Changchun: Not a top tourist destination, but a newbie success

China pretty much shuts down during Chun Jie. Cities empty out as people travel to their parents' homes in small villages (or cities with less than 5 million people) and notices of modified store hours are taped onto almost every door, right above the chain lock wrapped around the handles.

Jake and I knew this, but we still felt like we needed to travel out of Shenyang for a portion of the Chinese New Year. I can only do so many loads of laundry before everything is clean and cook so much before I run out of dishes that I can make without an expensive trip to the import store. It's nice to sit in Starbucks on my computer for hours, but I'm in China for goodness sake! I want to see China, not hide away in a Western corner until school reopens.

So, to Changchun we went.

Wait. Where's Changhcun?

Don't worry, you're not the only one who didn't know. I had only heard of the city when I read a blog entry about cities in Northeast China and many of my co-workers had no idea where it was located.

The train ride from Shenyang to Changchun was just over three hours

Okay. But wait. Why would you go to Changchun?

Also not a bad question. Changchun isn't exactly a top tourist attraction. That's one of the reasons we went.

Since we knew it was probable that things would be closed, we didn't want to invest a lot of money in a trip that could easily turn out to be a flop. So we went in with low expectations, hoping to see the Puppet Emperor's imperial palace and the large Buddhist temple. We considered a trip to Changbai mountain or Jilin to see the rime, but knew it might not work out. So when it didn't, we weren't phased. There were dozens of small victories and high fives and though Changchun is definitely not a must-see, we had a blast.

First of all, and possibly most importantly, we had wonderful luck with food...

Lucky find #1: Changchun's Muslim noodles, a hole in the wall very similar to one that we have in Shenyang

Noodle soup with egg

 Mutton chuan (pronounced "twar")

Lucky find #2: A hot pot restaurant with prime time people watching and PBR

Before I show you hot pot pictures, I want to flashback to October, when Jake and I first ate at a hot pot restaurant. It was a Saturday night when everyone was busy and we ended up with no plans. So, we hopped on a bus, rode it until we saw something interesting, and got off. We walked around, watched the masses of Chinese people doing an aerobics/dance fusion exercise routine, and then sought out food.

The restaurants seemed to be just like Goldilocks... too full (people perched on buckets eating in the streets), too empty, juuuuuust right.

What we didn't realize was that the juuuuuust right restaurant had a menu with no pictures, an oddity in China and a major hurdle for newbies who had only been in China for 2 months. We glanced around at what people were eating and realized that they all seemed to be eating out of metal bowls that were in the center of their tables. It was also warm inside the restaurant. Using our excellent deductive reasoning skills, we determined that we must be at a hot pot restaurant.

Nevertheless, neither of us had ever had hot pot, nor knew how it worked. We watched as they took metal bowls with what seemed like dirty dish water past our table to others' tables and wondered why this was such an attractive meal to our co-workers.

As we stared at the sheet of paper full of hanzi (Chinese characters), we decided we could at least choose the animal from which we wanted the meat. We looked up beef on Jake's Pleco app and tried to match it with the characters on the page. As we searched, three more waiters gathered around our table, in addition to the one that had been watching us the entire time.

Finally, one waiter stepped forward and said, "I speak a little English." Phew! Jake pointed to a random set of characters on the menu and said, "Uhh... what's this?" She looked at it and, after thinking for a moment, said decidedly, "Blood." Jake looked at me in disbelief. What?! No way. "Uhh, okay. What's this?" Again, she responded, "Blood." Jake pulled out his phone and translated blood into hanzi on his phone, sure that if he showed her the definition she would realize she misspoke. Instead, she looked at his phone and said, "Yes." Jake asked her cautiously, pointing to a section of the menu, "Are these all blood?" "Yes," she affirmed. "Looks like we're having blood, Jake!" I chuckled, thinking it couldn't be that different from morcilla in Spain. Luckily for him, however, he had studied a bit before he came to China and he managed to spit out, "Bu yao zheige." (I don't want this.)

We didn't get blood, but I did let them talk me into ordering a number of random things off of the menu, not knowing if we were ordering a normal amount of food or an absurd amount of dishes. Later, as plates of uncooked noodles, meat, mushrooms, and greens came out, we were pleasantly surprised. The waiters led us over to the sauces, which we originally thought would go inside the pot (which explains why I put two tablespoons worth of garlic in my bitty bowl), and we mixed sauces as they pointed and smiled. They stood over our table and told us when to put the different ingredients into the pot and at one point, went so far as to take a napkin out of the napkin holder and hand it to me. Jake and I laughed at our ignorance and celebrated our success of about having navigated such a complicated meal alone.

Four months later, we felt like old pros at hot pot...

The hot pot apparatus

This wasn't floating in here on accident...

 

Mutton

Noodles

Cabbage and beef

The hot pot cooking away

The finished product, just before being slathered in peanut sauce

Dipping sauce: a mixture of peanut sauce, soy sauce, red pepper sauce, green onion, sugar, and an appropriate amount of garlic

Lucky find #3: A countryside restaurant

On Saturday afternoon, Jake and I wandered rather aimlessly along the streets of Changchun for almost an hour, looking half-heartedly for food. 

Walking down a side street in the center of Changchun

We were hungry, but not so hungry, and we didn't know what we wanted until we found it. When we stumbled upon an impressive rustic building that was clearly open, we wandered in. But when I saw a couple of men cooking just inside the entry and talking to a number of people, I panicked and thought, "I just walked into someone's house!"

 

Just inside the entrance

I ran out, only to see someone taking a picture of the outside of the building. I looked at her, then looked back to the door, where a man had followed me to the door and was staring at me from the other side of the glass. I managed to ask her, "Wo zai zheige difang chi fan ma?" (Can I eat at this place?) She kindly answered, "Yes" without insultingly drawing attention to my cluelessness; I called Jake back and in we went.

We were led into the restaurant by the man at the window and sat down next to a larger than life statue of Mao. For the following hour or so, we enjoyed the rustic, rural home-like ambiance as much as the delicious food.

 

The meat, green bean, and corn dish that the waitress recommended when I asked her, "Women zai Changchun chi shenme?" (What should we eat in Changchun?)

We also appreciated the city's cultural attractions...

The Puppet Emperor's imperial palace was quite impressive as well. We didn't know what to expect, especially after we walked for 20 minutes around the perimeter without seeing any life or open gate through which we could enter. But when we finally made it to the entrance, we were pleasantly surprised.

One of the large doors in the patio

 Inside the palace

The row of shops just outside the palace

The palace was heavily influenced by European design and seemed quite different from the palaces we had seen in Shenyang and in Beijing. It also had an entire museum area describing the actions of the puppet emperor and the ways that he had betrayed his country. The museum descriptions were written from a very patriotic perspective and made "good" use of quotations to show sarcasm... except for when they were put around the wrong "word". It reminded me a little bit of the Friends episode when Joey was trying to figure out how to use the air quotation marks...

On Sunday we went to the Banruo Buddhist temple, which we later realized was not a tourist attraction. We first got turned away but were then ushered in, so as we walked around we realized that we may have been mistaken for Buddhists. Oops.

Pagoda

In the courtyard

And last but not least, we overcame a few language hurdles...

The first hurdle...

...was when we tried to check into our hotel, only to find that they didn't have Jake's reservation. It took us a good while to explain that we wanted two rooms instead of one and part of the process involved me following the grandmother of the operation up in the elevator to see the rooms and pick which kind we wanted. As Jake stood at the desk talking to the receptionist and I got in the elevator, it suddenly hit me that this shady hotel (We paid 352 kuai, or $58 for two rooms for two nights...), could very well be the kind of place one tries to avoid. I tried to get Jake's attention as I followed the grandmother to the elevator, "Uh, hey! Jake! I'm, uh, going upstairs! Hey, Jake! I'm just going to look at the rooms for a few minutes so I should be back down soon..." I didn't hear a response, but as she hit the 5 button and the elevator doors closed I awkwardly/desperately called out to him, "5th floor Jake! 5th floor!" The doors closed, and I smiled nervously at the little Chinese woman next to me as we went upstairs.

Of course, it all ended up being fine, but it was one of those stories for the book. Successfully checking into a hotel where no one speaks English makes you feel pretty victorious, even if said hotel is one that considers toilet paper and soap to be optional amenities...

Our second major hurdle... 

...was when we decided we would try to go see a movie. Shops were closing for the evening around 5 PM and we had no desire to spend any extra time in our hotel rooms. So in the late afternoon, we went to the IMAX movie theater to check on our options for movies in English. The workers were confused, either by my poor Chinese, my request about English movies, or both, and it took quite a while for us to figure out that one of the movies did indeed have zimu (subtitles) in English.

However, when we later returned to buy the tickets, we spoke with a different worker, who claimed that there weren't subtitles. Confused, we looked around to find the workers we had spoken with earlier. When we finally found one, she denied having told us that there were English subtitles.

We walked away from the counter and pondered our options, only to realize that we had banked completely on seeing the movie that evening. We finally decided to go see the movie, even though it was completely in Chinese, so we once again approached the counter. This time, a random Chinese man accompanied us with 35 kuai tickets for a showing of the Jackie Chan movie.

Paying for our tickets became a long ordeal as this random Chinese man continuously talked at us and the cashier refused to take our money. Finally, I shoved the 220 kuai into the cashier's hand and she, without speaking, handed it to the guy next to us. He gave her two of the tickets and us 20 kuai and in a few moments, we walked away with two tickets for the movie that we wanted to see, each priced at 35 kuai instead of the 110 kuai listed price.

We were bemused... until it dawned on us that the guy had made 65 kuai off of each of our tickets. He had given us a "discount" of 10 kuai each, but had exchanged his discount tickets and made 130 kuai... enough for hot pot for four! And the movie theater cashier had let him do it right in front of her. 

Chinese: 91, Rogers/Strother: 0

Well, at least we saved 20 kuai? Oh, and the movie did indeed have English subtitles!

Chinese: 91, Rogers/Strother: 1

Our third major hurdle... 

...was knowing what to do when we had 6 random Chinese people gathered around our train seats at any given time. After exhausting the few conversations that I can successfully navigate (I am from... Where are you going? I'm going... I am a teacher in Shenyang... Did you make jiaozi for Chun Jie? I went to my friend's house...), there was a lot of smiling and repetition of "Ting bu dong" (I hear, but I don't understand).

I learned to ignore the man who leaned over the railing and stared incessantly at me for 45 minutes. We got our pictures taken with strangers (who later posted them to Wechat) and managed awkward laughs as one called out to us, "Never say goodbye!" We thanked the Chinese who knew English and helped to translate conversations for us and I let them look through my Chinese book and passport. Neither train ride was a waste of time, but rather a strange mix of Chinese class application and foreign relationship building. All of those Fulbright speeches during orientations and mid-year seminars must have stuck because I can't help but consider myself an ambassador whenever I am abroad.

Overall, though, the trip was very relaxed. We killed time trying to find Jake a new pair of dress shoes (a near impossible task since Chinese stores only stock up to size 44 instead of Jake's size... 46), studying Chinese over coffee, and playing my pocket version of Xiang-qi (Chinese chess) that I bought outside of the palace.

I definitely consider it three days well spent, a bonus to my Chun Jie experience after dinner with Nancy's family!

Much love from China,

Amber