I forget if I’ve mentioned this on the blog before, but I’m taking three weeks off work in February to travel around China. Specifically, I’ll be hitting Chengdu, Xi’an, Luoyang, Kaifeng, and Zhengzhou before all’s said and done. I just finished planning out the trip day by day. The schedule I’ve created is probably pretty ambitious but here are some of the things it includes:

• Seeing the world’s largest Buddha
• Visiting the place where they breed Giant Pandas
• Marveling at the Terra-cotta Warriors
• Climbing a Daoist Mountain
• Studying Buddhist Cave Temples at a UNESCO World Heritage Site
• Taking in the famed Shaolin Temple, birthplace of Kung Fu

In addition, I’ll be visiting a ton of museums and temples, hopefully sampling some of the fine local cuisine, especially in Chengdu (Sichuan is famous for its spicy food), and, of course, struggling with public transportation from planes to trains, buses, minibuses, and taxis. Although my guess is I’ll have to cancel a few things every now and then in favor of resting (something I haven’t really built into my schedule) it looks to be a pretty amazing trip. I’m traveling alone, which is sort of lame, but it does allow me to do exactly what I want, and change up the itinerary if need be.

Here’s some footage of the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) madness outside my apartment and the madness they put on TV. I was going to go wander around outside, but I am currently deathly ill, so this is all you get.

[This is a post I just made for ChinaGeeks, but it seems like it might be worth posting here too]

Given that it’s right around the corner and not much else seems to be happening in the Middle Kingdom right now, this seems as good a time as any for a historical detour into the holiday’s origins.

First, the origin myth of Spring Festival (translated and with illustrations from this Chinese site):

Tradition has it that in ancient China there was a monster named “Year” with long tentacles on its head that was extremely ferocious. “Year” generally lived deep down on the ocean floor, climbing to the shore only on the Lunar New Year to devour livestock and people.

Because of this, every year on that day, people of every village, the old and the young alike, would flee to remote mountains to avoid being attacked by the beast.

This New Year’s Day, as the people of Peach Blossom Village were escorting the old and young to the safety of the mountains, an old man with a slivery beard and eyes that seemed to be sparkling came begging, his frame resting on a single walking-stick and his arms carrying a sack.

Some people in the town were sealing up their windows and doors, others were cleaning and preparing for the journey, still others were herding their livestock; the chaotic sounds of bustling, panicked people and horses were everywhere. No one thought to look after this old beggar.

An old granny from the town’s east end was the only person to give the old man a bite to eat and urge him to head up the mountain and avoid the beast. The old man smiled, stroking his beard, and said, “Granny, if you let me stay in this house for one night, I’m sure I can drive this ‘Year’ beast away.”

The old woman was shocked; looking closer she saw the beggar’s frame was hearty, that he looked spirited and poised. But when she continued to advise the man to go up the mountain, he simply smiled, saying nothing. The old lady felt it was hopeless; out of necessity she left her house and took asylum in the mountains.

At midnight, the “Year” monster burst into the village. He discovered that the scene was different than in years past; in the grandmother’s house on the east side of the village red strips of paper were pasted around the doorway, and inside the room a lone fire glowed brightly. The monster trembled, and let out a strange scream.

“Year” glared at the woman’s house for a moment, then screamed madly towards it. When he neared the doorway, the sudden “bang, pow” of explosions filled the air. “Year” quivered and shook, unwilling to approach the house again.

As a matter of fact, the things “Year” feared the most were the color red, bright flames, and the sound of explosions. The door to the old woman’s house burst open, and in the doorway stood a man wrapped in a red cloak, laughing uproariously. “Year” turned pale with fright and helplessly jumped upwards.

The next day was the first of the new year; as the people hiding in the mountains returned to their homes they were shocked to see that everything in the village was safe and sound. Suddenly, the old grandmother realized what had happened, and hastily told the other villagers of the old beggar’s promise.

Everyone crowded towards the old woman’s home, all they could see were the red paper strips, some unburned bamboo still exploding “bang!” in the courtyard, and a red candle still flickering inside the room…

The villagers were wild with joy, to celebrate this auspicious event they put on new clothes and hats and visited the homes of their friends and family to share congratulations. This news spread quickly through the surrounding villages; soon everybody knew the way to banish the “Year” monster.

From then onward, every year on New Year’s Eve every family puts up red scrolls, sets of firecrackers, and keeps candles brightly lit, keeping watch during the night. When dawn comes, they still go to the houses of friends and family and exchange congratulations. This custom continued to spread and grow as it was passed down, and became Chinese people’s most important traditional festival.

There appear to be many versions of this story, and many versions about the origins of Spring Festival (as one would expect for a tradition so old). Although traditions of celebrating the new year through sacrifices to the gods and ancestors may have started as early as the Shang dynasty (roughly 1600 B.C.E.-1000 B.C.E.), when the new year officially began doesn’t appear to have been fixed formally until the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). The origins of traditions are also difficult to date; the site that the above story is translated from says that the tradition of writing couplets on red paper for the festival began in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 C.E.)and that the tradition of posting 福 (happiness) on the door is from the Song Dynasty (960-1279 C.E.) or earlier, but no evidence is provided. The tradition of spending New Year’s eve with ones family, apparently, comes from the Wei-Jin period (220-420 C.E.)

A good amount of information on current traditions is available at Wikipedia for those outside China, those in-country are welcome to browse the Wikipedia page, but might do better just to go outside and watch the festivities. With all the firecrackers, it’s not like you were going to be resting anyway.

Well, the Spring Festival (i.e. “Chinese New Year”) holiday is fast approaching, and the traffic in this town has gone beserk. The roads are slick with ice, of course, but the number of cabs has gone down since people are going home for new years. The cabs that remain seem uninterested in actually picking people up, which has led to things like this:

Originally, after class today I was scheduled to be driven home by our driver, but I guess he was stuck in traffic or something and couldn’t make it so they told me to take a cab. After spending about 20 minutes trying to get a cab and being completely unsucessful (I even had one guy just drive away when I tried to speak to him) I decided to take the bus home in the hopes that I would have time to get home before I had to turn around and come back.

I got about halfway home by bus before our bus got hit by a car. This happened at extremely slow speed, and as far as I know, no one was hurt, but it also meant the bus was out of comission while the drivers yelled at each other, so many of the passengers (including me) got off in search of greener pastures.

Unfortunately, there was no bus stop near there, so I just started walking in the direction of home. After a while another cab came along that was actually willing to drive me to a place in return for money (imagine that!) and, about an hour and a half after leaving the place where I was teaching (a 15 minute drive from home) I got home.

I’m about to head back out there again for a class tonight. If the driver flakes this time, I’m really screwed, because I don’t know if this bus goes in the opposite direction, and it’s impossible to get a cab between 4 and 5:30 even on regular days (its when they change shifts), let alone days before the biggest national holiday.

Update: We left for the 5:00 class at 4:30, as scheduled. The traffic was so bad that we hadn’t made it to the school (generally about 15 minutes by car) by the time the class ended. I’m OK with getting paid to sit in a car and listen to “Ye Wen has Something to Say*” for an hour or two, but goddamn….

*This is a popular early evening radio show where people with romance problems (often cheating husbands or boyfriends) call a woman named Ye Wen and she yells at them. I can’t always understand it, but sometimes it’s really funny. I’ll probably make a post about it at some point.

Well, we’ve come this far. Here’s hoping we can keep going.

I came across this over at ESWN and figured I’d pass it along. It’s a website created in response to a Chinese internet phenomenon called the “50 Cent Party” (五毛党, no connection to the rapper). This is basically a name for what is allegedly an army of people being paid 50 cents/post by the Chinese government to support and emphasize the official line in topics on internet forums, especially topics about sensitive issues that haven’t yet been “harmonized” (sarcastic Chinese internet slang for what happens to website that threaten China’s harmonious society). I sort of doubt the government is actually paying anyone anything, as Americans know well, nationalism comes free in the face of adversity, and many Chinese perceive foreign countries to be perpetually picking on China, so there you have it.

Anyway, not everyone in China likes the “50 Cent Party”. In fact, someone was apparently nice enough to make them a website, which reads as follows:

50 Cent Party Web

Hello, 50 Cents,
Please give my regards to your mother.

50 Cent Party Web, No copyright, Pirates don’t care [about this].

And yes, the “give my regards to your mother” has exactly the same meaning in Chinese as it has in English.

(Your mom has exactly the same meaning in Chinese as she has in English. Burned!)

For a more thorough discussion of the 50 Cents Party, please see my recent post on ChinaGeeks.

I would describe it as the hands-freezingest pretty thing I have ever seen.

I seem to be unable to go more than a few months without starting a new internet project. This most recent one has consumed my attentions for the past few days, and is finally launching today. It’s called ChinaGeeks, and it’s a blog dedicated to providing well-written news stories and opinion pieces as well as features on topics ranging from Chinese history and philosophy to modern Chinese literature. Head on over to ChinaGeeks.org and check it out.

I’m also currently looking for people to contribute stores, essays, articles, photos, whatever. If you’re at all interested, even if it’s just in writing one article, let me know! This isn’t meant to be a personal blog.

Today as I was leaving school, I happened to be walking out right behind one of my students and his uncle. His uncle asked him what his English name was, and how to spell it, but the kid is so young he doesn’t know how to spell it himself. He turned around and saw me there, so I told him the spelling anyway, and then corrected his uncle several times because he kept repeating it incorrectly.

When we got outside, the student turned to me and said in Chinese “Teacher, I’ve heard you speak Chinese very well.” His uncle, without looking and before I could respond said “Nonsense ["废话," which, incidentally one of my favorite Chinese words]! Look at him!” I figured what the hell, and said to the student (in Chinese), “My Chinese is OK….not good enough, I think, though.”

Needless to say the uncle was pretty floored, but he got over it quickly and during the half-block that we walked together he started asking me about ways to study English. We stopped at the intersection and as we were chatting, the student looked up and me and said “I can’t tell if he is Chinese or a foreigner.” The Chinese he used made it clear that he meant it was clear whether I looked like a Chinese person or a foreigner; although he’s only 6 I think he might have been taking a clever stab at his uncle for having said “Look at him!” earlier (the implication, of course, of his uncle’s sentence was ‘he’s a foreigner so there’s no way he can speak Chinese’).

Ah, sometimes being a foreigner in China is truly amusing.

Anyway, in site news, you may have noticed I have added a category to the menu on the left called Best Posts. These are the posts that, in my opinion, are the funniest, most interesting, most poignant, most original, and/or the posts that took me a long time to write. You may think all of them are crap, but in the future all posts I think are good will be added to this category, and I have already put all previous posts that are good into it, so if you click on it now, you will see the posts I think are the most essential. If you’re new to the site but don’t want to read through the big backlog, start there!

(P.S. Comment! Is anyone still reading this blog?)

Right before my website was blocked here, a very, very strange thing happened to me. I had planned to write about it then, but the blog got blocked, the holidays came, and somehow the story got lost in the shuffle. Those of you who know me personally have heard it already; for the rest of you, well…enjoy. I swear this is all true.

One Sunday morning I got a notification from the woman who writes our schedules. There was no text, just an attachment. The attachment was laid out like the forms we get informing us that we have a new class, but it was all blank, except for the Notes section, which read thusly (I have not edited this at all):

We have the report now and already gave the paper to EAC. He needs to read this report during the meeting ,he needs to wear the suit (formal clothes ) ,he should practice this report before the meeting ,he should divide the report into four small short sections , and during the reading , when he finishes one small short section , let TA translate ,the whole report should read like this .

Needless to say, I was a bit confused. I also didn’t have a copy of the “report” it referred to, a formal suit, or any idea when the hell this was supposed to be happening, so I sent my boss an email. Turned out, “the meeting”—whatever the hell that was—was the next morning. I got no further information as to what this was, or what it had to do with teaching English (which is what my job is).

I was already annoyed because it meant that I’d have to cancel my afternoon Chinese lesson to go hunting for a suit. Then our office manager gave me the “report” I was meant to read at the “meeting”. It read thusly (also not edited at all, it came with the typos):

Honorable Ladies and Gentlemen:
On behalf of the Palestinian Mother Poole of Britain, let me express my sincere greetings to everybody.
China is a great country with long history and brilliant civilization. Far from the beginning of the 20th century, the rapid development of agriculture in China indicated that of China was the leader of the world.
For the carrer of “Biscay”, my three years working in China has got great support and help from all governments and relative regions. The series fertilizers of “Biscay” obtained recognition and welcome from Chinese farmers.
I have joined in the “Biscay” conferences many times. But today, except for pleasure, I a, also very astonished that Biscay could develop so fast from south to the northeast China, and got great effect. Until now, Biscay has covered more than 20 prvinces of China. It is inseperable to the hardworking of the Chinese staff.
British Mother of the Palestinian Poole is an organic enterprises of research, technology promotion and international trade. The vice president of the company has served in the International Food and Agriculture Organization, known as the “Father of Fertilizer” in Britain. We have close cooperative relations with agricultural research and the most advanced technologies. “Biscay” exports to more than 100 countries and regions in the world. It provides security for the agricultural development and people’s physical and mental health.
In 2009, the headquarter plans to provide 5,000 tons core raw materials to China to assure enough source of manure, and thereupon the maximize profits for dealers and farmers.
I’m sure “Biscay” will bring constructive and profound impact to Chinese agriculture !In conclusion, I wish the meeting a complete success and merry Christmas.

Needless to say, I became a bit concerned at this point. Aside from the obvious spelling and grammar errors in the “report” I was being asked to give, it was becoming increasingly clear that this didn’t have a damn thing to do with English teaching. At best, I suspected I was being brought in to represent some British company solely because having a white person makes your business look better; at worst, it seemed perhaps I was being asked to impersonate a poop vendor.

The next morning I met up with my “translator” (one of the Chinese TAs from our school) and we got into a sketchy van that drove us to a hotel lobby in the middle of nowhere. On the ride, the TA filled me in a bit on what was happening. I was not “representing” a British company, I was in fact impersonating an extremely high level executive. This executive had gone home for the holidays, but apparently a Chinese company he worked with wanted him to make a token appearance at this meeting with yet another company, probably to impress them.

That’s where I come in. With my goatee, roguish good looks and tie (I wasn’t able to find a suit, or even a sport coat in time), I didn’t exactly look the part, but apparently everyone was hoping that nobody would notice this. This made me more than a little nervous. Then my “translator” asked me if I could answer “professional questions.” I looked at her like she was crazy and she said OK, she would try to deflect them. Oh, good. This was going to go great.

We got there and were met by a whole bunch of people who hustled us over to the room where the meeting was taking place. My “translator” subtly reminded me that I was the boss of everyone (as far as they knew), so I should try to act the part. Whatever that means.

The room, as it turned out, was set up sort of like a press conference. There was a table in the front with microphones and eight or nine seats. Places for important people like the Chinese company executives, local agriculture experts and even the provincial agriculture minister. And, of course, me. Opposite the table were probably two hundred seats full of people. Several different people were filming the meeting and more were taking photos; it was quite clear the press was there.

I sat down at my place and spent a while trying to figure out what the hell my shiny nametag, which read 查理斯, meant before I realized it was the Chinese approximation of Charles, my name. So, I’m supposed to be impersonating some British excrement merchant using my own name? I began to suspect that our ruse might not fool anyone.

Not that I was really trying to help pull it off. I was pretty annoyed with the whole situation, so when called on to give my speech (only after a length and very polite, deferential introduction in Chinese) I gave it verbatim, bad grammar and all. Anyone in the room who spoke English would certainly be puzzled, but I suspect I was the only one who understood it or was even listening, since my “translator” was reading the Chinese version of the speech.

After I spoke, we sat at the table, pretending to listen to speech after speech about how great “Biscay” is, all in Chinese. Most of these speeches were prefaced with kind words and thanks directed at “Mr. Charles”, generally in Chinese, but occasionally even in halting English. I’d nod to them and go back to sleeping with my eyes open.

The aforementioned “Biscay”; this is their Chinese name.

About an hour into the process, apparently the people who hired me began to be concerned that the ruse might not look as good as they’d originally hoped. Via the “translator”, they asked me to lean over and talk to the guy next to me at the table. That way, people watching us would think we knew each other (presumably from our previous business dealings?). The guy next to me was an agriculture expert from a local university, but he seemed much less rabidly enthusiastic than the others. In fact, he looked about as bored as I was. I didn’t know if he spoke English, so I leaned over and told him in Chinese that they had asked me to pretend I was talking with him. He seemed unfazed by this.

Right before it was about to end, they remembered they were supposed to give me water. I wasn’t thirsty, but I was bored, so I opened it and promptly spilled some on my tie, creating a gigantic dark spot.

Then the meeting broke for lunch. We wanted to jet quickly before anyone got a chance to ask me any questions or figure out what was up, but everyone wanted to take photos with me. Some of them wanted to talk business, too, but I pretended I didn’t understand what they were saying and the “translator” deflected their requests for business cards and the like. Anyway, somewhere, there are photos of me shaking hands with some of the highest-level movers and shakers in Heilongjiang’s agricultural field!

And that’s it. We fought through the photos and got out clean, if somewhat weirded out by the whole process. I’m still pretty uncomfortable with it on principle, and I still don’t know why they chose me to go (rather than, say the old British man who loves acting and also works on staff here. No seriously, there actually is a guy like that.). It does make for one hell of a story, though…