10/04/07 - Easter in Beijing

Happy Easter!

I hope you are all enjoying a relaxing bank holiday weekend and are feeling appropriately ill from eating an unhealthily large number of Easter eggs. I am very jealous. I have spent the last few nights dreaming of a Cadburys Buttons Egg. Obviously, they do have chocolate here, but it doesn’t taste the same, especially as it isn’t egg-shaped and hugely over-priced. Saying that, Fei Fei, my 4-year old Chinese niece did surprise me at this evening’s class by coming to visit at the start to give me a chocolate bar in front of my 50 students. Very sweet.

BICF

Yesterday I went to an Easter Day service at the Beijing International Christian Fellowship (BICF). There are no churches here, apart from a few Catholic ones, so the group meets in a theatre. I say group, it’s more like a population. The theatre complex has various different auditoriums, the largest holding over 3000 people, and there are different services in different places.

Chinese law doesn’t allow Chinese citizens to practice religion with foreigners so you are told to take your passport. However, when I rocked up to the door of the theatre at 9.30am on Sunday, I wondered whether they really needed to check my passport to confirm that I wasn’t Chinese. Or perhaps I’m at last beginning to blend in with the locals!? I think not.

Bilingual Service

I had the option of a bilingual service or a service all in English, so obviously I chose to utilize my superior linguist skills and attend the former. This service was in the main auditorium, which was absolutely packed full of people from every corner of the globe, except ironically for China of course.

It was an amazing experience. We started by singing some songs in English with Chinese subtitles. Then the bilingual element kicked in and we sung some songs in Chinese with English subtitles. Not so easy. Luckily they also displayed the Pinyin Chinese so I happily, if a little tentatively, sang along. Apart from the band, there was a choir that performed a few songs and a very interesting dance by two ballet dancers who looked suspiciously Chinese, which I thought was not allowed. Having said that, at one stage about 20 Chinese people, who are Christians, were paraded on stage before being escorted off, far away from us evil foreigners who may corrupt their minds.

The service was led by some American bloke. I was interested in what he was saying and enjoyed his talk, however his whiny American accent did quickly begin to grate on my sensitive British ears. I debated offering him some elocution lessons but later thought better of it.

The American Accent

In actual fact far too many people speak American around here. Obviously, there’s the Americans for starters, but then most Chinese people who speak English have a painful Yank twang. I put it down to Hollywood and all the trashy American shows that many of the English-speaking Chinese people watch.

CCTV-9 – The International Channel

Most of the presenters on CCTV-9, the international channel, also have American accents, which leads me nicely onto my next story, which involves me being called by the station this morning. CCTV (China Central TV) is the BBC of China and I’ve met a couple of presenters since my arrival here. Then last night I happened to stumble upon an advert for a new presenter on the channel.

The advert specified male, 175cm-185cm tall, American/European, sporty and extrovert, 25-35 years old and living in Beijing. Not far off, I thought. Oh and one other thing, fluent in spoken Chinese. Now you may ask yourself what I was doing looking for a job, seeing as I am contracted until July in my current job. Good question, I don’t know.

I decided to overlook the fact that I am still a little way off fluent in Chinese and sent off an email asking for more details and introducing myself. Now I didn’t lie in the email, however I might not have mentioned quite how basic my Chinese is. Anyway, I thought nothing would come of it. I was wrong.

I sent the email including a few photos of myself at about midnight last night. Then to my surprise I got a phone call at 10am this morning. Great, you may think. However, my primitive Chinese was fairly quickly exposed when the woman tried to have a conversation with me in Chinese. This wasn’t hugely fun. I explained in more detail that my Chinese wasn’t great and luckily began to speak in English. Phew. She asked me if I was free for an audition at 2pm today, which I was, but then she spoke to her supervisor who said they really needed someone who spoke fluent Chinese (like the advert said). I thought this was fair enough, particularly as I currently have a job but they said they’d keep me in mind for the future as they liked my “appearance”, whatever that means.

So that was all quite fun. Look out for me on CCTV-9 in the future. Which reminds me, thanks for the messages from people who have seen me on Doctors recently. I’m dusting off my DJ for next year’s Oscars. However, those shameful few who did see me, do some work!

The Government Turns The Heating Off

In other news, the government has turned off the heating. Yes, that’s right, the government control the heating of buildings. In mid-March they just switch it off to save energy and it doesn’t come back on until November. Therefore, despite the weather getting rapidly warmer outside, my apartment is freezing.

I’ve spent a large part of the last week seeing some friends from Oxford who arrived fresh from 8 weeks in Mongolia. It was great to see friends so far from home, however, a piece of advice for anyone trying to rendez-vous with someone who doesn’t have a mobile phone in Beijing. Don’t arrange to meet in Tiananmen Square. It’s too big and full of tourists so you don’t stand out a mile like you do everywhere else.

Apologies if this email has just wasted the end of your well-earned bank holiday weekend (or not well earned in some cases). At least you had a bank holiday!

See also Lao Beijing Blog