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Last snack in China

Nicholas really enjoyed the candied crabapples. They also sold candied grapes, as well as other mysterious things.

Random thoughts

• It is still rather difficult for someone who does not speak Chinese to get around in China. If you stick to restaurants and hotels that are priced like their American counterparts, then you can count on English-speaking staff. But almost everywhere else it is Chinese only. The situation reminds me of when I visited France in the early 80's. By now, you can use English in most French cities; I expect the same to happen in China over time.
  
  
• I was quite surprised by how well professors and retired professors are doing. In the West, it is an axiom that people paid by the government have incomes that do not keep up with rising living costs nor with incomes paid by the private sector. The Chinese government, which I guess is flush with cash, has been able to break out of this pattern. Every professor, retired or not, I spoke to expressed great satisfaction in the way their living conditions had improved rather dramatically in recent years. This was a sharp contrast to how most American professors feel about their economic status.
  
  
• It was explained to me that the economic status of universities is inversely related to their academic status. What I observed firsthand was consistent with this. The top universities, such as Peking University, are national universities, so they receive all of their funding from the national government. Based on what I saw, the national government is providing plenty of funding, so Peking University is not doing so badly.
  
  However, local universities, such as Shanghai University, which are viewed as being ranked much lower academically than Peking University, receive funding from both the national and local governments. Since both have lots of money, these universities are able to build large new campuses and pay their professors much higher salaries than Peking University.
  
  Finally, the so-called normal universities, whose original mission was to train teachers, get even more funding, because they get money from the Ministry of Education, as well as the national and local governments.
  
  
• Am I wrong in believing that the cities are much cleaner places than they used to be? Although you still see and, worse, hear people spitting, the streets and sidewalks seem much cleaner and almost completely free of litter.
  
  
• I also found the quality of service in restaurants, stores, and hotels to be quite good. The waitresses, in addition to being young and pretty, were almost always very friendly and patient, especially after I explained that I could speak only a little Chinese and read none.
  
  The most notable exceptions were the taxi drivers. Although some were helpful, there were too many who did not know what they were doing, tried to hide it, and were quite unhelpful. I think they need to be trained more systematically in both knowledge of the streets and proper customer service behavior. In particular, if a taxi driver does not know where the destination is, he should admit it and not take the customer. The one bad experience that we had was a taxi driver who took Lauren and Nicholas to the entrance of Qinghua University instead of Peking University, despite her saying repeatedly, "BeiDa". He simply had no idea where BeiDa was. Lauren was quite fortunate in that someone off the street who knew where BeiDa was willing to get in the taxi and guide the driver to the right place.
  
  
• I found no firsthand basis for the claim that the Chinese treat badly people like me, who look Chinese but do not speak or read the language well. In fact, no one seemed surprised or annoyed, and everyone tried to be helpful. And it was not because they thought we were Japanese or Korean, because I almost always explained that we were from the US. This did sometimes lead to some puzzled looks.
  
  

Last meal in China

For lunch we returned to the small restaurant next to our hotel. We get both good food and good service there. Since Lauren hasn't been feeling that well, we got a chicken stew. Last time we had a black chicken stew, which was very tasty but came with only a few very bony pieces of chicken with very little meat. This time, we opted for the "yellow" chicken and got lots of meaty chopped pieces of chicken, including bond fragments. And they didn't leave out any of the best parts, you can see below.

Lauren did not like having the chicken stare at us from the pot, so we put the head in a small bowl (above) and covered it with a napking.

We also found at least one foot. This soon joined the head hidden under the napkin. Normally, I like eating the foot, but this time there was too much other food to eat.

We also had lamb stir fried with leeks and stir-fred snow pea greens.

Last dinner in China

We decided to have Peking duck yet one more time. Chuanming Zong recommended one called Jiu Hua Shang, and a math department secretary thought she knew where it was, so she wrote something in Chinese for me to give to the taxi driver. But the directions turned out to be rather vague and when we went to the designated location, we were unable to find the restaurant anywhere.

So I asked the taxi driver if he knew of a nice Peking duck restaurant. I told him we had already been to Quanjude and wanted to try another one that was good but not as expensive. He responded that he knew one near Qinghua University (so also near Peking University). He drove us to a complex of big office buildings, pointed to one and said, "do you see it? It's right there!" I couldn't see anything but trusting him, we paid and got out. Walking up the steps to the plaza in front of the building, we discovered we had been tricked. Yes, there was a Peking duck restaurant but it was another Quanjude!

Walking inside, we discovered an elegant fancy restaurant, much nicer and quieter than the crowded and noisy downtown one. So we knew we weren't going to save any money but we figured we might as well enjoy it. We ordered a deluxe version of the duck (no idea why it is deluxe but we figured we might as well have the best), duck hearts, Chinese broccoli (jie lan), and another green vegetable (darn, I forget the Chinese name). They told us the duck would take an hour and brought the other food first. Nick ordered an orange mango drink which turned out to be freshly squeezed orange juice mixed with mango juice without any sugar or other sweetening. He liked it very much. We decided to indulge in a 288 yuan 10 year old bottle of "yellow wine", warmed up. It was wonderful. All of the food was delicious. The duck was sublime. As a bonus, they brought both wheat and corn flour wrappers (Lauren is allergic to wheat). The restaurant was near closing time, so it was fairly empty and quiet. We had a nice long relaxing dinner. We got a certificate; the restaurant claims that every duck served is assigned a serial number (since the mid 1800's!).

So despite being deceived, we ended up enjoying ourselves completely. And, as a bonus, it was a very short ride back to the hotel.

Math in Chinese

I had to find the math department on my own today. With the help of an American I found, I found the building. But the building is quite large and has many departments.

As I was looking around for the school of math, I realized to my embarrassment that I do not know the first character for the word "math" in Chinese (su xue). When I saw the character, I could see why it is hard to remember but I still should know it.

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A quiet day at Bei Da

Yesterday we saw Stephen off to shanghai. Since Lauren wasn't feeling well, we stayed on campus. As usual, we had a late breakfast. I carefully checked the hours of the hotel restaurant. The sign said it served lunch until 2 so I figured lunch at 1 would be a safe bet. Foiled again! At 1 the waitresses explained the due to the new year holiday (??), the cooks had left early.

Now I was really pissed. I went to the hotel front desk and asked where I was supposed to eat lunch. The clerk explained that within 2 minutes walk of the hotel were 3 other restaurants! Since all are in nondescript buildings with no obvious signs outside, we had never noticed.

We had snow pea greens which were great, ma puo tofu which was too sweet and tasted ketchupy, and a lamb stew with vegetables, which I missed but Lauren said was good.

I had to rush off to meet zong chuanming. More about this day later.

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