China Hope Live » Tianjin

Dear Tianjin subway driver

Joel — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:16:31 +0000

To: the subway car driver who saw me sprint through the station at 8:39am only to be mere seconds too late and have the subway car doors almost take big foreign nose off when they closed right in front of me, who sensed my despair as I looked at the monitor and saw nine minutes until the next train, who must have guessed that there was no way I could wait nine minutes and still clock in at work on time, and who instead of pulling away like normal opened the doors back up and let me on,

哥们儿，你是在历史上最棒的地铁司机！感谢你啊！

- Joel

Camilla delivery

Joel — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:27:32 +0000

After all the whining about the pollution and fear-mongering about the bathrooms, I should mention that in some ways Tianjin is far superior to, say, Vancouver (host city 2010 Olympic Winter Games).

For example, in Tianjin, a massive city of 8 million people, you can get a live chicken delivered straight to your door for ￥8/斤！ Ordered online! That’s like $1.25 per pound! Behold (click the image to go to the site):

The part I circled is the end of a list of special instructions you can choose from, in this case: “…slaughtered, alive, etc.” （宰过，活的等）。

(P.S. — Camilla)

Tianjin: where jogging is bad for your health

Joel — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 02:57:16 +0000

Last night, 7:23, according to the monitoring equipment installed in the U.S. embassy in Beijing:

What “500″ means:

150+ = “Unhealthy”, 200+ = “Very Unhealthy”, 300+ = “Hazardous”. So what are we supposed to call it when it maxes out the scale?

Of course, you might be wondering what the Ministry of Environmental Protection was reporting at the same time:

The Chinese version site had the same:

As we couldn’t see down the street today, I don’t wonder who’s numbers are more accurate. However, three things you need to know about comparing pollution numbers:

Part of the reason for the discrepancy is that China doesn’t monitor the smaller, more harmful forms of air pollution.
It also helps that they shifted the location of their monitoring equipment to get better averages and record more “blue sky days”.
Measurement scales vary from country to country. You can see how China’s pollution scale compares to those of Honk Kong and the U.S. here: API and PM10 – health and here: Using the Beijing Air Quality Index (AQI) – Part I. These are also helpful (Wikipedia): Air Quality Index and Air Pollution Index. This site has a convenient widget that lets you compare China’s interpretation of its current pollution levels with that of other countries.

On days like this you can smell it as soon as you open the front door and see it just by looking across the street.

We first found these sites via MyHealth Beijing. Click the screen shots to view the source pages. See the links below for some pollution photos.

Related:

Tianjin Snow!

Joel — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:28:13 +0000

A snowman (with Chinese characteristics):

In Chinese you don’t “make” a snowman, you “pile” (堆) a snowman. Unless it’s young people getting creative/naughty, most snowmen look like the one above. If they have any arms at all it’s usually a broom (branches are in short supply) and usually only one.

All the daytime photos were taken around 12:15pm, on my way to the subway.

A “beautiful frozen person” (right).
“美丽冻人” is a word-play in Chinese on “美丽动人” (a beautiful and captivating person), describing women who don’t wear the socially-prescribed multiple layers of long-johns because they don’t want to look fat.

The entrance to our apartment complex:

Going home from the market:

My students this evening at the entrance to our building:

It didn’t stop all day. It’s night time and still going. They’ve canceled a bunch of schools for tomorrow. I have to be at work at 9am but don’t teach until 2pm. Still waiting for that phone call…

Last photo — My students had to design snowmen in class and then draw them according to other students’ spoken instructions:

Next year is the year of the tiger, hence the “王” on the forehead of the ferocious snowman on the left indicating that it’s a tiger, not a kitty. They said its whiskers were chopsticks.

Merry… something, from Tianjin! :)

Joel — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 05:52:41 +0000

Midnight on Christmas Eve 2009 in Tianjin, China (they call it “Peaceful Night” 平安夜):

If you put New Year’s, Mardi Gras, Valentine’s Day and the commercial side of Christmas into a blender and then reincarnated the unappetizing mush into an overpopulated midnight carnival, you’d have Christmas Eve in Tianjin. Clowns, stage shows, blowing artificial snow (soap-sud machines), a countdown to midnight (pictured above), and a bunch of foreigners performing Christmas carols (us) were all out two nights ago among the masses and their blinky, battery-powered headgear. In between our two performances on stage there was a choreographed Michael Jackson dance routine by five 5-foot tall pelvis-thrusting minors who looked way too young to be grabbing the front of their pants that way in public (pictured left).

Random strangers occasionally asked to get their picture taken with us, since we’re foreigners. We obliged, of course, and I got my revenge when I saw this line up of 90-pound Santas:

But it was all for a good cause. A local company decided they wanted to get into the real spirit of Christmas by holding a fundraiser for the Special Education Project. They aggressively hawked these LED Christmas candle things all day and night to the throngs of people on Tianjin’s two busiest outdoor shopping streets, which is Christmas Eve Central for T. The two girls pictured on the right had me and a friend cornered before we had a chance to tell them we were with the group they were raising money for.

Since we’re associates of the N.G.O. that was receiving the money, the company asked us to put together some songs for before and after the midnight countdown. We had a group of carolers, which included some of our local friends and students, two guitars and a flute. They wanted us to get the crowd into it, and below you can see the line of police in front of the stage holding back all our rabid 粉丝. Ok, maybe they’re not actually our fěnsī, but they were in a good mood and it wasn’t hard to get a response from the crowd; all we had to do was show up. They’re supposed to play part of it on TV today, so I may have finally made it on TV in Tianjin. :) Here’s our the helmeted crowd control:

It didn’t actually feel all that Christmasy, but at least it was something to mark the day. Actually, packing into an apartment with a bunch of friends (Chinese, German, Brazilian, Canadian, American) earlier in the evening to practice the songs over snacks and coffee wasn’t a bad way to spend a Christmas Eve. For two of my students it was the first time they’d done anything to celebrate Christmas, so that was kind of special. A few more photos below (none of these photos are mine; I was too busy playing guitar).

All these blobs are the blowing artificial snow soapsud bubbles (it looked cooler in real life):

These are the LED things they sold for the fundraiser:

If I can find any photos of us on stage, I’ll add them below when I get them.

圣诞快乐！

Friends who also wrote on this surreal experience:

Lindy — Christmas is for Shopping…
Rob (the other guitar player) — Merry Something!
Shannon — Merry MardiEasterValentineHalloweenNewYearChristmas! Ho Ho Ho?

[2010 Jan 08] Here we are in the newspaper:

The caption says:

The other day Tianjin TV’s “Art & Entertainment Food 8 Street” news column at Heping Lu business walking street held a groundbreaking special evening party, not only was there brilliant cultural performances, also can’t count the many different kinds of interactive games spectators were invited to participate in. Additionally, foreign volunteers working in Tianjin from the USA, France, Italy and etc. countries also got on stage and sang impromptu songs for the audience. Newspaper reporter: Cao Tongshe

Of course, we didn’t have anyone from France or Italy, but hey, who’s counting?
[2010 Jan 18] Finally got hold of some shots of us on stage:

Other Christmas and Christmas-in-Tianjin posts:

Free Baby Accessories, compliments of Tianjin & the One Child Policy

Joel — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 14:28:03 +0000

In Canada the Province of British Columbia gave us a free CD with a hippie/new-age reading of a poem for infants about how “YOU. Are a chiiiiild of the UUUNiverse…”. In Tianjin our friends who had their baby here got this free bib with a One Child Policy slogan on it:

“Fewer births, scientific and healthier births, lifelong happiness”
or
“Fewer and better births make your life happier”
or
“Few births, scientifically bearing children, happiness for whole life”
少生优生，幸福一生
shǎo shēng yōushēng, xìngfú yìshēng

Other One Child Policy stuff:

“There are too many Chinese!” (translations of One Child Policy signs in a Tianjin village).

Some other Vancouver stuff: