Notes From Xi'an 西安随感

I woke slowly and with sleep still in my eyes peered out through our new ‘dust-net’. I was soon aware that an inch-thick layer of lunar-like dust had again settled and completely covered the bedroom. I carefully rose from the bed, shaking a thin layer of dust from my hair, that troublingly had managed to find a path inside the net. My girlfriend still lay sleeping peacefully.

I padded through into the living room, creating a clearing trail of footprints as I went. I quickly realized, as I slipped headlong into a three foot high pile of dust, that I had left the window open overnight. We recently however had a nifty new particle-vacuum installed, patented here in Xi’an’s very own High Tech Zone. It is positioned beneath the air-conditioner on the wall. I placed the blue mask that came with it over my mouth and turned it on.

It is a quite wonderful contraption, quietly going about its duties, or rather its single duty: the silent and speedy removal of these pesky white particles as I watch. I am not entirely sure how it works, though water has something to do with it, but it does remarkably manage to distinguish the dust from all the other bits and pieces scattered around the house. Within moments it had syphoned the house clear. I had not enquired, nor had I wished to, about where all this stuff goes to. I did hear, though, that it is trucked up to Taiyuan in Shanxi and loaded onto transporter spacecraft and exported to the moon. All part of China’s New Greener Earth space programme. But, I am not sure.

I was no sooner out of the flat and off to work when I found myself falling footlong into a huge hole in the road: “That wasn’t there yesterday,” I had thought to myself as I descended into the pit. Upon landing and while scrambling to my feet I had looked up to see a couple of friendly Chinese faces peering down at me, they muttered the comforting words “Lao Wai” (foreigner) before continuing on their way.

Once I had clambered out and continued on, I happily consoled myself with the fact that this huge hole outside my home was probably part of Xi’an’s subway construction process, now, so I am also told, visible from space. I hope that in time I may well be allowed a more sedate way of descending into the same place, an electric escalator carrying me from the entrance of my apartment to the underground platform below.

This thought made me think of those moving walkway things that you get in airports, so good for a bit of induced urgency and the correlating sense of being important: “I am a world traveler with countries to go and people to see”. I like those things. To think we could have one here on Yang Jia Cun was quite a great thought and left me feeling rather positive about the day ahead.

When I got to the crossroads, and after looking left and right, I calmly approached the mass of entwined vehicles in front of me. Nonchalantly, I clambered over the bonnet of the first car, squeezed agilely in front of a bus, stepped over the rear saddle of an electric moped, which was sandwiched between two taxis, apologizing as I did so, ducked under an open lorry door and made it to the other side of the road. I turned momentarily to observe again the interwoven pattern of vehicles at the junction of my road, before continuing on my way to work.

I was planning to write a note here not just about Xi’an but more importantly about the Xi’anese, as it is really the life of the people here that makes it a great place to live. I will however begin with a less than glorious portrayal of a Xi’anese person I came across during the first few months of being here. At the time, it was a little frustrating, verging on amazing but was subsequently quite amusing. Consequently, the story has stuck with me.

I was with my girlfriend lost in one of these vast furniture warehouses they have here in Xi’an. For those that do not know that here in China if you wish to buy a light or an oven or some paint or a valve or a sink or a sofa, you do not just go down to your local shop or even local multi-store. Here, you end up either on a street full of 50 lights shops or within a huge mall full of 50 light shops. This often means that, even if you were excited about buying the light in the first place you certainly aren’t in the end, though, it may still look all right back at home.

To continue, my girlfriend and I found ourselves lost, somehow, traversing the staff stairwell, up and down and a little in confusion, until we stumbled into the bright light of what was a supermarket full of your everyday necessities, quite normal. That was, until a hand roughly rested on my shoulder which I turned to round to find belonged to a young security guard who was looking angrily at the two of us and shouting something, something that at that point for me was utterly incomprehensible. Although, even with the hindsight of understanding, I would still look upon his words as incomprehensible. He was telling us that we could not enter the supermarket from that particular entrance, as it was for the staff only. We explained that we were lost and had stumbled unwittingly upon it. He repeated that we could not enter the supermarket that way.

We then pointed out that we understood that but that we were now in the supermarket, with all the other people and we wouldn’t do it again. He repeated his words. I, now a little annoyed, explained to him, as clearly as an annoyed lao3 wai4 (foreigner) can with very little Chinese, that we are now in the supermarket, it is no longer important how we got there and that we would endeavour to leave through the appropriate exit. He responded with the words: “You cannot come into the supermarket this way”. This was now becoming an issue and we were quickly becoming the centre of attention. So, to appease all, I punched him flat on the ground…No I didn’t. I, listening to my girlfriend – who I must say had of course born the brunt of his frustration and was becoming a little embarrassed by all the fuss – respectfully retreated back the way we had come, while muttering this and that about the Chinese under my breath as I did so.

It has just struck me that although I am often critical of the western media being particularly negative, when I am faced here with giving an example of life and the people in Xi’an I too have chosen a less than glorious example. I like the people here and very much enjoy living amongst them but it is interesting that my mind first moved to a negative, though amusing, portrayal of a Xi’anese person and, what at the time was, a frustrating experience. I will correct that in future notes. We cannot after all have the Chinese being tagged on a whim by a western mind now can we?

Two weeks ago, we experienced temperatures touching into the 80’s and I felt the sense of foreboding, usually felt in May, that accompanies thoughts of the sweltering hot summer months here in Xi’an. Summers here are not what they are back in the lush green Isle of England and, though still a relatively young and healthy chap, I have, during them, found myself subconsciously acting as a rather efficient sweat producing machine. Here I was in March already concerned about what lay ahead.

However, only a few days later and with talk swirling around about dust clouds drifting off the Gobi desert, the skies darkened and everyone one came across had some kind of sinus problem to sneeze about. The pollution here is something, I believe, you get used to but every now and again it comes up and hits you. Temperatures during the rest of the week steadily decreased and by the weekend, this was reminiscent of being back in Britain, it was raining.

Now, it doesn’t often rain, so it is sometimes quite pleasant to close the windows and curtains to the local street vendors cries and the murderous noise emanating from the newly fabricated building, just yards from my home, that now houses a KTV (karaoke) studio, and to retreat inside. Not to mention being happy to escape from the weekend masses that gather ten deep at bus stops and who jostle for position on street corners, hoping to stand out in some way from the crowd when the next taxi driver passes by, red light lit. There are also all the children in bookshops and the husbands joining wives in coffee shops, giving these places an unusual sense of busyness, that can be happily avoided.

However, the days of sunshine had managed to fool the poor shrubs and trees into offering us a branch or two of fresh buds and even a few light coloured petals in places. They say here in Xi’an that we really only have two seasons Winter and Summer, as Spring and Autumn are dashed through so quickly we are always seemingly being faced with the harshness of freezing winter, or baking summer temperatures.

I am not sure how true that is, as the last couple of years we have had reasonably enjoyable autumnal evenings and a plentitude of spring mornings. However, these last few weeks the poor plants have been left confused and battered by the onset of summer and an almost immediate return to winter. We may have trouble enough dealing with this situation, the old plants, without the prize of consciousness and the consequential awareness of circumstance that it entails, must be pretty confused indeed.

However, to see the blossom on a sunny day after the bleakness of a polluted Xi’an winter is quite something but to see the fresh growth of spring being battered and dashed by the rain and wind is less uplifting indeed. Tomorrow, though, is another day here in Xi’an.

Finally, with reference to life on the playground this week, I have, as my Chinese has improved, begun to talk a little more with the kids at the various schools I teach at, this week a new lad came over and introduced himself to me. He was probably about grade 3 or 4, so about 10 or 11, he didn’t seem a particular earnest young boy, just your average kid running about like all the others and then throwing out a couple of questions in my direction as he passed by on the way back to class. However, his second question, after asking where I was from, was whether Britain would help China or Japan when they have a fight. I diplomatically shrugged my shoulders and replied that I was not entirely sure. In China, you quite quickly gain the sense of the loathing for Japan that exists not simply under the surface and get used to it but occasionally, just like the situation above, you observe the odd circumstance that concerns you.

[updated Jan. 2012] The city centre is surrounded by an ancient city wall with the main routes out of the city all passing through one of a variety of gates, the largest being simply the North, East, South and West gates. I live in the south, about a 20-minute taxi ride or a 30-minute bus ride  [now a 10-15 minute subway ride] from the centre of the city, which is marked by the Bell Tower (see below). Taxis are easy to flag down, run on a meter, are relatively cheap and are often used when first arriving as bus routes in Chinese characters can be somewhat daunting at first and, depending on mood, somewhat depressing later.

When you do start getting the buses or even when getting a taxi do not wait for those around you to usher you in, or recognise that you arrived first, if you do you will be waiting some time. What is though interesting and begins to reveal the street level value of life here, is that even in the hurly burly of getting on a bus or asserting your right to get the next taxi you will very rarely if ever come across anger and violence. Over and above the seeming disorder is a quiet civility and respect. It is maybe not always obvious to the eye on first arrival but it is there. The best and most frequent examples are the regular near miss scenarios between pedestrian and cyclist, motorcyclist and cyclist, bus and car, and taxi and everything, but the absolute lack of aggression in these circumstances; verbally or physically.

I am not speaking for the whole of China, though sometimes my tone may mislead and I apologize for that, but from my experience of living in Xi’an now for nearly three [5] years. I have so rarely seen public displays of anger and certainly not actual physical abuse.  A superficial observation is that it seems the people here are accepting of circumstance, something happens, they get on with it. One of the nicest things about living here is this absence of aggression in these day-day situations, when back in Britain we attain or witness various levels of anger and abuse on a semi-regular basis.

My preferred form of transport is motorbike taxi, which are supposedly illegal but exceptionally useful and if illegal the government should really attempt some form of licensing. [as the roads have got busier they are maybe more dangerous and there are actually fewer of them now as well] The remarkable thing about the motorbike and moped riders here is that they are nearly all helmet-less, it is actually the thing I like about it. Though, with the rate of car increase sooner rather than later it will become a little too dangerous. Not that I have ever been one for wearing a helmet while cycling, but there will come a point where a motorbike and helmet will form the same symbiotic relationship they have in the West.

Xi’an is in the West of China and is considered somewhat “out west”. These are some of the last remnants of the Chinese Wild West. Xi’an is quickly on the change, development is coming and it is now coming quickly, but the heart under the surface is I believe, for now atleast, still maintained. The people are friendly and there is an openness and innocence that is so refreshing to be around. There is hope and excitement but a feeling of pressure, and the perception that the opportunities that these greater levels of development supposedly supply may well actually pass most by.

The question will be how will all this manifest here in Xi’an, here in China. Why I love living here is because of some of the above but also because we are in the middle of all this and they/ we don’t know where it is going. These are good people, who just want to face the life as best they can, as we all do, let’s hope we all get that chance. I for one feel very lucky to be living this life and experiencing all this here in Xi’an. I am not sure if these Notes have done Xi’an or my views on Xi’an justice but no doubt I will uncover more about life here as these Notes continue.

See the main Xi’an Centred Notes Page for more:

[updated Jan. 2012] I have written a few notes here now but have not yet really given an account of what Xi’an is like, so I will do that now. Xi’an is a great place to live, but I must first be clear that the life here for a foreigner – whether a teacher or someone earning an expat wage – is far and away easier than it is even for our Chinese counterparts, let alone the majority who do not have anything like the opportunity for the lifestyle we have.

That is not to say there are not the ridiculously wealthy Chinese, there certainly are and their number is swelling. While what could loosely be described as a middle-class – a problem term at the best of times but more so here with the so-called middle class being generally such a minority – is becoming more visible year on year, or even season upon season. The fashion season, rather than one of weather changes. The joy and energy with which the Chinese are applying to shopping (as a relatively recent pastime)  makes it is easy to see where domestic consumer growth could be found to off set the slump in exports to the suffering West.

Life here as a foreign teacher allows, what some of us refer to as, the retirement life style with youth attached. This means that it is possible to do part-time work, study Chinese for a good chunk of the week, and still have a good chunk of time to hang out with friends and loved ones. Finally, the money earned for a week doing what teachers do here, far and away exceeds the average workers monthly salary for working fulltime. Many are unaware of this upon arrival and it of course contributes greatly to the enjoyment of life.

You can certainly work full-time, though not really learn Chinese, and earn a lot of money. This, as in the case of a large number of African teachers here, allows the opportunity for investments, that supply the basis for a business back at home. If you are a foreigner here doing your job from back home, then you are living the classic expat life, still working full-time but with your money going a whole lot further, with various other perks thrown in. However, Xi’an doesn’t really have a ‘classic’ expat life comparable to the large cities of Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong, or even Dalian and Guangzhou. Xi’an’s foreign community is still predominantly a community of teachers and students, although that is beginning to change with the increased number of foreign firms beginning to open offices in the High Tech District and beyond. [see the Xi'an Business Forum website]

However, I want to take this note outside the realm of affluence and opportunity and just outline a few things about Xi’an which make me actually feel at home, as well as give an idea of what is going on here. Xi’an is a great city with an incredible history, it is a city of about 8-9 million with 4-5 of those in the main centre and inner suburbs, but still doesn’t feel like a big city at all and is actually considered somewhat of a backwater with regards to modern Chinese cities, though that is beginning to change.

I do not believe people in other countries who have not been here can comprehend the construction work that goes on here. Cranes are everywhere; buildings are being pulled down within every street and around every corner. Pavements are being laid for the first time in places where a track was just months or a couple of years earlier. Fields on the outskirts of town, as well as in town centres, are being concretized at a rate probably comparable to a decade or two of growth back in the day in Britain, but that is taking a year or two here.

As an example, eight or so of the Universities here in downtown Xi’an have built shiny new ‘Super Campuses’ on the outer southern edge of the city. When I arrived in Xi’an those areas were quite literally rice fields, these ‘Super Campuses’ now exist and so increasingly do the apartment blocks and restaurants that service them, and, with their own life force, are transforming the area into a whole new suburb of the city.

Just south of the Big Goose Pagoda (pictured left), which is one of the most famous historical spots here in Xi’an and not far from the city centre, a huge lake was created and is now one of Xi’an’s favourite weekend retreats. That area is itself now being developed with the building of luxury apartment blocks, fine restaurants and shops. As a living area it did not exist when I came here, it is now named Qu Jiang and is quickly becoming the place to live.

This Note continues in Part II.

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.

The last of 3 posts written during the aftermath of the Sichuan Earthquake and which i have chosen to include here.

I recently bought an American hybrid bike, though ofcourse it was made here in China, the price of it was incomprehensible to the elderly generation living in my apartment block. I had been riding traditional old steel stand-up framed bikes since arriving in China but wanted a bit more agility around town. The second of my old bikes was designed for farm work, I think with the weight of it it could quite reasonably have been used to pull the ox while the ox was still pulling the plough! However the point of this reference to my preferred choice of getting around, helmet-less pillion on a motorbike-taxi excluded, was that the recent weather reminded me why last year I ceased riding for a while.

The muddy rain is an annual event here in Xi’an, where cars are not simply splattered with water droplets but splashed by mud dipped rain drops, it is from the Loess Plateau dust coming in from the North. The worrying aspect I occasionally dwell upon is I am breathing in the dried version of this! I did however stop cycling for a while because of the wider causes of pollution, I just couldn’t get rid of a constant soreness at the back of my throat. Xi’an’s pollution is something I am used to, locals say it is getting better but probably more we are just getting used to it. It is improving, but there are still days when I can’t see the buildings on the opposite side of the road clearly.

When I was living in Britain I didn’t really watch much television so I watch especially little here, this has meant that I have not seen too much reporting on the earthquake this week. However, the teachers and children within the schools I work in are on constant alert, to the point of nervous obsession. The lamps hung in the ceiling swaying from the wind are being looked at as if a signal for escape, peeling paint and cracks in the walls previously un-noted now have attentive eyes kept on them, even the fun and games emanating from my classroom scared the children in the classrooms below.

Since the earthquake it is compulsory to leave all classroom doors open, this means that more than just my 60 kids get to experience a simple English dialogue shouted in operatic tones while emphasising individual syllables, first by me and then by the whole class! I hope the earths crust can soon steady itself and allow my children to get back to their rambunctious best, or worst depending on how one looks at it. One of the wonderful things about teaching Chinese children is their openness, their cheerfulness and lack of inhibition, they are at present a little more inhibited and ofcourse down right scared! I, less than those in Sichuan itself, look forward to life returning to normal. 

This is the second of the three posts included after the event.

Another week on from the earthquake and the schools have been intermittently closed as a precaution against any more tragic loss of young life. To the outsider returning it has seemed at times a little of an over-reaction, especially when a teacher’s nervous disposition is enough to empty a classroom of children and subsequently a whole school. There are many people spread around the city still choosing to live outside their buildings; they are living on wooden mats on the pavement, in tents and under tarpaulins slung between park trees. These scenes have become quite normal, with the same friendly Ma Jiang and Chinese chess (Xiang Qi) continuing to be played. However, today i got a glimpse of what kind of fear they must have felt from watching and feeling the original quake. Xi’an today experienced a minor tremor but enough to shake the walls of the restaurant I was sitting in. Diners around us quickly dashed for the exits, while my companion and I calmly noted the feeling of the tremor, intrigued by the uniqueness of the sensation, before beginning to wander from the restaurant. We hadn’t reached the stairs when the shaking ceased, so we simply returned to our table. Though a minor shake comparatively it did make me aware of the quite disconcerting feeling of something being quite out of your control and that could have devastating consequences, in this instance the walls and floor of the restaurant you are in literally shaking and consequently shaking you.

The only time i can remember having a similar loss of control, though without the potential effect of devastation, was during my PGCE year teaching in an Inner-City school. I had been told that this would happen and that it was important how you react to it, but in those moments when you look about at your class and they are not paying any attention to you, and you don’t know quite how to do anything about it, it feels mighty humbling. The significant aspect of this experience was that it hit me a little later. It wasn’t until I returned home sometime that night that I felt suddenly quite emotionally upset by the experience, i hadn’t even been thinking about it, the feeling just crept up and hit me. It is not often we experience, even for a moment, a feeling of having absolutely no control over something we should, and expect, to have control over. This earthquake has had that lasting effect here, not only on the lives and minds of the inhabitants of the worst effected areas in Sichuan but in all those areas that felt the initial quake and these subsequent tremors. The second realization is the dreadful situation that most of those families are going to face in the coming months, as the wet season sets into Sichuan; the bereaved, injured, homeless and landless have so much more to face than the deep psychological shock of being thrust into an horrifying experience, over which they had no control.

This is the first of three notes that were written at the time of the Sichuan earthquake and that set my mind thinking about beginning a Blog. Now i have finally got around to starting one I have decided to include them…

I have just arrived back in China, having spent my first week outside the country, in over 18 months, at the exact time China experienced it’s worst natural disaster for many years. The Chinese words that have constantly greeted me on my return are “earthquake”, “afraid”, “frightening” and “brave”. The latter has strangely been used a few times to refer to me because I am told I have chosen to return here at this difficult time. I of course am not brave, I am simply returning to the country where I now live and that I have grown to love. I did though recently read a story about a group of teachers that protected their primary school pupils through the worst of the quake and then led all of them over the mountains to safety. They too claimed not to be brave, just doing they said what anybody would do. It was their responsibility as teachers, they noted, to protect their children. Today I heard about a grand-mother found already dead but bent over, sheltering the grand-daughter beneath her who was still alive. Some forms of bravery are harder to deny than others.

The images on the TV networks here revolve around the positive response of the Chinese nation to this disaster, an impression of a nation standing up and facing the worst. The images were broadcast across all networks and on any available screen, the length of my internal flight from Shanghai, on every household TV and on the huge outdoor screen infront of Xi’an’s shining new Exhibition Centre, watched by many. A western media source I read in Britain questioned the state led interpretation of the news, that it did not show situations where the medical staff and army were overwhelmed but concentrated on the positive scenarios and stories. This reminded me of a recent incident, not widely known amongst the people of Xi’an, concerning an aborted suicide bomb attempt in central Xi’an. A Chinese friend of mine questioned the need to spread the news of this event, noting it would only be negative and that one random, one off occurrence by somebody “crazy” would worry too many people, proportionally greater than the event itself. The same rosy sentiment could be seen in the media portrayal of some aspects of the earthquake. The whole picture may be missed but a concern for the positive and the upbeat is not, this is a theme I may well return to, as it is something that can be felt on a day-day basis here and is certainly not all bad, taking it as I am doing at this moment, at face value.