the Chinese inquisition and modern torture techniques

The boat ride was an inquisition directed at Jordan and I, set on the deck of the ship with coal flakes from the smokestack raining down around us all. The ship was big, bigger than any of the ferries I've taken in the past around Washington, and we were crammed into fairly small seats in the bowls of the boat. Luckily the weather was nice, so we abandoned the dark stuffy insides of the boat and took to the deck. We were planning on relaxing it was impossible. There is nothing relaxing about a throng of Chinese faces throwing endless questions at you...you're foreign and you can talk?...where are you from?...America is super developed, right?...are you used to the food yet?...what do Americans think of us? At that point the new people show up and it's back to, you're foreign and you can talk? It was a battle to pick out a single question from the babbling crowd, since they were talkign amongst themselves and at us all at once. Then, if we were lucky, they were speaking clearly with a decently standard accent using the vocabulary words we knew. We endured the barrage for at least a few hours, and I don't think the Chinese language has exhausted me so much since my first few weeks of classes. There were a few passengers that were with us the whole time, and by the end of it they were laughing out loud when someone new would come by and be all surprised we could talk and re-ask the basic questions. They were realizing how they themselves had come off to us a few hours before.

After a night in an extremely sketchy room in Yantai (based on a hand gesture and suggestive look made at one point, I'm pretty sure the guy at the front desk thought that Jordan and I were renting the room for purposes other than sleeping) we made the four hour bus ride to Qingdao. We found ourselves in the back of a small bus with our knees held skyward by the seat back in front of us, essentially an upright fetal position. I used those four hours to think about the mechanics of that posture, and came up with this: In a normal sitting position, the upper legs are parallel with the ground and seat bottom, thus distributing force evenly across the buttocks and perhaps even thigh region. Pressure is force divided by surface area, so this scenario prevents excessive pressure in any single region. In the back of the bus, force was increased by the weight of my legs hanging above the seat instead of parallel with it. Surface area was decreased, reduced to only the rear-most bony region of the buttocks. The seat cushion was mostly nice and fluffy, but had a well-defined valley in the exact spot my butt came in contact with the seat. I guess a few previous passengers had the same problem I did. After estimating values and dividing Newtons by meters squared for a few hours, I decided to be more careful choosing a seat next time.

Dalian

Oh baby, it felt good to get on the train and leave that last test behind. I never realize I'm feeling stress until it's gone and the weight lifts.

This trip's not going to be the same as the last. For one, the destinations - Dalian and Qingdao, both coastal cities, both modern, are totally different than the countryside and small towns I visited in northern Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia. Plus, having a buddy along will be nice. Jordan's an experienced world traveler, veteran of nights spent in European sheep fields and torturous bus rides around Latin America. The important thing is, someone will be here to watch the bags while I use the nasty bathrooms.

So much to tell, not enough time. The train to Dalian was good, we took the slow train starting Friday evening and arriving Saturday morning. We stayed up late talking and nursing big bottles of Harbin beer bought just before hopping in the taxi to the train station. For some reason, everyone else on the train decided to go to bed at 10:00. This was new, the other trains I've been on have had lots of activity until late, but this time Jordan and I were the only talkers. We switched to truly inaudible whispering after one sleeper told us "itsa tima for sreeping, preasa be quieta". That didn't stop the large, motherly attendant from telling us later to "finish our drinks and go to bed" (in chinese, thus no accent). Man, it's been a while since I heard that one used seriously on me.

In Dalian we were immediately accosted by the 'travel agents' haunting the arrival area. We succumbed only after we realized that Dalian might not have the ridiculously cheap, low quality lodging that pervaded the places I'd previously visited. Luckily, it's the off season right now, so we were able to negotiate. Final result was 40 kuai per person. That's a little over $5 American, not bad at all for a room on a par with Motel 6, but it still hurt a little for me comparing with my record low of 5 kuai a night.

We spent Saturday wandering the city center, checking out the parks and shops and stuff. The highlight was finding this artist hidden on the second floor of some random shopping building we walked into. He was there painting, and his work was all around him, all kinds of stuff and all really cool, but especially the tiger drawings. As I watched, he was working on a tiger, his brush tip separated into two prongs and making lots of short, precise strokes for the fur. Jordan and I looked around, talked to him a little and checked out his stuff. He produced a little promotional booklet proclaiming him to be the #1 tiger artist in all of China. Looking around at tiger drawings marked at 12,000 kuai, we couldn't contradict him. He told us he didn't care about money, we were his friends, and ended up giving us some of his smaller stuff cheap. After we bought a few little things, he whipped out his brush and painted up a couple fresh ones, which he rolled up in newspapers and gave us for free. Typical Chinese friendliness, but not so typical in someone selling stuff.

I knew Dalian has a lot of companies from the west, so I was surprised but not to the point of disbelief when I saw "The Olive Garden" staring at me in big letters from the side of a building. Dreaming of fetuccini alfredo we investigated, only to find that it was an italian restaraunt but the name was coincidental. The owners seemed genuinely unaware of their counterpart in the states, but I'm a little suspicious considering all the extra business that name will bring from hungry westerners. To top it off, the restaraunt wasn't even open, just in the final stages of construction and set for the grand opening in a week or few. We were invited in anyway, and accosted by a couple of waiters-to-be eager to practice their English. We obliged for a few minutes, chatting about the basics like where they'd studied, where we were from, etc. The one I was talking with was relatively young, maybe late teens, and really nervous to be speaking English. His voice trembled and his smile was pasted on, but his English wasn't bad and we had good information exchange. I shook his hand goodbye and it was trembling with nervous excitement. As Jordan and I rounded the corner of the building we heard a high pitched "yeeeaaah"! echo behind us. I smiled at the ecstasy in that sound. Our backs were turned, but I imagined him hopping up and down and pumping a fist. The sound was a pure expression of the feeling I've had a few times myself studying Chinese, but I don't think I've ever done such a good job of translating what I was feeling into a sound.

The weather Saturday was really warm. I had to peel off my sweatshirt as we walked around, making me feel ridiculously overpacked knowing I had yet another outer layer in store back at the hotel. That all changed today, Sunday, when we woke up to see that the temperature had dropped and it had rained in the night. We'd already planned to see Gold Pebble Beach, and we're not ones to be put off by a little rain. Saturday, we'd been told go by way of "qinggai" (I think), a word we didn't understand. It was a puzzle figuring out what the word meant: we knew it wasn't bus, train, subway, car, etc. At first we guessed trolley, becuase we'd seen those headed around the city, but then realized that the place we were going was 60 kilometers north. I've never heard of a trolley going that far.

It turned out to be an LRT, which I think must stand for light rail transit. Pretty much an express train. That possibility had crossed our minds, but we'd ruled it out because we figured those 60km between the city center and the beach wouldn't be very developed. Turns out we were way off. Dalian's city center is really impressive, lots of shiny new skyscrapers with interesting designs. We'd assumed from there it would all gradually scale down, but as we rode the LRT we hit another little group of high rise buildings, almost as big as the first. Following, we saw a sign seeing that we were entering the "development district", which turned out to have yet another modern neighborhood. Between these centers, there were empty areas, but it all looked like it was in the process of massive growth.

The beach was deserted as the wind got stronger and chillier. Today, I was feeling pretty good in my wind-blocking outer shell. I'd just thrown it in my bag at the hotel, not realizing that the weather would get so nasty, but Jordan hadn't been so lucky and was stuck in a light jacket. We weren't willing to dish out the cash required for the multitude of random activities advertised in the guidebook: cross-country motorcycling, hunting in the woods, amusement park. We settled for a chilly hike down the clean beach, covered by gravel that's as close to gold as a rock's going to get. No false advertising there. Reminders of enormous crowds were all there, big permanent shelters on the beach, restaraunts lining the road opposite, but today it was empty. We passes a single group of Chinese people our age huddled together cooking kebabs, maybe the equivalent of a BBQ in the states. After snapping a few pictures of the scenery, we decided the hotel room was sounding like a pretty good spot to spend the rest of the day.

the fashion show

Last week I walked the runway in a roomfull of Chinese students eager to get an eyeful of foreign skin. Twice. A bunch of us in the CET program got roped into performing at this welcome night for the new students in the university. It was supposedly a "fashion show" but we just grabbed clothes out of each other's closets and called it good. For one, we had no designers handy to whip up a creative yet cohesive line in under a week, and two, we all knew they were basically just interested in what was walking around inside the clothes.

Sure enough, we were a success at the welcome night. Our act followed an off key rendition of a chinese pop song by a timid, motionless male backed up by two female dancers, and a classical sounding tune on a traditional chinese stringed instrument. I guess, comparatively speaking, the audience had good reason to be interested by caucasians in swimsuits, all hints of self-consciousness burned away years ago by a strict regimen of confidence builders and college crazyness in America. Our strutting music might have been blaring from the distorted speakers of a cheap boombox, possibly bought downtown at Walmart, but at least it had a nice heavy beat that contrasted with the crooning of Mr. Timid and a tune by the Chinese Mozart. I guess everyone missed the fact that unlike all other acts of the evening, ours required no skill whatsoever.

They liked us so much that we recieved an invitation for an encore performance a few days later, at the culminating event of the Harbin Institute of Technology "boy's week" . Essentially, it was a Mr. University competition. We weren't actually competing for the title, like everyone else, just a side act for entertainment only. The audience was bigger this time, maybe a few hundred, and we really got the third floor of the cafeteria hopping. As I flaunted it down the aisle in the bare feet required by our "beachwear" theme, I tried to forget the numerous unsanitary situations I'd seen while eating lunch in that same room. Unfortunatly, I was constantly reminded by the way the soles of my feet were semi-glued to the floor with every step.

Check out the festivities in this photo from the second time through. Anyone who forgot what I look like, I'm the third from the right. The photo is directly off the university website, check out the original here if you want - http://today.hit.edu.cn/2006/10-19/10131500.htm. The two most risque performers, clad only in skin-tight underpants, were unfortunately left of of this picture. Either they were too far left in the line for the camera to handle, or the Chinese censors are at work. All you Cougs out there, look closely at my chest area. You already were? Good. Then you noticed the WSU Lanyard brought straight from the bookie to China, faithfully carrying my keys all year long. Go Cougs!

It happened on the way to see tigers

Ah, the Manchurian Tiger Park, it sounds so magical I can hardly believe it took me four months to drag myself down for a look. It's right in Harbin, after all.

The park did not disappoint. But I think I'll start by describing the drive down to the park, because I've been waiting quite a while for an excuse to really rip into the drivers and traffic situation here in Harbin.

Somehow I always get stuck in the taxi with the craziest driver. When we went out to the Yes club a few weeks ago, ours was the car that arrived first...due to our barreling wrong-ways down a one way street in a clever "shortcut". My tiger park taxi was one of four or so filled with us CETers headed to the park. True to form, my taxi started in the rear but quickly took the lead by recklessly weaving through busy highway traffic. Hand clamped to the door handle and right foot pumping the break that doesn't exist in the back seat, I endured the maneuvers by telling myself this is how everyone drives in Harbin. That was until the collision with the bus.

There have been so many close calls, I'm really surprised it took until now to get into an accident here. And it wasn't serious in the least, but more of a testimony that completely ignoring all traffic regulations does have consequenses, something I was starting to doubt after getting away unscathed for four months. We were in the far right lane with a bus to our left. As the bus began it's right turn onto the traffic circle, the taxi in front of us scooted through the narrowing gap. Following one of the fundamental traffic rules in Harbin - if there's room for one, there's room for more - our driver followed suit only to slam on the brakes when he realized that in fact there was no room. As we sat motionless, the bus' right hand turn brought its rear end closer and closer to our front left bumper, finally clipping it with loud "pop". The bus immediately stopped and both its driver and ours got out, launching immediately into a shouting match. I assumed the police might get called, or perhaps insurance information exchanged. We all got out, thinking of finding a new cab. But, the driver quickly waved us back in, saying it was all settled.

Since, in my view, the fault lay with our driver, I assumed he might be a little miffed about the situation. On the contrary. It turns out the bus driver had given him 100 kuai in order to settle the issue. No insurance, no messing around, just shouting followed by a cash exchange of less than $15 american dollars to settle the issue. The money was to fix the small piece of front bumper that had been chipped off. The driver claimed it would take at least a few hundred kuai to fix, but I suspect that chipped bumper may never be repaired.

The rest of the trip in a nutshell

So I haven't written anything for a long time, ever since I got back to Harbin. Sorry for the sudden stoppage. I just now finished up what I'd been writing before, so you can read about what happened at the yurt.

Time is short, new stuff happens every day, but I need to finish up the travel story just for the sake of finishing. Here's the short version.

After going to the yurt, I left for the next town over called Dongqi, east flag. I stayed for four days in order to see the pretty famous horse race that happens there once a year. The days leading up to the race were super relaxed. I ate something that didn't sit well once, and ended up staying in my room all the next day. I checked out a buddhist temple and hung out with the owner of my ludian, this one much better than the last crazy one. He was a national level wrestler for 8 years before going to school and becoming a vet, coming back to Dongqi, getting married and having a daughter. I spent quite a bit of time with him and I got along better with him than a lot of the other people I'd met.

We checked out a traveling performing group one night, the "Shao lin" something or other, they did little acrobatic stunts, contortionism, and other stuff that looked like it really hurt. One guy, the worst, took metal pins and pierced the skin on each of his forearms. Then he hung buckets of water from each of the pins, picked them up, and swung them around in circles.

I missed seeing the horse race because my ride never showed up - understandably, since it started at 4:00am. I showed up right afterward, and got to see the horses all lathered up. They were tiny horses, but awesome for endurance. The fastest one finished 100 kilometers in 3 hours 40 minutes. I'm no expert but that seems pretty fast to me. The mongolians had kids riding the horses to make them faster, and I have to say I was as impressed with that as with the horses themselves. The winning horse had a kid riding who looked about 1o years old, he was so small. I guess he was actually 14, but those are some tough kids.

After Dongqi I pretty much headed back to Harbin. I took a bus, stayed the night in Aershan, then from there a train to Daqing. Daqing is famous as the main oilfield in China, at one time providing 2/3 of China's oil. I guess a lot of it's gone now, but there are still a ton of those giant machines that look like teeter totters pumping oil all over the city, right in among the buildings sometimes. Most are bright yellow and definitely give the city its own unique feel.