RecordingBeijing.com

For Chinese, 2009, the year of ox, has some special meanings, especially after the earth quake, snow storm, financial crisis, and other hardships in the past year.

The word “ox” in Chinese is pronounced similar to “new”, but with a slight upward tone. People always attach their hope for the new year with the key characteristics of the animal. Being robust, bold, hard working, and faithful is naturally this year’s people’s hope for themselves and those around them.

Apart from the animal, “Niu” (”ox” in Chinese) also has a meaning of being great, and is used to praise somebody or something. For instance, you could say:”Huibo is so niu! He dared to quit his job in this declining economy!”

Therefore, the year of ox has been given really special meanings for all Chinese people. Have a look at snapshots of new year celebration at my parents’ place.

First thing in the morning, put on a pair of red socks with an image of a little man at the bottom and three words “cai xiao ren”, meaning the bad people will be under our feet and won’t do harm.

Visa, my sister’s doggy is just too cute not to show up here.

Then we pasted Spring Festival couplets on the door.

I was in charge of the fire crackers.

Then we had lunch with pork and lamb ribs as main dishes (a Mongolian tradition).

Then we went to the cinema and watched Red Cliff II. It was GREAT!

Before supper, we burnt some “paper money” and kowtow to our ancestors.

We had some Nian Gao (new year cake) for supper. “Nian Gao” has a meaning of being greater year after year.

And some yu (fish), which has a meaning of having more to spare every year.

Then we watched CCTV’s new year’s show. Xiao shenyang in the picture was hilarious.

Close to mid night, we fired up more fire crackers.

Then we had some delicious jiaozi (dumplings) at the beginning of 2009.

That’s it for the new year’s eve. With the Spring Festival lasts for 15 days, there’s more fun to come!

Happy Niu Year!

Reuniting with families is the essence of Chinese Spring Festival.  But buying train tickets during this period is one of the biggest headaches for most people, especially the migrant workers who are reluctant to pay 50 or 100 RMB extra per ticket to Huang Niu/Piao Fanzi (Ticket Scalpers).

So they came to the train stations hours or even days earlier in order to get a good spot in the queue. But sometimes the chance of getting a ticket is still slim.

A cardboard left at a ticket office at Beijing Railway Station, it says “I’m the first, I came here yesterday”.

People waiting in the queue was not as many as I imagined. But some were still reluctant to leave before the next batch of tickets was released.

Chun Yun (Transport during the Spring Festival period) in China is one of the biggest movements of people on earth. It is estimated to be 2.32 billion person-time travel around the country by various means during this year’s Spring Festival.

Thanks to the Internet, complaints regarding the difficulties of buying train tickets have brought the attention of the central government. Mr. Hu Jintao issued a special order to solve the problems.

Then, Deputy Director of the State Railway Department, Wang Zhiguo, made a public apology on TV.

Regarding the Ticket Office Scandal video (a video showing a railway personnel suspicious of selling bulk tickets to ticket scalpers), he said “there was a misunderstanding, but it has hurt our passengers’ feelings”.

According to Southern Daily, one of the few newspapers that have some independent journalistic spirit, a Real Name System can fundamentally solve the problem. But the Railway Department refuses to implement such a system because of technical difficulties. Whereas our neighbor India has already done that 70 years ago.

Here are pictures of Beijing taken from the mid 80s to the beginning of 90s.

A boy enjoying the ride.

“There are 9 million bikes in Beijing…”

And a lot of taxi cabs, too.

College students dancing at a public square, some were bare foot.

Girls sailing at Beihai park.

While others were talking about love.

The tallest building…

before this.

Roads seemed wider.

Bridges seemed simpler.

The old (or should I say older?) President Bush came to visit in 1988.

The 1990 Asian Games was successfully hosted.

And the Olympics was just a hope.

Thirty years ago, the communist party under Deng Xiaoping’s leadership initiated the Opening and Reform. All forms of media across the nation are now going full force to report changes happened during these years. The whole nation seems to be immersed in memories.

The following pictures were taken in Beijing during the time between 1978 to early 80s.

One of the first advertisement billboards on the street. The girl image used to be a huge impact on most people’s aesthetic conception. Taken at Shatan Street in 1979.

There was no soda, coke, mineral water, or anything like that at the time. Made popular in 1981, big bowl tea was the only kind of beverage that can be purchased on the street. Taken in front of the Forbidden City in 1981.

Sunglasses like this were really popular. The brand label must be intact, otherwise it wouldn’t be cool. The nation’s brand awareness was awakened. Taken in Beihai Park in 1980.

Young people dancing after the dancing ban was removed. Note the people watching and taking pictures. Taken at the Summer Palace in 1979.

The most fashionable people in 1980s. Army cap and coat, long scarf, and huge sunglasses were key fashion elements. Taken at Beihai Park in 1980.

In 1980s, domestic travellers were more interested in foreigners with brown hair and blue eyes. Taken at the Forbidden City in 1980.

Newly wedded couples were allowed to buy 1 piece of furniture with a coupon. Though most had to wait in the queue for a whole night, they were sure happier than us ’cause we are now always overwhelmed by the number of choices. Taken in 1980.

People were allowed to sit in the Hongqi (meaning “red flag”) car to take pictures. It costed 20 cents. Taken at the Forbidden City in 1980.

First art exhibition on the street (the famous “Star Exhibition“). Artists and organizers of the exhibition are now key figures in China’s art scene. Some of their works are being sold for tens of millions. Taken outside of China Fine Art Hall in 1979.

Have you found a part of yourself in the pictures?

Stay tuned for pictures from 1988 to the 90s.

“Jianghu” is one of the most vague and complicated terms in modern Chinese. It’s an imaginary world in which the chivalry swordsmen fight evil and protect the weak. It’s where life is always sacrificed for the ultimate causes. It’s a state of mind, a fantasy, a story of romance…

Sometimes “Jianghu” is also simple to explain. It’s a small cozy bar inside an old Hutong in Beijing. A place for music, alchol, love, and friendship.

A traditional Beijing Siheyuan has been transformed into this nice little space.

The bar just celebrated its 2nd birthday.

A picture took by the owner. A woman holding a baby in front of the freaky new CCTV building.

Latterns inside the yard.

Some art crafts and an oil painting of a traditional Beijing opera figure.

Elements of traditional Hutongs and Siheyuans.

An old phone.

Al on the roof.

The corner where music originates.

A couple of my friends having a break after a blues session.

That’s me singing some Beatles songs.

Mr. Wang Tianxiao, outstanding saxophone player, an easy-going, funny, and compassionate musician, one of the creators of “Jianghu”.

“Jianghu” is located in Dong Mianhua Hutong near Jiao Dao Kou. Click here for a detailed map.

Where there is people, there is Jianghu…

Well, everyone knows whatever figures the Chinese government releases, they don’t really reflect any reality. But still, I was amazed at the “official” figure of the number of infected AIDS patients. 44,389 people are being reported to be infected with the deadly disease from January to September this year, among which 6,897 people were killed (according to statistics released by the Ministry of Health).

According to the official data, the number of patients in Yunnan, Guangxi, Henan, Xinjiang, Guangdong, and Sichuan provinces represent 80% of the total infected.

“Currently we are performing pharmacentical tests among some 7,000 patients from 15 provinces. One of the drugs was approved by the state, and the others are still undergoing experiments”, said Wang Weizhen, Deputy Manager of the AIDS Prevention and Treatment Department of the Ministry of Health.

According to another research conducted by China Preventive Medicine Association and Beijing Chaoyang District Disease Control Center, till the end of 2008, the chance of male homosexual partners being infected with the disease will reach 9.31%.

To be honest, I don’t have a clear idea what the above numbers mean to me. But I know what the people infected with the disease are facing in their daily life.

I remember 2 years ago when I was watching an underground documentary (please refer to the picture below) telling the story of a rural family in Henan Province where the wife died from AIDS because of medical misplay during her blood transfusion. A great number of villagers trade their blood for money at disqualified medical institutions at the time. The story of the family in the documentary are just a fraction of the whole picture. I still recall the moment when the father wept at her dying wife while kept whipping off flys on her face…

I don’t mean to be negative about what the government and the public is trying to deal with the problem. I’m just trying to be perfectly honest about my perception of it. The media is not open and impartial (though improving) as you may have imagined ( and it’s not perfect in any country), I’m just emphasizing that the real situation is way more dangerous than what the official figures indicate. One tip, the real population in China is higher than the official figure due to the “Hukou” policy. You may live as a human being in this country, but you may not be recorded as one if you don’t have “Hukou”…

We just have more to deal with than what we have imagined!

Yaohe basically means peddler’s call. In old times when Beijing was covered by Hutongs, food and crafts vendors used to use various types of peddlers’ call to sell their goods and services. People could judge the different kinds of goods and services just by the tune. The vendors also tried very hard to make their yaohe stand out from each other, and it became a form of traditional art. Now people can only hear yaohe at performances in expensive restaurants or at traditional festivals. Mr. Zang is one of the most renowned performers of traditional Beijing yaohe.

Born in 1932 in Beijing, Mr. Zang worked as a newspaper boy when he was 9 and ran a small business before the liberation war. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Zang worked in the railway department and later became a full time Xiangsheng (cross talk) performer at the art group of the department. During his work, he collected more than 170 types of traditional Beijing Yaohe, and is being called the King of Yaohe.

Mr. Zang has worked as a dubber for many TV dramas, and is viewed as a national treasure because like many other traditional art forms, yaohe is diminishing from the life of Beijingers.

Mr. Zang is so famous that a kind of traditional Beijing food is using his image as trademark.

Click here for some sound clips of Mr. Zang’s yaohe.

You must be thinking, why are you teaching us how to say “buy soysouce”? What does that have to do with the fun of the new Chinese vocabulary? Well, you will re-consider this question after reading the post.

“Da” as a verb originally means “beat and hit”. But we normally use it with the meaning “buy or get”, especially when followed by liquid such as soysouce and water. “Jiang you” means soysouce. Remember you could say “da soysouce” if you are buying soysouce. But you cannot say “da water” when buying bottled water. You should say “buy water” as you usually do. “Da water” would mean “getting water from a water tab”. Anyway, it means “buy soysouce” when we say “da jiang you”.

To make a long story short, a very famous Hong Kong singer and movie actor Edison Chen got really unlucky when his photos and videos of his private relationship with several female singers and actresses were leaked to the Internet. A bunch of these singers and actresses went down with him and have not showed up for a long time. It was such a huge event that everyone was talking about, and every male was searching extensively on the web to find the pictures and video clips. The police department once apprehended several individuals for distributing them.

So one day, in Guangzhou city in south China, a TV crew was interviewing citizens about the event. When asking this guy in the picture below, he said, “what the hell does it have to do with me? I’m just here to da jiang you!”

This guy soon became hot across the nation. The online communities are widely using the phrase “da jiang you” to express their willful ignorance towards some meaningless event, theory, or whatever else in that nature. It’s also an indication of people’s helplessness to the overload of useless information.

Some say the guy was actually being interviewed about the 29th Olympics, which would make it more fun to some people. But the original video clip could not be found anywhere soon after the event, and we could not know what really happened. But anyways, who was supposed to say that on TV?

OK, that’s it for today. You can have a giggle whenever buying soysouce from now.

Hey, we are going to continue our vocabulary lessons with a few more interesting words and phrases.

If you are learning Chinese, you must understand what “dai” means. Have a look at the character, can you imagine a person standing straight, not saying anything and not doing anything? Yes, that’s what “dai” means, dumb, logi, and slow in reaction.

What if two dumb person come together? Is it dumb+dumb, dumbX2, or dumbXdumb?

It turns out to be “mei” in modern Chinese.

The word originally has the same meaning with “plum”. But now it’s being widely used by the younger generation, mostly on the Internet, with a meaning of “dumb beyond comprehension”, or something like that.

Ok, that’s it for today… Hey, hey, don’t you fall asleep in my class! You wanna be a “mei” person?

Pirated movies vanished all of a sudden from video stores before the Olympic Games. Life became more suffering and dull, until 2 days ago, I found they are now all coming back. Life is full of hope again. You may say this is wrong, I should not buy pirated movies. But please hear me out first.

1. I’m just not as rich.

It costs 70 RMB to watch a film in a theater. Annual per capita disposable income in Beijing is 22,000 RMB in 2007. That is only 183.3 RMB per month. Not enough to watch 3 films if you don’t have any other expenses. I make 3,800 RMB per month (well, when I was being employed) after tax and other deductions. I pay 2,000 RMB for rent. The rest is just enough to cover other expenses like transportation, clothing, dinning, and sometimes money for the homeless. I must have some kind of special reason to go to a theater, such as my birthday.

2. I’m a big fan.

Like most of the young generation, I cannot live without a regular supply of movies. It seems impossible for me to become a filmmaker myself now, then I have more right to watch more I guess. Recreation is dull and expensive for most young people in Beijing, especially when they are stuck with overtimes. Watching movies at the comfort of home before going to bed is the most common recreation.

3. I’m no fan of the government’s censorship system.

One of the most important factors that constraint local filmmakers’ creativity is the out-dated, extremely stupid censorship. Not all major blockbusters can be officially imported, not to mention the ones that are not so mainstream. They only way of seeing the world cine is to buy pirates.

4. I’m also not a fan of the legal copies.

Surprising you may find, the legal film discs have lower definition then the pirated ones. And it is funny that the anti-piracy promo they force you to watch before the movie in the legal copies claim exactly the opposite. Instead of trailers and special features in the pirated copies, they force you to watch commercials in the legal ones. You cannot skip them! And, they are 2, if not 3 times more expensive.

5. It doesn’t hurt.

Most pirated movies are the overseas ones that cannot be imported legally anyway. Since there’s no legal way for them to make a dime in mainland China, why not make some buzz through pirates. Actually a lot of local “underground” filmmakers distribute their films through illegal channels. They themselves sell the films to pirate manufacturers. This way they get even more return than theatrical release (bear in mind the cost of marketing, it’s very often more than the production budget) and their works get more audience. Let alone the possibility for the director himself or herself to become really popular.

Imagine bagging yourself 10 high definition, trailer and special feature jammed movies for only 70 RMB (10 dollars). Would you do that if you were me?