Down to the wire

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The last intern left today, so now it’s just me. Just tying all the loose ends…

I finished my last article today and turned it in, so I can finally say that this internship is over. I organized all of my work files on my computer and cleaned out the random accumulation of junk on it. I finally left the office around 8 p.m. and went with two of my favorite coworkers to Hai Wan Ju, an old-style Beijing restaurant that had THE best zha jiang mian. Then I went back to the office and cleaned out my desk. I’ll still pop in at the office the next few days, but I seem to have caught the packing bug. Continue reading →

Chinese reporter guilty of bribery

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According to American media ethics, good journalists will never accept gifts, money or other sorts of compensation for their work in an attempt to remain unbiased. Thus, I thought it was really qiguai (weird) when my roommate was given 100 yuan for covering a story on kids of government officials. Then a few weeks later, I was sent to cover a press conference and festival opening and given 300 yuan (about $45) from the organizers. It made me more than uncomfortable, but I accepted that this was the Chinese way.

Thus, it was even stranger to read that a reporter from the state-owned CCTV was found guilty of taking bribes from her lover who was the brother of a man under investigation. The Wall Street Journal explained it thus:

China’s criminal law defines the crime of bribery as occurring when “state personnel take advantage of their office to demand money and things from other people” or when they “obtain favors.” In this case, the Shanxi procuratorate’s office successfully argued that Ms. Li was an employee of a government organization, since CCTV is run by the state. However, in practice, it is common for Chinese journalists to receive “red packets” filled with cash for attending press conferences and other corporate events, purportedly to cover their travel expenses.

My cash didn’t come in a hongbao, just a Chinese money envelope. Anyway, I guess in China, it’s OK for the state to bribe reporters. Sometimes I forget how hypocritical and nonsensical China is.

International Food: Italian

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Chris, who likes to say he’s half-Italian (because I guess he is), started craving fettuccine alfredo one day, which made me start to crave some pasta. I love pasta. It’s a good thing northern Chinese cuisine favors noodles.

So one day after work, we decided to venture out across town to the nearest Annie’s, a popular local chain with five or six locations spread around eastern Beijing. It took a while to find the one in Beijing High Life, but it was a cute little restaurant — very clean, professional and Western. It was like walking into a small-town Italian joint, and that was what the food was like, too.

Annie’s tries to put a little class into the dining experience, but it’s not good enough to be a nice dinner. We got free bread to munch on while we waited for our food, which never happens in China. The food was nicely presented. I got the potato gnocchi, and it was yummy but not delicious. There just wasn’t anything especially remarkable about it. If this post sounds boring, it’s because I can’t make Annie’s sound exciting.

To its credit, Annie’s is a nice change from the loud, old and used Chinese restaurants without having to break the bank for it. There was enough of my gnocchi to make another meal of it, which makes it a great deal. Chinese food portions are always large, but Western food portions, especially in China, never are.

Datong: Really is all the same

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Just back from Datong. I need to go meet a friend, though, but here are a few thoughts:

Datong, briefly: It’s nasty and dirty. China is, in general, but Datong is nasty and dirty in a different way. Shanxi is infamous for its coal mines, and the dust from the coal supposedly blankets the whole province. I don’t know if the dust in Datong was coal, though, it was mostly just very fine dirt. I suspect it was everywhere because Datong seemed to be tearing up all of its roads. Everywhere we went, we would drive at least on two really really bumpy dirt roads that looked to be once paved. Our hotel room had a bunch of bugs, including roaches. There also is no ice cream in Datong, which I will elaborate on later.

China, generally: My mini-holidays are over, and the next time I travel somewhere, it will be to go home. Getting out of Beijing has made me realize how spoiled this city has made me, though. Which is interesting to think because of how living in Beijing has made me realize how spoiled the States has made me. Beijing has culture; I mean, it has different people from different backgrounds, and they all clash with each other. At the same time, Beijing is still Beijing, still China, and it is so without losing its identity and history. It is surely changing rapidly, but getting lost in its hutongs will still transport you back in time. Datong was uninspiring, everywhere the same. In Beijing, vendors at markets vary very little, and the whole city of Datong was like that. Every store on a street by our hotel was a little convenience shop (more on this later). Another street was all mian guan (restaurants selling noodles). Of course, Datong is not a big city like Beijing. Perhaps it’s a good sign of progress that China has cities like Beijing, which was so different just 30 years ago. But, though cities are always ahead of the wave, they are not necessarily harbingers of the future.

Qingdao ahoy!

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Actually, there isn’t anything ! about Qingdao. Wait, no, there is one thing, and here it is:

The one good thing about Qingdao: I found an ice cream place that serves ice cream on a waffle cone — three delicious scoops for only six kuai! And on our last night, I tried to get some for dessert, but the place had already closed. Devastated, I loitered around for a few moments. The really sweet guy who worked there noticed me, and perhaps even remembered me from a couple of days before, and said he can still get me some ice cream on a waffle cone if I wanted it. He was all smiley and happy to serve me, too. It was the cutest thing ever, and it made my night.

Besides that, Qingdao was full of potential greatness, but we were let down repeatedly. Perhaps it was because we had absolutely no idea where Qingdao was, what it looked like or what to do there, no plans and no time to think about any of these things. But I was still expecting something exciting. Continue reading →

International Food: Mexican

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Mexican Wave

A couple of weekends ago (man, that was a long time ago), Chris and I took Pang Li out to eat Mexican after he helped us try to get train tickets to Dandong. I was really craving a burrito that day. Ironically, I ended up getting two tacos once we made our way out to the Silk Street Market area, where Mexican Wave is anchored, beckoning Americans who looking for something familiar.

According to its menu, Mexican Wave is the oldest Mexican establishment still in business in Beijing. If the restaurant can serve as an indicator, Mexican food in China is the complete opposite of Mexican food in America: expensive small servings instead of cheap large portions.

It tasted like standard Mexican fare, though, but it didn’t satisfy my Mexican craving. Had I known the tacos came in a hard tortilla shell, I wouldn’t have ordered two. But the carne asada and pollo asada were delicious. It seemed a little cleaner than Mexican food back home, too, which is unusual because — when is anything cleaner in China?

Heading for the home stretch

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It’s hard to believe that my summer in Beijing is nearing the end. I leave a week from tomorrow. It’s already August, but I have had no concept of time here. It doesn’t feel like I will be going home soon–probably because I can’t fathom that I’ve already been here for 10 weeks. These weeks have flown, and it seems like I just arrived. And yet, it feels like I’ve been here for forever.

I don’t want to dwell on this too much because it’s making me really sad.

I have been super-uber busy these past couple of weeks. I caught a minor cold a few weeks back and have been recovering since. Chris and I took a long weekend to Dandong, and I just found out yesterday that my uncle has been staying there for the past month or so. We came back, did our last burger story, wrapped up the internship with an evaluation-presentation, celebrated our last day with some coworkers (including a new one, with whom Chris is infatuated), then took off for Qingdao for another long weekend. (More on Qingdao later.) Chris and I returned yesterday evening for his final dinner (hotpot) in China, celebrated in the company of our closest work friends, and then a few rounds of beer. Now he’s gone, and it hasn’t quite hit me.

Tonight, Pang Li and I will try to get tickets to see Up, which just came out here.

Tomorrow, I’m off to Datong with Catherine, the last remaining intern. We plan to come back Saturday.

Catherine heads back to the States on Monday.

Meanwhile, I still have one more hamburger story to write for work and perhaps some stuff on Dandong or Qingdao. I have many, many pictures I need to post.

State media taboos

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I’ve been censored!

I almost made it two whole months!

But finally, it’s happened!

Something I wrote did not fly with the powers-that-be who mine articles for personal opinions at China.org.cn. Unbeknownst to me, I had inserted “personal opinion” into an article I wrote on two Swiss photographers, Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer. Personal opinion is a huge no-no in traditional journalism. I was pretty embarrassed. Continue reading →