rode our bikes back across town to campus. This time, it felt more like E.T. where they’re riding their bikes away from the cops/evil scientists. But we dodged busses and rickshaws instead of police cars, and instead of carrying E.T. in a front basket, I had a lab mate balancing on the rack over my rear wheel.

Baby's first haircut

Tanu is one of those women who can pull off short hair. When we moved to Atlanta in 2009, she had a very short bob, but has let it grown out in the last two years. About a year ago, I started nudging her to go “Halle Berry” short. To satisfy my annoyances, she said that she’d do it in China. She thought that I’d forget… but I didn’t.

So last night we went and got her hair cut!!!! We had a range of salons to choose from: uber fancy salon in the top of a mall, a swanky roadside spa, and a barbershop on campus. Like Goldilocks, we chose the middle option.

I put some photos of Ms. Berry on my computer and after some intense sign language and broken Mandarin, she was getting her hair washed!

The first cut was the hardest.

With meticulous attention, the hairdresser transformed Tanu!! The shampoo+cut+rinse+style ended totaled 50Y ($8)!! What a deal.

Tanu (left) and Halle (right). er.. was it Halle (l) and Tanu (R)???
I don't even know anymore!

And the attention she’s getting on campus (lab mates, store owners, construction workers) is priceless!

Train travel in China

I have been on enough trains in India, and I don't particularly enjoy Indian trains.
Suffice to say, I wasn't sure what to expect on my first train ride in China - from Beijing to Xi'an overnight.

We had a Chinese friend who was going with us. He succeeded in getting us soft-sleeper tickets (these are the luxury seats) from a scalper when all the tickets were officially sold out. The tickets cost about $80 one way (ticket is $60 and scalper charge $20). Kristin, Warren and I met up with our friend and we were taking the bus to the railway station. Our train was at 8:50pm and we ended up getting off the bus at 8:00pm. In my Indian head, I was thinking, meh we have time to kill. But I was wrong. I underestimated the train system in China. We found out that we may actually be late and that we need to run (and by run I mean really, RUN) to get our train.

So we have a Chinese guy running followed by two white people and one Indian girl. It must have looked quite entertaining to the other passengers. We did have difficulty running though - 1. The place is huge 2. It is crowded 3. You may encounter people throwing up in the middle of your path as you run. So we break into a run, with all of our luggage. The security is a joke. You thrown your bags in a pile of bags which goes through an archaic scanner and then you fight with the mob as you try to retrieve your bag from the pile on the other end of the scanner. (I am sure you can carry a Samurai sword and no one would notice)

Fig 1 - When Warren punched
 someone in his way (not)

As you may know by now, spitting is pretty common in China. So we weren't too surprised that when we were running we saw a girl spitting. We thought she would move. But then she wasn't spitting anymore, she was puking in the middle of the path at the railway station. Warren and I had to rapidly change course to not get that stuff on us. In the process, I am sure I hit someone square in the shoulder with my camera bag. Thankfully, bumping and shoving is completely acceptable in China and I did not get cussed out in Mandarin (or maybe I did and I did not understand any of it). Then due to the crowd and me not being a runner, I lost my friends. However, for once my cell phone had signal and I got to the right gate. Sweaty, tired, some people bearing battle scars (Fig 1) and out of breath we got to the train with 15 minutes to spare. It was the perfect amount of time to buy some over priced Ramen and use hot water to make it in the train. Kristin also found some vegetarian ramen while Warren experimented with some spam sausage thing that officially tasted disgusting (Fig 2).

Fig 2- a. Disgusting spam b. Delicious ramen

Also, the Beijing train station was clean. No yelling hawkers or sleeping people on the platforms (that is my image of train stations from India). The train itself was NICE (not the bathrooms as much, but still pretty good). We had a 4 person compartment all to ourselves. There were TVs in there which did not work, but hey, they were there ! We also got slippers to wear inside. There was a whole area to store your bags overhead. They provided linen, bedding and also took out the trash for you. And free hot water ! At the end we were pretty impressed with our tickets and enjoyed our camp in the train (Fig 3).  They do have lights go out at 10pm and you can't do anything else. You have to go to bed, when they tell you to go to bed it seems. Not that we complained, we were exhausted. We got to Xi'an at 9 the next morning. (The train journey back from Xi'an will be another blog entry!)

Fig 3 - China soft sleeper train = Win

For anyone who plans to travel on a train in China - it is VITAL that you keep your ticket on you all the time. They check it when you board, then they take it at night and give you a plastic card , then the next morning they take the plastic card and give your ticket back and last, you have to show your ticket as you exit at your station. I think I was so shocked by the whole checking ticket situation, that I saved my ticket and also ended up washing it when I did laundry. It's now just a blob of paper.

"[Terra-cotta] soldiers don't die"

The year is 246 BC and young Emperor Qin is a typical angsty teen. Anxious to make his mark on world history while impressing the ladiez, this 13 year-old orders some 700,000 workers to build 9,000 terra-cotta soldiers, horses, and chariots over 30 years. “Plus, think of the amazing tourist draw it’ll have in 2,200 years!” The kid had amazing foresight.

In the 1970s, farmers found a surprising number of clay shards in the soil they unearthed during their well-digging. The government swooped in and found Qin’s army spread among four buried pits. As it turns out, people who sought the overthrow of the Qin dynasty just years after the Emperor’s death stole weapons from the clay soldiers for the rebellion. In the process, the structures protecting the statues collapsed and shattered many of the soldiers.

But Emperor Qin had the last laugh. Over forty years, China has been rebuilding the army, piece by piece. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, the collection has sold out museums tickets around the world and is considered a must-see attraction in China.

Which is why, with only one weekend left of her month stay, Kristin requested a visit to see Qin’s clay warriors.

While it was cool to see a quadrillion clay soldiers from a distance, we were… just... looking at clay soldiers from a distance (ok, so it’s pretty fancy that they’re super old).

But then this piqued my interest: it’s an active archeological site. As in, they’re still digging up pieces of clay and putting together these 3D puzzles.

The Warriors reside in the outskirts of Xi’an, and our lab mate + girlfriend served as guide during the weekend. Xi’an had a really pleasant feel about it. Hectic, yes, but just a tad slower than Beijing. And there were more trees (you know how I feel about trees). Also, the International Horticulture Exposition is taking place there, so we got to see its awesome mascot all over town

Its head is supposed to be a pomegranate, FYI.

There were other delightful characters, too.

Shaanxi, the province containing Xi’an, is home to many Chinese Muslims. There’s a large mosque in Xi’an that claims a pagoda as its minaret (!). We stepped inside just as sundown occurred, and as we are currently in Ramadan, we witnessed a bunch of people quickly scarf down some Chinese food to break their fast before heading in to prayer.

Outside the mosque is a (tourist) street market. And Tanu and I scored jawesome matching tshirts of pandas doing tai chi.

Not knowing how Chinese sizes run, I needed to try one on. So I found a welcoming alley.

The next morning we had baozi for breakfast (not surprising.)

Then we checked out the city wall. Xi’an is an ancient city that has taken turns with Beijing as China’s capital over the last few thousand years. As such, the walls were massive: up to 16m in thickness at the base and 12m tall. With a perimeter of ~9 miles, bike riding and even small bus tours take place. We just hiked up to the top and admired the surroundings (note: Xi’an also had lots of pollution/smog/humidity, so we could only admire a few blocks in each direction).

In addition to Xi’an being an ancient Chinese city, prehistoric people also inhabited the area. I think the oldest human fossil was found here? (idk. ask Kristin. or google). There’s an amazing museum that covers eons of human history including some beautiful Chinese artifacts and works of art. One interesting set of figurines was this:

Judging from the tri-tone coloring of the third statuette, I’d guess that these are from the Tang dynasty (look- I learned something!). They represent characters from the story “Journey to the West” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_west) that describes the journey of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang who traveled to India to bring Buddhist scriptures to China.

As it turns out, this story is a fictionalized version of true events. In fact, the emperor at the time rewarded the monk by building the Wild Goose Pagoda in his honor, which also housed the scriptures.

Our birds-eye view from the top:

We had just enough time to grab something to eat before we took the overnight train back to Beijing, and several convenient eateries were nearby.

off limits!

just say no!

Finally, we found a hot pot place. It was our hot pot experience! For those of you who don’t know, hot pot is where they bring a boiling broth/soup to your table and then you put all sorts of raw veggies and meat in there to cook. It was delicious! …but 100% contained meat (Kristin acted like she didn’t like eating meat-tainted veggies. But she was just looking for an excuse to bend the rules.)

hot pots: red meaty (foreground) and fishy (behind).

raw cow stomach!

the spread.

We spent way too much time eating, so getting back to the train was very eventful. But we made it! And we made a friend on the train who eventually fell asleep after being a rambunctious 4 year-old.