After a long break from writing, I am back.
My situation has changed somewhat. I’ve traded my previous status, a status of a wanderer, into that of a resident. I have started a job in China, based in Shenzhen, a city in southern China close to Hong Kong. There is quite a bit to say about my new job, home, and life, and these will hopefully be spread along various posts in the future: currently even I don’t know that much about them, being here for less than two weeks.
If you enjoyed reading this blog in the past, I hope you will continue to enjoy reading it in the future.

The city of Kunming is known in China as the “Spring City”, attributed to it having pleasant weather all year round. Personally, I find it a bit hard to agree - I have been freezing my ass off for the past few days here. I will concede, however, that the weather here is currently much more pleasant than the weather in Siberia. Many seagulls seem to share these thoughts and every year, as winter approaches, migrate from Siberia to Kunming.

The seagulls hang out mainly near the lakes and are an attraction for tourists and locals alike. Next to each lake peddlars can be found selling bread to feed the pigeons, a popular pasttime activity.

Evening, end of September 2006, up in the mountains of the Yading nature reserve in Sichuan province. Hanging around in a simple lodge, in an altitude of more than 4000 meters, I suddenly heard my name called: “Ori, Ori, come quick!”. I rush towards the callers and they point at a couple approaching - pale skin, red hair, seems as if I’m not the only foreigner here anymore! But what are the Chinese so excited about? I learn the answer seconds later, when the girl opens her mouth and says: “Shalom”….  (for those of you who aren’t Israeli/Jewish - “shalom” means “hello” in Hebrew, the language spoken in Israel)

My countrymen and I swap a few pleasantaries, and they ask me whether or not I know that tonight is Rosh Hashana, the Israeli/Jewish new year. After I say that I didn’t remember, they tell me that they especially brought apples and honey (traditional jewish new-year food) up the mountain, and would I like to celebrate with them?

And so, despite my slim connection to Jewish customs, I ended up celebrating the new year after all - up on a mountain in China, with two Israelis and four Chinese friends (who were happy to join in on the fun). Coincidence? Fate?

…..

Evening, mid-December, 2006, sitting in a restaurant in Kunming. A friend and I are having dinner, when suddenly the lights go out. It seems that the restaurant is having some sort of an electrical failure. Waiters come over to the table and place two candles - one of them taller, on some sort of stand, and one of them shorter - on the table and light them. I sit there for a while, staring at the candles, when I suddenly realize: today is the first day of Hannukah… (again, for the Jewishly-impaired: the main custom in Hannukah, a Jewish holiday, is lighting candles on a special lamp. In the first day two candles are lit, one of them placed higher than the other)

I’m definitely not a religious person, but these coincidences are getting more and more suspicious….

As far as hygiene is concerned, the Chinese behaviour can be contradictory. From one point of view they can be seen as filthy: storeowners dumping garbage on the sidewalk in front of their store, diners having a meal with no qualms concerning spitting out bone pieces on the table or even on the floor. It seems that the only thing which prevents China from looking like one big garbage can is the large amount of service personell - in the previous examples, streetsweepers and waitresses - who keep cleaning up after the rest of the population.

In other aspects, Chinese hygiene habits can be more strict than their Western counterparts, the best example being food hygiene habits. Apart from fresh fruit, you would be hard-pressed finding food in the Chinese cuisine which hasn’t been fried, steamed, cooked, boiled or grilled. This includes vegetables and even drinks - despite the growing popularity of cold drinks (I blame western influence), most Chinese are still quite used to the idea of a nice hot cup of boiled water in mid-summer. All of these habits are basically geared towards making sure that the food is relatively sterile and free from germs.

Some time ago I was trying to teach a Chinese friend how to make western-styled pancakes (the result was pretty bad but I blame improper ingredients and the lack of a flat frying pan). Before starting to prepare the food we went to wash our hands, and I washed my hands as I usually do, a quick scrub with soap and water. “What are you doing”, scolded me my friend, “these hands are about to prepare food that we’re going to eat!”, after which she applied generous amounts of soap to my hands and vigorously scrubbed them for a while. The same friend, thirty minutes later, spread peppers all over the dirty floor before proceeding to go and wash them with water. More contradictions.

The Chinese are also sensitive to the cleanliness of their chopsticks. Most of the small eateries avoid these problems by providing one-time-use dispensable chopsticks made from bamboo. When the Chinese city folk go to the countryside, where dispensable utensils are uncommon, they can often be quite cautious as far as chopsticks are concerned; it was explained to me that germs can reside in the outer layers of the wood and that washing isn’t enough to remove them. In these situations, the Chinese will often dip the tips of the chopsticks in hot tea or soup to sterilize them before use.

This habit was taken even further by the residents of the Guangzhou (and, to a lesser extent, Cantonese in other parts of the province). When having a meal in a restaurant in Guangzhou , the first thing brought to the table is a pot of tea and a large basin. The diners fill their cups with tea from the pot and swish the tea around a bit so it touches all areas of the cup. The chopsticks are then held above the bowl and the tea is poured from the cups over the chopsticks and into the bowl to sterilize the chopsticks. Finally the tea is poured from the bowl into the basin in a turning motion, so that the tea touches all areas of the bowl in the process. The cup, the bowl and the chopsticks have been sterilized by the tea and all the tea is in the large basin - the waitresses then take away the basin and replentish the tea in the pot. The interesting thing about this Guangzhou washing habit is that it takes place regardless of how clean the dishes are in the first place - this ritual will be carried out even in the fanciest of restaurants.

Meeting a Malasian girl in some hostel made something a Malasian acquaintance once told me on the Internet spring to mind, and I asked to take a look at her passport. True to his word (and to the girl’s surprise), we found this page:

 
(click image to enlarge)

This is an entire page added exclusively for the following content:

This passport is valid for all countries except:

• Israel

I am currently travelling in the mountain areas of Sichuan province and my Internet access is very limited, so don’t be discouraged if posts are still scarce during the next week. I am intentionally not writing much about the trip in Sichuan itself as I’m saving these posts for when I get some pictures online.

Hey!
You were probably looking for some content… expecting to read something interesting. Well, you’re in for a disappointment. I don’t plan to start writing here until mid-August 2006, until that time this site is still under creation. Please come back later!

(update: my flight is booked for the night of 19/08/2006)