Scratching the Chinese surface

Exploring a Silk Trip

2009-02-09T11:40:00.000-08:00

I have been staring at the world map lately and discovering countries I have never heard of before. Kyrgistan is my favorite.

I read few articles about recent travelers who followed the silk road, and then how much they learned and enjoyed the journey.

So I am exploring what it would take to follow the trail of Ibn Battouta and Marco Polo.

Here are my first notes about the trip:
- Unlike Ibn Battouta, I would need a lot of visas.
- Recent travelers observed that the silk road population is dominantly muslim and the experience is sometimes tricky as the locals may be reluctant to interact with Russians and Westerners, and a minimum of understanding of the muslim habits is important to avoid upsets.
I still did not encounter any documentation about a muslim silk road traveler.
- There are different alternative silk roads, some of these roads should be avoided at this time for security reasons. (e.g. Afghanistan, Georgia)

Do you know anybody who walked this path before?

A Proposal to the Arabs

2009-01-13T16:48:00.000-08:00

It is well documented and understood that the best innovations happen at the time of crisis. Wars pushed to the extreme the human mind to think and create. The Arab world has been struggling since 1948 and has been losing it all. Where is the Arabic mind? What did the Arab mind create on the last 60 years? Who are the best doctors? Best journalists? Best engineers? Best students? Etc. The Arabs have a slim share on the “bests” club.

History is rich of examples where countries stood up after failures (Japan, Germany, Spain). Even today, we can learn from countries that are successfully emerging from poverty (e.g. China, India). The Indian family is proudest when the son is a famous surgeon; the Chinese kid spends most of his childhood preparing for the university exam, etc.

Do we really value education? How many books do we publish? How many movies do we produce? Who stopped us!

Do we really value hard work? Check the level of cheating and corruption at all levels? I remembered cheating on my high school exams. Everybody did. And I was a very good student.

Our problem is not only the Governments and the West. A big responsibility of the failure lies on you and me, on the people.

Instead of pointing finger to the west and blaming it for all the misfortunes, it is time for a serious and frank introspection. We should all do an open self-evaluation, and draw concrete conclusions, then change ourselves.
Here is a proposal. Tell me what you think:
1- Say: I lost. Feel embarrassed and accept the loss. (Loss of Palestine, Iraq,our situation, etc)
I am born in 1978. I am 30, and lost every single war, and there were a lot of them. I remember crying when Baghdad was invaded on 1991. I remember how I forgot 1991 then 19xx and 20xx and now 2009. Why did I forget? Because we never really lost, we were somehow persuaded that the real war is not over, or even that we actually won the war, or sometime that it is not our war.
It is time to say: “We lost!” , or rather “I lost!”
The simple fact of declaring the defeat is a mixed feeling. From one side, it will free us from the chronic feeling of agony, and on the other side, it will enable us to breath and look back.
2- Create your own Marshall Plan, or cultural revolution.
Do not rely on the west and the government. Spend time to think how to prepare your kids (in 30 years) to be the world best.
3- Become the best at whatever you are doing: Fill this statement:
“I will try my best to do ….”
Write in a piece of paper, and when you meet with your friends and family during every Eid, show off on how much you are contributing to the best.

We have been trying hard on manifestations and talks, and that failed too. Maybe it is time for a new approach, and if it fails, it is ok, we are used to defeat.

Zen in practice

2008-12-20T03:16:00.000-08:00

My colleague mentioned that she uses Zen practices to make decisions on her daily life. She told me this story to explain her point:
The Zen master wanted to appoint his successor, so he asked his disciples to explain "Zen".
The smartest student came upfront and said:
I am like a solid tree, my heart is like a mirror. To stay pure, I need to keep cleaning the mirror from the dust everyday. That's Zen.
A young student stood up and said: There is no tree, and there is no mirror. What is dust?

The young student became the new Zen master.

Another story to explain Zen goes like this:
The Zen master was watching his students practicing their ritual, and his best student kept doing his movement incorrectly, as other students were getting in his way. The master went to him, and asked: "What is wrong?", the student replied: "I am trying to do my ritual, but I keep failing. I don't know why". The master then asked him to follow him. They walked to the side of the river. And the master pointed to some rocks on the river, and said: "Watch how the water flows smoothly on the river around the rocks. That is Zen..."

These stories remind me of an old Arab proverb: "كم حاجةً قضيناها بتركها" which can be translated as "Some tasks can be finished by abondoning them". For example, you need to buy a gift to your friend wedding, but you dont know what to buy. You can solve this task by not going to the wedding.
The proverb is normally used to describe negative bahavior of people who keep silence, close one eye and dont resist. And that reminds me of another Chinese proverb that says: "Sometimes it is good to not be too wise or too smart, it is better to close one eye".

The wise frog

2008-11-18T04:58:00.000-08:00

I heard this Chinese fable today..
There was an old frog who spent years of her life on the buttom of the well. The frog had a white and long beard. She would spend hours everyday looking up learning about the sky and the universe. She wrote her observations down, and came up with very predictable theories about when to expect, darkness, blue sky, and even rain. She was very proud of herself, and the frog community respected her achievements.
On one warm spring day, a small white bird peeked on the well, and cheerfully invited the frog out. The bird told her about the trees, the rivers, the lakes, the wind, and the human-made cities.
The frog shrugged about the absurdities of this young bird, and told him: "You just don't get it young boy. I know the truth, look at my exact theories."

Thoughts from Zhengzhou

2008-11-09T07:11:00.001-08:00

I missed the train "again", and I will be late to work tomorrow. I thought to update this blog with my latest thoughts.
This weekend made a symbolic milestone. I survived to travel alone without meeting any Non Chinese speakers to help me on the way. My best friend was an "English to Pinyin" translator device... Anyway, let's me talk a bit about Zhengzhou.
First of all, I have never ever heard of Zhengzhou. When I booked the ticket, I did some reading and found out that it has the population of 7 million people that is similar to the population of Switzerland (a famous European country). My knowledge is shockinly skewed to the West...
If you are serious about connecting the dots between the history and the present of China, do visit Zhengzhou "Henan" museum. ( I will add some details later)...
The city has the stamp of a boring Chinese city "post office next to china bank next to massage place next to big ugly building next to post office ...". But its downtown is quite impressive. The architecture, the lights, the big brand shops, etc.. For some reason, I recalled downtown Zurich (a city in the small Switzerland).
Though, nobody talked English around here, I found some useful vital references: Mc Donalds and KFC.

A Chinese joke

2008-10-27T21:40:00.001-07:00

Ten Chinese men were talking about how badly they were treated by their wives, and decided that it was unacceptable and something had to be done. In the midst of their discussion, the ten wives showed up and all the men hurried to run away, except one, who remained boldly in his seat.
The women, satisfied of their effect, went back to their daily routine. The 9 men were impressed with the courage of the other man and decided to appoint him as their president. He would then be resposible of leading the resistance against the dominance of women.
When they returned to inform him about his new elevated status, they found him dead of heart attack...

A 1900 chinese child description of Westerns

2008-10-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

From the book: "Moment in Beijing" authored by Lin Yutang in 19 :

Oceanic people did everything upside down. Their writing went from left to right, instead of from right to left, and horizontally in "crab-walk" fashion instead of from top to bottom. They put their personal names before their family names, and strangest of all, in writing addresses they began with the house number, then the street, then the city, then the province, as if purposely to be contrary. They had to begin from the bottom if they wanted to know to which city a letter was going. And their women had large feet, a foot long, and talked in a loud voice, and had curly hair and blue eyes and went about arm in arm with men when walking.

All in all, the foreigners were the strangest imaginable sort of people.

Obama for China

2008-10-14T06:17:00.000-07:00

I did a quick sondage among Chinese about the American elections. And Obama sounds a solid favorite. These are some of the impressions:

- Obama is different than other presidents. We need a new leadership.
- Obama is black. If a black person becomes president, he will inspire a whole generation of Chinese for a better future.
- Obama is young, so he wants/can make real changes.
- Obama is good looking.
- Obama is attacked for his race, just like Chinese people.
- Obama has big ears, so based on the Chinese beliefs, he will bring good luck an fortune.

Water, wealth and FengShui

2008-10-12T05:02:00.000-07:00

Some Chinese scholars dedicate their whole career to study FengShui, I am progressively finding out that there are interesting FengShui guidelines. This blog post is about the water.

I often notice a beautiful aquarium or a mini water fountain in Chinese restaurants or banks; this is for Shengfui. In fact, this is how it goes:
- Water is the element of luck, success and wealth.

- The house, next to a flowing water, will bring luck to its occupents. However, if the water is too stagnant, this may create health problems.

- If your house is far from a river, you can always maximize the water factor, by having an aquarium or a fountain. Just make sure that the water is never dried up or idle.

There are some tweaks about the use of water for Shengfui that I will keep collecting and documenting. Make a comment if you think of other info I should add in this post..

Chinese and France

2008-10-11T12:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I talked to two Chinese people who went to France and gave me two contradictory answers:
1- I like France. French people are like us, Chinese. They love good food and they are not direct in their communication.. Just like Chinese people...
2- I don't like France. I prefer the Spanish, Turks and Arabs, because they are more social and enjoy spending time together. French are colder...

An earlier famous encounter between the Chinese and the French was back the 17th century. A Chinese Shen Fu Tsung (left picture) on 1687 demonstrated to the French king Louis 14 (the right picture) how to use chopsticks. Louis 14, was also called The Sun King because France was revolving around him, like the earth was revolving around the sun.

Gaudi and FengShui

2008-10-10T23:36:00.000-07:00

While I am learning more about FengShui, I remember the impressive buildings of the world famous Spanish architect Gaudi.

In his construction, Gaudi considered the geography of Barcelona, the landscape of the region and the wind of the area and came up with architecture that is in harmony with nature:

Did Gaudi study FengShui? Or is FengShui a natural phenomenon that is was felt by Gaudi but is not yet well understood by the Western culture?

Wind-Water

2008-10-10T19:30:00.000-07:00

In the deep Chinese thinking, there is energy flowing in the universe, called Qi (pronounced Chi). This energy influences people moods and fortunes.

Chinese then pay attention to the placement and architecture of things to optimize the flow of this energy. The art (or science) of this practice is called "FengShui" (Wind-Water).

FengShui is very important in modern Chinese architecture and design. Here are an example:

This building in Hongkong optimizes the flow of FengShui by having a big square hole in the middle of the construction:

Modern science is recently catching up with this concept with all the fields theories (e.g. electromagnetic fields ).

Turkish stars in the Arabic TV

2008-09-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay, I am spending two weeks vacations in Morocco so my Chinese learning is rather slow. To shift direction, I want to talk today about some new stars in Morocco.

The first one is called Mohannad (Mohammad in Turkish), he is a TV star in Arabic world. Mohannad is handsome, very gentle with his wife. I heard stories that he made Arabic women go wild.

In fact, he is so popular that his pictures are banned in Saudi Arabia. He is so popular that his picture are next to pictures of Yasser Arafat in Palestine. You can always buy a cup or Tshirt with the face of Muhannad.. The divorce rate in the Arab world has increased since the broadcast of his programs.

The female star is called Lamiss. a cute Turkish girl and she is very trendy. In UAE, women are having the same hairstyle as Lamiss. In Syria, a tribe had a big ceremony when Lamiss, acting as a pregnant woman, gave birth.

A friend of my family fought with her husband because he said Mohannad is not a man. So she was upset and did not talk to him.

The Chinese Dragon

2008-09-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

The dragon is a symbol of China. It is so embedded into the Chinese culture, that I had once asked my History teacher about its meaning..

And she checked her note and answered smilingly..

The dragon can have three meanings:

1- Dragon: The ancestor of all the Chinese people

Chinese grand grand father is the Dragon.

However, when I asked about my anestors, they did not know, but they knew it was not the dragon.

2- Dragon: Symbol of the Emperor in the feudal society

In fact, if a common person has a dragon symbil, that would be a majot violation, and he deserves to die.

3- Dragon: Symbol of Success

There is an old Chinese saying that all parents repeat: "Hope Son Becomes Dragon"

Uyghur food

2008-09-16T06:33:00.001-07:00

My reader asked about how the Uyghur food looks like, and how it is different from the Arab food.

I don't cook, but I like to eat. So I can tell you a bit about the restaurant experience..

First, pork is not in the menu. This is big news as the Chinese cuisine is famous with its pork meals.

On the other side, every Uyghur restaurant, I have been to, serves beer, which was surprising.

In fact, the perfect meal is supposed to be beer + mutton skewer. I guess this is where East meets West (or rather far east meets middle east):
The Uyghur skewers are almost identical to the Turkish/Greek/Lebanese/Moroccan skewers, if you have some doubts, here are two pictures:

Uyghur language

2008-09-15T07:17:00.000-07:00

As I don't read Chinese, I normally walk around Beijing with my eyes wide open to capture anything I can decipher.

One day, I saw a big restaurant poster with some Arabic writing "Islamic meals"

So I started investigating, and found out that one of the many languages in China, there is one called Uyghur, and their language uses the Arabic script:

I will keep scratching this surface slowly slowly..

The mooncake

2008-09-15T01:12:00.001-07:00

During the last month, Chinese were joyfully eating and sharing nice little cakes called "moon cakes". They celebrated the mid autumn and the moon lady. But this tradition has a more interesting root:

The Mongols were controlling China 800 years ago. However, the Mongols were too oppressive, and Chinese were not happy. So the Chinese rebels had a plan.

Few days before the moon festival, the rebels distributed round small cakes to the other Chinese people. They claimed to celebrate the Emperor longetivity. When the Chinese people received the cake, they found a secret message to organize a rebellion again the Mongols on the moon festival day.

The Mongols were overthrown and the mooncake became a national tradition.

The White Snake Lady

2008-09-13T10:33:00.000-07:00

I just came back from the beautiful city of Hangzhou and everywhere I went, there was a talk about the white snake lady.. This is what I understood:

There was a snake that spent hundreds of years meditating, and slowly became more intelligent and gained other super powers (if you don't know what this means, read about immortality in China).

One day, the snake was moving around, and saw a handsome gentelman. The snake fell in love.

The snake then used its superpowers and morphed to a beautiful woman, and went to meet the man. The man fell in love with her, and they lived happily together.

The snake/woman quickly gained fame and respect in society. She was beautiful, warm-hearted and used her skills to cure people from diseases.

The monk, who was the teacher of the man, suspected that the woman was a monster. And the laws of heaven disapproved a marriage between animals and humans. So he prepared a magic drink to reverse the morphing (to get the woman to her original shape -> snake). The monk then captured the snake, and put it underneath a big building (pagoda).

In 1924, the immortals decided to pardon the woman snake, so they destroyed the pagoda then the whitesnake woman was free.

The Moon Lady

2008-09-13T00:41:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is a national holiday in China. We are celebrating the mid-autumn festival (or moon festival).
The celebrations started 3000 years ago. At that time 10 suns were turning around the earth. One day, the 10 suns aligned around the earth, and the temperature rose so much, that the harvest burned and people starved.

Then, a dude, Houyi, took his arch and shoot 9 suns.

Houyi became a hero and the king rewarded him with the a pill of immortality.
Houyi was in a serious relationship with this girl Changae. So he decided to save the pill for some other day.
Changae found the pill by accident, and ate it. She lost control of her superpowers and started flying. She did not stop till she reached the moon
Anyway, the girl lives in the moon now (some say that there is a rabbit there too), while the guy built a nice house in the sun and he goes to visit his girl once a year. And that is what we are celebrating next monday.

China launched its first lunar probe in 2007, and named it Chang'e; probably to rescue her.

Apollo 11 crew failed to find Chang'e back in 1969. This is a segment from a discussion they had with earth:

"Roger. Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning, there's one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chang-o has been living there for 4000 years. It seems she was banished to the Moon because she stole the pill of immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is always standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree. The name of the rabbit is not reported.

Okay. We'll keep a close eye out for the bunny girl."

The Chinese Fox Spirit

2008-09-12T06:30:00.000-07:00

As I explained in my previous post about Immortality in China, it is believed that all things are capable of acquiring human forms, magical powers, and immortality, provided that they receive sufficient super power.

The most famous example is the Fox Spirit. A fox with superpower traditionally changes its body to a woman of an extreme beauty. The woman/fox will then seduce men and take their power in order to get more superpower to achieve the ultimate immortality.

If you see a woman with 9 tails, she is probably a fix spirit.

This story is so common in Chinese culture, that if you describe a girl as "Fox Spirit ("狐狸精"), that would mean:"Very beautiful girl but she will take your energy.." or "a gold digger woman"

Immortality in China

2008-09-11T05:55:00.000-07:00

In the Chinese culture, immortality is a serious topic that has been researched for thousands of years. This creates a fantastic popular culture. For now, I will share with you what I learned. There is so much depth into this topic that I am really just about to discover the surface..

So you want to become immortal. You have a chance. In fact, everything has a chance to become immortal. A stone can become immortal; a tree can become immortal, humans too.

To become immortal, it may take few hundreds/thousands years and it goes through stages:

So a tree, for example, can reach some certain higher level, and hence some type of super power. The most notorious superpower is intelligence. The tree, for example, after thousands of years can learn to become intelligent, just like or better than humans.

Another famous superpower is morphing (change the physical appearance)

So the tree can, for example, take the shape of a human, if it likes.

In the next blogs, I will share with you some famous stories of animals who morphed into humans.

The Four Hot Chinese Chicks

2008-09-10T06:54:00.000-07:00

沉鱼、落雁、闭月、羞花

Four hot Chinese chicks used their beauty to change the history and have their name eternal.

The first girl, XiShi, is so hot that the fish sink by looking at her face.

The second girl, Zhaojun, is so good, that flying birds fall down as they lose balance when they look at her.

The third girl, Diao Chan, makes the moon feel ugly and hides behind the clouds.

The last girl, Yang Guifei, makes the flowes feel ashamed in front of her.

Slowly, slowly, I will tell you about women in Chinese history.

足球小將 Oliver y Benji الكابتن ماجد

2008-09-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

الكابتن ماجد

Oliver y Benji

足球小將
Captain Tsubasa

Chinese Humour

2008-09-06T09:06:00.000-07:00

Chinese people speak loudly and laugh loudly when they are confortable together. But their humour is not well understood by the foreigners. So they decided to learn about the Western humour to make the tourists have pleasant time in Beijing.

I met these two Chinese men in the streets of Beijing:

For those who are not familiar, this is a reference to Charlie Chaplin...

Chitchat

2008-09-06T04:53:00.000-07:00

I had this discussion today:

- How big is your country?
- 30 millions
- Oh! 2 big cities? How many cities do you have in your country?
- I don’t know. Many cities..
- They should be very small cities.
- No, Morocco is big.
- Really? I keep thinking that when if somebody gets lost in your country, he will probably crosses the borders by mistake.

That was not supposed to be a joke...

Minarets

2008-09-05T23:40:00.000-07:00

So much can be said about a country from the architecture of its minarets!

Ramadan in Beijing

2008-09-05T21:54:00.000-07:00

One fifth of the human population of this planet are currently celebrating the holy month of Ramadan. I have celebrated Ramadan in different countries.

In Morocco, the government officially changes the working schedule, the people change their eating habits; most people fast but all enjoy delicious dinner feasts.

In Spain, Spaniards would recognize Ramadan, and frequently criticize the fasting as a backward practice. Then, they would start discussing the history of Spain starting from 1492.

In US, Americans would politely congratulate the Muslims for this month, and then ask if this is related to the holy war, Jihad.

In Kurdistan Iraq, last year the Kurdish Government allowed opening restaurants during day time on Ramadan, but requested to cover the windows. Christians, Yazidis and some Muslims can eat confortably now.

In Beijing, it is a different story. Most people do not know what is Ramadan. As most Chinese dont believe in God, the first question raised is not:

- Why do you fast?

- You can't even drink?

It is after all:

- Why do you need a religion?

Ibn Battouta in Hangzhou

2008-09-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

Ibn Battouta (Ibn Batota, Ibn Batuta) is the name of a traveler back on the 14th century. He started his journey from Tanger (Tangier) and allegedly reached Beijing.

My secondary school back home (in Tanger) was called Ibn Battouta. The classical ferry from Tanger to Alegecias is named Ibn Battouta. But once I left Tanger, this name just disappeared from the common vocabulary.

As I was preparing for a trip to Hangzhou, I searched internet and discovered that Ibn Battouta was there about 700 years ago.

Back then, Ibn Battouta liked the silk, porcelain, and even the plums, watermelons, and huge chickens of Hangzhou. But he praised the artists and performers the most: "The Chinese are of all the peoples the most skillful in the arts." He was displeased with ""The Chinese themselves are infidels who worship idols and burn their dead like the Hindus... eat the flesh of swine and dogs, and sell it in their markets." ".

Hangzhou is about 10,000 Km away from Tanger.