Small but only in size

This post will probably fall into the category of things I think are really cool, but most people will just go “Huh?”

For some unknown reason, last Saturday I developed the urge to buy an AstroBoy T-shirt. I remembered a store in the 西单 (Xidan) area where they sold Astro stuff, so I got on the subway and went there.

I was pleased to find that the store was still there, and they had a big rack of merchandise at 50% off. No T-shirts, but I found this nifty hooded sweatshirt.
I had the hardest time deciding – they had so many cool designs to choose from. With the discount, it came to about US$20.

Not only that, but as I was leaving, the attendant slipped a free gift into my bag.
There were only a couple days left of the Spring Festival at that point, so I guess they were trying to get rid of the nearly expired seasonal items. It’s a folding gift holder, and tucked inside the package was a packet of red envelopes for giving traditional gifts (money). It was too late for me to use them this year, but maybe I’ll get a chance next year.
It also came with a really cool little 福 (Fu good fortune, luck) poster, which is like the ones all over China, except it’s got a robot boy on it. I promptly put it on my door, though the holiday was nearly done. They’re as slow taking down Spring Festival decorations here as many Americans are with their Christmas decorations, so I’m not the only one with a poster still on display.

Well, I think it’s cool anyway.

Happy Niu Year, part 4

When I wrote part 3, I had no idea there would be a part 4. But one of my coworkers sent me a text message and invited me to accompany her to the Temple Fair at Longtanhu Park (龙潭湖 Deep Dragon Lake) in southeast Beijing. It’s not far from the Temple of Heaven, and it’s a park, not a temple, but they still call it a Temple Fair.
This is just outside the main gate. If you look closely you can probably find a bunch of people selling entrance tickets for less than they do at the official window. Legit or not, I don’t know, but the ones we bought got us in.
There was the usual assortment of food stalls. In this picture, the one on the left is preparing squid, and on the right is 灌肠 (guanchang), a dish consisting of thin sliced potatoes fried in oil and garlic. My Chinese teacher tells me that in past times, when meat was hard to come by, they fried the potatoes in pork fat to give the flavor or meat without actually having any meat.

My friend braved the crowd while I waited in a relatively calm area. She intended to buy yang rou chuanr (mutton on a stick), but came back with chicken instead. She said all the mutton looked like nothing but fat. She also got some guanchang and squid. The guanchang was pretty good, though very oily, and the squid was good too. Both were eaten with toothpicks.
The sign in the center with the big red characters caught my eye. I knew the first one is 狗 (gou dog), so I asked my companion if they were selling dog meat. She said no, 狗不理 (gou bu li) means “dog doesn’t pay attention” and is a kind of steamed bun from Tianjin; it does not contain dog meat. She did not know the origin of the strange name. I’ve now done some research and found that, like many things here, there is more than one story to explain it. One goes that they were first made by a cook whose given name was 狗子 (Gouzi, or “Doggie” which is not as strange a name as it may seem, since animal names are often given in order to bestow the animal’s positive characteristics on a child). Gouzi’s buns were very delicious and popular, but he was always so intent on making them that he ignored his customers. Who knows? Could be.

Here’s another one I haven’t got around to trying yet:
Yep, scorpions on a stick. Well, somebody seems to like them.

And for fans of moving pictures, here is a circular view of the scene:


And moving along from the topic of food...
I’m not sure of the function of these buildings out on the water. They were not open during the fair. As you can see, the lake is partly frozen – the temperature was just a little above freezing this day. In the foreground are some of the many vendors selling jewelry and bric-a-brac, mostly Tibetan in style if not actually in origin.

There are a number of statues in the park, and when my coworker saw me looking at this one, she told me something of the story about it.
It is Shi Chuanxiang (时传祥), who was one of the official heroes of the Communist government in the old days. He was a poor worker whose job it was to shovel the waste out of public toilets in the days before they had plumbing. After working for 40 years, he was chosen as one of the models of virtue by the 1959 regime. He was to be an inspiration for all the other Chinese who labored at unpleasant jobs: If Mr. Shi can do his job, I can do mine.

Another feature of Longtanhu is this:
This is a small part of the 100 Dragons. The characters carved into the rock are all variations of 龙 long (dragon), written a hundred different ways, mostly based on the old traditional character rather than the modern simplified one I know. They are even numbered for those who want to collect them all.

As we were leaving the park, a peeping sound caught my ears.
It was coming from this woman’s box of baby chicks.

I promise that’s the last of Happy Niu Year. May the Year of the Ox bring you and your family prosperity and good health! 过年好!

Happy Niu Year, part 3

When it comes to temples devoted to springtime offerings in hope of a good year to come, the Temple of Heaven is the big daddy, so it makes sense that something would be happening there during Spring Festival. Yesterday a Chinese friend sent me a text message advising me that they have performances of some kind at 10:00 and 13:00. 10:00 seemed a little too early for a holiday morning, so I opted for the afternoon show.

Tiantan (天坛) was decorated with colorful banners, and there were lots of people dancing in the open areas.
The main temple itself looks as impressive as ever.
Lots of people everywhere, including the altar mound.
At a bit after one I made my way back toward the main temple, not completely sure where the show was taking place. The central part of the path was roped off and a crowd was gathering. I joined them, early enough to get a good viewing position.
After a while, we started to see colorful banners making their way down from the temple area.
The crowd gathered closer, and I, not being quite so pushy or rude as many others, found myself shoved further from the security line and close pressed on all sides. I felt sorry for the two tiny old ladies near me that suddenly found themselves with views of nothing but the backs of taller young people who squeezed in front of them. I considered what my Chinese vocabulary would enable me to say if anyone should apologize (like “I expect this kind of rudeness”), but the situation never arose.
Music started playing over the loudspeakers, and there was some kind of narration in Chinese that I could make out very little of aside from the frequent use of the word 皇帝 huangdi (emperor).
I have lots of pictures that feature parts of people’s heads in the foreground.
The guy in the modern style red coat was directing the performers from so close that he became an anachronistic part of the show.

As the procession made its way slowly closer, the police started moving people in my area to the sides. There was much confusion and shoving as the security line was moved so the performers could pass through the area where we had been standing.
Well, at least it allowed me to get some closer pictures as they marched past.
There were many groups of men in different costumes.
Many different kinds of banners went by.
And then it was done, and the crowd that had seen the part of the show up in the main temple area started flooding the thoroughfare.
I suspect I probably missed the most interesting part of the whole show, but still it was nice to see.

After that, I wanted something a on little smaller scale, so I made my way to Dongyue (东岳) temple, which is not far from where I live. I’ve visited this place before, not long after I first came to Beijing. You can check out those pictures to see what it looks like on a normal day.

There were a bunch of vendors with tents set up outside the temple entrance.
This guy has a wide variety of dried fruits and nuts.
This guy was using a big mallet to mash something (probably rice) into a treat.
And this guy was selling completely legitimate (of course!) DVDs and games.

I paid my ¥10 and went in.
The place was decked out in red, and there were also people selling things inside. Dongyue is no longer really a functioning religious site – it’s officially a “cultural museum” now – but people still make offerings of incense and prayer ribbons.
You can also have a go at the old-fashioned grinding wheel.
Or more modern activities...
Here is the official slogan for the occasion:
Inheriting Folk Culture – Promoting National Spirits

And here I finally found one of the other attractions of a Chinese festival.
I finally got my yang rou chuanr (羊肉串 mutton on a stick). Add some sweet potato chips, and I was a happy festival-goer. Tired too.

Happy Niu Year, part 2

After sitting around my apartment for a day doing stuff like catching up on cataloguing my photos, doing laundry, and writing blog posts, it seemed like a good time to go out and see some of the festivities. I wanted to go somewhere I haven’t been before, so I got out the maps and guide books looking for temples. I picked Miaoying (妙应), which is famous for its big white dagoba. I walked from the subway station to the temple.
As you can see, the place was nearly deserted. No Temple Fair at this temple. Still, I was there, so I checked it out.
It’s not a large complex, and only took a half hour or so to see it all.

In 2006 for my first Spring Festival in Beijing, I visited Baiyunguan (白云观). It’s in the same part of town as Miaoying, so I decided to give it a try. Since I already posted pictures of it from the previous visit, I’ll pick different things this time. Refer to the older post for other views.

Just inside the gate, there are a couple of gongs hanging under a little bridge. People buy copper “coins” to throw at it. The noise is said to drive away evil spirits.
And here’s another local tradition. You stand at a distance of ten meters or so from this bronze urn, close your eyes, and walk to it. Many people bring an offering of incense.
When you get to it, you rub the dragon’s face.
Many people also buy prayer ribbons, write little wishes on them, and hang them in the trees.
As a modern twist, many of them then take a picture of their prayer hanging in the tree.

All in all, Baiyunguan was not very crowded.
Here is a detail of a marble plaque located to the right of the little stage in the previous picture.
Two years ago, there was a big market area set up outside the north exit of the temple, but this year that street was empty of anything except cars and the occasional pedestrian. I don’t know if they relocated the vendors to someplace else or what. And I was looking forward to some chuanr!

Happy Niu Year, part 1

Once again, the Chinese Spring Festival is upon us. Most Beijing residents who are from other cities in China have returned to their home towns, leaving the city oddly depopulated but far from quiet. As in the last two years, firework madness has taken hold of the city.

This is the Year of the Ox, and the word for ox (also cow and beef) is niu 牛, so we’re getting a little pun on some seasonal signs. There’s a beef and dairy company called Meng Niu (Meng here refers to Inner Mongolia, where they are based) which is especially using the slogan. (The Chinese phonetic spelling niu is actually pronounced nyo, like yo with an n tacked on the beginning of it, but it’s still close enough for a bilingual pun.)

One exception to the pattern of returning to hometowns is a friend of mine, and she very kindly invited me to New Year’s Eve dinner at her place. She and her mother, originally from the Shanghai area, live nearby and have not gone south for the holiday. They fixed a wonderful meal for me, the first time I’ve been invited into a Chinese home for a taste of non-restaurant food.
I was told that the tradition is to have ten dishes, which of course is way too much food for three people. Especially when one of them stays in the kitchen the whole time! Since their stove has only two burners, making ten dishes is more of a serial than a parallel process (to venture into computer metaphors). My friend’s mom kept cooking away (and I think I heard the sounds of cleaning as well) while we ate.

The picture was taken when eight dishes had been served. Shrimp, small whole crabs, roast beef, little pieces of ribs, chicken wings, a dish with squid and vegetables, and one with pork and vegetables are on the table along with a crock of soup. Still to come were broccoli and dumplings. And because in China too much is never enough, we also had some steamed buns with sweet fillings. We were so full we never even touched the soup.

With so many pieces of dishware being used to serve food, there was nothing left for us to eat off of, so we took food directly from the dishes with our chopsticks and put the shells and such on the table. Everything was quite tasty. I had to wonder about the predominance of meat. Was that for my benefit, special for the holiday, or what?

After dinner we watched the CCTV Spring Festival Gala on TV. There were a few times when I could tell what they were talking about, if not all the details. The two pandas recently given to Taiwan were mentioned a lot. I kept hearing their names, Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan. Finally the show got too corny for my friend and we decided to take a walk to work off dinner.
We entered a wasteland of fireworks debris.
As before, the pyromaniacs were out in force, openly displaying their obsession.
Across the street, we saw a big bunch of fireworks go off close to the ground. They looked like the kind of big colorful explosive things that are supposed to go off way up in the air. Soon flames leaped up from the shrubs next to the sidewalk. You can see a guy bringing a fire extinguisher. They soon had the fire out and went on with their fun.
A little further on our walk we came to the famous Gongti Xilu club area. There weren’t many people in the dance clubs, but the lights were going, competing with the fireworks going off around them. Along this street, there were fire extinguishers sitting about every ten meters or so along the sidewalk.

After we finished our circuit around Workers Stadium, we went back to their apartment and watched the rest of the Gala. I thought it was very interesting (especially after all the talk about the pandas sent to Taiwan) that the closing performance of the show, which started at about 12:30, was by a band (yes, and actual band, with guitars and drums) consisting of four famous Taiwanese singers from the 80s. My friend pointed out that when China started opening up to the outside world and discovering pop music, it had no music industry of its own, so most of the music came from Taiwan and Hong Kong. And since most Taiwanese pop was in Mandarin, as opposed to the Cantonese from Hong Kong, many of the songs from Taiwan are still well known today.

I am somewhat familiar with one of the singers, Luo Dayou (罗大佑 sometimes written Lo Ta-yu), and know that many of his songs have in the past been considered too politically outspoken for Mainland consumption. But the ones he sang for this Gala seemed to be well known to all the people in the audience.

I am sure that the Gala organizers were well aware of the symbolism of giving a Taiwanese artist such a place in the program (though honestly I think a lot of viewers switch off after midnight and might have missed it). And the performers are also aware of it, so it’s obviously a mutual agreement. Certainly these musicians could have declined the offer if they had problems with it.

Anyway, in my next post I’ll continue with more Spring Festival activities, and then catch up on some of what has gone in in the overly long time since my last post.

Olympic update: 169 days to go

We’ve just got word that in response to citizen protests in the outlying provinces of China, the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games have been cancelled. The protesters said the money should be spent on improving the lot of China’s people, and the government did an about face, essentially saying, “You know – you’re right.”

Just kidding. That’s about as likely as a Chinese New Year without fireworks.

And speaking of fireworks, today is Yuanxiaojie, or Lantern Festival, which marks the end of the Spring Festival that started with the Lunar New Year two weeks ago. The Lantern Festival falls on the first full moon of the new year, and is yet another occasion for lunatic pyromaniacal excess. With the added bonus of a golden orange full moon up above. I’d post more pictures, but I’m sure everyone is tired of them by now.

It is traditional on this day to eat a particular kind of dumpling called yuanxiao, but I went to the store a bit ago and they were all out. That’s what I get for staying at the office until almost seven. I’ll have to make do with something less traditional.

In actual Olympic news, they revealed a few weeks ago what the staff uniforms will look like.
The red ones are for staff, presumably ticketing staff included. I’m not sure why they bothered designing long sleeve versions, given the average temperature in August here. I presume these are what we’ll get, but nobody tells me anything. See also here.

And just as an aside, it seems the uniforms were presented as part of the “200 Days to Go” event. As you can see, it was quite a production.
I figure if they do something like this for every little arbitrary milestone, they’re bound to come up with something really spectacular (in the truest sense of the word) for the Opening Ceremonies, with or without prissy American consultants (if you take my meaning).

And here’s something I’ve been wanting to see for quite a while. It was inevitable, given how pervasive the mascots are. Fuwa parodies!
I came across these on a web site quite by accident. (None of the artists are credited.) There were a bunch more that I couldn’t recognize – probably Chinese celebrities. Now all we need is the Revolutionary Fuwa with Chinese Characteristics, featuring Mao, Deng, Hu, and whatever other two most fit the bill, which might be difficult because two of the mascots are supposed to be female. But that needn’t hold back a true artist. Other suggestions: Disney Fuwa, Beatle Fuwa, Looney Tunes Fuwa, Anne Geddes Baby Fuwa, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (+1) Fuwa, Aardman (Wallace and Gromit) Fuwa, Muppet Fuwa, Hello Kitty Fuwa, Harry Potter Fuwa, Hentai Fuwa – the possibilities are endless. And let’s not forget the Famous Artists Series: Fuwa done in the style of Rembrandt, da Vinci, Bosch, Monet, Picasso, Warhol, Audubon, Pollack, Mapplethorpe... Come on, you Photoshop experts, get busy! (On further thought, forget I mentioned Hentai Fuwa.)

Maybe that last picture can’t really be called a parody, and is just one of the entries from an art contest for primary school kids.

You probably can’t tell from reading, but I just paused to watch a particularly cool bunch of fireworks going off across the street. A sparkling fairy-dust trail shot up into the sky in a tight spiral to a height of 12 stories or so, then exploded into a midair pinwheel throwing off sparks in a rapid circle. There was a whole series of them, maybe a dozen from the whole box. Cool.

And now for today’s Mandarin lesson. I was telling some of my Chinese coworkers about the huge crowd of people at Ditan Park on New Year’s Day, and I asked how you say crowded in Chinese. The answer is ren duo, which means literally people many. You say ren tai duo for too crowded (people too many).

Later on, one of them taught me another way to say it: ren shan ren hai. Word for word, this means people mountain people sea. I’m not sure exactly how such an expression might have developed, as it’s pretty telegraphic, like many Chinese expressions. There are some obvious (and probably wrong) possibilities: people from mountain to sea; or just the fact that both mountains and the sea are big; or maybe something like we use in English – a mountain of people, a sea of people.

In other, completely unrelated, news, today I booked a flight to Shanghai next week to see Björk. I’ve been a big fan for many years but never seen her live, so it seems like a chance I shouldn’t pass up. Once again I find myself revisiting a place I’ve been before rather than going somewhere new, but Shanghai gets the concerts, not Chengdu. It will be a quick trip; fly there the morning of the show, stay one night, back the next day. It’s awkwardly scheduled on a Sunday night, but mei banfa (nothing can be done).

It mostly seems like this “Spring” Festival is a bit premature. Consider the ice chair pictures a couple of posts back. But this week it’s warmed up to the point where I put the long underwear in the drawer instead of wearing them as drawers (sorry). Maybe spring is coming after all.