Contemptible acts of generosity

Asia » China » Shandong » Qingdao
October 10th 2011

Published: October 11th 2011

Edit Blog Post

Laotou

Qingdao sunrise

Early morning on the foreshore

Photos:

…..I'm in a huge reception room at the Yangzhou guesthouse, really a collection of conference rooms, reception halls & restaurants. There is a low but very wide, flower bedecked stage along one wall, with a catwalk that extends through almost the length of the room, between tall pillars of artificial flowers. There are roughly 60 tables seating 10 people each, ready for the feast. Enough staff running around to populate an Australian country town. The lights are dimmed & the curtains retract. On a screen about 15 metres wide by 6 metres high a high definition video, possibly a music video, starts. A billowing red.....flag?.....cloth?....no. Panning back it's a pretty girl in a rather fetching red, silk dress. She runs along the foreshore. A young guy with a bunch of flowers runs to meet her, the scenes synchronising with the changes in the song, played at high volume. Then they're seen in a convoy of black Mercs, driving around the streets of Yangzhou, then on a boat in a lake. I recognise her! Not surprisingly, I just met her in the foyer, in her wedding dress, next to her groom. This, my friends, is a wedding in China.....

The train to Qingdao

Being hassled by railway staff to buy stuff we don't need

…..I've been asked along, on the recommendation of Jim, the manager at Gloria Jeans, to do a couple of (English) songs. They don't have a long enough cable for my guitar so I'll probably have to play into a microphone, usually problematic. Feedback. Yes, of course it happens. I do my best, after the high-def audio visuals I would have preferred better but the food wasn't bad. I meet a few people & the bride is really happy with the show, according to the SMS I get later.....

…..I open the gift pack I was given at the wedding. There is small teddy bear holding a heart shaped plastic box of chocolates, a small bag of chocolates, a pack of 20 Chunghua cigarettes (!) & a red envelope containing ¥100, not the ¥200 we had previously discussed. Paul tells me the cigarettes are a really expensive brand. ¥100 a pack of 20. I guess I'll call it quits.....

…..back to the beginning of the holiday week. The changing of seasons is marked by the weather's undecided shifts from clear & sunny to very cool & damp, with corresponding incidences of colds, sore throats & being caught out

Naval museum, Qingdao

Impressive reflection of the early morning sun

at night as the cold wind comes in from the west while you are still wearing the tee-shirt that was quite adequate when you left the house earlier in the evening.....

…..apart from a collection of black cars & SUVs around the new Canal Convention Centre last weekend & a possible lowering of the level of internet blocking, the visit that THEY made last week, those people from very high places, appears to be over. The street cleaning truck has not been heard on the west road near the school this weekend. Last week it was on constant patrol & I am convinced the road is noticeably lower having been eroded by the constant scrubbing & brushing.....

…..some of us missed the Grand Opening of the centre, apparently accompanied by a firework display of unrivalled magnificence, (in China, that's really something!), as we went to KTV karaoke with Sunshine & some friends. She'll be leaving for sunny Beihai next Wednesday, when Mike, George & I should be on a short visit to Qingdao, the seaside town with a rich German history. Today, (Saturday, 1st of October), is China's National Day so we get next week off. We have

Statue, Qingdao

Lyres. damn lyres and statistics...

to compensate by working next Saturday & Sunday.....

…..a good time to leave for a few days, they've just started burning off in the paddocks near the school &, by extension, over the rest of Eastern China. At least at Qingdao there's the chance of a sea breeze to clear the air.....

…..I meet Eric, an American teacher from a school in the town centre. For someone who has been in China for less than 18 months he seems to be amazingly fluent, (sickeningly so...Grrrrr...), is very amiable, tells me he's a musician, though a little out of practice. Welcome to the club. It's interesting that he should surface just as Sunshine prepares to leave. Watch this space.....

…..Sunshine's last supper, or dinner. Hotpot actually. The weather is just cool enough now, especially in the evening, to warrant hot, spicy food again & it's her choice. Chance & Jenna go by taxi, (they don't yet have bikes), Mike & I, expecting heavy traffic on the National Day, especially after seeing the gridlock at an intersection this afternoon, decide to take our bikes. In the end we all meet at the corner of Huaihai lu, or, as we

Qingdao city

From the Old Observatory

call it, Hotpot street. Sunshine is already there, Sunny & Lili arrive, also Kevin with a colleague.....

…..for the first time I don't feel I've had quite enough to eat. The starters are great. Then first pan is topped up with the hotpot soup into which the next delivered dishes can be added & quickly cooked. I prefer the individual hotpots. This time a whole mixture of things arrives at the table. I didn't think I was a fussy eater but I am hoping the unidentifiable meats, including something that looks like spam & something that even our Chinese friends are not quite sure about but could be some sort of pork innards, are added after I have eaten enough. Of course this doesn't happen & my appetite is quickly gone. As a social event though it's a nice way to send off a new friend, who will return as she is aiming to structure her job so that she can work on line & spend the winter in the tropical south, returning to Yangzhou in summer. Good luck, Sunshine. See you next summer.....

…..I buy three train tickets to Qingdao, leaving Monday morning. When Mike realises the

Beer street, Qingdao

George, Mike and Yao Yao stop for lunch, (and a beer)

low price, ¥113, is due to our having hard seat tickets he insists I try to change them for sleepers. “But it's a day trip”, (albeit a long one, 13 hours on the slow train). Paying an extra ¥200 EACH gets us a soft sleeper compartment, less than Au$50. It's eerily quiet for a Chinese train. When we eventually arrive & disembark, still refreshed from an afternoon nap, we see the chaotic melee as the seated passengers get off & Mike considers himself vindicated.....

…..Qingdao is part of an old German concession from the latter part of the 19th century. Some parts look like the suburbs of a European city & it's the beer capital of China. The Tsingtao brewery set up by the Germans bears the old spelling of the name Qingdao & has a beer museum. Mike contacts Yao Yao, with whom he chatted for a couple of hours when he was in the city more than a year ago. She is keen to meet foreign friends & practice her, very good, English & so acts as our guide for the day we're there. Sea air, beer available by the keg at every large & small eatery

Beer Museum, Qingdao

What a collection

in town, some pretty average beaches, rocky foreshores swarming with people fossicking in the pools, amazing shells on sale at small stalls on the beach, a guy in a black suit & tie, pot bellied older Chinese guys showing their prowess on gymnastic equipment & plates of shellfish in a spicy sauce, (& beer of course), at a rickety plastic table on the coarse, brown sands of the Qingdao No.1 bathing beach. I eat my first sea urchin, halved & filled with a sort of egg custard that's mixed with the edible part inside as you scoop it out. Oh, I almost forgot the “Drunken Room” at the beer museum which, with its sloping walls & floors, gives a convincing impression of being totally smashed before you've even touched a drop.....

….. some interesting buildings here, including very German churches, (Catholic & Christian; an odd Chinese distinction). There's also the Ying Binguan, a former German governor's residence, an impressive but ugly mansion in the style of a German palace & for which the governor was recalled by Kaiser Wilhelm 2nd, who sacked him after receiving the bill, nearly 2,500,000 taels of silver.....

…..by Wednesday we are heading south

Drunken room, Qingdao

Yao Yao and Mike in the drunken room at the beer museum

to meet some of George's old colleagues in the small town of Donghai, with a population of less than 1,500,000, & nothing much to recommend it except maybe its status as the Crystal centre of China. George's friends meet us & the fights begin almost immediately. They have to be held back at the reception desk of the hotel they have picked for us to prevent them from paying for our 2 nights accommodation. After discussing dinner out of their earshot we decide we'll offer to pay for dinner but, if they insist tonight at least we can treat them tomorrow.....

…..Ellie & Lily, with their friends, David & Tom, lay on a pretty amazing meal at a local restaurant. There are still some things I don't (knowingly) eat, so I can only give Mike's review of the cold dog, (so-so), & the pig's intestines, (his favourite & the best he's ever tasted). The Peking duck is great, & a searingly hot beef dish, fantastic, though too hot even for Mike, trained in the USA on Mexican chillis.....

…..after Wendy, another teacher, turns up the next day we walk past hundreds of street vendors to the Crystal centre,

Ying Bing Guan, Qingdao

Former German governor's residence

a massive two storey market full of jewellery, crystals, jade, wood carvings, etc. etc. etc. Overwhelming, as usual. They decide, maybe because Mike & George have a leaning toward junk food, to go to Dicos, a sort of Chinese KFC. I've never eaten KFC before but, with a big dinner coming up, decide I'll just have a chicken leg, one of the few offerings that actually looks like chicken. Then a truckload of stuff arrives, burgers, coke, French fries. Apart from picking at a few of the fries I manage to offload the rest, mainly to George who, as you'll see from the photos, is really enjoying himself.....

…..after an afternoon on small boats on the recently constructed lake, they take us to the restaurant they have chosen for US to treat THEM. Another fantastic meal before Lily sneaks off just as I'm trying to ask for the “maidan” or bill. In a typical Chinese display of duplicity & dishonesty she has ignored our insistence that we pay this time & has scuttled off to the counter downstairs to do the dirty business of paying behind our backs. Mike is really annoyed & I manage to break up a

The seaside, Qingdao

On a mild autumn day. Imagine the summer!

scuffle as he & Lily try to throw money across the counter. Naturally Lily, better versed in these contemptible & deceitful acts of generosity, lands her bundle of notes nearest the till & wins. Don't take on the Chinese at this game, you'll lose.....or should that be, win?.....

…..at the bus station there are no tickets to Yangzhou until 4.30pm on Friday! I manage to buy three tickets to Nanjing at 9.15am, four hours on the bus, change stations in Nanjing then another hour & a quarter to Yangzhou west bus station then 20 minutes listening to the horn on the taxi ride to the school. Home again.....

…..maybe Sunshine will be back sooner than I expected. She has a crush on Jack. I don't know him well & also don't know whether or not HE knows.....

Additional photos below

Photos: 22, Displayed: 22