Last week Maggie and I grabbed a flight out of PVG and made our annual pre-holiday trip to visit the inlaws and friends in Dalian. That we both work outside the confines of anyone’s schedule but our own, we are fortunate that we can travel when the rest of the country is distractedly focused on tying up loose ends before one of China’s major holidays. It makes for cheaper and less crowded travel.

Returning to Dalian, where I spent the first year and a half of my China life, is always a mixed bag. I love Suzhou, and I love living in Suzhou more than I loved living in Dalian. But at the same time, Dalian has the huge draw of both friends who have remained (or returned) there and a rather large nostalgia factor.

That it was the first place me and China started our near half-decade affair has left me with a strong impression of Dalian. Around every corner and down every road there seems to be an “oh, I remember that place!” moment, followed promptly by a “hey, but that’s new!” While living there I was always on the fringes of the city proper — living first in Jinzhou district (the “district” bit being a bit of an insult to the city, as it’s older than Dalian), where I met Maggie and where her family continues to live; and second in Jinsanjiao, on the northern edge of Dalian city.

Never having lived downtown may be one of the major reasons I was eager to leave Dalian, and upon looking back, may have lead me to judge the place a bit unfairly. While it is relatively Western friendly, my feeling about the place is that it doesn’t remotely compare to the Westernized parts of Suzhou. Dalian, despite all its development, is still in Dongbei, China’s northeastern rust-belt.

And while Dalian — more than most Dongbei cities, has spent lots of time and energy trying to reinvent itself, learning largely through trial and error what works and what doesn’t, Suzhou’s a decade or two ahead. As a comfortable place to live, Suzhou still takes the cake. However, let me compare a few differences between the two places I’ve called “home” in China:

Weather

Despite being a Canadian, I’ve no loyalty to four distinct seasons. While Dalian’s weather is much closer to that of which I’m used to, I wasn’t sad to leave Dalian’s icy winters behind when I moved south. What I hadn’t counted on was Suzhou’s absolute bunk climate. Even in winter Dalian is likely to have beautifully clear-skied and sunny days. Suzhou hasn’t had sun since the Song Dynasty.

While enduring Dalian’s northern winters may be a challenge, its summer is livable and its spring and fall are a good length. Not so in Suzhou. Suzhou’s summer is akin to living in a bathhouse for 4-5 months, and its winter is wet and about as close to freezing as you can get without committing to it. Winters are made all the worse by the peculiar evolutionary trait of those born south of the Chang Jiang being without the good sense to insulate their buildings. Fall and spring are things only existent in fables — as proof, it will be October tomorrow and I’m still in shorts and tees.

Dalian: 2 – Suzhou: 0

Food

This is another area where both places are nothing to write novels about — blog posts maybe. I find Dongbei food rather simple and bland, while Suzhou’s local fare is sweet and a bit odd (bull frog is a common menu item). My palate is much more inline with Hunan or Sichuan food, and I can’t get enough of the cumin-y goodness of Xinjiang food.

Where Dalian edges out Suzhou is that it has a wide selection of chuar locales. There wasn’t a place I lived or visited in Dalian that wasn’t a 5-10 minute walk from a street full of low-sitting tables and stools eager for you to grill stuff. While Suzhou has a few chuar spots, they are just that – few. And while my body is surely happy I’m not sucking back enough carcinogens to give my grandkids cancer and washing ‘em down with bottle after bottle of cheap brew, there’s a reason a chuar restaurant is usually my most anticipated event in Dalian.

Dalian also scores points over most Dongbei locations as being close to the sea, and for this seafood lover, that’s a huge plus.

Dalian: 2 – Suzhou: 0

Western Standards of Living

Now before the FOTBers or hard-core expats get their backs up, let me qualify this by saying — to each their own. For me, I’ve lived in China long enough that a bit of comfort is something I’m willing to look for. When I first arrived, and occasionally still in fits of boredom, I loved the chaotic cacophony that I had assumed was China. I felt it defined China in some way, and that I was missing out on it by living a cushy expat existence. But then I asked myself, would anyone live in those conditions if they weren’t forced to by finance or because they’re a cultural tourist? Probably not. At least not me.

And while Dalian has some charming and exclusive expat-geared communities and facilities, Suzhou gets all the points in this category. In fact, from what I’ve seen of Shanghai, Suzhou would give it a run for its money. The entire eastern end of Suzhou is row after row of wide, organized streets, designated and protected bike paths, international restaurants, and decently maintained apartment complexes.

Dalian: 0 – Suzhou: 3 (because few things top ‘livability’ for points)

Culture and History

The park at 2,500-year-old Pan Gate

Being that it was the native home to nomads, it is perhaps unsurprising that there aren’t many long-standing cultural spots in Dongbei, and what few the area has, virtually none of them are in Dalian.

Suzhou, by contrast, has been sitting here for 2,500 years just collecting culture like it might one day come back in style. Despite winning 3 points for its modernity, Suzhou has done a decent enough job maintaining its numerous historical sites — the revenue for which no doubt helped pay for the newly developed districts.

Both places provide good insight into what is China’s chimera-like culture, but for strictly bookish culture and history points, Suzhou wins hands down. There aren’t many cities in China that get their own Chinese sayings, nor do many still have monuments to pre-Qin kings.

Dalian: 0 – Suzhou: 2

Natural Scenery

Bingyu Valley, just outside of Dalian

Both Suzhou and Dalian have decent scenery. Suzhou’s Venice-like network of canals are fed by a number of lakes in the surrounding area, including China’s third largest, Tai Hu. Additionally, there are a good number of large hills (called “mountains”, but really?) for a day out hiking.

Dalian is also great for hiking, with Da Hei Shan and Bingyu Valley being particularly great spots to visit. However, where Dalian jumps ahead of Suzhou is its proximity to the sea. While perhaps not for everyone, it’s hard to deny the aesthetics of a nice sea-side sunset/sunrise. Coupling its drastic seaview vistas with its rugged hilly terrain, Dalian beats out Suzhou in this category.

Dalian: 2 – Suzhou: 1

Location

This was one of the primary reasons I was eager to move down from Dalian to Suzhou three years ago. While Dalian is well-connected via trains, planes, busses and ferries; Suzhou wins out simply for being directly adjacent to one of China’s (indeed, the world’s) largest cities. Suzhou’s proximity to Shanghai (just half-hour on the new fast trains) give it a huge leg-up over Dalian, which despite its connectivity is still in the relatively isolated northeast.

And while unlike Dalian, Suzhou doesn’t have its own airport, we’re happy enough borrowing the two in Shanghai, or a third in nearby Wuxi. Shuttles run from Suzhou to both of Shanghai’s airports, and because Shanghai PVG is a truly international airport, global direct flights are easy to come by.

The one downside to Suzhou’s otherwise unencumbered system is that it is virtually the last stop before Shanghai for all trains coming from the north. This can make it a bit of a challenge to get train tickets to Shanghai last minute.

Dalian: 0 – Suzhou: 1

Nightlife

I’m married, what the hell do I know about nightlife anymore?

Actually, I think both cities are pretty much on par with each other in this regard. Both have a couple of clubs, a number of pubs, and a few good miscellaneous expat hangouts (cafes and whatnot). The only edge I might give Dalian here is that it is generally cheaper to go out in Dalian than in Suzhou — which seems to have taken its pricing cues from its big sister to the east.

Dalian: 1 – Suzhou: 1

Final Score & Conclusions

Dalian: 7
Suzhou: 8

Not a striking difference, and admittedly my scoring is biased as all hell. At the end of the day, I would happily recommend (and have numerous times) either place as a good spot to live. That they have their differences is a great argument against the opinion (that I’ve more than once repeated) that all Chinese cities are indistinguishable at their core.

A few photos from my trip to Dalian

What wasn’t mentioned on the Web sites I reviewed, but was added to the rhetoric after I arrived was that Dalian girls are considered some of the most beautiful women in China. I’m betting had I known this beforehand, it wouldn’t have come down to a coin-toss between Dalian and Qingdao (another beautiful sea-side city with a beer festival, but no beautiful women to speak of — my requirements weren’t complex).

Dōngběi nǚzǐ, northeastern women, are renowned throughout China for being tall, strong-willed and fair-skinned beauties; a fact that most every taxi driver comments on when I tell him that my wife is from Dalian.

When moving to Suzhou in 2006, the aforementioned beautiful Dalian girl in tow told me (somewhat apprehensively) that Suzhou has been famous for centuries (perhaps millennia) for its beautiful women. After having heard the same thing about Dalian over the previous year and a half, I was beginning to suspect Chinese people just told foreigners this about every city in China.

According to this recent article on Netease, thankfully translated by the folks at ChinaHush, which ranks China’s top 10 cities with the most beautiful women, there’s some truth to it (if truth can be found in online polls) — Dalian took the #1 spot, with Suzhou following closely at #4.

1. Dalian | 大连

Bold but graceful
Score: 95
Girls from northeast of China always have the reputation of being light skinned and tall. Dalian girls are undoubtedly the cream of the crop among girls in the northeast of China. Compare with women in southern China, Dalian girls might not be as graceful, but they are more bold and prideful; Compare with women in other northeast China and other inland cities, Dalian women added more elegance. For example actress Dong Jie (董洁) is a typical representative of the girls in Dalian.

4. Suzhou & Hangzhou | 苏杭

Pretty girl of humble birth
Score: 92
Suzhou is the most girly city in China. Some say more than half of the beauties of southern China are in Suzhou. They all have admirable pretty hands. Needless to say, Suzhou girls are most suitable to be kind, considerate and desirable lovers. Suzhou and Hangzhou are known to produce beauties, is indeed well-deserved reputation. [Example]: Han Xue (韩雪)

The full list is

1. Dalian | 大连 – Bold but graceful – Score: 95
2. Chongqing | 重庆 – Warm like fire – Score: 94
3. Chengdu | 成都 – Pure as the eye solution – Score: 93
4. Suzhou & Hangzhou | 苏杭 – Pretty girl of humble birth – Score: 92
5. Changsha | 长沙 – Beauty of blandness – Score: 91
6. Nanjing | 南京 – Delicate, free and natural – Score: 90
7. Shanghai | 上海 – Fashionable and exquisite – Score: 89
8. Beijing | 北京 – Aristocrat of the century – Score: 88
9. Hong Kong | 香港 – Fashion Pioneers – Score: 87
10. Guangzhou | 广州 – Soft inside and hard outside – Score: 86

As the last time I got my visa in Suzhou the woman told us in no uncertain terms not to come back, Mags and I knew we’d be heading to Dalian this month when my visa expired. Any trip to Dalian is generally a welcomed one for Maggie, as it means she can visit with her family. For me it means squirming through uncomfortable Chinese conversations with my inlaws, and getting drunk with old Dalian friends.

We flew in on Wednesday and went straight out to Jinzhou, Maggie’s hometown about 20km outside of Dalian. After dropping off our bags we headed directly to the Jinzhou police station.

Though you’re supposed to register with the local police station within 24 hours of arriving anywhere in China, this was the first time I adhered to the rule – and with good reason. The first step to securing a visa in China is obtaining a sheet of paper from the local (and sometimes district) police station confirming that it’s cool with them if you hang out in the area.

You’ve got to love small towns. We had forgotten to photocopy something, and with the station’s photocopy room closed for the day the cop drove us down to a copy shop.

We were on a pretty tight schedule to get things done, as it was late Wednesday and that left only Thursday and Friday to complete the visa process before the weekend hit (I needed to leave on Sunday to get back for Monday). Happily the officer was quite intrigued that this small-town girl had hooked herself a foreigner and had brought him into their tiny district, and the whole process was the most congenial of any such visit I’ve had to make to a police station here in China.

Stopping to pick up a DVD player for Maggie’s parents. My, somewhat misguided, attempt to give them a nice gift. I’m sure that it’ll be gathering dust beside the microwave in the spareroom in a matter of days.

Back at the apartment we sat down to a banquet-sized dinner of seafood – a ritual everytime Maggie returns to her sea-side home after living with the land-dwellers of the south. A love for seafood is something I share with my wife, so I was not disappointed.

Day Two: 110

Having stayed up virtually the night before we left trying to get work done, I was happy to lie in a bit Thursday morning – quite contrary to the 5:30am rising of my inlaws.

Eventually we wandered our way into Dalian. Not being certain when the PSB takes their lunch, we decided to browse around Victory Square and grab a bite before heading over to the visa office.

It’s amazing how familiar Dalian is to me, even after having not lived there for more than two years now. There are certainly a lot of aspects about Suzhou that I am more familiar with (namely bars and restaurants), but when it comes to shopping, for whatever reason, I can navigate Dalian like a champ.

After a big plate of málàtāng we grabbed a cab to the PSB. Picky cabs are rare in Suzhou, so I was a bit thrown off when after giving the cabbie the address he said he couldn’t take us. He tried to lay some lame excuse about traffic on us, but we knew it was just because our destination was within the 8RMB base fare. Fuck that. I refused to get out of the cab. He took us. Asshole.

Interestingly enough – not the biggest asshole cabbie of the day. But more on that in a moment.

We got to the PSB and dutifully took our number. After waiting for 30-40 minutes, our turn came and we approached the visa officer. Very kindly (a drastic change from our experiences at the Suzhou visa office) the officer explained that we were at the wrong PSB – Jinzhou-based applications had to go to kāifāqū, Dalian’s shiny tax-free development zone – roughly the same distance from Dalian as Jinzhou. Sigh.

A bit bothered that we had wasted so much time, we were still in high spirits of finishing the visa process that day. It was only 2pm, leaving us plenty of time to get up to kāifāqū. We grabbed a cab and headed for the light rail station.

Arriving at the light rail station I was getting out of the cab, crossing over the backseat so as not to exit into traffic, and my foot hit the dirty plastic cover encasing the car’s emergency break. Apologizing , I continued to get out of the taxi.

And that’s when it all went to shit. The taxi driver jumped out of the cab and began yelling at us, accusing me of accosting his rust-eaten, early 90s model Santana. Not believing I could have done any “real” damage, I tried to ignore the driver and cross the road, but he wasn’t having any of it.

He yelled at us to come back, which – being the stupid whelps we are – we did. We listened to him bitch about how I maliciously, and with full-force intention kicked (he kicked the air for effect) the plastic cover and snapped it completely off. To prove his point he went back into the car and, with some effort, yanked the piece off.

Now, with a crowd starting to gather, he clearly illustrated where I had broken it – at the front of the piece of plastic. From the back seat. Where I hardly had room to move, never mind leverage to cause damage.

Not wanting to stand in the middle of the street, I moved us over to the sidewalk – unintentionally giving the mob more room to grow. Maggie, bless her heart, said to hell with all this and called 110, the Dalian police department. She explained the situation to the dispatch woman, emphasizing that the the taxi driver wouldn’t let her or her foreigner husband leave.

The cops showed up, the man showed them the tiny plastic tab (one of six that held the piece in place) that he was accusing me of having broken. You could almost hear the cop’s smirk. Looking to solve this stupid situation as fast as possible the cop asked the guy what the thing was worth. The cabbie feigned that he didn’t know and had to call a friend.

A minute or so later he came back and said it was about 20 RMB.

20 RMB. I don’t know who thought the guy was a bigger idiot – me, the crowd, or the cop. The cop deemed that if it was worth 20 RMB new it must be worth 10 RMB used and proposed that I pay the 10 RMB – tacking on that if we disagreed, we’d be solving things downtown.

Of course I paid it. I would have paid 20 RMB just to have not had to waste my time. But, of course, that’s not what this was about. Fortunately Maggie’s calling of the cops killed the cabbie’s quick con, where, through the course of arguing with us in public he was intending to extort a much greater sum.

Asshole.

Now 3pm we hopped on the light rail and headed for kāifāqū. Time was getting tight, but we were still confident we would make it well before 4:30-5pm – the time in which we assumed the office closed.

It was with the resigned chuckle of two people who’d had a hell of a day that we read the “Due to a meeting today, the Foreign Visa Window will be closed at 3:30pm” sign. It was 3:40.

We headed back to Jinzhou – heads low and utterly defeated.

Adventures in Korean

To lift our (my) spirits, we took Maggie’s parents out for dinner. During the time in which I lived in Jinzhou I came to love a tiny Korean restaurant, and Maggie thought it’d be nice to take them there.

I stunned me that despite Dalian, and the North East in general, having a huge Korean population, Maggie’s parents had lived more than half a century and not ever tried Korean food.

Fortunately, her father, not unlike myself, is entirely carnivorous and so BBQ’d meat wasn’t too difficult a sell. Her mother couldn’t stop asking Maggie in hushed voices, “So, this is really what they eat?”

Day 3: Visas, Brooklyn and Meatloaf

Fortunately the second time was a charm. We returned to the visa office bright and early and relatively smoothly were given a 1 year, multiple entry, infinitely renewable visa. Maggie explained the troubles we went through trying to get the visa in Suzhou, and how rude the visa officer was to us both. With that the visa officer turned to me and (in English) said, “Welcome” and then in Chinese called me a “son-in-law” of Dalian.

I can see why people hate moving away from their hometowns in this country.

Later that day we headed into Dalian. I had plans to meet up with Rick and Alex at the electronic city, where I hoped to pick up a Sony Playstation Portable for my 24 hour train ride back to Suzhou on Sunday.

Late to arrive, Rick and Alex had done 80% of the PSP hunting for me, even going so far as to source out who seemed like the best vendor (great guys, them). After a bit of haggling I secured the coolest toy I’ve owned in a while.

On top of the 8 GB of movies, music and video games I can slap onto it, it also has a built-in wifi card that I can connect and browse the Internet with. I even went so far as to pickup the cables so I can hook ‘er up to the TV – allowing me to stream video from my PC hard drive, over the wifi, through the PSP and onto my TV in the other room. Too cool.

From the electronic city we headed up the road and hit Brooklyn, a relatively new bar/eatery that Rick had been raving about during his visit to Suzhou the week before. The place had me at cheap cold Dalian gānpí and reasonably priced bacon-wrapped meatloaf.

Day 4: Hand-made dumplings, farewell to Jinzhou and one horny fucking dog

Saturday night I had arranged to crash at Rick’s to allow for an easy jump to the train station the following day, and the ability to go out and not have to worry about catching the last train back to Jinzhou that night.

For lunch Maggie’s mom, Maggie and I made dumplings from scratch – something I’ve had rather few opportunities to do (it’s up there with speaking Chinese and playing mahjong as things I should know by now). The dumplings were admittedly better than the frozen ones I usually eat, but a helluva lot of work.

We got to Rick’s early in the evening and finally met his famous dog: Pepe Q-Tip. I’ve never met a dog so excited to see me. He didn’t stop humping things nearly the entire time we were there. Rick, a man with a sense of humour, bought Pepe a giant inflatable hammer that he can pleasure himself with. It squeaks. Fecking hilarious. (and he’s available ladies)

Tearing ourselves away from the infinitely entertaining Mr. Q-Tip, we hit up a great (and cheap) little Japanese BBQ place where we were met by more friends: Devon and a kiwi named Nick.

After dinner I said my goodbyes to Maggie – as she had to catch a train back to Jinzhou and so couldn’t join us on our trip to the bar. We hit up Noah’s, the first bar I ever went to in Dalian, which has barely changed at all.

It’s funny how perspectives change over time. I remember I used to think that Noah’s was a bit pricey (when compared to 2RMB fake beers at the chuar stand), but now looking at their prices, it’s easily 10 RMB cheaper there for a pint of Carlsberg than it is at the cheapest bars here in Suzhou.

But it’s not just the location, I guess it’s also my station in life that’s changed. When I lived in Dalian I was a poorly paid ESL teacher, and every RMB counted. Now, I’m by no means well-off, but certainly doing better than I was in those days – making 10 RMB here or there not such an issue.

Still, it made the copious zài lái‘s all the sweeter.

Day 5: A day on the train

After a alcohol induced sleep, broken only once when I woke up to find Pepe Q-Tip snuggled up against me on the couch staring me right in the face, Rick and I headed out for some breakfast. We met up with a friend of his, Tom, that graciously filled up my PSP with some games for my journey ahead.

Then I got on the train. And nearly exactly one day later, I got off. Fuck it was long. I had done the trip before, but it was with Maggie and so much more entertaining. In fact, other than an occasional “damn” or “yes!” while playing my PSP, I didn’t say a word for 24 hours.

With only limited seating available when we bought the tickets, I was confined to the top bunk in the sleeper train, and I only removed myself from it 3 times the entire journey. I likely wouldn’t have moved at all had it not been for the 6 pack of Qingdao beer my mother-in-law insisted I take with me. Bless her heart.

So, home now. It’s great to be back and great to see Addie again. Maggie and I filled a lot of time up in Dalian joking about what she was up to back here in Suzhou.

It’s also great to be back online. Contrary to what I thought would happen, I didn’t start twitching when I pulled out the plug for 5 days. Still, nice to be reconnected.

This is Maggie’s dog “mao mao” – I know she wasn’t mentioned in this extremely long post, but I couldn’t resist including the picture. The dog is as round as a ball. Seriously, fattest little dog I’ve ever seen.

A friend of mine here in Suzhou and I have created this business as a way for foreigners visiting China to have access to an English-speaking local Chinese guide (or ‘pal’ if you will), while circumventing the shady world of Chinese tour-guides (sorry guys, but you know you are).

Anyone that knows me, or has been reading here long enough, knows that whatever my opinions are, I generally shoot straight. I don’t like bullshit, and have always maintained that this would carry over to any business I create.

So, when hammering out the details of this idea, we tried to come up with a win-win-win situation (and please remove any Michael Scott soundingness of that). Basically we wanted to provide an affordable service that didn’t exploit its workers (as tends to be the norm here in China) and also maintained viability as a business.

The problem with traditional Chinese tour guide services

Generally speaking the Chinese tour guide racket is run like any other business in China, and though this is going to (have to) change, largely it’s tough to find honest guides that have your best interests at heart. Because they are paid a pittance by the tour company, guides are forced to create commission-grabbing relationships with local vendors. Those under the guide’s care are then herded from shop to shop where they are fleeced of their money on extremely over-priced keepsakes.

This is such the norm that most college/university Travel & Tourism programs teach it as part of their curriculum.

This can be avoided by renting out a professional one-on-one interpretor or translator, that for a boatload of money will be happy to give it to you straight (as, at those prices, they’ve no real need for the chintzy commissions of some souvenir vendor).

The Middle Way

We wanted to develop an alternative middle-ground. A way for your average traveller to have a helping hand accessing a side of China that those who don’t speak the language just can’t get to. Our guides are generally university students or recent grads that are looking for experience as well as a bit of extra cash to help with the things university students need (late night KTV sessions, days wasted in netbars, etc.).

So, what’s the deal?

Basically, for $50 USD a day, you get a China Pal to do with as you want. And, yes, I realize that could be taken the wrong way – which is why we have very clear terms of service that forbid any inappropriate behavior or advances towards our guides – we are NOT a dating or escort service – clear?

We take the safety of our guides very seriously, and if we suspect any ulterior motives (or the Pals feel uncomfortable in any way), we immediately cancel the service.

We first launched in Suzhou (Suzhou guide and travel information) and quickly expanded to Dalian (Dalian guide and travel information). Over the coming months we will be aggressively pushing into several other second-tier cities (we’ve our sites on Hangzhou, Nanjing, Xi’An and Xiamen to name a few). So, if you’ve landed here looking for a helper in one of these cities, or know of anyone looking for such a service, please let them know about our little site: www.YourChinaPal.com.

Additionally, if you have any Chinese friends in the cities mentioned who have fantastic English and a winning personality, please direct them to the Jobs page. We’re always looking for good people to join our team.

Feedback is greatly appreciated, either here in the comments or via the contact information on the Your China Pal site.

I’m going to say this once, to be clear about things… NEVER TAKE THE FUCKING BUS IN CHINA.

As I mentioned post-previously (c’mon, that’s kinda fun to say) – Maggie and I opted to take the bus as she was told (by the ticket agent) that it was faster and cheaper. Cheaper it was (300 RMB vs. the 400 RMB of the train, and 800 RMB for a flight), but faster? Not a beancicle’s chance in Wuhan.

We had been told (again, I want to emphasis, by an official agent at the bus station) that it would be 15 hours to Dalian. Considering the train is about 23 hours, this seemed like a pretty good deal. My smile started to waver when we got on the bus and were nearly knocked off again by the force of feet smell that kicked us in the face.

The bus was packed, but the driver quickly shooed a few people off some bunks and we had our beds. The man insisted that I hop up on one of the elevated ones, but my size and chivalry led me to offer that one to Maggie – I took to the floor one bunk back.

The bunk wasn’t what you’d call comfortable, but it wasn’t horrible. There were enough never-been-clean blankets piled into it that it was cushy. However, the bus continued to pick people up (despite being absofuckinglutely full), and I ended up spending the night using my knees to remind the guy sleeping in the isle that my leg was, despite its sexiness, not his mistress.

After a long, long night we hit the 15 hour mark – in Yantai. The little Shandong port city has long been on my list of places to travel to, but at 7 am after a night of breathing dirty socks… I was not pleased. In fact, I was shaking my head in “I should have known better” disbelief the whole walk up to boarding the boat.

Yup, eight more hours on a ferry, and where as at least the bus was mildly comfortable, we were now expected to crowd into a small stuffy room and park ourselves on hard plastic chairs for the rest of the journey – or pay an additional 80 RMB for sleepers.

Two hours in, my patience was strapped and Maggie started looking like she might throw me into the waves for all the whinging that was coming from me. Fortunately we found a little shop on the boat that sold beer, and I started feeling a whole lot better. Yeah, I was drinking at 10 am, what of it? It’s what I like to call “Survival Drinking”.

Mid-afternoon we arrived in Dalian, found ourselves a taxi and high-tailed it to Jinzhou where we were greeted with the first bit of real food we’d eaten in nearly 30 hours. And the food didn’t stop for four days.

Chī Bǎo Le

Food, as we all know, is a huge part of Chinese culture. It, often more than little red envelopes, is the way people express gratitude, wealth, friendship, a desire for guanxi, etc.

I had made the stupid mistake of eating crabs the last time I was at Maggie’s parents’ place, and upon seeing me struggle with the little sea spiders, they asked if I’d ever eaten them before.

Not thinking, I off-handedly mentioned that I didn’t often eat crabs, but on the few times I did they were much bigger, as Canadians don’t eat small crabs like these. The words had barely squeezed passed my shell-cracking teeth when I realized what I had done. Inadvertently, I had just caused my inlaws, the LAST people you want to do this to, to lose face.

So, for months now I’ve been promised that when I came back to Dalian I’d be greeted with some monster crabs. True to their word (and much to the distaste of their savings, I’m sure), I got to eat some massive crustaceans (and perform some much needed “wow, these are much bigger than I’ve ever had in Canada” damage control).

我新的家庭

The main purpose for this trip to Dalian was to give Maggie’s extended family a chance to size up the laowai. Because we had skipped on the traditional big wedding, we’d not given the relatives a suitable opportunity to give Maggie’s folks a bunch of red packets stuffed with Mao’s serene face.

The parents rented out a big dining room at a local hotel, and brought enough candy and cigarettes to feed an army of tweens. All in all about 25-30 of Maggie’s family members came, but I quickly gave up attempting to remember everyone’s proper title.

As some ‘cruelty to foreigners’ initiative, Chinese culture insists on labelling everyone in the family a specific title respective of where they, and yourself, sit in the family tree. There’s nothing so simple as “this is my aunt” or “this is my grandfather” … nono. It works more like “this is my mother’s eldest brother’s wife”, which is completely different from “my father’s younger brother’s wife”.

Fortunately there was plenty of beer, and I was happy to just smile and nod when introduced.

The food was, as expected, fantastic. Dalian is famous for seafood, and there wasn’t much that escaped my chopsticks. I had lobster, beautiful clams, squid, octopus, sea cucumber, abalone, and (for the first time) shark fin – which looks nothing like you’d expect.

After lunch, and some photos, we returned to ma and ba’s apartment for some tummy rest before resuming the mass consumption at my favourite Jinzhou Korean place (Korean food, like seafood, is something I’ve miss dearly since moving from Dalian).

Gangmer!

Wednesday I packed up my stuff, said goodbye to the folks and Maggie and headed down to my buddy Gabriel’s. Of all the friends I’ve made since coming to China, Gabriel is the only one that I’ve actually hung out with back in my home town (his grandmother lived there, and we both happened to be visiting last summer). Perhaps it’s that, or just the fact that he’s one righteous Francophone, he’s always someone I’m excited to catch up with.

But catching up had to wait – Spiderman 3 had just opened, and unlike Suzhou, Dalian gets movies in English. Eager to finally put a face to the blog, I met up with Chris and we headed to the cinema to shell out 40 RMB for disappointment.

After the film, we met up with Gabriel and Kim (another face-to-the-blog meeting) and consumed copious amounts of chuar and beer. Stuffed and saturated, we headed to a party where we continued our quest to drink twice our body-weight in beer. After we cleared through the booze we brought (and cleaned out our host Darby’s fridge) we headed over to The Nep (or what used to just be confusingly called either the Tibetan Bar or the Nepalese Bar – or, even less occasionally, Xi Xiang Bang Ma, the bar’s actual name).

Things get a bit blurry at this point, but I do clearly remember Chris taking some èr guō tóu to the eye, and Gabriel winning himself a bruised shin for it.

All-in-all it was a great night out with the boys; a reminder of my more social days back in Dalian. Suzhou, and married life, have taken their toll on me and I can’t drink like I used to. There was nothing like the changing altitudes and mild turbulence of my flight home to remind me of the fact that I’ve aged.

I’ve had the house to myself since my return yesterday, as Maggie stayed on to get a bit more face time in with the parents. With lots of projects to get caught up on (what I had originally intended to spend my entire holiday doing), it’s been nice having the house to myself. That’s not to say I’m not looking forward to Maggie’s return tomorrow, though I guess it does mean I need to clean up the mess I’ve made – revelling in my pseudo-bachelorhood.

Though I’m always quite keen to go back up to my old stomping grounds in 东北, and Maggie’s thrilled to see her father for the first time since we went in December to register our marriage, the main reason for our visit is so I can be properly welcomed into the family.

As we didn’t have a ‘traditional wedding’ in any sense of the term, I’ve missed out on meeting Maggie’s extended family. So, on May 1st, somewhere in Jinzhou, I’ll be stuffing myself with food, numbing the pain of it with ganbei’d baijiu, all the while stretching my Chinese abilities far past the recommended limits. I need to buy new shoes.

The trip will also give me a chance to reconnect with a few old friends still living in the city, and also meet up with some new friends that I’ve made since moving this act down to Suzhou last August.

A note about travel

As mentioned, we’re taking a sleeper bus from Suzhou to Dalian. Now, I’ll preface this by saying I’ve not taken a sleeper before, so I’m not sure about comfort yet. However, the journey is 10 hours shorter than the train (24h), and about 100 RMB cheaper (Suzhou->Dalian by bus: 320 RMB | Suzhou->Dalian by train: 400 RMB). I’ll write a bit more about the advantages/disadvantages of the two later.

Coming home, I’ll be flying from Dalian to Shanghai. Tickets for the train are a complete and utter impossibility to get this time of year, with train ticket offices swarming with crowds as early as 6 or 7 am. The bus is easier, but again, not sure on the comfort level. As you can’t buy return train/bus tickets outside of the city you wish to depart from, it would have required Maggie’s mom trekking into the scrum in hopes of finding a suitable seat/sleeper for me.

Not liking to cause middle-aged women to revert to a savage-self not seen since the last great evolutionary step, I took a quick look online and found a flight for the entirely reasonable price of 530 RMB (+tx – 660 RMB total).

I’m really warming up to Ctrip, one of two major online airline ticket sites in China (the other being eLong) that offer service in English. We’ve used both, but I dig Ctrip because they will deliver the ticket to my door (I ordered it at 9 a.m. this morning, and it arrived before 11 a.m.), where I can pay in cash.

I also used Ctrip’s hotel booking for a number of the hotels I needed when my family was visiting for our wedding, and it went flawless. Reservations were kept, prices guaranteed, and no deposit needed.

It’s nice to see that China’s travel market is opening up enough that some solid competition is creating quality service. Travel in China is still largely a pain in the ass (as compared to many other countries), but it’s improving.

I’m heading into my second day of orientation and yet another day of trying to track down access to my Canadian bank account. If I had had an inkling of knowledge that this would be so difficult (I think I’ve tried around 20 ATMs in Jinzhou and Dalian) I would have tried a lot harder to find an international ATM at one of the various airports I hit on my way here.

The training is neat, and is giving me loads of ideas on how to manage my classes as well as dispelling some of my fears. Meeting some of the other new teachers was good too, though somewhat useless as they are all in Dalian, and I’m a 40 minute taxi ride away.

Today I’m going to make use of my time in Dalian (and access to Carrefore[sp?] – sort of like Walmart) to buy a rice cooker, possibly a hotpot (see previous entry), some longjohns (have I mentioned how cold it is here?), and maybe some slippers.

I should also track down some new VCDs. Though the ones that came with the apartment were plentiful, they’re a bit crap in the quality department – and for $0.60/VCD… I can’t go too wrong.

Oh, I guess HOW I am going to buy these things if I can’t access my bank account is a big question. After an exhausting trek around Dalian yesterday, I arrived back to Jinzhou to my school manager Sherry’s sympathy. She gave me 800 kuai from my first month’s salary (not usually paid until Feb. 10) to get me by and then took me out for a feast at a local restaurant. I discovered last night that she is the same age as me, though she insists that she is OLDER as she was born in January.

Alright – I think the water is warm. If not I’ll either freeze to the bathroom floor or be the unpopular student at training today. Wish me luck.

My last few days getting accustom to everything here has been a bit daunting, but taken in good form none the less. I left FAR too late from Chris and Jeremy’s house on Friday morning (damn journal posting!) but thankfully caught a cab without too much hassle and headed to the MUNI station, then the BART station and got to the airport at 1:04 p.m., with my flight at 1:35, I was a bit concerned.

Rustling up a zen-like acceptance, I went to the check-in counter and asked if I was too late. She checked and with a good amount of surprise said I wasn’t, that they were still bording, but said she’d have to rush me through the security line (cool). I was pushed to the head of the line and then waited while the rest of the line behind me trickled passed (not so cool). Apparently my ticket had SSSS printed on it and that means RANDOM SECURITY CHECK. Honestly.

So about 20 minutes and a pat down that should have required dinner first by the security official I was waved down by a woman asking if I was Mr. McLaughlin… and then told to get my ass to the gate, the ENTIRE plane was waiting for me. Let me tell ya, I’ve never felt so special.

I got onboard, praying that my luggage was as lucky – especially when the captain made a special announcement (which seemed specifically directed at me) that he was sorry for the delay but because of some late no-shows, some luggage had to be taken off the plane.

Accepting that I had no ability to sort the problem out then and there, I nestled in for my 12 hour flight. Four movies, two meals, some beer, wine and pretzels later I touched down in Beijing. After a infinite wait in line at the customs counters I found my luggage and carried on to my flight to Dalian. Where as there was a good number of laowai (foreigners) coming from San Francisco, it was just me and a sea of Chinese heading to Dalian – regardless, the flight went well and touching down I quickly located two smiling individuals with a sign that read: AES/Future School.

In a series of events that happened far too fast for my well-sleepy mind to properly discern, I was swept into a small van, thrown a bag of McDonald’s burgers and a small orientation kit (complete with muffins and milk) and trucked to Jinzhou. En route David (the city manager for the school) filled me in on some of the details, but being new to the job was not certain on some things – but it was good to have a Western face to bounce questions off in those first few hours.

After a bit of cell-phone debate we found our way to my new home and met up with my manager, Sherry, there. She is Chinese, but speaks solid English and is quite nice. Hiking up to the 7th floor with all my luggage we were greeted by my roommate Tom, a New Zealander at the tail end of his 6 month contract.

After a bit of chit-chat the entourage left and Tom and I got acquainted as he showed me the ins and outs of our place (ie. how the toilet works, etc.).

The following morning (for everyone here at least – to me it was more like the night before… damn jetlag) Sherry met me at the appartment and we walked the 20 minute trek to the school. Located on a pedestrian street (no cars), the school is two floors in a building above various merch shops. I haven’t had a great tour of the classes or anything yet, but have been given a desk in the teachers’ office and met much of the staff.

At about noon I was invited to a wedding. Yup, leave it to me to stumble my way into a wedding my first day in a foreign country. Actually the ceremony was over, but I got to experience a full-on Chinese reception, complete with singing, drinking and FOOD (so that’s what sea cucumber tastes like). The two people getting married were two Chinese teaching assistants at the school, so there were a bunch of us western teachers there, and it was a load of fun.

Tom, Matthew Brandon and Matthew Gordon.

The bride and groom (in the middle) doing a traditional shot of booze with guests.

Around this time I also got introduced to my two neighbours – Matthew and Matthew; two Brits also teaching at the school. Between Matt, Matt, Tom and myself we make up all the English teachers at the school – so it’s quite a tight knit group. Tom only teaches on the weekends and spends most his week in Dalian with his girlfriend there, so I imagine that I’ll be seeing a lot of my neighbours.

After the wedding I returned to the apartment and when Tom got home he showed me around the neighbourhood. Initially when we drove up to my apartment I was worried that Jinzhou was just a sea of apartment buildings with very little support (shopping, restaurants, etc.) making it a pretty boring place to live – but in daylight I was shown wrong. Within walking distance there are a number of restaurants, markets, a grocery store, a music shop, DVD/VCD shops, etc. And better that, all cabs in Jinzhou are a fixed rate of 8 kuai (or yuan) or about the equivilant of a buck.

I met up with M&M at dinner time and we hopped into a taxi and they took me out to eat at a local hotpot restaurant. Hotpot is a delicious way of traditional Chinese cooking where in the middle of your table is a pot with a flame under it. The pot is filled with seasoned water (spicy on one side and not spicy on the other). You then order various meat and veg, which you place in the boiling water for a bit to cook it and then you pull it out and either eat it with rice or dip it first into a savoury peanut sauce.

After dinner we headed back to thier apartment to sip some beer (like 2 kuai, or $0.25 a bottle) and watched a pirated copy of The Shield (US and British TV series are somewhat un-difficult to get here via pirated means, as are most recently released – to theatres – movies).

Yesterday Tom and I hung around the apartment until about 2 p.m. and then he took me down to a local market where I could buy virtually any sort of meat I wanted (including, donkey, sea ray, dog, giant prawns, turtle, etc.) as well as chili peppers (I’ll be able to make some Thai dishes!). We then went down to the school so he could pick up his pay and I could figure out the plan to get to Orientation in Dalian tomorrow with Sherry. One thing I forgot to mention is that in the made dash from the airport I neglected to obtain any Chinese money, but thankfully Sherry leant me 200 kuai and I was able to exchange $15 US yesterday at a local bank. It would seem that none of the local ATMs will accept my bank card, but a quick check of the Net showed me the location of not less than 15 ATMs in Dalian that accept PLUS cards – so that’s top of my list of things to do while in the city for orientation tomorrow.

Returning home Tom and I grabbed some dinner at a restaurant in our little complex of buildings, the waitress there was very nice and though she doesn’t speak much English, I think it will be a reasonably comfortable experience going there without Tom – it helps that he wrote down for me some dishes to ask for.

Tom’s off to Dalian shortly, and I’ll be left to myself in our nice, albeit freezing apartment (the radiators are all controlled by a master switch somewhere, and I guess the warm water, like me, has a difficult time getting to the top floor of this building – the price you pay to live in the penthouse… hahaha). I am going to grab some candles today and see if that helps to warm the place, I am grateful that I brought some blankets with me – not just to cover the cold, but to cover the god-aweful pink comforter that I’ve been provided with.

Before

After

The apartment is a great size and has awesome acoustics (high ceilings) for playing guitar – of which Tom has, so I’ll be using his until I decide to fork out the 200 kuai for my own (honestly… that’s like $15… absolutely ridiculous). I don’t start classes until next Monday, so I have loads of time to further get accustom to life here, but it’s shaping up to be quite an adventure and I’m already loving it. The language is a challenge, but I’m working on it – and I think the lessons will definitely help. Plus Tom and the Matthews are both reasonably fluent, so that will help too.

Living Room	Kitchen
My bedroom, a bit sparse, but I have a bed, a desk and a nice big window.	And a wardrobe… sounds so posh.

Oh! And on yet another positive note – my GameCube works like a charm. Thank god for that, I was quite worried it was going to be the bulkiest, most expensive paperweight I’ve ever had the poor luck of travelling with.

I’m in my new home, Jinzhou (or is it Jinzhuo…), a “small” city just outside of Dalian (small in China is a VERY different term than it is in the rest of the world…this place is huge). I’m at the school I’ll be teaching it. I just got back from a wedding (of all things) and am about to head back to my flat and await for my roomie to get home and show me around the area.

I’ve no money as ATMs that accept my card are all in Dalian – thankfully my manager, Sherry, has lent me 200 yuan (like $25) so I can eat until Wednesday, when I’ll be in Dalian for orientation and can grab some cash.

So yeah, safe and sound. No worries.