This trip, I had lots of free days. Out of 18 days, only about 10 were "working days"-- somehow the meetings just worked out with gaps between them. That meant ample opportunity for exploration (although, of course, the meetings I go to provide just as much opportunity to learn). Overall, I enjoyed having the balance between work and not-work. There were other balances too: large and small countries, places I could speak the language and places where I couldn't, advanced technical powers and places trying to get into the more advanced technologies. Time on my own and time with others. Sightseeing at standard tourist places and experiences off the beaten path.
Join me as I describe my adventures in Taiwan, Japan, and China. The format is different from the other write-ups because this time I blogged the voyage in semi-real time, which means "when I had both a working Internet connection and the time/inclination to type in any thoughts." Posts were a little sporadic and didn't necessarily capture each day, as I have tried to do in the past. I hope you'll enjoy it.
"Big Asia"
Every winter/spring, I make a trip to Asia to gather data. I have come to call the trip "Big Asia" in my head. This time, it's the longest trip yet-- about 18 days. It’s not that I’m accomplishing a lot more in terms of meetings. Things just got spread out because the meeting times happened to work that way. I’m hoping that means I’ll have time to do a bit of sightseeing.
Just getting out of SFO meant abandoning a few things. I had forgotten that undeveloped film can’t go in checked bags anymore because of the scan they do on them. So I dug through my bag while in the check-in line and managed to recover my camera, but not the spare roll of film. I just could not find that little black cylinder amid all the clothes and other stuff. Oh well. It’s not like I can’t buy more film along the way if I need it.
And then there was the ring. One time in New York City I bought a simple gold band that resembles a wedding ring, although it cost me all of $7. I enjoy wearing it sometimes just because it feels slightly naughty, like having on sexy black lace underwear. In fact, I have often chosen to wear it on plane trips to Asia (the ring, not the underwear). This time around, I suddenly realized while in the security line that it was no longer on my finger! I must have lost it in the bathroom when I washed my hands. Now perhaps someone will find it and wonder if it’s a wedding ring. (When I bought that ring, I had no idea I would end up leaving it in the San Francisco Airport. And if I'd been told that, it would have been like those weird prophesies, where you spend your whole life wondering how they will come to be true).
So I traipsed down to the gate, and was greeted by a commotion. About 45 young Japanese students (perhaps college-age—that’s “young” to me now), rambunctiously capturing their last moments in America. They were snapping pictures enthusiastically—groups of 5 or 8 or 10 would spontaneously form, and the camera of every member would be used to take a picture of that permutation. Then another permutation would form. It was particularly popular to want the teacher in the picture, something you probably wouldn’t see among American students. Anyway, it was fun to partake in their excitement vicariously.
The plane wasn’t too crowded; most of the middle seats were empty. I ended up sitting with a member of this student group, although he was up in “Economy Plus,” while the others filled the rear of the plane. It turned out he was an older student chaperone, just about to graduate from college, while the other kids were younger college students. They were all geology students and had gone to the US to visit the Grand Canyon and Mt Zion National Park. What a neat thing to do for a young geologist! This Japanese fellow explained that it was important to do these foreign trips so you could actually see what you were studying. I hadn’t thought about it, but Japan is really a young island—only about 1 million years old. It’s just not as interesting geologically as some formations in North America, which can stretch back 3 billion years (according to this guy).
He wants to be a petroleum geologist, looking for oil and finding more innovative ways of extracting it. I wonder if that’s a viable long-term career? Anyway, he was interested in that. Nice guy, too.
The flight was pretty uneventful otherwise. I watched three wildly different movies: “Terminal,” about a guy who ends up living in JFK terminal because he fell through a crack in the immigration system and could neither enter the US nor go back to his country (kind of a silly story); “Finding Neverland,” about the playwright who created Peter Pan and his relationship to a real family that inspired the work (a pretty good tale, although blatantly designed to be feel-good); and “Insomnia,” a thriller with Al Pacino and Robin Williams about a murder in Alaska (pretty predictable).
Now I sit in the United First lounge in Narita airport, a place I have spent many hours over the past few years. It’s not bad—free beer, wine, juice, snacks, etc., as well as phones and plugs for computers. Mostly it houses bedraggled Americans, suspended between worlds and held together briefly like an unstable molecule.
Then it will be off to Taipei, my actual destination today. That adds up to about 15 hours on the plane. I really wish they would reinstate direct flights from SFO to Taipei at decent hours.
Thin slice of the world
In Narita Airport, I ran into a friend of my father's. This is not so remarkable by itself, but it is part of a larger pattern. It has gotten to be that nearly every trip to Asia, I run into someone I know at an airport, often from my own field but not always. I'll spot a client or a friend I know from conferences, for instance. That's because traveling around Asia is like a sport for technology analysts.
It's a good reminder that the slice of the world I interact with is limited, even when I am across the ocean from home. I see my equivalents in foreign countries. But these countries have entire other realms within them, just like the US does. Goodness knows, few parts of America resemble Silicon Valley. I make a pretty big effort to venture outside the business realm when I am abroad, but who knows how deep I get.
The world is truly vast place.
Taipei 101
My meetings for today fell through, so I actually had no obligations. My boss thinks it is annoying when this happens-- and it is a waste of company resources-- but I secretly enjoy it because I like to be a tourist.
So today I caught a ride into Taipei from a guy who contracts with my company. I wanted to get a basic look at the city-- call it a "Taipei 101" lesson. Another guy from my company who was already in Taipei agreed that he could do it that afternoon.
We had lunch at an "Italian" restaurant-- the menu resembled Sizzler; is that Italian? The most interesting part was the dessert. It was some kind of mushroom (!) in a sweet syrup along with a date and some ginseng nuts. The mushroom was one of those "fluffy" ones with lots of thin layers, and they were softened by the syrup and rather bland so there wasn't a mushroom taste. Pretty good!
Then I met the second guy from my company, who took me to the new skyscraper. It's certainly the tallest building in Taiwan, but I recall that it holds some international record also. It's called "Taipei 101," which has two meanings: first, it represents the technological hope for the country (you know, digital: 10101010). Second, it represents 101%, a surpassing of perfection. Pretty grandiose, but it is a lovely-looking building. The architecture is a mix of modern with traditional elements like scrollwork that resembles a Chinese temple. It also has four "coin" shapes around the outside that stand for good luck.
The elevator up is fast: 89 floors in 36 seconds. My ears were popping! The view was poor, however, since it was raining and foggy. We couldn't even see to the sea, which isn't that far away. But we saw the nearby buildings and hills.
Actually, though, the highlight for me was the amazing damping system they have in place. It's made to protect the building from high winds, earthquakes, and other phenomena. The way it works is that there are three massive spheres, each weighing close to 500 tons, suspended and attached to a hydraulic control system. They can be shifted to balance the building and damp out vibrations as needed through a complex, precise feedback system. If a huge earthquake were to come, they would move as much as 1 or 2 meters, but in normal conditions, the shifts are too small to see. It was a windy day, and we could hear the groans of the hydraulic system, but couldn't see the spheres move. Apparently, this system was designed in Japan and is used in two buildings there already, but Taiwan got the third. Neat!
The rest of Taipei 101 has fancy shops and business offices. There is a Louis Vuitton shop where they only allow 20 or 30 people at once. Apparently at busy times there is actually a line to get in! No line for us in the middle of a weekday, so we looked around. Lots of pricey handbags, shoes, belts, and watches. Eh, not my thing.
Next we headed out to a ritzy section of town where lots of CEOs have apartments. We drove by a huge ferris wheel (called the Fairy Wheel) that is the second-largest in the world. (The biggest is in Yokohama-- the very first place I went in Asia! I opened my hotel curtains the first night I ever spent in Japan, and there it was beaming at me).
Then we went to the Grand Hotel, which is a fancy painted building that resembles a traditional Chinese mansion up on a hill. It's sort of the Waldorf Astoria of Taipei. The lobby had nice carving all over the ceiling, brasswork, woodwork, fancy carpets-- the works. There was a huge vase with hundreds of purple flowers, all fresh! They arrange them there every day. Also a nice golden dragon fountain. Worth stopping by, even if it was in the end just a hotel.
That was about what we could accomplish in half a day. I headed back to Hsinchu with the first guy who drove me in. He told me about something called bin lang. There are bin lang shops along the streets, always small and intimate and staffed by a pretty woman. Bin lang is some kind of weird fruit that tastes bad, but is modified with some chemical so it's at least acceptable. But the alteration makes it bad to swallow, so you take some and chew on it like gum, then get rid of it. It's also supposed to be bad for your teeth.
Why, pray tell, do this? Apparently it's sort of like a shot of espresso; it's supposed to be fortifying, and macho guys do it to prove their strength. (Hence the pretty women selling the stuff). Not many women do bin lang, although a few do.
Sounds intriguing. I'm not sure I got all the details right since my guide's English wasn't perfect, but if even part of it is true, it's still intriguing.
Rise and shine
Wouldn't you know it, today is gorgeous and sunny-- it would be perfect for seeing the world from the top of Taipei 101, but no, today I have three meetings. It will be long and brain-draining, but also promises to be interesting. It's fun to catch up with my friends at overseas companies.
The breakfast buffet at this hotel I always stay at is really good. They've got full selections from America, Japan, Europe, and China, so pretty much everyone can be happy. They have several kind of cereal, and for a couple of years I smiled at the one labled "Honey Nit Cereal." To my great disappointment, this has now been corrected to Honey Nut. Asia is much less interesting when the English is correct. (Along these lines, check out Engrish.com).
But I did get a yogurt drink called "Bio Yogurt." Sometimes things are marketed differently than we would in America.
Taiwanese style -- and cherry blossoms?
The Taiwanese treat food a bit like the Americans do-- take it, then modify it. We went to a Thai restaurant for lunch, and there was no doubt on my palate that we were having those flavors, but they were different than in the US. (Of course, I have never had real Thai food in Thailand, only the Americanized version. Now I have also had the Taiwanized version). We had seafood salad with cucumbers, onions, lemongrass, and cilantro; some kind of peanut noodles with various meats; sauteed cabbage that really tasted more Chinese to me; and mussel soup. The best part was the dessert, though-- it was the typical sweet red beans found in all varieties of Chinese cuisine (Korean too), but they were served with coconut milk! I guess that makes them Thai.
For dinner, a woman from our Taiwan office and her husband kindly offered to take me out. I had told them that I prefer lighter food, such as Shanghai-style cuisine, fish, veggies, etc. So they plotted and planned, and took me to a special place in downtown Hsinchu with this type of food. It turned out to be the place called Garden.V where I had been once before! I didn't tell them this, however, since they had planned it as a special place. And it is a special place-- definitely go there if you come to Hsinchu. It is known for its Shanghai cuisine and fish.
What a feast. We had asparagus with ginkgo nuts, mushrooms, and a rich chicken-broth sauce; sauteed king prawns with melon and a sweet creamy sauce (although the menu called it prawns with pineapple); some kind of local fish that was grilled a bit too salty for me; and soup with tofu and beef meatballs wrapped in Chinese noodles. My favorite was the prawns-- I think I ate half the plate. And this restaurant has a signature rice dish: white rice cooked with vegetable boullioun so it's kind of like risotto.
For dessert, there was a fruit plate with several kinds I hadn't tried. My favorite was called lien wu. It's from the south of Taiwan and is only available in this country. It's red and shaped like a pear, but is very juicy and has an apple-like flavor. There was also something orange that apparently looks like a star when it is whole. It had an unusual, slightly sour taste. It was called yang tao.
After three long meetings that day, this was just what I needed to refortify.
Tomorrow it is a free day. I spend so much time in Taipei and Hsinchu, I am ready to see the countryside in Taiwan. This is a beautiful country, but you wouldn't know it visiting the big cities and industrial parks. I really wanted to go to a place called Hua Lien, which is a tourist area and natural section on the east coast of the island, but it's too hard to get there for just one day. There are tours, but not many in English. You can take a plane (about 50 minutes) or a train (about 3 hours), but it's hard to get around without a guide. Not this time, I guess.
So then I thought about visiting a national park in the middle of the island. But again, I ran into trouble finding a one-day tour in English (or Japanese! Even that proved hard).
So my dinner companions have kindly offered to drive me around a bit. We are planning to go to Taichung, in the central part of the island but on the west side. And perhaps, if we are very lucky, we will see some cherry blossoms! I never get to see them in Japan because I am either too early or late (for instance, next week, when I go to Japan, it will be too early). But Taiwan has cherry blossoms too, and they come much earlier since it's farther south. In fact, we may be a little late this weekend! Let's see.
Cat connection
It turns out that Mavis, the woman from my office serving as my tour guide, has a cat! His name is Orange (also his color). She found him on the road as a one-month-old kitten, and he is now a big 4-year-old cat. Actually, he lives with her parents in Taipei now that she is married and lives in Hsinchu. They (Mavis and her husband Theo) proudly showed me his picture on their cell phone.
I felt sorry I didn't have a reciprocal picture of my cat, Skyler. But I told them about him. His name is hard for them to pronounce, but they immediately thought it meant he could walk in the sky. Sometimes I think Skyler imagines he can. :-)
It's nice to meet fellow cat lovers abroad.
Chen Huang temple
Although I often come to Hsinchu, I really just go to the Science Park and visit companies; I had never seen much of the city itself. It turns out it has a famous temple called Chen Huang temple, and I got a chance to visit this time.
It's one of those densely painted Asian buildings with details everywhere, red and gold and black, dragons and swirls, columns and curliques. Inside there is incense burning and the space is crowded with furniture, nooks and crannies, and decorations. All along the walls are costumes used in temple festivals. They are masks and body suits wildly painted, of animals and gods. They must be pretty neat festivals.
This time of year, there were also many paper-mache-like decorations of roosters because it was just Chinese New Year a few weeks ago. Schoolkids from various schools had made the figures on a set template of (ironically) chicken wire, but each had turned out unique in color and style.
We saw people praying there to the temple gods, who are apparently representative of the spirits of the city people. To pray, they take a couple of crescent-shaped pieces from a basket, make their request, and throw the crescents to the floor. They are shaped such that one side has a ridge and is less likely to be on the bottom. If they land both upside-down (on the ridges), the request was not stated clearly and cannot be granted ("please try again"). Both right-side-up means "no" and one of each means "yes" (I think).
We also heard some musicians practicing traditional Chinese music in preparation for the next festival. It's interesting to hear that type of music-- which I usually only hear in the context of a performance-- in its rougher form.
Stop 1: Neiwan
Our free day started early. It was Mavis and James from our Taiwan office, along with Mavis' husband Theo and James' girlfriend May. We headed out to a "traditional town" called Neiwan. It was sort of touristy, but touristy for Taiwanese so it was still novel to me.
The most interesting part was a street market (I love street markets!) with traditional foods and some crafts. Merchants hawked grilled sausages, odd-looking fruits, and moaji, which is actually the same as the Japanese mochi (sticky rice dough). We had some rolled in peanuts-- yum. We also had a special Neiwan food called ye chang hua chong, which is rice fried together with beef, mushrooms, and spices, then wrapped in a large tropical leaf. You eat it right out of the leaf. Another woman was selling blocks of flavored gelatin-- I know that sounds weird, but sweetened gelatin is kind of a thing in Asia. We got a sample of some that tasted mildly banana-flavored, and it had nuts in it. Pretty good.
We stopped at a pottery store where a local potter sells his wares. I bought a small plate shaped like a fish and painted prettily. There were a bunch of them in a stack, and each was unique because they are all done by hand.
I could tell we were out in the sticks because I got a few stares. I've seen it before-- that involuntary lingering of the eyes on the person who looks funny. Also, there were few Western toilets. Remember to bring your tissues as you travel in Asia! And learn to squat neatly.
There was also a kitschy section of Neiwan with little shops and attractions aiming to take tourist's money. We stopped at a thing called "Fantasy Space" that looked like a small museum. In fact, it was a sort of freak show. They had unusual animals that were displayed for their "amazing" traits, like two of the tiniest mice in the world and a very long snake. They animals looked very sad, and I felt bad for them. They also had a number of dead animals designed to titilate, such as the two-headed pig preserved in fomaldehye, and a snakeskin labeled as a "dragon skin."
Then there was the upstairs part. Oh my god. It was the weirdest collection of freaky stuff, some of it quite disturbing. There were photos of people who could turn their shoulders 180 degrees while their feet faced forward, people with elephantitis, and weird "native rituals" like face piercings. There were dead snakes with the heads cut off labeled as the world's longest penises-- I kid you not. Also curios from Nazi Germany, Mao's China, and other places. Strangely juxtaposed was a section of optical illusions and holograms. I was sort of glad I couldn't read most of the labels because only a few were in English.
Needing fortification, we stopped for tea, then lingered long enough for lunch in a cafe. I got some spicy chicken that came with rice, fried tofu, veggies, and native Taiwan river fish. They are small and you crunch them whole, like shoestring potatoes. Except I find them a little salty and fishy for my taste. I had one bite to show my tablemates that I knew them and could handle them. We also shared a waffle, which for some reason comes with coffee sort of like we would get a croissant or biscotti.
The bane of the day was that it was quite cold and windy (but at least not rainy). Buildings are rarely heated in Taiwan, so it is often not much warmer inside than out. (Thankfully there is heat in my hotel). I was shivering at this point after sitting down to eat for so long. We headed back to the car and down to Taichung.
Quick geography and Chinese character lesson: The character tai stands for the island country-- it is the same character used in Japanese to mean "Taiwan." In the word "Taipei," the pei means "north"-- it is the same character in the Chinese "Beijing," which means "northern capital." So Taipei is the north of Taiwan.
The chung in Taichung is the same as the Japanese character for "middle" (naka or chuu in Japanese), so it is the middle city of Taiwan. There is also a city at the bottom of the island called Tainan, where the nan means "south" (minami or nan in Japanese).
Stop 2: Sanyi
As we drove south, we wound through the mountains. Taiwan’s mountains are stunningly steep and sheer; they just rise out of the Earth like teeth, with no foothills buffering them from the rest of the land. We stopped in a town called Sanyi, which is known for its woodcarving. It houses the National Woodcarving Museum, and although we didn’t go inside, we did stroll along the main avenue, which has many high-end art shops and low-end trinket stores featuring carved goods.
At one of the high-end places, a woman explained a bit about the pieces they were selling (and my friends translated for me). She noted that the freshly carved wood was nearly white (I didn’t catch what kind of wood), but slowly, over a period of years, it would come to be brownish and then deep red. I would suppose this is due to some kind of oxidation process, but to her, it indicated that the wood was still a little bit alive, retaining its vitality for years.
Stop 3: Taichung
Taichung is the third largest city in Taiwan, after Taipei and Kaohshing. Alas, I was not getting my desired view of the countryside and the cherry blossoms because of the inclement weather, but that’s all right. There were plenty of nice views during the drive.
We went to the Science Museum. It was targeted at a youngish audience, showing children what science can do, and also educating them about various relevant topics. For instance, there was a detailed exhibit on the “red imported fire ant.” (Note the emphasis on imported-- brought in by foreigners!). These are the same fire ants we’ve been dealing with in the US. A large map showed their migration from South America to North America, and from there to various places in Asia, including Taiwan. There were pictures of the ants destroying crops, as well as pictures of people’s arms and faces with ant stings. One caption said, “So tiny, so dangerous.” A glass case housed a few of the beasts too, and people gawked at them as if they were aliens.
Much of the museum was a long exhibit on evolution and natural history. It started with a general overview of evolution, showing the usual progression from water to land, as well as the “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” theory (the notion that fetuses of mammals first resemble tadpoles, then fish, and finally mammals as they develop in the womb). I thought this section was a little confusing.
One intriguing thing I noticed was that creatures were classified according to the angle of their shoulder and arm bones. In fish, the front flippers come straight off the body. And then in land creatures where weight is borne on these legs, they come off at an angle, but then have a joint so the lower part sticks straight down. In humans, where no weight is borne, the arms can form a right angle with the body (think of the push-up position)—not many creatures can do this with their shoulders. I had never seen that kind of classification, although it may be related to one I’ve heard of. I remember that dinosaurs used to be divided into “bird-hipped” and “lizard-hipped.” This may be similar.
The evolution section flowed into a very nice dinosaur exhibit. I was a little worried that people would think the dinosaurs were evolutionary relatives of humans, but it didn’t seem to imply that. In fact, there were some rather sophisticated sections, asking questions about whether early birds began flying by jumping up from the ground or jumping down from trees, and whether dinosaurs were warm- or cold-blooded. A marvelous T-Rex animated robot growled and waved its tail. The skin was really well done—leathery and realistic-looking. Many of the captions were in English too, which was good for me.
Then came the section on mammals, culminating in the apes and humans. The animal section was a little weak, consisting mainly of stuffed foxes, bats, bears, bobcats, orangutans, and the like. Some showed skeletons and asked the viewer to guess what creature it was.
The human section was quite good. They showed a family tree of all the types of humans we have found so far (various homo species), and roughly how old we think they are. There were nice skeletons, and drawings of how they might have looked. As always, non-American cultures are completely unprudish about showing the body—all the old humans were full-frontal naked. (I had to smile that the males were often shown circumcised; do we really have evidence that circumcision was practiced? Or perhaps foreskin hadn’t evolved! Just kidding).
I asked my companions if most Taiwanese believed in evolution. They said yes, and wondered why I had asked. They were shocked that only about half (if that many) of Americans give it credence. I explained that it conflicted with some versions of the Christian creation myth. My companions were sharp—they immediately asked what someone who didn’t believe in evolution would think of the museum. I wasn’t quite sure how to respond, but said that they might not come to the museum, or they might feel that it was simply stupid and misguided, or they might actively be offended.
The section on human culture was also quite good. It started with tools and clothing and simple art, then went on to show the development of writing and machines. There was a replica of the Rosetta Stone, which my companions glanced at and went on, while I marveled at it and brought them back to explain how critically important it was. I showed them the Greek on the bottom and the two forms of Egyptian on the top, and explained that it was really neat that it said the same thing in three different languages, so it served as a pattern-matching dictionary.
I don’t know why I got so into it—- maybe it was because I had spent all day not really being able to read the captions (or the road signs, or the menu…), so I had the issue of translation on my mind. Also it represents a piece of Western history that is just really cool, and I wanted to share it. Anyway, they were happy with the explanation—they had actually never heard of the Rosetta Stone. It reminded me that there must be reams of Asian history that is standard knowledge in the heads of educated Asians, but I know very little about. And yet the world goes on. Factual knowledge is important, but probably in more complex ways than we realize. And other kinds of knowledge matter more in some situations.
Across the street from the Science Museum is a botanical garden. We stopped by briefly, looking at various species of orchids, tropical plants, and huge hanging vines. We were too late to take the elevator up to the top (a couple stories high) and look down at the whole thing from where the water system feeds in the artificial rain, but it was OK to stroll around the bottom. I wondered how well the tropical plants were holding up in the cold weather. Sometimes I feel like a tropical plant—- easily damaged by cold—- so there was some genuine sympathy there. It’s just how my body is.
Taiwanese shabu-shabu
Have you ever had shabu-shabu in Japan? It’s a bit like fondue—I guess this is a pretty global form of food. You have a boiling pot of soup broth into which you dip veggies and meat to cook them, then you have various dipping sauces to eat them with. They have something similar in Taiwan, and my friends wanted to show it to me.
Of course, we were in Taichung, and they didn’t know a particular place to go, so we just drove around the downtown until we found such a restaurant. It took 30 minutes, but they were very determined. I’m glad we stuck with the quest because it turned out to be lots of fun.
It was a casual, family-style restaurant, full of kids and kind of cafeteria-like. The tables are set with holes into which the pots of soup are placed, and there’s a dial at each place to control the temperature. We got standard broth, but there are a couple other types too. Then, like a cafeteria, there is a self-service bar where you go and heap your plate with things to cook. There are fresh veggies like lettuce, clover leaf, broccoli, onions, corn, and carrots. And then there are a zillion flash-frozen selections—they seem to have been dipped in liquid nitrogen or something because they are really still quite fresh, but are completely solidified so that they can stay safe at the self-service bar all evening. The frozen choices were endless (and some were unidentifiable to me): crab, shrimp, slices of beef, pork meatballs, potstickers, balls of taro root, dumplings, scrambled egg with fish bits in it, tofu cubes, rolls of fish paste with vegetables.
Mavis picked out something dark that looked like a sesame cake. I asked what it was, and she smiled and said it was rice with “brad.” Brad? She repeated it several times, grinning all the while, and it finally dawned on me that she was saying blood. It was a rice patty held together with congealed cow’s blood. I didn’t take one, but did consent to having a taste of hers when she cooked it. Honestly, it wasn’t bad. It clearly had some other taste to it besides rice, but it didn’t have the oxidized-iron taste that is usually associated with blood. It was more just an added richness to the rice. I’m not sure how it held together in the boiling soup, but it did; maybe there was some other ingredient as a binder also.
The food cooked in the soup in about a minute, and then you pulled it out and put it in your eating bowl. Each piece could be dipped in a rich beef-onion sauce that added a lot of nice flavor. It was easy to go back to the bar multiple times to try different things.
There was another section of the cafeteria with self-service noodles, dim sum (meatballs in rice paper, a specialty of Hong Kong), fruit, and dessert. They had various cakes and big drums of ice cream, where you could scoop your own cone. I marveled at how that was such a nice, practical way to do it, but it would probably violate health codes in the US.
I had filled up on the food, but still wanted to satisfy an ice cream craving, so I got a little bit of vanilla. When I brought it back to the table, they all gawked at me in horror—how could I eat ice cream when I was cold? I had forgotten that Asians have a very strong association of particular foods with the quality of the body. Modern Westerners think on immediate terms: if you are hot, drink a cold beer or soda, or have a sundae. It will help while you’re eating it, but once it’s been melted by your body heat, the effect is over. Asians, like Westerners of many hundred years ago (and Greeks too), have a different view. They see the food as integrating with the body, so that eating lots of cold foods will tend to make the body grow cold over time, while the opposite is true for warm foods. Spicy foods incite a hot temper, etc.
Now it is true that I eat ice cream a lot, and I do get cold a lot, so perhaps we shouldn’t sneeze at the association. And there is no doubt that our food is used to build our body, so why wouldn’t some of its character seep into the person? On the other hand, the people I know who are consistently too hot tend to try to combat this by drinking lots of cold drinks. How come they don’t find long-term relief?
Anyway, I enjoyed my ice cream despite their tut-tut looks. And what a fun restaurant! By the time we left, there was a line stretching out the door of people waiting for a table. It was a good thing we had arrived at 6 pm rather than 7 pm.
Warm and wet
We finally said goodbye at my hotel around 9 pm. Although not quite as extreme as in Japan, there was some attempt to apologize. They didn’t think they had crammed me full of enough activities, even though I was insisting that it was wonderful, and I was very grateful that they would take a whole day just to show me around and treat me like a VIP. As a blunt American, I was being totally honest.
But I was chilled to the bone. It’s hard for me to remember just how sensitive to cold I am compared to normal people. Even in the car, they had the air conditioner on and the heat dial turned to about three-quarters cold. It’s not just my slim physique (Asians are pretty slim too); it’s also partly medical (I’ve gotten colder in the past few years with some wonky muscle/nerve problems) and perhaps just partly my nature.
Anyway, I needed the hot tub and sauna, and was glad they didn’t close until 10 pm. I put on my suit and scooted downstairs. Usually I’m the only one there, but this time there was an Asian mother and daughter in the hot tub—in the traditional style, buck naked. At first I took my initial shower and slipped in wearing my suit, just because I already had it on. We exchanged “hello” glances with our eyes, and I started to feel more and more awkward in my bright blue suit compared to their glowing skin. It was like a thin but impenetrable barrier between us, a much larger barrier than the lack of a common language, culture, history, age, or lifestyle.
The girl, who was about 14, thankfully broke the silence. She wanted to speak English and had a sweet exuberance about her. Grinning, she said, “Do you think it’s impolite of my mother to do that?” [The mother had been doing pushups against the edge of the hot tub]. I said of course not. Then she asked why I was in Taiwan, and how long I would stay. She seemed to be bursting with questions.
I could stand it no longer, and told her I wanted to take my suit off because it seemed more authentic and polite. She said explicitly, and her mother said with hand gestures, that that was not necessary. But I did it anyway. I felt a lot better when I had balled it up and deposited it on the edge of the tub. Woo-wee! I felt free.
The girl’s mother said something to her, and she said, “My mother says I should tell you my name first. My name is Jill.” So I said my name was Kim. Jill beamed, then looked frustrated and said, “I want to talk to you, but I just don’t know what to say!” So I asked if she was a student [yes, in high school], and where she was from. It turns out her family is from Hua Lien, the place on the east coast that I was unable to visit that day! And her grandfather makes and sells moaji, the Taiwanese version of mochi that we had eaten earlier that day in Neiwan! So in a way, I didn’t have to go to Hua Lien—a small piece of it came to me.
I showed Jill my tattoo that says “courage” in both Chinese and Japanese. We talked about how I know a little Japanese, and about how tattoos are not seen as weird and threatening in Taiwan the way they sometimes are in Japan (being associated with the mafia).
Jill’s mother cautioned her again, and she said, “My mother says not to ask you any personal questions. It’s not polite to ask people personal questions.” I said she was being very polite, and besides, Americans are more direct anyway. She laughed at that.
Her mom got out, took her final shower, and headed into the dressing room. Jill commented that my body looks so healthy. You must understand that my body is, by Western standards, amazingly thin, and I don’t do any dieting or insane exercise to keep it that way. In the West, I mostly get disapproval for its boniness, or outright hostility that I could be this way when others work hard to be thinner than they naturally are. In Asia, my body is loved. Westerners are generally seen as too fat and too tall—just too much. Although this disapproval from Asians probably only feeds all the body-hating thoughts that too many Americans have, I have to say that I enjoy the compliments I get here.
I took a shower next, saying goodbye to Jill, and went into the dressing room (carrying my sopping suit). Her mom was toweling off, mostly dressed. I went about the business of dressing, and happened to finish first so that I found myself saying goodbye to her. It seemed quite different all of a sudden. She was reluctant to meet my eyes, and had the usual Asian veil about her person. I have heard that the bath is the place where Asians truly meet—there are literally no barriers. And apparently even a Westerner can be allowed into that space.
But outside the hot tub, all the walls were back up. It wasn’t that we had met each other and were now close, or at least closer. All that mattered was whether we were in or out of the bath (out of or in our clothes?). Now we were out—and I was out. I was once again a foreigner. Jill’s mother grunted a goodbye, and I wondered if I was supposed to merely slip out of the dressing room silently, not acknowledging that we had been talking and smiling inside.
Anyway, I was warm, both from the bath and from Jill’s sweet friendliness. You wouldn’t meet a 14-year-old like that in America, or at least not many of them. I drifted off to sleep in a pleasant state.
Then I was awakened at 3 am by an earthquake! It was a reasonably big one, with several jolts that made me wonder if I should get under the table. I wondered also if I was simply screwed, being on the 12th floor of a large hotel. (That probably made the quake feel bigger, too, so maybe it wasn’t really so bad). Good thing I’m from earthquake country anyway, so it didn’t seem especially troubling.
Hop north
The next day was devoted to traveling to Japan. I spent the morning sleeping in, going to the exercise room, getting breakfast, and packing. Oh, and I couldn’t resist picking up a pair of funny boxer shorts from the market across the street (I’ve purchased other ones there on previous trips). These ones have apples on them, the word “natural”, various Chinese characters, and a picture of a ladle full of apple juice. Don’t ask.
My flight was supposed to go in the late afternoon, but I realized it would get me to Narita at 8:40 pm, which is quite late given that there is still a lot of rigmarole to do after arriving there. So I got on the waiting list to go on a mid-afternoon flight. They made me wait (understandably) until the very last second because the flight was booked full, but finally I was allowed to take the place of a no-show. Because I was late, they gave me a China Airlines sticker to wear on my jacket as I went through the luggage inspection, passport check, etc. I can’t figure out what it was supposed to do, though—it’s not like anything happened faster because I was wearing it.
Anyway, I made it onto the earlier flight, sat back and had a Kirin beer to introduce my body to Japan, and was once again reminded that other airlines are much more hospitable than United. I wrote about China Airlines on a trip I took about three years ago—my first to Taiwan. At that time, they seemed mildly incompetent a little scary. Now they are fully professional, with excellent food and service and nice planes. I dare say they are more comfortable than various American carriers, and border on the high quality of the big Asian carriers like Singapore Air. Dinner was a lovely shrimp salad, baked fish with egg-onion topping and rice, a fruit plate, and vanilla pudding with shaved chocolate on top. Yum.
We had a strong tailwind, and got there in just 2.5 hours (it had taken 3.5 hours when I went the other way a few days ago). Unfortunately, that meant we arrived at the same time as several other flights, and the immigration check was crowded. There were so many people that they started taking us in groups to another section of the terminal with more lines available. By the time I did all of that and got my bag, it was 7:10. The last Narita Express train that goes directly to Shibuya leaves at 7:16. I got in the ticket line, but there was no way. I reached the counted at 7:19. In Japan, the trains run on time, so it was 3 minutes gone.
I had to buy a ticket on the 7:46 to Tokyo, and a transfer pass to Shibuya. No problem—if I’d been on the later flight, I would certainly have missed that Shibuya train! But at Tokyo station, I wound up getting on the Yamanote Line in the wrong direction. It’s a loop, so I only added about 15 minutes onto my journey, but still, it was 9:45 when I dragged myself into the hotel. I was really glad I had taken the earlier flight.
Japan is, as always, Japan. I liked seeing all the bustling people, the neatness, the tightness (if you’ve been here, you may understand that word), etc. And I really enjoyed the heated seats on the Yamanote Line. In my hotel, they have a lot of hilarious English. I know it’s not polite to laugh, but it’s really very cute, and it’s a reminder that our language genuinely is difficult and obscure.
For instance, there is a French restaurant in my hotel. The blurb about it in the hotel guide says that guests can enjoy meals there in the “prefix style.” What might this mean? A little reflection, and I figured out that it must refer to prix fixé! I guess that’s amusing French, not English.
But there are other examples, like the café, whose description reads, “Dished up good tast on a large plate, special blunch is ready for you.” Or, “Please enjoy having cakes of your own choice, which are created by the brimful sence of our patissier.” And I feel quite tempted by this offer: “On Sunday, Monday, and holiday night, special Japanese kaiseki causine for only woman.”
Yoyogi fun
The next day was another one of cancelled meetings (haven’t I been wearing enough deodorant on these trips?). So I met my friend Mutsumi, who lives in Tokyo. I met her when she was spending about a year in the US while her husband worked in the Silicon Valley branch of his (Japanese) company. We met at Yoyogi-Uehara station at the edge of Yoyogi Park, and Mutsumi brought her friend Hiromi. Hiromi, it turns out, lived in the US for nearly 20 years, and now lives in a “Western-style” apartment in a section of town where lots of foreigners live. She is quite a character.
We went for lunch at a Japanese grill with a set menu of three options (pork and ginger, salmon with ikura (roe), or grilled white fish). The most interesting part was that there were bowls of whole brown eggs on the tables. I asked if they were hard-boiled, and they laughed and said no, they are raw. Raw??? They assured me that the health standards for Japanese chickens are much higher than in the US, so that raw eggs are not a danger. It is a delicacy to mix raw egg with a bit of soy sauce, then pour it over rice. Of course I had to try it. And I dare say, it’s really good! Rich, of course, with all that cholesterol, but definitely worth sampling.
After lunch we strolled to a nearly Muslim mosque that was built just a few years ago to serve the Islamic community in Tokyo. It is a Turkish mosque, and quite beautiful. The outside is white marble with inlaid tiles and it has a tall, spiky minaret. Inside, the tilework and wall painting is gorgeous. Arabic script, decorations, stained glass, carved marble, and wood seem to be everywhere. Of course there are no images or icons, so even though it is densely decorated, it doesn’t seem gaudy or overcrowded. The carpeting is a rich aqua color with a pattern—in fact, aqua and royal blue seemed to be very important colors all over the mosque. We ascended a tight spiral staircase to go up to the “women’s section” in the balcony above; there was a sign on the stairway saying that only women were allowed to go up there. (They make it seem like a special privilege, when in fact the men aren’t allowed to dirty themselves by going there). I was glad we got the chance, actually, because the view was splendid from up there, being much closer to the stained glass and domed ceiling.
Then we stopped by Hiromi’s house because her kids would be coming home. They are American citizens, born during her time in the US, and enjoy living in the Western-style apartment. Her son is in the Boy Scouts of Asia, and was currently involved in the model-car races, where the boys carve a block of wood into a car, then race them to see whose is the most aerodynamic. I remember my friends who were in the Boy Scouts doing that when I was a kid! And Hiromi has a sweet golden retriever named Chloe, which must surely be a difficult pet to have in metropolitan Tokyo.
Then Mutsumi and I trekked off to see a nearby Shinto shrine (we paid our money and made a prayer also, ringing the big bell to signal the start of our request). It also featured a replica of a traditional Japanese shelter that was in use 4,500 years ago. It was a thatched dome that looked like it could house up to 15 or 20 people, and even had a turret on top, I guess to serve as a look-out post. Or perhaps it was simply a vent, since they probably had fires in there. It even looked pretty warm, if you had a fire going and lots of people inside.
I took a bus back to Shibuya. Hungering for sushi, I found a place with premade packages of it at a market in the Tokyu shopping area. I thought I was buying 7 pieces for 600 yen (a real bargain), but when she rung it up, she only charged me 300 yen. I guess it goes on sale after 5 pm, probably because it was made earlier in the day and is no longer considered perfectly fresh. But let me tell you, slightly unfresh sushi in Japan is still fresher than most sushi in America. It was as good as standard restaurant sushi in the US—yum.
My main complaint about this hotel is that there is no Internet connection! There is the possibility of dial-up, but my computer can’t handle the unusual dial tone of a Japanese phone. I’ve had this problem before in Japan. It’s ridiculous—the most technologically advanced country in Asia and they can’t make a hotel (knowing it must serve all types of foreigners) that has a proper Internet connection. It’s also very Japanese not to care too much that things work for foreigners. They smile politely and say, “So sorry. We have no suggestion for making your computer work.”
Gah.
(As you can see, I found a connection eventually. I'm using the high-speed connection at the Concierge desk of my hotel. It took a little wrangling to get access, but it proves that even in Japan, you can do things outside the usual rules-- with enough persistence!).
Super set
After a day of meetings, I was ready for dinner. We were meeting a business friend, so we planned a fancy business dinner on the top floor of a hotel at a nice Japanese restaurant. Oh yeah, baby.
There were three set courses to choose from, all very similar, so we just picked one. An annoying little thing was that I didn't get a menu. I was with my (older male) Japanese colleague and our (middle-aged male) American friend. Apparently with company like that, a young American woman doesn't need a menu. [A young Japanese couple sat across from us, and both got menus. I'm not quite sure what was up in my case.]
What a meal. There were about 8 courses: Silken tofu with walnut sauce. Little appetizer plates including herring with lime flavor, chestnut puree, and veggie gelatin (trust me, it's good). Sashimi, including one I hadn't tried called "purplish amberjack". Clear soup with a chicken-potato-onion dumpling. Grilled "swordfish" smothered in veggies (it wasn't really swordfish since it was pink. Whatever it was, it was awesome). Steamed black rice wrapped in thin slices of something called "tilefish," but this was another odd translation; it seemed to be some variation on tai fish. Cold soba noodles with dipping sauce. And finally, Japanese sweets such as mochi and something resembling marzipan. We washed it down with a cold draft beer followed by sake over ice.
The amazing thing is, this stuff isn't heavy at all. You get just a bite or two of each thing, and it's all very delicately prepared. I wasn't totally stuffed. I was "80% full"-- that's a Japanese phrase for "perfectly satisfied." It was supposed to be the right amount of food for a samurai to have before battle. If he is 100% full, he can't fight, but 80% full gives maximum strength.
On another food note, I splurged on a package of strawberries earlier in the day. $4 for a 10-oz package! But they were, naturally, really good strawberries. Who knows where they were grown-- perhaps in a greenhouse?
OK, enough food thoughts. Off to more meetings.
Shinkansen names
You may be familiar with the Japanese bullet train-- called the shinkansen. I have been riding them a lot this week. There are many trains, and they have fast-sounding names like "lightening" (hikari), "echo" (kodama), and "wings" (tsubasa).
Then Japan built the "superexpress" shinkansen, which travels between Tokyo and Kyoto with only two other stops, so it makes the whole journey in about two hours. What name could they possibly give to this train that would be swifter and more powerful than the ones written above?
They finally decided on "hope" (nozomi).
International thoughts
Last night we went to an intimate little Japanese restaurant in Kyoto where the chef was trained in French cuisine as well as Japanese. It was sort of a fusion meal, and the combo worked really well. The owner was an older Japanese woman, and the price of the meal seemed to include a chat with her at our table as we lingered over our tea at the end of the meal. Mostly she and my host bemoaned the changes of getting older, but we also talked about the differences between Western and Japanese anatomy, with my body as the Western model. Hah! I am hardly an exemplar.
I learned a new turn of phrase at that meal: "cat tongue." Cats can't eat hot food (hot in temperature, that is), so when food is so hot that you have to blow on it to cool it off, you are experiencing "cat tongue." Apparently Americans are known in Japan for having very catlike tongues, always needing food to be cooler before eating it. Indeed, I always have to wait to drink my tea because I think it is served at scalding temperature, whereas I've seen others just gulp it down.
My thoughts are turning toward China, where I am headed later today. This morning at breakfast, I picked out an odd-looking fruit from the fruit bowl to try. It resembled a peach pit except it was more the size of a ping-pong ball. Or maybe it looked like a brown golf ball, but the size of a ping-pong ball. Anyway, I bit into it and discovered that it was a lychee fruit! There is a pit in the middle and this hard bark-like skin, but the juicy white flesh inside was definitely lychee.
How appropriate to discover that as I head into Shanghai.
China means business
I came into China today, which was an adventure. (I've done it once before, but that was through the passage at Hong Kong, not at Shanghai PuDong Airport).
First off, China makes all entrants fill out a health form. Last time I did this, it was for SARS, but this time there were all sorts of other boxes to check. For instance, it asked if I had AIDS or was HIV-positive. It asked if I had mental psychosis (would I know to check yes?). You then pass a little checkpoint where you hand it to a guard, he looks to see if anything is checked, and if not the paper gets filed (not sure if the file is round or not).
Next, foreigners are greeted by large signs in the immigration area-- they call it the "frontier checkpoint"-- that explain what is happening. The message is clear: the first duty is the enforce the rules and maintain social order and control. The second duty is to do it nicely. (This is true everywhere of course; it's just very explicit in China). For instance, the first bullet point said, "The frontier guard will strictly enforce the rules and warmly address the passengers."
Then I looked up and saw a large sign that read, "This side for International and Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan arrivals." Note the subtlety (or not-so-subtlety): Taiwan is not international.
It turns out my plane came in right after one from Dubai, so there was quite a motley assortment of people in line. Some Europeans, some Africans, many Arabs. Two Middle Eastern men had a problem with their visas, holding up the line for a while as the guards closed in to ask them questions. Eventually, they were led off to an office; I have no idea if they were going to be allowed in or not. This made me a little nervous, but my visa seemed to be acceptble.
After battling my way through the bag pickup and the currency exchange (you can't get Chinese currency outside of China, so everyone has to change when they get there), I needed a cab. A driver turned up at my elbow and asked if I needed a cab. I said no-- the ones who solicit you right in the terminal will charge you an outrageous price. Better to go to the official taxicab stand, where you have a chance of not being cheated.
I had my hotel name printed out in Chinese characters so I could just show it to the driver. Always do this in China and Taiwan; the drivers don't speak English no matter how carefully you enunciate. In the cab, there was a long list of "cab procedures" that the driver is supposed to follow, and a number to call if you think you have been cheated. Sounds like they're trying to clean up the problems. It reminds me of how Chiang Kai Shek Airport in Taipei used to be crawling with dishonest drivers when I first went there a few years ago, but now it's quite orderly and the hucksters aren't allowed inside.
Not much traffic on Saturday, so we got there quickly, and it's so cheap! Just $15 for a 35-minute ride.
This is a 5-star hotel, which means it has Internet in the rooms and a shopping area on the first floor, as well as Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and "International" restaurants. And a health club! Best of all, there's a little 7-11-type store right next door where I can buy bottled water. The hotel water is NOT drinkable except in the Executive Suites (they say this explicitly). And although they give you a bit of bottled water in your room, it's not enough for me. I already went and bought a large bottle-- at about 60 cents a liter, it's not like it's too expensive.
The Internet connection is called "broadband," but it's not terribly broad. It also costs about 40 cents a minute. Time to get offline!
Old China
A free day in Shanghai! I decided to explore some of the culture. Since I don’t speak a word of Chinese (well, OK, I speak a word-- I can say “thank you”, xie xie), I decided to stick to standard tourist stuff. Even that is an adventure. English is pretty limited around here, so there is a real sense of adventure to be headed off into the city.
My hotel supplies tourists with a little card that has the names of popular locations written in Chinese, so you can show it to the cab driver. (Crucially, it also includes the hotel name so you can get back!). This system actually works. Still, it feels weird to communicate with someone by showing them a piece of paper and pointing at some characters. Sort of dangerous, somehow.
First I went to the Jade Buddha Temple. This is a functioning Buddhist monastery that was restored in the early part of the 20th century and recently done up into a tourist attraction. However, it is mainly a tourist attraction for Chinese tourists-- there is very little English there except on the major signs. There are two famous jade Buddha statues there, as well as many wooden and stone statues of gods and mythical heroes.
You pay 10 RMB to get in and look around the courtyard, main chambers, and at the small reclining Buddha statue. The courtyard has several fires where you can light incense sticks and use them to pray. Inside a couple of large halls, where there are many god statues and elaborate painting/decorations, there are kneeling stools for praying or doing prostrations. This whole area is crowded with Chinese people bobbing up and down in prayer and waving incense intensely. They are as much a part of the place as the silent, awesome gods.
Much of the decoration is the intense gold and red often associated with Chinese art. Everywhere the eye falls there are little details: gargoyles, painted railings, bronze bells, carved doorways, and little platforms with handfuls of rice for the numerous sparrows flitting about. Now and then a shaven-headed monk walks by in golden robes, carrying his satchel with a single thermos of tea and some books.
The reclining Buddha is something I was glad I had read about ahead of time. The jade statue is about 3.5 feet long and beautifully shaped; it depicts the Buddha just after his enlightenment. But it sits in a room that is crammed with other statuary and mainly devoted to being a souvenir shop! Worse, there is a full-sized marble Buddha statue directly across from it. How many tourists have gazed at the large marble statue thinking it was the ancient relic? Apparently this small jade Buddha and the larger jade Buddha upstairs were made many centuries ago and have been preserved by monks and other devotees.
To go up and see the large jade Buddha, you have to pay another 10 RMB. It’s a one-way circuit through a few rooms of photos and other art, then into the main room. The photos show monks from the monastery with famous visitors. Most seem to be Chinese dignitaries, but I also recognized one familiar face: Nancy Reagan. There were also some very nice carved devotional objects.
The jade Buddha himself, a bit larger than life size, is seated in meditation about 20 feet from where you walk by. The statue is surrounded by decorations and altars, and the walls and ceiling of the room are covered with paintings and small nooks holding golden Buddha icons. Again, the visitors formed part of the scene, as many Chinese walked by with hands clasped in prayer, bowing their heads. The Buddha was gorgeous, depicted in a simple style. His carved, draped clothing was ordinary, with only a few bits of jewelry. He was slim and calmly solemn, rather than rotund and laughing boisterously. He looked peaceful and wise.
A table right in front of the statue had a couple bottles of what looked like tea and a sign showing the tea being poured into a bowl, along with some writing I couldn’t read. People were signaling to two women seated along the wall, and when they came over, the visitors would pay a fee and get a bottle of the liquid. They prayed with it for a while, then gave it back to the ladies, who would take it to the altar and pour it into a special chalice. (This must have had a drain below it because they poured several bottles in while I watched, and it didn’t overflow!). I wish I knew exactly what it was for, but clearly it was a way to offer a specific prayer.
Somehow I found it off-putting to have the exchange of money going on in both rooms with the ancient jade statues. The Chinese Buddhists seemed quite sincere— devout, even— and there was no explicit solicitation of funds, but nonetheless, it made me a little uncomfortable. I watched for a while, then continued along the path back outside.
I saw a sign for something called the Hall of Ten Thousand Buddhas. I followed some stairs up and happened upon an intriguing scene. The Hall turned out to look like a hall in a conference center, with lots of folding chairs and a stage. There seemed to be programs going on at certain times, but I couldn’t read any of the signs. And what I saw was lunchtime! There were little flocks of people sitting around with picnic lunches they had brought—steamed buns, fruit, slices of meat, jugs of soup, and of course many thermoses of black tea. The whole hall smelled of the same Chinese tea they serve in most American Chinese restaurants. Were they waiting for something to start? What? I have no idea what was going on, but it was certainly interesting to see them.
In general, I had the feeling that the other Jade Buddha Temple visitors (except the Westerners) knew a lot more than I did. Of course it helped that they could read the signs, but this was also clearly their home turf. (Then again, I feel like people at Christian churches know a lot more than I do, too!) Anyway, the version of Buddhism I am familiar with is much simpler, with fewer trappings, so it was really neat to see the elaborate figures and rituals.
Next, I stuck with the theme of Old China, but headed to the modern-looking Shanghai Museum. (Ah, a Western bathroom— I was waiting for that). The cab trick worked, and I was greeted by people flying kites in a large open area by the museum. Kite vendors tried to entice me to buy one. (In general, I was approached by people wanting money nearly continually when on the streets. They all call out the word “hello!” and smile very warmly if you meet their eyes. One man had only one leg, and he pointed at the missing one, grinning wildly, then held out his hand. I felt simultaneously moved and put upon, as well as rushed. I can’t act when I’m rushed. I didn’t give any money, something I feel a bit guilty about now).
The Shanghai Museum is fascinating. It has four floors filled with pretty large galleries, but I couldn’t help comparing it to the National Museum in Taipei, which is about the same size but is only showing 5% of the collection! Perhaps there is more in Beijing, but my impression is that Chiang Kai-Shek got away with a hell of a lot of valuables from the mainland. (I have heard, by the way, that almost everything in the museum was unearthed after 1960, meaning that he really got away with a lot. It’s a huge country, so I’m sure it was no problem to find four floors worth of precious art buried in the soil during the last 40 years, but still…).
I started at the top, with the jade galleries. Centuries and centuries of carved figurines, belt buckles, jewelry, little boxes, etc. At first the figures are fairly crude, but they rapidly evolve in sophistication, and then go through various stages of fashion. They began as items for nobility, then fell out of favor for a while due to political issues, then came back as popular items that filled both rich and middle-class houses.
The various motifs used on the jade were identified by standard names: animal mask, dragon, snake, phoenix, bird, clouds, grain, etc. After seeing many examples, I began to understand what qualities of the design determined how it was labeled, but in some cases, I still couldn’t see it, or why one motif had been chosen over another. (Some dragons really look like snakes, and sometimes I couldn’t identify the dragon at all in something labeled “cup with dragon design”).
The coins were interesting too. I hadn’t realized that China began using currency in the late Neolithic period, many centuries BC. At first the coins were spade- or sword-shaped and made of cast bronze. Later they changed into the familiar round-with-a-central-square-hole form. And then these were replaced with solid coins. Paper money was also used very early in China. One interesting section showed paper money that had been issued by foreign countries for use in China during the 19th century. Apparently it is a long tradition to have currency that you can only get once inside China!
The exhibit of paintings, scrolls, and calligraphy was gorgeous. It showed the development of many styles through the various dynasties. In the Song dynasty, there was a National Art Institute where artists trained and were supported, but later this was discontinued so that artists made a living by being retained in individual households.
There was an interesting lighting system in this section. The scrolls were kept in semidarkness until a person walked close to the glass case. Then a motion sensor turned on the light, sort of like those outdoor lights people get for their houses that turn on when people approach. This probably helped preserve the scrolls by limiting the number of photons that hit them.
In this section in particular I noticed that the museum guards often took a minute to look at the items on display. Normally museum guards look bored at best by all the aesthetic delights they are surrounded by. These ones seemed to notice the art and take an interest. It seemed surprising, which made me realize how unusual it is.
There was a section on seals—- the stamps used as signatures and markers of authenticity. They started out pretty simple, then got large and elaborate over time. Somehow, they didn’t grab me.
Next I saw the pottery. This put me into system overload, so I stopped trying to read the captions. There was too much history to absorb. As always, I am amazed by the long timespan of Chinese history: the first pieces are from about 9,000 BC. I saw all the usual stuff—- celadon plates, red-painted vases, underglaze, overglaze, the period when pure white was fashionable, the period when gaudy designs were fashionable, etc.
This section finished with a nice exhibit on the making of porcelain. It showed the various steps, like gathering the clay, mixing it with water, throwing it, and firing it (one type of kiln was called a “dragon kiln,” and was set into the side of a hill). I was reminded of an article I read about the development of porcelain in Europe, inspired by the lovely samples brought back from China during the early Renaissance. It turns out that Europe lacks the right type of clay to handle firing at the high temperatures needed to make fine porcelain, and it took more than a century of fiddling by alchemists and true chemists to add the right minerals to make porcelain possible.
The exhibit of bronze was similarly impressive and history-spanning. I liked the sets of bells that hung in the courtyards of mansions during the period around 600-400 BC. Also there were endless samples of “food vessels” resembling small cauldrons but perched on three legs. Clearly the Chinese knew early on that having three legs assures a stable footing. The one piece with four legs looked sadly out of place. I also marveled at the fancy wine vessels. Most had two prongs sticking up out of the edge, as if to hold a lid that wasn’t there. I never did figure out what they were for. Some people had bought audio guides (those things were you can listen to descriptions of some pieces), and I wondered if it might be on there. So I snagged a Caucasian woman to ask, but it turned out she only spoke Spanish!
There was some furniture too. Mostly it is from pretty late (the past few centuries), after people started sitting in chairs rather than on the floor. The joinery was interesting; metal nails weren’t used at the beginning, so they had complicated joints that held together on their own.
There was also an odd section entitled something like, “National Minority Arts and Crafts.” It was largely clothing and jewelry from the ethnic groups around the edge of China, sort of like we might show Native American items. There was stuff from Tibet, Mongolia, and, as might be expected, Taiwan. The most eye-catching piece for me was a jacket and pants made entirely from salmon skin. Yow! I wonder how it smells.
The gift shop is pretty good. Touristy, yes, and far more expensive than a street market, but not outrageously priced like a Western museum gift shop. I got a print and a couple of books for about $30.
All in all, I was at the museum for four and a half hours, and I was beat. I went slower than most visitors, but still only saw certain galleries in detail. But what a fabulous day! Lots of history, both living and sequestered behind glass.
Oh, and I ran into a guy I know from the display industry. It is getting creepy to recognize people in cities halfway across the world. That’s twice this trip (the first was seeing my father’s friend in the Tokyo airport).
The cab delivered me home safely, where I attempted to pay with a 100 RMB bill—somehow I had managed to wind up with only those in my wallet. The driver couldn’t break it, so the bellman had to run to the hotel desk and get change. I probably looked like some rich Occidental, even though I had effectively only tried to hand him about $15. I’m still getting over the fact that a 15-minute ride might only cost $4.
Back in my room, I am learning to work with a rather historical set of facilities. The toilet has already failed once (the water in the tank leaked away so that it couldn’t flush). The electricity is a little wonky—I am still baffled by lights that seem to go on or off only after much cajoling. And they don’t have switches! You have to control them with a flaky remote-control panel. The shower oscillates in temperature, encouraging you to be quick. The Internet connection is only available sometimes. And the heating system produces very dry air, such that I am getting nosebleeds. I am thinking of turning on the shower to generate some humidity.
Also, I am remembering that in China, non-smoking is a non-concept. My room smells quite heavily of cigarettes, especially in the evening when other patrons are smoking and it wafts through the ducts. This gives me a constant low-level headache, makes my eyes sting, and reduces my appetite. I realized at the museum that I was feeling really good, probably because I had been in clear air for many hours (or as clear as the air ever gets in Shanghai—at least it was non-cigarette air). [I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: if you smoke, quit. Every pore of my body screams “poison!” when I encounter the reek of cigarettes. If your pores don’t seem to do this, you’re not listening.]
China -- on and off the beaten path
Today I took a cab to a place in Shanghai called The Bund, which is an area along the riverfront that shows China’s more modern side. It is studded with banks and corporate offices, many of them foreign. For instance, just in one small cluster I saw Kyocera, HSBC, LG, Bayer, and NEC, right alongside Chinese firms like Lenovo. The buildings are impressive and Western-styled, but with that slightly Asian look like they have in Hong Kong. You can tell it’s not New York—- in fact, it is New China.
The Bund has a broad terrace beside the Huang River, built especially so people could get a better view and take pictures. I strolled along it, viewing the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and Jin Mao Tower across the river, and watching the tour boats and commerce barges steaming through the brown water.
There are a number of gardens and wooded areas along The Bund, as well as a brick plaza with a large statue of Chairman Mao. I had arrived around 8:30, still in time to catch some of the early-morning exercises going on. People had tape players and were doing qi gong or tai chi in groups. In the brick plaza, people were dancing! One couple twirled about doing a modified waltz, and another lady improvised what looked more like a rock-and-roll dance to the fast music. Some other people batted a badminton birdie around. All of this was largely over by 9 am.
I couldn’t help noticing the heavy police presence. There seemed to be officers about every 40 yards. I also saw an interesting sign that had a series of “rules” that people needed to follow at The Bund. Mostly they pertained to keeping the social order. Everyone needed to obey the rules and could not participate in any “repugnant” activities (the English translation really used this word). Notably, there were no beggars asking for money like I had found near the Jade Buddha Temple and the museum. (Although one guy tried to sell me some postcards, and another offered me fake Rolexes. Maybe the police would later pick these fellows up). And there were tons of clean-up crew dressed in blue jumpers, sweeping up every bit of dust and trash as soon as it appeared.
All in all, it was clearly a very controlled place, and the intention seemed to be demonstrating that China was modern, rich, and Western-looking. I even found a public bathroom that was very clean. It offered Western toilets (rare), was scented with incense, and cost 1 RMB to use. (The fee is trivial—- about 14 cents—- so I’m not totally sure of the purpose. Maybe just as a minor gate to “the wrong kind of people”?).
On the taxi ride over, we had passed through an interesting-looking market section, so I headed back in that direction. I knew it was at least a mile away, but figured I’d try to find it. I never did, but I had lots of other adventures!
After passing out of the east end of The Bund, things got more straggly. No more big buildings, mostly just small shops and apartment buildings. And farther on, I entered a somewhat poor section where people sold goods in the street. Sometimes they seemed to be a couple of people selling things from near their tiny house—- perhaps fruit, or yarn, or cloth, or shoes. The living structures were ramshackle, with laundry hanging across the narrow streets, dubious-looking liquids trickling into drains, snarls of electrical wires hung low (sometimes with laundry on them!). The road traffic consisted of a roiling mix of pedestrians, bicycles, carts, motorbikes, and the occasional car, blaring its horn to make way.
This area was not desperately poor—- the people looked like they were surviving just fine within their self-constructed local economy. They chatted in the streets, set up tables to play cards, and slapped each other’s backs. They looked at me, then looked away. I was odd, but not totally novel. And it was clear that I wasn’t there to pick up radishes or pig’s feet for dinner, much less a skein of wool.
A few square blocks of this section were devoted to being a hopping food market. Suddenly the half-residential look became more like a full-fledged street market. Shallow pans holding all types of fish and eels lined the road. Bins overflowed with nuts, mangoes, bananas, shellfish, live crabs, and vegetables. Chicken parts you’ve never seen, pig parts you might not want to see. One guy was stacking frozen pig carcasses like logs—- they made a clacking sound like wood striking tile. As usual, I couldn’t identify everything I was seeing.
Suddenly, a rickshaw selling greens from the middle of the street was carted to the side. Then other vendors began gathering up their wares and pulling them back toward the edge of the street or into nearby storefronts. Down the crowded street, I could see a minivan approaching. At first I thought maybe it was an ambulance and people knew to get out of the way. But it had no flashing lights or siren. And some of the pedestrians were grinning, laughing, and talking amongst themselves. They knew what was going on, and it wasn’t an emergency.
I stood over to the side, figuring I should wait while it passed by, but other pedestrians were just flowing along normally; only the vendors were parting like the Red Sea. So I pushed up to the minivan to see what it was.
It was a government vehicle with two officials inside. The label on the door read “Inspection.” As I (and a small crowd of Chinese) watched, one official jumped out, went to one of the vegetable vendors, and began taking the baskets of food and putting them in the back of the government truck. Tomatoes, greens, and other things were packed away, and then the truck was closed up and driven off. The vendors, now surrounded by a group of people they seemed to know, had expressions on their faces that I couldn’t read. Anger? Resignation? It was inscrutable—- at any rate, they weren’t terribly emotional.
As quickly as it happened, it was over. The crowd dispersed, the other vendors put their stuff back on the street, life went on. I had the feeling I had seen something important, but didn’t quite know what, or how to process it.
[In discussing this event with work colleagues later, I learned that my boss had seen the same thing happen at a night market in Taipei. All the goods vanished in a matter of 30 seconds, and then a police vehicle cruised through. Apparently it's an issue with not paying for the right permit. I'm not sure if that was precisely the same sitaution or not, but it's clearly related].
A bit farther on, I spotted a pagoda roof, and went over to see it more closely. This neighborhood seemed an unlikely place for a fancy building. It turned out to be a Confucian temple, and you could buy a ticket to go in for 10 RMB. Why not? I paid my fee, and was instantly approached by a young, smiling Chinese woman who said she would guide my tour. Wow, a personal tour!
Her English was pretty good, once I got used to her rather thick accent. She clearly had a knack for languages, given that she told me she had only studied English during her four years at university. If she came to an English-speaking country, she’d be a whiz in no time.
She started out with all the official stuff about how the temple was 800 years old and had been visited by the Emperor several times. We saw the great hall with the statue of Confucius and some of his philosophy inscribed in the stone walls. I started asking questions. How many Chinese are believers in Confucianism? Not many, she said. Mainly young students (elementary school) and their parents, who use the practical philosophy as a guide for ethical behavior. Also some business people and government officials use Confucian philosophy to wield power wisely.
I asked what the difference is between Confucianism and Buddhism. She was very clear on that one: Confucius was a real person, whereas the Buddha was a god. She even compared this temple to the Jade Buddha Temple, which she seemed to feel was a place for sentiment and blind faith, whereas Confucius offered something more tangible.
Next we saw a hall filled with stones of interesting shape. The sign said they were “grotesque stones, enchanted stones, and power-filled stones.” I pointed out the word “grotesque,” and asked what it meant in application to these stones. She said other English-speakers had noted that word also, and had suggested that “unique” might be a better term. I agreed. Apparently the stones are said to have a protective quality, which is why some Chinese houses have a large stone of interesting shape in the garden.
There was also a “teapot museum” with pieces donated by private owners. They reminded me of the pottery exhibits at the Shanghai Museum, since they came from various dynasties and had a various artistic styles. She told the story of one tea set that had been found by a farmer in his field. He vaguely realized that they might be ancient and valuable, but he wanted them for his household. So he kept the pieces and used them, at first. But then his children broke a few, and he began to regret keeping them, so he told a government official that he had them. They were taken and donated to the museum for all to enjoy. She made of point of saying that the government knew best about old relics, and it was always the right thing to tell them about anything that is found because it might be valuable.
By the way, this teapot display was in the part of the temple that used to be a library. My guide noted that all the books had been taken and destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.
Next we went to a part of the temple that was once used as a classroom. Now it housed wood carvings made from tree roots and branches that had intrinsic shapes sort of like the final piece. For instance, there was a phoenix made from a piece that had streaming roots that resembled the tail. Also some very nice carvings of rabbits, dragons, deer, and mythical figures.
One was an elephant, but my guide showed me how she liked to look at it from the backside because, to her, it resembled a guitar from that angle. She said she liked music very much, so I asked if she played the guitar. Oh no, she said. Her mother had told her that girls could not do things like that. “In your country,” she said matter-of-factly, “if you want to do something, you can just do it freely. But in my country, we must always obey our parents, and cannot choose to do things. For instance, if I have a baby, that will mean I have to do that, and not other things.” (She was in her mid-twenties).
Wow. You can never tell when you’re going to get through the “official” veneer. Or maybe I was still blocked by it. After all, she didn’t express any personal feelings about these statements. It was unclear if she was satisfied with how things are or not. Or perhaps that issue does not matter.
Then we saw a hall with various donated art objects. These were pretty nice things! Carved jade, statues, silk screens, carved wood and marble—- quite elegant. They also had price tags on them, and tended to cost in the range from $80-$500. She told me quite a bit about the history and symbolism of them, such as the meaning of the set of three statues representing happiness, wealth/status, and long life. And how pine trees are used as a symbol for long life because they are evergreens. I mentioned that I had been to the Shanghai Museum and was impressed with the long timespan of Chinese history—- so many centuries, millennia even! America, I pointed out, was founded just 225 years ago, so it is a very young country. She smiled at that.
She showed me a special book where they have recorded the names of people who “helped the temple.” All of the names were Western, written in English! She meant that they had helped by buying something at the store. I pretended to miss the implication, and just went on oohing and aahing at the art objects, asking questions now and then.
Lastly, we stopped by the pagoda. It had three stories, which is why I was able to spot it over the temple wall, and she explained that every year they choose the top three students from the neighborhood schools, and array them on the pagoda. The best student gets to go all the way to the top, the second one stands on the second floor, and the third-best on the ground floor. All the others gaze upon them as they are told, “Study hard and you too can stand in the special pagoda.” I wonder if it works.
I decided to ask a final question. I told my guide about the incident I had just seen with the “Inspection” truck and the scurrying vendors and the seized baskets of vegetables. Innocently, I asked what they were doing.
She looked uncomfortable beneath her composed visage (if I read it correctly), and replied that sometimes the vendors were blocking the street so traffic could not get through, and this wasn’t good. I persisted by asking why the goods had been taken away in the truck. This time she laughed a bit and said, “Maybe I know but just can’t say it. I was a history major in school, not English. So I really can’t express it.” I paused for a second, then said, “I understand. At least your English seems very good for what you are doing here at the temple.” She thanked me for the compliment and turned to point out the garden and carp pool.
At the end, she asked if I needed the washroom, then proceeded to wait while I went there. It had, of course, Asian squat toilets, but was otherwise reasonably clean. I was armed with my tissues, so it was no problem. But I smiled at the fixtures there. The squat toilet was of the brand called “American Standard”—- you’ve probably seen that brand in public toilets in the US. I didn’t realize they supplied Asian countries too. But what a hoot! That toilet was certainly not a “standard” American one!
We said goodbye at the temple gate. She wished me a good visit in China, and I wished her good luck in life. I asked if she’d ever been outside of China, and she said no, she had just traveled between her hometown, far to the west, and Shanghai. She had been in Shanghai for about a year. I wonder what path she will wend through life. And I’m glad we intersected briefly for what turned out to be nearly an hour-long private tour.
I had been trooping around for more than 3 hours, and was tired. I ate the Asian pear I was carrying (picked up at breakfast in my hotel), then caught a cab back to the hotel. Unfortunately, I have to do some work this afternoon in preparation for continuing with business tasks tomorrow.
This brief interlude of free time in Shanghai—- both on and off the beaten path—- has been a treasure. I do have a little business to accomplish too...
Be prepared
In the closet of my hotel room in Shanghai, there is the usual stuff-- some hangers, a set of slippers, the laundry bag and request form. There is also a gas mask. It claims to be effective in case of fire, but is also labeled, "anti-smog, anti-carbon monoxide, anti-hydrogen cyanide, anti-sarin."
I hope I don't need it! Can you imagine placing such an item in an American hotel room?
Sweet Shanghai
It’s been a wonderful week for Chinese food. There are so many excellent restaurants in Shanghai, and the food is so cheap in China! The only challenge is that most menus are only in Chinese, and hence impenetrable to me and most of my colleagues. You’ll have to bring a Chinese person and let them order everything. Luckily, everything tastes great.
Regarding the inexpensiveness, bear in mind that a full, 90-minute meal at a good restaurant, for 10 people, cost us all of $60. And at a conference we hosted, the dinner sponsor paid $3,500 for a banquet served to about 60 people (that includes renting the room and paying for the food, alcohol, and waiter service).
Some foods that stood out for me this time include: Flash-fried shrimp with a sweet coating, usually honey- but sometimes sugar-based. Even through they are fried, they come out light, like genuine Japanese tempura does. (The difference between American Chinese food and its genuine counterpart is the addition of much more oil and salt). The shrimp are whole, including shell, head, and eyes. But just pop them in your mouth and crunch them up! Attempting to peel them would be a real mess anyway. They taste great.
Also we had scallops served on the half-shell like mussels are in the US. They had been baked with a ginger-onion sauce and placed back on the shells. Delicate and delectable.
We also sampled a Shanghai specialty that was some untranslatable type of fish (they wanted to call it “firefish”). It is, of course, served whole, but the meat part of the body has been cut into spikes and fried like a “blooming onion” is in the US! Honestly, it looks like a blooming onion placed between the head and tail of the fish. You eat it by pulling off spikes of fish with your chopsticks, taking care to snag a little of the sweet onion sauce and pine nuts sprinkled over the fish. Again, even though it was fried, it did not weigh me down.
And many interesting vegetarian items. We had stir-fried greens that resembled clover leaf. And several types of bamboo shoots—both white and green. We seem only to get one type in the US, and they are inevitably canned, which lends a very different flavor. And mushrooms! So many kinds. Some are long and look like twigs, while others are so tender they can’t even be picked up with chopsticks by the Chinese people.
Also some interesting starch items, which come at the end of the meal, by the way. (You don't have rice with fancy Chinese food-- it's one of the final courses). One thing was jokingly called "Chinese pizza" by our Chinese colleagues. It is a flat, round piece of bread baked with garlic and various Chinese spices. Or maybe it's not quite baked; maybe it's made like a waffle. Anyway, it has some oil on the surface, and consistency more like a cinnamon roll than like bread. It's good. Also dumplings filled with meat that generates a lot of juice as the dumplings are steamed. You eat them by first punching a hole with your teeth so the juice can escape. If you don't, you end up with the "cherry tomato problem" familiar to cocktail party diners.
The theme that emerged is that many foods in Shanghai are sweet. Some are blatantly so, like the dates stuffed with rice gluten, then baked to perfection, or the fruit served as the last course of every meal (this is common in most Asian cuisines, actually). Others are most subtle, like the ginger scallops. But many Chinese people commented on this feature of the food, so it is well known. I rather liked it—the sweetness is not overwhelming; it is just the right amount to match the savory flavors. The whole effect is quite marvelous.
Working in China
My final days in China were devoted to work-- a conference and a company visit. I took note of other workers I encountered too:
We left a company meeting very late, about 6:45 pm, and a colleague and I stopped in the restroom on the way out. We saw one of the custodian women in there washing her hair in the sink. Perhaps she doesn't have a good shower or adequate hot water at home?
In a restaurant, the bathroom was far away, and when we asked to go, we were assigned a guide to take us there. I was mildly surprised to see her standing in the restroom when we came out of our stalls. She was waiting, and then proceeded to guide us back. I'm not sure why I was surprised, but probably it was rubbing against my middle-class American upbringing. I never had servants or people waiting on me. I even felt somewhat embarrassed that we had taken about 5 minutes of this serving woman's time. Surely she had other things she could have been attending to at the restaurant. Notably, my Indian colleague was right at home. She comes from upper-class India, and is used to having a household staff. When I expressed my concerns for the woman's time, she assured me that such service people see their jobs as taking care of the host, and are happy to do it (or at least understand that that's normal for their work)-- so the woman probably had no such qualms, according to my colleague.
While driving to the meeting, we passed some workers painting the bottom of telephone poles white, presumably so they were more visible to cars and/or bikes. They were using a brush and bucket, and were painting them as far up as one of the workers could reach while standing on a stepstool held by the other. ("How high should we paint the poles?" "You're taller-- stand on this stool.").
We had hired a car for the day one time, and the driver waited while we had lunch and attended meetings. This meant hours of idle time at a stretch. I noticed that each time we got back in the car, the music was blaring when he started up the engine.
We also noted that construction materials (much of Shanghai seems to be under construction) are often ferried around on bikes. This means that guys are carrying, for instance, 20-foot poles strapped to the sides of bicycles. What an awkward load!
Finally, a comment on my own work. I spent a lot of time in meetings this trip where I didn't speak the native language, the people I was meeting did not speak English very well, and we had one or a few people who were bilingual providing translation.
One meeting where the Chinese company had almost no English capability, it suddenly struck me that we were attending completely different meetings. There was no overlap between the halves of speech that we understood. I heard myself and my colleagues in real time, but them through the translator, and vice versa for them. In our memory playbacks of the meeting, we will have rather different voices playing major roles.
Then it occurred to me that this situation of attending different meetings really happens most of the time. It is just far less obvious when everyone speaks the same language. But really, when you think about it, my own biases, views, and other factors like whether I'm tired/hungry/irritated/etc, work together to make any encounter different for me than it will be for you, based on your biases, views, etc.
My boss visited Czechoslovakia in 1990 (before the split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia), where he experienced all kinds of unusual things unique to the disintegrating socialism and Communism going on there. When he commented on things we saw in China, he often made analogies to things he had seen on this trip. Clearly, his mind was making continual comparisons based on this prior experience, Some other part of his mind seems to have deemed it relevant and hence was bringing up memories.
I did not go on this trip in 1990, of course, which means I could not apply that lens to my experience. I was presumably applying other lenses, such as my trip to China about a year ago, and my experiences in Taiwan, Japan, and other countries. I know that's true because various memories and comparisons came up for me. The point is that my boss and I were seeing rather different things even when our eyes looked at the same scene.
I wonder what it would be like to see events with no lenses from prior experience. That would be a view of true reality, I believe. (Of course you can't forget everything-- you'd crash your car-- but surely a lot more could be forgotten than we allow ourselves to).
Continued China thoughts
I am still musing on China, and have a couple thoughts about the way it can maintain both a (semi-)capitalist economy and a dictatorial Communist government.
Some aspects of China are amazingly capitalist. There are approximately two cultures there. The business world, especially technical business, is capitalist and cares little about politics, except to the degree that it might hamper opportunities. That is not to say there aren't smoked-filled rooms containing company presidents and government officials, but the corporate people, deep in their hearts, don't especially care what Chiang Kai-Shek did in 1949. The goal is very much to get rich, by any means possible.
The government culture is, of course, Communist/socialist. It's all about social order, control, security theater, telling people how much their factories should make, etc. There were lovely government signs all over Shanghai. Some exhorted people to "maintain good hygiene-- wash your hands regularly." This might be fine in a washroom or kindergarten, but they were the big ones that hang on lamposts beside a major thoroughfare. Some public places also had "rules" posted about how you were to behave in those places.
The two main cultures do intersect sometimes. There are regulations stipulating how much revenue companies can make in some cases, which means they adjust how many components to buy for their production lines depending both on price and on whatever is the government's latest whim. This throws a monkey wrench into the usual economics of supply/demand. (That and the fact that most large companies are freed from the requirement of actually making a profit, due to the aforementioned smoke-filled rooms).
Standing between these two cultures (which maintain an uneasy peace most of the time) are people like landlords, who use the fact that competition isn't quite unhindered to make lots of money. For example, Shanghai overbuilt luxury condos during the past decade (but hey, it made work for lots of construction workers). Now they stand with less than 50% occupancy. Nonetheless, it is extremely hard to buy one. They cost many millions of dollars, and mortgages are generally given only for 10-20% of the cost, not 80-90% as it is here. (China's lending and credit institutions are not very mature). But even people who show up with the cash can't actually buy one of these places unless they personally know the landlord or have good connections to his family. That's the famous "guan xi" needed to accomplish anything in China -- good relationships. I'm sure it was the same in the Soviet Union, and it is of course true in countless dictatorships around the world today. Landlords are very rich, since they parlay their absolute power (and freedom from needing profit-- the government absorbs the cost of all those vacant units) into their own advantage.
So it is not terribly surprising to run into a lust for money and business in China. You just have to remember that your intuition about how capitalism works in the US (and, largely, Europe) might not apply.
What did surprise me was the strong interest in a report I had written about intellectual property!
Copyright © Kim Allen 2004
