connie's space

             In Chengdu (pop. 20 million), my apartment building’s complex  is nestled in the bustling part of  a famous Chinese university.  The school’s west gate is merely a 2-minute walk down a narrow alleyway from my apartment, making this a prime area businesses would most like to set up shop.   Well patronized groceries, tea and coffee houses, Western and Chinese restaurants, small hotels, not to mention a 24-hour McDonalds and KFC, all cater to Sichuan University’s 50,000 student population.  The college kids come out in droves through the west gate, especially on weekends, where sidewalks are lined with itinerant sellers who spread out their goods on canvas sheets or set up small tables to attract the young crowds.

            Every evening, I set aside time to walk along the streets with my Chihuahua-mix pooch, Xiao Hua (Little Flower).  Our favorite trekking day is Friday evening.  After a full week of classes, students such as myself relax by cruising the sidewalk displays of knickknacks.  And with the Chinese New Year upon us, business is booming as thousands crowd the streets looking for bargain buys.

            Sparkly hair ornaments, funky stick pins and jewelry, sports shirts and socks, sturdy cups and saucers, discount phone cards and stacks of pirated DVDs can be found at every turn on our roadside stroll.  With a little bit of bargaining, a customer can get earrings for a dollar, mugs for 50 cents, three pairs of Adidas or Nike socks for $1.25 and the going rate for the newest pirated DVD movies, which is 50 to 60 cents each. 

            One of our favorite street visits is a place I call Pet Corner.  University girls coo at adorable puppies placed in wire bins atop collapsible cages.  The girls link their arms in those of their boyfriends.  With well-practiced pouting and coaxing, their sweethearts might buy them their choice of pooch for $17 to $100 dollars.

            Most of the puppies end up dying within a month as they usually are infected with diseases from the  puppy mills they came from.   Proper care and vaccination of pets is still a new concept in China.  Only 3 percent of all animals owned receive the necessary inoculations for canine or feline diseases.  Pet sellers could educate the public but not those selling on the roadside.  They are out to make a quick buck and will say nothing to discourage the public from taking home a pet, especially a sick one. 

             Five years ago, Little Flower was a pity-save from such Chinese dog sellers so I am well aware of their tactics. In fact, the last time I ventured by Pet Corner, one seller offered me 50 yuan ($6) for my dog.  He thought he could get quite a few cute puppies out of her and make a tidy profit.  Needless to say, I passed up that offer.  

            The joke would have been on him if he’d bought her.  My happy little Chihuahua female has been spayed.

            While walking the sidewalks, Little Flower is either begging goodies off of those passing by or, nose to the ground, searching out juicy morsels dropped by the students. Everyone is likely to be munching down snacks, sold by the rows of night venders.  The venders are usually those in the neighborhood hoping to cash in on the crowds by offering up homemade snacks.  For 25 to 50 cents, customers can fill up on  rice noodles sprinkled with condiments,  salty “five spices” hard-boiled eggs,  the infamous Sichuan sao kao (grilled kabobs of beef and vegetables covered in spicy red pepper granules), or sticky, glutinous rice balls rolled in sesame seeds and ground peanuts. 

            The dou gao sellers are the most interesting and easiest to spot.  On a pole, they shoulder two tall wooden buckets and negotiate the crowds.  From time to time, they stop to sell one of Sichuan’s infamous comfort foods, dou gao.  From one bucket, they scoop into a small plastic bowl the dou gao, a soft, soupy tofu.  From the other bucket, they offer up an array of  condiments.  Soy sauce, sesame seeds, crushed peanuts, chopped

spring onion and ground red peppers are always the favorites.  I’ve noticed an expert dou gao seller knows just how much of each to place atop the tofu he’s selling.   He or she always gets the best business.

            With the winter upon us and temperatures dropping to an unusually cold thirties for this area, the venders have changed from summer to cold weather foods.  There’s nothing like buying a small bag of fresh chestnuts, roasted and tossed in hot coals, to warm your soul.  I always feel I’ve walked straight into a Dicken’s novel whenever I purchase my 4 yuan (50 cents) worth of chestnuts from a roadside seller.  On the more Asian side of winter street fare are grilled octopus tentacles and mini-squids, fried egg cups with dried meat shavings, oily glutinous rice balls sautéed in a sugary glaze, and crispy fried chicken heads (or feet) skewered on sharp wooden sticks.       

          Some students tell me after an evening of glorious gorging on such streetside delicacies (not all too sanitary, I might add), their stomachs are in pretty bad shape.  Food poisoning is not uncommon.  Although warnings against eating such foods are posted on campus notice boards, roadside buildings and even in the newspapers, the temptation is just too great to pass up when confronted with hometown favorites.  

            Every so often, police conduct raids on these popular city weekend hang-outs.  Venders without licenses are always on the look-out.  When the police arrive, the illegal entrepreneurs scatter in a chaotic dash, grabbing up their goods or speedily wheeling away their carts before the authorities can nab them.  Yet it’s only a temporary closing-up-of-shop.  The non-licensed sellers will be back again the next day, as will the students.

             Others who benefit from Sichuan University’s west gate street markets are those in transportation services.  Coming to and from the college is quite cheap.  For 20 cents to 40 cents, city buses are still the main mode of transportation for students wanting to make an uptown run to the department stores.  For a starting rate of 75 cents, taxis can get people across town for a few dollars, although the traffic is fairly heavy Friday to Sunday evenings.  The best bet is to take one of the many pedicabs that are always in abundance.  In my area, both men and women pedalists line up to invite customers into their covered, cushion-seated  rickshaws.  With seating for two (three with a child), the pedicab drivers will cycle patrons wherever they desire.  Bargaining for this kind of transportation is required.  Before taking one, it’s best to consult a local who knows the true cost of where you’re going. 

            Now that our Spring semester has begun, the young people are out spending their money as always.  My neighborhood streets are filled with our familiar venders, sellers, and pedicab drivers from last semester. So far, from the business transactions I’m seeing every evening, this is going to be a very prosperous 2008 for those on the sidewalks of Chengdu. Of course, the sellers aren’t the only ones with all the luck.  Little Flower and I benefit as well.  For me, it’s back to great bargain shopping now that school has started.  For the dog, it’s back to tasty street nibbles. 

            Yes, I think I can honestly say for those who choose to patron our neighborhood streets in China, you certainly won’t be bored.       

SPRING ARRIVES

Our current spring weather is proving to be quite the luxury after the unusually frigid cold of winter.  Although our skies are still overcast  a majority of the time, we are now experiencing  refreshing warmer temperatures and damp earthy smells of April, accompanied by the scents and sights of the many flowering trees throughout our apartment complex.   

The Sichuan University campus is especially lovely now as all the ornamental trees display their pink, white, red and purple splendors for the public.  It’s not unusual to see many students, faculty and outside visitors strolling about the grounds, soaking in the beauty of spring while outside this huge enclosure races the heavy, polluting traffic of  Chengdu’s concrete city.  Chinese cities are not beautiful and while Chengdu is better than most, it’s still not exactly what you would consider pretty.

Little Flower and I can often be seen walking around the  campus on our usual routes.  The 3-wheeled pedicab drivers on the school grounds know us now. They wait by our West Gate entrance for students or teachers to pay for a 2-4 yuan (25-50 cent) ride to destinations across school. We wave to one another as I walk by.   I never take pedicabs as I like to walk my 20-minutes to class every morning but it’s nice to know they are there in case I’m too late to make it to class on time without their help.  I once asked one of them how much he made a month. His reply  surprised me:  2,000 – 3,000 yuan (about $250- 375 US) is quite a lot in China.  Taxi drivers make just as much but they must pay for gas and vehicle rental, plus damages to the taxi if something happens.  For pedicab drivers, everything goes in pocket since everyone owns their own pedicab.  I’m sure there’s a license fee for university access but surely it can’t be much.   

 Although there are wide roads and small streets that snake throughout the campus, the car traffic is light as only faculty with vehicles are allowed to drive through the gates.  True, more and more people in China can afford private cars but the number is much less than in the States.  Because of this, I often allow Little Flower off leash to trot along beside me as we make our way through tangled, overgrown sitting gardens or little side paths that weave between both new classroom buildings and the still old, decrepit faculty and student housing.   (Like many school employees in China, teachers with families live on campus in old concrete apartment buildings.  Rental is cheap with an option to buy, which some do and then rent out to students while they live in fancy apartments off campus.) 

For walks, LF and I head to the  stadium area as it’s  the place to be for people watching.  On the weekends,  the wide fields surrounding the enclosed track-and-field are filled with kite-flyers, tea café patrons seated at outdoor tables and family picnickers.  Children race about among their parents or grandparents and student couples, seated on the grass, cuddle in one another’s arms.  Years ago, such open displays of affection would never have been allowed by university officials but in the China of today, it’s not unusual to see such sights.  The more “embarrassing” public kissing is still somewhat of a rare occurrence but a gentle, innocent hugging and nuzzling is becoming quite the thing among boyfriend-girlfriend pairs.  Bolder displays of love cause stares and might even draw to their side elderly grannies, or even security guards, snapping reprimands and shaming them into behaving themselves. 

Little Flower is always drawn to young people closely seated together because they are usually munching on something or feeding one another snacks.  Several times on campus walks, I look for her around my feet only to find she has dashed off across the grass to position herself in front of some couple, chewing on something that LF thinks she needs.  Her eagerness for food is all too apparent as her little body fidgets, the tail wags, ears push forward and her bright eyes look longingly as potato chips, cookies,  and sandwiches go from hand to mouth.   And if the increased fidgeting doesn’t bring about a goodie, she’ll give several pathetic whines along with an insistent bark to draw attention.  The last resort is to stand upright on her hind legs, bringing her eye to eye with her seated companions.  That adorable trick no one can resist and has gotten her anything from  Chinese favorite picnic foods, such as puckery, pickled chicken feet  and hard-boiled quail eggs, to more modern eats such as sweet bread buns and cookies.  One thing’s for certain:  After a campus tour, LF always comes home a bit fatter than when we left.

           This blog from China has been created to tell the daily news of myself, Connie, and my dog Xiao Hua (she-ow hwah) or Little Flower.  I have worked in mainland China as an English language teacher for 9 years, most recently at Luzhou Vocational and Technical College,  located along the Yangtze River in Luzhou city, Sichuan Province.  My work as a language teacher here is through a Chinese NGO, the Amity Foundation, which is solely Chinese and works out of Nanjing (www.amityfoundation.org). 

         This year, however, I have moved to the capital city of Sichuan (Chengdu) where I am a full-time Chinese language student at Sichuan University.  Because I have never formally studied the Chinese language, I felt it was time to hone my pitifully poor skills with a bit more seriousness.   The past semester has proven quite useful in helping my reading and writing ability, as well as giving me some control over Chinese grammar and syntax. 

          Now, my one-month Chinese New Year holiday has begun.  While so many of my overseas classmates are traveling about the country, I have opted to stay put in Chengdu and enjoy the surroundings of community and city life with my Chinese neighbors and friends.  I have never lived in a Chinese community of this sort so this is proving to be a new adventure for me.

          When searching for an apartment in Chengdu, I happened upon one of the many apartment complexes near the university which fit me perfectly.  Very much like any other old building complex, this one contains 10 separate concrete buildings composed of 8 floors each.  It is surrounded by walls which cut us off from the bustling sounds and high traffic noise of the main city roads that surround us.  To create a pleasant atmosphere within, we have many grassy areas with flowering trees, bushes, and a variety of well-tended plants.  There’s even a little sitting park with concrete benches.  Many of the elderly gather there on sunny days, as do the many pet owners who live here.

         Wide walkways around the area allow for strolls and even haphazard parking for those who have cars, and there are a lot of them.  On weekends, the walkways are crammed with cars squeezed in tightly.  There’s a small fee for car parking, collected by our young gate guards who hold a 24-hour vigil over who enters and exits the 2 small gates leading into our compound. 

        Located in one dark corner of our complex is the bicycle parking area.  For a fee of 12 yuan  a month ($1.50), residents can lock and park their bicycles or motorbikes under a long, plastic canopy.  These are watched 24 hours a day by an elderly man and his wife who live in a closet-sized shack there with the bikes.  Inside, there is a single bed piled with bedding, a TV set, a small burner to cook food, and a shelf for their cooking utensils.  Wires dangle about everywhere for plugging in appliances they use.  Our strangely cold weather has also caused them to buy a tiny electric coil heater which gives off enough heat to warm their legs.  Mostly, they take turns curling up in the tiny bed to keep warm while the other sits in a chair, rocking back and forth for warmth.  

          I mostly chose the compound because the apartment available was newly redone and on the ground floor.  Most apartment complexes don’t have elevators unless the building is over 8 stories.  I personally didn’t care climbing up and down stairs too high, especially with a little dog who loves to go for walks several times a day. Also, the many other furnished apartments I had seen were disgustingly filthy, containing old molded furniture and smelly bed mattresses left behind in the scramble to move into a new home.  Especially nasty were the kitchens, where former residents had left it caked in grease and grime with rotting things glued to the inside refrigerator.

        Chinese are very good about taking care of their own privately owned places but those who rent have a different idea of home living.  Since the apartment doesn’t belong to them personally, why bother putting any work or upkeep into it?  This concept is one I find quite prevalent in the mentality of the average Chinese.

         Aside from the lovely, clean and newly refurbished apartment and the ground floor level, this complex also offers easy shopping along the side streets and back alleyways just outside of our gates.  There are a number of fresh meat and vegetable shops as well as hair salons, convenient stores, family run restaurants, banks, trendy trinket stores and even a McDonalds, KFC and a major Chinese chain grocery store (the Hao You Dou) all within a few blocks of where I now live. 

         Evenings are especially fun as sellers come out in carts to sell local specialty items to the university crowds or just to those strolling along the sidewalks. Spicy, hot-peppered meat and vegetable kabobs, grilled squid or octopus, egg custard cups, gooey glutinous rice balls rolled in crushed peanuts, freshly roasted chestnuts warm from the coals . . . . These are the favorites of those in Sichuan.  And since Chinese cities never sleep, our nearby streets are never empty with those out late, buying from food venders or sidewalk sellers whose jewelry, cheap clothes, kitchen ware and other nick-knacks line the sidewalks. 

        I hope this introduction to the area is the beginning of a great blog which will be read by those interested in China, the Chinese culture and the life of a foreigner in the country.

         Until next time, as we say in Chinese,  “Zai jian!” (z-igh gee-uhn)  Bye!