quelquefois

Last Saturday was my last day in Harbin for a while. I need a break from freezing my ass off. The American students took the train Saturday night  I woke Sunday morning to the melodious voices of propaganda infotainment about the wonderful city of Beijing. After a long haul of heavy, overstuffed backpacks and suitcases to and fro, I was ready to settle in to my new apartment and new life.

In the past week I have spent thousands of yuan on rent, furniture, and appliances with my great new roommate and fellow Fulbrighter, Julia. This includes haggling over the prices of plates and bowls, spending about 6 hours at Ikea, and begging the owner to buy me a desk that isn’t 24 inches wide (think about it, that’s tiny). It’s been tiring physically, mentally, and financially, but things should improve rapidly. I also look forward to using our full-size built-in oven that is so coveted in China/Asia. 

To say the least, I am in love with my new Beijing life (except the air quality part), and hope these next ten months are fulfilling.

Thanks for the $100 USD as prize money for the best photograph this semester.

Sincerely,
The “abstract” artist

Don’t tell me you have a photo contest that “should have creative composition” and then once I submit them, tell me that my photos are too “抽象” (chou1 xiang4, abstract). And don’t go even further and tell me that the winner will have 2 or more students in it. If you told me you wanted Asian-style group photos, you could have just said so, and I wouldn’t have wasted all my time post-processing my photos.

I want all my photos back. You cannot use them as propaganda for your crappy program.

Sincerely,
A artistic girl in an unartistic country

(image of bicyclists in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square via nytimes)

The UN Environment Program released a report last Thursday (side note: good typography, color choices, UN!) about the thick clouds of smog and soot over Asia and the likely effects it has on health, food security, and environmental changes. Due to the unprecedented nature of these noxious brown clouds, the exact consequences of their presence is not confirmed. Regardless of the consequences, it seems like countries are dilly-dallying around until the human/environmental toll is too hard to ignore, which may be years away. By then it will be too late. The world needs to get on this shit, pronto. And seriously this time.

On a related note, though I may not be dying, I am still suffering. Now that I have finished consuming about 200 pills in the past two weeks, I don’t feel much better. I don’t really want to continue taking these pills. For one, I can’t bring myself to trust Western medicine produced in China. Second, I don’t like eating too many antibiotics over a long period of time. I mean, what if I created a mutant bacteria and created the next Avian Flu? Anyways, every time I work out or climb a shit ton of stairs, my throat constricts and I can’t breathe. I still have phelgm that impedes my breathing, but it’s so deep that I can’t cough it up. I wonder how I will survive in Beijing.

So while the world is working on fixing itself, and while I’m still living in China, I think it’s time for me to invest in a gas mask. I wonder if they have them in neon pink, yellow, and blue (Chinese hipsters?).

Around this time last year, I unknowingly developed an allergy to dust. My nose was constantly stuffed and I had an intense and loogie-filled cough. By springtime I was so uncomfortable that I went to health services at Brown, but the doctors there couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. She suggested I see an allergist, but I never did.

Things got worse, and persisted through the summer, long after hayfever season. After finally visiting an allergist this summer, I found out that I had developed an allergy to dust. I took antibiotics that cleared up my nose, but I still had a phlegm issue that often left me short of breath.

It was hard to figure out what was going on, primarily because I was moving around so much. By the time I went to the doctor at Brown, I had a few months left before going to New York for the summer, then home for two weeks, and then off to China.

I went to the hospital at Harbin Institute of Technology, and getting any help from the doctors was impossible. The doctor asked what was wrong, I started to explain, but before I got into my medical history she was pretty much done listening. Instead of asking questions about my condition, she asked if I was Korean. Then before I knew it, a crowd of people were standing 6 inches behind me, waiting for me to finish so they can be seen next. The doctor gave me a prescription for some useless pills and shoo’ed me away.

I often have these “I’m going to die from a collapsed lung or phlegm-filled lung” moments. So yesterday I went to Harbin’s “best” hospital and this is what I left the hospital with:

It was assuring to have an x-ray taken and have the doctor say that nothing was wrong with my lungs. And now, if anything pops up again, I have something tangible to show the next doctor I see. And it’s also awesome when I get to keep x-rays of myself. You can’t see it too well the above photo, but I didn’t take my necklace off and you can see a little silver airplane.

Here’s hoping the mountain of pills I was prescribed work!

On October 17, the “fog” was unusually heavy, and I couldn’t figure out why. All I knew was that I was glad to be leaving Harbin for 9 days. I should have taken a photo of what the sky looks like on a normal and polluted day. But I stumbled upon this air quality reading from the SEPA website:

The red line is Harbin.

For those of you who can’t read it, it says that Harbin’s AQI is: TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-THREE. 2-7-3.

Here are the Air Quality Index (AQI) ratings:

• 0-50 Good is usually green
• 51-100 Moderate is usually yellow
• 101-150 Unhealthy for sensitive groups is usually orange
• 151-200 Unhealthy is usually red
• 201-300 Very unhealthy is usually purple

I think they chose the color purple because that’s what color you turn into after breathing dirty air for a long time. I still wonder what caused such heavy pollution in Harbin that day, though I would guess it could be the coal plants firing up to start government regulated heating.

Wednesday was Chinese National Day (The People’s Republic of China was founded on October 1, 1949), and many Chinese people have the entire week off. Aside from going home to visit families, what else do they do? Why, shopping, of course!

All the stores had big sales, people were all over the streets, and red flags were everywhere. I am not suprirsed that commercialization of holidays has reached developing countries such as China. I know that in the States, stores like Macy’s always broadcast their Memorial Day or 4th of July sales, but as to whether there a culture of commericalization in China has existed for a while, I have no researched answer. I have the notion that it began (and has since then snowballed) as China developed rapidly over the last twenty years or so.

But in all seriousness, a lot of people use this break to go home and visit family (and, while at home, sit around and study or play video games all day–sad). According to Wikipedia, every five years, the National Day celebration is out of control. Can’t wait to experience that next year.

I dearly miss the artistic environment I was immersed in while I was at Brown and in NYC. It didn’t help that I went from thinking about photography 24/7 to feeling apathetic and uninspired. Let’s not get into all the reasons, but something that really puts me off is that everything in Chinese cities looks the same: too many people, ugly buildings and infrastructure, and pollution. Though really, that’s no excuse. I’ll have to start thinking creatively and hopefully I’ll find some inspiration in The-City-That-Knows-No-Art (a.k.a Harbin). Seriously, there is no art. Anywhere.

Last Wednesday, a friend (named Jon) and I decided to take action against our aching backs and decided to get a massage. We had two choices: go to a hospital or to a massage parlour. One of our Chinese friends told us that there was only one masseuse at the hospital, so we opted for the parlour.

Once we entered the door we were a little sketched out. Men started trying to explain to us the different types of treatment. We finally decided on the 100 kuai (about $15 USD) 2-hour treatment. We went to our respective rooms to change.

The second I entered the ladies changing room, there was a half naked woman eating porridge and watching me. I have no idea why she was just sitting there half naked eating. Another lady asked if I wanted to shower before my massage. It seemed that if I chose to shower, I would have to do it while they watched me. I chose not to, and despite trying to find a corner to change, they watched me. Why? I have no clue.

I walked out and started to wait for Jon but the masseuses quickly rushed me into one of the massage rooms. There were about six beds separated by a half wall. In the room I was in, there were a few heavyset men smoking cigarettes and talking loudly. I was not very comfortable. The masseuse started to talk to me.

My masseuse asked me, “Are you Korean?”
“No, I am not.” I answered.
“Are you sure?”
“Look lady, I know what I am and I am not Korean.”
“Oh…well you look like a Korean. What are you then?”
“I’m American.”
“American? You don’t look American.”*

Once Jon came we started our massages. Highlights include her sticking her fingers into my ears, her putting her fingers close to my crotch, her climbing onto the massage table with me and massaging me wit her legs, her sitting on my ass and “massaging” my back (more like rocking back and forth on my ass), and ending with her lying on top of my back. I asked her if mostly men came in, and she replied, “Yes.” And as these incredibly unprofessional massaging techniques occurred, I realised that they were for the benefit of the male clients.

After the massage, I quickly changed back into my clothes. As I waited for Jon, I noticed that there was a board with 70 female masseuses’ head shots that men could choose from (there was only one male masseuse, and he only worked with feet). Jon later reported that the male changing room was more like a spa. There was a jacuzzi, Chinese chess, *two* floors, and many showers. My changing room was the size of a dorm room with a tiny shower.

Well, we learned our lesson. Our backs still ached, we were 100 kuai poorer, but we now know never to return to that place again.

*To the Chinese, being an American means you’re white, with deep-set eyes and a pointy nose.