I am woken up by the sunshine coming in through my skylight above my bed which is a major luxury. It was about 8:30 in the morning and normally my alarm makes me snap awake just after 5am. After brewing up a pot of coffee, I organize some breakfast and head to my computer. After hooking up my vpn, I hit the CBC website, connect my laptop to my TV and spend the rest of the morning filling my caffeine tank and watching the Oilers lose to the Phoenix Coyotes. It's Hockey Morning in China and the game is streaming at a pretty solid rate. No one else was available to join in on the viewing, but I had papers to mark so this wasn't a problem. I didn't really mark too many, but some is better than none.
After my lazy morning, I pack my shoes and clothes and head out to get some lunch and go to the gym. On my walk, my IPod attempts to block out the techno music pumping from every third shop I pass, along with the noise from the fireworks that blast in the distance. China is the home of fireworks and there's no shortage of indulgence... shop openings, weddings, birthdays, anniversaries. Who knows... they may even celebrate the resolution to domestic disputes with fireworks. They seem to ring and blast and crack at any and every moment of the day, every day of the week. It's rare that I notice them now after being here for more than 2 years (that or the continual honking of car horns), as my brain has learned to filter out these blasts fairly efficiently. I just have to hope that there are no airstrikes in DongBei while I'm living abroad... I definitely wouldn't wake up.
After lunch at one my regular stops at the local mall, Ajisen Ramen (a Japanese noodle place that I frequent too often), I head upstairs to the gym. The gym I go to is called WhyteWolf and is on the top floor of the AnSheng mall in my suburb of KaiFaQu. It's decked out like a trendy nightclub, with dim neon lighting, black walls lit up with colour-changing LCD lights, and has either bad Chinese love ballads or bad Chinese techno playing over the speakers. Luckily, the TVs by the cardio equipment mostly show sports so it's not a total loss. The gym has excellent equipment and a lot of machines and it's quite tidy. Still, though, the local beefcakes are often sans-shirts and there's no disinfectant spray for any of the equipment so there's a lingering worry about ringworm which enters my mind from time to time . As I put my headphones in my ears, I block out the thoughts and will deal with the issue if/when it ever arrives.
After hanging at the nightclub/gym, I head out to do some shopping at what's called the Stinky Market by our local expat staff. Why, you ask? Because it's stinky. It's full of meat, seafood, tofu and produce vendors, and the related cleaning and drippings of said vendors run into the shallow grates in the floor. However, the quality of produce and meat and tofu is pretty good and super cheap. And all the regular stops for our staff that don't have proper English names are called by slightly silly pseudonyms. Yesterday I met my friend SL and a few members of our volleyball team to get some cardigans made for our team. Where did we say to meet? Sweater Lady. You can guess why. We often eat at a restaurant called DingDing. Why? Because we know the name of one dish: DingDing QiaoMien, or DingDing fried noodles. What was the name of the shop that used to be run by my buddy AA and his wife Sunshine? "The Shop". What are other names for favourite restaurants in town? High Chair Hotpot (Obvious), Cultural Revolution restaurant (waitresses dress in CR uniforms), Cannon (there are cannons in front of the place), Rosta Beef restaurant (they serve roast beef and have a poorly translated menu), and the list goes on.
Anyway, I enter the Stinky Market and purchase all the food seen in the picture below. I make a couple of stops at various vendors and buy all I can carry. It's ridiculously cheap. Peppers, onion, tomatoes, baby bokchoy, spinach, squash, zucchini, tofu and tofu skins, lettuce, chili peppers, broccoli and bananas. ALL for less than $10 Canadian. People stare as I fill up my bags, listening to my Chinese skills and wondering what the hell I'm wearing. After HMIC (Hockey Morning in China), I donned my newish Team Canada Lemieux jersey from the Canada Cup a million years ago, so I'm in bright red with CANADA blazing across my chest. They're probably also curious why I'm in the market and not shopping at WalMart or Tesco. Some people are impressed with my speaking, some are assuming I'm Russian, some are not particularly impressed by either my speaking ability or my fashion sense, and some are just curious about the odd-looking white guy. There are a lot of foreigners in KaiFaQu these days, but not so many shop at local markets.
I leave the Stinky Market and start walking home. The street outside SM is packed with people and with stalls selling everything you can imagine from D&G shirts and "trendy" bedazzled jeans to recycled/knock-off shoes and cartoon-covered boxers, and pretty much anything else you could (not) want. Live turtles, puppies, birds and cats are likewise available at the far end. The wind is starting to turn cold and people are beginning to bundle up for winter. This doesn't stop the girls from wearing short-shorts and tights with the ugliest shoes you can imagine. See my last post for my feelings about Chinese fashion.
The techno is pumping from these vendor stalls as well and people are mic'ed on loudspeakers attempting to get people to notice the wares they're selling. It's not like the Beijing Silk Market or the Shanghai Fake Market... these people aren't going to grab you and drag you into their stalls... they haven't embraced the aggressive, nearly-abusive attitude of the big cities and are often too busy on QQ or on their phones to worry about some foreigner walking past. Although the sounds are obnoxious and the style of stuff is generally quite offensive, it's preferable to being accosted when trying to get from Point A to B.
As I exit the market area, I enter the street near McDonald's. I can smell the grease from McD's mixed with the scents from the food vendors on the street selling meat on a stick, spicy fried squid, roasted chestnuts, roast sweet-corn and a host of other readily available snacks. There's an impromptu concert going on as a way of advertising for a cell-phone shop, and in between songs and jokes, they try to see passers-by a variety of cell phones and electronic sundries. I escape the busyness of the road and enter the university to make the shortcut back to my apartment.
The 18 outdoor basketball nets on campus are all full and have people waiting, as there are countless games of 3-on-3 happening at the same time. Nope... not a tournament... just a regular Sunday. The soccer field is likewise packed and there's an obvious wait for pitch time. Not a single girl is playing in either venue. Some watch, but none play. Not a part of their experience for the most part. More nearby vendors sell bbq'd yams and fruit on a stick outside the courts. Girls are walking hand in hand, carrying their thermoses full of hot water back to their apartments. There's no readily available hot water or kitchens in any of the university dorms, so they make tea and instant noodles in their rooms and otherwise find food to eat from the street or local restaurants. The hot water in the common bathrooms/showers is only available a couple hours at night and in the morning, so showering is chock-a-block and takes some serious planning.
I exit the university and turn onto the street leading to my apartment complex. I walk past the entrance to the UFO park, passing by the coolest guy in town: a Muslim-Chinese guy from XinJiang province who makes/sells cotton candy at the entrance to the park and has a moustache that is ready for the movies. He's joined on the corner by a couple who roast sweet cobs of corn on a portable bbq as well as a young guy who pierces fruit on a stick and rolls it in a candied concoction he makes on a portable burner on his work cart. All of these will disappear once the sun goes down. As I look across the street, I see a guy selling full-sized, live chickens to people exiting my apartment complex. The chickens are yanked out of a portable cage and hog-tied and bagged, as money changes hands and the locals go away with a rooster in hand. Shaking my head, I get to my building, noticing that one of my neighbours (1 door down and about 4 floors below) is drying a string of filleted fish outside their kitchen window. The fish hang from a string tied to the bars covering the window. Green cabbage is also drying on the windowsill, a site that is extremely common at this time of year. The old traditions of thrift carry on, even if they are dying away.
I climb the six flights of stairs to my top-floor apartment and spread my purchases out on the table near my entrance. It's an absurd amount of food for an even more-absurdly small amount of money. China is easy on a budget... if you want it to be.
This is what $10 Canadian buys you.
T
