Sometimes I remember why I'm here

A snapshot of my life, because I'm too busy right now for anything more extended than a snapshot:

* Ice-cold beer served in a chilled clay mug at the local izakaya. Bamboo mats and friends, and an all Japanese menu that we can't read, so sometimes there is random pointing.

* Open-air terraces overlooking serene, cicada-droning Xihai Lake.

* Staying up all night one year before the start of the Olympics, 08.08.07, trying to crowd into Tian'anmen Square to watch the festivities and mainly just taking in the mood. Getting cordoned off by police. "Working" all night to support our photographers who were out shooting from dawn to dusk - but our "work" came in the form of banana- and ginger-spiced rum, blowing bubbles by the Houhai bridge and watching the sky grow light. No sleep until 10am that day, after the brightest sunrise at the Temple of Sun, and champagne, and much photography.

* Baking, and becoming unexpectedly famous for vegan chocolate cake - unexpected because I almost never baked before, when things like ovens, baking soda, chocolate, butter were ubiquitous. Now that they're a rarity, I find myself making cakes every week.

* Sitting on a rooftop drinking whiskey, clambering up to the top, talking, spilling things. Someone buys me a cowboy hat, and we laugh, because it is ridiculous looking. Someone else has a guitar, and then I eat a pickled pepper on a dare. And it's just another Sunday night before work.

* A beach volleyball match between China and Beijing - my first time in a stadium. Such dazzling lights!

* Playing frisbee beneath a forest of office towers, with the security guards watching amusedly. I jump like a starfish, apparently.

* Late night bike rides through tiny hutongs, and from Fourth Ring to Second Ring, and down Chang'an Dajie at 2am with the wind blowing and the streets quiet, and a lone man leaning against the lamp post. Yes, I love Beijing.

* And those gorgeous days of blue sky after the smog, after the rain - you don't have that same exhiliaration when you see blue skies everyday.

China can't stop the madness

Today at work someone asked me if I could know a random statistic from my life, what would it be? I of course wanted to know how many cups of coffee I've had, and how much I've spent on coffee in total. Rent, I remember, says something similar: "How do you measure a life? ...In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee..."

Somewhat related is the fact that I've been out every night from Tuesday through Saturday - a personal record for me. But not all of it is happy - friends leaving Beijing and having goodbye get-togethers.

I've also had a brief brush with the Beijing police on Friday night - which was considerably more than I've ever interacted with them anywhere else. For some reason we decided that it'd be a great idea to bike into the construction site of the new CCTV tower - possibly the most sensitive construction site after the Olympic stadiums - and, you know, check it out. So the security gate was up, the guards were just lounging, and we zoomed straight in. Nevermind the guys shouting at us or the security guard who gave chase on his own bike - we were pretending, I guess, not to understand or speak Chinese. But unfortunately, the road dead-ended, so we stood around and stared at all the night construction until the fuming security guard caught up and escorted us out. It might have been over then, but as it turns out, the security guard was extremely upset (he was definitely justified), called the police and proceeded to guard us. Keep in mind that we were all somewhat tipsy at the moment, having just come from drinking cold foaming beer. And the cops arrive!

But as it turned out, I didn't get to go to the police station, becasue as my friend rather chivalrously assured the cops, there was no need for me to go. So I'm sorry to have missed the "after party", you know, the part where they question you and threaten to take your money or keep you overnight, but end up just letting you go.

And the best donuts in Beijing are in Shunyi!

it's unbelievable, but...

There's free internet in the Hong Kong MTR stations.  And everything is shiny, and new, and dazzling. But everything is also so expensive! I did get a free ticket on the Airport Express though (by virtue, apparently, of telling the British man behind me that the ATM wasn't working.) I also got a job offer on the airplane, even before I revealed where I went to colege. Hmmmm. Perhaps this Hong Kong trip will be longer than expected :)

5 weeks & counting: books, more books, Vietnamese deliciousness, hong kong,

...that I've been at my new job. Has it been so long already? I can't remember who links here and how, so I don't want to say too much: if you want details, you must email. But it's true, I'm back in book publishing, specifically English books on Beijing, China, Chinese culture, & the like.

It's not Let's Go and never will be, which is not to say that one is better or worse. They're completely different in method and methodology, and if anything, this is even more relaxed than what you might expect from an office of college students.

In other news, it seems that I will be abroad for yet another Harry Potter release (by abroad I mean in a non-English-speaking country). Let's cross our fingers that the Chinese bookstores ordered enough copies to survive the expat-onslaught - I now regret not pre-ordering, even though this time I was vaguely determined not to get into the anticipation. Ever since Book 5 (Phoenix), I've become more ambivalent, though that didn't keep me from running around Munich trying to grab a copy of Half-Blood Prince the day of my flight to China. More than that, I dislike endings, I don't want closure: I prefer to think that the story goes on somewhere, that the adventures continue, that somewhere someone is telling the tale.

That said, there's plenty of books I love more, and recent reads too. Good Omens is one of them, the perfect blend of humor and speculation and a brilliant dash of the unexpected and the whimsical. It'll turn on your head all your expectations about good & evil, demons & angels—who knew that they could work so well together—and of course, the end of the world. It also has a self-fulfilling prophecy in the foreword: your copy of Good Omens will invariably get damaged in some way, possibly in the Vietnamese ocean.

(Speaking of which, I had real Vietnamese coffee today, at the Vietnamese restaurant at Wanda Plaza. Definitely the best pho I've had in Beijing so far, though the broth could have used more flavor & depth: fortunately there were chilis and sweet chili sauce to add some zing. Crowning moment definitely the rich, aromatic, real Vietnamese coffee, served in individual drip filters and poured over a tall glass of ice cubes. Nothing compares.)

I'm heading off to Hong Kong in 2 days, where I will replenish my stock of English reading material as well as Lush soaps. Yes, this trip is definitely becoming pricey, with all my planned purchases, and then just think of all the unplanned ones!

I was here 2 years ago

Two years ago, perhaps even to the day: it was sometime in mid-June
that I was wandering around Vienna for the Go. The sun was golden, the
coffee strong and delicious, and I hopped on a train out of town, past
a Hundertwasser trash incinerator to Stift Klosterneuberg.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/travel/17cultured.html?ex=1339732800&en=3017cc0439e9c313&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

My most vivid memory of the monastery, though, is not of all the art
and treasures or the winery, but of forgetting my notebook full of
*all* my Vienna research at the monastery, which is on top of a hill.
And I only discovered this when I was at the train station, at the
bottom of the hill and a bit further off. So it was a mad scramble up
and down the hill to get my notebook before the train comes in 20
minutes. It might have even been the last train back to Vienna -
whatever it was, I was panicking. But somewhat to my surprise, I did
finally make it in time though :)

Everything I learned about bathroom cleaning, I learned at Harvard

That above statement is completely true. I've never been so glad to have done Dorm Crew as when I was scrubbing down the bathroom tiles of my new apartment. (Landlord: We cleaned it! Look how clean it is. Later: I watch grubby water run down the tile walls...)

So, yes, I've moved out of Beida to the wonder and craziness of living within the 2nd ring road of Beijing. I am right next to old hutongs / new business buildings / the Olympic Media Center / dirty wangbas / spas and salons that may or may not be dodgy / and exercise-loving men and women who love to play badminton at 6:30am. It's a bundle of joy.

No, honestly, I quite like living here. I quite also like my new job, esp. when we spend much time buying Olympic tickets online / going for walks to mango shaved ice / having long random lunches / being otherwise silly. No, but we work too, and the work's great. General positive enthusiasm on all fronts!

That's all for now because the mosquitoes have sapped away much of my blood & willpower to continue.

my heart's desire: grasslands, at long last!

Continuing my promise from the last, oh-so-long-ago post, Xiahe. Because I want to indulge in nostalgia, and anything to procrastinate from the business of moving.

Nomads, Tibetans and travelers alike, come to Xiahe, which perhaps may be why it's surprising that it's still a one-street town. Ten years ago there was only a dirt road, and dirt houses. One year from now, there will be an airport.

Xiahe's Labrang Monastery is the largest center of Tibetan Buddhism outside of Tibet proper. (The majority of Tibetans have historically lived outside of the actual region of Tibet. They're scattered through all of western China.) The town is a curious mix of the pious, who walk for miles from the neighboring grasslands, the world-hungry, most of whom come from outside China, and the business-savvy, who see Xiahe's potential as a destination — the more accessible Tibet, one of the last holy places to evade Han influence.

Labrang is grand and glorious. Much of this I didn't photograph, because it wouldn't have come out anyway. And you can sense the "terrifying beauty" from the sky, too. I didn't also want to be the traveler who sees everything as his chance for the perfect shot, the perfect picture.

It's hard to say whether the monks were victims or beneficiaries of tourism. Certainly a bit of both. Interest in Tibetan Buddhism, revenue, a slice of the outside world come into this remote valley, versus having people come and look at them everyday, snapping their photos without permission. Anyway. Some of them seemed to be cool with it. Some seemed...bemused, or downright disapproving. They're also supposed to be quite well off.

Surrounding Xiahe are expanses of grasslands, and mountains, and cliffs. If you go south, you reach the lovely highland forests of Sichuan, and to the west, the more desolate plains of Qinghai.

Prayer flags in the wind, atop the mountain pass. Qinghai beckons in the distance.

I would like to be under the great sky, says Rilke. Shelley is overjoyed at her first grasslands. And sheep.

We met her and her friend along the road. She's 28 years old, and married, with a 12 year old son already. She wanted to know if we were married, and surprised to hear we were 22 and single. They were very curious about our cameras, so I took some photos and showed them. Later we took a picture together.

Our driver was an easy-going guy about our age. His name meant "Bright Pearl of the Qilian Mountains", somewhat girly I'm afraid. He also wore sunglasses that gave him an odd insectoid appearnce. He offered to take us to Ba Jiao Cheng, an ancient city from the AD 200s, once a site of strategic importance back when the Han fought the Uighurs fought the Tibetans fought whatever Central Asians that decided to maraud down that day.

DRIVER: Let me take you to Ba Jiao Cheng!
WE: What's there?
DRIVER:
A wall.
We: ... What's so cool about the wall?
DRIVER: It's really
thick.
WE: ...
Anything else?
DRIVER: No, not really.
WE: You make a very convincing argument. Lead the way! But first let's sit
here on the road for 30min. so you'll drop the price by 10 RMB.

And so we did sit, and so he did lower the price. But it turns out that the Ancient City was far more interesting than its "really thick" wall, because of the crowd of Tibetan children who turned up when we arrived.

I suspect they're there regularly, actually, because appparently Chinese tourists give them sweets and snacks. I didn't know this, but after some moments of awkward ni hao's and smiles and how old are you questions, I thought chocolate would be a nice interlude. It turned out that that they were mildly suspicious of the chocolate, which I broke off from a larger bar, so I had to eat a few pieces to demonstrate.

They were eating it silently (were they enjoying it??) when a second car came up. Out leaped a Chinese man, who immediately began flinging mad, mad handfuls of fake-Oreos to the kids. My fear that they didn't like sweets was unfounded afterall: a flurry of plastic wrappers went up into the air. Conclusion? Fake oreos will get you farther than Belgian milk chocolate.

So we spent most of the time hanging out with the kids, watching their mothers do laundry. Their mandarin was elementary (they were about 10-13 years in age and were attending the nearby school), so we got by on very limited conversation. Their mothers spoke only Tibetan, but seemed equally amused by us.

It was hard to leave though, because this village was so remote, hidden from the rest of the world by cliffs and grasslands, with only a narrow dirt road tying it to Xiahe. We are so transient - visitors come and go all the time - bringing in pieces of the world out there, but in such small, disjointed fragments - how can they grasp all this in the context of their own lives?

Travel boggles the mind, sometimes.