Archive for May, 2009
The hundred kuai challenge – Game Over
Posted by: Rachel in Mysteries of the Big Jing on May 10th, 2009
Couldn’t find the time to write here the past few days, so here is how it ended after less than 5 days.
Day 4: Bread and vegetables: 7.4 Kuai.
Bus to Chaowai and back: 0.8
Total of 4 days: 76.4
Got very tired from spending so much time confined to my apartment so took a notebook and spent two hours scribbling on a bench in Beiheyan. That avenue is a jewel in the city and a godsend: greeness and calmness for all, free of charge.
Day 5: Some shirts needed ironing (something I hate doing, which is why I don’t have an iron at home) – 13 Kuai
Man tou for breakfast : 2 Kuai
And the thing that ended the game: Mailing a gift overseas for a friend’s birthday – 78 Kuai
So is it possible? It certainly is. Is it enjoyable? Not really. The good news is, and it might read trivial but we should bear in mind it’s not the case in some developed countries – it’s fairly easy to keep a balanced, healthy and almost delicious diet anywhere in China even with the tightest budget.
Anything beyond food and transportation, though – booze, coffee, entertainment, will almost immediately push you beyond the 100 kuai mark. Can foreigners handle this? Well guess I could for a while if I really had to, but boy am I grateful I don’t.
Realising the game was over, I headed from the post office on to trying on some clothes. The dressing room in a tiny side-street shop was also the manager’s kitchen, crammed with spices, utensils and vegetables. A small door opened into a tiny room, more like a niche really, with a two store bed. That is this couple’s apartment, and they are shop owners, by no means the poorest of Beijingers. I’m pretty sure they live on less than 100 kuai a week and something tells me they don’t write a blog about that. It was a good reminder.
Not much of a challenge for them I suspect
Not doing so well. Hundred kuai Callenge – Day three
Posted by: Rachel in Mysteries of the Big Jing on May 6th, 2009
The trick is to stay away from pricey western outlets, right? and give up massages too. Which reminds me, I really need a massage. And pedicure. And a facial.
Oh well, what won’t you do for the sake of expirament.
Morning at Dawanglu. Miraculously made it here by subway and managed to shove down coffee, a salad and oatmeal before leaving the flat so should be OK for now.
11:30, still at Dawanglu. I’m not sure what in the urban landscape, glass and metal of CBD makes me want to enter Starbucks. I object Starbucks for many reasons, chief among them is my idealogic objection to drinking bad coffee. Still, I want a tall latte. Guess it tells you that Starbucks add machine works well.
But in China there is a sub for everything. A 1 kuai coffee tasted 冰淇淋(ice cream) did the trick for me. Took the bus back to Dongdan and a walk home from there with a stop at a Xinjiang restaurant for excellent noodles (10 kuai).
Normally, I work either from home or from a cafe. What I find hardest this week is giving up sitting in cafes and having to work from home: it’s boring and it gets me down a bit, and makes me want a massage even more.
Set to meet an acquaintance this afternoon who just came in from Kai-Feng (some people live there, apparently. Don’t ask me why). Two Yunnan cafes in a strange Hutong venue only set me back 20 kuai. He paid for dinner – another way to save. Maybe I should find a patron.
Today’s expenses: Subway – 2 kuai Ice Cream – 1 bus – 0.4 lunch – 10 coffee – 20
Total today: 33.4
Total of three days: 68.2
That leaves me to go 4 days on only 30 kuai which seems nearly impossible.
Lesson learned: I actually quite like simple Chinese food.
The 100 kuai challenge – Day two
Posted by: Rachel in Mysteries of the Big Jing on May 5th, 2009
A flower, and a bowl of rice (except not a bowl of rice):
Started the day again with a breakfast at home, then off to the bank – walking for about 15 minutes. The way back is paved with temptations (chocolate, coffee) which I bravely withstood – Can’t afford to pay 20 kuai for coffee can I? molihua cha would be just as good (or not).
But the florist I had to visit.
You’ve probably heard every tour guide’s favourite story about the very poor Chinese man who had only one kuai left. he used half of it to buy a bowl of rice, so he’ll have something to live on. The other half he used to buy a single flower – so that he’ll have something to live for.
This is a beautiful story, demonstrating the Chinese love for nature and beauty and allthings that grows, as well as their passion for life’s little gifts, and most of all – their incredible ability to squeeze the most out of a kuai. As I was soon to discover, however, having to rule out the 40 kuai batch of red roses, a single rose together with one chrysanthemum in a vase don’t look artistic, not elegant. They simply look like crap and does nothing to cheer me up. The colour match wasn’t that great either.
Lunch – was on a tight deadline with no time to have lunch. Here’s a way to save.
Dinner – went down to the Malatang stall but took the guys suggestion to try his liang pi （凉皮）or cold noodles. With some chilly and vegetables, it was really quite delicious.
Stying home tonight with a book, and a scheduled chat with my brother.
Things that I miss: Chocolate & cigarettes. Not that much besides. Been easy two days though as I was mainly in and around the flat. Got a meeting near Dawanglu tomorrow morning – see if I can manage getting there by subway without being horribly late.
Today’s expenses: Flowers: 7 kuai, Liang Pi 4 kuai
Total: 11 Kuai
Total so far this week: 34.8
What have I learned: Malatang boy also makes good noodles (information I’ll certainly use later)
Roses and chryzanthemum don’t sit well together
There is no way Laowais can do 100 yuan per week, possibely 10 kuai per day
CN reviews is a great blog even when I don’t agree with anything written there.
Women bloggers: No thanks, there’s really no need
This post from the CN REVIEWS came as a surprise from that usually enjoyable blog. Lists of blogs and bloggers are always good, as they’re a great way to discover new blogs, but as for the theme, I really don’t know.
Good blogs are good blogs. Good writing is good writing. Rconversation always makes for an interesting reading because the author is a media pro with lots of experience and a broad perspective. Her being a woman is only relevant for those who presume such a blog would be written by a man. China Smack is one of the best blogs around because it has got a winning concept and is well executed. When it started it took me several months to realise the boss there was a woman.
Adam Minter in the same post makes the distinction between news or translation oriented blogs, that are gender-less in nature (I’d add also politics, History, PR, sports, or in fact any non-personal blog), and personal narrative or travel blogs. For the later, minter argues, we need the list, as women’s experience in China differs from men’s.
But everybody’s experience is different. isn’t a Europeans experience in China different thanthat of an Americans, or A Middle-Easterner? Black people’s experience is very visibly different from white people’s, it would still come around as bad form, I believe, to compile a list of Black China Blogs. In any rate, personal and travel blogs are only rarely interesting, and they are not the ones making the buzz in the Dunadan blogsphere.
The list itself shows there are a lot of women bloggers around (and surely there are many more, not included in the list). There are women writing in central and relatively influential blogs, there are prominent women in different fields of expertise, sharing their experience and knowledge on the web. Is any of this surprising? Hardly.
I am sure Mr. Ng didn’t mean it, but that list seems a bit patronizing in the way it looks like an affirmative action. Thanks, really, don’t think we need it.
Mr. Minter, however, does think the list is important, and I am very curious to know why. Will wait for him to meet his deadline and make time to write more. Meanwhile, I’, off to meet mine. Expenses report later today.
The 100 kuai challenge – end of day 1
Posted by: Rachel in Mysteries of the Big Jing on May 5th, 2009
Had dinner at home (rice with vegetables if you have to know). It’s three meals in a row which hasn’t happened for a very long time.
Chocolate craving, but that’d be seven more kuai so better to pass this one (Hey! I might be getting something good out of this experiment) Also, ran out of cigarettes. Might be a perfect time to quit.
Bus to Gulou Dongdajie (4 Mao or 0.40 yuan) – Hanggai are coming to the Amilal bar. A glass of whiskey is 50 kuai so that’s out of the question, espresso please (have to work late, and anyway, it might be a perfect time to quit) – 15 kuai.
Hanggai are awesome even without cigarettes or alcohol.
Refusing a taxi. A bus home. Its a long wait after 11pm – another 4 Mao. Still want that chocolate. a young couple, not homeless by the look of them, is hanging out in the garden near the National Art Gallery, bags and packs thrown around them so they might be catching a train later tonight. Here’s a way to save money, but haven’t quite got there yet.
Expenses, day one: 24.2 Yuan Sorry, 23.8 Yuan
Lesson learned, something I didn’t know about Beijing: After 11pm, you wait a long time for the bus to come.
The 100 kuai challenge. Are foreigners up to it? I am
Posted by: Rachel in Mysteries of the Big Jing on May 4th, 2009
Saw the question (and the answer, a definite NO) in some dunadan blog but can’t find it now. I am of course talking about this: Young people in China’s big cities are trying to budget, and made it a challenge to live on hundred kuai per week or less (rent and bills not included).
There is apparently, a considerable income gap between those budgeting folks and many China expats. There is also a difference in lifestyle, but can’t foreigners adjust?
I don’t know, and couldn’t get other people to take the challenge, so I’m taking it myself. I am positive to fail, being a total 大手大脚 (having big hands and feet, meaning money tends to slip through my fingers), but nevertheless, it’s worth trying, at least for one week.
I will elegantly ignore the 8000 kuai flight tickets I’m paying for this very week, was guilted into paying my mum a visit, and don’t really have a choice here, so lets pretend it happened last week, or didn’t happened at all.
So lets begin:
Monday – doing very well so far. Breakfast at home. stinginess overcame natural laziness. So much so I made delicious Palestinian style salad from whatever was in the fridge.
Sending a fax – 8 kuai.
Lunch – at home
So far: 8 Kuai only, but day isn’t over yet.
to be continued
(and they are doing something similar in other places as well, only in dollars