The Big News

We got a new music system installed- apparently the ceiling speakers were just too poor quality to actually play music- so now we have these giant hulking black speakers placed around the club house piping in what sounds like should be coming out of a 14 year old girls’ bedroom, not a place where people are buying $18,000 parking spaces.

Today the heat is broken and the roof of the greenhouse ceiling is leaking because the glass is broken and for whatever reason they haven’t fixed it. It snowed last night and it is Grey and Cold today.

The Big News is… I’m getting out of here! Yes, it’s true. The developer has decided that our staff and club management is sub-par, and they want us out. I don’t totally understand all this, and no one tells me much, but this is what I have heard. When I asked what specifically is so terrible about us, and my manager specified that one Angel is ugly and the outdoor security men are not big and handsome enough, and that our staff changes too frequently. Perhaps they haven’t figured out that anyone with half a brain and decent looks can find a better way to make a living than opening doors or standing outside? Only the two office workers [my manager and the useless bitchy girl who frequently yells at me] the engineer and the four head security guards are actually directly employed by my company, so we will be moved to other projects. Everyone else [who is hired through an employment agency] will be let go.

I am being moved to the place that I did the hostess-ing event in September… remember those creepy photos of me in the blue suit with creepy make up on? I’m going back there. To do what I am not too sure but I know that it is a 14 min bike ride from my house, it is in the city and therefore surrounded by many good places to eat, there are businesses already in the building, and I will be office based, not some white statue at the reception desk. So I am thrilled. We all leave March 14th… that makes 11 days of work left. In the meantime I will be reading books copied from the internet, I’m starting with Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenin. Why not.

My Weekend Adventure
I took a weekend trip with Alison, her friend Caitrin and her boyfriend Ted, to the ‘ancient city’ of Ping Yao, located roughly 7 to 10 hours south west of Beijing. We bought train tickets and left Friday night, arriving at 5 am in Ping Yao, into a town SO DARK with no lights, no nothing open, it was… dark. And cold. We woke up the people in one hotel and sat and drank tea while we waited out for a lower price on the rooms [they started at 1,200 for one room, we got them down to 800 for two]. We stayed in a beautiful hotel [rare outside major cities] that was a renovated old courtyard, with rooms in the traditional ‘kang’ beds- that is, the heater underneath the bed, and the place where the whole family sleeps, reads, watches TV, hang out, etc, because it’s the only warm place. We saw the kang in action at a store where we bought some tradition shoes- they invited us into their back room to sit on their kang. Be grateful that we have giant living rooms!

It was lovely town, similar to Lijiang [where I went with the folks and sis in October], but less Epcot Center like, much more dirty, less touristy, and an actual functioning town. Old city walls, small alley ways not big enough for cars, it was very cool.

We spent half the day on Saturday trying to get train tickets back. Part of the fun of traveling in China not by plane is that you can’t buy round trip tickets. No, that would make way too much sense for this country. So we went to four places before we decided that there really were no train tickets back on Sunday night. We were told to go to the nearby city, Tai Yuan [the capital of Shan Xi province] and get a bus or a train from there.

On Sunday, we saw the house that “Raise the Red Lantern” film was made in, and then drove to this major city, and decided to take a bus back to Beijing because it takes half the time, we could arrive by 1 am. We got on our luxury liner bus at 7pm, and headed onto the major highway. It had been snowing, and we were traveling into the mountains, and at some point we came to a stop and learned that they had closed the highway because it was frozen and it would not open until ten the next morning. It was already midnight. All the truckers and most people on the bus immediately gave up and went to sleep right there on the highway. Keep in mind we are in the middle of nowhere, except for a small gas station that we went to, got them to call their friend with a car to pick us up and take us to the nearest train station [for an exorbitant amount]. We arrived at the train station and bought ‘no seat’ tickets for the 1.30am train. This means that there are no empty seats or beds, and we are getting onto an already crammed bumpkin train. These ‘hard seat’ cars get packed with people, people everywhere, curled up on the sinks, in the aisles, in the place between cars, standing for hours at a time, mostly migrants moving to the big city. We stood for two hours until some beds became available and we were able to charm the train lady [actually Caitrin was the charmer here, she was great] to sell us the upgrade. At four we finally got to lie down and sleep until we got to Beijing the next morning.

I may fly home next time [if I am smart enough to remember my passport!]

Vietnam

Vietnam is a beautiful country and the people are really nice. Alison and I had a great trip without traveling very far: We went from Hanoi to Cat Ba island, which is set in a bay of a thousand other tiny islands jutting up like giant rocks. From there we went to a po-dunk town south of Hanoi to see some natural sites including a beautiful and untouched rainforest. From there we went back to Hanoi. All together 8 days.

Observations:
There are no chain stores in Hanoi. No McDonald’s, Starbucks, KFC, nothing. Not a whole lot of foreign businesses by the looks of things. There is however a ton of foreign/ European/ French influence, seen in the churches that dot the city and countryside, as well as the graveyards with elaborate headstones that take up a significant amount of the farmland. The French brought to the Vietnamese the toilet hose [kind of a bidet], yummy strong coffee, beautiful architecture, bread, and random tour guides that speak French.

I was constantly comparing Vietnam to China, the people, the food, the geography, and trying to figure out just what was different. I first noticed that the Vietnamese are nicer to each other. They are nicer to their service people, not shouting commands loudly at them, they are nicer to foreigners, and in general just seem to have a more pleasant demeanor.

The most major contrast was between Hanoi and Beijing- the countryside seems pretty much the same. Beijing has a more developed economy, people have more money and there are more things to buy. The infrastructure is greater and it is evident that the government has more money [and owns most of the United States as well]. Hanoi has a more ‘third world’ feel: narrow streets with no garbage cans and trash floating through the exposed gutters. Mopeds are everywhere, except for the occasional car and cab. Dogs everywhere, guarding each house, building, and houseboat, at least one dog. Very few people with dogs as pets, very few purebreds, like they are crazy about in Beijing. Kumquat trees in everyone’s living room [for the New Year]. The houses are odd as well: four or five story townhouses, both in the city and country, where the first floor opens entirely up to the street, where the family hangs out, drinks tea, enjoys there kumquat tree, and watches the world go by. Similar to China there are always people sitting around.

The countryside seems about the same amount of development as China: dirty agricultural towns. However, these bumpkin towns in Vietnam have a booming funeral business: headstones, coffins, flowers both fake and real, which all seems so anti Asian to me.

My cousin Dave’s vision of Vietnam life:
When you receive this, if you receive this, if you are lucky enough to receive this, you are probably in Vietnam, where things are probably quieter than in China at the present time; I like to think you are in the country, near some rice paddies without mosquitoes, eating something delicate and light, and there is some folk music coming from the village, and it is late afternoon, and....

That exact scene happened. Things were quiet. I was in the country, surrounded by rice paddies, the mosquitoes were slim, and instead of folk music it was karaoke Vietnamese disco music, but pretty similar. Vietnam was what I pictured it to be, and I imagine what most people picture it to be.

The food was delicious, although I don’t think we gave it a fair chance as we didn’t really know what to order and ate many days on the street eating noodle soup, pho, which is good but after many bowls of it for many meals it gets a little old. They have this great culture of street consumption, on very tiny plastic stools, either drinking coffee, eating pho, or sitting at the Bia Hoi shop, where you can get a frosty glass of delicious draft beer for thirty cents.

Moped riding
In order to get around, the mode of transportation is a moped, and for those of us who don’t own our own, a friendly man to drive the moped for you. Our first ride was the three of us on one bike, [they frequently ride with four on one moped], and me grasping the shoulder of our driver, til he let me know that it wasn’t necessary to hang on. Will zipping around the countryside we found a handle on the bike of the bike to help resist the temptaion to wrap arms around the drivers. After I got over constant thoughts of “I’m going to die, I’m going to die” it was a good way to see the countryside. In the city we mostly took cabs.

We got up early the first day we were in Hanoi to go see Uncle Ho, or what we all pretend is Uncle Ho, because I just don’t believe that the Vietnamese knew how to preserve dead bodies in 1969 if the Chinese didn’t know seven years later. He looked pretty waxy to me. But still, we were solemn and slowly moved around his creepy sarcophagus, they have a nifty rubber track to remind you where to go, and a raised walkway for those youngsters [so cute]. I almost made it out without being chastised by the guards, but I spoke too loudly too soon and was shhhsed by a guard. What excitement. This reminded me of my parent’s trip to Hanoi in October of 1998 and the funny email my mom wrote to me about it [yes I still had the email]:

While in Hanoi we visited the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh or Uncle Ho as he is
lovingly called. I'm afraid that I must relate to you that your father, that
wild and crazy guy, had to be spoken to by the guard three times. Three
times! First he whispered too loud, then he had a suspect bulge in his pocket
(actually his glasses case) and, most egregious of all, he stepped out of our
single file line and off the rubber carpet to try to talk to me. You could
say that the procedures surrounding the viewing of old Uncle Ho are a bit on
the strict side. We then went to the museum which we had to rush through as it
was closing (at 11:15) for lunch. We asked when it would be reopening and
found that the lunch hour would be over at 2:00 pm. I'd say that while the
communists may be a bit up tight about their body viewing procedures, they've
got the right idea about giving themselves plenty of time for a little r and r
during their working day.

I will send the link to my photos soon, let me know if you didn’t get them.

This is English to the Chinese:
“Good good study, day day up!” Almost everyone knows this phrase, both in Chinese and its exact English translation. Kinda funny considering if they did study well they would know that that’s ‘not good hear’ as the Chinese would translate.

On studying English, looking at my Angels book, who cant speak anything near basic English, is studying things like:

1. On our way to new York, we visted the Browns, _______ used to be our neighbor.
a) whom b) which c) who d) that

And highly useful catch phrases, such as:
2. Look! These are ____________.
a) mouse’s tails b) mices’ tails c)mice’s tails d) mice’s tail

3. Don’t let them lead _________.
a) your nose b) you by the nose c)you by your nose d) by your nose

And then there’s the ones that even after we have been speaking and studying English we still got wrong on the SAT:
4. ________ are good friends.
a) He, you and I b) You, I are he c) I, you and he d) You, he and I

And conversations commonly head in the office:
“Don’t touch the papers.
Certainly. I’ll not let the papers be touched.”

Hope that gave you all a laugh.

Answer key: 1. c, 2. c [I thought it would be mouse tails] 3. b 4. d

If anyone has Skype, let me know, we can be Skype buddies [Skype is a program where you can chat online or call computer to computer for free]. My ID is maokelan

The Chinese reaction to my trip to Vietnam:
“Was Vietnam chaotic?” “I hear they are very poor.” “Is Vietnam better or is china better?” “Definitely china is better.” [me] how do you know? Have you been? “No, I just think so.” There are a few that think traveling to Vietnam would be cool though. But most think its poor and chaotic. And most refuse the fact that China invaded Vietnam [actually multiple times over hundreds of years]. They say China was ‘protecting their land.’ Oh China the victim, those terrible Japanese… Aren’t they the true enemy!

Work is still wild and exciting. I am currently trying to combat my horrible habit of whistling. Apparently whistling is very unbecoming for woman, and its against company policy to whistle while you work. Well there goes one American ideal [“whistle while you work…”