Cake time!

Zhu Siming shangri kuai le!  Yesterday was Simon's birthday and his Chinese teacher made him this super cool chocolate brownie cake.

The text used to say "zhu Siming shangri kuaile (祝思明生日快乐!)" or "To Simon Happy Birthday." The Chinese lesson didn't last long though, because the "zhu" was quickly gone. :-)

Today at work I got my own cake: a golden box of mooncakes to celebrate the upcoming mooncake (or mid-Autumn) festival.

The exact date of the mooncake festival is based on China's lunar calendar, so the date is not the same every year. This year, by chance, it's just one day before China's National Day on October 1st, when the country celebrates the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. To celebrate this joyful event, kids have a whole week off from school and offices also close for a couple of days.  Woohoo: this year in China, you can have your mooncake and eat it too!

The wrapping says it all: a pretty bag for my cookies.
 

Out comes a golden box.
 

 

And in it are delicious (?)  mooncakes. These actually don't look like the traditional mooncakes you often see, but I am sure it's the real deal :-)



My two mooncakes with "their" birthday gifts.


In het Nederlands: Gisteren was Simon's negende verjaardag. Hij kreeg een leuke chocoladecake met gestippelde felicitaties van zijn Chinese juf. Zelf kreeg ik vandaag ook vast cakejes: twaalf mooncakes (maankoekjes) om het aanstaande maanfeest (ook wel mid-herfst feest genoemd) te vieren. Dat komt mooi uit, want volgende week hebben we ook nog de hele week vrij om China's nationale feestdag te vieren.

Weekend bike ride (or: Enjoying the weather while it lasts)

Just two weekends ago (the same weekend as our excellent camping trip), Paul and I also made a fun little bike ride.

 

China of course used to be a bicycle kingdom, but over the last 20 years its bikes have slowly been replaced with cars and other motorized vehicles. People's driving styles, however, have not kept pace with this change and often it seems people are driving as if they are still on a bicycle. (For example -- and this might be hard to image -- we actually often see people stop along a highway and back up to go back to an exit they missed.)

 

So two Saturdays ago, Paul and I felt a great need to get out and bike in this crazy traffic. Besides, it was gorgious weather and in Beijing you have to enjoy that. Before you know it, winter will set in and I'll be dressed like an eskimo again.

 

We biked about 34.64 km in 1:53 minutes; at an average speed of 18.29 km/hour -- this information  brought to you by the Endomundo iPhone app, which nicely tracked our route. (According to the same Endomundo, we also burned 1313 kcal, a fact I immediately celebrated by eating a giant chocolate muffin.)

 

For the most part we biked along a canalized river. This is Beijing too, you know!

 

Paul enjoying the view.

 

Another view from the same bridge.

 

It's kind of hard to see, but the dots in the river are fishermen (and one woman), catching fish with a big trail net. If you like heavy metals, it should be a great dinner.

 

Just like The Netherlands: a nice bicycle trail. The only difference with Holland was that this trail all of the sudden was interrupted by a big fence, and we had to bike all the way back and take the regular road again.

 

In the middle of the trip, we came past this construction site.

 

I made Paul go in and take a picture of this monster (the "tree root," not the man). It's not actually an old tree, but a gigantic, enormous, humongous tree-like construction made of stone. It wasn't...eh...exactly...eh...my taste.

 

Back out on the street again. It looks like I am dressed for the Gobi desert! Well, I was going for a run, but then (literally) switched gears. The Chinese don't mind at all when you dress in a top and shorts, but it is a bit unusual as Chinese women usually cover up and protect themselves from the sun. (You might have read about China's facekini's earlier this year?)

 

The Great Wall. (just kidding--I don't want you to cancel your upcoming trip!)

 

The bike ride continues.

 

Oncoming traffic. By the way, look at the width of this road, compared to the amount of traffic. Sometimes China's infrastructure is just a little bit grandiose, as if it is planned for giants, not humans.

 

Again closer to home, we cycle through this village area. (Note the pipe on the right.) 

 

More village view. It's Saturday morning and people are just millling about.

 

And with this last look around the neighborhood, we returned to our own house (not pictured in this photo). It was a fun little trip and if the weather holds, we should do it again soon.

In het Nederlands: Vandaag gewoon wat fotootjes van een fietstocht dichtbij huis. Het is niet altijd even makkelijk een leuke fietsroute te vinden, maar interessante dingen zijn er altijd wel te zien!
 

Camping near the Great Wall

Saturday afternoon we left our home for a camping adventure. (I can't say we left Beijing, because Beijing is actually a really large area, with several districts and counties surrounding the core city.)

We drove up the JingCheng expressway for about 20 minutes. Next, we zigzagged through the country side for another half hour, until we arrived at our final destination: A chestnut orchard with a view of a Great Wall watch tower.

It was all very idyllic: The kids built a campfire, the parents had a glass of wine, ....and the local Chinese enjoyed a tourist attraction! See below for an impression.

On the road to Huairou district. This is the JingCheng express way.

 

Just follow the signs.

 

The backseat gang -- Simon and Thomas and a friend. Look how excited they are about going camping!

 

Urban renovation. The last few weeks Simon has been studying the challenges and opportunites related to "changing cities." Here's an example of the old making way for the new.

 

Just another roadside picture of the construction. There's a lot of construction (and construction dust) wherever you go in China.

 

More bricks, no mortar.

 

The landscape is turning more green.

 

Already in the mountains of Huairou district.

 

A new house.

 

Charming alley (that might be scheduled for an urban upgrade some day soon.)

Our campground! It's impossible to see, but on top of that mountain is a Great Wall watch tower, watching over us.

 

Boy camp.

 

The badminton tournament got underway.

 

Camp fire and marshmallows at night.

 

In the morning, some Chinese visitors came to study our camping habits! Four cars -- presumably on their way to something else -- stopped and everyone got out--camera's in hand :-). It was pretty funny. It kind of seemed they were on safari and we were the wild animals. Our visitors walked through the campsite, poked around with the fire, and took some pictures of our (weird?) habbits and those odd white-haired kids, and then went on to their next sight-seeing adventure of the day.

 

 

Watching the wildlife :-).  (See the Chinese with their camera's sitting on the little wall next to the cars.)

 

 

In het Nederlands: Afgelopen weekend zijn we gaan kamperen. Het was wel een avontuur. Eerst een stukje snelweg, dan wat kronkelen door de bergen en over de dorpjes, en toen waren we in de kastanjeboomgaard. We hadden van te voren geregeld dat we hier konden slapen, maar toch kwamen veel mensen nog even kijken wat we hier deden. Zoveel buitenlanders in een tentje hadden ze denk ik nog niet vaak gezien!

 

At work

Beijing, ni hao!

I am back in China's Northern Capital (Bei=north, Jing=capital). Back in the land of dumplings and chopsticks, the land of a billion people with black hair, and the land of middle-age guys who in summer pull their T-shirts up above their bellies. Yeah, I am back!.

I know it has been just a little bit quiet on the blogging front, but that was because I was very busy reconnecting with Dutch culture all summer. I sampled all the new drink yoghurt flavors, took Simon and Thomas to eat some kroketten, and tested if stores now finally are able to accept international credit cards (the answer is, no). And of course I had to watch "our Epke" win his gold medal.

But now I am back, and even back at work.

I haven't talked much about work in this blog, mostly to not put you to sleep immediately (did it work?). Since May, I've been visiting the Institute of Remote Sensing Application, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to work as an English editor. The work is excellent, and I am not just saying that because the Chinese government might be reading my blog every night.

I am sure you are all dying to know what this place looks like, so come with me:


This is the main entrance of the institute. It's located in the Beijing Science and Technology park, right next to the Beijing Olympic Park. (In 2008, Epke was also there -- at the Olympics I mean.)




The building next to it, on the left, is "my building." As an unofficial visitor I don't even have a card, but a friendly door man let's me in when I come.




Inside it's work, work, work. I edit like a maniac. I really do!

When the editing slows down, I cheer myself up with a Nescafe. (No coffee machines in sight.) I also drink enormous amounts of Chinese tea.

 

 

For hot water, we use this water boiler. If you've ever been in China you'll recognize them because they seem to be everywhere. Boiling hot water for your coffee, tea, or noodle soup.

 

 

 

And next to the water boiler is this handy contraption. OK, it's not the most tasteful picture, I know, but with everyone drinking tea, you need a tea-leaf-collector-bucket. And that is it's official name.




Roughly at 11:09am, I walk across the street to this cafetaria. If you know me from work before, you might be stunned to know I can eat lunch this early. Lunch time is from 11am to 1pm and I found out the hard way that going at 12:46pm for lunch does not get you the best food in the house.





This is the cafetaria inside.




On the way to the food.  The photo is blurred, but that is because it is a hectic place. You can pick from many different kinds of vegetables and other dishes, and combine them with a bowl of rice.



And this is my lunch. In fact, this is my favourite lunch here. It's some cold noodle with (what appears to be) a sesame dressing, cucumbers, and spicy speckles. The white rolls on the side are also excellent. Well, actually, the rolls are boring and tasteless, until....you dip them into the red spicy sauce. The doughyness soaks up the spice and the result is  absolutely delicious.

 

 

This is on the way back to my building. (The careful observer might notice this picture was taken on another day (pollution index 250) than the blue-sky image above (pollution index 19, acceptable even by European and U.S. standards).

 

Wasn't this a great tour? I know, you all want to be here. Stay tuned for more updates from your fine reporter on the ground. There might just be another one this year.

In het Nederlands: Na een superleuke (en drukke) vakantie in Nederland is het echte leven weer begonnen. In deze blogpost staan wat fotootjes van een nieuwe werkplek bij het Chinees instituut voor remote sensing application. Ik werk als een editor, wat betekent dat ik help met het schrijven (in het Engels) van hun wetenschappelijke artikelen. Het is leuk werk, en dat niet alleen vanwege de lekkere noedels in de bedrijfskantine.

 

 

 

 

 

Gosselin

A few weeks ago -- OK, maybe more than a month ago -- I went to an art exhibit by Christophe Gosselin. Well, the man has long gone back home and is already sipping his cabernet sauvignon  while staring out over the Parisian rooftops, but here I am: finally posting about his art.

It was pretty cool art though. Nice and colorful, and with a good story -- just the way I like it.

Here's the artist himself (on the right), in front of a display of his work.

"Chinese woman with paint and easel." No, I just made that up. But what was so cool about the art was that it is made on old Chinese newspapers. The new image on top builds on and uses elements of the article in the background.

I was not kidding about the Parisian roof tops. Before coming to China, Gosselin had first tried the "draw-on-old-newspaper" technique on some old newspapers that he found as insulation in the walls of his artist studio in Paris. (Maybe it's a bit more chilly up there since his discovery?)

Back to the Chinese-style art. (This guy could be French though, if the French ever won a metal at the Olympics. Did they?)

This one is my favorite. The newspaper article is about the Long March that Mao Zedong undertook before he became China's new fearless leader. The lamp is shown in one of the photos on the page, and on the bottom left you can see the map of the loooooong march.

I think this one means: Be careful boy: study hard, and you won't have to write blogs when you grow up.

In het Nederlands: Het kostte even wat tijd voordat er weer een blog post was, en dan is het ook nog oud nieuws! Maar kunst is tijdloos, dus geniet maar even van het werk van de Fransman Christophe Gosselin. Zijn werk is geinspireerd door oude kranten en was even op bezoek in Beijing..