What shop is that?

How difficult is it to exist in China without understanding Chinese? Earlier I promised to post a range of photos showing shop fronts. I defy anyone who has no Chinese to identify these shops. Hint: most of them are restaurants and liquor/gift stores. And one is a foot massage shop - look for the feet!

Kids and tops

Soundscape on a Sunday morning

Thwack! Whoosh! A father practises badminton with his six year old son.
Tinny Chinese music. A dozen elderly people doing Tai Chi.
Murmur, shuffle, murmur. The older woman's walking group managing a few words as they walk past with exaggerated arm movements.
Melodious humming. A women walks past, backwards.
Sound of pee on pavement. Toddler relieves himself holding on to Grandma's hand.
Put put put. A motorised tricycle laden with large bottles of drinking water.
Hack hack! Lungs protesting.
Hoik! Ptui! Phlegm up and out.
No sound. An electric bicycle comes from behind and nearly knocks me over.
Bird call. Hadn't heard that one before. Delightful! There it is! It has a long tail.
Giggle. Coo. A silly frilly filly in an embrace with her uni boyfriend. Gender equality is in reverse in modern China. Mao would mourn.
Off campus - the distant sounds of traffic, and never ending building construction work, interspersed with ther sounds of fireworks at any time of the day or night. Poor dogs.
BEEP! BEEP! A car with a very important person in it drives along the footpath and scatters the pedestrians.

Alone in a dumpling restaurant

Or ... "Down in the dumplings"

It's the last weekend in Jinan. My student has given me a map of an "excellent" dumpling restaurant. The taxi driver couldn't find it and charged me 50% more than he should have. I eventually found it myself. It was noisy, busy and brash. Maybe 50 staff. I was given a table near the door and two waitresses spoke Chinese and waited for my Chinese menu selection. "No Chinese! Only English." I pointed to a dumpling dish on another table. Giggles of embarassment. I produced a specially prepared paper with Chinese translation of my food likes and dislikes. More giggles. The submanager was summonsed. He spoke to me in Chinese. "No Chinese! Only English." He spoke louder Chinese. The girls giggled. The neighbouring tables were beginning to participate in this sport. An employee who allegedly could speak English was summonsed. No joy. More giggles. A more senior manager was summonsed. By this stage there were no less than ten curious staff hovering, plus four neighbouring tables eaves-dropping. I once again showed my Chinese translation sheet showing my likes and dislikes, and mimed that I only wanted one plate of dumplings, just like that one on the next table. He read the sheet gravely, then opened up the sheet to read about my likes and dislikes for hotel rooms, where I needed to get a taxi to return home, and my request for a foot massage. I snatched the sheet back and folded over to the relevant paragraph. But he immediately opened up the sheet again - he was more interested in my life story. I snatched it back and made to leave. "Sorry, sorry!", he muttered. And snapped a few orders at the inanely giggling waitresses. I was also able to order a beer, perhaps unwisely, as I received a whole jug of draught beer. An extraordinary thing: anybody and everybody on staff (I swear even the cleaner did once) would top up my glass after every sip. I was not allowed to lift the jug. Eventually I received the spinach/egg/chili dumplings specially chosen for me by the senior man. I called him back and graciously invited him to read everything else on the translation sheet. He then understood, and we forgave each other. Perhaps it was the beer.

I looked around - some men were only wearing singlets instead of shirts. I watched the groups and families feasting, sharing varieties of wonderful dishes on their table. Hubbub and happiness.

I'm sure that Confucious himself would agree that eating dumplings alone in a Chinese restaurant is not happiness.

(The dumplings were ... excellent.)

Cheap haircut

The woman on the wall behind thinks that the hairdresser's top-knot is quite cool!

(Note the leather belt holding all his tools of trade.)

A head wash and head massage before and after 20 minutes in the chair for 10 kuai AU$2.50

A cheap haircut? Well, there's not that much hair, after all ....

Fish tank, LCD TV, Hairdresser

It's midnight in Jinan on a Saturday, and a large LCD TV lights up a fish tank in front of a hairdressing salon.

Catch a bus and see where it goes

A delightful sunny Saturday afternoon, so I caught a bus to see just where it might go to. A mid -30's woman sat beside me and started practising her English. Then she promptly announced "you will come with me to see where I work!" I got off the bus and dutifully followed her through back streets. It turns out that she was a cardio-vascular doctor (2nd in charge) in a small hospital. That's her with the pony tail. Check out the Mao picture. After the handover, we conducted a short patient rounds - she explained to the patients that I was specialist from Australia. I was honoured in more ways than one.

These oldies don't need the internet

These oldies don't need the internet. They can get their (not really free) news, for free!

The freeways of Jinan

Jinan is renown in China for its extensive freeway system. Here is a short video of the trip from the airport, arriving into the city. When there is a centralised government, any large project is possible.

Train crash 70km from Jinan

There was a terrible train crash nearby Jinan early this morning. Seems that 70 are dead and about 410 injured. Here is a link, with pictures.

Hygiene in Jinan

Many Chinese have some interesting habits that, well, are not hygienic. Like not using toilet paper, or water, when they defecate. Like not washing hands afterwards. Like snot blowing. Like public hemming, hawking and spitting. This can be quite offputting!

However, I find that I am becoming increasingly localised, as my lungs struggle with the unceasing pollution. Apart from the sore and perpetually watering eyes, I hawk up terrible globs that are grey-yellow. If I don't have a tissue on me, these globs I try to surreptiously spit in an appropriate place - convincing myself that I am simply recycling Jinan's dirt.

I am listening to the jingoistic Chinese Olympic song on television, "One World, One Dream". It contains the remarkable lyric: "the smell of fresh air everywhere". Perhaps that's the One Dream bit.

Here is an interesting picture. I recently visited a fancy rest room in a mid price restaurant. Look carefully, not just at the dirty artificial roses. The urinals were full of ice cubes. They didn't mask the rank smell. (But they were fun to melt when having a pee !)

The language barrier

I regret not learning Chinese in the months before I left Australia. From past travel experiences I had found that one could get by without necessarily learning the local language. But here in China, because the writing is not in Roman characters, and because so very few people speak or understand English, the language barrier is firmly set.

I am collecting some photos of shop-fronts, which I will post soon. The Chinese love signs, and the Chinese characters can be very descriptive. But for me they hold no clue as to what sort of shop it is, and if you cannot see through the window, you remain clueless. Rarely are pictures or logos used. One night I was coming home late from work and from the bus I was able to see the lighted interior of many shops - and was delighted to realise that there was an optometrist, there a baker, a dentist, a photocopy centre, an estate agent ... etc.

Here is a photo of one shop I could easily understand. They sell pears ....

What is annoying is that, although it is quickly obvious I am a foreigner with no Chinese, locals still expect me to understand them, as their voices get louder and shriller each time they repeat. Or (in the case of a group of women), start giggling inanely, and others crowd around to join the fun. I am a rarity, of course, and most locals seem never to have had the experience of trying to assist a foreigner. But neither do they seem to want to.

But some succeed, and very well. A taxi driver, when he realised I had no Chinese, uttered not another word for the rest of the journey, but mimed and pointed. He was able to successfully convey this somewhat complex message:

"Look over there, at that fat pig of a traffic policeman, chatting on his mobile phone, instead of doing his job and directing traffic, and helping me get through this terrible traffic jam! He should be sacked!" (Photo: Google Images)

The irony about not learning Chinese before I left is that where I used to live in Australia - directly opposite my house - was a regular Saturday morning Chinese language school.

Street Scenes 3

Boys, and construction sites, and big pipes, just big enough so that you can crawl though. Irresistable!

Isn't it just the same in for every country in this world?

Sunday afternoon in Quandeng Square

This enormous square, with a big blue two legged sculpture at the centre, and a shopping mall beneath, is in the middle of Jinan.

It was a warm, Spring, Sunday afternoon, with just enough breeze to lift the kites. People are entertained by the amazing fountains, and each other. Kite fliers, roller skaters, lovers, men spinning tops.

I've 25 photos on FlickR, so click here for a slide show!


And below is a short video of some top spinners, entertaining an appreciative crowd. Listen to the weird sound the tops produce.

Trishaw - faster than the bus

I was waiting for a bus, and saw this delightful man with a huge aspidistra plant cycle pass on his tricycle truck. The perfect choice, when one has aspidistras to deliver. I cursed because I did not have my camera at the ready. Twenty minutes later I got off the bus at my destination, and there he was - waiting for me and my camera! Quite rightly, he had stopped to receive a mobile call. And to get his photo taken. With his aspadistra.

Nope, it's not an aspidistra (just checked Google Images). I keep typing aspadistra coz its a marvellous word! So, what sort of plant is it? (see comment).



Later: another photo of another entrepreneur, at the same spot. Do you like his uniform?

Air Pollution

Jinan is one of China's cities, indeed one of the world's cities, with the highest levels of air pollution. Apart from vehicle emissions and coal fired power plants, it has some heavy industry (making steel for truck manufacturing) not far out of the city.
I had thought that the past couple of windy days might have blown away the ever present smog, and give some needed respite to the eyes and lungs. But not so. Perhaps the wind was coming from the direction of the factories!

During the interview I had for this job, I was asked "do you have any chronic respiratory problems?" Duty of care, I was told.

One pleasant effect of the smog is the way the sun tries to penetrate it, especially in the evening. I took these photos tonight, from the park next to our apartments, where families play with their kid. The huge building site in the foreground (the cause of so much local dust) used to a be a sports field for the old University. Unfortunately the building labourers' temporary quarters, complete with a vile smelling latrine, have been constructed opposite the entrance to our apartments. Another form of air pollution. One learns when one must not breathe through one's nose!

Later: a night of RAIN cleaned the air (for a few hours). The result was marvellous! The trees, especially the conifers, had metamorphosed from dirty grey to clean green!