YoYo took me to the bank because I wanted to see if I would be able to draw money out of my British bank account to at least pay Andy back. I only had 300RMB and I had no idea where to go to buy food, or how, or what anything was. Even though there was an English option I asked YoYo about on the small computer screen, she seemed to dismiss this and was shocked that I had the equivalent of 10 000RMB waiting in my British account. Andy also told me that we had been paid, and that I could submit my expenses from the Uk, including train tickets and visa fees, so I had also already submitted them.
Since this was my first 'real' job, I had only just clicked that companies also pay for the time spent training new employees, which I thought was generous. I checked my Chinese account and noticed 4000RMB, so this, together with the 6000RMB from my British account would be enough to pay Andy in full, and drew a further 2000RMB to tie me over until the next payday.
During the first weekend in my new apartment, I explored Westlake, walking around it in full circle, which took around 2 hours, together with crowds of Chinese tourists from other parts of China. People were taking pictures of me as I was walking around, sometimes asking me to hold their babies-possibly because I was either the only or one of few foreigners they had ever seen.
The Westlake was beautiful, with its peaked mountains, including tea fields, mirrored by the lake in front, busy with various types of boats, big enough for 50 people, and others only able to fit four. I took the anti-clockwise route, seeing a huge Starbucks as my first 'landmark' on the route, located within a square with other gift shops, ice cream stalls and Chinese food. Further along over the bridge, there were more smaller restaurants that sold Chinese food, including egg fried rice within a pineapple, noodles, and beef dishes, as well as various green tea places. Other stalls included the 'dress up' in traditional Chinese clothing, silk scarves, bags, fans, and stamp-making shops.
Figure 1: A view of West Lake, Hangzhou
The rest of the lake walk was divided into different parks or gardens, each with its own individual lake, and used as areas of rest while walking around. Parts were even covered in almost 'forest-like' foliage, until coming to Costa coffee and then Jinling Temple, and finally the famous Pagoda. Along here was an area very active for older ladies to dance to music, often in groups of up to 20 people, and always brought in a crowd of onlookers. It's a common trend in China that any patch of unused public spaces would be occupied during the day and night by retired Chinese ladies dancing, for both fitness, community spirit and just fun, combined with that 'group' mentality of synchronising actions. Another pastime was writing Chinese characters on the floor stones with water. I never really understood this, because it would soon fade. They would write poetry, old poetic psalms, with a large calligraphy brush they would dip into a small bucket of water, as a way of practicing their handwriting of hanzi (汉子). I had no idea what the writing meant, but it looked beautiful, like an art piece in itself, and had the benefit of keeping culture, memory, history and literature alive.
Figure 2: Hangzhou Westlake bridge
These observations on Westlake functioned as a 'hub' or snapshot, for want of a better expression, of Chinese cultural heritage, and perhaps the first glimpses of the 'raw' experience of China I craved.
Figure 3: Westlake Hangzhou
I found everything interesting, the food, the c-stores, with Lawson's being the most common in Hangzhou. A C-store was a convenient store. They're kind of like 'mini-supermarkets'. I couldn't really identify everything at first. It had various kinds of 'takeaway foods', including mostly sweet bread, or sweet and salty bread combined topped with meatfloss. There was a frozen section filled with various types of pre-packed and pre-prepared rice dishes, accompanied with meat, eggs and vegetables that only needed putting in the microwave for a few minutes at the counter upon asking the shop assistant 'jia re' (加热)， meaning hot, the meal would be fully prepared and given with chopsticks (kuaizi, 筷子). Surprisingly, selected western-type foods displayed included mostly white bread sandwiches with meat, either chicken or pork, salads, and wraps. These were the only foods I could identify and I generally went for the healthiest option, so I always chose a salad when I went to Lawsons. Other dried foods appeared to include pot noodles, along with various types of crisps and biscuits, and dried fruit such as mango. Usually at the counter, there were various baozi, none of which I could identify, since without being able to read Chinese they all look the same. Though, there were pictures, and if I was feeling adventurous with food, and since baozi was among the cheapest of food items, I would simply point to one of the pictures on the glass box where they were displayed and say 'wo yao zhege' (我要这个)， which just means 'I want this', and the shop assistant would heat it up. I loved the pork ones so much that I often bought four together and ate each of them throughout the day, for breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack.
Tea eggs, and sausages would also be displayed at the counter too, and I remember YoYo buying me tea eggs for breakfast. I told her they were delicious and she told me they were 'cha ye dan' (茶叶蛋), and I was ordering at least two of these for 2RMB each (20p), almost everyday. The sausages on the counter were the only other thing I could actually identify, but when I tried these they were tough and slightly sweeter than those in the UK, with more fat, so I usually passed on those. The other device on the counter of most C-Stores were metal boxes with segmented compartments, filled with water with different types of tofu skewers, including one called fish tofu. They were all placed in skewers of different sizes, some square, ball-shaped, round, others in the shape of a fish, with other compartments having seaweed or mushrooms. Normally Chinese would choose a selection and ask to have some of the sauce they were marinated in to be poured on top, and have the choice of spicy sauces too. I often saw the Chinese staff with large 'bucket's' of these during lunch.
Lawon's C-store really was a mini-supermarket of everything food and convenient, with other recognisable foods, including ice creams, though the 'pea' based ice cream looked more unusual. Different types of coffees could also be ordered, from Cappuccino, latte, Americano, Hazelnut Latte, or Vanilla latte for around 15RMB (1 pound 50), with coffee milk tea being around 8RMB, which tasted similar to that of melted custard and became a favourite, and a twice-a-day habit too.
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