Living at the 100 Ring Zoo

I've moved to my fourth apartment in Beijing, and the third in the Shuangjing area.

View Larger Map



While I haven't moved beyond a 1km-circle, I feel that I've upped my status by a degree, and I don't intend to back down. For me the selling point was the dining table; for the first time in two years I'm not bending over a tv-facing coffee table to eat every day.

The new digs weren't necessary, but certainly invited. At first I wasn't so keen on moving, as I was signed on to a one-year contract that would require breaching. But my 'family' was growing, and needed more space. My girlfriend Liuliu took the initiative of seeking a new pad. For a while I was resistant, but when she booked a viewing I obligingly accompanied her, and what I saw changed me.

My new apartment is about 50% bigger than my old one. It also has a dining table, and a large living room. But the clincher was the rent, only 4% more than my previous place. I now pay 3500CNY/month (about $630 at the current exchange rate), and I live in the same area as before, only a 10min walk from the Guomao city-centre (of course, Beijing is too big to have one downtown, but this one is the 'traditional' downtown). It's 110m²(1200sq.ft) and fully furnished. My last place was short a bed in the spare bedroom.

My area is called 百环家园 (baihuan jiayuan), which means 100-ring park. Not sure why.

The New Digs

the spare bedroom

ANIMALS

Another good reason for the move was the small zoo I'm now supporting. I have a kitty and a puppy; my life has blissful moments, and of course, many more are absolute chaos and frustration. Our cat (Asa) was born around July '08, so is now about 10 months old. Our puppy (Bailey) was born on Feb.2nd, '09, and so is only 2 month old as of now. We had our cat first, and when they first were introduced to eachother there was some predictable furor on Asa's side, but now they play together all the time.

Here are some photos of the new members of my family.

Bailey

Asa

A mature cat

Asa - The Adventures of (acquiring) Super Kitty

THE LEAD-UP

Living in China is not easy. There is much to be embraced anew, and much left behind. One of the hardest parts is living away from family, and that includes my three cats in Toronto. I miss them a lot. Previously I was worried about getting a cat here. On the forefront of my worries were questions about purchasing cat-products (there are no Pet Smart's here), laws (there are so many I don't know, why not be paranoid about a law against foreigners having pets) and lastly, what to do if I have to leave the country. But my yearning grew too strong, and I caved, allowing those questions to be answered as they come. I got a kitten.

My girlfriend helped me look for it online. Picking a kitten from pictures is a tough task, since you feel like you're neglecting some because they're not cute enough. But alas, we chose the one I thought looked the cutest, an orange, long-hair female (the lady-cats tend to tear up the house a bit less in my experience).

THE PICKUP

Picking her up was an adventure in of itself. For those who don't live in Beijing, one word can summarize a lot of the character of this city: HUGE. I don't have a car, nor do I plan on buying one at any time, as driving is much slower than taking the subway. Subwaying does have its cons though: crowds and transfers. The subway system in Beijing is pretty complex now, and is on its way to becoming the most comprehensive (longest, most stations etc.) system in the world (see the wiki, or see the plan for 2012). According to Wiki, and corresponding to similar information I've heard here, ridership doubled from 2007 to 2008, to 1.2billion/year, mostly as a result of the addition of three new lines. On Jan.2nd I went to Xidan shopping district, and that day alone the subway ridership was 6.6 million, a new one-day record. That's, like, 2.5 Torontos. Though there are many lines and many cars to distribute this volume across, it still boils down to a pretty squashed ride. Rush hour is bad. On top of that, many of the transfer stations require walking distances that would be about 5min if unhindered. However the rush-hour crowd forces you to penguin-walk it, taking sometimes up to 10min depending on the transfer station.

On this day, I went to work as normal, walking to line 10, which I take from one extreme to the other (overall 16 stations), transfering to line 13 which I take for one station, and then walking a bit to work, which takes me from 65 to 70min. I got the call from my girlfriend that the kitty had been secured, but that we had to travel to a place called Shijingshan to get her. I used the very useful Baidu map of Beijing (baidu is the Chinese equivalent of google) to find that it was in the far West of the city, nearly as far as the subway can take you. I left work at 4. By the time I got home it was nearly nine.

THE ROUTE

To give you a feel of the complexity of my route, let me explain my travels. First, you must look at this map of the Beijing subway system as it is now. In the morning, I walk to Shuangjing station on line 10 (10min). I then take line 10 North and West to Zhichunlu (45min) and transfer to line 13 (5min). I take line 13 North for one station to Wudaokou (2min) then walk to work (7min). My girlfriend asked me to meet her at her work, so I walked back to the subway line 13 (7min), took it South to Zhichunlu (2min), transfered to line 10 (5min), went West three stations to Suzhoujie (8min). We then decided we should take the subway to the kitty since there was too much traffic, so we took line 10 back East to Zhichunlu (8min), transfered back to line 13 (5min), went South to Xizhimen (6min), transfered to line 2 (10min, super busy), took line 2 South three stops to Fuxingmen (8min), transfered to line 1 (6min), and took that West to Guchenglu (35min). At this point, we walked to the bus station (4min), took it one stop in the wrong direction due to bad directions by kitty owner (3min), crossed the road (4min!!!!!), then took the same bus in the opposite direction to our destination (15min). When we had acquired the kitty, we took a different bus to Bajiao Amusement Park station (15min), then boarded line 1 with the kitty in my jacket, took that East to Guomao (55min), transfered to line 10 (6min), and took that South for one stop to Shuangjing (2min). Finally, we walked to the grocery store (5min), bought some kitty things (10min), then walked home (10min).

This accounts to 298min, just under 5 hours. I also underwent 6 transfers, accruing 37min of transfer time (if someone complains about their 40min commute I may just punch them), and managed to travel in all directions using 4/6 subway lines currently open. The photo below shows this on map scale (time not accounting for walking and transfering):

Without a car, traveling 45km in Beijing, and crossing 6 transfer stations in one day, is very taxing on the soul. But Asa made it all better.

THE REWARD

Chinese Number Superstitions - Basics

In the West, we are apparently scared of the number 13. And some people would consider seven a good number, probably because of lucky triple 7's at casino's. However, we don't really have universally agreed upon lucky number, rather individuals decide their own, unique lucky number(s). Mine is 23. More on that later.

In China, there are generally agreed upon good numbers, and bad numbers. First, the bad ones.

Some Western superstition has made its way here, in the form of 13. Many buildings will skip the 13th floor. But that's only occasional, and not deeple engrained in the general consciousness of the people I encounter.

The real bad one is 4.

In Chinese, the word four is very similar to the word for death. How does this manifest itself then? At weddings, money-gifts (yes, they only give money at Chinese weddings, so much more useful than a cheese-fondue kit), the value should never contain a 4. Also, the fourth floor is skipped in many buildings. But it goes deeper. Any floor with a four is skipped (eg. 4, 14, 24, 34, 40-49 etc.). So you could be on a floor labeled 60 and really it's the 44th floor above ground level, the worst ever. I try to educate people I know about this phenomenon, but they are certain that it is simply the 'number' four that causes problems. So why then is 'four' hundred yuan bills a problem? It's all very convoluted, as superstitions usually are.

Then there are some good numbers, many actually: 6, 8 and 9. If you consider that there are only 9 base numbers (0 doesn't really count), this is a pretty staggering proportion. Each has its own 'type' of fortune.

I'll begin with 6. In China, a series of 6's is quite good. The number of the beast, 666, is not connected to anything demonic whatsoever in Chinese culture, but rather "smooth transaction". The Chinese expression for this is "liu liu da shun" meaning "six six big smooth" in direct translation, or a more idiomatic translation would be 'six for smooth sailing'.

In Canada I could not imagine an ad with a '6' being purposely placed in a row of three in a major subway station, where I snapped this.

All-6 plates are quite common. This plate is actually a police car, but you can bet that the particular officer didn't get this by chance.

Eight is all about the cash. The expression goes "ba ba fa cai," meaning "eight eight get rich". As such, if you can afford it or have connections in the government, a typical Chinese aristocrat will have a licence plate loaded with 8's.

Here is a compilation of '8-plates' I found online by searching in Chinese "good licence plates." It is generally understood that to get these you have to have serious cash or government connections.

Nine is for longevity. "Chang chang jiu jiu" means "long long nine nine." Nine, pronounced 'jiu' in Chinese, sounds the same as another word pronounced 'jiu' which means "long time." So if you want a long life, you horde the nines.

A compilation of '9-plates' I found online, again just searching "好车牌" -> good car plates. Nines are not as common as eights.

And to completely contradict what I said earlier about 4, it also has fortune attached to it as well. Yes, it may be death under certain circumstances, but it can also represent wishes coming true. The expression goes "si si ru yi" and translates to "four four dreams come true." I guess Chinese people dream of death.

Clearly this guy didn't spend the dough on an H2 to be screwed by an ultimate death plate.

Finally, I'd just like to say that my favourite number being 23 has nothing to do with Michael Jordan, or the movie, but rather something I have preserved since young childhood. My address being 23 Clarendon Ave. in Ottawa probably got it all started. But it really kicked in when I realized (as in the movie 23) that 23 is everywhere. Seriously. Next time you're watching a random movie pay attention to the table number as characters are eating or the price, 23 makes it in there. And I'm not talking about decomposing numbers and adding them again, because you can make up any number theory doing that. As well, 23 is a prime number, and the largest multiple which fits into 69.

Another day, another step towards having seen it all

Tonight, as I was casually watching a Chinese tv program whilst simultaneously surfing, playing a game, and reading updates about the India situation, I caught glimpse of something that I really never thought I'd ever see: a 70-year old Chinese lady performing hiphop dance. There was an entire special about her, relating her experiences on tv and different performances, the way her daughter felt about it (summary: shame gave way to acceptance). But I had to see it to believe it. Thought I'd share this with you. If you know of any equivalents in N.America, please let me know. I'm not sure how I'll console myself if I find out hiphop jumped about two generations in age and penetrated a hundred generations of Chinese culture all in one fell swoop.

I'm living next to a (potential) bunker - updated

To the East of my apartment is a wonderful and rare thing in Beijing: an empty field. It's peaceful, serene and even has birds chirping in the morning. And since I face East I'm shielded from the noise of the massive hyper-busy third-ring road about 300m to the West. But that's all about to change, I think they're building a bunker in the field.

The old view of the new BTV (Beijing Television) tower. Hopefully the view won't be blocked.

Looking East, Pingguo Shequ apartment complex, translates to "Apple Community"

A peaceful and tranquil morning as seen from my window.

An exposure shot taken at night. looking NE

I always thought it was a bit strange that the entrance to the field has a "Military Restricted Zone" sign. I wasn't sure what it had to do with the military. I began to notice a lot of night activity in the field. Trucks coming to make deliveries at 4am, waking me up and stirring strong suspicions of conspiracy. Was there an underground nuclear test facility? Were they testing some strange hybrid plant that would be used to reduce smog? Why did a pair of two stray dogs live in the field?

Chinese for "Military Restricted Zone"

About a week ago, the big machines came in. There are now three or four excavators, and a pile of thick-gauge steel cable spools. They've begun excavating minor portions of the field (dismissing my hybrid plant theory), but continue to work at night (supporting my secret underground facilities theory).

The mysterious spools of steel cable, under wraps

I know it's easy to dismiss conspiracy theories. I mean, why would they do it all in plain-sight of my window? But the nighttime excursions thoroughly perplex me. I suppose it's all half-secret, half-open. After all, the buildings on the East of the field also have full view of the field, as well as all the apartments above me for 26 stories.
I asked the guy who runs a little convenience store in the lobby of my building, and he told me they're constructing military buildings. I'm going to try to take some exposure shots at night when they're doing weird 4am digging.

My new view, which will be changing daily. I'll try to take regular shots and make a montage.

UPDATED PHOTOS - OCT 16th to 29th

DAY 2

DAY 4

DAY 6

DAY 9

DAY 9 later
DAY 13
DAY 14
DAY 2-14 composite
The tunnel-drilling crane just outside my window

A Brief Stint in Inner Mongolia

Mid-Autumn festival is usually celebrated by eating mooncakes with your family. Since my family is not here, and I despise mooncakes, I decided to do my own thing. Along with my friend Byron, I went to Inner Mongolia for a three-day minivisit.

Why Inner Mongolia you may ask? Well, our criteria was to go somewhere cheap-ish, within a quarter-day or so train ride from Beijing. This meant pulling up a map, and drawing a general finger-circle, and discussing the cities that lay within it. At the time, we were definitely under the influence, and Baotou, the largest city in Inner Mongolia province, began to sound attractive. Probably because we knew nothing about it.

Here's where I repeat some of the information I found on Wikipedia about Inner Mongolia. I only just now looked this up; we didn't look up anything before we left. Inner Mongolia is huge, covering about 12% of the land area of China (which is 9.6M km²). It's population is 24million, more than 2/3 that of Canada, yet considered somewhat measly in China.

Downtown Baotou, shopping district

And here's where I add some of the insight I've gained about Inner Mongolia. The entire province is generally considered to be a bit of a measly province, the remnants of a two-or-so millennia-long battle between Chinese, Mongolians, and more than a handful of minority tribes, of little interest to the average Beijing that I've spoken to about the area. The problem is that its rich history isn't marked by the staple establishments Chinese come to expect: temples, hero-shrines, artificial lakes, special regional animals. But it will become more popular in years to come, since the economy in the region is expanding at a rate of around 20% per year, twice the rate as that of the national economy. This is coming largely from newly exploited mineral reserves and a well-sustained agricultural community.

Since we didn't do any research before we left, we didn't know that there are no fast-trains heading there, so the train ride takes about 14hrs. Luckily we'd been up most of the previous night and managed to sleep through a large portion of the ride (Byron sleeping much more than me, as was also the case on the return trip as well).

What's to be found there? Well, we didn't find a whole lot, so we had to make do. Baotou is the largest city in Inner Mongolia, with over 2million people. And though this is puny in Chinese standards, it's not a village. The night-life however made this distinction difficult to make. Our first night there we arrived at 11pm, had something to eat, checked into our hotel, and after many inquiries about where the best club in town is (and a taxi driver taking us to a cruddy KTV), we made it to the club called "89." By this time is was 12:30ish. And the club was emptying out. It was quite upsetting. During this period we managed to meet our 2nd of many crazies we were to encounter during our stay here. The first encounter was at the restaurant we dined in; after having invited us to his table we realized his friend was ashamed of his drunkenness, which became clearer with every second, and eventually led to extremely vague comments about us all being men, and so needing to spend time together, in slurred local Chinese. The 2nd crazy was in the form of a 25yr-ish Chinese guy whose accent was too strong to understand so he reverted to hand-language which looked suspiciously like a squirrel unendingly opening a walnut, minus a walnut. He was the nut. We got away from him by feigning to go the washroom and fast-walking out. This is where we met some pretty cool guys who we hung out with on each subsequent night. Where? 89 of course. There's only one club in the city. And we learned that it's happening at 9ish, and dies around 12, so we adjusted.

Since we were super-disorganized, we didn't do heaps during the daytime. On day one, I wanted to see a Buddhist temple. Baotou has two, one very large and famous one about 45km out of town, and one within the city limits. I opted for the closer one, thinking it would be relatively equivalent. That was indeed a sore decision. We were the only people visiting it. And old female monk had to rouse the 16yo male monk (!) to open this for us to see. Since it was only Byron and I touring, I couldn't even sneak in a single indoor picture.

The front of the main temple

The exact location of where I took the above picture.

View Larger Map

Fo, the character for Buddhism

Mongolian script. Only about 15% of people in Inner Mongolia are of Mongolian descent, the bulk of the remainder are Han Chinese, so very few locals can read this script.

From there we saw a large statue on a mountain, and decided our next task would be to climb up to see it. This required refuelling. So after going back to the hotel, eating and buying supplies, we got in a taxi and said (take us to a mountain). It took surprisingly little explaining for him to understand we just wanted to ascend any mountain nearby to a road so that returning to normal life wouldn't be too difficult. He took us to a location with a cemetary at the base. At first I was enthralled to see a cemetary, since there are none in Beijing (so then where do people part with their loved ones? I'll let you know when I do). But it lost its thrill after we realized how sanitary and uninteresting it all was. Cemetaries should be creepy. This place was too clean to be creepy.

From there we tackled what at first appeared to be a simple ascent, and turned into quite a lug. The mountain there was being mined for something, though we weren't able to figure out quite what. It was a small operation, no equipment, just bags, shovels, wheelbarrows and dynamite. The result was the the gentle sloping portions had big gaps in them. But it didn't take away from the beauty.

That night turned into an intense 89'er, and we slept pretty late. Having no concrete plan for what to do, I went to an internet cafe to do some searching. A friend had told me that Inner Mongolia had sand dunes, and with a bit of effort I finally found what I was looking for: Whistling Sand Dunes. Apparently, when it is quite hot, the sand makes a whistling noise. The next step was finding out how to get there. Many travel services were offering 200/person, minimum 4 people. We were two. We eventually ended up taking a taxi there. The cool female driver waited for us (over 2hrs) and drove us back (total 2hrs commute) for 300yuan. Not bad. Apparently this day wasn't hot enough, as it was only 28degrees. I'm not sure it gets much hotter in Inner Mongolia, but it must, because the sands weren't whistling. That didn't upset me, as there was enough noise in the first place. It was quite touristy, and admittedly expensive for such a remote attraction, but well worth it. The view on the way in is the most breath-taking. As you get closer and more level with the dunes it becomes less grand. The park has a series of activity stations set up. Firstly, you take a cable car across a wide chasm. You can walk, but you only save 40yuan, and have to climb a very large dune on the other side. When we arrived to the other side, we were pleasantly surprised by the sand-booties they rent out for 10yuan. The colours were screaming loud, but they were extremely useful, and kept all sand out of my shoes. The stations include: horseriding, camel riding, sand sliding, dune buggy excursions, 4x4 riding, archery, "space-ball" (so stupid) and long-range jeep excursions. We got there quite late, and so had little time to enjoy much. But I'm sure we would've done more if the sandstorm hadn't swept in!

I don't know these two. They took a picture of me and my friend with their cell phone, so I took a picture of them. I didn't expect them to pose and for it to turn out so well.

Camel-rides. The storm killed this option for us.

Some great chinglish.

4x4'ing on the dunes, amazing fun.
The storm moving in.

A coal train emerging from a tunnel in the cliff-face and traveling through the sand storm.

After the wind, and just before the rain.

After the wind, and just before the rain, camels just chilling.

Finally captured a streak of lightning, really not easy.

Our last night was celebrated in the best club Baotou has to offer... again, 89! A sobering 14hr train ride back to Beijing awaited me. Byron slept for roughly 12 of those hours... me, about 2hrs. At least I got some nice pictures of Inner Mongolia farmland.

Locals washing carrots in a stream that seemed to be to be unfit for washing veggies. But maybe that's just me.