Travels: China

Sep 26: The Filling of Back Home

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 13:20:00 +0000

(It would be far too easy to mock Chinese signs written in English, and not so sporting since their bad English is still better than my Chinese, but I did laugh hard at an ad for my hotel in Hangzhou that touted it as having "the filling of back home." I truly couldn't figure out what they were trying to say until I said the words out loud . . . )

I suggested that one should arrive in Hong Kong at night -- but one should definitely leave China in the morning. At 5:30 AM as I left my hotel in Shanghai, the streets were empty of cars, but people were starting to stir. It was blissfully quiet as I trudged down the street with my suitcase.

A taxi driver who had just parked his car and was rummaging through his trunk, called out to me with a smile, "Pudong Airport?" I said yes. His question had the tone of just making conversation, but still I motioned with my hands to ask if he wanted to take me. He motioned back that he was off for the night, and then walked with me across the street to a sidewalk dumpling. . . well, what do you call a family who sets up a wok of hot oil in front of their house and serves breakfast? -- a cafe? an eatery? a shop? a stand?

I bought some food for breakfast and the taxi driver again said "Pudong?" I said Pudong back, and then made a hop with my hands to indicate my next stop after that and said "And then, America." "America," he said, just to roll it around on his tongue. He was still repeating the word as I waved goodbye and caught a cab.

My memories of my last trip to China five years ago include so many interactions like this -- very helpful and friendly people, and an ability to make yourself understood and to understand without too much trouble. There were plenty of experiences like that this time too, but there were a few more of the exasperation-with-foreigners-who-don't-speak-the-language and let's-see-how-much-we-can-charge-the-tourist occasions than last time.

Anytime I saw early morning, however, China was beautiful and stereotypically serene -- pristine, cool air, with just a few people around and none of the clogged streets that show up soon enough.

Now I am home. Slammed by the time change, but happily home with all the wonderful things that implies: my own shower, my own kitchen, my own language, my family, my friends . . . and my perfect last image of China.

Wrapping Up: The Advice We Were Given

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 12:38:00 +0000

Advice people gave us before we left (and whether it was useful):

--If you can't read the menu, don't order the cheapest thing assuming it will be rice. It could be fish heads.

I was startled at how prevalant fish heads were in cooking -- as well as chicken and duck heads. A thing to watch for if you're squeamish. Putting a little napkin over a staring eye works well in a pinch.

--Boil any water you drink.

Never had any water issues. . . bought bottled water, but happily drank the water they gave me in restaurants and all was fine.

--Don't bring the anatomy coloring book along with the 72 pack of colored pencils, because c'mon, you're really not going to use it.

I have to admit, I kinda wished I had it a few times. On the other hand, I didn't REALLY need it. But I could have, say, brought this, and not 5 travel guide books.

--As much as you like sushi, you might want to stick to cooked foods.

The closest we got to raw food was the whole pick-which-live-animal-you-want-us-to-kill thing in Guilin, and the crawling shrimp at the Sichuan cooking class. Raw food just wasn't an issue.

--The best way to handle non-Western style toilets is to always wear skirts.

Um, there is no way to handle public bathrooms in a foreign country. It's pretty much always awful. Skirts are the least of it. Always, always carry toilet paper with you. Always hold your breath. Always monitor your water intake on days when you know you're going to be out all day. A little vicks under your nose before you enter does wonders. Train station bathrooms are the worst worst worst -- avoid them at all costs.

--Just because they invented paper doesn't mean they're going to be generous with it. Carry your own toilet paper.

See above. We even had hotels that didn't stock TP.

--Be prepared for locals to stop you and ask to take their picture with you.

This barely happened at all. It did the last time I was in China, but it seems to be a trend that is changing. What happened far more often was people who wanted to practice their English, or wanted to exchange e-mails or phone numbers with you -- this even when you shared no language in common, forcing one to wonder what would possibly happen if one of them DID call you.

--When in a big city, just suck it up and get a nice, pretty 5-star hotel.

Amen, sister!

--Don't eat street food.

Everyone always tells you to be so careful with street food, but I read a great piece of advice before going to India last year: trust the locals -- if they're eating there, you can too. Besides, usually they cook the food right in front of you in burning hot oil. What pathogen is going to survive that? And in China, street food is so ubiquitous, so cheap, so yummy, it would be a shame not to eat it. Our favorites: 1) a shop in Guilin that flash-cooked skewers of everything from octopus to mushrooms (we ate wontons and bok choy) and then rolled them up in hot sauce before serving it and 2) a wonderful scallion and spinach pie in Beijing.

--Bring some cute clothes with you because there will always be pretty French girls traveling who always look immaculate and hip and you will be so jealous if all you have are shorts and tank tops.

Absolutely true. We needed cute outfits on our very first night for the battleship. And after a week of traveling and looking all hippy-like, there's just a moment when you desperately want to do something to make yourself look good again. Of course, there's always buying something cute to wear. . .

Wrapping Up: Videos

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 04:12:00 +0000

I couldn't get these uploaded while I was traveling. . . but they're all available now. They're fairly big-- sorry -- but they're worth it. Lots of really cute pandas.

Pandas stealing bamboo
10-month old pandas attacking Mom
Panda somersault
Panda trying to climb
Panda trying to climb again
Panda climbing!

Irish Dancers on the Great Wall (randomly)

Wrapping Up: The Dragon Collage

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 00:51:00 +0000

Eleni and I took more photos of dragons than of anything else. . . here's the best of the lot.

Wrapping Up: The Hippo Collage

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 00:44:00 +0000

Of course, I took the hippo along with me again. . . and this whole series will seem a lot less pathetic if you think of the hippo as one of those gnomes people take and send around the world so they can take photos of it in foreign locales, as opposed to thinking of it as a grown woman's need to bring a stuffed animal with her along on vacation.

Besides, Neerad was MADE in China. It would have been mean not to bring him along on a trip to his home.

Sep 25: Mao again

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 14:22:00 +0000

I haven't gotten too much farther on my quest to understand the Mao thing, but Fang, a Z.U. fellow gave me an added piece for the puzzle.

He said two things of note. First that: "It was just too soon." He explained that after the revolution against Chiang Kai-shek Mao was considered such a hero that it was hard to tear him down now for the "mistakes" he'd made. There seems to be sort of a 60/40 thing going here, Mao is simultaneously considered 60% god -- note that every propaganda poster shows him with a halo behind his head --and 40% seriously-flawed human. I was going to write "40% devil" there for poetic symmetry, but I don't think its accurate. The negative feelings just don't seem that intense.

Fang explained this a bit by telling me about his father and grandfather. Both were professors, he said, and both sent to rural China to be "reeducated" by farmers during the cultural revolution. They spent ten years doing manual labor before returning home. Fang said clamly that his father now laughed about it more than anything, because what else could you do?

Acceptance doesn't explain the remaining pockets of downright reverence that still abound, but it's still a good clue. And one that has now been backed up by a second data point. I met a smiling man on the subway yesterday when I overheard him say the word "setenta" and focused in to see if it was a trick of my ears, or if he was indeed speaking Spanish. He was. He was explaining to an Italian, whose English was better than his Spanish, frankly, that he was sixty-years old, but didn't he still look young?

I jumped into the conversation, and in two metro stops I learned that he knew Spanish, Russian, English, Japanese, and French. When I asked if he had been to Spain, since his Spanish was so good, he said, no, he'd never left the country--and then, big smile never leaving his face, he said he'd been sent to the countryside for 25 years during the cultural revolution. He'd been a student in Nanjing, starting in 1965, and he had always loved languages. Five years later he was sent to be reeducated, and ten years ago he'd finally left the farms for Shanghai. Now he tutored English and Spanish, and taught foreigners Chinese. (If you need a tutor in Shanghai, I got his phone number.)

He was so joyful this man. He just switched back and forth between English, French, Spanish, a bit of German, offering smatterings of each, like he was playing. I mean it was almost dolphin-like -- pirouetting through different languages.

And, clearly, if your choices are life-long bitterness or being a happy 60-year-old, who revels in knowledge and bubbles over in the presence of friendliness, one should choose acceptance every time.

Advice for travelers to China: Street Crossing

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 14:01:00 +0000

Lights in China, I'm conviced, merely signal who has the right of way. A red light doesn't mean you have to stop, only that you have to yield if there's other traffic coming. As it is, traffic lights are in short supply anyway, and cars aren't. The traffic is non-stop and pedestrians--walk lights, crossing guards, and prettily-striped crosswalks not withstanding--are never given priority. If you are used to a car slowing down when you are on a collision course with them, you are in for a nasty shock. The pedestrian is always the person who has to get out of the way.

Three techniques to protect your health, from beginner to advanced:

a) Sidle up to a local, stick by their side, and cross with them.

b) Treat it like a giant game of Frogger: you only have to make it across one lane at a time. You'll never find a gap big enough to get across the whole street anway, and hanging out in the center of the road is considered perfectly acceptable.

c) After a week or two of playing Frogger, you will suddenly notice that the Force is with you, and that the elbowing people aside in crowds thing has taken on a larger aura. You will notice for the first time that a car actually swerves out of the way if you play chicken until the last moment. You will walk closer to the cars than you did before, scoot in and out of the hundreds of bicycles, and avoid scooters with ease.

Sep 23: Massage

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 09:14:00 +0000

This is just a note to say that after an hour and a half of a foot massage followed by a body massage two nights ago (for approximately $10) and returning to the same place today with Fabi for a scalp and shoulder massage and hair cut and ear cleaning and eyebrow arching and three green hair extensions (all for $8) I am REALLY bitter that I live in a culture where massages are considered rare and very expensive indulgences.

A wee example: Professor Ying organized the first outing for the MF board and various professors the other night. She told me ahead of time that she'd called to say we'd be coming in around 9 PM, but she didn't know how many of us there would be. Since I knew the number was somewhere between 15 to 20, this seemed a very big fact to leave out. Until I got there. The three-story building can accomodate over 100 people, and walk-ins are the norm.

SO bitter.

Sep 23: Acrobats

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 01:53:00 +0000

Conversations last night upon seeing Chinese acrobats hula hoop with one leg pointing up to the sky at greater than a 180 angle, perform serpentine gymnastics with seven lit candelabras balanced on their bodies, and balance several colleagues stacked on their shoulders while balancing on a plank on top of a ball:

Bill: "There just aren't muscles in your back that could let you do that."
Karen, open jaw working up and down trying to get some sound out: "Um. . . er. . "

Bill: "She can't have the same skeletal system I do."
Karen, shaking head: "Ar. . . ack."

Bill: "Can you imagine how compressed her spine must be?"
Karen: "Nnn. . argh."

Ok, a quick aside. . . you'd think from this blog that all I've done at this symposium is go out to theater events at night. I would like to take this opportunity to say that's not true. There have been some really wonderful traditional symposium events. The Germans put on a full-on carnival for their cultural presentation -- with clowns, can-can girls, men dressed in tutus, and Jester-style poetry -- which had everyone up on their feet cheering and dancing. This was immediately followed by the Dillard University students' presentation on Hurricane Katrina and the devastating effects on New Orleans, which had everyone tearing up. There have been fantastic presentations of Social Service Projects and great outings to see the sights of Hangzhou.

So, that having been said . . . let's move right on ahead to the acrobats we saw tonight.

When we were nine or ten, my parents took Holly and me to a Chinese acrobat show at the Kennedy Center. At one point, a man balanced one pole of a 20-foot ladder on his forehead. A woman climbed up the ladder to the top and then pulled a cord so that all the rungs, and the superfluous pole fell to the floor. She then grabbed ahold of a small red ball attached by some -- hopefully very strong -- rope to the top of the pole, and placed it in her mouth. At which point, attached just by her mouth, she began to swing her whole body around and around the top, her momentum keeping her rigid body horizontal to the floor like a helicopter propeller. Around a pole, balanced, may I remind you on a man's forehead.

As she circled through the air, Holly leaned over and whispered in all seriousness: "I bet you they practiced that."

The line has stayed with my family ever since, a catch-phrase we use whenever stunned by someone's prowess. . . but here's the thing -- having watched an acrobatic troupe tonight I am suddenly realizing "practice" is an entirely inappropriate term -- just as you would never say a native English speaker was fluent because they'd "practiced" so much. The dictionary definition jibes, but the skill set is far more intrinsic, an inherent part of daily life, a control over and flexibility of one's body that is as constantly used as speaking.

For one thing, these are transferable skills we're talking about here. Hell, if you can stand on one hand and then bend sideways at the waist until your legs are horizontal to the floor, then you're going to be able to do that on the floor, on someone's bent knee, or at the top of 12 chairs stacked on someone's bent knee. If you can balance a candelabra on the top of your head, you can also do it while swinging on a trapeze -- and from there it's a short jump to balancing a pole and a helicoptering woman.

It's not that they practice. . . it's that they live it. And they really do. The language comparison was a good one -- you have to learn to make your body work that way from when you're a young child. (In Xi'an, Eleni and I saw a 5-year old girl busqing for money by putting her mouth over the nob at the top of a one-foot high tripod, kicking her heels up over her head and then using her hands on the sidewalk, to spin herself around. In its way, it was one of the more disturbing things we saw here. ) Historically, one grew up in a Chinese acrobatic troupe, and it was all you knew. There was no education beyond that. Nowadays there is often tutoring, but the kids' time commitment to the troupe is still pretty total. Then, as you grow older, you graduate from being the slight girl doing the handstands on top of the 12 chairs, to the woman with the thick thighs of steel on whom the chairs are balanced. It's a whole life. It's really not something you practice; it seems to be something you breathe.

And as I sat there, agog, watching exquisite muscle control, impossible rubbery spine bends, and amazing balancing acts by young kids and teens who were far too muscular for their age, and who all have, I'm sure, fairly rudimentary literacy skills, all I could think was--I am SO going to make my daughter learn how to do that.

Sep 22: Crafty Girl

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 15:31:00 +0000

Is it wrong that I get great pleasure out of making fiddly things with my hands? I swear I could spend days jumping from lace-making to origami to painting bugs (that would be paintings OF bugs, of course) and probably forget to eat.

Today the ZU fellows put on a Cultural afternoon, and it was Karen-heaven. First, I got to make Chinese knots. The fellow, Lily, who taughts us, said she'd learned all kinds of knots in Middle School, but she was only able to teach us one at the moment. I am clearly doing such an Amazon search when I get home for a book on Chinese knots. Because what I need in life is another hobby.

Next, I did paper cutting. I cut out a cute doll-like drawing of me that Wa drew with an exacto knife. This was tough, precise work. Meditative.

Then I went to the calligraphy table. I only learned one stroke the whole half hour I sat there. Wait, no, I certainly didn't learn it -- I only practiced one stroke the whole time. The teacher came around and circled the ones I did correctly and I got about three circles on three pages of densely packed horizontal lines. Those calligraphy brushes are hard to manage I tell you.

Then I went back to paper cutting, and cut out a snowflake. And then I made another three Chinese knots, and then I tried playing GO and then I got to participate in a tea ceremony and then I did tai chi and was given my own pair of tai chi pants and and and. . .

I am clearly a freak. Martha Stewart beware.

Advice for Travelers in China: Maps Redux

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 02:54:00 +0000

Ok, I officially take back the whole map thing. Or at least half of it. I still think it's necessary for walking around the city, but it's practically useless for explaining to a taxi driver where you'd like to go, or for trying to get unlost by asking a person on the street.

All my maps have had far more Chinese on them than English, so it's not a translation problem -- it just seems to be a cultural one. As far as I can tell no one I've met has a bird's eye view sense of their city. It's just not part of their consciousness. A written address they can handle. The Chinese characters for the temple you're going to, fine. But not one person has successfully been able to look at a map and tell me where I currently am, or how to get to the place I'm going. The cab drivers have pretty much scoffed, though they finally manage by reading the street names which tells them where I'm trying to go. Mind you, once they figure out the name of the intersection, they have no problem. They know their city well -- but maps are just not anyone's thing.

Instead, make sure you take a business card from any hotel at which you stay so you can hand it to a cab driver, and find a friendly person to write the characters down for any place you are trying to go.

Sep 21: Song Dynasty Land

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 14:30:00 +0000

In the afternoon, we went to what was billed as a Song Dynasty Town. After Minority-ville, I was a wee bit worried, but it turned out to be a lot of fun: think Rennaissance Festival, complete with archery, dressing up in time-period clothes, and athletic challenges.

We all had tickets for the evening show: "The Romance of the Song Dynasty." I assumed it would be more of the same.

Instead, it was, and I am not exaggerating, the single most dynamic spectacle I have ever seen.

It started plainly enough with, oh, some rousing music and a 50 person chorus line dancing and doing acrobatics, in a rendition of how the Song Dynasty came to power. Then came the Emperor's birthday party -- the entire theater rearranged as the front section of seats split in two and smoothly moved to each side to make room for a larger stage. Women dressed in gold belly dancing, jugglers, two gymnasts balancing on each other. . .

Wait. I must stop here. It occurs to me that when you hear the word "gymnast" you think that pansy stuff they do at the Olympics. What I mean is a woman who bends her bodies flatly in half, backward. All while another woman is standing on her stomach. On her hands. Curling her feet down over her back down around under her chin. While balancing a cup filled with water on the top of her head.

My jaw pretty much stayed open from here on out. Which was good, because the force with which it would have hit the floor when the waterfall -- two story high piles of stone, with thousands of gallons of water pouring over it, and a whole laser show thing happening above it -- appeared on stage might have given me whiplash. After the waterfall was removed, they played on the mist in the air with a swirling green light that created a cavernous, Emerald City fantasy land.

All of this was in the name of retelling a fairy tale about the White Snake Woman who fell in love with a human on Hangzhou's West Lake. Next, they told the tale of two butterflies, for which it was clearly necessary to have two acrobats flying around the stage hanging from white ribbons in ballet poses.

Last came something billed as "Hangzhou -- the fun city." This was a catchall review, including two women doing tricks on rollerskates, a Japanese geisha dance, can-can girls, and a strip tease done under blacklight so you could see the clothes coming off, but not the body underneath.

So much better than Cats.

Sep 21: Factories

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 03:14:00 +0000

This morning, a group of the senior Melton Fellows went to visit a local textile factory. The company, JCMode, is about ten years old, and has expanded rapidly as an export factory for all sorts of brand name clothes in Australia, Europe, and the U.S.

We were led around the factory by the manager, who was a friend of one of the first
Chinese Fellows. This gave us unusually open access to roam around the factory and ask direct questions. You can, I'm sure, imagine just the kinds of questions a group of fairly liberal, well-educated, young students are going to fire at a factory manager in China.

We wandered down aisles between rows and rows of women, and quite a few men, sewing. (It was a turquoise day. Turquoise fabric everywhere you looked. I'm here to tell you White Stag will be offering up an enormous amount of turquoise blouses in the U.S. this fall.) We asked how much they were paid (approximately $130 a month, plus free room and board). We asked how much they worked (9 hours a day, 6 days a week). We asked about whether they were locked into their contracts (they have to pay a fee to get out of their contracts). We asked where they came from (rural China). We asked who trained them (the factory gives them some training, but mostly recruits from sewing schools).

The factory we toured was but one of several that JCMode operates, and it's clearly set up as the show factory. It's where the samples are stored and where prospective clients are brought -- the fact that all the signs have English written under them is testament enough to that. So I can't say that any other factory looks anything like the one we visited -- but it was well-lit, had airconditioning, wasn't cramped, and the people who worked there, while working at a fairly fast pace, seemed relaxed.

Which is probably why, after about 15 minutes of grilling the manager, we all got a bit sidetracked. Because, wow, the clothes. Gorgeous clothes, soft silk, hand-beaded work, two coats that I want so desperately I can barely stand it. It was startling to see the price tags on them, actually. After getting used to prices here, and having some sense of how much it cost the factory to make each piece, it was shocking to see "$99 suggested retail" on a tag.

We ended our tour in the sample room. The room was filled with a collection of pieces that their various clients -- including Tony Bahama and Cache Cache -- had ordered. The manager announced that nothing, unfortunately, was for sale. These were just samples with which to lure prospective clients. It was sheer torture. Everyone found at least one thing they desperately wanted, and we each tried our best to convince them to sell us that one piece. Finally giving in to the pressure, the manager said that if we e-mailed him some requests he would try to sell us samples at wholesale prices. We piled on the bus and went home, everyone of us satisfied as to the inherent beauty of factories.

Advice for Travelers in China: Numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 02:35:00 +0000

Without examining it, there is a general assumption that one's own hand gestures are universal. In China they aren't. Numbers are especially confusing, since the Chinese don't count by anything so prosaic as holding up fingers. When you ask how much something is -- using what does seem to be a universal gesture of rubbing your fingertips together -- a shopkeeper will make some random sign with their hand, and leave you as confused as when you started.

Those who have had more experience with tourists seem to know that their own signs might be confusing, but don't quite know a different way. The tour guide we had in Guilin -- her handskills with Rock, Paper, Scissors notwithstanding -- held up five fingers no matter what number she was saying. "There are nine lions carved in that stone." "We are sitting at table number three." "It is a 17 km drive away."

You can get by pretty easily by just writing down numbers, but if you're interested: One through five are simple, done the way we do it in the U.S., except for three, which is the sign we usually make for "perfect" -- thumb and forefinger rounded into a circle, the last three fingers up in the air. (Ok, only just this second figuring out why no one has understood when I've responded with the "perfect" sign every time a waitress has wordlessly asked how the food was.) Six involves sticking your thumb and pinky out to the side while bending the rest of your fingers down to your palm (the "hang loose" sign, or a "y" in sign language). Seven looks like you're pointing a gun, using two fingers as the barrel. Eight, inexplicably, is the same but with only one finger. Nine, you curl all your fingers to meet your thumb in a circle, and then extend your index finger up somewhat, keeping it curled (an "x" in sign language). And ten is simply a fist.

Sep 20: Modernity in Hangzhou

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 02:03:00 +0000

Five years ago when I was in Hangzhou (and Beijing and Shanghai) with Mom and Bill, they both remarked on how much everything had changed over the previous five years. It was my first visit, but the fast-paced catapult into the future would have been obvious to anyone. Shanghai's towering buildings right next to dirt roads. Beijing's first attempts to plant trees along the avenues, stopping precipitously halfway along your route. Hangzhou's Zhejiang University surrounded by broken asphalt that you had to be careful not to twist your ankle on. This time around, I'm not sure that a newcomer would notice the growth spurt of their own accord, but the change between then and now is pretty stunning.

The West Lake -- Hangzhou's jewel, is one clue. It's as gorgeous as ever, just the way one imagines a Chinese lake should look. Water lilies everywhere, pagodas, picturesque bridges, bamboo boats. One side has the view of the mountains it always has; the other side has . . . a skyline. A major, several-miles-across skyline. It is, in the dusk light, a very pretty skyline. It manages to fit in with the lake. But, um, still. It didn't used to be there.

And ZU has changed too. Not only do they have the brand spankingest new campus you've ever seen -- and I don't mean one or two new buildings, I mean a whole new glass-and-metal, fancy-architecture, new campus -- but the social style has taken on a new tone as well.

Tonight we were taken to a variety show put on by ZU students -- dancers, musicians, singers. It was. . . well, surreal. There was the expected traditional Chinese music played on traditional Chinese instruments with names like "Swimming Fish in Garden Lake" and "The Bell Tower in the Evening." But then there was also a series of more, well, "modern" for lack of a better term, items. And all, with a heavy, heavy dose of Chinese flair. There was a crisp jazz saxophone accompanied by an -- I'm sure classically-trained -- pianist all decked out in a perfect white dress and perfect black high heels. There was an accordion -- that was played, emotively, expressively, gracefully. There were singers that hit high notes that would have made Wagner proud. There was rumba danced to Celine Dione. There was a man in a white vinyl suit who did break dance moves while singing the Back Street Boys.

All of it done, mind you, with a smoke and bubble machine adding atmosphere to the stage. Lots of atmosphere. All the time. Continuously.

And now that I think about it, this actually would be a clue to any newcomer about just where in the growth spurt Hangzhou is. Everything all at once, as much as possible, incorporated as quickly as possible, a hodgepodge of anything and everything in an attempt to figure out what they like, what their new identity is. In another five years, who knows where the city will be -- but I suspect the mix of traditional and new will have found a more even balance. Regardless of where China is, and where it's going, one thing is for sure: Mao is spinning in his little crystal sarcophogus.

Sep 19: Crazy Lady Followup

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 04:59:00 +0000

I know you've all been desperately waiting to find out the results of what the street woman's manifesto contained and just what its writer's background was. . .

International spy?

Member of the resistance?

Plant for a reality TV show?

. . . and the answer is. . .

paranoid schizophrenic!

Dora translated the cover letter for me today -- its words dancing around the page. A bubble on the right said "I am giving this to a foreigner to deliver for me." A strip across the bottom margin read: "woman, 36, yellow top, black trousers." (Since not one of the three women in the conversation wore this combination, I have no idea what that refers to.) The main letter said: "Please deliver this to my father/brother at [a Beijing address] because my neighbors are trying to kill my family, and the ["bad people from the underground" translated Dora] have killed my daugher and I can't talk to the police because the man at the door won't let me into the police station."

The 20-page manifesto itself turns out to be a letter she's trying to get to a lawyer detailing her case against the bad people from the underground.

Despite my doubts about her sanity, I still feel obligated to at least try to get this letter to Beijing. I obviously didn't drop it off while in Beijing, because I wanted Dora to translate it for me first. I told her that perhaps I would hand it off to someone who lived in Beijing, who could deliver it for me.

"You know," she said. "I really wouldn't involve anyone else. This could be a sensitive address, I don't think someone should show up there alone."

"Ok, I could mail it."

"Yes, but the police regularly read our e-mails and text messages. They'd probably open this too. Maybe you should mail it from the States."

"I can do that. Will you write out the address for me?"

". . . mmm. . . let's print it up on a computer. I don't think anyone's handwriting should be on it. And don't put on a return address."

But surely the woman was a paranoid schizophrenic. . .

Sep 18: Advice for Travelers to Shanghai

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 14:41:00 +0000

Shanghai was my least favorite city -- but lots of others disagreed with me. Especially the Chinese fellows who live there and anyone I talked to who had the chance to go out and night. It is a commercial city, and probably a fun one to live in . . . it just wasn't so interesting on the sight-seeing scale for me.

We did the required stuff -- visited the stunning lobby at the Pudong Development Bank at no 12 on the Bund, walked up and down Nanjing road for shopping, and visited the Huxinting Teahouse. I recommend any of the jasmine teas there. The server pours hot water into a glass mug with a large green ball at the bottom and after a few minutes, like a children's toy --put it in water and it grows 10 times its size! -- it sprouts open into a floating flower. Drinking it is pretty good too.

We stayed at the Yangtze hotel, in a "deluxe" double for a little under $100 a night. There was as tate of the art computer in the room available for use which was a pleasant surprise. Very clean and pretty hotel.
Yangtze Hotel
No 740 HanKou Road,
Shanghai
tel: +(021) 6351 7880
e-mail: sales@yangtze.com.cn

(Note added on Sep 25: On my second stay in Shanghai, I stayed at the Hiker Youth Hostel in a single for a little over $20. (Dorm beds are much cheaper.) The room was pretty close to as nice as the Yangtze and it also had free computer access, but in the lobby. It's at No 450 Middle Jiangxi Rd, and phone is 021-6329-7889.)

We had one of our best meals of the trip at the Grape restaurant in the French Concession at No 55 XinLe Road, Shanghai, tel: 021-5404-0486. It's on a wide-tree lined street filled with fantastic -- if expensive -- clothing shops.

Sep 18: The Last Few Days

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 07:23:00 +0000

A quick update. . .

Since we were in Beijing (in, you may recall, the most gorgeous Grand Hyatt hotel of all time), we went to Shanghai on September 15. Shanghai is very Western, as well as somewhat futuristic -- note the sci-fi skyline behind Eleni in the picture. It wasn't overall our favorite city, it just didn't seem all that interesting, but nonetheless fun to walk around in for a day.

Then we spent a day wandering around Suzhou, a town known for its fantastic gardens. . . a few pictures below.
And now we're in Hangzhou for the start of the Melton Foundation symposium!

Advice I Should Have Had

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 07:07:00 +0000

Ok. . . I have discovered blogger, and I'm just not sure what I was doing all these years mucking about changing codes in cgi scripts. Why I was determined to be the uber-geek, when there's, like, the easiest simplest program in the world out there, I don't know. Next thing you know I'll be using a Mac too. . .

Anyway, now that I am a blogger convert, I've managed to get all sorts of photos up in a snap.

So go back through and look at them! I particularly recommend the pandas, and the Great Wall.

Sep 15: Back online!

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 10:10:00 +0000

Ok, as you may have noticed, there have been no posts here for a bit -- the website went kaplunk, but with the help of a computer that is actually, conventiently, just sitting in my room at the hotel I'm staying in, as well as my brand new discovery of blogger, I have managed to get a new blog up here.

It does mean that all previous comments have been erased unfortunately, though I'm going to try to get them back up, too.

Advice for Travelers in Beijing

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 10:47:00 +0000

In case I didn't make it clear enough, splurging on the Grand Hyatt was a really, really good idea. It's located two (hell-of-a-long-Beijing-style) blocks from the Forbidden City and Tiananmen square, at:
Beijing Oriental Plaza
1 East Chang An Avenue
Beijing 100738
Phone: (86) (10) 8518 1234
Fax: (86) (10) 8518 0000
E-mail: grandhyattbeijing@hyattintl.com

Since Beijing is so amazingly huge, and traffic is so horrendously bad, it is worth your while to stay right near the center of town no matter what. On the other hand, had we just relied on our hotel for a sense of Beijing we wouldn't have gotten much of a taste of the city.

Luckily, the MF group we'd bumped into in Xi'an had recommended we go to the Leo Hostel in order to avail ourselves of their tour to Mutianyu. The Leo Hostel is located in the heart of a lovely hutong (the traditional Beijing alleyways) with tea shops, parades of people, and yummy yummy street food. If you're going budget style, I'd definitely recommend it as a place to stay.
Leo Hostel 2
various phone numbers for it are:
(86) (10) 6303 1595
(86) (10) 8660 8923
(86) (139) 1192 7715
e-mail: info@leohostel.com

Regardless of where you stay, make sure you wander around in the hutongs south of Tiananmen square.

Leave yourself a leisurely morning to see the Forbidden City, but get there nice and early if you want to experience any semblance of peace while there. We got there at 8, and thought it was reasonably crowded then. By 10:30 when we left, it was wall-to-wall tour groups.

Leave an equally leisurely amount of time to see the Summer Palace, which is stunningly beautiful and worth going to despite the fact that it's on the outskirts of town. A cab will take 40 minutes or so, the public bus closer to two hours.

And, above all, do not do not do not, even if you are a vegetarian, attempt to eat at a vegetarian restaurant in Beijing. Instead of reveling in vegetables, what they do is take your favorite defenseless veggies, and some harmless tofu and then make it look and smell like traditional Chinese meat dishes. Except worse. At the Green Tianshi Angel Vegetarian Restaurant -- which proudly boasts "No Smoking. No Alcohol. No Eggs. No Meat." -- we had something that was supposed to taste like fried crab cake. And well, did. If the crab had been left out in the heat to rot for two weeks prior to our eating it. I wanted to smoke just to dull my tastebuds.

Sep 14: Miao

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 10:23:00 +0000

This is culturally insensitive, too, so you really might just want to skip on ahead. . . but do you know how fun it is to say "Mao"?

It can be said the way Catherine's cat said it before we left. It can be deep and vibrato, like banging a gong. It can be sung Sha Na Na-like: "M, m, m, mao mao mao." It can be said contemplatively, as an "Om." And, our favorite: "How now, brown Mao!"

Advice for Travelers in China: Lining Up

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 10:20:00 +0000

I am going to say a thoroughly culturally insensitive thing, so if you're inclined to be squeamish please close your eyes: For a Communist-influenced country, the Chinese just really don't know how to stand in a line.

They shove, they push up in a bunch, but more than that, they simply cut to the front and step in front of you without even acknowledging that they've done it.

But here's the thing -- it really isn't meant rudely. And better yet, they think it's normal when you do it back. Or at least cut them off before they do it to you.

So, here's the advice, wield your arms and legs wisely. Just stick an elbow out in front of someone, block them before they take you out at the ticket window, step into someone whose invading your space. They will instantly step back and never cry foul.

Sep 14: Mao/Ozymandias

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 10:18:00 +0000

I don't quite have the Mao thing down yet. I haven't read up extensively, and I haven't really asked anyone -- though I will once I get to the symposium -- so there's probably good reason why I don't understand. But I'm not yet getting how there's a simultaneous acknowledgement of his faults (if killing thousands of people, and encouraging the destruction of temples can be called "faults") while simultaneously revering and respecting him. The answer may well be that on an individual level people don't do both simultaneously, but on a country-wide, face-to-the-public scale this does seem to be the case.

I mean people queue up for hours to get a glimpse at his scarily-intact, perfectly-embalmed body for goodness sake. Eleni and I refrained, but I would have gone had we had the time--the better to understand you, my dear. As it was, we've gotten our Mao dose through a giant statue in Chengdu and the 12-foot high poster of his face hanging over the entrance to the Forbidden City. Having your Communist face up over the Emperor's palace is a pretty nice contrast. . . and it has given me my first inkling at an understanding. It's certainly not the whole story, and might not even be a large part, but it's something. . .

It has to do with a certain embracing -- perhaps romanticizing, but at the very least a constant awareness -- of history. I first noticed this in Xi'an. When archaelogists found well over 6000 smashed statues buried underneath a farmer's field, the insinct was not merely to analyze the ruins, or even put the ruins on display, but build them back as they were. And not, say, a handful for a museum, but every single one. My guidebook said they deserved the Nobel Prize in World Tourism. Which, well, they do. But I think part of the desire to recreate the army is wrapped up in how aware everyone here is of their own history. The first emperor of the Han dynasty, who had the terra cotta warriors built to protect his tomb, is still a fixture in the Chinese mental landscape, almost as much so as he was in the third century BCE when he lived. And so where the Western world might be content to gaze at the ruins, a la Athens, his legacy is being painstakingly rebuilt. I thought as I looked at the statues: "No Ozymandias, here."

The Great Wall is the same way. While most of it is in disrepair, crumbling in places, overgrown with plants everywhere, the government has carefully rebuilt the wall in four different visitation spots around Beijing. It is assumed that tourists want to visualize the wall as it was -- a living fortification -- not see it as it is.

I have begun to imagine Chinese history like the study of philosophy. Not, as in science, where when a hypothesis changes the old one is discarded, but where value is seen in learning it all -- even if just about everyone agrees some dated theory was so much scholastic gobblety-gook. Western philosophy is almost a static thing, things get added, but nothing gets taken out, and there's no real heierarchy for the various branches. Chinese history seems to be the same way -- unjudged, and all of it present simultaneously.

As far as I can tell, any educated Chinese person can instantly recall the names and dates of every dynasty back to the Bronze age, which ok, fine, I have several friends who can name every U.S. president, but nonetheless this sort of constant awareness of one's past isn't as inherent a part of the American soul.

Mao Tse Tung, after his political cohorts were tried upon his death, underwent a radical decline in popularity (cf that whole "faults" thing above) and then in the 1990s he had a popularity comeback. And I think, perhaps part of it, is that he had become "history." And history is revered here, kept close to one's breast, breathed in and out daily. Mao is as much a part of that as -- and weighted no more and no less than -- the Forbidden City. When all the past is simultaneously here in the present, there really seems no reason to distinguish between the two.

Advice for Travelers in China: Maps

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 10:05:00 +0000

Upon arrival in any city, get a good comprehensive map with both English and Chinese characters on it. Pay for it if you have to. (The Lonely Planet's maps aren't always accurate, and rarely have much labeled in Chinese characters.) You will need it both to point to the name of your destination to your cab or bus driver, as well as to compare characters on the street signs when walking.

Be warned that even the most comprehensive maps will rarely show the spiderweb of smaller roads and alleyways that exist in every city.