My last day in China, Saturday, September 4, was fraught with goodbyes-that-aren’t-really-goodbyes (we all hate finality), frustrations and sadness. In the morning, my friends came over and cleared out my electronics, blankets, sheets, cookware, silverware, dishes, spices, bicycles—anything that wasn’t going in my suitcase. In the afternoon, I cleaned out my Chinese bank account, exchanged everything to USD, and closed the account. Then came the challenges.

Challenge #1: Getting my rent deposit back from the landlady

Ah, the landlady, someone who is defined by her difficulty to understand and communicate with her tenants. Originally I was going to get my deposit back on Friday, but then she took it back. “What if I give you the money back, and by the time you leave Sunday, the apartment will be broken in half?” I reassured her that if I had lived in the apartment for 9 months without burning the place down, she could trust that I wouldn’t do it in the next 48 hours. Despite my efforts, she refused, citing that upon returning the deposit, I must return the keys and find somewhere else to live until I fly out. “This is how it is done in China. This is how it is always done in China.” I told her I could gladly wait until Sunday if she would like to come over to the apartment at 4am in the morning. We finally agreed on Saturday.

Despite promising to return my deposit around 3pm on Saturday, she procrastinated until 5:30pm, when she finally went to the bank to withdraw my cash. I told her that I needed to go to the bank to exchange the money into USD, and now it would be too late (banks close at 6:00pm). I asked her to do it for me: 1500 in RMB, 2880 in USD. She retorted, “What is this 2880? Why this number? You can’t make things difficult for me! I’m just going to exchange 2500RMB, if you have a problem with it, deal with it.” I told her 2500 is fine.

Five minutes later, she called, asking, “Do you have any more RMB? The bank just gave me 2500 in USD instead of changing 2500RMB into USD.” She refused to exchange it back into RMB because of the unfavorable exchange rate. I replied, “I’m sorry, I have no RMB. I already exchanged everything into USD.”

Karma?

Challenge #2: Getting the deposit back on my water tank (for the water cooler)

I called the water company at 3:00pm asking to come over and return the deposit on my water tank. He said to call at 6:00pm, when they’d be less busy. So I called then, and the employee there refused to come over to return the deposit, saying, “The boss isn’t here, I have no money. We can come on Monday.” I told him: a) I leave the country tomorrow so there are no other opportunities to come and b) it’s impossible for a business that works with cash transactions to not have money, and c) to scrounge up 50RMB for reimbursement when the boss returns. After 10 minutes of bickering on the phone he hesitantly agreed to return my money between 6:30 and 8:00pm. I told him that I do not have time to sit around and wait, and he basically told me to suck it up.

By around 8:00pm, I had already left the apartment and gave the water bottle and deposit receipt to the front desk. I then called the water company, who did not pick up (must be caller ID). I proceeded to call the water delivery man, who was saddened by my departure and was there within 10 minutes to return my deposit to the front desk. He called again, asking if we would ever see each other again, and wished me endless success and happiness in life. After this exchange went on indefinitely, mission: accomplished.

Challenge #3: Proving “Customer is the emperor”

For dinner, a friend and I went to a restaurant for a free meal due to points on a benefits card. Since we had just had a free meal last week with the same set menu, we asked the waiter if we could choose other things on the regular menu, such as sandwiches or salads or other entrées. He said yes, and I chose sea bass and a chocolate dessert (instead of red snapper and carrot cake).

By the end of the meal, he came over and brought over a check for 128.00RMB. He came over and explained, “You had only asked if you could exchange for a sandwich or salad, not another entrée. So this is why I am charging you.”
We asked, “Why didn’t you tell us you would charge us when we ordered the dish?”
“I am sorry about that. If it would be any better, you can pay for half of the price and I will use money out of my own pocket to pay for the other half.”
“Please bring the manager over.”
“Please, let us handle this between us. You can pay half and I will pay the other half, is that okay?” (Does this ever happen in the U.S.?)
“No, please bring the manager over.”
After, again, much bickering, the manager came, apologized for the mistake, and excused us from paying.

I am lucky that in the end everything worked out, but I wonder if it was worth the price of wasting so much time dealing with it. There is no doubt in my mind that I needed a break from living in China, but there is also no doubt that living there has taught me so much.

However, this last event has changed the way I look at promises made by Chinese people forever. While searching for a new apartment, I stumbled upon a little 50sqm gem right between 东四十条 Dongsishitiao and 东直门 Dongzhimen. I asked the agent whether there was a couch and other furniture included, and he replied, “Yes, of course.” The next day I went in to sign the contract, and asked the landlady when she could move a couch in.

She responded, aghast, “I never said there would be a couch!”
“But the agent told me that you would provide one? Where am I going to sit?”
The bickering continues for several minutes. To which the agent interjects and says, “I will buy you a couch, okay?”

My situation was complicated. I was originally leaving China, but received a job offer that would keep me here for a little longer. By the time I realised I should find a new place before I went home, the pressure was on to find a new place and move everything in in less than 72 hours (yes, it’s possible). Thus, I signed the contract, moved in, took his word, and left for two weeks—in theory giving the agent ample time to secure the right couch.

I return to China and call him after settling in. ”Oh, hi,“ he begins, “I will work on it, it’s been busy here, I’ll get back to you later this week.”
He did not.
I called him on Friday, and asked, “So…how’s the couch search coming along?” He said he needed some extra time. Fine.
No word from him all weekend. Then I call six times on Monday and he does not pick up. I call him ten times on Tuesday, then switch phones and call. He picks up immediately. I say, “Why are you ignoring my calls? Do you not have any respect?” To which he responds, “Hello? HELLO?! Hello?” And hangs up on me. I proceed to frantically call him back-to-back-to-back until he finally turns his phone off.

Consider this lesson learned.

Karma will get him back, and I may expedite that process through one or more of the following:

• Post his number on personal ads as a beautiful single Chinese woman wanting to marry a rich, white male;
• Advertise “special services” with his phone number;
• Make stickers advertising the purchasing of your unwanted pharmaceutical drugs and post them everywhere ;
• Or find out where he works and punch him in the face

Yes, I am working with limited resources here (his phone number, his name), but if the 人肉搜索 human flesh search engine has shown me anything, the power of Google can never be underestimated.

Beijing has an incredible response rate to snow. Immediately after the snow lets up, plows make their way down major roads and avenues to prevent traffic catastrophe (as we all know how bad traffic already is in Beijing); people are out on the streets with 13-foot-long sticks and shaking them in trees; and, most interestingly, teams of people are shoveling snow into trucks and carts. Those who usually collect garbage on the streets are instead collecting snow. Now my biggest question is–where do they take the snow?

One day in November, when only 2 elevators in my 40-storeyed apartment worked (which is often the case), I decided again that descending 11 flights of stairs is not a strain. However, when I reached the dark stairwell around floor 2, I almost stomped into a  huge pile of shit.

Seriously? You’re almost home. I understand the urgency associated with having to wait for the elevator, but–excuse my description–if it was still a recognizable mass, it really couldn’t have been that bad, could it? And let’s not mention the time in Harbin when I saw a grown woman crouching at a bus stop during rush hour doing you-know-what. Oops, I just did.

Public urination and defecation should really be censured and discouraged. If not by the government, then at least by passersby who I am sure find it just as uncomfortable to watch as I do. This applies to other nasty habits that Chinese people exhibit, from public spitting to cutting in line to smoking inside the elevator. It’s not Western cultural imperialism, it’s basic respect for other people.

Though on the positive side, their knowing no limits means they can replicate sections the Great Wall in chocolate and likely pull it off in a kitsch-tastic manner , and like my coworker demonstrated earlier this week, they can come into work immediately after the last final exam of their undergrad career. They can erect buildings with cunning speed, they can they persist and maintain positivity through tumultuous times, all while remaining relatively modest about their achievements.

Xinjiang has been under political contestation since the late eighteenth century, when the Qing reconquered the area. Political unrest became increasingly prominent since the late-1800s and sporadically manifests into violent opposition, especially during the late-1980s and early-1990s.  From the 1820s to the 1870s, the Uyghurs posed a significant challenge to Qing conquests in the area until the Qing re-conquered the majority of the land.   In 1884, the Manchu Qing empire brought Xinjiang under its control and incorporated it into the Chinese empire. The Manchus appointed hereditary princes and staffed local ethnicities, but never exercised much more than minimal authority in the area.  After the dissolution of the Qing dynasty, neither Uyghurs nor Chinese ruled Xinjiang. The Soviet Union exercised some influence in the area.  In the beginning of the twentieth century, sporadic violent uprisings occurred, but none that made a serious impact on the Chinese state.

The first documented incidents of violent separatist activity on behalf of the Uyghurs occurred between 1932–33, when ethnically Chinese Muslims and Uyghurs attempted to separate from the Chinese state and temporarily established an East Turkistan Republic. However, this resistance was crushed by February 1934, when the Chinese Nationalists (Guomingdang, or GMD) reestablished control over in the area.  In 1944, Uyghurs attempted once again  to rebel against the Chinese state.  Uyghurs established an “East Turkistan Republic,” which lasted until the Chinese Communist Party re-conquered the area in 1949. These sporadic violent outbursts that were aimed at establishing Turkish republics, James Millward argues, reflected “more the general anarchy of the warlord period  (1916–1928) and the weight of Soviet influence than any…Islamic or even ethnonationalist motivation.”

By 1949, the GMD were ousted from control and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) tried to quell and control Uyghur uprisings, and were largely successful. The PRC did not actively promote ethnically oriented policies towards the Uyghurs early on, but by the Great Leap Forward (1958–61) policies called for rapid cultural homogenization, and as many as 60,000 Uyghurs had been displaced. PRC policies began to have an assimilationist undertone, ethnicity was deemed an obstacle to progress, and Han in-migration increased.   Assimilationist and intolerant attitudes towards non-Hans increased throughout the 1960s and became the most extreme during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76).

After Mao Zedong’s reign over China ended in 1976, Deng Xiaoping relaxed the assimilationist aspects of cultural policy and brought more non-Hans back into government positions. This relaxation spurred demonstrations from the Uyghurs against the PRC. Tensions escalated and climaxed with several riots and protests in the 1990s. For example, a major Islamic-inspired insurrection in Baren county that was originally against family planning, weapons testing, and oil exploitation morphed into a violent uprising “with calls for ‘jihad’ and the overthrow of communism.”  Shortly after, China reacted with a crackdown on political activity with “Strike Hard” campaigns aimed at sweeping up political infidels.

Uyghur unrest resurfaced in the form of violent outbreaks in the 1990s, and prompted China to initiate its “Strike Hard” campaign in April 1996.   Their Islamic faith has put Uyghurs at odds with the Chinese government. Their religion has also made them susceptible to being labeled as religious terrorists who want to secede from China and establish an independent Islamic state called East Turkistan.

Strangely, prior to 2001, the Chinese state gave little lip service to anything related to East Turkistan. Anyone who even used the term could be subject to arrest.  The September 11, 2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks on several United States targets altered Chinese domestic and foreign policy, and reinvigorated China’s drive to counter terrorist, separatist, and splittist movements within and around its borders. In 2002, both the United States and the United Nations placed an organization known as the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a radical militant organization that uses violence to try to establish a separate Turkic republic, on the international terrorist watch list.  Post-9/11 policies and strategies are more widely publicized in both national and international media than those of the 1990s.

Sources:
Graham E. Fuller and S. Frederick Starr, The Xinjiang Problem (Baltimore, Maryland: Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at John Hopkins University, 2004)
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Bureau of Statistics, Xinjiang Tongji Nianjian, 2001 (Xinjiang statistical yearbook, 2001) (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 2001)
Information Office of the State Council Of the People’s Republic of China, White Paper: History and Development of Xinjiang, May 2003, Beijing, http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/20030526/
Yongjiu Gao and Shangzhe Liu, “Lun ‘dongtu’ kongbu nuli dui guojia liyi de weixie yu pohuai” [On the "East Turkistan" terrorist forces in the national interests and the threat of destruction], Xinjiang shehui kexue [Social Sciences in Xinjiang] (May 2005)
Christian Tyler, China’s Wild West: The Taming of Xinjiang (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2004)
James Millward, “Violent Separatism in Xinjiang: A Critical Assessment,” Policy Paper 6 (Washington, D.C.: East West Center Washington, 2004)
David Wang, The East Turkistan Movement in Xinjiang: A Chinese Potential Source of Instability? EAI Background Brief No.7, East Asian Institute, (Singapore: National University of Singapore, 1998)
Gardner Bovingdon, “Autonomy in Xinjiang: Han Nationalist Imperatives and Uyghur Discontent,” Policy Paper 11
(Washington, D.C.: East West Center Washington, 2005)
Dewardric L. McNeal, China’s relations with Central Asian states and problems with terrorism CRS report for Congress, RL31213. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 2002)

Guard standing at one of the entrances to the Square

Sea of umbrellas

Just standing around with umbrellas, very inconspicuous

Tons of ?? (wujing, special police forces)

Many young Chinese couples, such as university students, if not living in 4-8 person dormitories at school, are living with their parents at home. If they have a boy or girlfriend, where are they to spend time together? Some opt for hotels that have hourly rates (often dubbed “love hotels,” a popular term in Japan and Korea), some alienate their roommates by fooling around in their dorm room, some wait until their parents aren’t home, and others opt for public spaces such as parks or behind buildings. It’s amusing (albeit also troublesome) that actions meant to be done in private are now done in public.

The dearth of privacy in China was aptly pictured last night on my bike ride home, when I saw a couple on one of the largest streets in Beijing, 建国门外大街, doing it behind some scaffolding. Nevermind all the cars driving by, but there were even construction workers working not even 100 meters away from the couple.

Photo via douban.

The building ablaze as seen from my apartment window

The aftermath

Only a skeleton remains

Official business (note how the official/guard has three walkie-talkies)

A few thoughts:

• If something like this happened in the U.S., CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, local news, the Twitterati, everyone would be on it. CCTV, on the other hand, is infamous for controlling what news gets broadcasted, though it is clear that with the Internet, news dissemination has become increasingly difficult. As the fire blazed into its third hour, my friend and I turned on CCTV to look for any breaking news regarding a fire. Nothing. Chinese Lantern Festival performances, sports, talk shows, television series, commercials. What if there had been people in that building? How would the news broadcasting companies (including Xinhua) reacted? What were they worried about in the first place?

• I’m a little worried that, if a fireman died from toxic fume/smoke inhalation, how will the rest of us be affected? Granted, he was on-site and probably inhaling a lot of it, but the smoke lingered and floated around Beijing for the next 24 hours or so. Is anyone looking into it?

• I’m hoping that the defiant CCTV officials who ruined a building, threatened public safety (for the time being and possibly long-run, too), and thought they could get away with it are punished accordingly.

• Wondering if this is considered a big blow to state-run media company, as many Chinese netizens have been ridiculing CCTV over the many ironies and catastrophes surrounding the event. Did CCTV get what they deserved?

I can’t wait until reconstruction (if there will be any), because that means DEMOLITION.