China: the rough and the smooth

This post interspersed with random English signs. Plus bonus comedy photos of E at the end.

I said in a previous post that Chaozhou felt more authentically Chinese to me than anywhere else we visited. I know cities like Shantou are the “real” China too, of course. But from what I can tell, Shantou seems a bit unlike other places. It’s a port city and so has always been significant for trade but although it was granted Special Economic Status in the 1980s it doesn’t seem to have thrived. As one of my American colleagues there said, “the word ‘backwater’ has been used”. Apparently corruption is rife and so it seems to have been left by the wayside a bit. Now its most famous exports are toys and underwear. So kind of a random destination for my one and only foray into China to date. Nevertheless, I’m really glad to have had the chance to go and to experience life on a university campus.

Two weeks is not really long enough to do anything meaningful. You spend so long adjusting to life here that I think a whole semester would be more appropriate. But maybe people wouldn’t want to come for that long. Furthermore, the faculty exchange is not a true exchange as it’s only one way; professors from my university go to Shantou but no one from China comes to Canada. That doesn’t really seem fair.

I think the major challenge for us was how hard it was to leave campus. There are buses but they take ages to get anywhere (one journey I looked up would take about 90 minutes to go 10 km!). I’m disappointed that we didn’t see more but with E in tow we didn’t really feel like attempting epic journeys on public transport. With taxis you have to be able to bargain, which is only possible if you have some language basics. And I was concerned about getting lost when we couldn’t read street signs or ask for directions. All in all, it was a bit frustrating.

The major challenge for E was dealing with his rock star status. In general, he was pretty calm about people accosting him, pinching his cheeks and taking his photo. But sometimes it got to him, usually when he was tired and/or hungry. Here are some staff and customers in a restaurant mobbing him, paparazzi style.

And here’s his response – he just wants to be left alone!

Right at the end of the trip, we visited a nearby temple and I sat and rested under a tree while E climbed some steps and explored. A car pulled up and some people got out, including a woman who was very taken with E. She went up to the steps, sat down next to him and got out her phone to take a selfie with him. This was the first time that I got fed up with this (to me) excessive attention to my child, perhaps because she paid absolutely no attention to me and didn’t even shoot me a glance to ask if what she was doing was OK or even just let me know she thought he was cute. Before she could press the shutter, E burst into tears and sobbed “Mummmmmy!” repeatedly, reaching out to me across the courtyard so I ran to grab him and gave him a cuddle. The moral of the story is that life can be very trying in China if you’re a Western kid who’s only 1.

China: work and its rewards

When I sat down to work on the public lecture I had agreed to give I was relieved to find that I already had a talk on the same subject, including a Powerpoint. Thanks, Past Me! Nevertheless, I spent quite a bit of time polishing things up. I’ve also had the usual ongoing work stuff to attend to so my days have been quite busy so there’s not too much to report. The lecture was scheduled in the evening – not my best time – in a seminar room at the ACC. Each seat, including mine, had a tea mug with a lid that was filled before things began. The talk went well, I think, although I spoke for longer than I had intended. I was impressed with the students again, especially with their willingness to ask questions. I had some very perceptive comments on the talk, as well as a slightly leftfield question on whether Shakespeare was gay. When I replied that on the basis of the sonnets it was more likely that he was bisexual, the room erupted in laughter. So strange!

On Friday came the reward for my labour – the tour organised by the Vice Dean. We were picked up by a driver and taken to Chaozhou, accompanied by one of Shantou’s graduate students who did a wonderful job of showing us around. The drive there was pretty fascinating – it was great to get off the campus and see a bit of the outside world. I took some pictures of the crazy traffic.

Our first stop was a visit to a temple dedicated to the Tang dynasty poet Han Yu, who was exiled to Chaozhou for criticising the Emperor. 

 We also saw the city gates and city walls.

 

Then we stopped for lunch and had some Chaoshan food. In the afternoon we visited Kaiyuan Temple. 

 

There was even some worship going on.

 

Then we had a wander through the city streets, past numerous souvenir shops and through the many arches.

 

We saw some pretty traditional houses and streets.

 

Visiting Chaozhou was much more what I expected China to be like and I felt I finally got a decent sense of the local history and culture.

China: part two

Day five was spent working on the lecture I’m going to give to the drama class on Monday night. In the afternoon we went to East Gate to get some shopping and then had a pleasant walk around campus, exploring the lotus pond. 

This seems to be the time of day for sports; the basketball courts were packed.

On Saturday we met the two American professors I’m working with and they took us into the city for the evening. Excitement! This involved a cab ride that E absolutely loved (he kept pointing at things and shouting “fun!”). The traffic is crazy. Not so much in terms of how busy it is but just that no one observes the lane markings and it is not uncommon to see people driving the wrong way down the road if that proves to be the more direct route. We had drinks and appetisers at a place called Oyster Bar and then dinner at Il Santo, the main hangout for foreigners in town (most of whom are at the university – we saw another professor while we were there). It’s run by some friendly Austrian brothers who took good care of us, including E. Next, the highlight of the week – a trip to Walmart! This was perhaps the most culture shock we’d experienced so far, I suppose because I imagined it would be similar to a supermarket shop back home. But no! We went at 8.30 pm and it was packed, not to mention full of kids. It was also very loud, especially in the fresh produce section where people were handing out samples and aggressively selling things with microphones. We were pretty pleased with our haul of cheese, chocolate and wine but don’t think it will last long. We also bought some UHT milk for E (that’s the only kind we have found here) that was Asda brand – that made me think of my Nana!

The next day we spent the afternoon trying to hike up the mountain to the nearby temples that we can see so tantalisingly from the campus. A previous English language teacher at the university blogged a bit about his experiences here and created a map of local landmarks so we knew where the trail started. But it turned out to be too steep to do with a toddler on my back without getting dangerous so we turned back around a third or halfway up. We did get a decent view of the campus and saw a new temple (?) being built. 

We also walked through a graveyard and admired the tombs and even saw people cleaning them up in advance of next week’s Qingming (tomb sweeping) festival. 

Back down at the campus we enjoyed a couple of beers by the lotus pond. 

The campus is packed at the weekend. We could tell that most of the people are visitors because they stared at us much more than the usual residents. So it seems that the university is a bit of a tourist destination. We saw a lot of families and also some young couples on dates. E is a total rock star here and people run up to pinch his cheeks and take his photo all the time.

Day eight saw me give a lecture on Romeo and Juliet in performance, both in Shakespeare’s time and today, to the drama class. It was hard to know how to pitch it, not knowing the students well, but I think I got it right and they seemed receptive. They were pretty blown away by the concept of boy actors and very excited about the stills I showed from Baz Luhrmann’s film. We also had a great group discussion of how to update the play for a modern Chinese context. They decided that the Nurse should be either a grandmother (many children here are raised by their grandparents while their parents work – perhaps in part because of the long life expectancy?) or a nanny or housekeeper for a rich family. And Friar Lawrence should be a therapist or lawyer (he would therefore have to preserve Juliet’s confidentiality). One major concern was that Juliet’s faking death trick would not work as people have to be buried very quickly here. I am excited to see what other ideas they come up with for the production.

I am working a lot during the daytime here. This evening our American professor friends and a couple of students took us out for dinner at East Gate. We had been to the restaurant before but didn’t know what to order so tonight was a bit of a revelation. The beef and potatoes is a signature dish but I enjoyed fried shrimp and seaweed and a couple of fish dishes. We drank both Australian and Chinese red wine and I actually found the latter lighter and more drinkable.

We are still getting used to sleeping on a bed that looks comfortable but is in fact rock hard. After some apparently unseasonably cool weather last week it is now hotting up here and it’s already pretty humid. It must be unbearable in summer – worse than Japan? A saw a lizard run under the fridge last night so that makes me feel that things are getting pretty tropical. Despite the heat there is not too much sunshine here. Blue skies are pretty rare and it is often hazy. Although nowhere near as bad as the major cities, I assume this is because of air pollution.

To Dad

Five years ago today I woke up to a phone call telling me you’d had a severe brain haemorrhage. A few hours later you were gone. That day now seems so immediate and so distant at the same time. As the years have gone by, things have got a lot easier, of course. But that makes me so sad because as the pain lessens it feels like you are slipping away from me. It’s been particularly hard to live without you during this year of sabbatical travel because travel was one thing we shared a great love of. Whenever I told Grandma I was going somewhere new, she’d say, “you’re just like your father!” with that mixture of indignation and admiration that was so typical of her. Your travels began when you finished school a year early and you went to Israel for several months before starting at university. I have the letters and postcards you wrote to Grandma and Grandad at that time, which Grandma (who was not a sentimental person) rather uncharacteristically saved. I haven’t yet been able to read them. This travel blog reminds me of the journal you started to keep a record of the places you visited but which you would grumble about when it came time to write it up each evening on a trip.

So many times in the past few months I’ve wanted to pick up the phone and tell you about somewhere we’ve been. To describe our time in Australia, a place you never managed to visit. To make you jealous by telling you what glorious weather we had when we visited Milford Sound in New Zealand (I know you were so disappointed that it was cloudy when you were there). To compare notes about our experiences in China. Of course, I would have seen a lot of you during our time in the UK and you would probably have visited us in Pasadena. Travelling to Japan, too, will bring back memories of the time you and Mum rather bravely visited me when I was living there. I’ve even written you a couple of postcards since we’ve been away but they’re just sitting at the bottom of my suitcase and will never be read

You’d be pleased to hear, though, that your grandson seems to be following in our footsteps. He has taken all of the upheaval of recent months in his stride, hasn’t grumbled too much about all of the plane travel and has generally been curious each time he’s been put in new surroundings. Right now we’re in China and while he isn’t too keen on having his cheeks pinched by random strangers, he tolerates it. He absolutely loved our cab ride into the city last night, repeatedly shouting “fun!” as he pointed at various things out of the window. I have high hopes for him as a future globetrotter. I’ll never stop travelling but it’s definitely lost some of its meaning now that I don’t have you to share it with. I’m hoping I can recapture some of that with E.

China: first impressions

After a cancelled flight and a long delay, we arrived in Shantou on Monday and were met at the airport by a wonderful student who has just spent a month at McGill who brought us to the campus. 
 

We’re staying at the University’s Academic Conference Centre, which is in a quiet spot at the far end of campus, overlooking mountains and a reservoir. Here's our little villa – we have an apartment upstairs. 

 

I barely had time to shower and eat but I made it to my first commitment – drama class auditions for a production of Romeo and Juliet to be staged at the end of the semester (with a contemporary English text). After hearing about 25 students read, either alone or in groups, we went back to class for some discussion of the play. I was really impressed with how outgoing the students were, which was not at all what I had expected. They were willing to express their own opinions about the play and were eager to know what their professor and I thought about various aspects of it.

Day two was spent settling in. We made it to East Gate, a small area of shops and restaurants just off the campus, to buy some provisions. 

E is going to be pretty disappointed – it was hard to find much dairy. But we did acquire some UHT milk and processed cheese slices so he will survive. Luckily he also really likes fried rice – plenty of that here.

On day three I spent some time working in the library in the morning. It’s a truly beautiful building with some lovely space to read and study. 

It also has a lot of literary quotations peppered around (some of them a little bizarre!). 

While there is a huge section on “Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory” there are really very few books here and a tiny number of foreign volumes. This appears to be the Shakespeare section:

I also found this!

 

In the afternoon I met with the professor of the drama course and another American professor who is helping with the production to cast the parts, which proved to be relatively straightforward. Today was also the day of laundry. I flummoxed everyone at the ACC by asking if there was a washing machine I could use. They have a laundry service but it’s not cheap (hotel prices) and would really add up. In the end, one of my colleagues here kindly let me go over to his place and use his machine. Now we have clothes festooned throughout our small apartment. Things take ages to dry because it’s so humid here. In the evening we went to the art school and saw a beautiful art exhibition – landscapes by Xu Qinsong.

Today I had lunch with the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, the Vice Dean, the Head of the English Department and the professor I am working with in the drama class. This led to me agreeing to give a public lecture next week. However, my compensation will be a tour for the whole family to a nearby historic city. So I’m going to call that a win. Lunch was at the ACC, where we’ve already eaten several times. It looks like I will get to know the menu pretty well. It's mostly Chinese, including local Chaoshan specialities, but with a handful of Western dishes, described as follows:

I also visited the British Literature class. Watching the students grapple with religion in Chaucer’s England was pretty amazing. Later on we went for a walk around the reservoir. It has been drained for construction work so you can cross to the other side, where there are a few trails.

Random thoughts:

The campus has quite a community feel as all the students live here. There’s always tons of laundry hanging out of the windows of the residential towers. 

People tootle around on bikes or motor scooters. It is not unusual to see an entire family, including babies and small children, on a moped. There are enough foreign professors here for us not to feel too unusual. Because basketball is a big deal at this university, there are even enough tall people here for A not to stick out too much. There are several impressive buildings that seem totally empty (usually apart from a random person sweeping the floor). Wood panelling on the exterior of buildings seems to be the architectural style du jour. 

The campus is very pleasant with a lot of trees; there are people employed perpetually to rake up the leaves. 

There’s also a lot of construction going on and design is taken very seriously – the new medical centre was designed by Herzog de Meuron who did the Beijing Olympic Stadium and there's a huge sports complex with a hotel going up. 

But once built, these new structures don’t seem to be particularly well maintained. 

It’s quite refreshing to have people address you in Chinese (I couldn’t tell you if they are speaking Mandarin, Cantonese or the local dialect) and expect you to understand. I feel completely incapacitated only being able to say about two words and not being able to read anything at all beyond the odd character that is similar to the Japanese.

California travels

A note on some of the places we visited during our time in Pasadena...

Santa Barbara

We enjoyed wandering around the historic buildings, had some great Mexican food and hung out by the sea.

Joshua Tree National Park

Great memories of camping here with a Huntington friend 10 years ago.

 
Palm Springs

We took the aerial tramway (it's like travelling from Mexico to Alaska in the space of a few minutes, apparently!). E got reacquainted with snow.

Both Joshua Tree and Palm Springs were actually stops on our drive to and from Tempe, AZ where I attended a conference.

San Diego

We absolutely loved Torrey Pines State Reserve and even had a swim in the sea.

And we also saw the replica Globe theatre in Balboa Park.

We visited some other places around Pasadena and Los Angeles too, of course, including...

Griffith Observatory

A beautiful building and amazing views.

Angeles National Forest

We had a great drive here one weekend with some stunning scenery and a little bit of tramping.

Santa Monica and UCLA

I went on a work visit to UCLA. Somehow I didn't take many pictures on this trip. E seemed happy to be back at the beach, though.

Gamble House

I meant to go back on a fine day but never got round to it. Next time!

There are so many places that I still haven't seen in that part of the world. So I suppose I'd better hope for a return visit.

Same same but different

Next stop, Pasadena CA to work at the Huntington Library. Here's the beautiful (and strange) desert garden.

It's mighty strange being back here and yet everything is remarkably similar, too. I first came to the Huntington ten years ago as a single grad student to do research for the final chapter of my dissertation. I came back five years ago as a newish assistant professor, now married, to work on my book manuscript during a semester of junior research leave. And now I'm back again, this time with my offspring as well as my husband, working on the backbone of my next book project.

The library staff greeted me warmly, the security guards remember me, I ran into friends and acquaintances soon after I arrived, the Caltech pool where I go to swim is pretty much unchanged. So it all feels familiar. And yet there are big changes afoot at the Huntington, with a new education and visitor centre about to open. In the reading room, materials are now ordered electronically instead of on paper slips and photography is allowed at your seat instead of a) not at all (2005) or b) 30 images per day to be taken at a special desk (2009). The food in the cafe is still mediocre, though.

I was surprised to experience some culture shock on arriving in the USA. Despite all the Huntington familiarity, it somehow seems a bit more foreign here than Australia did. The 2005 trip to the Huntington was my first foray into the blogosphere and I definitely recorded a lot of the strangeness that I felt on that trip as a Brit in the US. Now I'm Canadian too and have lived in Canada for eight years but the USA still feels very alien to me. It's not (or not just) the political views - I know plenty of right-thinking liberals here after all! It's something about the way that people interact with each other that I can't quite put my finger on. Like the desert garden, it's all beautiful and strange.