Real Life Real Blog

The China Post a block from our apartment. If you want to learn about the compelling saga of my trip to the post office, then read on! The theme this week: my quotidian life.

In response to criticisms from 25% of my readership (my good friend Phil Minehan) that I'm writing about too much "academic" stuff and not enough about what I'm doing every day, I've decided to devote this week's posting to events that have happened in the last week, no matter how mundane. I've sort of been leaving the "mundane" to Arienne, whose blog (www.arnoldsinchina.blogspot.com) does a great job of cataloguing our daily lives, but I think Phil is right: less pontification and more daily description is in order, especially since this last week has been pretty eventful in a mundane sort of way.

The DVD Player is Not Working!

About two weeks after we arrived here, we bought one of those small DVD players for the kids--it was necessary for the survival and health of the family unit. We needed to "plug the kids in" for a couple hours a day and we couldn't have them watch DVDs on the computer, which is our all-purpose work machine. I bought the player at the fanciest mall in town, thinking that I'd pay more but have better service and perhaps better quality. I did pay more: 900 RMB or about $125.00, more than I'd pay at home. The service has been good, but the quality of the player (a Chinese "Malata") does not seem very good (most of the good stuff gets exported and, if not, it is very expensive). We've had continuous problems with skipping and stopping. We thought at first that it was the DVDs we were buying. We went to the DVD store where our friend Malicha works and bought a bunch of DVD-9s (the latest technology, apparently) and many of them refused to load, skipped or stopped mid-way. We were having more luck with the videos from another store where we were buying American classics for about 80 cents per DVD (God Bless copyright infringement), but when those started to falter, I had to take the DVD player back to the mall. Armed with nothing more than a few phrases (and not wanting to bother Chinese friends), I hoped to get the player fixed or replaced. I had the receipt showing that we had purchased the DVD on August 22, about three months previous. As it happened, I didn't even need the receipt. As I walked into the electronics department, the DVD lady immediately recognized me. (By the way, this happens to us all the time, and it can be a really good thing. If we go to a store or restaurant just once, they will remember us the next time, no matter how long it's been since our first visit. Once we were at a shop in the Muslim market and Arienne didn't buy a beautiful scarf she was admiring but regretted it later. When I went back a week later to see if the scarf was still there, the lady pulled it down as soon as I walked in the shop.) Without much dictionary fumbling, the DVD lady realized what was going on: she took the player away for about five minutes and when she returned it worked. Fine. Problem solved. Except that within two weeks we were having skipping and stopping problems again. The problem reached a climax on Saturday night. Determined to watch a movie after the kids had gone to bed, I sat in bed for over an hour and, as Arienne read Dicken's "Bleak House," I obsessively loaded DVD after DVD until one finally worked--the "Spirit of St. Louis" with Jimmy Stewart playing Charles Lindbergh (yes, I know he was a Nazi-admirer). By this time, of course, Arienne was asleep and I had to watch Lindy cross the Atlantic all alone all alone. It was a pretty pathetic and lonely evening. Him flying all alone. Me watching all alone. I fell asleep somewhere over the North Atlantic, after St. John's (the last compass check before 1900 miles of trackless ocean) but before landfall in Ireland.

One unintended consequence of being rich Americans in China is that we can buy hoards of cheap movies that have undoubtedly been pirated. Chinese communists, as I mentioned, do not seem believe much in copyrights. Let the people watch DVDs! This has been great. I've been watching old movies that I never would have watched in the states. A couple weeks ago we watched the "Guns of Navaronne" and it just underscored for me how much of the high ground we've lost in world affairs. Back then (WWII) we were such good guys, at least in relative terms. I mean, we didn't make a policy out of torture--a stark contrast to the inhumane Nazi war machine. At the end of that war it was the US who insisted on fair trials for Nazi War criminals, most of whom were convicted in fair and transparent legal proceedings, unlike what is happening today with the prisoners at Guantanamo. There is a great line in the movie where Gregory Peck wonders if he and his fellows would one day wake up worse than the enemy. Even in the "good fight" against the Nazis, in other words, the Gregory Peck character fears that his own humanity will be compromised by his involvement in the killing. We don't seem to vocalize such humble fears today. Our power is now arrogant, righteous, and self-assured. We know we are better than our enemies. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't see it that way and--fairly or not--they use our mistakes and hypocrisies to criticize the entire American project. You become painfully aware of these things living overseas.

So back to the DVD player saga. We now have a DVD player that will play, no kidding, one movie: "The Spirit of St. Louis," and unless I want to push the limitations of our sanity, I must make the (ad)venture downtown and try to get this player fixed. Maybe this time I'll impose upon a Chinese friend because I'm going to need someone who can drive the issue home more forcefully than can one of my 18 year old students. As you can see, getting simple things done can sometimes be a big deal for us. Thankfully we have friends to help. I'll miss many things here, but I will not miss the necessity of getting help to do basic things.

Going to China Post to Send a Package Home

One of the other mundane tasks of the previous week was mailing a package home, for which I drafted one of my students who, coincidentally, had just sent me an email message asking if I needed help with anything:

"David,if you need help or you need a translator when you do something such as visit interests,buy something etc.I'm glad to help you.I think that is the best way to improve my oral English,I need talk talk talk.Best wishes.Cinder"

This is pretty common--all of my students would help me with anything if I asked, but I generally try not to. I guess I like being independent, but I also feel kind of strange about having students assist me. Karen, one of my colleagues here, is constantly stewarded around by students and former students, with whom she eats and invites to her house for parties and meals. It's nice, I guess, but it also seems like she grooms little helpers so she never has to do anything for herself. Fine for her, but not for me. In this case, however, I called on Cinder to help. She met me at the IEC (International Exchange College) and we walked down the block to the China post. After we packaged up a few books in a rather small box, I was absolutely shocked when I heard the price for express service: 700 RMB or about $100. If I chose the cheapest and slowest option--literally the slow-boat [from] China--it would take three months and coast 200 RMB or about $28. I opted for the intermediate choice: 370 RMB for 2-3 weeks, realizing then that I would never send another box home via China Post.

On the way out of China Post I asked the lady at the newsstand if they carried the "China Daily," the English paper that I read online. They didn't. It took nothing more than that innocent inquiry to motivate Cinder to find me some newspapers. She met me the next morning (Saturday) with two crisp China Dailies. And she came by the next afternoon with "traditional food"--some sweet rice balls--for the family. She also invited me to a concert on Sunday night, to which I had to decline because I was practicing waltzing (another story). But you get the idea: these students will do anything for you and opening up to them just a little bit can be pretty intense. They are so incredibly nice and considerate that it sort of makes me feel uncomfortable. And yet, I will miss my students a lot. They are unbelievably earnest and kind.

Last Faculty Seminar: Last Thursday

It seemed foolish at the time, or at least a little brazen, but I brought up Marx in my final faculty seminar last Thursday. We were talking about laissez-faire capitalism and so I discussed some of Marx's descriptions of nineteenth century capitalism: its cycles of boom and bust; its amazing ability to generate growth and wealth and at the same time spread exploitation and alienation, etc... I figured it was pretty stupid to discuss Marx with people who have been raised in a Marxist-Leninist society. After all, they've cut their teeth on Marx, right? They've probably all read "Capital" while I've just read bits and chunks over the years.

They were pretty surprised--"Do Americans read Marx?" they asked. I told them that I was assigned parts of Marx in graduate school (and that sociologists probably read him much more than historians); that I assign my students some abbreviated essays by Marx and Engels in my World Civilization classes, and that, so I had heard, even some Wall Street types read Marx because he understood the capitalist system better than anyone and many of his analyses of how capitalism works (not how socialism works!) are still valid today. In fact, I took the small risk of saying that perhaps Marx himself might be more thoroughly studied in the West than in communist societies because those societies, like Russia and China, filtered Marx's ideas through Lenin, who redefined (and some would say ruined) socialism with concepts like the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat," where a powerful Party elite would guide the masses towards true socialism. (What I didn't say: Marx believed that "everything must be challenged" but Marxist societies did not take that approach, instead creating all-powerful and unchallenged Party structures that held entire populations captive in oppressive totalitarian regimes...)

I have been avoiding controversial topics for months so it felt pretty good. I wasn't sure how they would react. However, the risk really was small because in this last faculty seminar only three stalwarts were in attendance: one English department teacher (Jenny) and two teacher/graduate students (Helen and Pegaleg--no kidding). Helen is a true free-thinker (more on her later) and the other two are pretty open-minded. All three of them had been consistent participants in the seminars--so there is a good deal of trust there. They all, in fact, agreed that Marx is probably studied more sincerely in the West than in China. "Although Marxist-Leninism is our official state ideology," said Helen, "It is not part of our everyday thinking." She noted that students are forced to study ideology in order to pass state exams and that the government "advertises" Marxist-Leninist "slogans," but "No one pays any attention to it." It was a really frank admission of cynicism towards "ideology" with which both other teachers agreed. It liberated me to open up the conversation, which ended up focusing on the future of both socialism and capitalism. I won't bore you with the details, but it was pretty fun stuff, to be sitting in a university classroom in China with three Chinese teachers discussing the future of China and the world.

After the seminar, Helen and Peg-a-Leg took me out to dinner at my favorite local restaurant (blue sign with red letters), just strides away from our apartment.

On Saturday they both came over to our apartment for snacks and Helen's eight-year-old daughter played with the kids. Fun stuff. In fact, both are coming over again next weekend for dinner. The seminars are over, but we're continuing on.

ERRANDS!

On Mondays I teach from 8:00am to 11:00am and then again from 4:10-5:40pm, leaving me the heart of the day for running errands, my favorite thing to do in China because it entails puttering around Hohhot on my bike which is a great way to see the world and get exercise. Here are the errands I did today: After lunch, I went with Tyler to the Merida bike store to see about buying myself some biking glasses that Santa might get me for Christmas. They are selling for 150 RMB, or about $21, and they seem like great glasses, complete with five different lenses for diverse conditions, but I was worried about the UV protection. I had Tyler, who is fluent in Chinese, read the manual and he said they protected against UV 400 (?) but not glare from artificial surfaces (? again). Satisfied that Tyler has been wearing this same pair for a year and is not yet blind, I had Santa buy them, to be opened with surprise on Christmas day. Before the bike store, however, Tyler showed me a beef jerky shop because I had tried some really good dried meat at David's house (a Spanish guy who teaches at a private school in Hohhot) and I wanted to score me some. Amazing shop. Amazing jerky. The spicy stuff is the bomb. What else can I say?

On my way back from the Merida store I stopped at the new import food store for some spaghetti sauce (no, we don't make everything from scratch), some cheese, and some muesli (Euro food for breakfast). As I was riding home I tried to call Arienne but accidentally called my student Amber, whom I've never called before, and whose number I have in my address book only because she handed it to me on a piece of paper one day insisting I call her if I ever need help shopping or doing errands, etc... I apologized to Amber, explaining that before I put her number in my phone Arienne's was the first one and thus my mistake. After we hung up she sent me this text message: "David, I'm glad to answer your telephone. That's so unexpected. Best wishes for you. See you!" Again, those nice, polite, helpful students.

Arienne’s bicycle (which I ride a lot because it has a basket) parked in front of the import food store.

After I got back to the apartment, Samuel was ready for me to ride with him to the army-surplus street: an entire block of army-supply stores where most of the street vendors buy their warm coats for winter. This is Samuel's favorite place to shop. You can get fur-lined leather hats with airplanes on them, old army knives, various kinds of buttons and pins with official-looking seals (yes--my son is becoming a militarist, but aren't all eight-year olds?). Actually Samuel was shopping for a tie to wear to the Christmas banquet and he had previously seen a pretty neat clip-on variety in one of the shops. We found the tie and bought it for 7 RMB, or a little less than $1. Then we found a toy store and he purchased a pretty bracelet for Grace's Christmas present. Without prompting, the lady wrapped the bracelet in pretty pink paper with lots and lots of ribbons and bows (how did she know?). On the way out, I noticed that that the cute plastic bag she gave us had a red heart with these words running across it: "I F*cking Love You." I kid you not. We see this kind of "crazy English" all over (maybe a future post in that).

The army-surplus street.

By the time we rode home (It's about 2.5 miles to the army surplus street) I had just enough time for a cup of tea before I had to dash off to class.

Dinner with Oliver and the Staff of Boson Magazine

After I got back from class (I'm still telling you about this Monday) we had spaghetti for dinner. I was just beginning to wash the dishes when Oliver knocked on my door with a Mongolian-speaking journalist. Oliver is from Budapest, Hungary, and he is here studying Mongolian and doing research on an ancient Mongolian script that is carved in stone on the "Five Pagoda Temple" here in Hohhot (see Arienne's blog for pictures). He's a really interesting guy and we are friendly but our interaction is limited because he speaks just a little English which has been getting worse over the last three months since he has been only speaking Mongolian (he doesn't speak Chinese). The journalist, who I thought was a friend of his but later learned he had just met that same day, works for a new publication in Hohhot. He invited us to dinner to take some pictures of "foreigners" for the magazine. I decided to go (no, not just because I would get out of doing the dishes) because Oliver is a nice guy. I thought we would just walk across the street to a nearby restaurant. Instead, they had two cars waiting to take Oliver, Kenneth (an American student who also teaches English) and me to a fancy restaurant a few miles away. I was disappointed I had already eaten dinner. The food was excellent even if the dinner conversation was somewhat strained by the fact that we couldn't speak Chinese and they couldn't speak English. The only people who could communicate were Oliver and the Mongolian journalist, Dalai. It turns out they all worked for Boson, a magazine that had just started up in Hohhot. They wanted to do a story on foreigners. They also wanted our suggestions as to how to make their magazine better. I looked at their first edition and it was, no kidding, ALL advertisements. There was not one single item in the entire publication that was not an advertisement. And, of course, it was all in Chinese. What suggestions could I make? Kenneth thought that coupons would be a good idea and we spent about ten minutes explaining the coupon concept. All I could do was drink my beer, smile, and nibble on the excellent food. They invited us for a Christmas party, took pictures, made toasts, and welcomed us to the "Boson family." Then they took us home.

Group Photo with Oliver holding up the newspaper and Kenneth on the left.

Ice Skating and My Daily Exercise

Yesterday afternoon (Tuesday) we went skating at Shi Da--there is a great rink right on campus made from a flooded dirt field. It is a luxury to walk across campus anytime to skate (no driving; no excessive entry fees). It may be cold out, but the sun reflects off the ice and contributes to the warmth you generate from skating (it's sunny here nearly everyday). I've never skated much in my life, but I'm better now than I've ever been. If not for coming to Hohhot, in fact, I might never have skated again--who wants to drive across town to an indoor rink and pay a bunch of money to skate? But it's really a joy to glide across the ice and I do occasionally glide between my usual fits and stammers. We finished skating at 4pm and on our walk home I stopped to do pull-ups (my normal routine) at an outdoor exercise area near the track. Between the track and the north gate to the campus (about 1/4 mile) I ran into six of my students--Philip; DJ; Ricky; Jordan; Christina; and Sophia.

Sam and Grace skating at Shi Da.

After getting back to the apartment I walked down to the vegetable lady for green beans (a huge bag for 4 RMB, or about 60 cents), the grocery store for a bottle of red wine (28 RMB or just shy of four dollars), and a roasted sweet potato (from street vendors who cook them on big barrels on the street; 4 RMB again). I was pondering how much I'm going to miss my daily errands to get food and other miscellanea--I love the walking; the biking; the climbing. My legs are getting strong from my daily hikes up and down our four flights of stairs, from biking around the city, from skating at Shi Da. I've long since quit trying to "work out"--as in getting in sweats and going for a ride or a jog. Life itself here is a work-out and I'm thoroughly enjoying the daily rigors that allow me to keep my weight down and eat as much as I want. Can I duplicate this kind of activity in the Tri-Cities where I'll find myself sitting in my office all day long and taking cars to and fro? I understand why nearly everyone here is slim. I only hope that increasing prosperity and modernization (including more cars and more fast food) will not wreak the same terrible transformation here that it did in the US in the postwar period. (Have you ever noticed how slim everyone is in US newsreels and movies prior to the 1950s--and I don't just mean actors and actresses?)

Well, other things happened this last week, such as learning to waltz in preparation for the IEC Christmas Party program where the foreign teachers will be performing a dance routine. But I'm burned out. Are you? Did you make it? Hope you enjoyed it Phil.

Thanks for reading.

Dave