Planning
I bought maps and read guidebooks. I merged with my PC, absorbed in travel site postings. I found hotels but, oddly, could not get a sense of the cities, because the information in the guidebooks is grouped by types of attractions, not neighborhoods. I would figure it out when I got there.
But what about language? I’ve been to almost 50 countries and never had a problem – pantomime gets me pretty far. I happened upon a Mandarin phrasebook and flipped through it to see what Lonely Planet thought was essential to communicate. And then I found the “romance” chapter:
Kiss me
I want to make love to you.
Do you have a condom?
I won’t do it without protection.
It’s my first time.
Touch me here.
Do you like this?
Oh yeah!
Easy tiger!
Faster/slower/harder/softer
That was amazing/weird/wild
I love you
I don’t know about you but, if this an appropriate situation to use a phrasebook...
The next phrase could only be the launchpad for yet another generation writing about their dysfunctional childhoods:
Will you live with me/marry me?
I guess there are trips where your luggage contains nothing but a clean tee shirt and a case of condoms. I would have done much better in college French if we learned vocabulary like this and not “Ou est la Rue de la Paix?”
Beijing
I won't talk about the monuments (although I will admit that I'll miss "The Wall" due to a combination of snobbery (the nearest section is to be avoided) and a bad airplane cold). Instead, I will focus, as I always do, on the living culture, trying to puzzle out what I've read and draw conclusions about what I'm seeing. After 3 days, a China expert. Ahem...
When you look at a map, the city seems manageable - I can walk to the Forbidden City from my hotel, how far can the other sites be? The answer is: you can't begin to imagine how vast Beijing is. Taxis are cheap and plentiful, allowing me to avoid the subway in favor of being driven from point to point. Which is how I discover that the maps lie. Point A to Point B takes 30 minutes, without traffic, and involves going on internal highways, off them and on to others. And it isn't just the size of the city - it is the size of everything you pass. Buildings on steroids. Buildings that make Albert Speer's intentions positively modest. Endless buildings of such size. And many more under construction.
Construction has been China's byline for years now, but the 2008 Olympics has Beijing in an absolute frenzy. The main shopping street south of Tienanmen Square is marked for demolition - all the stores have sheet metal in front of them, bringing back memories of New York's iron curtains. Apparently, they intend to demolish - and rebuild it - by 2008. I'm not sure what will arise - one building has a faded billboard of modern apartment blocks. 34th St is probably the best analogy - although 5th Avenue below 42nd is probably the same.
Running parallel to this already broad street is a narrow lane crowded with small shops and shoppers, edging one of Beijing's most historic shopping districts. I can't imagine that it will survive.
Immediately to the west of this is one of the hutong quarters, the lanes lined with one storey courtyard homes where people lived for as long as 800 years. These quarters contain the soul of old Beijing (this particular area housed the craftsmen for the Forbidden City), they also lack indoor plumbing and many other amenities. The houses have been apportioned amongst workgroups, so a family inhabits only part of one. Mao lived here before he became Chairman. In view of China's recent history, there was no opportunity for decades of evolution, as happened in the equally run down historic areas in Europe. But, then, the Asian way seems to be to obliterate its heritage only to realize how much has been lost once it is gone, as Singapore has.
Due to the soaring price of land, thousands of homes are being demolished annually despite the predictable protests of intellectuals. The streets are filled with gaping wounds where hutongs once stood. Residents are forcibly resettled to vast, soulless developments with all mod cons far out in the suburbs. People who, for centuries, lived touching the earth will now inhabit slices of the sky. What does it mean to live in a country this ancient which will soon have no past?
I walked along, idealistically thinking that a third way is needed here, as visions of the South Bronx danced in my head. And then I found the single word that describes Beijing for me: Koyaanisqatsi- life out of balance. And all in one place, in a short period of time.
I wondered, as I have several times since I arrived, what it is to live in a society where the rules change so drastically and so frequently. To think about the Cultural Revolution and then the encouragement of capitalism is only one part of it. On top of that are changes in family structure (the one child rule) and the total destruction - again - of your home, again, with much of what you own destroyed and, again, being forced to abandon your home for a place in the country side, this time by Communist capitalists, not the Red Guards. While we think of America as a culture of extremes - anorexia or obesity - we don't come close to the Chinese experience. Think about how crazy we get when we find out that some diet or supplement or medicine is bad for us and try to imagine what it would be to have all of our values changed every few decades. What goes on inside the heads of people here who are my age? Fortunately, this is a culture with a deep value in conformity, which probably helps people deal with this - but still...
I spent a lot of time looking for, and at, “minority” Chinese textiles, which are made in south west China. There are about 55 minority groups, with hundreds if not thousands of sub-groups. The vast majority of people in China are Han, so everyone else is a minority. But, here I will exclude “minority” groups like the Tibetans for personal as well as political reasons (When I went through Canadian customs in Vancouver, the young agent asked whether I’d ever been to China before. I told him that I had been to Tibet and Hong Kong. If he wanted to consider these China, then I’d been there twice. Otherwise, I had not been there at all. He understood.)
The embroideries and weavings were unavailable until the last few decades so they are far more affordable than comparable pieces from other parts of the world. They are also astonishing in the fineness of the work and their visual impact. Because they are relatively new to the market, there are not many books about them, at all, and even fewer in English. I saw piles of baby carriers and baby hats in the 80’s but the material that was coming out then, while now highly collected, wasn’t my taste.
I went to the Sunday “dirt” market, foolishly believing the guidebook that I should arrive at dawn. I was sick, it was freezing and the market was first setting up. I watched vendors push carts and ride cycle powered carts filled with huge bales of goods. They set up in the way common to all traditional cultures: here the minority textiles, there the Tibetans, over there the pottery and, in the back, the books. Some of it under a vast, open shed. Other parts, unsheltered. I knew that much of what was being offered was either fake or tourist items but assumed that there would be a few worthwhile things among the dross.
The minority textile dealers are all women. They wore a mix of tribal and modern clothing, with the distinguishing item being a sort of cross between a head wrap and a cap. Their goods were laid out on very low platforms or hung across the back of their small stalls. My knees got a workout as I repeatedly squatted or sat on stools less than 8 inches high.
I spent 6 hours looking and, while there wasn’t much, I did find a few good, old things – one piece may be much better than I realized. The women were surprised that I knew enough to venture guesses about the tribal origins of a piece or to ask whether they had anything from a particular area. Since no one spoke English and my pronunciation of these names was often incomprehensible to them, this was a rather hit and miss proposition. Also, I don’t know how much some of these women know about what they are selling – either everything is “Miao” perhaps the largest textile producing group – or it is whatever you’re asking for. But that is part of the fun of buying this way. I upped the ante by buying mostly things I had never seen before so I could learn from my research into the item’s origin, as I have so often done before.
The guidebooks advised against credit cards so I had traveler’s cheques and $1,000 in Yuan distributed liberally around my body. I have some strapped above my left calf, some above my right calf, some in the money belt at my waist and some in my pocket. When I pay for things, the dealers watch me and laugh approvingly, patting the area between their breasts where their money lies safe. It is at times like these when the boundaries vanish and we become just a bunch of middle aged women dealing with the same realities in the same ways. When I ran out of cash, I went to the ATM conveniently located at the entrance to the market – fortunately it took international cards. I replenished my cash in increments of $250, and returned home to find that I had been charged $9.00 for each withdrawal.
While I was at one stall, the seller having reluctantly stopped chatting on her cell phone to deal with me, an American voice said hello in English. I looked up to see a major New York textile dealer standing next to me. He did not buy at the market but had known the women for decades and spoke their language fluently. When I saw him a few weeks later, at the Tribal Arts show on Park Avenue, he told me that he would send me a photo he took of me rummaging through the piles.
The Chinese LOVE their cell phones as much as we do - based upon what I read several years ago, cell phone use was being encouraged by the government because it didn't require the hard wired infrastructure that developed in other countries over the last century. They also LOVE digital cameras and spend their travels taking pictures of one another in front of various sights, the way the Japanese do. Admittedly, the places I've been are the more affluent parts of China but, still, this stuff is expensive. It is also interesting to see how they've adapted the technology. When I was in northern Thailand in the 80's, I bargained with tribal women in the night market. Now, these women didn't speak Thai and spoke a language that has no written version. So... how did they set prices? By punching the number into a calculator, which I thought was pretty amazing at the time. In 2006, the traders in the markets punch the numbers into their cell phones, and you punch your counter offer in afterwards (some still use calculators).
At work, we're very proud that we use "voice over IP" (the internet) to make phone calls. Such calls can be made at every phone stand in China- they are much cheaper then traditional calls. This technology has become more widespread for long distance/international calls in America in the last few years, but here they have signs saying "IP" everywhere.
There was still a lot of market to cover but the food options were limited and unappealing so I returned to my hotel to collapse and inspect my loot.
Tomorrow night I'll be on an overnight train to Shuzhou, a city with classical gardens that is close to Shanghai.
At least today was warm with no sand blowing around - yesterday was frigid and windy. I, like a number of the locals, wear a dust mask outdoors.
Shanghai, a city that any real New Yorker will love - it has an energy to it, the energy of new money and new comers trying, with all their hearts, to make it in this most competitive of cities. Creatively, it shares the energy of Berlin and Barcelona - cities reviving, filled with art and architecture and food. Since my last e-mail, I've been to Suzhou, a small (in Chinese terms) city filled with formal gardens. I fell in love with the Garden of The Master of The Nets, which is the smallest and the most beautiful. While formally very different from Japanese Zen gardens, this garden consciously manipulates scale and perception the way those do. It is an amazing blend of intellect and artistry. After taking an overnight train from Beijing, I spent two more nights in Suzhou, with one day trip to the water town of Zhouzhaung.
The trip from the train to the old town in Zhouzhaung is by cycle rickshaw taxi, the only transportation for hire. $1.25 is the fare each way and you get out to walk over the incline to the bridge. I’d heard that ZZ was very touristy – but, when I got inside (there is an entry gate and a fee) I found Katmandu redux! Every single building had a restaurant or a shop in it, totally destroying the ambiance of the place. It was teeming with tourists, primarily Chinese - and this was still low season! I can't imagine what it is like this week, the 3 day May Day holiday, when everyone in China who can travel does (think about that for a minute). There are 4 million visitors to Shanghai this week.
It takes an hour to go by train from Suzhou to Shanghai, so I didn't care whether I would travel "hard seat" or "soft seat" - how much worse than the subway could it be. Well... let's just say that it makes New Yorkers look like models for cleanliness. This train originated somewhere far away and, by the time I got on, near the end of its journey, the car was, literally, ankle deep in debris. Just before we reached Shanghai, they came through and swept and mopped - feet up, everyone. I could not believe how much stuff they swept up. The soft class sleeper I took was nothing like this - 3 Chinese businessmen and me. Admittedly, vastly more expensive ($50 vs. $2) - but a much more familiar experience.
It is very hard to find people who speak any English - for the first time in all my travels I've had to use my "point at a picture" booklet a few times when ordering meals. That does not stop English from being used everywhere - signs, posters, stores, T-shirts - with the expected mangled results (much like our use of Japanese characters on clothing). Thus, some of the toiletries in my room were not free, and they went to great lengths to make that clear. In addition to plastering the price everywhere on them, they tried to make the point linguistically - and came up with "uncomplimentary - 10RMB" I spent some time trying to figure out what I would have written and realized that, even for a native English speaker, this one was a challenge. But then there was the handbag in Beijing, styled after a baseball shirt - 69 "pecker power."
The pollution in Shanghai (and Suzhou) is bad, but no where like what it was in Beijing. When I checked the Shanghai newspaper on-line, it was predicting sandstorms for Beijing, so I guess that what I read before I came is a reality. I can't imagine how they're going to clean up the air in time for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing- or set up the infrastructure needed to deal with hordes of non-Chinese speakers. NONE of the signs are in Roman letters and no one speaks English, so how will they cope with all the languages? I know how much trouble I had finding my train in Beijing- I got to the right section of this huge station, but then couldn't find the right platform. The Chinese don't use their fingers to show numbers the way we do - they have a different system that involves things like crossing the fingers of two hands. So, for the first time ever, sign language didn't help. I was sent from gate to gate and, when I thought I'd exhausted the options (there were 8 gates), one gatekeeper indicated that I was at the right place - he pointed to the sign which was on the floor while another one, for the train on the other track, hung at the gate. And I'm an experienced traveler!
Because many old houses for the workers lack indoor plumbing, public toilets are everywhere. You notice them first on houtong streets in Beijing. But then you start to notice them everywhere - in Suzhou, they're even indicated on the tourist map (which is in Chinese). Which makes for an informative cultural commentary: they spit in public (indoor and outdoor) places while far too many of us use these places as toilets. I am sure that, if I told anyone here that the NY government has been debating, for 25 years, where to put their first "on the street" public toilets, they'd think we're nuts (hmmm...). And how would I even explain the way our businesses protect their toilets from the masses?
The guidebook says that China has the world's worst traffic fatality rate - 600 people a day die in a country where there are relatively few cars. I read similar statistics about India when I first went there, 30+ years ago. But I'm not sure how much meaning these statistics have - they need to be adjusted for the size of the population. 600 deaths a day is one thing in China and another in say, Luxembourg
.
That not-with-standing, crossing streets in China does keep one on one's toes. These seem to be the rules: cars have the right of way, a red light means that the right lane can turn without stopping, bicycles and scooters often go the other way on a one way street - and go on the sidewalk when needed. And the Chinese notion of passing and turning is... breathtaking. Based upon all of this, I've concluded that the green "walk" man at street corners really means "the probability that you're going to die crossing the street right now has been reduced but in no way eliminated." You look ALL ways when crossing. And they've just enhanced the experience: there are now displays that count down the seconds left until a light turns red or green, so you know exactly how fast you have to sprint to make it safely across. Let me not even comment upon the way they drive - let it suffice to say that we should be very, very happy that Chinese immigrants don't become taxi drivers in NY.
Now, for all of that, crossing a street here is still vastly easier then it is in other places, notably, Iran, where I never mastered it. I used to wait for Iranians to cross and walk with them, because I couldn't figure out how to do it. I seem to remember Bangkok as being...challenging, but that was a long time ago.
Think I should take the guidebook's advice to rent a bike and take some leisurely tours of the city?
The big “antiques” market in Shanghaiis in the Old (Chinese) City. Here the stalls are in buildings and often spill out to onto the sidewalk. There is lots of pure tourist stuff, a smattering of things worthy of eBay and all sorts of fakes. The minority textiles for sale aren’t as good as in Beijing but I’m still able to buy a couple of things. The dealers wear the same headpieces as in Beijing– I wonder whether they are from the same tribe.
There is a small antiques street nearby, with a mixture of shops and staffs, where I find wonderful things. The dealers do not speak English but one of the local regulars, an 81 year old man named Peter, is fluent. He lives nearby – on “Toilet Street” (see what I mean about the public toilet thing in China?) and, after helping me bargain (and perhaps earning himself a commission), tells me his story.
During the War of Liberation (which it takes me a while to realize is WWII) he worked for the American Army as a translator. He then worked for the Post Office. During the Cultural Revolution, he, and some of his co-workers, were called in for questioning. He managed to answer in a way that spared him punishment. One of his colleagues got the dunce cap and re-education in the countryside. Another got the dunce cap and committed suicide in despair. Now he is retired and his 30 year old granddaughter works for an American multi-national, earning the excellent salary of $1,500 a month. Since is she 30 years old, unmarried and “neither pretty nor ugly,” a salary this high further reduces her chances. I explain to her grandfather that some things are universal.
I think of all the social and economic changes he has had to survive: the waning days of the old regime, the Japanese occupation, Communism, Cultural Revolution, and now capitalism. At first I think of how extraordinary it is to have lived through such massive changes in values – until my old friend, a world view, reminds me that massive changes were the reality of so many people in the 20th Century. For some, there was immigration. Perhaps brought on by unimaginable wartime horrors, life constrained by dangerous ideologies and, for the lucky, unimaginable affluence in an alien land. We need to remember how extraordinary and ordinary life is.
Bye, Bye Shanghai
I leave for home tonight at 4:45, so this is one of those days when I've seen pretty much everything that I wanted to and really have nothing to do until I check out and leave for the airport - so I really have no excuse not to write.
The thought of a total of 17 hours in the air is like thinking about going into an induced coma, but one where the anesthetic doesn't work too well. In view of what the food was like on Air Canada coming over, and the low likelihood that there will be great sandwiches at the airport, it may be a long, hungry time. I'm actually hoping that there is a McDonald's or Kentucky Fried Chicken, those two staples of the urban Chinese diet.
True New Yorkers can only love Shanghai - because neither city bears any real resemblance to the country it happens to be located in. Shanghai is like an adolescent in those awkward stages of growth - some parts more sophisticated than others, growing at an uneven rate. But an adolescent with a long, tawdry history. At one point, it had the highest ratio of prostitutes to citizens of any country in the world.
The two classical attractions in Shanghai, the Bund, which is filled with 1930’s commercial buildings, and the gardens in the Old Town are two places I did not get to see. They were so mobbed that I couldn't even get close in a taxi. After all, about 4 million visitors came to Shanghai for the labor day holiday - and this is where they're hanging out. (It is ironic that May 1 has become the Chinese national labor day holiday – the holiday started as a result of labor unrest in Chicago and spread to the rest of the world.)
I am staying in this wonderful old boutique hotel in the French Concession, the pretty part of town where the Europeans lived in the first part of the last century, filled with decaying villas, parks and tree-lined streets. It is where the expat bars, boutiques and brunch places are.
The hotel was built by an English Jew - or a Swede (depending upon whether you believe the guide book or the captions in the hotel) for his daughter, who wanted a castle. It is really an amazing place and is on the walking tour lists of every guide to the city. Atypically, I went upscale in my room reservation and am very glad that I did. I have this huge room with a large bay window, window seat, two other window bays, inlaid floors - it is just the place to spend a week in this town and, not really that expensive. I could have stayed for half the price but, since I'm here for a week, I'm glad to be in such an enchanting place. (One of the concierges looks like a cross between Peter Lorie and a bird that keeps ducking its head).
Shanghai is filled with expats out to ride the economic boom, as it has been for over 100 years. They are a mix - young, arty types, the global corporation gang - and a host of 50+ men. Unsurprisingly, they all have Chinese girlfriends, which is fine - except that I do have a problem with the paunchy, balding 50 (or 60) somethings with pretty young Chinese girlfriends. It isn't as bad as in Bangkok in the 80's, where the girls were prostitutes sold by their impoverished parents in the countryside and then resold into prostitution. But it still leaves a bad taste because the exchange is, on a more subtle level, economic - the women get luxuries they could otherwise not afford and a chance at winning the lottery - marriage and emigration. And the men get women they could only dream about back home. At least now I know why Lonely Planet has that section in their phrasebook. In fact, there is an entire phrasebook for sale in the Shanghai Museum’s bookstore “Making Out in Chinese.” But all of this, too, has a history that dates back to Shanghai’s days as a treaty port.
Restaurants are staffed by pretty, giggly young girls who are also brought in from the countryside. They live in dormitories attached to the restaurants. Some save their money so when it is time for them to move back to the country, they have something to show for their years in the city. Others, like immigrants everywhere, spend their salaries on luxuries unavailable to them back home.
After being in China for a week, one of the most startling sights is a Chinese family with two children (there is a one child policy). I have seen two - one with young twin boys - the family must feel very lucky to have had two boys and still be within the rules - and one brother and sister, which was the family that surprised me the most. I guess this is the effects of cultural norms in its purest form - you don't notice them until you see something that violates them. (If your first child is a girl, you can try again). I have also seen groups of Westerners with newly adopted infants, all girls of course.
Yesterday I went to Pudong, the new mega city across the river from Shanghai. It is a vast area that, until 15 years ago a mix of farmland and the old industrial port across from the Bund. It is filled with "modern" "futuristic" architecture, huge office buildings set on even bigger streets and plazas. The scale is completely inhuman and the architecture soulless. At night, the buildings light up and watching this happen at sunset from the Bund is one of the true Shanghai experiences (that I missed because of the crowds). In Pudong is the largest mall in Shanghai which has several floors of empty stores. As with most malls I've seen, the shops sell very expensive international brands and so are very boring. These luxury goods are probably bought by locals who have made fortunes in real estate speculation and are not, at all, afraid to flaunt it.
The French Concession is filled with wonderful architecture - a combination of mews lined with 2 storey houses and large villas, the type you'd find in Forest Hills Gardens. Most of these are decaying, which is sad. Architectural preservation is a new concept here and battles have been fought over a few areas - one being an upscale area filled with boutiques.
On some level, I suspect that the Chinese government’s view of people is that they are units, not individuals. Thus, they get stacked into huge, factory like buildings in Beijing or into the new satellite towns being built outside of Shanghai. The model for China may be Singapore, very economically successful, highly regulated “nanny” totalitarian state. The famous Singapore t-shirt has a series of "don't" symbols on the front, because you can be fined for everything from failing to flush the toilet, walking around your home without clothing, eating on the subway, chewing gum - you get the idea.
The central government is trying to balance difficult pressures. On one hand, overseas Chinese, who are a major economic force here, push the government for economic reforms, which they require to invest the considerable money they do in China. On the other hand, the government is extremely aware of rural poverty and dissatisfaction. People in the West think that this is solely the result of losing the benefits of a Communist economy. It is not – there is a long history of peasant unrest in China that the government is all too aware of. Similarly, rural outrage at corruption has roots that pre-date, and helped bring about, Communism. In China, the instability caused by War Lords set the stage for Mao. In Afghanistan, they gave rise to the Taliban. The American government may not understand how common these causes and effects are but I suspect that the Chinese government does.
The food in Shanghai is better than that in Beijing- Shanghaiis noted for its foodies - it also has many foreign restaurants, probably to serve the expats and the wealthy Shanghaiese. But ordering is tricky. A major indicator of a society based on affluence and one based on poverty is what parts of things they eat. There is an old joke that the Chinese eat every part of the pig except the "oink" and this is true. While sometimes it is hard to figure out what something on a menu is, because of the impossible translation, at other times what is being served is very clear - and you'd never consider it: duck's tongues, fish heads, chicken feet, pig trotters (the local favorite in Suzhou), intestine, heart, sea slugs, silk cocoons - you get the idea. Because in China "Chinese" means a lot more than what we think of, I've gone to Uygir restaurants (Muslims from China's far West) where the diet included camel's hoof casserole, various species of penis in soy and the legendary camel's eye(ball). Now my question is: where do they get the raw materials? There aren't any camels in Shanghai and I can't imagine that they get flown in daily like Beaujolais does to meet the demands of the waiting crowds. Kind of makes you think that their freezer resembles Idi Amin's - only his were filled with human heads.
Even when you do order something that looks safe, it often ends up being...interesting. A chicken dish will contain lots of necks and other unidentifiable parts - in fact, you'll see people eating chicken on a stick on the streets and the thing has parts attached that are far beyond wings, thighs and breasts.
The way you can tell that you're in an upscale part of a Chinese city is by the restaurants: McDonald's, Hagen Daz, Starbucks, Pizza Hut and, everywhere, Kentucky Fried Chicken. They are mobbed - Starbucks being quite the status symbol, with prices comparable to those in America. Thus, long after the Opium War spurred widespread addiction in China, globalization will give them the same rates of heart disease and diabetes that we have in the West.
I am very happy for the Starbucks in Suzhou, because it gives me a place to hang out – small cities everywhere – and not just in the developing world – tend to lack charm (“small” being relative in China). Starbucks sells a “Suzhou City Mug” which is part of their global City Mug series.
You can identify someone from the countryside by their size - tiny. For these girls, the size 0 in our shops would be too big. However, in Shanghai, people are much larger - there are probably any number of size 6 women, and taller too. Obesity is also becoming a problem in China, in part due to the "one child" policy, so every child is treated like royalty by the family, and also by changes in the urban diet.
I have not been watching TV in Shanghai because there's no point - everything is in Chinese, and, what isn't, is propaganda. There is simply no news in China and watching what pretends to be news is strange. You hear about trade pacts with Egypt, Nigeria and state visits to them - of course, Nigeria is valued for its oil, so there will be millions in financial aide. Every newscast of this type talks about how they've endorsed the one China policy - in other words, Taiwan should be re-united. And then there was the discussion of terrorist preparation drills involving Tajikistan, Russia and China, a grouping that gives one pause. When the newscaster is admitting that there may be international criticism of military drills, she includes "separatist movements" as part of the justification - the western Chinese Muslims, who knows who in Tajikistan, etc. This is what I mean by insidious - it isn't the gross propaganda of the old days but something newer, subtler.
The crisis of the week in Shanghai involves... weddings. 30,000 of them in a week. There are not enough emcees or cars, so the government sprang into action to start crash training courses for emcees, who may work up to 5 weddings a day. There are two reasons for the crunch - this is the May Day (Labor Day) holiday week, so people can travel long distances to a wedding, and it is the Year of the Dog, a lucky year that caused people to postpone weddings from last year to this one - thus there will be 150,000 weddings in Shanghai this year. You see happy couples, brides in long white gowns, everywhere - and I can forget long, slow lunches outdoors at my hotel or the others in the French Concession because they're booked for weddings.
For some people, the Year of the Dog must not be lucky - the government is cracking down on employers who won't hire people who were born in the year of the dog because it conflicts with their birth year - think Gemini and Scorpio. (There is another form of discrimination going on in Hunan province - employers won't hire women who don't have symmetrical breasts - how do they know this at an interview?). The government is taking steps to end both types of discrimination.
For all the years of Communism, religion and other non-scientific beliefs remain strong in the Chinese culture. Feng Shui is everywhere in the design of buildings. The Mall of China in Pudong has a shrine outside it.
Counterfeiting is so prevalent that it is nonsense to think about intellectual property here - there is a huge market that looks like Canal Street writ large. And all sorts of things are counterfeited, including Brooklyn Industrees, Sport Sac, Agnes B - these names are randomly put on to everything, and are often mis-spelled. There is not any resemblance at all to the goods being sold by these major brands. Of course, there are other shops selling really good copies of the latest fashions - I found a strip of them in Suzhou. The funny part is that there are huge signs and banners at the entrance to the biggest fakes markets that piously intone about copying - that the government doesn't shut these markets down speaks to their real attitude.
Gotta go - half hour until checkout and the tailor still hasn't come with my jackets, which should have been here 90 minutes ago. I'm all packed - assuming the jackets will fit into my bulging suitcase.
The Flight
Jackets arrive on a motorbike and I’m off to the airport. After spending so much time in taxis, I’ve developed the habit of napping along the endless streets. I routinely sit in the front seat, the only one with a seat belt – and a much better position for showing the driver my destination, written in Chinese. Unlike NY taxis, which have a thick, and lethal, barrier between the front seat and the back, Chinese taxi drivers are wrapped in Plexiglas and metal cages, which I need to push maps and money through.
Getting to the right destination gets complicated.
I am traveling with three maps of Shanghai, a guidebook and photocopies of pages from other guidebooks. Each has something different written in Chinese. On one map, the major streets. On another, sights. In one book, shop names and complete destinations. In another, just the names. Things work pretty well when I’m off to a major tourist site, but things fall off rapidly when I’m searching for an obscure, arty destination – even if I have one of the ubiquitous Chinese/English business cards, which come complete with little maps.
The problem is not only figuring out which of my travel aides has what thing written in Chinese but also how much the driver knows about the City. As in New York, every taxi driver has a license posted – here, on the right dashboard. These documents have two invaluable pieces of information: the license number, and stars. The lower the number, the more experienced the driver. The more stars, the better the driver’s English skills. At least in theory.
When a low star, high number driver is paired with, say, the converted warehouse/art gallery complex north of the center, on the river, I despair. Odds are, the driver has just arrived from the countryside and hasn’t a clue that this world famous complex even exists. At which point he takes out his maps, and starts investigating. At some point he (or, very infrequently, she) shows a glimmer of comprehension, and we’re off. 10 or 20 minutes later, with much going on and off of Shanghai’s internal highways and 10 lane local streets, we generally arrive – I haven’t clue about whether the driver intentionally took the Mongolian detour but, since no ride ever cost more than $2.50, I really don’t care, other then to be amazed that a destination that didn’t look so far on the map took so long to get to. Maybe
Shanghai and Beijing are reasonable sized but I am being given the bumpkin route. Who knows?
The government has brought in many drivers from the countryside. The over-supply has caused the wages of experienced drivers to plummet. These drivers are angry and talk of a strike is in the air.
Just before I arrived in Shanghai, the government launched an anti-jaywalking campaign – shades of Rudy Giuliani! Citizens are being asked to photograph violators with their cell phones so the culprits can be tracked down at work and publicly shamed. Now, millions of people live and work in Shanghai. 95% of the people are Han Chinese, which means that, relative to other Chinese nationalities, they look alike. So how is this supposed to work? Everyone email their blurry snapshots of Chin and Wang scurrying across an intersection to the authorities, where they figure out who the person is?
After joining the long line at the Air Canada counter, I pull out my e-ticket and notice that I’m supposed to be at the airport 2 ½ hours before the flight, which, by sheer chance, I am (I also notice that the reporting time for India is 3 hours, which makes eminent sense to me). My fellow travelers have packed the most enormous suitcases I have ever seen. They can’t possibly be within any allowable weight limit. A few also have truly enormous packages (one looks like a pane of glass, another is the size of a small surfboard) which are generally marked “fragile.” The person ahead of me in line has a box of crockery that doesn’t quite fit into the Styrofoam box it is strapped into. The line moves at a reasonable pace – this trip has many unsophisticated travelers, who take longer – but probably no longer than the usual “entitled” American.
There are, perhaps, 40 people in line ahead of me. And then a large group of 30-something Chinese men arrive and cut in ahead of me. When I look accusingly at them, one man, who had been in line already, holds up an armful of passports. A group. Wonderful. As the line progresses, we discover that we need some soft of form and each of us goes dashing to a counter across the terminal to grab one. I’ll never understand how they expect someone to find these things, much less know they exist.
When finally checked in, I go to convert my Yuan back to dollars. I have a huge wad of Yuan because the largest bill is 100 ($12.50) and I changed $2,000, much of which I didn’t spend because Visa cards are more widely accepted in Shanghai. With copies of my “convert dollars to Yuan” receipts in hand, I breeze through, not commenting that, somehow, the exchange worked out to the fraction of a Yuan coin – which never, ever, happens. I wonder how much the Bank of China – or the clerk – earns annually through these bits of change.
As I am about to walk away, a European man with a Bank of China savings account book (remember those?) and a suitcase goes up to the window to make a withdrawal. The clerk explains that they don’t do withdrawals at the airport and he’ll need to go to a branch “outside.” I watch the panic in his eyes. He has an international flight to catch – and no money. I’ve seen this at the Bulgarian/Yugoslav border, where a Spanish tourist was going to be left for lack of the one dollar visa fee (which he had, but in pesetas) and in Rome, when the banks in the airport arrivals terminal were closed for the May Day holiday, leaving tourists without money to get into town.
Once I clear the exit formalities, I’m off in search of my gate and food for the flight. The distance to my gate should be measured in miles. It is, of course, the very last one in my wing of the terminal. This is a phenomenon I’m very familiar with - my gate, platform or hotel room is always be the one at the furthest end of the hall. How can that be – it defies probability theory. But it is, and I ignore the mobile walkway so I can better search for something to eat on the plane. $4 buys you a tin of Pringles, with change in Yuan. After realizing that there truly is no sustenance available, I start talking with the two Irish civil engineers at my gate. They are appalled by two things: that Air Canada served “add water” noodles as a meal on the flight over – and that I read the Times on-line that morning instead of going for a beer. I had to break the news that this is how New York Jews behaved.
Once on-board, an announcement (in English, French and Mandarin) is made asking us not to change seats because we will unbalance the plane. The crew then lists the languages they speak, including “Irish.”
It was a long flight.
Afterword
I added to this when I got home, guiltily trying to make up for the days squandered without writing. But I’m won’t spend weeks re-reading, editing and polishing this. These are emails.
So you, dear friend, gentle reader, and I, New York obsessive, need to just get over it.
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