Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Beijing. You’re supposed to dye the waters green, not layer the city in three-five inches of impenetrable snow.

In the hutongs near Nanluoguxiang we got around 3-5 inches of light, fluffy snow.

My hog, covered in Beijing’s first snow of the year, on March 17th, 2012.

Our little hutong alleyway as the giant snowflakes fall. 2am.

And finally, the classic shot of the streetlight in the snow.

A friend of ours took these side-by-side pics from her highrise in downtown Beijing. 1:30am.

The other day Mike and I were buzzing around on our super sleek moped. He calls it a motorcycle as his man points don’t decrease when saying “I’ll be there on my hog!” but they sure do when you use the words “scooter” or “moped.” Anyways, we were on the “motorcycle” heading to the other side of town when we saw a curious, and heart-wrenching sight.

A woman was lying at the point where the sidewalk meets the pedestrian crossing of a very major intersection in Beijing. Her legs were straight out, her arms were by her side. A local man was bent over her lightly pushing on her chest and looking around with a bored expression while texting on his phone. Every once in a while he’d blow in her mouth. She was imbobile.

We parked the moped and Mike, who was once a lifeguard at a swimming pool, ran over to get the local man off the lady and administer CPR correctly. Not only was he pushing her chest incorrectly, but he was essentially just blowing air into her mouth, none of which would be reaching her lungs.

I’ll pause here to point out that I didn’t notice anything wrong personally other than how bored the man looked. Mike was in a panicked rage as he jogged over and checked the woman’s pule. She was alive! And not only that, she was breathing normally. The man’s feeble attempts at CPR were endangering her much more than helping. I’ll pause here again to point out that after this incident I looked up how to do CPR, and now I can safely say that the dude had clearly seen it on a movie or TV show and was trying to mimic what he’d seen.

Mike asked what happened and it was revealed that the woman had suffered a seizure and fallen over. Unsure what to do (or what a seizure was) a crowd gathered around the woman’s body, which was locked up and nearly paralytic from the shock of the epileptic fit. Since she was non responsive, they assumed she was dead or dying. There was no telling how long she’d been there except to say that it was long enough for quite a massive crowd of onlookers to have accumulated around her seized body. The show was made all the more fantastic for the onlookers with the addition of a frantic white man pushing his face against the Chinese lady’s body and holding his fingers to her neck.

Once Mike determined that she was okay, he instructed the crowd not to touch her, he turned her head in case she vomited, and made sure she had room to breath while awaiting the ambulance someone assured him had been called.

An ambulance pulled up, with several EMPs jumping out hauling a defibrillator. At this point Mike vanished into the crowd and dashed back to the moped. There are horror stories of lawsuits and legal charges against people who are attempting to help a victim on the street in China. We zoomed off and listened to the ambulance siren as it whisked the woman away. There’s no telling how much air was in her stomach from the inaccurate CPR, or if foam and saliva had been blown into her lungs, exacerbating the woman’s plight.

The strangest thing about this whole story isn’t how strange it is. It isn’t how feebly the one man helped, or how an entire crowd gathered to watch but not assist, or even our shock at seeing our very first ambulance in China — in three years! The strangest thing was that the day went on and as with most things in China, this bizarre event was quickly forgotten and it wasn’t until the next day that Mike remembered what had happened and told the story to a friend of his at the bar.

If you follow us on Facebook, then you’ve probably noticed the bad-ass photo of Lauren on a motorcycle. Here’s how that transpired:

So it was Christmas morning, the morning after an insanely busy night of serving rowdy Chinese at the bar. We were exhausted and slept in, unlike most Christmas tales where people wake up and run to the tree. We woke up and ran to the coffee. Then Mike started fidgeting and eventually yelled “I can’t wait!”

We ran outside and there next to the grey brick wall was a shiny red motorcycle. . . well, motor-scooter. It’s an electric bike actually with a range of 30km and a max speed of 30km per hour. It’s beautiful, not unlike the motorcycle from The Great Escape. Side note: did you notice that the bike used in the film was actually invented AFTER the supposed date of the film. Major movie flaw, but still you can’t hate Steve McQueen.

So, our first day out on the bike we didn’t charge the battery fully and it died about 3km from the house. A long, embarrassing walk pushing a giant scooter. The second day out we were waiting at an intersection when a local blew through a red light and T-boned the bike, obliterating the fuselage and jolting the frame. Lauren was driving, so she yelled “Get off! I’m chasing him!” and then took off at full speed (30km per hour mind you) chasing the hit-and-run asshole. She yelled, he drove faster. Eventually she sped up enough to ram right into the side of the terrified man, knocking bits of his bike into the air and finally forcing him to a grinding halt when she pointed the nose of the busted red beauty directly in his escape path. The man then had no choice but to either face the wrath of a woman with a busted Christmas gift or to call the police. He chose the police.

They arrived leisurely and overweight, and refused to talk with us. He listed to the Chinese man and then said there was nothing he could do. We insisted the man had not only run a red light, but did a hit-and-run, and was now lying to a police officer. It looked (and sounded) pretty serious. Finally, the lazy cop sucked in his paunch and called his home-base. After a long conversation he reported that the traffic camera showed the Chinese man breaking several laws, and slamming into two foreigners who were breaking none. He sighed and told us to name a price.

This is where it got even more uncomfortable than chasing down a hit-and-run culprit Bullit style. We had to pick a price, out of the blue, and the cop was mitigating and managing the amount. He then would tell us if the price was too high. We demanded the man pay for a new bike or a new fuselage and estimated over a thousand rmb (slightly more than a $100 USD). The cop laughed, and by then a massive crowd had gathered who also laughed in support of the hyena cop. We lowered our bid, there was more laughter. Finally we said we would go with the man to a body shop and accept the estimate amount. The cop agreed, wrote out a slip and was off to serve and protect in another quarter.

We eventually ended up with 300RMB, not enough to fix the bike. Still, it was our first encounter with the legal system and with the police in China and although it wasn’t pleasant it could have been much, much worse.

Summer is in full swing in Beijing, with a heat index that is exhausting and humidity so thick it feels like being water boarded every time you inhale. Amid this heat and humidity there rides a lone foreigner on a rickety, poorly-made, death-trap of a bike. I peddle as fast as the fixed gear crap bike will go to create my own air conditioning. It’s mostly a failed effort. My office is about twenty minutes away by bike, the perfect distance to be totally drenched by the time I arrive. I carry a backpack with my laptop and books– so my back is drenched before I really board the bike and get rolling. Needless to say, my colleagues don’t like sitting near me.

But the heat and humidity aren’t the only smelly annoyances– the biggest is the pollution. It seems the humidity keeps the pollution lower, right at about mouth and nose level. So, when I’m peddling like Lance Armstrong on my way to work I’m basically sucking in pure exhaust and god-knows-what particles from construction and roof-high piles of trash in the hutongs. I’m also inhaling paint fumes, and the smells of burning plastic. Its no small wonder that lung cancer is one of the leading causes of death in China– we’re inhaling pure poision all day long, and I’m inhaling it rapidly (choking on it, really) on my bike.

My bike is another issue all together. For 290RMB (40-ish dollars) it offers a fragile frame that with all my bulging muscles I can squeeze and watch contract. The frame holds two wheels with spokes so thin I’m curious how they hold the rim on. The sit isn’t attached well, so it angles and swivels. The handlebars are not lined up with the body of the bike so that your torso has to be turned slightly while steering– this is nothing compared to the dangers of how weak the peddles are. If you stand up on them to gain speed you might push right through them, crashing into the pavement.

I only bring this up because with the dangerous on the Beijing roads on bike, I’m surprised I’ve lasted this long. I’ve been two minor accidents. One car moving forward decided it wanted to go in the opposite direction instead, and proceeded to back up into oncoming traffic (aka- me). The second accident was when a woman decided to turn left from the right lane on her bike without look at either the cars to her left or the other  bikers (aka- me again). Both times I swerved and the crash was minor, with no injuries except a scrape on my foot when her kickstand scraped over my sandal. No worries. Since my bike only peddles at about 10 mph I think I’m fairly safe.

Staplers and colleagues and cubicles – oh my!

I recently took a full-time (aka: cube) job in Beijing. Yes, I know what you are thinking, “How could you, your whole mission is to Abandon the Cube!” Well my dear like-minded and equally outraged friend, you are right. But every once in a while we need to gain new skills and popping back into the cubicle for a bit to do so is a painful but useful tactic of catching up on the business world (vomit) and seeing what new software is on the market. So, which cube am I residing in currently?

I work at City Weekend Beijing, its a city-specific magazine focusing on events, listings for establishments and basic community stuff. I’m the nightlife and sports editor, which means that through my cube I get to know many of the city’s hippest, coolest (and sometimes, most annoying) people. I’m responsible for making sure all the content for those sections of the magazine is written or outsourced to a freelancer, and that the City Weekend website is up to date for my sections. I’m also supposed to go out to all the major events in nightlife and sports to represent the magazine. This last part is fun, and I sometimes land free tickets to awesome events. I took the position so I could learn about magazines, and hopefully one day put out my own on cube abandoning or traveling. I need to learn how a magazine is run, what software they use, how they source images, how to deal with the public, and much more. I’ve been on the job one month and already I’ve learned a great deal with much more learning on the way, I’m sure.

Still, its hard to wake up every day at the crack of dawn to work on someone else’s vision and dream. Its much more liberating to wake up and work on my own projects, at my own speed. I find that in terms of whats changed in the last two years of cube abanonding that the only real difference is everyone uses their cell phones for work, which I find annoying because now work people can reach me 24/7– an even further foray into my personal life by an occupation. Speaking of, an occupation is meant to be something you do, but the word is the same as when an outside force enters a nation and takes control over every aspect of it, it loses its autonomy essentially. Occupation is the perfect word for a job because they really do try to take over your world and your autonomy. I think this is why so many people define themselves by what they do for work– there is so little free time, so little autonomy left that they realy do become their jobs. Hopefully I won’t end up like that but if I do, please call me out on it!

While all this is happening, Mike is in the States, so he has essentially missed the worst of the transition period where I wake up and hit snooze about thirty times and then run like a maniac around the house feeding the stray adopted cats and throwing on mismatched socks and other clothing. I’ll say this about the magazine, at least I don’t have to wear a suit!

-Post written by Lauren

In December, Mike bought me a kitten for Christmas. It died shortly after of FPV. We named him Nixon, after Mike’s favorite president. That is Nixon in the image (left).

The vet who checked the kitten for us offered to find us another cat later down the line. In January, we adopted a stray Beijing street cat that the vet’s assistants had been feeding behind the building. She was healthy, about a year old, and in need of a home. So, we took her. She cried and ate a lot the first week, and by the second week she was plump and gorged. By the third week she continued to grow so fat that when we took her in for her check up the vet told us to lay off the food. Below is a picture of Tolkuchka, which is what we named her. Tolkuchka is the name of the famous push push bazaar in Turkmenistan.

Another month passed but she continued to balloon up and eventually we started to wonder if there was something else at work besides an insatiable cat. Sure enough, a few weeks later we took her to the vet again and they confirmed that she was pregnant. She must have been put in that position literally days before we adopted her as she had no signs, even on her blood work, that she was pregnant when we adopted her in January.

February 23rd rolls around and out pop seven kittens. The first one was a beautiful gray, black and white calico with tiny ears. You can see her in the image (left). We named her Kuntakitty. Nothing happened for several hours and then out popped a second, this was an entirely orange ball of fur with giant ears. A few hours later in rapid succession five more orange kittens were born. Sadly, one died immediately and we buried him under a tree in our hutong courtyard. The remaining six kittens were healthy, large and feeding regularly. You can see them to the right, sleeping a few hours after birth.

For the first three weeks the kittens didn’t do much but sleep and feed. In our tiny livingroom, we put a blanket over the coffee table and stuffed the area under it with blankets and hot water pouches to give the animals warmth in the cold hutong.

In the image below they are twelve days old and still sleeping in the nest under the coffee table. They stayed there for about the first month. Eventually, they outgrew the tiny living room and we moved them into the bedroom, which had fewer things for them to fall off of and eat.

They grew well for a while, in the image below they are one month old.

In the image below they are two months old. About two weeks after the picture below we noticed two of the kittens had stopped eating dry food, feeding and playing. They generally didn’t do a lot. The two sick kittens included the gray one (Kuntakitty) and the runt (Tiny Bubbles). In the image above they are the two on the top right.

I took them into the vet and they did a blood test that revealed the two kittens had VPF, the same virus that killed Nixon a few months earlier. This was a shock because we sprayed down our entire home with virus killer, we kept all the kittens in a clean room, and we were extremely careful about contact with the kittens. Apparently the virus is easily spread with minimal contact so anyone who was outside and came into the kitten room could have spread the disease.

The vet instantly put the two kittens on a regiment of treatment designed to help their bodies fight of the virus. They have to be taken to the vet every day for three hours a day for an IV drip of nutrients and vitamins, an anti-coagulate shot, antibiotic, anti-virus, enzyme booster, medicine to keep them from vomiting, shots to keep them energetic, shots to increase appetite… the list goes on. These two kittens are poked and prodded for three hours a day and then the rest of the time they sleep on heated pillows and try to fight of the sickness. Today is their fourth treatment and another round of blood work to see how they are progressing and if their white blood cell count is up.

Just a note on costs. If this were anywhere else but China this would be impossible for us to do, but as it is we spend about $30 US a day on this treatment and the vets are great. They are friendly, care about the animals and do their best to keep them comfortable and healthy.

In the image (right) you see some of the kittens a few days ago. Most of these kittens have been adopted. We put up a post on The Beijinger and had a lot of happy responses. A Japanese woman and her French husband took the kitten we called Derp. They were so adorable with him. A British woman and her boyfriend took a girl and boy kitten home the following day. The long-haired beast we call Gremlin is still with us. And Kuntakitty (which was renamed Pattie by the German girl who will adopt her) and Tiny Bubbles (the runt) are still at the house with Tolkuchka. So, we still have four at home. Two healthy and two sick ones. People are interested in adopting Gremlin and Tiny Bubbles, so once they are ready to leave they’ll be out the door as well, and of course our happy German can’t wait to have Pattie/Kuntakitty.

This has been a hard five months of cat problems, and I never imagined there could be so many problems. We’ll update you later with the kitty news, but for now– this is what we’ve been up to for the past five months!

You can see more pictures of the kittens in the photo album.

Spring has finally arrived in Beijing, and after a long winter in a Chinese siheyuan (a hutong home) we’re ready for the fine weather and fresh air that spring promises to bring. Pictures of Beijing were recently loaded on our flickr page and available in the gallery.

And with the new season, new adventures!

Lauren recently began working with a magazine called Hops Quarterly China. She’ll be building their website and acting as the web editor for the forseable future. Once the site launches, we’ll link to it so you can see her work. She is happy to have found a way into the magazine industry, and happier still that it involves her favorite beverage.

She has also been writing for various publications around Beijing. Check it out on her portfolio website. It is a work in progress and she hopes to expand her portfolio substantially in 2011 while completing work on this mysterious book that no one seems to be able to preview.

Mike is busy sourcing and doing various jobs on the side of his primary editing position with a Chinese mega company. He is learning Chinese, and his beard has grown to Hemingway proportions. Meanwhile, with the guitar he acquired as a Christmas gift, he is busy learning new songs and driving the neighbors mad. He has gained a reputation in Beijing as the man in flannel and hiking boots, a homage he pays to his one true love– Michigan.

The cat they adopted in December was pregnant. Surprise! Even the vet didn’t notice as she must have only recently been put in that condition when they adopted her. She birthed six kittens two days before Mike’s birthday on the 23rd of February, and they are now several months old and taking over the entire hutong. They will all be given away over the coming weeks, and hopefully the two will get their sanity restored once the meowing stops. There are, embarrassingly enough, dozens of pictures of the furry beasts in the photo album.

Mike will be heading to the States for a month to see family and friends, and to clean all the winter pollution out of his lungs. He is looking forward to his mother’s home cooking and recently has been raving to anyone who will listen about the casseroles that are far superior in the mid-west than any other spot on the planet.

We hope to keep Abandon the Cube better updated in the future as our China Adventure continues. We excel at avoiding the cubicle, Lauren as a freelance writer and Mike as a part timer and contractor. This spring we expect to travel abroad several times as well as here in China, and we continue to explore the amazing city of Beijing as we meet new people and find new hidden gems around the city.

New stuff is happening on the website as well! We’re rolling out new guide pages and, hopefully later this spring, moving the entire website over to a new template with more interactive features, and an easier usability. Check back for new blogs (weekly now rather than every other day) and new pages, guides and features. We hope to keep ATC alive and well, and more than that we hope to see it grow and take on a life of its own as more people decide to abandon their cubicles to travel and live abroad.

All the best, and happy Spring from the cube abandoners in Beijing.

Lauren & Mike

Is polygamy coming to China? Thats what some mistresses in the mainland are calling for after the failed ‘Festival of Mistresses’ on March 3 at 3:30 in China, 2011. The number three, signifying the third woman in a relationship, was intentional. But, how can mistresses elevate their status and shed what they claim is an unfair image while continuing to operate forums and websites on how to shake more money out of their married lover?

The hottest news in China at present, the Festival of Mistresses has highlighted the addiction many elites have to wanting it all. Mistresses are common, so common in fact that if they unionized they would control a fair amount of the luxury market in China.

The Huffington Post claims that in 2008 a full one third of the luxury market in China was fueled by these mistresses, a claim that in no small part shows the power these women have. They have organized themselves on forums and websites across the net and even have revenge systems in place so that if a lover wrongs or leaves a mistress the whole group retaliates.

As one blogger creatively noted, “Chinese mistresses are not taking it lying down anymore” a clever pun on the women’s hopes at bringing their relationships into the open. Although they would be unable to continue their occupation as a mistress once exposed (at east with multiple men or once one married man moves on), their could be come legal protection for women who register as mistresses to influential men.

Although plural marriages were common in China in the past, the concubine system fell apart during hard times when it was impossible for one man to support multiple wives. It was outlawed when the communists came to power in 1949. But, in the nearly 30 years of market reforms the practice has resurfaced, and some provinces are addressing it severely.

The Party in China has called for members not to take mistresses or indulge overly in a luxurious lifestyle. This to bolster morality in the party, according to the memo. Several cadres have already been fired once exposed by their so-called ‘second wives.’ In recent years a registrations process has become legalized so that a man with a constant mistress must register the relationship as corruption would result if it were kept secret. This is unlikely to get any real support or have any real controlling power as men have multiple mistresses and are unlikely to register any of them, especially since The Party has denounced the practice.

This whole saga can’t end well. It reminds me of the 2009 incident in which a man with multiple mistresses was in financial insecurity and decided to have a run off contest to keep only one. The first woman voted off was so distraught he drove off a cliff with the lover and other mistresses inside the car. Tragedy is what the end result of this lifestyle is, these women are only useful when they are young and the economy is good. This puts them in a dangerous and temporary position. Still, they choose this path instead of legitimate work.

So, where could this issue go from here? Its unlikely polygamy will become legal in China. For starters, the one-child policy makes polygamy unfair. If a single man marries multiple women and has a single child by each of them, he could be depriving other men the wives they would need to carry on their line. On a base level, money would be the thing that ensures one family name continues and not another. On a secondary level, it is unrealistic that the traditional Chinese lifestyle and norms could be overcome and polygamy accepted in China, making these arrangements the targets for rights groups, an issue China hardly wants on the international zeitgeist considering other rights issues. Finally, it is unlikely that primary wives would every allow mistresses any legal rights, which would in turn limit their own power.

It all remains to be seen, but in the short-term it is likely to be a hot topic in China until something else comes along to sweep this under the media’s radar until they soon forget it exists at all.

As many of you know, we moved into a Beijing hutong– a traditional single-story home in a traditional maze of houses that makes up a close-knit community. Anyways, its been a bumpy and rewarding ride. I recently painted the interior of the hutong, spending a bit of my own cash to fix up the place. Here are some before and after pictures, which I know everyone loves.

The Office:

Before

Middle

After

The Living Room:

Before

After (same view)

Bedroom:

Before

After

Anyways, life in a hutong has been a bit of a rewarding challenge:

The upside:

• Culturally relevant
• Close to Beijing’s unique culture
• Large and relatively affordable

The downside:

• Vacant and dismissive landlord
• Shoddy construction, ongoing problems
• Expensive utilities

Many of the reasons we decided to live in a hutong include the upsides listed above, but more importantly, the hutong homes in Beijing are so unique and beautiful that they really inspire a sense of living in another time. You can walk through the hutong alleyways at night, when the streets are void of sweet potato salesmen, street sweepers and thousands of meandering elderly folks, and it feels like you have time warped back a generation. Thats the number one reason we live in a hutong, the sense of time lapse and the feeling of being 100% in Beijing, and nowhere else.

Today, I was walking down Nanluoguxiang when a women in a new model Audi decided to take a short cut out of one of the many side alleyways and turned south on Nanluoguxiang, which is a one-way road going north. She pushed her fist against the horn and honked without letting up as she forced her way through the thick, Saturday traffic of pedestrians. A group of youths of about 10-14 years old were blocking her path unintentionally. She didn’t slow down at all, but pushed the corner nose of her car into the group. They were trapped between the walls, a massive tree, several bicycles and her car with nowhere to go to get out of her way. Meanwhile, she kept honking. I managed to duck out of the way of the Audi and the smug woman inside it, thought the car grazed my hip. A boy in the pack of youths was not as lucky.

She pushed the boys like I’ve seen Mongolian herders do with their motorcycles to goats. She pushed them against the wall, some nearly falling over, with her car. One boy didn’t manage to get out of the way entirely and his foot was caught under her front right tire. He yelped, but since he was a young boy with his friends, he tried to hide his pain. I slapped the back of the Audi and yelled at the woman, who couldn’t hear me over the sound of her constant honking. An oncoming car started honking in repetition, drowning out the boy, my slapping her trunk, and the potato salesman around the corner who was being forced to pack up his stall and relocate it so she could squeeze her car the wrong way past oncoming traffic.

After a moment, she seemed to be aware that the boy’s foot was trapped. She starred at him and rolled the car slowly forward. When the boy doubled over and touched his foot she sped up, the back of the car nearly clocking the book in the head for good measure. He winced and tried to hide his pain from his buddies. He straightened up and limped away with them, not even yelling at the woman or jotting down her license plate. The boys pushed against the wall simply fanned back out and continued strolling down the street, the boy trying to keep up beside them.

Now, I was standing as close to all of this as a person could be without being one of the main players in the drama. I was shocked that the woman, about 50 with too much hair spray and a pimple-scarred complexion, hit the boys, ran over one’s foot and then drove off. She never once let off the horn. Now, is this a cultural difference that I simply don’t understand or is this woman a modern-day monster? I’m inclined to think that she ought to have been forced to take the boy to the hospital for an X-ray, or else to have apologized or received a fine for driving down a one-way the wrong direction. Instead, she probably felt happy to have made it home sooner using her nifty, illegal short cut. I’m inclined to think that I should have opened the driver’s door and pulled the women into the street to apologize to the poor boy, though that is also rude…

Sometimes I see stuff like this in China and I’m confused about how to react. Its true that I don’t and probably never will understand the culture and people entirely, and that holding a different people to my own moral and ethical standards isn’t exactly logical, but then I think there has to be a line where most human beings on the planet would agree that something was either good or bad. Running over a boy’s foot and hitting a whole group of them intentionally to save a few moments time seems to fall on the bad side.

All of this would bother me much less if someone else on the street had reacted at all. The potato salesman saw it all and did nothing but move his cart obediently away from the car’s honking. The other driver saw the whole thing, the pack of youths obviously saw it, and there was a middle-aged Chinese man in a business suit standing next to me with an amused look on his face watching me hit the trunk of the car. Had any one of them done anything I might have thought wow, this is horrible but at least the woman is an isolated case but since, yet again, no one reacted or came to the boy’s aid, I’m left thinking this was a small incident where everyone silently agreed that it wasn’t a big deal.

A few years ago in Shanghai I saw two women in a fist fight on the street over the price of one woman’s oranges and her not giving the appropriate change (so the other claimed) to the buyer. A group of over 50 quickly crowded around and watched them fight, not one person intervening.

Less than a month ago in Beijing I saw a woman on a scooter hit a woman on a bike. The woman on the bike hit the pavement and didn’t move. She was face down and we thought the worst. More importantly, a bus was coming and she was right in its path. We were down and across the street and couldn’t have reached her in time to stop the bus. A group of about seven people stopped to watch the disaster unfold, one of them was a police officer on his motorcycle. In the end, the bus saw her and swerved out of the way, the cop told the woman to get up and a passer by explained to us that in China, people act more injured then they are to try to get big money out of the people who injure them. In the end, she probably got nothing.

I once heard a rumor in China that if you were hit by a car you needed to roll out of the way because the driver is liable for medical costs but if you die, he isn’t liable at all. You often hear people talking about drivers hitting someone and then backing up to finish them off. And while these were all rumors, recently there was a media frenzy when a man in an expensive car backed over a small child (story here). He got out, saw the child, backed over him again (for a grand total of four full times hitting the child) and killed him and then drove off. The whole thing was caught on camera.

What does all this have in common?– basically I don’t understand the culture of hit-and-run, or hit-backup-hit again-and-run, and witnessing all of these examples personally makes me realize that it must happen non-stop around the city. So, is this a cultural difference I don’t understand or is this just rude and totally uncalled for?

Beijing has many amazing attractions. The Great Wall is a short ride away, the Forbidden City is at the epicenter, the entire city is flush with history and culture. One of the things that Beijing has that many other cities are lacking in China is a survival of the traditional hutong homes. The web of hutong homes are a maze of homes that take up square miles and weave around in all directions. Some of the alleyways serving the hutong homes are delightful cultural must-see locations. The main arteries contain shops to serve the hutong, public bathrooms and small restaurants. In fancier hutong communities, these alleys evolved into pleasant streets with spas, cafes and bars, and small boutique shops. Our favorite hutong community is served by Nanluoguxiang, or South Luogu Alley.

Nanluoguxiang is a beautiful street. There are dozens of great little bars and restaurants along the north-south road that attract tourists, locals and resident expats including ourselves. The Pass-by Bar and Cafe is one such place– it is a traditional hutong establishment with a courtyard that is windowed in and heated. The favorite– 15rmb french toast! Bingo!

Another adorable place we enjoy is Ned’s, referring to New Kelly. As you could guess the bar is owned by an Australian. Its a double-decker hutong that is famous for serving a giant mug of rum and coke for 50rmb. The company is great and the atmosphere low-key and fun.

You’ll also find photo galleries, full-out restaurants and cafes, and little shops. At night, the street lamps illuminate a classic hutong view that no trip to Beijing is complete without witnessing. Hou Hai Lake is nearby, and Jingshan Park, north of the Forbidden City, is within walking distance, as is Bei Hai Park. In short, located centrally in Beijing, it is a great little hutong to explore, photograph and enjoy.

Happy New Year! With the new year comes a barrage of newly affirmed goals and resolutions. Living in China isn’t always easy, there are sundry problems, including the fact that our landlord refuses to fix anything broken in our hutong apartment, which is basically everything.  I resolved to deal with the problems of living abroad in a new way in 2011. It can be frustrating and down right infuriating to deal with some people, and our landlord is definitely one of them.  Trying to understand what makes some people tick is like trying to figure out that annoying multi-colored cube puzzle. In short, in the new year I resolved to deal with these messes in a more mature way. This is a tall order since throwing internal mental tantrums was somewhat therapeutic.

Changing how you deal with something that bothers you isn’t an easy feat. Going about doing something like that doesn’t really have a how-to guide. In short, this might be a long year.

In mush happier news– 2011 brought an important new addition. We now have a Beijing stray cat living in our house. We went to the local vet and asked if they had any news about cats who needed a good home. In fact, they’d keep their eye out, they informed us. A few days later they called with news of a kitten. We went in to see her, she wasn’t exactly a kitten, but a 6-month old, fully grown cat. She stayed at the vet a week while her shots took effect and her de-worming and flea medication kicked in. We brought her home a few days ago and although nearly everything in the apartment is broken we hardly notice as frequently because we’re so happy to have the cat. We named her Tolkuchka.

Dear Friends, Family, Fellow Travelers, and Random Readers,

Merry Christmas from Beijing, China!

We’re thrilled to be celebrating Christmas from the Middle Kingdom this year. Its a different experience than Christmas back home. For starters, Santa is only featured in a few select Western shopping centers, and his presence isn’t really felt in Beijing. There are no lights on the houses, or little Christmas trees or candles in our neighbor’s windows. Christmas carols are not heard in shops or homes. There are no sales on egg nog. There is no egg nog.

Despite all this, Beijing is in a festive mood. The weather has changed and its suddenly freezing (literally). Hou Hai Lake already has its first firm layer of ice, and people will be skating on it soon. The wildlife (what little there was in the city) has receded into nooks and crannies, and people walk around with scarves pulled up to their eyes and hats pulled down to their noses. I imagine they are all smiling under their winter wear and wishing me Merry Christmas with their desperate, freezing eyes.

There are some holiday events going on in Beijing this year, but mostly they are centered around food and wine, and have little to do with the actual holiday. Luckily for us, family will be visiting our little hutong home and bringing the holiday spirit with them. We have a mini Christmas tree that we’ll be stringing up popcorn on, and we’ve purchased a copy of It’s a Wonderful Life. We’re making our own Christmas fun this year!

The Chinese don’t celebrate the New Year on the 1st. Chinese New Year is coming up (Feb 3rd) and everything will be festive and lively then. It is the single most exciting and celebrated holiday in Asia (and thus, on the planet probably). Fireworks explode from everywhere for several days on end. Two years ago in Shanghai, there were so many fireworks people were throwing them out high-rise windows and one bounced off our taxi, skidding to a stop outside the window and exploded with a shower over the entire car. Its something you can only understand by experiencing, and we’re looking forward to it with fire extinguishers at the ready.

For now, we’re signing off for the remainder of 2010 and wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We’ll resume updating Abandon the Cube with the dawn of the new year. All our best wishes to you and yours and a happy start to 2011!

Sincerely,

Abandon the Cube

We recently did a visa run. As with many people who live in China, we have to leave the country every 60 or 90 days to reactivate our 1-year visas. We recently decided to try the Beijing-Erlian visa run rather than the traditional Beijing to Hong Kong run. Here are a few details on how to make your visa run a quick success:

1) There are loads of buses that go to Erlian, you can leave from any one of the stations, and it is easy to call ahead of time if you speak even a little Chinese to ensure the buses leave on your scheduled day. Here are the Beijing Long Distance Bus Options.Or, a few other options on how to get to Mongolia.

2) Once you arrive (and if you take the bus you’ll arrive at 3 or 4:00am) you may need to stay at a hotel for a few hours until the border opens. It opens at 8:00am. If you arrive at the bus station you can easily find a driver to take you to a local hotel. Bargain, but you should be able to get the ride and the hotel for under $12 USD. Prices should be in Chinese. The hotels are not great, ours was heated by a stove and had wooden beds and a squat hallway toilet, but we only stayed a few hours and it was much-needed rest after 11 hours on a sleeper bus.

3) Crossing the border takes patience. You have to get a cab to the gate. Make sure they use the meter, as they’ll try to charge triple what the meter would have. The cab drops you off at the border, then you have to negotiate with a jeep driver to take you across the no-man’s-land to the actual Chinese immigration building. No walking allowed!

4) You use the same jeep to get all the way to the Mongolian immigration side and then through that to the first town across the Mongolian border. Your jeep should cost about 50RMB or less. We negotiated hard and paid only 30RMB, but we also went all out and even included one of the Chinese border guards, who was extremely helpful.

5) If you want, you can easily get your jeep driver to drop you off at the city square, otherwise you can simply turn around without leaving the Mongolian border zone and negotiate with a new jeep driver to take you back to the Chinese side. Getting back to the Chinese side is cheaper and easier as most Jeep drivers have limited loads.

6) Once back in Erlian, you can take a cab from the bus station in Erliain to Beijing for around 200RMB a person. The bus is 200RMB as well, so if you want to save some time, the cab ride is 7 hours while the bus ride is a grueling 11. I prefer the bus as its a sleeper unit so you can relax, sleep and even read.

7) Your visa will need to be registered once you get back to China. Good luck!

First, a little background information on rental practices in China: In general, you sign a lease and pay your rent whenever you move in. No one waits for the first of the month to move. We signed our lease on a three-bedroom apartment in Dongchang district on the 21st of September, for example. You pay your rent in China by giving one month deposit and three months rent up front. You pay your rent every three months, essentially. Our lease was unique in that is stipulated two months deposit, two months rent.

We had a hard time finding a three-bedroom apartment for us and our roommates. Once we finally did, our agent charged us over half a month rent for a finder fee. We later learned that the landlord paid the realty company a months rent, and we should not have paid a fee at all. The agent (named Sam) pocketed the money. We later learned that he was in cahoots with an agent at the company listing the apartment, a girl named Lina. (This all comes into play later!) The company listing the apartment, should you wish to avoid it, was 5i5j, one of China’s largest realty companies.

On the 15th of November, right before our rent was due for the second time, we were alerted that we were being evicted because the landlord had sold the apartment to a new owner who did not wish to rent it out. They told us we needed to be out by the end of the week. In a total panic (my parents were visiting from abroad and everyone was extremely busy) we consulted the lease and learned we had to be given ten days notice. We countered with this information and they begrudgingly accepted. They had tried to pull a fast one on us, hoping we wouldn’t be able to read the lease that was all in Chinese.

Our contact with the rental company was a 30+ year old local named Lina (aforementioned). She spoke some English, which is why they probably assigned her to us. She admitted that we did get ten days, and told us they would be free, we didn’t need to pay for them. We had until the end of the month to be gone. This was all confirmed in English and Chinese, in multiple expressions so as to erase the issue of it possibly being a misunderstanding.

It turned out Lina was telling us a series of lies to get us to do what she wanted, without any concern about the effect her lies would have on us and on her coworkers. Here’s how the misery of the eviction played out:

Lina lied about the ten days being free and the landlord showed up to collect the ten days rent, prorated. Since we asked repeatedly for this deal in writing and Lina refused, we had no evidence to support our claim.

Lina lied again when she told us all the furniture we purchased for the apartment would be bought by the landlord. When the landlord arrived she knew nothing about this arrangement. We lost all the money we spent on furniture, and had to leave it all behind because there was nowhere to move it. This was Lina’s second lie, and although we had text messages from Lina proving she promised this, the company and the landlord refused to agree.

Lina promised to find us a new apartment for free as part of the deal when breaking a lease with a client. This turned out to be a total scam run by Lina and her friend Sam. Lina showed us apartments that were so vile or so far out of our price range that she knew ahead of time we would reject them. Meanwhile, her accomplice (Sam, aforementioned) would show us nice ones in our price range. Her friend then tried to charge us a large finder’s fee, which he would split with Lina. She would make money on finding us an apartment, money being her ultimate goal here.

I confronted Lina about these many lies and immoral practices and she turned bright red and refused to answer me. She showed up at our apartment the following day with two large gentlemen from the company and told us we had to be out of the apartment that night! It was around 5pm when she arrived with her ‘henchmen’ to evict us on the spot. We told her to get lost, and told the people with her about the many lies she had told us. She denied it all, and a series of yelling spats ensued. Eventually they left in a huff, but nearly as angry as we were. We were dealing with a greedy monster of a woman who was lying to everyone she encountered. Our poor roommate, this being their first time in China, were suffering through a horrible first impression of life in China.

The following day was the 30th, and we were informed that they would come to inspect for damages and return our deposit at 10:00am. They were over an hour late, and once they did arrive we learned they had only brought half the money they owed us for the eviction (our deposit plus two months rent for breaking the lease). The landlord arrived, more agents arrived, and the new owners arrived and began measuring the walls for their furniture. There were around ten people in the house, all together, as the madness unfolded.

We informed them that Lina told us we could stay for ten days for free. The landlord was shocked and refused on the spot. Lina didn’t arrive and her coworkers refused to honor any of her promises, despite any evidence we provided. We explained to them the massive series of lies we were told and that we were extremely unhappy about the whole affair. What happened next was shocking. They refused to give us the money until we signed a form saying we were leaving. We signed, and then they informed us they only had half the money we were owed and that we could collect the rest at their office at the end of the week. One of our roommates began to get furious and explained that he would literally not leave the premises until the money was delivered. I explained that our trust was betrayed and we were extremely hurt by the whole process. The agent we were dealing with apologized for Lina’s many lies but said they couldn’t honor any of them. He agreed to get us the money within the day, and the roommate would stay in the apartment until I called to say the money was in hand. The situation had deteriorated so much that we were literally leaving a human being in the apartment for our security until we had the money. If we left, they would have no reason to honor their promise to deliver the rest of the money they owed us. Since everything they had told us so far proved a lie, we didn’t actually know if we would get the money.

Later that day I went to the company headquarters and had no problem getting the money, at which point I called and the roommate left the apartment. Our standoff having ended with us on the losing end in every respect. However, everyone I met at the company headquarters apologized for Lina’s behavior and one of the men pulled us aside and said, quote: “she does not respect herself and she does not represent the company, or myself.’ He was deeply ashamed of what had happened to us because of Lina, and he gave us his business card and said that if we ever had a problem in Beijing to call on him and he would help. He really wanted us to know that not all Chinese are like Lina and that he would help us with whatever problems we faced, as a friend. This was such a moving display that we totally forgot about Lina’s selfish methodology and greedy approach to life, and were instantly brightened by this gentleman’s offer of assistance.

The whole event was so horrific and spread out over half a month that one of the roommates decided to leave China altogether, having tired of what he saw as a place where he wasn’t welcome. I don’t blame him one bit! It was a horrible first experience in China! He claims that in all the places he has travelled, China is the only place where he has had such trouble and felt so unwelcomed, and why spend one moment of your life in a place where people don’t want you. He is now on his way to south-east Asia and the land of smiles. Mike and I decided to stay in China, and we’re sure we’ll find many, many more people like the gentleman who offered his help, than people like Lina. Good riddance to her, the only good side to this whole affair is that we’ll never have to interact with her again.

We’ve been looking all over for a place to buy a ferret. Yeah, I know what you are thinking, why buy a pet when you will just have to leave in a few years and possibly leave it behind. The quarentine process for brinign animals from China to the USA can’t be easy, and besides, ferrets are just glorified rats. Here’s my retort, sirs:

Ferrets are adorable, they do a warrior dance to signal when they want to play or fight that involves rolling around upside down and tossing their bodies side to side. If all warriors did that dance there would be no war… only massive laughing sessions followed by treks to the closest bar.

We looked at other animals as well. In 2006 we owned a rabbit in Beijing, but it quickly died. It was either sick when we purchased it from the street corner salesman who was also selling fish and toilet bowl cleaner, or he died as a result of running around or soon-to-be-condemmed apartment. He died so quickly after we got him that Mike seems to think it was his fault. I’ll go on record saying it wasn’t anyone’s fault, but it did mean that this time around we didn’t want to try our luck again with a Beijing bunny.

Cats are the best option, in my opinion, but Mike is allergic. Lame. And although I’d love a dog, how could I possibly part with that or give it away whenever I left Beijing? Ideally, the most generic and cliche animals are actually the best because they interact with humans on a high level and when guests come over they are not terrified, a they might be if a ferret ran by unannounced.

To check out our options, we went to the Beijing Guanyuan Market – The Fish, Bird and Insect Market. Obviously insects and fish were out of the question (boring, loud, boring, ugly, etc…), which left birds. I’d be happy to get a bird actually, but one that flies around and is interactive, not one of the irritating and loud ones that is scared of humans. I had a cockatiel in middle school that would fly around and land on people’s heads and eat seeds out of your mouth. I miss him, his name was Fido.

Anyways, fish and bugs were out, and the birds were mostly tiny and overcrowded, with 10-20 birds in a tiny cage meant for one animal. We also saw cats, kittens mostly, in tiny cages meant for rabbits and rabbits in cages meant for rats and so on. Only the ferrets had large cages, and they wanted over $500  USD for one ferret. We really wanted to get one, but we didn’t want to party with $500 to do so. To get to the market if you happen to be in Beijing, take the subway to Fuchengmen (line 2), take exit B and head North, the market is on the right (East) hand side of the road, just inside the Second Ring Road. It is in an old hutong, so you can walk around the maze and find food, rabbits, insects, more food, and clothing.  A nice but not appetizing combo.

Since it was my birthday week we got to do a lot of really fun stuff. After all, you only turn 27 once! Mike decided to take me to the Beijing zoo to celebrate. With the new apartment I was hoping to get a cat but one of the room mates is allergic, so a trip to the zoo to see the giant cats there was a consolation.

In 2006 our visit to the zoo ultimately resulted in one of our friends yelling at a local child for tossing his empty coke bottle into the lion cage and yelling at the other animals. We were shocked at how people treated the caged animals, yelling, throwing things, banging on the glass and generally just being annoying and rude to the animals and other human visitors to the zoo. Now, 2010, things were a bit different. You still had the occasional asshole, but those are everywhere I suppose. At Como Park Zoo in Minnesota I saw a fourteen year old boy throw a hot dog into the monkey cage. So it goes.

A few memorable events happened while we were at the zoo. First, the boy throwing his coke bottle into the lion cage (lion helpfully pictured here). The lion jumped up and began to limp around the periphery of the cage. His front, right paw is seriously injured, you can see him holding it awkwardly in the picture. We watched for a while, but it looked like a recent injury. Hopefully they have resolved it by now!

The second event was when we were attacked by the Golden Monkey. The cage, to preface, is shaped like a giant metal mushroom. You can walk under the mushroom close to the ‘stem’ and look up and see the Golden Monkey flying around in his cage from branch to branch. I was looking up at three monkeys clinging to the sides of the mushroom cage when suddenly the male monkey became aware of our presence and jumped from where he was perched, falling around 12 -14 feet until he landed directly above our heads on the cage roof. He snarled and scared the hell out both of us! He rattled the cage and showed his teeth and even pounded on the grating. He was really angry! We backed up (honestly, we practically fell over backwards he terrified us so much) and a moment later the monkey was back on the wall, acting like nothing happened. Naturally, we moved back under the overhang area and watched. A minute later he noticed us standing there and free-fell from even higher, landing right above our heads and rattling the cage and making off monkey yelling noises. It was like Planet of the Apes!

Mike pretended to get mad at the monkey, yelling at it “Don’t you scare my girlfriend on her birthday, evil monkey!” it only takes about five seconds for a million Chinese people to gather whenever a commotion is detected. Mike’s fake taunting of the evil money quickly drew a crowd…. a very large crowd. The evil monkey climbed back up in the cage and ignored everyone, making Mike look like an evil spectator and the monkey like the innocent victim. This was one evil monkey we were dealing with, here. We shuffled away eventually, when it became obvious the monkey had one that round. Don’t worry, we’ll go back to the zoo again soon and see who wins round two!

After the zoo we went over to a friend’s apartment for taco night. They were friendly enough to invite us over and one of the room mates at our friend’s place even produced an extremely large birthday cake! They hit the lights and came out singing Happy Birthday. We played cards and chatted about old times, these friends having lived in beijing since 2006. All in all, and despite Evil Monkey, it was a great birthday!

Since we finally had an apartment we were free to start looking for jobs. We set about looking in the obvious places for expats living abroad, craigslist, the Beijinger, CityWeekend and other Beijing-specific websites with classified ads. In Shanghai in 2008 I found my job on Craigslist, proving that even legitimate,professional companies post on the plebeian forums. We began to stalk the classifieds in search of employment.

Harry, our British room mate, worked at a reputable English-teaching company across town. Andrew found one-on-one teaching gigs to fill his wallet. Mike and Lauren wanted to avoid teaching English if at all possible, having already experienced the joy of teaching in Beijing we were eager to try something new and also add a new skill set on the ol’ resume. They began to search for jobs in their desired fields, holding out for a decent paying opportunity. Lauren went to four interviews and turned down four jobs due to low pay or immoral practices. One job doing marketing for an online sales company was in the final phases of negotiating the contract when Lauren learned that the goods sold online were counterfeits being peddled as legitimate, she turned down a position paying $3,000 a month. Eventually, both found positions they could enjoy for a short time while refilling their bank accounts and learning new skills.

Teaching English in China is fairly simple and extremely straight forward. Most companies are seeking people who have a bachelors degree, though they will make exceptions. They are looking for native English speakers, though again, they make exceptions and are sometimes seeking Spanish, German and French native speakers. A TOFEL is not required, but it is helpful and in higher paying companies (like Wallstreet, Berlitz and EnglishFirst) it is a huge bargaining chip. You can find more information on our resources page about TOFEL programs.

To read how to apartment hunt in Beijing, check out our previous post on the issue!

Having decided to stay in Beijing for a while, we set bout organizing ourselves to look for an apartment. We were determined to stay in the central area of Beijing, right in the middle of the expat community. Sanlitun is a great area, near the shopping, bars, restaurants and other expats. It is a great area to live about 10 minutes from, which is where we started looking. We wanted a traditional, small-town Chinese community with a courtyard and trees. We also wanted to be near the subway and have access to fresh air and sunlight (meaning, high up in an apartment). With such in mind, we got online and started looking for apartments. It turned out that apartment hunting in Beijing was a different beast than the relatively easy process in Shanghai.

First, we combed the online site listings, which revealed a more expensive bracket of apartments than we really needed. We discovered that Andrew, the Oklahoma boy from the Mongol Rally, was also staying in Beijing for a while, so we joined forces to find an apartment for three, and then, when another friend at the hostel joined the group, we started looking for four-person apartments. This dramatically decreased our options since the one-child policy means most apartments have only two bedrooms and, if lucky, an office room.

Nevertheless, we decided to meet with a man renting his apartment online. We showed up only to discover it was actually a crooked realtor who was planning on charging one months rent in commission to show the apartment for his ‘friend.’ We waited until the realtor left and told the actual owner we’d take the apartment, he declined unless we paid a fee to the realtor, which we declined to do. After several more days of looking we found a two bedroom with an office in our price range. A different, semi-crooked realtor only wanted half a months rent for commission. Thing got convoluted quickly when the actual owner failed to materialize and in her place came a small army of men and women in suits claiming to represent her. Despite the annoyance of dealing with two different sets of middle men, we decided to get the apartment. It was in a great location with a decent interior and furniture, and room for 4 people, albeit barely. This picture is from our balcony, and shows a bit of the infamous Beijing pollution.

Note: If you are looking for an apartment in Beijing, your best bet is to check the Beijinger and CityWeekend online and in print, and beware that most postings are by crooked realtors looking to take a higher commission rate off foreigners. You can also go through a local real estate company. First, you find the area you want to live in and then walk around and look for a real estate office. There is one on every major road or in most residential areas. Often, there will be an office just for a specific building or complex, and you can cut out come commission costs by going directly to the one you want.

Next time: Job Hunting in Beijing, China!

Arriving as we did in the middle of the night we had an epic sense of adventure attached to our return to China. Adding to that feeling was the fact that several ralliers were to be in the city for the next week. We got in touch with them, though they were eager to see the sights (Great Wall of China, Forbidden City and the obvious tourist stuff). We met up and went shopping with Justin, from Seattle, and two American boys from Oklahoma named Cody and Andrew. Chris, the Irishman that was a member of our Mongolian convoy, was also in town. We met and shopped, ate and generally explored New Beijing. We moved into the same hostel so we could occupy our evenings in the hostel dining hall playing jenga and smoking apple-flwvored hookahs.

Much has changed in China’s capital city since we last lived here in 2006. The Olympics, which we visited in 2008, were a huge factor. But general improvements around the city have made Beijing the figurative and literal capital. We lived in Haidian, a north-western fringe area where the universities are. We taught English at a private company there and lived in a tiny apartment that cost less than 2000RMB a month for the company to maintain. In winter, there was no heat and no air in summer. We had a pet rabbit. This time we were staying in the eastern-central area of Beijing, right in the center of the expat community. We were looking for an apartment in this area, where prices have risen around 2000 per apartment since 2006. Food, living costs, entertainment costs all went up, but an exploration of the Beijing expat job market revealed that salaries haven’t really done likewise.

More importantly, the changes were positive, obvious and refreshing. The streets are much cleaner and there is even a street-sweeping machine that goes down the main roads daily. The trash is picked up daily, and efficiently. Shopping centers are more organized, isles are wider and the people pushing carts down them are polite and smiling. The general dislike of foreigners seems to have abated. Likewise, most foreigners we saw in the first few days in Beijing were fluent in Chinese. In 2006 a fluent foreigner was an extremely rare thing. Now, 4 years later, an incompetent foreigner with a Beijing zip code is more rare.

We spent the week hitting Beijing’s highlights, souvenir shopping with the ralliers, and enjoying our relaxing post-rally down time. Having been in a cramped, tiny, dusty car for the past month, it was a relaxing change of pace.

Come back soon to read about apartment and job hunting in Beijing, as well as the trials and tribulations of dealing with a corrupt realtor.

The euphoria at being back in a land where we could speak the language, knew the customs and food, and already felt comfortable was beyond description. We sat, discussing our options, until the wee hours of the morning. A friend had agreed to let us stay with him until we decided what we were going to do. We took him up on his offer and moved into his living room.

Walking around Beijing was like returning home after a long trip. We’ve spent time in China, in our adult lives we’ve probably spent more time in China than in America, and the comfort of knowing where things are, how to get things done, and how to be comfortable were almost irresistible. The original plan was to visit friends in Beijing and Shanghai and then head to South-East Asia and eventually make it to Thailand where we’d learn a new country and a new way of life. Yet now, in Beijing, we were so eager to stay. Mike wanted to learn Chinese, to become fluent in a language he’d been learning off and on for a few years. Lauren wanted to refill her bank account with a little work, and spend some time in one place. They had been on the road for over a year and a half, having left their apartment in Shanghai on May Day, 2009. It was now mid September, 2010 and the first time they were asking where they should go.

We checked into a hostel a few days later so as not to bother our working friend by living on his couch. We took a few interviews, saw a few apartments and generally got the low down on what had changed in Beijing since we lived there in 2006. The answer– a lot! Prices were much higher, apartments were harder to find and costed around 2000RMB more a month. Salaries were lower, strangely, and yet food prices were sky rocketing.

We decided we’d like to stay for a while. Should we?– I don’t know. But we talked about it and both decided that Chinese was important to us, as was taking a break in our travels for a little while. We’d make it to South-East Asia soon enough, and in the meantime, we could wait out the winter and maybe even the spring and summer, here in Beijing, China. It is easy to get a job teaching English, and to enroll in a Chinese language school. Finding jobs in Beijing is also fairly straight forward.

Tune in again to learn how to get an apartment in China’s capital city.

Snow

From the Beijing Train Station to the corrupt police on the far Eastern route of the Russian Trans-Siberian Railroad, the 2008 movie Transsiberian was enjoyable to watch having dealt with many of the same problems…ok minus the kidnapping part.  Not so much for the plot as for the accuracy the movie portrayed when depicting a couples ride on a Chinese train and problems with Russian police.  Although we did not go on the Trans-Siberian…yet, the movie was thrilling to watch as an American couple from Iowa, Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer, left the Beijing Zhan (station) headed for Moscow via a 6 day journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway.  The train-station, gray colored everything, sleeper cars, and food carriages, were right on and I would believe it was filmed on location.

Emily Mortimer’s character was always planning a new route or travel adventure and walked around with a Cannon Digital camera around her neck throughout the whole film – which reminded me a lot of Lauren.  The broken sleeper-car knobs that wouldn’t turn off terrible Russian music, the shared cars with strangers, the rude and short tempered train attendants, drug smugglers, and corrupt cops were a direct parallel to our experiences en route from China through Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan.  Although the plot got extremely more creepy in comparison to the things that happened to Lauren and I, if you have traveled throughout the former Soviet Union, Russia, China by train, or are interested to see what it looks like, I think people would find certain aspects of this couple’s travel accurate.

Going through Kazakhstan we were hiding from the police as their boarded our train trying to avoid paying bribes, watching all the drug smugglers hide taped packages to their stomachs or under their beds, and arguing with the grumpy train attendants. Our train travel in China was pretty easy going and we had no problems, but the movie gave a good atmosphere to some of the fears you develop as you go into less safe areas ruled by corrupt cops and officials.

For a more detailed clip go to:  Transsiberian Part I – watch from 4:10 to about 9:00 to see a little bit of what it was like.

Our apartment

As we pack up our apartment I’m reminded of when we first moved to China and began looking for a place to live. The process of apartment hunting in China is vastly different than in the States. Here, you find a local agent in the area you want to live and go to their office. You describe what you want in an apartment to the tiniest detail. While you wait (“would you like more tea, sir?”) they search online listings and their own reserve of available housing. After a half hour or so of searching and phone calls the realtor puts on his or her jacket and you march of, always on foot, to view the apartment. You arrive at the apartment and it is in shambles. In the US, realtors ensure the house is looking its very best before they show it. In China, you must see potential instead of beauty. One apartment we saw was so filthy we left footprints in the grime and dust as we perused the layout. Another apartment we viewed was covered in moldy, dirty dishes and overturned furniture. It was as if the residents quickly packed a few belongings and ran out in a hurry.

We saw about ten apartments before we found one we liked. We were shown several apartments that did not meet our criteria because the realtor gets paid by how many times he can show a place. Once you express interest the landlord and the realtor begin to scream at each other over price, additional fixtures, cleaning, etc. After an initial bartering phase the realtor reports that the lowest the landlord will go is, for example, 5,000RMB. You act offended and counter, naturally, with 4,000RMB. The landlord pretends not to hear you. Once the realtor turns and gives the counter-offer to the landlord he or she erupts in a stream of rationalizations for the 5,000RMB price. Eventually (after much bartering) the price is settled around 4,300RMB with a few extras like a cleaning crew to sweep through and a replacement chair for the office.

Now comes the tricky part. Money needs to be exchanged on the spot or else the landlord will not hold the apartment. Usually one month rent is put on the table. The realtor takes the money to appease both parties. The whole process takes less than half an hour. A move in date is set and when the happy day arrives the realtor emerges with contracts, candies, your deposit and a big smile – the realtor’s fee is one month’s rent split between the landlord and the renter.

There are, of course, apartment postings on craigslist and other expat sites. But usually these are more expensive and it is a bit harder to find someone who will sign on the spot. We recommend playing along with local custom and finding a local realtor. If a realtor does not find you an apartment you like you do not owe them anything. They only get paid if they please you, and the landlords whose apartments they show. The downside is that the realtor has no incentive to help you barter down the price, as he is merely helping to lower his commission.

For a two bedroom in Shanghai on a subway line we paid 4,300RMB a month. The

place was western in style with a tub, fully-stocked kitchen, wrap around sofa and big screen and an office. Our last apartment in China was tiny, with a fold our bed and a kitchen that stretched into our laps in the living room at a price of 3,000RMB a month. Our first apartment in Beijing had no toilet and a sink that spewed brown liquid and tiny insects but cost only 1,200RMB a month. So, you can find something at every price range here.

HUtong

For the holidays this year my little sister flew into China via our week together with our brother in Japan. We took a break to hang out in Shanghai, even sticking it out over Christmas- when we climbed to the top of the JinMao Tower and walked around both the east and west banks of the Bund, before shopping and grabbing a nice Chinese meal for Christmas dinner.After the festivities of taking morning pictures we decided to trek to the Shanghai train station where we purchased tickets to Beijing the following Saturday.

The night trains are the only way to travel in China. You board in the evening (ours was at 8:30pm) and arrive the following morning after a night in a tiny bunk 12 feet off the ground, ready for your next adventure. Once in Beijing, we strolled to Tienanmen Square to gaze at the smog filled walkway and gateway to the Forbidden City. Afterwords we headed to a friend’s house, where we dropped off our heavy packs and then ventured out again to HouHai Lake, in Northwestern Beijing. The lake was frozen over, and skaters skidded across the ice, unsure of themselves. We strolled around watching them slip and slide about the lake before eating a massive Chinese dinner and heading to Sanlitun, the bar street, where we picked a quiet place for a few quick drinks before the long walk home.

The next day we saw the Forbidden City- a wonderfully intricate red, green and blue structure where emperors had once ruled. Two years in China, and I’d never been! I was happy to walk around the frozen palace, though the wind burn began to make smiling difficult after the first two hours. We then headed to Yashou– a shopping mall for antiques and other nick-nacks where we had foot massages to heal our sore feet. In all, we had walked 13 hours that day.

The following morning we relaxed a bit and headed to the Temple of Heavenly Peace, where we walked for hours around the gardens, surrounded by black crows and a few other brave tourists. We then did a self guided tour of the rebuilt hutongs along south Tienanmen.

The next morning was the 31st- the last day of 2008- and we got on an early morning bus to Badaling, a section of the Great Wall quite near Beijing. We arrived to freezing winds and very few tourists, and for the majority of the hike we were alone on the wall. The Great Wall is really more of a climbing ediphis than anything meant to keep someone else out. Beautiful though. After a quick nap we headed back out to Tienanmen for New Year’s Eve, where we assembled at the entryway of the Forbidden City with others celebrating the new year, and counted down to midnight in unison before cheering, hugging and then heading home for a night of much needed sleep.

The night train back to Shanghai was as old and rickety as the one we had been on a week earlier. I love the train, and slept fitfully but happily, it was in all a very fulfilling trip, and a great way to spend the New Years!

-posted by lauren.

The train from Beijing to Xi’an would be a long, overnight sleeper train. I had glorious images in my head of a large stateroom with bunks and a water closet. I skipped along with my large backpack barely weighing me down. The tickets were cheaper than we thought they would be—about twenty US dollars a piece. Mike did not tell me that they were cheaper because they were sold out of soft sleepers, and we could only find space in the hard sleeper, general population cars. We climbed aboard and stopped. Something dark flashed past our feet and into the next car. A dog? A rat, possibly? The smell of the nearby toilet stall was nearly unbearable, it burnt the interior of the nostrils so much that we were constantly inching our noses. The smell was almost a physical presence in the compartment. We moved down the narrow isle until we found our bunks. We were on the top bunk (three high) in a room with six bunks total. The room itself was the size of a Volkswagen beetle. We took off our shoes and scaled the interior of the train until we reached the top bunks. The space was so small that one could barely brace oneself on the elbows, let alone sit up. Below me was a man who must have been nearly ninety. He was hunched over, his shirt rolled up in the back and an equally ancient woman was pounding her fists against his spine. He coughed into a jar and sealed the lid. She cleaned his mouth off with a yellowed towel and resumed pounding on his back until he spit into the jar again. When they had exhausted this activity, they put the jar on the table between them and a terrified looking young Hong Kong man in the opposing bunk.

Neolithic village!

After a while I tuned out the coughing, spitting, and slurping noises and even managed to ignore the smell of urine and boiled eggs. I read a book, wrote in my journal, looked out the window and generally was as relaxed as I had remembered being in a really long time. I loved traveling by train! Every few hours a lady would come down the isle with a cart of instant noodles and milk cartoons and, to our surprise, warm Tsingtao beer. We pulled out our cards, opened a few beers, and set to playing each other in poker. We kept a tally, promising to pay out the winner at the end of the trip. By the time we got to Xi’an, a whole page of the notebook was marked in hash marks and stained with beer.

Xi’an is a beautiful city, and one that I will forever recommend. Parts of the original city wall still remain, and though we did not have time to scale the wall, it was a stately and majestic bit of ancient architecture that made one feel like they had stepped into a time warp. Xi’an is the capital of Shaanxi province, and a former capital to multiple Chinese dynasties. The city was famous for its powerful position throughout history, most notably revealed in the massive army of terracotta warriors which were created to carry the emperor Qin Shi Huang into the afterlife.
Despite all of the amazing historical sites in Xi’an, our first stop (at my incessant pleading) was to Banpo, Neolithic village! This little museum was built atop ancient ruins believed by some to be the first true village with remaining artifacts, some of which are said to date back further than 4500 BC. The reason I wanted so desperately to visit this site is somewhat embarrassing. I had played a computer game called Chinese Empire, wherein you had to build up your civilization from Banpo (the first village of huts) to Beijing (the mighty capital). It was my first computer game, and I loved building Banpo. I was not very good at the game, so spent a lot of time building and rebuilding the city, catching fish in the nearby creek and trading furs for wood. Banpo, the actual Neolithic site was not a disappointment– at all! I enjoyed every marvelous second of the tour through the ruins, starring in awe at pottery shards and looking at the evidence of an early matriarchy. Mike was nowhere as amused as I was, and was eager to get out of the village and see the warriors. Finally, after several photo ops with Neolithic fragments, we left for the main event—the 2000 year old Terracotta Warriors.

-posted by Lauren.