Damsel in distress

The day before as I was standing in front of the cash machine at a local bank, thinking about what I should be buying when I do my shopping afterwards, the machine suddenly stopped cooperating. I pressed all the keys far more times than it was necessart to realise that absolutely nothing was going to happen. At this point, I had already keyed in my pin number and was supposed to choose the amount I wanted to withdraw. This, of course was after closing time, so there was no way to go ask the bank staff to help me out.

So, there I was, standing in front of a machine that was almost mocking me with it's happy "Welcome to our bank" constantly rolling from one side of the screen to the other, but not willing to to do anything else. Not to mention that the card inside was my VISA card, a total lifeline for me as it's my only way to access my money back home. Without it I am literally penniless. There was no way I was going to walk away from the situation without my card, especially with the possibility that the ATM might suddenly start working and with my PIN code already in, anyone would have a free access.

After banging my head on the wall for a few minutes (believe me, it works sometimes), I saw a police officer walking by and stopped him. After explaining my problem to him, he got on the case and called around. He finally managed to contact the bank, from where they simply advised me to wait without touching the machine, until it resets back to the original screen, and should spit my card out. This, they said, would not take long at all.

So the policeman left, with me still waiting in front of the ATM. After something that felt like a very long time, but in reality was something like 20 minutes, I gave up all hope of the cash machine ever resetting itself. Luckily at this point I had Fabio with me, so I left him at the spot and went in search for a nearby police station, which, also luckily, was only a 100 m away with a big sign pointing to it.

And here is where the fun begun. My going to the police station initiated the second biggest police operation in Beibei since 1957. The chief took the matter in his hands, with all available staff buzzing around and talking on their mobiles. Some other officials were called in probably from their homes, and arrived at the scene looking important and busy. So, as we were on the steps, having a little picnic to kill the time and pacify the stomachs, this whole scene was taking place around us in the street -- to the enetertainment of the town people, of course.

To cut the story short, they managed to send some police officers to meet the local back personnel, who finally sent over a woman with the keys to the branch and the ATM. They kept me updated during the whole process, giving me information on who was were and what was going on.

In the end: success!! I left with my card, without withdrawing any money, though, however much they told me to go for it. ---And with their reassurances that if I ever get in any more trouble, just find the nearest policeman!

All in all, a wonderful show and a little incident that really made me believe in people more (and less in machines). The policemen were so lovely, they took this thing as something really important and didn't think twice before getting all the staff involved in this mission of saving the laowai.

...And the next day, as I went to school, as a woman working in our office first saw me, she asked: "Did you get your card back?" "How do you know about it?", I asked her. "Teacher Dai told me." "How does he know?" "Teacher Zhang told him." "How does HE know?!?!"

She just smiled and walked away.

Need a lift?

To add to the list of things malfuntioning in our shiny new building, taking the lifts is proving to be a slightly alarming experience. The other morning I was on my way down when the lift suddenly dropped down with half a meter freefall and all the lights started flashing. Luckily, after stopping at a completely wrong floor, it continued down safely.

Yesterday, a friend of mine had a more annoying problem, as the lift got stuck on the way down. She tried to press all the buttons, including the alarm and the emergency phone button, to no effect. There is even an actual emergency phone on the wall, but it seems it's only for decoration. Thankfully, after waiting for a horrible half an hour alone in the box, the lift got moving again and took her all the way down.

So now every time I step in the lift I prepare myself for a little adventure. Or maybe I should just walk all the 18 floors up??

Deep freeze

Having been so happy to be living in a very nice, new flat here in Beibei, the winter is creeping in and the good appearances are harder to keep up. The temperatures here are currently around 15'C, which could in theory be a nice, warm autumn temperature. But in reality, combined with the everlasting rain and humidity (very much like in England!), it becomes the kind of cold that gets inside our bones and never lets you really feel warm.

As for the flat, we are beginning to realise what it really means to live in a climate like this without heating. Why would they not have it, is another mystery. We do have one little air-conditioner, which you can set on heating, but that isn't much good now either, as just this morning I realised that it was no longer blowing air out. Nice.

(not to mention the broken toilet, the door that doesn't lock...etc, etc...)

In addition, one of the bedrooms is very,very humid and starting to smell quite moldy. It looks like they have used very cheap materials in the constructions, cutting costs as usual. In the past week a wet patch has appeared on the wall and is getting bigger and bigger. But what can you do? We've pointed all this out to the landlady, but I doubt that anything much will happen.

Oh well, I'm starting to mentally prepare myself for the coming winter, when temperatures should be around 5'C. Brrrrrrrr.

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And Mark, right now I'm not living near any borders, but before this I was in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, which is bordered by Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar.

Competing

Studying in a Chinese university can sometimes be quite different from studying in an European one. When I was a teacher here myself, I got to be on the different side of the divide, now I have to take the same things in from a student's point of view.

I remember the times in Baoding when I was asked to be a guest of honour or a jury member in an English speaking competition. Although for the students it was often an important moment, for me it was more something that made me grind my teeth.

And now, to my horror, my university here is organising a Chinese speech competition! And as after they initially asked volunteers to put down their names for the contest, there were only a couple of names, they changed tactics and informed us that everybody will now be participating. Argh.

But, at least I found a way out of having to recite some silly story in front of all the leaders of the university, as I was asked to be the host of the evening. I accepted, as I prefer to introduce others than having to do it myself ;) At least nobody will be giving me marks for my pronunciation this way (i hope).

But the worst is yet to come, in November our university will host a city-wide Chinese speech competition between all the universities in ChongQing. I'm only hoping they will not use the same method of 'volunteering'...

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But as for something else, the space craze here is as high as it can be. Have you seen the heros of the hour?

Flesh and bones

Being a vegetarian in China is sometimes adding to the curiosity of being a 'laowai'. Interestingly enough, when I was living in the north, it never really posed any difficulties, there were always plenty of veg dishes around and people usually accepted my choice without further questions.

Here in the south, on the other hand, it seems to be a much stranger thing to most people. Many, many times have I had waitresses look at me with a completely blank look when I have said "no meat and no seafood". Quite often after thinking for a while, they say something like: "I guess it will have to be green vegetables then." It takes a little prompting to find out about all the other veg, various kinds of tofu and so on.

And even then, you must make a point of telling them over and over, please don't put any meat in with the tofu, and please please no meat in my coffee (sometimes it really feels like this is how far it goes!). Even some of the sweet cakes here have meat in them!!!

And still, at least 4 times out of 10, one of the dishes will come with bits of meat in it. And when you point it out to the waitress, usually the reaction is yet another blank look.

Or, "well, we'll just take it out then".

Or, "this is not meat, it's just a little beef"

hmmmm.

Guangdong (Canton) people supposedly go the furthest with this. There is a saying in Chinese that Guangdong people eat anything with four legs except for tables, and anything that flies, except for airplanes. No wonder that is where SARS got started, too.

I think all this adding meat to everything business might have something to do with the fact that only a short time ago meat was not easy to get hold of. I remember my students in Baoding telling me how when coupons were used to get any food items, meat was a very, very rare luxury. So, once a year, on Chinese New Year, all the people would be given a little meat. While the others were making festival preparations at home, the kids would be sent out to queue for the rare treat. This time of year in the north can be biting cold, and after hours of standing outside, their hands and feet would be close to frostbite. And when you finally got to the head of the queue, you would never know which bit of the animal you would end up getting. So, in the end, the festival 'meat' for the common people might just as well have been a couple of ears or a foot.

So I guess now they are making up for it. And they are doing it well, too!

Pronunciation

Everyone knows the stories about how wrong you can get what you are trying to say in Chinese if you are not careful with your pronunciation. Most of the time, I've had no problems with it but as I was trying to organise some boxes to be sent here from Kunming when I was moving, I had a little trouble trying to make the (already annoyed) lady understand me. The problem was that both 'tree' and 'book' are pronounced with the same sound ('shu'), just the tone is different. It went something like this:

"I'd like to send some boxes to Chongqing by train."
"Ok, what's in the boxes."
"Just kitchen stuff and some books."
"What?!?! How many trees??"
"Oh I don't know, it's one box."
"But how can you fit even one tree in a box?!?"
"What...? No, not trees! Books!"
"Huh?? But even one tree is so big!! How can you send them on the train?!?"
"Nooooo, the kind of books you can read."
".....I see. Books. Whatever. [...foreigners...dried pig ears for brains, they've got]"

Beibei Revival

It's time to make an attempt to revive this blog. Many people have written to me, asking what has happened to me and the blog, and asked me to keep writing. Thanks for your encouragement :) Here goes!

A few months ago I applied for a Chinese government scholarship for studying Chinese for one academic year. And happily, I was one of the four lucky ones from Finland who got the scholarship this year. But to my surprise, I was not able to remain in Kunming to continue my studies,but had to move to Chongqing, a city north-east from Yunnan.

But to cut a long story short, that's what happened and here I am, once again beginning a new stage in my life, starting all over again in a new place.

And I am really happy to be here, after the westernized Kunming, filled with foreigners, it now feels like I am 'back to China'. The school, Soutwest China University, is located in a small, small town called Beibei, about an hour's drive from the massive metropolis of Chongqing. And Beibei has welcomed us with open arms, and with many smiles.

I'm living in a wonderful flat in a new apartment building complex, on the 18th floor, overlooking the ever-present fog that hovers over everything here. What's funny about the place is that as we obviously need some help to climb up to to higher floors, there are lifts in the building. But as this is somewhat a luxury around here, we have to buy separate 'tickets' every month to allow us to use them. I now have a little card with my picture on it, with a big print “Lift Passenger Certificate” on it. Every visitor has to buy single tickets costing 0.5 yuan at the gate instead.

China!!

Keep checking in for more Beibei stories...