Blogging
From Abroad

狮子林 (shizilin – Lion’s Grove Garden) and 网师园 (wangshi yuan – Master of the Nets Garden) are two of the other most well known gardens in Suzhou. Two out of 250+. Seriously.

网师园 is actually on the World Heritage List, along with that other famous Suzhou beauty spot, The Humble Administrator’s Garden.

We actually managed to hit both in the same day one lazy summer afternoon… 狮子林 by day for the incredibly involved rockeries and 网师园 by night for their “Night Entertainments” (a selection of traditional song/dance/performance styles being conducted in the various halls and rooms of this rambling garden complex.)

First, some photos of 狮子林...

How can anyone get that kind of detail out of a wood carving?

I love these droplet-shaped doorways…

John attempting to kiss the girls and make them cry…seriously, he knew what was going to happen…

...totally, totally asking for it…Natalie is a sweet woman, but she definitely knows how to draw the line…be it with a gentle reminder or her palm against your face… ;)

Akatsuki conquers the rockery…

Yuki leads the way through the rock maze back into the light…

Julia looking forever cool, calm and collected…

Pavilion!

Hall inside of the pavilion…

Trees…

This is such a rip…but fruit stands and sellers abound on the streets in China…some, like this cherry seller, play up the kitsch factor by doing things like individually binding cherries into small bunches and selling them from faux bamboo baskets and such…it’s funny sometimes to see the store bags and boxes tucked away somewhere so things can appear fresh of the vine…now that I’ve said that, I have to confess that this marketing ploy gets me almost every time…

After 狮子林, Julia, Jillian, Yuki, Wendy and I went out to dinner. I had the opportunity to consume frog again (which is very good, surprisingly) in addition to trying fresh bamboo shoots and sprouts. Honestly, I have never eaten anything like fresh bamboo. The canned things we sometimes eat here in America in no way compares.

A close-up of the soup…this was so good, with tofu and Chinese sausage and quail eggs and everything…that’s a change for me, because normally it seems like Chinese soups are made from raw (and often whole) ingredients being boiled together in a huge pot of water with some salt and MSG thrown in…

We met up later that night at 网师园 (wangshi yuan = Master of the Nets Garden) for their inafamous night entertainments. Basically, they do a show at night in the halls of this former residence that’s a mashup of various traditional and regional performing styles. Groups move from one hall to the next to partake of singing, flute music, theater, puppetry, dancing and other performances.

Arguably the best performer there…

Dancing…

Theater…

Night view of the gardens from atop a rockery…

Singing one of the most well-known duets in the Peony Pavilion, my favorite opera…

Flute music…

So, yeah…Chinese gardens. A trip to Suzhou or anywhere near is incomplete without them.

虎丘 (Hu Qiu – Tiger Hill) is a site with a very layered history in Suzhou…over the years it has been the location of many historical happenings, including famous speeches, famous battles and famous burials. To paraphrase Art Spiegelman, it simply bleeds history. Some of these events stretch back circa BCE (into the Spring and Autumn Period), and others have happened rather more recently.

The site itself takes its name from a legend regarding the death of King 阖闾 (Helu), ruler of the Kingdom of Wu and friend of 伍子胥 (Wu Zixu – remember him from my Dragon Boat Festival post?), He died in 496 BCE while fighting the Yue and was buried in the hillside by his son. Three days after his burial, a white tiger supposedly came and sat over his grave as though guarding it. Thusly Tiger Hill is named.

---

The instinct to carve your initials into a tree must be universal…

Yuki and Graham claim this rockfall/sculpture/craggy dam in the name of WVU…

...then Graham promptly climbs up a tree and hides.

“Clouds melted in tea fragrance.” We should learn a lesson from place names like this…no longer will we have E. Moore Hall! Rather, it is now to be called Manor House Glistening By Azaleas! ;)

Yuki and Aka pausing before continuing our near-vertical climb to Yunyansi Pagoda.

George, Yuki and Jillian doing what they do best…making strange faces at the camera… ;)

A startling resemblance to the previous shot!

Tiger Hill cresting off in the horizon…

Finally! The pagoda at last! This is actually China’s answer to the leaning Tower of Pisa…it leans about 359 degrees northwest and is huge!

A detail of the facade…

Leaning almost completely backwards against a fence to get this shot…

Natalie…

One of several Buddhas and altars scattered around the hillside…

This was, apparently, the place to be…you couldn’t walk anywhere that you didn’t stumble over a memorial or a rock carving or somewhere that hundreds of people were killed…

Two Faeries Pavilion…

Thousand People Rock…supposedly after completing work on the tomb for King Helu, his son had all the workers driven together to stand on this rock where they were ritually murdered and then buried with his father…the remains of these workers have never been discovered, but they are assumed to indeed be buried here along with the approximately 3000 ancient swords that King Helu was known for having collected…this rock is supposedly stained forever red with the blood of the dead…and, indeed, it does look a little pinkish…a little…

Zhen Niang’s Tomb…

The Stone Peach…actually nothing that special, just a rock shaped apparently like a peach pit…I like trivial things like this scattered throughout huge historic markers…

Sword testing stone…note the giant crease in the middle…this site is famous for 干將 (Gan Jiang) and 莫邪 (Mo Ye), a famous swordmaking couple who supposedly fashioned master swords at this spot…

Han Han Spring…this is named after a cute little legend involving a young monk and his hardworking, honest character…

And, of course, boating…

One of the park staff took this photo of us…we only took, I think, two complete group shots during the entire trip…

---

For further information, check out this link—虎丘 ...

端午节, or the Dragon Boat Festival, is actually something that calls for a little explaining…I’m breaking my photoblog promise here so this isn’t horribly confusing to anyone…

---

端午节 (Duan Wu Jie) is a national holiday in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan that is known as the Double Fifth because it falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Ostensibly it celebrates the ritual protest suicide of patriotic poet 屈原 (Qu Yuan), a poet/courtier/official during the Warring States Period (circa 5th century BCE – 221 BCE). 屈原 is mythologized as being a very honorable and moral man in a time of great political upheaval and corruption. His most famous work, 離騷 (Li Sao – The Lament) is a moving entreaty to his emperor to reject the advice and counsel of bad men before the entire kingdom falls…and is also a plea for reconciliation on his behalf. (屈原 was banished a number of times during his career, fluctuating in and out of favor on a regular basis.) What’s interesting to me about the Li Sao is that 屈原 takes on the metaphor of a cast-aside concubine reproaching her lover while reminding of all the good times they’ve shared… which is obviously a novel idea to a student schooled in our drier Western political texts which in no way contain an atmosphere of Harlequin-esque romance…I have a hard time imagining George Washington penning a similar sonnet to Great Britain, that most callow and dastardly of womanizers… ;)

Anyway.

After the Ying capital was captured by the state of Qin, 屈原 drowned himself in the Miluo River in Hunan Province. Supposedly upon learning of this sad happening, local villagers went out in boats to retrieve his body…some throwing 粽子 (zongzi – glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves) into the water to keep the fish from devouring his body while they searched…thus a national holiday is born! Today the celebrations of 端午节 are all about dragon boat races, making and eating zongzi and, of course, not going to work or school.

But. In Suzhou where we were studying, there is actually ANOTHER HERO celebrated on this day…伍子胥 (Wu Zixu). His story is remarkably similar to 屈原’s, only his suicide was forced by his corrupted king and his story takes places about 150 years before that of 屈原. 伍子胥 is considered to be the first ancestor of anyone with the family name of 伍 (Wu) and there is a shrine built in his honor in Suzhou. So instead of memorializing 屈原, in Suzhou this holiday is all 伍子胥 all the time. 伍子胥, in passing, is infamous as being one of the chief architects of classical Suzhou, was a friend of 孙子 (Sun Tzu) and is supposedly mentioned in that classic treatise, The Art of War…or so I’ve been told, having never read the work myself…but, yes. 伍子胥 is Suzhou’s local hero.

However. Many historians now believe that the holiday actually has nothing to do with either of these fine gentlemen and is rather an ancient agrarian harvest celebration centered around a ritual offering of the harvest to the river god (aka Dragon King)...so, instead of having much to do with patriotic fervor, it instead was a festival of dragon worship masked by the superimposition of these two later myths overtop of this much older one. Just FYI.

---

My class was lucky enough to be able to attend a Confucian ancestor honoring ritual performed by the descendants of Wu at his shrine in Suzhou. We were given yellow honored guest scarves and taught how to make zongzi before a city-wide television audience…which was a bit strange but nowhere near as nerve-wracking as being interviewed for the numerous TV stations and newspapers who published/aired our limited Chinese comments around town that night.

I was the first to get interviewed (thanks to an innocent demonstration earlier on our bus of that little bit of cultural familiarity also published above, my classmates pointed me out to the news crews right away when they asked to speak to someone who knew about the holiday…that’ll teach me). Before the morning was done, I had performed three very awkward interviews in Chinese and one easier interview that Wendy translated for the audience in English…I believe almost everyone in our group was interviewed at least once. At one point (as I was wildly searching for a new descriptive term that I hadn’t already used numerous times to describe my thoughts on China/Suzhou/伍子胥), I looked around and noticed Graham in furious conversation with a newspaper reporter while Natalie was being filmed awkwardly folding bamboo triangles around dry scoops of rice…an interesting day.

The best part of the festival was watching the dances and performances by community troupes, as well as being able to witness the Confucian ritual (which involved offerings of food and ritual sacrifices). I never expected to be able to witness something like that while in China and found it very, very interesting.

Enough talk! Onto the photos!

The colorful and fragrant bag charms bought for the holiday…

Yuki and a statue of 伍子胥...

Across the river from the memorial park…

A community dance troupe performing before the ritual…

Dragon Flag!

Family flag…

Memorial tablet for 伍子胥...

The interviewing begins! Wendy speaking first to the first film crew…

Turning the camera back on the news crew…they were actually a bit uncomfortable when I started taking photos of them, strangely enough…

Their credentials…and the air time of my first interview…

The statue and altar of 伍子胥...

Offerings to the right…

Offerings to the left…those 包子 (baozi – stuffed steamed buns) look 很好吃 (hen hao chi – delicious)...

I love this photo…a mother teaching her daughter how to give obeisance to her ancestor…

What would be a Dragon Boat Festival without 舞龙 (wu long – dragon dance)?!?

And here’s the point where I had the horribly scary realization that I was being watched…like, a lot…even after already interviewing. For the next several hours I worried that I would be captured on camera stubbing my toe of accidentally littering…

I have no idea how long he was standing there. I seriously only realized he was recording me after seeing this photo on my playback screen of my camera.

The sacrificial altar…

Making zongzi…

Watching our every movement…

Megan enjoying the finished product!

‘

All told, a completely fascinating and unforgettable experience.

I was reading Eric’s final article today and realized that it’s sadly time for me to depart, too. With the traveling and then the recent deaths in my family (not only my grandfather, but my boyfriend’s beloved grandfather and uncle have both passed away in the past month), not to mention the start of school and my hectic club schedule, I haven’t finished those final postings yet. In order to make way for our new bloggers from BOKU (and to get to the remaining 50% of the trip that I haven’t touched), I think I will just finish out my stay with a series of photoblogs. As always, if anyone has any questions about study abroad in China or about any of these places or events, please contact me. I would love to talk and to meet you.

Aside from being the home of Suzhou, Nanjing and Wu culture, 江苏省 (Jiangsusheng – Jiangsu Province) is also renowned for producing 昆曲(kunqu – Kun Opera). This operatic style actually takes its name from the town of 昆山 (Kunshan), which is very, very close to Suzhou. Given Suzhou’s much-espoused status as a cultural interchange capital, it is easy to see how Kun Opera has also become associated with Suzhou. Thus, Suzhou itself has a fantastic 昆曲博物馆 (kunqu bowuguan – Kun Opera museum).

So. On a drenched Sunday in June (the infamous “rainy season”), Wendy and I found ourselves pouring through local tour books and internet guides attempting to locate this fabulous museum we had heard so much about. As is often the case with all the best things in China, it took some serious digging to uncover an address…and, of course, it was in a very hard-to-reach part of town. Anticipating the hassle to come over giving the 师傅(shifu – literally “master worker” but here meaning taxi driver), directions on how to reach a place we had never been, Wendy and I felt the need to fortify ourselves first with dumplings. Oh, but we do love our 饺子 (jiaozi – dumplings) and our 包子 (baozi – steamed buns). :)

We stopped at this chain place in the big shopping district of Suzhou, mostly because we were with someone who was splintering off there but also because this place has these amazing fish dumplings. (Sadly for me, it seems most dumplings are pork or beef mixtures, so I am very excited by seafood dumpling soup.) The best part about these fish dumplings is the spicy chili broth they are in – usually dumplings are accompanied by near-tasteless bowls of what basically amounts to the water that the dumplings are cooking in with some seasonings and scallions sprinkled in. Sometimes it really will be just the water the dumplings are cooking in with no embellishments. I will never understand this, though Wendy has explained on repeated occasions that simply consuming the dumplings alone is considered unhealthy.

While there, Wendy managed to talk me into eating yet another something I would never imagine consuming on my own: duck’s blood soup. According to Wendy, this was a regional specialty and one she had been really looking forward to trying. I am apparently a complete pushover for a dare, so we ordered a bowl.

The duck’s blood is the dark chunks floating in the broth. For those looking to vicariously experience this dish, read on. For those who don’t want to know what duck’s blood is like, skip the rest of this paragraph…ready? It’s somehow congealed (maybe with gelatin of some kind?), and then maybe lightly boiled like an English pudding and sliced into bite-sized strips. It’s definitely unique…has the texture of flan and a dark, salty, metallic taste…I don’t think I’ll be having seconds, though. Ever again. ;) In some places, they serve it in giant, Jell-O Jigglersesque chunks that are a bright, bright red…as it if has barely gelled…

Moving on from lunch…

As it turns out, the 师傅 had no idea where this place was, so it was very fortunate that Wendy: A. had a map; and B. is a native speaker and my Chinese teacher…we were able to work this out. We arrived outside of the museum which, in addition to housing a beautiful display on the history of Kun Opera, also had audio guides to their collection IN ENGLISH (awesome) and a full-sized stage where live performances are held on Sundays and other special occasions.

Here’s some photos from the inside…

At the same time Wendy and I were in the museum, a couple of Kun Opera buffs were getting their engagement photos shot…in costume…I think they looked great, personally, and couldn’t resist snapping a shot or two…

The had miniature models of famous stage designs, too…

The outdoor stage…

Costumes…

And here’s a video…it’s from the 牡丹亭 (Mu Dan Ting – Peony Pavilion), a very famous Kun Opera of which this is a very famous duet…it’s also one of my favorite works, in music as well as in storyline…

So, yeah. Sunday at the Kun Opera Museum.

It would be an inexcusable thing to talk about Suzhou and China without talking also about silk…here’s some photos from our visit to “Suzhou #1 Silk Factory”...I’m not sure how I feel about silk now that I know it’s obtained by boiling the silkworm whole in it’s cocoon, though…it’s a shame, though, because embroidered silk is so beautiful…not to mention there’s a much more humane way to harvest the silk…namely, waiting until the silkworms hatch into moths…

Silkworms chowing down amidst the mullberries…

Sorting out the cocoons…

The sad boiling process…

This machine weaves patterned silk…it’s almost like an old player piano…the wooden sheets folded up like an accordian alongside it play the pattern through the machine, which then appears in the silk…

The finished products…

Yuki and Jillian checking out the merchandise…specifically, the 旗袍 (qipao) or Chinese style dresses…in an interesting side note, if you change the tone of the word qipao from second to fourth, it refers to an air bubble… ;)

On another interesting side note…one of the patterns produced in the factory is on a laptop bag I have at home…purchased, I believe, at TJ Maxx…when I told this to our tour guide, she told me I had to be mistaken…well, what do you think? The first photo is from the Suzhou shop, the second is one of my friend Shari and myself taken at the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC last year. Does the fabric look the same? Anything to make a sale, I guess.

Weeks after my WVU language instructor, Lin Laoshi, suggested it…here is my first post on Chinese gardens.

---

Gardens in Asia are very different from gardens in the West. When Westerners think of large, imperial grounds, we generally think of gardens like those at Versailles…places where nature has been trimmed and tamed into defining something obviously synthetic out of a tangle of wilderness. Traditional western gardens usually contain elements (such as ornate fountains, benches and statues) that are meant to stand out in stark relief to the natural world…these focal points are often the centers of our gardens. We adore the beauty of bright flowers so much, many gardens contain large splashes of blossoms in unnatural multitude and abundance. The beauty of many Western gardens is upheld through a rigorous schedule of pruning, trimming, and shaping, often with the goal of turning a natural object into an unnatural shape (such as our predilection with geometrical formations and mazes). Creating an order from the seeming chaos of the natural world is a foremost concern in Western gardens. While certainly these gardens are very beautiful and often elaborate constructions, rarely can we forget that this beauty lies in an intricate carving of the synthetic from the natural, on an imposition of man’s wants onto his surroundings.

Chinese gardens, on the other hand, are designed to highlight the best expression of the natural world in a way that facilitates connection with nature. They were often the sheltering place of those seeking refuge from the problems of the world, and were thus designed to provide a kind of spiritual and poetic catharsis to their inhabitants. Essentially they were to symbolize all the necessary and good things to be found in a return to nature, and were meant to serve as reminders of such. Many plants (such as pine and bamboo), represented esoteric concepts such as purity, longevity, faithfulness, persistence and strength of will. This focus on the natural, however, did not preclude its own thorough version of planning. The following is excerpted from a Wikipedia entry on Chinese Gardens:

“To be considered authentic, a garden must be built and planned around seventeen essential elements: 1) proximity to the home; 2) small; 3) walled; 4) small individual sections; 5) asymmetrical; 6) various types of spatial connections; 7) architecture; 8) rocks; 9) water; 10) trees; 11) plants; 12) sculpture; 13) jie jing (borrowed scenery); 14) chimes; 15) incense burners; 16) inscriptions; 17) use of feng shui for choosing site.”

It’s an amazing feat to make something so rigidly planned appear so effortless and natural, as Chinese gardens do when you walk through them.

---

So. That’s all well and good, right, but what does it have to do with Suzhou?

To borrow once more from Wikipedia (I do love that site, don’t I?):

“Gardening in Suzhou reached its height during the Ming and Qing dynasties. There were over 280 private gardens then in Suzhou and landscaping became an art with established masters…sixty-nine gardens in and around Suzhou are still in good condition. In 1997, UNESCO added four of the private gardens of Suzhou to the World Heritage list, extending this in 2000 to include the historic section of the city and five other gardens in the area.” It is also worth noting of the four most famous gardens in China (Lingering Garden and Humble Administrator’s Garden of Suzhou; Mountain Resort of Chengde; Summer Palace of Beijing), two are located in Suzhou.

Suzhou, therefore, is renowned for its gardens. Which I spent ample time exploring. Here’s some photos of one of the most famous gardens of all, the Humble Administrator’s Garden

---

Julia in the garden…

I love the way gardens and scenic spots are named…

Wendy by a lotus pond…

Graham literally hiding in a pile of rocks and reading…

This bonsai tree is older than the US Constitution…

Aka conquers the rock maze…

Matt in the garden…

Most Americans who have traveled abroad can probably relate to this…there you are in a foreign country, dazzled by all the new sights and sounds, so you find yourself wandering the city streets when suddenly…you turn a corner and are confronted with what I like to call McCulture Shock.

I call it that because, for me at least, it usually involves a McDonald’s, although I have had the same experience with KFC and Pizza Hut.

The first time I experienced McCulture Shock was in France, I think…that was the first time I had ever entered an American fast food chain in another country…I went up to the counter to order and discovered that the McDonald’s Francais menu carried not only McChicken sandwiches, but also espressos and that quintessential French sandwich, the croque monsieur…or, as it is known in McSpeak, Croque McDo…(excuse my borrowed photo, I don’t have any France pics on my laptop…this is from CNN.com)...

And then at a later date in Spain…McGazpacho…

There are few things I feel I really have a bead on in life, but what to expect at a McDonald’s is generally one of them. Upsetting those assumptions makes my world tilt off-kilter.

So. I thought I was prepared for China…I’ve been abroad many times before, I’ve had culture shock and I know what it feels like, I’ve been to Asia before so I know how different it can be from Western nations (even Europe was still reminiscent of America in many ways to me)...I was mentally geared up and it was just not going to happen in China…until there I found myself, wandering the streets of Suzhou, only to turn a corner and be confronted with this…

A little something I can only call a McRickshaw.

我就喜欢 (wo jiu xihuan) means “I really like it”...or, in McSpeak, “I’m lovin’ it!”

---

Other things that catch me unawares…

Often in cities people will carry giant water thermoses to a water heating station once a day, instead of boiling their own water, using their thermoses to make things like tea and noodles…

Traffic is always surprising to me…especially the conspicuous absence of traffic police and the fact that cars do not slow down for pedestrians in crosswalks, nor are bike lanes solely relegated to bikes (ever see a bus zip down a lane 1/2 the size of the vehicle?)...apparently, neither are sidewalks solely for pedestrians (bikes are very common, cars and vans are not unheard of)...walking in China is a bit weird at first, because you have to learn to walk exactly in a straight line and to look backwards before moving in any other direction (mostly because of motorbikes speeding up behind you)...you also have to learn to listen for bike horns and to quickly sidle to the edge of the sidewalk when you hear one…no joke, this will happen over and over and over again each time you go out…anyway, here’s hour two of a huge traffic jam in Xi’an, which basically occurred because the drivers inside of this roundabout wouldn’t allow others to go first, so a complete state of gridlock was achieved with our bus caught directly in the middle…now, nobody would back out or move, either, until each driver got out of his/her vehicle and consulted with all the other drivers at length over who should go first and who should do what…I don’t know how it ended because I was heading to the train station, so we just got out and walked sometime into the second hour…

Pulling an animal head out of a cooked dish also gets me every time…hello, chicken!

Clothing habits get me too…for example, there’s a big trend of women wearing nude ankle-high stockings (AKA footies) with highly ornate heels and clothing that does not cover their ankles, leaving the band of the stocking visible…

...then there’s the traditional way of dressing potty-training children…crotchless pants…

...and there’s the habit of men folding their shirts up around their midriffs…

...all those take some getting used to and are usually when I realize I’m not in Kansas anymore…and the culture shock starts setting in.

So, yes. McCulture Shock. Somebody should write a book about it before McDonald’s licenses it.

Maybe it’s the Olympics and the season (or maybe my blog is just that fascinating), but I have been receiving a lot of e-mails lately asking for travel advise about China. So I sat down this morning and came up with a rambling list of the things I think are most important. This is based solely on personal opinion and experiences, though, so take it with a grain of salt. I hope this helps point interested parties in the right direction, if nothing else.

---

ERIN’S UNSOLICITED ADVICE AND TO-KNOW LIST ABOUT TRAVELING IN CHINA

1. Be Adventurous

Do not hermit away in your dorm room/hotel room and do not spend all your time at KFC/Pizza Hut/arcades/clubs or only hanging out with other international students/fellow travelers. Basically, do not create a Little America during your stay in China. Don’t get stuck in the tour group mindset where you have a carefully coordinated and chaperoned experience of the largest tourist spots only. Go out walking without a plan. Stop at places along the way. Stop at that cruddy dive restaurant. Go into the clothing store. Don’t fear getting lost or being unable to communicate so much that you spend your time in China staring at the same four walls, or solely interacting with fellow travelers. Do your own research and plan your own stay. Make friends and go places with them. Take the initiative and invite them out somewhere. Be curious – if you see a food that interests you and you don’t know what it is, taste it. Ask your new friends what they enjoy doing around town, what restaurants are good and what KTV places are the best. Go to the night markets and buy DVDs and CDs of popular movies and music, even without knowing what they are about or what they sound like. Ask questions. As permission if you are unsure. As my mother used to tell me when I was growing up, “The worst they can do is tell you no.” You will look silly sometimes, you will probably get lost, get sick or make some ridiculous verbal mistake…but that’s all part of life and all part of international travel. If nothing else, think of the good story that experience will make (for example, I have had some ridiculous transit-related escapade in every country I’ve ever visited, much to the amusement of my friends and family).

2. Really Try Chinese Food

Odds are if you live in the West, unless you are the exception, the food you refer to as Chinese is anything but. Actual, honest-to-goodness Chinese food is very different what you get at the buffet or the take-out up the road. In fact, many of our “Chinese” dishes were actually modified or created outright to suit Western tastes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chinese_cuisine

It will be different…it will contain vegetables you’ve never seen and animal parts you would not find on the menu on Texas Roadhouse. There will probably be bones in everything, including fish (which are usually served whole). You may not have any idea what comprises the food you are putting in your mouth…dish names do not indicate the cooking method and the ingredients (for example, one of the most popular eggplant dishes has a name that is something like “almost as good as fish”, and yet contains no ocean flora or fauna)...be adventurous, take a guess and try something new. Try something you’d never imagine eating in a million years…chances are, you’ll be very surprised…just don’t seek out General Tso’s, Fried Rice and Sesame Chicken in every restaurant you come across.

3. Chinese Restrooms

Not all rest areas in China have toilet paper and/or sinks to wash your hands in. Seriously. In fact, depending on where you are, many don’t. It was by far the norm during my travels to come across a place that didn’t rather than a place that did. Also, there’s a little something up with Chinese toilets that you will probably come across sooner rather than later…

This is a Chinese toilet. No, I will not describe it any further and, no, I will not explain how to use it. ;) That can be part of your own travel research and experiences. The only thing I will say about these is something a friend once told me while I was visiting Kyoto many years ago as a high-school exchange student…”there’s only one rule for using a squat toilet – exhaust all other options first.”

Usually these are tucked inside of ceiling-high stalls, affording privacy while you navigate with difficulty something 5-year-old Chinese children do with ease…sometimes, though, you will come across what is known as a 你好 (ni hao) bathroom…ni hao being Mandarin for hello...see if you can figure out why they would be called this from the photo below…bear in mind – Jillian, Yuki and Natalie are all standing straight up in their stalls and they all are between, maybe, 5 foot 2 through 5 foot 4 inches tall…

Don’t get flipped out just yet, though. Western-style toilets are by far the norm. Just don’t be surprised to encounter one of these every now and again…especially in older districts and establishments.

A WORD OF SERIOUS ADVICE: Bring toilet paper/hand sanitizer/personal hygiene products with you wherever you go. Seriously. Just do it.

4. Be Prepared To Be Close

As one of my professors is fond of telling me, the idea of personal space is somewhat foreign to most Chinese. It is, after all, one of the most populous countries in the world…one that has a social structure emphasizing social relationships and obligations…so it should come as no surprise that Chinese people are close, physically and emotionally. It’s not considered rude to ask questions about someone’s weight, income, age and marital/romantic status. People will touch you, move you and brush against you without apology on the street in a way that doesn’t even happen on the NYC Metro (it’s not considered a violation, so it’s not exactly rude). For example – I was on a flight from Shanghai to Tokyo where my seatmate (a 50+ professional on a business trip), began asking me detailed questions about my income and my personal expenditures in the course of a routine conversation about the American versus the Chinese economy. In Suzhou, shopkeepers would often hold clothing up to my body and begin checking for fit in a way that only my mother and my grandmother have ever done to me. New acquaintances would ask me about marital and childbearing prospects…it’s all part of the territory. Offering advice or taking on the role of a go-between in some problematic situation is also common (less so among the younger generation, though). If this happens to you (as it likely will), don’t be offended or put off – just realize this is a part of Chinese culture and that you’re just having a culture shock moment. After the shock passes, you may find the honesty and the forthrightness behind those gestures to be very refreshing.

5. Language, Language, Language

If you are traveling in the mainland, the lingua franca there is Mandarin as we call it, 普通话 (putonghua) as they call it. This is also true for Taiwan. However, in places like Hong Kong and Singapore, the spoken word is generally Cantonese (AKA yue). All this in addition to the numerous方言(fangyan), or regional dialects, within China. On top of this, in the mainland a simplified character system is used in the written language (where strokes have been streamlined and condensed to aid retention), whereas traditional characters are used in other places (like Hong Kong). How different can this be? 国 (S) versus 國 (T) indicate the same word.

However…don’t allow the intricacies of Chinese to scare you off from delving deeper. Chances are very high (especially in the mainland), that you will be placed in situations where the other communicative party does not speak English…after all, you are in a different country and English is your tongue, not theirs…what to do?

Well…I would recommend learning at least a few key phrases…here’s a site with good information and good links:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/chinese_spoken.htm

The largest part of making yourself understandable in Chinese involves pronunciation and tone (for example, the words for mother and horse are the same…the tone with which they are pronounced is what determines their meaning). This obviously presents a problem to the beginning language student, especially if you are studying on your own. If pronunciation and memorization turn out to be real problems, I would recommend purchasing a photo dictionary. These are small books that contain a variety of simple photos and drawings which can be quite simply pointed to. It’s surprising how effective that kind of communication can be.

6. Planes, Sleeper Trains, Public Transport and Taxis

Getting around China is easy with a little know-how. Obviously, the quickest way to get from city to city is by plane. However, flights are by far the most expensive option for travel…in addition to the fact that you miss out on the experiences and scenery of these other methods…so, do as most Chinese do. Take a sleeper train.

Tickets for these trains can be bought at train terminals . Hard sleepers are the cheapest…but, honestly, these things are incredibly crowded and small (6 small cots per space, 3 per each wall)...it’s basically a series of small metal cots studding open alcoves, more like storage then bedding, with no privacy…expect to be sharing space with families with small children and, on occasion, animals (I traveled for 36 hours on one in the company of chicks and ducklings, believe it or not)...if you are traveling in a group, pay the extra money and get a soft sleeper. These are individual compartments on the trains (4 beds per), usually with individual TVs or radios per bed (which are softer, larger, couch-type beds). These will have individual hot water carafes to hold your boiling water, in addition to being much quieter.

Soft Sleepers:

Hard Sleepers:

Feathered Traveling Companions:

There are also sleeper buses…these are cheaper than trains and will take you through many tiny little cities and on many strange roads. These can be kind of a scary experience, as it’s almost guaranteed to be a Chinese-language only trip through what will appear to you to be the middle of nowhere. And you’ve never seen a roadside dive until you stop at a “bus stop” during one of these rides (packed earth courtyards with open water spigots and doorless urinals, anyone?) Unless you are traveling with some friends and speak a fair amount of Chinese, don’t do it. If you meet those conditions, it can be quite an interesting way to see parts of the countryside you’d never see from a train.

Remember, also, to bring food with you on the trains and buses. The trips can be long and there are no vending machines. There’s usually hot water on the trains to make noodles and tea, but bring whatever you want to eat with you. (Some trains have dining cars, but don’t hold out for it…they’re not open 24/7, and the food can be kind of mediocre and expensive). At many train stops, there will be sellers with carts of fruit, vegetables, drinks, foods, magazines and cigarettes. There’s also often stores or restaurants in the train stations.

Taking a taxi from place to place will usually be relatively reasonable…just remember that your driver most likely doesn’t speak English…minimum fares vary from place to place, usually starting no cheaper than 10元 for a short hop…the only problem with this method is that often taxi drivers will note that you are not Chinese and will try to inflate the rates. This is so incredibly common, especially around tourist areas and travel hubs. They do this usually by immediately quoting a price that is 5 or 6 times what the actual cost is or by not turning on their meters once you are inside and then charged you an inflated rate upon arrival. There’s no full-proof method for avoiding this difficulty (off-duty taxis do the same thing), but if you avoid taxi hawkers and go to taxi stands (located outside of airports and train stations), queue up with everyone else and look for an official-looking taxi that quotes their price per kilometer on the side, in addition to having a meter installed in the front dashboard. This photo is from the Shanghaiist (great blog) and is what a meter generally looks like:

That paper sprouting out of the top is the receipt. The meter is generally on if the little flip sign above it that indicates the taxi is available is pushed down. You’ll hear the buzzing, printing sound of the receipt being readied and the meter kicking on once its been started. Do not be afraid to barter or argue with these drivers, or to insist that they turn on the meter (请打表 – qing3 da2 biao3). Don’t be afraid to simply get out of the taxi if you feel uncomfortable, either. Just don’t do it on the middle of nowhere. ;)

Jitneys are also very common and should be avoided unless it is absolutely not possible to do so (these rates will always be hugely inflated.)

Public transport is dirt cheap…usually 1元 a ride, or some such…obviously, subways are nice because they’re quick and universal…public buses are good, too, although this form of transport can become ridiculously crowded. Just remember that on a Chinese bus, etiquette demands you turn your body away from the aisle and the people across from you and look out the window of the side of the bus you are on. In the West, we tend to turn away from the people we are hovering over and to look out into the middle of the aisle or on the ground, maybe out a window further up or on the other side…this is considered weird in China. If you walk onto a crowded bus in China, expect to see a row of standing passengers presenting a line of backsides all the way down the aisle. Do the same.

Or, you know…do what most people do. Walk or, like Yuki and John, ride a bike.

A WORD OF SERIOUS ADVICE: If you are traveling in China, you MUST get the addresses of the places you will be going to/staying at written in Chinese characters for you. If you can’t do that, at least get a working telephone number for your destination. Do not expect your taxi driver or passersby to recognize an address written in English. First of all, the pinyin (if it is correctly translated, which it often is not), will not contain those essential accent marks so you will not be able to decipher it to pronounce it correctly…(we’re all guilty – I don’t use correct pinyin on this blog when I type, either)...also, pinyin requires training to read for the native speaker as well as the foreign student (it’s a transliteration system, not a writing system), so many people just will not know how to read what you’re showing them…on top of all this, places and streets are often “Westernized” for hotel/hostel/tourist reservations and information…Phoenix Banquet can actually turn out to be something completely different in Chinese. :( I cannot tell you how many times I have come across a group of tourists/students waving a guidebook or a printout of with a Westernized address in the face of a completely bewildered taxi driver.

7. Learn To Barter

You just will not be able to get away without doing this. Very rarely will a price in a store not be negotiable, unless it’s a department store or convenience store or some such…most of the tiny little boutiques/stands/shops you come across will have negotiable prices, so you will be expected to barter. Also keep in mind that many of the goods you are buying are most likely knockoffs…and that the shop clerks will lie outright to your face if it means you will buy something. I had a shopkeeper in Guilin try to tell me that this BOX OF JAPANESE YOMOGI MOCHI she was peddling was a Chinese regional specialty only produced in this one place in all the world…even though the lettering on the box was in Japanese, of which I read some to her…even though it had a photo of Mount Fuji under an embossed print of cherry blossoms on the back of the package… ::sigh::

I’m going to have a separate post on this later, so that will contain more detailing tips and information…in the meantime, just realize that you need to be willing and able to negotiate, and to call somebody’s bluff.

8. Pack Wisely

With one of the few highly favorable exchange rates left to US wallets, not to mention with so many interesting and valuable goods available for purchase, you WILL buy something while you are in China. Even if you aren’t a big shopper. Even if you only have thismuch room left in your suitcase. Even if you only have 5 bucks left to your name. So pack as lightly as you can. Airlines are restricting weights and bags more as each day passes, so every pound counts. You can buy many personal care products for the equivalent of nickels and dimes once in China – about the only thing you can’t buy is clothing/shoes if you are tall or larger than a women’s size medium. (The same goes for men.) Chinese sizes are very, very small – a women’s size 12, for example, hovers somewhere between a 1X and a 2XX in the Chinese market…if you are of a more diminutive size, you can find many great bargains and deals that double as souvenirs. Otherwise, bring everything you think you’ll need with you, because you won’t be buying it once there.

---

That’s about the most I can think of at the moment, so I hope that helps any of you looking to travel in China. Completely seriously, going to China was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I really encourage anyone interested and able to do the same, and would be more than happy to answer any other questions about China through e-mail.

In the words of my friend and instructor, Wendy, I am “completely obsessed with tea”. (Note that this is often said in a tone of exasperation.)

She teases me a lot about this because, as my final project in her Chinese Culture class last semester, I researched an incredibly detailed and…okay, I’ll admit it…LONG…project on the politics and cultures of tea in China and its effect on international relations. (I think it says something when your professor tells you it’s too long.) As part of my presentation, I even brought thermoses of tea into the classroom with plastic cups and tea snacks (imported by Vonson’s from a Suzhou bakery for the occasion)...ever since then she’s been accusing me of a fixation. Which is a blatant untruth. I just really, really, really, really, really like tea. A lot.

As I wrote about in an earlier post, one of the first things that Wendy and I did upon arriving in Suzhou was to partake of a very pricey tea ceremony at a teahouse outside of the Cold Mountain Temple. I was completely ecstatic and had to restrain myself from constantly clicking away with my camera…not so successfully, as it turns out…

At home I think I have 23 varieties of tea from 8 different countries, 7 teapots and innumerable teacups, tea scoops, tea strainers and other tea accoutrements (Western and Eastern). I have a set of silver demitasse spoons I picked up in Northern Ireland, 3 complete cream and sugar sets (matched to specific teapots), hand-molded cups from Zenclay in Morgantown, a set of Moroccan teacups a friend brought me from Spain…this list could actually go on for quite some time. Now I also have a suitcase full of 碧螺春 (biluochun) and 龙井 (longjing) teas, not to mention various 乌龙 (oolong) and 普洱 (pu’erh) varieties, to drag back home stateside. There’s also the small matter of a complete gongfu cha tea service set that Wendy haggled down for me that comes with a bamboo serving box/tray, tea scoops, towels and picks, plus a Yixing teapot and teacup set to serve six. That’s taking up some space. That and the 5 books on tea culture that I have also purchased while here.

On second thought…maybe Wendy has a point…

Regardless.

Here is the second in my three-part postings about tea! Suzhou teahouses and Suzhou pingtan, to be specific.

---

Suzhou is known for a very special type of green tea…it is, as I’ve expressed before, my favorite…碧螺春 (biluochun). Instead of talking further about it here…here is a link to an excellent e-Report on how biluochun is harvested and made. The author presents a much clearer depiction than I ever could, in addition to detailing a step-by-step photographic journal of the process itself that he/she was very lucky to have been able to document…basically, I just think this article is really cool…

http://chineseteas101.com/articles/biluochun.htm

Partly because of this fact and partly because of Suzhou’s position as a cultural epicenter for artists and the literati, Suzhou has a very well-cemented reputation in southern teahouse culture.

In the north of China (like in Beijing), when you visit a standard teahouse (not the giant extravaganzas like Lao She’s…also in Beijing…), you will probably witness the Chinese ritualized tea preparation in varying degrees of elaboration (depending on where you are, what you’re drinking and how much you’re paying). These steps in a Chinese ceremony are all to increase the pleasure of consumption, but they can still become pretty elaborate. Even sharing a cup of oolong with a friend can become an event. However, in the south, you are much more likely to have your tea brought out to you in the teahouse already prepared and waiting for consumption. Instead of the tea ritual being central to the event, southern teahouses often offer music and performances.

What you will no doubt be treated to in Suzhou is a special type of performance composed of Suzhou pinghua and tanci (storytelling and ballad-singing), known collectively as Suzhou pingtan.

Suzhou pingtan are these local ballads and stories, which may or may not be accompanied with music, performed in the Suzhou dialect. (For those of you unfamiliar with the dialects of China, in addition to what we call Mandarin and Cantonese each town has its own local dialect that can be completely unintelligible for outsiders. China is a very large landmass with very, very many towns…so you can imagine how many dialects there are. Pretty daunting, isn’t it?)

There seems to be some established ritual for these events…every time I’ve seen it performed, there seems to be at least two people (generally a man and a woman to sing duets), each playing an instrument (usually the woman plays lute-like instrument called a 琵琶 – pipa and the man plays what I think is called a 双清 – shaungqin)...the stage is generally set with a table and chairs where the performers sit virtually motionless while they perform…there are also these long, embroidered silk cloths that are draped over the chairs and tables, which is often the only decorative touch aside from screens or paintings towards the back of the stage…in this setting, the focus is solely on the sound and the music…

Here’s some photos of a night out in Suzhou at a teahouse…

I particularly enjoyed the tea snacks at this teahouse…pistachios, fresh fruit, melon seeds…in addition to how kind and informative the other visitors were. This teahouse is owned and operated by a former Suzhou pingtan performer, so night after night the place is packed with his friends and coworkers, singing together and just enjoying tea and music. It was nice to hear him take the stage, because he had a beautiful voice and it was obvious how deeply he enjoyed music…he also spoke very good English and spent some time with us of his own accord during and after the show chatting about pingtan and Suzhou’s musical culture…he was so good and so full of information, it was almost like having an expert guest lecturer just pop out of the shadows…

Here’s a photo of him (obviously, if you can’t tell, I have no idea how to write his name), the female singer (another person whose name I don’t know how to write), and some of the group that was there…there were actually a couple shots like this, taken by kindly strangers in the audience, but unfortunately nobody else had brought a camera to the show and my camera is difficult at best to maneuver (it doesn’t have very many automatic settings)...this is the best of the bunch (even though Natalie has been cut off at the arm) and even this is after Photoshop…but here we all are…I’m at the far right in the back, towering once again over most everyone…

---

One of my (many) recent purchases was a DVD of famous Suzhou pingtan and an accompanying book describing famous songs, singers, history and musicians…surprisingly for me, after I brought the DVD back I noticed that some of the scenes from it are available on Youtube…so, here you go. Brew yourself a cup of tea and press play.

The Ballad of Du Shi Niang

An excerpt from Dream of the Red Chamber…if you go to Youtube, click on “More Info” to get an English translation of this one…I should also explain that this clip contains magic, because there are times when she quits playing but the music continues on… ;)