I really cannot add anything to the economical wording of this sign, found in the parking garage of a Chinese shopping/ office/ apartment complex. The Chinese government has assigned people to go around and correct the "non-standard" English on many signs, which by all accounts will be a great loss to those of us who love the way our language translates into odd commands.
The day before Chinese New Year, I went to one of the several outlets of the large French "Wal-Mart-style" store Carrefour in Beijing.
Before I tell you about the would-be pet for General Tsao, let me acknowledge to those familiar with Carrefour in China that I do know how ridiculously nuts it was to brave the wild, cart-wielding, desperate DVD-, chocolate-, clothing-, appliance-, and frozen-food-seeking masses in Carrefour on any Sunday, let alone the weekend of Spring Festival. For those of you who have never been, I'll say this: the store is a reminder that even though the middle class is only a tiny fraction of the Chinese population, a tiny fraction of 1.2 billion is a very large number. And they all shop at Carrefour on the weekends. And not one of them knows how to navigate a parking lot with either a shopping cart or a car.
Anyway, Carrefour is only the setting for this story, not the subject. The subject is the five sweet little piglets who were keeping each other warm in a cage on the floor of the pet shop just outside the checkout line of Carrefour. They were about 8 inches long, and they would pile on top of one piglet for about a minute and a half, then he could wiggle out and let another one move to the bottom, giving each one equal time in the coziest spot in the cage. I was immediately impressed by the cleverness and cooperative spirit the pigs demonstrated in this operation.
I started to wonder why this grocery store pet shop was selling farm animals, then I remembered - the Year of the Pig. Not only that, but the Golden Year of the Pig!! No more auspicious time to have some live ham in your home.
Pets are very trendy in some Chinese cities, but the problem is most Chinese families, unlike American families, do not see the animal as a real member of the home so much as a toy who also requires food. Once they grow from adorable puppy/ kitten/ chick to an adult animal, the pets tend to meet with misfortune. On a recent hike, a British man told me about a rabbit his Chinese roommate's girlfriend brought home one day. It was cute, as rabbits generally are. A few days later during dinner, the guy asked the roommate, what is this you made for us tonight? The roommate answered, "We decided the apartment really is too small for a rabbit." If he hadn't asked, the roommate would not have thought to tell him that this morning's pet was this evening's main course!
The one pet that seems to have staying power is the old man's bird - old Chinese men keep birds in cages and take them out for walks or bike rides and bring them to the park, where they compare their birds and cages with other old men.
Around Chinese New Year, you may find the year's animal on sale as a pet. Certainly some Chinese zodiac animals are more pet-worthy than others, and the pig actually stacks up better than most. Obviously the dog and the rabbit make easy pets, but they are so ordinary. Tigers are very cool, but decidedly inconvenient; rats and snakes don't even start out cute; and dragons are just too hard to find these days.
So there, in Carrefour, I considered the intelligent, adorable pig. The owner of the pet store swore up and down it wouldn't grow more than 18 inches long. Wouldn't it be sad without it's piggy brothers from the cage? Oh no, it will be happy with you because it will think you are it's mother, promised the owner, committing the unthinkable salesperson sin of calling the customer a middle-aged hog. And what would I feed it? Dog food, of course, just add a little water - pigs like moisture, she said. Oh, but I have a cat! No problem, pigs and cats get along in homes all the time. In fact, pigs are herd animals, and he will be happy to have a master animal to be the alpha.
A Chinese customer then came to look at the pigs, and the owner took them out of the cage. One friendly little piglet came over and sat on my lap, and with just a little petting, he fell asleep. I was charmed. So sweet! And soft! And warm! And my juvenile delinquent cat, General Tsao, is home by himself during the day, bored without my stimulating copmany. What more perfect playmate for him than a friendly mini-hog? As I pondered these delightful rationalizations for swine in the home, more Chinese customers arrived, lured by the perfectly entertaining combination of two weird things: a foreign girl who speaks Chinese, holding a piglet! I am proud to say my presence resulted in a sale: 880 RMB ($110) for one of these little guys!!!!!!
In the end, reason won out over the euphoria of pink skinned farm babies and the Golden Pig Year. You might think I'm crazy for ever considering it, but I defy you to check out these pictures without smiling!
Sorry, I know it has nothing to do with China, but Georgetown's 63-51 victory over Pitt today simply cannot go unnoticed.
This evening after dark I went to the lantern area of the Spring Festival activities in Chaoyang Park. I couldn't possibly describe it as well as I'd like, so please join me in a visual tour of the highlight of the self-proclaimed "Youthful Enchanting New ChaoYang."
The entrance sets the tone for Olympics-based cultural pride with several pillars decked with cheerful slogans - pictured at left and right are "Enthusiastic, Civilized Host," and "Welcome the Olympics, Advance Civilization, Cultivate a New Trend."
"I Line Up, I Am Civilized"
Beijingers expressed their support for all these ideas by signing on the Gain Honor for The Mother Country, Increase Color for the Olympics: A Written Proposal sign near the entrance.
My first assignment: to determine whether the entrepreneurial Chinese would indeed use a stuffed deer to advertise his own fate in front of the Roast Deer Meat Kabob Stand.
In the lantern area of the park, they had your standard dancing pig, while other floats left no doubt that that both religion and nature are alive and glowing in China. Displays like this stretched on and on across about 1/2 of the park, with music, carnival games, and stalls selling all sorts of cheap stuff - they were out of the large pig-shaped winter hats, unfortunately. 
BBC article: Tiger Kills Girl at Chinese Zoo
In Chinese culture, tigers have many positive qualities - valor, intelligence, the ability to scare away demons, virility (resulting in the cruel and just plain gross practice of consuming tiger blood/parts) - but no ancient Chinese proverbs or traditions I know of suggest it would be a good idea to actually get up close to a real tiger.
In a lot of Chinese traditions, something that looks like the real thing is actually as good as the real thing. Thus, tiger statues and designs suffice for keeping demons away - much more convenient than owning a large, live carnivore. This zoo and family clearly forgot the wisdom of that custom, providing anecdotal support to recent survey results claiming that Chinese people are losing touch with tradition. 45% of 13, 580 Chinese survey respondents stated they knew nothing of the meaning of traditional Chinese festivals. And by the way, it's your (yes you, reader of my blog) fault: 1/2 of those polled blamed it partly on the rising popularity of "foreign festivals," such as Christmas and Valentines Day.
I am working on a list of web resources and tips for those planning to visit me in China. I will definitely be updating this list, but here's a good start. Those of you already into the planning stages for a visit that's coming up soon (Alan, Michelle, David - anyone else?), please let me know if you come across anything really useful. This is all about empowering you, the visitor - the more you know about what you want to do and what to expect, the more satisfying your trip will be!
Chinese Embassy in DC - Don't forget that visa!
eBeijing International – English-language web site (also has Chinese-language site) hosted by the Mayor of Beijing. Some tourist information, lots of practical information.
Beijing Olympic e-Map – English-language map from the Chinese the Olympics Committee. Not fully functional yet, but eventually you will be able to show locations of bookstores, Olympic venues, restaurants, etc. Meanwhile, you can zoom in on an English-language map of Beijing.
Chinese Culture Club – Runs frequent English-language cultural activities and walks. Good for scheduling an activity while you’re here, or just for getting ideas.
Beijing Hikers Club – Started by foreigners, great weekend activities outside the city if you’re going to be here for a while. All Great Wall hikes involve fairly strenuous trips to places you’d never see with a tourist guide or group.
Ctrip – English language site for planning domestic travel within China. Good for getting ideas (click the China map or go to the English-language discussion forum), also good for checking prices of domestic flights and hotels. Please let me do the actual booking on this site, though.
Travel China Guide – English-language tour planner. Although this company sells tours, their site is useful for getting ideas about where to go in China, even if you don’t purchase their tours. I’ve never actually used them for purchasing travel, so I have no idea how good they might be.
Chaoyang International – This one is, I admit, a bit less useful, but it is the home page of my region of Beijing, Chaoyang District. Chaoyang is developing quickly, and the web site is a good representation of the city and district’s efforts to be welcoming and prepared for foreigners in advance of the Olympics.
Ah, today is a blue sky day. Although the sky is actually bluish-gray, the sun is out and I can see across Chaoyang "Sun" Park 朝阳公园, the largest urban park in Asia, which is right across the street from my apartment. http://www.sun-park.com/
Today, since I could actually see, I went to the Lama Temple ("YongHeGong" 雍和宫) and the Dong Yue Temple. The Dong Yue Temple is a Daoist temple and home to the largest collection of stone tablets from different eras in Beijing. I'm sure you will learn as much as I did from this description posted about one of the tablets:
Lucent Tablet - The tablet of "White Paper Congregation" was carved at Shun Zhi 7 year Qing Dynasty (b 1650). Six holes carved at the head of the dragon is a tragic of craftmanship which created a new style of the arts of carved stone. Thus it was the honor name of "Lucent Tablet" in older Beijing residents.Temple fairs are the big thing over Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), and the fair at the Dong Yue Temple was the Beijing Folk Culture Festival. Much like the fairs we're used to at home, this one involved a lot of greasy "traditional" food and a magic show. "Toss the coin to hit the bell and ensure you will have a son this year" was a Chinese a twist on the standard carnival games prize scheme. More on temple fairs at this link: http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/SpringFestival/200000.htm
Today is the 5th day of Spring Festival, so fireworks have ramped up again after a couple of quieter nights. The most important nights are the 1st night (New Years Eve), the 5th night (the arrival of the God of Wealth), and the 15th night (Lantern Festival).Fortunately, Sunday & Tuesday were "blue sky" days, great days for outings with the Beijing Hikers Club. Follow the links below for photos from the trips.
Sunday, we went to Ya Ji Shan, where we hiked up to a Daoist Temple and beyond. Ya Ji Shan is in Ping Gu County, outside of Beijing.
I got up this morning and thought, did I miss the apocalypse? Am I the only person left alive in Beijing? The air was such a thick, dense grey, I could not see across the courtyard even to the buildings I knew should be there.
I took the attached pictures out the window at 7 (sun still not completely up) and 8 (sun fully up). After I opened the window for about 15 seconds to take the picture, the outside smell permeated the entire apartment and made me sneeze. It also hasn't gotten any better in the last 4 hours since I've been up.
YUCK. I was planning to go to the Lama Temple today, but if I can't see anything, what's the point? Better to stay inside and protect my lungs.
So why the ick, you ask? A colleague confirms this is unusually disgusting, even for Beijing. I'm sure it's a combination of weather and pollution - although the Weather Channel does not show clouds over Beijing, there is likely some moisture holding the pollution in the city. The weather report does say "fog", but here that often means "smog" anyway. The odor of the air that got into my apartment definitely carried more than a hint of stale firework smoke, but as last night was the 3rd night of Spring Festival and not a particularly firework-heavy night, that can't be the only culprit. We may never know. Meanwhile, enjoy the um, scenery!
By the way, the term "blue sky" day is not mine. The Beijing municipal government (or someone official - perhaps the national govt, I don't know) evaluates each day's conditions. Sunny days with good air quality are labeled 蓝天 "blue sky" days. Days when clouds or pollution occlude the sun are not blue sky days. The government's goal is to increase the number of blue sky days by reducing pollution. They are making progress: there were 241 blue sky days in 2006, up from 234 in 2005 and 100 in 1998. Mind you, there are some days when your, my, and the Chinese government's definition of a blue sky differ greatly, but the intention is definitely there. More in this in an article in the People's Daily Online: http://english.people.com.cn/200701/23/eng20070123_343837.html.
My main purpose here is to share pictures and a few stories that provide a flavor of my experience overseas. I hope to satisfy the clamoring masses who have an insatiable need for details about my life. (By this, I mean Mom. Anyone else who also enjoys it, great!) I am posting my pictures via Picasa Web Albums, and I will try to upload older pictures slowly as I have time.
