a tale of 2 cities, 2 police forces

Last week I listened intently to what was happening in my hometown of Pittsburgh as the G-20 meeting was held there. Protesters from around the US gathered in Pittsburgh to demonstrate their distrust of the financial leaders of the world's 20 biggest economies. I have my own issues with protest politics these days. (I don't really want to get into it.) When given the opportunity to speak and lay out an argument, the protesters are spot on. However, in big meeting situations like these, their points get lost as mainstream media attention turns to police force in riot gear and anarchist protesters in black masks.

Having grown up in Pittsburgh with a lot of friends still there, it was interesting to hear what the people of Pittsburgh had to say about this meeting. Through online status updates and tweets I am able to summarize the following points:

*Most people were pleasantly surprised at the lack of traffic in the city, despite having to take new routes to work.

*Many people were thankful for getting to work from home for a day or two.

*Some people took the time to go for a walk and talk to different groups and report online. One of my friends talked to anti-abortion activists standing next to Free Tibet protesters. He was not sure how either was exactly connected to the G-20. He offered to trade his free Pirates (baseball) shirt for a free Free Tibet t-shirt, but that did not happen.

*Some people were annoyed at the noise of helicopters and blamed it on the protesters. Others were disappointed about the image Pittsburgh was showing the world with their disobedience.

*Other people posted this as their status: To the people of Pittsburgh who are annoyed at the potential damage the protesters might cause, think about the damage the G-20 has already caused.

As I heard stories of downtown Pittsburgh being empty, having cleared out like a ghost town, I walked on the streets in Beijing to see a similar situation unfolding. I have been busy the last few days observing the world around me unfold as more police officers take the streets, more civilians wear volunteer security arm bands, more Chinese flags are hung from businesses and homes. I had a man knock on my door, offering a free Chinese flag for me to hang.

I won't lie; there is not really much of a comparison to make between a national holiday and an international financial meetings. No matter what one thinks of the protesters, what is lacking here are the voices of any protest at all. Instead, flags, national songs, and performances are celebrating the unity of a nation, masking the discontent of groups not included. I have a friend in Xinjiang this week. There is no internet at all there, nor can she send any text messages, both to prevent mass communication of messages.

UPDATE: After I wrote this, I saw this article in the NY Times. Perhaps its description of Beijing is more accurate than mine.

Thirty more days

I write this as I sit on the roof of my hutong apartment in Beijing. From the roof of this one-story house, I can see into the courtyards of my neighbors where dogs are sunbathing and laundry is drying. I hear sirens and bike bells and motorcycle horns. I cringe at the sound of car horns. On a daily basis cars attempt to drive down these alleys, just as wide as the cars themselves. They push people and bikes and dogs off to the edges of teh alley; they are, to borrow the metaphor from a friend, the artery-cloggers of Beijing's hutongs. But this is a society where tradition and modern sometimes clash and other times co-exist. In thirty days when I get on a plane to the US, it is witnessing these aspects of China that I will miss.

Unfortunately what I won't miss are the times when I have to leave my role as an observer and participate in the chaos of Chinese society. I've been relaxed and secluded in Beijing and have pretty much let all of the challenges that I faced when doing fieldwork in Harbin get behind me. But there are a lot of bureaucratic challenges that a foreign researcher faces in China. There are also a lot of social pressures that one faces being a foreigner and a stranger. Sometimes I was able to work past that idea of being the foreign stranger but other times, it was a tough wall to break.

So I feel like what I am saying is that I like the environment in China where I can live in a gentrified hutong apartment and feel like I am a part of the 'old Beijing' while also separating myself when I do not want to be a part of it. I value the Chinese friends that I have made here, but to live in and participate in Chinese society on a daily basis is a pretty exhausting experience. I hope to spend my last 30 days here enjoying the things I like about China and avoiding the things I don't like.

China Prepares for the Big Siz Zero

On October 1, China celebrates its 60th Birthday as the People's Republic. Beijing is in the midst of preparing a huge celebration for this momentous occasion. As a result, we are feeling the effects of it. For the last few weekends, Tiananmen Square has been closed off as performers practice for the parade and performance. I have seen a large tank filled with soldiers in a big intersection near my house on the weekends (a tank is so symbolic for China). Today traffic is closed off on major roads as the parade is practiced. For the next few weeks, old men who like to fly kites and let their pigeons out of cages to fly are forbidden to do so anywhere near the Square in the center of Beijing. Apparently all university students in Beijing are going to be required to attend the actual performance on October 1. It will be broadcast on Chinese TV. I actually don't have a TV so I might have to miss it.

If its anything like the Olympics, I am sure I will be able to buy a DVD of the performance the next day. I will just make a plan not to go anywhere too far from home those days.

random rice fact

The other day, my roommate and quizzed each other using the trivia questions from the game Cranium. Cranium is a really fun game. We have the game in our possession at the moment and are itching to play, but we need 4 people to play the game. Sadly, I don't think many of the pop culture references translate to Chinese, so we would need to play with other westerners. Instead of playing we have resorted to reading through the trivia questions and feeling like we are learning something.

So here is a question she asked me:

True or False

Throwing rice at weddings is bad because the rice expands in birds' stomachs.

My response: that is so true!

The actual response: False. I did research online about this. Apparently Ann Landers propagated this rumor in the 1960s. Both bird and rice groups have proven this wrong.

On a game-related note: bi-lingual Pictionary is super-fun! We played with a group last week of mostly both English and Chinese speakers, though we had one English only and one Chinese only speaker. A lot of checking electronic dictionaries on iphones was necessary because there are a lot of specific vocabulary.

Summer Ends

Well, its technically Labor Day weekend in the US right now. I say technically because that does not really affect me here at all. However, it is symbolic in marking the ending of summer. The weather in Beijing is an indication that summer is over; its been cold and rainy all weekend. This is good for my marathon training (6 more weeks!) and its been an overall relief to the hot and humid August weather here. Thinking about summer makes me think about how I've spent the last 3 full summers in China, plus 2 weeks in China 4 summers ago.

This is kind of amazing to me, especially because I like to think of summers as time to go camping and spend time outdoors. China is not quite conducive to these activities. I have to admit when I think about it, I'm a little bitter at how long I have spent here, giving up the activities that I like to do this research project. But as I look at how I have spent the past several summers in China, I can see progress in my research and it is rewarding.

2006. I came to Beijing for 2 weeks to visit a friend who lives in the countryside outside of Beijing and to work with her family on their farm. It was a good way to introduce me to country life in China and to start to think about what types of projects I could do.

2007. I stayed in Beijing for 2 months doing preliminary research on rice production at China Agricultural University. I did get to take a few trips outside of Beijing to see the countryside, but I spent the entire summer thinking about future summers I could spend actually being in the countryside for an extended period of time.

2008. I was in Harbin taking language classes. I got to spend some time in the countryside, but not that much. I was feeling quite productive, however, because I was in a classroom learning about rice production and building the necessary vocabulary to do my project.

2009. This was the summer I finally got to spend in the countryside where some of the best rice in China is produced. I spent a lot of time traveling back and forth to Harbin (about 1n hour and a half away) so it wasn't quite the ideal living and working on the countryside that I had anticipated, but I got to learn a lot. And I learned this summer that summers in Harbin are very nice and might even balance out the cold winters.

Pleasant Surprise

When I was in Hong Kong, a friend of mine commented that there should be free spas just at the China-Hong Kong border for those of us who had to make visa runs. I laughed because Hong Kong was kind of like a spa to me. On my one night there I got a haircut, which included a half an hour head massage as they washed my hair. It was pretty nice.

The next day I spent the morning in a nice coffeeshop working. Then I got my passport and visa back early in the day. Because I wasn't sure how long it would take to get it back, I had scheduled the latest flight back to Beijing from Shenzhen. I decided to take the subway back to Shenzhen early to see if I could get on an earlier flight.

I arrived at the airport 4 hours before my original flight and went to the counter. They said there was a flight leaving in 30 minutes they could put me on. The next thing I knew I was standing in line with a first class ticket! Not only did I get an earlier flight but it was first class! Sometimes things work out well.

Visa Run

Since I first came to China in 2001, I have always met people who needed to make a trip to Hong Kong (or some more exotic location) on an elusive 'visa run.' I've always had the right kinds of visas for the right amount of time I've been here so I've never had to do it. Alas, today I sit in Hong Kong where I needed to get before my visa ran out. My passport is currently being processed with a new visa and, assuming all goes well, I will be back in the mainland tomorrow night.

Since 1997, Hong Kong has been a part of China after it was returned after a century of British rule. However, it remains its own administrative region and all people, Chinese and Hong Kong residents included, must show a passport when crossing the border. American citizens can enter Hong Kong without a visa, but we need one to enter China (and China has no problem making Americans pay much more for a visa than other citizens). This is why it counts that I have left the country to enter in on a new visa. Some people I know living in China have visas that require them to leave the country every 90 days. A trip to Hong Kong is sufficient in fulfilling that requirement.

Before I go off on a rant, I want to say 3 things: 1) China and Hong Kong went through a lot of negotiation as the governments figured out how to merge a Communist country with a former British colony and 2) I can respect China's need to regulate visas and 3) I have no right to complain about visa regulation when I know how difficult it can be for many foreign students to come to the US (something many Americans don't think about because it doesn't involve us).

That said, the bureaucracy of regulating visas and requiring foreigners to leave the massive country that is China is a bit overstretched. Hong Kong, once the mecca for most foreigners in China to converge, has lost its appeal as Beijing and Shanghai and Guangzhou become more 'Westernized.' But it remains the place to come when one has to 'leave the country' even though, in technical terms, it remains a part of China. Beijing continues to execute power with things from the past when, in the eyes of many others, it seems illogical. If its money China is after, I know many people who have claimed they would rather pay all the money they pay to take the trip to Hong Kong to the the Chinese government visa office than deal with the hassle of physically getting out bodies 'out' of the country just to be able to get back 'in.' I wonder how long Beijing can hold onto all of these old rules and regulations by picking and choosing where it can execute authority.

Oh well. Rant over. Hong Kong is not a bad place to be, despite the August heat and humidity. Cheap Indian food is all over the place here. And people speak better English than Mandarin. So very odd.

Am I on vacation?

OK, so I was planning to write a post last weekend about leaving Harbin, my home for the past 14 months. But when it came down to it, I was busy packing and saying good-bye. But also, I wasn't sure what to say about leaving. I left wishing I had done more with my time there, but also with all the amazing things I had done while I was there rushing through my head. I couldn't be content with what I had done because I was also hard on myself for not doing more. So in the end, my time in Harbin is over, except maybe a quick trip back later this fall.

I have been in Beijing for the last week. I am staying with a friend who lives in a traditional courtyard house (called a hutong). Compared to my 6th floor apartment in Harbin it feels like a cottage. I can sit on the roof and do yoga at night, walk her dog through Beijing's old winding alleys, go for morning runs around Houhai Lake, walk 10 minutes to a world where Western restaurants are more prevalent than Chinese ones. Life is good. What has been most exciting about this week is that I have had friends calling me to join them in going to the ballet (at Beijing's new architectural masterpiece for performing arts building), going to see a bluegrass band, eating at a fancy vegetarian restaurant. Compared to sitting on an outdoor street drinking Harbin beer, Beijing has a nightlife!

I went to all these events, but really it wasn't the events that I was excited about. It was the alternative of what I could be doing. I actually wanted to spend my nights sitting in my new office and writing. I have started to write my dissertation and it is a great feeling. I feel like I can't talk about Harbin and the farms I was on this summer until I write about it all to process it. Writing is a great way to do that. Maybe after I continue to write day after day, I will get sick of it, but for now, I feel like I am on vacation.

Accents

The other day I was talking with some Canadian friends and I caught myself using their Canadian accent. Aside from thinking I need to stop hanging around them before I come back to the US, I didn't think too much of it.

Then I was in a Sichuan restaurant in Harbin. I was talking to the waitstaff as I was waiting for food. I never told them I lived in Sichuan. Later in our conversation, one of the ladies heard me talking and said 'she can speak the sichuan dialect!' I just about laughed out loud because 1) I never really could speak sichuanese, 2) I wasn't saying anything distinctly sichuanese, and 3) it was kind of ironic given that they did not know I had lived there.

I told them I had lived there and to them, that explained it. But to me I was left wondering what it was that I said that made them say that. They told me it was just the way I was talking, nothing specific that I said.

Hmmmm. I wonder if in my daily use of Chinese (including conscious and subconscious attempts to improve my Chinese), I have started to try to talk like the people I am having conversations with, no matter what language I speak. Or is it just a coincidence that one day I find myself speaking Canadian English and the next day some Sichuan ladies find me speaking Sichuanese? Probably a little of both...

I'm still here

How does one develop a cold right in the middle of summer? Like a bed-ridden, sore throat, sinus-stuffy, head throbbing cold? I guess living in China does this to you. So that is my excuse for my blogging absence lately. And spending long days in the countryside.

The countryside is good. The rice is growing. The rain continues to fall each afternoon. Some farmers are concerned that there is too much rain this year but most are OK with it. Many of the farmers I have been talking to have contracted their rice production to private companies so they get the same amount of money no matter what their yield. Families are happy with the vegetables their private gardens are beginning to produce. Aside from many of the basic cooking ingredients (oil, spices, etc.) many households are self-sufficient in what they eat at this time of year. Although some try to be fancy when they have guests come by purchasing extra meat, most of the food they eat here comes from their own gardens. Northeast farmers have a lot of space in their yards for private gardens surrounding their homes in addition to the fields they use for mass grain production.

Back in Harbin, early harvests of corn and garlic are lining street corners at this time of year. Rice stores are trying to sell their remaining bags of rice from last season to make room for the rice this season to arrive in October.

I have tickets purchased! I leave for Beijing on August 17 for two months of information gathering, talking about northeast rice, and a lot of writing. I'll be staying with my friend Melissa who is also finishing her dissertation research in Beijing. We are hoping we can use the constant presence of one other to motivate ourselves to be productive. I fly back to the US on October 22. And I can't wait!!!

Ex-Pat Harbin: the reality sitcom

Based on characterizations and stereotypes, any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is, well, Purely Coincidental...(though you do get extra points if you can figure out the category where I appropriately belong)

PLOT: Following the myriad of teachers, students, and other foreigners living in Harbin, China as they eat, drink, and indulge in a life of debauchery outside their home countries.

SETTING: Harbin, China has been an international/multicultural city in the northeast of China for over a century. In addition to the majority Chinese population, the city hosts Russians, Koreans, Japanese, Americans, Canadians, Europeans who have set up permanent or temporary homes. Harbin winters are described as cold, dark, and lonely as the Siberian winds sweep down and descend upon the town. In contrast to the winters, Harbin summers are filled with refreshing cool nights spent in one of the city’s beer gardens where draft beer continuously flows to be consumed with barbecue kebabs. A 3:30 am sunrise ensures that ‘partying ‘til dawn’ happens often and happens hard.

MAIN CHARACTERS:
The Australian Bar Owners: Risky and Savvy describe these young, male Australians who, after a few years of living in Harbin and frustrated with the nightlife, open their own bar. Décor does not define this bar; rather cheap drinks and loud music. These guys play ‘Jack@ss’ and ‘Beavis and Butthead’ DVDs on the TV above the bar, have set up a half pipe in the back room, and offer regular evenings packed with drinking games.

The Russian/European Drinkers: The drinking habits of these guys follow the laws of ‘faster’ and ‘harder.’ There are no limits as to how much one can drink each night. Days are spent resting off the activities of the previous night in anticipation of what the next evening will bring. Discussions center around the best way to cure a hangover.

The American Students: Loud and in packs are the telltale signs of these American college students. They are here for a semester abroad, living off their parents’ money (with a highly favorable exchange rate) and developing tactics to circumvent the ‘strict Chinese learning environment’ they anticipated upon arrival. Their days are spent searching for the meaning of life in the Chinese they encounter; nights are meant to forget about the activities of the day by throwing back drinks.

The Chinese Girlfriends: Wholesome, Confucius-abiding Chinese women are not the native females one finds in Ex-pat Harbin. Instead, we find fluent in English girls who have strategized with all the Chinese online advice about ‘how to land a Western man.’ Their nails can’t get any longer and their skirts can’t get any shorter. They are well-versed in ‘Sex in the City,’ ‘Gossip Girl,’ and ‘Desperate Housewives.’

The Chinese Businessmen: Slimy, slick, and successful portray these well-connected men. Their friends are high-up government officials and their goal is to own the most successful bars in town. They use their money and connections to sabotage the Australian Bar Owners as best they can. The one advantage the Aussies have going for them, however, is loyalty.

The Narrator: An academic ethnographer who sits in the corner armed with camera and notebook, rarely getting involved in the events of the evening, except on the rare occasion when an argument about cultural criticism arises. Or to persuade the bartender to kick the creepy Russian who is harassing her Canadian friend out of the bar.

MJ Tours Rural China

I should have added this to my list yesterday. Even in rural China, Michael Jackson music lives on! I know we are all sick of hearing about his death. Ironically, a message from my dad complaining about the over-coverage of his funeral in the US made me think this story was worth telling.

I was in Shanghai when MJ’s death was announced. By that afternoon, a mall was playing his music. [On a side note, I was selfishly disappointed because for the first time in a while I had access to CNN International, but all that was broadcast for 2 days were people around the world mourning MJ’s death].

Back in Harbin, over the past two weeks, DVD stores have created shelves displaying his music and videos. University campuses have set up outside kiosks selling MJ T-shirts. It seems to have taken a week or so for the stores to get set up with all the MJ equipment but it is out in full force.

A few days ago, I was walking down the main road of my village in the countryside when I passed a small hole-in-the-wall barbershop. Its doors were open so I could hear the music. They were playing Beat it. I loitered in front of the store for a bit and the next song to come on was Billie Jean. They must have gotten a hold of a Michael Jackson CD.

I won’t say this village is in the middle of nowhere; geographically, it is near a major city in China. But upon entering the village, it feels worlds away from the modern amenities of a city. Yet, the legacy of Michael Jackson has found its way here.

Random

There's so much to write about these days that it takes far greater effort for me to think about everything and process it to a good post. So I am taking the lazy/abbreviated way out by writing a few random things that have been on my mind recently.

1. Xinjiang. This situation makes me sad. Xinjiang is a beautiful place with beautiful people. Beijing is doing what it feels it needs to do to maintain stability, but the power they have and their lack of sympathy in exerting this power is evident. I hope someday they will learn to listen. But I'm not Chinese and I can't possibly imagine their situation, which leads me to the next 2 points.

2. Ethnic Minorities. I work in a primarily Korean minority village. Most of the Koreans are not there throughout the year because they have opportunities in S. Korea or in China's larger cities working for Korean companies. Of the 55 recognized minorities in China, the Koreans are often lauded as the 'model' minority because they help bring foreign money to China, their children are well-educated, etc. Compared with the Xinjiang Uighurs and Tibetans, the Koreans are left alone.

3. Chinese society. The more I talk to people, the more I realize how many problems there are in Chinese society which don't necessarily get addressed. People tend to want to talk about all the great things China is doing, economically, while ignoring many of the social problems. One of the most frustrating parts about doing research in China because I don't feel there is space, in a broader sense, for policy advice. Or any advice, really. Maybe once I write my dissertation things will become more clear, but at this point I feel I am studying Chinese society and food/agriculture and really just learning (which is what I am supposed to be doing, I guess). I see limited channels or opportunities for practical, hands-on projects stemming from my research. In contrast, each time I read about agricultural policy in the US, I want to jump right in with my opinions. If I were an agricultural economist or scientist here in China, people would ask for my advice a lot. But as a social scientist, they want to teach me, not listen to me. And I'm fine with that, but sometimes I wonder what practical, non-theoretical results will come of all this work. Maybe its just getting people to think more about food...

4. Weather is a defining factor in what makes a good research day. Its true. The last month or so has seen a lot of rain. In the countryside, rain means everyone is inside. That means it is more difficult for me to wonder around the dirt roads and fields looking for people to talk with me. Even on non-rainy days that are really hot and sunny, people like to be inside a lot. Inside is pretty much consists of homes. When I am invited, I go into people's homes, but I prefer to approach people outside.

5. Marathon training in China rocks. Most people think I am crazy for voluntarily running a marathon here because of the air quality. But I have some American friends and we are going to run it together. So I've been training here and did the distance of a half marathon this morning). Harbin air in the summer is OK, especially after a good rain (of which we've had plenty). The best part is that massages here are done by doctors and cost about $3 for an hour massage. And if I have extra sore joints, they add some acupuncture in there.

Re-enacting Pretty Woman in Harbin

I have a new friend in Harbin. I just met her last week, but we bonded instantly because she spent the past year living near Pittsburgh and teaching Chinese at a rural PA high school. As soon as she found out I was from Pittsburgh she started chanting the Steelers fight song. We bonded instantly (its a 'burgh thing).

Anyway, she has been back in Harbin (her hometown) for a week and is having reverse culture shock at how (in her words) snobby Chinese people are. For example, she and her cousin went shopping last night at an expensive Harbin mall. Coming from the US, her skin is tan because she has not taken all measures Chinese urban women take to keep their skin white. She also knew she was just going shopping so she wore jeans, a T-shirt, and flip flops (not high heels and sparkly clothes like Chinese women). In a nice store, she picked out some clothes to try on. The store keeper who had been hovering over her immediately grabbed the clothes from her and put it back on the rack, telling her she could not try them on.

Why? They thought she was from the countryside (dark skin and casual clothes) and was trying clothes on but not serious about buying them. She left the store in a huff and declared to me at lunch today she is ready to go back to the US (she's returning in August). I told her to watch Pretty Woman because there is a similar scene where Julia Roberts is denied access to a store on Rodeo Drive. She goes back a few days later wearing nice clothes and bags in her hands. She then tells the saleswoman it was a huge mistake to chase her out. I told my friend I would gladly accompany her to the store.

Anyway, this conversation came up when we were translating some of my research material. Once she read a little bit of my questions, it clicked to her that I was trying to look at social status. It was a beautiful moment when she said, 'oh you are studying rice because its something that is so traditional in China, but has undergone so many changes over the last 30 years as China's economy has developed.' She threw the word 'social status' in there somewhere and I wanted to give her a hug. She gets it.

Not many people here understand what I am trying to do by studying rice. Maybe its because they haven't experienced anything besides Chinese society so they don't see it from an outsider's perspective. She talked to me for hours about how materialistic China is. We also talked about this weird position we are both in being 'between' the US and China (the outsider vs. insider perspective). I realize I haven't written much about this aspect of Chinese society so I thought I would share this story.

Brown Rice

I had brown rice for the first time in over a year tonight. It was amazing. Everything about it tasted so good.

Ever since I began focusing my research on rice (over 2 years ago), I've tasted a lot of different rice. Sometimes I prefer good, fragrant white rice. Other times I prefer good, nutty-flavored, healthy brown rice that I ate before starting this research. In China, white rice is the only option.

Except when you go on a quick trip in the rice displays in a Shanghai supermarket. And before your eyes rests a bag of organic brown rice. And all of a sudden nothing in the world sounds better. So you buy a small bag and bring it back to Harbin with you. And cook it in your rice maker. And eat it after you spend a long Monday writing and swimming.

I know people in Harbin who spend 4 months of the year in Hainan island in southern China who make sure to pack a big 50 pound bag of northeast rice with them for the winter so they don't have to eat that 'bad southern rice.' I have access and connections to the 'best' rice grown in China. But all of that rice is white. And my own cultural background has taught me that white rice is bad, brown rice is good. I've looked past that white/brown dichotomy to do this research and to understand what makes rice 'good' to Chinese people who dismissed brown rice long ago. Brown rice never comes up. I almost forgot it existed until I saw it there in Shanghai, labeled in English, probably for all the Shanghai ex-pats.

3:43 am

Happy Summer Solstice! Just want to point out that this morning the sun rose here at 3:43 am. At its peak, Harbin gets 15 hours and 43 minutes (plus 13 seconds) of sunlight. The long days of sunshine and the contrast in temperature between night and day are two reasons people often give me for why the environment here is conducive to growing high quality rice.

In the countryside, most people are up and moving by 4 or 4:30 in the summers. By then it is bright outside. The sun does set early (@ 7:30) so the reason for the early sunrise is both a matter of being east (thanks to China's one country, one time zone policy) as well as north. [On a side note, when I was in Kashgar last month, the sun did not set until after 10 pm.]

In the city, I think people do not tend to get up with the sunrise as much as in the country. But as I've learned from my morning market trips and morning runs, quite a few middle aged and older people tend to be up and out by 6 am to get to the markets early.

Representing Dongbei Cai (Northeast food)

It was a cold and rainy morning in Harbin today. I mean like downpour rain where there was really nothing productive to accomplish outside. So I grabbed a list an acquaintance had given me of the most authentic dongbei (northeast) restaurants. I wanted to go visit the restaurants in Harbin that prided themselves on having the most traditional northeast food in the city. My acquaintance is part of what I would call a very well-off Harbin family and I trusted that she would know some of the best restaurants.

In my recent conversations with farmers, the most interesting discussions have been about what they eat, rather than what they grow. Either I need to do some more digging to find more interesting questions to ask about production or I have to accept that much of my project is going to be about consumption rather than production. Anyway, what I find interesting is how simple they all claim dongbei food is. While there is certainly an art to cooking and presentation, dongbei does not have the same reputation as other regions of Chinese cuisine. Because of these conversations, I wanted to see how people in the city-which is easily and constantly influenced by new trends-present dongbei food.

The first restaurant I visited was a surprise upon entry. I really had no idea what to expect. I walked in to be greeted by 5 servers standing at the door dressed in Mao uniforms. In front of me was a large picture of Mao Zedong. I had walked into a Cultural Revolution-themed restaurant! I had heard of these existing in Beijing; here it is in Harbin! I sat down with the boss and she showed me the menu and explained each dish to me. The themes were the same that I have seen in Harbin and in the countryside: hardy, big chunks of meat, corn, eggplant, potatoes, and carrots alongside fresh leafy lettuce, garlic, and onion.

When we got to the back of the menu with the staple foods (rice, corn, noodles, etc.), I began to ask about Harbin trends for consuming staple foods. The boss got up and showed me a framed picture of old grain tickets that had been used during the Cultural Revolution. We talked about the differences in food preparation and consumption between then and now, this restaurant, and current Harbin eating trends. She took me on a tour of the restaurant, which had plenty of references to the countryside. The was a replica corn barn holding old, dried cobs of corn, a well, wood decor, fake grapes hanging from vines overhead, and pictures of Cultural Revolution leaders working in the fields. Rooms off to the side (for private parties) had tables on a lifted floor, like many of the houses in the dongbei countryside. Old newspapers from the late 1960s were posted on the walls of these rooms. The boss pointed out to me that now many of these rooms (in contemporary restaurants) have televisions, but they chose to put newspapers on the wall.

It was a fascinating visit, and a place I am sure I will go back to with friends. The other restaurants on the list were nice, fancy, non-themed restaurants. Now I need to talk to my friend again to ask her why this particular Cultural Revolution-themed restaurant made it on her list of 'authentic' dongbei restaurants.

North Korea Telephone Game

I have heard some other crazy things lately about the US. I think I mentioned before how everyone has been talking about swine flu. They are telling me America is not doing enough about it and the situation in the US is very severe right now. And they attribute the problem to the American economy collapsing and a lack of a stable health care system. That sounds like a bit of a stretch to me.

Lately I am intrigued by what I am hearing about North Korea. On a bus the other day, a guy was saying that the US and North Korea had begun fighting a war. I could have turned around and told him (and his surrounding audience) the truth, but I did not want to cause a scene.

Later that afternoon I was on a return bus when a guy sitting behind me started taking to the guy sitting next to me about the Russian girl next to him. I turned around and politely informed him I am American, not Russian to let him know I can understand what he says. Talk about starting a scene! I had no idea, but the guy was drunk or crazy. In a loud, confrontational voice, he started asking questions about the US. He asserted that China is not afraid of Obama and it can do whatever it wants but it will not be able to defeat China.

Today I was visiting some friends in a rice store. A customer came in, saw me, and asked who I was. My friends told him I was an American graduate student who wants to understand rice. He asked me what I study and I said geography. He told me geography is good, its a peaceful thing to study. 'What', I asked, 'does a peaceful major mean'? His response was that unlike international politics or economics, geography is a good thing to study because there is no conflict. Well I could argue with that, but instead I asked for some examples. North Korea, he told me, is an example of a country with good relations to China but not to the rest of the world. So now China is caught in the middle because China also has good relations with the rest of the world, so there is conflict. International politics have to look at this problem and figure out a solution.

I think he, like many people I meet, do not have a solid understanding of geography. I know plenty of geographers who study conflict. But again, there was North Korea at the center of his thinking. I guess we are close to North Korea here (468 miles from Harbin to Pyongyang) so when the US gets concerned about nuclear testing or American journalists sentenced to prison, it will be big news here. But its sometimes like a game a telephone where you whisper a word into someone's ear and by the time you get to the end of the circle, the message is completely different.

Sometimes I try to explain the reality of the US to people (like, no we really all do not keep guns in our homes), but other times I am amused by their perceptions. I like to just listen to people talk. I know I should be more of a so-called cultural ambassador, but I am fascinated by how skewed the stories they get are. Its sad, really, but I guess misperceptions happen everywhere (though the state-run media here does a good job at making it happen often here).

One Year Mark

So I happened to look at my passport today and realize that I arrived in China a year ago. Really? Minus the 2 weeks at home for the holidays, I've been in China for a year. Added to the two other years I spent here and a couple 2-3 month trips in between, I've spent about a tenth of my life in China.

Well, I guess this year has gone by fast. I've learned a lot. The work is making it go fast. I can always change and move on to something new if I get bored. I've moved around a bit, too, so that makes it go fast. Four and a half months to go.

Still having issues uploading pictures. When it works, though, I will have lots of pictures to share.

Transplanting rice

Most of the rice in the northeast was transplanted from the greenhouses to the fields over the past week. I have some interesting photos of this, but for some reason, my internet is not loading them here.

Could this be because technically blogger is blocked in China right now?

I am grateful that my university offers a virtual private network to download to my computer. When I log into this, I can access all sites that are currently blocked in China. In addition to blogger, you tube, twitter, and flickr are all blocked because of a certain event that happened 20 years ago in Beijing this week. There is a lot of good commentary on the web about this anniversary. Not many people are talking about it here. I am choosing to practice self-censorship for the time being, even though I have always been (and will always be) fascinated with the events that took place in Beijing in 1989.

I did get caught in a big thunderstorm in the rice paddies the other day. Its a pretty muddy place and trying to run out of the paddies proved to be quite difficult, as I was walking on dirt dividers that quickly became mud alongside the paddies. I hope I can load the pictures soon...

What makes research 'research'?

Over the past month or two, I've talked to several recent college graduates from the US who have been awarded some type of fellowship or job to come to China next year. They have contacted me with a series of questions about what it is like to do research here. I've tried to do the best I can to answer their questions based on my experience(s). China is a large place and, while many patterns of research challenges can be similar, it is difficult to know what to expect. I am glad I can be of help to people who are coming to China or tackling social science research for the first time. But the truth is, I often question if I am doing research the right way (assuming there is a 'right way').

What exactly counts as research? What makes research 'research'? I feel like so much of my time is spent wandering around, talking to random people, trying to figure out what it is I want to get from interacting with them. Sometimes I ask irrelevant questions, hoping to strike an interesting topic with them. Other times I have my camera with me and I ask to take some pictures of what they are doing. I explain that I am a researcher and I want to understand northeast rice. The camera helps to open doors of communication. When I need to fall back on something, I have a large, carefully worded dissertation proposal to remind me what I want to get out of my research. But that proposal says nothing about how I will actually find the right people to talk to or what I will say to them.

I think so much of my time is spent trying to figure out how exactly to carry out the things I say I will do that once I actually do them, they are quite easy. So the wandering and the randomness are about me testing the types of questions I think might be useful to me. Its trial and error about what is an appropriate way to approach someone or how to phrase a certain question. Once I figure out what works, I can get things more efficient. And then by the time I ask those questions, more questions come to me.

This is how I feel right now. I hope this trend continues for the remainder of my time here. Even on days when I feel like I haven't done much 'research,' I still talk to people, take note of what they (and I) say, and think about the next steps.

Xinjiang pics and other updates

I'm back! I hate that I get stressed out if its been over a week and I have not posted anything. My excuse was that I was traveling, then I was getting over being sick (food poisoning ruined the amazing Xinjiang food I ate), then I was getting back to my life in Harbin, then my internet connection was not good. And, well, a lot was going on.

I promised pictures. I tried to load some on here but they did not work too well (slow connection). Here is a link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=112465&id=721517517&l=bf1bb9fc7e

In other news, just this week the New York Times reported this article about China's plans to rebuild the ancient city of Kashgar. This was where I was (see pictures). I'm glad I saw it when I did. When the government gets involved to 'help' or to turn an area into a tourist destination, the result seems to be Disneyland. Not to mention that there are real people living there.

www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/world/asia/28kashgar.html

I have so much more to write about. I will keep it short.

1) Swine flu is a huge scare here. Taxi drivers in Beijing were scared of us when I told them my friend had just come from the US. People moved away from us on airplanes and airports. Newspapers are reporting Chinese students in the US are urging their fellow students not to return to China for fear of spreading the disease. They were criticizing the US for not being as concerned as in China. I found it a bit ironic, after China ignored SARS for so long when it was here.

2) Showing a friend China is fun (and tiring). What I like about it is the fresh perspectives and observations they bring. It makes me think about my own interpretations of things happening here. One of my favorite lines from Betsy came after she had been here about a week. She had always wanted to come to China and had an idyllic vision in her head of what China would be like. Two years ago she had spent 3 months in Japan and she said "Wow, being here really makes me appreciate Japan!" Japan is orderly and people observe some kind of social etiquette. In China, however, cars drive on sidewalks, in the wrong lanes, and they honk at anything and everything in their way. People rarely wait in lines, pushing, shoving and spitting on the sidewalk is common practice, and its quite acceptable to yell to the waitress across a crowded restaurant to get the bill. To the outside observer, Chinese society can appear to be chaos.

3) Rice is being planted in the fields now! We just had a bunch of rain here. Pictures to come soon.

4) I'm definitely much more of a football fan than a hockey fan, but I have to show some home-town support. Go Penguins!

Change of plans

Saturday morning, as planned I was at the airport with my friend Betsy en route to Mongolia. We had already gone through customs and were waiting to get on our flight to Mongolia. Then we were told there was a snowstorm in Ulaan Bataar and it was delayed 12 hours. Rather than waiting all day in the Beijing airport and missing a day in Mongolia (which already felt rushed anyway for only 6 days in the vast country), we found out we were able to refund our tickets. We went backwards through customs and the next question was: where to go?

We were in the capital airport of China with all our money refunded. The options were endless, except that I have already been to many places in China. When Betsy said she wanted to go west, I said 'let's look for tickets to Xinjiang.'

We were here by Saturday evening. Xinjiang is the large province in the northwest of China, home to the Muslim Uighur population. Since I first came to China in 2001, this is the one place I have always wanted to visit, but never had the time to get here since its so far away.

I am now in Kashgar (Kashi in Chinese) now, a city in the far west of Xinjiang. We visited the big Sunday market/bazaar in town on Sunday and strolled through the old town. We spent the past 2 days driving through the mountains visiting Tajik and Krygy villages. We were really close to Afghanistan. We stayed in a Krygy (sp?) family's yurt at about 3,500 m high and then woke up and climbed a 4,200 m mountain (with the help of motorbikes) to see a glacier. We rented bikes today to get around the city. Heading back to Xinjiang's capital Urumqi soon, and then back to Harbin by Friday night (if all goes well).

Stay tuned for pictures of this amazing place. Its a completely different world from the Han Chinese (the majority) parts of China. Its definitely the refreshment away from China that I needed as I head into my last chunk of research time in Heilongjiang.

Asian Adventures

I am in Beijing, waiting for my friend Betsy to arrive. Two years ago, Betsy and I spent a week in Japan hopping trains, climbing mountains, chasing volcanoes, and bathing in hot springs. Now its tome for our Asian Adventure #2.

Its her first time to China, so we are heading to the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Olympic park in the next few days. But then we are heading to Mongolia (the REAL one-not China's Inner Mongolia) for 6 days. We are hoping to repeat our Japanese adventure, Mongolian-style. Horses, mountains, lakes, grasslands, gers, etc. all await us.

Then we are returning to Harbin where Betsy will accompany me to the rice fields and maybe we will get to plant some rice. Hopefully I will be back in a week with plenty of pictures and stories.

This is what Democracy looks like?

I got a call earlier this week from a professor asking me if I wanted to join him to go to a village to the northeast of Harbin for two days. Sure, I answered before even knowing what he was going to be doing there. I usually go on these trips and spend two or three days being an object of attention for my Chinese-speaking abilities and toasting so-called important people with alcohol I do not want to drink and eating food I do not want to eat. Overall, every last minute of these trips are arranged and I have no free time. We are visiting sites that are growing rice but are not the research sites I have picked. Most of the time the professor is doing the talking and I sit there with a couple other grad students with no real role in the project.

Fun, huh? I go because I have access to amazing things and I never know what is going to happen. Yesterday between our 6 hours of train, bus and car travel, I asked several times why we were going. The answer was that a new program was starting and our professor was asked to attend the opening ceremony and give some advice. Typical Chinese vague-ness. I usually wait and see what happens. We got there and toured the greenhouses and our professor told them what to do better.

Then this morning was the opening ceremony. We walked into a room set up with a long table and were told to sit at it with other important-looking people. Along the back wall were farmers. Some of the village leaders spoke for a while, reading off a document. I spaced out and stopped listening after 20 minutes. Then I heard "tongyi?" (agree?) and everyone raised their hands. Next was "butongyi" (disagree?) and no one raised a hand.

They had my attention. I felt like I was in a town meeting. Then all the farmers in the back were handed papers. For what? To cast a vote for the leader of the organization.

The important people table.The farmers in the back.Giving the farmers the ballot.
Casting the ballot in the red box.
And the winner is? The guy who was the leader of the organization that this one morphed into. His name was already professionally printed on the poster that the organizers waited to hang on the wall until after the election.

PS-for those of you not familiar with Chinese politics, village voting in China has gained attention over the past decade or so. As much as I love the idea of civic participation, I am skeptical for a lot of reasons about the way this system of voting is developing in China. But I just got back from a long day and am too tired to elaborate on it now. Its happening, I saw a form of it this morning, and my skepticism remains.

Lilacs!

My schedule in recent days has been a few days in the countryside followed by a few days back in Harbin to write up and plan my next trip to the countryside. I am here for 2 days before leaving early tomorrow morning for 2 days. Luckily, I caught the lilacs when they are in bloom. I had no idea Harbin had so many lilac bushes. I've enjoyed them so much on my morning runs the past two days that this afternoon I went back with my camera to capture them while they are in bloom.

Preparing the Rice Fields

As I reported a couple weeks ago, rice is being planted in greenhouses now in preparation to go in the fields at the end of May. I spent the last few days in an area south of Harbin known for the 'best' rice in China.
I found more rice seedlings thriving in greenhouses.
I also found farmers in the fields preparing the land to plant the seeds.
The lighter soil where this man is standing is the old paddies from last year that were harvested and let to wait out the winter. The dark soil (in the land that has been tilled) is one of the attributes many people associate with Heilongjiang province being able to produce high quality rice.
There are gas-powered trackers to turn the soil.
And hand-powered ones.
And some people do it by hand.

Happy May Day!

Its a long weekend in China. May 1 is a national holiday to celebrate Labor Day. It used to be a week-long holiday where schools and businesses were closed for a week to travel. Two years ago, this holiday was reduced back to one day, while other Chinese holidays throughout the year were given an extra day to celebrate.

Not thinking about the holiday, I went to one of my favorite spots in Harbin along the Songhua River to run. There is a large stretch of street next to the river that is closed off to cars. If I go in the morning, there are few people and it is a pleasant place to run. But because it was a holiday, everyone else in Harbin decided to go to the river to enjoy the beautiful day.

As a result, my usually quiet running route had turned into an obstacle course of circus events. I found myself ducking under kite strings and dodging young roller bladers. I ran past a choir and jumped over fallen tufts of cotton candy. As I passed each person strolling down the street, I heard comments about the Russian who runs (presumably me).

It wasn't quite the quiet run I anticipated. But it made me happy. Because along with the singing and dancing, there were dogwoods blooming and warm air blowing. People are outside and enjoying the day, a rare occurrence over the past 6 months here.

Planting Rice

Its still not quite fully spring here. Some days are great, other days are cold and almost freezing. Its been raining a lot which is helping farmers to get the fields wet, but for now, rice remains in greenhouses. Here are some pictures, as promised.







These are experimental seeds, so we had to keep track of what was being planted where. FYI-that squatting position was not very comfortable. My legs kept getting numb. This is me with one of my good friends and a post-doc in the lab. We were cleaning out the leftover seeds from the bags. Look how brown it is outside! Nothing is planted yet. Nothing.

I can see Russia from my hotel!

Here I am. Standing in front of a frozen (but thawing) river. That land behind me? Its not China, but Russia. This is the Heilongjiang River which separates Heilongjiang province, China (the capital of the province is Harbin) from the Russian Far East. This weekend I took a trip with some rice breeders from Harbin to the north of the province to plant some experimental seeds in a northern spot of the province.

Included in all the hard work we did (4 banquets in 2 days-ugh), we drove about 20 km north of the village we were working in to visit the river which separates China and Russia. Upon arrival, the officials we were with told me how poor that part of Russia is and how hard the Chinese have to control the border to not let any Russians come over to work. There is a lot of Russian discrimination in China and especially Heilongjiang. Everywhere we went and met new people this weekend, the hosts made sure to announce I was an American because they did not want people to treat me disrespectfully because I was Russian (so they said but perhaps they themselves did not want to be seen with a Russian?).

I know America is six months beyond Sarah Palin jokes, but I still found it amusing that I went to a place so close to Russia. I was at the Russian border last summer in Inner Mongolia, but it was not as funny then as it was now (post-Sarah Palin). I tried to explain Sarah Palin's absurd insinuation that she had foreign policy experience with Russia because of its geographic proximity to her state. But I don't think the car of Chinese people quite understood the humor in the story. Maybe its because most of them are government officials and don't see the humor in making fun of politicians. Or maybe its because they, too, have made similar statements about their own understanding of Russia based on geographical proximity to their province.

We stopped in a Russian store by the river to see what was being sold. Aside from all the binoculars one can buy to spy in Russia, this was my favorite-a selection of random figures on matryoshka dolls.
From Marilyn to Sadam, Mao to Clinton. (They are in front of a mirror, so yes just below the shelf is the reflection of me taking the picture).

Rice pictures to come soon...

Six Month Plan

I am making a schedule. I have six months left in China and a lot of work to do before then. When I first got here, the six months I had when I got here in June before I went home in December seemed like a long time. Now six months is definitely not enough time. But I like feeling pressure to get a lot of work done.

So what is my plan? Minus a week or so in May when a friend is coming from the US to visit, I plan to be in Harbin (or the surrounding Heilongjiang countryside) through August. Rice is being planted in greenhouses now and will be transplanted to the fields in a month or so (pictures to come soon). I am going to spend most of my time between now and August where the rice is growing.

In August the lease on my apartment plus my official residence visa in Harbin expires. I still have work to do in Beijing, so I will probably go to Beijing at the end of August and stay there through the end of October.

October 18 is the Beijing Marathon and (perhaps against my better judgment), I am going to (attempt to) run it. So I hope to finish my research by then, run the marathon, and take a week or so to recover and finish things up here before coming back to the US.

More about the marathon later. I know its silly to run in one of the most polluted cities in the world. But it makes sense to me. And now I'm off to go watch rice being planted for the weekend.

On Doing Research

A week or so ago, a good friend told me my blog is a schizophrenic combination of cute China stories and academic cultural analysis. Yes! I wanted to shout to his email, that is entirely the point of blogs. They are what you make them, unrestrained to fit into any particular ‘genre.’ His comment got me thinking that when I started this blog I think my goal was to write about the process of doing research. Research is filled with ups and downs. I wanted to try to write about the approaches one takes to tackling this task.

Unfortunately, I’ve learned it is hard to write about ‘doing research’ because it everything happens slowly and in increments. And eventually events and situations that are unrelated become mixed into each other and somehow fit together.

Take this weekend, for example. Saturday morning I talked to a very important person whose help can make my life in the countryside much easier. We discussed my research in the countryside, and he tried to convince me that I could get all the information I needed from the countryside in a few short day trips.

I have been looking forward to the warm weather so I can go live in the countryside and work with rice farmers. I was trying to explain that I did not have one particular goal I wanted to get from interviewing rice farmers, but I wanted to live with them and understand their lifestyles. I want to go in with an open mind and not have set goal in mind. I thought I had adequately prepared myself for his reaction, but during our conversation, I had a difficult time just articulating my thoughts in my head let alone trying to then spit them out in Chinese. I walked away from that conversation feeling like I had failed. But I did not feel entirely discouraged because I was already thinking up alternative solutions to the problem.

Then later that evening, a friend of mine from a town about an hour away from Harbin texted to say she was going home the next morning and asked if I had free time and wanted to go with her to do some investigation of rice in her town. Yes! We met early Sunday morning and spent a productive morning interviewing rice shop owners in her town. I walked away from that experience feeling like some Rice God had descended upon me and handed me a day’s worth of research without me having to lift a finger.

This is how China works. Some days I sit around and dwell on how I am going to get past one particular blockade. Other days I get more phone calls than I can handle from people wanting to take me places, to meet people, to see things. In the end, these experiences mesh together, things work out, and research gets done. Because much of the process of research happens over time and in retrospect, it is more difficult than I anticipated to simply write about the process of doing research.

SARS-6 years later

Had it not been for a reminder from my wonderful group of friends from the Peace Corps days in Sichuian, I would have totally forgotten that this week six years ago was when our service was abruptly ended. One morning I was totally content walking to the market to buy a big batch of vegetables to make dumplings. By that afternoon, I was frantically packing 80 pounds of stuff and trying to contact as many friends as I could to say last minute goodbyes. Two days later, I was back in the USA after nearly 2 years away.

In the end, the evacuation worked out well. I was planning to go to grad school in the fall and I had a couple more moths to prepare. I got to travel in the US that summer to visit family and friends. I even wound up with a cool stint working at a farm camp for teenagers. But the entire evacuation process was a haunting reminder that even though the US government sent us to go and live and work alongside Chinese people, we remained Americans with passports and the ability to be pulled away from any potentially dangerous situation.

I still look back at the SARS experience from my perspective of being caught in the middle of two competing worlds. At the time I left, no one around me knew much about SARS. If they had heard of it, it was something that was not a big deal that was happening in Hong Kong, far away from Sichuan. Everyday I checked online sources at the local internet cafe to read intense, fear-producing stories about SARS coming from the US. I thought both sides were extreme, but the US version of the story ultimately determined the fate of 80 Peace Corps Volunteers serving in China at the time.

So six years ago, I left China for the first time. I was certain that I would return, but come back on my own terms. I also wanted to come back with more of an intellectual challenge ahead of me. Don't get me wrong-doing the Peace Corps in Sichuan was an invaluable experience. But teaching in China is a monotonous job and I often felt more valued simply for my English speaking abilities than any environmental experience or expertice I was supposed to have to be a volunteer in the first place (my job title was officially 'Environmental Education Volunteer').

Of course, I have come back to China many times since 2003. I think all of the trips I have made here have been leading up to the research I am currently doing. And I am happy to be doing this crazy, overwhelming (at times) fun project. Its been worth it, and I can sense that now especially with spring's arrival. People here have removed their winter layers of clothing and there is a bounce to everyone's stride. I think with spring in Harbin comes a contagious joy. I hope that happiness is not just limited to Harbin. Happy Spring!

Hiding the Dirt

This guy is selling cabbage from the back of his truck. He's cutting off the old and dirty parts of the cabbage to sell the clean versions we see in front of him (rather than the dirty cabbage behind him).

I've worked on enough farms in the US to know that vegetables sold at farmer's markets or in farm stands must be appear to be high quality. A tomato, while perfectly good but with spots, is to be separated from tomatoes with a perfect appearance (to be displayed at the market). In Chinese markets, a similar hiding process occurs. Vendors pay special attention to make sure the top of a pile of vegetables looks perfect; the imperfect ones are hidden at the bottom of a pile.


Whether its silly or not, we all expect the food we buy to look good (or at least we have become accustomed to being offered good-looking food). In US farmer's markets (the ones I am thinking of which tend to be organic), most markets attract customers willing to spend extra money on local, organic produce. In exchange for the extra price they are paying, customers expect clean, beautiful, high quality produce. All or most imperfect items are removed (failing to recall Joni Mitchell's lyrics, "give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees").

In Chinese farmer's markets, the beautification process takes place in front of customers. They see the old, dirty parts of the cabbage being cut off. They know that underneath clean items lay the imperfect ones. Consumers tend to sort through and choose their own items to avoid imperfect ones. Similar processes, but different approaches to hiding the imperfections.

Whether or not the appearance is authentic or not relies upon trust. In Harbin, a few people have told me that there is a machine some rice sellers use to put their rice into it to polish it to make last year's crop appear new to pass for this year's crop. Some people claim they can tell when this is done; others claim that they go to the same store to purchase their rice because they know and trust the owners.

Trust is also a big part of the local food movement in the US. Small producers who cannot afford to go throught eh process of organic certification rely upon a consumer base who trust that their food is grown organically.

I have nothing significantly profound to say here. My point is simply that all food is dirty and has imperfections. Standards of perfections are different across cultures. In the US, perfection is considered in appearance, freshness, and in lack of chemicals in production. In China, perfection is appearance and freshness (in both cases, these are wild generalizations). Trust between consumers and sellers plays a role in insuring the authenticity of that perfection.

Reason to go to Beijing

I was in Beijing this past weekend. It was a great weekend. I got to bike and run outside in the sunny weather. I got to compare Beijing supermarkets to Harbin ones (in terms of rice selection, of course). I got to go to a yoga class, get a massage and a pedicure. I got to talk about the process of doing research with other geography grad students. I got to see friends passing through town.

But really what made it all worth it was to get to know this little ball of fuzziness.
Meet Dakota. Here she is with her new mommy, and one of my best China friends, Melissa. Dakota was rescued a few weeks ago from a garbage can where she was abandoned and with cuts on her belly. A caring person took her to the vet. Her cuts were fixed and she stayed at the vet until Melissa learned about her and adopted her. She is almost 3 months old and is a big ball of spazzy puppy energy. She runs and is always looking for attention. Although she's not very loud, I named her Da Kou Ta (大口她) Her Big Mouth in Chinese because it sounds like Dakota.

Now she is living the luxury life of a classy Beijing puppy. She goes on multiple walks a day, eats good doggy food meals, gets plenty of treats, plays with dog (and cat) toys, and is bathed at least once a week to keep her white fur white in a dusty city.

She takes the whole bath thing pretty well for a puppy.

She is a mixed puppy. I think she is actually a puppy-kitten hybrid. Melissa thinks she's a lion cub. We think she has some teddy bear in her, too. Regardless of what she is, she's CUTE. And I look forward to more trips to Beijing to play with her.

Big Boxes o' Rice

This week I shifted my observations of rice consumption from outdoor markets to indoor supermarkets. The contrast between traditional and modern markets is deep: markets are only open in the morning, specialized vendors lining city streets, waste strewn on the ground, whereas supermarkets are large, open, clean facilities offering all clothing, household, and food needs in one quick stop.

I spent a day zipping around Harbin from one 'big box' store to another. These big box stores appear to be the wave of the future (if not the present) in Chinese cities. I covered a lot of the city. Harbin currently has 3 Wal Marts and 4 Carrefours (French chain), plus several RT Marts (Taiwanese chain). Of course, these are spread throughout the 5 major districts in the city. I have spent plenty of time in some of these box stores conducting consumer surveys, but this week I was doing an inventory of packaged rice being sold. Two noteworthy stories emerge.

1). In the US, the generic brand name of Wal-Mart products is Great Value. This label is placed on all products Wal Mart distributes. I found this same label exists on packaged bags (2.5, 5, and 10 kg) of Dongbei Dami (Northeast Rice) in Wal Marts in Harbin. Wal Mart is siphoning this northeast Chinese commodity into their marketing and packaging plan for Chinese consumers. Does this label carry greater meaning in China (than simply 'generic') because most people would consider rice bought in bins at markets 'generic.' Does the Wal Mart label carry more significance of clean and modern? Based on surveys I've done, I don't think brand names really matter to Chinese consumers. But someone at Wal Mart might be able to tell me what they hope to accomplish.

2). Most place offer bags of rice, plus rice in fancy, decorated boxes. These boxes are designed to be given as gifts and are often more expensive (there is a lot to say about the Chinese practice of giving food gifts from one place to out-of-town friends or relatives). In one of the Carrefours, I saw a fancy cylinder container of 1 kg of northeast rice. There was a story on the container about the Korean minority town from which this rice came. It was a long story and I thought it would be interesting to read and analyze. This 1 kg of rice was on a shelf where the price was marked 27 yuan. In street markets, 1 kg of high quality rice sells for about 5 yuan, 1 kg of lower quality rice sells for about 3.4 yuan. So this was expensive rice. But I decided having the container with the story on it was worth the extra money for research purposes. (I have been conditioned by my Chinese friends not to get ripped off, so sometimes its difficult for me to justify a purchase that would be expensive to Chinese people).

In the check-out line, the cashier rang up the 2 small loaves of bread I was buying (total=3 yuan) and then added the rice. The total rang up to be 101 yuan when I was expecting it to be 30 yuan!!! I think my eyes bugged out of my head. What? I asked the cashier. Apparently this rice I thought was overpriced at 27 yuan was mis-labeled and was actually priced at 98 yuan. That would be about $14 for one kilogram of rice (wgen it is usually under a dollar). The cute old Chinese couple in line behind me started laughing at me (or with me). It was a little too much for me to justify purchasing; I took my 3 yuan bread and left. Sure enough at the next Carrefour I visited, there was the same container being sold for 98 yuan. I was able to copy some of the story in my notebook. I got the important parts for now.

Its the Economy, Stupid

So much negative gloom and doom information about the economy and the global economic situation has been in the US press recently. I almost feel immune to most of it given how cheap it is to live off American money here. But nonetheless I hate reading about it, but I do not want to turn into one of those people to excuse myself from reading the news on the claim that it is too depressing.

In the midst of hearing me complain about this depressing attitude of the US media, one of my best friends (who spends ten hour days in the US working on fair trade issues) reminded me that the economy has been in dire need of significant changes for years. True. The way the economy runs needs a wake up call.

So then I question what I am doing here with my research. And it comes to the economy. Essentially I am studying the economy of rice in the northeast of China. But I am not an economist or an agricultural economist. And I am not a macroeconomics expert of how China as a whole is surviving this crisis. I am not trained at all in economics or business. But that helps me bring such a new and fresh perspective to what we mean when we say ‘the economy.’

In my visits to street markets, I note the prices and varieties of rice being offered. I ask the vendors where the rice comes from, where they buy it, etc. And it all seems so simple. They go to the place where the rice is grown and buy it in bulk to sell at their stall. Their prices match the prices as the guy at the next stall. Most vendors are selling the same kind of rice for the same price. It is direct and not complex. Few ‘middle men’ are involved in the northeast rice economy. The chain between rice production in the fields to consumption on city streets is small. People are fed and families make livings.

However, it is not quite that simple and easy. There are a lot more factors that play into creating this rice economy here. Those indirect social, cultural and political factors will be (I hope) what makes my research compelling. But the reality-the practical aspect-of what I hope to show in doing all this research, is that the chains from production to consumption can be short. Shortening that chain can be a step in the right direction towards the elusive ideal of ‘sustainable.’

I do not mean to suggest at all that China can be a ‘model’ for social, economic, or environmentally sustainable agriculture. Far from it, in many ways. But sustainable is definitely not as simple as planting a garden in your yard to supply your food (I applaud the symbolic nature of the new White House garden, but recognize that it stops there).

One of the most fundamental reasons for my research, I think, has to do with gaining a better understanding of how we understand the economy of food and agriculture. If we can understand how the economy works in a variety of different political and cultural contexts, then we can begin to think about new, creative, innovative strategies for thinking about the chains linking agricultural production to food consumption. And that just might help us think about the complex issues we find in other aspects of the economy.

This may not resonate with everyone, but re-framing the problem brings me a little bit of hope. Sorry for the long post. If you've made it this far through my ramblings, here are some pictures of rice vendors at morning street food markets in Harbin.

Crazy Weather

I've been hearing stories about crazy weather all across the US these past couple months. Indeed, these crazy weather patterns are occurring all around the world. Take, for example, China.

I got a text message from a friend in Beijing this morning. "U at the market this morning? Weather here is awesome. Supposed to get into mid-70s today!" My response? "Its Snowing here! &*^%@&#^%&." Beijing is far, but not that far from Harbin. So to have such a drastic difference in weather was surprising (and somewhat frustrating).

I don't mind snow. In fact, I love it. But yesterday was a hint of spring. The sun shone brightly throughout the day. Built-up sidewalk ice was melting. I was overheating at 8 in the morning at the market because I was wearing too many layers of clothes. Then today, the temperature dropped and we had about 3 inches of snow fall throughout the day. Luckily I did not wear my clogs outside. Last week the same thing happened and I walked around the city for 2 hours in clogs. Needless to say, I came home with wet feet.

One day it looks like this. Imagine the sound of pitter pattering water dripping off those icicles.
The next day, we are back to winter again.
I love walking down the street on snowy days because just about every store owner is out sweeping the snow away from his or her chunk of sidewalk in front of the shop.
I also love sunny days at the market where dogs can sit outside (without sweaters as is typical practice here) and help their owners weigh food. (Non-sequitur? Perhaps. But too cute of a photo not to include here).