Lion in Dreams

Cousin Ian saw this photo and thought: China.  Actually it was Chinatown, in Edmonton. 

Before heading out on my big adventure, Paul and I went to our favourite greasy spoon.  As usual, we passed the stone lions at the China Gate. 

This time, I pointed out that the two lions were different. 

One (the male) held a ball, and other (female) held down a baby lion. 

I'd heard somewhere that it was lucky to touch the ball, but nothing much about the baby.  Maybe it was actually a some other small animal (it can be difficult to tell sometimes), afterall, it didn't exactly look like she was being very nice to it.  

(Left: I guess if you're constantly held down, you'd likely want to bite someone.)   

So began my search (well, more of a heightened interest) for lions in China (especially female). 

I didn't have to look far.  Before I even had to ask, our tour guide, Mr. Lee, pointed out the Forbidden City's two most prominent lions and told us their story:

An emperor awoke from a dream where a strange animal had saved him from death.  From this, he understood that the animal had been a protector and had artists and sculptures recreate the dream animal as a guardian for the palace.  The animal bore a resemblance to the western lion, and was hence known as such. 

That explained, in part, why these lions didn't look much like the lions I've seen in pictures or at the zoo.  But what of the ball and the little animal?  Mr. Lee continues:

These guardian lions took on a second meaning to represent the emperor and emperess.  The emperor guards the ball, which represents the world, while the emperess takes care of the children, representing the people. 

I couldn't help thinking, considering history, it might have been better to show the world less of a play-thing, and the baby as less opressed...

Mom just wanted me to sit down at the Beijing Theatre for the acrobat show, but I seriously needed to stand up to take a picture of this specimen. Wow, a baby unsquashed! 

Outside the Friendship Store, this ceramic lion has a rather cartoon look, but the baby still looks unhappy. 

Right: At the Summer Palace.

When Ying Ying found out my interest lions (I hadn't seen any since leaving Beijing), she took me find the biggest and nicest ones she knew in Kaiping. 

Lounging outside a bank, these two most certainly were western lions.  No ball or baby in sight, but while one was stern, the other looked like it was roaring. 

In a different part of Kaiping, another more westernised lion.  The baby's face, however, is a bit disturbing... is that a human face? 

Moon Mountain's baby lion is kind of cute... is that a "I'm playing" smile? 

Now that I'm back, I've been looking into this a little more.  The rise of Buddahism bringing its guardian figure the lion seems to be the biggest theory*.  But perhaps the dream story isn't completely apocryphal. 

Regardless, I'll still be keeping an eye out for these lions - especially the baby. 

* Wikipedia "Chinese Guardian Lions" and Lion Legends and Myths

Last Views of China

Though early and foggy, Kaiping was hardly asleep.

Across the river were people in the square doing tai chi.

Mom, Aunt 5, Cousin Ian, and Ying Ying, were all there in the car to repeat the journey to take me back to the airport.

But this time around, things looked different. 

And rather than being delighted, I was feeling confused by all the contradictions and irony.  Cousin Ian has told me:

1. Workers unions are not allowed in the Chinese business sector. 
2. Worker rights are rarely, if ever, mentioned. 
3. Most companies sign annual contracts with their workers. 
4. There is no pension or retirement fund. 

All this to keep labour costs low and as a result, prices of good low. 

This all seems so wrong. 

(Below: Mascots of the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou airport.)

We arrived at the Guangzhou airport where Aunt 5 to charmed the baggage handlers to wave the extra pounds on my luggage.  (What is in there?) 

Now I'm at Beijing airport.  There's not much I need to do aside from write down exactly what I didto get through to my gate (all to be I can relayed later to Mom for her trip home), so I blissfully wander and explore.  It feels like the first time I've been by myself for a long, long time. 

Plenty of Glitter - Some Gold

After breakfast (which included me zooming Gow Jie in his stroller around the outdoor restauarant), we head back to Moon Mountain.  This is my last day here and there was still a lot to do.

First was to the market.  It's fairly quiet (again we've missed the rush).  Aunt 5 led us to a smoke shop - which was actually (also?) an underground currency exchange.  She does some business inside. While waiting, I decide it was a good idea not to take a photo.  (Above: A tobacco vendor's wares in the market.)

Next was Cousin Djam's house.  Cousin Djam's wife gave us a small tour, but my eyes were drawn to the table filled with sparkles.  This was her "added work" ("value added work").  These sparkles were to be attached to the mesh, which would later become the outer shell of a handbag (retailing at about 300 yuan).  It takes her between 2 to 3 hours to finish one.  She did the caculation for me: It works out to be about 0.0008 yuan per rhinestone.  I start working on the bag as the other talk.  While it's kind of fun, I realised how much the hobby of crafting is a luxury.  Here, it has be taken seriously as something to make a living. 

The quiet outside was broken by an insistent clanging.  The strange is explained!  The tricylcles I've seen piled high with materials are actually garbage buyers.  People would hear the clanging (for bottles) or call and come out from their appartments to sell their recyclable garbage.  These buyers then sell it to recyclers or factories.  There isn't a deposit on these items, so the buyers offer a price, and sellers can actually refuse and wait for another buyer to come another day. 

We have lunch with Uncle 2 and Uncle 3's family next. 

(Below left: Cousin Djam's son polishes off the last of the popular 蘋果酸 "apple sour" drink.)









Afterwards, we return to the market to visit gold shops / gold smiths.  We made our orders and headed out. 



















The rest of the market seems completely closed.  Is there a siesta culture that I've been missing?  I hide from the rain in one of the few open shops.  It's hard to believe how different this is from our last visit. 

I was hoping more would make sense, but really everything was so different.  So much of what I've seen still surreal.  I found myself looking at beautiful, smiling celebrity / model with her signature indicating her endorsement of the product (like the prestigious Omega adverts), to find it was for a sit down toilet. 

Then there are traditions (or how people observe them)... The latest to catch my attention was the fuss Aunt 5 was making for Cousin Ian to remember give his mother-in-law moon cakes for Mid-Autumn Festival.  What sounded like a kind gesture actually had an ulterior motive: If Cousin Ian completes the ritual properly, his mother-in-law would then be obligated to give him / the new family moon cakes every year hereafter for the Festival until Cousin Ian and Ying Ying's first child is married.  I have yet to figure out the reasoning.  I'm hoping it was originally for some good, but at this point for these two families the exchange feels almost mean-spirited.

We have dinner with Aunt 4 and Aunt 5's family in a place, when described by Mom, makes me think of "cottage country".  Minutes away from the city, it is a tourist area filled with trees and natural beauty, and man-made conveniences.

Cousin Ian picks an interesting combination of dishes: Bitter melon and chicken soup, pig intestine with egg, bittermelon with seaweed, salty fish with 五花 pork (pork belly), steamed meatloaf with tofu and egg...

There was a little more talking after returning to Aunt 4's apartment, but mostly, I just tried to collect my thoughts and figure out what to do with the remainder of my things.  I'm pretty sure I won't miss this place, but I'm thinking how strange it will be once I'm gone and these people, my family, will be far away again. 

Left: "King of fruits", Aunt 5 calls it that because of its price. 

Below: What is looks like inside. 

Above: Gow Jie's 喜羊羊 piano. 

Monkey Grass Remix and Water-Energy Redux

Aunt 5 thought I would like it because Ying Ying loved it so much.  A sweet gesture, but I'm wary of drinking a meal's worth of calories for a snack.  This wasn't your average bubble tea either - this was bubble tea taken to the next level. 

The liquid was a sweet milk tea.  But instead of sago pearl bubbles, there were chunks of a dark green jello (monkey grass jelly, as in the name?).  Other surprises in the mix: Raisins, red beans, and almonds. 

Definitely a meal in itself.  I can understand why they give you both a straw and a spoon.

I had a bit of it, and put it in the fridge for another day.  But, it didn't stay there for long. 

Only a day later, Aunt 4 threw out the drink along with plates and plates of leftovers.  I was aghast: She's throwing out food! 

What I didn't realise was this: Things in their fridge could go bad in a day, because their fridge wasn't set to 4 C.  It didn't occur to me that the rectangle of cold* in their kitchen was different from mine.  But it makes sense - the amount of energy required to keep their block of cold cold enough, would have been staggering in day-after-day of 35+ degrees heat. 

As I recover from all the grandness and showboating of the wedding (that seemed pretty wasteful), I can see that actually there are a lot of things (at least in Aunt 4 household) that leaned toward frugality.  The temperature of fridge is one, the use of water is another. 

Running the washing machine here takes a lot more direct attention than at home. 

The user had to:
1. Turn the tap on and off to set the water level
2. Set the cycle, time it, then set it for the next
3. Drain the water from the basin
4. Repeat as needed

Step 3 being manual, however, meant that the water from the wash, once drained, could be used for something else - i.e. for flushing the toilet.  Water used in washing vegetables, also then be used for flushing toilets.  All these buckets of reuseable water made the washroom rather crowded... but it works. 

As I had been feeling bad about the food, my guess is they would probably be shocked by how much water and electricity we use back at home. 

* "Someone once said that there is no such thing as cold, only degrees of heat.  That person was an idiot.  A fridge proves that cold is a thing.  A fridge is a rectangle of cold." ~ Jessica Grant Come, Thou Tortoise

Chasing the Moon

Any thoughts of sleeping-in were driven away by Aunt 4's Husband's call to tea (Dim Sum).  I half wondered if this was for my (Chinese) birthday (according to Mom's calendar, I'm now 31)* or if it's because of Mid-Autumn Festival. 

We leave the apartment and it begins to pour.  Birthday showers or simply because 貴人出門多風雨? :P

Fun Garden Hotel

The place Aunt 4's Husband picked was certainly fancy.  The restaurant was not only inside Fun Garden Hotel, but was also endorsed by a celebrity food critic. 

We wandered out from the semi-private room (obtained by some manner of pulled strings) to the different food stations where baskets of dim sum were being newly steamed and other cooked foods were made to order (including dishes I've only seen at special occasions). 

(Left: A station for congee with all sorts of possible additions.)

We navigate back to our room weaving past crowds of people.  Aunt 4's Husband expresses surprise that the crowd lives up to the hype he's heard.  He wonders out loud "Where do people get the money to live such luxurious lifestyles?"  He also tells me of "Half Island Hotel" (the most expensive and exclusive in the area) where people actually line-up to go inside to eat. 

(Right: A sprouting chestnut, from a bag of the street food Aunt 5 has smuggled in.)

We eat.  I steal glances at the other table we share the room with and the television.  At another point, Aunt 4's Husband says, "Man's burden is greater than what a woman can know... he is always thinking of how to provide for his family."  (With Cousin Ping's husband out of town again for work, I wonder if this was actually directed to her.)

(Left: My selections from the dim sum stacks.  Top - Steamed buns made out of an nutty tasting grain with a lightly sweetened barley-like filling, which people thought might be a Tibetian dish. Below - Steamed triangular pockets of sticky, leafy wrapper with a peanut and sugar filling.)

The rain eventually slowed, and we left the restaurant.  We walked along the multi-laned road, and I was shocked when I saw a sprial shell the size of my shoe on the sidewalk.  Where did it come from?!

Less impressed where my aunts, who told me the pest had probably been driven out by the rain from one of the nearby bushes. And, then I noticed, it was still oozing along... Ew. 




Green House Coffee Language 綠島咖啡語茶

We take a break from shopping at a near-to-the apartment-but-even-more-expensive cafe. 

My eyes widened at the 10 yuan price tag on glasses of fruit juice.  There was also a sitting fee and a minium order. 

Though amused by the menu and literal English translation of their name (I would have gone with "Green Island: Coffee, Conversation, Tea"), I had to really laugh later in the night. 

Aunt 5, determined to get the full benefit the table rent, decided to camp out.  From 3:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. she sat there (at times with Aunt 4 and Mom's company) enjoying the air conditioning and sipping some random drink.  Cousin Ping and I went back to the shops. 

(Left: A fountain in Green Island.)

At 7 p.m. we returned for dinner (surprisingly econcomical compared to the juice) and were joined by Cousin Ian, Ying Ying... enough to fill 2 tables.   

Had this been Green Island's plan all along?  Either way, Aunt 5 certainly felt pleased. 

After dinner, Cousin Ping and I return to shopping.  The items on my list were too slowly being crossed off.  In my impatience though, I got Cousin Ping  frustrated: She was a master barterer, and wanted to get the best deal, I just wanted to get the list done. 

(Right: Napoleon?  One of many western / European style wall hangings at Green Island.)

By the time we return to the apartment, my luggage had been tightly bundled.  Aunt 5 had done some amazing work. For all I know I could have a baby tiger in there. 


* But, then remembering how Mom has been evading any questions of my age (likely embarassed for me that I'm so old and unmarried) and hiding related information, e.g. how long it's been since she immigrated to Canada, I'm sure no one really knows.