A whole heck of a lot

The week before this was the most irregular week I have had since arriving, although the weekend proved to be the really unexpected part. It all started during the week when I began to actually understand the Chinese in class. Yep that’s right, I am learning this stuff regardless of how ridiculously difficult it is. Not only that but I am learning it so well that one of my teachers gave me a present in class for doing so well. (The present is a small trinket on a string of a double fish, which is said to bring you luck or something. I have attached it to my cell phone to help me blend in.)

I think I mentioned before that I stopped going to my listening class and for a few reasons. The first being the quality of the tape and textbook, which is the reason that I gave to the other students to pass on to the teacher, although the teacher herself as well as the “boom box” had something to do with the decision as well. So I was, to say the least, thoroughly surprised when I was told the teacher had changed materials on account of me… sort of.

Apparently my decision to not go to a worthless class made sense to other students. The result was one who was not going at all anymore and a few absences from students who previously held perfect attendance records. In a class of six students this is a big impact. I was less surprised about the change in materials after hearing this. Needless to say, I have returned to the class and the text is better although, and this is not surprising, the teacher is not. Oh well, at least for the majority of the class she conveniently lets the “boom box” do the talking for her.

The second unexpected thing that happened to me last week was that I had a dream. I briefly thought about parodying MLK Jr. with the description of my dream but I think that a fair few people have done that already so I will just tell you instead. I dreamt in Chinese! Now if that is not impressive, I know it is not so because you have heard me try to speak. In any case, I was astonished when I woke up the next morning and started preparing to go to my Chinese class only to realize that I had studied for it unconsciously the night before.

Now on to the weekend. Friday was rather quite. Jason and I had two friends over for a movie and then I went to bed early to finish the book that I had started at the beginning of the week. As a side note, I think that this marks the first time that I have ever finished a book in four sittings and is therefore evidence against my longstanding belief that I am slow reader.

Saturday started slow, but by noon Jason and I found ourselves holding tickets to the Harbin Tiger Park and contemplating buying a chicken, duck, sheep, or cow to feed to the tigers. This park is no joke. It’s only similarity to a zoo is that it holds wild animals in cages. In all there are probably more than 200 tigers being held at the park. Their cages are rundown, weeded, tracks of land enclosed by tall chain link fences and some barbed wire. They feed the tigers out of Toyota 4runner that is rigged with wire armor over critical areas such as windows, tires, the engine compartment and the roof. To release the smaller animals, the driver opens the door throws and closes the door very quickly, although the tigers are quicker and I not once did I see a chicken reach the ground.

Our tickets bought us a ride in a similarly armored bus. The bus went from one area to the next stopping for pictures occasionally, but speeding along dirt roads for the rest of the time honking the horn to clear tigers from the road. There were several sections all with double gates at the entries and exits that would alternate to ensure that tigers did not make it out of one area and into the next.

After going through several areas we disembarked the bus wearily because the gate behind us was left open although the secondary gate was closed. We entered a long, snaking, raised walkway that was enclosed by two fences, about eighteen inches from apart to create a buffer, made of half inch wire. This boardwalk led us through a large area that more resembled a zoo enclosure with fake concrete rocks and a few frozen over ponds. The enclosure held at least twenty tigers, maybe even thirty.

As we walked along looking at the tigers a woman walked up behind us pulling a little, not so red, wagon with cages on it. The cages held chickens and they were for sale. For less that seven US dollars you could feed a chicken to a tigers, or several tigers, while it was tied by one foot at the end of five foot long walking stick. Although we did not purchase any chickens we did get to witness the action. It was like playing keep away. The chicken end of the stick was stuck through the fences and bobbed up and down as the tigers would cluster together and eventually begin to jump for the chicken. I had never seen tigers jump and I am glad that I have never encountered in the open. I definitely would have underestimated its speed and never would have guessed that it could jump at least fifteen feet from a stand still.

After that excitement we loitered watching the tigers in the nearby enclosures and eventually made our out. On our way we say cheetahs, lions, jaguars, and even a liger. According to the informational board next the latter a liger is defined as “affinity between lion and tiger”. I took this to mean that when a lion and a tiger fall in love… you get a liger. We went to the park with a few friends and after a late lunch and a quick sweet we parted ways.

Jason and I headed over to a friends house to get free stuff because he was moving and stopped by a grocery store on the way. We found dark beer! Two types of it actually both made in China. We have since tried one of them and it was not anything close to what we were hoping for but I am holding out hope for the second type. Then I rushed home and got ready to go to dinner.

Dinner was planned to be a Beijing duck restaurant. For those of you who have not heard of Beijing duck, it is basically a duck roasted whole in a very specific type of large oven. In Beijing, many of these ovens have been in use for a long time. This means that in Harbin Beijing duck is not nearly as good as it is in Beijing, hence the name. I went with a Russian classmate and a Latvian friend who also lives in our building. The duck was alright, but the spicy clams were amazing!

After dinner my Russian classmate invited us back to his apartment to drink cognac and eat dark chocolate. How can you refuse an offer like that? You cannot and I did not and it turned out to be a very interesting night. The cognac was French and it was delicious. The Russian dark chocolate was very dark and amazing and it was perfect with the cognac. What made the night even more interesting was drinking the entire bottle, as I think is tradition, and then promptly going out to meet other people at a bar. I hurt dearly the next day but oh was the cognac delicious.

I spent most of Sunday recovering. I got up from a nap at around four and shortly after I received a call from the same friend had gone to the tiger park with us. We had been invited to go to dinner with her, Tera, her friend from Indiana who was originally from China, Danni, and his cousin Wilson. The dinner was being held by the Mayor or Vice Mayor of Commerce for Harbin. Since Danni and Wilson’s family is well to do in the south of China, they were more or less required to socialize with important figures such as the Mayor of the City. We had talked about this the day before, but we were caught a bit off guard because the call came so early. We arrived at the restaurant at five and did not leave until nearly eight.

The dinner was ridiculous. There was way too much food ordered, yet we were expected to eat a lot of it and at times it was even put on our plates for us. There were two stages of food. The first was more than enough to fill everyone at the table, yet after we had all eaten what we wanted of it another round came out. I was stuffed to the brim with food by the time that my plate was taken away. The same went with drinks. There were more than a few calls for the Chinese version of “cheers” as well as the call to finish your drink. This was followed promptly by refilling your glass or having it refilled for you.

The table was a large round table with a large glass plate in the center that spun to allow access of the food to everyone. Jason played translator for most of the night as he and Wilson were the only competent mandarin speakers at the table. The other guests that attended were a nationally famous TV anchor and her daughter, who Tera may be tutoring in the near future. The Mayor was a very friendly woman with a sense of humor and many other well honed social skills. One to note for china, was the ability to pick up the bill even if it was never brought to the table. It is common in China for people to fight over the bill and I mean fight. There are of course rules such as the guest to a city will never pay, but that does not mean that there will not be a fight first and there was.

Over all the night was quite an experience and one that I will not soon forget partially because we did it again on Wednesday night. That’s right. We were invited out to dinner with the Mayor, or whatever her title is, for the second time in four days. This time it would only be three of us because Danni and his cousin returned to Guangzhou. Other than that we knew nothing of what this dinner was supposed to be about. We had thought that it might have something to with teaching English, but again we were only guessing.

We were picked up at the front gate of our university at five by the Mayor and her driver and then picked up Tera before heading off to a restaurant, the name of which Jason could not make out. After a bit, we pulled up to a large building with a rotating door, parking lot attendants and a parking lot. As most of do not know, parking lots are rare in Harbin, usually cars are parked on the street or it is even more common for people to take taxis, the bus, or walk to their destination. So a parking lot usually means it is a big deal and as soon as we stepped in we knew it was true.

The restaurant was called (something in Chinese) Fisherman’s Wharf and they had some great seafood. We ate raw salmon, prawns, some other type of seafood (it was red and white and the texture was similar to squid), and bitter melon and cooked abalone, squid, shrimp, smoked beef, whole shrimp and small fish (everything except the head), fried minnows, and so much more. The other people that came were an author and provincial administrator of education, a director for one of the national television stations, an engineer (of some rank I’m sure), and two musicians from a nearby university (one was a pianist and the other specialized in Chinese opera).

The night again was full of food, drinking, and conversation although this dinner was much less formal because, with the exception of us, all of those that attended were friends of some sort. It was great fun and amazing food. Afterward the mayor rode home with one of her friends from the dinner and sent us home in her car. The driver went the extra long way and drove extremely slowing on the way, we think because he wanted to talk to Jason. He invited us to eat with him at some point also and he and Jason exchanged numbers.

While out buying ice skates I saw something that was absolutely astounding. It is winter here and there has been ice and snow on the road for a few weeks now. There are no snow plows or sanding trucks. Instead people just drive on the roads as is and a few of them slow down but not many. With that said, it is stunning to see that there are still a good number of bicycles, motorcycles, and scooters on the road. Besides just the conditions it is also bitter cold to be out on a road at any speed.

I thought that I had seen it all but yesterday I saw something to top it all. All of the cycles are used to carry items and people, usually in excess of what they should. Yesterday I saw a scooter with two men on it carrying a 20-25 foot ladder. It wasn’t attached to the side of the scooter or pointing straight up, instead one end of it was tied onto the rear rack of the scooter while the other end trailed 20-25 feet behind. At the far end of the ladder a set of wheels had been attached to keep the ladder from just dragging because that would be just silly.