life of 80

Many Chinese people wear t-shirts with badly translated English on them. My favorite said “Fantastic Banquet Machine”. I haven’t a clue what the intended phrase might have been.

I took one day this week and did all the tourist things in Beijing. I went to the Forbidden City (above), the Temple of Heaven, and the Summer Palace. It was a quick whirlwind tour day, but I had fun with some tourmates I met from Germany and Australia.

Although I’ve been here for 16 days now, I’m still overwhelmed by the number of people. It’s easy to logically know that there are several times more people in Beijing than there are in all of Minnesota. However, it is another thing to experience it. There is never a time when the streets are empty or even very quiet. This picture was taken when we were buying some tickets at a rail station.

However, if you get a couple of hours outside of Beijing, it is very different. Earlier this week we took a bus to Huai Ruo again and then a scenic mountain van ride to Dadi, a village where they’ve installed a biomass gasifier for cooking gas. University of Minnesota- Morris, our employer, is currently installing a biomass gasifier to create steam heat for the school. Dadi is a village of about 200 people, so the un-announced arrival of 2 foreigners was probably the most interesting thing to happen there all week. Mr. Yang, a very nice community member, was nice enough to show us how the gas was working in his home. He even made us lunch and arranged for us to see the gasification equipment. Well, maybe arranged isn’t quite the right word. He woke up the guy that loads the biomass into the gasifier. Mr. Yang makes a living by farming and his daughter, who lives with him, is a teacher. They have a very simple home, heated by burning wood, but he had a TV that is bigger than mine.

This will likely be my final post from China as we fly out tomorrow. I feel very lucky that I had a chance to witness the city life of Beijing, the modern pace of Shanghai, as well as the rural lifestyle of Huai Ruo while I’ve been here. It’s really been a wonderful trip. However, I will admit that I’m looking forward to my own home. School starts in 5 days, so I’ll be keeping busy in Minneapolis.

Rachel, I’m not sure if you are still in Australia or what, but this one’s for you.

This is a picture taken from the hotel where I’m staying in Beijing. I think it is interesting because in the lower part you can see a fairly old set of buildings. Don’t get me wrong- these folks live a pretty modern life, but the homes they live in are old and simple. In the top part, past the traffic, you see high rises where a majority of people live. I’m sure you can find this kind of juxtaposition in the States, but the “old” buildings are never really that old.

There are also some examples of very modern large skyscrapers that I have seen. The Jin Mao Tower is one example. Here are some other buildings I thought looked cool. One has the first “flexible glass curtain wall”, whatever that means.

Here’s a stadium that’s going up for the Olympics (okay I didn’t take this picture, but I did drive past it on Friday).

Just to update, we did end up with internet at the hotel, so we were feeling more care ness.
One of my favorite things about being in China is trying all sorts of different foods. I’ve had many standards, like jiaozi (dumplings). We have had baozi (some type of vegetable wrapped in breading) and other bread-like items for breakfast a couple of times. We mostly get these in small shops where they are steaming them right outside. It is super cheap, less than a dollar for 2 baozi. But we mainly eat in sit-down restaurants. We had some food that comes from Western China, where people speak a language that is closer to Middle Eastern and look more Middle Eastern as well. I think I’ve drank more tea this week than ever before in my life. I will admit that I still drink a fair amount of Diet Coke and we did have Pizza Hut pizza one night.

I also had a chance to go to Nanjing Road here in Shanghai. It’s the Times-Square-type area with tons of tourists and lights everywhere. There are mostly clothes and jewelry shops. I’ve apparently taken the standard photo here.

Last night Alex and I went to the Jin Mao tower, which is an 87-story building in the fast-growing Pudong district. Among the architectural marvels of this area, there is a skyscraper going up that appears to be 30 stories taller than Jin Mao. Inside Jin Mao tower, you can see all the way from the 85th floor down to the Hyatt lobby on the 54th floor. Alex aptly describes this view as similar to the scene in Star Wars when Luke is fighting Vader. After taking in the dizzying lobby view, we headed up to the bar on the top floor and had some very expensive drinks, but the view was worth it.

One hilarious thing about China is the bizarre English translations everywhere. Our Shanghai hotel slogan is something like, “Experience more comfortable, feel more care ness.” Incidentally I have not been feeling much care ness lately with that hotel. They initially put us in this nice big room, bigger than a standard American hotel. But then they said the internet didn’t work in that room and put us in a standard room. But the internet didn’t work there either. They said the next day they would find us a room with internet. When we returned on that next day, they had put us in a tiny room (the wall is about 2 feet from the end of the bed), but guess what? Still no internet. Maybe they’ll get it right tonight. Or maybe it is a funny joke they are playing on us and tonight we’ll be in a closet with no internet.

I spent the weekend in Huai Rou, which is a couple of hours outside of Beijing. Many people in this area host city-folks on the weekend as a country get-away. We stayed at a place that Alex had stayed at several times before and they remembered him right away. They were great hosts and treated us very well. We slept in rooms off of the main area and they fed us very well. They also made us drink Yangjing beer and lit firecrackers when we arrived. In the afternoon, we attempted a pretty aggressive hike up to the Great Wall, but the beer, jetlag, and heat got the best of us and we only made it halfway. We relaxed all evening and had more delicious food for breakfast.

We are now in Shanghai, which is more modern and more expensive than Beijing, but we are still struggling to find things like internet cafes. We are currently masquerading as Marriott Hotel guests to get the free wifi in their lobby, which is on the 38th floor with an incredible view. You see highrises all the way to the horizon. It’s really hard to fathom how many people live here.

The clouds are moving very fast because of the typhoon off the coast of south China. I hear the weather in Minnesota is a bit stormy as well. I think we’re done with jetlag now, so hopefully I’ll get wittier and more entertaining!