How I Ruined My Summer Vacation - 2018 (part 4)

Every time I go to Beijing to teach a summer course at the University of International Business and Economics, my meals are always an adventure. It's not that I don't like Chinese food; I definitely do. And it's not that my choices are limited. In a city of ten million people there must be about 1 million restaurants and cafes and food kiosks. I could also dine in the campus cafeteria like my students, if I wanted to.

Last summer I had problems. I had to keep running to a bathroom, to put it as delicately as possible. That really put a crimp on my relations and on my sightseeing. I diagnosed the problem as either 1) I kept re-infecting myself every time I ate out, or 2) the bug was staying in me no matter what I ate. It was an unpleasant experience, although it did help me lose weight. I finally got some local medicine that treated the symptoms and got me through the long flight home. Once home, I went to my doctor who prescribed a regimen of antibiotics which cleared it right up.

Unagi-don

This summer, I thought I'd be prepared. I went to my doctor pre-emptively and he offered to prescribe antibiotics which I could take if the same problem returned. As it turned out, I did not need it. Everything was fine. In fact, I was able to up my eating game due to the emergence of several new restaurants near my hotel. So I was able to avoid the hole-in-the-wall cafes on the east side of the campus or those to the north of the west gate of the campus which I had gone to often the previous summer at the behest of students and well-meaning friends.

First was a Cantonese restaurant. Having been to Hong Kong, I had the understanding that Cantonese food was mild (not spicy) but the fare here was not bland at all and quite delicious. I tried many dishes on the menu during my four meals there, including dim sum.

They added some bulls on Wangfujing street.

Another major dining destination for me was just a few steps from my hotel door: a Japanese restaurant which specialized in sushi (of course!). Actually, in my six visits, I noticed they seemed to specialize in eel ("unagi" in Japanese), which is cooked rather than served raw. I sampled several dishes as well as a variety of sushi offerings, including the eel "don" (filet of eel, grilled, over a bed of rice). 

At The Sizzler!

I still made  use of the neighborhood 7-Eleven store, purchasing breakfast bread, bananas, bottled yogurt, sodas, and water bottles (can't drink the tap water), and candy - because I was on vacation. My walking balanced out my eating, I learned during my first visit. For nostalgia's sake, I popped into the YongHeGong restaurant on the corner (specializing in pork cutlets on rice) and promptly found myself sporting symptoms of the previous summer's visit. I downed a shot of meds I'd brought from home and no more problem.


A custom of mine, whenever I feel homesick or my stomach craves some good ol' homecooking, is to venture down to the big tourist shopping street known as Wangfujing. There, I can find two huge bookstores to browse away the hours as well as a large food court in an upscale  shopping mall. In that food court is one of America's premier steakhouses: The Sizzler! A proper steak and potato, salad bar, and cheesecake will set everything right again.

Speaking of homecooking, after I noticed a Pizza Hut a few blocks from the campus, I offered my friend the opportunity to experience a real American-style pizza. We went there, perused the menu, and I immediately recognized that this Pizza Hut was not going to serve the usual pizzas like back home. One featured pizza had eel on it, another had Peking duck. We went to the do-it-yourself page and cobbled together something close to American-style: beef and peppers. It sufficed.

And as usual, my faculty colleague treated me to Peking duck at their original location in Qianmen. The show is when the duckmaster carefully slices up the duck and makes a lotus flower with the slices. Then you eat it by wrapping the duck slices in a thin pancake with some spring onions and duck sauce.

Also as usual, my visit ended at the Hilton Hotel by the airport, where all rationality is thrown out the window in order to dine at the expensive restaurant there, where my guest ordered . . . the burger. Now hold on! Being an upscale eatery, the burger was top grade and had exotic ingredients on it, like fois gras (goose liver pate). I ordered a Tandoori dish, mostly because we had been talking about Indian food the past week.

This summer, I was well-served food-wise. I also was blessed with lovely company providing smart conversation and delightful witticisms, as well as a beautiful view across the table. That was the best part: taking pictures of our food - or just as often forgetting to photograph the gustatorial presentation prior to destroying it. After all, photography is half the fun of dining out, isn't it?


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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 (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.

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.

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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