Cheese!

Qiezi! I always hear Chinese people say this right before they snap a picture. I’ve done it, too. But what does it mean?

Well, until recently I was completely blind to the meaning of this phrase. Chinese listening comprehension is the second hardest skill for me, next to writing so It’s no surprise I didn’t know what I was screaming in front of the camera. Are you ready?

One!

Two!

Three!

Eggplant!

Yup, eggplant is the Chinese equivalent of ‘cheese’ in English. It was not until I read a dialogue about taking pictures and saw the actual characters that I understood what it meant. Now, every time I say qiezi it reminds me of my favorite dish, yuxian qiezi (fish-fragrant eggplant). This makes me smile more than cheese.

Counting Sheep

Here’s a cool little thing I learned the other day. I don’t know if it’s completely accurate but it makes sense to me!

You know how people say that when you can sleep you should close your eyes and count sheep? One sheep, two sheep, three sheep…

Did you ever wonder why a sheep and not a whale or a bee or some other random animal? What if it’s because it sounds like the word: sleep. Yeah!

Do Chinese people count sheep?

No!

The word ‘sheep’ in Chinese is 羊(yang2). The Chinese word for sleep is 睡觉 (shui4jiao4). 水饺 (shui3jiao3) means dumpling.

See where I’m going with this?

When they can’t sleep they are advised to count dumplings because the word is similar to sleep. However, as I was told by my fourteen-year-old English student, nobody really does this because it just makes them hungry.

Great, right! Fun little theory.

The Last Train Home

It’s about 21:50. We are on about nine stops and one transfer away from Beijing West Train Station and our train leaves at 22:16. Where did time go? How did this happen? Why didn’t I notice? The last time I looked at my phone we were eating Beijing duck and still had about two hours until the train left.

At that point we both knew that we would not make it. As a last resort to make it to the station in time my friend and I decide to exit the metro and try to flag down a taxi. In my mind I knew that even if we did get a taxi right away we would still to make it in time but we had to give it a go, unsuccessfully, of cours

If you would like to read about the events that lead to this moment CLICK HERE.

Defeated, after missing two trains in one day, we went back to the metro station hopeful of finding a quick and simple solution to our carelessness upon arrival to the train station. I have heard from friends that it is possible to trade tickets and that you can even return tickets for the full price. There was still a little bit of hope. Maybe there was even a later train than the one we missed!

“This ticket is no longer valid,” said the lady at the other side of ticket booth window. Turns out that you can exchange tickets and you can return them for full price, you just have to do it before the train’s departure time. Once the train starts to board all of these wonderful alternatives are lost and you are left with a pricy piece of paper, a stack of questions, cancelled plans, watery eyes and a stomachache.

There was no other train leaving for Chengdu that night. The next train left the next morning at 8 o’clock. In reality we would only arrive at Chengdu five hours later than if we wouldn’t have missed the train. The morning train made better time. There was only one problem. Money.

It was the end of the trip and both my friend and I were pretty low on cash. Since we had already bought the return ticket to Chengdu we didn’t really calculate such an expense into our budgets. Between the both of us we had enough money for only one ticket and some instant noodles. I still don’t have a working debit card because of the New Year’s incident and thus, no way of getting more money. My friend’s cards don’t work at either of the two ATMs in the station. It’s the middle of the night and there is no way to have money wired because all of the banks are closed. If we wait until morning when the banks are open the four remaining tickets for the 11:45 train will most likely be gone. The more we delayed the train the later we would get home. I had work Friday afternoon and my friend on Saturday. So there we were, sitting on our luggage, exchanging SIM cards out of dead devices trying to contact people that could help us get money for new train tickets.

It was past one in the morning and we were walking to find either a 24-hour restaurant to spend the night and get Wi-Fi or a different ATM to try the cards, and there they were. They spot foreigners thirty feet away. They speak enough English to drive you crazy before you even know what they are trying to sell you. I truly admire these people. They are out in the most uncomfortable conditions catching up to you on their bicycles while still keeping their one-of-a-kind peddler’s jingle on beat. I had never been a foreigner in another country before I came to China so I have nothing to compare this with but there they were, outside the train station closing in on two fresh targets.

We walked into a hotel across the street from the train station to ask for directions to an ICBC bank nearby but lucky for us there was a China Construction Bank ATM inside the hotel. She tried her cards again while I asked for directions. Thankfully there was no need to look for the other bank. The ATM worked! We had money for the train tickets! We walked back to the station; this time with our eyes watery from cheer.

First, when you realize that under no circumstance will make your train on time, you go to the train station to exchange your ticket. If you are luck and arrive at the ticket window even two minutes before your train is to depart you can most likely get new tickets. You might have to do some rescheduling in compliance with your new arrival time but not much else. If you get to the ticket window after your train is scheduled to board you will probably need to buy a new ticket. If you have the money on hand, Great! If not, you will have a unique, somewhat desolate story with hopefully a happy ending.

And that is how we were able to get new train tickets back to Chengdu. Now, Where did we spend the night? After all, the new train left in about six hours. There’s no real point in renting a hotel room. CLICK HERE to find out.

Train ride #1

I’ll start by saying that this was my first time on a train -not counting the train at the zoo.

Departing: Chengdu

Destination: Shanghai

Travel Time: 37hrs

Why did I wanted to purchase a seater ticket for a thirty-seven-hour train ride? Maybe it was that I had heard people talk about the cool people they met on the train. Maybe it was just because that was the concept I had of traveling by train, the way it should be. Actually, I think the real reason had more to do with the price of the ticket. Yup! That was the reason.  A seater is usually about half the price of a hard-sleeper ticket.

Everyone, including my travel buddy, warned me it was going to be a hard ride. People described the seats to resemble metal park benches no hobo would like to sleep on. I was a little uneasy but how bad could it really be?

It can be bad…

First night was cake. The seats were nothing like I had imagined. Padded, The were fairly comfortable and served their purpose well. I was prepared for the night with a  book and a bottle of water I bought at the station. I was already late when we boarded the train so I thought it easy to read a while and then curl up and sleep.

A few hours in people started crowing around the foreigners. Honestly, I think that if I had been traveling alone this wouldn’t have happened (I blend in. Some people have said that I resemble some Chinese minority).

Two boys, a brother and a sister about my age, their mother, and randoms, eager and antsy to show off their English and talk with us. I was so exited! One of the younger boys listing off random words in English like, house, dog and tree. The adults talked about us and thought we couldn’t understand what they were saying (somewhat true) but once we spoke a little Chinese they were impressed. In no time the two boys were referring to us as Jiejie (older sister). And so, the night grew with small talk, routine questions and of course, a selfie session.

We were lucky that more than half of the passengers had left the train by bed time and we were able to sleep all night across the length of three seats.

There were a total of twenty stops until we reached Shanghai.

The second day was completely different from the first. Our little péngyous left sometime before sunrise and after that the ride was pretty quiet. I read. I ate instant noodles. I read more. Oh! I forgot to mention that the night before the kids asked me to read spanish to them. Ah! so special!

The day was bland apart from the nice scenery and the night was awful. Since we were getting closer to our final destination the train seats filled up again. By night time every muscle in my legs, neck and back hated  me for not buying a sleeper seat instead.

I thought to myself: never again! (It happened again. Fifty-two hours from Harbin back to Chengdu)

By morning I was counting the hours until we arrived. At every stop I wished desperately for people to get off the train so there would be more room. I really wanted a window seat to open. With a window seat at least I would be able to lean my head agains it and sleep a  little. “Not tonight, Brenda,” said the universe, “No sleep for you.”

Looking back at the whole trip it wasn’t all bad. Interacting with the people was fun. My heart jumped a little every time someone understood what I said. It was good practice. I felt proud of myself. This trip gave me lots of pointers for the next train rides. And honestly, since the second night was so bad it made every other night on a train seem a little less rough.

Good, Horrible, Great, Bad-ish

Happy New Year! Today’s entry is perfectly explained by the title. It all started when a friend invited me to have New Years Eve dinner with her and some of her Italian friends. We went to a Japanese restaurant . Fun. Fun. Fun. Since italian is so similar to Spanish I was able to understand a good amount of things. I actually learned a lot of words like, Hello and eat, for example. Good. Now for the horrible part. The next day when I opened my purse my wallet and my cellphone are both missing. Let’s take a look inside my wallet, ok? Debit card, credit card, Chinese student ID, Chinese library/meal card, transportation card, UNM student ID, driver’s license, random cards, two packaged wet towels, train ticket to Shanghai (for tomorrow), train ticket for Harbin, at least 1000 yuan. All gone. I went back to the restaurant to see if I had left my stuff there but no luck. We went to a club for a few minutes after the Japanese place so I checked there too. The only person inside was a cleaning lady. I told her what I was looking for. I honestly have no idea what she told me but from her tone of voice and gestures It seamed like she was scolding me for being irresponsible and not taking care of my things. I think she hadn’t seen any wallet. Next, I went to the train ticket shop to ask if they could reprint the train tickets. Turns out the tickets can be reprinted but at the train station and not the shop. In sad an low spirits I walked back home. My phone had died before we left the restaurant the night before so there was no way of calling it. Back home when you lose something its very unlikely you will get it back. Same rule applies here, especially since the population is of about 14 million people. My roommate let me borrow her iPad to log into WeChat (Chinese messaging app).  All of the sudden I see a message pop on my screen. I had no Idea who this person was but the message read, “did you lose your handbag?” Yes, I know, jaw-dropping! Who was this person? How did he get my WeChat? I couldn’t think straight. As we kept messaging he said something that finally clicked. He said, “good thing you kept my business card.” Just then everything finally made sense. His name is Chris, he is the manager of a latin-style bar I went to about two months ago. He gave me his business card and we traded WeChats. So, that’s  how this guy knew me! Chris gave me the phone number of the person who found my wallet and I sent it to my Chinese friend so they could arrange a meeting. At 9:40 p.m. my friend and I walked towards the university’s north gate to retrieve my wallet and pay its ransom. From the beginning the guy asked for money in return for the wallet. In total I had about 10 kuai to my name since all of my money was in the wallet.  My friend and I discussed it on the walk over and she lent me 100 kuai to pay for my purse. Of course, the guy wanted more money. He wanted 500 kuai! He even said that he had planned on keeping the wallet and only selling me back my train tickets for their original price! My friend talked to him for a while and he accepted the 100 kuai and left. I was so happy to have my wallet back! There is one thing that I didn’t mention. In the morning I had e-mailed my bank to tell them that I had lost my wallet. They cancelled my card. Still no money. It’s going to be a long long time until I can get a new card shipped here. For the meantime I’ll be transferring friends money and having them withdraw for me.