The morning was messy. I thought of grabbing a complimentary breakfast and coffee downstairs at the hotel, but B said we should take a shower before that. Waiting, I finished some DuoLingo – finally, some more work than just keeping the streak on – as usual by the end of the week I tried to pull more points. Then, it turned out that breakfast was served only till 10. We were too late; I was desperate for coffee. B did some WeChat magic – and Luckin Coffee, a local Starbucks competitor, was going to deliver the coffee in 15 minutes right to our hotel lobby. Then the hotel robot would deliver it from the lobby to our room. We were waiting; the coffee was delivered to the lobby, it reported, but the robot was still not coming to our room. We waited longer. Finally, we went downstairs to meet friends and waited till the hotel staff tracked down the missed in-action robot with our coffee. I was grumpy from being under-caffeinated. Finally, they tracked down the robot carrying our coffee in the elevator. 

The coffee was helpful. Life is better with coffee. Friends drove us somewhere across the city; I looked out of the car window. Pleasantly looking city – lots of green, trees, and bushes, and the buildings are growing like trees in a jungle together with all kinds of plans. Mountains densely covered by the dark green trees. Clouds and humid outside. We were having a slow conversation about tech and Alibaba; Alibaba is from here, from Hangzhou. Recently the government broke up Alibaba into 6 separate companies – friends say it actually helped the company because communication was becoming too difficult; I can imagine that. But they were worried about too much government intervention.

We stopped for breakfast at a house by a lake. It all looked like the China that I imagined: bamboo growing around the lake, cobblestone trails around, and lush green plants everywhere. I noticed there was not much propaganda messaging around like in Inner Mongolia: no signs about the unity of the nation, the pomegranates making everyone better together, etc. Not much commercial messaging either. Just peace of mind. It was hot, humid, and cloudy. We ate steamed fish, steamed endives, and baked sweet potato – all in delicate small pieces. And tea, of course. But my throat was still sore after tea and breakfast.

Then we went to a museum. I don't know which museum it was: I couldn't find anything in English about it. I only know it was not far from Liangzhu Museum, but this museum was not about archeology; it was rather oriented toward the design and the history of technology. 

First, we checked out a section about printing technologies. The printing press was known in China centuries before Gutenberg re-invented it in Europe. It is an interesting counterexample: it is often said that Gutenberg's printing press was the percipient of Enlightenment in Europe; but nothing similar occurred in China. Reading remained the prerogative of the elite, with a single-digit percent of people able to read, and a tiny number of people able to read were also able to write since traditional Chinese writing was too complex. As if it was not a high enough bar, then all printed papers were actively censored by the authorities. Copying Confucian texts was the use of the printing press.

Then there were sections about the libraries of Chinese texts. In the 18 century an official library of texts was compiled, placing texts between four main categories. Those are the classics. It was all too new to me, and since I couldn't read it, I just learned a little bit of the basics of the categorization.

Chinese word "zi" refers to famous ancient thinkers. Category "Zi" in the four-category classification, however, covers much more than scholarly works by the sagacious, comprising writings on religion, technology, and miscellaneous other topics, as well as reference books. Most books outside the Jing, Shi and Ji categories are filed under this heading, resulting in a swelling collection.

The Zi consists of 14 subcategories: Confucianism, military affairs, legalism, agriculture, medicine, astronomy and mathematics, divination, art, systematic illustrated books, miscellaneous issues, reference books, novels, Buddhism, and Taoism.

A whole interesting category was family traditions books (called 家训). 

The listed books included the 13th century's "The Code of Conduct of the Zheng Family" (郑氏规范), the communist era "Ten Family Precepts" (十条家规) by Zhou Enlai, and modern "The Family Precepts of the Qian Family" (钱氏家训) published in 2010. Unfortunately, it's all hard to find anything about it in English. Something around Baidu page on 家训 is probably a good start for translating. It is interesting because there seems to be a contrasting divide between Eastern and Western understanding of "traditional" family: while in the West family is largely shaped by a vague understanding of Christian "love", in the East family is seen as a collective effort where everyone has roles and responsibilities that member rarely question. So, the Chinese "traditional" family is much more rule-based structure; also more inclusive of family members: in Chinese, "brother" (哥哥 or 弟弟) or "sister" (姐姐 or 妹妹) also includes cousins of any degree relationship; but the age relationship is rather signified by different words for older or younger sibling, emphasizing the structure of responsibilities. Then, this large inclusive family runs a family council, when adult family members get together regularly and discuss family matters and make decisions – whom to help with money to buy an apartment or go to school. A successful Chinese family starts acting like a nepotic corporation. A less lucky poor family from a village may try its chances to save resources and send just one kid to study in the city, then that kid hopefully won't become a drunk head playing Mahjong but will realize his responsibilities before family. I noticed Chinese in the US generally hate this collective family system of responsibilities, and many are rather obsessed with Western individualism, but I find it quite interesting to learn about.

Another section was translated as "Propaganda" in English, with posters of Mao and various sayings in white on red – I was surprised; is it a sign of consciousness of the government calling its posters "propaganda"? As it turned out, in Chinese they call any government messaging "propaganda" – unlike English (or Russian) it doesn't carry the negative connotation. 

Propaganda (noun): information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.

(from Google Dictionary)

Seeing all these language differences I can understand people's fears of language manipulating people's minds; like Orwell's "Newspeak" from 1984. But I'm more in favor of Steven Pinker's view that people don't really "think" in language: they rather think in an intermediary non-verbal form first, a language that Pinker calls "mentalese", and then they verbalize ideas in sentences; so in the end, people understand what's going on, even if a language is not particularly tailored for expressing it.

Then we went to a place called Liangzhu Center of Arts. There were many arts and crafts kind of stores selling Japanese-designed items, and, of course, bookstores. Danxiangjie bookstore (单向空间) is rather a cultural institution in Hangzhou, founded by public intellectual Xu Zhiyuan, attracting a particular cultured crowd. Another bookstore ("Xiao song shu wu") was founded by Gao Xiaosong, a rather more outspoken pro-democracy intellectual, whose name is now removed from the name of the store and whose works are banned in China. But people still remember the origins, and people still flock to this place: Tadao Ando designed curves on the buildings could well serve a contemporary art museum in New York or London, but unlike cosmopolitan crowds in those cities, Hangzhou after COVID sees not many foreigners visiting.

I found a book of notes from my favorite Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke (the book was called 贾樟柯电影手记). I'd read it if it ever translated into English. It's a bunch of work notes before and during the process of making his movies.

We grabbed coffee at a cafe by the bookstore. I was getting weak with my throat still sore, and I started suspecting fever. I drank a coffee, sat down, looked at the people – and I gained strength, and my throat got better. I felt much better after that coffee. The chances are that it was the extent of my second COVID: four days later B tested COVID positive, but I tested negative, and I remained negative. Coffee kills COVID, in other words.

In the evening, we went to the center of Hangzhou for dinner. Crowds of tourists were walking around Grand Canal, the man-made canal built in the 7th century between Hangzhou and Beijing. The stone bridges crossing the canal attracted many people to take pictures. Many craft stores, restaurants, tea houses, and the like attractions going along the canal. Crowds of tourists – but all domestic. Hangzhou is a well-known destination domestically, but foreign tourists mostly go only to big cities like Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. We ate a few kinds of steamed fish and fish stew and then checked out a Taoist temple after dinner. 

At the hotel, I fell asleep in under 30 seconds.

I read Lu Xun’s “Madman’s Diary” – it turned out to be super short. Pretty interesting, and not as influenced by Gogol as I thought; I guess the idea was Gogol’s Записки сумасшедшего, but the story felt deeper. Cannibalism as some strange metaphor for the capitalist world; men eat men. Then I dozed off and saw strange dreams about cannibalism and eating human flesh. I woke up in a sweat – it was a hot and sunny afternoon.

Our friends just feed us and drive everywhere, and want to hang out with us all the time; I can hardly go anywhere on my own. So, we drove again to a place to eat, and I said I wanted to take a walk before dinner – I thought of a walk around the block, but that block turned out long, and it took me over twenty minutes to round it. On one side - the car road, broad and empty, and on the other side – fences, then high rises, gates in the fences, so strangers won't enter the public outdoor space for each housing complex.

The restaurant was themed nostalgic of 1980s China: tiled cemented tables, socialist signs, and metal plates; back then all restaurants were government-owned. One sign said “Young people should work hard to find fulfillment in their life” – or something of that sort, in Chinese, of course – I said I agreed with that as long as the term “work” was defined broadly, as pretty much any meaningful activity including studying, reading, writing, crafting shit, and so on. Most of our friends at the table disagreed with the sign, saying that young people should just relax more and enjoy life – perhaps, as a reflection of the Chinese hard work culture people don’t wanna hear anything about hard work anymore.

Then we walked in the park along the river. This small city is built along the river, not built much to the sides of it, so pretty much any neighborhood has access to the river park. It was quite lively in the evening park: many people gathered in front of a loudspeaker and a phone streaming dancing to Tiktok or something, and dance as a form of exercise – for mostly older people at the square. Another group of musicians was drumming and playing other instruments – reminded me of the musicians in public squares in Europe, but without a money collection box in front. And, again, streaming everything online, another local thing. Another speaker was playing loud ridiculous electronic bangers, and a group of old Chinese guys danced and had fun. These Chinese public square activities looked interesting, a form of democratized expression – there is always something to observe in it. A Thursday night in Hulunbuir. 

(written in July, edited in March 2024)

Then, in the rain, we ran from the yurt to the host's house with a bathroom. Toiletries done, we sat for breakfast. Mongolian unsalted cheeses, good coffee were for breakfast, but no milk tea – turned out Stoop's dad brewed the tea, but he left for errands that morning, and Stoop didn't know how to brew Mongolian tea. 

We drove to Hulunbuir after breakfast; we got the idea to visit a sauna. The sauna was large, taking space over 4 or 5 floors. One floor for lockers, another for massage rooms, another for pools and saunas, game rooms, tea rooms; something like that. Mass scale and affordable. A large water palace to serve the workers. All that space was quite empty on the Tuesday morning. 

The lady at the lockers complained about B's and GQ's two pieces swimming suits – apparently, one-piece closed-type swimming suit is the standard here for women. But I felt rather overdressed – in my American style long swimming shorts, all Chinese guys looked freeer in their ultra short swim briefs. 

The sauna turned out to be Korean style – so no that hot at all; with lots of pools of varied temperatures scattered around walkways. It was pleasant to soak in the warm pool after getting wet in the chill rain in the morning.

We couldn't decide if I should take the full body scrubbing session.

– Asian men don't have much body hair. – B was saying, – They will scrub your body really hard. They will pull your hair. It will hurt. 

I was getting worried what the heck was this bloody scrubbing service. Finally, I decided to try it. Since I had to separate to the men's section, we agreed on what exactly they do, and where we meet after. There were many massage tables in the room, and three middle-aged men sitting in the corner. One man was squatting on the chair – he preferred to squat even though he had the fine chair to seat. He held a cigarette to the side of his mouth, so slowly burning the smoke didn't hit his eyes, while he was typing something on the phone with his hands busied. Another man prepared the massage table, showed me to take off my swimming suit and lay down. So I did, I closed my eyes, and this man washed my body very well. Of course, my body hair was not as easy to pull, as B thought – that was just fine. Then they gave me a single use underwear, wide shorts and a top, and walked me to the game room. 

Go, and some other board games that I had not see before, and various 1980s style arcades – that was the game room, which was totally empty. I was fresh; there I waited for B and GQ to finish their body scrub.

Fresh and hungry we went to a local dry hot pot kind of food called Tie guo dun which means Iron Pot. What makes it special is the buns that are cooked together with everything on a side of the pot. GQ said she tried it in Shanghai too. Turned out, it took 40 minutes to cook the pot; usually, people call in advance and arrive when the food is almost ready. So we sat around the table, fresh and hungry, and looked at the pot until it was cooked. GQ said in Shanghai the flow of people is high and they always have a few pots prepared, but in here we had to call in advance.

We stayed at a friend's house for the next few days. We cooked home made Buryat buuz, and drank hoppy fresh local beer in the evenings – the customs were that one had to drink together with someone, not sipping beer alone whenever one wanted; just raising it and saying something good, and then – chugging the whole medium size mug, and refilling from own bottle. Whenever I tried to sip my beer, someone would join in, say something, and I had to gesture and finish my glass. In two days I got used to it so much that I couldn't drink beer another way anymore, like sipping by myself.

(written in January)

Woke up at 8:15am with the alarm, then slept till 9. 

We ate the same Mongolian breakfast as yesterday, but this time with GQ, discussing our travel plans. Our host Stoop invited us to come stay in the yurt in a few of days, after we visit the border and the yurt gets dry from the heavy rains. Why do we go to the Russian-Chinese border? I don't know – even though it feels like I have something to do with it. I half-joked that if I cross the border then the Russians will send me to fight in Ukraine; a joke, but only partially.

So we drove to the west, to Hulun Lake; the plan was to loop around the lake; then drive the northern part of the loop along the Russian border; to the west – Republic of Mongolia, the real Mongolia; lots of scenery along the way. The plan was to stay overnight in Manzhouli – the Chinese town on the Russian-Chinese border; "-li" at the end means "inside", so "Manzhou-li" means "inside Manchuria". I knew very little about this border town – the border towns that I had visited before were small and unnoticible, with police checking the passports, some small trade for the travelers, that was about it – so was the Polish-Belorussian border, and Russian-Georgian border; what I remember of them. I heard about big tourist flooded border towns like Tijuana near San Diego, but I had never visited. 

On the road we saw cows, sheeps, and other cattle. Horses? We surely saw horses too. 

For lunch we stopped in a small town called New Barag Left Banner, recommended to us by Stoop. The place was a wooden house with a dozen of wooden tables, totally empty; the waiters looked pissed that we came by. We ordered three dishes for three of us: steamed viggies, stir fried veggies, and a pot with meats. The later was huge; it alone must have been just enough for 4 people. We wondered: why didn't the waiter tell us that we ordered too much, that the dishes are large enough for us. "They are like that here. They never interfere in what you're doing," – B said, – "but they are nice people if we talk to them."

Then driving again across the steppes. It all looked the same to me – grass, cows, sheeps, occasional rocks, and whatnot. Perhaps, stopping somewhere in the middle would help appreciate it, but from the car it looked all the same.

Next on the plan was to meet up some local artists that B followed on the Internet and arranged us to meet in person. We met at a public square with various scattered trades on the ground – plastic basins, pots, fruits and veggies. Ormis is a photographer whose interests are primarily in Inner Mongolia, whose works are shown on some exhibitions in China; he looked like a quite man in his 30s with typical central asian facial traits, quite distinict from Chinese face, but I'm unable to describe what exactly is different. His friend was a larger dude, simple and friendly looking; he didn't talk much. B had a short conversation with them, in Mongolian, and I was thinking of how weird that we're meeting these strangers, and I can't even speak their language, and what we were even doing there. The big guy proposed to drive to a tea place somewhere nearby. On the way, B said it was a typical Mongolian setup – when meeting someone man is supposed to invite his good friend who will be taking care of all the logistics, take care of guests, etc.

The tea place looked like a camp of artistic Mongolian yurts and small wooden cabins around, with tea tables inside, just outside of the city, and a large yurt in the center, large enough to fit perhaps 50 or 70 people. We walked to the main yurt: inside, there was a stage with guitars and drums, a mic stand, and a sound system; but no one was playing – it was only about 6 in the afternoon, too early; a bunch of tables, chairs, and soft sofas around; a bar counter on the side. It looked like a 1980s rock club in the day light. We crashed on couple of the sofas. We were joined by another guy that reminded me of Victor Tsoi with his waivy hair, patchy beard, leather jacket, and his cool iconic 1980s sunglasses. 

So, we drank tea and talked. Speaking Mongolian, Mandarin, English – it was not an easy task to communicate at this table. B translated, but then she had her own topics to discuss with Ormis, so I didn't want to bother them too much with translation. GQ figured our hosts spoke some Mandarin too. I would say something in English, GQ would translate to Mandarin, then B would explain some terms in Mongolian, then the guys would reply in Mongolian, and B traslated to English; B later said her Mongolian was not as good either. I figured it was a special skill to say something meaningful with so much translation going on. What did I say? We talked about art and representation of this place, and how much a single place has to ofter if one looks carefully, our hosts claimed. Ormis would listen, take a moment to think, and thoughtfuly reply. I asked him how wasn't he getting tired working in the same place all his life, finding interesting in the mandane; he said knowing the place very well allowed him to capture the changes unseen by travalers. Inspired by artistic conversation I brought up Plato, for some reason – that was too much; that the multi-lingual conversation skill that I am talking about – not to bring up Plato like that.

Meanwhile, the Mongolian part of the convesation turned political. The crackdown on Mongolian education earlier this year, and the like. It is not too bad, our hosts told us, – the kids can be sent to Mongolian schools across the border; the propaganda enters through one ear and exits through the other; the imporance of education is exaggerated – developing connection to a place through family and time is more important than school. 

The hour passed fast; we had to keep driving to Manzhou-li. I asked the guy that reminded me of Victor Tsoi if he knew about Victor Tsoi, the musician – of course he did know him, and also Cui Jian in China, he said, another Korean whose songs played at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Interesting how Victor Tsoi and Cui Jian are the Koreans making a splash in Russia and China.

Then another few hours of driving; at night, we appoached Manzhou-li. What the heck was that. It reminded me of driving in to Las Vegas: because of all the neon lights and high rises imitating castles. A giant neon lit Russian matroyoshka welcomed the visitors. Neon lit Kremlin was just next to it. Then lots of neon signs both in Chinese and Russian: "мебель" (furniture), "меха" (furs), "торговый центр" (shopping mall), "таможенные услуги" (customs services) and the like. Finally, my Russian was useful to read the signs. The city was full of parked cars at every sidewalk possible, and crowds of people walking along the stores. It took us half an hour to find where to park our car; a walk to our hostel. A group of Russians in telnyashkas I heard saying: "Зачем мы сюда прихали? Нажраться!" (Why did we come here? To get drunk!). GQ said I didn't look like those Russians. I guess I did not.

At check in at the hostel, as usual, they had to take a copy of my passport. This time the receptionist told us that it was actually a new law, and that they only had to report Americans and Uyghurs, but not other passports. I can understand they watch Americans, but Uyghurs? Those are just Chinese citizens, don't they? For some reason, they are mistrusted to the same degree as Americans. We went to our room; B and GQ were tired, but I thought I'd go see this city a bit more since there wouldn't be staying there for another night.

First, I ran into the hostel's communal kitchen downstairs. It looked pretty cozy, reminded me one hostel in Utrecht in the Netherlands, where students stayed for longer than just a few nights – for weeks, in fact, and it bound a kind of community. Except, I could barely breath there because of the cigarette smoke everywhere; in another room there was a large communal table with 8-10 people at it, and all young Chinese guys were drinking Russian beers and smoking cigarettes. One of the young guys was wearing telnyashka, welcomed me in English and started asking me question. It was quick till we got to the topic where I was from.

– I'm Russian-American, – I said.

– Slava Wee-Dee-Wee! – the young Chinese guy shouted.

– What? – I didn't understand.

– Wee-Dee-Wee! 

– Oh, Veh-Deh-Veh, – I finally understood. VDV, so-called Russian "elite" armed forces – in fact, a bunch of soldier pricks, infamously getting drunk and fighting on their "special" day on August 2 – that was about all I knew about them.

– Are you from Veh-Deh-Veh? – I asked.

– Oh, no, I'm just fucking around, come join our table, have a beer! – he invited.

I knew what happens after; I knew this story. I had to go for something else. I could barely breath from the cigarette smoke. That guy was a kind dude though, but I had to go.

My next stop was at a small store nearby; the plan was to find Russian beer. Where else if not at the border? Two Chinese ladies were chatting at the store entrance; they asked me what I was looking for. I didn't know how to say "beer" in Chinese, and English turned out not to be useful here. The younger girl was guessing what I wanted in Chinese; I couldn't explain. Then, the older girl spoke a chain of syllabi that finally came out in my mind as Russian sentences – she spoke Russian, she did, I realized, those weird sounds made sense – my Russian was finally useful for something! I said "пиво" (beer); I said "русское" (Russian). She understood; she showed me a freezer with icecream and bottles of Russian beer under the packs of icecream. It was all dark beer. I said "светлое пиво" ("white beer", lager, essentually); she couldn't understand. Then, "bai cha" – white tea, I remembered; I said "bai пиво" – "bai", she understood, "net" (no) she said. Lingua franca in action, in places where English is too foreign to be known. I bought a bottle of dark Russian beer called "Stari Melnik" in China without B's help. I thought it felt like an achievement because I almost never did anything by myself in China.

I went back to the hostel. B was still awake. I told her the story of how my Russian, and my attempts at learning Chinese, all came out to be useful here, at the border. In bed, I kept thinking of Ormis: the personality of an artist touched me. What was it? Confidence in his own life? Unpretentious and thoughtful communication? He radiated something attractive; he made me think and question. 

– What does Ormis do for living, – I asked B, almost falling alseep, – he's not making a living on his photographies, does he?

– Oh, he's in the propaganda department, making some of those pomegranade unity posters, – she said.

That made more sense. I slept shortly after.

(Written two weeks later)

I woke up around 5am – it was bright outside already. My head was hammered from last night's drinking; the cold wind was pleasantly blowing from the window at my bed. I had about 200ml of local liquor called bai-jiu ("white alcohol": bai 白 "white" jiu 酒 alcohol) of 45% alcohol content, which is about the maximum okay amount I can drink and not suffer from the consequences, but then, as Mongolian drinking culture goes here, we drank beers. I never drink beer after liquor, and I declined to do so this time, but there we go – I had not resisted enough and gave in. Bad, bad, bad thing to do –  drink light alcohol after liquor. 

A few days before we drank bai-jiu with food, and then finished with another light alcoholic drink that they call "chug" here, also known as "kumys" or "ääryg" – which is somehow fermented horse milk with alcohol content. It was very sour, and supposedly helps with digestion and beneficial for health, as they say here. That time drinking chug after baijiu turned out fine, so perhaps that was why I gave in and tried what they do here.

I slept on and off, waking up for water and thinking how heavy drinking is a thing of the past, and that I should stick to my habits of drinking or not drinking instead of trying what locals do here. And so I slept until the afternoon. 

In the evening we went to a Buddhist temple. It was surrounded by many crafts shops and streed food places – the kind of Asia I'd imagine, a night market. Crowds of people, smoke from fried food, loud speakers advertising something, etc. Then it rained; we went back home.

Woke up around 7:40am without alarm – earlier I was checking my phone at 5 something, then slept again. 

There was a shelve of English books in a large bookstore that also served coffee drinks and had tables. Popular coffee drinks here are cold brews mixed with various bubble-tea-kind flavors. On the English bookshelf there were the classics: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Essays of Montaigne, Tocqueville, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Karamazov Brothers, Don Quixote. English books are usually labeled in English on the front, with some other signs in Chinese, and Chinese text inside. There were two shelves of books of Russian literature: those are all Chinese translation, with Cyrillic title on the front; Lermontov, Pushkin, Doctor Zhivago, etc. Василий Гроссман, "Жизнь и Судьба" – that I don't know. I like how they put the original title on the book; wish more publishers did it, and wish they used some more of original key terms, perhaps, in footnotes.

Another bunch of used books stores housed among crafts shops, computer repair businesses, arts stores, and the like. A precious book among bookstore owners here is a Chinese translation of diaries of Алексей Позднеев called “Монголия и монголы: результаты поездки в Монголию 1892—1893 гг.” (Aleksei Pozdneev, Mongolia and Mongols: the report of traveling in Mongolia in 1892-1893). Only 1000 copies was printed in 1989, and since then the party did not permit reprinting it, afraid of Mongolian nationalism. They ask US$200 for the used book. As I understood, the text is valued by many researchers because it is an unedited diary written during the traveling; somehow, this kind of first impression unedited reports are considered more reliable than when written later. 

We went to Konqu opera called “The Peony Pavilion” in the evening – it’s southern Shanghainese opera. Events like this here in Hohhot are scheduled pretty much everyday. Classical concerts, performances, theater plays, all the socialist cultured life. Hard it is, this opera genre. The place even had English captions, but only on a side wall, so I was interrupted by looking at either the performance or the text. Somewhere in the middle I caught some interesting feelings about the opera plot, falling in love in a dream, and sadness of reality. Spring time and an afternoon vivid dream, and a touch of love in a sunny garden. 

If I hadn’t come to the garden, how could I have ever known how beautiful spring was!

不到園林，怎知春色如許！

But then I spaced out and thought of my own things, and these captions on the side wall were so interrupting and didn’t help. Serving some coffee would be so helpful with opera! I had a good night sleep that day.

(written a week later)

In the city, a 10-years-old boy came to me and said: "What is your name?" I told him my name, and asked his; I asked how old he was. He was joyful and laughing, then he said "Привет, товарищ" (hello, comrade) in pure Russian – I should say I was surprised; I asked "Ты говоришь по-русски?" (do you speak Russian?). The boy put his hands to his head and said in Chinese: "Oh my god, my head is exploding!", and laughed. Then I had to go, but I thought I don't get to use my second language of the neighboring country here at all. My friend talked to the boy for a little longer, and was told that the boy learns Russian in school and his hero was Lenin.

Woke up at 7:40am, without alarm, in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, on the 20th floor.

Sometimes, it is hard to pinpoint and describe even roughly what is off – just indescribable melancholy. 

Outside on the ground, there was a line of benches and cobblestoned walks between them, four fountains, and each fountain having two marble geese on one of its sides, and two granite vessels with plans on the other side; a stream of water flowing from the geese's beaks into the fountain pool. A cleanly trimmed line of bushes separate the fountain from the benches. Across this small park – a gate, the entrance to the housing complex. Outside of the gate there is a large statue of three horses in gold; cars are moving around this statue, picking up passengers from the entrance gate. A line of columns separate the driving side from the sidewalk, pained in gold as well. Behind the gate is the park and a series of 25-30-35 stories houses of the complex. The roofs of the buildings are decorated in Parisian-like shingles or slates. The cars are not allowed inside the complex, and, besides the small park with the marble geese, there is a series of walks where kids bike, elders walk, and adults hurry. The housing complex is called European park; the baroque is from Europe indeed. 

"Province" is the word in my mind, but provinces are so different – it hardly describes anything. I usually despise such places, – trying so hard to separate from dirt poor of past generations, they show off the middle class wealth, but comprising little human experience subsense under the Parisian-style roofs. They say: "I worked myself up. I followed the order; I woke up on time; I did what my boss asked me to do. I got money; I got a house; I got a kid. I'm a respectful person. I have a nice life." I get bored with that message and that is why I prefer New York City, which says: "I tried this, and I tried that, and I failed both but I keep striving. Don't ask me about this dirt that you see, because it is not dirt, but complex and highly developed form of order." 

Outside of the housing complex we found a bike sharing spot. There were two companies – yellow, blue and green bikes, just left in the dedicated spots without any locks in the same place; there were scooters in the same place, but we have not try them. The prices is, of course, ridiculously cheap – 4 yuan / 50 US cents for 40 minutes of biking. The bike trail was going along a river, with many willow trees and freshly trimmed in straight line bushes. The temperature was much more comfortable than in Beijing, but the sun was intense. The park was empty. We tried to park, but the app was saying we have to park in a dedicated spot, or pay 8 yuan, so, why not, we tried to find a bike parking spot; that was located across a 8 or 12 lanes road divided by a fence preventing pedestrians crossing it. The bike parking was in the middle of two zebras spaced in quite some distance; so, by the time we crossed the road and parked the bikes, we didn't want to walk around the road to go back to the park. 

The entire city seemed to be structured that way: wide car roads, each direction divided by a fence to prevent illegal crossing, a separate lane for bikes and scooters divided by an alley of trees, then a wide sidewalk, a parking lot, and high rises with businesses on the ground floor and apartments above; a fence separating the yard area for the building residents. This seems to be the model of modern Chinese urban development; I've seen a mock-up of this in the National Museum in Beijing – it also showed the system of underground pipes and cables. All it looks quite American to me, despite the occasional European baroque, it is a suburban cul-de-sac built above the ground. My belief these days that building comfortable cities requires a degree of civil political activation – you cannot build a nice city for passive users, but here I'm just an observer trying to make sense of what I see or, perhaps, being ignorant, reflecting myself in what is being reflective.

My New York home-based VPN stopped working when I was hanging around Tiananmen Square on Friday. I first thought that was flaky cellular reception – the Internet never works fast for me here for some reason, even Baidu takes a second to open; perhaps, my phone is bound to American DNS or whatnot. Perhaps, they block the VPN on Tiananmen Square? Technically, it should be doable, if all strange traffic goes to one IP address – it must be clear what is happening. Then, the VPN worked for me again in the evening, and then completely disappeared. So, Chinese Internet without VPN is like no Internet: even Telegram didn't work – how come Russia couldn't block it, but China could? I couldn't even find some party facts in English – when the Long March took place, etc – Baidu didn't find anything in English. Russian Yandex wanted my Chinese phone number to let me use its search. Everything wanted my phone number, in fact: cafe WiFi's, WeChat payments, subway tickets, DuoLingo, etc. So, it was a digital detox weekend until I got a local SIM card on Monday, and a friend helped figuring out another VPN solution; it's called ClashX – there are way too many VPNs solutions – it uses multiple servers, measures latencies, and more smart in general, it seems. 

By the way, besides asking my local phone number, DuoLingo disables most of social features here: no friends, no avatars, only the leaderboard and people's names. For learning Chinese characters I bought another notebook here for 3 yuan for practicing writing – it feels so essential to try writing them for seeing the differences, and DuoLingo not teaching it at all. Otherwise, my next problem here with my Chinese is my face – people just don't expect hearing Chinese from me.

For the weekend we stayed in Beijing's kind of outskirts called Fengtai district – that is pretty much where Jia Zhangke's "The World" (2004) takes place. Basically, the kind of places where Beijing people live – from 40 minutes to over an hour commute to financial district. We drove from a shopping mall (a totally North American kind), and I was asked what I thought of Beijing way of living, and I said it was very similar to New York, except the buildings are higher; people less familiar with foreigners think here that foreigners have some different exotic life style: that we can't eat without forks, very clean, etc. Nope, people are people, and Chinese are extra attentive and hospitable to foreigners, so much that they could be less so. But; that is not totally true, of course; there is nothing in the world like New York City subway (I'm being sarcastic here).

We went to a police station to register me as a foreigners staying with residents; the instruction was given to me at the border. The local police chief talked to us a little bit, wished me safe and happy staying in China – his photo was posted everywhere in the neighborhood, so I felt like talking to some kind of local celebrity. The city is quite clean from the ads and advertisement billboards, only the photos of police chief and some other district employees. 

What else? Some kids don't hide their curiosity to see me, some open their mouth looking at me, some say "hello laowai!" and then I say "hello". I kind of like this kid's open unrestrained curiosity and wonder if some adults feel this way.

Woke up at 7am on the tenth floor of a hotel placed for some reason among one-to-two stories buildings in Hutongs of central Beijing.

The surroundings of the center of Beijing surprised me. What is not surprising is that in the very center, around Tiananmen square placed the government, the party buildings, etc. Forbidden City, the palace of Imperial China overthrown in 1912 is on one side, with a portrait of Mao at the entrance along with the sign saying "中华人民共和国万岁" - usually translated as "Long Live Republic of China" it literary means "Chinese People's Republic, Live 10,000 years". Ironically, for building a new socialist society the party chose to place its bureaucracy in the exact place of former Imperial rule. 

Hutongs are old quarters preserved around the central parts of Beijing, contrasting with socialist grand architecture and western-style office buildings. They look essentially like village-like slums, with chaotic motorcycle traffic and cars taking the whole narrow street – I don't know why they didn't ban the cars. But houses in hutongs are expensive, and it's trendy here for rich people to buy a hutong and renovate it. Some hutongs are essentially tourist traps, but there is a lot to explore, and some look pretty cool, authentic. Dashilan Street was full of tourist crowds, but its parallel Yangmeizhuxie Street was totally empty with many good places to explore, but northern hutongs are even more interesting to walk around. I thought it was pretty surprising to be able to quickly get away from the government center and see the village-like life in the center of the capital.

In the evening we were invited for dinner by a friend. What is it like to be invited by a friend in China? The check is on them, sure, but also we don't get to order anything ourselves – everything was decided by the host; it is a gesture of knowing your friend to be able to order the food that they like. The place was Yunnan food, which turns out is a region with many indigenous people. I liked bridge noodles and potato stew. All food was shared, as usual in Chinese dining. The place was decorated in the 90s-like style, with many old electronics around, cassette players, VHS TVs, and old family photos. Some kind of nostalgia for the nineties. Oh, and Mao's portraits, occasionally; that was a strange part.

Beijing's life of young adults sounds stressful. Would it be easy for girls to date in China, since the gender imbalance, with too many men in society? As it turns there are many expectations from girls' families barring most of the potential partners – sure, the family wants only the best for their daughters, and the best have a good education, an apartment, and a car. Thus, those guys that are able to pass the family's checkmarks actually have a lever of their own. Besides, families compete with each other, which involves much judgment and jealousy. Buying an apartment in Beijing is a hard endeavor, with prices going above millions of US dollars for not-too-far-away locations; young use their families' money for such things and thus keep depending on their parents. My question about communist housing and the party providing for the people raise a laugh–free housing is not part of what is called "scientific socialism rooted in Chinese realities". All these regards make the young sick of society, willing to run away anywhere. Something like that, in my interpretation. 

Bed by midnight.