Days without Internet

Sunday, June 6, 2010--Haerbin (Continued)   In the afternoon I searched out the St. Sophia Church.  It was a Russian Orthodox cathedral in the past.  Today, it is a history museum with photos of Haerbin through the years.  It is also the most photographed sight in the city.  Like many places in China, there was a reduced admission fee for people 60-69 (half price).  Anyone over 70 usually gets into everything for free in China.   As I left the church, I heard music blaring.  Then I turned the corner and saw that it was from a fountain show.  Such shows are popular here in China.  This one was in a large square to the side of the church.  I jointed the crowd to watch and listen to the 15 minute show.    I got a pork sandwich and ate it on the street.  As I had done the previous night, I wandered the Pedestrian Street and stopped occasionally to hear music.  One of the most popular things to do on the street is to have an ice cream bar on a stick.  I bought one so I could see what it was.  It had the texture of a fudgesickle, but it was vanilla in flavor.  I imagine its popularity is due as much to the hot weather here as it is with the taste of it.   I met a young student while watching some street entertainment.  I noticed him looking at me a couple of times.  Finally, he asked if I spoke English.  He explained later that he was afraid I might be Russian, so he hesitated before asking.  We moved down the street to a quiet bench and sat and visited.  He said he was a chemistry major but that he had only done that to please his parents.  He works in a local factory that manufactures sporting goods clothing and shoes for Adidas and for Nike.  Like some others I have met, he said he would love to live and work in the U.S. which he called the "best country in the world."   Monday, June 7, 2010--Haerbin to Changchun   I was the center of attention at breakfast.  Everyone thought it was funny that I ate my bread and my boiled egg by holding them in my hand.  The Chinese seem to eat everything with chopsticks unless it is liquid.  Then I could tell that the lady who runs the kitchen told a story about me that made me laugh.  My guess is that it was about the fact that I got porridge and starting eating it yesterday without adding sugar; she had to come over and put sugar in it and tell me to stir it.    The train trip to Changchun was crowded and hot.  I was in an inside seat, so there was little room for my legs or my body.  Fortunately, it was only 3 hours long.   This is one town where I had no advance reservation.  From my guidebook, I had decided to try the Chunyi Hotel.  It's a heritage hotel built by the Japanese in the early 1900s to house their dignataries and officers who visited the city.  It was an impressive building.  My room was in the heritage part rather than in the new additions.  The lobby had huge crystal chandeliers, lots of marble, wonderful woodwork, and huge stained glass panels.  The hallway walls were made to look like Japanese paper walls by using stips of blond wood on the cream colored walls.  The light fixtures in the hallways were large ones with wood and alabaster.  My room itself had a beautiful light fixture handcrafted from wood and alabaster.  The room was light and very large with two full beds.  The bath was also light with lots of room.  It was a good choice for a hotel and was reasonable in price.   To explore, I walked about 6 km (3.5 miles) to the university area of the city.  The guidebook showed streets there with small eateries.  There were MANY students on the sidewalks, and the eateries were very crowded.  I stopped at one to get a chicken sandwhich that seemed to be popular.  Then I took the bus back to the hotel rather than walk the distance in the heat again.   I needed water really bad.  I went to a mall near the bus stop expecting there would be a supermarket in the basement.  Unfortunately, there wasn't.  I returned to the hotel and asked about a supermarket.  The young man working at the desk told me there was a Wal-mart just behind the hotel.  I went searching.  However, I could not find it and no one recognized the name of the store.  I returned to the hotel and asked him to write it out in Chinese characters for me and to show me on the map where it was.  Like many foreigners, however, he was lacking in map skills.  I think maybe because they know the local town from growing up in it and have few chances to travel that they just have never had reasons to learn to read maps.  Anyway, I went searching while showing the Chinese characters.  Eventually, two young boys walked me to the entrance.  I bought two large bottles of water, a large bottle of Coke Zero, 3 cartons of yogurt, some noodles, and some laundry detergent.   Back at the hotel, I laundered a pair of pants, a pair of shorts, and two pairs of socks.  That's all the line in the bathroom would hold.  Shirts need to be done, too, at a later date.   Tuesday, June 8, 2010--Changchun   This city has many buildings besides my hotel that were built by the Japanese.  Japan had its eyes on China for many years starting in the late 1800s.  In 1931, they finally invaded and made Changchun the capital of Manchuria until they lost it in 1945 after WWII.  They built many grand government buildings.  All are typical of the 1930s in their simplicity of style.  Unfortunately, most were built with a dark brick that is not attractive.    The hotel had a large buffet breakfast.  I had noodles, eggplant, cabbage, boiled egg, spicy pickled potatoes, fried bread, rice porridge, etc.  After that, I went to the bus station behind the hotel to buy a ticket for my trip to Shenyang tomorrow.  The train had been so cramped that I thought going by bus might be better for this next segment.    I tried to go to a cyber cafe only to learn that Changchun requires a residence ID to do so!  I checked 3 places.  All of them refused to let me use the computer.  Upset about it and with plenty of time, I decided to complain to authorities at the Public Security Bureau.  I explained to them that I had a passport with a Chinese visa in it, so I had another form of permission to be in China from the ID.  They weren't interested.  Then I told them that it would cost them in tourism if people cannot use the Internet.  I told them I would be writing to the various travel guides to let them know that this was a problem in their city.  Whether it was an effort to get rid of me or to try to help me, I'm not sure, but they wrote a note and told me to take it across the street.  I did.  It was a place with a sign indicating it was a foreign exchange student office.  I showed the note to the boss, and he shook his head no.  So I returned to the PSB to tell them so!   I told them that my family will become worried if I cannot use the Internet to communicate with them, and that it would likely result in the US and Chinese governments getting involved in having to try to locate me after a complaint from them.    The main reason to visit this city is to tour the Emperor's Palace.  It was never REALLY an Emperor's Palace.  The last emperor of China had been deposed by the nationalists in the early 1900s.  So Japan reinstalled the him in this palace as a puppet emperor to try to legitimize their occupation as an effort to return China to its proper rule.  The entire complex was built by the Japanese in the 1930s, and it is fully restored with original furnishings.  It is really quite interesting to tour.  The buildings reminded me of my hotel in style, and there were even some light fixtures that were similar to the ones in my hotel hallways.   Attempting to clean my sandals, they came apart on me.  I was hoping they would last through this trip, but I had noticed that the sole seemed to be parting from the partion where my feet rested.  They had gotten so dirty, however, that my feet would get dirty from wearing them.  I put them in sudsy water in the bathroom and squeezed and brushed (old toothbrush) them to try to clean them. Well, the strap came completely loose and came out at the back of one of them.  I am hoping a repairman can glue or sew them so that I can continue using them while on the trip.  It would be difficult to replace them, since most sandals are not as soft and would rub blisters on my feet.   Wednesday, June 9, 2010--Changchun to Shenyang   I didn't sleep well.  I had nasal drainage which was collecting at the bottom of the passage from the nose to the throat.  I think it is likely due to allergies rather than a cold.  There are many trees here with flying cotton-like spores in the air.  I don't know if the trees are cottonwoods, but what is in the air is much like what comes from them.   I'm a bit tired of Chinese breakfasts.  They are too similar everywhere.  Also, they all include Tang rather than real juice.  Yet the tang is so diluted that it is like hot water with just a hint of an orange flavor.  It looks the color that doctors would like one's urine to look rather than the dark yellow it (the Tang) should be.    Hotels here have you sign a credit card form for a deposit.  Everywhere I have been, they charge the correct amount at checkout and return the signed form for the advance.  My present hotel didn't do this.  I had to open my bag and show them what the other hotels had done.  They understood and looked for my signed form and returned it.  I doubt that they would have processed it, but I am glad I realized what was happening and handled it without leaving and then having days of worrying about whether the deposit form was being processed or not.   Well, the bus trip was as bad or worse than the train trip.  It took 5 hours to get to Shenyang--one hour of it just to get out of Changchun!  Yuck!   Frustration!!  I immediately went to an Internet cafe and encountered the same problem here as in Changchun.  I'm getting depressed thinking that I may not be able to communicate with home.  I'm scheduled to be here for 4 nights, and my next two stops of 3 nights each are in the same province.  That means I could go for 2 weeks without being able to communicate.  I tried several cyber cafes and got the same response.  In one, in fact, a man said, "Go home!"  I'm sure he meant for me to leave since there was nothing he could do for me, but his wording represented the feeling I had for what China would like for me to do.   Again, I went to the PSB office and told them the same things I had said in Changchun.  It did no good.   Depressed, I started trying to think of my alternatives.  Finally, I decided the best answer was to skip Shenyang and Dandong and return to Haerbin where I had last been able to use the Internet.  I went to the train station and bought a ticket for a fast train to go there tomorrow.  I thought I could communicate what has been happening and then continue with my travels knowing that everyone would not worry if they did not hear from me afterward.  Besides, I enjoyed Haerbin and there were things I didn't have time to do there.   Thursday, June 10, 2010--Shenyang to Haerbin   The train was a sleek, modern one that traveled at rather fast speeds--156 km/h (90+ mph).  It took us only 4 hrs. 20 min to get to Haerbin.  The whole time I kept thinking about how nice it would be to be back on the Internet to deal with the long list of things that I was keeping that needed doing/investigating:  making hotel reservations, searching train schedules, writing e-mails, updating the blog, etc.   I decided just to return to the same hotel where I had stayed before.  Sure enough, they gave me the same room at the same rate that I had before.  Then I went directly to the same Internet cafe where I had been before.  They pointed to a sign and said that I could not use the Internet.  I told them I had been there just a few days ago and showed them which computer I had used.  I told them I had a passport with a Chinese visa.  They looked at it.  Then they went to get someone else.  He came up and refused me again!   I was so depressed.  After all this backtracking by train, I still could not get onto the Internet!  I started thinking of alternatives.  One would be to buy a computer, but I had not seen any shops here in Haerbin, and I figured they might be more expensive here than even the ones I had seen in Nanjing with Wes.  I looked at my map to try to find a local university thinking that I could tell them I am a former professor and maybe they would let me use their computer.  I couldn't see a university on my map.  Therefore, I started looking for young people to ask about the location.  A young couple stopped, and she spoke English.  I told her my story and asked her where the university would be.  She wanted to know which university.  I told her any would be fine.  But as I explained my problem, she said, "Let's to to the hotel and see if they can help."  We walked to a hotel on the corner and she explained my situation.  The lady at the desk called someone, then she told the student that I should pretend to be a hotel guest and go back into the office.  There, a young woman got up from her computer and let me use it.  She stood by, so I only had enough time to write one brief message to be posted to the blog.   As I left the hotel, I knew that I needed a better solution.  The young students were still outside.  I asked them where a good place to buy computers would be.  They told me there was a place near the train station and wrote the name in Chinese characters for me.  I walked to the station and started asking for directions.  People kept pointing, and I kept walking.  In fact, the place was almost as far beyond the train station as I had been when I first started out, and the weather was HOT!    I arrived at the place at 16:05, and closing time was at 16:30.  It was like a mini-mall of electronics companies.  I stopped at a both selling lonMID brand.  The price was cheap, but so was the computer with a flower design on the outside.  I kept looking.  I saw the eMachines, the Acer, the Sony, the HP, and the Samsung brands.  I ruled out eMachines, Acer, and HP due to the fact that the first two were the same with different names and due to the fact that Wes' Acer and my old HP both have a problem with the cursor jumping while typing inside e-mail; it causes letters to be placed where they shouldn't be which wastes time.  The Sony was way too expensive.  The Samsung, however, seemed to be a good price.  It was about $360 with higher specifications than some of the others.  And that was with taxes.  In the U.S., I think it would sell for at least $350 PLUS taxes.  I decided to buy it, but the two ATMs that were in the area were both out of order which probably meant that all ATMs were offline at the time.  The shop was closing, so I told them I would return tomorrow.   I'm not sorry about being back in Haerbin.  This is one of the nicer cities to visit in China.  I will stay here a few days and see and do some of the things I didn't get to previously.  Also, I want to enjoy the Pedestrian Street some more.   I returned to the hotel at 19:00 totally exhausted from the stress of the past few days.  I had drunk a large carton (1.2 kg--probably about 1 1/4 liters) of yogurt with red dates while walking the Pedestrian Street.  I didn't need further food.  I read.  Then I went to bed just before 21:00.   Friday, June 11, 2010--Haerbin   The woman at the breakfast room was glad to see me again.  She used motions to indicate that I had left and returned, and I shook my head to respond positively.   Like most people in China, she is quite nice.  It's the government rules which make being here a problem at times.   I got cash from a neighborhood ATM and returned to the store and bought the Samsung computer.  I was surprised with all that came with it--a mouse, headphones with a speaker, keyboard protective sheet, cleaning fluid and cloth, etc.  That does make it a bargain compared to U.S. prices.  However, the language is Chinese for all the controls.  I need to get that changed.  It has an international warranty, so they said I could take it to a Samsung repair place in the U.S. and get the language changed during the year of the warranty.  I'll search and see if I can find a way to do it myself.  Fortunately, it has an English keyboard and types in English within my e-mail program and within Word.   I've spent about 4 hours going through the list of things I needed to do on a computer and typing this update for the blog.  I'm tired now, but what a relief it is to know that I will be able to be on the Internet now.  Every hotel where I have stayed has had a wire for broadband connections.  I still think it is silly that the Communists try to monitor Internet usage by limiting it to those who produce an ID card.  How afraid they must be of their hold on power.  And how sad it must be for Chinese people to have to worry about what web pages they visit, knowing that the government will have a list.  Now I better understand why Google gave up on the Chinese government and moved out of the country.  I will avoid traveling here in the future out of principle.  It's ridiculous that I had to buy a computer to be able to use the Internet!!