Life Considerations

The last few days were a little bit stressful. I finally made time to visit the Overseas Student Office (OSO) on campus, where I learned more about the process of applying for classes next semester (from Dawn, who I spoke to on the phone back in the summer). The semester doesn't start until the beginning of March (I'd thought it started in February), and until then I will be without a student visa. Renting, furnishing, and various other associated expenses have taken their toll on my savings account, but with just a tourist visa I am officially not allowed to work. One option would be to apply for a full-time job, but I'm pretty reluctant to devote 40 hours a week to teaching right now. Another, more promising option is private tutoring, which isn't officially considered "work". Yesterday I made a flier that I'm going to start putting up around the neighborhood as soon as the Chinese section has completed the obligatory revision stage.

Another thing I finally accomplished yesterday was buying a bike! I took the bus down to an area that was supposed to have many bike shops, allowing the shrewd consumer to play the different shops against each other in order to arrive at the lowest possible price (from various sources I deduced that this is somewhere between 150 and 200 RMB). If I learned one thing from this trip, it is that I am not the shrewd consumer. After getting off the bus, it took me a full hour to find the road with the bike shops. At that point I was too hungry to contemplate buying anything, but luckily there was a friendly-looking noodle shop only a few doors down. At the front of the shop, a slim man in a white, circular cap stood at a counter, kneading two long pieces of dough. I sat down and had the usual exchange ("Do you have vegetarian food?" "Yes." "I don't eat meat, and I also don't eat chicken meat." "This dish doesn't have chicken meat." "OK.""). While I waited, I watched the man as he picked up one of the pieces of dough, and stretched it to the length of his arm span. Then he brought the two ends back together in a twirling motion that made the two lengths spin around each other. Finally he kneaded this twisted dough back into a cylinder. After repeating this several times, he picked up the dough yet again, but this time--using his fingers so quickly that I couldn't see exactly what he was doing--he sliced the dough lengthwise into two parallel strips before bringing the two ends together again (and this time not twisting the strands as he did so). He did this again and again, and each time the number of strands multiplied and became thinner, until, almost magically, he held a handful of noodles. He stopped different batches at different widths, but some of them were almost as thin as spaghetti. Whenever a batch was finished, he would hand it to his assistant (who may have been his son) who would drop them into a vat of hot water. A few minutes later, the noodles would be taken out and delivered to the kitchen, where I could see a woman in a head-scarf (who may have been the man's wife), handling several frying pans.

The noodles were hearty and filling. I think I almost would have preferred them without the overly salty vegetables, which consisted of bell peppers and some kind of white, shredded vegetable that might have been lotus root (ôu). From the man's hat and the woman's headscarf, I guessed these people were Huí--a mostly muslim ethnic group from northwest China--and the man confirmed my guess. It was nice to finally eat at a non-vegetarian place where I could be sure the food wasn't surreptitiously cooked with pork oil.

I visited about five bike shops, but the cheapest bike I could find was still 300 RMB, and the man selling it assured me it would break within a year. Even if I'm not planning on staying more than a year, this didn't exactly make me jump to buy it. Given that it was such a piece of junk, could he make it any lower? I asked. But he wouldn't budge. In fact, I wasn't successful in talking anyone down from their original prices. Seeing that I wasn't going to win in the battle over price, I decided to reconsolidate my forces on the quality front. I bought a bike from a Giant outlet (Giant seems to be the top brand for bikes in Chengdu) for 368 RMB. The bike came with a lock, a basket, and a guarantee to refill either tire and tighten any screws that came loose.

One reason I was so eager to get a bicycle is that the other modes of transportation in Chengdu are dismal. Buses--the only other remotely viable option--are crowded, bumpy, and slow. Worst of all, the schedules are written only in Chinese. Traffic is also terrible. Traffic laws are only loosely followed, if at all; more than once I have seen people driving the wrong way on one-way arterials. The prevailing strategy on the road seems to be something like "drive as fast as you can unless there is actually an object in your path." The result is that every intersection is like a game of chicken played en masse: Cars will speed toward each other from perpendicular directions, until the driver on one side finally loses his nerve and lets the other go by first. Meanwhile, exactly the same thing is happening in the bike lane (at least there are bike lanes!).

But biking has its own problems. Chengdu is notorious for bike theft; today I met someone who said they had their bike stolen seven times during their four years as a student. From other conversations, this doesn't seem like an uncommon figure. Consequently, most people here buy (some prefer to say "rent") used bikes instead of new ones--implicitly acknowledging that by doing so they may be supporting the same people who stole their previous bike(s). The bicycle thieves here (another DVD I bought in Hong Kong was The Bicycle Thief) get the average bicyclist coming and going. As a result, most large stores have bicycle lots where you can pay a few cents to have someone watch your bike for you. Today I also learned that there's a similar setup in the community where my apartment is. For 75 cents a month I can store my bike in a tent where it will ostensibly be safe. People have also stressed to me that leaving my bike on campus is almost a sure way of having it disappear. Yet another reason to be glad I live only a few blocks away.

Another thing I learned from Dawn at the OSO is all of the paperwork that I still have to complete before I can enroll as a student here. This included taking my health examination form to the local hospital and registering it with the Sichuan Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau. I biked there this morning, leaving my bike next to the guard house (making sure to nod to the guard). Among other things, the Chinese health exam form that I brought to my doctor last June called for blood tests for HIV and syphilis, an EKG, and a chest X-ray. She gave me the blood tests, but my doctor let me know that, given my age and health, there was no good reason to take the other two tests. When I showed my form to the nurse in the hospital lobby, she curtly informed me that the form was invalid, because it didn't have my picture on the front with my doctor's official seal (the seal was located on the last page instead, next to her signature). I would have to retake the physical here.
"Can you at least waive the EKG and X-ray?" I asked, explaining that my doctor thought they were unnecessary.
"For foreigners in China, these tests are necessary."
"I see..."
"Have you had breakfast yet?"
"What? Uh...no."
She suggested that I could take the physical now, if I could come back with two passport photos before they closed at 11:30. It was 11:15. I told her I would try another time. I biked away, dejected. I'm still not sure why she asked me if I'd had breakfast.

Tonight I attended a creative writing workshop at the local expat bookstore. The small group of mostly English teachers meets weekly to discuss and critique each other's writing, rotating whose work is under discussion on any given week. This was the first time I have had the chance to talk to any experienced expatriates in Chengdu. Some of them have been living here for many years, and it was encouraging to hear them speak positively about the city, which I admit I had been starting to suspect was primarily a location for getting headaches. I haven't written anything yet (other than the blog, of course), but I plan to keep attending the workshop, which means that within the next few weeks--whenever my turn comes--I will have to write something!

For some pictures:











When I first arrived in Chengdu, Mimi's dad Bob picked me up from the train station. In addition to spending several entire days helping me to find an apartment, giving me a tour of the city, and giving me more advice than I had ever counted on receiving, he (Mimi's mom was out of town) let me stay at their house for the better part of a week while I recuperated from my cold. I don't know what I would have done otherwise. Thank you Bob! Above are pictures of the walkway in front of the house, a delicious meal that Bob cooked, and Bob himself, looking across the wreckage of an elaborate restaurant meal. And, for good measure, here is a picture of the pedestrian-only shopping street in Chengdu, crowded enough to rival the westernmost of doors: