There appears to be mixed opinions on whether the Eve or the Day is the most (over? Never!-)hyped day of Christmas, so I am posting somewhere in the middle.
There is little left to say but Merry Christmas!/Happy End-of-Hanukkah!/ Happy Wednesday/Thursday! I hope everybody has been swanning about in their place of choice in their outfit of choice, having a generally good time. I hope you have all got your out-of-office messages on your emails, and failing that, are ignoring any “pling” that results from your work emails on your phones. We have all ignored an (several) email(s) sometimes, and if you say you have never done that, you should be ashamed of yourself, because lying is bad form.
I wish you relaxation and good health until the new year, but who knows what will happen next? In the meantime, a little present for your trouble in following this naff calendar, although of course I hope you have been amused, and enjoyed your time here.
I never really think of myself as a historian. Occasionally I do something stereotypically historian (such as ooh and aah over war documentaries, or obsess over getting the year – or day – right on for a particular historical event at a pub quiz), but most of the time I think my not-so-historian-ness is highlighted in an office full of historians. However, this does not mean that I cannot occasionally pretend that I favour the old far over the new.*
“Old motor vehicle trade show.”
This picture was snapped on a sweltering day (little did I know at that moment that I was going to have my second bout of sun stroke of the summer later that day) when I headed away from “my” museum in Hangzhou, to Nantong, in order to carry out my pilgrimage to the home of Zhang Jian, founder of the first domestically funded museum in China.
This building was potentially too close (for comfort) to the really quite shiny coach station. Won’t anybody think of the cars?!
*Even this is very stereotypical in itself. Historians, I love you all.
Many people (or maybe it is just me) float through their lives today without thinking about the little details that might make day-to-day life a little better (or worse). Such as funny names. Everybody likes a funny name, no? The other day, a friend and colleague of mine was discussing potential Christmas presents for family members, and I suggested a day out at an amusement park for one of their younger siblings. Then I mentioned that I hadn’t been to “Green Grove” – this is the direct translation of the name of an amusement park in a European capital city, gold star if you can figure out which one – for ages. Cue a procrastinatory half-an-hour of translating non-English proper nouns into English and amusing ourselves (…myself) over the effect. The consensus is that they are often (non-)descriptive, twee, or unflattering.
Exhibit A:
Beijing.
“Southern ditch mud river.”
Exhibit B:
Stockholm. (The sign is the white-on-black text. Don’t get distracted by the doodles.)
“(The) Raspberry mountains.”
Elephant and Castle? What’s that?
Any further contributions are most welcome in the comments!
While on the subject of travel, an office colleague, who is rapidly becoming a Scandiphile, was asking me about bureau de change matters – namely, how money is referred to in different countries. This was the resulting list.
money, money, money***
It could be worth noting that while Hong Kong uses HKD – Hong Kong Dollars for the uninitiated – the terminology surrounding money for Chinese speakers is the same as in Mainland China. CNY is often also called RMB (人民币* ren2min2bi4), of which the 币（bi4) refers to the money itself. In fact, 硬币 （ying4bi4) directly translates to “hard cash”, and means coins. HKD is usually referred to as 港币 (gang3bi4) by Chinese and Cantonese speakers**, where the 港 comes from 香港 (xiang1gang3) – Hong Kong.
*Ren2min2 (人民）means people, or people’s. So 人民币means people’s money.
** If I am wrong, please let me know. I will add errata and credits.
*** If anybody has anything to add to this table, please leave a note in the comments!
Today’s post is actually a public service announcement.
If you, especially if you are an early career researcher who does not have huge budget freedoms, wish to travel to China for work or leisure, I say, excellent for you! The road, rail, and air networks are relatively expansive, and there should be a way to get to most places. However, if you wish to commence or visit a city that is not an international hub (most of these are situated on China’s enormous coast from east to south), but still a large enough city, air or rail may be your best bet.
Travel agents (or “ticket offices”) can be easily found in cities – there is one in the PKU campus – who will be able to provide both ticketing services, as well as general advice on travel and routes. The basics are as follows:
you will need ID, preferably passport, for buying any and all tickets and travelling.
Prices on flights will fluctuate depending on how long you buy them before the date of travel;
prices on trains will not.
The high-speed trains all have service codes beginning with G, and are the prime choice of many who want to travel between large cities and massive cities. They are air-conditioned.
Not all trains are air-conditioned.
Make sure you are headed for the right station, as most of the larger cities have multiple stations at different ends of town, and are commonly denoted by cardinal direction. (North 北 bei3; South 南 nan2; East 东 dong1; West西xi1. It’s also possible that there will be a “city station” 城 cheng2.)
A train station is a “火车站 （huo3che1zhan4）”, and an airport is a “机场 （i1chang3）”. A stop is “站 （zhan4）”.
N.B. The numbers in the romanised spellings of the Chinese characters indicate which of the four sounds the word should take.
Finally, remember your pot noodle for the train, and also that the hot (drinking) water is free, the cold (drinking) water is bottled, and you need to buy it.
Now, you may choose your destination…
Where do you want to go?
This is an example of how a ticket vendor may display the choice of destinations: the yellow titles are the names of provinces, followed by a list of cities within.
P.S. Of course, coaches are available to smaller places, but not always for the faint-of-heart, and, by my own experiences, you’re better off travelling on those only if you are confident in your Chinese.
P.P.S.Finally – driving. I would not go there myself unless I had time to take extra driving lessons specifically in Chinese traffic. So much for optimism!
The Real World for Young People 