China Magnificent

Tonight, mostly out of curiosity but in part to keep myself awake long enough to get back onto CST, I watched the VHS recording my mom took of the opening ceremony from the NBC broadcast. I was disappointed by how much was skimmed over for the sake of leaving room for inane commentary and advertisements- an entire puppeteering sequence was cut, presumably because it would not appeal to the Western sense of grandeur exemplified by the rest of the performance, as well as the phenomenal transitions- the seamless points in the show where two thousand people disappear into the dark and within seconds are replaced by two thousand more- the sudden spotlight on Lang-Lang's piano as he plays, with his top chords finished gracefully by the little girl next to him- the attention to detail so integral to all things Chinese. 

To have stood in the streets beneath fireworks as they raced towards the Bird's Nest- the Footsteps of History, as the commentators referred to them- I feel marked, as the city was marked that night. 

The commentators prattle on about this and that- the phenomenal nature of the technical feats, the months of intensive training, numbers, costs, creativity- but the event speaks for itself. It is immediately, unquestionably, ranked among the greatest shows the world has ever seen. 

A few stabs are made to give cultural context to the Western audience. Disclaimers of "..But to the Chinese people, this is instantly recognizable"; "This is so important within the Chinese culture"; "This may not immediately make sense to a Westerner, but..." are littered throughout. 

I came to China as an outsider and left as one. We came, we saw; we judged, as people do.  The world came to Beijing to judge. We romanticize or condemn. The commentators passed judgment that night, as have reporters, foreigners, expatriates, businessmen, tourists, housewives, children, every day since. 

China opened its doors as if to allow entrance to a manicured garden, and perhaps that's all that most foreigners saw: the New Beijing, China cleaning up, topiaries and happy citizens. 

There is more to see than they intended. Protesters beaten, newsmen shut down, promises broken. Athletes trained from childhood, taken from families, forced to be the best.  Beggars under the gleaming new buildings.

Who is anyone to judge, without the understanding that comes only from seeing both action and purpose? From understanding both what is done and what is meant to be done- from seeing a person, a people, a nation as both the image it is given by the world and the image it holds as a self-  the negative space between the two pictures-

 I can see Chinese citizens, strangers, friends I have made, eagerly whisper that they understand what I mean when I say that the media hides things, or else shout vehemently that our information is wrong when their national pride and cultural paradigm is bluntly attacked by a superior boy waving a foreign book in their face. 

I can come from a society, infant among civilizations, built on fiery self-important concepts of the individual, and love a people, old like rivers, coated in plastic, who are caught amongst the slow cycles of tradition and dutiful service, the embers of revolution, and hungry dreams of restored glory, saved face, renewed strength. 

There is no understanding when neither side is willing to let go. One cannot expect to change a mind, or learn anything new, when one is not willing even to let himself see why another point of view might be held. If we know only that we are Right, we will be wrong as long as we live. 

I came to China not knowing what to expect, or rather, expecting many different things. Some expectations were fulfilled, others were shattered, others changed as I did. 

The torch is lit for only hours more. China has risen to hold the flame aloft and will soon quench it. Was it everything she hoped for? Were her own expectations met? Tenderly, I wish it were so.  Now she must lower the torch, put down the guiding beacon and remain standing on her own, in a world where expectations of her have now risen, where criticism will be swift and plentiful as she once again stands strong in the coming century.  Whatever the world believes of her- fireworks, human rights violations- she is not going away. The world's eyes were caught in the last decades by Hong Kong, Singapore, Little Tigers, Little Dragons-

But China is the Big Dragon, and she is awake.

departing the mainland... ABSTRACTLY!

Jorgen and I are sitting in the hostel lobby waiting for it to be late enough to warrant starting to head to the train station.
Thoughts?
Not really.
Fair enough.
I'm thinking about Bob Marley, that's what I'm thinking about.
Neat.
Also I want to learn Shanghainese. Just 'cause it's /so/ crazay.
What? I dunno, I'm just thinking about how to describe this place. Somali flag. Somaaaaaaliaaaaaa! SOOMMMMAAAALLLLIAAAAAA
he doesn't speak englishhhhhhhhh!
jenny chan jenny chan gonna go see jenny channnn chan chan chan chan jennnnnnniffffeerrrrr
ok give me the damn keyboard back. you know what sucks?
yo momma
The chinese post office. that's what sucks. Fuck you, China Post. Fuck you.
That's all I really have to say.
That's true. he did give me a free string. but he also charged me 50$ the dollar sign goes first, now you just look retarded shut up $50 to send my damn package, which is like half again what i paid for everything in said package. more, even. 'cause he wouldn't ship my stupid tea pot. and then he stole my padding. well, transfered two r's transferred it, meaning my teapot is now naked.
I didn't even mail anything, cause the only thing I bought that's actually worth money is my awesome new computer bag/ backpack replacement. Plus I made a friend in the process of bargaining for it and then proceeded to hang out in her store for the rest of the time we were in that horrible building (four stories of people yelling hellosiryouwantrolex?! at me) to avoid the constant demands to buy shoestshirtsmp4(?)watchesiphones!? Her name's Kaixin and she's from... somewhere Southwest are cardinal directions capitalized? only if they're used as a region, like the Southwest, as opposed to a southwest direction don't forget Southwest Airlines southwest of here and owns one of those horrible shops in spite of being just 17 except you didn't know she was 17 well she said something about one year in relation to me and that's what it sounded like, whatever she looked 17, but is actually a pretty neat person when not trying to sell you the rather eclectic selection of items in her store (luggage, ties, crack pipes, etc.).
we should probably get going soon. i'm excited about sleeping on the train.
it's going to be excellent.
i think the train hard sleepers we're maturing as artists! are actually softer than the beds here.

i think that's good. More from HK. With jenny chan jenny chan jen jen jen chan chan chan!

love,
jorgen (sometimes also known as Captain Awesome) and christine (who doesn't need to build herself up with unclever epithets)

XIEZI?!?

today was our first, and only, shopping day of any significance.

ok i have to stop. i'm sitting in the commons of the hostel, and this hysterically bad song is playing- it's a mash-up of "every breath you take", an 80s pop song, with altered lyrics to make it more palatable to the youth, and "I'll fly away", as used in O Brother, Where Art Thou, put to a bad R&B break. it makes me sad. the music in the morning here starts out as various traditional chinese classical instruments, by lunchtime modulates to old jazz standards, bollywood stuff, etc, and by night it's just bad american pop. i mean, really bad. I'm in a room labeled the "Traveler's Club" and it says a lot about most of the westerners we've encountered on this trip- mostly overpriced western food, overpriced drinks, trendy decoration with enough of an oriental flare to make it "cool". The same Filipina teacher I talked to in Yangshuo about HK talked about a lot of the people that come to Zhuoyue to teach. There's a stereotype- western backpackers come to this country, where between their native currency and the salary they can get as english teachers (something like 3 times what the average worker makes in these cities) they live like millionaires. most of them go out and get drunk every night because they can afford to- they make friends with other Westerners and a few token natives, probably speaking no Chinese anywhere they go.

it's hard to judge the motives of the western people around us. most of them come across as rich kids playing with their money, though it's not fair to judge without talking to them more. I don't know that we can claim any sort of relative moral high ground- we're also just some kids bumming around in a foreign country because we can afford to, summer jobs or not. i feel awkward every time i meet someone my own age working here, be they a 19 year old boy on the train back to Xi'an after visiting his family hundreds of miles away, or the 17 year old girl who makes her living running an eternally successful shop geared towards ripping off the tourists who flock here and buy kitsch. on our last day in beijing we walked by a woman in front of some massive hotel yelling on a cell phone something like "tell your father we can't get in to the Intercontinental, he should go ahead and change our reservations to the Hyatt". Jorgen and I have stayed in a range of housing types- from the first (and last, i suppose) tiny HK flats to this place, which seems oppulent by comparison- it makes me forget what hotels offer that makes them so much more expensive- we have a private room with two beds, AC, a mirror, a table, a window, and lights- public bathroom and showers, coin laundry facilities, free breakfast between 7 and 9:30. what more is needed? how much more do we have here than many of the people living in this same city, outside of the glittering center?
Jorgen says that one of the differences is that we've made the effort to learn Chinese and familiarized ourselves with the culture, rather than expecting them to cater to us- but how many times have we bemoaned the lack of romanization on a street sign, or depended on first the guidebook and now as we move to more westernized cities, the widespread speaking of broken english, where our own knowledge and studies left us unprepared? True, we've dealt with farmers in rural paddies who spoke only chinese, and been the only white people to show up in the Guangzhou long distance bus station for weeks, maybe months, but there is an eternal question of what can only be called "authenticity"- an ethical and cultural fine line between the Stupid American Tourist who thinks it's cool to be in China and the student and traveler (who also thinks it's cool to be in China). As we've moved East, it becomes harder to practice Chinese when English becomes increasingly widespread and situationally convenient. and moving into a central hub of Asian finance-

my god. the constant barrage of salespeople. you can watch the heads snap up, the projected paths change, as the light hair is spotted. I imagine there are interesting dynamics, almost magnetic, were an aerial view available of our movement through a crowded avenue. Helloyouwantbuybagwatchiphone? once it was determined that the phrase repeated towards us was "Polo, low cost" rather than "Hololocaust", things got easier to ignore. every once in a while we'll run into someone who, upon finding out that we're American, puts it simply- "Oooh, Meiguoren! money money moneyyy." (that or arbitrary references to Bush). during daylight hours it is constant. the same "Hello" that has haunted us through the rest of china here morphs into a variety of memorized phrases as ploys to create conversation, or else a simple statement of products- hello iphone, shoes, bag watch suitcase. My favorite was this one very mellow guy, whom I passed a few times- each occasion warranted a very clear, slow "Sun Glasses", with such an air of "I know you want to buy this" confidence that I invariably burst out laughing. The same thing happened with the guy who waited until the tourist was almost past him to suddenly thrust forward a picture of watches and shout WATCH! with a grin. we were considering fighting back- translating some of the item names back into Chinese and, when offered, hysterically shouting them back at the salesperson:
"Hello shoes t-shirt bag-"
"Xiezi? XIEZI?! T-SHU-SHAN!!!"

Something we've encountered that seems so far uniquely Shanghainese- Bronze statues of people, scattered around popular areas. Of the three groups we've seen thus far, however:
One was a family of 3 europeans staring in touristy awe at the Oriental Pearl Tower
One was a group of 2 europeans and a chinese businessman talking
One was a european woman with a bunch of tourist shopping bags, small child in tow

which would be about the equivalent of erecting statues of Japanese Tourists taking pictures all over the place in the US. it's just awkward.

There is something deeply psychological about being visually distinct in an ethnically homogenous culture. Obviously the two of us will never, ever be mistaken for Chinese (well, except by the one woman who freaked when she sat down next to Jorgen and realized that he was not in fact a Chinese man with dyed hair as she'd assumed from behind). We've met people who make friends with us out of fascination or sympathy, and others who treat us with contempt or as opportunities because of what we appear to be. Perhaps that's why most of the western backpackers interact only with eachother- there's a gap created by each of those dynamics, and it's questionable as to whether or not it can be bridged without real effort on either part. making friends with travelers in the same position is easy, and humans are creatures of habit. but i contend that there can be no real understanding while that gap remains. maybe that's the difference between sides of the aforementioned fine line- how much effort one is willing to put into understanding something new, and seeing themselves through different eyes. Do we pass that test? I'd like to say so, but who wouldn't?

Early Morning from Shanghai

for symmetry's sake.

with many thanks to Shao Bo and his father, it was nonetheless wonderful to be back traveling with that vague "oh shit, where are we going?" undercurrent.
we didn't make contact with Mr. T (our Shanghai associate), but found a wang ba and consequently a nearby hostel, where i'm typing from at the moment.
Shanghai is strange and beautiful. It's a lot like Hong Kong, but much more distinctly Chinese, and less densely packed.
we'll be here for another night and half a day, then we have train tickets to HK and the last leg of our journey. we're both pretty ready to get home, but are enjoying the last few days.

Late Night in Beijing

Some good memories of Beijing, since I've wasted too much of my time at the wangba tonight already for a full post:

- Sitting in the window of a hospital watching the fireworks go up over the bird's nest before being removed(peacably) by Red Guardsmen wielding pvc pipes
- Being the sole USA, El Salvador, and Zimbabwe fan at the Olympic Rowing preliminaries
- Watching some very excitable Australians at said event run about in their full Aussie regalia (Australia hotpants, Australia fedoras, Australian flags worn as capes) chanting the Australian theme song (ozzy ozzy ozzy! oy oy oy!)
- Finding some freaking Fuwa dolls
- Climbing into the unrestored (off-limits) section of the Great Wall
- Spontaneously cracking up for no particular reason with the woman behind the register at KFC (this actually isn't exactly uncommon; every once and a while someone will find my passing absolutely hilarious and I can never tell quite why)
- Getting lost somewhere in Beijing and winding up walking past some kind of rocking party at the Agricultural Exhibition Center (?) and wandering through China's embassy row at two in the morning
- Meeting some random Yale sophomore in the exhibit at the Chinese Museum of Science and Technology
- Seeing a totalitarian state from the inside, and learning to appreciate intellectual freedom

Why I Hate Fuwa

Fuwa. The very name conjures shudders in my very soul. Amusing at first, maybe even cute, they're the symbol of the 2008 Olympic Games and I guess sort of now China in general. They're sort of awkward panda-esque creatures that come in the colors of the Olympic rings and have all the creepy wholesomeness of the most saccharine Teletubby. By themselves, however, they're not so bad. I even promised a couple people to bring them home a Fuwa stuffed animal. The problem comes when they're freaking everywhere. Around every corner, under every rock, haunting my dreams. Plastered on every surface, physical or electronic, is the same group of five unnervingly ke'ai (cute) rainbow munchkins with the oh-so-endearing double syllable names of Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini (and of course their illegitimate zebra-creature siblings in the Hong Kong SAR, Xiangxiang and Gangang). They don't stop at two dimensions, though. Oh no. Store windows everywhere, from the vaguely topical (little girls' jewelry shops, teahouses) to the completely nonsensical (bathroom fixtures outlets?) are full of hanging Fuwa dolls. The subway passes a series of Fuwa pictures timed specifically so that they become animated when the train passes. The Olympic rowing competition Christine, Shao Bo, Chengwei and I attended had these poor volunteers trapped in inflatable Fuwa outfits with air compressors strapped to their backs (I insisted we take a picture with one in spite of the existential distress it caused me). The computer I am using right now has a Nini background which pains me to look at. Even all this I could probably handle, if it were not for one thing: in spite of this glut of Fuwa that seems to be crying out for a mass euthanasia project, there is not a single Fuwa doll to be found for sale in this city. Shao Bo promises that we'll find them outside Tian'anmen at some point tomorrow, and I guess I remain hopeful, though with the realization that if I never see one of those horrible creatures again, my happiness and sanity will remain that increment more intact.

Kidding (mostly),
Jorgen

Beijing Huanying Women (double post, backtracking)

So undoubtedly you've run across the little cartoon mascots for the olympic games by now- 5 little animal-type-things known collectively as the Fuwa. they are plastered over everything here. there is a water spirit, a panda, a red thing representing the olympic flame, a sparrow, and a gazelle, with doubled-syllable names like "beibei" and "huanhuan" that collectively spell out the phrase "Beijing Huan Ying Ni"- Beijing welcomes you. when we got off of the train Friday morning, a sort of theme song bearing the same message was blasted at us until we left(Xia Che- literally "down car", in this case "to get off/out of a vehicle")

In Xi'an we went through the large Islamic quarter- we ate lunch at a place run by a Hui woman wearing a light pink hijab and a seafoam green US 50's style apron. the dish to try was a sort of mutton stew whose name escapes me, volumetrically mostly composed of cubes of soaked flatbread and crystal noodles, which was excellent- then a little fried patty of dough filled with a sweet paste that tasted like sesame and honey but had more colors in it than correspond to those two flavors.
we got some pomegranite juice (at least, i think that's what it was). people were selling the usual trinkets- also terra cotta warrior statues of all sizes, small birds in cages, art and combs and all sorts of things. we went through a meat market- halal killing, but a strong smell. we didn't manage to find the great mosque, but found another, and also went through a small daoist temple.

we went to see the Terra Cotta warriors- on very short schedule. i'd wanted to go in the morning to make sure we had enough time but that's not how things played out. we got on a bus and drove for an hour- most long distance buses here take on double roles and provide shorter public routes for the surrounding rural areas. the warriors are a tourist trap- we missed the ticket booth in our eagerness to escape the swarms of English speaking guides offering their services (we weren't going to have more than an hour and a half there to get back in time for our 6 PM train) and wound up walking up a fire lane to the exit, then back through the awful tourist market- a depressingly thorough display of commercialism. after a bit more wandering we found our way in. the tombs were worth seeing- thousands of clay men standing guard, unbeknownst to anyone, for hundreds of years. the detail was incredible.


the bus back took longer than the bus there. we got back to the train station- where we had to go back to the hostel to get our luggage, then return in a matter of about 30 minutes- and the rush hour traffic kicked in. i ran to the hostel from the bus stop and carried the two backpacks back while jorgen (unsuccessfully) tried to hail a taxi. we wound up yelling at a motor rickshaw (cart built around/pulled by a motorcycle) driver over the price 5 minutes later- the train was set to leave in 10 minutes. he did manage to get us there in 12, which was impressive and terrifying. we missed the train. however, we exchanged our tickets, with no hassle, for the next train- 8 pm, faster (Z class), and slightly cheaper hard sleeper bunks (we'd been ground level, we now had middle and top respectively, which were fun to climb to)- so we got some money back. we also were let into the soft seat lounge, evidently because we spoke chinese and the lady helping us was amused.
the train ride was uneventul- made friends with a 15 year old beijing native who'd spent a year abroad in Minnesota, were fascinated by the soft sleeper facilities on the cars connected to us (soap?! luxury.), and wound up sleeping through most of the ride (which had not been possible on our last trainride, and thus was also novel)- i read for a bit and then passed out, to be shaken slightly by the boy in the top bunk across from me climbing down as we started the slowdown approaching Beijing Xi Station at 7:30 the next morning.
Jorgen lost his guidebook in Xi'an on a conveyor belt security check, but we are able to handle things without it for the most part- plus shao bo is with us now. His father has been very generous to us- they actually got some olympics tickets- on saturday we watched the Rowing octo- and quarter-finals with Chengwei.
Friday night we went out to dinner with Shao's father, "uncle", and father's girlfriend at a buffet restaurant where you fry your own food at a charcoal-heated griddle at your table. got some squid- also some watermelon soup- watermelon, cucumber, noodles, cilantro, vinegar. actually quite delicious. we then started walking towards the stadium to watch the fireworks as the ceremony started- but stopped at a random electronics store, where a crowd watched the opening ceremonies on a huge screen TV. I think it was more interesting to watch China watch the ceremony than it would have been to be sitting in the stadium. the people cheered at the technical prowess and artistic creativity of the display- cheered at national stars (pop stars, Lang-lang the pianist, others i didn't know)- cheered as the national flag was brought forth by children in minority dress and cheered again louder as it was handed off to strictly marching uniformed guards- stood in awe as the fireworks seen heading towards the stadium on the TV became visible over the treetops on their way to the city center.

When the countries started to enter, we continued on our walk, and wound up eventually on the 4th floor of a hospital awaiting the view (for something like 2 hours). Red Guard officials that couldn't have been older than me were everywhere, including occasionally checking on us in the building. A few others (a couple, an old woman) awaited the display next to us. Beijing held its breath, and then cried out- we could see 3 of the displays from our location- the stadium, two street corners. I think Chinese displays are better composed than any i've seen. It was beautiful. Or maybe it was 4 years of anticipation. Either way.