Revival of the Blog

New name, newish look, same blogger. Back in China at Beijing Language and Culture University (北京语言大学) for a year. Currently on break for the national holiday and thought I'd post some pictures of a recent trip to Tianjin (天津）(120 km from Beijing, urban population of about 4 million according to Wikipedia). Drove there with my old host family and stayed about 36 hours. Tianjin has a massive ferris wheel that affords a nice view of the city. Waited in line for it for three hours. The ferris wheel ride itself takes a half an hour because of how slow the wheel turns. My host mama's cousin lives in Tianjin, and went to the ferris wheel with us. She is 60, has lived in Tianjin her entire life, and has never received much of an education from what I gathered from my host sister. In line for the ferris wheel, she leaned over and whispered in my ear, "I wanted to ask you... In America, do white people discriminate against black people?" I gave her the simplest answer I could think of to avoid confusion, and told her that I don't, but some people do. My host mama later told me that her tendency to whisper about potentially controversial topics is a habit leftover from the Mao era.

For lunch on Tuesday, my host mama's cousin brought us to a rather undesirable restaurant filled with cigarette smoke and people. They had no tables, as it was lunch hour, so we ended up going to a nicer restaurant one block down, attached to a hotel. We sat down, ordered, food came, and all was well, for a while. My host mama had ordered a bowl of white rice when we ordered our food, but it didn't come for a while and eventually she decided she didn't want it. When she told the waitress, however, the waitress said that the bowl of white rice (an estimated 2 RMB, or 31 US cents) could not be cancelled, as it was already prepared. My host mama said that that was ridiculous, and my host sister immediately demanded to speak with the manager of the restaurant over the matter. When the manager came, she apparently gave my host sister a dirty look before explaining to us that the order of rice indeed could be cancelled but the waitress didn't have the authority to do it. Although the matter could have been calmly resolved, that one dirty look and bit of sassiness from the waitress and manager set me host sister off like none other. In no time my host sister was yelling insults and the entire restaurant was turning around to stare at us. I learned 5 new words from that conversation, including "worthless creature" (lit. "cheap bones"). The argument ended in my sister telling the manager that if the waitress didn't come over and personally apologize, we wouldn't pay the bill. All this mess over a bowl of white rice. Just another day in China.

About the photos: First one is my host sister and me in the car at 6:30 AM on our way to Tianjin. Second one is me holding three 10-day old baby kittens born in some distant relative's hutong-style home in Tianjin. Third one is of the "Tianjin Eye," the enormous ferris wheel. Fourth one is me holding onto the lantern my host sister and I bought. Seconds after the photo was taken I let go and it floated up into the sky. People buy them, write their wishes on them, and release them at night. It is quite a sight to see hundreds of them in the sky at once. Boy next to me is another distant relative. He is 16, dropped out of school years ago, and is now doing some sort of labor-intensive work. Very mannerly, friendly boy, and very down-to-earth.