A Walk in the Park

The project for my Design Ethnography class this quarter focuses on the experience of the elderly in China. This morning (Saturday), the class met at 6:30am to drive to BeiHai Park in downtown Beijing. The elderly in Beijing tend to gather in parks during the early hours of the morning to exercise and socialize.

Even at 7:30am on a Saturday, there was a lot of activity in the park. There were people sitting alone looking out at the lake, small groups chatting, and large groups engaged in more organized activities. Many of the groups had music accompanying their activities. Several times, I was invited to join in the dancing and I noticed others (presumably Chinese) being physically pulled into the circle of activity. These pictures show a group of three people playing a game where they tried to keep the "birdie" in the air by kicking it, a group of women doing a dance routine with red fans, and a band that was playing and dancing to "political" music of the 1960's.

Mooncakes Upon Mooncakes

Yesterday (September 25) was the mid-Autumn festival. I'm told that this is one of the most important "holidays" in China although people don't get the day off work in current times. It is linked to harvest time and to the full moon. It is a time to connect with one's family and to eat well.

Central to this holiday (like the turkey is to Thanksgiving) are mooncakes (see photo of various mooncakes). I've heard them described as resembling fruitcake in taste and consistency... honestly, I think they're better than that (particularly those chocolate ones given to me by Xiaohong, the Program Director here)! They can be filled with fruits, nuts, bean paste, and even minced meats of various types. (The chocolate ones came from the Hyatt Hotel... not exactly a traditional variety.) It is incredible how many mooncakes are floating about this week. People give them as gifts to friends, families, and co-workers. Stores are stacked high with mooncakes and people are buying baskets full of mooncake gift packages. Businesses actual have serious "mooncake budgets." I'm told that regifting is a frequent phenomenon -- kind of like fruitcake at Christmas, I guess.

The Great Wall of China

Mark returns to the U.S. tomorrow, so we took an excursion today to the Great Wall at Mutianyu (about 90 km, 2 hours outside of Beijing). We also saw ruins of the Great Wall outside of Dunhuang, many thousands of miles west of Beijing, during our vacation. Its hard to fathom that this wall stretches across all of northern China and some of it has been standing for over 2000 years. Mutianyu, like many spots along the Great Wall near Beijing, is a Disneyland spectacle with hawkers, food stands, and cable cars. We rode a cable car up, walked along the wall for a while, then slid all the way down on a tobaggan. Sliding down was great fun! The photos show Mark and I on the wall with a watchtower in the background and the Great Wall stretching into the distance.

Close to Mutianyu, orchards and u-pick-it farms line the road. Dates seem to be in season, but we weren't too keen on picking dates. On the return trip through town, we stopped at one of the "farmer's restaurants" and had lunch. We had the option of fishing for our own trout in the cement "lake" in the garden, but we opted to have the kitchen staff catch ours for us. The bar-b-qued trout was spicy and wonderful.

At Home in Beijing

On Tuesday, Mark and I arrived in Beijing from Urumqi in Western China. We've spent much of the week settling in, shopping for necessities, and I've been participating in orientation activities for the Stanford program. I hope the photos will give an idea of where I'll be living and working for the next three months. The apartment is beautiful, situated on a lake, and very quiet. It is in a building renovated by the Packard foundation (see first 2 photos). The campus (Peking University, also known as Beida) is enormous with a lot of trees and greenery. It is equiped like a small city with at least 20 restaurants and canteens, fruit stands, banks, stores, etc. My office is in a building in the middle of campus -- about a 15-minute meander along a tree-lined path (see photo 3, my office).

Our primary adventures since we've been in Beijing have revolved around shopping. For the first four days, we went shopping every afternoon for food and basic household items (a printer, dish soap, laundry soap, dumplings, etc.). Why everyday? Because with no car, we were limited in what we could carry down the street to hail a taxi. We walked off-campus to nearby mega-stores, then caught taxis back with our load of goodies. Each of the first outings took 3-4 hours -- taxis misunderstood where we were going, lines were long, we got distracted, etc. On Friday, we finally bought bikes and cut our shopping time down to 1.5 hours... now that's progress! The likelihood of our new bikes being stolen is very high, but at a cost of $35 per bike, we figure its a worthwhile investment.

Street Market in Kashgar

Just to give a feel for the streets of Kashgar, here are a few photos of locals selling their wares -- a bagel-like bread and those amazing figs I mentioned before.

Kashgar's Livestock Market

Kashgar is in far western China, near the Pakistan border, and was one of the most important trading stops along the Silk Road. The population is about 80-90% Uyger (Central Asian Muslems). Commerce still thrives here as evidenced by the livestock market every Sunday. People come from around the region to buy and sell cattle, donkeys, goats, sheep, horses, and camels. The second photo shows a man "test driving" a horse before deciding whether or not to buy it.

Handpulled Noodles

Throughout this region, they have "handpulled" noodles. I haven't figured out yet how they do it, but within about 1 minute a ball of dough becomes perfectly shaped noodles. They're really tasty!

In fact, the food of this region (Xinjiang) is a fascinating mix of Central Asian and Chinese. For example, they have dumplings, but they're filled with mutton instead of more traditional Chinese ingredients like pork and shrimp. Many of the stir-fried dishes are flavored with middle eastern spices. We've had the most wonderful food here, including shish kabab, noodles with mutton and eggplant, flaky pastries filled with dates, and an amazing variety of fruits. In Turpan, we had grapes that were three times the size of any I've ever seen before (really meaty and flavorful), Hami melon which is kind of like a cantelope, but much sweeter, a green fig that is more like a persimmon in size and shape and was delicious, and pink pears that are by far the best pears I've ever eaten. Sadly, we're told that none of this fruit travels well. We're enjoying as much as we can of it while we're here!

Journey into the Gobi (Turpan, China)

After an overnight train ride (remarkably comfortable), we arrived in the Xinjiang region. We were surprised to see snow covered peaks out the window... not quite what we expected of the Gobi Desert. Turpan (called Turfan by the Chinese), our first destination, definitely feels different than other parts of China with a strong influence of Islam and a majority of people ethnically Uygar (pronounced "wee gar"). This is the second lowest place on earth (after the Dead Sea) and the hotest in China. September is cool... at a mere 45 degrees C! Our first activity was to stroll through the bazaar which was rich with the smells of food and spices. We lunched on "roasted dumplings" which were filled will onions and mutton (see photo of the shop keeper selling roasted dumplings). For those of you from the central valley of California, they tasted a lot like beer rocks. Today, we got up early to see the ruins of the ancient city of Gaochang before the heat of the day. The donkey cart also provided some shade for our journey (see photo). There were 200,000 people living in Gaochang in the second century AD. We also visited Grape Valley... no less than 500 varieties of grapes are grown here... yes, in the middle of the Gobi.

Dunhuang, China

We're now in Dunhuang, an oasis in the Gobi Desert. What a striking contrast to anything else we've seen in China! It is a quiet, peaceful little town with dramatic sand dunes in the background. Dunhuang is famous for the Mogao Caves which have Buddhist statues and murals dating back to the 1st century. They're a pretty amazing sight to see. We continued to be awed by the amount of history here. We also took the requisite sunrise camel ride and slid down the sand dunes (see photo of Mark sliding down the dune). The level of organization of all of these tourist sights is also pretty amazing. There is even an admission fee for the sand dunes... admission fees range from $10 to $15 per site.

Xi'an, China

We've spent the last 4 days in Xi'an. There is so much history here... it is really incredible. The terra cotta warriors, of course, are an amazing site (see photo). We've wandered the streets of the Muslim Quarter, ridden bikes along the city wall, visited a multitude of museums and temples, and consumed lots of dumplings and noodles... yum!! The yang rou poa mo (lamb soup with bread) was a culinary highlight.

My key learning so far on the trip has to do with ATM cards. First, US ATM withdrawls use US time, so even though one may arrive the next day in China, it is still the same banking day in the US. Second, going around from ATM to ATM trying to use an ATM card is a really bad idea! It sends the fraud alerts into a frenzy. Luckly, I didn't get my card eaten by any ATM machines, but I had to have a long chat with my bank to convince them that they should let me have access to my money again. I'm very cautious now about US banking days and using ATM's that take foreign cards. Lesson learned!