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.