Sunday, August 30, 2009

Ulaanbaatar Chronicle

I should change the name of this blog since I left Qingdao and moved to Ulaanbaatar. For anyone who read about my losing my wallet, I would like you to know that it was found. A policeman came to my door and returned it; unheard of! I was deeply appreciative.

However, I eventually left Qingdao anyways, for several reasons, the primary one being that I'd completely lost patience with people in China, from the staff at the latest language school where I was teaching, to the old people staring at me hatefully, to the taxi drivers driving very slowly to increase their fares, and the lights at intersections all being set to make traffic stop for a full two minutes, even if they were only two blocks apart. I lost patient with shopkeepers and vendors all trying to charge me more money because I was foreigner, and not even being able to take advantage of sales at the local supermarket because they'd always ring my purchases up at full price because I was a foreigner.

Not that Ulaanbaatar is any better; in fact, in some ways, it's worse. I went shopping at the largest market yesterday to find shoes. The black market is a huge outdoor market that has plastic sheets for roofs over stalls. It was raining off and on and I was stepping carefully in the mud to stay out of puddles. There were hundreds and hundreds of shoe stalls, but I didn't like the styles for women's shoes and most of them were too narrow for the base of my foot, so I looked and I looked and I looked. Finally at the end I bought a pair of black shoes that look like what a witch would wear, and a pair of Adidas for running.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Well, I lost my wallet (or it was stolen), anyways it's gone and I can't find it.  I only had a couple private students last week, so my earnings didn't add up to much money, but still it was all the money I'd made that week.   

I was going to leave Qingdao and get a position teaching at a university in Thailand where I have a friend on staff, but my landlady refused to let me out of my lease.  Not only did she refuse to return the 4000 rmb deposit I had paid her, but she demanded that I pay an additional 4,000 rmb penality if I break my lease.  So I guess I'm staying.  I had offered to find another renter in my stead (and I've got a classified running the local English magazine, the Red Star, that's coming out on May 1st.)  I also said she could keep the three month's rent that I'd paid in advance, but none of this made any difference to her.

So I went through quite an emotional maelstrom over all this yesterday.  Unfortunately, my son was visiting and bore the brunt of it, but he also got me to buck up.  My Chinese teacher, Alice, who is a university student and a good friend, as well, despite the difference in our ages, also helped me through all of this.  And then Takashi, the father of the young Japanese girl who I've been teaching as a private student, also offered to help me out.  

Frankly, I was ready to kill myself and leave blood all over the apartment for the landlady to find and clean up.  I wasn't really serious but in the emotional extravaganza of a whirlpool of negativity, the idea was quite attractive.  Okay, okay, I can be quite a drama queen at times.  But this was really scraping bottom.  I have not been in that bad a frame of mind for several hours in decades, really.

This morning, I woke up and it was like a storm that had blown over.  I guess all that cesspool of fear, anxiety, despair and frustration, rage and hate just had to be released one way or another.  I hope I got it all out because I never want to go there again.  I guess this is the descension process.

It's been crazy weather this week.  I've been freezing in my apartment and the wind has been freezing outside, too.  Then it warmed up, but the wind was still blowing like crazy.  Now it's calmed down and so have I.  The sun is warm, the birds are happy, and someone nearby is drilling and hammering, as they often have in the several months that I've lived in this apartment.

I'm hoping that people's spirits will lift up with nicer weather coming in.  The scowls and long faces are starting to get to me.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Friends in China

Robert is a biopharmaceutical student at Ocean University of China in his senior year doing experiments with chemicals in the laboratory this semester.  He is charming, considerate, intelligent, and thoughtful.
Zhai Long is a university student preparing to become a doctor, which he is well-suited for because he is kind and patient.  He is also very alive and fun as a guide to see the sights. 
 

 



Tuesday, April 21, 2009

And more...




More Animals from Dalian Zoo





Dalian Zoo






It's been just about a year since I visited the Dalian Zoo, but I'm going to upload some of my photos of animals now anyways.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Sketches at the Art Museum




Qingdao Art Museum






Robert and I wandered slowly through the art gallery viewing photos.  It was a pleasure to look at photos with him and hear what he had to say about the photos.  There were so many different kinds of paintings

Beads and Shells at Stalls in Spring Sun on Fushansuo Bay in Qingdao



Approaching the Qingdao Art Museum

Sea Fountain at Fushansuo Bay




Lu Guo Cin, Local Artist





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Just before the Qingdao Art Museum on Dashue Lu in the old part of Qingdao near Ocean University's first campus, Yushan, I had the great good fortune to come across an art studio across the street with silk batik paintings that were truly wondrous. The artist, Lu Guo Cin, welcomed me and invited me to drink a cup of tea with him while I looked at his work. He didn't speak English, but we had a little conversation with my limited Chinese and discovered that we were nearly the same age, both 55 years old with only 11 days apart. He was born in 1953 on September 30 and I was also born in 1953, but a little later on October 11.

I have rarely met someone who I took to so immediately as I did him. In fact, I look forward to talking to him at great length when I learn more Chinese. It's a tremendous motivation to continue my studies in earnest. He made it clear that he had studied at the Beijing University School of Art (or something like that). He had me talk to a young woman on his cell phone and she also came over, but her speaking ability in English was quite limited.

Still, I hope that I made it clear that although I didn't have much money on me, that I'd be back to buy a lovely silk cloth that had phoenixes on it. I loved sitting in his little shop with colorfusilk batiks covering every inch of wall, including the ceiling.

Friday, March 6, 2009

TaiDong Art

TaiDong is a pedestrian shopping mall in Qingdao that holds a peculiar charm and fascination for me.  The photos of building malls posted here were taken during two different photo shoots, one in the fall of 2007 and the other during the Summer Olympics of 2008.   The buildings were painted to provide a colorful and artsy face to Qingdao for visitors.  It's really too bad that most foreigners either boycotted the Olympics or didn't have the money to come to Qingdao for the Sailing Regatta. However, I have saved the fanciful murals for posterity in these photos and hope that people who see them will appreciate what a colorful and interesting place Qingdao is.

The wall murals on certain buildings were painted over during this time.  Each time I visited TaiDong, I would have a different experience.  Part of this was due to the wall murals being changed on buildings, but also it was because of the crowds of people changing in nature by the day of the week and the time of day, especially as the night market crowded the sidewalks with merchandise.  My first few trips to TaiDong were filled with wonder and overwhelm.  Now I know my way around, it is not such a big deal to go there, but I will never forget my first visit to the silk markets and seamstresses stalls.

Every time I go to TaiDong, I am reminded of Wolfgang and how he introduced me to so much that is here.  Wolfgang was the young businessman with a Master's degree in Applied Linguistics who had studied both English and German at the university that I met soon after coming to Qingdao.  I spent much of my free time with him in the first year that I was here, as he spoke quite good English and enjoyed being friends with foreigners.  His assistance was invaluable in helping me to settle into this city and to learn a little bit about the ways of the Chinese.  

Wolfgang always chided me that I didn't know much about Chinese culture, which was true, but I was eager to learn.  Getting acquainted with Wolfgang introduced me to some of the contradictions in the conservative attitudes of Chinese, who are moving very rapidly into the mainstream of global culture with all the interactivity of the Internet and international trade challenging old patterns of thinking and doing.