Goodbye Foreigners!
Cup of Cha‘s post called Goodbye Foreign Visitors describes my feelings on the new visa regulations, only more eloquently than I’d put it. This week involved saying goodbye to expat friends, Sven from Tennessee and Christina both left on Saturday.
Any foreigner living in China now will tell you that something weird is going on. Our fellow foreigners are disappearing in great numbers. It as if wild animals are picking them off on their smoggy bike rides to work. Increasingly we feel like Mexicans just inside the American border: looked upon suspiciously, regardless of the legitimacy of our legal status. Perhaps that overstating things, but a lot of people are moving away.
Visas are not being renewed for perpetual tourist and business folks. Some of these de-facto expulsions are legitimate, like people who hang out in China, teaching in a semi-legal status. Others, like business people who are frequent visitors to China, are wrong-headed. The most peculiar trend, and a prominent one at that, is it appears anyone born 1984 or later gets an automatic rejection on new work visas.
Stick and I are both over the age-25 cutoff, and we both think we’re working for reputable schools who can look after our paperwork… but there are mysterious rumors about the inability to renew working visas a second time, or get an L visa for over 30 days, or switch from one kind to another. From everything I’ve heard, shady visa agents are making money hand over fist, while smaller schools and businesses are losing their foreign employees. Seems like a sad situation if expats who love China are forced to head home while under the table “visa services” make more cash.
Posted in New York City
Tagged changes in Beijing, China, Chinese life, Christina, Eric, expats, mac, moving, New York City, other blogs, reading, Stick, Sven, teaching
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Forbidden City
Can’t be too forbidden if all these foreigners can come in.
Posted in New York City
Tagged Chinese life, e3, Forbidden City, New York City, obligatory tourist pictures
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Taxi Rejection
Often I hop into a Beijing taxi, only to get out again when the driver refuses to take me where I want to go. I thought this was a reaction to my bad Chinese but as I understand more and more, I’m stunned by the reasons the drivers refuse to take me.
When we lived in Fengtai, drivers rarely wanted to go from the center of the city out to the boonies. One pulled out a map to make sure I had the address right because no foreigners live that far away.
In downtown Beijing, drivers don’t like to turn around. They’re usally letting me know it’s cheaper for me to walk down the street and cross the overpass and pick up a taxi going the other way, but sometimes they flat out refuse to turn around for me.
Once or a twice a driver has stopped for me, but when I told him my destination, he told me he was about to go off duty. And some other times I didn’t understand the reasons given.
This was a Beijing culture shock, since Yantai drivers would pull death-defying U-turns and shout hello, in hopes of offering me a ride. But taxi rejection has become a pretty common Beijing phenomenom.
The other day, my friends and I flagged down a cab to make a trip to Coldstone ice cream (yes, there’s a Coldstone in Beijing now!). We got in, but got out a moment later. I explained to Hugo and Diana that the cabbie didn’t want to go to Xidan.
Diana looked at me like I was nuts. “What? Why? Did the taxi driver have someplace to go?”
Posted in Beijing, Fengtai, Yantai
Tagged chinese, Chinese life, Diana, Hugo, Xidan, Yantai
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Beihai Romance
After asking Hugo and Diana to pose for about a dozen Beihai photo-ops, and trying to get a perfect ‘visit to China’ picture, I caught them being naturally adorable.
Posted in New York City
Tagged Beihai park, China, Chinese life, Diana, e3, Hugo, New York City
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Little Water Poets
A few weeks ago, when I made my attempt at water poetry, it was suggested that my waterbrushed Chinese characters look like a child wrote them. So when I saw these kids at Beihai, I thought I’d compare.
Sure, the kids know more characters than I do, and can even write them faster, but I can use water without knocking over the bucket! Take that, kindergarteners!
The Emperor’s New Clothes
We had a great Sunday with Hugo and Diana at Beihai Park. We relaxed in the gardens on the north side of the park, then caught the boat over to the little island, and climbed up to the white dagoba. It’s a bit like the Jersey Turnpike here, every few minutes you need to stop at another checkpoint and pay another couple kwai to keep going. The view from the top, though, is worth the sweat and the yuan. You can see the sloping golden roofs of the Forbidden City, and see them surrounded by skyscrapers in all directions.
For more pictures (Mom and Sylvana!), here’s my facebook photo album.
Posted in New York City
Tagged adventures with Stick, as seen in Beijing, Beihai park, Chinese life, Diana, e3, Facebook, Forbidden City, garden, Hugo, New York City
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Vegetarian And Tea Restaurant
103 West Dianmen St. (DiAnMenXi DaJie)
西城区地安门西大街103号，齐鲁饭店后院内.
XiCheng District (In the second ring road, just outside the north entrance to Beihai park)
The outside is nothing special, just a light-up sign saying “vegetarian restaurant”, but the inside is a wonderful haven away from the crowds of Beijing.
The dishes are simple glazed pottery or color glass (No applicaed chopstick holders here!) and the waitstaff are fast and thoughtful. But after a day of Tiananmen vendors and shoulder-to-shoulder bus riders, the restaurant is relaxing and peaceful.
This restaurant is an oasis of calm in a city where elbows in the gut and spitting in the street are common. The half-underground dining room has an impossible amount of sunlight. The staff speaks only Chinese, besides “yes”, but they were quite patient with my struggles and the menu is bilingual. Actually, everything we ate was so good that I’d risk a random assortment of dishes.
Meat eaters needn’t worry, this is no rabbit food. Even dedicated carnivores will feel full after the meatless versions of traditional dishes (Beijing roast tofu, anyone?), or some of the tasty dumplings and fried rice dishes. Careful, though, when they say a dish is spicy, they’re not kidding!
Try any of their amazing teas. Although the Chinglish descriptions of their health benefits can be laughable, the teas are tasty and the thoughtful staff keeps replenishing the pot.
China, with a Western toilet and actual toilet paper.
To get here, take bus 13, 107, 111, 118, 204, 810, 823 or 850 to Dianmen, or walk west out of Beihai park’s north gate.
Posted in Beijing
Tagged as seen in Beijing, Beihai park, China, chinese, Chinglish, random, Stick, xicheng
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New Shower
I guess you can tell by the Herbal Essences, but this is our new shower! It has lovely hot water, and yesterday it passed the four-showers-in-one-morning test.
Posted in New York City
Tagged Chinese life, Diana, e3, Herbal Essences, hot water saga, Hugo, New York City, Stick
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