How I Ruined My Summer Vacation - 2018 (part 2)

Everything begins with a departure and an arrival. For my summer trips to Beijing to teach a university course, every year is the same. Get the visa first - which is a trip in itself. There is no express or same-day service at the visa office, so I must wait four days. A mini vacation, a chance to get some writing done. They almost know me by now.

Then comes the day of travel. Two-hour flight to the hub airport, couple hours of layover, then the 13-hour leg to Beijing. I can never pick the right seat. Less success choosing the right seatmates. Going, I had a Chinese high school exchange student in the middle seat and an older professor from a northeastern university on the aisle. When they both were awake, he regaled her with tales of university life and which university she should apply to in order to continue her studies in the US. I was too tired to correct some of the ideas he had for her education. Instead, I watched four movies - two I had wanted to see and two which I endured almost to the half-way point before just ending it already!

Thank goodness there is something new every time I arrive in Beijing's Capital Airport. I actually felt good at the end of this flight, even with only four cat naps of about 20 minutes each. But the two-kilometer walk through the huge complex upon arrival always zaps my goodwill. This year foreign arrivals first must use automated machines to record their fingerprints prior to entering the immigration lines. (I suppose refusing fingerprints would have caused me to be sent back on the next flight.) Not all the machines were working - certainly not the ones I tried. Then, with receipt in hand proving we had offered up our most intimate details, we should have been allowed to proceed.

However, foreign passport holders had to wait in a weary bunch as Chinese passport holders went ahead to the immigration counters. It wasn't as though we competed for the same lines. I did not complain - too tired. Once in the long foreigners' line, I passed easily because I'm a nice guy and a regular joe. I also got my bag - historically I'm always near the last - and passed through customs - nothing to declare except my contempt for the hassles of travel. The international flight was 13 hours; from exiting the plane to exiting the secure area of the airport (including the shuttle train that takes us from the outer area of the gates to the inner portion for immigration and customs) took 1-1/2 hours.

My decision to stay in Beijing was eventually rewarded when I finally exited into the public area and easily found my student assistant for this summer there to greet me. "Serena" got me and my bags to a taxi and then to my hotel, which is across from the UIBE campus. It was an overcast, humid afternoon as we went from the airport to the hotel, a situation which did not change much during the course I was to teach. This year, I was asked to teach the same course in two weeks instead of four - I presumed it to be a way to save on my hotel bill, which the university paid.

Back to the Yinghua ("Cherry blossom") Hotel, my old nemesis. The staff knows me well, understands I like good a/c. I also care about feng shui. My free time during these summers includes a fair amount of writing in my room so feng shui is important. My first two years I was in room 424 - I actually requested it the second year - which had great feng shui; I wrote the greater part of two novels those two summers (A Girl Called Wolf and Epic Fantasy *With Dragons). However, last year's visit was a terrible room-shuffling experience (read about it here), but I still managed some good writing production during the room changes. This year, only one room change.

More on the room experience next post!


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(C) Copyright 2010-2018 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

How I Ruined My Summer Vacation - 2018

As many of my dear readers may be aware, I was on vacation last month. That is my story and I'm sticking to it. In my last post, I offered you a fine selection of books to entertain and enlighten you while I was away. Yes, I do notice if anyone has added one or more of them to a to-be-read list, and those of you who followed through with your reading scheme, I thank you. 

This is your vacation on rain.

Actually, I was working - so let's call it a working vacation. I traveled to Beijing, China for three weeks to teach a university course called "Business Writing in American Context" (Chinese translation). My course, like all those taught at the University of International Business and Economics, was in English. Students must be fluent enough to be successful in their classes. I went last year, as well. And the year before. Yes, it seems it is becoming a habit. However, I have vowed that this visit (2018) would be my last - unless I get a very good reason to go through all the hassles to get there again.

For 2018, they threw me a curve: to teach the same course in half the time. So my class went from 4 weeks (2 classes a week) to two weeks of 4 classes each week (one class was about 4 hours). That made the grading of papers for 62 students this year a challenge. In fact, I did little else during those two weeks but focus on the class. I knew that going in, so I arranged to stay an extra week beyond the end of the course to have some sightseeing, shopping, hanging out time.

I need not have worried about doing anything fun when I wasn't in class. Those two weeks were full of rain or such oppressive humidity that I would have preferred rain. I brought a collapsible umbrella which had served me well for several years. Unfortunately, I left it in the classroom when I went home (the rain had stopped) and only realized that fact the next morning when the deluge returned. The hotel, thankfully, had full-sized umbrellas for guests to use. Then the doorman pestered me about returning it even though I needed it for another couple of days before the rain finally stopped.

Everyone remarked it was the rainiest summer anyone in Beijing could remember. Students, however, were very courteous with their umbrellas, always lining the hallways in an orderly fashion. On one particularly heavy rainfall day, my class assistant relayed the consensus of the students asking if the class would be cancelled. I was already in the classroom - on time - so it was on, baby! I did not count anyone late and, in fact, I delayed the start for 15 minutes. At the end of the two weeks, one student gave me a lovely postcard with a message on it, noting among other things that I was always punctual "even in rainy day".

With jet lag waking me earlier than normal, I had time to write. I continued working on the first draft of the third book in my vampire trilogy. I had written a huge portion of book 2 last summer. I also worked on two different short stories. Cranked out about 75,000 words total in three weeks. After my class, it was lunch time so I would grab something simple, often from the nearby 7-11 store, then return to my room to relax, eat the lunch, take a nap, then get up and write. With little distraction (no substantial social media access, for example), it was possible hunker down and type those chapters.

Room 634, which had decent feng shui.

For my dinners, I had plenty of company. A new Japanese (mostly sushi) restaurant had opened next to my hotel since last summer, which became a regular hangout. A new Chinese (mostly Cantonese) restaurant had also opened up the street since last year and got a lot of my business. And there was always the big Pizza Hut several blocks north of my hotel to try - especially if I wished to show a Chinese lady how "real" American-style pizza is (it wasn't, but that's another blog post). At least I did not get sick like last year.


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(C) Copyright 2010-2018 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

How I Ruined My Summer Vacation (2017 Edition)

As many of my dear readers may be aware, I was on vacation last month. That is my story and I'm sticking to it.

Actually, I was working - in a sense - so let's call it a working vacation. I traveled to Beijing, China for four weeks to teach a university course called "Business Writing in American Context" (Chinese translation). My course, like all those taught at the University of International Business and Economics, was taught in English. Students must be fluent enough to be successful in their classes. I went last year, as well. And the year before. Yes, it seems it is becoming a habit.

The Game of Rooms

For our stay, the university puts us up in a Chinese-style hotel across from the campus. The Yinghua Hotel ("Cherry Blossom") is, overall, a comfortable and attractive place, Chinese enough to be interesting to a Western guest. But it has its quirks, I've found in a few stays, quirks which are not necessarily because its Chinese-style. The rooms where I stayed each had twin beds, desk and chair, TV, mini-fridge, Western-style bathroom, and Chinese decor with a good view of the campus across the street.

My first year I stayed in room 424, which had great feng shui. I was able to write in my free time, finishing my novel A GIRL CALLED WOLF, which I had begun months before. I had worried how I was going to write about an Inuit orphan girl in Greenland while in China. But I got 'er done! Packing a map of Greenland and a couple reference books, plus the soundtrack of the movie that will someday be made of this book, I was all set. When I got into the zone, it did not matter where I was physically in the world, I was in Greenland in my head. (Read more about writing in a strange place here.)

Room 424 after I moved in.

Last year, I again was working on a novel, my mighty tome EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS. In fact, I wrote about half of the 233,000 word book during the month, almost ruining my laptop. When I checked in, I was assigned to room 624 but it did not have the right feng shui. Actually, it did not have the right A/C. Fortunately, the next day I was able to move back into room 424 and enjoy my writing venue once again. I came prepared, with half a novel done and a plan to finish it. I hunkered down, often typing 6+ hours a day, and came to the end of the draft before I jetted home. (Read more about writing in strange places here.)

This year was a challenge. First, I had started writing a sequel to EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS, starting with my efforts in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) event in November. Of course, I "won" by writing 50,000 words during that month. In fact, I had 57,000 words picking up the story from where the original book ended. I assumed that would be my summer project in China, as well. Then something weird happened. A chance encounter with dark esoterica, led me to consider a different sequel: a sequel to my 2014 "medically accurate" vampire novel A DRY PATCH OF SKIN. Again, a story presented itself and I decided to "play" write to see where it would go.

With about 15,000 words written and part of an outline, I left for a month in Beijing.

View from room 426 (looking southeast)

I did not get room 424, even though I had asked the powers-that-be at the university for it weeks in advance. It is my sweet spot for writing. Instead, I was given room 324. That seemed a step down from 424. In fact, at that level, all I could see was a wall. That was the butt end of the roof which stretched out from the hotel to the street. Above the wall, I could see some clouds and the tops of the taller buildings of the campus. In fact, when I first entered that room, the curtains were open and two men were crouched on that roof (the top of the wall) working on fixing an A/C unit. We waved to each other. I closed the curtains.

View from room 426 (looking east)

Immediately, I knew there would be no good feng shui in this room. Through the translation by my student assistant for this summer's class, who met me at the Beijing Capital Airport and escorted me to the hotel, I asked for another room,. Room 424 was occupied and would be for two weeks. Likely it was another summer teacher enjoying MY feng shui writing room! I fell into a deep depression. But then, thanks to the A/C not working very well, I complained again and was moved to 426 - the room next to 424. Close enough, I thought. I could absorb the 424 feng shui by osmosis, by sleeping with my head against the wall of 424. 

View from room 426 (looking northeast)

Well, 426 had good feng shui but the A/C was barely working. Even on the coldest setting I was down to undies and sweat.

Happy to be able to write, I tried to stick it out. 

Then one morning, after only a week, I was awakened by the steady drip-drip-drip sound of something leaking. The A/C unit was leaking! Water was coming down from the ceiling and making a puddle in the carpet. And as I waited until business hours to notify the appropriate personnel, the leak increased. I put down a cup, then another cup, to catch the drip. As I waited, I showered and got ready for the day, ready to tell the hotel people about the leak. I also packed up my belongings because I knew I could not stay in that room. At the least, they would be working on the problem in the room while I had to be away to teach my class.

Two men came to check on the leak. The water was coming down through a speaker (for the doorbell, I think), and so presented an electrical danger. As expected, a hotel supervisor escorted me to see a different room for my approval. I approved. So we moved my belongings to room 516. Once everything was settled, I went to my class as usual. After class, I grabbed dinner. Then I returned from the campus to the delight of my new room, where the A/C worked properly and the feng shui seemed adequate for my writing.

View from room 516 (looking left)

Room 516, where I would remain for the rest of my stay in Beijing, was slightly larger than the others. It also faced south. Rooms 424, 426, and 326 all faced east so the morning sun would awaken me and warm the room mercilessly even with the heavy curtains drawn. This 516 room was very nice. The view was of the side of the restaurant next door (FYI, I ate there last summer and this summer; excellent food and sumptuous decor inside), with all of its ventilation system on the outside, but I could still glance to the east and west from the window and know the city still existed. I could check the weather, see who came and went from the restaurant, and on weekends enjoy the soulful stylings of the karaoke parlor below.

View from room 516 

So I worked on the sequel to A DRY PATCH OF SKIN in earnest in room 516. With my class in the afternoon this year, I would get up early and type away, listening to my soundtrack, until the housekeeper knocked on the door. At check-in, I requested no housekeeper before 10 am, since I would be working in my room. So when she knocked at 10:03 (give or take a minute), I would let her in. She would see me typing and know I was not just some lazy slob who sleeps late; I was working. Just 10 minutes of straightening the room and bye-bye. Then back to writing. 

In all, I brought 72,000 words home with me at the end of the month. I completed two of the three acts, so room 516 had some decent feng shui - despite the almost constant annoyance of the chattering housekeepers in their office / hang-out room just steps away from room 516. 

Next: Arriving & Departing


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(C) Copyright 2010-2017 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

My Ruined Summer Vacation, Part 2

Sometimes when you are a stranger in a strange land, you seek out any vestige of home as a way to recapture some sense of normalcy. For me, however, that theory does not often work out the way I expect. Especially during my month in Beijing to teach a course at a university. Like last summer, I had my weekly rituals.

Leaving the Yinghua Hotel for my stroll to lunch.

After my Wednesday class I could start the long weekend. I had plans to go to my favorite shopping street, Wangfujing Avenue, where the two bookstores are, but I didn't make it there. I awoke Thursday and Friday mornings and did some writing. By the time I ran out of steam it was noon so then it was too hot and humid to go out. On Friday I had a bit of Mao's revenge (like Montezuma's revenge but for China) so I stayed "home" in my hotel. It is possible to have too much Chinese food. I still went out for dinner but only after 5 pm. It was 95* with high humidity. On Saturday I made it to the KFC about a mile away but the menu was stupid and nothing like in USA, except for having chicken. 

Just a hole in the wall. Only the chicken was familiar.

On Sunday, I went further, down to the McDonald's, which required me to cross a busy superhighway without getting killed. Once on the other side, I entered with great relief. I decided to order the special, thinking it would be easy to point to the sign and the counter person would understand what I wanted. Besides, it had a Hello Kitty theme so I knew I couldn't go wrong with that.

A girl at the McDonald's was loudly calling attention to the automatic ordering machines. I jokingly asked, in sarcastic tone, if it had English and she surprisingly replied in English that it did. So she talked me through it, step by step. I felt special. She pushed the on-screen buttons for me as I selected what I wanted. Basic cheeseburger and fries combo was good enough. Several steps to confirm my order, then . . . to pay for it through the machine. 

Outside McD's. The little window on the right is for walk-up orders. It requires speaking Chinese.

This marvel of technology only allowed payment using a phone app such as iPay or WeChat. I didn't have any of them. I thought I should have been able to slide a bill in and get change like at a grocery store, but NOOOOO! 

Inside McD's. The ordering machines are on the right. Bring your phone app to pay!

So I got back in the regular line to order, now two people longer. When I got up to the counter, the young man gave me a special menu for tourists; it did not have any more English on it than the menus overhead did but at least I could point more accurately than up at the menu above. I can really zero in with my index finger! Anyway, I went back to choosing the Hello Kitty special.

And I finally got my food, the special of the day: some kind of teriyaki sandwich (burger? not sure) with the usual fries, and a "bubble tea" - milk tea with tapioca balls in it. I thought it was iced coffee. I grabbed an ordinary straw for the drink but the "bubbles" clogged up the straw. The girl who tried to help me with the ordering machine rushed over with a big straw, saying emphatically "No, no, no!"  She switched the straws for me, stabbing a fat straw into my cup's lid before I could say "xie xie" ('thank you'). 

Before the straw switch, I had to walk around the crowded restaurant with my tray of food to find a place to sit. So many young people just sitting and chatting or using their electronic devices, already finished eating or not eating at all, or maybe with only a drink to buy them table time. It was a Sunday afternoon, of course. Finally I found a booth right up at the front by the ordering machines. It had leftover trays/food on it. I shoved them to the side and sat down, started to eat my meal. Two older women (i.e., my age) came over and asked in Chinese if they could share the booth. I waved them in and one of them got a McDonald's employee to clean off the table for us. We did not talk to each other but we did share a moment of humor when I gestured and made a face that the sandwich wasn't so good.

Then I got up to leave. But as I was stepping through the crowded restaurant, heading to the exit, I saw the McCafe section. So I got a large iced latte (large in China = small back home) and sat on a high stool at a tall table. As I sipped my kinda cold drink, I took in the ambiance of young ladies chatting with each other and playing with their phones. So, I played with my phone, as well, while I drank my coffee. In my Chinese-style hotel room, paid for by my employer, the wifi had various sites blocked: Facebook, Google and Gmail, Twitter, Instagram, etc. But I could still access Twitter and Gmail on my phone, via my phone service, so I checked what's going on. Unfortunately, there was not enough exciting action reported on those venues to entertainment for the length of my drinking and I left the McDonald's feeling sad.

Along the way to & from the McDonald's.

On the walk back to my hotel, I stopped by the 7-Eleven, as usual, and got some drinks to take to my room. I think there must be a law in Beijing that a 7-Eleven must appear once every two blocks. But for us foreigners, that is truly a godsend. I was a great customer during my month in Beijing: bottled coffee, breakfast pastries, lunch and dinner point-&-order Chinese dishes plus a box of rice, or pre-packed sushi, and fresh fruit, and all the packages of snacks and candy you could wish for. Plus cheap bottled water since you can't drink water from the tap. It provided a weird taste of home.

Then I fired up the laptop and went back to work on my epic fantasy novel. I had just finished the main story line involving the dragonslayer. Early on, I had started the second story line with a chapter then put it aside to concentrate on the first story line. Now I had to go back and finish the second story line, even though the dragonslayer's story was so long already. The two story lines would come together at the end. The second story line is all about the little princess - perfect for typing in a hotel room in Beijing when you've seen all the sights already.


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(C) Copyright 2010-2016 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

How I Ruined My Summer Vacation (2016 Edition)

As many of my readers may be aware, I was on vacation last month. That is the story I wanted everyone to believe, and it really seemed to work. So I'm sticking to it.

Actually, I was working - in a sense (or two) - so let's call it a working vacation. I traveled to Beijing, China for four weeks, mostly to teach a university course called "Business Writing in American Context" (Chinese translation). I went last year, as well. In fact, this year was almost exactly the same - exactly. I could even use the same photos as I used last year and nobody would notice the difference. 

Except for this building, the Boxue Building at the University of International Business and Economics where my class was held this summer - different than the building last year. Same size classroom, same great a/c unit though. Students were down from 58 last year to 38 this summer, both classes mostly girls.

Other than being occupied in a classroom for two mornings each week from 8 to 11:30, I had plenty of time for sightseeing. Because I've seen all the main attractions on the previous three trips I've made to Beijing, what I really had was plenty of time for writing.

You can read all about the writing I did last summer, which was my arctic coming of age adventure set in Greenland, here. I thought that was quite a feat, writing about the ice and snow of Greenland while in an air cooled hotel room avoiding the heat and humidity outside. However, this 2016 summer's writing far exceeds what any sane writer would do. I wrote about 70,000 words. Take that, NaNoWriMo!

But you want to hear about the trip . . . . Due to the incredible hassles of a San Francisco transit last year (read the amazing report here), I elected to go through Chicago this year and everything went quite smoothly. I even got a deep-dish Chicago-style pizza while I waited to board the international flight.

But you can't choose your neighbors on a plane. I had several babies and loud children near me and an old man across the aisle from me who hacked and coughed all through the flight. Plus, I got an A+ line-up of movies: Zootopia, The Lego Movie, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding II. Fortunately, I'd brought a book to read: the novel I wrote last year: A GIRL CALLED WOLF.

I arrived in Beijing without much ceremony. I still walked through the world's largest terminal, about a 15 km walk in total. Even the lines through immigration and customs were short for me and no uncomfortable questions were asked. And, unlike last summer, we did not arrive an hour early, so no mix up meeting my student assistant from the university. Made that connection easily and "Victoria" got a taxi for us to go to the hotel, about a 45-minute ride. (I'm still waiting for her to send me the picture she took of both of us at the end of the course, so until then use your imagination.)

My tall course assistant got me checked in properly, helping with interpretation, and even helped carry a bag up to my room. I really wanted to just get a shower and take a long nap but she was happy to talk, in English, of course, and I didn't want to be rude so we talked about an hour more on all kinds of topics before I sent her on her way and I began to relax.

In the Chinese style hotel across from the campus, I was put in room 624. The first night there, I noticed the air conditioning was not blowing very cool. The next morning I complained about that. No way could I survive without a/c because I am a weak American. I mentioned how wonderful the a/c had been in my room last summer - cold enough to put me in a Greenlandic mood. At that moment, it just so happened that a man was checking out from the room I had last summer. I asked if I could change to that room. Sure, no problem, just give them some time for housekeeping to get it ready. So I went out for lunch.

The view of the campus across the street from the Yinghua Hotel from room 624 on my first morning in Beijing, awaking early because I do that when I'm jet-lagged. Note the sun desperately fighting to shine through the haze.

When I returned from lunch, my favorite writing room 424 was ready to move into! I had to explain to them about feng shui, the arrangement of the things in the room, the certain joie de vivre and je ne sais quoi that a place had to have in order for writing to be done. The staff did not understand my French, naturally.

The view of room 624 - not much feng shui there! Like I told the staff. And (below) the view of my good ol' room 424 with a Euro Cup soccer match on the TV. Notice also the picture on the wall is different. The one in 424 is much more aesthetically pleasing, don't you think?

So there we are: the start of the blog post arc concerning how I spend - or ruined - my summer vacation. More of this amazing endeavor next time - including how I wrote my epic fantasy novel EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS while holed up in a Chinese hotel room even more than last summer.


Note: EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS is now complete at 232,700 words following major revision. Tweaking still remains.


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(C) Copyright 2010-2016 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The End of the Adventure Begins!

As promised I'm telling about my month in Beijing to teach a course in Business Writing in reverse. And so I arrived.

In fact, my airplane arrived a full hour early. Tell your grandchildren about this strange phenomena. Because of that, I missed my contact who was supposed to meet me at the airport. Fortunately, I had been to Beijing twice before and did not panic. After waiting a respectable amount of time, I took a taxi into the city and found my hotel, provided by my summer employer.

Then the fun began. My first class. The first welcome reception. The first case of Mao's revenge. The first sightseeing.

I found my way to the correct building at the appointed hour (8 a.m.) and was happy to see a tall floor model air conditioning unit. My assigned assistant met me there, had the room ready, the a/c on. Then the students arrived--all 58 of them packed into the one small classroom. I spoke slowly and carefully, unsure that first day how well they understood English. The class, like all of them at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE), was intended to be taught in English. All went well and we developed a good rapport that lasted through the final exam.

The first evening, we foreign instructors for the summer were invited to the formal welcome reception in a lavish venue just off campus. Students from the university entertained us with song and dance. The food was delicious, as expected at a formal dinner. What was served was supposedly representative dishes from several provinces around China. What was especially delicious was a mushroom soup which featured about a dozen different kinds of mushrooms. In the hours to come, it proved to be my undoing, forcing me to battle a case of Mao's Revenge for more than a week.

Since I had already seen the major tourist sites, I went to a few lesser ones. First up was a tourist enclave south of the Forbidden City (aka The Imperial Palace) called Qianmen. Men means gate and the gate there, obviously built just for me, was rather impressive. Something I might like to see in my neighborhood back home, just to show everyone where I live. Knowing I had plenty of time to gather souvenirs, I only looked at the many shops along this pedestrian mall. I did stop to enjoy roast duck once more--because you really can never enough of "Beijing Duck"!

Qianmen gate (one side of the street)

Gate at entrance to Qianmen pedestrian shopping street.

Me at the duck restaurant with the Duck Meister slicing it up.

Then I was off to another "minor" site: Beihai Park and its famous Bell Tower. To the west side of the Forbidden City are a string a lakes, intended for the Emperor's pleasure, all strung together with canals. This is the north lake ("Bei" means north; the subway station there is Beihai Bei: the north end of the north lake). The day was oppressively humid--as almost all of the days there, as I was to discover. 

However, once you totally sweat out your clothes, then you just go on for the rest of the day, moisture and all. Just part of the experience. I saw a lot but I sure didn't look good enough for photos. The crossing of the lake and the hike up the hill to the tower made me feel like I was really back in Beijing. The lotus-filled lake further convinced me I was no longer in Oklahoma. 

Beihai Lake and the Bell Tower.

The Nine Dragons Wall. Same design on the reverse side.

The most famous thing at this park is the "Nine Dragons Wall" so I took a few pictures of it. Everybody was taking photos of it, too. It was difficult to catch a moment without anyone in front of it, especially when I posed there. (Any of you who may write fantasy stories involving dragons, now you know: There are only nine of them!)

Another wall (gate?) with a lion. The wall is only about a meter thick.

View from top of the hill where the Bell Tower is, looking down at Beihai lake.

To get over the Mao's Revenge, I sought out cheese, the tried and true remedy. It might be easier to find a palm tree in Greenland than it is to find a chunk of cheese in Beijing. Milk, yes. Yogurt, now trendy, yes. Ice cream, for kids, of course yes. But actual cheese? Nope. So I concocted a plan to find a McDonald's and just eat a big cheeseburger, knowing full well that the cheese would not be real cheese but a fake version. I walked around in the heat of the day and subsequently dined at the first McDonald's I found. 

Your typical street Mickey's.

Strangely, the cashier woman couldn't understand me even when I pointed to the menu, so the young man standing in line behind me helped me. The dining room was crowded with students studying or "studying" on their laptops, tablets, and cell phones, so I invited him to sit with me. He was back home for summer vacation from studying at a university in Wisconsin. This is what we call irony. 

I was beginning to realize that I, a German-English hybrid genetically constructed from the dairy regions of Europe required cheese like Chinese people required rice. I searched online for Mexican restaurants in Beijing, craving tacos. None were convenient to my location, the best choice requiring 4 subway line changes. I gave up on that idea. Instead, I did find a good ol' KFC. I also found a Subway franchise a few blocks down from my hotel, right across from the campus. In fact, one of my own students worked there! An Italian Combo footlong did the trick. Those deli meats and layers of cheese got my insides back on track. I would return to that Subway several more times during my month-long visit. Because, yes, you can have too much Chinese food! 

Nevertheless, I visited the Yonghe King Chinese BBQ restaurant around the corner from my hotel multiple times for my dinners. I could get a bowl of barbecued meat, a bowl of rice, a couple sides of veggies, and a tall glass of iced coffee with tapioca beads in it for around 35 Yuan--about $6, best deal in the neighborhood. I visited twice a week, often enough the girls knew me by name: "that weird foreign guy with the wicked grin." They jostled with each other for the right to take my order. Probably they did the same for the right to deliver the tray containing my meal to my table. I can only imagine.

Next time: Writing about Greenland in a Beijing Hotel


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(C) Copyright 2010-2015 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Getting by in Beijing

I'm going to get through this--somehow! Not the best way to start a blog, I'll bet. But when living in a foreign city and stuck with foreign ways and foreign food and foreign weather, the experience can be rather daunting. 

When I was invited to teach a summer course in Beijing, I went with mixed feelings. I had visited Beijing twice before so I really did not have any tourist reasons to go. And I knew the university that hired me for four weeks would cover my expenses there and reimburse my air ticket so that it was essentially a free trip to China in exchange for teaching a couple days a week. I thought that was fair and reasonable. Some of my visiting colleagues even brought their families with them to share the experience.

July is not the best time to visit Beijing, however. It is hot and humid--oppressively so, helped along by the lid of pollution haze. For those of us used to getting around in air-conditioned cars, the switch to mostly walking with the occasional subway ride is a bit of a challenge. One quickly sweats out the day's outfit and languishes in moist fabric for as long as one can stand to be with oneself. There is some relief in the subway stations where fans blow more or less constantly. On the subway cars there is usually air-conditioning. The effectiveness of both are subject to the size of the crowds. Toward the end of the month, the fans and a/c seemed to blow less--as though someone had run out of their monthly allotment of electricity.

Yinghua ("Cherry Blossom") Hotel where I stayed for 4 weeks.

Being able to bring only a limited amount of clothing and thus needing to find ways to wash clothes during a four-week stay was also a challenge. From previous visits, I knew most hotels, even Chinese style ones, would do your laundry for a price. Seriously, there must be a lot of Chinese laundries in Beijing! I was surprised, however, at the high price demanded for washing underwear, as though they were trying to discourage hotel guests from submitting their unmentionables. 

So I went to the little store on the university campus, tucked under the bleachers of the soccer stadium, and bought a little bag of "handwash laundry soap" (the English subtitle below the Chinese characters) and learned to wash my own ditties like we all did once upon a time. The real problem, however, is getting them to dry. There is a cord that can be pulled out over the bath tub to hang clothes on but the humid bathroom is not the best drying environment. So I loaded up my windowsill with underpants and socks. Being on the fourth floor, they could not be seen from the street so I felt safe in doing that. The sun always battered those windows mercilessly each day and, with the blackout curtains closed, the heat would build up on the sill. Am I a scientist or what? 

The catch is to do it after the room has been cleaned. I had no doubt that the housekeeping staff would not approve of my items being stacked along the windowsill. Fortunately, I had morning classes and could return after my room was freshly made-up. Then I would wash my items in the bathroom basin, rinse them in the bath tub, hang them on the cord (I eventually bought some clips), then stretch them out on the windowsill. After several hours, usually by dusk, I would check my laundry and find them three-quarters dry. Fearing the onslaught of mildew, I used the hotel's hair dryer to finish off the drying process. Then I folded them and placed them in my suitcase for safe keeping.

Room 424 in its natural state, pre-housekeeping staff visit.

The outer garments were no problem. Except that I never checked the box on the form for "same day service." I could wait a couple days. I planned my garment schedule carefully that way. But each time I submitted dress shirts and dress trousers to the laundry patrol, they came back the same day with the "same day" charge added. I decided to grin and bear it. I knew I would be paid someday; until then I was living on just what I had brought with me--and my hometown bank did not have much Yuan to give me. Besides, if I calculated the exchange rate at the current 6.14 Yuan for a dollar, then 100 Yuan, which felt so rich in my wallet, was actually only about 15 U.S. dollars. 


By my third week in Beijing, I had the laundry business down pat. I could have opened my own Chinese laundry. The ladies on the housekeeping staff knew me well, also, for better or worse. I believe I'm a nice, reasonable fellow. And since I was living in my room, as opposed to staying merely a few days on business, I thought they would let me sleep in on days I had no class. And yet many times I was awakened at 8 or 8:30 by the doorbell and the housekeeping lady calling "Nihau"--'good morning'--even when I had already set the electronic sign on the hallway wall to "do not disturb" in both Chinese and English. In my sleepy Chinglish I tried to persuade them to come back later. That might get me only another hour.

The 4th floor--where all the fights occurred between room 424 and the housekeeping room.

One gal got rather feisty with me. She would knock hard on the door. When I opened the door she would look at me with evil in her eyes and a scowl on her face, muttering "clean room" in a voice better used for "death to America." Of course I understood they wanted to get on with their work and not be delayed by this foreign guy. I was fine with the room not being made-up. I live that way in my own home. But for this one, it was like I'd better get the heck out of the room and let them make the bed and replenish the bathroom supplies and empty the wastebasket of all my bottles of drinks--and I drank a lot, mostly flavored water or iced coffee or tea of some kind because of being constantly thirsty out in all that humidity. There was some discussion one morning among a few housekeeping ladies. After that only an older woman attended my needs. 

By then in my month-long sojourn, I was in a writing marathon, working on my "Greenland" novel. I awoke several mornings with the next scene in my head and went straight to my laptop to write. I did not care who wanted to make up the room or what time it was. Sometimes I rose at 5:30 or 6 to begin writing. My new, older housekeeper could take care of business without disturbing me at the desk trying to write. And it was good she saw me writing on the laptop; I was not some slob with no job lazing the summer away in a cheap hotel. No, I was working--in my shorts and t-shirt. I always thanked her as she left each day--"Xie xie"--one of the few Chinese words I knew.

Yonghe King "barbecue" restaurant which turned out to be good for my stomach. A few doors down from my hotel.

And how was I so refreshed each morning that I could write like a blazing writer-on-steroids? After a few hours on that hard Chinese style hotel bed, my back was straight and my meridians were aligned, my fluids flowed and my chakras were cleansed. Seriously, the bed had about a half-inch of "padding" as a mattress. You did not sink down when you sat or lay on it. Being a Chinese style hotel and having stayed in similar ones on previous visits, I knew to expect it. Yet it still took a few nights for my body to get used to it--then it was great. Back home now, my traditional American bed is too soft for my back.

So on days that I had a class, typically I would return to my room, completely dripping, and strip off my soaked clothing, crank up the a/c, grab a cold beverage from my mini-fridge (thank Mao for that!), drop into one of the casual chairs by the windows, flick on the TV and watch something like Jerry Maguire in Chinese, where I could learn how to shout "Show me the money!" in Mandarin: 给我钱！(That's "Gěi wǒ qián!" for those of you who do not read Hanzu characters--like me.

I also had an excellent Shanghaiese style dinner at the upscale mall The Place.

Next time: Getting hooked on art


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(C) Copyright 2010-2015 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.