Countryside Courtyard

To celebrate our performance from last week, and to spend our whopping consolation prize of 100RMB (£6.70), Teacher Wang Lie encouraged us to go out for a meal as a class.

By now, 'as a class' meant just six students - we hadn't seen Korean classmate Ming Jingnan for weeks - so it was never going to be a huge outing, but four teachers made excuses, and our Russian classmate Karolina had a relative in town, so it was just Teacher Wang Lie, Rongshu, Anna, Enxi, Mingrui and myself.

Teacher Wang Lie made the dinner arrangements: traditional Dongbei 'farmer-style' food at 乡村大院 (Countryside Courtyard).

The restaurant sat at one end of 腐败条街 or 'Corruption Street', a new, upmarket strip filled with gaudy, pricey restaurants and hotels, where the Harbin elite - politicians, businessmen, and public servants - furtively peeled open their stuffed manila-envelopes and frittered away their ill-gotten gains. I brought up the topic with a teacher later. Mistaking my curiosity for criticism, he mused that

"Beijing also has similar districts, but theirs are much bigger".

A 1:1 scale model of a fighter jet decorated the square, and Teacher Wang reminded me that Harbin was China's industrial and technological powerhouse.

"This used to be the aircraft factory district, before it moved to the outskirts of town. That's an old, Soviet-designed model up there. China makes its own, much better planes now" with more than a little hint of pride.

乡村大院 turned out to be almost identical to 大丰收, from the food, to the decor, to the Mao-era song and dance, but everything was done slightly slicker, in keeping with the more affluent clientele.

By the door was a small, open-plan kitchen used for preparing the cold starters...

... while the entrance was decorated with various commemorative memorabilia, including a comprehensive selection of Chairman Mao-themed tourist tat.

As soon as we took our seats, Teacher Wang produced a plastic water bottle filled with his own home-brewed 白酒. I was worried about going blind, but slugged down a couple of shots anyway. It was surprisingly good - a flavoursome but lethal blend that left a slow burn all the way from wherever it touched my lips, right to the pit of my stomach.

The next table over was dominated by middle-aged drunken males...

...who thought it might be nice to play 'Use my poor English on the foreigner' with Anna. Teacher Wang was extremely unimpressed but Anna put up with it with good grace and humour.

While a two-piece keyboard and 古琴 band played, a really young waiter served tea from across the table using a teapot with a spout several feet long.

Before long, the food started arriving - hearty piles of potatoes and corn, meat and fish. Flavours were thick and unrefined, and the food heavy and satisfying.

Throughout the meal, various performers took the stage.

There was singing with a lot of exaggerated dancing and posing, some theatre, and that old comedy standby: funny fat man and attractive young lady.

Seemingly worried that I hadn't formed an alcoholic enough opinion of Harbiners, Teacher Wang followed up his home-brew by producing a bottle of Smirnoff from a cavernous bag.

Not for Harbin any nonsense about not bringing in drink from the outside: Teacher Wang called on a waitress to bring us glasses then started slugging down the potato juice straight from the bottle anyway.

On the musical numbers, the whole crowd except for our table joined in with a scary fervour bordering on the religious. Whole tables took to their feet, clapping, stamping and chanting away. Some were so excited they clamber up onto the stage, and the constant flash of cameras was almost blinding, despite this sign.

"This store does not allow photography or filming"

Mingrui asked Teacher Wang about the enthusiasm.

"Wasn't that era a bad time for a lot of Chinese?"

Teacher Wang considered the question carefully:

"Sure, but these people came out of it a success. Besides, it's a form of nostalgia" Even so, as an intellectual narrowly escaping serious persecution during that time I thought I detected a touch of discomfort.

In what has become something of a pattern, Mingrui sneaked off after eating his fill to avoid paying the bill, and the handful of Class G survivors continued to pick at the unfinished remainder of the gargantuan portions of countryside fare well into the evening.

HSK Happiness

Anna comes to class with an immense, self-satisfied grin.

"I passed the 初中等 [Intermediate, Levels 3-8] HSK!"

Everyone sits up and pays attention. The questions fly:

"Results are out already?"

"What about the 高等 [High Level, Levels 9-11] results?"

"What did you get?"

With a minimal Level 6 grade, Anna makes a cheerful leap and says that she has high hopes for passing the Level 9 and above High Level. Suddenly, exam anxiety returns, and all the examinees spend an agonising few days constantly checking their exam results online.

Before our results are uploaded to the HSK website, every "There is no record of that name" brings mixed feelings. Relief that failure has been postponed another day, and a flicker of hope beyond hope that maybe, just maybe, the next day will bring a passing grade.

Then, the day I stop checking, I turn up at school to find the High-Level students buzzing with results news. Enxi and Rongshu haven't checked either, but they divine their fates using 八卦 and determine that today is a good day to look at results. I ask them to check my luck too, which is accomplished by comparing my birthday against the current date.

"Very lucky in love, average in business, good luck in friendships ... and zero luck in exams!" I'm superstitious enough to try to leave checking my results until the next day, but can't help myself. I fill out the online form in a few well-practiced keystrokes:

"66, 65, 65, 58, 63 for a grand total of 317". All five of my results are in the Level 9 range. I pass!

I call around. Anna failed but managed one passing grade - in the Speaking section. Rongshu wouldn't say, but didn't sound too happy. Enxi was six marks away from a pass, despite racking up an impressive Level 10 pass in the Speaking section. Six marks short out of 500!

My success greatly annoys the others. In Korea, the HSK is viewed as a major key to better-paid jobs, even those that don't require any Chinese ability. As for Anna, in order to pursue her dream of a Doctorate in Chinese, a high-level pass is useful if not essential. For me though, not only is the exam little-known in England, but I took the exam more on a whim than anything else.

It's official! I'm number 1 in the top class! For the next few days, my classmates resent my scraping a pass, and I don't help the situation by being unbearably smug about the fact.

The certificate itself turns out to be almost identical to the 初中等 version - that is, very ordinary - except for a couple of differences in the few lines of incongruously ill-matching text printed on.

Rongshu tells me that she'll go home and take the exam again anyway.

"Korean companies worry that the HSK taken in China can be faked or bought, so they only really believe results earned back home, where exam security's better".

The importance of the exam to my Korean schoolmates slowly becomes more evident as I hear others discuss results: Each Level opens more doors and brings ever-higher starting salaries; The exam serves as a badge of hard-work and perseverance; the High Level exam is held every two months - three times as frequently as in China itself!

After another few days, the Foreigner Student Center posts up a list of students that have passed Level 8 or above, thus becoming eligible for the 300RMB academic prize. It only numbers nine. By nationality: Koreans 8, Brits 1!

Incidentally and embarrassingly, the notice itself has a typo: 异议 or 'differing opinion' is missing a radical, and has been written 异义 meaning 'different meaning'.

Doraemon Doppelganger

It was my increasingly seldom seen classmate Rongshu who first observed that our Ancient Chinese Teacher* Wang Shuangxi bore a striking resemblance to everyone's favourite Japanese robotic cat Doraemon.

This time-travelling, gadget-packed feline, known variously in China as 哆啦A梦 (Duo Lai A Meng), 机器猫 (Robot Cat) or 小叮当 (Little Ding Dang), is a perennial favourite in the Middle Kingdom, despite making his debut in the 1960s!

I couldn't resist reuniting the long-lost twins, so feeling a bit naughty, I left this piggy bank at the front of the class during the break. Teacher Wang took the joke with typical good grace and humour, even impressing us with his Doraemon trivia (did you know Doraemon has a more advanced sister called Dorami?)


*as in 'Teacher OF Ancient Chinese', rather than "a Teacher who is both Ancient and Chinese". Despite his impressive grasp of 古汉 Teacher Wang's actually only 29!

Couque D'Asse

A small Korean shop has just opened up, in a corner of the on-campus supermarket of HIT.

Selling imported Korean snacks such as the renowned Orion Chocopie, cosmetics, and the obligatory booze, one product in particular stood out for me:

My Korean schoolmates looked at me oddly while I took pictures, but I don't care. Heh. Asse.

Miscellaneous Meanderings and a Manicure

A couple of days into Wase's visit, and I realised Harbin was fast running out of attractions. The sole big attraction left on my hastily sketched itinerary was the war atrocities museum, and that wasn't getting much of a warm reception from Wase. Thankfully, Enxi stepped up by offering to take Wase for a manicure.

We worked our way through the labyrinthine tunnel system downtown, then pushed our way through a tatty shopping centre opposite the main Post Office. At the back, somewhat incongruously, sat row upon row of manicurists.

While the girls were being attended to, I went off to get an ice-cream from one of the countless ice-cream stalls that had sprung up as soon as the weather had thawed. Still early, I checked out the Post Office too. I got thoroughly lost in three-storeys of poorly-labelled postal and related services.

When I got back, the girls' nails still had twenty minutes of work that needed doing. I declined a clean-up for myself, and quizzed one of the manicurists instead.

"Have you ever done the nails of someone with only nine fingers? How about eight? If I only had eight fingers, would you give me a discount?"

Huamei Western Food Restaurant

The charmingly named Huamei Western Food Restaurant features heavily on most "Things to Do in Harbin" lists. Visitors are encouraged to check out the ceiling on the second floor.

Fair enough, it featured this fancy chandelier. The rest of the surroundings were similarly opulent. All stately pillars, plenty of gold trimming, and oil paintings.

Unfortunately the service was execrable, the food even more so. Many reviews online blame the poor service on the fact that Huamei is, or was, a state-run enterprise but I don't know - I've eaten at plenty of terrible places where the spirit of capitalism was very much alive.

The food was more Chinese than Western or Russian. Perhaps in a concession to Western-style dining side dishes, napkins, even butter for the stale bread had to be bought separately.

In fact, the Russian cafe a few doors down beats Huamei in every respect except decor.

The place's one saving grace was this delightful nudey statue by the stairs. I don't know art, but I know what I like!

Liger, Liger, Burning Bright

First stop for Wase's tour of Harbin was the 老虎园 or tiger park. Despite the name, tigers were but one of the big cats featured. Also featured were lions, leopards (pronounced to rhyme with 'leotards') and even the fabled you-mean-they're-not-actually-made-up-? liger.

In a massive 他妈的 to usual tourist-trap convention, we were led to the gift shop first. Here, we browsed quite possibly the world's largest collection of tiger-related souvenir tat in the known universe. Apart from the fluffy toys and keychains, there were tiger slippers, paintings, creepy masks, and even tiger-head-on-a-stick.

Wase was cooing over the white tiger fluffy toys when our bus was called. We boarded what was unmistakably just a normal minibus - no guns, no anti-tiger repellent, no flamethrower - and were driven into the first of a series of pens.

Despite the rain, the tigers wandered about, seemingly content.

This being China, I was free to open the window, which I did. I'm not stupid though, so I took the safety precaution of making sure the gap was slightly smaller than a tiger's head.

Sometimes the tigers wandered right up to the bus, smacking their tails against the glass. I was literally able to stroke the head of this one, but to my regret, fear got the better of me, and I contented myself with some photos instead.

On the way in, a menu offered a choice of poultry and livestock to buy. I was really disappointed when Wase declined to split the 1500RMB cost of a whole live sheep with me. Instead, I spent 40RMB on a chicken. Wase HATES chickens.

I thrust out my arms at the attendant, expecting to get a squawking, struggling bag in return, but she wrote me out a ticket instead, which I was to give to the bus driver. When we reached the largest pen, he radioed a quick command, presumably to this - a significantly better protected vehicle which had been following us around.

A hand pushed open the door, and a startled chicken was thrust out, before the door slammed shut again. The chicken seemed happy to stay where it was, even as the 4x4 sped off in a mud-soaked blur, until a tiger noticed and sauntered up towards it. Panicked, the bird did that half-hopping, half-flying thing that chickens do, and got itself cornered. Bird-brained. Heh.

As you might expect, it wasn't much of a battle. Some critics of the Tiger Park contend that feeding chickens to the tigers in this way weakens their fighting instinct (the tigers' not the chickens'), making them ineffectual once released into the wild. I'm no expert, but any tiger is scary - what in the forests of Dongbei is going to want to take one of these on? Also, I'm not sure that the critics have any more viable alternatives. How about Running Man-style human combatants? Arming the chickens with (frickin') lasers?

This tiger had no complaints anyway, padding off to a quiet corner to skin and eat his lunch. I was more surprised that none of the other tigers tried to get in on the action. Maybe they took it in turns, or maybe this was just the most bad-ass tiger in the house.

You might have noticed the cages in the background of some of the photos. A wag at the front of the bus called out to the driver,

"What are those cages for? Is that where you put the naughty tigers?"

The driver sighed a sigh so deep and weary it raised even more laughs than the original question. Rolling his eyes and shaking his head, he replied

"Yes. Yes, these are the naughty tigers."

After the excitement of the safari portion, we were returned to the main building. A guide turned up to lead us around some protected walkways, which ran around and over yet another series of pens.

Conditions here were inferior. It didn't stop the cats from enjoying themselves though. Check out this sexy beast!

The guide informed us that, due to in-breeding, white tigers were really stupid.

"Much like our royal family, no?" I offered by way of conversation. She just looked confused though. Maybe I should have told her I was from England, first.

A sign exhorted us to refrain from scaring the tigers. Fortunately, it said nothing at all about other species, so I whispered to a nearby liger that China's current rate of growth was leading to increasing inequalities between the haves and have-nots and was simply unsustainable in the medium to long-term. He seemed distinctly unimpressed though.

Here and there were small boxes filled with chickens. A really old guy, all hunched back and crooked teeth, offered to feed the chickens over the fencing for 40RMB. Even though he seemed inordinately happy at the prospect, I felt I'd inflicted enough animal cruelty for the day, so I politely declined.

司机 Sleepiness

When I lived in Shanghai, I had maybe two dozen visitors come see me. I'd like to think that was because of my charm and good looks, but really Shanghai's an easy sell:

"Come see me in one of the most dynamic and talked-about cities in the world. Known as the Whore of the Orient, or the Paris of the East, there's the world-famous Bund and tallest laundry chute in the world! Also, everything's really cheap, and you'll have a place to stay with a 60-inch TV."

Harbin's a different matter:

"Come see me in the 'Ice City', China's coldest major city. Everything's even cheaper, but not appreciably so, because Shanghai is already very cheap. There's a nice church, and a super graphic museum dedicated to Japanese war-time atrocities. Also, there are no direct flights, and you can sleep on my floor."

To date, Wase is the only person to come visit me here.

The airport is a convenient bus ride away, but if you're lazy like me, you'll try and take a taxi instead. Apart from the 100RMB (£6.70) fare, there's a 20RMB toll fee that goes towards the construction of the airport expressway - as much as the airport shuttle bus!

This post is mainly about a problem I've encountered a few times in China - sleepy drivers. For some reason, every taxi driver seems to work a full 24-hour shift, starting in the early hours, then take a day off. The idea seems to be that this allows for a normal family life a couple of days a week. No wonder then, that drivers often look tired.

To my dismay, I noticed that my driver kept nodding off on the airport expressway. I tried to engage him in conversation, which worked to an extent, but as soon as things tapered off, his eyelids would droop and his head would loll forward. He was aware of the problem as much as I was, slapping the back of his neck, smoking cigarette after cigarette and opening the window wide despite the rain. The problem was compounded by the road itself - straight, and about the most boring road I'd seen.

The drama was broken up by a bit of light entertainment. A couple of kilometres from the airport, the driver suddenly pulled over under a bridge. Cars continued to rip past us, at or above the expressway's speed limit, whipping up mists of dirty rain. Was I about to get mugged? Did the driver want to take a nap now?

Seeing my alarmed look, he stuck his head back in

"I have to convenience myself".

In the rear-view mirror, I could see him pissing up against his own back tyres. After that, he seemed to perk up. The rest of the journey was punctuated by the odd neck-slap but significantly fewer cases of eye-shutting or head-lolling.

I arrived at the airport determined to take the shuttle bus in future.

Dancing Midgets: Part II

Competition Day arrived and I was literally nauseous with anxiety. Perhaps smelling the desperation, both Teacher Xu and Teacher Zhang allowed us to run-through our respective speech and song during morning classes. Teacher Xu would be judging the event that afternoon, and Teacher Zhang agreed to come along and cheer us on. In desperation, we forwent lunch to spend midday rehearsing, again and again.

Classroom 512, the largest single room in the Foreign Students' building, was standing room only by the time we arrived from our hundredth run-through. All thirteen classes from Levels D to G had sent representatives, and supporters numbered in the low hundreds.

Well-wishers, teams, teachers, and curious passers-by spilled out into the corridors, while every hour, packs of students on their break pressed up against the windows set into the classroom's three sets of doors and sneak a look.

The rules were simple: Every event was scored out of 100 for a total of 300. Total marks would be used to determine a single first place, and two second places.

First up were the speeches. To my immense relief, the Korean winner of a recent province-wide singing competition had deigned not to embarrass the rest of us, and instead decided to try something new. In keeping with the topic title "My life as an overseas student in China", he gave a speech concerning his life as an overseas student in China. Despite a few stumbles, he proved a big crowd-pleaser.

The HSK Level 6 genius from the opening ceremony talked about his new company and its growth prospects in China going forward. It occurred to me that maybe his class had forgotten to prepare for this section, and he'd decided to regurgitate a speech prepared for work instead.

Mingrui gave a good account of his Chinese skills, describing his experience as a highly visible lanky foreigner in Harbin. His accent was impeccable, and a noticeable hush of respect went round the room at the authenticity of his pronunciation. However, he committed the cardinal sin of criticising China, albeit somewhat obliquely: "A lot of people have said to me that the Chinese have a 素质问题" and he went on too long, losing the crowd's interest. His final score was comparatively low - averaging out in the high 80s.

One of the eventual winners was a heartfelt effort by yet another Korean, delivered with huge wit and charm. She described an early, difficult time in Harbin when, out on the town, she reluctantly allowed her friend to drag her to one last bar. On arrival, she found a room full of friends, cake and balloons, gathered to celebrate her birthday. At this last line, her voice cracked, drawing massive, teary-eyed applause.

The quiz was a bit of an oddity. A list of a couple of hundred questions and answers had already been provided to every class, for each representative to memorise. On the day itself, each student in turn was given thirty seconds to answer five questions. "How tall is the tallest mountain in China", "In the phrase 'Above is heaven, below is Su and Hang', what do 'Su' and 'Hang' refer to?", and "What is official motto of the 2008 Beijing Olympics?" The quizmaster though, saw fit to offer hints and prompts too. In the end, 12 of the 13 representatives (incidentally all Korean) scored the full five out of five. The unfortunate 13th, also Korean, passed on one question, dragging down his class's total by a fatal 20 points!

After the quiz, it was showtime. The first couple of classes sent solo singers, first singing a song by Cecilia Cheung, then Jay Chou's 菊花台 from the movie The Curse of the Golden Armour. Seven students from Class F2, one of the strongest performers from the speech section, sang 对面的女孩看过来. They utilised some daft but well-practised and well-executed choreography, and I envied their numbers. Class G could barely muster seven singers even if we roped all of our teachers in to help! The judges' vote came in: 98%! Incredible! And that was my first choice of song, too! Curse you, Anna!

The remainder was a mixed bag. The cloyingly sentimental 童话, by 光良, and another version of Cecilia Cheung's song from earlier. Cunningly, some of the groups played the corresponding music video on the overhead projector, happily drowning out some extraordinarily talentlessness singing.

Nervously waiting on the sidelines, I discovered I kept forgetting the second lines of both of my verses. What to do!? Borrowing a pen, I scrawled the first on my left arm, and enlisted Enxi's help for the right... and suddenly, it was time to go.

If a picture speaks a thousand words, then a video encoded 176kbps speaks a whole book. Probably one entitled "The Death of Self-Respect". Yes, it's painful, but stick around until the 3:09 mark to see a big Polish man rapping badly in Chinese.

Check out Part I to hear how it should have sounded.

In the end, we tried our best, and we were found wanting. We scored 97.75, a fraction away from first place. Nevertheless, we took home a red packet and a crispy 100RMB note as a consolation prize.

Dancing Midgets

A sure sign of the community-spirit at HIT, the Foreign Student Department runs a successful and well-attended talent contest every term.

For the high-level classes (D through G) that comprises three disciplines: 演讲 ('speech'), 知识 ('knowledge', a quiz) and 表演 ('performance' but to all intents and purposes singing).

With just three people regularly attending class, Teacher Wang Lie quickly assigned roles.

"Mingrui, you've made some interesting points in the past, you can give a speech; Koreans always do well at the quiz, so good luck Enxi; and that leaves Xu Dun for the singing. Can you sing? ... Ah, it doesn't matter."

As the date of the performance approached, I found myself literally losing sleep worrying about the event. I suggested to Anna, who'd started coming to class more regularly, that we could sing the popular (if corny) 对面的女孩看过来 accompanied by 'Dancing Midgets' - a very much politically incorrect but hilarious bit of physical 'comedy' whereby one person operates the midget's feet using their hands, and a second person stands behind the first and acts as the arms. This video demonstrates the idea well.

"Hmm... yes. We COULD try that..." she said, looking decidedly noncommittal.

"Great! Well I'll get lyrics written up and a routine drafted then!" I enthused.

Shortly after, in a not so subtle hint that she wasn't on board, Anna stopped coming to class.

Secretly relieved, I told Teacher Wang Lie that I wouldn't be participating.

"I really needed a partner, which is a real shame... but I'll come watch!" I said, trying to look earnest but disappointed.

With just three days to go, wise, old Teacher Wang assigned the role of singing partner to Enxi. Great! The Dancing Midgets were back in town!

Enxi flat out refused to go along with the whole Dancing Midgets idea.

"If you really want, I could sing a duet with you though. I'll come round this afternoon and we'll pick a song."

Later that day, we sat eating lychees around my computer listening to songs from BaiDu.

"How about 今天你要嫁给我?" Enxi asked, suggesting the collaboration between skinny Pop Queen Jolin Tsai and the talented singer-songwriter David Tao. Good idea! A duet with simple lyrics, wholesome moral content that would go down well with the judges, and one of the most popular tunes of the previous year to boot. We'd win for sure.

We had a listen. Halfway through...

"Uh! Uh! Jolin in da house!" shouted David 'DT' Tao

"DT in da house!" replied Jolin

"Well I guess that's out. I'm drawing the line at rapping in public!"

"I can't rap either, it'd sound worse than Mingrui!" Enxi agreed, "but what if...!"

Twenty minutes later, Mingrui was in the flat, working on his lines and trying his best to look gangsta. He actually sounded pretty good, and by 'pretty good' I mean 'not that painful'.

What followed was a tough three days of snatched practice sessions before and after class, sleepless nights with the song playing on continuous repeat, and a crash course in choreography. Read Part II to see how we got on!

Fashion Follies

Department stores that I've been to here have often put on shows to promote certain brands. They most frequently feature underwear or lingerie, which understandably draw huge crowds of slack-jawed males, and seems surprisingly risque in what is ostensibly a moralistic and Communist country.

Then again, I've seen serious commentary to the effect that the regime tolerates all the sex shops, 'colourful' adverts, and barely hidden prostitution because all these things actually promote marital and societal stability. Who knew?
Unfortunately, this post isn't about underpants, but Goldlion. Goldlion is a terrible brand that makes terrible businesswear for businesspeople with no taste. Recently, they've launched a 休闲生活 ('leisure-life') line that includes terrible casualwear for the aforementioned businesspeople.

Despite the 大便-itude of the clothes themselves, the Chinese love of 闹 (noise or liveliness, amusingly comprising the characters 鬥 or 'fight' and 市 or 'market' - a fight in a market!) meant that the 'fashion' 'show' they threw to celebrate the launch drew a huge crowd. Ever mindful of the principle of 入乡随俗 ('When entering a town, go along with the customs' or 'When in Rome...') I stuck around too.

A bevy of leggy, dangerously thin BOBFOC models paraded ugly tops that complemented nicely their ugly trousers. To demonstrate what kind of successful lifestyle you too might have, if only you'd buy into this brand, a bunch of male models pouted their way onto the catwalk too, arm-in-arm with the girls.

After all the professional walking, standing, and more walking, a couple of no-name hosts came out and organised a quiz with some of the lucky audience members. Questions included "How much of a discount are we offering today?" (the answer was 10% off*), and "What animal is the Goldlion brand based on?". Astoundingly, not only was this asked in front of a giant Lion logo, and followed with a multiple choice selection that was accentuated thus: "A Horse, B Pig, C LION ..." the quizee needed two guesses to get it right! The sole prize offered was a card offering 15% off in their store for that day. I think it's fair to say, everyone was a winner.

*The Chinese system is based on 折 which is the percentage of the original price, denominated in 10% increments. 10% off is thus 9折, (the surprisingly popular) 12% off is 8.8折, and half price is 5折 or 半折 ('half-discount'). It sounds complicated. It is.

Wordplay Warning

Yet another 7-word couplet, written in a pleasing way. This one was spotted in 毛毛, a late-night barbecue favourite.
Directed at staff rather than customers, it says: 今天工作不努力，明天努力找工作.

While it doesn't rhyme, it does possess a certain pleasing symmetry. Each line begins with two time-words, and both contain the words 'effort' and 'work' in the 3, 4 and 6, 7 positions.

Translated: "If you don't work hard today, tomorrow you can work hard at finding a job", which lacks the original's charm.

Well-written as it is, service remained, as ever, humourless and terrible.

A Bone To Pick

One of the choices that comes up whenever trying to pick a restaurant is invariably 骨头. Eating bones? That sounds oddly unappetising. I set out to investigate.

吴记 (Wu Ji) is a chain of perpetually busy restaurants specialising in the aforementioned 骨头.

First, a quick word about the name. 吴 is a common surname. On the mainland it's often described as 口天的吴 (or the 'Wu' with a 口 'mouth' and a 天 'sky' character), but in other territories that use traditional characters, such as Hong Kong, the name appears as the slightly more complicated 吳. 记 means 'record' and doesn't signify much here on its own. The two words together can be taken to mean 'Wu's restaurant'.

Amusingly, families in Mandarin speaking regions named 'Wu' have a problem when choosing first names. 吴 is synonymous with 无 meaning 'without'. Any attempt to name your child something auspicious then, instantly backfires. 大明, meaning 'big and bright', becomes 吴大明 under the Chinese ordering of names, which sounds an awful lot like 无大明 (meaning 'Not big and bright').

When we arrived waiters were weaving their way between tables piled high with hearty DongBei fare. As far as I could see, every table had at least one plate of 骨头.

It turns out that 骨头 is similar to ribs. Even though there's plenty of meat, the meat-bone ratio is somewhat low simply because the bones are so huge. In a concession to this fact, each table features a big shiny bucket into which all the unedible bits are thrown.
It reminded me a bit of the organic gun in eXistenZ that Jude Law builds out of bits of gristle and his own teeth.

Each place is provided with a single glove, and a straw. The glove is essential. Even using your hands, with some pieces, it's really difficult to get at the meat. With chopsticks, it becomes impossible. The problem isn't helped by some viciously sharp bone fragments. The straw on the other hand baffled me at first.

It turns out that they are used by jabbing them into the particularly big chunks of bone to suck out the marrow. Yum!

Health Hazard III: Manual Maintenance

Passing the block of flats next to mine, I came across the sight of two men hauling up balcony frame.

A third man pulled in the opposite direction, apparently to stop the giant chunk of steel and plastic from smashing into everyone else's windows on the way up.
Also note the man standing in the window to the right. A harness? A helmet? REAL MEN don't use safety equipment.

Hairy Eggs

In an unfamiliar land, it's all too easy to sensationalise small differences in culinary customs.

This far from home, I've found myself having to take a step back and remind myself that one man's meat is another man's poison. Some people find eating pig abhorrent, others cow, some won't eat meat at all, and yet others, anything that came from an animal. Fruitarians take the idea even further.

But sometimes I see something so different, it's a struggle to step back far enough.

[Image courtesy of Xinhua.net]

Pictured above, below the sweetcorn, and 石蛋 (literally 'stone egg') are several sticks of 毛蛋 (literally 'hairy egg').

What sounds relatively mundane is actually a fertilised chicken egg, allowed to grow for several days until the unborn chick fills the shell. Each foetus is held up to the light to check its progress, then fermented, peeled, and skewered - three or four at a time - to be barbecued.

Often you can make out a hint of a neck, a fragile beak and tiny limbs, beneath a marbling of dried blood. Depending on how long it's been allowed to develop, many have a faint dusting of hair too, hence the name. The bones are partially, but not fully-formed, giving the whole thing a pleasing crunch.

Apparently the dish used to be something of a luxury, but nowadays a stick of three goes for 3RMB (20p).

I sat down for dinner with Dapeng and some of his friends who 'egged' me on to eat one.

"You really don't have to... a lot of Harbinese won't eat them either" he reassured me, seeing my horrified expression.

Ming Yue interjected.

"Actually, you shouldn't eat this," dragging the dish away before I had a chance to take one. "Not until you're married."

Confused looks from half of the table, which happened to coincide with the half that didn't have hairy eggs.

"They're an aphrodisiac!" Ming Yue explained.

Hands shot up.

"Waiter! Three more sticks of hairy egg!"

Spider-Man! Spider-Man! Does Whatever A Spider Can!

Spider-Man is an interesting superhero in that his weakness stems not from a glowing green rock, a limited battery life, or public speaking, but because "With great power comes great responsibility".

Throughout the comics, cartoons, and movies, Peter Parker is faced with dilemma after dilemma - from choosing whom of many worthy candidates to save, to meting out his own brand of illegal vigilante revenge-flavoured justice on those who have wronged him.

In that sense he's a worthy role model, thus allowed relatively untouched past the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television's giant Scissors O' Censorship. It's a marked contrast to Chow Yun Fat's character, Captain Sao Feng from Pirates of the Caribbean, who committed the odious sins of 'vilifying and defacing the Chinese'.

In Spidey's honour, WanDa cinema erected this curiously misshapen effigy in the atrium.

The hardcore fans were out in force too. I would normally feel pretty odd photographing someone else's unaccompanied child in public like this, but this guy was asking for it.

We chose the VIP screening because it was the first one available in English with Chinese subtitles, rather than dubbed into Mandarin. I know I should probably be practising my Chinese listening, but there's something deeply wrong with Venom hissing "Never wound what you can't kill" in Putonghua.

The waiting room was great. Comfy couches with complimentary and coffee...
... Mickey Mouse-shaped biscuits ...... and free magazines. The view should have been good too, but unfortunately instead of the Songhua River, it was filled with construction yard.
For a few Chairman Maos more than a regular ticket, we found ourselves in the lap of luxury. The cinema itself had just 24 seats, mostly Laz-E-Boys with four-way motorised movement, and one couch that reclined to almost horizontal. Even the attendant was prettier than those attending the normal screens, where all the plebs go.

It's probably worth noting that going to the cinema, bourgeois leisure activity as it is, probably isn't such an established tradition in China than it is in the West. The problem is compounded by the fact that DVD's cost a mere fraction of a ticket. People that do make it down to their local multiplex, then, are either so excited at the sight of the Silver Screen that they chat animatedly, reiterating the plot out loud throughout the entire venture, or so rich and over-privileged that they leave their phones on and continue their oh-so-important business conversations oblivious to their fellow audience members.

It's annoying to say the least, and as the lights dimmed I was relieved to see that apart from us, the VIP screening was completely empty. At least for a while. I'm not sure what category of anti-social behaviour this falls into, but in a particularly angst-ridden low in Peter and Mary-Jane's relationship, a woman came wandering into the VIP cinema carrying a crying baby! After a couple of leisurely circuits, just to make sure that she'd disturbed us sufficiently, she wandered out again.

I won't say much about the movie itself, except to say that I thought it was awesome. To those whiners who say it's a muddled mess, it's a tall order to compress over 40 years of comic book history into a few two hour movies but Sam Raimi has done a great job so far. Sure, Venom might rub the hard-core Silver Age fans up the wrong way, but this isn't the 1960's any more. a villain like Kraven the Hunter would frankly look camp and ridiculous in present-day New York, even for a comic-book movie, and Venom, for all its faults is undeniably cinematic.

Summer Time! (And The Living Is Easy)

Way back when I first arrived, I asked Wang Dapeng what kind of foods Harbiners liked to eat in winter.

An odd question, you might thing, but I still remembered the stinging embarassment of trying to order dog in Shenzhen in the summer, and being roundly mocked. Imagine! Wanting a heating 'yang' food like dog in this heat!

"Hotpot... dogmeat... washed down with plenty of beer" instantly came the reply.

Now, with the temperature consistently hitting double-digits, I asked Dapeng what was suitable for summer dining. He struggled a bit more with this.

"Cold noodles... and barbecue... washed down with plenty of beer".

In reality, barbecue is pretty popular year round, but the difference in summer is that everyone spills out of the pokey little restaurants and onto plastic picnic tables on the pavement.

From nowhere, barrels of beer appear which, despite sitting out in the sun all day, magically emit chilled (if a little flat) stream after chilled stream of golden nectar.

Chunky half-litre glasses, emblazoned with domestic beer brands are fished out from murky buckets of water sat on the pavement (because glasses are never carefully cleaned, just swilled out) and invariably filled with a completely different rival beer, which is used to wash down the sticks of beef tendon, sheep testicles, silkworm larva and hairy eggs.

It's all very sociable. I've seen big groups chatting away over beer after beer, staying so long that they repeatedly send sticks back to be reheated (and totally violating one of the primary rules of food safety).

As a bonus, the smoke from the nearby barbecue stand cleverly masks the smoke from neighbouring tables' Double Happiness or, if they're really feeling fancy, Panda Brand cigarettes.

And just like a barbecue back in Blighty (but with less rain) sitting so close to the action means I can take a memento home with me - my hair and clothes all have a nice barbecue flavour!

Tri-Truck

Any fan of Only Fools and Horses will recall with fondness the Potter's three-wheeled Reliant van, much loved precisely because of it's immense crapitude.

As a three-wheeled vehicle, the Reliant Robin and Reliant Regal enjoyed more relaxed licence requirements and cheaper tax, at the expense of credibility, steerability, and stability. Indeed, Robin Reliants are nowadays raced precisely because they have a tendency to tip over when cornering.

Noone told Harbin though. These trucks are all over the place, often dangerously overloaded, and teetering precariously when approaching corners. As if the roads weren't dangerous enough already!

Schoolboy Error

There are a number of theories why people of a Far East Asian persuasion appear to age slower than their Caucasian counterparts: Collagen levels in the skin, bone structure, fat deposits in the face, even diet.

Furthermore, there are only a few tens of thousands of 华裔 in England, so if someone wants to see some ID before I get fireworks, a big plastic bottle of White Lightning, or the license to fly a light aircraft, then fair enough - after all, we all look same.

Judging from what complete strangers have yelled at me in the street back home, who's to say I don't resemble Jackie Chan ("Oi! Jackie Chan!") (aged 53), Bruce Lee ("WOOOOOO! WAHHH!") (aged 66, deceased), an individual of Japanese descent ("Oi! Konnichiwa!") (median age 41) or one of many sellers of £5 DVDs that congregate in Harrow ("FIVE POUND DVD! FIVE POUND DVD!") (various ages)?

So it's been by turns worrying, flattering, and surprising to have been mistaken as significantly younger than my two dozen years, no less than three times since arriving in Harbin - a city, after all, with it's fair share of other Chinese people.

Most recently, I had the following conversation with a kid in Taekwondo class:

"What year are you in?"

"I'm sorry?"

"What year of high school are you in? I'm in High 2"

I run the calculations.

"You were born in 1989?"

A big smile. "Oh no no, 1990..."

Imagine: enjoying cartoons non-ironically, being untouched by Girl Power, and never watching Thundercats.

I don't know what bothers me more. Getting befriended by children or casual 'comedy' racism.

Mixed Markets II: Bees and Boots

Another odd sign, seen out and about in Harbin, although I don't know why it surprised me after puppies and potatoes. Stalls like this are all over the place, selling various wares or services, and often containing a little coal-fired stove to keep warm in winter.First up, a bit of Economic Geekery. Economic Theory suggests that when two related companies join up, efficiency gains can be realised. This can be via vertical integration (e.g. a shoe maker buying a leather company) or horizontal integration (e.g. a shoe maker buying another shoe maker).

If two unrelated companies conglomerate (e.g. AOL buying TimeWarner), economies of scale are likely to be smaller, but there are benefits in terms of capital allocation in imperfect markets, and smoothing out highs and lows in the two markets' business cycles.

This guy's been reading up on his Microeconomics. The two words to the left and right are 修鞋 or 'Shoe Repair'. On the glass, it adds 卖蜂蜜 or 'Sells Honey'.

Sun Island

This week China celebrates a 'Golden Week' (黄金周) Holiday, as the three nationally mandated weeks beginning May 1st (Labour Day), October 1st (National Day) and Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year) are somewhat euphemistically described.

The idea is that Chinese workers are rewarded for their efforts by getting seven continuous days off, beginning, e.g. May 1st and ending May 7th. However, in an ingenious effort to keep the economy moving, weekends either side of the divide become workdays, thus resulting in a net holiday gain of just three days.

The result is that three times a year, innumerable hordes of holiday-makers descend on train stations, motorways, and airports, and go on a trip.

There's a Chinese expression, 人山人海, describing mountains and seas of people, which takes on a literal significance when one finds oneself amidst a heaving mass of sweaty tourist flesh pushing through the streets of a watertown, or queuing to climb a mountain.

As a result, I opted not to travel during the Labour Day break, but in a concession to having holiday fun, took a boat on a daytrip to Sun Island (太阳岛).

Sun Island barely qualifies as such - it's a piece of land on the northern bank of Harbin's Song Hua River, separated from the remainder of the northern part of the city by a thin tributary of the River itself. As for the 'Sun' part, it's a scant ten minutes from the southern bank by slow boat, and as far as I'm aware does not enjoy particularly favourable weather conditions.

Saying that, the sun did indeed shine for us that day, although the weather would sour later on. The wind whipped up sand and dust from the west, which mingled with the rain and spattered our umbrellas and shoulders with a powdery brown sludge.

Sun Island seemed to be a hyperactive designer's idea of what a park should be, a sprawling amalgam of styles and features - patches of green; lakes, rivers and bridges; and a hodgepodge of buildings, from pagodas to western-influenced mansions. One of the first sights we came across was a series of horse statues in heroic poses, and we chose this spot for a picnic lunch.

In a fit of excitement, I tried to climb a statue. Suddenly, I heard an alarming ripping noise. Red-faced I climbed down again and checked the damage. A six-inch scar had appeared in my jeans, just below my right butt-cheek. Guanchen laughed that if among his friends, if someone pointed out "Your flies are undone", the standard response was "I know. It's cool and refreshing" before reassuring me that the tear was barely visible. I spent the rest of the day with a refreshing breeze cooling my bum.

The rest of the day was thankfully less eventful. We climbed tiny mountains and raced three-man bikes...
... explored a lake, and threw coins at a lucky frog...
... watched an entertainer rap to Jay Chou, and checked out Squirrel Island, a squirrel reserve within the Sun Island complex.

A final word - and yet another on the beauty of the Chinese language. I asked Yanxin why everyone was steering so clear of the grass.

"People love walking on the grass, but it's not allowed", she replied, pointing out a sign. Sure enough, two rhyming couplets reminded tourists to respect greenery and grass respectively, in classical 5- ...
... and 7-word metre!