An Untraditional New Year's Celebration

Chinese New Year's is a time for families to get together. Train tickets can be nearly impossible to buy and airplane tickets are more expensive than ever. The time leading up to Spring Festival (the Chinese New Year) is known in Chinese as "chunyun" or the Spring Festival Travel Season. It's a time of high traffic migration; everyone, it seems, goes home to celebrate the holiday with family. You can think of it as our Thanksgiving holiday on steroids.

Of course, not everyone gets the opportunity to return home. This past Saturday night was New Year's Eve and a friend of mine was also in Beijing, she chose not to go home in order to pursue internship opportunities. Her family was calling her before New Year's telling her there's still time to buy a plane ticket and come home to celebrate it together, but she was set on meetings that begin on the second day of the New Year. Through an online community, she found a group of people who also didn't go home for the New Year and were going to celebrate it together.

We went over together and met up with everyone for dinner at a restaurant near Tsinghua University. The group of eleven consisted of four women and seven men. I was the only foreigner. The average age was probably 24, the youngest was a high school student aged 16 and the oldest was a writer aged 31. They were from Guangdong, Fujian, Guizhou, Gansu, Hunan, and Jiangsu provinces. My feeling is that a great number didn't return to their homes for economic reasons, either they were working in Beijing around the holiday or couldn't buy a plane ticket home after the cheaper (though still pricy) train tickets were sold out. I get this feeling because no one asked or said their reasons for not going home. On the whole, economic topics were avoided by all present. If they were asked what they were doing in Beijing, most gave ambiguous answers about studying or working. Most of the topics we discussed were cultural topics such as books, writers, and mainly movies. And a majority of the conversations were led by my friend; the 31-year-old writer; a 20 year old student who was preparing to take the college entrance exam a second time in order to switch majors (he was hoping to go to film school in Beijing for directing); and two other 20-something men, whose names I now forget. Most people went by their online handles, not their real names. We had a large dinner where everyone ordered one dish and then we split the bill. After all it ended up being fourteen dishes ordered and split eleven ways, the bill was about 25 RMB, or about 3.70 USD, per person. Not an expensive meal by any means (including beer and soft drinks).

After we had finished eating, we went to the bookstore that the woman who had organized the event worked at. We had been trying to figure out where to go to watch the chunjiewanhui, or the chunwan as it is called. The chunwan is a 4 – 5 hour production of singing, magic, comic routines, and dances performed by famous Chinese stars. It's been a staple for 30 years and has turned into something people just have to have turned on for New Years Eve (though they don't necessarily enjoy it). We ended up watching it on a computer in the café part of the bookstore, as most other places that we could watch it were all closed.

While watching the chunwan, we played a game called "Killer" (in the US we call it "Mafia"). It's a game where (in this version) one person is a killer and the rest our townspeople trying to figure out who the killer is. The first night while everyone is "asleep" (closed eyes) the killer can select someone to kill. The next day the townspeople and the hidden killer in their midst have to try to find out who the killer is based on doubts, personal opinions, and accusatory/defensive statements. The night and day pattern continues until the killer has either killed off all the townspeople or the townspeople discover who the killer is. I played several times, ended up being the killer three times in a row, then played as the story teller for the rest of the evening, the person who acts as the narrator during the game. I find a most of the post '80 generation knows how to play this game.

We watched the chunwan waiting for a famous comedian to perform. Last year his sketch produced several phrases that have become very popular. The thought was "we can't miss this or tomorrow everyone will be talking about it, and we won't know!" Unfortunately his sketches have been getting worse and worse each year. This year no one was impressed. After his depressing sketch we decided it was time to go outside to set off fireworks.

It was about midnight at this point and the entire area was alive with people setting off fireworks. It was incredibly loud, the kind of Chinese New Year that I really enjoy. Everywhere you looked there were explosions of all colors and sizes. While the fireworks, individually, are not as large as say a fireworks display that a city in the states puts on for the Fourth of July, but they are bigger than the fireworks that families in the states can personally buy for the Fourth. When you imagine thousands of families all buying these kinds of larger sized fireworks, you end up with a fireworks display on a magnificent scale.

It was an interesting evening for me as it was an entirely new experience for the Spring Festival. My previous two New Year's celebrations in China were spent with families, arguable very "traditional" ways to spend the New Year. The first was my host family when I was studying abroad here in 2007; the second was a friend of mine's family in the countryside of Guizhou last year. The holiday is a time for families to get together, but sometimes one forgets that not everyone has the opportunity to go home. I got to see how people spend the evening when they can't go home. While untraditional by Chinese New Year's standards, it was still a way for those unable to go home to enjoy the New Years traditions: a big meal with a large group of people, together talking and enjoying time together, despite never having met previously.

The Backwards Looking Minority

A light snow fell over Beijing earlier this evening, maybe two or-so inches. In the cab coming home from a rock concert near Nanluoguxiang I realized how a majority of drivers had not brushed off their cars' back windows before hitting the roads.

 

I asked the driver of my cab, "On snowy days like this, do you see a lot of people who don't brush off their back windows?"

"Why would they brush them off?" was his response.

"To see out," I answered. Obviously, I thought.

"Why would they want to see what's behind them?"

"The cars, and other things behind them, if they want to change lanes… you mean, you don't look out your back window?"

"No… I only worry about what's on the left and right and in front of me." He then proceeded to turn his rear view mirror so it was facing up to the ceiling of the car, as if it were obstructing his view out of the windshield. "Sometimes I'll even turn this mirror like this!"

 

He said he'll use his side mirrors to know if there are cars to the left or right of him if he is going to change lanes, but I pointed out how the windows were all fogged up and you couldn't really see what might be on either side; he said, well you can see their headlights, "but as long as you signal when you turn, it's no problem." His point was that he doesn't look for or worry about cars in a new lane or when turning.

 

He said he'd been driving twenty years like this. This cabby's response about the back window really proves what a foreign friend of mine who drives in Beijing told me about driving here. He related it to downhill skiing. All you have to worry about is the 180° swatch of traffic in front of you. If someone falls down ahead of you or comes skiing across your path you have to avoid them, but you don't have to worry about cutting people off behind you. That seems to be how people commute on the roads here in Beijing, both on bikes and in cars. The whole concept of "checking a blindspot" or checking one's mirrors routinely doesn't exist.  

 

The cabby was sure to mention that at low speeds it really doesn't matter; there's enough reaction time for other drivers to react to your lane changes, and for you to react when driver's in front of you unexpectedly changing lanes. I have to agree with his point, Beijing's traffic speeds, even on the ring roads (the freeways that encircle the city), barely reach more than fifty miles per hour, except well into the night.

 

It's still interesting to hear such a different perspective regarding driving in this country; I think that in the US a driver's license doesn't simply signify that you know how to operate a motor vehicle, it signifies that you know how to operate a motor vehicle safely and to drive it defensively, a method that we have decided is the safest way to drive. Simply because we say it's the best, does that mean it's the best practice for every culture?

 

Of course, when a snow falls in the US there are people who don't brush off their back windows, but I thought it was the cabby's response that was interesting. In the US, I would expect most people and especially someone who spends twelve hours a day in their car (as Beijing cabbies routinely do) to be angry with other drivers who don't brush off their back windows. While having this opinion in the US might put me in the majority, perhaps I'm in the minority here in China.

Knifeless Stores and a Harmonious Society

As mentioned in my last post, the National day is just around the corner. In fact, preparations can be seen everywhere. With under ten days left until parades and other excitement, the city has received a face lift with monument cleaning and decorations on many streets throughout the city. The retired men and women that work as volunteers in the city have received new uniforms, a new subway line is about to open, and a host of new security features are in place.

Since I have been traveling twice weekly to and from Qinhuangdao (a city about two hours east of Beijing by train), I have noticed the security at Beijing Train Station increasing as well. The last time I was there I saw police in full riot gear, SWAT policemen, bomb or drug sniffing dogs, and lots of guns. Granted, they are canister guns probably loaded with rubber bullets or tear gas canisters; it's not so much protection from enemies or shoot to kill, but protection from rioting. Disruptions such as rioting might be China's biggest perceived threat this National Holiday. The train station in Qinhuangdao has also stepped up it's security with a fulltime police guard and stricter checking of bags as they are scanned. I saw two people taken aside when I was coming back on Sunday night. Of course, I haven't seen any guns in Qinhuangdao.

I read about an interesting security measure the other day in a blog. They said that no knives were being sold in any markets. I went to a higher class market (a Japanese chain that doesn't allow bargaining) today to get some kitchen supplies and sure enough, no knives. They had spread out the cutting boards, sharperners and knife holders and racks to fill in the gaps where there were no kitchen knives or cleavers. I asked one of the workers if it was true that they could not sell any knives. She said, that's right, not until after the October holiday. I asked if it was just for the city, or if all of Beijing (including the suburbs were like this too). She said she thought it was for the entire district of Beijing, including the distant suburbs. 

Though a truly impressive measure, I'm not sure it does much to stop anyone except the most unprepared terrorists and dissenters.

I wonder how much things will return to normal after the holiday and how much the restrictions and other things in place were simply measures that China wanted to start imposing, but needed a valid excuse (without worldwide attention, eg the Olympics) in order to pursue them. By this I am refferring not so much to the absence of certain kitchen utensils, but to stricter security policies. The PRC might view policing people coming to and from Beijing, as well as people already in Beijing as important in a developing nation; especially when one considers the disruptions in Tibet (in 2008) and Xinjiang over the past six months. Another security measure that might not disappear after the holiday is internet blocks. Only time will tell if it is for the 60th anniversary or if it is for a more "harmonious society," The PRC's widely proclaimed main objective since the Olympics ended over a year ago.

Prideful, Nationalistic Sabre Rattling?

In three weeks and three days China is going to celebrate its 60th anniversary. It's a really big deal here, and the preparations are well underway.

A parade of army vehicles, long range missiles, soldiers, jet flyovers will travel along the main thoroughfare of Beijing, Chang'an Street. (That's the street that runs right in front of Mao's picture and just north of Tian'anmen Square.) 

It's all very foreign when I think about an entire army, and it's machines of war marching through the nation's capital. Try to imagine the US army and all the missiles and tanks cruising down Pennsylvania Ave and up the mall to the Capitol. And then imagine that even if you wanted to go an watch, you can't. That's right, no "non-military or uninvited guests" are allowed to watch the event on October 1st in person. But everyone in China will be watching it from their living rooms.

I'm just trying to figure out what the real point of this event is. Is it an attempt to bring about a form of naionalistic pride characteristic of any good communist country? Or sabre rattling to intimidate other countries? This quote from the Global Times is pretty interesting: 

Li Daguang, a senior military expert at the PLA University of National Defense, emphasized that the military parade is not for saber rattling but aims to promote national pride, confidence and awareness of national defense.

"Some countries, observing China's parade with colored glasses, show off their weapons around the world on the battlefield instead," Li said.

Why does a country maintain an army? Self protection and intimidation of enemies. Who does the US intimidate when we use weapons on the battlefield? Who does China intimidate when they drive them down the mainstreat of their capital? I doubt this event will be televised in other parts of the world, but people in Xinjiang, Tibet and every home in China will get to watch it.

Is the overall intention a nation filled with pride at watching the CCTV broadcast of the parade or fear.

The Shoupolan'r

Went to the Hutong to get rid of the trash that I had accumulated there so that I can take care of the lease and get my deposit back. So when I got to that apartment today I started to sort stuff. Things I didn't want at all, basically trash that I could sell to the 收破烂儿 shoupolan'r - pronounced show-poe-larr) Their job is quite literally translated as the guy that "collects broken stuff." Today I went to the hutong with the intention of finding a shoupolan'r to get rid of the things I didn't want.

I threw out the stuff that I knew the shoupolan'r wouldn't want and put the stuff that he might want, or that I thought he might want downstairs in my first floor room. Then ate some lunch as I waited for one to come by. In the hutongs, there are always one or two driving through every hour or so shouting that they are collecting unwanted things. Well, after over an hour no one had showed up, so I decided to go up the larger hutong near me looking for one. I walked a little ways in and found a large truck piled up with random things and a three wheeled bike parked behind it. I asked if they would come with me to collect some things, they asked if it was far, I said just up ahead. So one said, "hop on the back!" and we rode down the hutong to my house. 

When I got to the place I realized two other shoupolan'r had shown up as well as a fourth person who asked what was going on, the other three said he's moving but told her to keep going. I felt a little strange having that many people come to collect these things from me.

It's all things I didn't want. Two thin mattresses, a bamboo matress pad to keep cool, a fan that doesn't work, old magazines, bottles, two blankets, the beer crates that had made up my table; basically things that I didn't want to take with me to my new place and had no need for. Quite literally it was trash. In the states we might take these to a good will or donate them to some sort of place, or even just trash them, in China you can sell them to people who want them. They are basically looking to collect these things because they can either make money selling them to other people or use the things themselves.

At any rate, when they had taken the stuff out I had said the least amount that I would accept for each thing. And then we had gone into a little bit of bargaining. It's strange being on the other side of the bargaining table. I'm usually the one buying things and being cheated, now I was the one selling things, and I was still being cheated! I tried to say how much I wanted for each thing, but they would just laugh. "What? Ten RMB? EACH? They're worth about ten for all three." And other two would agree. They had already loaded things up when I realized a certain fact, it doesn't really matter what I get paid for this stuff, as it's all stuff I don't want. It's all my trash that I'd be throwing out anyway; it's better to take a little money than none at all I thought, and I definitely didn't think it was worth it to bargain with them.

My landlord's sister-in-law came out when the shoupolan'r were leaving. She asked how much I had gotten for it all. When I told her she replied with "You got ripped off." Yeah, probably.

But truthfully, they had more use for those things than me; as they were going through the things they were asking who wanted what for personal use. Even though I pretend daily to be completely adapted to all things in the hutongs, it just didn't seem right to bargain with people over my own trash. If they want and need something that I don't want and need, than I'd rather give it to them than spend a solid fifteen minutes bargaining over how much it's worth to me and how much I think I can get from them.

POSTSCRIPT:  It was brought to my intention that this is quite similar to Garage sales and Rummage sales in the United States. And very true. I have junk that I want to get rid of, and they might want it for themselves or to sell--either way, they see value in things I don't want any more. The main difference I think, the shoupolan'r's job is literally that of pack-rat, that is how they make a living on a day to day basis. Searching, finding, and then selling stuff or recycling bottles and other scrap parts and appliances. They will take just about anything from trash--bottles and cans, to perfectly fine things; old, broken down appliances to second hand articles that they can use themselves. It's a wide range that does echo that of a bargain hunter, but takes it from a hobby or weekend passion to a profession.

"mei banfa de" part 2

About three weeks ago, when I was still living at my hutong apartment I woke up one Saturday morning to a lot of commotion on the street. It wasn't the normal Hutong commotion of used goods recyclers, rice and corn sellers, and knife sharpeners I had heard from 7 am onwards each morning living there, but instead it was my neighbors all talking about something.

When I went to the bathroom, I saw a large notice plastered on the wall at the entrance to the Hutong. It announced the destruction of the east side of the hutong's courtyard houses. They basically are making the hutong, which right now is barely wide enough for a car to pass through, into a two way hutong that will cut straight down to Ping'an Street due south of the main street East Drumtower Street. The result will be the destruction of about 10 courtyard houses and the relocation of about 100 families. The restaurant across the hutong from me will have to move to a new location if they want to remain in business.

When I first read the notice I was blown away. That first reaction of "how can they do this?" came right up in my mind. I talked about it with the bosses of the restaurant Hutong Kitchen at which I have been a regular for the last six months. "There's nothing we can do about it, but at least they will pay some money for it all." How much? "I'm hoping at least 5,000 RMB per square meter." Someone else had heard 8 - 15,000 RMB and the boss of the nearby real estate agency had heard a lot more for each. The bosses said it couldn't be very high, probably lowballed. A full courtyard house of several hundred square meters (completely unfinished and without very nice bathroom facilities) could sell for over 1.1 million US dollars. When they are purchased by wealthy Chinese and foreigners they are gutted and refitted for another several million US dollars. While they are a prime piece of real estate, there is a little bit of a gamble in the purchase.

Lately, people agreed that that gamble was a lot less. Beijing had claimed the area I lived in west to Desheng Gate and East to Jiaodaokou (several square miles of courtyard houses) as a "culturally protected area" that "cannot be torn down." Of course they cannot be torn down unless there are certain circumstances. Already north of where I lived a large section had been torn down for the new Drumtower Subway station and to the south for the Nanluoguxiang Station another area had been completely torn down.

A five minute walk east from my hutong there is a larger hutong that is famous for it's revitalization as a shopping and bar street--Nanluoguxiang. It is an attraction for both locals and tourists, but the biggest problem with it is that cars can still drive through it. I heard they are tearing down the hutong where I used to live in order to make a parking lot as well as a through street for cars, that way Nanluoguxiang can become a walking street and people can have a place to park, thus opening up traffic on the main throughfare. It is all a good thought for making Nanluoguxiang a more pleasant place to visit, but it means that the true culture of the hutongs will be lost to make room for the cleaned up and trendier hutong Nanluoguxiang. Over the next two years the whole area will be transformed into a large tourist area reminiscent of what has happened in the south of the city at Qianmen (the front gate to the south of Tian'anmen square)--incredibly high rents, tourist haven, and without the culture and original flare that most people are searching for in the hutongs. This two year plan will also mean the relocation of all the families in that area.

This includes the families that are refitting their hutongs, spending large amounts of money to bring them into the 21st century, adding plumbing amenities and cleaning them up. The boss of the Hutong Kitchen had just finished the refurbishment of his family's courtyard house, they had been enjoying it for about a week before the second sign went up announcing the first phase of destruction (the east side of the hutong I lived in, which includes his rented restaurant space) to be finished before October 1st and the rest of the destructions to take place over the next two years (which includes his newly refinished house). "Mei banfa de," he told me "nothing can be done about it."

I asked my landlords about it, they said before the signs went up no one knew anything about this plan for the destruction of Hougulouyuan Hutong. They were just happy it was the opposite side and not their side.

The relocation is a whole other aspect to the destruction. The government lowballs the prices of the hutongs and leaves the families with a small amount of cash for their once prime real estate. While the money is enough to buy a new house, the closest place they can afford to buy an apartment is outside of the fifth ring road, over an hour subway ride from the part of the city they live in currently.

Another neighbor that used to work as a manager of a factory walks his dog every night and I talked to him a little bit about the destruction of his home. He looked tired and sad but said the same refrain that had been echoed up and down the hutong since the sign went up. "There's nothing we can do. jiu mei banfa de." 

"mei banfa de" part 1

Last night I got a phone call from my friend Grace who has lived here for over ten years. Her housekeeper (also called Ayi, the Chinese word for aunt) wanted my help to make a video of her house. Grace explained to me that the Chengguan, or city managers, are making her take down her nearly finished addition.

This year is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China; apparently for this small area near Chaoyang Park just east of the fourth ring road all building projects have to not only be stopped, but for second floor additions that are unfinished they have to be completely torn down. Why this is, no one is exactly sure, but it's accepted as "mei banfa de" -- "nothing can be done about it." Ayi's house, while far from being finished and livable, is only about three days from finishing off the roof of the second floor. The Chengguan showed up yesterday and told her they were going to tear it down today because it isn't finished. They will pay her about 30,000 RMB (about 4,400 USD) for the destruction of her nearly finished second floor, but that amount is lowballed compared to what it should be worth, considering construction time and destruction of materials, among other things.

Ayi wants to sue the Chengguan for 130,000 RMB (about 19,000 USD) and they will probably settle at a price in between those two. In order to do that she needs to document the work that's been done on her house as well as other houses with and building second floors in her neighborhood. The Chengguan showed up at her house without any permits or written orders, just their word that they would have to tear down her house and didn't go to all the houses with second floors under construction, so it's all a little fishy.

So after Grace explained this to me, I agreed to help out, but told her I didn't have a video camera, just a digital camera. Grace said that should be ok, Ayi just wants to get some documentation. Grace also reminded me that if the Chengguan show up I should get out of there. Chengguan are becoming more and more notorious for beatings and taking a lot of power. They are basically below police, but with the power to enforce laws. Stories online depict street sellers in other parts of China brutally beaten by Chengguan and fights usually revolving around them. I assured her that I want nothing to do with them. After getting my number from Grace Ayi called me to ask officially. I agreed to help her, letting her know at most I could record some video, but my camera wasn't a video camera, just a digital camera. She didn't mind and she asked if I could come over early. I said, "like around 7:30 - 8?" She said, "how about 7 - 7:30?" Knowing she was under a time crunch I agreed, saying it'd be better for me to be out of there before the Chengguan show up to tear down the place at 10. She then told me they told her they weren't coming to tear it down tomorrow, but at a later date. Apparently that was the latest news.

I had to get my camera from my Hutong (I haven't moved all my stuff over yet, and still have a chest of some books and electronics and other random things there). At about 6:45 I got a call from Ayi while I was on my way over, "we're already here, are you still asleep?" I said, I'm on my way, I just have to get my camera! Well, the bad news was my camera was out of electricity, and upon seeing the camera I was talking about, Ayi was a little disappointed, she kept asking where my camera with the big lens was! I said, that doesn't have the ability to record video. She didn't seem to understand that all, and was then trying to figure out what to do to get a camera or some other method to record. 

So I felt really bad wasting their time, but it was interesting to go to Ayi's house. It's inside this area of Beijing that feels like the countryside, dirt roads, small Chinese town atmosphere that is straight out of the countryside. It's really interesting that it's only about a 15 minute drive from the Central Business District. Everyone in this community is doing construction on their houses but only a few are building second floors, and Ayi's seems to be the first or second to have to be torn down, but the Chengguan wasn't specific about who's houses were going to be torn down.

It was interesting to hear Ayi's husbands frustration with lack of rights and the fact that the Chengguan (though he identified it as the Party) can walk up to their house with no papers or legal justification other than their word (and a very suspicious word, at that) and announce that the upper floor has to be torn down. Originally they said today at 10 am, then told Ayi it wouldn't be today, but when we got to their community a Chengguan van was parked out on the road. Anger with Chinese policy in China usually results in the words "There's nothing we can do about it."

"mei banfa de"

"jiu mei banfa."

Change of conditions

It's pretty hot in the hutong I live in.

Two weeks ago it was 35 - 37 degrees Celsius by 8:15 in the morning every day. That's about 95 to 98 degrees Fahrenheit. That's pretty hot. Luckily I could flee to an office building with central air during the hottest part of the day. I spent last week teaching sailing in Qinhuangdao and living in an apartment with its own bathroom, shower, and cool termperatures (though still no air conditioning, the sea breeze was enough), and it was definitely hard to come back to place in Beijing. 

But then I bought a new fan, and a nice one too, not one that you can bargain for at a local market. It's a Midea fan with great power. I pretty much leave it running whenever I'm home and it's doing a very good job of keeping my apartment cool. It seems like I'll make it through the end of my contract, which expires on August 5th.

What started as a test and challenge has turned into the place I live and love. When I moved into this place in February I did think about what the summer's hot temperatures would be like, but my mind was more preoccupied with the freezing cold weather of winter. And I think there was a good part of me that didn't even think I'd make it to summer. But as I have lived here longer I have learned to love every part of life here. Not just the apartment I live in, or my neighborhood local restaurants, but the fact that when I walk down the street I joke with locals who all know me.

It's a good atmosphere in the middle of the city, and life moves even slower than Beijing in general--which is already a very slow capital. The sense of humor is darker and colder than outside the second ring road. It's definitely affected my speech, which is now better Beijing dialect than Mandarin, but I can still communicate in Mandarin, but it's a lot more work than letting all my words slur together and come out as a giant gargle in Beijing dialect littered with local Beijing expressions and words. 

As I get closer to the August 5th end of my lease, I wonder where I'll move to. Part of me doesn't want to look for a new place, and just spend the rest of the summer and fall in my apartment. But then again, what kind of professional lives without a private toilet bathroom or shower? And a washing machine would be nice. I know I can find a place with all those in the hutongs of Beijing, but it just seems so fake, living in this old style housing. There are the people who live in refurbished hutongs, and as you walk deeper into the place I live you find that most places are being fixed up and set up to be more livable. But still, when you talk to people who also use the same public toilet, who don't have a private place to shower, who live in a small place buried inside a "complicated courtyard house" with upwards of ten families living in the same general area, it just doesn't seem right to tell them you pay 2500 a month for a room in a courtyard house and you have all the modern comforts.

It's weird to think of leaving all the friends I have made in restaurants and stores and the old people that sit on the corner, but then again a washing machine and shower would be an excellent change, especially as every day is hotter than the day before. It seems that as the weather conditions keep changing I think more and more about the ammenities that most people can't live without, and would never choose too. What started as a challenge for myself definitely became a true love... Now I definitely wouldn't consider it a test or a challenge, it really is the place I live, my neighborhood and my life in Beijing. I Still have about two weeks to try and decide what to do with the living situation, but have to start searching soon, if I do end up moving. Maybe a change in conditions, and a new area in Beijing would bring a new view of Beijing culture, which never ceases to have new facets to be explored.

Juxtaposed Cultures of the Hutongs

"Why do you want to live in a hutong? It's full of old people!"

I was talking to a friend of mine on the train back from Qinhuangdao (a city about two hours east of Beijing by train). We both work in the office for the Beijing Sailing Center and had spent the weekend sailing in Qinhuangdao, where our company has their sailing center. She was so confused about why I wanted to live in a hutong courtyard house... She thinks of all hutongs as strictly filled with old people. And she does have a point, it seems that most people that live in these areas of the city are nearing or past the age of retirement. Thirty to forty year old fathers and mothers have all moved out of the hutongs and into apartment buildings. While that may be true, I still find the area I live in quite youthful.

I live on East Drumtower Street. If you were to page through a youth magazine here in Beijing, about half of the stores they talk about are located within a fifteen minute walk from my door. I live within fifteen minutes of the Central Academy of Drama, located along NanLuoGuXiang, a "traditional" style hutong, which, while once was very traditional, now is lined with coffee shops, stores of all kinds, and many bars. Walking along the street is a good mix of foreign and Chinese tourists, twenty and thirty-something Beijingers, and local area residents. There are the local retired men and women that sit on their foldable stools people watching, but they sit in front of the trendy clothing stores, popular t-shirt shops, or bars playing music with their windows open to the street. 

This really represents the area I live in, it's filled with juxtaposed images. The hutongs are filled with a large amount of "Old Beijing" residents, they're retired, gossipy, some wear the red sleeve arm badge that shows they are a community volunteer, others just like to smoke, drink, and fan themselves... But while they fan themselves they are sitting in front of Guitar shops, clothes stores, and Korean and Japanese import boutiques filled with cell phone jewelry and Doraemon products--the stores that every Chinese girl from age ten to forty has to stop in just to browse. The retired locals saunter down the street greeting the other retired locals they know as they are passed by young professionals, college students, and high schoolers walking arm and arm hurrying to the next store, restaurant, or bar. The retired locals are still living in the heart of Beijing, while the youth, the people that refuse to live in one floored houses in the hutongs come back for the cultural hub that stretches from Houhai (a bar district around two lakes) to Jiaodaokou, from the Gulou bridge to the Dianmen intersection.

I like this juxtaposition, the people my age who can't figure out why I would want to live in a hutong in the middle of the city can't help but come to my neighborhood every weekend. I love the culture of this area, whether it's the old people's culture--the gossiping about their neighbors and me and shouting to the people they know; and, at the same time, being surrounded by the stores and places that are favored by young professional Beijingers and are run by and influencing the youth of China.

Anniversary Celebrations

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Student Protests. You might ask how China is celebrating this anniversary, and I am sure the official answer is "What anniversay?"

I think there is a lot of fear here, it seems like the Chinese government is worried something is going to happen again. Two days ago I was out on the street with some friends chatting and three pairs of soldiers passed at different times, patrolling. My neighborhood friends in their mid-forties remarked that the soldiers were simply practicing. Although there is a military base near my house, I have never seen soldiers marching down the street before. Although they were wearing helmets, they were unarmed.

The truth is that it's very quiet about June Fourth here. It's not a topic I normally bring up with my friends, most were only a few years old at the time and not in Beijing. I am, however, hearing more about Tiananmen from foreign news sites and blogs then from friends here in China.

Considering this, it's no surprise that Twitter and Flickr as well as Hotmail were all Tuesday night. The site that hosts this blog was blocked last month, and YouTube has been blocked since the end of March. This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the People's Republic of China as well as today's much more sensitive anniversary, and ensuring that the status quo is maintained is, it seems, top priority.

I am convinced that 3 out of 5 people in and around Tiananmen Square this week are undercover police and soldiers dressed in civilian clothes.

I hope that after this anniversary passes that those sites, Flickr (the photo hosting site that I use) at least, will be available again. Or will this anniversary serve as an opportunity to shut off those sites for good? The fact is that even though parts of the Internet are blocked, it does not mean that all free thought is blocked. They are just not able to post on western sites online.

I also think it is interesting that in the '80s students were interested in freedoms and democracy while the people born after 1980 and are students now are more concerned with material possessions. They want the best brand names of cell phones, shoes and clothes. At least the people I know aren't concerned that America is so free, but that it is so wealthy. This is by no means all Chinese, but a majority of people I have talked to and met are more concerned with the material, not the rights and freedoms. While according to an American mindset, non-democratic China's citizens are oppressed, but if citizens can still pursue what they want are they truly oppressed?

It's interesting that the Washington Post, NY Times, and Guardian websites have their stories about Tiananmen and nothing is blocked. I have seen the iconic "tank man" picture more times in the last 48
hours of news and blog browsing than I have in probably the last two years. It's interesting, it seems it's not the ideas China wants to shut out, but rather the opportunity to express them openly online and quickly find others with those same view points, which communities like Twitter would allow for.