I know this seems like a good time to be in China, and hence, an awkward time to leave. I had planned to stay until the Olympics.
I wish there were an easy way to explain why I’ve decided to go back to California, but there isn’t. I woke up one day back in November with one clear thought in my head: “Time to go home.”
The best reasons I can give are my girlfriend and my grandparents. In about two weeks, my girlfriend and I will hit the four year mark. The past 18 months of that have been spent on different continents–Africa and Asia–with the brief exception of this summer when we spent two months traveling together in Madagascar. It’s time to try for a normal(ish) relationship.
My grandparents are in their 80s. I won’t get any time back with them. That’s more important to me than the Olympics, or anything else China does.
Leaving China feels as strange as coming here in the first place. Both decisions were spur of the moment. I can’t say whether either is or was the right course of action.
This is by no means the end of my interest or involvement with China, nor is it the end of this blog. The country is far too interesting, and I’m still fascinated by it. Who knows, I may even come back for the Olympics if the right opportunity comes up.
I’m going to miss Dalian. As cities in China go, this is one of the best. It’s one of the few places in Asia I’d want to live long-term.
Much of the hype is true: It is one of the cleanest cities in China. It benefits from being international and multicultural. It remains an affordable place to live, despite a growing economy.
The local expats here remain a tight community, even as the number grows. Dalian feels like a small town in a big city.
For anyone thinking of coming here, short- or long-term, by all means email me (eyeseast at gmail.com). For continued blogging coverage, some suggestions:
Rick at Panda Passport: My friend Rick, one of my favorite people in China, also finds some of the wackiest stuff on the Web. He also writes for CNET.
The Art of Living: Jonathon is newer to the blogosphere. He’s a great writer and keeps things local. Check him out.
East-West Station: Kim is more than a “fat old Englishman out east.” He’s also a damn smart guy. I know because I never would have won so many bottles of vodka at Quiz Night were he not on my team. He’s married to a local, so he’ll be here a while.
Podcasters Marcia and Lisle Veach interviewed me a couple weeks back for their show, At Home in China. We talked about:
How might subtle differences in culture and language become a barrier to mutual understanding between people from the West and China? Marcia interviews Chris, a journalist who is currently teaching English and studying Chinese in northeastern China.
Feet are firmly planted in 2008. Memories are catching up with reality and moving into the cold year ahead. But Seoul does not hibernate. Continued from before, and from even earlier:
Act Three: A Chinese Connection
Someone in front of me was speaking Chinese. Three someones, on second look, middle-aged or better, and not from Dalian or Shandong judging by accents.
Arriving in South Korea means going back to the beginning. New country, new language, a month of playing charades just to order a meal. Such is travel.
I sat on bus 24. The woman who changed my USD to KRW told me this line goes to the subway, just before I noticed the large pile of RMB to her left, meaning yesterday was a wasted exercise. And so I forgot to ask where to get off this bus and onto said subway, which goes from Incheon to Seoul in 45 minutes for 1500 won. A bargain any way you look at it.
For the time being, my outdated copy of Lonely Planet Korea would have to get me through. Incheon, while geographically next to and largely indistinct from Seoul, is buried on page 128 of that edition in the Gyonggi-do chapter (and should not be confused with Icheon, a page prior and 60 km southeast of the capital). Nothing in the brief description of the city or what to do there included getting between the ferry terminal and the subway. Apparently, not many people take the boat from China.
So I leaned forward into the Chinese conversation in front of me.
“è¯·é—®ï¼Œä½ ä»¬æ˜¯ä¸å›½äººå—?” Best to be polite, I thought, tapping the woman on the shoulder. They were from Shenyang, it turned out.
It’s funny, the conversations most irritating in China so often involve variations on the phrase, “ä½ æ±‰è¯è¯´å¾—很好.” Back in a country where I don’t speak the language in any form unrelated to ordering a beer, I find myself waiting for it, like our conversation hasn’t really begun until I get that false compliment. My psyche needs that, y’know?
But fragile egos would have to wait a bit. More immediate questions needed answering: Were they going to Seoul as well? Were they taking the subway? Did they know where to get off? Affirmative on all counts. I had guides.
The man doing most of the talking was an old Korea hand; the other two as green as me, likewise just off the boat. At the appointed stop, we piled off the bus, me with my backpack and laptop, them with over-sized sacks on under-sized dollies, which I helped them lug up and down stairs to the station. It felt a bit like traveling with my grandparents might, except that I’ve never traveled with my grandparents.
We rode the Number One line together to Sindorim. From there, I headed to Sinchon alone. Before we parted, the man leading us unfolded a nearly destroyed subway map and handed it to me. Korea in Chinese, just to keep things interesting.
On the steps outside the first station, while the other two new arrivals from China sorted the pile of bags they’d pushed out the bus door, there was a lull in the conversation, and he finally said it: “ä½ æ±‰è¯è¯´å¾—怎么好啊.”
It’s still not true.
Coming up, reality, or at least life in the here and now. Try to stay warm.
Seoul is lightly salted with snow. An aggressive chill is setting in, just in time for New Years, but first, the recollection continues from yesterday:
Act Two: Please do not tap on the glass
I have my visa. I’m packed. My boat leaves in four hours and all I need to do is take enough money to last me a month out of my bank of China account, change it to South Korean Won US dollars (other currencies aren’t available this year) and get on the boat. I mean, I have to buy a ticket to another country the day I’m leaving, but this is China. International transport can be handled last minute. Getting my money is the issue here.
I sit on the padded bench with an out-of-date Lonely Planet Korea and read up on the tribute system. And wait.
For anyone thinking of coming to China in the near future, here’s a tip that will may preserve some of your sanity: Bring a book. Almost any book will do. Other recommendations: Middlesex, China Wakes, anything by Haruki Murakami, a Chinese-English dictionary, a pamphlet on overseas tax laws, pretty much anything with words will do. Keep in handy at all times. Waiting is part of the game.
I reach the window. An hour and a half has passed. I withdraw all the money I will need, a process that takes two minutes. I ask where I can change money, but think better of it when I hear a sentence that begins, “To change to US dollars, you will need…” followed by a list of documents I don’t have. I don’t have tax forms. I don’t have a monthly salary. I don’t have a foreign expert’s certificate. I don’t have a job. And everyone is on lunch.
I leave. I eat, wait, come back. Better yet, I try a different bank. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. The lines are shorter and the paperwork is one half-sheet. I can change $500. Plenty.
I hand a clerk a pile of renminbi. She counts it by hand. Then it goes into the machine, which counts it. Then she feeds it back into the machine to count again. My head drifts away to a place with no clocks, no departure times, no deadlines. When I return, she is counting again. She aligns more half-sheets of paper, interlaced with carbon. She stamps them, checks each one, stamps again. “Can you go faster?” I ask, politely, I think. “Mashang,” she answers. I used to like that word. “Get on your horse. Immediately.” But it never really means “immediately.”
I’m out the door as soon as money and passport are in my hand, in a taxi and at the terminal with a good 12 minutes to spare. A berth is secured. I walk down a long stretch of off-white hallway toward the gangway. It’s probably 200 yards end to end. I wonder, as I’m walking, if these terminals are designed to stretch out the process of leaving a country, to give the traveler time to think about what it means to leave, to wonder when he’ll be coming back, to hesitate, and possibly to miss his boat.
Those thoughts don’t linger long.
I board the boat, settle in to a cramped but otherwise comfortable bunk, watch the Simpsons Movie and crash out. When I wake up, it’s Christmas Day in Korea.
Next up, Act Three, into the heart of Seoul. Stay tuned.
Eyes East is once again blogging from Seoul. I’d like to say I’m here for a deeper look at Korean culture or to gaze into the future through the lens of the most wired country on Earth, really, I’m here for the cash. I’m teaching at Yonsei University again, and I’ll be here for most of January.
We’ll get to the day-to-day details a few posts hence. First, a bit about getting here, in three acts:
Act One: Dalian to Shenyang to Dalian to Shenyang….and finally we have a visa
Getting a visa for South Korea means going to Shenyang. I hate Shenyang. There is no getting around this fact. Maybe it’s because I only go there for unpleasant business. In my mind, Shenyang brings together all the elements of a large city without ever gaining the benefit of so many people in close quarters. Think of Beijing without the culture, the Olympics, the foreign influence or any reason whatsoever to go there.
But as I said, it’s the only place within striking distance of Dalian to get the visa I need. So I go. Usually I come back the same night. Eight hours on a bus means I finished two books and started a third in the two weeks it took to get my documents. David Sedaris does make the trip easier.
Inside the embassy, I have this slight variations of this conversation with embassy staff at least three times, over a period of two weeks:
“Mr. Amico, we need your contract.”
“I gave you my contract.”
“I know, but we need your information.”
“What kind of information?”
“Your personal information.”
“What kind of personal information?”
“It’s in your contract.”
“I gave you my contract.”
“I know. But we need you to call your university.”
“What should I tell them?”
“They need to send us your information.”
“What kind of information?”
“A fax.”
“What is in the fax?”
“Your personal information.”
“What kind of personal information?”
“They will know.”
“Can you tell me?”
“No.”
And outside, Shenyang is a pile of gray ice covered in dirty snow.
Tomorrow, Act Two: Slow boats and slower money. Please do not tap on the glass. Stay tuned.
A few days ago, I ate one of the best meals I’ve had in Dalian.
I’ve eaten well here, to be sure: dumplings of all variety at DaQingHua, curry at Abashi, pizza at Noah’s. Add to that list Japanese barbecue at the pragmatically-named Barbecue Coals.
Consider the selection:
Grilled chicken teriyaki with a hint of lemon, covered in melted cheese.
Shitake mushrooms, cooked soft, subtle, and simple.
Asparagus, something I haven’t had in China, roasted and served with a dollop of mayonnaise on the side, which I indulged in but felt guilty about (for masking the taste of the vegetable; I don’t so much worry about cholesterol at this kind of meal).
Cherry tomatoes, wrapped in bacon, broiled.
Hard-boiled quail eggs.
Nine of us crowded into one of the restaurant’s curtained private rooms—three West Coast Americans, a Londoner, a French Canadian and his Chinese girlfriend, a Newfoundlander, two Koreans. I list these because despite the disparate upbringings and varied palettes, we all walked away stuffed and satisfied.
I love meals like this. Close friends, great food and an unhurried atmosphere make for one of life’s great joys.
My enjoyment of food usually extends to taking a few photos of the cuisine before it disappears, but in this case, I’m afraid I was distracted (the Asahi did not help). I have on my camera only one out of focus and over-exposed image of enoki mushrooms wrapped in bacon (a theme we pushed perhaps too far, but probably not). Suffice to say that presentation was simple, with most of the food served on skewers and brought to us just slow enough that we felt hungry until we realized we were full.
In all, we spent about 100 RMB each. Expensive for a single meal that didn’t include imported wine, but this was one of the rare occasions when I did a quick mental conversion and thought, “I’d have paid far more than $13 for this in any other country.”
长江路å¤ç”Ÿå··5å· cháng jiÄng lù, xià shÄ“ng xià ng, number 5
Tucked about 10 metres down an alley, the entrance to which is along Chang Jiang Road halfway between the back of the Shangri La (Tin Whistle) and Minzu Square (towards the You Hao area). Some red lanterns outside, in an old building, around 3 floors tall.
I was grocery shopping with my flatmate the other day, going through the list of needs and wants, when she came to oranges.
“Oranges?” I had to ask: “Why not just buy them on the street outside our building?”
“Because they rip me off,” she said. “They see a foreigner and they double the price.” And so she buys most of her fruit and vegetables, nearly all the food in our apartment, actually, at WalMart or one of the big Chinese hypermarkets. Sometimes this means she pays more, sometimes less. But the chains don’t mark up on an individual basis; everyone who shops there is paying the same foreign-goods-in-China price.
I take the opposite route: Nearly every piece of produce I buy is a street transaction. Not saying this is a better, way, just the way I do it. If I pay more, I’m paying for convenience and Chinese practice. If I pay less, so much the better.
There aren’t many foreigners in my neighborhood. I live in a quiet section of Dalian between Peace Plaza and Olympic Square, what I like to call the Bo Xilai part of town, since the former mayor had a thing for planting trees. That was part of the appeal when I moved in: Huge oaks line the sidewalks, hanging out over the street. The trees give the area a calmer feeling and hide the ugly gray facades of the buildings that look much older than they really are.
Any street can turn into a farmer’s market. I haven’t figured out the system that determines where the vendors will park their carts and drop their goods, but it’s never more than a block from my front door. The people selling tend to come from rural parts of Greater Dalian: Pulandian, Wafangdian and slightly farther out. In for a day then back home. I wouldn’t call them migrants in the usual sense, more agricultural commuters.
I don’t know the people who work at WalMart. I shop there, but the experience is much like WalMart anywhere. I get what I need and get out as quickly as possible. It’s hard to be conversational in the frozen food aisle, even about the low, low prices.
But back to my original thought: What’s the proper thing to do here? Take the open market, potentially be ripped off or get food about to rot, with the trade off of paying the guy growing the food (or someone less removed from the process, at least), and getting it closer to home? Or go corporate, get guaranteed quality and the higher price that goes with it, minus a bit of the human interaction? Where do you buy your vegetables?
Fithi Garza decided to tattoo his late brother’s name in Chinese on his arm. He did it in a back room in Dalian’s Nepalese Bar. There is, by my estimation, exactly one advantage to getting inked in the back of a Chinese laowai bar: the characters will probably be right.
Production notes: This was all done on my Canon point and shoot, as usual, and I’m pretty satisfied with the sound quality. Note to self: Get all primary interviews done before the subject’s friends show up with beer. Editing went faster this time. I think I’m getting the hang of this.
No way to know how long this will last. Flickr still appears at least partially blocked (checked using Safari), the same as it has been since June. Wordpress.com blogs are working again, too, at least for the moment. Blogspot doesn’t look to be so lucky.
At least now I can watch the next Heroes preview, and other weird crap like this:
Dalian is not the easiest place to stay on top of news. National news, sure, that’s everywhere, but local news? Not so much, at least not in English. About six months ago, a few of us here started working to fix that.
The result thus far is here: DalianDalian.com. Last week I applied for a Knight Foundation News Challenge Grant to fund the project, explaining it this way:
DalianDalian.com is a hyperlocal, community-driven site that will provide news, information and ways to connect for people living in Dalian, China. The city is home to six million people and a growing foreign population, divided geographically and linguistically among an urban center, rural suburbs and special districts. DalianDalian will use geographical search and integrated social networking to build links within and among this city’s disparate communities.
China’s second-tier cities are experiencing a boom in foreign investment and becoming more attractive to expatriate communities. For newcomers, the first year is often trial and error, full of horror stories of people living on instant noodles because they can’t find decent restaurants, of missed opportunities, of wasted time and money. When people arrive, there is no easily accessible, frequently updated source of information about the city.
Much of what can be found is scattered among blogs and forums, passed haphazardly by word of mouth, or in Chinese. Large media organizations rarely noticed Dalian until a few weeks ago, when the city hosted the World Economic Forum’s “Summer Davos” conference, and those that did come have since disappeared. But Dalian is being discovered: Intel is moving in, and the city is already renowned as an outsourcing hub, hosting IBM, Dell, HP and local firms. There is a growing need for people here learn about their community, to connect, to find out what is going on. Nothing currently available fulfills that need.
The site is being built in Drupal and will feature databases, maps, forums, and wikis. It will host and aggregate local blogs, sharing ad revenue with contributors to give everyone who joins a stake in the site. It will integrate existing web2.0 applications to build on and localize those social networks. Wherever possible, information will be posted in English and Chinese.
Eventually, we believe this model of an online, multilingual, interactive site could be adapted to China’s other fast growing second- and third-tier cities.
Unfortunately, the Knight Foundation wasn’t as enthused about the project as the rest of us are. The upshot is that we open-source software and content aggregation technology have reached a point where it’s possible to build quite a bit with little more than knowhow and spare time (working on getting more of both). Everyone doing this is a volunteer, each with our own reasons, each bringing a different skill set. It’s a fun project, and we’re trying to keep it that way.
