Made in China

Written September 18, 2010

So I’ve been in China for exactly a week today, and what a week it has been.  I feel like I’ve been here for months.  I’ve strolled along paths lined with willows and lotus ponds, passed by elderly couples dancing the Chinese waltz in the park, climbed the knee-length steps of the Great Wall, wandered through the palaces of the Forbidden City, walked the longest corridor in the world, tried my hand at Chinese calligraphy, navigated the crowded Beijing subway and bus system, eaten five types of dumplings and Beijing Kaoya (roast duck), peed in seatless toilets, and bargained with the vendors in the silk street market.  Every day is new and exciting.  In fact, because each day varies so much from the day before and is so different from what I’m used to, I have no field of reference, making it nearly impossible for me to form a solid opinion about the country and my experience here so far. 

I will write more about daily life later.  Let’s talk about the name of this entry for a second: Made in China.  Most things that you buy in America are made in China.  You go into a store and buy a washcloth or a pair of headphones and you don’t think twice about where they come from, that someone--who probably makes less than a dollar a day and lives in a run-down room in the outskirts of a small town, perhaps close to the Great Wall, halfway around the world, with no clean water and breathing air containing the amount of tar equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day--made that object available for you to buy.  That one washcloth is that person's sole means of survival.  He or she can’t afford it but can make it for someone else. 

Most things that you buy or use in China are also made in China.  Except these things are different.  China is known for cheap prices but items of often poor quality.  You can probably buy that exact same pair of headphones in China, but rather than producing high quality sound, they might turn fuzzy after a day or two, or one of the ear pieces might fall off.  These items are often the rejects: the ones with defects that weren’t deemed good enough to be exported.  Why is it that the country that makes the items doesn’t even get to have the first pick of them?

Chinese products are full of irony.  For example, one thinks the purpose of a shower is to clean.  Well, your shower head might be functional, but instead of spreading the water out in a flow that easily washes shampoo and soap off of you, it might let the water flow in a trickle that isn’t really strong enough to clean off any bath products, even if the water pressure in your bathroom is generally relatively strong.  The object itself works, but not in such a way that fulfills its intended purpose. 

Someone said to me that the Chinese just have lower expectations for what they buy and that Americans expect more quality for their dollar.  Do we as Americans expect too much? If you buy a lamp and it works but it doesn’t illuminate your desk enough to read, is that okay?

In a way, both societies are materialistic.  The common saying repeated here is that Americans work and live to acquire objects, and the Chinese make objects to work and live. 

Maybe its better not to put so much importance on having things that work.  If your bed breaks, maybe it shouldn’t be such a big deal.  At least you were lucky enough to have that bed.  Or maybe the bed isn’t important at all.

Next time you buy something or use something, look at where it was made. Think about it.

Qingdao Midterm Break

***Written during my trip to China in Fall 2010***

Right now I am in the lounge of Kaiyue International Youth Hostel in Qingdao, China.  Qingdao is a coastal city in between Tianjin and Shanghai known for its beaches and its beer.  In fact, they sell Tsingtao (old spelling of Qingdao) beer in the States.  Everywhere you go, you see tons of kegs of beer sitting on the streets outside of restaurants and little convenience shops.  Our most recent discovery is beer in a bag.  A little old Chinese woman who calls herself “Mama” (we have now dubbed her 'Mama Pijiu') has this tiny little store the size of a small walk-in closet from which she sells drinks, shampoo, ice cream, and cigarettes.  She has a couple of kegs of beer outside and pours it into plastic bags, which she then weighs on a tiny scale to determine how much the beer costs.  She then pokes a hole in the bags with a straw so you can sip as you walk.  The real problem arrives if your bag breaks while you are walking.  

The group with Mama Pijiu

The beaches here vary from dirty sand and cloudy water crowded with tons of people to beautiful light-sandy beaches with relatively clear water and fewer people.  The latter is readily available to us a couple of blocks down from our hostel.  Beach #6 is right next to the train station and a bus stop, and the boardwalk above it is crowded with vendors selling a sort of stale pita bread and fried squid on a stick.  Lots of vendors have loud speakers and shout at you, trying to sell English-speaking tourists boat rides. There are also people dressed up as characters (i.e. sheep) from a Chinese animated children’s show called Xi-Yang-Yang.  It’s funny because even though locals say “hello” whenever they see foreigners like us walk by, they really don’t know if we speak English, or where we are from in general, which is kind of comforting.  I heard someone ask one of their friends if they thought I was French.  My friend was asked if he was Australian.  I’m glad that people don’t look at me and immediately know I’m form the States, though I don’t think being from the U.S. leaves the same negative impression here that it does in other countries, since people here seem to generally look up to the U.S.

Xi-Yang-Yang characters, Beach #6 in the background

On one of the first few days here, a couple of the guys in our group met this Chinese woman named Ping Ping who runs a business that helps Chinese students get into and study in universities in the States.  She lives in Beijing but is currently in Qingdao on holiday, plus she grew up in Qingdao.  She speaks English very fluently because her husband is American.  She sort of took us under her wing since her nephew is trying to learn English and she wanted him to practice speaking with us.  So on Monday we all met at the bus stop close to our hostel and hopped on the 2-hour-long #304 bus (standing the whole way!) to Laoshan, a beautiful mountain on the coast of Qingdao known for its fresh spring water and beautiful scenery.  We all sort of wandered along part of the road until we came to a little pathway that took us down onto some cliffs above the water.  We climbed the cliffs down to the water and sat there for a bit, which was very nice, and the views were spectacular.  We then got lunch, which Ping Ping ordered for us since we have no idea what any of the characters for shellfish are, and sat on the beautiful sandy beach for a while.  I collected some shells and the boys went swimming and then we caught the 2-hour bus back.  The bus was so crowded on the way back that even though I was standing up I didn’t need to hold onto anything because there was no space for me to fall into.  For dinner we went to a place run by a Chinese woman with HUGE hair, sort of like Marge from the Simpsons, but not blue.  Our final dish was a whole fish cooked in some sort of sweet sauce.  Two guys from a group of three other Americans that we have been hanging out with ate the eyes, which are supposed to be a delicacy here!

Cliffs we hung out on at Laoshan

Fish DEVOURED, no eyes left

Yesterday we got up even earlier (my alarm was set for 6:47!) and went to the same mountain again with Ping Ping and her nephew, but this time to a different side. We ended up at someone’s vacation home on a cliff on the mountain.  It’s still unclear to me whose home it was, but  it was one of Ping Ping’s friends.  One of the men staying in it took us all fishing off the coast of the mountain in a little wooden boat.  We didn’t catch very much, but the views were spectacular and it was a beautiful day to spend on the water.  We came back to the house in the late afternoon and the family cooked us a feast of shellfish (I tried some very interesting looking creatures including some sort of very large sea snail in a beautiful shell the size of my fist! It was pretty gross.).  We were then driven back to the hostel in a van (an eventful ride trying to sit on a stool in the the back of a car speeding down windy, rocky mountainsides), and I immediately crashed when we arrived home because I was so exhausted.

The farm of the family that took us around

Our boat for the day

Ji and me, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed

Pablo's huge fish

 

Yummy sea snail.

  Today I think we are going to visit the Qingdao brewery, which should be cool to see!

dawn breaks like a bull through the hall

So it's been awhile since I've written because I've been savoring the last few weeks of summer before heading back to school next Monday. Since I came home from India a little sooner than anticipated, I used the extra time to spend a weekend visiting some friends in New York! I arrived on Friday afternoon and visited Alex at the UN! We heard Beyonce singing through the walls of the General Assembly room, no big deal. On Friday evening I met Jackie (who I hadn't seen since I left India!) at the Natural History Museum and we went out for a delicious dinner (highlights were a watermelon/feta salad and a barbeque buffalo slider). After that we went to a club and danced the night away! It was so nice to see her for the first time in the US :D.

On Saturday morning I took the subway (no mistakes!) from the Upper West Side to Brooklyn to meet Sandra for a bagel brunch (delish)! We then took a long walk through Prospect Park and went to Williamsburg to sight-see (aka watch all the hipsters). We went out for some wine and a late dinner, ending in ice cream just before midnight when the dude at the counter gave us all of the leftover baked goods that he was going to throw away (nice). On Sunday morning I met up with Alex and her aunt and uncle for brunch. Basically the weekend involved lots of eating, lots of subway-ing, and lots of friends, so it was delightful.

This past week I was with the fam + Sara in Rehoboth Beach, where we go every August. We had some nice sunny weather and again more delicious food so it was wonderful as well. Being in Rehoboth always makes me feel so at peace, I think because of my proximity to the ocean (there were some sweet waves this trip). Thinking about the ocean and the beach makes me think about other random things that have struck my fancy recently, so I thought I'd share a few. Maybe they make you happy too! Or at least remind you of things that make you happy. These are not in any particular order of preference, just written down as they come to my mind.

~Water. I just can't get enough. Drinking it, submersing myself in it, throwing it at people, it's just all so good.

~Hindi devotional music: bhajans, qawwali. I recommend Jagjit Singh, especially his version of Dama Dum Mast Kalander (on iTunes). Listening to this always calms me down. I like listening to it when I first wake up, or when I'm doing yoga. I feel like I can always smell a hint of daal and incense when I play it...

~This song when I'm feeling reflective.

~This song to bump to (@1:10). Also this one (yeah).

~This song when I'm just happy!

~Talking to foreigners in their native language. Along with this, surprising foreigners when I can actually say something in their native language (even if I can't understand their response...).

~AVOCADOS.

~Watercolor painting, even though I struggle.

~Trying new recipes. Just tried to replicate this butternut squash/goat cheese terrine the fam had at a restaurant at the beach. It was somewhat successful? I mean, it's hard to go completely wrong with something that involves squash, goat cheese, and butter...

~Green things, especially dark green things. Or this new dune sage-scented candle that I just got which makes my room smell like an evergreen forest and which also happens to be green.

~Crunching leaves! I'm so excited to have a real fall! I haven't been in the US for fall since freshman year, and that's all a blur since I was so preoccupied with starting college. Favorite season, I can't wait. Also I have a kitchen this year so I can go to the orchard and pick tons of apples and make pie and applesauce and everything else apple, hooray!

Okay well I hope this makes everyone think of some recent favorites :). I'll post some pictures soon!

sailing words on conjured ships

Kochi Sketching

So since I am technically here to draw and paint, everyday I try to do some sketching. It's currently monsoon season in Kerala, which means it can start raining and any time and there are multiple-day periods of overcast and dreary weather, which can make it difficult to do any drawing outside. However, there are breaks in these rainy periods. I think I've figured out a pattern: if it rains during the day it will be pretty clear at night and vice versa. Usually it comes in 3-4 day periods, so it will be rainy for a few days and then clear for a few days. Anyways, the point is that I have to take advantage of the sunny days to sketch outside. Since kochi is on the coast and is renowned for its huge old school Chinese fishing nets, I go sit on one of the benches that overlooks the water/nets to draw. There is a little pathway that runs along the coast with a bunch of benches on it. This is a favorite spot for locals to come sit or walk. At first I found it dfficult to do any artwork here and limited myself to very quick watercolors because people would come and stand next to me and sort of bother me (and as a result my first few watercolors are pretty poor). Now I've sort of gotten used to the passersby, and I've come into a rhythm where if I am focusing intently enough on my drawing or painting, people still come and stand very close next to me to watch me draw but they typically don't bother me. Instead they chat amongst themselves and look at/gesture towards whatever I'm drawing. It's a very strange experience, mostly because there is a lot of pressure on me to be doing a good drawing! But I'm hoping that what I'm really doing is causing people to take a look at something that would otherwise have gone unnoticed (like a tree) and contemplate its beauty.

Kochi

Okay so I am writing this from my phone so I don't think I will make it very long, but just wanted to give a few updates :). So I was having major stomach problems (typical) and was taking cipro but it was doing like absolutely nothing so on literally my first full day in Kochi I decided to go to a doctor. I'm staying in sort of a homestay situation (i.e. a family rents out rooms to people) so they were very sweet and drove me to a doctor. Unfortunately the doctor was away for the week, so then we went to a different one which was across the street. This was just a woman sitting in a rundown building. She talked to me for about two minutes and then wrote a prescription for something I had never heard of. I tried to get her to tell me what exactly it was and gathered it was some sort of all-purpose fever reducer/painkiller/probiotic/antibiotic that would solve all my problems NOT. So I didn't get that filled and instead my host dad drove me to a hospital that was close by. This was a truly Indian hospital, like no foreigners at all and I don't really think they knew what to do with me. Anyways finally they got a doctor who spoke some English and he just basically had a meeting with me (didn't examine me or anything) and then prescribed a whole bunch of things, none of which was an antibiotic or anti-parasite (he actually got annoyed when I asked him to explain what the drugs were supposed to do). Finally after I reiterated that this had been going on for a week he prescribed an anti-parasite, and since then I've been feeling better each day. So that was longer than anticipated and all about health problems haha sorryyyy. Anyways Kochi is absolutely beautiful, full of green coconut palms and brightly-colored tropical flowers. It is right on the coast, and though the ocean itself is not so nice to look at, it really feels like a cute little beach down (in India though of course). It is monsoon season right now, so the first few days here were pretty downcast and rainy, but the past two days have actually been quite sunny! My host family is so sweet and feeds me so much breakfast. My favorite thing that they've made was this warm, doughy coconut flour pancake-ish thing dipped in fresh coconut milk. SO delicious, and easy on the tummy! There is more to say but my thumbs hurt so I'm gonna go, but lots of love to everyone!

Ajanta

Isn't it strange how some things never change and some things will never be the same?

On Thursday, I visited my second group of cave temples. Ajanta is much farther away from Aurangabad than Ellora (103 km as opposed to 36 km--took a little over two hours to get there) and consists of 30 Buddhist caves all carved into the side of a cliff. From the outside as a whole, I think the Ajanta caves seem more impressive since they are all high on the same cliff face right next to each other, looking down into a valley where waterfalls cascade over their edges during monsoon season. Ellora is more spread out, so one does not get the same feeling of complete awe. On the inside though, I was rather more impressed by Ellora with its towering stone carvings of gods and goddesses. Ajanta is more well-known for its paintings, and what remained of these were beautiful, but they are much disintegrated. Sher-Gil wrote, "A fresco from Ajanta or a small piece of sculpture in the Musee Guimet is worth more than the whole Renaissance!" I can see these figures in Ajanta in her work, but I wonder how different her Ajanta is from my Ajanta, nearly 80 years older than hers. How much have these paintings changed since she saw them?

It is amazing that the paintings are still here at all. I enjoy visiting historic sites like Ajanta and Ellora because I can feel the continuity between the past and the present. What always drew me to history was feeling tied to the past, feeling like I am a part of something bigger than myself. History allows us to feel a closeness with each other simply because of our existence as people. People painted these caves and lived in them and worshiped in them. They had hopes and dreams and trials and losses just the same as we do. We are all connected. And in this way it is impossible not to feel moved by Ajanta and tied to Sher-Gil.

In Delhi, I was surprised at how quickly things came back to me. I would find myself answering people in Hindi phrases that I forgot I knew, and not even realizing what I was saying until after I said it. I found myself returning to old habits and finding places to be like I never left them. However, it is this lack of change that reminds me how different things actually are, as I am so changed. As much as we would like to and maybe even try to relive our memories, we cannot, and we must create new ones to appreciate equally as much.

The part of Ajanta that struck me most was the brilliant blue that remained in some of the designs of the caves. While most of the other colors had faded, this blue still seemed to glow as brightly as if it were painted but a few weeks ago. I hope to use this blue in later paintings. I suppose the key to a happy memory is to find the common thread that runs through our experience, just like this blue.