Entries: Tom Rogers

A good meal...an unfair price?

On this last day of our trip, we’re regretting that we didn’t learn about this restaurant much earlier. 

Michael Koliska discovered this place a couple of days ago, and I ate there for the first time last night.  It was so good—and much of our contingent agrees—that a group of us ate there again tonight.  It sits smack in the middle of the Beijing Institute of Technology campus, amid a group of similar small eateries and stores.  You could call it a Chinese Campustown.

Here is a bit of what we ordered:

Four entrees (a fifth arrived soon after) plus two Cokes, a bottle of water and a 600ml bottle of beer.  Tea was complimentary, and Chinese custom discourages tipping.  The tab: 43 yuan.  At today’s exchange rate: $5.62.  That’s $1.41 per person.  It’s the most egregious example of a pattern: food prices in China are nowhere near US prices, except for the bars and restaurants in tourist areas.  This is a story we did not cover.  It’d be an interesting one to pursue.

The food was excellent, even though the menu is written only in Chinese and we limited our choices to the items that have pictures on the menu.  We’d have never gone there without Michael’s snap decision because it’s a real hole in the wall.  So real that the wall has a hole.

The name of our favorite greasy chopstick?  Well, we don’t really know.  Below is the name as written by the waitstaff.  If you know Chinese, get us a Pinyin name and a translation! 

Dengfeng

I’m back in Beijing after spending a day and change in Dengfeng, in central China’s Henan province.  As I mentioned in my first post, Dengfeng is the epicenter of Shaolin martial arts, and I visited Urbana martial arts instructor Demitri Daniels as he went to China for more training.  Nearby is Shaolin Temple, which has its own school.  This one and several back in the city of Dengfeng are like giant military academies—while Daniels’ school has only about a half-dozen foreigners and a couple hundred Chinese students, the many of the largest schools number well past a thousand.  It was a fascinating trip to see the schools and get a taste of China outside the most-heavily visited tourist sites—even though Shaolin Temple has been developed by the government into a tourist attraction (some purists would call it a full-blown tourist trap), we never saw a Westerner there, and many Dengfeng residents seemed tickled to see non-Asian faces in their town.

Today it’s the Great Wall, and then I sit down to write my story.  You should hear it on Morning Edition in the next few days. 

Kung fu students! Thousands of 'em!:
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Where's the Communism?

On the way back from the rural town of Zhujiajiao, we drove past a gigantic billboard next to a tollbooth.  Starting with a Shanghai skyline picture and ending in a set of tall, cookiecutter apartment buildings, the sprawling text was the first absolute evidence that we’re in a country that still espouses Communism: “Make efforts to build a greater socialistic progressive society!  Speed up the urbanization of the Qingpu District!”

Earlier that day, the Jing’an Temple unveiled a giant new pillared statue.  It couldn’t go without an extravagant ceremony, complete with rows of government and temple dignitaries (keep in mind that almost all religious organizations require government permission to operate), giving speeches in front of a large backdrop.  It took several minutes just to make sure the name placards were placed on the tables in exactly the right order.  It brought to my mind the tightly-structured Communist Party conferences, with giant slogans and rows and rows of higher-ups.

Beyond that, though, there have been very few overt signs of totalitarianism—in its place is something that leaders call “capitalism with Chinese characteristics.”  Customs was a breeze, the police seem relatively passive, daily life goes on, and the late Chairman Mao has been relegated to a statue or two as well as the fronts of all our cash.  One theory is that Shanghai is the most Western of Chinese cities, and Beijing holds a different story.  We shall see later this week.

Taiji in the Park

I woke up particularly early this morning to check out what others have said—that Shanghai’s parks are filled with taiji (or tai chi) practitioners.  It’s confirmed!  Jing’an Park lies caddycorner to our hotel, and this morning it’s packed.  Every few feet there’s a group of 5-15 people, mostly elderly, slowly working on their forms.  Some are doing the same with red-tasseled swords, but as one woman demonstrates, a rolled-up magazine does the trick too.  Others choose a bit quicker pace, jumping and kicking to music playing from a nearby cassette player—though I have a suspicion that they’re working on aerobics rather than any ancient martial art.

Two subway stops down in the less parklike Renmin (People’s) Square, a few other aerobics groups are at it, along with a lone, traditionally-garbed man practicing besides one of the park’s landmark statues.  I felt more at peace just watching him.

Speaking of martial arts, I’m trying to make final plans to head west to the city of Zhengzhou, then south to the smaller town of Dengfeng, where Demitri Daniels has arrived for training.  You saw his picture in an earlier post.  It may mean traveling from here, or I may travel with the group tomorrow night to Beijing and make my western trip after that. 

Woman doing taiji in the Park:
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People's Park.

Action English!

The government-run Central China TV has at least 12 channels, and one of them—in prime time—devotes time to teaching English.  I caught “Action English” in passing last night as I was headed to eat.  Viewers were treated to a ten minute dissertation of the slang term “give someone a case of the willies,” using a clip from the Kevin Spacey movie Outbreak.  In fact, movie snippets are the entire basis for introducing nascent English speakers to things they’ll hear on the streets of New York or Chicago or Champaign but may not quite understand with their phrasebooks.  Also on last night’s edition: Tony and Maria from West Side Story (“Will you come down and meet me for a minute?  An hour?  How about forever?”), and the cast of The West Wing using the terms “ETA” and “case closed.”