Notes From Xi'an 西安随感

My first New Year in China I spent in Xi’an, and I remember enjoying it. Subsequently, trips to the village and the capital have restricted my chances of spending another New Year here. I now realise why I had such fond memories. The streets are quiet and the people more relaxed.

Today, with the sun shining, I decided to just get out for a quiet stroll; instead of, as usual, striding as if in a hurry from one place to another, cycling at speed between rows of traffic or nipping about on an electric moped. It is a pleasure, and a peaceful pleasure at that, to be here right now.

There is always something pleasant about going for a stroll on a Sunday, or on a bank holiday, wherever one is, and finding those smiling faces, nodded greetings, laughter and bonhomie more prevalent than usual. The extra days here afforded by the New Year break just accentuates that feeling, and leaves me finding myself nodding greetings frequently and appreciably at passing strangers, some even, for a moment at least, seemingly able to do so in return as if I were not a laowai (foreigner). Community is community wherever you are, holidays are holidays, and the spirit of their combined effect always creates a freer and more pleasant sense of life.

Another positive aspect of Chinese New Year is the opportunity it gives to have a go again at some of those New Year plans and resolutions, that may be got off to a false start a month or so earlier. There is something priceless and amusing about that. Needless-to-say, I haven’t been running with the frequency I had intended, haven’t yet returned to reviewing new vocabulary with the diligence needed, and I am still not doing various things I planned to be doing or I am still doing things I resolved not to still be doing, but that’s alright because its all about Chinese New Year. In sporting parlance, I have just been warming up, simply readying myself for the real schedule that begins on the 3rd of February. Or at least I am certainly happy telling myself that, with the sun shining and cheerful greetings abounding.

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One of the joys of many about living in China is that we get two New Years a year; one Solar, one Lunar and that they are spaced just a few weeks apart. So if there was a false start to New Year plans and resolutions the first time around, come late January or mid- February there is a chance to refocus those end of year goals. I am not sure that that is quite how I have approached this New Year but with a few extra days at my disposal and a change of environment, with a quick trip to the Chinese capital, a period of reflection has been allowed. All is well. ps. Beijing’s not bad but Xi’an’s still the city for me, though a Bookworm, a 26 metre high sandalwood Buddha and a couple of trendy hutongs wouldn’t go amiss in Xi’an’s where to hang out, what to do landscape.

Now, with some relevance to the former point and maybe even to the latter, recent discussions with friends have on a couple of occasions orientated around how plans are made and/ or targets, short or long term, are set. (more…)

With on-line / pre-paid/ high environmental cost airline tickets tucked away in my gmail database somewhere, this year’s experience of Chinese New Year may well be somewhat different to last year’s. Although, bus stations/ train stations and a trip to the in-laws can only actually be forestalled and not avoided completely; Beijing for New Year- deep Southern Shaanxi a week later.

Here are a few extracts from last year’s Notes, just to remind me what Chinese New Year is all about and to get me in the spirit of it all. Plus this article about the ‘real-name train ticket system’ that is being piloted this year.

Chinese New Year at Xi’an’s Southern Bus Station I.

Chinese New Year is fast approaching and people in their masses are heading home. Yesterday I wandered down to the bus station to buy a ticket for my girlfriend who is also returning home for Spring Festival, a few days before I join her. No problem I had thought, a bit of a wait then I would arrive back at the flat a knight in shining armour, clutching a much sought after ticket when she returned from work. However… read on (more…)

Well, if the curtain has to be brought down on these celebrations then you might as well go down fighting for them. That is how it seems the Chinese greet the Lantern Festival, which falls on the 15th day of the Lunar New Year and marks the end of these weeks of travel, celebration and the good old-fashioned eating of too much food. Although, when they went, they went down with a smile on their faces.

From about 6 in the afternoon to past 10 at night there were fireworks and crackers being let off everywhere and I must emphasise everywhere. If they were not in the sky over ahead they were in the sky just ahead of me. If I was caught between two buildings they were reflecting in both the apartment windows and in those of the cars below. This crescendo of celebration also brought with it a little too much of what could be described as a crashing din, with the bang of the banger reaching around every corner and within every building. This is one aspect of the night that can actually begin to wipe the smile from your face.

As I cycled slowly towards Shi Da Lu and with my attention taken by the lights and patterns ahead, I did not at first notice where the shapes and sounds were coming from, as I got nearer I realized that someone was, every few minutes, just putting a box of fireworks in the middle of the road. With vehicles still passing-by, rockets gained heat and then whistled into the night sky, above the shiny, reflective bonnets of the cars beneath. The odd one with a low trajectory sent a thousand multi-coloured sparks dashing across these metallic frames. It looked amazing, the more so for the fact I would probably be locked up for doing the same thing back in Britain.

After some time, there is a point surely, where you reach firework overload, I retreated to Sculpting in Time Café for a bit of study. But I soon realized my appetite for fireworks was unsatiated as I found myself bending ever lower in my seat to catch another glimpse of these locally named “fire-flowers”, still rising and fanning out over the buildings and trees outside the window.

On another note, a pleasant thing I acknowledged this week that was connected with my return to work, was that after just a couple of days of being around young kids again I was feeling fresher both physically and mentally. I have noted it in a wider sense before, never in such a specific instance, but there really is something quite splendid about being around Chinese children. They are just so full of life and simplicity and not the duplicity, which I am afraid, seems to have infected even some of the quite young in Britain.

If I had to do this everyday then maybe I would not feel quite the exuberance I do. However, the limited number of teaching hours a foreign teacher can quite happily live on here, means that a taste of this youthful inhibition and honesty is rather uplifting, leaving you free to use your Chinese studies as a source of disillusionment and despair. On that note, I will conclude with the observation that 2-3 weeks away from regular classes and subsequent chatting in Chinese, has left my carefully choreographed Kou3 Yu3 (oral language) confidence in tatters. But, that’s nothing new and will be dealt with in due course.

Chinese New Year (Guo Nian) seemed to have come and gone but on returning to Xi’an it is obvious it is still in the process of going, pleasantly. Back in the village, my girlfriend is actually from a small village outside town, New Year was spent trying desperately not to eat a feast of fine proportions at every home in the neighbourhood. However, when the neighbourhood consists of fields and homesteads drifting off into the far distance and when everyone seems to be a second father, an uncle, a sister, an elder brother or an aunty this can prove quite difficult. Even harder, having arrived at the destination where you have actually planned to have dinner, is to politely find excuses for why you cannot now eat all the delights laid before you. In areas of China where maybe the selection of food on offer is not usually of the widest variety, come Spring Festival things are different. Fish are found, pigs and chickens are killed and even the odd dog finds its way to the plate. This is the time of year in China to treat yourself and, as best you can, everyone else around you.

As an aside and with reference to the subway system that is being built here in Xi’an, it is marvellous to have returned to discover Chang’an Lu (the main southerly tributary from the city centre and the south gate) free from a couple of sections of subway related road closures that have been causing disbelief and despair for months. These closures seem to have coincided with a noticeable increase in car use over the last year or so and have accordingly led to a noticeable increase in the number of minor accidents. I will refer back to these issues in later notes but it is enough to conclude here, with the observation that people maintain the habit of crossing the road and swinging out of junctions as if cars were still a strange anomaly here in Xi’an, they are not. This week I am able to trundle down the street on my bike with an absentminded holiday attentiveness, next week I will not be able to do so but then I will be back at work.

* This is not my picture but I like it.

New Year in China isn’t just what you celebrate but where you celebrate and what it tells us about what we already know but maybe don’t always quite see, that China is a country of migrants. Though, it is not as it is in many western countries a migration of national peoples. Here it is a migration from the country to the city, from small town to large, most often within the same province, although ofcourse the general mass movement in recent decades East and South has been huge.

Having spent the previous Spring Festival (CNY) in Xi’an, I saw a modern city with a very large population become quiet over a fortnightly period. Streets usually bustling with people were strangely, at such a festive season, quietened. Restaurants I was used to frequenting, closed. The train and bus stations were fit to burst with an annual magnitude far exceeding reasonable fore planning. Though, I might add, the ease and general peace that received these time–delays, queues and the simply huge numbers of people in transit is an example to us all. The stoicism that these delays and conditions are met with is nothing short of inspiring for most of us now so used to credit-card bookings and us Brits used to our fair share of train delays. I will stop though from making any further sweeping statements about matters of reliability and forbearance here in China, or elsewhere, and just simply acknowledge that this is a pretty crazy time to be travelling in China, mental preparation may be as important as the packing checklist.

This year I have visited my girlfriend’s village and nearby hometown. A small town that come evening has a friendly, seaside promenade feel, even in winter and even though it is probably over a 1000km from the nearest beach. (Though during this visit we discovered that the wide but slowly drying river running through the middle of town is to be damned and a water park developed between the two town-boundary bridges). However, the masses that I have witnessed on the streets here this time compared to previous visits has been phenomenal.

As my bus pulled into town the sheer number of motor bikes and pushbikes parked on the sidewalk created a sparkling, star swept vista of chrome and coloured metal; resembling a massive second-hand market of 2-wheeled vehicles rather than being simply the exterior of a supermarket, where bikes were being left while shopping was being bought. It is an image I will not easily forget, not just because of the sheer quantity of bikes but because it reminded me of a life somewhat passed in many parts of China.

In some of the slower developing areas here you actually see some of the things that maybe you still expect to see upon arriving in China but actually do not necessarily find. In this case, roads here are filled with bicycles and not the electric mopeds and 4-wheeled Hondas and Audi’s of downtown Xi’an, though the bicycle is certainly rivaled by the motorbike. The masses have returned and they are doing so all over China and they are doing it by plane, train and a variety of automobiles.

* This photograph isn’t mine but I like it.

Tomorrow is another day but I was up again and heading off to the bus station just as I had done two days earlier. This time as I arrived at the station I was relieved to see the line pleasingly manageable, probably about where I had entered it the first time just this time I was to do so legitimately and with over an hour before the station doors were to be opened. I had a good book tucked in my pocket but was more interested in just watching the morning’s activities unfold from a more secure vantage point than previously, although with a gathering crowd that was beginning to look increasingly unmanageable.

This time people were steadily allowed to gather in quite a large group around the head of the queue, with various characters skulking in the still darkened hours of early morning amongst them. Some of them, not happy enough to have slipped into a forward position while pretending to engage others with mild morning chatter, silently and slowly drifted even further forward in the line. Until a collection of men, who I had individually observed moving in and about the line, had gathered at the head of the queue; first subtly pretending to peer searchingly inside the as yet unlit station before forming a niche of bodies infront of all others. This whole time people were steadily arriving and noticeably, like myself a couple of days earlier, unsure whether to stand their ground around the head of the line or take their place in the ever extending train of people heading backwards. I began to notice that there were a few men seemingly quite familiar with proceedings and confidently bestriding the line. I also recognised a couple of men in the queue who I had seen the previous morning and began to get the impression that there must of course be some kind of third-party system for buying tickets.

The station attendants who the previous morning had been wielding people into line with their sticks were conspicuous this morning by their absence. I was, from a reasonable starting point, beginning to worry that the large crowd that had formed around the entrance would actually lead to quite considerable delays and even a little bit of chaos and anger, if they did not soon manage it. I need not have worried, although some earlier organisation may have been better for all concerned, but with only 10 minutes to go they arrived. The guards first, amusingly, removed the shadowy gentlemen at the head of the queue before creating a division between the single line and the rest. This was the time for some to take a place where they hadn’t previously but many were too slow to do so and were soon being jettisoned by a pointed finger, a shout, a rough banging of a stick on the ground at their feet or a quick pulling of an arm. From chaos moments earlier came calm; an orderly queue on one side and a collection of sleepy, unsure, slightly confused and frustrated, though still hopeful figures on the other. The line moved off inside the station.

I was one of the first in the queue and had my ticket in my hand within about 20 minutes, by which time the line at the window for my own particular destination was already over 100 souls deep. After some difficulty exiting the station through a mass of entwined queues and bodies I arrived outside again, to discover the line still disappearing into the distance down along the pathway. I was happy to have had this more sedately experience compared to the previous morning and the opportunity these two days to observe New Year matters down at the bus station, but happier still to be heading home with ticket tucked away securely.

Chinese New Year is fast approaching and people in their masses are heading home. Yesterday I wandered down to the bus station to buy a ticket for my girlfriend who is also returning home for Spring Festival, a few days before I join her. No problem I had thought, a bit of a wait then I would arrive back at the flat a knight in shining armour, clutching a much sought after ticket when she returned from work. However, upon arriving at the station I was faced with the unexpected sight of lines circling, exiting and then re-entering the building. This meant I would start off in the building, follow the line back out of the building, back in again and then wait with the 90 odd still ahead of me who were pressed as tightly together as possible, so to make the numbers seem smaller than they actually were.

Sadly, the numbers were themselves actually greater, swelled by those nipping in with the offer of cash to the lucky ones already edging towards the front of the queue. After surveying this scene I decided to check what time the station opened in the morning and what time I should realistically arrive. I was told it opened at 7 and I should be there by 6.30. Ok.

I awoke earlier than intended and headed off on my bike. Upon arriving again at the bus station, this time in the dim light of morning and with hat and scarf sheltering my face from the cold, I discovered the queue to already be leading away from the main entrance, along the path and around the furthest corner, the end out of sight! I hovered for a few minutes by the entrance working out if it was possible to just join the line at this end but the yelling and wielding of 1-2 metre long sticks by security guards made that option look bleak. The guards were creating a safety zone around the official queue so anyone attempting to push in would be spotted, prodded, potentially whacked and then ejected. I slowly walked the length of the queue weighing up the depth of my chivalry, as I considered the necessary 2-3 hour wait that now faced me. Then as I a sauntered back up the line un-decided, worried in true prisoner’s dilemma style that if I joined the line around the corner others would join it further up when the queue started moving, there was intense activity at the front of the line as the station opened.

At that point I was walking quite close to the queue and a gap appeared as people moved off ahead, without thinking I just stepped into it. It wasn’t my greatest chivalric moment and my heart was beating a lot faster having done so but I was glad to be in line. Many others had done the same and the guards began running the queue, pulling out people here and there and at one point one headed straight for me with stick brandished, but instead threw out a chap just behind me. I heard one man behind me say I was a Laowai (foreigner) and not to worry. Terrible I know but great! These actions meant that once inside I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to the ones’ offering cash to those just ahead of me in the queue, where otherwise I probably would have done. I was out of the station and home before my girlfriend had even left for work. However, I was unsafe in the knowledge that as I am planning to leave on Thursday and with the fact that you can only buy your ticket three days before departure, I would be back at the station on Monday morning for more of the same, or maybe a little worse.

Chinese New Year at Xi’an’s Bus Station. Part II.