Shaky exercise ball chair

Today I was at my desk and thought I was experiencing a dizzy spell when I felt like the ball I was sitting on was swaying. Turns out (as my dear readers may have already heard from some more reputable source) it was a magnitude 7.8 earthquake, albeit it 800 miles away. In fact it was near Chengdu, where Alison just bought a ticket to fly at the end of the month.

Before this, the closest thing to a natural disaster I had to write about was the windy night we had a week or two ago. While walking home I was amazed to see the railing down the middle of the road had blown over. I didn't think railings were ones to fall over. I mean, they're railings—shouldn't the wind just blow through them?

In other news, my second bike was stolen yesterday. While with the first theft I could admit some negligence in leaving it out on a busy street with only one small lock on. But this time it was in the bottom of our stairwell, locked twice, and only there because we got home too late the night before to return them to the garage.

But I suppose I have more to be thankful for than to complain about, given the death toll at the other corner of the country.

Does your town have a curtain rod district?

To celebrate making my first post in quite some time, I'm going to aim to be only positive for a change.

Today I tried a new route for my walk to school.¹ I chose the route because I looked at a map for once and it looked shorter than the one I'd previously taken, but I found it was nicer in other ways, too. Mostly it was just pleasant because it took me past a park and involved somewhat less trafficked roads.

People frequenting parks and quieter streets in the morning can be an amusing sight. The "free spirit" nature of most Chinese people (i.e. lack of self-consciousness) is quite refreshing. Any of the below are likely to fit into many people's morning routine around here:

• Performing Tai Chi or something approximating it.


• Walking backwards for some distance.²


• Visiting an outdoor free gym and using some piece of equipment in whatever way you see fit.


• Standing anywhere and waving one's hips every which way.

Regular, forward-type walking is allowed, but while doing it you're encouraged to swing your arms. A lot.

Hey, I think it's great that so many people get out and get exercise though, as funny-looking as it is in many of its forms. And heck, these are people who need this activity even less than us Westerners do because the majority of them are still walking or cycling throughout the day just to get around. It seems in the West that if you're not a couch potato you have to be a crazy yoga freak and there's little middle ground. (Yeah, I know that's an over-generalization. I'm just making a point.)

Anyway, on to my walk home from school. Midday reveals different things than the morning.

Chinese cities (in my limited experience) like to group their stores in clusters. For instance, here in Hohhot we have the kitchen supply store district. Then there are at least two substantial strips of bicycle stores around. When I was on the bus to go and deal with my student visa I saw the toilet store part of town. These areas are hard to miss as samples of the wares in question are typically put out on the sidewalk. Well today, I walked past somewhere new:

The curtain rod district!

There were fifteen or twenty such stores all in a row. (Yeah, yeah, they probably sell curtains too, but the rods are what was on display outside.)

Come to think of it, I could do to go back there sometime soon. Our kitchen has no curtain.



¹After my bike was stolen a while back I decided to see how reasonable it was to walk to school. I've since replaced the bike but since I found that it only takes an hour to get there on foot (compared to twenty minutes riding), it could do me good to walk now and then anyway. Walking has a few benefits: I notice more stuff along the way, I can review my Chinese flashcards while I do it, there's possibly less chance of being in an accident, and it's slightly more exercise.

²I don't necessarily recommend this one. One of Alison's students recently had to (or will soon have to) be treated for a fairly serious head injury incurred while walking or running in reverse. (I think it was part of the PE program at his school.)

Coming home tomorrow for three and a half weeks...

But in the meantime I'm looking up "kumis" on Wikipedia: Last night we after dinner everyone (meaning me; Alison; Phil; Jake, a new teacher who's working in Hohhot for the next month; and Ally, a Mongolian girl whom Alison and Phil met as she is a tour guide around here) came back to our apartment to watch some British comedy in the form of I'm Alan Partridge, which I'd just finished downloading (I mean... acquiring legitimately). Alison and Ally stopped on the way to get some beer, and also picked up a small bottle of what Alison proclaimed was "milk alcohol" when she came in. On closer inspection of the (Chinese) writing on the bottle she found that not only was it "milk alcohol," but "horse milk alcohol." It was somewhat foul tasting especially given that its alcohol content was only 16%. Ally informed us that this stuff even has an English name—i.e. kumis. Well colour me watered-down milky colour!

My Lonely Bike

I forgot to post a picture of my bike which I was so excited about back at the time when I got it. It has been a bit neglected lately, seeing as the roads have been quite snowy, icy, muddy, or any combination of these.

Here it is in all its glory: basket, rattrap, and one speed. I can contentedly ride it in street clothes, whereas at home I feel obliged to wear something more suitable to sweating in. That's not really a concern on this bike since it maxes out at about 24 km/h. (By "maxes out" I mean that if I push it any faster then my legs spin into oblivion.) I wish simple bikes like this were more readily available at home; instead, it seems people ride fancy-pants mountain or racing bikes, or nothing at all (with the exception of the small community of people with custom-made "choppers" and such—I saw a group of these in Stanley Park at the end of last summer and will confess some amount of envy).

Harbor Cafe

This entry is named after a shop located across the street from Alison's school. They have a bakery downstairs, which is quite unique in its selling of bread that very closely approximates bread you might buy in the West.¹ Upstairs is a rather cozy restaurant, again with some half-decent Western dishes. It's one of the few dining places around that stays open between about 1:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon, and we ended up there yesterday for a late lunch.

The first thing of note during our meal: There were three girls at the table next to us, and one of them had chosen to bring her puppy along.² It divided its time between sitting on her lap, briefly roaming around the floor and paying us a visit, and having a short crawl about on their table. (Apparently the table in question was Alison's and Phil's regular spot to eat; I think they've decided to change henceforth.)

On the way out I saw something else that piqued my interest. The restaurant is pretty eclectically decorated, with the walls adorned with an assortment of decorations from photos of old American movie stars to a motorized folding bicycle. What I saw was one thing I never expected to see posted in a public place anywhere in China: A movie poster for Seven Years in Tibet.


¹This is unusual because most things that look like bread here actually contain one surprise or another: maybe it's sweet, maybe it's got a mystery filling, maybe it's got fish flakes sprinkled on top.

²Maybe I should be glad that "hanging out in a restaurant" was adding to the dog's range of experiences; after all, who knows how long it had to live. It seems people in this country acquire dogs and cats at way too young an age when they should certainly not be removed from their mothers. That combined with the less-than-ideal care and diet provided by their owners doesn't make for much of a life expectancy.

Harbin for Christmas

It seemed that all Hohhot had to offer us for Christmas was an (even more than usually) overpriced dinner at any of the nice hotels at which we have taken to dining somewhat regularly. So in the interest of breaking from our routine a bit, and in hopes of surrounding ourselves with more friends for the holiday, we planned a trip to Harbin for the week. The Sunday night before Christmas, after Alison finished her last day in over three weeks of consecutive working days, she, Phil, and I hopped on an overnight train to Beijing.

We were in a soft sleeper on the train (see Somewhere and Back Again if you don't know what that means); after boarding, Phil and I went looking for some provisions. During this time the fourth (and female) occupant of our room arrived. Alison reports that this woman seemed relieved to find that at least one of her neighbours for the night was also a woman. I imagine she was not as pleased to see me and Phil arrive with ten bottles of beer.

Anyway, the train ride passed more or less uneventfully. The absence of a power outlet in our room meant our viewing of The Meaning of Life was cut short. On arrival in Beijing we made our way to the airport and were in Harbin sometime in the early afternoon. Erik and Joe from Changchun had arrived by train shortly before us. (Apparently due to their delay in booking their tickets they got to enjoy the train's standing room for the three-hour ride.)

Before meeting up with Joe and Erik, we checked into our hotel and went for some lunch at a nearby pizza place we found. We were attracted by its large sign, which turned out to be the only big thing about it. Inside it consisted essentially of a counter on which stood a single toaster oven.

Moving on, we met up with Joe and Erik, who were staying in the apartment building where live Harry and Stuartina, who are the only people in the entourage to be residents of Harbin. We went for a scrumptious Christmas Eve dinner at a Arabian restaurant run by a Syrian fellow who spoke decent Chinese but less English. An interesting feature of this place was the page on the menu for various flavours of tobacco, served in a hookah. We elected to try the strawberry one. Alison observed it was like a dessert, but without the calories.


Oh, but before dinner, I neglected to mention, we went to have a gander at the St. Sophia Roman Orthodox Church, which is now an architectural art museum. It was certainly made all the more beautiful by the presence of a giant inflatable Santa Claus in front of it.

The rest of the night was taken up with a visit to a club called Box; after a few months in Hohhot it was novel to go anywhere that stayed open past 1am and had people awake at that hour to boot. I noticed that this place also had hookahs available.


Christmas Day—my first ever away from my family—was nice enough. Alison and I paid brief homage to the present tradition, and her gift to me of a bottle of Bailey's allowed us to keep up the habit from the last few years of starting drinking before noon to celebrate our Lord's birth. We enjoyed a Russian Christmas dinner of sorts along with Joe, Erik, and Phil.

Boxing Day we strolled around Harbin a bit. The city puts on an ice sculpture festival, which had not begun, if my facts are straight. But I suppose it takes a while to put it together so there still were plenty of sculptures about. Quite a few were along a busy walking street in the town, and there were many more in a park which you could enter for 50元. Erik was quite vocal about how much of a rip-off that was (he spoke from some prior experience, apparently) so we didn't venture in there. The picture here is of a Chinese chess board in ice sculpture form. I think the pieces were moveable but the whole thing was fenced off.

Oh, and that day Alison and I decided to change accommodations and stay in one of the apartments in the building where Erik and Joe were. Let me list some of our reasons, and by reasons I mean complaints against the hotel where we had been staying (the Zhengming Jinjiang, in case any of you are planning a trip to Harbin and want to know where to avoid):

• Our main reason for picking the hotel was that we'd called in advance to find if it had a pool, which it did. Phil was the first to go and try to use it, and they told him it was closed; he fortunately managed to convince them to open it.
• Even with the pool open, it still had a stupidly early closing time. The rest of us did meet up with Phil in time to have a brief dip though, but not before encountering some more (sadly not atypical) stickling: Chinese pools have a very stubborn insistence on bathing caps.¹ But apparently the people enforcing this rule don't have a clue as to the reason for its existence: They refused to let Erik, who's bald, enter the pool without a cap, even after much explanation and pleading on our part (followed by Alison informing them a number of times that they're crazy). Oh, but he could buy a cap from them, for something like 45元 (about ten times the price of one in a store).
  
• The presence of English-speaking staff was extremely limited. This place claimed to be four-star! All the nice hotels we've visited in Hohhot (for dining purposes, typically) have staff who speak English almost to a fault.
• When we checked in, our room wasn't clean, and we were told it would be forty minutes. We gave it about an hour and when we finally went to the room the beds were made but the bathroom was in disarray, the garbage can filled with remnants of strange take-out food from the previous guests. Even when we got back late on the first night, no one had finished tidying up the room. At least I did manage to coerce a small discount from them on these grounds, for our second night.

Hmm. I suppose I really shouldn't make such a habit of listing things that bug me. I really enjoyed the trip, and the night out on Boxing Day was no exception, despite the fact that Alison and I were starting to get sick by that point. Here you see Harry partway through the night; he was friends with someone at the bar and supplied us with much vodka at a ridiculously low price.


Harbin is a pretty Russian-influenced place. In Hohhot we've grown used to having signs in Mongolian as well as Chinese; in Harbin it's similar, but with Russian of course. One large remnant of this influence is Stalin Park. (Actually, there were/are plenty of other tributes to Stalin throughout China; Changchun's "People's Square" used to be called "Stalin Square," as Joe is a fan of recalling.) Joe was keen on visiting the park, but he was sorely disappointed when we found that the statue of his (apparently) favourite tyrant had been replaced by the one seen here of (Alison surmises) Bambi and his dad.

The only unfortunate factor in the trip was that more of our friends from Changchun didn't join us. I swear people in that city are like the lotus-eaters from Greek mythology, save for the fact that Alison and I are hard-pressed to see what the analogy to the "lotus plant" is in this likening. On the contrary, it seems those that didn't come stayed at home out of fear of the guilt they would have felt for leaving town and having fun!

¹Heavens forfend a stray hair possibly getting in the water which is no doubt sullied in any manner of other ways, including but not limited to the habit people here have of noisily hocking a loogie whenever the mood strikes them regardless of where or in what company they may find themselves.

I bought a bag of soy sauce today

Aye, a bag. My 500mL bottle was running low and I could have replaced it for 7 yuan, but 350mL bags were available for 1. Milk is also purchased in bags... and I recently calculated that it's more economical to buy the smaller bags than the bigger ones. Does nothing make sense in this country?

In sadder news, I visited my beloved pool, and was dismayed on two fronts. First, it was twice the price I expected. Then while swimming it turns out that despite the presence of lane ropes and signs instructing otherwise, people still do swim around the perimeter. Later in the evening my opinion of the pool was heightened again somewhat when Phil and I were at the bar. A man approached us and started talking to me, after a short while asking if I knew why he had done so. No, I confessed, to which he explained that he'd seen me swimming earlier. (I refrained from asking if he was the tool I was forced to run into when he cut me off.) The redemption for the pool came in my learning from him that a thirty-use card is available for 330 yuan. (I'd paid 20 for one time.)

To catch up on mundane details for those not yet aware, Alison and I are now living in Hohhot, in the province of Inner Mongolia. It's a smaller city than Changchun, but seems to have a little more culture. All signs are in Mongolian as well as Chinese, so I'm bound to stay to some degree illiterate regardless of how much Chinese I learn. We live in a Muslim district, which was especially interesting during Ramadan when someone would wander about at 3:30 every morning banging pots and pans—or doing something else that sounded like it—the intent of which supposedly was to make sure everybody woke up and had a chance to eat something before sunrise imposed the beginning of the day's fasting. Boy, that guy... as religiously intolerant as it sounds, I wanted to throw rotten eggs at him. (In my defence, I had that reaction before I knew what the heck his reason was for making such a din. But my feelings weren't changed too much by learning it.)