Urgently send me gas masks :-)!

Surprise, surprise!
Today when I came home from office after one week of mainly compliance topics (including being a trainer for anti-corruption trainings every day) my first thought was: are they trying to poison us?

One of the neighbours of my floor had been moving out recently and now they are renovating the whole flat. So is it the smell of fresh paint? I don't know. The smell is all over my apartment as well and it's a more chemical smell than I had ever smelled before in my whole lifetime.
If it is fresh paint there are probably no regulations about what chemicals you are forbidden to mix into paint.

I urgently need to escape from home!

Buddha art in Beijing

No time for relaxation this weekend. Claudia had heard that there is a special exhibition about buddhist art this weekend in Beijing - so we (Claudia, Agnes and me) of course had to go there!

A huge line of Chinese people waiting to go into the exhibition awaited us in front of the exhibition hall. But luckily we didn't have to wait too loong and soon made it inside.

The title of the exhibit was: "The lights of Dun Huang" because it showed the buddhist art of the caves of Dun Huang in China which is Unesco world heritage and simply amazing.

Big lying buddha, colourful paintings with people having their hair cut, with gods sitting on the clouds or bodhisvattas with many many arms! The following homepage gives an introduction on the different Chinese forms of buddha: http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/chin_deities.htm. Just click on the one you are interested in and then on "text explanation" (if available).

Many buddhas later we also visited the second exhibit about new year's posters (many of them from Mao's time showing propaganda pictures with slogans like: "Mao loves children", "hard working communist farmers with enough food and never ending happiness in life"). Yes, long live Chairman Mao :-)!

If from reading my blog or in general you are interested in Chinese history, there is a suspenseful book about three generations of Chinese women (from lillie-foot over communism to modern China) which I am reading right now and which I can highly recommend: Jung Chang (author): Wild Swans (German: "Wilde Schwaene").

Another book comparing Chinese with western culture which is quite funny is the German book from Herbert Rosendoerfer: "Briefe in die chinesische Vergangenheit", fiction, but with at least some cultural truth in it.

Hope you also enjoyed your weekend!

Great Wall in the new year again

Today Claudia, another Katharina, Thomas, Stefan and me went to the Simatai section of the Great Wall.

The way there was already great fun because of our driver who probably wanted to beat the latest world record time for driving the road from Beijing to Simatai. He consistently ignored the "do not overpass in a zigzag way" traffic sign (yes, there is such a traffic sign in China) and took over the first car on the right side, the next on the left, the next on the right (the hardshoulder, but who cares :-)?) etc.

The Simatai part of the Great Wall is said to be much original and without restauration. In fact, it's not that much unrestored, just little parts of the hike on the wall are really orginal. Sometimes we could choose between two ways to climb up the hill, but: "the ways are the same, but different." (???) as local people trying to sell books and postcards explained to us at one of the cross-ways. The view in the mountains, the relatively (in comparison to Beijing) fresh air and the nice mountain lake with a bouncing bridge (ahhh!, why would people jump around on bouncing bridges?) were idylic and wild at the same time and not many tourists were around Simatai at this time of the year.

Olympic mascots, eggplants, dragons and more

Lantern festival

Today when it was dark we visited the lantern festival in Hua Da Guan Yuan, the World Flower Park of Beijing.

Inside the greenhouse flowers, trees and grass were arranged to build sculptures with themes like the olympics or luck for the new year.

Outside in the park (with a cold wind blowing through the park) were lanterns / light sculpures.

Except us mainly Chinese families with small children visited the park because for children this is a very nice experience.

The lanterns represented flowers, vegetables like eggplant or pumpkin, rats (because it now is the year of the rat) or other animals.

Just have a look at the photos to have an impression yourself.

Yuanxiao Festival

Fireworks nonstop! - sweet rice balls nonstop?

Today is the 15th day of Chinese New Year festival which is the last day of this festival.

I was wrong last time to tell you that the traditional day to eat sweet rice balls was yesterday, in reality this day is today. I got some wrong information there- that's why I have been eating sweet rice balls now for three days in a row :-). I even ordered the rice balls yesterday night especially for Agnes who now is a great fan of sweet rice balls, aren't you, Agnes :-)?

Firework started today quite early at around 6pm and you can see a lot more firework than during the last days. Why that? It's the last day on which the Chinese are allowed to greet the new year with fireworks - tomorrow it is prohibited again. That's why everybody is using the left-overs now.

From my apartment in the 5th floor I have a nice view on the firework - pls. see the attachment.

I especially enjoyed my experience about the first Chinese festival I was able to join in!

Forever Chinese new year?

It's still festival time (新年快乐！xīn nián kuài lè = Happy new year). Chinese new year is the longest festivity in China. But since last week Wednesday we do have to work again.

How do you notice that it is still Chinese New Year?

Every night at approximately 8 or 9m pm still more or less noisy fireworks can be heard outside.

Another thing is that Chinese new year is a lot about food. On special days special food needs to be eaten. Tomorrow is the day of sweet rice balls:
"no Lantern Festival celebration would be complete without yuanxiao, the sticky rice balls that are symbolic of family reunion and happiness. Recipes vary from region to region: In Taiwan many people make yuanxiao without fillings. But in different parts of China, yuanxiao often are stuffed with sweet pastes made with sweet red beans, dates, lotus seeds, coconut, peanuts, and sesame seeds. All are served in a sweet soup."

Today at work Xuguang, a colleague of mine, distributed a package of peanut rice balls for everybody in our department. My colleagues explained to me how to prepare and eat them, so I tried them today. Tastes a little bit like "Dampfnudeln"(typical German yeast dumplings) with peanut paste inside.

Whole China in one day?!

Did we really visit whole China (with Tibet and Taiwan) in one day today?

Of course we didn't, but we went to the Chinese Ethic Culture Park, an open-air museum with reconstructions of typical buildings of many diverse Chinese provinces located in a quite lovely park.

After having tried a jazz dance lesson in the gymn in the morning (OK, but this will not become my favorite sport...), we drove to the Chinese Ethic Culture Park and walked around in splendid sunshine (according to Yahoo weather online: 5 degree, 13% humidity)

Many minority regions were represented such as Tibet, Guizhou or Yunnan, places where I definitely want to still travel anyway. The houses and architecture was totally diverse: stupa temples, pagodas, wooden houses, stone houses, painted doors, coloured flags etc. Of course the buildings were fake, but still the visit was worth it. Claudia and me strolled around in one part of the two parts of the park for 2,5 hours in the sun and then returned home.

Please have a look at the photos to have an impression yourself. I have no idea whether the monk was a fake or a real one :-)...

Goodbye Vietnam - Saigon / Vietnam Part III

Saigon, the real capital of Vietnam

Saigon or Ho-Chi-Min (HCM) City as it is officially called after the national hero Ho Chi Minh (please see my Hanoi entry in the blog) was much more worth the visit than Hanoi. Not only because of its pleasant weather - around 30 degree celsius - but only because of what is offers.

Yes, there are as many motorbikes as in Hanoi. Yes, Saigon couldn't really be considered as clean.

But: the atmosphere is quite relaxed there. Some compare it to the lively atmosphore of Singapur in the 70s.

Visiting the war remnant museum is worth it. A lot of photos show the cruelty of war - of course due to ideologic reasons mainly photos of crimes committed by the American and the French, but not of the crimes committed by the Vietnamese. This museum shows once more that war is no means to solve conflicts (in general, between politic parties / religions / ideologies / colour of skin, whatever).

The reunification palace used to be the governmental office of the Southern Vietnamese (capitalist, supported by the American in the war against the Northern Vietnames / communists; the communists won the war; now Vietnam still calls itself a communist country, but the econonmy seems quite capitalist). The architecture being ugly 1960s architecture, inside is the room where Southern Vietnames president General Minh announced to the Northern Vietnames that Southern Vietnam surrendered and that he was transferring the power to Northern Vietnam. The answer he got was: "There is no question of you transferring power. You cannot give up what you do not have."

This was my Vietnam trip.
To put it all in a nutshell: worth visiting, but from my impressions so far I prefer China.

Have a nice weekend!

Hui in Hue and Hoi An! / Vietnam Part II

Exploring the centre of Vietnam

Hue and Hoi An are two cities in central Vietnam. I quite liked central Vietnam - it is far more relaxed than the big cities although still there are a lot of motorbikes and it just pains me to see all the garbage on the floor and in the rivers (the Perfume river in Hue has this name because it used to smell nice with all the flowers on the river banks. Now the river is so dirty you can't smell the flowers anymore, inhabitants of Hue say). It is not hard to recognise here that Vietnam is mainly an agricularal country. Second important income source seems to be tourism which unfortunately can be easily noticed in Hoi An.

Hue has a lot of Chinese influences. The Forbidden Purple City there has not only a name that ressembles the Forbidden City of Beijing - also the buildings and its purposes are similar, just a little bit different in style (yellow being prevalent in Hue while red is the prevalent colour in Beijing).

In Hue we also visited the Tomb of Emperor Tu Doc who had 104 wives and concubines, but no children (probably due to smallpox). Tu Doc was only 1,53 m high (probably due to smallpox as well) and built the mandarine stone statues guarding this tomb even smaller than he was!

Waterpuppet theatre is famous for Vietnam. The puppets' performance is done in water - quite weird, but also interesting to e.g. watch the fishermen puppets catch the fish puppets.

After a stop in Danang and the white marble mountains the next highlight was Hoi An.

Hoi An's city centre is UNESCO world heritage. It is nice to stroll along its pedestrian or pedestrian / motorbike streets at nights due to the unique atmosphere. However, many many tourists visit this town and nearly every single house is some tourist shop or restaurant nowadays...

In Hoi An I also went with an old rusty bike to the beach - My first beach trip of this year! Unfortunately, it was very stormy at the sea and it was impossible to stay there...

Khong co chi - in Hanoi / Vietnam

Motorbikes, rice and red flags

Khong co chi (Welcome in Vietnamese)!

Vietnam is the country of motorbikes. Hanoi for example has 4 million inhabitants and 2 million motorbikes. That makes 2 persons per motorbike. But in fact you can see many of the motorbikes crammed with 3, 4 or even 5 people on one motorbike! Amazing!

Vietnam is also the country of rice production. The rice fields under water form a nice scenery- farmers working on them wearing the typical Vietnames hats. Vietnam even exports rice to China.

Hanoi, dirty capital

The streets of Hanoi were full of red flags - the national flag of Vietnam. The flag has a yellow star on it - the enblem of the Vietnamese communist party - and a red background - "the blood shed in the fight for Vietnamese independence". Vietnam is partying New Year at the same time as the Chinese do. It is called "Tet" there and people put national flags in front of their house for Tet. They also have new year's trees for decoration to ward off evil spirits. Kumquat trees and peach trees are highly appreciated as new year's trees.

Is Ho Chi Minh alive, embalmed or a wax copy?

Visiting Hanoi is quite interesting, but why is it not the most unique experience in the world?

1. Hanoi is dirty, very dirty indeed! This has some charme, but on the long run it is frustrating to always look on the floor to avoid stepping on garbage in the street.

2. Hanoi has many French style houses from the time the French colonialised Vietnam. But I still prefer France and Paris - real French stuff!

3. Visiting Ho Chi Minh mausoleum teaches you some manners: no shorts, no tank tops, no backback, no bag, no camera, no mobile phone, no talking, no hats and hands out of your pockets! Queue in pairs! It is interesting to see the man who somewhat freed Vietnam and established it as a Democratic Republic (which now it is not anymore), but aren't rumours going it isn't the real embalmed body but a copy from Madame Tussaud's?

Halong bay - where is my boat?

Halong is just out of Hanoi. Hanoi is a Chinese name and means: where the dragon descends into the sea. Halong is a nice rock-island formation in the sea. Legend says a dragon built it. It is UNESCO world heritage which is best to be visited on a boat and that's what we did! A little bit fog made it hard to see things clearly but this just added a mystical air to the place.

Of course too many tourists which made it hard after a land excursion with visit of a stalagmite - stalagtite hole to find our boat again...

First day of the rat year - more temple fairs!

Beijing during Chinese New Year public holiday

The days before Chinese new year Beijing had changed a lot from what it usually is. No traffic jams, fewer cars, no long queues in the supermarkets, clear sky, fresher air.

This is due to the fact that Chinese new year is a family party - like Christmas in Western countries - and therefore everybody who has the possibility to return to his / her hometown does so.

Only on the day after we noticed how many people had still remained. Our target being Ditan (Altar of the Earth) temple fair we started rather early in the morning. Near Ditan we already had a traffic jam and we saw thousands of people (no exaggeration!) - were they all going to Ditan temple fair? Yes, they were!

Fight for your right to enter and exit!

Ditan temple fair was crowded like a football stadium. You had to push hard in order to make it through some gates. People with fear of big masses of human beings can probably not go there on Chinese new year.

Ditan temple fair itself was similar to Longtan temple fair the day before: foodstands, carneval articles, dance & drum shows, red coloured "lucky" decorations, rats in all kind of forms. The only difference to the day before: Everything much more crowded.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Today is Chinese new year's day. The year of the rat has begun!

And we were of course in the middle of it!

It started after lunch when we went to Longtan New Year temple fair (we being Claudia, her brother, his girlfriend, Agnes, Thomas - two newly arrived infoyear attendees).

Many Chinese people, many red new year decorations, many foodstands and other things you could buy at the new year's market. Some things you could buy there resembled what we buy for carneval like coloured

After having had sushi for dinner together, we went to Houhai lake and celebrated new year there. Houhai lake is a scenic spot with many hutongs and a nice frozen lake... and the firework there was gigantic! It's not that you start a firework at 12 at night here in China, but they started all the day from 5 pm and now, at 1 at night local time they still go on.

My colleagues said it usually doesn't stop before 5am in the morning the next day!

The firework was bigger than all the fireworks I've seen so far in my lifetime! Unfortunately taking pictures of a firework is difficult, but I attach some photos of the market this afternoon.

See you! Happy new Chinese year to all of us!

Working weekend - bu hao war!

After having worked overtime due to nice compliance topics on Friday, I had more than earned my Litschi Bacardi!
You might ask yourselve what I did this weekend. This time I am not going to tell you in detail because - WE WORKED! Yes, in the office. Yes, on the weekend.
Not because there was so much to do this weekend, but in order to "earn" some Chinese wide holiday. Next week we have one week off due to Chinese New Year. Two of these days are no real "days off", but they had to be exchanged with this Saturday and Sunday. That's why most companies in China worked this weekend!

The days before Chinese New Year are special days as well. Last week we happened to visit a dumpling restaurant (Teigtaschen) exactly on the day one week before Chinese New Year- a day when Chinese traditionally eat dumplings. Well, we didn't know this before, but my colleague told me only afterwards, so we wondered why it was that crowded and service that bad.

Tomorrow is another special day before Chinese new year. People eat wrapped pancake-like food with vegetable and meat filling then. Today for dinner two of my colleagues, my boss and me went to a vegetarian restaurant where we ate these filled with cucumber and beancurd made Beijing duck (kaoya).

Similar to our Christmas Chinese New Year is much about special food.
I shall tell you more about it soon. Next week the year of the rat starts. If you're interested in your horoscope in the year of the rat you can check German language homepage http://www.china-horoskop.com/

P.S.: Because I had many of you asking whether we have snow chaos in Beijing: no, nothing at all. No snow, around 3 degree celsius and nice weather so far.

I also attache a photo of the new olympic venue. They call it "Vogelnest" due to the architectural style. The second picture is new year's decoration including the rat.