集结号
This is way overdue. I actually watched Feng Xiaogang/冯小刚’s new film Assembly/《集结号》for the first time at least a week ago, and the second time just after we got back from the village on, ummm, Tuesday? whenever…
First up: Excellent film. Well worth it.
Second: This is not a return to Feng’s old comedy style. But that should’ve been fairly obvious, anyway. Still, he pulls it off far more successfully than The Banquet/《夜宴》.
Still, I have to say that the first time through it seemed rather long. It was good, but seemed to be taking some time. Actually, I think it was because, just as the main character, Gu Zidi, said he had died 100 times already, the film had about 100 endings. But Feng seemed to be as obssessed as Gu Zidi with bringing it all to a final closure, and so the film continued. Second time through I didn’t get that feeling, though.
There are also two questions about this Gu Zidi that are never resolved: How did he survive the battle of the Wenhe River? And how the hell did he survive the landmine in Korea?
Well, the first one is kinda halfway resolved. At least, we do finally get an explanation for how he showed up in a Communist hospital in the Nationalist uniform of a Private Wang trying to persuade people that he was Captain Gu of a Communist unit that had been wiped out. Still doesn’t explain how he survived the battle, though. And surely, in Dongbei in mid-winter, being knocked unconscious outdoors in a battle would result in a pretty swift death from hypothermia?
But the landmine: Really, how? Somehow he manages to escape with only a little bit of shrapnel in his forehead that is causing him to slowly lose his eyesight.
And one element that was slightly jarring, but I think deliberately, and effectively, so, was that even though it is based on the novel 《官司》(English title?) by Yang Jinyuan/杨金远, it is presented as a true story: At a couple of key points in the film, and then at the end, we get those little pop-up messages explaining this or that part of the past or future or an elided intervening period. The message at the end explains Gu Zidi’s origin and death and that the bodies of his men were eventually found in a collapsed mineshaft, for example. This has me wondering about the origin of the novel: Is it based on a true story, or is it pure fiction, or somewhere in between?
I was surprised at how short the battle sequences were. Actually, most of the film takes place after Liberation, and most of that after the Korean War, when Gu Zidi finds himself demobbed, meets the wife of one of his men, and begins his ever-so-slightly obssessive search for proper recognition of his unit’s sacrifice- which becomes in part a search for the bodies of his men.
But the battle sequences were masterfully done. Feng out-Private Ryaned Spielberg by a long shot. This much I almost expected from what I’d seen on TV in the build-up to the release of Assembly, but it was stunning to see the finished product. Brilliant work. And Feng certainly didn’t slack off for the rest of the film, either.
The acting and characterisation were excellent, too. This isn’t just some silly war film. Right from the opening scene you feel you’re watching real people, real members of a real military unit who’ve developed intense bonds living and fighting through a war together. And Zhang Hanyu/张函予 does an excellent job of following Gu Zidi right through the POW hospital, re-entry into the PLA, Korea, then his demobbing and quest.
I was surprised, though, to see how small a role Wang Baoqiang/王宝强 played considering how popular he’s been since A World Without Thieves/《天下无贼》. Still, Gu Zidi is the only one to survive the Wenhe battle and that is really only the introduction to the film.
Anyway, great film. Watch it.
gah
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing, ranting on February 13, 2008
It’s a pity that today has to end on such a sour note. I mean, a day in which this cold Ma passed on to me is taking hold, and when lzh presses the buzzer and I let her in the main door downstairs, I hear the old Canadian guy who lives downstairs hurling abuse at her and lzh giving back at least as good as she got.
Yeah, the bloody stupid bicycle wars are back on. Our bikes were always parked under the stairs out of the way with everybody else’s. Then one day my bike was found broken, then a new notice appeared on the door telling people to put their bikes outside. Nobody obeyed. Then mine and lzh’s bikes were put outside, but no other bike was so much as touched. lzh put her bike back inside, but I left mine out. I mean, it was free and a piece of junk. Mine disappeared, having been met by the stupidest bicycle thief in the world.
Then everything was fine until this evening when, on her way home, lzh bumped into the old Canadian who rumour told us may have been the one who broke my bike and pushed both bikes outside. He tried to close the door on lzh- real gentlemanly- and told her to stay outside. She asked why. He said she can’t bring her bike inside. She asked why. He said he tripped over it and hurt himself once.
Wait….
The bike is put safely out of the way under the stairs and he trips over it and hurt himself? And so he develops this grudge against the bike and its owner? What?
Note: The other bikes were never touched. Only lzh’s (and mine before it got stolen) were ever touched. This even though all the bikes were tucked as safely under the stairs as was humanly possible.
I mean: How drunk do you have to be to fall over a bike that is tucked under stairs that are significantly lower than your head?
And how pathetic do you have to be to start a fight over it with a woman half your age and half your size? As I lifted up the intercom, I heard this fight and thought, oh shit, I’m gonna have to grab my shoes and keys and sprint downstairs to defend my wife from a guy who’s considerably larger than me. I ain’t much of a fighter. Fortunately things did not come to blows.
Oh, and start that fight months after the fact?
But what frustrates me most is that it’s all so utterly ridiculous. Had he tripped over my or lzh’s bikes and told us, we would’ve been more than happy to apologise and promise to be more careful about how we store our bikes. Is that not how disputes between civilised people are resolved?
So I guess the only thing to do is find some appropriate channel to resolve this. I mean, I’m not going to stoop to his level. We called up the accomodation management to complain about this guy’s behaviour and check on what the rules are and ask why only one person is expected to put her bike outside. lzh took quite some time to explain the situation, and eventually she was told that there is no rule banning bikes from being stored inside- so long as they don’t block the corridors, of course. We were told to contact the International Affairs Office, or whatever it’s called, but they aren’t back at work until the day after tomorrow. Typical. Anyway, that’s my job for the day after tomorrow.
Gah, such a stupid, pathetic, little issue. Of course, little issues like this have a habit of developing into even stupider, big issues. I would like to avoid that, if at all possible.
Oh, and how much should I read into lzh telling me she thought he was drunk when he started picking on her? Or into him refusing to come out and discuss things with her after he’d locked himself inside (and if we have to argue about safety and blocking corridors, shitferbrains can learn to close his security door). Or into the fact that foreign teachers’ bikes are left alone (apart from mine), while a tiny (but tough- dumbarse miscalculated big time) Chinese woman’s bike is thrown outside? Or that shitferbrains considers waiting until lzh is safely home before sneaking down and throwing her bike on top of the others, bending her basket and twisting her handlebars in the process?
Let’s get this straight: old Canadian nutjob looks to be about 60 and a hundred and something kilogrammes. Surely he can find a more mature way to deal with those little frustrations that form a large part of life in an apartment building?
And really, picking a fight with someone half your age and literally half your size, and then sneaking out and throwing her bicycle around. Need I say more?
Alright, I’ve done more than enough ranting lately, and I’d rather not. Just want to get this off my chest, that’s all. Of course, if anybody has any constructive suggestions about how to deal with this guy, speak up.
return, re-exile
Posted by wangbo in tilting at windmills on February 13, 2008
Found via an unusually relevant post at Public Address’ Hard News, The Opinionated Diner returns to Auckland and is left with a rather sour taste in his mouth. First up, he’s shocked by the general state of Auckland and its people. My reactions to that, of course, were quite different from Hard News’ Russell Brown’s. Here’s the bit that stood out for me:
3. I’m continually amazed at how few Aucklanders, and I guess it’s even more pronounced once you leave the travelling big smoke (s) as their idea of OE is usually getting drunk in Earls Court and a bus trip around Europe, have any real knowledge of the world past Sydney or the Gold Coast, and even less of Asia. Seriously when the worldly TV channel owner asked me if life was good in Thailand….ahh, I live in Bali…isn’t that in Thailand?….are you over the tsunami yet..and so on, I’d had enough. And such was repeated over and over again over the past two weeks.
Alright, so he could use a week or two in one of my writing classes, I mean, that did take a bit of deciphering, but he’s got a good point, and it’s something I experienced last time I was in Wellington about five years ago: The sheer ignorance of the big, wide world and the complacent insularity of modern Kiwi mindsets. It’s something I never noticed until I went back, but that may say more about myself and the friends I had before I left than anything about Kiwi society or how I’ve developed since leaving.
And the second bit that struck me was one of the comments, left by one Timmy H:
It just aint that cool to come home for a vist, then leave and slag it off like you are so much better. It IS the end of the world – end of story – and with that are some differences, most of them great IMHO. You can shop till you drop in some other shithole.
And maybe just your friends are messed up? I know people tyring to raise 2 kids in a bedsit in London and going INSANE…
Ah, yes, the good old fashioned Kiwi knee-jerk, favourite debating tactic of almost four million people (almost, because there is a significant minority that somehow manages, despite the odds, to learn how to hold a rational, mature discussion, or even debate). The Kiwi knee-jerk suggests far more insecurity and fear of the outside world than a rational understanding of the questions being debated.
On to the politics: This time the Opinionated Diner paints a much rosier picture of New Zealand, and says he can’t understand why New Zealanders seem to what to change all that by getting rid of Helen Clark’s government in favour of John Key’s National Party (presumably leading a coalition- I don’t think recent polls rating National over 50% will carry through to the election- and I certainly hope not). He makes some very good, if somewhat selective, points about the histories of the Labour and National parties in government, and yes, it does seem to be stupid and irrational to want Clark and Labour out, especially when, as he says, nobody can really come up with any real reason why.
But here’s the thing (and remember that barring visa runs to Hong Kong and a holiday in Yunnan, I’ve been in the north of China for pretty much all of the five years since I last set foot in New Zealand, so take this with a hefty grain of salt): There’s a growing impression that Clark in particular and Labour in general are getting too arrogant and need to be taken down a peg or two.
You can see it, for example, in the response of generally conservative middle New Zealand to such things as civil unions and the repeal of Section 59 (the stupidly nicknamed “Anti-Smacking Bill”). Loud-mouthed conservative commentators, with whom average Kiwis are more likely than not to agree on many issues, and who seem to have spent the last six years with their knees almost reflexively moving rapidly upward any time a Labour or Green MP opens their mouth, have been making a lot of noise about Labour’s social engineering (yes, I know, the Anti-Smacking thing wasn’t even a Labour initiative, but remember, these are not rational people we’re dealing with) and government intrusions into areas that should properly be kept within families (family being the idealised 1950s mum, dad and 2.4 kids, of course). The bill to repeal of Section 59, as I’ve said, was rather stupidly nicknamed the “Anti-Smacking Bill” precisely to create the impression that the Police we’re going to be kicking in doors and dragging good, law-abiding parents off to 50 years of hard labour in some sub-Antarctic gulag should they dare to reasonably and lovingly discipline their children. No rational debate was allowed, and pointing out that it has always been illegal to hit a child, anyway, and that it was simply a repeal of that section of the law that allowed child abusers to get off scot free was quickly shouted down.
A similar approach was taken to civil unions, with that bill being labelled “gay marriage” despite the fact that it was establishing a non-religious alternative for all couples, gay or straight, to obtain equal rights with traditionally married couples. And of course, there was the usual non-sensical rhetoric about it being an attack on families. If anything, it was pro-family, giving couples who don’t fit the traditional model a legal status and the security to match. Sounds fair to me.
Also, although New Zealanders have always had some deep need for strong leaders (that’s why Muldoon, Shipley and Clark have all been so successful), they also have a need to change them every so often, lest they get too arrogant or go too far. This is not necessarily a bad thing- although the current situation leaves me in despair for New Zealand’s short-term future- as it is one traditional method of “keeping the bastard’s honest” and preventing New Zealand from sliding into a one-party Police state. And given your average Kiwi’s sheep-like blind trust in state and Police authority and automatic, visceral fear of anybody who “rocks the boat” (lives a different lifestyle, expresses an opinion every so slightly different from the very, very narrow mainstream, etc), a tradition of kicking these strong leaders out every few years is a damn good thing.
Heh, non-Kiwi Westerners I’ve met here in China have been surprised to talk about the narrow-minded, complacent insularity of the Kiwi mindset. You have to remember: Those Kiwis you meet in places like China, or anywhere else in Asia (barring tourists in Bali and Thailand, of course), Africa, or the world outside of New Zealand, Australia, and Earl’s Court, are, by definition, not average or normal. I don’t know if it’s something different in us that compels us to travel to these strange, exotic lands, or something that changes in us as we live in these places, or both, or something completely different, but you can’t form an accurate picture of our compatriots back home based on us.
Oh, and when I refer to a post at Public Address as “unusually relevant”, it’s because despite all its pretence and closed-off, blog by invitation only elitism, I don’t normally find much there worth reading. Do a random search of blogspot and you’ll find plenty of blogging of an equivalent quality.
Alright, that’s about as much as I can manage before 10am after a night riddled, like every night for the last week at least, with dreams of a vividity that is disturbing. Not nightmares, just regular dreams, but so vivid its scary. Back to my tieguanyin (must go tea shopping sometime today….)
back
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing, ranting, tilting at windmills on February 12, 2008
We’re back in Beijing. We were delayed a day. Yesterday was windy and cold, and lzh didn’t want to venture out into that kind of weather- never mind that we would’ve spent most of the journey safe and warm inside a bus. Oh well, I wasn’t in any hurry either- although it is nice to have finally had a shower and a proper shave. But today was the last day, because lzh has work tomorrow.
It’s a pity, though, that the journey was marred by some of the worst public behaviour China has to offer. It’s a pity that that had to be caused by lapses in management of the 919 bus line, too, because that’s normally very well run.
See, the bright spark who decided to slow everything down by insisting that everybody boarding at the terminal must either swipe their card or buy a ticket as they get on finally realised that the result was a ridiculously long queue. So bright spark suddenly decided to just fling the bus doors open and collect up money or swipe cards once the bus had been loaded. The result? A mad rush at the bus doors. You’ve all seen it before: People rush at the bus doors as its pulling in to the station, don’t even wait for it to stop. Then once the doors open, everybody pushes and shoves there way forward as if they had a God-given right to be first on. Never mind that there were plenty of small children in the crowd. Never mind that there is absolutely no shortage of 919 fast buses, and that a new bus was pulling into the station every five minutes at most. When it came our time to board, I took the luggage while lzh dived in to get us seats. Some total shitferbrains next to me was pushing his woman forward telling her to shove her way to the front, with an idiotic grin on his face and giggling like a mentally retarded 5 year old who found his parents’ pot stash… I’d had enough of this bullshit and told him so. Very, very clearly, in Chinese so he couldn’t not understand. He got the message and backed off. That still left me fighting to stay standing and keep a hold of our luggage as the crowd pushed me towards the door. Made it, though, and lzh had somehow managed to get us the best seats on a bus with no luggage compartments for a couple carrying a box of apples and a large, full backpack.
And all because they were opening both doors of each bus and allowing people to rush them. There were only two guys on security/crowd control, and the bus conductors were nowhere to be seen- until it was time to swipe cards and collect money, of course, and then once everybody had been ticketed, they got off.
So, a message to Bafangda Bus Company: Sort your shit out. On major holidays and at other peak travel times you need enough people on the ground to manage the crowds. It’s a matter of public safety, for starters. It would’ve been very, very easy for somebody, especially one of the multitude of children, to have been pushed under the wheels of a bus, and if that happened, only the management of Bafangda Bus Company could’ve been blamed. You clearly did not have enough people on the ground to manage the crowds, and your negligence could well have easily led to deaths. Want that on you conscience?
And because the message clearly hasn’t gotten through to you yet: It’s also a matter of face. Yanqing, in case you hadn’t noticed, has a lot of tourist destinations. The Olympics are coming, and with them a likely surge in international visitors. Foreigners, contrary to popular belief, do not always ride around in chauffeured cars, or tour buses when we’re roughing it. Most of us, including probably most tourists, use public transport (and NO, it is NOT difficult for foreigners to find their way around, even when they do meet the stereotype and really do speak only English. Challenging, sometimes, but even then, not all that often, but not difficult, and very far from impossible), and especially when heading to places like Badaling, or to Yanqing to find transport out to Longqingxia, Kangxi Grassland, Songshan, Yudushan, etc, etc… You want all these foreign guests to go home talking about Chinese people rushing buses that haven’t even stopped yet? Or worse, witnessing children getting shoved under the wheels of buses by this mad crowd? When there is not even the slightest shortage of buses? That’s the image you want foreign guests to take to back to their home countries? No? Well, then sort your shit out. Now.
I mean, the behaviour of the scum in Silk Street and other tourist traps is bad enough as it is. We don’t need Bafangda to let it’s management slip and lose more face.
Alright, rant 完了. Yes, I know this sort of thing is distressingly common in China. Trouble is, it really got to me today because:
- It came at the end of what was otherwise a pretty good holiday, and
- The 919s are usually so well run, and there’s normally no trouble at all, even at holiday times when the queue of Yanqingren heading home or back to work can be well over 100 metres long. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, sure, but if it ain’t broke, don’t break it.
I mean, when there’s normally such a mad rush on a bus route, it doesn’t bug me that much. When a route that is normally run so well breaks down like that, it really gets to me.
Anyway, I have vented, it is out of my system. Hopefully management has learnt from today’s experience. Actually, once the bus had turned the corner at Dongguan and gotten on the road out to Badaling, it was back to 919’s normal brilliance. Actually, better, because the driver took us straight onto the expressway at it’s northern terminal instead of taking the usual detour through Xibozi.
But yeah, getting round that Dongguan corner was a problem. The bus station, of course, was congested, both with passengers and buses- well, congested with everything but the desperately needed staff to control the crowds. The weird thing was, the road running from Dongguan past the bus station was just about jammed. I’ve never seen so much traffic in Yanqing before- apart from of course, the truck jams that accompanied the construction of the G110 truck lane, but those were well taken care of by the police and didn’t interfere too much with regular traffic.
Oh, and while I’m ranting: CCTV’s foreign language internation channels (9 (English), Français, and Español) are really lazy. CCTV Français, and so far as I can tell, Español, take a lot of 9’s programming and just dub over in French or Spanish, just as CCTV 9 takes a lot from Chinese TV and dubs it into English. Fair enough, I suppose, but I was watching Carnet de route (presumably the French edition of 9’s Travelogue) this morning and it was about Harbin. First up, they offered a map of Heilongjiang that was in English. Small thing, I know, but could they not have replaced it with something in French, which is, after all, the language they’re supposed to be broadcasting in? And then, and I assume this is 9’s fault, they focussed very much on Harbin’s Russian heritage, but somehow they could only find American music. Really, how hard could it have been to find a few Russian tunes? Especially when you’re in Harbin? And considering how popular Russian folk music was in China in the 50s before the Sino-Soviet bust-up?
Alright, I’m nit-picking, I know. Actually, they did a pretty decent job of making Harbin look like an attractive and interesting place to visit.
Now I’m really done ranting. We’re back, we’ve cleaned up- ourselves, and our clothes. We’ve restocked the fridge. We had a pretty good, if short, holiday, and now we have some private space again.
bainianed out
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on February 10, 2008
Well, the last couple of days have been busy visiting clan members scattered in other parts of the county. The day before yesterday (what day is it today?) we went down to another village- I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the village- within Zhangshanying township, a bit further west of here, but lower down into the basin to visit a couple of households, yesterday down into the county town for another two.
It’s not much fun for me, in some ways. Most of the people we’ve visited are people I’ve never met before, or at most only met at our wedding- and of course, there’s no way I would remember any new face from then. This means, of course, that we have to go through all the meeting the laowai rubbish all over again- Does he speak Chinese? (why not ask me directly?) and so on. But it’s been interesting, too.
Firstly, from an architectural point of view: I never would’ve guessed that another village only a couple of kilometres west and lower would exhibit a style of farmhouse distinct from our village. Maybe it’s because the houses were older, although I don’t think so, because the third was not much older than our house. The main house, along the northern wall of the courtyard as always, was built as one single house with all the rooms connected, not as two separate apartments, the eastern one with three rooms and the western with two, as they are in our village. Also, the rooms were no where near as deep, and in those rooms that had a kang, there was very little floor space. The kangs were built along the southern wall, as seems to be common in older houses (the same is true in our village and the two houses I saw out in Huailai), and the northern wall was lined with cabinets and chests, with only a couple of metres of open space between, just enough to move around.
Yeah, then there was the stove. The same coal stove with wetback that sits in our kitchen and heats our kang and radiator and boils water (very useful stove, that), they had sitting in front of their kang right in the centre. It’s not a small stove, and takes up a fair portion of the centre of the room.
Also, instead of the entrance hall with kitchen opposite the door and rooms to the sides that we have in the main apartment of our main house, they had all the rooms in a row, with doorways connecting them. The room that had all the cooking facilities was huge, the room with the kang was quite small. Our kitchen is small, and the room with the kang quite large.
And of course, the first two houses being rather old, the doorways were low. Really low. So low Ba warned me before we entered. I spent much time ducking. I fully expected to come away with several new scars on my scalp, but I managed to escape the Village of Low Doorways unscathed.
Another interesting thing has been hearing the odd little bits of Ba’s family history. For example, his uncle who we visited in the county town was in the army in the 1950s then became the head of one of the townships. Well, I haven’t heard any stories that would be interesting to any outsider, it’s just interesting for me to hear these little bits and pieces.
Anyway, all the visits are done, and I’m glad. It was getting to be a bit tiring. I’m just sitting around the house doing as little as possible today. We’re supposed to be heading back to Beijing tomorrow.
jiaozied
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on February 7, 2008
About four yesterday afternoon Ma gave me a bowl of jiaozi and said, I can see you’re hungry, so eat these now, then when Ba gets back eat some dishes and drink with him.
Ok.
And of course, I had a not-quite-full-bowl of jiaozi to chase down the baijiu and chicken legs I’d been sharing with Ba.
It’s hard to beat Ma’s jiaozi. She makes them from scratch. They’re the best jiaozi. Store-bought jiaozi don’t even come close. Even Tianjin’s Baijiaoyuan can’t match Ma’s jiaozi, and that’s the best jiaozi restaurant I’ve ever come across.
Anyway, last night proceeded as always. Jiaozi and baijiu were consumed. Didi took off to play with his friends, not returning till early this morning, as he does every Spring Festival. We settled in to watch the Spring Festival Gala on CCTV 1. We- meaning lzh and Ba helping to choose and set up, but me doing all the fuse lighting- let off a few fireworks at midnight. And then we were woken up bright and early this morning. There’s some rule somewhere that one must get up early on the morning of New Year’s Day, even though you got to bed some time after midnight the night before. And of course, I had to let off another string of crackers. The neighbours, though, were doing their level best to match last night’s barrage. I didn’t have the energy for that, but fireworks must be lit.
Well, the Gala, usually known in expat circles as the Craptacular, was its usual self. The skits were alright, at least. Not brilliant, but good enough. Could’ve done with less of the heavy-handed politics, though, especially the hyper-nationalist jingoism. Still, it made the administration’s focus abundantly clear: Support for the rural population and migrant workers and, of course, those caught in the snow down south. I can’t, and won’t, complain about that.
But I do wish that the committee in charge of choosing the song and dance routines would be shot- or at least exiled to Hoh Xil. And Jay Zhou was bad enough, but please, don’t ever consider inviting S.H.E. again. That song was awful- a bad song to begin with, but the lyrics were simply terrible. I’m sure the Devil has now added that one to Hell’s selection of elevator muzak. Yes, I am saying this, and I am in my right state of mind: The Taiwanese pop stars invited to this years Gala managed to make the military song and dance troupes seem almost pleasant.
But the skits were alright. I enjoyed most of them. Lose the song and dance routines, just run with the skits, that might be alright. Although, as good as Song Dandan and Zhao Benshan are- and they were in fine form last night- I suspect it might be getting about time for them to move on from the old married couple from rural Liaobei routine.
Then after breakfast this morning we loaded up a barrow with Pepsi and baijiu for the other clan households in the village and went off to deliver them. It was then that I was warned that lzh and I may be given money, this being our first Spring Festival properly married. Wasn’t expecting that one. So we trundled off, stopping in each household only long enough to drop off the baijiu and Pepsi and have a quick chat, accepted the money (which was always given by an aunt to me, and which I was not overly comfortable with, but whatever), gave money to the children of cousins, and managed to get back in rather less time than I was expecting. Somehow we managed to escape Ergu’s house without being forcefed a banquet, as has happened every other time we’ve been there.
So far as I can tell, we’ve managed to visit everybody we need to visit in the village, and it’s only a trip to the county town left. So it looks like perhaps the next few days are going to be a bit more relaxing than I expected. Cool. And the county town is all but guaranteed to be a fun trip- Laogu and Laogufu are exceptional hosts.
These two afternoons I’ve managed to get out and go for a walk through the fields. It’s really quiet out there. Well, of course, it’s winter…. But even the highway and railway seem quieter than normal. But the highway has seemed quieter ever since the “truck lane” (in reality, a separate highway running more or less parallel with the original one) opened. I don’t think that’s a function of the extra distance from us- it’s only 20 or 30 metres south of the original highway as it passes our village, and on the same side of the railway as us. There actually seem to be fewer trucks on the road. When we went out to Huailai two weeks ago, there just as many trucks as I would’ve expected on the sides of the highway, their crews availing themselves of the various restaurants, bathhouses, garages, and other services targeted at them. But the highway seems to be much quieter on this side of the border. And considering the reports I’ve read about all the extra coal being shipped from Datong to Qinhuangdao to rescue the south, I was expecting to see more train traffic. No, at least, there’s no obvious increase. I did see one really huge train yesterday afternoon, though, so long it had two locomotives at the front, and another two probably a kilometre back in the middle of the train.
Anyway, enough rambling. I’m tired. Doubtless a large crowd is going to show up here at some stage, and if not, then it’ll gather at some other house.
done
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on February 6, 2008
Duty Number 1 for the Spring Festival is done. The couplets and 福 characters and associated bits and pieces have been pasted on all the doors, gates and door and gate posts, the back wall of the house opposite our gate, and the bengbengche. And two rolls of crackers were set off to complete that. My part is holding, carrying, or helping out with the ladder, pot of glue, brushes, and other bits needed to past these things up, then lighting the fireworks. Everybody else runs safely inside the courtyard as I prepare to light the crackers. Our dog, Zaizai, who generally follows me everywhere, stands beside me, then barks madly at the crackers as they explode. Fortunately he’s smart enough to not get close enough to them to get hurt.
Anyway, that’s done.
过年好
Posted by wangbo in admin, life in Beijing on February 6, 2008
祝大家过年好，万事如意。
So I’m desperately trying to keep my fingers warm enough to work a keyboard up here in the village. Only one room of the house is warm, and that’s only relatively speaking, and that room doesn’t have the phone. I suppose I could try to persuade lzh to buy an extra 20-odd metres of broadband cable if she goes into the county town to shop as she’s threatening to do today, and then I could get online in that warmer room, and if perhaps she can get the right plug, we may also be able to set things up so that both computers can get online at once, but that’s going a bit too far. Cold as it may be, I’ve coped with this a million times before and I’ll cope with it again. The only annoying thing is having to close the curtains so I can see. This room would probably warm up a bit if I could keep the curtains open and still see the screen.
Anyway, we’ll probably be very busy this Spring Festival, and I don’t know how much time I’ll have to make use of the new broadband connection we have up here- and it’s pretty cool, too, probably faster than the university connection. So I thought I’d pre-emptively wish everyone a Happy New Year in case I don’t get time later on.
And the fireworks have already started. The neighbours started around dawn, and there’ve been intermittent bangs and booms since then.
And so far I haven’t noticed any unusual traffic on the Datong-Qinhuangdao Railway, which runs just a couple of hundred metres south of here, despite all the extra coal they’re supposed to be shipping to help thaw out the south. Then again, I haven’t really being paying attention. Still, we do here the rumble of the coal trains passing pretty clearly, especially at night. Maybe I was just too buggered last night, having slept so little the night before. Did see an empty coal train heading for Datong yesterday afternoon, though, but that is hardly unusual.
Oh, and while I’m at it: Happy Birthday New Zealand! 168 years old, and still going strong!
This is also a test post, because Stuart warned me that he’ll be updating the blogtown code over the next couple of days, and last time he did that everything that was written in Chinese got buggered up. Maybe it’s too early yet, but so far, so good. Just to try and make sure:
俺们夜儿个下午到了延庆，天特晴，可是非常冷。
heading for the hills
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on February 5, 2008
Yeah, I know, I’m supposed to be packing to leave for Yanqing at 11. I’ll get to it in a minute. Hey, I’ve got two hours and I don’t need to take that much. For one thing, we have a fair bit of stuff stored up in the village that we can fall back on should the need arise. More importantly, we’ll be there for only one week.
lzh’s danwei handed out a Spring Festival care package consisting mostly of various kinds of processed meat, and so that’s going to account for about half of what I have to carry up there. Most of the rest of the weight will be the laptop. Won’t need much clothing considering it’ll be basically impossible to shower up there, making it kinda pointless to change clothes, and besides, everybody else is in the same boat and even if they weren’t, it’ll be too cold to smell. Ah, the joys of rural northern China.
But pretty much all the Spring Festival prep is done. There are large amounts of meat and fish stored safely where the dogs and cat can’t get them, huge piles of the stuff we’ll be giving to each household in the clan (apart from the two on Ma’s side still out in Huailai who we visited two weekends back) because it’s our first Spring Festival married, and I spied a stash of fireworks ready for me to light (they said they bought them for me- I don’t mind playing with fireworks, but I can’t figure out how I got the default fuse-lighting duty, and that duty somehow seems to have turned into “Chris likes fireworks”).
Oh, and we’ve hung our 福 characters on our apartment doors and cleaned the place up.
The only problem is I woke up around about two, and after three hours of staring at the ceiling, I thought bugger it, got up, and finished one of several books I have on the go. Didn’t help me get back to sleep, though, which is ok, because by that time there was only an hour or so until lzh’s alarm would go off, so I turned the computer on. Oh well, I’ll probably manage to doze off on the bus- and knowing me, I’ll be wide awake for the boring part of the ride through Changping across the plain, and I’ll sleep through the beautiful section crossing the mountains. Happens every time.
lzh’s brother says he got the broadband installed up there, which is cool- I will definitely be spending August in the village- but he says it’s not as fast as he expected. Well, first of all he’s using my old laptop, which is not very fast. Secondly, I don’t think we can reasonably expect broadband in rural areas to be as fast as broadband in downtown Beijing. The dial-up certainly is slower up there, and cellphone signals weaker. So long as it is useable, that’s ok. And besides, you pay 500-odd and get six months unlimited surfing, paying only 50-odd per month after that? Can’t expect a super-high speed connection. But I am curious to see just how good it is, and whether it’s the computer, the connection or both that are slowing things down.
Oh, no, now I’m being told to leave at ten. Better hurry, then.
random detours
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on February 4, 2008
American football always struck me as a painfully slow game to watch. It’s more like chess than it’s distant cousin also named 橄榄球. I did watch the Superbowl once several years ago in the sports bar at Gloria Plaza, and it was reasonably exciting- or at least, being surrounded by hundreds of Americans all excited about the Superbowl gave it the atmosphere necessary to keep me awake at that absurdly early hour those of us in China watch American sports thanks to the timezone difference. And yes, at least half the people present were talking loudly about how much they were looking forward to seeing the ads. My friends, who, fortunately for my own sanity, were there to watch the game, explained what that was about, as have other Americans since, but still: I don’t get it. Anyway, this morning I came across the link to Yahoo’s coverage of the Superbowl and decided to check it out. I might as well be trying to read Swedish. Still, I think I know what the score is, so far. But I think it’s going to finish too late for me to follow it all the way through, I have to run over to the electricity buying office this morning. Oh, wait, it’s the 4th quarter already…
And now for some questions from yesterday afternoon’s wanderings: Is Nanluoguxiang already being invaded by “backpackers”? And does the latest Lonely Planet have a section detailing the “backpacker” uniform?
“Scarequotes” because considering what backpacking was supposed to be all about, I find it hard to believe an actual backpacker would use a guidebook (and certainly not Lonely Planet, the world’s most popular guide to banana pancakes) or follow any particular fashion.
But there I was with Allan walking down Nanluoguxiang (which we’d found our way to purely by accident taking random turns through hutongs) and we saw a gaggle of four, clearly tourists, a middle-aged man and woman, and a young man and woman. Family group, perhaps? Anyway, there they were in their North Face jackets, cargo pants with a billion pockets whose only use is to be picked, hiking boots, and the middle-aged woman with two of those ridiculous supercool, sporty walking sticks that look like they were originally intended to help serious mountain climbers scale Himalayan peaks. Walking down Nanluoguxiang, a perfectly (well, almost) flat, paved lane in bone dry weather. And no, she looked to be in perfect health and just as fit as any other affluent Western woman of her age. And this group were not the only people we passed wearing the “backpackers” uniform. And we stopped in Passby Bar, and one of the first things I saw was a wall lined with Lonely Planets. That’s never a good sign.
Enough of being sarcastic and judgemental. Now, unless the game ends by the time I get this posted, I better go buy this electricity.