Zhongshan Park: A lesson on dating in China

Zhongshan is your typical park in China- you can enjoy great views of the Forbidden city while strolling by a lake, wander among the centuries-old trees, and of course visit some temples and pavilions. However, the REAL attraction that we found two weekends ago was the weekend afternoon dating gathering. (Perhaps parent-led dating auction would be a better term...)  In one little area of the park, there were at least 300 Chinese, generally of the 50+ demographic, looking for potential sons- and daughters-in-laws. Yep, these parents are either so concerned that their children will stay forever single, are too eager for some grandchildren, or just bored that they gather in the park to meet others with a common purpose to trade info and set up their kids.  The typical participant was sitting with a description of their still single daughter or son: DOB, city, something education or career related, height, and in some cases a photo or even a monthly salary. Even though the demographics might imply that Chinese males have trouble finding a spouse, being at Zhongshan Park told me quite the opposite. I'd say over 80% of the ads were for daughters rather than sons, because not only is there societal pressure on females to be married before the age of 30, but there's also the biological clock ticking and the fact that males can easily date and marry when they're older without being considered an old maid.

Although this phenomenon may seem completely strange to a Westerner, in both an awful and entertaining way, it's really not so strange in other parts of the world especially in Asia. Dating and marriage are treated so differently in each culture, and it's quite fascinating how expectations and the family's role change in each place. I'll give you a typical Chinese example. My aunt and uncle have been working on a set-up for awhile now; the girl is my aunt's co-worker and friend and the guy is my uncle's acquaintance from the gym. My aunt kept quizzing my uncle about this guy: how tall is he? what do his parents do? how educated are his parents have? where did he graduate from? These questions may not be on the top of the list for an American girl, but they do represent the Chinese priorities. I was shocked to find a father list his daughter's monthly salary (a respectable 5000RMB/month)- these private details, along with age, are such a no-no in the American dating world that there's people who have been dating years and still don't know their boyfriend or girlfriend's salary! Western society and Hollywood are always reminding us to look beyond the physical, material, and financial to find true love, and this guy is ADVERTISING his daughter's salary?!? This is definitely going to attract the wrong type of golddigger husband, I thought. However, looking at this from the Chinese perspective, adding this piece of information makes a lot of sense; neither this girl nor her father will consider a potential husband who makes significant less than her and on the flipside, the potential husband would most likely suffer a blow to his ego if his wife was a bigger bread-winner. To them, a salary is actually a very practical thing to advertise.

Lately, there's been some even crazier dating phenomena. Social media and advertising have been taken to a whole new level... read more here.

Dating and networking frenzy

A more peaceful part of Zhongshan

lately at work: rice husk, fuel efficiency, and emissions gap

Lately I've been juggling several projects- I'm still communicating with Chinese suppliers for the rice husk generation project, and at the same time evaluating reports on improving fuel efficiency in the Chinese automotive industry. Both have been great learning opportunities for my Chinese, and also HUGE tests of my patience and determination. For example, not only do I have to understand biomass generation technology but also I must communicate the project needs to the suppliers, make sure they understand some key aspects of a GEF project, and keep the project lead updated. It's been difficult since we are not flexible on the project parameters and we are looking for a turnkey supplier, but things are moving along.

At the office, it's generally casual and quiet. Most people work on their own projects and know relatively little about what's going on for others. However I do appreciate that the more senior/experienced officers are very approachable and incorporate me as much as possible. For example, J and M were extremely helpful when I had questions about my visa, D told me about an EU Call for Proposals for collaborating environmental projects and the UNEP emissions gap press release (of which I was completely unaware), and A invited me to a China in the World meeting and a biotechnology and biofuels conference next Tuesday. By attending these events, I've been getting a feel for how the international community works in Beijing and also the plethora of orgs related to environment, water, energy, sustainability, etc. And it's not just NGOs or European countries' development agencies or international development groups; there is a great representation from Chinese governmental agencies and research institutes who work in this field as well. I have to say, in a very cliche way, that it's exciting and inspiring to see so many individuals and groups working toward a common goal.

So last Thursday, I attended the UNEP Emissions Gap Beijing Press Release. Yet another reminder that the improvements we're making in climate change are not nearly enough to put us on the golden path- the golden 2C path that will maintain the global temperature increase at 2C. How's it looking right now? We're several gigatons of carbon emissions away from achieving this path, and we're headed on a path for ~3.5C increase.

The politics of climate change research, policy, and organizations was definitely present. At the press release, the 2 Chinese representatives for the IPCC presented on the emissions gap as well as climate change, energy, and environment in the Chinese context. The first expert, who is a professor Tsinghua University, mentioned a heavily debated "negative emissions" scenario in which around the year 2070 the technologies in carbon capture and storage and the utilization of renewable energies will be so well developed that more carbon is being removed from the atmosphere rather than emitted (a simple mass balance: carbon_IN < carbon_OUT). Currently there's a lot of climate change policy action- the World Bank also released a report called Turn Down the Heat, on mitigation efforts and how much more susceptible the developing world is to natural disasters, famine, and other climate phenomena.  You can read more here. These reports were all published at the opportune moment, right before the UNFCCC's Doha meeting.

around Beijing

Despite some rainy days, I’ve been venturing out despite rainy, windy, snowy, or just plain cold weather. Here are some of the sights in and around Beijing that I’ve visited so far.

National Museum: By far the most thorough security I’ve gone through ever for a museum. My bag went through 2 different metal detectors, and everybody was given a thorough pat-down before entering. Otherwise, the museum itself was pretty interesting- not too overwhelming but some nice exhibits. As always some were difficult to appreciate for foreigners as there was no English.

Confucius Temple: A popular sight in Beijing where offerings and sacrifices were made to Confucius. We also stumbled across brief dance performance in the temple! I ended sacrificing my gloves to Confucius though...

Shanhaiguan (山海关): My first trip to the Chinese seaside! This is also where the Great Wall meets the ocean. Even though I had been away from any kind of sea or ocean for about two weeks, the sound of the crashing waves and the smell of rotting seaweed made me ecstatic.

Beijing Zoo: My last couple of zoo visits have been disappointing, and I’m becoming more and more convinced that my frequent childhood trips to the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park were the cause of this. Am I really being so picky when it bothered me that you could see the surrounding buildings while you were at Valencia’s Bioparc? It’s hard to get into the “I’m in the great African plains amidst giraffes” mood if right behind you there’s a couple skyscrapers. I didn’t expect anything spectacular at the Beijing Zoo, but I was even more disappointed- by the fact that the domestic tourists had brought food to feed the animals. There were apples, lettuce, carrots, and junk food being fed to almost all the animals. Even when there were 10-feet high walls, that didn’t stop them- they simply tossed the food over the fence. As all this happening around me was a bit depressing, I took very few photos.

Houhai: The renovated area along the lake is now filled with bars, cafes, and bougie restaurants. It was very wet and freezing cold when I was there, but the lake is still gorgeous at night.

Wonderland Amusement Park: One of my favorite excursions so far, I went with an awesome group of CS’ers to this abandoned amusement park in the outskirts of Beijing. The plan was that this would be Asia’s largest amusement park but after some conflicts and financial issues, they abandoned the project in 1998. The weather was beautiful, the park was empty (obviously), and we explored the building interiors as well as the surrounding cornfields. A couple of us even climbed up the spiral staircase of the rocket-like castle. 

Ritan Park: One of the only free parks I've visited, but still very pleasant! It's like a 25 minute run here from my workplace, so I've come once on a jog.

A panorama on a sunny day (half of the pond is actually frozen though!)

Trending in Beijing

Beijing is in my eyes a society of high-consumption, where products and fashions are constantly changing for better or worse. Here are some of the newest trends I've noticed and could perhaps spread to your neighborhood very very soon.

-plastic hairties: You know those spiral plastic bracelets (usually neon yellow) that are attached to a keychain that you use to make sure you don't lose your keys? Those spirally bracelets have taken over Beijing as hairties! Who would've thought?

Some spirally hairties on the bus...

And the subway. Yes I was being a creeper.

-motorized bikes: Apparently they're dirt cheap (like 2000RMB from what I've heard). Some of them are really really quiet and extremely dangerous.

-hipsters: Beijing has few hipsters, but what it lacks in quantity it makes up in quality. None of this indecisive, kind of hip, I'm an artist in my spare time crap. The hipsters that I see embody hipster in every possible aspect. Sad I didn't have some creeper photos of Beijing hispters.

-angry birds: Definitely a fad that I don't think will be around in 2 years. But now is definitely the time if you want to deck yourself out in with an angry birds sweater, backpack, hat, bracelet, wristwatch...

-sex shops: Maybe I was just too innocent to notice before, but sex shops are all over in Beijing! The density of sex shops is much higher than any other city I've visited (ok, obviously not counting the red light district of Hamburg and Amsterdam). I've also noticed these shops a lot more in Chaoyang, but that could be because I work there and a lot of time there.

-wintery trends: Now that fall is definitely over and the daily temperature high is no more than 6C, I've been noticing a lot of winter apparel trends, with the most obvious one being the reindeer and moose motif. This motif can be found on sweaters, tights, and scarves generally on females between the age of 16 and 35. The latest shoe and boot trends can also be found on this demographic; roughly 40% will be wearing knock-off uggs, and another 25% will be wearing fake-heel boots. I discovered this unfortunate trend while boot shopping several weeks ago and now I notice the two inch built-in heel everywhere.

i heart my smartphone

For two particular reasons. Well, make that apps. I was a very very latecomer to the world of smartphones (the lime green pebble my roommate gave me 3 years ago was great!) but I have to say that my smartphone has been my faithful partner in my daily Beijing commute.

I've already read three books on my smartphone in about 5 weeks. I never used to have time to read but commuting for 2+ hours a day really changed that. Right now I'm reading Sea-Wolf by Jack London, and I haven't enjoyed a novel this much since Hunger Games (sarcasm). But seriously, it's so amazing that I find myself rereading chunks and also slowing down my pace to savor Sea-Wolf.

Next, PLECO. If you are traveling/living in China or want to learn Chinese or all of the above, this app will be your best friend. It allows you to write in Chinese characters to look for the meaning, gives you all different kinds of ways to use characters or phrases, has voice recognition, and if you have a data connection will even translate text for you after you take a photo of it. I've made lots of flashcards already of the words that I'm currently working on or that I see often, and this app is singlehandedly responsible for many characters that I've learned or re-learned in this past month. (Googletranslate ranks pretty high on the list too)

November is election time

This will be the first time in my entire life that I won’t be in the U.S. for the Presidential Elections. I remember staying up watching TV as the U.S. map was filled by red and blue chunks, laughing at silly election humor displayed on bumper stickers, and of course seeing an absurd number of Bush Cheney signs in my too-conservative-for-California hometown.

Living abroad gives you a window into another country’s elections and political process. For example, I was around for last year’s elections in Spain when Rajoy was elected. The Spanish elections didn’t make a huge impact on me since the level of campaigning and media hype were nothing compared to the U.S. (Or perhaps I should say that the U.S. elections are considered the most important in the world, so obviously Spain's will have less visibility.) In general, my Spanish peers were disappointed by all the candidates and didn’t see a point in voting since they felt that all the politicians were disconnected from the people.

These past weeks in China have been quite different from anything before. I’m far from an expert and am definitely not going into the details of the 18^th Party Congress (in China, simply called 十八大 or "eighteenth big"). From speaking to locals, it’s clear that they find it all a huge show. Party members vote for their representatives, who then elect party leaders. Everybody has accepted that their voice will not be heard and that the elections are fixed anyways. I wouldn’t describe the overall attitude as completely apathetic, because obviously they would like a say; however, if people are able to live comfortably and have enough freedom opportunities, then between work/school/trying to get the new iphone5, it’s not exactly in their immediate plans to overthrow the government.

So, how has life in the capital been affected by the Congress? Internet speeds have slowed down considerably for sites that are overseas. On a bad day, the connection fails every few minutes. Sites hosted by google still work but are so slow that they’re useless. Security all around the city has been amped up, and especially in the Tiananmen area. I went there yesterday and all the visitors went through security before entering the square. If you look suspicious or like you’re an outsider, the guards question you about who you’re with and what your motives are. I guess I look innocent or from the city enough that they didn’t question me at all, but for others it was pretty intense. I also went to the National Museum yesterday, and the security there gave LAX a run for its money. My bag was scanned twice and everybody was given a very thorough pat-down. And of course, on the highways and streets, there's always a little reminder of the all-important Congress.

Chaoyang welcoming the 18th Congress

A snow-covered Tiananmen Square