Summer Palace, Hit on, Haircut

It has been such an eventful few days that I have been too daunted to even start writing about them. But that road leads nowhere, so I'll at least try to say a few words. First thing to say: on Monday morning I woke up with an outrageous bed-head! Time to get a hair-cut when you wake up looking like this.

But more on that later.

After staying in for more than 36 hours, I decided it was time to go out and have an adventure. My cold wasn't 100% better, but I thought I'd take it slow.

My guidebook mentioned something called "The Old Summer Palace" (ruins) quite near my house, so I thought I'd take a little bike-ride down there. About where I thought it should be, though, there was a big middle school instead. I roamed around. Probably if it had been a school-day someone might have kicked me out. Instead, I took some pictures. One, of these island gazebo in a dry lake, I rather liked, though the lake had a hard-core swampy sulphur stink. But there was nothing very much to see overall.

I doubled back, and near the entrance saw a little gravel road leading off to the side. I parked my bike (the gravel was too bumpy a surface to ride) and walked over toward the pond. It was indeed surrounded by promising piles of rubble. There were little walks, and artificial slopes and piles of broken tile and dirt. One could almost imagine a palace here in a more intact state of ruin… but there still wasn't much to see. I took some pictures of reflections in the water. There were a lot of little fish.




There was also a man fishing--or something. As I approached he made violent shooing away gestures, without saying a word. I came out with my most innocent "Bu keyi ma?" (It's not allowed?) He didn't answer but kept shooing me away. A woman who was nearby said apologetically that there was nothing to see anyway. This is a picture of the bad-tempered fisherman from far off, before I knew how mean he was going to be.


I saw some tour buses going up and down the gravel road, and figured there must be "something to see" up that way. But it was hot and very dusty and seemed like a long walk along the road. Also I was put off by the fisherman.

So I just went back to my bike and decided to head toward the actual Summer Palace, which was less close but not so very far either. Riding toward it was like wandering among lumbering bus-brontosauruses. The Summer Palace is a terminal point for very many bus-lines, not to mention tour groups and bikes and bike-taxis and taxis and cars and walking people. It was very nasty and very very crowded because of the holiday. I almost decided to turn back, but then thought that wouldn't be a proper adventure would it? So I pressed on.

These are some of the holiday decorations on display in front of the gate

I got a student discount ticket for the first time, which was cool: 15 RMB. Most of what there was to see was crowds and gobs of people. I wandered into a structure of successive courtyards, all lined and streaming with people. I don't mind crowds so much, though, because they're kind of interesting to look at. But another way of putting it is, there was no time when you weren't walking through someone's picture, and every time you wanted to take a picture, someone would be walking through it.



The particular building I decided to go into was right up against the lake. It was your standard succession of gaily painted courtyards, except that on one side you could look out the window and there would be the lake, surprisingly close. It must be dramatic when there is a big storm. Some of the windows were big, but many were small and interestingly shaped, also painted with naïve little designs. Here is one shaped like a jug, with a stone ornament shaped like a jug right outside it.


Another thing I really enjoyed was the huge, voluptuous big chrysanthemums, of which I took lots of pictures but here are a few of the better ones.




I got to see the Empress Dowager's notorious marble barge. She spent a lot of the national defense fund on her summer palace, including the money that was supposed to go toward funding a Chinese navy. The bitter joke was that the only boat built with that money was this "barge" made of stone. It's quite striking, one must admit!--a stone boat. I think it does kind of look like it's about to set sail.






Ambitiously, I started climbing up toward the tall tower visible in the background of the first picture below. However, I think I may have been going up the wrong way (signage was minimal) and anyway, I started getting really tired and my cough started acting up. So I just snapped some pictures of the roof-top from a vantage point halfway up the stairs (second picture below), and then came back down again. The place is so close to where I live, I'll surely go another time and do a more thorough sight-seeing trip.



That's pretty much what there is to tell, except that I enjoyed an interesting geometric shaped pond, and at least three of this yellow and orange "zig-zag" popsicles. Best popsicles yet. Also, I include a picture of some bronze replicas for sale in a craft shop window. There were lots of craft shops everywhere selling tourist trash at a very high price, and I'd say that even if I weren't spoiled by the exchange rate. Things were priced for tourists, let's just say. I sure didn't buy anything except popsicles.




Here is a final shot of a bronze ox justaposed with one of the weird stones. This stone is weirder than most, I think. Doesn't it look like a stone animal skull?


On the way back, I had a weird lunch of lamb shish-kebabs (they had a slightly chemical twang, as if they were grill-flavored rather than grilled), and went home to collapse. It had been a hot and tiring morning. Toward evening, though, I decided to go out and see about some photocopying, also maybe a haircut, and dinner. I went to the campus, but felt uninspired by the campus barbershop/so-called beauty salon. It just looked like a barbershop.

So I went by the Farm Garden to have a bit of dinner and ponder. I decided on kimchee, rice, a black egg, and some soup. I wasn't all that hungry, just a bit peckish. As I was casting about for somewhere to sit in the packed cafeteria, a person with an empty seat in front of him made what I took to be a friendly gesture of welcome. Well, it would be rude to just turn away, I thought, and it might be interesting to have bit of conversation. So I sat down across from him. Ordinary preamble. He was a law student from Henan. (He was eating ribs in a pretty gross way, steadily spitting bones onto his tray.) I told him I was studying Chinese history. He asked me about George Washington's birthplace. Damned if I knew. I said I studied Chinese history not American history. He was very condescending about this. Then he asked me if I was married, and I said no but I have a boyfriend. It's a fairly common question, I guess, for someone my age because most Chinese girls as old as I are already married. But then his questions kept on in this vein. All Americans are liberated right? I said I didn't know what he meant. He said (in English) "lover!" I was rather flustered, and repeated that I had a boyfriend. (I was kind of regretting not saying that I was married in the first place.) No, a lover in addition to your boyfriend. I could see where this was going. I tried to head it off at the pass by saying firmly that no, not all Americans were "like that."

I had heard that some Chinese people believed American women were all "of easy virtue" so to speak, but I had never had such concrete evidence of it. Among the questions this very rude fellow asked me--and this is in spite of my efforts to change the subject to something about Chinese law, or even a generalized discussion of American culture--were, Would I let him treat me to a movie (no), Did I have sex with my boyfriend (I'm not going to discuss this topic with you), How many lovers had I had (I'm also not going to discuss this topic with you), and Would I be friends with him (I don't make friends with men). Well, not THAT kind of men, and not THAT kind of friend. Would I go for a walk with him? No!

I decided that although it is generally rude to leave while your dinner companion is still eating, I would make an exception in this case. What kind of liberation is this!? he shouted after me. Hopefully he learned at least something about Americans from my steadfast refusals? But all in all it was a most bizarre experience for me! My landlady said don't talk to strangers, and I now can see her point. I went away fast on my bike and took a circuitous route homeward (electing to forego my photocopying for the day)!

However, I did drop by a hair-cutting shop I had seen earlier. It had looked dinky and grungy from the outside, but when I went boldly in, it was actually quite nice. The girl chattered away as she washed my hair and then asked me if I wanted a massage too. Sure. I expected a cursory head rub, but now, it was a pretty good head, neck, shoulder, arm, and back massage. I was really impressed. Also a lot of thumping and pounding, the type of good hard massage that takes a lot of strength. I started getting a little worried about how much it would cost. Not that it wouldn't be worth it, because it felt great! But I only had a couple hundred in my wallet. I decided I could leave my cell phone as collateral and dash to the nearest ATM if necessary.

Then a different person, a fellow, asked me how I would like my hair cut. I'd been worrying about this part. Kind of more like a Chinese person's hair? I suggested lamely. He looked bewildered. Right. All the haircuts he does are Chinese persons' hairs, unless they're Korean. Um, long in front of the ears, short above the ears, shorter in the, er, front. "I'm bad at this in English too," I added. But, thank goodness, he more or less got a sense of it. Did I want bangs or no? I didn't really know. What did he think? He combed it in various ways, and suggested bangs maybe. Fine with me!

He tried chatting with me, and we were doing well for a while. He talked about a former customer (reading between the lines, I think he'd had a crush on her) who could speak five languages fluently. He talked about her for some time, so when he subsided I asked where she was now? He said that during SARS she had had to go back to Germany (or Korea--I wasn't quite clear which one she was). Then he talked about what it had been like in Beijing during the SARS epidemic--all the streets completely empty, everyone just locked up fearfully inside their houses. We talked some more about that, and then he got called away to consult on something. When he got back, he asked me a question but I didn't understand. I have trouble understanding a change of subject when I don't have my glasses on. Weird, I know, but I think a lot of my listening comprehension in a foreign language has to do with non-verbal cues. He was disconcerted by not being understood and fell silent. It was okay with me. It had been a really long day, and small-talk in a foreign language is stressful.

After a while, while he was cutting the back I think, he repeated, "more like a Chinese person's hair" with kind of an amused chuckle, like he was kind of starting to see what I'd meant. That was good. Actually he did a good careful meticulous job, and I liked it quite well. Also, they wash your hair again after the cut, which is a cool idea. That way there aren't millions of little hairs everywhere. All told, the whole thing took nearly an hour and required people with two different specialized skills. Total price, 25 RMB. I could have wept for them. I could barely get a Supercut or a Hair Cuttery cut for four times that price, and this was spa-quality service. Good grief. Actually, when the person at the desk said the price I'd assumed she'd said 85. "Eighty-five?" I asked, just to make sure I'd got it right, and glad it was well within the bounds of reason. She looked shocked. "Twenty-five!" she said. "Oh," I babbled, "it was such a nice massage and a nice hair-cutting and all, eighty-five would have been fine." "It's couldn't be so expensive!" she said disbelievingly. So twenty-five it was.

Here is the result--not a very good picture, I know, but it'd been a long day. But the hair-cut's fine, much better than being all shaggy. I'll take a better picture of it soon.