I've decided to set up a new blog while I'm in Japan. Here's the web address:

http://theshapeofjapan.blogspot.com/

From now on, any new entries will be posted at that address.

I forgot to mention a couple other things about the hotel. First, in the lobby and throughout the halls, 1950’s-black-and-white-movie-sounding music is constantly playing. When I’m walking around I feel like Audrey Hepburn could pop out at any second. And if she doesn’t, I never feel alone, thanks to the complementary soap provided by the hotel, which has on its label “And it's so late. But I'll wait. Through the long night with you. With you". I don’t know why the soap wrapping would have such a thing written on it but I guess I should be glad, at least, that my soap is so devoted to me. I certainly prefer that to the alternative.

As for the problem I had with my tennis racket, I resolved it earlier this afternoon, although not by using a staple gun. First, I used some sort of glue that one of the tournament workers let me use. After letting the glue dry I tested it out and found that the handle cap was still too loose. I then asked the racket stringer on site at the tournament if he could fix my racket. He had never dealt with that sort of problem before so, instead, he suggested that I go to the sports store just down the road from the tennis courts. I went but it quickly became apparent that there would not be anyone there who could fix my racket. Feeling as though I was out of options, I returned to the tennis courts. As I was standing in the clubhouse, I looked out the window and noticed a sort of Japanese Home Depot across the street. I figured if there’s anywhere around here that has a staple gun it would have to be that place.

I walked over and wandered around the store for a few minutes in search of someone using tools. I soon heard the sound of wood being sawed and followed the sound to the back corner of the store. I found a man at one of the wood-cutting stations and indicated to him by pointing to the staples on my racket handle that I needed to repair the handle. After he told me he didn’t have a staple gun, I walked over to the other wood-cutting stations where there was a woman sawing pieces of lumber as her child waited in a stroller. I indicated the same thing to her as I had to the man just before and she got the attention of one of the workers, as I didn’t realize she was a customer. The store-worker led me over to the nails section of the store and helped me find a pack of the smallest nails for sale. I bought a pack and then went back to where the woman had just been sawing wood, which I think was a sort of customer workshop. Although it didn’t strike me the first time I went by the workshop to ask the woman for help, I realized the second time around how unlikely it would be that a Home Depot or Lowe’s Home Improvement store would ever have this sort of thing in the U.S. This was an in-store workshop with unsupervised access to a table saw and several hand saws along with some more basic tools. The lawsuits would be endless.

So after buying nails I proceeded to use the available hammer and drove some nails through the cap and into the base of my racket handle. I was unsure at first whether or not this would work but I had nothing to lose. I drove the first few and tested it out by pulling the cap away from the handle. It seemed to be working! I must have looked like a bit of a madman to any passersby; as I was driving nails into my tennis racket, an act absurd in itself, I, myself, started laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Nonetheless, about fifteen or twenty nails later, the cap was better than new.

Now I’m ready to get back on the court with my equipment in top-notch condition.

I left Kusatsu yesterday for Akishima, the city hosting the next tournament. I practiced some yesterday afternoon with an Australian guy I met at the last tournament and then he, myself, and another American guy practiced this morning. Thankfully, it’s a lot warmer and seemingly less humid here, which I think is because Akishima is at a far lower elevation than the mountain-town of Kusatsu. I was getting tired of Kusatsu’s rain showers that would occur just about once every couple hours. The tennis facility here is also significantly better than the last. Kusatsu only had five match courts and once practice court, all of which were in relatively bad shape.


The Akishima facility, on the other hand, has around twenty courts, all in good condition.


Like Kusatsu, Akishima’s courts are carpet, which is my least favorite surface, but I’m starting to get more used to them.

As for Akishima the city, it’s been interesting so far. It’s still relatively quiet although there are a few pockets of noisiness, specifically the game houses that I pass on my way to the courts.

I’m not sure yet if one can gamble in these places but I’ve seen quite a few people, men and women mostly in their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s, playing these games during the day and night. I walked in one briefly last night and it was the loudest, most overwhelming thing I’ve experienced in a while. In a way, it was like being back in one of the more hectic areas of Beijing.

After leaving the game room, I walked down to a manga comic book store just past the hotel where I’m staying. I find the manga style quite strange. If you just look at the covers, half of them look like relatively normal comic books with young-looking Japanese characters with those big, glassy eyes on the cover. But then the other half has that same style of animation except sexed up. Various parts of the female characters’ bodies are proportionally absurd and they’re dressed in very provocative clothing. I don’t know which demographic these things appeal to but last night the store was mostly populated by men who looked like they had just come off work and were coming by do to their regular evening browse of the manga store. Every convenience store also has a manga section alongside the other regular magazines and whenever I walk by one I see people of all ages checking out the latest comics.

That’s something strange that I’ve come across since I’ve been here. Now for something somewhat funny: my hotel room. I was a bit spoiled last week by my spacious living conditions, which included a small kitchen. My room here in Akishima, however, is quite small and without a kitchen. When I’m just in my room, I’m able to side step and weave my way around my things fairly well, but the bathroom is much harder to manage. Just picture what an airplane bathroom might look like if it had a shower and that’s basically my bathroom. And if I were about 3 inches taller I would probably have to stoop down every time I went in there. So for anyone around six feet three inches or taller planning on going to Japan, you best watch your head.

I’ve got a match tomorrow so I’m mostly going to be hanging around today not doing too much. In the meantime, though, I’ve got to figure out how to repair the handle on one of my rackets. I’m using a couple of cheap Chinese-made rackets, brand-name “Poems”, which have been fine, until yesterday. About thirty minutes into my practice session I noticed that the handle felt a bit funny. What had happened was that the staples holding the cap onto the bottom end of the handle had come loose. That problem only got worse as I hit so I now need to find someone with a staple gun. That should be a very useful word to know for the future.

This past Thursday three Thai guys from the last tournament and myself took a bus from Karuizawa to Kusatsu, where the second tournament is being held. I’ve been in Kusatsu for a couple days now and I’m very much glad to be here and out of Karuizawa. It’s true that Kusatsu too has some tourism, however, it’s far less pronounced than it was in Karuizawa. The main draw here are the hot springs, or, in Japanese, onsen. According to the Lonely Planet there are more than 3000 onsen in Japan. Kusatsu apparently has quite a few onsen in the area, including one main one downtown, although you don’t see people bathing in that one.

There are several resorts throughout Kusatsu where Japanese come to spend the weekend and relax. Vacation time in Kusatsu is so wholly devoted to relaxation that the visitors will even walk into town in what is essentially a bathrobe. I’m assuming they’re going to the various onsen that are located throughout the town but, who knows, maybe they’re just going to the store to pick up a few things.

One more nice thing about Kusatsu besides the smaller presence of tourism is the food. Whereas in Karuizawa you couldn’t get a meal at a restaurant for less than about $9, here food is much more affordable. And since my hotel room has a small kitchen complete with fridge, stove, and microwave, I’ve been either making or microwaving all the food I eat.

Microwaveable meals appear to be quite popular here, so popular, in fact, the grocery store has a microwave or two on a counter just beyond the checkout counters where customers can heat up the meals they’ve just purchased before heading home. I’ve been eating these as well and I have to say I’ve been pleased with all of them so far. But what’s been the most pleasing item of nutrition since I’ve been in Japan has been milk. Perhaps it was because I didn’t have access to a refrigerator in China or maybe it was because if you were going to drink milk there it was going to be soymilk. For whatever reason, I didn’t drink any cow’s milk for those four months in Beijing. But now that I’m in Japan where I have a fridge, albeit temporarily, and where dairy is much more accessible, I’ve been putting away some milk. And for those of you who know how much I enjoy cereal, you can probably imagine how, for me, finding a couple boxes of the stuff in the grocery store last night was like finding the Holy Grail.

That’s enough for now about food. So Kusatsu seems to be much more of a regular Japanese town than Karuizawa was. One thing I can say about this town that seems to also be true of Japan as a whole is that it is extremely quiet. When you walk around the streets just about the only thing you might hear is the faint, efficient-sounding whirring of car engines.

You also might hear people conversing as they walk along the street but it’s never loud. These are things I might not have noticed had I not come straight from China to Japan. In China, everything’s louder. I suppose I should say that in Chinese cities everything is louder since there are still lots of quiet, rural places in China. But when you’re in a Chinese city (and chances are if you go to China you’ll be spending a lot of time in cities), whether it’s noise from construction, noise from car horns which are probably used more than the steering wheel or gas and brake pedals, or noise from Chinese people who, for some reason, speak very loudly, you are constantly bombarded with sound. But in Japan, it’s almost the complete opposite. The train ride from Tokyo to Karuizawa, the bus ride from Karuizawa to Kusatsu, the streets, the supermarket, the restaurants, the volume at which Japanese people speak; all very, very quiet.

The quietness of Japan also goes along with its cleanliness. When you walk into any hotel or home you immediately take off your shoes and put on slippers.

And when you go to the bathroom you may find a separate pair of slippers, which you should wear whenever using the bathroom. Those medical facemasks you see people wearing when things like the swine flu break out are also quite popular. I’ve seen several people walking down the street in Karuizawa and Kusatsu, both of which, mind you, are small towns with little to no crowding, wearing these facemasks. All the convenience store workers here in Kusatsu and, if I remember correctly, the workers at the grocery store also wear them. This may be just because of the swine flu but I wouldn’t be surprised if lots of Japanese were wearing these things before the breakout.

And then there’s the countryside of Japan, all of which, from what I’ve seen while riding the train and the bus, is green and lush.

So, all in all, everything here just feels very clean. Of course, I have yet to spend a significant amount of time in Japanese cities, where things may not be so quiet and clean. But I’ll certainly be on the lookout for these characteristics whenever I do go to one.

As for news about tennis, I played my first tournament match yesterday and lost 6-2 6-2 to a guy from Australia. I played decently but my opponent was simply the better player. I would say the main reason I lost was that he overpowered me. I couldn’t figure out why a couple of my shots, my backhand in particular, were so weak. Regardless, it was fun to get out there and play a match. Whereas last weeks’ tournament was on clay, this one is on what’s called carpet, which is Astroturf and sand combined in an attempt to simulate playing on a grass court. I’ve never played on grass so I can’t say whether or not carpet succeeds at simulating grass but what I can say is that it is frustrating to play on. The stuff is extremely slick and you end up sliding every time you try to stop, which can be fun but is also frustrating. I don’t particularly like the surface and most everyone else I’ve talked to at the tournament feels the same way.

Now that I’m out of the tournament, I’ll hang around here for a few days and keep trying to practice with whomever I can find who’s also looking to hit some. I’ll probably leave on Thursday for the next tournament, which is in a city called Akishima. Akishima is a city of a little more than 100,000 located within the Tokyo Metropolis, which is one of the 47 Japanese prefectures. The Tokyo Metropolis is similar to Beijing, which is both a city and a municipality. The municipality of Beijing is basically the equivalent of a Chinese province, or, if comparing it to the U.S., a state. Thus the municipality of Beijing includes the city of Beijing as well as other smaller cities and towns. The Tokyo Metropolis appears to be basically the same thing in that it includes both the city of Tokyo along with other smaller cities and town.

Just to give a brief overview of the geography of the country, Japan is made up of four main islands along with a string of smaller islands in the south. The central island, which is also the largest, is known as Honshu Island. You can think of Honshu as being in the shape of a right angle with the lower part projecting to the left and the upper projecting upwards. Or you can also think of those X and Y graphs we used to use in geometry class; Honshu is basically the upper half of the Y axis and left-side half of the X. Tokyo is located at the corner where those two axes meet (or if you prefer the geometry graphs, point 0,0), with Karuizawa and Kusatsu to the northwest. This is a very rough and possibly very inaccurate guess but I would say that to drive from Tokyo to the area where Karuizawa and Kusatsu are located, one would drive about 3 hours west and 3 hours north.

That’s enough geography for now. But before I finish this post there’s a guy here at the tournament that I’d like to talk about. As I was waiting to go on court, there was a match between a Japanese guy about my age and another Japanese guy who looks to be in his early 30’s. I’m not sure who this guy is but he’s quite a character. He has shoulder-length orange-dyed hair that he keeps out of his face with a headband. He clearly hasn’t played tennis for long but he does seem to enjoy it very much. I first met him on Friday when I came to the courts to practice. He introduced himself and we talked for a little while. Then, as I was paying to get one of my rackets restrung, he started to take a picture of me as though there was something memorable about that moment, which there wasn’t. Unfortunately, his camera malfunctioned and he didn’t get a chance to snap a photo before I had finished handing the racket-stringer my money; a moment now lost in time. We saw each other a couple times Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, sometimes he would address me as “Sam Sam”, other times as “Mr. Sam”.

As for his match on Saturday afternoon, things didn’t go so well. His opponent defeated him quickly and without effort. He did, however, do one thing during the match that I’ve never seen before. And judging by the reactions of all the other players sitting around watching the match, this was completely new to them as well. As he was sitting in his chair during one of the changeovers (when players sit down at the sideline and get a drink of water or Gatorade), he took one foot and rested it on his other knee. He then began taking swigs of water and then with each swig spray the water all over the soles of his shoes. I had already noticed that his shoes looked different than they had at the beginning of the match. I assumed he must have changed shoes at some point in an attempt to turn things around. Later that afternoon I saw him and we started talking. I looked at his shoes and saw that he had put socks around them. I asked him why he did this and he explained that it helped him gain traction on the slick carpet courts. He then added that spraying water on the soles further enhanced their traction, which explained his changeover antics. As you can imagine, the whole thing looked entirely ridiculous but, then again, maybe he’s really come up with something.

This afternoon I leave for Kusatsu Gunma, the town where the next tournament will be held. I must say I won’t be missing Karuizawa. The countryside here is very pretty, however, the only things to do in Karuizawa besides coming for the tennis tournament appear to be shopping and having expensive weddings.

So, yeah, not my kind of place. Unfortunately, I’ve been told that Kusatsu Gunma too is a resort town and so it may be quite similar to Karuizawa. I’ll suspend judgment, though, until I get there.

On a side note, I’ve seen some strange things on TV here in Japan. TV in China was mostly melodramatic soap operas, basketball, martial arts shows with cheesy, overblown effects, and the occasional minority hour (a show where a group of one of the 56 ethnic groups in China would dress up in their traditional garb and then sing and dance on stage in front of their clapping audience).

In Japan, there’s the usual news, sports, and soap operas. But as I was flipping through the channels last night, I came across what I suppose was some sort of kids’ channel. The first thing showing was a game of dodgeball in which a man in his mid 20’s ran around within a painted square as three kids around ten years old, two boys and one girl, attempted to tag him with the ball. They were unable to tag him for around a minute so the man decided to liven things up by simply catching the ball when it was thrown at him. After catching a couple balls thrown at him by the two boys, he then proceeded to repeatedly catch and return the ball to the girl after she attempted to tag him. This went on and on until he and the crowd then began to laugh at the girl for her ineffective throws.

Once the game ended and the girl had been thoroughly humiliated, the show moved on to some sort of dating game between, once again, boys and girls of about ten years old. Three girls wearing elaborate makeup and clothing that you might see on a college campus first sat and watched as each of the three boys performed some sort of talent in front of them; one did martial arts, another danced, and I didn’t see what the third did. After the talent show, each boy then had an interview with the three girls. Near the end of the show there was a preview of the next week’s episode, which showed a clip of one of the girls about to choose one of the three boys as they closed their eyes with their other hand.

All in all, I’d have to say this was a bad day developmentally for these kids. Whether it’s showcasing one girl’s shame on national TV or having some kids play The Bachelor instead of hide-and-go-seek at their friend’s house after school, I’d say the show should come up with something more appropriate for that age group. Bu then again, maybe I’m just old fashioned.

I didn’t get a chance to play a match in the first tournament here in Karuizawa. The way these tournaments work is that if you have a world ranking then you are basically guaranteed a spot in the tournament. If not, then it’s a gamble. If you do, however, have a national ranking then that helps. I have neither, so my entering these tournaments is an even bigger gamble. And this is just for the qualifier to the tournament. If you win a few matches in the qualifier, then you’re in the actual tournament, or what’s called the main draw. Luckily, though, the tournament next weekend, which is in some place an hour’s bus ride from here, still has spaces available in the qualifying draw so I think I should have a better chance of getting into that one.

Still, coming here has very much been worth it, even for the tennis. Although I haven’t played any matches in the actual tournament I have gotten to practice with a few Japanese guys over the last couple days. And since the main draw begins tomorrow, the players who automatically got into the main draw have arrived and practiced yesterday and today. If you get into the main draw automatically that means your world ranking is relatively high, and if your world ranking is high that, as you might guess, means you’re very good. So just watching the main draw players has been enjoyable. Two of the guys who are in the main draw are from Taiwan and I spoke with them some this afternoon after I overheard them speaking Chinese. I hope to get to know them better this coming week and the next week as almost everyone, myself and the two Taiwanese included, will go on to the following tournament in the next town. I’d like to hear what they have to say about mainland China and some of the issues that come up over there.

One funny thing about tennis here, and I found this as well in China, is that just because you play tennis or are watching tennis from nearby doesn’t mean you can’t smoke. In China, I played a few times with a couple high-school aged guys (I say “aged” because they no longer attend school but, instead, only play tennis) whose parents came out to watch and smoked as they sat on the sidelines. Then there was an instructor on the court beside us who took a smoke break on the bench as his student picked up the balls from the court and put them back in the basket In Karuizawa, I saw one player smoking a cigarette about five minutes before going on court to practice before his match. And then of course, there’s a designated smoking area in the viewing area situated in the middle of the complex. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen anyone in the U.S. smoking in the proximity of a tennis match.

Yesterday was the finals of the French Open between Roger Federer and the unexpected Robin Soderling. In the hopes of watching the match I asked around to see if there might be somewhere in Karuizawa that would be showing the match. Some people at the tournament helped me out by writing down some instructions on a piece of paper, which I was to give to the hotel staff where I’m staying. After I gave the paper to the same woman who seemed terrified the first night arrived (she’s seemed much more relaxed since then), she made a few calls to see if anyone knew on what channel the match might be shown. She soon found out, however, that the match was not scheduled to play on TV. After saying “tennis” while making an “X” with her fingers to indicate that I would not be able to watch the match, she sent me on my way with a bag and two cookies in it, I suppose as consolation for the letdown of not being able to watch the match. As I said in my previous post, the people are extremely nice here, and this is a good example of that.

Here are a few pictures of the tennis facility and of the place where I'm staying.







There are 10 courts total with the viewing area in between. The court surface is some sort of brown clay that I've never seen before.

My plans for the summer changed quite drastically recently. It all started in Chengde. As Arthur and I were sitting in our hotel room flipping through seemingly endless terrible Chinese TV shows, we came upon the sports channel, which happened to be showing the French Open. Watching the French really just made me want to play tennis, and since the sport is still in its nascence in China, I decided to look elsewhere for some tournaments to play. This brings me to where I am now, which is Karuizawa, Japan. There are four tournaments in Japan this June; the first of which is held in Karuizawa. I spent Wednesday and Thursday figuring out what I would take with me, what to mail home, buying cheap knock-offs from a couple different markets, and then yesterday morning I flew from Beijing to Tokyo. I didn’t have time to hang out in Tokyo because I had a train to catch but from what I can tell it seems to be a very well-organized, clean, and, of course, huge city. I had to take one train into the city and another to Karuizawa, both of which left and arrived perfectly on time. The people were walking rather than running to the trains and then actually queued as they waited in line instead of making a mad rush for the first opportunity to get on board. I saw none of these things in China. Although the train experience in Japan is more convenient and comfortable, that of China is, if anything, interesting and I ended up meeting and talking to a lot of Chinese people on the trains who just wanted to talk with a foreigner.

As for Karuizawa, it’s basically my hometown of Banner Elk except it’s in Japan. There’s a ski resort somewhere around here, lots of golf and tennis, and hiking. Coming here has made me realize just how nice it is to be able to speak the language of the foreign country that you’re visiting. In China finding things and understanding people was, for the most part, relatively easy. Here, it’s been difficult. Luckily, tons of people here can at least speak some English. I had some trouble getting to the hotel where I’m staying but eventually made it here after I got in touch with the tournament director. He speaks very good English and gave me a ride to a small hotel that’s cheaper than the one recommended by the tournament. When we entered the hotel and walked up to the front desk there was a woman in her 60’s working behind the desk. Upon seeing me she had the most terrified look on her face, for what reason I do not know. She then rushed around the desk and hurried up the stairs to show me my room, which is nice, although clearly not designed for people taller than six feet.

Since Karuizawa is a small town, the restaurants and other stores close relatively early and so I had some trouble finding a place to grab some dinner. I went inside a small office where a middle-aged man was working behind a desk to ask him if he knew of any restaurants in the area that were still open. Instead of simply telling me where to go, he turned off his computer, closed the office, and took me over to a small restaurant that from the outside appeared to be closed. We ate what was basically Japanese barbecue and tried to exchange a few words, however, our conversation was extremely limited as he only knew little English and I know no Japanese. The food was very good and I was especially glad to have a good meal after what’s been a long day of travel.

After I returned to the hotel, the woman behind the desk came out and said something to me. She speaks no English and so I had no idea what she was saying. Finally, she simply started pointing at the dining area on the opposite side of the room and put up 8 fingers, which I assumed meant she was telling me breakfast would be at 8 in the morning. We got that resolved and then as I was leaving she said something and bowed, which I took to mean as goodnight. I then said it as well and bowed, then she said it again and bowed, so I did the same, thinking this was customary. But after I said whatever it was I said and bowed she then did the same again. I figured two or three was plenty so I then headed back to the room rather than continuing with what could be a never-ending cycle of saying goodnight (if that’s what it was we were saying) and bowing.

Everyone I’ve talked to, from the ticket salespeople to the people in Karuizawa, has been very friendly and helpful. Traveling has been easy so far, especially given that I don’t know any Japanese, and the countryside is very pretty. Overall, I have to say I like Japan very much.

This past Thursday China celebrated a holiday known as Duanwu Jie （端午节， pronounced dwon-woo-j-yeah). Duanwu Jie has its origins in a story about a poet named Qu Yuan (pronounced choo-you-an) who lived during the time known as the Warring-States Period. The Warring States was a time in which there were seven separate Chinese kingdoms fighting against each other for dominance. When the Chu kingdom, the one Qu Yuan lived in, was taken over by the kingdom of Qin, Qu drowned himself in a river perhaps for fear of what was to come for the people of Chu. The story goes that villagers near the river then raced out in boats to retrieve him, which explains the tradition of dragon boat racing that takes place during Duanwu Jie. Duanwu Jie is also celebrated by eating these snacks made of rice and other ingredients wrapped in some sort of plant leaf and tied up with a string. I’ve heard one explanation for this and read a different one on Wikipedia. The one I heard is that the villagers, after Qu committed suicide, wrapped these rice snacks in leaves and put them in the river for Qu’s spirit to eat; the leaves were meant to prevent fish in the river from eating the snacks. The explanation I read, however, was that the villagers put the rice snacks in the river so that the fish would eat the rice instead of Qu’s body. Either way, I figure someone or something is going to have a hard time untying the string, whether the attempt is made with a fin or with a ghostly hand. Then of course eating the food won’t be any easier.

So Thursday and Friday were vacation days in China. Arthur (that’s just his English name, of course), the Chinese guy that I’m teaching English, had work off and he invited me to go with him to Chengde (pronounced Chung-duh), a city north of Beijing where the Qing dynasty emperors used to go during the summer and enjoy its pleasant weather and scenery. It’s a few hours drive from Beijing and since the highway that connects Chengde to Beijing is close to Arthur’s apartment he let me stay over the night before we left. Before we left the following morning, I happened to notice a calendar hanging on the wall in the living room. The calendar was military-themed and so each month a different weapon or military vehicle was featured. But along with showing the various weapons and vehicles used by the Chinese military, each one was set in some sort of attractive, natural scenery; a military truck in the Inner Mongolian grasslands; a sniper rifle set upon a rock at sunset with autumnal leaves in the background; a tank in the Tibetan highlands (that one probably didn’t require any cropping).

We set off at around 7 in the morning and made it to Chengde in about three hours. After first going to the hotel, Arthur insisted that we have a tour guide take us to the various sites of the city. We started off by going to the Emperor’s palace, where the tour guide would explain things and then I would almost inevitably require Arthur to translate for me. The palace was much the same as most other historical sites I’ve visited here so far; tons of people and with a good number of cheap souvenir stores and the occasional theme park-like attractions. This one had paddleboats on the lake behind the palace and even a small amusement park with rides and bumper cars. There was one thing at the palace that I haven’t seen before, though, and that was a small population of deer allowed to roam freely within the grounds. Tourists would go up to the deer and feed them snacks out of their hands. Apparently there are quite a few deer in the area, enough to give cause for one of the souvenir stores to sell different deer parts, some of which are supposed to be health giving while others are thought to bring good luck. The store also had a stand with a few vats of alcohol with various deer parts soaking in them. I was offered a very small, free sample and drank it down. Nothing too special about it, though; it was simply good-ol’ Baijiu (pronounced buy-joe), the hard-alcohol drink of choice in China.

After we finished up our tour of the palace, we proceeded on to a Taoist temple not far from there. The temple, like the palace, had its fair share of small shops, except in these one could buy small souvenirs along with incense that you can then burn at the altars located throughout the temple. Arthur bought some incense and then went to one of the altars to pray. Neatly placed in front of every altar is a box with a glass front and a slit in the top where visitors can put money in the hopes that their donations will bring good fortune. And if you don’t feel confident by putting money in the box, you could always go to one of the fortune-tellers that were sitting in each of the temple halls. While we were there one fortune-teller succeeded in getting one visitor pay money to have him hit two sticks together for a few minutes while using a high, official sounding voice and then tell the woman what was the future had in store. As we were about to exit we came to the temple’s final shop. The walls were lined with hundreds of statuettes of an old Chinese general who is believed to be a harbinger of good fortune. The majority of the statuettes had small note cards placed in front of them with the name, address, and phone number of a temple-goer who had paid the one yuan per day price of reserving one of the figurines.

We left the temple and went back to the hotel for a while. Afterwards, we made our way out in the rain, which had begun that afternoon, to a restaurant that was purported to have Chengde-style food. After getting to the restaurant and looking over the menu, we realized Chengde-style food simply meant dishes with deer meat, all of which were quite expensive. You could actually buy the entire deer for 38,000 yuan or about $5,600. I would’ve liked to see them serve one up but nobody in the restaurant that I could see ordered one.

The next morning we met up with our tour guide from the previous day and headed back out, this time to a Chinese-style Buddhist temple. Like the Taoist temple we visited the previous day, almost every prayer hall had a donation box placed in front of the prayer mats where people would kneel and pray.

One thing that was interesting about this place was that the first part was constructed using Chinese-style architecture and the second in Tibetan. It was built this way because the Tibetan officials who came to meet with the Qing dynasty officials preferred to meet in Chengde rather than Beijing. Officials from Mongolia and Xinjiang province in Western China also preferred Chengde as a meeting spot.

After the temple we went on to our last stop of the trip: Chengde’s mini-Potala. If you’ve ever seen any pictures of Lhasa in Tibet, the Potala is the palace sitting up on a hill that overlooks the city. Although it doesn’t look exactly like the one in Lhasa, the mini-Potala in Chengde does look quite similar. As we walked up to the temple we passed through a large gate with five small towers on the top. Our tour guide explained to us that the five towers represented the five parts of the body that touch the ground when praying (knees, hands, and forehead). When the emperor came to the temple to pray, he could not kneel and pray because such an act would be beneath him. So instead, he would simply walk through the gate with the five towers and this counted the same as if he had kneeled down to pray. This made me wonder: why would the emperor come to pray at all if he was already so far above the Buddhist traditions he couldn’t even reduce himself to kneel down? Indeed, the emperor was thought to be the son of heaven and so he was believed to have divine powers. I suspect it must have been more of a formality rather than the emperor actually praying for whatever assistance Buddhism might have to offer.

Inside the palace were more prayer halls, a few rooms that had some old Tibetan tapestries, and an exhibit on the history of the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia. We made our way to the top of the palace and looked down from the roof over the surrounding area. The countryside there was beautiful and I can very much see why the Qing emperors wanted to go there during the summer. Not only was the scenery nice, it had to be ten to twenty degrees cooler there than it was in Beijing when we left.

As our tour guide tried to hurry us along to the exit we stopped off in a few more exhibit rooms. We looked through these briefly and then came to a small prayer hall with some Buddhist monks standing around. Our tour guide warned us that they would start telling us fortunes and that we should simply ignore anything they said and not pay them for their services. Sure enough, upon our entering the room one of the monks immediately began to force onto Arthur his future life like someone on the street in a city might start washing your car windshield without asking you. Arthur didn’t let the guy tell him too much before we turned around and left. Afterwards, Arthur told me the monk had, somehow, actually told Arthur the correct month of his birth date. Neither of us were sure how the monk did this. One possible explanation, of course, is that he simply guessed right. Another one is that our tour guide, who works with the hotel we were staying at and so has at least a possible connection to our personal information, may have informed him ahead of time. No matter how it came about, Arthur and I were sure the monk got tipped off somehow.

We left the palace, dropped off our tour guide back in town, and headed back towards Beijing. The drive back took us through some beautiful countryside, which I didn’t know existed so close to Beijing. It would have been nice to go somewhere with fewer crowds but, still, it was good to get out of the big city for a couple days.

The apartment building where I live.

My room.

Ping pong tables in the park across the street.

The street that leads to the apartment building. The chuar vendors set up every night on the right-side in the parking lot.

Where the men gather in the park everyday to play Chinese chess.

Bike repair/Chinese chess hang-out.

This is a huge ring in the center of the park where people come at night to roller blade. The tree-covered rocks at the far side that are a bit hard to see in the picture are a nice area to go and read.

First I would like to explain why there aren't any pictures in this post (yet that is). Blogspot is currently blocked right now and although I've been able to get around that and post text I still haven't figured out how to use a proxy effectively to post pictures. I apologize for the absence of pictures but I'll get it figured out soon and add some later on to this post.
Since I got back from Yanping and Moon Canyon, I’ve taken my final tests for the semester and moved into a new home stay. My final day of class is tomorrow, after which I’ll be taking a break from studying Chinese, although I may continue studying this summer with a tutor.
My new home stay is in another apartment complex not too unlike the one I stayed in at the beginning of the semester. This one, however, is located outside and to the west of campus. The apartment complex is off of a small side street with a row of small restaurants on the north side of the street, a park on the south side, and a middle school further down the road on the north side directly across from the park.
The street gets busy during the mornings and afternoons when students are dropped off at and picked up from school and during lunch time when students leave school for a little while to grab some lunch from one of the several food vendors that set up every day around that time. In the late afternoon and at night, however, everything slows down. A number of men congregate at the park and at a small bike repair stand on the street to play Chinese chess.As the men play a small group of women stand around in the vicinity, presumably waiting for their husbands. Although it seems that only a few people play ping pong around this time during the weekdays, the weekends see the public tables fill up with men and women.
At around 7 or 8 each night, a group of vendors set up what are called chuar (pronounced ch-w-are) stands along the street across from the small cluster of restaurants. Chuar is the word for the food that they make, which is basically a kebab that can have beef, lamb, chicken, tofu, or vegetables on it. The preferred cooking apparatus seems to be a couple of cinder blocks or some other sort of makeshift stand with a long, slender metal trough placed on top at waist-height. After you’ve picked out what kind and how many kebabs you want, they place a shovel-full or two of burning coals into the trough (if they aren’t already cooking someone else’s chuar), cook it for a few minutes, and it’s ready to be eaten. Each vendor also has a small outdoor dining area of tiny plastic chairs where groups of people will sit around eating chuar and drinking beer. At around the same time and a little further down the street you can walk to the center of the park and watch people rollerblading in the dark. Its proof that there are still parts of Beijing that you can actually relax in and escape the chaos that abounds elsewhere in the city.
I’m going to keep living here from now until mid-June, when I’ll move back over to campus and stay with a German classmate of mine. I’ve been teaching private tennis lessons to a couple Chinese girls, ages 7 and 9, three or sometimes four times a week and will continue doing so throughout the summer. I’ll also be continuing to teach English to a Chinese man in his thirties who may be traveling to the US for his work and so feels he needs to improve his English-speaking skills. Teaching him has been quite easy; so far all we have done is watch “Will and Grace”, a favorite of his, and pause every now and then so that I can explain the dialogue and any new vocabulary to him. Teaching the girls has been a bit more difficult, mostly because neither they nor their father speak English. But I’ve been able to get through that without too much trouble by learning a few essential tennis-related words. Aside from work, I’m planning on taking a few trips this summer and, like I said, possibly continuing to study Chinese. I also took a class this spring on the Erhu, a Chinese with two strings played with a bow, and may continue to take lessons this summer. Otherwise, I’ll be trying to stay out of the Beijing summer heat.

Last week was our spring break, giving us Thursday and Friday off. This time, Red and I chose another village to go to called Yanping (严坪) in the eastern tip of Gansu (甘肃) Province. It may seem strange that every trip I've taken has been to a village. The reason for this is mainly that most major cities and cultural relics in the eastern part of China are flooded with people. There are still many places worth going to such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. But after seeing some of the sights and especially after being in a city as hectic as Beijing for an extended period of time, a trip out to a remote village where relatively few travelers go sounds great in comparison to visiting a city that has some sights.

After taking three trains and about 24 hours of travel we arrived in Jialing (嘉陵), a stopping point on the way to Yanping. After we got off the train, we grabbed some dinner at a family-run restaurant and were shown a place to stay for the night. At that point we were so exhausted we simply took the room and went to sleep. What we hadn't realized was that the train tracks and our room were about 30 feet apart from each other. Several trains passed throughout the night, each one blaring its horn and screeching to a halt at the platform. Needless to say, we woke in the morning almost more tired than we had been when we arrived. A bird's nest located just outside our door also didn't help matters. Nonetheless, we woke in the morning and set out to find our way to Yanping.

A group of Chinese backpackers gave us a ride on a bus they were taking up to Yanping, which was still another hour or so away from Jialing. We finally arrived at the outskirts of the village and were made to hike the rest of the way after the bus was unable to make it up an especially steep and muddy hill. On our way into town, the smell of the fields and the soil made me realize how living in Beijing one almost never comes across something so fresh-smelling.


As the backpackers continued on to where they would be camping out Red and I went into town to find a place to stay. We found a family who had a couple rooms ready for visitors and were told the beds were 20 yuan a night, which seemed fair to us. The price of the beds would turn out to be less straight-forward than we initially thought although I won't go into that right now.

After resting for a bit we walked around following various paths used by farmers that go from the village to their plots. Passing through fields of wheat and other crops, we climbed up to a road overlooking the village.

As we walked along the road we came across a small group of cow-like animals freely grazing on the hillside.

I say cow-like because although they strongly resembled cows they did not appear to be the same species of cow that I'm familiar with in the US. They would be the first of many that we would encounter throughout the weekend, though I still do not know how the farmers can possibly keep track of who's is who's, nor do I know how they prevent the animals from simply walking away. The same goes for the chickens, which were also allowed to roam freely, although they didn't seem to stray too far from the village. Pigs, however, were kept in pens. I don't know the reason why they, in particular, were not allowed to go where they pleased.

After returning to town the mother of the family we were renting our beds from served us dinner, which consisted of vegetables raised in the area along with some noodles and little meat. As we were eating dinner we could hear a commotion coming from the town center. After dinner we walked over to investigate and came upon a party being held under a temporary canopy erected next to a new-looking two story building with a convenience store on the first floor. We were promptly invited to join in the festivities and were offered seats at a table of men eating, drinking, and smoking. With the help of some of the children in the town who could translate the Gansu dialect into standard Mandarin, we found out that the party was being held in celebration of one of the residents for having just moved into a new home located in the floor above the convenience store. We chatted with them for a while and spoke some English with their children. Not long after we went back to our room hoping to finally get a good night's rest.

Our hopes (or at least mine) would be in vain when at around 4 the following morning the roosters began to crow. Up until now I've been under the assumption that roosters wait at least until sunrise before they begin to crow. No such luck, however, in Yanping. The early crowing was, I think, due to one rooster in particular. Since the time we arrived in Yanping, this one had been confined to the inside of a basket turned upside down with a stone on top, presumably to prevent the bird from escaping. I believe the rooster began crying out, just as some pets do when put in carriers on their way to the vet, which in turn set off a chain reaction of other roosters crowing in reply.

That morning we prepared to hike out to an area outside of the village called Moon Canyon (月亮峡). The residents of Yanping were also off to an early start, as the men from the previous night's party were preparing to continue on with their celebrations. They started off day two of the party at around 8 a.m. by setting off firecrackers, which lasted for ten or fifteen minutes. We finished breakfast as the last of the firecrackers were lit, walked out of the village and down a path that went through more wheat fields, and then walked along an irrigation canal that paralleled the river below. Once we had reached the starting point of the canal we picked up a trail that led into the canyon.

We hiked along the trail for a ways and then stopped at a spot on the river that looked like a good place to take a break.

We found a place to relax for a while, ate some rolls and peanuts that we had brought along, and then prepared to continue hiking. Before we got back on the trail, we walked up to a small man-made rock wall surrounding a cave, which we had noticed earlier when walking down to the river. As we walked up to investigate, though, we noticed a man was poking up his head from behind the wall and staring at us with a grave look. We waved our hands and said hello but to no reply. He merely stared at us, which gave us the idea that we should turn back and continue on the trail. It was an eerie experience, however, we simply left and did not see him on our return trip later in the afternoon.

After hiking for a while longer we decided to turn back so as to reach Yanping before dark. We stopped by a house we had passed not long before to ask the residents where exactly we were.

We were not lost but were curious to find out if there was anything in the area particularly worth seeing before returning to town. They invited us in and immediately served us each a bowl of noodles and homemade tofu along with two plates of vegetables. They truly seemed to do this only out of the interest of hosting a couple foreign travelers in their home and not in expectation of any payment. Nonetheless, after eating we handed them some money after they refused to accept it several times and then went on our way. Afterwords we returned to Yanping and went to bed early. The roosters began to crow again at 4 but I managed to sleep through it.

The following morning before setting out we had to settle the room bill before catching a bus back to Jialing. Contrary to what the man said at the beginning of our stay (that each bed was 20 yuan per person per night), he was now telling us that each bed was 40 because the other two beds in the room had not been rented by anyone. He was clearly only trying to get more money out of us and we explained to him that we were not going to pay 40. He then attempted to tell us that there had been other travelers coming through whom he had been forced to turn away because we had been using the comforters on the other two beds at night. Although we had been using the other comforters at night to stay warm, there had been no other travelers, nor should the price of one comforter be equivalent to the price of a bed plus one comforter. Eventually, we got things somewhat settled and left. Up until then I had somehow forgotten the importance of establishing the price of anything here before one buys or uses it, something which we should have paid more attention to at the beginning of our stay.

Although I would have preferred to avoid the dispute over our bill, Yanping was nonetheless a great place to visit. In a way it was a combination of the things I liked most about the previous two villages we visited; like Guoliangcun it was beautiful and had great places for hiking, and like Yujiacun it seemed to be a real village that had yet to be changed too much by tourism.

I'll end with one more strange experience I had on the trip. On the day of our return to Beijing, we had to change buses in a town that, to begin with, was already quite odd. It seemed to be some sort of big amusement park where colorful floats had been constructed on the river that ran through the middle of the town. The floats appeared to serve no purpose; there were no rides on the them nor were they accessible from the riverbanks. The town, however, seemed to be profiting greatly from the tourism industry that had developed around whatever it was that was fun to do there. When we got to the town, the bus that we needed to transfer to was preparing to depart within the next 5 or 10 minutes. After attempting to buy a ticket on the bus, as we had done for every bus prior to this one, we were directed to a ticket office where there were two lines of about 50 people each. Things were not looking good for us getting a ticket in time. As we stood in line one of the officials working at the office noticed us, then took us past the lines and into the ticket office itself, and then gave us our tickets right then and there. While we waited for our tickets, we were essentially put on display behind the glass windows of the ticket office as the people in line began to file around to get a better look at us. The whole thing was strange, and completely unfair to all the people who had been waiting in line, but it was nonetheless out of our control and nice to have gotten our tickets on time rather than being stuck looking at the floats for a few more hours before the next bus.

This past weekend Red and I visited another village. This time it was one called Yujiacun (于家村), named after the Yu family, which we were told more than 90% of the villagers are part of (Yujiacun literally translates as "Yu family village"). After taking a train and two buses, we arrived just after nightfall and were dropped off at a family restaurant in the middle of town. We ate dinner and then were shown to the home of one of the restaurant workers where we rented a room for the night. After laying down our things we grabbed a couple flashlights and walked around outside for a bit. While walking around I noticed a flurry of wind-borne particles illuminated by the light from my flashlight. Neither of us knew what to make of it. We had passed several factories not far from the village on our way there, which could be one explanation. The area is, however, extremely dry and dusty (which we were unaware of at the time) which could also explain the particles. We're still unsure of just what was floating in the air, whether it was pollution, dust, or a combination of the two.
I mentioned in a previous post that a large portion of China is suffering from a longstanding drought. Going to an actual rural area that has been affected by the drought, however, gave me a much better understanding of what is actually going on rather than simply reading about it. Terraced hillsides surround Yujiacun, although farming appears to be on hold for now. Instead of crops, dirt and burnt weeds are all that remain throughout most of the region.

The town has an irrigation canal that runs alongside the road that leads to other villages like Yujiacun, however, it too lacks even the slightest trace of water.

But then, somehow, amidst all the beige colored landscapes are plots of bright green grass growing (seemingly) healthily.

The Saturday that we were in the village was the day of the Qingming Jie (清明节, literally "Clear Bright Festival"). During Qingming Jie many people who have moved to cities to find work return to their hometowns to remember their ancestors. As we were walking around the outskirts of the village, one family happened to notice us and invited us down to one of the terraces where two of their family members had been buried. I took this one just before the family called us down to join them.

We walked down, said a few words with the family, and then crouched behind them as they performed their rituals. After setting down bags full of food, two of the men in the family started a fire just in front of the graves. They then proceeded to throw in fake money and paper cutouts of various goods such as clothing and automobiles. The idea behind this is that they are sending these things to another world where their deceased family members live.
As the fire died down the family, on hands and knees, said some prayers and then concluded their remembrance by setting off a few fireworks. Afterward, Red and I returned to town, where we were almost immediately invited by another family to join them for lunch. Naturally, we accepted. We ate lunch with the men and one woman who could speak some English in one room while the women and children ate lunch in another. As we were leaving, the family invited us back for dinner later, which we also accepted. That afternoon we walked for a couple hours through the countryside with a boy from the family, returned, and then waited while dinner was prepared. As we were waiting, one of the women in the family must have thought us bored, so she took us up to the roof of her house, which I suppose was meant to provide us with more lively entertainment. It was a nice gesture, however I must say that, as you might imagine, standing on a roof in a farming village isn't that much more entertaining than, say, standing anywhere else in the village. As we were waiting I did happen to get a shot of a guy returning from the hills at dusk with his flock of sheep.

The following morning I awoke to the sound of Chinese traditional music being played somewhere in the town along with an unpleasant feeling in my stomach. We made it back, though, to Beijing and I have recovered.

Since my trip to Guoliangcun, I've spent most of my time going to class, studying, and going to various places around Beijing during the weekends. My home stay period ended a couple weeks ago, after which I moved back into one of the dormitories for foreign students. Our dorm building is situated directly across from a Chinese student dormitory and every weeknight at 11 o'clock we can watch their lights-out policy take effect. Though campus can be eerily quiet at night, it is bustling during the daytime. From around 8 in the morning to 8 at night, the tennis courts and basketball courts are packed with students; people are coming and going from the public showers; students are having their bikes repaired by the guy who pedals over to the library and sets up his portable bike repair shop for the day. The crowds can make getting around campus treacherous on a bike, especially since mine lacks a bell to alert people with. My front brake does, however, make a nice, loud squeak so I use that instead.
On the weekends, some students leave campus to eat dinner and sing karaoke afterward. The university performance hall also frequently hosts ballets, concerts, lectures, movies, and the like, which many students and Beijing residents attend. And then of course there was one Friday or Saturday night at about 10:30 when as I was returning to my home stay, I happened to pass by a group of 20 or 30 students, male and female, practicing swinging baseball bats outside one of the academic buildings in the dark. To summarize, campus life here is quite different from campus life at Davidson.
Whereas Davidson has an innumerable population of squirrels, Peking University is heavily occupied by cats. I see people on campus frequently attempting (unsuccessfully) to befriend them. There is a lady, however, who has succeeded through feeding them. Every day she sets out food for them at 4:30 and every day at 4:30 they show up.

The architecture on campus is also worth noting. A good number of the buildings have Chinese-style architecture like this one:

Others are more outdated-Western-style:

And then there are a few Western-Chinese hybrids. This is the gigantic library:

On a different note, this past weekend I went to the Cultural Palace of Minorities. The museum typically showcases exhibits for the 56 different ethnic groups in China. This month, however, marks the 50th anniversary of Serf Emancipation Day (the day when the Tibetan Autonomous Region was initially established) and so the museum's halls currently feature exhibits solely dedicated to the history and current affairs of Tibet. I would rather not say much about the museum simply because talk about Tibet is somewhat tense right now. I will say, though, that going to the museum has made me want to learn more about the region.
Lastly, this is something that I've been meaning to post for a while and doesn't have anything to do with the rest of this post; it's just something that I think is funny. In the center of Beijing is Tiananmen Square. And in the southern part of the square is Mao Zedong's mausoleum.

And next to the maosoleum, what else but a basketball court.

This past weekend my friend, Red, and I traveled to Guoliangcun, a village in Henan province. We took an overnight train from Beijing on Friday night and arrived in a city near Guoliangcun called Xinxiang. After getting on the bus for Guoliangcun we were approached by several locals who attempted to convince us that the bus, in fact, did not go to Guoliangcun and that he or she was nice enough to take us there for only 300 yuan (the bus fare was 10 yuan). We rejected their offers and were dropped off a couple hours later on the road leading up to Guoliangcun. Until the mid 70's, the only way in and out of the village was by hiking up a steep set of stone stairs built during the Ming dynasty. Now there's a road that goes through the mountain and straight into the village.

As we hiked up the road to the village, we ran into a couple Chinese college students. The four of us hiked up the rest of the way with one of the students running ahead every few minutes to take pictures of us. Not long after we arrived in the village a family offered a room for us to rent for the night.

The woman standing next to a sink is the grandmother in the family. The room we stayed in was in the building on the right hand side of the picture. Here's a direct view of it:

After eating a meal prepared by the owners we walked around town for a while. The old part of town remains intact. Tourism, however, is on the rise in Guoliangcun and a row of new, near identical inns have been built recently at the base of the village. There's even a (terrible-looking) mini ski run across the street from the newly constructed businesses. Still, the old part of town was fascinating. Homes were made of stone and although the town had electricity none of the buildings had heating. Farming is still an important business here and the area is full of terraces for growing different crops.


After walking around town we headed up further into the mountains. Here are a couple views of the area.


Everywhere we went Chinese tourists would yell "hello" to us and some had us take pictures with them. This was only a preview of the kind of treatment we would receive the following day. That night we wore a couple layers of clothing, scavenged for some extra blankets, and went to sleep at around 9. After eating breakfast the next morning we were soon greeted by the manager of the mountain along with his assistant, who gave us a bag full of pamphlets that he wanted us to give to our classmates back at school. We took the pamphlets and then asked him if he knew when the last bus left for Xinxiang. He made a phone call and then told us his friend would drive us straight to the train station free of charge. We shook hands and he left with his assistant. We soon found out that he had also paid our room fee and the cost of the meal we had eaten with the family the day before. It was strange but we were nonetheless happy to have a few extra hours to explore since our ride wouldn't be leaving until late in the afternoon. We set off from the village and followed a path that wound through some terraces atop the mountains. About an hour's walk from the village were what looked to be some abandoned farm buildings and a small stone altar.

(The small gray object in the center of the picture is the altar)

We returned to town a while later, packed our bags and rode back out to the train station. When we arrived at the station we still had a couple hours to kill so we got some dinner at a small restaurant nearby. We got to talking with a couple older men and by the end of our conversation we had rejected their cigarettes at least three times and they had decided to pay for our meal. The two left a little while later and as we sat around the waiters offered us a lesson on how to make a dish that translates as "pulled noodles". They led us to the back of the restaurant, slapped a big piece of dough in our hands, and gave us a quick tutorial, which I will try and fail to describe here. First you have to smooth the dough out on a table with your hands. You then grab both ends, fling it up and down making it look like a dough jump rope, twist it around and slap it back on the table. Finally, you grab both ends in one hand, put your finger in the loop at the other hand, pull both ends and then repeat. With each pull you multiply the number of individual noodles by two so after 5 or 6 pulls you have a batch of noodles that you throw into a vat of boiling something. Basically, it's a lot of fun to make the stuff. Afterward, we rinsed our hands and got on the train a couple hours later.
The hospitality we received this past weekend is, I think, an example of what traveling in China can be like if you get out of the major cities and into places less frequently visited by foreigners, which I intend on doing a lot more in the coming months.