...And a Sight of Beijing, Hold the Mao

A former 同事 (tong shi, co-worker) returned to Shenzhen for a week after having spent about a month or so traipsing around China. The traveling opportunity would almost be enough to make me jealous--after all, it's a chance to really see something of China, instead of just Shenzhen--but seems to involve a lot more walking, sweating, and running into other strange back-packers than I really have the desire for. (Among the strangest on-the-road tales was the one about a 40-something guy who's apparently traveling with a stuffed koala bear--a stuffed koala bear with definite opinions about weather, tourist sites, 等等, that only he can hear.)

The most interesting bit of information, though, came from Beijing. It seems Mao's tomb is closed, and Beijing's Underground City is also unavailable for viewing. In fact, it sounded like nearly all Beijing's tourist sites were "closed for renovations" while she and her beau were there--renovations apparently expected to last until after the Olympics. If the PRC really has shut down all the tourist sites in Beijing (except for the Wall and the ugly buildings constructed for the Olympics), it must mean someone didn't get the memo about basic marketing.

Add this to the recent visa restrictions over security concerns and all the areas where travel is currently restricted due to one disaster or another, and you wonder whether 2008 won't actually become a benchmark low for China's tourist industry.

Quick Notes: Da Bao, Di Li, Deluge

So the PRC has made a bold and positive move to protect the environment, and I'm already seeing the effects close to home. In a city where I rarely see blue skies and only see green or black water, I'm at least starting to see fewer plastic bags, thanks to a new policy requiring stores to use heavier strength bags and charge customers for them. Of course, a Google search on "china plastic bags" shows at least one US environmentalist criticism of the move, but the change is a great one as far as I'm concerned. Now when I go to buy juice or water at the 7-11 that's right next to my building's entrance, I no longer have to watch the shop attendants wrap a tiny plastic bottle in two or three plastics while fruitlessly arguing, "不需要包。真的，我家离这儿不远." (Bu xu yao bao. Zhen de, wo jia li zhe'r bu yuan. I don't need a bag. Really, my house isn't far from here.) The only downside of the ban is that I've always used the endless supply of bags the stores give me to line my garbage can at home, but I guess the brighter side even of that is that I can now buy a heavy-duty garbage bag for just 2 毛 (2/10ths of an RMB)--one that won't break the minute I dump out my coffee grounds.

Now the government just needs to find a way to get rid of the old flimsy bags at restaurants, where I'm still getting the same treatment every time I 打包 (da bao, carry-out) food.

Every month, the school calls a handful of each teacher's students to find out whether they're happy with classes. Every month, there are either students who are unhappy (usually because the teacher is 无聊--wu liao, boring) or students who are happy for very peculiar reasons: "The teacher is responsible" is one of the most common comments. This month, I got one of my strangest comments yet: "老师教学很好，地理知识也很好." (Lao shi jiao xue hen hao, di li zhi shi ye hen hao. The teacher teaches well, and his geographical knowledge is also very good.) For someone from a country where most students can't find Iraq on a map, this came as a big surprise at first, until I remembered that I live in a country where most of my students can only name five countries (in their native language, at that) and constantly confuse Australia for Japan when looking at a map.

Nersey and I have been discussing plans for construction of an ark. The rainy season (which was in May last year) has hit Shenzhen. In the past week or so, we've had three days of straight rain, three days of sunny weather accompanied by nighttime downpours, and a few days of mixed drizzly, cloudy and all around depressing weather. The rain has been heavy enough that I've had to stop using my living room air conditioner most day, since the drainage system is no longer working properly. Fortunately, all of the weather has thus far been accompanied by relatively steady winds, so I've been able to open the balcony doors and find relief.