Changchun Journal Part One
4/26/96 ChangChun, P.R. China
Where do I start...? This place is absolutely wild. You may want to
read this on your lunch hour; I get a little carried away...
Okay, my language lessons are coming along pretty well; I have only
had two 4-hour lessons, and already I had a Chinese guy (one of our
interpreters) tell me he thought I was "gifted" in language. Nice
compliment, considering how tough this is. Some of the sounds they
make are completely foreign (go figure). And the hardest part is that
you can have one word spelled the same, but with a different accent on
the vowel (steady, rising, rising-then-falling, falling) and it means
four different things i Mandarin. So, depending on how I say the word
"qian", I could be saying "thousand" or "money" or "shallow". Bizzare!
The food at the restaurants here is absolutely phenomenal (yes, even
better than the Chinese Buffet King) But you have to be careful what
you order. No lie, I have seen things like dog, deer penis, and pig
ear on various menus. So, I stick to beef and pork and chicken.
Believe it or not, aside from not having egg rolls, a lot of the food
is similar to Chinese food in the States, just much better. And
CHEAP! You wouldn't believe it. Two nights ago a group of twelv e of
us- 2 KH guys, one's wife, a guy who is here to open up a SwissHotel
and his wife, several Americans over here teaching English, and me-
went to eat. We had about 20 different dishes, everything from
sweet-and-sour pork (fantastic) to spicy dumplings. For dessert we
had carmalized apples and bananas that were bubbling with syrup on the
outside; you had to dip them in your beer to cool and harden the sugar
before eating them. And we had about 15 quart bottles of beer. When
all was said and done, the bill was 180 yuan- about $22 for all of us!
Amazing!
Yesterday I needed to find a place where I could buy computer
equipment in town. I went with our interpreter to a place he knew, a
sort of "mall" that housed agents for all of the big computer makers.
The place turned out to be auspiciously called the Changchun Science
and Technology Trade Center. From the outside, it looked like a nice
5 or 6 floor office building; the front facade was plastered with
billboards from all differen computer manufacturers. When we went in,
though, I could hardly believe it. The building was dimly lit, with
flickering fluorescent lights hanging lopsided from their wires. The
floor was grimy and wet in the places where water pooled up after
trickling down the walls. Makeshift office "suites"- made of glass
walls taped together- filled the interior of each floor. Each shop
advertised its wares with stick-on vinyl letters or whiteboards
proclaiming the deals within, and each had its share of misspelled
words like "Pentnum" and "Newtwork".
Then I made it to the third floor; my interpreter wanted to take the
elevator and I thanked God when it didn't come. I made it upstairs
without slipping and breaking my neck and found a more reputable
looking place with real walls and a door and a large, professionally
printed sign proclaiming the vendor to be an authorized re-seller for
a number of large manufacturers. I went in the staff of 5 or 6
Chinese guys was sitting around playing games on PC's. They all
jumped up and crowded around me like I was famous; my interpreter
told them I was looking for a Compaq server and possibly 30-50 PC's,
and they were thrilled that I wanted to spend so much money. It
turned out that a couple even spoke a little English, and all were
very friendly and eager to talk.
When we left the Science and Technology Center and I asked the
interpreter to write down the name of the building and its address in
Chinese on my notepad, so I could find my way back with a taxi if
needed. While I stood there on the street waiting, a very small,
ancient Chinese women with an amazingly wrinkled face stopped right in
front of me and stared at me. I said "Nie Hao" (Hello!) and she
stared; I smiled and nodded my head, and she stared. I shifted
uneasily, and she stared. Finally, the interpreter finished and we
moved on. I looked back over my shoulder and she was still standing
there, motionless, staring at me. Maybe my fly was down or something.
The bathrooms are horrendous; smelly and nasty and the toilets are
holes in the floor (yes, you have to stand up for everything). You
are lucky if you can find separate bathrooms for men and women;
mostly they just stand side-by-side together over these holes, smoking
cigarettes and reading the paper. I use the toilet in my apartment in
the morning and do my damnedest to hold any business until I get back.
I am going to start carrying a handkerchief with cologne sprayed on
it; I'll probably look like some effete 18th-Century Frenchman,
holding this perfumed cloth over my nose, but at least I'll be able to
breath.
For entertainment, the Chinese absolutely adore Karaoke. They sing
terribly; and the funniest thing I ever heard was a group of them
belting out John Denver ("Take me home, country roads...") God, it
was awful. Twice I have been begged to sing; I know it is inevitable
that I take the stage, but so far have been lucky.
Taxi rides are an absolute nightmare; if I am going to die over here,
I am sure it will be in a taxi. They weave in and out and around;
they drive on whichever side of the street they can find room to
squeeze in to; they pass on the right, on the left, on the curb,
anywhere. Twice I have seen my life flash before my eyes when w e
narrowly missed head-on collisions with a bus and then a tanker truck.
It is absolutely, totally insane.
But the people are wonderful; friendly and open, and curious about
what life is like in America. You can't help but hope that modern
life will catch up to them here. They really have hard lives.
Well, I guess that's all for now (whew!); hope I didn't put you to
sleep, but I was on a roll.
More to follow...
This is the first of the ChangChun Journals. If you enjoyed this one,
there are several others you can look up. If you have travels stories
to share, let me know!
To go to the next journal just turn the page
© 1996 Joe Drouin
