Those were the words Marlene used to describe Urumqi on our walk back to my flat after her arrival. Yay, I have a guest, even if her views on this city are slightly different to my own ;) Before I get too many raised eyebrows, Marlene's a fellow student of mine from back home, though she chose to spend this year in sunny (and temporarily cholera-ridden) Haikou, the capital city of Hainan Island in the south of China. (To be precise, off the coast of the mainland, but not Taiwan!) ... Most of the last five months has been a pleasant 25C for her, so arriving at 0100 on Sunday morning, the balmy -15C of Xinjiang was quite a shock, but fortunately not enough to put her off the place!
In the last two days I've done more than I probably do in an average week - that either says something about my extreme laziness, my empty routine, or the fact that when fresh eyes are present there is suddenly more to do and see. Following her arrival we got a taxi back to my place ... let me pause here to tell you about taxis from Chinese transport hubs:
1) When you step out of the airport (most commonly), there will be Chinese people trying to "advise" you not to take a taxi and instead come with them, because "you won't get ripped off, it will be cheaper than a taxi" - tell them NO THANK YOU. Lots.
2) When you get a taxi, it doesn't matter how fluently you speak in Chinese and know the local area (I have been here 5 months, I know exactly where I live thank you and I can tell the driver with 100% accuracy where I need / want to go, especially when that place is my HOUSE), they will just smile and nod and think "okay so he speaks Chinese" but assume you came in from another Chinese city, because you're at an airport. This is bad because he then thinks he can rip you off.
3) When the taxi driver pulls out of the airport, he might need payment for his entrance fee to the airport. This is usually quite cheap (5RMB or so), so even if he's ripping you off, it's not by much. However, the then thinks it's okay not to use the meter - even when you shout at him in Chinese to use it - instead, he "calls his boss" (yeah right, he rings his mate on the CB radio to tell them he has foreigners in his cab, ha ha), and says if he doesn't use the meter, you'll get a better deal. This can be avoided if you know how much a journey should cost and tell him that if he doesnt use the meter he will get just X RMB, the value it ought to be. Finally, yell at him, and make sure he understands in no uncertain terms that you want the meter ON, RUNNING, and that this is not an optional situation.
The chap eventually got the meter running properly (instead of in "scam" mode) and had a laugh about how I was no fool to the system and couldn't be tricked by him. Awww what a shame, buddy, I suppose you think this paints a beautiful picture of life in China when the first thing tourists encounter is one group after another of thieving bastards ...
So back to the main theme, we arrived at my flat around 0200, and were supposed to have hot chocolate and go to bed, but of course ended up talking until about 0430 ... c'est la vie. A lazy morning followed, and I think we were finally out of the house by 1300, to eat lunch (丁丁炒面 for anyone remotely interested) and then onto the post office via a card shop (Mum I have sent Nana a card, I apologise if it is late and I definitely apologise for the conduct of China Post who made me mess up the outside of the envelope because writing an address (or even a return address!!!) is not allowed in red according to their "regulations" - one of these days I am going to go postal (excuse pun) on them and their crappy regulations that mess up EVERYTHING). From the post office we went to a China Mobile to top up Marlene's phone but to our complete lack of shock discovered that branch couldn't do it (not big enough, didnt have the right equipment, or just staffed by imbeciles, who knows?) so we'd have to go to another location (argh, China, in the words of a drill sergeant I once knew, "SORT YOUR SHAGGING LIFE OUT!").
We finally found the other store and then it was no problem to top up her phone; our next stop was a large shopping centre, but today's exhibition of stalls were mainly food based. Word to the wise, Chinese sausages come in all manner of shapes and sizes, most of which are unappealing and the smell of which will most likely make your gag reflex work overtime. Also, salespeople are doubly (if not triply) annoying when they wear a microphone and speak into a loudspeaker despite their stall being tiny and everyone else doing the same thing; we got out of there pretty quickly! The next stop was a large market (Xiao Shou Men, or however it is) to hunt down some thermal leggings and see if we could get Marlene some boots. We succeeded in finding leggings, gloves (Marlene now sports some pretty ladybird mittens), sampling some fried food (friend apple waffle turned out to be alright!) and trawling stalls for a good hour or so in the hope of finding cheap corduroy trousers (we didn't). Aside, Chinese people think "hello, hello" means "come here and look at my stall", which is annoying - best policy, just ignore them.
We stopped off at the same restaurant as before for a lag maan dinner (Marlene's first), and then home for hot chocolates, watching a film (to anyone reading, see Wall-E, it's good!) and bed before 0400. A good first day for Marlene!
Monday 12 January 2009
Thursday 8 January 2009
Things I Have Seen (And Will Forget If I Don't Blog Now)
At the gym this evening, in the showers:
* Two men alternately sharing a shower because there were none left. JUST WAIT FOR IT TO BE FREE.
* A grown man having soap rubbed on his upper back and shoulders by another grown man, also in the shower. WTF?
* A man (mid-fifties I would say) brushing his teeth in the shower. Frothy mouth, spitting on the floor and everything.
There is a reason I normally try to go at off-peak times. There are lots of reasons my sandals have become part of my shower gear.
* Two men alternately sharing a shower because there were none left. JUST WAIT FOR IT TO BE FREE.
* A grown man having soap rubbed on his upper back and shoulders by another grown man, also in the shower. WTF?
* A man (mid-fifties I would say) brushing his teeth in the shower. Frothy mouth, spitting on the floor and everything.
There is a reason I normally try to go at off-peak times. There are lots of reasons my sandals have become part of my shower gear.
Wednesday 7 January 2009
Tai Da Le (太大了)
The title of this entry "tai da le", means "too big", and is something I hear a lot when discussing China with Chinese people. It usually starts by me saying that I prefer England to China because (diplomatically) I don't like big cities and English cities are smaller than Chinese ones. This usually leads the Chinese person to smile (maybe even laugh) and make the comment "中国太大了" ("China is too big").
I can see an obvious solution to this problem, which would also please the Dalai Lama and countless Uyghurs in this region ;)
Funny how no one in China seems to draw the same conclusion (ha ha).
I can see an obvious solution to this problem, which would also please the Dalai Lama and countless Uyghurs in this region ;)
Funny how no one in China seems to draw the same conclusion (ha ha).
Shrapnel
For the benefit of those not from the UK, "shrapnel" is what we affectionately call our lowest denomination coinage, since our 1p and 2p pieces are brown (another term is "coppers"), small, and have (I'm almost positive) been used in terrorists' bombs over the years as a cheap and ironic way of damaging / killing while implying the reason for the trouble in the first place lies with England (the Queen is pictured on our coins) ... I digress for the sake of clarifying this entry's title.
In Australia, they don't have 1c and 2c pieces. Everything is in denominations of 5c. This is because the government down under realised the very smallest coins were basically pointless and not worth carrying around. This is sensible, Britain should follow suit. We should also have plastic money, a better health service, and Christmas in the summer ;) But China takes it to a whole new level.
* At the top there is the Yuan (元) (also called the Ren Min Bi 人民币, or People's Currency as it literally translates).
* Next comes the Jiao (nicknamed the Mao) - there are 10 Jiao to a Yuan, effectively every Jiao is a 10p piece, and every Yuan is a pound in this system.
* Finally there are the Fen, 10 fen to a jiao, effectively these are the "pennies" of the Chinese system.
However, because economies work differently, the fen is basically useless. Even today with a crashing pound and the world market in a crisis, one fen is worth just £0.001, or 1/10th of a British penny. When I came to China it was worth even less than that, but that's a story of happier economic times. Anyway, 1/10th of a penny will not get you anything, even in China, even in Urumqi (one of the cheapest places going I believe). The only time one encounters this phenomenon is in supermarkets, and I HATE it. If my bill was 99 Yuan, and I gave 100, I would get 1 Yuan change. If it was 99.50, I would get 5 Jiao change (the Jiao are actually worth something you see, and theyre relatively easy to keep track of, since theyre almost 100% in note form), but if the bill is 99.01, I will get a few Jiao and an irritating Fen or two for good measure. The Fen come in denominations of 5 and 1 (remember there are 10 fen to the JIAO, damn it!) and they are small coins made of cheap metal, the kind that feels like plastic.
In an otherwise 99.9% note-based system, this is just ridiculous. The government would do well to just get rid of this part of currency since it serves almost no purpose, and the coins must be worth more than their stated value, which might as well read "fuck all".
In Australia, they don't have 1c and 2c pieces. Everything is in denominations of 5c. This is because the government down under realised the very smallest coins were basically pointless and not worth carrying around. This is sensible, Britain should follow suit. We should also have plastic money, a better health service, and Christmas in the summer ;) But China takes it to a whole new level.
* At the top there is the Yuan (元) (also called the Ren Min Bi 人民币, or People's Currency as it literally translates).
* Next comes the Jiao (nicknamed the Mao) - there are 10 Jiao to a Yuan, effectively every Jiao is a 10p piece, and every Yuan is a pound in this system.
* Finally there are the Fen, 10 fen to a jiao, effectively these are the "pennies" of the Chinese system.
However, because economies work differently, the fen is basically useless. Even today with a crashing pound and the world market in a crisis, one fen is worth just £0.001, or 1/10th of a British penny. When I came to China it was worth even less than that, but that's a story of happier economic times. Anyway, 1/10th of a penny will not get you anything, even in China, even in Urumqi (one of the cheapest places going I believe). The only time one encounters this phenomenon is in supermarkets, and I HATE it. If my bill was 99 Yuan, and I gave 100, I would get 1 Yuan change. If it was 99.50, I would get 5 Jiao change (the Jiao are actually worth something you see, and theyre relatively easy to keep track of, since theyre almost 100% in note form), but if the bill is 99.01, I will get a few Jiao and an irritating Fen or two for good measure. The Fen come in denominations of 5 and 1 (remember there are 10 fen to the JIAO, damn it!) and they are small coins made of cheap metal, the kind that feels like plastic.
In an otherwise 99.9% note-based system, this is just ridiculous. The government would do well to just get rid of this part of currency since it serves almost no purpose, and the coins must be worth more than their stated value, which might as well read "fuck all".
Welcome to 2009
Oh boy, it's been forever since I journalled. I'm sure lots has happened, but in the interests of cutting down a ramble, I'd like to keep this entry short (that's so I can make more specific, detailed, and possibly ranty entries in just a moment) ... I hope everyone's (Western) New Year was enjoyable and that there are peaceful and successful times ahead for everyone. I would also hope that everyone had as good a New Year as I did - this is probably the first year in about the last four (definitely the last three) that I have had a better-than-mediocre time. In fact a couple of my more recent New Years have been downright abysmal. If Jibby is reading this, I'd like to apologise for terming last New Year better-than-mediocre ... it was fun ... but if you take "sitting around drinking with one friend" as "fun", then this New Year was four times better ;)
Yup that's right, I sat around with four people and we drank. Ahhhh there's more of a story to it than that I suppose. When I arrived in Urumqi I stayed in the Mai Tian Youth Hostel (which by the way is very nice, and affordable too!) ... having no other plans, and not wanting to go to a smokey Sino-Western bar, I wandered in about a month ago and asked if they'd be having a party, with some of the international guests who would be there. No problem. Ace. A day or two before the party, my friend (Chris) who works there, rang me to arrange the time. Thus, I arrived at 2030 (an hour late) and the place was dead. Just the receptionist. Wow, some party this will be! Chris, when we got him on the phone, said that he was out skiing with some foreigners and that he was sure he'd said the party was on the Thursday. Er, nope, you even confirmed it in Chinese to me, Chris!
No worries, we (I was there with my friend Bruce, also Chinese) will sit around and wait for you if you won't be long. A couple of hours (and a free beer) later, still no sign of them. What the hell? It's 2320 and we hear from Chris that they've stopped skiing and are trying to get a taxi back to the hostel. So we wait. 2345, they finally have a taxi, they'll be there just around midnight, yay. And so it was that at midnight (Beijing time) I found myself in the company of an Israeli, a Frenchman, an Aussie, and a Chinese ... sounds like a bad joke, doesn't it? Of course the beer being free, we started to amass a bottle-collection and talk freely among ourselves - most of the evening became an "identify the wrongs one can observe here" discussion (as you may imagine from my previous entries, there was a lot to say - hence my want for a more detailed blog to follow!) ... at 0200 we celebrated local New Year with a small clinking of glasses and a return to drinking.
0430 and it was time to hit the road ... slightly worse for wear I must admit, though not staggering or feeling nauseous. Even if I had been, the -15C night air would probably have helped sober me up somewhat. I got in around 0450, and was asleep by about 0500. Not a bad night one might say!
(I then woke up at 0740, gave Lucy a call as I'd arranged, and kept her on the phone, probably talking incoherently about nothing in particular, until just after 0800, or New Year GMT, at which point she prudently decided I should go back to sleep, and Skype agreed with her by cutting us off).
Interesting thing to learn from this - the Chinese, although they have their own New Year (coming up, Jan 25 I believe) celebrate the Western New Year on Jan 1st. So I got to go back the next day and do most of the above all over again, hurray!
Yup that's right, I sat around with four people and we drank. Ahhhh there's more of a story to it than that I suppose. When I arrived in Urumqi I stayed in the Mai Tian Youth Hostel (which by the way is very nice, and affordable too!) ... having no other plans, and not wanting to go to a smokey Sino-Western bar, I wandered in about a month ago and asked if they'd be having a party, with some of the international guests who would be there. No problem. Ace. A day or two before the party, my friend (Chris) who works there, rang me to arrange the time. Thus, I arrived at 2030 (an hour late) and the place was dead. Just the receptionist. Wow, some party this will be! Chris, when we got him on the phone, said that he was out skiing with some foreigners and that he was sure he'd said the party was on the Thursday. Er, nope, you even confirmed it in Chinese to me, Chris!
No worries, we (I was there with my friend Bruce, also Chinese) will sit around and wait for you if you won't be long. A couple of hours (and a free beer) later, still no sign of them. What the hell? It's 2320 and we hear from Chris that they've stopped skiing and are trying to get a taxi back to the hostel. So we wait. 2345, they finally have a taxi, they'll be there just around midnight, yay. And so it was that at midnight (Beijing time) I found myself in the company of an Israeli, a Frenchman, an Aussie, and a Chinese ... sounds like a bad joke, doesn't it? Of course the beer being free, we started to amass a bottle-collection and talk freely among ourselves - most of the evening became an "identify the wrongs one can observe here" discussion (as you may imagine from my previous entries, there was a lot to say - hence my want for a more detailed blog to follow!) ... at 0200 we celebrated local New Year with a small clinking of glasses and a return to drinking.
0430 and it was time to hit the road ... slightly worse for wear I must admit, though not staggering or feeling nauseous. Even if I had been, the -15C night air would probably have helped sober me up somewhat. I got in around 0450, and was asleep by about 0500. Not a bad night one might say!
(I then woke up at 0740, gave Lucy a call as I'd arranged, and kept her on the phone, probably talking incoherently about nothing in particular, until just after 0800, or New Year GMT, at which point she prudently decided I should go back to sleep, and Skype agreed with her by cutting us off).
Interesting thing to learn from this - the Chinese, although they have their own New Year (coming up, Jan 25 I believe) celebrate the Western New Year on Jan 1st. So I got to go back the next day and do most of the above all over again, hurray!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
