Happy Qing Ming Day

It was a quiet long weekend with only the sound of money being burned in the streets. As I wandered each evening, I came across small fires burning on just about every street. On one small block , I counted 14 fires. It was quite windy, so the flaming embers were blowing every where. It was a very surreal atmosphere. And thus began my introduction to the Qing Ming festival. Qing Ming is a time for the Chinese to honour their ancestors and departed loved ones. Tombs and grave sites are cleaned and offerings of tea, flowers, food, wine, joss paper accessories and perhaps a small libation are left on the tomb for the enjoyment of their ancestors. Starting early in the week, market stalls opened up on every block selling all the necessary items for a successful Qing Ming. The colourful packages contain stacks of joss or rice paper and bricks of paper money wrapped in red or gold foil.

One of the rites of Qing Ming involves the burning of offerings. The traditional belief of the Chinese is "when someone dies, their spirit goes to the afterlife or Hell". Hell in their sense is not like our Hell, it is a kinder, gentler place. Here the spirit lives on doing much the same things as they did in life. But, to do this the spirits still need money. Wait a minute, maybe it is like our Hell. Those surviving want to assure that their ancestors have a comfortable after life so they burn different offerings including cash. The money is actually play notes and are called "Hell Money". The notes are quite colourful imprinted with lotus flowers, thistles, dragons, and pots of gold. They also burn facsimiles of cars, houses, watches and even cell phones. It seemed to me that the joss or rice paper was the most popular for burning.

The ceremony begins by laying the offering down on the street or sidewalk. Many of the celebrants carried a stick or branch. The branches may have been willow as the Chinese believe that willow branches can help ward off evil ghosts that wander about on Qing Ming. They take the branch and draw a circle several times around the offering, then set it on fire. There were many different styles. Some lit the entire offering at once, while others slowly fed small portions into the fire. All this was done in silence. As I walked around, I had to be careful where I stepped as there were literally dozens of small ash piles littering the streets from previous ceremonies. I returned early the next morning to get a picture but too late, they were gone. Judging by the numbers of fires I saw over the three or four days, the GDP of Hell will not be experiencing a "financial crisis".

My baby is back safely in the fold. More in the next blog.

Ten Reasons Spring Has Arrived

1. My nose is running continuously.
2. Basketball is going on non-stop morning to night.
3. The street vendors have shown up everywhere with more coming every day
4. The dogs have shed their cute little winter coats for cute little spring coats
5. The canvas door screens are disappearing from all the entrance doors and are being replaced by the lighter plastic ones.
6. The little woolen booties covering the metal door handles have all but disappeared.
7. Tables are showing up outside a few of the neighborhood restaurants.
8. The bottled beverages are disappearing off dorm window sills. Students are looking for cooler places to store their beer.
9. The leeks and cabbage that once hung from every balcony and window have about all but disappeared and been replaced by laundry.
10. Thick woolly long underwear has disappeared off store shelves or has gone on sale for deep discounts

Good news. My baby's coming back. Nonie was given the go ahead to fly this week and will be back in Harbin next week. Exactly seven weeks,one day and 4 hours since we parted company in Penticton. This has the longest we have been apart since we met on November 21, 1973. Thanks to Skype, it has not been as bad as it could have been.

I have now completed five weeks of teaching and thought perhaps a few comments on our new group of students would be in order. The students are all third year juniors, supposedly the creme de la creme of the junior students. They are all expected to enter the graduate program at HIT when they complete their fourth year. Nonie and I were given the classes as we work for the grad department in foreign languages.

My first impression of the juniors was based on our experiences with the Grad students and I quickly assumed these students had a much higher level of skill as they appeared confident, almost brash in speaking English. In the early weeks of our first semester, getting the Grad students to talk was a major hurdle for Nonie and I. The high level of confidence displayed by the juniors led me to falsely believe that they had a much greater skill level than the Grad students. Now five weeks in I find that on the whole their proficiency in English is at only a slightly higher level than the Grads but their confidence to speak is certainly at the next level.

Our grad classes were formed based on marks that the students received in placement exams they took at the beginning of the semester. This allowed for a reasonable balance of skills in each class. The makeup of our current classes are around the students majors and the skill balance of each class is definitely broader. It presents a few challenges to assure everyone is on the same page when giving instructions. Something that I struggle with sometimes. The students look out for each other and will help others when my directions become a little blurry. I now spend a bit more time soliciting feedback from students to assure that they are getting it. Giving instructions was an area I sucked at during our TESOL course. (If you are reading this Sean, I know, I know!)

While there is only a few years separating the Grad students and the juniors, there is a great divide when it comes to their maturity levels. That coupled with the lack of young women can make for a very loud and boisterous classroom at times. I got the stink eye from a teacher who was teaching in the adjacent class on my first night. But despite the lack of maturity, most seem to have a higher confidence level than the Grads. They almost seem empowered, perhaps by their standing as the top students in HIT.

Despite the differences, it has been an enjoyable five weeks in the classroom. Our schedule is not as favourable this semester. All our classes are in the late afternoon and evenings. I have been slow to adjusting to this as I am a morning person. I get home from classes around 8:30-9:00 PM but find myself a little to wound up to go to bed right away so stay up another hour or so. Now my usual 6:00 AM wake up has moved to 7:00 AM. I think that no longer qualifies me as a morning person. Not sure of the rules.

This weekend is a long weekend so planning to be very lazy.

It'S NO WHISTLER BUT!

Whistler, it's not but look out! Billed as the largest operating ski hill in China, Yabuli has some growing to do to become a destination resort. But from what I saw, it has begun the process. If I was to look for a comparable, Yabuli is somewhere between Apex and Silver Star for size and terrain. Skiing is in it's infancy in China with all of it located in North East China. You won't find a lot of skiing in tropical climates. Yabuli is home for the Chinese National Downhill Ski team. They have their own mountain to train on but I understand that will not be for much longer as the rush is on to open more ski terrain for the public.


My trip started out early Saturday morning with a taxi ride to the train station. Thanks to Branson, who lent me his China Telecom VIP card, I was able use the VIP boarding area which is a whole lot nicer than lining up with the 1,000 others waiting to board the train. Once on the train, I was introduced to Train Seat Roulette. I arrive to my allotted train seat only to find it occupied. Some conversation ensued and it did not take me long to realize that he wanted to trade seats with me so he could sit with his friends. His seat was located in the next car, so unsure I agreed to the swap and he walked me to the new seat only to find his seat occupied. More conversation and I was directed to another seat in the same car. Also occupied. But this time, I had had enough and stood my ground. More conversation, some grumbling and I got the seat. I experienced the same scenario on the return trip, but chose not to play and took the seat which I was assigned. I eventually was joined by a fun group of teachers from a vocational college in Harbin, one of who spoke English and so was I able to practise my limited Chinese and she was able to practise her English. We chatted and laughed all the way back to Harbin.

The Chinese Government along with the private sector have been pouring some serious money into the Yabuli in the last few years. They have built a brand new spur from the main line into Yabuli as well as a shiny new railway station. There is a special ski train that leaves from Harbin in the morning and returns in the late afternoon. They have also built a high speed road into Yabuli for those wishing to drive there.

Arriving in Yabuli, I was greeted by a boisterous group of entrepreneurs all wanting me to stay with them. Quite a few Bu Yao's (DON'T WANT) later I got out to the parking lot where I was approached by another group all wanting to drive me into Yabuli. I picked the one who had the best English. He said in very good and clear English "Hello. Welcome to Yabuli. I would be happy to take you anywhere you would like to go. I have some very nice places to stay.". Hearing that I jumped into his minivan and said I would like a quick tour around the resort, and how much would he charge. I quickly discovered that he had spent some time memorizing that phrase along with a dozen or more words of English and absolutely nothing else. Crap. Using my translator and a map I had downloaded from the web I was able to get him to provide me with a tour of the resort along with a fixed price 30 RmB for his services. Despite his lack of English, he was quite a salesman and was very adept at taking me into different lodging places despite my telling him at least a dozen times that I already had a place to stay. But I did get a nice tour of the resort and eventually to my hotel which I had found on line and booked by telephone.

The hotel was a find. I stumbled across the web site quite by accident. The hotel(s), actually their are three separate buildings on the site were built by Melco China Resorts. The company is listed on the TSX and operates a number of resorts around China and Asia. They opened as the host hotel for the University World Games that were held at the end of February. I was to be their first foreign English paying guest. They had the Canadian ski team stay there during the games but they did not pay for any of the rooms. Their website is one of the best I have run across in China. http://sunmountainyabuli.com/en/ InterWest a large resort company that runs a number of ski resorts around the world have been providing Melco with some assistance and they were responsible for the website. I met two of the consultants from Interwest at the hotel. Both Australians. One had spent some time in the Okanagan so we compared notes. Melco has opened up a whole new ski hill separate from the main hill complete with a 6 passenger gondola lift and about a dozen new runs. I skied all of them and found them to be beginner to high intermediate. Not a lot of vertical but with a comfortable and warm gondola ride back up the mountain it was not a huge hardship. Gave my legs time to recover.

The hotel(s) is/are works in progress. There is still few construction deficiencies to be completed. I was invited to try out the pool only to find it with a healthy algae bloom. Gave my translator a workout trying to explain algaecide. They were very strict about maintaining the chlorine residuals but did not understand algae. I later met the Resort General Manager who spoke perfect English and was able to explain what they had to do. Needless to say, I passed on the pool and hot tub but took advantage of a massage in the spa which was included in the hotel package that I had booked. Room for one night, breakfast, spa and all day sking for 1580 RmB. ($280 CAD) The hotel is billed as a five star resort. Chinese five star that is! I spent the rest of Saturday exploring the area around the hotel(s) and enjoying the king size bed (soft), 36" plasma screen TV with HBO and Cinemax, plush robe and slippers. Enjoyed a couple of expensive drinks in the bar where I gave an impromptu English lesson to the bar staff. From there I moved to the Dinning Room (Inside Joke for Nonie) where I enjoyed some delicious Chinese food. I was joined for dessert by two people whom I had met earlier in the day. One was from Shanghai and the other from Beijing. They are the new Chinese middle class. They have good jobs, a little money to spend and are looking to try new experiences. Neither had skiied before but both enjoyed it and intend on coming back. I told them about Penticton and being able to ski in the morning and golf in the afternoon. They were suitably impressed so we exchanged email addresses and I would not be surprised that we might hear from them.

Next morning I awoke to a blizzard of new snow. It had already accumulated about 3" and it continued to snow throughout the morning. The snow was light and dry; perfect powder. At the breakfast buffet, I joined a nice Chinese couple with a young five year old boy I had briefly talked to in the dining room the night before. They were from Shanghai. He was a business man and spoke perfect English. His wife was an English teacher but surprisingly the son spoke zero English. He could however ski like a little demon. The father had spent some time in Canada and learned to ski while he was there. He has been teaching his son for several years. I joined them for a few trips down the mountain but my legs were not up to theirs and I quickly excused myself.

Breakfast over, I headed to the ski rental shop. Not much in the way of English but it was set up like any rental shop so I tried to smile and gesture my way through the process. After a number of false starts they called up to the hotel and had them send down an English speaker to guide me through the process. It was all about the rental forms, copies of the form, deposits and would I like to by some insurance. Typical Chinese bureaucracy and salesmanship. My English guide was one of the kids from the bar whom I had given the English lesson to. The clothing and equipment were all brand new or a least used very little and well maintained. By 9:00 I was ready to venture out into the blizzard and on to the shiny red 6 passenger gondola.. I was joined by three older Chinese men all about my age who had followed me out of the lodge. They had a little English and offered to show me the around the hill so I joined them for a few runs. It continued to snow heavily and by 12:00 I was toast and headed back to my room. A long soak in the bathtub and I was ready to face the trip back home. While enjoying a drink in the bar and once again giving a English lesson, I was joined by Ester Ng and Christine. Ester is a Canadian of Chinese descent, living in HongKong and working as a free lance lifestyles writer. Christine was the manager of PR for the hotel. Ester was doing an article for the newly opened resort. They offered me a ride back to the train station. The highway into Yabuli had been closed by the snow so they were returning to Harbin by the afternoon train so Ester could catch her flight out in the evening.

My first solo experience in China was a success but I can't call booking into a five star hotel adventurous. I will return with Nonie if we get the chance.

A BET MADE, A BET PAID

Pancakes were being served at the Cornell's last Sunday. Final retribution for the loss by the Canadians to the Russians in the gold medal hockey final of the World Universiade Games held in Harbin at the end of February. The bet was with my Russian colleague, Irena. If Canada lost I was to serve pancakes and if Russia lost, she would be serving blinis, a kind of a Russian crepe. Thanks to a stupid penalty near the end of the third period Canada lost and I needed to dig out my chef's hat. A few of the young'uns invited themselves to the payoff. Branson and Takae came with Russian champagne and orange juice. whipping up some delicious Mimosas. Brian brought his appetite. The pancakes turned out to be a little on the heavy side and were renamed flapjacks. But smothered in some pseudo maple syrup, they tasted great.

Irena, a gracious winner, brought her own stove, pan along with blini fixings and made batch after batch of the delicate crepe like creations. She also brought some homemade jam, canned plums and honey which were used to smother the blinis. Once smothered, you rolled them up like a crepe and inhaled them. We lost count on the number that Brian was able to put away. The brunch rolled on into the afternoon with some pleasant banter and Mimosas. A nap rounded out a wonderful day. The only thing missing was Nonie. Perhaps if she had been here, the flapjacks would have been pancakes.

Her eye is showing good progress and if all goes well she will be able to fly about mid April. I cannot wait. I have made a decision to stretch my wings a bit and try a little independent travel. There is a ski resort located about 180 miles from Harbin called Yabuli. It is billed as the largest hill in operation in China. I am working on the logistics and hope to go next weekend on my own. The weatherman is forecasting some snow up to Saturday then sunny on Sunday. So if all goes well, I will be skiing in some fresh Chinese power on Sunday morning. More in a later blog.

Here Comes The Bride

Attended my first Chinese wedding reception on Sunday. It was to say the least short and sweet. One hour and 20 minutes start to finish. The reception was for our contact in the foreign affairs department Liu Guodong. He and his wife Aileen were married in Guodong's hometown near the city of Xian, home to the terracotta soldiers. The wedding was held during the spring festival. This reception was held for all their friends and acquaintances in Harbin who could not attend his wedding.

We were picked up by a bus and dropped off at the hotel where the reception was to be held. We were met at the door by Guodong and escorted upstairs to the hall. We were 20 minutes early but the place was already hopping. A quick count indicated there was going to be over 250 guests attending. The hall was already hazy with cigarette smoke, a blue cloud hanging over the tables. On each table were two bottles of pop, beer and a small bottle of a wickedly strong liquor popular in NE China. It tastes like rubbing alcohol only with a higher alcohol content and a worse taste. Smelling it could cause blindness.

The reception started about 10 minutes late. The bride and groom were welcomed into the reception with canned music played at a level that would have required ear protection anywhere else. I had been warned there may be fireworks and given the amount of flammable material around, I quickly oriented myself to the nearest fire exit, conveniently located right behind my chair. As the bride and groom entered, two large bangs went off sending a Vesuvius like eruption of a of paper confetti everywhere. Great, more flammable material. A very lively MC kept up a loud and high speed banter that even our resident Chinese speakers were hard pressed to understand. It seemed to follow traditional wedding reception form with speeches from the best man and the boss. A small decorated bag was place on each table which contained candy and cigarettes. Candy and smokes are traditional gifts to guests of wedding.

Following the speeches the couple completed two small ceremonies. The first involved a huge tower of tea candles. The groom was handed what looked like a glass sword with a weird tip. He waved the sword over the candles then lit the tip of the sword from one of the tea candles. He then used the small flame on the end of the sword to light what I thought was a large candle. It immediately transformed itself into a 24" long lance of fire that you could have probably done some welding with. I looked for the nearest fire extinguisher and edged closer to the exit. I kept a sharp eye on it and watched it safely burn itself out in about 2 minutes.

The bride and groom then move over to the opposite side of the stage to a stack of champagne glasses in the shape of a water fall. They gently opened a bottle of champagne and together poured the contents into the top glass. They continued to pour till that glass was full then the champagne overflowed into the next glass and so on and so on till the bottom glass was full. The whole thing was sized to accept the entire bottle of champagne. The couple then took two of the champagne glasses and toasted each other.

Through out these activities the staff brought dish after dish of food. We eventually had over 10 dishes on the table, sometimes having to stack one dish on top of another. They were mostly dishes that I recognized and had eaten many times. They included shrimp, beef, pork, fish, fungus, mushrooms, mixed vegetables and of course rice. It was probably one of the tastiest meals that I have enjoyed to date. Throughout this, the MC sang songs, pointed at us a lot and kept the crowd entertained.

The last duty of the bride and groom was to attend each table and drink a toast using that wonderful rubbing alcohol but served in a thimble size glass. Probably wise as they had over 25 tables to visit. We were able to toast with what ever was on the table. The couple then disappeared to the lobby where they provided photo ops for the departing guests. By 12:45 the exodus had started and by 1:10 we were one of the last tables. By 1:30, you would not have known a wedding had taken place in the room except by the floor which was littered with flammable materials, cigarette butts and empty bottles.

A great introduction to a Chinese wedding. I hope to be invited to more in the future.

Spring has Sprung?

Can 500 basketball players be wrong. Spring was in the air around Harbin this week. The last vestiges of snow disappeared from the courts on Sunday and by 9:00 AM the students appeared like Canada geese returning to Skaha Park. The temperature was still hovering slightly below zero but the sun was shining. By Tuesday day time highs were reaching into the single digits with the help of clear blue skies and brilliant sunlight.

Alas, it was just a tease. By Friday a nasty cold front moved in from Siberia and day time temperatures plummeted below zero ending with a nice layer of snow today. Google says it is going to warm up again towards the end of this week. Looks like all the budding Yao Min's will have to delay their dunks for a few days.

Classes have begun for all foreign experts. Schedules for most of us are not as sweet as they were last year. Branson and Brian have been working feverishly to reschedule some classes to create a long weekend but neither has had any success at this point. The class schedules for Nonie and I are definitely not as nice as our first semester. We are not teaching Grad students as we had been led to believe. Instead we are teaching third year juniors who we are told are the high achievers at HIT. All our classes this semester are either late afternoon or evening classes. with classes five days a week. We will both teach the same students so this will required the development of another 30 hours of curriculum in addition to what we created for the first semester. It will be another busy semester for us.

I have now met all of our students and their English is definitely stronger than the grad students of last semester. I am now busy revising our developed curriculum to make it more challenging. The classes of 20+ are mostly boys/young men so the testosterone levels are very high and is reflected in very high noise levels during class activities. Two of the classes have no females, three classes have only one while the rest have no more than 6 female students. The decibel level in the classes with the higher ratio of female students is definitely more muted. I am sure Tom our in-house psychologist could explain this clinically but for most parents of boys it would be self explanitory.

I am off to a wedding reception on Sunday and hopefully will have some pictures for my next post.

There Is No Joy in Haerbinville

It has been a busy first week since my return to Haerbin. Haerbin has been hosting the World University Winter Games for the last week. Athletes from all around the world have gathered to compete in hockey, curling, figure skating, speed skating and skiing. I took full advantage of the opportunity and took in a number of hockey games featuring Canada of course. I even managed to convince some Russians, Americans and Chinese to attend one game as un-official Canadians.


They came decked out with flags and tatoos totally hyped to cheer for Team Canada who were playing Team Kazakstan. Only one rowdy Russian chose to cheer for the hapless Kazaks, but to no avail. Canada had little trouble, defeating the Kazaks 8 to 2. The win put the Canadian team into the gold medal final against Team Russia. I was so confident that Canada would be in the final I tried to get tickets for this game from Canada but it had been sold out for weeks. I was quoted almost three times the ticket price from a local scalper.

Thanks to the kindness of one of the un-official Canadian Russians, Brian and I and four Russians managed to get tickets to the final. Up to this point Team Canada had pretty easy games in their pool winning all four games by huge margins. Alas they ran into a Russian powerhouse. The first period was fairly even with both teams handing out some serious body checks. But the Russians picked up their game a notch in the second period. Thanks to a five minute major the Canadians were able to escape the period tied 2 all. The third period was all Russia but thanks to a hot Canadian goalie, the Canadians were able to stay in the game till the 17 minute mark when a stupid penalty left them short handed. The Russians stormed the net to score the go ahead goal, then scored a second one in the last minute thanks to another stupid Canadian penalty. Final score Team Russia 4, Team Canada 2. I now have to cook pancakes for the Russians. If Canada had won I would be pigging out on bellinis, a Russian pancake like dish.

Sadly Nonie was not able to join me in Haerbin but her eye is doing well and hopefully she will be able to rejoin me at the end of March. Classes start Monday. We will be teaching Juniors this semester and not Grads as we had been led to believe. So it may be back to the drawing board for us. Nonie will be teaching the same seven classes as I am so it will mean the preparation of an additional 14 lessons plans for the classes. All classes are in the late afternoon and evening. Not as nice a schedule as the first semester as Nonie and I are both morning people.