August 11, 2008

Jinan CHINA

Departing for Jinan, Meeting the Rest of Anshuo's Family, Touring Jinan, a Xinjiang Barbeque, and Chinese Family Night-Life

Time did not allow for me to go swimming in the ocean this morning, so instead I met Anshuo's mother and grandparents for a full Chinese breakfast at 7:30 a.m. We ate and chatted together for over one hour, finally finished up because we had a train to catch. The chauffeur took us to the newly built Qingdao train station at 9:30 a.m., where I was the only Westerner among hundreds and hundreds of Chinese. It still surprises me how many stares I get in China because the country feels so international to me after all this time, but in reality spotting a foreigner outside the big metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing, or Chengdu is still a rarity.

We rode the D40 express train (German technology) to Jinan, taking about 3.5 hours in total. I continued my Japanese habit of drinking beer on the train, although I could not find any OBENTO (lunch boxes) to go along with it. We reached Jinan at 1:30 p.m., and tried to take a taxi, but the driver wanted to cheat us so we hopped out and called an official government driver to pick us up.

The driver arrived five minutes later in a black Audi, and promptly whisked us away to Anshuo's home in a government compound smack in the middle of Jinan, which is the capital of the wealthy Shandong Province. As a bit of background, Jinan has great farming and rarely suffers any natural disasters, which means the government coffers are usually quite full, at least until taxes are paid out to Beijing's central government.

His family welcomed me into their home, which with 6 or 7 bedrooms and three floors was quite large. The best part were the plate of WONTON that were waiting for us - we ate nearly all those shown in the picture to the left, and in true Jinan style, had plenty of garlic to go along with it. With our stomachs about to burst, we set off on a tour of the city with Anshuo as my guide.

The city is famous for its rivers and clean spring water, so there were plenty of small stream running through the HUTONG (traditional Chinese neighborhoods) of the city. Without Anshuo there is no way I could have navigated these small back alleys, but as this is literally his backyard (he used to pass through them on his way to elementary school), I was probably the first foreigner to ever reach many of the nooks and crannies he showed me - certainly the faces of the shocked Chinese indicated as much.

We continued touring other parts of the city until 7:00 p.m., when we met two of his friends for a Xinjiang Barbeque in the Muslim quarter of the city. There was a large bowl of chopped lamb, or mutton, along with dozens of different skewered meats that were constantly being replenished. The other thing being constantly replenished were the cheep jugs of beer that we went through like water - and the beer tasted like such with an alcohol content of only 3.5%.

After dinner, we toured one final part of the city, which is a famous garden complex that really was quite beautiful, and all the more so because it was dark and there were hardly any people around. (It was even dark enough for me to go pee a couple of times just off the path!)

To finish off the evening, we walked through the main square of the city, which is where thousands of locals congregate on a nightly basis. There were groups on roller blades, groups performing dances together, groups playing badminton, and even groups doing martial arts, as the video below demonstrates. However, the best part was just walking around and soaking up the Communist-styled group atmosphere. I took my shirt off to cope with the hot weather, which was surely another first for all the gawking Chinese whose heads whipped around when they realized there was a shirtless Westerner among them (the Chinese often take off their shirt, even in non-formal restaurants.)