Beijing, China
This one's so fresh it could be the Prince of Bel Air. It hasn't even found its way into my little green book. It just had to go out straight away.
Today, on my way to school, I had my first (and hopefully last) encounter with Chinese police. There were three of them, two in uniform, one in plain clothes. “朋友 (friend)”, they hailed me. I was a bit surprised. Where did I live? I pointed, told them the street name. What house number, they demanded. I had forgotten; people don't send me (physical) letters, so I never bothered to memorise my address. I described the location next the new sports ground. What was the place, what house number, they insisted. They had formed a semi-circle around me. I had forgotten. Did I have my temporary resident's registration card on me? I was being suspected it seemed, eyes scanned me suspciously. I didn't have my card. I was told to go and fetch it, they would wait for me. I tried to object, I had a class to go to. No way, I was to go home and get it at once. They followed me, their car was parked along the road; this is where they would wait. “快一点儿 (quickly)”, one commanded from behind me. That annoyed me. I respected them as officers of the law but this was not called for. "No need to run, is there?" I hoped my sarcasm conveyed even with my limited Chinese. "No need", he responded sternly. Aw, thanks.
I left them waiting at their car. For a while the thought occured to me that they were not following, I could just go to my school by a different route. Sod the registration card. I'd be just like Dr. Kimble, Bonnie and Clyde. On the run, baby... My feet had carried me home before I had finished thinking. Damn, law abiding conscience!
They hardly looked at the damn card. "No. 5", the officer mused. Then informed me I should carry this card with me at all times, a copy was sufficient. Then his colleague, the one who wanted me to hurry, insisted on having a look, too. Maybe he didn't feel important enough yet. Then, with a pat on the shoulder, I was sent on my way feeling a bit like a terrorist.
Why all the sarcasm? I don't have a problem with people doing their job. Sometimes it's just the way they do it that gets on my nerves a bit. Are you John Wayne or is it me?
Monday, 7 January 2008
Saturday, 5 January 2008
Jingle, jingle, thump, thump - Christmas and New Year in China
Beijing, China
Believe it or not but there is now Christmas - 圣诞节 (sheng dan jie) - in China. Maybe not surprising at all - things from the west catch on quickly, like in all of Asia. Or rather, what catches on is that Christmas sells - an all too western attitude. So, it's a very American, commercial Christmas. All big restaurants and even some small ones - whether Chinese or Western - have Santas in the window jollily proclaiming "Happy X-Mas". I swear I even saw a garbage collector who had stuck "Merry Christmas" on his tricycle. Supermarkets and shopping malls are full of songs about jingling bells and red-nosed reindeers, waiters in restaurants wear silly Santa hats. I even saw full-blown Christmas trees and sleighs with likenesses of merry, fat men on them.
Not that this would affect anybody's life though - 圣诞节 is not a holiday here. People go to work and bustle in the streets and honk at each other's cars. There is no Christmas spirit. Of course, this is to be expected - this is, after all, China, not Europe. Still, it was a strange experience to be in a place for the first time where Christmas is not a major holiday. Heck, it was even in Singapore!
Something unexpected happend, though. Something I had also never experienced in this way: I missed home. I remembered the quiet winter evenings, walks in the residential area near my home, Christmas trees in every window. There would be special programs on TV for Christmas and New Year and, of course, food specialties. And Christmas fairs. All that did not exist here. And none of the oriental specialties - no matter how attached I had got - would make up for that. Maybe for the first time I came/come to realise that as much as I love and enjoy China, as much as I enjoy being abroad sometimes, all these places sometimes just cannot give me all that my home Germany can. They can never replace home. Not forever. I've been away for so long even before I came here but maybe I had to come this far to find this little bit of wisdom. I went travelling to learn something about life, about myself. So, is that the lesson I set out to find? I'll still give it some more time.
In the end, I went for dinner with some good friends and over some hot tea and firepot we wished each other “圣诞节愉快“ - "Merry Christmas".
New Year (the solar new year, to be precise) is another Western custom that is starting to catch on but still passes many locals by without them even noticing. The big New Year festival here is calculated according to the lunar calendar and commonly falls on the end of January or beginning of February. When I called some Chinese friends to ask them their plans for New Year's Eve they replied: "Sleep, tomorrow is a working day." That sums it up.
Nonetheless some bars and clubs organise New Year parties for - mainly for foreigners who don't fly home. In the end, I wound up following some friends to what organisers claimed to be Beijing's biggest New Year party at 706 Factory. Here, the advent of 2008 was celebrated with DJs, thumping techno beats and surprisingly expensive drinks - all for the price of RMB 70 entry ticket. Not my cup of tea really but it's the company that matters. Besides, I figured, who knows when I'll next get to celebrate New Year in this exciting metropolis. Let's see what 2008 has in store...
Frohe Weihnachten und ein gutes Neues Jahr!
Believe it or not but there is now Christmas - 圣诞节 (sheng dan jie) - in China. Maybe not surprising at all - things from the west catch on quickly, like in all of Asia. Or rather, what catches on is that Christmas sells - an all too western attitude. So, it's a very American, commercial Christmas. All big restaurants and even some small ones - whether Chinese or Western - have Santas in the window jollily proclaiming "Happy X-Mas". I swear I even saw a garbage collector who had stuck "Merry Christmas" on his tricycle. Supermarkets and shopping malls are full of songs about jingling bells and red-nosed reindeers, waiters in restaurants wear silly Santa hats. I even saw full-blown Christmas trees and sleighs with likenesses of merry, fat men on them.
Not that this would affect anybody's life though - 圣诞节 is not a holiday here. People go to work and bustle in the streets and honk at each other's cars. There is no Christmas spirit. Of course, this is to be expected - this is, after all, China, not Europe. Still, it was a strange experience to be in a place for the first time where Christmas is not a major holiday. Heck, it was even in Singapore!
Something unexpected happend, though. Something I had also never experienced in this way: I missed home. I remembered the quiet winter evenings, walks in the residential area near my home, Christmas trees in every window. There would be special programs on TV for Christmas and New Year and, of course, food specialties. And Christmas fairs. All that did not exist here. And none of the oriental specialties - no matter how attached I had got - would make up for that. Maybe for the first time I came/come to realise that as much as I love and enjoy China, as much as I enjoy being abroad sometimes, all these places sometimes just cannot give me all that my home Germany can. They can never replace home. Not forever. I've been away for so long even before I came here but maybe I had to come this far to find this little bit of wisdom. I went travelling to learn something about life, about myself. So, is that the lesson I set out to find? I'll still give it some more time.
In the end, I went for dinner with some good friends and over some hot tea and firepot we wished each other “圣诞节愉快“ - "Merry Christmas".
New Year (the solar new year, to be precise) is another Western custom that is starting to catch on but still passes many locals by without them even noticing. The big New Year festival here is calculated according to the lunar calendar and commonly falls on the end of January or beginning of February. When I called some Chinese friends to ask them their plans for New Year's Eve they replied: "Sleep, tomorrow is a working day." That sums it up.
Nonetheless some bars and clubs organise New Year parties for - mainly for foreigners who don't fly home. In the end, I wound up following some friends to what organisers claimed to be Beijing's biggest New Year party at 706 Factory. Here, the advent of 2008 was celebrated with DJs, thumping techno beats and surprisingly expensive drinks - all for the price of RMB 70 entry ticket. Not my cup of tea really but it's the company that matters. Besides, I figured, who knows when I'll next get to celebrate New Year in this exciting metropolis. Let's see what 2008 has in store...
Frohe Weihnachten und ein gutes Neues Jahr!
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