Chinese Curiosities: Question 1, Why Kaifeng?

In August of 2007 I moved from Chicago, IL to the Chinese city of Kaifeng. I relocated there with the intention of imersing myself in the culture and to study the Chinese language.

I'll admit that this is not the most obvious choice of places to decamp to from America. I'm pretty sure that my choice probably even baffled most of my Chinese friends (very sure in fact). And yet I chose it all the same. But why?

First a little background on Kaifeng. Kaifeng is a smallish Chinese city of around a half million people. (I always introduce it this way in some feeble attempt to try to shift people's understanding of both the scale and depth of China.) It is located on the North China Plain just a few miles south of the Yellow River. It was once a great Imperial Capital about a thousand years ago, probably the most important city in the world at the time. Then came the barbarians (first the Jurchen followed up quickly by the Mongols) and then a disasterous flood of by the Yellow river (one of many) which completely inundated the ancient city and permanently buried it under meters of sediment. (That ancient city is still beneath today's Kaifeng streets.)

Chinese Menu Guide: The tastiest lesson

In my time in China truely my favorite language lesson took place after school let out in the morning and I headed out with my friends to one of the many restaurants surrounding the campus. Our campus had three gates: East, South, and West. And each gate let out on to a streetscape full of vendors and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. In our world we organized each collection of gustatory choices around these three groupings. South Gate was the first to be explored as it was nearest to our dorms and classrooms and also because the South Gate was the main entrance of the old campus of HeDa.

View down the "restaurant alley" out of the West Gate

Chinese Geography: Lesson 2; China Proper

Well I had so much fun making that map and writing the last post that I think I'll continue. I think maybe I'll just start zeroing in on Kaifeng, and then see where we go from there.

So the in the last post we looked at what China isn't. So now we're going to explore what remains, which would be China proper. Cue the new map!

Click on it to make it big as well.

Well as you can see I've further narrowed down the map of China to "China Proper". I've also further divided it into various regions. A lot of this is my own interpretation as there is no standardized way of further subdividing the place.

Chinese Geography: Lesson 1; What is China?

In order to understand the geography of China one must first understand what is China and where is it. When people ask me, "Where in China were you?" "Where is Kaifeng?". I pause because this is not an easy question to answer. (Perhaps that's just what I get for studying up on it ;-)

Often I will say it is in North China or in Central China. But I don't know if it is clear what exactly that means. Probably not. So I am going to delve into one of my favorite topics: Geography. Hopefully it will be enjoyable.

What is China? A difficult question really, in my opinion. China is a country, right? Yes, but... Its more than that. I like to describe China as a sub-continent, at least geographically. Really it is just too big to be understood in the same terms as a country like say France or even the U.S. But why?

First, it is huge. Both in terms of size and population. Everybody knows that China has lots of people (and does it ever!) 1.3 billion. All though that is really an estimate. The place is too vast and varied for everybody to be counted exactly. I have heard that the margin of error in the common estimate of 1.3 billion is 300 million. That's the same as the population of the U.S.!
So it is possible that there is another United States inside China. Or, for that matter less another United States. But more on population another time.
In terms of size China is geographically about the same size as the U.S., maybe a little bit bigger, depending on whose calculations you look at.

China Links

Well lets get these fascinating Chinese links (see above, hehe) out there:

Evan Osnos writes a fabulous article in the New Yorker on Chinese tour groups out exploring. He joins Chinese tour group to Europe, and is a much braver man than I.

Bob Dylan goes to Beijing and plays some music. Some people fret others are circumspect.

A revolutionary (for China) Chinese University in Shenzhen China opens. It is revolutionary because it does not accept the Gaokao or entrance exam, and it is backed in its efforts to foster independent thought and research by the local government of Shenzhen. It will not be accredited by the National Education Ministry, but it is trying to carve a new path for Chinese education. I remember reading an interview with Mr. Zhu in Science which I discussed with my Chinese grad student class back in Kaifeng many years ago. They were less excited. Perhaps because they had already invested a lot of time in their traditional Chinese educations of suspect value. hmm

Chinese Ministry of Culture bans time travel!...
...on TV.
Ok less amusing but still pretty weird. The censors in China don't just go after things overtly political or that which might cause social upheaval. They also are pretty puritanical on pornography and I guess time travel too. Perhaps they really are worried about differing historical narratives being put out there.

Superstition again mixes with science and propaganda in contemporary China.

China's critique on Human Rights abuses in the U.S.

Yes you read that title correctly; China chiding the United States on its record of human rights abuses.

For someone who has lived in China for the last couple of years and conversed with Chinese college students (in my opinion, some of the Most righteous, nationalistic, and critical (and knowledgeable) of the U.S.A. in China) I am familiar with these critiques. For those of you who are not, I can offer you the whole text (in English) or a synopsis of the document by Heather Horn of the Atlantic.

Little rabbit be good

This video circulated on the Chinese internet recently before its predictable pulling. Created by a young group of videographers in China. It depicts Kuang-kuang, a character of theirs, falling asleep and dreaming/ fantasizing of a past and future. (WARNING: this is not a children's cartoon, there is lots of blood, mayhem, and dying cartoon bunnies.) Make sure the in-video comments are on to view the English translations.

The interesting points of this video are a few. First that it was made and posted at all, and that it was able to survive for even a short time without being taken down on a Chinese video sharing site. (It has been long since pulled, but was up long enough that even I, who is pretty slow to notice trends, was able to view it on Youku.)

Second it manages to touch upon a number of sensitive, current trends and topics going around the Chinese internet. The first and most obvious, is the tainted milk scandal, which I discussed earlier today. In the video a truck bearing the name of a "Sanhu" (Three Tigers) distributes poisoned milk. "Sanhu" sounds an awful lot like "Sanlu", and no Chinese person could miss the reference.