Random Musings: Week 2

Lemme just say, it takes so much effort to post pics on a blog from China. I need to find a faster way. Any ideas?

I could have danced all night…

At night I like to walk around my neighborhood. Summer in Beijing is hot and humid and since many people don’t have AC, everyone spills into the streets. There’re old men playing cards sitting on stools. There’re children chasing around the neighborhood dog. But most of all, I enjoy wandering through the parks, where no doubt there will be dozens of Chinese couples ballroom dancing, or more accurately, Chinese ballroom dancing, as there is a distinctive Chinese flavor to their moves.

Go to almost any public square or park and you’ll see them, women and men with perfect posture, moving regally and more or less with the rhythm of loud Chinese music. Elsewhere children are taking dance lessons, repeating the same step over and over with loud Latin/western music in the background.

Subway

Something mildly upsetting happened the other day. We were on the subway, and this clearly inebriated man heard us speaking English. At which point, he, for some reason, decided we were Taiwanese and started saying that China would drop bombs on us. He was yelling at us in a subway full of people, while we tried our best to ignore him. Even the other people on the subway were calling him a lunatic, mostly for randomly shouting at a bunch of strangers.

What truth is there in the ravings of a "lunatic"? I was left feeling very unsettled.

Interestingly, in a brief respite from his yelling at us, he handed us a card which stated his profession, a curer of cancer using traditional medicine. He told the people around him he could cure all cancers, except for brain and lung cancer, and that curing cancer was like curing the common cold for him (you all get the joke here.).

By far, the vast majority of people I’ve met have been friendly. Especially the ones at work; they’ve been super helpful. People on the street are kind of hit or miss, but that’s the case in any major city in the world, I think. As one of my friends was saying, when you live in a huge city, the likelihood of running into the same stranger again is very small, so what’s the point of being nice to them? It’s much easier to brush them off and continue on your own way. In smaller communities, or especially villages, this mentality won’t get you far.

Chinese Television

Watching Chinese TV is a trip. Not only because the one CCTV channel in English is fond of interviewing people who proclaim the end of American dominance and the rise of China as a superpower, but because on the other 70+ Chinese channels, you never know what you might see. One afternoon, after watching a particularly stirring rendition of John Denver’s "Country Road" sung in thick Chinese accents on one of the many variety shows popular here, I chanced upon the strangest game show….

Imagine this. There are two teams of 3 kids, ages 7-10 years old. One team is the red team, and they wear red clapboard signs with "X"s on them. The other is the blue team with blue clapboard signs with "O"s on them. In the center of the field is large tic-tac-toe board. The goal of the game is for the kids to get three in a row. Doesn’t sound too hard right? Except as they’re trying to get three in a row….they’re being chased by a bull.

Now, to be fair the bull is a young bull, and his horns looked somewhat dulled. But one kid definitely got gored and run over before someone pulled the bull off of him. I think the game show was a special on Spain and may have been filmed in Spain as one of the teams looked white and the other was Chinese. But the host of the show was Chinese and was speaking in Chinese, so I’m not sure. Either way, I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t fly in the US.

More Pics! He is pointing at the mayo that this pseudo-japanese restaurant puts on watermelon.mmmmm.....these street stands are ubiquitous in BJ, serving lots of jummy danbing

at a restaurant. are you seeing a pattern? riding on the back of an e-bike.