Saturday, July 26, 2008

First Post - Sun July 27 2008

Well here I am in Yulin, Chengdu, Sichuan. I'm in my apartment, on the fifthfloor of a walkup (ie no elevator, the more traditional style of Chinese apartment living). The buildings are like tenements, with a central courtyard which the apartments look down into. The windows are enclosed in cages, I would imagine so one could grow flowers or herbs on their slats. The apartment is a lot bigger than I expected, I have my own bedroom with an air conditioner which is very necessary in this summer heat and humidity. I'll just talk about a few things today, so as to save some fodder for the coming days.
1.Chengdu – Chengdu is a major city, the fourth or fifth biggest in China. It is the capital of Sichuan Province, in the southwest, where the earthquake was. Apparently the city has not been effected too much but the shock of the earthquake was enough to send some expats packing. I live in the southern area of the city, just outside the first ring road. My neighborhood, Yulin, is up-and-coming, with a lot of boutique clothing stores, restaurants and bars, and even a local cafe (founded 2005) that supposedly has okay coffee. More on that to come, once I've experienced it. China is roughly the size and shape of the US, and if you overlay a map of the lower 48 states over China, Sichuan is in about the same position as Texas, and about the same size. To give a little context in terms of population, Texas has about 25 million inhabitants, Sichuan has 90 million. Chengdu is the largest city in Western China, a major intellectual, cultural and manufacturing center. It is known for tea-houses and a laid-back population.
2.Chinese and Chinese people – Unlike the other countries I've been abroad in, I came to China with virtually none of the local language. The lack of cognates and the disconnect with Western verb roots has been hard so far but will force me to learn Mandarin. Additionally, unlike in Western Europe, it really is not possible to go up to someone on the street and ask them if they speak English, in English. So the necessity to learn Mandarin should serve me well and help to encourage me. The unintelligibility of Chinese characters is also a major hurdle, especially for someone like me who is a compulsive reader. So it is a good thing that I have a well-experienced hand as my roommate, Sam, who has been here for two and a half years.
3.Tea – I just had my first experience with loose tea. I figured I would just sort of add hot water and then wait for a while for the tea to settle to the bottom. After about thirty minutes of waiting, I discerned that wouldn't work too well. So, after a little google searching, I discovered that the key is to strain the loose tea. Needless to say, I'm drinking some very strong green tea but thinking of all the antioxidants my body is enjoying right now.
4.Expats – Sam came and picked me up from the airport, we went to a local cafe to hang out and played do di jo, a brilliant Chinese three-player card game. After a couple hours, Rick (another American) showed up and then his friend Nancy came (a Chinese woman). Rick and Nancy proceeded to do some translation for some business proposal on a meat company, while Sam and I sat around and I asked him some general sort of questions. I also discovered Tsingtao Black at this time, a malty, brown, stoutish beer. Sam and I got some dumplings and came back, only to find they hadn't even finished the first page. Chinese characters are very dense in text, I surmised. I'm getting a little off topic here, but Sam and I went back to the apartment and chilled for a while. Nancy and Rick met us for dinner, some Szechuan food, fairly spicy, somewhat sweet, along with some deep-fried corn kernels and some green vegetable, as well as some smoked ribs. The food here is awesome, by the way. So then we went to a new expat bar near the second ring road (about 10 min in a taxi, cost about $1.25) called the Leg and Whistle (est 2007). It was packed, with a number of Brits with their shirts off in the steamy night, celebrating a friends birthday. We sat outside and chatted with an older Aussie for a while, drank a beer and ended up meeting the captain of the football team I'll be joining (as Rick told me, we speak international English here, so henceforth football=soccer). He came up to me in my Celtic jersey and we chatted for a while, a very friendly Scot from Glasgow. After a couple hours we came home and Sam and I fed the piranhas. It was a good show. So the expat community is live here in Chengdu, always a strong possibility for an escape if thats necessary. But so far things are good, happy to be settled and unpacked.

EDIT: Chongqing, not Chengdu, is the biggest city in Western China. It was formerly a part of Sichuan Province and became an autonomous municipality in 1997.

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