Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy -Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism
China is full of all sorts of delicious local treats which are lots of fun to try. Of course, Western food is always available at a hefty price (we had $10 burgers last night that were absolutely mediocre), but it is more affordable and adventuresome to expand my Chinese food knowledge.
I take a fair amount of regular cabs, which are almost entirely Volkswagon Jettas or Hyundai Elantras, but since I’ve started taking the subway more, I see more of these tiny metal boxes that are also cabs. They are like an autorikshaw with a different outfit on; they are basically motorized three-wheelers. In most of them you sit facing backward, with your back to the driver. You negotiate the price up front and for local people it’s usually around $0.25 – $0.50 for a short 4-5 block ride, but for a foreigner like me it’s more like $1.25. Here’s a short video of my rides in them:
I’m told Beijing is the rock capital of China. I have yet to see a band play, so we’ll see about that, but Jon did fine a guitar store. For some reason the guys working there wanted to take pictures with him.
I also found a good blog about the local music scene, China Music Radar, that has THE BEST LOGO I’ve seen yet here in the People’s Republic. Peaches is playing in April, so I’ll probably go see her.
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. -Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism
Yesterday we spent some time in the hutong neighborhood near the Drum and Bell Towers. A hutong is a traditional single-story residence that has several rooms off a courtyard all in a maze of tiny alleys. In this area, which includes the popular street Nanluogo Xiang, the buildings have all been converted into retail. There is everything from clothes to food, guitars, notebooks, tea, art, bars. The food stands have hot dogs, Tibetan yogurt, churros with ice cream and chocolate (that was a good one), and stinky tofu. Navigating these streets is a bit tricky, as cars are actually allowed to drive through and it is very popular and full of people. It’s all pretty hip and interesting.
The street I live on
View from my bedroom
It is also very different from the neighborhood where we live, which is full of big, tall, modern buildings with crazy architecture and neon and glass. The stores are mostly brands I recognize and the streets are at least 2 lanes going each way. To be honest, I’d rather be in the hutong neighborhoods. They are just more my style- a little more low key and maybe even more original. But the reality is that without better language skills, it would be really hard to live there. I guess I’ll just have to visit a lot.
Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world. -Napolean Bonaparte, describing China as a sleeping dragon
We’ve arrive and settled in a bit. Our apartment is very nice (too nice, really) and someone comes and cleans and does the linens for us, which is very convenient. I’m not sure how I’d dry something as big as sheets anyway as we do not have a dryer.
We live in the Chaoyang part of town, near Sanlitun. The apartment is near the famous CCTV building, which the locals apparently refer to as “Big Underpants” or “Big Boxers”. What’s even crazier is that the building right next door was fire damaged in 2009 due to some fireworks incident and it is still standing awaiting renovation. The upside for me is that it is an easy landmark that I can use to navigate.
Overall it is going well; I’m adjusting to the lousy air and discovering where I can find good restaurants. I’ve tried the subway, which only costs $0.25, and am getting proficient with getting around by cab when I can’t actually speak the driver’s language. It’s cold here but you can tell that warmer weather is just around the corner.
NOTE: This is a repost due to some unexpected downtime.
I take off tomorrow for Beijing: 1.5 hours Pittsburgh to Newark, 13+ hours Newark direct to Beijing. We’ll be flying over the top of the earth, right over the North Pole. I hope to read and sleep the entire time; I’m pretty good on a long flight, but I’m still hoping for an empty row to stretch out in!
I start my internship at the Foundation for Youth Social Entrepreneurship on Monday, so I have a couple of jetlagged days to figure out how to get there by subway. I’ve been told we have a 2 bedroom apartment in Sanlitun, which is kind of an ex-pat (ex-patriots = people living abroad) neighborhood full of people from places other than China. The upside is that the shopkeepers and cab drivers will speak English (and I hold out hope that I’ll find Diet Mountain Dew there). The downside is that it is slightly less authentic China, and also you do pay a premium for the the comforts of an expat neighborhood. As for my Mandarin, I’m still at ‘this cat is black” so I’m hoping to improve that a little. I did manage to get Chinese characters on my computer, though.
I am headed to China again, but this time for 5 months (March – July). My previous exposure to China was a 3-week trip in 2007 (see these posts), but only for 3 weeks. This is also my second foray into living abroad as I lived in India in 2008 for 4 months. Many are joking that I need to hit Brazil and Russia next to complete the famous BRIC of emerging markets. I’ll be living in Beijing, but I’m not sure what neighborhood yet. I’m also not quite sure what I’ll be filling my time with, but I’ll figure that out very soon.
I’ll do my best to update this blog (although it can be tricky to blog from China) with many pictures and descriptions of my daily life. I hope to visit some other parts of Asia as well. Most interesting to me with be getting the Chinese perspective of some of my favorite interests: microfinance, social enterprise, and renewable energy.
Taking the train to Chicago is pretty cool. You have plenty of legroom, you can spend all of your time hanging out in the lounge car, and you get to eat dinner with strangers. In general, it has a nice old-school feel to it, with freedon to roam about and nobody rifling through your bags or asking you to remove you shoes. Of course, it takes as long, or longer, than driving so if you’re in a hurry it’s not a great choice. I could also see myself getting pretty sick of it after a few days, but the folks in the lower level of the lounge were making the best of it on my trip home, complete with guitars and singing.
I’ve recently become rather fixated on SMS services and applications in emerging markets. Here are some ways that SMS is being used:
Getting Information
There are a few companies providing standard commercial endeavoers with SMS customer surveys and customer service questionnaires. These seem to be more available in South Africa, but I’ve seen websites for similar services in India and Nigeria. On the right is an example from Surveys per SMS of South Africa. Populi.net’s Mobile Researcher uses SMS technology to provide field workers a tool to execute surveys and collect data without paper.
Providing Information
Several organizations are using SMS to provide information to cell-phone users. Most notably, Google is getting into the game with the Uganda launch of their AppLab mobile applications, co-developed with the Grameen Foundation. Users can get health advice, locate the nearest clinic, agricultural tips- even find a buyer for their agricultural commodity. Smaller startups are also getting in the game. For example, Nigerian web portal eNowNow has begun providing traffic information (obtained by sending out people with bikes and cell phones to key traffice areas) in Lagos, Nigeria using a Google maps mashup.
Open-Source Platforms
There are even free, open-source SMS data platforms being launched with the world of international development in mind. RapidSMS was used by six graduate students at Columbia School to create RapidSMS Child Malnutrition Surveillance, a system for health practitioners to share child treatment and nutrition information. The project recently won first place in the USAID Development 2.0 Challenge. Other RapidSMS projects include food management during famine in Ethiopia and monitoring bednet distribution in Nigeria. Ushahidi is another open-source SMS platform (and a runner-up in the USAID Development 2.0 Challenge), has more of a focus on empowering cell-phone users to share information, including Vote Report India, a citizen-led election monitoring campaign, and Unsung Peace Heroes, where anyone can nominate fellow citizens who provided help during the Kenyan election violence.
InSTEDD is a platform specifically for disaster and disease relief. SMS is particularly suited to disaster relief as SMS capability often remains available long after the phone systems are down. The core application is GeoChat, which uses SMS technology to share information and locations. To support these efforts are other applications for combining information from various systems (such as survivor databases) and analyzing large streams of information, including twitter feeds.
I have recently embarked on a fair amount of camping in the first national park, Yosemite, and at Itasca State Park, head of the Mississippi River.
Yosemite was huge and totally developed. There was a shuttle bus every 15 minutes to take you everywhere, including the deli, the pizza restaurant, the visitor center, the gift shop, the hotel, or the campgrounds. So we sort of accidentally decided to hike up 2700 feet over 3.4 miles to the Upper Yosemite Falls. It was grueling and awesome. The best part (other than reaching the top) was running into a bear on the way. There was a sign in the campground saying “There have been 6 incidents involving bears in this camground this week.” THIS WEEK! The threat of bears in our campground did not stop us from having a cooking extravaganza every non-raining night.
Itasca was much more chill. Unlike national parks, state parks tend to be rather dead when you go early in the season on a weekday. We were basically the on people staying in the park, which was great because we just used another empty cabin’s fire ring when it turned out our cabin didn’t have one. It also turned out that our cabin didn’t have internet access as promised, so the only work I got done was reading and hiking, but I can’t really complain about that. We did manage to stand over the Mississippi River, a tradition at Itasca.
I am headed to China again, but this time for 5 months (March – July). My previous exposure to China was a 3-week trip in 2007 (see 
