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.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
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...
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...
Sunday, August 2, 2009
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!!!
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!!!
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