Sunday, September 28, 2003
OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD - QINGCHUN LU
Click here to view photos of Ken & Judy's neighbourhood.
Altho only a few blocks from the centre of Huairou, our street is relatively quiet and very residential -- apartment buildings around grassed or paved courtyards in gated and fenced compounds. Not much noise, given the population density. So far, only one crying baby and a couple of games of ball with kids yelling. By 10:00 pm everything is very, very quiet. The street traffic is occasional - private cars, bikes and pedestrians with supply trucks every so often.
The day starts pretty early here in the hood. The noodle shop and the steamed bun shop, both directly across the street, are in operation by 5:00 am, Their major business seems to be people on their way to work, which means they must have their goodies ready by 6:00. We hear woks being scoured, people discussing the morning, and the supply truck idling (forever!) as we awake. Already the tenants above us have had their showers and other residents have clacked their way down the stairs. It's amazing how much of a stocatto a pair of high heels can make on
cement stairs in an enclosed 6 storey stairwell --remember, no elevator! (Chinese women are extremely fashionable and wear high heeled shoes always.) And the garbage truck swings by shortly after 6:30, ensuring that everyone is wide awake! The garbage truck sound is the same here as anywhere else - a whining, grinding and insistent motor, then a satisfying thump, as if it's had enough. As well, there are, on occasion, a sound truck with attendant martial music; another time a truck lugging a crude plywood notice board with something written in large yellow characters with drummer on the back. Farmers hawking fruit from their bicycles complete the picture.
The barber/hair dresser doesn't begin until 7:00, with a round of morning shaves and cuts and trims. When we come home for lunch, the fence on the street side of our apartment is festooned with towels and capes, the laundry from the barber's shop (identified by its swirling barber pole, which in China is blue and white). A cut is 5Y and shampoo, cut and blow dry is 10Y. Ken and I are both looking pretty ragged around the ears and will soon visit here, no doubt!
Also across the street we have a pharmacy, which sells both Western and Chinese medicines. It's a very tidy place with everything displayed under glass counters and on shelves. The Chinese medicine is kept in a wall-length bank of drawers, each labelled in beautiful Chinese characters with the contents. These, as I'm sure you know, are weighed and combined into formulas to make a preparation for whatever ails you.
We also have two bottled water shops, almost side by side -- there's a great demand for this commodity. The two shops handle the large blue jugs which we know from Zehrs or Canadian Tire. When we moved in, Keyan's husband Xian Kui kindly delivered the water cooler/heater from their apartment for our use here. Keyan assured us that they didn't use it at home. We are being very careful about water, and are glad to have it. We made a deal with one of the water shops to deliver jugs on request -- 20 jugs for 100Y. The guy came with 2 jugs, thoroughly cleaned the dispenser and installed the first jug. All with great efficiency and good humour.
On the corner we have a Mom and Pop variety store cum vegetable and fruit stall cum pool hall. The inside of the store is a jumble of items - milk, spices, toilet paper (a ubiquitous commodity, more later) and candy. The fruits and veggies are outside in neat piles for the day's sales. At nap time (roughly 12:30 -2:00 pm) and at night, the produce is covered by blankets and quilts. Fruits and veggies are very cheap. You pick out what you want and take it to be weighed, where the clerk tots up the cost as he weighs each item in. Yesterday, on the way home from school, I bought 3 tomatoes, 3 cucumbers, 2 garlics and a bunch of green onions for 2.80Y. Eggs are purchased by the kilo - Ken bought a kilo for 3.20Y. [Note: we were in the bank this week and saw that the RMB is trading at 6.12 to the Cdn$, so things are actually less than we've been quoting.]
And the pool hall, you ask? A single pool table stands in splendour on the paving stones in front of the store and the fruits and veggies. When not in use or when it's raining, the table is carefully wrapped in plastic. When in use, there are usually several young men playing very seriously, with onlookers galore. The owner sits in a plastic webbed aluminum chaise longue keeping an eye on the action, and collecting the fee he charges for the use of the table. After dark, the players continue under a rather tipsy jerry-rigged light on a narrow pole. Often they're still at it when we go to bed -- we can hear the knock of the balls from play.
Badminton is also a very popular street game around here. No net, just two people, two rackets and a bird. The hair place isn't very busy in the evening, altho it's open until 10:00 pm. The girls get out the rackets and have a spirited game in the street, dodging passing bikes, taxis and cars. And on his way to school early this morning (Friday), Ken saw the entire staff of the department store, all 150 of them, dressed in their blue vests and ties, watching two of their colleagues playing a competition level game of badminton in the front parking lot before the store opened (8:00 am)
Around the corner there are more shops: a store selling exotic aquarium fish, two beauty salons (specializing in whitening faces, a very popular treatment for Chinese women), a community health clinic and a small bank (guarded by a young man in khaki uniform with shoulder flashes and a military hat, carrying a truncheon. Their pants never fit. These guards would be intimidating if they weren't so thin and young -barely out of their teens! Banks, the post office, department stores and even restaurants have such guards in abundance).
Then there are two more fruit/veg stands, one where the clerk speaks a few words of English, including English numbers for prices -- he gets my business because he's so friendly and he wants to use his English -- also makes life a bit easier for me! There's also a shop selling roasted meats - chicken, duck, pork - the way the Chinese get around not having ovens in their homes. Across the street are two very trendy clothing stores: a men's wear store called Englend (obviously a take on England to suggest Western quality) and a sportswear shop with enough spandex and goretex to cover many an Olympic team, and sports shoes for every occasion. There's also a dry cleaner/laundry which Ken especially noted since he's had much trouble keeping the sauces from noodle dishes from decorating his shirt fronts.
And interspersed among these established places, there are men and women with bikes selling fresh dates, potatoes, grapes, apples and Asian pears from the platforms attached to the rear fenders. Ken held up 5 fingers for potatoes the other day and came away with 5 kilos rather than 5 potatoes! Half of them went home with Keyan. Further down the street there is a fleet of "stretch" bikes -- they have extra long chains on the crank which extend to the rear axel, as well as two rear wheels, which support a big platform used to carry large pieces of furniture from the giant furniture store nearby. These bikes are lined up every morning in anticipation of business delivering purchases. They take incredible loads. The cyclists stand up and push straight down to get going. It must be noted that the giant furniture store actually describes the furniture within -- giant couches and giant matching chairs. We find this very ironic because the Chinese live in very small apartments! The scale is somehow out of whack.
Then there's a very small stall where a woman runs an ancient hand-cranked sewing machine. She repairs shoes, and any other leather items which require restitching. Next to her is a man who duplicates keys while you wait.
At the intersection is a good dumpling restaurant where we've eaten many times. And a lovely park with a pagoda, flower plantings, programmed fountain and enormous green and yellow plastic cacti. (We're mystified by these, but are looking forward to seeing them covered with snow in December. Cactus are not native to this area -- maybe there's a joke here that we don't get?)
With China's National Day approaching on October 1st, there has been great activity at the main intersection in the downtown. Since Monday, truckloads of potted plants have been brought in and many gardeners/farmers have been placing them in decorative patterns at the intersection and along the curbs of the streets. Everything is in red and yellow, the national colours (think flag). Large circular arrangements begin with red canna lilies or yellow dahlias, surrounded by yellow mums and marigolds, or red coxcombs, then red salvia and finished off with red coleus. All in pots. All very colourful. Outside the school, there are semicircles of plants up against the railings, down the entire block to our (former) hotel. This is a very impressive street with a boulevard, leading to the Dragon Hill and reservoir beyond. A must-see for tourists, many of whom are expected here for the week-long holiday which begins next Wednesday. And not to be outdone, the school gardeners have created many arrangements both at the school gate and on the school grounds from the plants they've been nursing along in the greenhouse, obviously just for this celebration.
As well as shopping for fresh produce at the many stalls mentioned already, we do a great deal of shopping at area department stores. There are 3 very close to us. The one in our neighbourhood is about half a block away. We walk there through the courtyards of two apartments, where games of cards and mahjong are always underway outside, and small children play in piles of dirt (which may/not correspond to sand boxes). At the end of the courtyard we climb a flight of stairs to the back entrance, passing a collection of caged birds which seem to be the hobby of a very elderly gentleman who is happy to talk to us about his pets. This department store is 4 storeys and very large - floor space of Cdn Tire times 4. Main floor is food, (including wine) separate tea department, cigarettes and Western liquor. Second floor is stationery, batteries, tapes and CDs, handbags, lingerie and hardware. Next floor is women's clothing, sheets & towels & blankets. The textiles selection and tailor are also here. The tailor will take your choice of fabric and pattern, and make whatever you want - jacket, dress, suit. I could have a Chinese style jacket made from silk brocade for 100Y. Next floor is men's and women's more formal wear.
The store feels like McKay's c1970, without the cash monorail. There are clerks everywhere! We dare not show interest in anything we don't particularly want to buy, because at least 4 clerks will descend upon us, offering help. There are a few areas where you can serve yourself and go through a check out station, but in general you must take a sales slip to a cashier, pay for the item and then come back and pick it up from the waiting clerk. Ken has bought a couple of pairs of pants, which are immediately taken to a room full of people with treadle sewing machines, where the pants are hemmed to his length. (8Y). There is an unwritten regulation about taking bags into different areas of the store. We can't figure out how it works, but if we've bought something upstairs we can't take it into the food area. There's a guard who enforces this very conscientiously (see guard's dress above). In some stores, there are lockers where you can store your previous purchases, or counters where you exchange your package for a number. Neither of these systems seems to work here! One of the many mysteries of living here without being able to read the language. An active imagination is a help but no guarantee of accuracy! We mime a lot! "Wo mai jeige", (I'll buy that) is our well practiced Chinese phrase.
And finally a word about toilet paper. We know now that one should always have toilet paper available as needed. In my office at school, three of the women teachers have large packages of toilet paper stored beside their desks. I mean the equivalent of Zehr's 24 pack jumbo special. Toilet paper is not supplied in most public places: schools, restaurants and so on. People are always asking me if I need toilet paper, and rushing to supply me with the required amount. We often see both men and women carrying large packages of the stuff home from the store -- presumably they would supply toilet paper to their home visitors! Ken, whose toilet paper needs are different from mine, feels that this is a good example of the frugality which is part of China's character. When I think of the plugged toilets in Tim Horton's and the mess of toilet paper on many a cubicle floor, I must agree that this is one solution. However, I find a packet of Kleenex in my purse is a very comforting thing!
Click here to view photos of Ken & Judy's neighbourhood.
Altho only a few blocks from the centre of Huairou, our street is relatively quiet and very residential -- apartment buildings around grassed or paved courtyards in gated and fenced compounds. Not much noise, given the population density. So far, only one crying baby and a couple of games of ball with kids yelling. By 10:00 pm everything is very, very quiet. The street traffic is occasional - private cars, bikes and pedestrians with supply trucks every so often.
The day starts pretty early here in the hood. The noodle shop and the steamed bun shop, both directly across the street, are in operation by 5:00 am, Their major business seems to be people on their way to work, which means they must have their goodies ready by 6:00. We hear woks being scoured, people discussing the morning, and the supply truck idling (forever!) as we awake. Already the tenants above us have had their showers and other residents have clacked their way down the stairs. It's amazing how much of a stocatto a pair of high heels can make on
cement stairs in an enclosed 6 storey stairwell --remember, no elevator! (Chinese women are extremely fashionable and wear high heeled shoes always.) And the garbage truck swings by shortly after 6:30, ensuring that everyone is wide awake! The garbage truck sound is the same here as anywhere else - a whining, grinding and insistent motor, then a satisfying thump, as if it's had enough. As well, there are, on occasion, a sound truck with attendant martial music; another time a truck lugging a crude plywood notice board with something written in large yellow characters with drummer on the back. Farmers hawking fruit from their bicycles complete the picture.
The barber/hair dresser doesn't begin until 7:00, with a round of morning shaves and cuts and trims. When we come home for lunch, the fence on the street side of our apartment is festooned with towels and capes, the laundry from the barber's shop (identified by its swirling barber pole, which in China is blue and white). A cut is 5Y and shampoo, cut and blow dry is 10Y. Ken and I are both looking pretty ragged around the ears and will soon visit here, no doubt!
Also across the street we have a pharmacy, which sells both Western and Chinese medicines. It's a very tidy place with everything displayed under glass counters and on shelves. The Chinese medicine is kept in a wall-length bank of drawers, each labelled in beautiful Chinese characters with the contents. These, as I'm sure you know, are weighed and combined into formulas to make a preparation for whatever ails you.
We also have two bottled water shops, almost side by side -- there's a great demand for this commodity. The two shops handle the large blue jugs which we know from Zehrs or Canadian Tire. When we moved in, Keyan's husband Xian Kui kindly delivered the water cooler/heater from their apartment for our use here. Keyan assured us that they didn't use it at home. We are being very careful about water, and are glad to have it. We made a deal with one of the water shops to deliver jugs on request -- 20 jugs for 100Y. The guy came with 2 jugs, thoroughly cleaned the dispenser and installed the first jug. All with great efficiency and good humour.
On the corner we have a Mom and Pop variety store cum vegetable and fruit stall cum pool hall. The inside of the store is a jumble of items - milk, spices, toilet paper (a ubiquitous commodity, more later) and candy. The fruits and veggies are outside in neat piles for the day's sales. At nap time (roughly 12:30 -2:00 pm) and at night, the produce is covered by blankets and quilts. Fruits and veggies are very cheap. You pick out what you want and take it to be weighed, where the clerk tots up the cost as he weighs each item in. Yesterday, on the way home from school, I bought 3 tomatoes, 3 cucumbers, 2 garlics and a bunch of green onions for 2.80Y. Eggs are purchased by the kilo - Ken bought a kilo for 3.20Y. [Note: we were in the bank this week and saw that the RMB is trading at 6.12 to the Cdn$, so things are actually less than we've been quoting.]
And the pool hall, you ask? A single pool table stands in splendour on the paving stones in front of the store and the fruits and veggies. When not in use or when it's raining, the table is carefully wrapped in plastic. When in use, there are usually several young men playing very seriously, with onlookers galore. The owner sits in a plastic webbed aluminum chaise longue keeping an eye on the action, and collecting the fee he charges for the use of the table. After dark, the players continue under a rather tipsy jerry-rigged light on a narrow pole. Often they're still at it when we go to bed -- we can hear the knock of the balls from play.
Badminton is also a very popular street game around here. No net, just two people, two rackets and a bird. The hair place isn't very busy in the evening, altho it's open until 10:00 pm. The girls get out the rackets and have a spirited game in the street, dodging passing bikes, taxis and cars. And on his way to school early this morning (Friday), Ken saw the entire staff of the department store, all 150 of them, dressed in their blue vests and ties, watching two of their colleagues playing a competition level game of badminton in the front parking lot before the store opened (8:00 am)
Around the corner there are more shops: a store selling exotic aquarium fish, two beauty salons (specializing in whitening faces, a very popular treatment for Chinese women), a community health clinic and a small bank (guarded by a young man in khaki uniform with shoulder flashes and a military hat, carrying a truncheon. Their pants never fit. These guards would be intimidating if they weren't so thin and young -barely out of their teens! Banks, the post office, department stores and even restaurants have such guards in abundance).
Then there are two more fruit/veg stands, one where the clerk speaks a few words of English, including English numbers for prices -- he gets my business because he's so friendly and he wants to use his English -- also makes life a bit easier for me! There's also a shop selling roasted meats - chicken, duck, pork - the way the Chinese get around not having ovens in their homes. Across the street are two very trendy clothing stores: a men's wear store called Englend (obviously a take on England to suggest Western quality) and a sportswear shop with enough spandex and goretex to cover many an Olympic team, and sports shoes for every occasion. There's also a dry cleaner/laundry which Ken especially noted since he's had much trouble keeping the sauces from noodle dishes from decorating his shirt fronts.
And interspersed among these established places, there are men and women with bikes selling fresh dates, potatoes, grapes, apples and Asian pears from the platforms attached to the rear fenders. Ken held up 5 fingers for potatoes the other day and came away with 5 kilos rather than 5 potatoes! Half of them went home with Keyan. Further down the street there is a fleet of "stretch" bikes -- they have extra long chains on the crank which extend to the rear axel, as well as two rear wheels, which support a big platform used to carry large pieces of furniture from the giant furniture store nearby. These bikes are lined up every morning in anticipation of business delivering purchases. They take incredible loads. The cyclists stand up and push straight down to get going. It must be noted that the giant furniture store actually describes the furniture within -- giant couches and giant matching chairs. We find this very ironic because the Chinese live in very small apartments! The scale is somehow out of whack.
Then there's a very small stall where a woman runs an ancient hand-cranked sewing machine. She repairs shoes, and any other leather items which require restitching. Next to her is a man who duplicates keys while you wait.
At the intersection is a good dumpling restaurant where we've eaten many times. And a lovely park with a pagoda, flower plantings, programmed fountain and enormous green and yellow plastic cacti. (We're mystified by these, but are looking forward to seeing them covered with snow in December. Cactus are not native to this area -- maybe there's a joke here that we don't get?)
With China's National Day approaching on October 1st, there has been great activity at the main intersection in the downtown. Since Monday, truckloads of potted plants have been brought in and many gardeners/farmers have been placing them in decorative patterns at the intersection and along the curbs of the streets. Everything is in red and yellow, the national colours (think flag). Large circular arrangements begin with red canna lilies or yellow dahlias, surrounded by yellow mums and marigolds, or red coxcombs, then red salvia and finished off with red coleus. All in pots. All very colourful. Outside the school, there are semicircles of plants up against the railings, down the entire block to our (former) hotel. This is a very impressive street with a boulevard, leading to the Dragon Hill and reservoir beyond. A must-see for tourists, many of whom are expected here for the week-long holiday which begins next Wednesday. And not to be outdone, the school gardeners have created many arrangements both at the school gate and on the school grounds from the plants they've been nursing along in the greenhouse, obviously just for this celebration.
As well as shopping for fresh produce at the many stalls mentioned already, we do a great deal of shopping at area department stores. There are 3 very close to us. The one in our neighbourhood is about half a block away. We walk there through the courtyards of two apartments, where games of cards and mahjong are always underway outside, and small children play in piles of dirt (which may/not correspond to sand boxes). At the end of the courtyard we climb a flight of stairs to the back entrance, passing a collection of caged birds which seem to be the hobby of a very elderly gentleman who is happy to talk to us about his pets. This department store is 4 storeys and very large - floor space of Cdn Tire times 4. Main floor is food, (including wine) separate tea department, cigarettes and Western liquor. Second floor is stationery, batteries, tapes and CDs, handbags, lingerie and hardware. Next floor is women's clothing, sheets & towels & blankets. The textiles selection and tailor are also here. The tailor will take your choice of fabric and pattern, and make whatever you want - jacket, dress, suit. I could have a Chinese style jacket made from silk brocade for 100Y. Next floor is men's and women's more formal wear.
The store feels like McKay's c1970, without the cash monorail. There are clerks everywhere! We dare not show interest in anything we don't particularly want to buy, because at least 4 clerks will descend upon us, offering help. There are a few areas where you can serve yourself and go through a check out station, but in general you must take a sales slip to a cashier, pay for the item and then come back and pick it up from the waiting clerk. Ken has bought a couple of pairs of pants, which are immediately taken to a room full of people with treadle sewing machines, where the pants are hemmed to his length. (8Y). There is an unwritten regulation about taking bags into different areas of the store. We can't figure out how it works, but if we've bought something upstairs we can't take it into the food area. There's a guard who enforces this very conscientiously (see guard's dress above). In some stores, there are lockers where you can store your previous purchases, or counters where you exchange your package for a number. Neither of these systems seems to work here! One of the many mysteries of living here without being able to read the language. An active imagination is a help but no guarantee of accuracy! We mime a lot! "Wo mai jeige", (I'll buy that) is our well practiced Chinese phrase.
And finally a word about toilet paper. We know now that one should always have toilet paper available as needed. In my office at school, three of the women teachers have large packages of toilet paper stored beside their desks. I mean the equivalent of Zehr's 24 pack jumbo special. Toilet paper is not supplied in most public places: schools, restaurants and so on. People are always asking me if I need toilet paper, and rushing to supply me with the required amount. We often see both men and women carrying large packages of the stuff home from the store -- presumably they would supply toilet paper to their home visitors! Ken, whose toilet paper needs are different from mine, feels that this is a good example of the frugality which is part of China's character. When I think of the plugged toilets in Tim Horton's and the mess of toilet paper on many a cubicle floor, I must agree that this is one solution. However, I find a packet of Kleenex in my purse is a very comforting thing!
All text and photography © copyright Harkaway, 2003 - 2004
