Chinese New Year's Eve

Never knew spending Chinese New Year could be so nice in Beijing, even on your own, without family around. It's like Christmas with the Christmas lights hanging outside and red lanterns hanging on gates. Fireworks are very colourful and noisy though, to the point where it feels like you're in a war zone. But it was nice, just to sit at home, without the lights on, and just wathing the fireworks outside the window. Didn't have a good angle from my window though, so eventually I just went out with a friend. So far all the places we went to were serving food at half price and one place in front of XiJiaoBinGuan was even offering free Korean traditional New Year soup (of some sort; didn't know what it was called). It had scrambled egg with lots of sticky white cake in it, delicious.

Hopefully I can do this again next year, stay in Beijing for Chinese New Year. Maybe have my family come here instead.

Pre - Chinese New YEar

The Chinese New Year will be in Feb.18 this 2007, trains and cities are packed with people going home to their families, and others taking the opportunity of time away from work and school to go traveling to other cities in China.

This is the first time I’ll be spending Chinese New Year away from my family and in Beijing. It should be interesting. My roommate insists that I should go home with her if I’m not going home myself. I’m beginning to realize that Chinese New Year is more a big deal to the local Chinese than Christmas is to a lot of foreigners.

I wonder if buying tickets for the train will be any better than before. I remember buying tickets around this time meant lining up for hours, with people butting in line, and finding out by the time you get to the counter that the ticket you want is already sold out.

I for one am not planning to go anywhere, what I want to to do some observation on how the New Year holiday is celebrated here in Beijing. I heard description of it being 热闹, in other words: lively and full of life. On the other hand, I’ve also heard it being quiet, because everyone is at home with their families. I guess we will see then.

Movies - The Second Time Around

Recently, I’ve been watching re-runs of movies I’ve watched before. Just been having the urge to watch certain movies that I really liked and a lot of others that I didn’t like, despite the hype then, and have just now felt like giving them a second chance. These are the movies I didn’t particularly enjoy before, but suddenly had the urge to give them another try:

1) Amelie – That French movie was really “in” back in my early days in Beijing. Everyone was talking about it. I watched it. I’m no expert but I really liked the cinematography lighting; the whole green and red concept of each scenes where just beautiful. I remember liking how the movie introduced the characters and setting through what they liked and disliked. I thought the idea of that was simple and original. It didn’t hurt that the guy in the movie was quite cute, but overall, I couldn’t understand why people had it in their most favourite list of movies of all time. I just didn't find it that entertaining; just fell short of expectation I think.
Watching it for the second time and not looking for indications and expectations of what others are talking about, I got to enjoy the movie a lot more and ended up liking it more than the first time I saw it.

2) Dreams May Come – This is one of those movies I didn’t really have expectation for. before watching it. In fact, I had no idea what it was supposed to be about. Overall I found the movie simply discomforting but found it very beautiful all at the same time. I guess it’s true, I do have a thing for fantasy worlds. So yes, I also liked those scenes in “The Cell” (with Jennifer Lopez) when she went into the mind of the patients. I wouldn’t be surprised if the cinematic concept and designer where the same for these movies.
Knowing that I wasn’t going to like the movie and just wanting to see the beautiful scenes once more, I actually ended up liking the movie a lot better.

3) A River Runs Through It – Like many people who’ve seen this movie; Brad Pitt was the only thing keeping me awake. I was young and didn’t pay much attention to movies with plots as flat as plains. But I was looking for a boring movie to watch so I wouldn’t feel guilty doing other things at the same time. Well guess what? I didn’t get to do the other things I planned to. I actually sat back and patiently watched the entire movie and enjoyed doing so.

…. And that, is the power of low expectation.

“五十部笑百部” 50 Steps Laughing at 100 Steps

My roommate taught me a new and interesting Chinese saying last night. Usually I get frustrated when a Chinese friend says a Chinese proverb or expression and makes it sound like I should know what they’re talking about. When they realize I don’t and they start to explain, I get even more frustrated, because I realize we've just spent all this time over something I will never use and therefore, will certainly forget as soon as we finish talking about it. Of course, the real reason I probably forget is because my ears do an automatic censorship of the whole conversation as soon as I realize where it is going.

For some reason I was listening this time around. It could be that my roommate had a more casual approach that didn’t activate my ears to shut-down. So this time, I actually listened, and found I understood and even found it interesting.
Forgot what we were talking about that lead to it. She asked if I knew or heard of “五十部笑百部.” I said no. So she explained to me that it tells of a story of two soldiers. During war, were soldiers are supposed to stand still and die for their country, these two decided to flee.

The first guy ran for say 50 steps, looked back, saw nobody after him and decided to stop running. Then ahead of him he sees this other soldier running and stopping at 100 steps. So he laughs at this guy who had to run further when there was nobody after them anymore. But the point is, what gives him the right to laugh at the other soldier, when they both made the same mistake of fleeing from duty in the first place; damage done. I came up with my own example. It’s like someone killing someone by stabbing them once through the heart, and another one killing another by stabbing the victim over and over again. Gruesome. Either way, the victim's dead, so you can't compare and say who's a worst killer for killing, but you can compare and say who's more psychotic (but that's another topic).

Matters of the Heart: Dating/Marriage in China

Dating is still a serious matter here in China; but a lot of times, the Chinese have friends or family members introduce them to other available single people. Your friends, and family members, including your parents, aunts and uncles, even your grandparents pitch in to who they think you should marry ---- date, I mean. But nowadays, the dating scene in China, especially in Beijing is getting more personal, also younger! Most of my Chinese classmates in college were not allowed to date while they were in high school but these days you see lovers in high school uniforms hiding behind bushes kissing and groping. I just find the dating scene in Beijing becoming really modern these days, it’s really catching up, and already beyond some Asian countries. Online dating is really in, even dating-parties such as the one my friends went to recently, and oh, I read about a website dedicated to finding gays straight partners just for marriage for society's sake (being gay in China was considered a psychological problem until recently).

Top 10 Reasons To Learn Chinese

Why learning Chinese is important:

http://whylearnchinese.1monthchinese.com/







What do you think? And if you're already learning, what was your reason?

What Friends Talk About Around The Table

Chilly in Beijing today! But not windy, so that’s good. Was out with some old school friends over the weekend and I noticed something about men from different halves of the hemisphere and what they like to talk about over dinner or a hangout. When I’m out with Caucasian male friends, they always end up talking about politics! But with Asian male friends, they talk about business! And what do women talk about, regardless of where they’re from? It really made me try to think back and reflect. Well, I think women generally like to talk about things more related to people; thus, all the gossips and rumors. Rather than a big scope of what’s happening in the world and/or business markets, women just like to chat about happenings that’s more personally related to them.

(Another) Beijing Taxi Experience

Another interesting Beijing taxi experience yesterday. There was a butcher knife sticking out from the dashboard in this taxi driver's car. It was my friend who saw the handle sticking out and told me that there was a knife. I thought he was joking. I couldn't see it from where I sat; it just wasn't in my line of vision. So when I saw it, I was like, am I seeing right?! Looks like a black knife handle but what would a knife be doing there. “Should I ask him?” I asked my friend, he said, “sure” (His eyes were saying, "please do"). It actually looked like he might’ve just brought the butcher knife, and while driving took it out to look at it. And while looking at it, it slips through in between a gap by the dashboard, and now couldn’t get it out.

So I asked, "what was a knife doing there?" The driver, took it out (wasn’t stuck after all).

"Oh, it just felt right to put it there," he said.

Apparently he bought it for protection (yes, a butcher knife), and also to thaw ice from his car during winter. It had a zig-zag blade on one side, which I guessed was for thawing ice. Multi-purpose butcher knife, it can even help with opening a bottle of beer. He said other drivers put their knife by the door, but he felt it just suited it better where it was in the dashboard. I failed to asks, what if a passenger riding beside him was the psycho!

The taxi driver also showed us his pepper spray; wow, didn’t even know they had it here. Didn’t even know taxi drivers where so well prepared and well armed from being ambushed by Beijing roadside hooligans!

Beijing Taxi Drivers Vs. "Hei-Che"

I don’t know if there have been stricter rules when it comes to taxi drivers, but if there were, I wonder under what reasons do they give punishment to make taxi drivers less likely to trick passengers into paying more than they should. For many who’ve lived in Beijing, especially when coming from the airport for the first time, you probably had the experience of being taken on a 400rmb joyride around Beijing. Personally I never really had a bad taxi experience in Beijing. Maybe because I look Chinese? But I did have a lot of bad taxi experiences in Xiamen. Maybe because it was a small city? You could pay 1rmb for a bus to get anywhere in the city. So as a taxi driver, unless your passenger forgot something back at home and needs to drive back and forth, you can’t really make too much; at least not as much as you can in big city Beijing. I’ve been here for almost five years and there are still only a certain percent of places I know in this city. But still, I did notice, even with my friends, that there have been less reports in getting scammed when riding a taxi. Maybe they’re getting paid more? Punishment and penalties? Also, there’s this competition with “hei-ches” (literally translated, “black-cars”). They are self-made taxis doing illegal business in the streets of Beijing, meaning they’re not licensed to take money from passengers. They should be able to offer you a cheaper price but they will try to trick you into paying just as much or even more if you don’t know what you should really be paying. Remember, they don’t work for any company, they get to keep all the money they make in a day, and they drive small, crappy-looking cars, so they better be offering to drive you for less money.

Back to Beijing taxi drivers, and the real reason I thought about them suddenly. I heard that most of them can speak English now! Is this true? I never heard one English “peep” come out from the mouth of any Beijing taxi drivers before; just shy maybe? It would be sort of amusing to hear though, with their Beijing “-err” accent. Apparently some, not sure if they all do, have English learning tapes with them in the car to learn English. What for? Why of course, in preparation for the 2008 Olympics! Hehe… Will make a point and ask some taxi drivers about this, and maybe I’ll even pretend not to know any Chinese and really test to see if they speak a word of English. Should make for an educational ride.

:: 2007 ::

Wow, another year has passed! One more year till the Beijing Olympics on 2008. Has the environment improved? Are the major stadiums and buildings going to be ready by then? Are the citizens of Beijing going to make it on time? I was in Wang Fu Jing this past Sunday, and my friend pointed out something obvious and interesting that my blind eyes hadn’t registered to my brain-----people around me, foreigners and Chinese subway passengers alike, where waiting in line! The first thing that hit me was that, it's the New Year's, no wonder there are so many people everywhere. Even the line for the ticket had extended outside the doors. But what I didn't realize was-----everyone was cooperating, even patiently waiting in line! People.Were.Waiting.In.Line.
Also another remarkable thing; there were guards guarding the stairs to and from the subway. They were very strict on which side of the stairs passengers could use regarding whether they were on their way up or down.
So maybe we can make it to the 2008 Olympics after all. If only someone could solve the traffic problem...