Breakfast

The best way I can contrast Shenzhen with Tianjin is breakfast. It's 7:30am right now. I'm hungry. If I were in Tianjin I'd take a five minute walk towards Anshan Xi Dao and would find at least two people in the street selling Chinese omelets, someone else selling fried eggs, and at least one strange variable. In the food alley off to the side I'd be able to get something akin to a chicken McMuffin and several creative concoctions of hot sauce, meat, dry biscuit, and egg. I would grab an orange juice from one of several drink vendors.

Street vendors are illegal here. My clearest option at this very moment is to walk into the kitchen and pour a bowl of fake Mueslix cereal that I bought at Super Wal-Mart yesterday. I could walk across the street to the 7-11 and grab a slurpee [I'm very clearly addicted] and a fried egg if I wanted to. They also have the standard convenience store pre-packaged mini-meals that one throws in the microwave. A few restaurants sell some sort of small meat dumpling with hot soy milk out front in the morning. K. found a few my first day here, but I can't find said restaurants on this side of town.

I really feel like I'm in some hybrid Hong Kong/Los Angeles/Miami right now. The language barrier is more difficult here, no pinyin on signs and different accents, but it just doesn't feel very "Chinese." I think I'd come to accept the lack of aesthetics and grittiness - if not outright dirtiness - juxtaposed with overflowing curiosity and humility as "Chinese." The streets here are cleaner than many European streets, the sidewalks run snake patterns against the road to better show off the beautiful trees hanging overhead. Looking at a map, entire swath's of town are colored green to show off parks. There are several "public gardens" surrounding the office.

That said, all the American teachers are spread out here. I'd have to take a bus to visit half of them. Three others are a 15 minute walk away. I don't feel the same sense of community we had back in Tianjin. I haven't met any Chinese but our small staff of four. I've traveled the length of the city two or three times, but I still don't recognize any landmarks. This place is huge. My first impressions of Shenzhen is a summation of all the reasons I've always feared moving to a big city. Sometimes a place is just too big to become familiar with.

By the time I left, I knew most of the faces in my neighborhood. I knew where to eat, I knew the best dishes, I knew when people set up and closed shop. I'm sure I'll learn the routine here soon, but in the meantime I miss dirty ole Tianjin.

I've been sick the past two days. I'll start posting more regularly very soon.



Tags: Treyopia Shenzhen stories Tianjin comparison food China

Shenzhen

It will take about a week to get posting on a regular basis again. I wish I were kidding when I tell you that at the moment I'm typing this, I'm holding my laptop outside a 16-story window stealing a WiFi connection.

The Train

The aisle went down the right side of the train. Fold-down seats with a strong recoil back into an upright position line the wall against windows. Small tables, perhaps 10 inches deep, are offered for every two seats. The left 2/3's of the train are bunks 3 high, 6 to a cabin. They are perhaps 18 inches deep and spaced maybe three feet apart from each other in height. It is impossible to sit upright in the top two bunks. The bottom bunks provide headroom but are used as couches by random strangers. Spidery passengers use other bunks as ladders up and down instead of the micro-ladders.

I got to the train late-ish. Sometimes you get a spirited cabbie, sometimes you don't. When I got onboard the luggage racks about the fold-up seats. I had to pile my backpackers bag and my laptop bag on the bed while tucking my book satchel underneath the bottom seat. Needless to say this took an already cramped situation and cut my sleeping space in half.

* * *
I managed to make the sleeping space bearable. I threw a comforter over my bags and propped my feet on them. For the first time in awhile it was relatively easy to pass out when night came. I didn't sleep the night before and got only a few hours as we passed through Hebei province at the begining of the trek. I think it's easier for me to sleep in slightly situations than in comfortable beds.

I woke up at 2am though. A soft-spoken English-speaking employee of the constuction arm of SinoPec (Chinese state-run oil company) was sitting at one of the chairs watching the nightscape of Sichuan Province unfold. We had an eerie conversation in the darkness. The mining outposts in the mountains lit the train as we passed by. I had a vaque idea that somehow, in some way, the afterlife vaquely resembled being on a 27-hour Chinese train ride.

* * *
I tried falling back asleep. I turned to put my headphones on - Mogwai had knocked me out earlier in the night. I moved and felt something fall.

THUMP!

I had twice dropped my Chinese workbook to the floor during the voyage. A gruff looking man escorting his son to his first day of college lifted it back up to me both times.

I looked down. My pillow was slumped against his body and it had knocked his tea cantine against his head. CRAP! I rolled over facing the wall and fell into uncontrolable quiet laughter.

Play it cool. Pretend like it was the girl sleeping above me.

After a few minutes I rolled back over to plan my rescovery operation. The pillow was gone. I looked closely. The man's head was propped twice as high as it was last time, my pillow a kindly gift from the gods above.

* * *

Off The Grid

I move to Shenzhen tomorrow at noon. I'll be off the grid for during the 27-hour train ride and the subsequent moving in to my new apartment.




Not perfectly accurate. Brian insists I won't be going through Beijing, but this is the most direct route. China. Direct route. lol. Did I tell you guys they're sending another guy back up on the train to Tianjin and right back down because they forgot to take his picture during his physical in Tianjin? 50+ hours on a train for that!!! This on the heels of having the same ride up and down two weeks ago.