We Are Celebrities?

Maybe we have caught a small glimpse of what it feels like to be a celebrity.

A few days ago when we were still in Beijing we had somewhat of a surprising and funny experience. Our group was spending the morning at a place called the Summer Palace—basically a glorified imperial summer camp (I think an emperor looked around the Forbidden City one day and yawned, “Boring,” than built a magnificent series of structures along a beautiful lake so he could finally “get away.” Something like that ;)). 

Anyways, a Canadian girl in our group and I got separated from the others at one point, and figuring it would be futile to look for everyone in the hoards of visitors we were amongst, we decided to bag it and go for a $1 boat ride around the lake. The boats held about fifty passengers each, and took a very scenic route, so we made our way to the back and started snapping pictures along with the other Chinese tourists.

Now let me pause to say that we had been warned that we would be receiving shameless requests for pictures because of our exotic white skin, but we didn’t think it would be anything like this. They were especially interested in my new friend the Canadian, as in addition to being as white as can be, she was about six feet tall. It started off slowly enough, just a timid request every so often. But then there was a tipping point, and Chinese people started racing up to us one after the other, until the boat finally landed and the park workers asked all of us to exit the boat several times. We must have posed with about thirty or forty different Chinese tourists.

The funny thing is that this all happened among absolutely beautiful scenery! There were many more interesting things to take pictures of. But apparently white skin is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime sighting for Chinese people that reside in places other than the huge cities.

I think we Americans are somewhat spoiled in this sense. While my hometown of Granite Bay is by no means the form for diversity, you could find folks hailing from almost any heritage somewhere in the States. This is by no means the norm for the world; even in Shanghai, supposedly the most Westernized Mainland Chinese city, we hardly run into any other white people (bairen) around our campus. I reckon that as China continues to develop diversity will become more and more prevalent, but this certainly is an interesting difference between the two countries.

Beijing and Beyond

This was my overall impression of Beijing: it was a great place to visit and tour around for four days, but I can’t say I had much of a desire to stay any longer.

I thing the main reason for this is simply the utter disgustingness of the air. Breathing is fine but we didn’t spot a hint of blue for the first three days, and when the sun and sky finally poked through on the last day, it was cause for celebration. It was strange to think that the locals just go through life without ever seeing beautifully bright or star-blanketed skies; I can’t imagine getting used to that.

But that being said, it was a blast visiting for a few days. The tourist areas were, for the most part, pretty cool (though I wish I had known some more of the history behind them); the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Olympic Park, and the Summer Palace in particular did not disappoint. Haggling at the open markets is a priceless experience (no pun intended ;)) that everyone has gotta do at some point. Also, the bars and clubs we went to were quite nice, though I have to say, the beer leaves MUCH to be desired; they all seem to love this tasteless, super light Tsingtao stuff, and I cannot understand why. But it was at least very cheap (as was the case with most things)—about a buck fifty for a fairly large bottle at the bars we went to. Walking around the tourist areas of the city by Tiananmen Square sort of felt like being in Disneyland, and the tight alleys were much different than anything I’ve seen in the states. The locals were also a pleasure to converse with.

Though I’m not in much of a hurry to return, I had a great time with our group in the capital of China (btw fun fact: Beijing literally translated means North Capital). If you are looking for a different cultural experience with scattered Western oasis’s, this is a great place to go, but if you’re after a beautiful and luxurious vacation spot, maybe stick to China’s recently acquired island off the Southern coast: the irreplaceable Hong Kong.

Water Cube Water Park

Perhaps one of the coolest things we had the opportunity to do was go to the water park that is inside the Water Cube (where the water events in the 2008 Olympics were held). The pictures online made it look fantastic, and we wanted to see Olympic Park anyways, so we thought we’d give it a try. We thought it would be fun, but did not anticipate such a crazy experience. First of all, they had easily the most intense water slide I had every seen: it is a body slide, and to enter, you have to open this soundproof space capsule looking thing that is angled almost completely vertically. The capsule closes, and a nice British woman calmly counts down, “three, two, one,” and suddenly the floor swings back from beneath you, and you plummet to a near-freefall for perhaps a bit over a second. I had never seen anything like it.

After we had finished with that, we decided we’d relax a bit in the wave pool—next thing we knew, there was loud electric dance music playing, stage girls were dancing, and we had a jumbo-tron zoomed in on our group of six; when we noticed this we started dancing around like crazy and splashing everywhere, after which the rest of the more conservative Chinese swimmers in the pool followed suit. It was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life: one second we’re lazily bobbing up and down, the next we’re jumping around like madmen (and woman), about 15 ft tall on the big screen, and leading a pool of Chinese people with our horrible dancing, all with water flying everywhere. Unbelievable

Proof Econ is Dumb

Our group of thirty-some college-aged Westerners just returned from the second open market we’ve been to this tour of Beijing (open market = haggle time!). This one was the famous silk market. In addition to having all kinds of silk clothing, the hundreds of vendors sold paintings, trinkets, games, musical instruments, cameras, jewelry, and almost anything else you could imagine.

Our guides told us that if we see something we want, we should never pay more than a third of the quoted price. This turned out to be generous towards the vendors; Lucas, for example, walked away with a $60 camera shortly after being asked about $300 for it.

The existence of the organized chaos that makes up these open markets could cause a sort of crisis of faith for an economics student. This is because if the real world truly was bustling with perfectly rational consumers and producers, open markets of this kind should never exist.

Here is why: say I’m at the Beijing open market and would like to purchase a pair of knockoff Beats headphones. I have a whole lot of options; there are at least ten different vendors carrying this item. It seems that the dominant strategy is quite simple: go to one vendor, and haggle him down until he refuses to budge any lower. Then you walk to the next one, and ask if she can beat the first vendor’s price. If she can, then walk to a third, and fourth, and so on until you know you are getting some quality knockoff Beats for the smallest possible markup.

In anticipation of this, the first vendor should simply quote you the lowest price he can afford; that way he doesn’t lose the sale to one of his peers. He might even write that number on a tag, and attach it to the box, making it clear he cannot go below this price. Of course at that point, it is no longer an open market.

So why does this not happen?

I believe an example will serve well to illustrate: as we were walking through an area decked out in purses, wallets, suitcases and the like, a small Chinese girl was suddenly ecstatic to see me “again,” grabbed a hold of my wrist and did her best to tug me into her bag stall. And she was by no means gentle—despite her petite build I had to dig my feet in to keep my ground.  It was both awkward and hilarious.

My only explanation for this shameless behavior is that it must work. After all, we humans are not conditioned to blatantly ignore everyone who starts yelling at us, much less firmly shake off small, pretty girls pulling us by the wrist. The first few times you ignore a salesman, you kind of feel like a jerk, and it’s easy to see how one might accept a higher price simply to escape that feeling. More than one member of our group told a war story along these lines: “I just wanted to get out of there, but the lady wouldn’t let me leave, so I had to buy a coat.”

This is not the story of a Spock—it is one of a human being driven at least in part by instincts and emotions. In this case, rationality takes a backseat and irrational emotions determine the transaction.

This doesn’t mean rationality isn’t important—many in the group walked out of the market completely empty handed, as they stuck by their decision that they didn’t need anything. But it does have this implication: just because one can prove that people have a self-interested material incentive to behave a certain way, it doesn’t mean they will, or even that people in general will.  As the growing number of behavioral economists knows, psychological factors must be considered if economics is to offer a relevant and illuminating picture of our world.

Umm, Where's the Sky?

 I had been pre-warned about the sheer pollution in Beijing as well as other areas of China, but it was still even worse than I imagined; this morning when I woke up, I instinctively looked outside to assess the weather and then had to chuckle—it always looks overcast, no matter what; you can gain no knowledge about the weather by looking up out of a window.

In spite of this however, our first full day in Beijing was phenomenal; we knocked out three of the must-sees: Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Temple of Heaven.

Previous to our visit to Tiananmen Square, I hadn’t heard much about it, except there was the massacre there just over twenty years ago (while walking through, Lucas loudly commented, “Where are the tanks?”—definitely not supposed to mention that!). In any case, it was much larger than I was expecting. As far as purely skin-deep aesthetic beauty, I would have to say it was a bit underwhelming; the monument in the center was cool, sure, but it was hardly impressive to the point of being unique. As was the case with the Forbidden City, I’m sure if I had known some more of the history behind it would have meant more, but with my level of ignorance it was just an impressively big square.

Despite my minimal prior knowledge of the Forbidden City, that was certainly as impressive as the Square was lacking; the meticulous detail in almost every part of every structure in the compound was incredible.  The architecture of the buildings was astounding, and the imperial gardens, complete with small, artificial-rock hills, was nice. Here’s a fun fact about the Forbidden City: during it’s five hundred years of operation, twenty-four different emperors have been at the helm. Thinking of the number of presidents we’ve had in the US's short history, this number seemed low to me, but then I remembered that the Forbidden City probably didn’t see quite the same turnover as the White House! 

As for the Temple of Heaven, that compound was nice as well. As with the other two attractions, I wish I had known a little more of the history behind it (the information signs were few and far between) but it was still cool. My first impression of the main Temple was that someone had taken a small cathedral and just gone to town on it—the artwork this thing was embedded in was fantastically colorful and unbelievably detailed.

Oh and I almost forgot, we had our first experience with haggling today; it was so much fun! The vendors are extremely aggressive, and it was great watching all the showdowns between them and the students in our group, as well as attempting to take some on myself. We’ll definitely be spending plenty of time at the open markets in Shanghai.

So far, it has definitely been a cultural experience. The mainland is a whole different world than Hong Kong, despite technically being part of the same country. It has been cool to be here, and I'm stoked to see the Great Wall tomorrow!

Hong Kongisms

Three full days in Hong Kong came and went before we knew it. As I write this we are currently half way through our four-hour flight to Beijing (North Eastern China), where we will be participating in a tour organized by the study abroad program we will be with for the next three-some months.

I am extremely glad we had the chance to experience Hong Kong before heading to the mainland. Perhaps this is because everything is still fresh in my mind, but it’s possible that my previous favorite city, Sydney, Australia, has been dethroned; the upbeat feel and dynamic beauty of this harbor city was simply a pleasure to experience. While I would hardly say that Hong Kong qualifies as being a different culture, there were a few unique aspects of the city that I found interesting:

The natives do indeed love hearing foreigners speak a bit of broken Chinese. Even though we could only speak a little Mandarin and no Cantonese (native tongue of Hong Kong, much different) many if not most of the residents have learned Mandarin as a foreign language. One of our servers in particular was fascinated that we Americans could speak a little Zhongwen (Chinese), and consequently lingered at our table throughout the lunch, and even accepted our invitation to sit down with us once his shift ended. He had lived in Hong Kong since he was four, so it was very cool hearing what he had to say about the city.

I’m having a hard time deciding whether the city is more or less pedestrian-friendly than the norm, but I’m leaning towards more. While we were walking around the area by our hotel as well as in Central Hong Kong, we actually spent most of our time a story above traffic; there’s an extensive network of bridges that snake throughout the city. For example, it was about a ten-minute walk from our hotel to the subway, and we would leave straight from the second-floor lobby into a walkway that went over traffic and through buildings until we arrived at an escalator taking us underground. Most of this time this is very convenient, but it’s a bit annoying if you are at ground level and you want to cross the street, as you usually have to climb a flight of stairs to do so.

The dumplings are sooo so good! I ordered a couple different kinds while there, and they knock the socks off of any pot stickers I’ve had back home.

The subway is incredibly clean, and very efficient. I don’t think we ever spent much more than 60 seconds waiting for a train.

We took the 15-minute ferry ride a few times across the harbor—as were walking to the station the first time we anticipated paying at least five bucks for the trip, seeing as it must be a popular tourist attraction; turns out, it cost us about thirty cents a ride. Crazy.

The McDonalds tastes exactly identical to the one in Roseville, California, as does the Starbucks.

When I ordered a coffee from a Chinese bakery, the girl at the counter handed the filled cup to me in a plastic bag, which seemed a bit superfluous. See I always thought that it was the purpose behind the cup to safely contain the liquid, but I guess they felt this inadequate (turns out it was, the cup was scalding hot).

The water in the bay was pretty shockingly disgusting; it actually looks more like oil with water in it than the other way around. Well that may be a slight exaggeration, but either way it would be an exceptionally brave man that ventured in for a swim.

All in all, it was a fantastic experience, and I am very much hoping I’ll be able to come up with an excuse to return there at some point.  

Our Number One Fan

Our politicians are obsessed with talking about “the economy.” They never actually specify which economy they are referring to, but it’s usually a pretty safe assumption that they mean the one they have a hand in leading.

When I read an article today in the South China Morning Post reporting on Vice President Xi JinPing’s statements concerning economics, I assumed that, like US politicians, he would be concerned about his home economy. Ultimately, of course, he was, but interestingly enough his actual statement was almost identical to what we’ve been hearing from political leadership in America: he has “full confidence” that America will “get its economy back on the track of healthy growth.”

This was on the front page of a Chinese newspaper. This surprised me at first, but I suppose it shouldn’t have; China has for a while been our top investor ($1.2 trillion in US treasuries) so it makes sense that they would follow our debt ceiling debate closely. I guess it’s just interesting to think that despite their breakneck speed of development and the spirit of competitiveness between the two countries, China is actually our number one fan. Much like how when we buy stock in a company we start cheering them on, they have invested so heavily in us, they want us to succeed almost as much as we do.

Hong Kong!

Last night we arrived at the spectacular, sparkling harbor city of Hong Kong. I didn’t get much of a view of the city from the air unfortunately, but the taxi ride to our hotel wasn’t far short of a dazzling light show; not only are the buildings enormous and beautifully lit, but the lights actually move around. As in the whole lighting scheme of some of the skyscrapers will completely change before your eyes. Pretty cool.

Things have been great thus far; the hotel is amazing, our view could not be better, and we’ve already had the chance to do a bit of exploring. I think our most notable experience thus far was our new acquaintance with the dish of squid legs. We were at a theme park this morning and they were selling them like hot dogs, so we couldn’t pass that up. We probably will though if we have the option again—they were smelly, slimy, and as Lucas put it, made you feel like you were trying to eat a rubber glove.  

Tonight we will probably venture into Central and see what’s going on there. I have the honor and privilege of buying my good friend Lucas Garcia his first legal drink. If we go with something Chinese, we will definitely be flying in the dark, but hey at least it will be an adventure! 

By the way, here's a fun fact: the Mandarin Chinese name for Hong Kong can literally be translated to Sweet-Smelling Harbor. We have been close to the harbor a couple times already, and consequently we firmly believe that despite its beauty, the first half is definitely a misnomer. 

"Not all who wander are lost"

“Not all who wonder are lost,” read a tattoo sported by my philosophy professor last fall (at least he told us that’s what it meant—the quote was inked in its original elvish). He told us this line was penned by J.R.R. Tolkien. I liked this counter-cultural idea, so despite my unfamiliarity with his works, I had the immediate impression that in addition to being a masterful storyteller, the famed author was quite clever and insightful.

Little did I know that to encounter this idea, all Mr. Tolkien had to do was take Daoism 101, or even just show up for the first day of class. Turns out wandering, as opposed to purposeful, intentional, goal-oriented living, is central to flourishing as a human being under the Daoism tradition. Religious Studies Professor and author Stephen Prothero offers this contrast between our modern culture and the idea of wandering:

“Modern life is purpose-driven. Though much of it is conducted in an office chair, it is nonetheless about speed and efficiency—“galloping by sitting.” Wandering, by contrast, is slow, unproductive, and open to surprises. If you have a destination, or even a plan, you aren’t on a wander. Purposeless by design, wandering is closer to play than to work. It lets the circumstance and desire take you where they will, and it doesn’t sweat the outcome.”

That sounds all right, doesn’t it? Kinda makes me wanna hop on a plane, go somewhere I’ve never been, and aimlessly explore. Mmm how bout Hong Kong? Sure, why not!

Return of the Confucians

Chinese President Hu Jintao’s lofty vision for the nation he leads is captured in his slogan, “To build a harmonious society.” This is actually based on a piece of ancient guidance from Confucius: “To aim always at harmony.” For Confucians, the fact that the leader of the communist country is openly endorsing a Confucian saying is, well, kind of a big deal.

Despite its tradition being interwoven throughout Chinese history for millennia, Confucianism took some nasty hits in the wake of the formation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 (enter: communism).  As time went on, Confucius came to be cast as the ultimate symbol of anti-progressivism; Confucian books were burned and his hometown statue smashed.

Recently, however Confucius has been making a bit of a comeback. In addition to being quoted by high-up Communist Party officials, university programs dedicated to the way of life have been materializing all over the country; according to Religious Studies Professor and author Stephen Prothero, many Chinese are “beginning to imagine that Confucianism could soon replace Marxist-Leninism as the official state ideology.”  This is of course quite unrealistic for the short-term, but it has been observed that at some point in the future, the letters CCP (Chinese Communist Party) could take on an entirely new meaning.

The Confucian Christian

Yup, apparently it’s possible. Robert Neville, the former Dean of Boston University’s School of Theology, is a United Methodist Minister and self-proclaimed Confucian Christian (interesting article).

In preparation for my imminent departure westward to the East, I have been reading up a bit about the big three Chinese religions. I recently finished about a thirty-page survey of Confucianism, which was about thirty more pages than the previous amount I had ever read concerning the religion/philosophy (not counting “Confucius Say” wisdom, of course). A couple interesting things stuck out to me:

1.     1. There is some debate over whether Confucianism in its original form is, in fact, a religion. A reason for this is that Confucian thought is largely concerned with the here and now, and is purposefully silent about the purely spiritual realm or afterlife.

2.     2. In Confucianism, community is king. While self-transformation to an “exemplary person” is key, it can only be done in community—social life is essential to becoming fully human. This reminded me of something a New York City Christian pastor by the name of Timothy Keller wrote:

“Ultimate reality is a community of persons who know and love one another. That is what the universe, God, history, and life is all about. If you favor money, power, and accomplishment over human relationships, you will dash yourself on the rocks of reality.”

Perhaps “Confucian Christian” does not have to be a contradiction after all. I’m still not quite convinced, but either way this short exposure to the tradition has certainly inspired me to learn more about what that wise guy had to say.

Six Days!

Hello all! So this is my blog I will be keeping up during my semester abroad in Shanghai. While it is ultimately just an excuse to document a five month experience that is sure to be packed with priceless adventures and alarming culture shocks, I was hoping to do a bit more with this project as well.

During my time there, I will be making a point of noticing elements of Chinese politics, economics, religion, culture, etc. that have interesting similarities or differences with their Western counterpoints, and will be writing short entries about them here. 

From the many conversations I have had about this approaching trip, I have gathered a sort of common thread as far as the Western opinion of China goes: most understand they should be somewhat informed about what those increasingly influential billion folks are up to, but can’t quite summon the heart or energy. It is my desire that in noting aspects of the "Middle Kingdom" (direct translation of the Chinese word for China) that catch my eye and relating them to Western reference points, it will make the process of learning the essentials of Chinese culture easy and enjoyable.

           

I feel considerably blessed to have the opportunity to travel to unfamiliar lands and meet individuals with perspectives that are bound to be entirely different from my own. As St. Augustine said, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page;” in that spirit, I am incredibly thankful for the chance to start this new chapter. Thank you everyone for your prayers and good wishes, and I very much look forward to our correspondence over the coming months!

Peace, 

Brad