Newspaper Article in the Trib

One reason I haven't written about the Chinese New Year in detail on my blog is that I wrote a piece about the holiday for publication in the media. I was originally planning on posting it here today, since February 6th is the last day of the Spring Festival, if I didn't hear back from any of the newspapers or magazines.

As luck would have it, I finally got two responses, one from a newspaper in Pittsburgh and one from The China Beat blog. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review published the article in print in the Livings section (page D4) and online this morning, Monday, February 6th. The China Beat will publish a slightly better version (the editor and I made some much-needed changes) of the article with pictures tomorrow, Tuesday, February 7th.

The Trib offered to pay for the article, but I'm not allowed to accept any type of outside payment while on the Fulbright fellowship, and so, following the advice of the Fulbright Program Officer in Beijing, requested that they donate the money to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. The Trib didn't include any pictures with the online version of the article, so I'm going to post them with their captions below. I just heard that the printed version did include pictures!  Here is the link to the online version of the newspaper article in the Trib.

The best part about getting the article published? Telling my neighbors, especially my research participants (the ones who I interviewed for the article), the good news. "REALLY?" Brother Guo exclaimed when I told him. I showed him the article that was going to be published. In English. "What is this? I can't understand any of this foreign language!" he complained loudly. He sighed, pushed away the article, and crossed his arms in obvious frustration.

The next day I gave him, and the rest of the people cited in the article, a version I translated into Chinese, along with the English version and pictures attached (I did omit the part about how native English speakers earn 100-150 yuan an hour). 

Everyone in Old Nanjing is thrilled. Everyone knows that one of my best friends from high school, Megan, is visiting at the end of April, and requested that she bring along a couple copies of the printed newspaper article with her. "I can't believe we're in a newspaper in America!" Big Sister Chongyang laughed, "We haven't made it into any newspapers in China yet, but we're in an American newspaper! I'm glad they ended up not publishing any pictures of me, I'm so ugly!" She is gorgeous, by the way.

To tell the truth, when I first started conducting field research in October, I honestly never thought I would share my findings or articles with my participants, despite the advice in my ethnographic and qualitative research design textbooks to openly share all publications with the community. I'm not sure why, but I think my reasoning partially stemmed from a fear that they would reject my ideas or criticize me, and partially from a bad excuse to myself that they wouldn't have an interest if it was in English. Now I'm four months into my research, and sharing my findings, and now a media publication, with my participants is just as important as conducting the research itself. I don't mind translating my work into Chinese for them and I couldn't imagine it any other way. I've finally realized that this kind of sharing, especially the rare opportunity to share a publication (no matter how small) is where the real joy in field work can be realized.

These are the pictures and their captions that I sent to the features editor at the Trib for the article.

The Auntie that sells tofu on the back of a freight tricycle in the old city of Nanjing. Here she is at my doorstep, measuring the weight of a bag of tofu for me.  Auntie rides down the winding alleys of Old Nanjing that are too narrow for vehicles several times a day to emphatically announce her price of tofu at 500 grams for 1.5 yuan (that's about a pound for 25 cents). Her voice penetrates my walls and wakes me up every morning. She was back today (February 6th), as today ends the 15-day Spring Festival, and asked me again whether or not I had returned home to celebrate the New Year. 

Grandma Wang's second-hand clothing shop is a converted one-story laofangzi, a traditional Chinese home located in Sarah Tynen's neighborhood in Old Nanjing, her field site for researching urban redevelopment and socio-economic divisions. 

Although business is slow during the month surrounding the Spring Festival holiday, Grandma Wang and Sarah Tynen find ways to pass the time together by sitting and chatting, greeting the occasional customer, bargaining for prices, and snacking on black sesame cakes (Grandma Wang's favorite candy).

A young boy eats a sesame stick at the entrance to his laofangzi, a traditional courtyard-style home that is now dilapidated and shared by several families. 

One of Sarah Tynen's neighbors decorates her doorpost with chunlian, or Spring couplets, a type of Chinese poetry wishing for fortune and happiness, a popular Chinese New Year decoration.

Big Brother Guo smokes and prepares the New Year's Eve dinner at the same time.

Sarah Tynen learning how to make spring rolls at Big Brother Guo's house, a traditional New Year's holiday snack. Making dumplings and spring rolls is a New Year tradition because the shape resembles a wallet, which symbolizes good fortune for the new year. Eating them brings you good fortune too. 

Big Brother Guo and Sarah Tynen with the extravagant New Year's Eve dinner of meatball and egg soup, pig's tongue, chicken feet, spring rolls, spinach with peanuts and creamed corn with chicken and mushrooms.

Baijiu bottles left on a neighbor's window sill after the New Year's celebrations. Baijiu is an awful tasting distilled grain, traditional Chinese liquor, usually 120 proof, that is drunk lavishly at most New Year's celebrations (except for ours).

Auntie Li selling kabobs (she requested that her face not be included).

My roommate Little Sister Xie Rui in our room at her computer, chatting with friends and watching American TV shows, such as Prison Break, the Big Bang Theory, and Gossip Girl, online.

Big Sister Chongyang and her 5-year old daughter, Zaozao, make spring rolls for Chinese New Year.

Although the faded markings in the red rectangle that read yibanqian, meaning "already relocated" were placed on this building 2 years ago, the family living here has not been compensated or forced to move yet. The red decorations on the door post are spring couplets, a unique style of Chinese poetry wishing for fortune and happiness, a popular Chinese New Year decoration. Some families also will move into evicted houses if they are not demolished immediately.

Big, red Chinese characters telling residents to banqian, or "relocate", tag houses marked for demolition. This home, still occupied by a family, is decorated with traditional Chinese New Year decorations on the door post that wish for happiness and good fortune in the new year. The four characters in the red rectangle box at the top say rui qi ying men, which means "fill the house full of good luck." The big gold character in the red square says fu, which means "fortune." Putting decorations on the doorpost invites good fortune into the home for the whole family. 

This family's home has been marked twice. The two red faded Chinese characters in the circle say "relocate", while the bright red characters in the rectangle say "already relocated." The family has not been forced to move out yet. The white propaganda poster on the left side reads, "Expedite Construction, Bring Benefit to the People, Take the Interests of the Whole into Account, Develop Together."

Torn and faded propaganda posters are scattered on walls across the neighborhood with various slogans encouraging residents to move out as quickly as possible. The one on the left reads, "Expedite the Speed of the Eviction Process, Construct a Historical and Cultural [City]" ("city" has been torn off the bottom). The one of the right reads, "Relocate According to the Law, Be Civilized and Serve, [A Public and Transparent Operation Welcomes Surveillance]" (the last part was torn off, I saw the rest of it on another identical poster).

The red banqian character is tagged on both sides of my neighbor's door, while the family stubbornly maintains the Chinese New Year tradition to decorate the door with the fu character, a traditional and popular decoration that invites fortune to the home in the new year.

Demolition in my neighborhood, which is located right next to the ancient city wall, which is visible in the background.

 Stay tuned tomorrow for the China Beat article!

How Chinese People Stay Warm in the Winter

The Nanjingese are professionals at staying warm in the winter, in constant fear of catching a cold, because catching a cold is just so 麻烦 (troublesome). Although catching a cold actually has nothing to do with being cold, they actually still have the best system against catching a cold. They leave the doors and window open, so houses and buildings are not stuffy hotboxes where the cold virus can spread easily. They don't spend a lot of time inside with the heat on, so the cold virus doesn't have more opportunity to spread. Regardless, Chinese people hold fervently to the belief that being cold and eating cold food makes you sick, so they bundle up like no one else in the winter time. Here are some pictures I've taken around Nanjing, where the average temperature has fluctuated between 20 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit this January.

I feel so bad for Chinese babies, who are subject to incredible bundling lest they get sick, or horror of horrors, someone thinks you're a bad parent because your kid isn't bundled up to the point where they look 3 times fatter and their faces flush red from being too hot.

Chinese kids are little fat bundles that can barely move during the winter. They wear an outer layer like an apron, a full-scale bib, so their parents only have to wash that outer layer instead of the whole coat. 

How I'm Staying Warm This Winter

Life is cold these days. My house is like everywhere else in Nanjing: drafty and cold. Buildings in Nanjing aren't built with insulation, let alone indoor heating, properly sealed windows, or any sense of design that hints at keeping a house warm in the winter. Even the wealthy, with their huge windows and big open living spaces that aren't conducive to keeping warm air in, only turn on the heating function on their air conditioners when it gets below freezing. Everyone says, "Just wear more!" All cities South of the Yangtze River are planned this way. From what I hear, in the North, on the other hand, they have central heating systems in almost all the modern buildings, but often lack proper air conditioning and roast in the summer.

My house is over 300-years old, with cement floors on the first floor. The bedroom is on the second floor, with a thin metal roof covering wooden ceiling beams and windows that don't completely seal. Because the houses don't have any insulation anyway, many families, including me, keep the windows and doors open during the day. Electricity is insanely expensive, and keeping the heating on would be foolish and wasteful in a bedroom that has no insulation whatsoever. When it gets below freezing, my roommate and I turn on the heat function on the air conditioner, which blows out hot air, in the evenings. This has little to no effect unless you are standing in front of the air conditioner, and the temperature in the room drops immediately when you turn it off. Besides being expensive, turning on the air conditioner also drys up the air, leaving my eyes and throat itchy. Chinese people also rarely turn on the air conditioner for this reason. Point being, in Nanjing, no matter where you are, the temperature inside is the same as the temperature outside.

EDIT: The air conditioner broke. My landlord, despite the fact that she is my roommate's mother, is showing little interest in getting it fixed. I have little hope, considering she has followed through on 0/5 of her last promises. 

Many of you already know how cold I am... all the time. I am a wimp when it comes to the cold. Even in my dorm last year, I would wear my winter coat when doing homework. This is specifically one of the reasons I moved in January. I need to toughen up and get over myself. I'm bracing myself for February, the coldest month in Nanjing. Here are my strategies for coping this winter:

This green "hot water bag" is my lifesaver. Made out of rubber and covered in felt, I fill it up with boiling water every couple of hours and carry it with me everywhere I go. It's like a portable heater that sits on my lap when I'm on my computer and cuddles with me at night. When I'm typing, my hands go numb and immobile. I just hold this for a minute to warm them up so I can start typing again. In the background, you can see my blankets. A trifecta of warmth, it consists of a soft, fluffy blue blanket on the bottom, a pink quilt folded twice over, and a heavy woolen blanket on the top.

Happy Year of the Dragon!

For many Chinese, the month surrounding the 15-day chunjie (春节, or Spring Festival, known as Chinese New Year in the West) means the annual chunyun (春运, or spring wind) when the millions of undocumented migrant workers in the cities come out of the woodwork and embark on a massive migration home to the countryside to celebrate the new year. One by one the family-owned businesses and restaurants close down and the street food disappears as the migrant workers return home. The owners of my favorite neighborhood noodle restaurant a few houses down from me returned home to Anhui Province last week for chunjie. Anhui is a poor, landlocked province about 4 hours to the west with a primarily agricultural sector that many of Nanjing's migrant workers call home. Here is a picture of that noodle place on my street, all closed down:

All locked-up for chunjie

 Here are some pictures of what my neighborhood looks like when everyone closes up shop for chunjie.  *A note on vocabulary: chunjie refers to the 15-day Spring Festival that begins with the first day of the lunar new year, welcoming the upcoming spring season. New Year is also used in Chinese to refer to this holiday, usually when referring to New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. However, both terms are, for the most part, used interchangeably in Chinese. 

I was sad when I woke up one morning and the steamed bun place was shut-down. Wishing the owners a happy new year with their families! 

"We Chinese are obligated to return home for chunjie, it's not optional. Returning home is an observance, it's a rite, you know, for us to honor the relatives in our hometown by personally wishing them a happy and fortune-filled new year," explained Grandpa Shen, a 75-year-old neighbor and life-long resident of Old Nanjing. Grandpa Shen and I have one more thing in common besides our street address. Though our reasons are different, he and I both will not be returning home for chunjie. Old Nanjing is his home and always has been. During chunjie in Nanjing, only the locals are left, known as bendiren (本地人, or indigenous). The locals....and, well, me.

Preparing for the New Year

"You must be so homesick! Aren't you going home to celebrate chunjie?" asked the Auntie that sells tofu on the back of a freight tricycle in the old city of Nanjing. Auntie rides down the narrow, winding alleys of Old Nanjing several times a day to emphatically announce the price of tofu at 500 grams for 1.5 yuan (that's about a pound for 25 cents). At my doorstep yesterday morning she told me to stock up because today was the last day of business and she'd be taking a weeklong break to celebrate chunjie, or the Spring Festival, also known as the Chinese New Year in the West.

The residents of Old Nanjing stock up as if they are preparing for a blizzard. Their pantries are stuffed with rice, potatoes, carrots, and other staples in preparation for the 15-day long chunjie from January 23rd to February 6th, when most businesses across the city will shut-down for at least a week. 

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve and everyone is in the holiday spirit. Here is my fully stocked refrigerator in preparation for Spring Festival, full of tofu, eggs, peanuts, almonds, bananas, almonds, broccoli, and bokchoy. I panicked in fear that I would starve to death. Note: This is worthy of a picture because I normally don't keep much in my kitchen--I just buy fresh whatever I need for that day at the market in the morning. Also I don't actually keep my refrigerator plugged in because it's cold enough in the kitchen: 

My neighbor, Big Brother Guo, warned me that I wouldn't be able to buy any food for a week, so he took me to the local market to buy the food featured in the above picture. I am so excited because he took me to a massive underground market near my house that I didn't even know existed. I'd walked past the entrance countless times in the past 4 months, but never knew that it was a market. I've been buying my groceries from the mobile vendors that ride down my street everyday, but I was thrilled to find this market because it has an incredible selection of vegetables and a huge variety. Plus a dumpling and meatball tent. Nice. Very Nice. I'm so excited to be shopping there for the next 6 months. After the New Year, of course. There were, as was to be expected, various somewhat frightening sights to be seen: 

Chinese word of the day: 

贵族- gui4 zu2- literally "expensive nationality," aka aristocrat

Snapshots of Daily Life at the Park in Old Nanjing

I spent the afternoon reading and writing field notes under this pagoda

The woman with the turquoise collar is singing loudly and poorly into a microphone in this picture while elderly men stand around listening. Much to my dismay, karaoke in the park has become quite popular among people that have zero singing ability.

The retired people of Old Nanjing lined up against the City Wall, taking in the warmth of the sun on this frigid winter afternoon.

Some guys hang out in the sun next to a little bamboo forest.

Playing cards attracts a crowd

A New House for a New Year

The neighborhood is abuzz with the news of the little foreigner (小老外) moving into town. When I got up this morning to go to the public toilet, I was stopped by people on the street to ask if I was all moved in to my new house. One of the shop owners called out to me, "Hey, you're not wearing the hat that you bought from me! Aren't you cold?" As I was walking back, Grandpa Cao called out to me from his tiny chair on the side of the street surrounded by his caged birds: "I heard you moved here!" I responded with an affirmative and asked him if he knew my roommate, Xie Rui. "She and I live together," I told him, and he nodded in approval.

One of my mahjong friends, Grandma Tang, asked, "Will you be going home to celebrate the Spring Festival [Chinese New Year]?" I responded that I'd be staying in Nanjing for the Spring Festival because Americans don't celebrate that holiday, so going home in the middle of January would actually be quite meaningless. Besides I couldn't afford the plane ticket. She was shocked. "You don't celebrate the Spring Festival?? That's terrible!" I explained that we celebrated Christmas and the Western New Year instead. She still couldn't believe that we didn't celebrate something as important as the Spring Festival. Her friend responded that it was terrible that I couldn't afford the ticket, and that earning money is bitter and laborious (For my Chinese speakers, she said "苦钱," which means 辛苦的挣钱 in the Nanjing dialect).

My friends in the neighborhood all knew I was moving, of course, since most of them either helped me find a house or helped me move. There is often a lot of neighborhood gossip, since people frequently will tell me things in a whisper about other people's family situations, and it seems like I've been the hot topic these days; everyone knows about me moving to Old Nanjing.

Many of them don't understand why I moved into an old house (老房子), though they usually nod in agreement after I explain to them that I'm researching the culture and social behavior of the people of Old Nanjing to better understand how urban reconstruction affects Chinese society. They always agree when I say that high-rise apartment buildings changes interpersonal relationships and I'm investigating this change. I explain I want to better understand the person-to-person relations (guanxi, 关系) in Old Nanjing, which I can only do if I myself am a member and resident of the community and can personally witness the affects of demolition on residents' day-to-day lives. Luckily my friends now understand this really well (they've heard my schpeal probably more times than they would like), so they will explain in the dialect or in better Chinese than me if we are together and someone asks me. At first this annoyed me because I wanted to explain myself, but then I realized that they can explain it better in a way that other residents can more easily accept, so I always let them explain for me if it's appropriate.