SPRING IN DALIAN
May 2005
Spring has finally arrived in Dalian. Most of the trees have bright green
foliage, red and yellow flowers have been planted in the parks, and the days
are in the mid 60s to 70s. With the warmer weather, we try to take
more
walks and explore different parts of the city. We spend our days teaching,
reading, surfing the internet, watching copious amounts of pirated DVDs and
walking around. We still don’t speak much Chinese and get by with gestures
and a few words, although we continue to learn a lot about the culture and
personality of the country through our adult classes. In general, our life
here is pretty routine and carefree. So what I’m really saying is: I don’t
have much to write an e-mail about. Nevertheless, I’ve scraped together a
few stories to provide you with your weekly dose of life in China.
Rain & Sewage
When it rains in Dalian, the city feels empty. The sidewalks are void of
fruit sellers and stalls, the buses are spacious, and our classes have a few
less kids. And when it rains too much, the sewer manhole cover that is
conveniently located two-thirds of the way up the steps to our apartment
building overflows. This has happened several times since we’ve lived
here, and, since it rained heavily two days ago, it is still happening at
the very moment that I am writing this. A waterfall of liquid muck cascades
down the very steps we must walk up to reach our building. The other
residents who use the steps try to divert the river to one side of the steps
by putting various objects on the steps like rocks, dirt, weeds, sticks,
glass bottles and a red sweater. Whenever the sewer stops overflowing, the
objects remain and the stench hovers.
Falun Gong
One day while we were walking to our trolley stop, one of the fruit sellers
on our street ran up to Zac and put a piece of paper in his pocket. It had a
few sentences written on it in Chinese. We took it to one of our friends to
translate, and it turned out the guy was trying to tell us about Falun Gong.
As you may know, Falun Gong is a slightly odd religion that has been banned
in China. (I can’t look it up on the internet to give you more details
because all of the sites about it are censored in China and therefore
blocked). I don’t know much about it, but our friend, Candy, said that they
convince people to cut out their stomachs and kill themselves in a cult-like
fashion. Again, I can’t verify this because I can’t search for it on
the internet. About a week later, the man gave Zac another piece of paper
with more proselytizing on it (in Chinese). Seeing as how all of this had no
effect on us, one day the man gave Zac a tape player and several tapes, all
in Chinese. I’m not sure what he expects from us, exactly. At any rate,
we’re not cutting out our stomachs any time soon.
The restaurant at the bottom of the stairs
We’ve nearly given up on cooking and instead eat at restaurants a lot
because it is cheap and the food is good. In the beginning, eating out was
quite impossible because we couldn’t read the menu. However, we soon
realized that most restaurants offered the same foods so now we have our own
menu, written in both Chinese and English, that we always carry with us.
When we go to a restaurant, we point at the dish we’d like on our menu, and
they usually have it. We also figured out the key to a good cheap restaurant
is to go to the small ones (no more than six tables). There are lots of
these tiny family-owned restaurants in our neighborhood, and we tried a
couple of them before we finally tried the one that was right at the bottom
of our sewer steps. When we finally went in there, after walking by it for
two months, the lady didn’t smile at us. Perhaps we insulted her by walking
right by everyday. She indicated that she knew we lived nearby by gesturing
to us, then our apartment building, then making a motion for sleeping. We
nodded vigorously and apologetically. But the cook smiled at us, and he is
the important one. She gives us rice and tea, but he gives us platters of
delicious food. For Y24 (less than $3) we get a pot of tea (that tastes like
coffee), two bowls of rice, a platter of spicy diced chicken with peanut,
and a vegetable platter. It is enough to feed both of us for two meals, so
we always take half of it home. One time, we ordered spinach with garlic. As
we were waiting and looking out the windows, I noticed the lady come out of
the next door vegetable shop with a freshly bought bag of spinach. “Look
Zac, she just bought our supper.” Within a few minutes, the spinach was on a
steamy platter in front of us.
Our hill
Behind our apartment, there is a hill with a sidewalk on top. For exercise
and to enjoy the view, we occasionally walk to the top. We can see the whole
city from our hill, plus the ocean to the south and north. There are usually
many other people on the hill as well. One time, a group of people with a
digital video camera videotaped us, then videotaped them talking to us, then
had Zac videotape them.
Don’t tell Sera!
In my adult class, our topic was dilemmas. I gave each group a dilemma they
had to solve. Robert’s solution involved bribing a government official
because “they are poor but powerful, so they are very good to bribe.”
Immediately, the rest of the class yelled at him, “Don’t tell Sera that! You
cannot tell foreigners bad things about us!” They continuously try to
protect the image of China and will avoid any bad news about China. Another
example is that one day we were discussing SARS and Kelly complained about
the health official who kept it secret, then resigned when it came out, only
to be appointed to another high position in a different government
department. Then too, the class was horrified that she would say bad things
to a foreigner. I said it was OK, the same thing happens in the U.S. all the
time. “Really? Ok, then we don’t feel so bad.” It’s quite strange how
sensitive they are. But this time, about the bribery, Michelle piped up,
“Yes, but I think it is a part of development to admit the bad things.” The
class pondered this for a while, but in the end seemed to agree.
Construction and destruction
Ever since the weather started to warm up, Dalian has turned into a
construction zone, especially near our school. The sidewalks have been torn
up for weeks,
and they appear to have put two additional traffic lanes where the sidewalks
used to be. Watching the construction process is painful because they seem
to
keep making mistakes. We will go to school and a new sidewalk will be laid
down. When we get out of school, it has been all torn up. The next day they
are doing something different. This particularly bothers Zac.
Today
Today was a beautiful day. We took a walk along the road that winds through
the hills next to the ocean. On our way back, we went near the amusement
park,
where some girl took our picture with her sister. In Xinghai square, a tour
guide with a megaphone and a flag was telling her group about the
significance of
the concrete footsteps. Closer to the ocean, a guy driving a remote control
motorcycle ran it into my leg. We continued to the beach where we read our
books and watched a group of three trying to cook on the beach. Their leader
wore a red apron and he ran around the beach trying to collect something to
make a
fire. We were there for more than an hour and they still didn’t seem to have
a fire. We also enjoyed the improved view now that the SS Oriana, Dalian’s
most
famous eyesore, has finally been towed away. The ship used to be a famous
cruise ship, which was then turned into an on-board amusement park, but
keeled over
during a gale and hasn’t been quite the same since.
