ANOTHER CHARMING BIT OF CHINGLISH

As you will know, I am very fond of some of the English I see here in China (see an earlier posting).

Walking home the other night I saw a rather spine chilling example in the back window of an enormous SUV parked by the pavement. It was a large yellow sticker with the following alarming text-:

BABY ON ROAD

A rather worrying statement I felt.

CHINESE URBAN TRANSPORT: No.. 3

Here is another post on the subject of the various modes of transport to be found here in the Middle Kingdom, this time it is a taxi.

These come in a number of configurations, but are all basically the same, a three wheel motor bike - very small engine as far as I can see. This is the Luxury version, in which the passenger(s) sit in amazing luxury inside, as does the proud owner/driver of the taxi.

The passengers (they can take two people) sit in the back, facing backwards, by the way.

These things pootle around the city picking up fares where ever they can find them. I find them rather alarming as they seem to me to be inherently unstable, tall and narrow as they are. Though to be honest, I have never seen one lying forlornly on its side by the road, so perhaps my feelings about their stability is wrong.

Anyhow, that is about all there is to say about them, so, here are two pictures of one parked near where I live.

CHARMING LITTLE THING, AINT IT?

CURIOSITIES OF CHINESE LIFE: 2

I have come to the conclusion that somewhere in the darkest depths of the local government of Beijing there is a bureaucrat who is grossly under employed.

As we all know, any bureaucrat who finds himself with no real work to do, will quickly invent jobs for himself. There is some natural law about this, I just cant bring its name to mind just now.... but it has to do with the survival of this particular species (Bureaucraticus underemployedius).

Lately a number of local regulations have come into effect which are hard to explain using logic as a starting point. to wit:-

1. All taxi drivers now have to wear ochre shirts and rather startling striped ties.
2. No dogs taller than 25 cms at the shoulder may live within the part of Beijing defined by the fourth ring road.
3. All shops must have identical letter type and sized name boards above their shops.

Furthermore, a concerted attempt is being made to wipe out one of the most creative and enjoyable uses of English I have ever come across.... what we call Chinglish here. This is a sometimes too literal translation from Chinese to English that occurs here. For some reason the powers-that-be feel that this reflects badly on China. In my view it is quite the reverse, it shows such a refreshingly original approach to language that I am almost inclined to suggest it be encouraged, made the subject of university courses, and generally kept alive and healthy.

Who could resist such linguistic gems as the following examples of Chinglish (all genuine, I promise you). Spelling mistakes are in originals.

• Deformed man toilet (sign on a lavatory for handicaped men)
• Police tips; Avoid being stolen should be always remembered. Be prepared for danger in times of safety. (Police warning sign)
• Salute to the tourists who keep the public hygience.
• I like your smile, but unlike you put your shoes on my face (Keep off the grass sign)
• When old man's child go up hand ladder temporary need the family to accompany (sign at foot of stairs)
• Sham Poo Label on a bottle of ... shampoo
  

And so it goes on..... Blissful, poetic use of language... Long may it live on here in China.

POINT OF INTEREST FOR YOU ALL

I have just discovered that if you left mouse click twice on any pictures in this blog, they open in their original size - which in most cases is much larger than they appear to be in the blog itself...and much clearer too.

The building with the teddy Boy hair style is much better to look at that way...give it a try and you will see what I mean.

CHINESE URBAN TRANSPORT; 2

As promised, here is another post about modes of transport here, this model is to be found all over China, and is actually quite a modest one. I have seen these with loads strapped on that were at least 3 meters tall, wobbling down the street.

They come in basically two versions, one, as in this photo, are man-powered, the other model has a small two-stroke engine, and they sort of pobble along quietly and not very rapidly.

One interesting characteristic of them all is that the chain is incredibly loose for some reason, the lower run hanging down almost to the ground... beats me why though.

Anyhow, here it is. More to follow..

Here is one I photographed in the street near home... man powered

Here is another one of those tricycles, a closer view this time. This is one we use at work to transport amplifiers, speakers and other heavy tools of our trade, in this case it is a 1300 watt amplifier and a smoke machine.

In this view you can see how loose the chain is, this is standard practice, no idea why......

STRANGE BUILDINGS, NUMBER 1

I mentioned earlier that there are some truly odd buildings here in Beijing, well this extraordinary building must be one of the oddest, here or anywhere! Quite beyond me to understand why it has that weird sort of Teddy Boy hair cut at the top.... Very strange building. Any suggestions as to why it is like this would be most welcome.

There are actually rooms in that bit at the top... not sure I would wish to be in any of them however........

Another view of this odd building, as seen from the Olympic Green
If you double click on this picture, and look very hard, you will be able to see the rather wonderful swimming pool building... a sort of blue cube made up of polygons.

BEIJING BUILDINGS:PART 1

Beijing is a rather strange place architecturally, it is a strange mix of ultra modern glass and steel, strange buildings that look like pictures on the covers of '30's science fiction magazines, gruesome worker's flats and occasionally rather beautiful old buildings. These last are sadly disappearing very rapidly, unless they happen to be something that tourists might like to see, such as old temples and palaces.

There are also a number of completely insane buildings, which I will show you as I get the chance to photograph them, such as the CCTV towers built by a Dutch architect who appears to have been smoking too much Ned Weed when he made the designs. In any event, given the speed at which some of these buildings have gone up, it leaves me rather breathless as I wander around Beijing these days. As i think I mentioned in an earlier post, currently - owing to the Olympics - all building work has been put on hold, so Beijing is almost peaceful... no noise of scaffolding craashing around, no compressors roaring or screaming building workers... bliss!

Anyhow, here are some images of some of the buildings around here.... Sorry about the quality, I used a mobile to take them as I was going home in a taxi this evening.

CURIOSITIES OF CHINESE LIFE: 1

When you walk around in Beijing you will notice that many of the streets, especially major ones have large white metal fences running down the middle of the road. These first began to appear about 18 months ago, or at least that is when I began to notice them.

The purpose of these fences is simple, if slightly macabre, heavy traffic is something new to the Beijingers, until relatively recently there were very few cars on the roads here, mostly government limos I gather, and millions of bicycles. This has now changed with the advent of money in people's pockets, and a wild surge of consumerism that has taken Beijing, and most major cities in China by storm, and currently in Beijing 1000 new cars are being registered every day!!!!!!

This produced a serious problem, not merely the endless traffic jams for which Beijing is justly infamous, but also a lot of dead people. People had the habit of simply wandering across the road where ever they happened to be, and they did this without looking, as they were simply not conditioned to the existence of lots of cars being driven by drivers with almost no driving experience, thus lots of people were hit by cars whilst wandering blithely across the roads.

Hence the fences, which at least force people to cross the roads at traffic lights. This has apparently reduced the number of accidents noticeably, but not entirely, as people still wander into the roads at the crossings without looking, and car drivers also drive with a happy disregard for pedestrians.

When we arrived in Beijing I quickly discovered that the Beijingers were possibly the worst drivers in the world, but I am happy to say that this is changing quite rapidly, and whilst they are still amazingly unaware of what is happening around them (wing mirrors and rear-view mirrors seem to be merely for decoration), they are slowly evolving into passable drivers... long way to go still though before they achieve the level of, say, Turkish drivers. But they are getting there!

CHINESE URBAN TRANSPORT 1

There is a totally pleasing aspect to life here in Beijing, and that is the almost complete lack of those noisy mopeds which are the delight of European teenagers. None of that roaring along on supercharged mopeds here!

Instead they have electric mopeds.

These come in a wide range of models, from simple electrical bikes to cargo carries and ones such as shown in the picture below. These things whisper along, cant go very fast, and apparently cant be supercharged either, so apart from the real risk of being knocked down by one of these things coming up silently behind one as one dreamily wanders around in Beijing, life is much better without that infernal noise! Showing my age here a bit I suspect, but I truly do hate two stroke mopeds! With a passion.

At intervals I will talk about other idiosyncratic modes of transport here in China, of which there are many, mostly rather fun too.

COMFORTABLE ELECTRIC THREE WHEELER FOR CARRYING SHOPPING AND PASSENGER

Friendly signs Number 1

One of the many aspects of living in China that charm me, is the use of language here, especially the use of English, which is called Chinglish here.

However, this little sign is an example of a truly delightful way of thinking; it has to be the most friendly "Keep of the grass" sign in the world.

OUR ADVENTURES IN XIN JIANG PROVINCE: PART ONE

We have just returned from an amazing trip to Xin Jiang Province, which is in the extreme north west of China, bordering on Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia (see map below).

MAP OF CHINA, XIN JIANG IS THE OCHRE COLOURED BIT TOP LEFT

Lotty went there a week earlier than I did, so she can write about her experiences during that week, I shall describe the part of the trip I was on, which lasted about 4 or 5 weeks.

I flew from Beijing to Kashgar a day after I stopped work, and went to the hotel where the other members of the small group we were going to be with for a few days were staying, and left my mobile in the taxi too, damn it! Never got it back either, rotten taxi driver!!!!!!!

The next morning, bright and early we climbed into a small bus and headed out to the Karakorum Highway, an amazing piece of recent civil engineering that joins China to Pakistan over the heights of the Karakorum mountain range. This road winds its way along a river valley, slowly climbing and passing the most wonderful scenery as it goes.

KARAKORUM HIGHWAY

After some hours, we arrived at the point from which we would be walking, at about 3000 meters above sea level. This turned out to be a rather flat area surrounded by high mountains, capped with snow. We headed off to a small village we could see in the distance where we were going to pass the night.

FIRST VILLAGE

We were received by a very friendly small Uighur family who seemed to be the only people living in the village, and sorted ourselves out. We were to sleep either in our tents or in an adobe house, whichever we preferred - Lotty and I opted for the house option and duly set out our sleeping bags on the sleeping platform in the house.

ME LOOKING LOST IN FIRST VILLAGE... WHAT NO BOG?

I then discovered the first bit of rural Uighur life, no bogs in the village, one simply wandered off into the distance and made a small hole and that was that. Given that the area was completely flat, with no sort of cover or place to hide behind, this was something of a shock to me.... but I overcame the shock and happily conformed to local tradition in this respect quite quickly - needs must. Lavatories may well figure largely in this series of accounts of our Xin Jiang trip, as Chinese lavatories are rather curious..... more on this as we go along, you have been warned!

OUR TRUSTY CAMELS HEAD OFF INTO THE HILLS

The following morning our baggage camels arrived, and off we went. A pleasant gentle walk over a slightly upwards sloping plain, which to begin with was fine, but as we slowly got higher and higher, I began to feel the effects of altitude sickness, and by the time we had got to some 4000 meters, I was having problems.

ME, PUFFED OUT AT ABOUT 4200 METERS

It got to the point that I was slowly walking about 10 meters and then having to sit down for 10 minutes to get my puff back again. In this slow and slightly embarrassing manner I masterfully managed the final 500 meters increase in height to our destination at 4500 meters above sea level, where there was a rough and ready base camp for mountaineers who wanted to climb the glacier above the camp or the mountain there (7500 meters). Neither of these options appealed to me.

MADE IT!!!!!!!!!

THE MOUNTAIN AND GLACIER I DIDNT CLIMB

The following morning, still groggy from the altitude sickness - in spite of swallowing handfuls of Aspirin tablets (the recommended treatment) - I still wasn't exactly full of beans, so with Lotty and another member of our group who was much more effected by the altitude than I was, we decided to go down about 1000 meters to another small Uighur village and wait there for the others.
However, before the cameleers would allow us to descend, they insisted that the sicker member of the group come and sit in a Yurt and drink Yak milk tea and relax for a while - They were frightened she would fall off her camel, and claimed that Yak milk tea was the best possible medicine for altitude sickness. So this is what we did. Yak milk tea is not nice! While we were supping this drink, the chief cameleer decided to show us how to dance in the Kirghiz way, so while one of his men played happy music on a sort of guitar thing, he and I danced happily together, me wearing a rather foolish Kirghiz felt hat that I was given once they discovered that I was a Grandfather.

DELIRIOUS ON YAK MILK TEA... I DANCED THE DAY AWAY!!!!

After a bit of this sort of cheerful stuff, he declared our sick friend was ready to get onto a camel and go down to the village. So with enormous care and patience, they helped the poor soul onto her camel, and off we went in my favourite direction - down.

SETTING OFF TO THE SECOND..AND LOWER, VILLAGE

THERE IT IS... WAY DOWN THERE....



FROM SLIGHTLY CLOSER..

This turned out to be a very pleasant stroll downhill, and after about an hour and a half we arrived at the village. This village was a collection of yurts and adobe houses, teeming with children and yak calves. Lotty and I set up our tent on the edge of the village, and settled down to enjoy ourselves, whilst the rest of our party staggered up to the glacier, and then in due time down to our little village. Same lavatory arrangements here as in the other village, the only difference being that here there were no end of large rocks to hide behind. This was only slightly spoilt by the fact that the village women were spread out all over the place, chiefly on high vantage points, looking out for their yaks. Oh well...... when in Rome.......... All these yaks wandering about the place worried me not a little, as I had been told that they were known to casually gore people, and most of these had calves too... to I did my darndest to avoid getting between any mothers and their offspring. In fairness, I have to say that none of them took the remotest interest in me, and seemed perfectly happy to simply mooch about the place peacefully.

In the evening the others wandered into the village, and we settled down for the night. As was the case everywhere we went with this group, all the villagers set about trying to sell us all manner of "Traditional" handicrafts, which I found rather tedious, but the others in the group had a splendid time bargaining away for carpets, bags hats and so forth.

The next morning, after a pleasant night's sleep under the stars, we packed up, loaded the camels and set off down to the road and our waiting bus. This walk was good, gentle and beautiful. Going down one had time to admire the astounding scenery up there. I have no words to describe it... but I am soooo very glad that I have been lucky enough to see such country up there some 20 km from Tajikistan.

Our trusty bus was there waiting for us, and we drove back to Kashgar, only to be told that the hotel we were booked into was no longer allowed to accept visitors with passports (!?) Something to do with the Olympics we were told.
So another hotel was rapidly found, and we checked in. A pretty disastrous hotel it was too... nothing much worked, all the bathroom fittings were falling off the walls, damaged tiles and all the sort of things I have since discovered to be quite normal in most Chinese hotels. But the beds were clean, so we at least could sleep well.

The next morning, the others set off back to Beijing, and Lotty and I moved to a much better hotel in the centre of Kashgar, and our own part of this holiday began, which I shall write about in following instalments.... Watch this space!

TO BEGIN..............

I suppose perhaps the best place to begin this new Blog is to talk a wee bit about where we actually live here in Beijing. After our less than happy experience of "compound" living in Luanda, I suppose how we now live is somewhat better. We still live in a compound, but this one is not cut off from the outside world as was the case in Luanda, there we lived in our own semi-detached little house in the school grounds, surrounded by other semi-detached houses which housed the other teachers. Now we live on the ground floor of a 23 floor block of flats, in a compound with about 10 of these blocks, all brand new and perfectly adequate for living, but not particularly interesting or inspiring. I have never been keen on the idea of living in a People Stack..... Anyhow, this is what it looks like, outside and inside.

OUR HUGE KITCHEN

TWO VIEWS OF OUR LITTLE SOUL SAVING GARDEN

BEDROOM

SITTING ROOM

SPARE ROOM

VIEW FROM GARDEN

VIEW UPWARDS FROM GARDEN.... NO COMMENT!!!!!

So, this may give you an idea of how we live here, or at least, where we live here. To be honest, before we arrived in Beijing, I had - naively perhaps - assumed that we would be living in something more like this...........

AHH.... DREAMS, DREAMS

But no, almost no one in modern Beijing lives in "Chinese" houses, we all live in tower blocks of varying quality.

I gather from people who have lived here for many years that Beijing used to be full of houses a bit like the one above, but that in the mania for rebuilding, almost all such structures have been pulled down and replaced with tower blocks. At least the new buildings have lavatories, which the old ones decidedly did not have, which is a real step forward for most people I feel. Living in a picturesque building would be fun, but one with no lavatory would have rather less charm for me, and I am sure almost all Chinese would agree with that feeling.

Until a few weeks ago, Beijing was one huge building site, tower blocks going up all around the city, machines working 24/7 and almost continual noise and dust from all this building work, happily we are experiencing a short period of peace and quiet, as all such work has been banned for the duration of the Olympics and the period leading up to them.... so all is currently quiet. A vast relief to me, as I was becoming very tired of being woken at 3 am by the hideous noise of scaffolding being unloaded from trucks about 50 meters from my bedroom window each night, or cement mixers roaring away at the same sort of time for hours on end.

This work ethic is probably very admirable, but I am afraid I feel that one can go too far with this sort of ethic... Give me the good old European feeling of "40 hours a week is enough for me Mate!" What ever else it might mean, it does at least mean peaceful nights.

Last thing about where we live, we are parked in the South East of the city, sort of, in an area called the Central Business District, which is quite handy. It means that we are about 45 minutes cycling time away from The Forbidden City (which to my shame I still have not visited) and thus the main centre of Beijing, so it is a convenient place to live. Especially so for Lotty, as the school she works in (Beijing City International School) is literally 4 minutes walk from our home. Sadly, the school I work in (more about which in later postings) is way to blazes up in the North Eastern corner of Beijing, well on the way to the main Airport, so it takes me about 90 minutes to get to work each day... ho hum.............................

And what was truly culturally confusing for me when we arrived here, there is a Carrefour Super Market about 5 minutes walk from our house, and for the Brits among you, a B&Q as well!

Never expected that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is it for this posting, another one soon.

FIRST POSTING ON NEW BLOG - BEIJING

After two years living here in Beijing, I have arrived at the point when I might actually have something I can say about the Middle Kingdom.

Over the next few days I shall start to write this blog. By and large it wont be one of those blogs that describe the Club Scene or Bar Life here in Beijing, and apart from peripherally it wont say much about the Olympic games, as they leave me cold.

I suspect it will be more a random collection of my thoughts (and Lotty's) about what living in China, anno 2008, is like for us, and will probably wander in a sort of uncontrolled fashion from my thoughts about the pleasures of eating weird meals with my Chinese colleagues to the state of Petrol Station lavatories in Xin Jiang Province, taking in the considerable kindness we have met from almost all the Chinese, Uyghurs, Tadjiks, Kirghiz and other tribal groups we have encountered here and anything else we feel like posting here.

For clarity, All my posts and comments will be in white, and Lotty's will be in a sort of orange colour, much as we did with our Angola Blog.

So, that is all for now.