Kungfu show & Eastern Qing tombs

Dear blog,

last Wednesday evening I went to the Chinese Corner, which is organized by some foreign student organization. This time on the agenda was calligraphy, which they introduced to us (although most of the presentation was in Chinese...). After some guessing games we got to talk to the people around us. Some friendly Chinese girl came to talk to me and Antti, and she seemed to be genuinely interested in Finnish culture and habits. She also knew some facts about Finland and offered her e-mail and phone number to us. I gave her my e-mail, but she seems to have chosen Antti as her future husband, for she has been sms'ing Antti sometimes about her personal stuff :P Yeah, I heard the Chinese female students many times hit on foreign guys just to get out of China and get to live in the materialistic world of western culture that they think is so much better. Got to be wary around here...

Thursday evening Jani, Silja and I went to a kung fu show in the Beijing Red Theatre. From the amount of länkkärit I should have guessed that it is not going to be that good. Everything was commercialized and after the show every kind of merchandise was on the table for selling. The show pluses included very cool lighting and effects, and the music was majestic (although maybe an overkill compared to the stage events). The plot was very simple, a basic story of a young boy who in the end becomes a kung fu master having faced various challenges and mishaps. The plot was actualized in a very poor way. Most of the time the show tried to be too artistic with lot of scenes with too much waiting and standing still...gazing at the sky or something as cheesy. I expected it to be a kung fu show! Sure, they smashed some bricks and leaned against spears and cut metal into pieces with their heads.. and the fighting scenes were few and not that well scripted, so I would really have expected more from the capital of China in this regard.. Maybe I have to go to the Shaolin temple to see the real deal.

On Friday we were supposed to go with Jani and Antti to have, for the first time, some real Beijing Duck, but found that the famous restaurant was quite crowded on Friday evening, and so we decided to catch some basic pizza. Quite quiet night, because we were about to embark for our next tourism-trip in the upcoming dawn on Saturday: the Eastern Qing Tombs. The posse this time was me, Silja, Antti, Jani and the nice Estonian girl, Marit.

I faced the "old pottery and Chinese architecture" saturation point somewhat fast while checking out the tombs of some Chinese Qing-dynasty emperors. Having said that, one tomb though, particularly, was nice with its wall carvings and a tomb of 4 people. Nuff' said. The most interesting part of that day was the driver, who we hired to take us to the Tombs and back. He talked few words of English, and us, students, could polish our lately acquired Chinese skills on him. It was actually very amazing to find out that I (and the others) actually coult talk to the guy in a way that he understood. We were bombarding the guy with the basic questions one can imagine to learn in a beginner level of any language: what's your age, what do you like and so on. I did not understand the man that much with his replies, but fortunately Antti could translate his responses to an understandable form. Near the Qing Tombs we feasted with the guy in a restaurant and he helped us to order some good food. We, of course as rich westerners, offered to pay also for his food. But hey, everything was shared anyway, as is the custom way to do here, so it only felt natural. I like this way of sharing the food; this way everyone gets to taste everything and the expenses are easier to cover.

The Tombs were 125 km away but felt like being at least 200 km away when considering the amount of time that went to the trips. So far in our trips in China we have been lucky, so something was bound to happen this time. And it did, big time! Our car's cooling liquid hose had some major holes in it, and after a while of driving back from the Tombs, our car broke down. It's amazing how easy it is for a Chinesemen to get help from their fellowmen. Our Chinese driver, having wondered a minute or two of what is wrong, talked to some guy passing by, and after a while this guy returned with some tools. Another car noticed us and as well stopped for our aid. Now there were three Chinese men figuring out what to do to our broken vehicle. So, after fumbling the hose from under the hood, our driver left us his car keys and cell phone, and went on with the other Chinese guys to the nearest gas station for some spare parts. Just as we were about to lose our all hope, when it was beginning to be very dark, our driver returned with an intact hose, installed it, and after that we could wipe our sweat off from our foreheads. We were back in business!

After the long drive back to Wudaokou we decided to eat pizza (again), only this time in a far more better place. The pizzas were huge (see the pics), although they cost significantly more also. The day had taken its toll with dehydration, too little sleep and walking around too much. So, retiring to the dorms was the only sensible thing to do. No drinking this weekend (ok, one pint of beer in the pizzeria), yeah my liver is starting to show again some signs of life after five years!

Today, on Sunday, Jani, Antti and I went finally to taste the Beijing Duck! It was good but maybe it is more of a legend than some gastronomic ecstacy experience. The three of us ate one whole duck, and also got to taste some duck brain (quite odd aftertaste). After the duck I went to have an 1½ hour full-body massage for 12 euros. The massager told me that my back is in some points fucked up, which I already though knew, so he recommended me to take the cupping procedure as well as some odd treatment, on which he applied oil on my back and combed my back with some kind of device, which felt nice and apparently was supposed to even out the muscular imbalances around my back. The cupping procedure included these glass cups, in which were small amount of alcohol. The alcohol was then lit up and the cup put on my back. The negative pressure in the cup caused it to suck skin and superficial muscles upwards, so that some bad blood would go away from the muscles. Check out the pictures to see how my back is now :)

Next week it is more school and the elective classes (tai chi and kung fu) start also. We'll see how it goes!

Cheers!

PICS:

Qing Tombs & other stuff from the weekend