All right everyone, I know that it has been a long time since I last wrote, so I’d suggest you prepare a drink or two (whatever suits you – I’d pick coffee, except that it’s so hard to find real brewed coffee here), put on your reading glasses, and get all nice and comfy – this is going to be a long one. Everything up to now has been pamphlet-sized – this is going to be a novella. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I promised last time that I would talk about Christmas, so let’s start with that. I’d hate to break a promise. The week of Christmas I didn’t have to teach any classes – they were left open so that I could finish my finals if I needed the time. I had to finish finals in three of my ten classes – the other classes watched a movie or were cancelled if they met on Christmas or the day after (Boxing Day, if you aren’t from the USA.) I say that they watched a movie, since I offered each class the same choices – Mission: Impossible, Shrek, The Truman Show, and The Princess Bride – and each class chose Mission: Impossible. I kept the choices the same since I figured it was a fluke – surely one class would want to watch Shrek… apparently not. I spent Monday and Tuesday watching M:I .in the morning (four times in two days) and the nights grading the listening test finals that I had given to my graduate students the week before. On Wednesday I finished a final with my continuing education students – they were the best and the brightest of my students, and I gave them a conversational final – each student would come to the podium and we would talk for five minutes, and then I would give them a grade based upon their listening and speaking skills. It was much easier to grade than my listening tests, and it seemed less subjective. The listening tests were not well designed – I had to decide how correct the answers were – 50%, 60%, 20% - not just if they were right or wrong. But I digress.

After classes on Christmas Eve I went out for lunch with Mike. On the way back to my apartment, my cell phone rang – it was Mel, letting me know she was sick. I stopped at the store and bought some water and Ritz crackers and dropped them off on my way back to my apartment. I spent the rest of the night grading listening tests and well, that’s about it. I may have spent some time cleaning – my sister was visiting that weekend – but I doubt it. I honestly don’t remember; it was over a month ago.

Christmas morning I awoke very early and called my Grandma Lubbers – the party was going on and I had to call to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. After that I went shopping for Christmas presents – I had a party at the Brassers later in the day. No, I didn’t take the time to prepare earlier – I had a couple of hours to spare, and it all worked out ok. I had lunch at KFC – it was the first time that I’d had KFC in China and it was an experience and a half – it’s like stepping into a pseudo-high-class restaurant –everything is clean and the staff is friendly. ‘Twas very strange, even for Beijing. After that I went back to my apartment to warm up – it was a very cold and blustery day. A few hours later I headed over to the Brassers – they were having a Christmas ham (a real ham, even) and other Christmas foods. We exchanged presents – I received a sweet chair from the Brassers and they received an assortment of stuff from yours truly. After dinner, presents, and a little celebration, I had to leave – Stephanie was having a party of her own that night and I’d promised to stop in. The party was a good time – all the foreign teachers stopped in and the party went long – well into the night. I left early, since I had one final to finish the next morning.

The next morning – Boxing Day, if you prefer – I called G+G (Grandpa and Grandma Hulst) to wish them and the rest of the family a Merry Christmas. After that I went to finish my finals – I had four students that I needed to grade, and after twenty minutes I was finished with my classes for the semester. I believe I went back to my apartment and went to sleep. I don’t think I did anything else worth mentioning, so I’ll skip over it.

Saturday I awoke early – Mike and I were planning on taking a bus trip to the Great Wall. We walked over to the bus stop and waited for about an hour. After realizing that the bus wasn’t coming, we headed over to the terminal to wait inside a bus for about two hours. After losing almost all of my patience, the bus left for the Great Wall. Mike and I rode on a sixty passenger bus with about 5 other Chinese people (including the tour guide.) The tour guide did not speak any English, thankfully Mike speaks Chinese pretty well. We headed to the Thirteen Tombs, a pass in the Great Wall, and eventually to Badaling (though we didn’t really get off the bus at Badaling.) Because it was a private tour bus, we stopped at everything of minimal interest on the way to the three stops. This trip should have taken about four hours, but it took about nine hours. It was quite possibly the longest nine hours of my life. The tombs were interesting for about five minutes or so – the best part was the Chinglish on the signs which were placed about five feet apart all through the tomb area. The best was, and I quote, “Please according to priority for visitage.” It must be a deep truth; I don’t understand it. There really isn’t anything else worth mentioning – it was a nice day for photos and being outside, but I was preoccupied since my sister was arriving later that night.

Ok, let’s move on to Xinjiang Province. I went to Xinjiang Province (Xinjiang can be loosely translated as Western Regions) on my “vacation” (really week three of my seven week break.) I stopped at Urumqi (the capital of the province) and Kashgar – a major stop on the Silk Road. Xinjiang Province is an interesting place – the majority of people belong to a minority group known as Uyghur (pronounced Wee-gir – insert joke about Eminem here – we always did.) Uyghurs look nothing like Han Chinese (undoubtedly what you picture when you conjure an image of Chinese people – they look close to the stereotypical image of a Chinese person, though not exactly, of course.) One could say that Uyghurs hate Hans, since the Han people have been settling in Xinjiang in droves for the past twenty-five years or so. The government encourages the settling and development of Xinjiang, and this upsets the native Uyghurs – they are not happy with the local government. The local government (run by the Hans) has declared the Uyghur way of life unsanitary and have been knocking down the Uyghur housing and rounding up the people who complain as terrorists. There have been protests in the past and the region has had problems with stability – though no foreigners have been targeted in the recent past.

There is an underlying tension in Xinjiang, and it divides both of the cities that I visited. There is a Uyghur part of town and a Han part of town; the Han section is modern and feels a little like Beijing. Step into the Uyghur part of town and you feel like you’ve jumped back in time at least a thousand years, maybe more. All the houses in the Uyghur part of town are made out of straw and mud and sometimes pressed earth. There are modern conveniences, but they are few and far between.

We – Jared English (a friend from college who works in Beijing,) Jason Sigsby (one of Jared’s former roommates and colleagues,) and myself, left for Urumqi early on Friday morning (the 16th of January.) We arrived at the Beijing Airport early – too early to remember the time. Early, very early. There weren’t too many problems in the airport – I made it through security without setting off the metal detector, but Jason wasn’t so lucky. His belt set off the detector, and the security lady de-belted him with an amount of flair that surprised all of us. The flight to Urumqi took 4 hours (almost due west of Beijing) and the plane had video games as well as a highly edited version of Pirates of the Caribbean (all of the scenes that had skeletons in them were cut – so essentially the last half of the movie was gone.) Upon arriving in Urumqi, we had to wait for about an hour or so to claim or baggage – efficient Urumqi ain’t. As we waited we kept placing bets as to when our luggage would come down the chute, and after placing bets for the fifteenth time, our luggage arrived. Stepping outside was painful – it was incredibly cold and dry – it hurt to breathe for the first few minutes. We flagged a taxi and were taken for a ride – it took us over an hour to get to our hotel – it only took ten minutes the other times. The hotel was really nice, in fact it was a five star…and it showed. Everything was modern and the staff were actually helpful (which is impressive for China – there is absolutely no concept of service over here…it is a strange, strange country.) We wandered around the city after dark, and found out that there aren’t enough taxis in Urumqi – we had to wait for at least a half hour before an empty taxi drove by and stopped for us.

The next day we went back to the airport and left for Kashgar – it was an hour and a half flight (due west) from Urumqi, yet it’s in the same province. Kashgar is really close to some of the “stans” – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. It’s also pretty close to India. It was one of the main stopping points on the Silk Road back in the day. After we checked into our hotel – the fabulous Qinibagh Hotel (we were the ONLY people staying at the Qinibagh during our stay) – we headed out to explore. We stopped at a little restaurant decently close to our hotel for lunch, and sat a table close to the door. The waiter/cook/owner walked over, and Jared ordered some yan rou tang (lamb soup) and nang (it’s a type of bread.) The w/c/o said, “rice?” Jared repeated the order again – same response from the w/c/o. So we had “poloo” - rice stir-fried with carrot, pumpkin, a huge chunk or roasted lamb, a few small shards of bone to slice up your tongue, and sometimes raisins or pomegranate seeds. We ate this frequently in Kashgar – it seems to be a staple of the Uyghurs, and it is pretty good. After lunch we headed down a street that was lined with hat and knife stalls. Since we seemed to be the only foreigners in Kashgar at the time (it’s a huge tourist spot in the summer,) we attracted a crowd wherever we went. We walked past a large number of fruit stalls which sell a variety of dried fruit – Xinjiang is known for its fruit, and quite a few open-air butchers who had their wares hanging right on the street. It wasn’t as unsanitary as it sounds, since it was colder than a meat locker outside. I even stumbled across a few blacksmith and carpenters who were working their craft the old fashioned way. We also walked through Old Town – the Uyghur suburbs, for lack of a better term. I can’t do it justice, so I won’t try – you have to see it to believe it. After that we went to a really bad museum – it was the most unimpressive and boring thing that I have ever seen, and I’ve driven through Northern Ohio at night…

On Sunday we went to the Sunday Market, the largest open-air market in China. Salespeople come from all over China and the ‘stans to sell their wares, which are primarily spices, knives, rugs, hats, and fruit. Everything else under the sun is also sold here, though in lesser quantities and varieties than the previously mentioned items. Mohammed (a curtain salesman who worked at the Sunday Market, spoke almost perfect English, and was very friendly – we’d met the day before on the street) led us around the market. When we’d seen all that we wanted to see, he suggested that we go to see the livestock market outside of town. We agreed. I’ve never seen so many sheep, goats, donkeys, and horses in one place before. We browsed around for a while (thankfully there weren’t any camels, I’d have purchased one if there were any present) and eventually wandered out of the sales area to watch blacksmiths shoeing horses. Eventually we grew bored, and Mohammed suggested that we visit a cemetery that wasn’t to far away. It turned out to be the most interesting part of the visit to Kashgar, at least as far as I was concerned. The cemetery was immense, and the customs (as explained by Mohammed) were very different from the western set. I won’t go into them here. After that we headed back into Kashgar and began a general mosey back towards our hotel. That night we took a right out of the hotel instead of a left (left led us to the rice? place) and after a two minute walk we were smack in the middle of the Han part of town. We had “Chinese” food for supper instead of Xinjiang food. There are three things you should know about Xinjiang food: no pork (because the Uyghurs are followers of Islam,) no rice (it’s too cold to grow it in Xinjiang – they eat nan, wheat bread, or laghman, wheat noodles, instead,) and the food is hallucination-inspiring, tongue-numbingly spicy. It was a nice change of pace, but I couldn’t eat it everyday.

Our plans for Monday had us taking a trip to one of the borders to look into one of the ‘stans, but due to inclement weather – it was winter – we were unable to get anyone to take us even remotely close. So we went back to the hotel and decided to go back to the Sunday Market - that’s its name, it is open every day, though more stalls are open on Sunday. We acquired a few more souvenirs, and wasted time – we were ready to leave. There isn’t much to do in Kashgar during the winter, since all the tourist attractions are outside of the city and the routes were closed due to snow. That night we went to a Mongolian hotpot joint for supper and I had squid by mistake. ‘Twas the highlight of the day.

Tuesday we left the Qinibagh Hotel behind (good riddance – it was bad, and not in the as time passes my disgust will fade away way – I’ll stand by that feeling ‘til the day I die) and went back to Urumqi. The Kashgar airport left a bad taste in Jared’s mouth – the lady in charge of the airport tax was late, and we had to wait for her to arrive so that we could pay the tax and consequently proceed through security. Jared was chosen by Jason and myself to wait in line for the tax. Why they don’t include the tax in the price of the tickets was a deep question that Jared pondered as he waited; I know this because he kept repeating the question until we arrived in Urumqi. We also rhapsodized about songs for Urumqi on the flight back – we’d adapted “Rock the Casbah” into “Rock the Kashgar” – but Urumqi left us stumped. We checked back in to the Hongfu, and settled in. Eventually we left and explored Urumqi – we found an Islam import store called Istanbul that had all kinds of interesting foodstuffs – like Naibao – a Whopper-esque candy that was really good – good enough that Jason bought at least five pounds of them in bulk. Tuesday night we went to a park that had ice sculptures – bears, dragons, elephants, camels, castles, etc. Jason rode an ice elephant for a pretty sweet picture; when he dismounted, we noticed a large crack had developed in elephant’s tummy region. We moseyed a little faster at this point. We also discovered that the park had a skating rink.

Wednesday morning we went skating at the park, or rather I tried to skate while Jared and Jason skated – the largest skates available were still to small for feet. After two hours Jared and I headed back to the hotel; Jason skated for six hours or so. We had been invited to dinner by the Executive General Manager of the Hongfu – he was from Canada, and we happened to be the only English speaking foreigners staying at the hotel. He’d been in China for fifteen years, and had many stories to tell – especially about the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. After dinner Jared and I headed down to People’s Square at about eleven-thirty for the best fireworks display I have ever seen. Nothing in America comes close (Wednesday was the eve of the lunar new year, and it’s the Chinese equivalent of Christmas.) We were in the center of a large square – maybe a quarter-mile to a side. People were lighting firecracker and rockets around the perimeter, and the mortar tubes were maybe 50 fifty feet away. Fireworks were going off all around and directly overhead – it was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. I didn’t know where to look or what to focus on. It was truly awe-inspiring.

Thursday we took it easy – nothing was open, since it was New Year’s Day.

Friday we went to Tian Chi – a picturesque lake in the middle of a mountain range near Urumqi. It’s a main tourist draw in the summer, and in the winter, when the lake freezes, you can ride horses on it. Or if you prefer, you can take a sleigh. There is also a tube slide – sort of like a bobsled track, but not as steep or as much fun. It was beautiful. We ate lunch in a yurt (it’s a big tent that the Tajiks – the people who live around Tian Chi – used to live in.) It was horribly overpriced and the food was awful, but I can now say that I’ve eaten in a yurt. We relaxed for the rest of the day.

Saturday was spent relaxing – we had a western breakfast which was the highlight of my day (this was the first western breakfast that I’ve had since coming to China.) We also purchased large quantities of souvenirs in a last minute purchasing attack. Other than that, we didn’t do anything worth mentioning.

Sunday – we packed up, said goodbye to the Hongfu, and flew back to Beijing.

Since then I haven’t done anything except write this. Most of the other foreigner teachers are still traveling – Stephanie is back, but I haven’t run into her yet. That’s it for the moment – I’ll do this more often from here on out, because this took too much time to write. Later.

Unkie Tom, this one’s for you

Well, it is the New Year, and my sister, Sandy, is here in Beijing visiting with me. She’ll be here until the 6th of January. She’s taking a nap at the moment – she hasn’t fully adjusted to the time difference and so we are taking it easy today.

She arrived on Saturday night, and after an uneventful ride from the airport, we settled in and took care of the most important thing – my Christmas presents. (We also caught up on the activities of everyone and everything in Holland and the US in general.)

On Sunday we went to church, and afterwards met with Jared and his cousin, Susannah (she was visiting him over Christmas.) We went to Lido to buy DVDs and for lunch, and eventually made our way to Silk Alley for Sandy’s first taste of Chinese bartering. Now, I can’t say what we purchased – it might have been presents, it might not have been. All you need to know is that we haggled out excellent prices for everything that we bought. Later that night we went to Mike and Christie Brasser’s for dinner and games.

Early Monday morning Sandy and I met Susannah (Jared had to work and asked if Susannah could accompany us on Monday and Tuesday.) and we started our whirlwind tour of Beijing. We started out at the Forbidden City – we went through it at an incredible pace (with Roger Moore as our guide – he narrates the audio tour) and after that we headed to Jingshan park – it is a park directly to the north of the Forbidden City that has a big hill in the middle. The hill was made from the dirt, rocks and debris that were removed to create the moats around the Forbidden City; it also gives a very picturesque view over Tiananmen Square and the F.C.

At this point we went to lunch with Christie - we had an authentic Chinese lunch of baozi and jiaozi (steamed dumplings and filled steamed buns.) After lunch we went to Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) and spent a few hours wandering around the park – it’s gigantic, to say the least. After we had seen most of the sights – the echo wall, the processional bridge, etc. – we went to Hongqiao Market. This market is known for its pearls, but it has everything under the sun.

Once we had finished shopping (bartering, really) we met up with Jared for dinner. After a very random dinner (we had eel, fruit salad, celery and lily root, and sizzling rice) we went to see an acrobatics show. The show was excellent – contortionists, unicycles, and the Leaf-Men (guys should not wear leotards, especially ones with strategically-placed leaves.) It was impressive and disgusting – people should not bend those ways or have such a great sense of balance.

After that, we went our separate ways. On Tuesday we started later – at 9 am – and began by heading to Tiananmen Square to view Mao’s body (we’d missed it on Monday, and it’s one of those things that you have to see if you’re in Beijing.) I didn’t get to see Mao, since we all had bags, which aren’t allowed in the mausoleum and someone had to guard/hold the bags. After they had seen the Cat – as Mao was known – we headed to the Lama temple. It’s the largest Buddhist temple in Beijing, and there are a whole lotta Buddhas in the temple. There is even a 18m tall giant Buddha in the very back of the temple. It was interesting, but not too terribly interesting – there were only a few signs in English.

After lunch we headed to the Summer Palace. We took a bus, and it took a long time to get there. Once we arrived, we moseyed down the Long Corridor – a covered walkway that is over a mile long, is covered with painted scenes, and runs the length of the lake. We ended up at the Marble Boat and then headed around the backside of the mountain and scaled the rocks up to the top of the palace. Scale probably isn’t the right word, since there were “steps” carved into the rocks, but it was steep and slippery. After we finished there, we went back to Jared’s apartment to wait – he was at work and we were tired. When he arrived he was bleeding – he’d fallen off his bike and scraped his hands and knees. Once we got him patched up, we headed out to a Mongolian hotpot restaurant. Mongolian hotpot is a very involved means of eating – you personally stew meat, vegetables and noodles in pot that is on your table. Sandy and Susannah didn’t seem to terribly enthralled with this, but they survived.

After dinner we went to Houhai – a bar area in Beijing that is built around Houhai lake – and cruised the scene. We ended up in a club listening to DJ Leaf do his mix. A live band came on after a while, and Jared requested a song. When the band got around to playing the song, they invited Jared onto the stage to sing with them. He did. The club had a deal going with their “specialty” drink, which tasted they way rubbing alcohol smells. So we each had one, and that was more than enough.

Wednesday was spent at Fuchengmen Market, a large market that has everything anyone could ever want (well…) Sandy bought a sweet blanket – heavy, warm and fleecy-good. I have one, and Sandy had latched onto mine. So I made sure that she acquired one of her own. We also bought quite a few presents, since Fuchengmen is THE place for good presents.

We went out to a Korean barbeque joint for dinner – Sandy, Mike (it was his going away party – he left on Friday), Mel, two of Mel’s friends from Shanghai, and yours truly. Korean barbeque is some of the best food on Earth – the meat and veggies are cooked over coals directly in front of you – tasty-good. After dinner we went to Sanlitun (a different bar street – the main one, in fact) and met up with Jared and Grace (one of Jared’s friends.) We spent New Year’s Eve in Durty Nellie’s Irish Pub listening to a Filipino band play covers of Pink Floyd and U2. Eventually the bartenders threw handfuls and handfuls of glow sticks to the throng. There was a countdown to midnight (though I’m pretty sure that it happened fifteen minutes after midnight, I might be wrong, but I doubt it.) We headed back to campus after one, and had to climb the stairs (fourteen flights – the elevator shuts down at midnight.)

Thursday we slept in and eventually ambled down to Wangfujing (the main shopping street in Beijing) and window-shopped for awhile. We stopped in at the chopstick shop and the foreign language bookstore and bought a few sets of chopsticks and reading material. After Wangfujing we headed down to the Friendship Store to see the real deals – real jade and pearls and antiques. It was enlightening. That night we went to dinner at Ashtray – a local eatery of decent edibles. Sandy was impressed with my ability to order and express myself in Chinese (well, not really – ask her for details.) After dinner we went back the apartment, watched a DVD, and went to sleep.

Now, I know that I promised more on Christmas, and I will – next time. I promise.