People Are In A Hurry!

I don't often see the people in my building, except in the elevator. People riding the elevator are on the way to somewhere, whether they are coming in or going out, with little time to chat. Except for two ladies who always have a nice little natter with one in the hall and one in the machine, holding the door open until they finish.  
I did meet the guy across the hall after I blew the fuses in my con-apt, though.
My washing machine is in the bathroom. Everyone who's lived in Korea or China will know what I'm talking about when I say that when I'm doing laundry, I have to stretch the cord across the room and up near the ceiling to plug it in. Well, one day I was stepping over the cord, lost my balance and came down hard on top of it. The cord pulled right out of the plug, but the wires touched long enough to overload the circuit breaker.
It was a struggle to get things back in order, I can tell you.
At first, I couldn't find the fuse box. There just wasn't one in view, and I didn't know if it was in another part of the building or what. I called my supervisor to ask for some help, but just trying to explain "circuit breaker" over the phone to her was enough to lay me waste for the rest of the day.
But I plucked up my courage, and knocked on a neighbour's door. He couldn't have been nicer, and he even spoke a little English. He found the fuse box hiding behind the wardrobe, reset the breaker, and then reset another breaker in a power closet next to the elevator, That restored the power. He even rewired the plug for me.
But, I digress.
I was going to talk about how much in a hurry the people in my building are, as demonstrated by their behaviour in the elevator.
When ever they get on, they always push the "door close" button as soon as possible. I have yet to see someone  not push it. I've even seen someone push that button first, and then the button for their floor. Impatient much?
I have never worried about the door close button before. It would have to be an uncomfortably long time in the elevator with the doors open before I would think about pushing it. So when ever I get on, I only push the button for my floor. If I'm alone, the doors close after a second or two and I'm on my way, but if somebody else is on the elevator with me, they will push the close button for me. I've even seen someone pushing the door close button as the doors are closing!  
That would be enough for me to award the prize, but the person who takes the cake was a woman who rode down in the elevator with me last week. As we arrived on the first floor, and I swear I am not making this up, she started pushing the "door open" button.
GENTLEMEN, WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

Why I Teach ESL

There is a funny website, engrish.com, that features the misuse of the English language by those who are not native speakers. Since I have been in China, I have seen many more examples to add to their site.
The area I live in is the site of a lot of new building, and there are billboards around the construction that advertise how great they are going to be when they're finished. Some of the English that they use is unintentionally funny.
But why use English at all? It isn't that prevalent here. I have met only a few who speak it, so it's a mystery why a developer would want to use it to advertise their product. Do they think that the people who see it (but can't read it) will be impressed?
But I digress.
One sign reads: "The Great House is on the Eastern City Hall and the Northern River." This is on a complex near the building that is North Harbin's City Hall, and it is close to the river.
Another building site's sign says "Deposit Gold Silver Than Save Shop."
?
Another sign on the same site reads:
"Great Appreciation of Space
Wealth is in our hands."
That's how it looks on the billboard, so I'm not sure if it's supposed to be one sentence or not. It makes a little more sense as two sentences, but as one... what is "Space Wealth?"
Yet another development sign advertises itself as "Water's Fragrant Dike."
Okay.
Here is a picture of a local business' sign:

Now I realize they are probably in the real estate business, but what if they are selling real property? Can you buy fake property, too?A restaurant across the street is the "Lotus Fishing Restaurant." I went there to eat with some of the department heads (both from Canada and here in Harbin), but we weren't asked to catch our own dinner.
Another restaurant is named "Splendid Restaurant" on the front, but "People Restaurant" around the corner. Which is it? And do you feed people, or serve them up? Whatever, I am going to be careful about walking near it.
Other businesses I have seen are: "Love's Witness," "Her Dress Box," "Happy Hour Time Hotel" (probably similar to the "love motels" I encountered in Korea), "Bird Nest Business Lnn" (my italics), and an ice cream parlour that tells us to "enjoy delicious enjoy life."
When I was taken to a hospital for a physical, I left my urine sample on a tray that had a sign:: "Leave urine after duct inserted on top of the shey." Boy, I hope I did it right.
I found a de-motivational poster featuring this backpack:

Heh.
Even my students are exposed unwittingly to poor English, in the form of the notebooks they use. One has this printed on the cover:

 

LONELY HEART

I stood in the memory of

the entrance

A collection of my left chest

Go Ballistic loneliness

Naked loses

Stick out a mile.

So I can not say tears

Because of hair

I walked along the fate of

 the arrow

But moving to the next

 

You could make the case that it's poetry, because it works for me on that level.

But the best, the one that I absolutely love, is this paragraph written on the back of car parked in front of the apartment building next to mine. It reads:

JUNCTION PRODUCE

High Lovely Salloon Gallery

We, coordinate brand for "JUNCTION PRODUCE" of VIPCAR, are proud of be fed back aggresively to make full use of sensibility the tradition for as much of austerity. eeriness. rambunctiosness and austere elegance in which only prestige carhas. By so doing. we, junction Pproduce Would like to aim the way to the pinnacle of VP dress up and we want to be only the first and last memory keeper of by succeeding this point from everlasting to everlasting. 

It's complete gibberish. It's fantastic gibberish, and I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. I mean, you can't make this stuff up!
What is the company selling? Cars (VIPCAR)? Produce, as in vegetables? Or clothes (dress up)? Who cares?

As long as there are signs like this, my job is safe.

   

Why Do Chinese Cross The Road?

When I first went to Korea, I couldn't believe how poorly they drove. It was like they were given cars without being told how to use them properly. But I have written about that on "What the Kimchi?" I did not think that there worse drivers.
Then I went to Vietnam.
I find somewhat the same situation here in China. They just do not drive with any care or attention. I have been in cars where the driver will make a turn or change lanes without signalling or even looking to see if anybody is there. And the result is plain to see. It seems like every time I have been out on the road, I have seen an accident, or its aftermath. Most of them are simple scrapes and fender benders that could be avoided if the drivers hadn't been trying to one-up each other.
I have seen vehicles driving the wrong way, just to avoid making a little detour. Our bus driver has to avoid these idiots at a certain point on our trip to school each and every day.
So I have made it a rule, I am not going to jaywalk. Even crossing in a crosswalk with the light, I have had to avoid drivers making what in Canada would be illegal turns. You have to keep your head on a swivel or risk certain death.
But the average Chinese are braver (or stupider) than I am. They jaywalk at almost every opportunity, and turn their noses up at safety devices like crosswalks and pedestrian overpasses. They will cross wherever and whenever they want to, despite the traffic. Sometimes I think they are even trying to mess up traffic, like when they wait to cross until just after the light has changed against them.
In front of my apartment building, there is a huge traffic circle, which I have to cross on the way to the bus stop. There are pedestrian underpasses that I use all the time, but the average Chinese will avoid. They would rather cross the road just above the underpass, rather than take the few extra steps. I took the following pictures just in the time it took to go around the circle a coupla times.
Here's one of the underpasses:

and a woman crossing RIGHT NEXT TO it:

Here are two men, walking in the street, RIGHT NEXT TO the underpass:

and then crossing in between speeding vehicles:

Here's another coupla mooks walking on the road:

and crossing straight towards the underpass.
I MEAN, IT'S RIGHT THERE! ARE YOU BLIND?!

A woman walking on the road (at least she's facing traffic. Many people don't):

Here's a woman actually using the underpass, the only person I saw doing so that day, though there were some tracks in the snow:

Here's a woman that I followed around the circle:

She walked on the road rather than the sidewalk, with her back to the oncoming traffic:

and she crossed the road while I took the underpass:

I don't know, maybe she thought I was the crazy one.
But how did the population of China get to be so large, with poor judgement like this?

A Chinese Fire Drill

This week we had a fire drill at the school. We were warned what day it was going to be, but I was a little disconcerted with the instructions about how to act during the drill. The supervisor of my department, "Linda," told me to run to the exit. I wasn't sure I would have to do this, and I didn't plan on trampling over the students in order to make my escape.
They do strange things here at the school, things I am sure would not pass muster in the west. Some of the exits from the school are padlocked shut. There are plenty of other exits, but I wonder what would happen if someone absolutely had to use one of those padlocked exits to escape.
Anyway, the siren for the drill sounded last Wednesday morning, and it was LOUD! It was like one of those old air raid sirens, only it was just in the hallway, so it kind of startled me. By the time I put on my hat and picked up my coat, the other teachers and the students were GONE.
I was astounded. In those few seconds, they had done what they were told, and had run right out of the building. By the time I descended from the third floor out to the walkway in front of the building (through an exit unlocked for the drill, and re-locked the next day), they were all in the athletic field.
They left me to burn to death!
Heh.
"Annie," who co-teaches History with me, said that I should have run. And when we had a second drill later that day, she kept urging me to go faster. She even got behind me and started giving me little nudges in the back.
Oh boy.
So that is a genuine Chinese fire drill.

JFK 50 Years Later

November 22nd next week will mark the fiftieth anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, as you may have seen on television. The National Geographic channel is marking the occasion by airing "Killing Kennedy," which is adapted from a book by Bill O'Reilly.
I haven't read the book, but most reviews said good things about it. And the movie wasn't that bad, either. But it did stick to the "Oswald did it" storyline, which in my mind has been thoroughly discredited. I've written about my visit to Dealey Plaza before, and my reasons for believing in a conspiracy are explained there.
There is a principle known as Occam's Razor, that in general says that the simplest solution is probably the most likely. When people come up with insanely complicated conspiracy theories about who killed JFK, they are dismissed as nuts who just can't accept that a man as great as Kennedy could be killed by a non-entity like Oswald.
But the more I have read about the assassination, the more I believe in a conspiracy. Yahoo news recently ran a story called "Ten Facts You Don't Know About the JFK Assassination." I'm always interested in learning more, so I gave it a read.
The facts are derived from a book by Brad Meltzer, History Decoded:The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time. They are things that not a lot of people know, such as that the window Oswald shot from disappeared and is in the hands of a private collector. The Sixth Floor Museum has a window it says is the one on display. I don't know, maybe they're mistaken.
Another fact given is that plenty of shooter's replicated Oswald's feat of shooting three times in less than six seconds. I don't think anyone ever disputed this. I think even I could (probably) fire the Carcano in six seconds. Whether I could hit the target, or an expert could replicate the wounds that the "magic bullet" is supposed to have inflicted, is another matter.
I have seen some documentaries try to demonstrate this, but I'm still skeptical. Even with computer modelling their conclusions do not shake my conviction that a bullet struck Kennedy in the front of his head, driving him back and to the left. Simple physics proves a conspiracy.
Meltzer's fact about the magic bullet is that rather than being pristine, which he says most people believe, it is flattened on one side. After traversing the bodies of two men, smashing bones and piercing tough skin, it is flattened on one side.
I roll my eyes.
Another fact, that Oliver Stone's film "JFK" damaged history, is probably true. People may have missed Stone's statement that he merely wanted to start a conversation, or that "JFK" is a film made in Hollywood, which is also known as the "Dream Factory." Anyone who relies on Hollywood for their facts probably believes there's a dinosaur park in Central America.
Heh.
The investigation by the Warren Commission was done behind closed doors, and the Kennedy family kept some of the photographs of the autopsy (as well as Kennedy's brain, probably buried privately by Bobby). Things like this led to theories gaining more credence and taking a foothold on the public's imagination. But the Watergate scandal and the revelations that followed also gave people a sense that their government wasn't to be trusted.
There are not a lot of files left in the vaults (the government says) because of recent freedom of information disclosures.
Meltzer pooh-poohs the statement that there were a lot of mysterious deaths after JFK's murder, as if some agency or organization was trying to keep them quiet. He says a lot of these "mysterious" deaths were merely serendipitous accidents or natural causes. An interesting article about some of those deaths can be found here.
Meltzer does say that people should investigate and make up their own minds, which I agree with. Whether or not you believe that Oswald acted alone, you are going to see a lot of films and documentaries, or read a lot of books, this month that may help you make up your mind.

Eating

I thought that for this post, I would share with you something about the food here. Taking influences from Russia, Mongolia, Korea, and of course, China, Harbin's food is a lot "heartier" than the rest of the country. Stews are very popular, and because the winters are a lot longer, you'll find that cabbage, potatoes, cucumber, and corn are used more here. Chinese BBQ and hot pot are also very popular.
I eat most of my meals at my school. The students board there during the week, and they and the teachers all eat in the dining hall next to the main building.

The dining hall (left), opposite the main building

I take the school's bus in the morning, along with other teachers, getting picked up at 7:10 and arriving twenty minutes later. I go straight to the dining hall to have breakfast.

A typical breakfast consists of a hard-boiled egg, a couple of diced vegetable dishes, some watery rice (called congee), and some kind of biscuit. The ones pictured here are my favourite. They're baked to a golden brown. The other teachers go more for the other usual offering, which looks like a cinnamon roll. Except it doesn't have any cinnamon, and it's not baked but steamed. The consistency is kind of like raw dough, so I tend to avoid them.

After breakfast I head up to the third floor where the International classroom is situated, and gather my materials for that day's lessons. I teach History, Geography, and ESL, and I have a fourth class that is an extra helping of one of those three. So I have two classes in the morning, and two in the afternoon.

There are three other teachers in our staff room, plus a supervisor, and we all (except the one who is teaching) head down for lunch about 11:30, just before the student body. 

Lining up to be served lunch

Serving up the food, noodles in this case

Utensils: wooden chopsticks, a spoon, and a wet cloth

Selecting sauce for the noodles

Lunch: a Chinese version of spaghetti and meat sauce

This is an unusual lunch, as we more often than not have a variety of Chinese dishes to choose from. I think they do this lunch for me. The cook asked for a list of food that I like, and this was one of the things on my list. It's pretty good, but I always wish for a fork when I eat noodles. I can use chopsticks fairly well, but I prefer a fork and a knife. 

I like a little salt with my food, too, but my supervisor Linda looks askance when I bring out my salt shaker and keeps telling me it's bad for my health. I tell her that life needs a little extra spice to make it more interesting, but she's still dubious.

The students line up to eat

The dining hall 

Dirty dishes: one big bowl for the soup bowls, another for the utensils, a garbage pail for leftover food, and stack the metal trays at the end

After lunch, I take a half hour walk around the school's athletic running track. If no-one walks with me, I listen to a Chinese language (Mandarin) learning course, and practice the words and phrases. I am getting a little better at it, and what I have learned has turned out to be very useful when I have to communicate when I am shopping or banking or whatever. 

I also have a room where I can go to lie down if I want. Sometimes I listen to my language course a second time, but most of the time I just read. At 1:00, it's time to get ready for afternoon classes.

I head down to the dining hall at 4:30 for dinner. I have to eat early because the bus leaves just before 5.

A typical dinner is three or more of the six or seven dishes there are to choose from, a generous helping of rice, some soup, and a piece of fruit. 

Like I said, there are a lot of stews on the menu, whether it is stewed vegetables or something with meat in it. There is a lot of pork and chicken. Beef is more expensive, so it is a rarity. 

It's not usually very spicy, but sometimes I run into these pieces of a bark-like substance that is like to burn my tongue off if I bite into them. 

The serving of rice you see here is considerably less than most others take. They really pack it away.

The soup is usually a clear broth with some vegetables or an egg stirred into it. And the fruit is usually an apple, an orange, or a banana.

On the weekends, I either eat out or make something for myself at home. It is then that I indulge my craving for western style food. But I haven't eaten at a lot of restaurants as it is still early days. There's a place near my house that makes fresh dim sum that I quite enjoy. You can get a plate of about 20 dumplings for about $2-3 Cdn, and a bottle of beer to go with is about another dollar on top of that. Pretty good.

I have seen western restaurant chains here, too: KFC, McDonald's, and Pizza Hut. Sigh. It's too bad that these represent us to the rest of the world.

I wanted to show you some pictures of the smog that enveloped Harbin a couple of weeks ago. It was a real pea-souper that literally shut down the city.

The dining hall from the main building. The smog was a bit clearer in the middle of the morning, but got worse as the day went on

Looking towards the athletic field

As less than half of the students had shown up that day, classes were cancelled, and we were given the next day off, as well. We had to make up those days we missed on two successive Saturdays. At least we would have, if on Friday the power hadn't gone out. They figured they couldn't get it repaired in time, so yesterday was a day off.

About the middle of last week, I felt an odd shaking as I was sitting at my desk. It was kind of like some sort of construction was causing the building to vibrate, but I later learned that there was an earthquake in Mongolia (just to the west of Harbin), and I had felt the tremor. It was a very odd sensation.

So there have been a few "disasters" here, both natural and man-made. I hope that that's as severe as they get. 

This week coming up is going to be a short one for me, as I am going to Hong Kong on Wednesday to sort out my visa. The one I'm using now is only a temporary one, as this job came up so near to the start of the term they decided to bring me over as soon as possible rather than wait for a regular visa to be approved.

But that's a story for another time.

I Am Hot

Well, not really.
But I will be once the management company that runs the building decides to turn on the heat. I have heard two dates: the 10th and the 20th of October. Flint will know what I am talking about. In Korea, they did not turn on the heat before a certain date, even if everyone was freezing to death. And in the spring, there is another particular date they wait for to turn on the air conditioning. At least in Korea, the con-apts that I lived in had personal controls so you could heat up or cool down on your own. But not in this worker's paradise. You have to wait just like the rest of the peons.
That's one of the things I will miss about Canada; the thermostat. How did Azrael put it?

No pleasure,

no rapture,

no exquisite sin is greater...

than central air.

On Wednesday last, the owner of this place came in with a workman to replace the radiators.

That's right. I said radiators. Hot water, hissing pipes, the whole bit. I haven't seen radiators since... well jeez, I may be old, but I'm not that old. I don't think I've ever seen a place heated by radiators.

I keep getting warnings from the locals about how bitterly cold the winter is going to be. I'm Canadian, so I just smile quietly to myself. But I guess they think I won't be able to handle it, so the existing rads in my place were replaced with much bigger ones.

The owner and a workman first arrived about 10:30 (I was expecting them at 9:00), looked over what I had, and went away for three hours. When they came back, they spent the afternoon replacing three of the smaller ones with two larger ones, and adding two small ones together.

So I guess I'll be warm enough this winter (once they actually turn the damn hot water on).

By the way, someone asked about the hot water for my shower, if it lasts long enough.

Don't worry, it stays warm plenty. I couldn't say the same about the first shower I had (in Korea), I can tell you. The roommate they stuck me with wasn't too bright, and he couldn't figure out how to make the hot water heater work properly. So he made the school put in a whole new water heater, similar to what I have here in China (only smaller). The problem was, the gas line for it, she came in through the bathroom window (Heh) so that you couldn't close it all the way during the coldest winter in Korean history.

The second roommate I had was much smarter, and he figured out how to fix the water heater so it worked properly.

So to keep on with the upgrades, I've been going to the main part of town as well as exploring my own area, and seeing what there is in the way of shopping. I went downtown to a Carrefour, just to pick up some things to eat. It's a pretty good store. There's not a lot of foreign foods, but I'm used to finding what I need in an Asian supermarket.

Yesterday (Saturday), I went to the big shopping centre, Hongbo Century Square. It is near Harbin's train and bus stations, so there were a lot of big crowds milling around aimlessly. As a manly man among men, I don't like shopping. I like to get in and get out as quickly as possible. But I had to put up with a lot of slow-moving objects in my way. Flint would hate it.

But I did get a good look at what they have there. It's a big underground shopping mall, built somewhat like a maze. I saw some mooks panicking when they couldn't find their way in.

Heh.

 I did see some nice looking clothes that I would like to buy, including some jackets that my sister was talking to me about a while ago. They have these high Manchu-type collars. Very cool.

And I got lost. I got on a bus that I thought was going to take me back to my own neighbourhood, but it went in a whole 'nother direction. I was able to use what Chinese I have learned so far to ask for directions and tell people where I wanted to go, so it all ended happily.

At least I've got that going for me.

Today I went to another shopping centre near my house, just the other side of a university. It's a big one, and it has a lot of stuff that I need. I just may make it my primary shopping place, as it's so convenient.

So it's all coming together.

Now, about that hot water...