I hate it when people tell me what I should be like, especially if the person thinks they have the right to say something just because they’re older than me. No I don’t need a better sense of direction, no I don’t know what that word defenestrate is, no I don’t care who won the Battle of Antietam. I spend enough energy trying to improve myself in ways which I deem are important now or in the future, I don’t need someone else telling me to improve myself in ways they think are important. Unless I have a solid, well founded respect for someone, I don’t give a fuck what they think people should be like.
Monthly Archives: December 2003
A Trip To Beijing
The first thing that I noticed when I arrived in Beijing were all the bikes. There are large, separate bus lanes that people were using, even in weather close to freezing. One can tell that the people there grew up with bikes all their lives simply from how comfortable they were riding them. Some had large propane tanks or oil drums strapped to one side and didn’t seem to notice. Friends will travel with the riders by sitting on the back platform with their legs dangling out to one side, hands in their pockets, not needing to hold onto anything for stability. Some people have their businesses run from their bikes; a small cart is attached, an oil drum is placed inside, and a fire can be started inside the oil drum to cook sweet potatoes or chestnuts. The vendors can ride around, and choose a better location whenever business is slow at one.
From what I can tell, Beijing is as developed as Hong Kong, except it’s more diffuse. There are tiny back alleys and run down apartments next to fancy restaurants. There’s quite a large gap between upper income and lower income families. Just walking off a bus at any tourist spot, one will be approached by hordes of peddlers, shouting at you to look at their hand held wares, such as cheap watches out of suitcases, pressed flowers, or little dolls. They’ll follow you around, right back to a bus sometimes, and try to get in the faces of everyone they can. One peddler was trying to sell things while her little boy was running around, and she had to stop approaching people every now and then to make sure he was okay. It’s hard to imagine someone standing in one place all day, barely making money from cheap, shitty items, but with no other choice.
The people can be crude, but are friendly. Parks are very social, and people will gather there to play cards, sing songs together, practice some dancing or Tai Chi, even play a few racket sports. Some older men like to practice calligraphy on the ground, using big brushes and a bucket of water. The letters are large and beautiful, and in the winter, they freeze and begin to sparkle.
The entire Forbidden City is an amazing piece of architecture. Walking into it is like walking into a castle, due to the scale of the open areas and ornamentation. One can definitely understand how an emperor would have ruled from such a place when coming into the gigantic southern courtyard, where officials had to walk through to brief him on the latest events.
Right next to the Forbidden City is Tienanmen Square, where the preserved body of Mao Tse Tung is stored. To visit the body, people line up around the square, sometimes for more than an hour, to get a chance to see the leader of the Cultural Revolution. Loudspeakers proclaim the rules for visiting, while troops with megaphones are constantly telling the crowd how to line up correctly. The square is extremely busy with people walking back and forth, a few of them flying kites. It’s very heavily patrolled, and there just happened to be a marching line of troops when I was there.
I happened to visit one of the newer parts of the Great Wall, which was only about 600–800 years old. The steps are of uneven height, and the section I climbed was very steep; just looking down was dizzying. I thought that it was hard enough just going past a few watchtowers, so I can’t even imagine what building the entire thing would be like. I can’t definitely see the strategic advantage of such a wall though, since the view from only half-way up a mountain was amazing.
An interesting place I had a chance to visit was the 500 Lions Bridge (or Marco Polo Bridge). There are 500 lions on the bridge walls, looking inwards, each one different from the next. It was the starting point of the first shots fired by the Japanese on July 7th, 1937, which led China into World War II. Most of the road has been refinished, although a section has been left untouched and one can see that the pavement has been so weathered that it’s difficult to walk on.
The Summer Palace (or the Garden of Nurtured Harmony in Chinese) is the place where the emperor and his family could stay during the summer, where it remains fairly cool. Even in the winter it looks beautiful, as all the water has turned to ice.
Food Street is a huge row of vendors in downtown Beijing, selling assorted types of foods, although mostly meat. Each little business has two red lamps above their huts, and usually consists of three employees (one will do the shouting to attract customers, one will do the cooking, one will accept the money). The food is usually on a kebab skewer, and can be flame roasted or deep fried. As can be seen in the second picture, there are prices for “Fried Silk-worm” (the brown, maggot-like things second-left on the top row), “Dog-meat bunch”, and “Fresh-rabbit bunch”, although there are things such as squid, locusts, and scorpions available as well. Some of the vendors are Turkish, who moderately speak Mandarin, and roll their tongues to stand out from the other vendors. A popular treat is the stick of fruit, which is slightly glazed like candy apples. Traditionally, it’s the Chinese date (the small, round, red fruit) that’s used, although people now use strawberries, kiwi, etc.
Being able to travel to a place so rich with history was great. I’ve been to places such as Budapest, Sydney, and Banff before, but I barely remember anything about them. To be honest, I don’t care that I’ve forgotten almost everything about my previous travels because they were all meaningless to me at the time. In this trip, however, there was purpose, and I wanted to learn about my history, and how it has shaped my life today. It’s taken me a while to mature enough to appreciate history and culture of other places, and if I were to travel back to a country that I’ve been to before, I’m sure I’d see it in a different light now.
The Self
I don’t know if you have ever observed this strange thing, the self. Often the more you look the more it doesn’t seem to be like it, and the more you look the more it isn’t it.
…
If you concentrate on looking at yourself, you will find that your self will gradually separate into many startling forms. So if I have to make a summary of myself, it terrifies me. I don’t know which of the many faces represents me more and the more closely I look the clearer the transformations become, and finally only bewilderment remains.
—narrator, Soul Mountain
Out of the few things that I do well, it’s knowing myself that I take the most pride in.
Or believing that I know myself at least.
I often feel as if I know myself enough to understand the workings of my subconscious. I think it’s ludicrous when someone tells me that they have me “figured out” and this image they have of me isn’t the same as my own image of myself.
Yet how do I know which is correct? As a human, one is naturally biased when looking at anything, and when looking at oneself this bias becomes even worse. The most that one can do is recognize one’s bias, and present it so that others can understand the perspective of each opinion.
All that I can say for sure is that I will never be correct in what I think of myself. Everything that I speak about, when relating to my personality, my ideas, my thoughts, my mindset, might be totally wrong.
And knowing this has become more important than knowing myself.
Speaking Price
Bargaining (translated literally as “speak price”) is common at the smaller shops in Hong Kong. Prices are marked up actually, because the proprietors know that people will try to bargain. I’m not very good at it myself, since I’m not confident enough in my Cantonese. Lots of my family members are known to be extremely good bargainers, each with their own unique style.
My dad is the “friendly” bargainer, where he’ll try to get on the good side of the person trying to sell him things. He’ll say that he’s been giving the store good business for years, and that he’ll get his friends to shop there as well if he can get a discount. One time he even got the price lowered on a computer he was about to purchase.
My mother is the “bluff” bargainer. She’ll make a good guess as to how much an item cost the retailer to purchase (with her lifetime of shopping expertise), and ask for a little more than that price. The retailer, barely making any money from such a price, will no doubt ask for something much higher. My mom might budge a little, but not enough to make the retailer happy, so she’ll start to walk away with an air of indifference on her face (after all, this is Hong Kong, and if one can’t get something for a low price at one store, one can walk two steps and have another shot at it). The retailer will often chase her out to the street, and agree to her price.
My grandmother was known as the “old person with no job” bargainer. She could stay inside a store for more than half an hour, just trying to get someone to agree to her price. She would analyze all the variables in an item, such as the make, quality, durability, colour, necessity, etc. Then she would try to convince the retailer that it’s only worth so much based on each variable, and stand rock solid on this price. Eventually, the store owner would be so fed up with the everything that he or she would usually agree just to get her out of the store.
One day I’m going to be the “dairy” bargainer, and known as the person who tries to get discounts by offering ice-cream and a cow.
The Crematorium
I had the chance to visit the crematorium where the ashes of my maternal grandparents are stored. On looking out to one of the hills in the cemetery, one can see that it’s literally covered with graves. Burial is being replaced by cremation nowadays, due to the lengthy procedure and high cost of maintaining a grave. People have begun to accept cremation more and more as a dignified way to be preserved. My grandparents share the same tablet, which has golden lettering and is very respectable.
When I was young, I looked up to my grandfather the most. He was the smartest person I knew, and taught me lots of little odds and ends. He was born and raised in China, and entered one of the few universities there after high school. Being able to attend university was quite an accomplishment back then, and he only had one year left before the civil war broke out. He joined the ill-fated Nationalist side, where he would have had a chance at being a commissioned officer had there not been a need for English speaking Chinese people. He spoke English fluently, so he was used as a translator for the British troops. He was shot in the arm once, which he recovered from, and fled to Hong Kong to avoid prosecution when the war was over. There he met and married my grandmother, who was born and raised in Hong Kong, fled to Viet Nam during the Japanese invasion, but came back to Hong Kong once it was over. My grandfather assumed a career as a meteorologist, and my grandmother became a housewife to three daughters and one son. They both lived long in Hong Kong until they passed away.