"So, yes,
there is corruption in China.
Maybe something should cost one billion dollars to build, and maybe the
price is one point five billion, but it is well built, it won't fall
down."
"Tony",
not his Chinese name, our assigned guide, is talking to our group of 34 on the
bus ride to "Old Shanghai" and the Yu Garden. His mini-lectures are sharp and funny,
showing excellent English and a wry sense of humor. He is from Beijing, and fiercely nationalistic and proud of
China, and not afraid to show his clear northern Chinese sensibility.
I wanted to ask
Tony about the collapsed schools after the earthquake in Szechuan a few years
ago, and the shoddy construction that lead to thousands of deaths; and, the
subsequent jailing and harassment of the parents who tried to bring this
scandal to the world's attention.
Or, the irony later, when we were driving from the Wuhan airport to our
boat dock, and Tony was talking about Wuhan's explosive growth.
"These
buildings, all five, six, seven stories tall, were built only ten years
ago. You can see all around the
much taller buildings that are replacing them." The ten-year-old buildings we could see looked like ancient
slums - how well built were they?
Another word we
are hearing a lot from Tony is "flexible."
"Chinese
companies were hired to build a big tall building project in Russia. The Russians would build one floor a
month; but the Chinese method is special concrete where we can pour one floor
every three days. But the Russians
say you must let concrete cure for 28 days or it is dangerous. But Chinese engineers hire people to
test and tests show Chinese method works.
So Chinese compromise with Russians and build one floor a week. Chinese workers not like Russian
workers who do not like to work hard and know only one thing. Chinese workers flexible, can learn
many things, solve problems, work very hard." And yet, in the recent news is word that the new San
Francisco Bay Bridge may be unsafe because of the work of one of the Chinese
subcontractors.
Seeing China
through the lens of a luxury Viking Cruise provides a distorted perspective,
but no more distorted than that provided by our western media. Putting the many points of view
together perhaps provides a fuller view.
Viking is a Norwegian company, famous for Scandinavian hospitality, its
river cruises and pampered customers.
The Chinese representatives for Viking are clearly highly trained, well
educated and carefully screened.
And, the Chinese government just as carefully scrutinizes Viking. For instance, the Viking Emerald, our
four-year-old ship, is not owned by Viking, but instead has a Chinese
owner. And, at every opportunity,
we are told about the high quality, reasonably priced, authentic Chinese pearls
("much better and less expensive than the pearls from Fiji or
India"), authentic Chinese teas ("India tea actually comes from China
seeds"), and other beautiful hand crafted, authentic regional items that
are for sale by Viking.
This is a
reflection of the huge shift in the last 30 years of China from a rural
agricultural and inexpensive manufacturing economy, to a financial and
investment powerhouse trying to shift to a higher "value added"
economic position. Tony tells us
constantly about China's magnificent achievements:
"Thirty
years ago, everyone say Hong Kong model the best way for finance. Hong Kong the center of Asia
finance. But in last ten years,
Shanghai grows so much, from 15 million peoples to 23 million peoples, but Hong
Kong stay the same. Now Shanghai
have more economic activity than Hong Kong."
Of course, Tony
doesn't mention Hong Kong's geographic limitations or how difficult it is for
mainland Chinese to go to Hong Kong.
"Ten years
ago, people ask China or India, which is better model for growth? But now, it is clear, the facts are
that China grow more and better.
"And,
people say air pollution so bad in China, but now the UN reports that the most
polluted cities are not in China, but in India."
Tony never
passes up an opportunity to dig at one of China's rivals.
"In
Beijing, you will be able to buy authentic Chinese tea ceremony cups and
pots. Maybe you see the same in
Japan, but China invented the tea ceremony, Japan just copies from the
Chinese."
Out of our hotel
window at the Ritz Carlton Portman Shanghai is a prominent neo-Classic,
limestone clad European style complex, topped by a red star that seems
empty. The building has no
exterior identification in either Chinese or English, so we ask Tony.
"That's the
Chinese Russian Friendship building, built maybe when Stalin still in power in
Russia, soon after the Revolution.
Now empty; friendship not so good between Russia and China.
"But Putin
coming soon to visit Shanghai.
Chinese government say they like Putin; but Chinese people don't like
Emperor Putin." Of course,
Putin's visit is to try to get the Chinese to buy Russian natural gas, now that
Europe is pressuring Russia because of the crisis in the Ukraine. The Chinese people are disgusted by
Putin's arrogance, but business is business.
Our trip covers
a great deal of ground in two weeks, from two days in Shanghai to a five day
cruise on the Yangtze River, through the 3 Gorges Dam, debarking in Chongqing,
where we fly to Xi'an for two days (after a quick visit to the Giant Pandas in
the Chongqing Zoo, a much easier place to see them than Beijing) and a visit to
the Terra Cotta Soldiers. Finally,
another flight, and three days spent in Beijing. It is "all-inclusive" supposedly, but isn't really
as the optional trips to places like the Summer Palace in Beijing cost extra,
and strongly-encouraged tips for all of our tour guides and bus drivers and
boat staff are not included. The
latter is especially troubling as tipping is not customary in China; except, of
course, on a Viking trip.
Shanghai has
been China's traditional business center for over two hundred years and its
modern face still bares vestiges in the Bundt neighborhood of the "foreign
concessions" that China endured in the 19th and 20th centuries. In an era when China's last dynasty,
the Qing dynasty was weakening and reaching the end of its 250 year reign,
these concessions, which were not subject to Chinese law, were among many
factors that contributed to a modern blooming of Chinese nationalism. The flower first emerged as the brief
period of the Republic of China (1912 to 1949). But the Republic was weak, and after Sun Yat-sen, the
founder and widely loved first President of the Republic died in 1925, China
deteriorated into a return to aspects of its earlier feudalism. When Chiang Kai-shek's corrupt
dictatorship seized power in 1928, China dissolved into civil war with Mao's
Communist Party organizing in the rural areas, while the erstwhile Republican
government began resisting Japanese imperialism. Eventually, Japanese aggression led to the Sino-Japanese War
of 1937-1945, during which Mao's and Chiang's forces were informally unified against
the Japanese. After the Japanese
surrender at the end of World War II, the civil war resumed with Mao's eventual
triumph and Chiang's government exiled to Taiwan. China's casualties during this period were massive,
estimated by our tour guide Tony at "Thirty to fifty millions people, more
than the Jewish peoples and the Russian peoples combined." Of course, the six million Jewish
casualties represented most of the Jewish population in Europe, while the
Chinese casualties, which modern historians estimate at between 17 and 22
million, while brutal and catastrophic, represented well under 5% of the
population. Similarly, Russia's
casualties, while fewer in actual numbers, represented a much higher percentage
of their population. To this day,
the average Chinese citizen holds a very hostile and suspicious view of Japan
and the Japanese.
Shanghai doesn't
hold much for the average tourist unless you are an architecture buff -
Shanghai still has remnants of its Art Deco past as well as interesting modern
buildings. And, it's street life
outside of the main tourist shopping district still feels a bit like an older
China. "Old Shanghai" is
really a recently built reproduction of an imagined old Shanghai, filled with
tourist shops, with Yu Gardens at its center. Yu Gardens is actually a five acre house complex, the oldest
existing house in Shanghai, dating from the Ming Dynasty, built originally in
the late 1500s, by a high level government minister. It is a sprawling retreat restored to its original pastoral
beauty and comfort with carefully laid out ponds and gardens intermixed with
thoughtfully constructed natural spaces decorated with salvaged river
rocks. At almost every Imperial
China attraction, you see these mainly limestone rocks: valued for their
interesting patterns of erosion and complex beauty and carefully placed into
landscapes and ponds.
Deco Shanghai, new Shanghai, more Deco Shanghai (above)
Old and New together (above)
The crabs are VERY fresh at most restaurants (above)
Traditional commerce still thrives in Shanghai, too
Life is slower in some parts of Shanghai
Or, not....(Chinglish - the Chinese version of English)
Also of interest
was the Shanghai Museum. When we
visited early on a rainy Sunday morning, a long line was already formed to the
stylish modern circular stone clad building that sits in People's Square. We were able to bypass the line by
using the group entrance, but the museum was soon crowded. Spread out over four spacious floors,
the objects were primarily decorative, the highlight for us being the
magnificent Shang Dynasty bronzes (dating as far back as 1800BC) and the Han
and Tang Dynasty lacquered furniture from more recent times.
After a
leisurely 90 minute unescorted visit, we boarded our bus for a luncheon stop at
a "rug factory." This
turned out to be nothing more than a low quality "Lazy Susan" lunch,
preceded by a demonstration of silk and wool rug making by two handpicked
artists, that was a cover for a very hard sell showroom of absurdly over-priced
rugs. (The real factory, with 1200
workers, was outside of Shanghai.)
This was the beginning of one of the low-lights of our trip: we would in
subsequent days be subjected to similar poor food and hard sells at a Jade
"factory", a terracotta "factory", and a lacquered
furniture "factory".
Even a demonstration of a Chinese Tea Ceremony was nothing more than a
disguised pitch to buy overpriced tea and tea sets. In China, as everywhere else in the world, there is no free
lunch.
The "rug factory"
From Shanghai we
made an easy flight to Wuhan where we would meet our riverboat, the Viking
Emerald. Viking handled the
transfers, including baggage, flawlessly, and the bus drive from the Wuhan
airport to the Yangtze River boat dock was accompanied by an interesting
lecture from Tony on the rise of the Chinese automobile industry and the sorry
fate of China's first foreign partner, the French manufacturer Citroen. Citroen made the mistake of selling the
Chinese overpriced, poorly designed older model cars and now all their models
are considered anathema to the Chinese consumer. Wuhan sits strategically on the middle reaches of the
Yangtze and Han Rivers, and is the center of China's fast growing automobile
and transportation manufacturing.
The city is undergoing explosive growth, with a population of
10,000,000.
The Viking
Emerald proved a pleasant surprise.
Spacious, well appointed, and tastefully done in dark woods and brass,
the staterooms, all with balconies, were comfortable and nicely designed with a
cozy seating area and private bathroom.
Public areas included two major lounges with bars and comfortable chairs
and couches, a spacious dining room, an outdoor sundeck (which was infrequently
used because of frequent rain), an "internet room" with eight
computers (no wireless on the boat and the connection in the computer room was
iffy and slow) and a small exercise room.
The only minor disappointment was the library, which didn't have any
books.
The Yangtze was
shrouded in light rain and patchy fog.
The middle reaches of this great river ("The third longest in the
world" according to Tony, who sounded almost disappointed that he couldn't
claim it as the longest) is heavily industrialized and the river traffic is
primarily barges and working boats of all descriptions. Glimpses of daily life on board these
boats were easy to find: a chef or mate at the stern of the boat peeling
vegetables for his evening meal; house plants filling sparse deck space outside
of living quarters; laundry hanging from improvised clotheslines.
The boat was a
welcome respite from the brief exposure to Shanghai's urban intensity: there,
as a pedestrian, you had to constantly dodge electric motor scooters, which do
not obey traffic laws and will quickly retreat to sidewalks to avoid congested
car traffic and beep constantly at intervening walkers. Pedestrian crossings seemed more of a
vague suggestion to cars to yield, not a requirement. Walkers beware.
Choosing to do
an organized tour of China was not a difficult decision for us, despite having
done world traveling together for over 30 years without ever having taken a
tour. China, however, presents
numerous obstacles to first time travelers there, beginning with an arduous
visa application process that requires an almost minute-by-minute accounting of
your time in China. Navigating Chinese
internal transportation systems and finding reputable Chinese guides were the
two biggest barriers for us, and Viking came through with excellent service in
both areas. The downside, however,
was the poor quality of food (other than on the boat where it was excellent)
and the limited choices at many of the tourist destinations, such as the
Forbidden City where a visit to the museum there was not included. Viking did do an excellent job choosing
hotels in Shanghai (The Ritz Carlton Portman), Xi'an (The Hilton, within the
walls of the Old City), and Beijing (The Regent.) All three hotels were first class luxury accommodations with
superb buffet breakfasts. The tour
also covered a huge amount of ground in 2 weeks, allowing us to see the key
places on our China "bucket list": The Great Wall, The Forbidden
City, The Terracotta Soldiers, Giant Pandas, and the Yangtze River Three Gorges
area. The five-day boat portion of
the trip was especially relaxing and a chance to get to enjoy the company of
our fellow tour passengers (mainly older Americans, with a nice interspersing
of British and Canadians), as well as nightly informative lectures about
Chinese history, culture, politics, and China today.
The ironies of
China abound, and slip through the bamboo curtain only upon close inspection
and the occasional risky, frank disclosure from someone willing to deviate from
the current political dialect in public.
One such person was on the crew of our ship, and she spoke frankly and
at length about her experience growing up during the Cultural Revolution, thinking
she was a bastard to a single mother and constantly abused by other
children. Years later, as an
adult, she found out from her mother that her father had been sent to a
"rehabilitation camp" during the Cultural Revolution and had endured
eight years of torture before dying.
Some details of
this person's identity have been changed for obvious reasons; when I asked her
if she would like to write a book about her experiences, she replied that she
already had written several books.
"Why not publish them under a pseudonym abroad?" She demurred, because of her personal
situation, she wanted to remain in China, even though she could leave:
"The Chinese, they are like the CIA and the KGB combined; they know
everything."
And yet,
clearing Chinese immigration and customs upon arrival in Shanghai had been
faster and easier than any country we had ever traveled to before. The police presence in the streets of
the big cities was minimal, probably less than you would see or experience in
New York City. In Tiananmen
Square, where we visited just days short of the June 4th 25th anniversary of
the student massacre, the police presence was no more than you would see in
Times Square on an average holiday.
Even getting on the internet in China, where certain websites are
notoriously blocked, such as the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, You
Tube, and Facebook, it was very easy to get around the blocks by using a
private VPN (Virtual Private
Network, something that many companies provide for their employees, but which
also individuals can easily find for as little as $10 a month.)
But upon further
reflection, this all made sense.
Private firearms are virtually unheard of in China: even in rural areas
where people own rifles to hunt, their guns must be stored at the police
station and checked in and out with the express purpose of hunting. Street crime is almost unheard of,
except for the occasional pickpocket.
Thus, heavily armed military and police aren't necessary. Even the 3 Gorges Dam, which China considers
its most vulnerable military target, while having a visible and obvious
military presence and heavy security, doesn't restrict the free flow of ship
traffic through its locks and tourists around the dam site. And, while it is easy to use a VPN in
China, using it doesn't necessarily stop the government from monitoring the
traffic to those forbidden sites.
In fact, the system may allow the Chinese to more easily identify
individuals who want to go outside the established boundaries.
And, reading the
New York Times while in China revealed, in fact, that a huge political
crackdown was in progress while we were there. While public political meetings and protests have not been
tolerated since 1989, most small group meetings in private locations have been
ignored. But, in the months
leading up to the June 4 anniversary, China was conducting unprecedented raids
on these kinds of meetings, and making widespread arrests of moderates who were
previously left alone. Even now,
almost two weeks after the anniversary has passed without any public sign of
dissent, the fate of those moderates is unknown.
The compact
China has made with its young people since 1989 is simple: the government will
allow you to pursue your individual goals and lifestyle as long as you stay out
of opposition politics. Even the
one child policy is currently being relaxed. And this compact has been hugely successful. When I asked our tour guide Tony when
we were in Tiananmen Square a few days before June 4th what was going to happen
on the anniversary, he responded emphatically, "Nothing. Chinese people do not want to look
back; only forward. And most
people did not support those students.
They were not good, they had no plans, they only wanted to
criticize. Maybe if they had a different
idea and plans, people would have listened and supported them. But they were only negative."
But at what
price has this huge growth come?
China's environmental problems have gotten worldwide attention, but
China now officially admits to them and thus one of the justifications for the
3 Gorges Dam. The dam was
originally planned to provide 10% of China's electricity. However, by the time the dam was finished,
China's demand for electricity had grown so explosively that it actually
provides less than 3%. To catch
up, another 16 to 18 dams on the upper reaches of the Yangtze are planned. China officially acknowledges that it
must move away from coal-generated electricity.
But
the consequences of the dam are far reaching. China acknowledges that around 1.4 million people were
displaced by the construction of the dam and the huge reservoir created behind
it. The weight of the dam and
reservoir is so great that the area is now experiencing earthquakes, which did
not happen previous to the construction.
(The dam is supposedly constructed to withstand a magnitude 7
earthquake.) More than 1,300
archeological sites and 18,000 villages were flooded, most of them farming
villages populated by minority cultures who had lived on their land for over
1,000 years. Those displaced were
offered apartments in newly constructed cities on the heights overlooking the
higher river, and a small stipend for their lost lands. But these new cities have no basic
industry and the farmlands are gone, the families still must pay rent, and many
farmers never received their stipends.
Now, the younger people are moving to cities where there are jobs,
leaving their children behind in the care of the grandparents. They are lucky to make it back once a
year to see their children during the Chinese New Year holiday.
Besides
the cultural losses, the environmental losses are likely even greater. The 3 Gorges reaches of the Yangtze
before the dam were wild and not navigable by much commercial traffic. The river level fluctuated widely from
season to season, and the periodic flooding created rich farmlands on the
surrounding flood plains. Now, the
level of the river is carefully controlled and silt that would have nourished
the farmland instead builds up in the dam reservoir. Four huge locks permit commercial traffic to reach as far
upstream as Chongqing and beyond, putting more ecological pressure on the river
system. Ironically, during the
second Sino-Japanese War, Chiang Kai-shek had fled to Chongqing from his
capital of Nanjing under attack from the Japanese. While the new capital was heavily bombed during the war, the
Japanese were not able to reach it with troops because the river was too wild
and the roads too primitive or non-existent. That geographic stalemate helped China to eventually win the
conflict.
And,
while the dam was constructed to control flooding, the history of dams in
general at controlling flooding has not been good. Well over 100 million people live down river from the dam,
most of them in the former flood plain of the Yangtze. While the dam's height, strength, and
sluiceways were designed with a "hundred year flood" in mind (the
worst flood over a 100 year period), no one can predict future rainfall
patterns, especially in light of the climate changes currently underway from
global warming. The middle and
upper reaches of the Yangtze are notorious for cloudy and rainy conditions,
with rain experienced as much as 300 days a year. A breach of the dam would have untold human
consequences. A 1931 flood on the
Yangtze caused an estimated 3 to 4 million deaths (according to Western
sources; Chinese Government statistics claim a much lower death rate of under 1
million) and the population of the flooded area is significantly higher today
than 1931 by a factor of at least five.
We
nicknamed the landscape around us as we steadily coursed our way upstream
"the land of a thousand cranes"; not birds, but construction
cranes. Vast expanses of flat
reeds and occasional farm fields would suddenly yield themselves to massive new
cities under construction. New
bridges, almost all of the same modern suspension design repeated over and
over, connected the new towns on either side of the riverbanks. Yet at night, it was apparent from the
masses of dark windows that even the completed buildings were still empty. We found out later that buying an
apartment in China is buying only the space with no walls, fixtures, or
finishes of any kind. Buyers are
expected to provide all interior work themselves, often with their own labor on
weekends and evenings.
We
had been delayed about five hours because of heavy river traffic and rain and
did not pass through the one lock of the lesser Gezhouba dam until around 11PM
at night. We were told it would be
several more hours before we would reach the huge 3 Gorges Dam, and that it
would take several hours to pass through the five locks. We were warned it would be noisy. There was no point staying up to watch
the approach to the dam as the low clouds and dark skies would make it
invisible.
Morning
found us docked at the town of Sandouping on the high side of the dam. An intermittent rain followed us on the
45-minute bus ride to the dam site for our tour of the massive project. The dam site is a huge military
installation and security and access, while easy, is carefully controlled. The area was crowded with mainly
Chinese tourists and the usual aggressive hawkers of souvenirs. (Tony warned us, "They don't speak
or understand English except one phrase, 'maybe later', because that's all they
hear over and over again from tourist.
But if you say yes to them when they say it, they will remember you on
the way back. So don't say 'maybe
later!")
The
dam and locks are an impressive engineering feat and our local guide took us
through each of the "world's biggest" or "world's best" or
"world's first" with the usual Chinese enthusiasm and pride. Sandouping, the town at the foot and
upper reach of the dam, was a sleepy fishing village before construction of the
dam began in 1999. Now it holds
about 40,000 people and China is trying to develop it as a tourist destination,
although in our case, we did not stop anywhere between our boat and the
dam. Reflecting the rural roots of
the area, every square inch of open space between the new sterile concrete
apartment buildings seemed to be under cultivation with freshly planted spring
gardens.
Returning
to our comfortable ship, we were informed of a change in schedule. Because of the delay approaching the
dam, we would have to forgo one of the planned side trips to the magnificent
Lesser Three Gorges of the Daning River.
These three mini gorges (the
Sancheng, Qinwang, and Changtan) are covered in verdant foliage and
filled with stalactites in unusual shapes; or so we read in the ship's daily
newsletter. We were to find out
later that these delays were common and such changes in itinerary happened on
about half of the Viking trips.
Heavy
rain followed us through the impressive Wu Gorge. The pastoral scene of eroded, mist enshrouded limestone
cliffs was just as depicted in thousands of years of Chinese scrolls and
paintings. We positioned ourselves
in comfortable chairs, with comfortable drinks in hand, in the bow lounge and
almost felt like we could be in ancient China; except for the continued
reminder of the dam that had created a distinctive line where vegetation ceased
at the high water mark, a signature of the irreversible impact of the dam.
By
mid-afternoon we had reached Badong, an older town that sits higher above the
Yangtze as it is primarily a coal-mining hub in the middle of an agricultural
area, and thus was not flooded from the raised river as a result of the
dam. Here we disembarked onto a
smaller, rundown ferry for a trip led by local guides up the Shennong Stream.
Before
the dam, the stream was a wild river aligned by almost vertical limestone
cliffs, and was not navigable. The
region has been inhabited for at least 1,000 years by the Tujia people (a
Chinese government "recognized minority", who are also known by their
historic name, "Ba" people.) The Tujia are known for their ancient
agricultural practices (now discontinued because of the dam), their ancient
empire before China was unified, and their precarious "hanging
coffins." The massive
coffins, often carved from a single tree trunk, were mysteriously placed into
seemingly inaccessible crevices high on the cliff faces. Previously almost invisible from either
the cliff tops or the fast flowing stream, they now are easily photographed
with a telephoto lens from a passing ferry.
Evenings
on the Viking Emerald usually provided some kind of impromptu entertainment
from live music to bingo to historic costume shows. The young crew on the ship, all extremely professional,
promptly attentive, and always smiling, would make an effort to remember
passenger names and preferences.
That, in and of itself, was impressive, but even more impressive were
the cabaret and other shows put on by the same crew, showing their ability to
sing, dance, and entertain.
Our
final full day on the river brought us to one more shore excursion: the
Shibaozhai Temple. By Chinese
Buddhist Temple standards, Shibaozhai is minor and not particularly
ancient. It sits on a limestone
promontory that juts into the Yangtze and is now connected to the small
re-located village that used to snake around the base of the temple by a newly
constructed suspension bridge. A
twenty million dollar coffer dam protects the temple site from the newly raised
Yangtze River, but it did not save the ancient town that used to sit in the
shadow of the temple.
The
impressive pagoda that marks the side of the six hundred foot tall temple hill
is not really a pagoda (which, by definition, is a temple that houses a relic
of Buddha) but instead covers a 19th century staircase that was built to access
the Precious Stone Fortress (also called the Purple Rain Pavilion) on the top
of the temple mount. Previous to
the construction of the enclosed 99 wooden stair access, visitors would have to
be hoisted to the top using chains or ropes.
Riverboats
now include the temple as a regular tourist stop and the small relocated
village serves as a showcase for the Chinese government of their
"humane" relocation program, it's apartments and market clearly much
better built and cleaner than the glimpses of the other relocation towns we had
been seeing on the middle reaches of the river. The town was populated mainly with old people and young
children as most of the young people were away at jobs in other parts of the
country.
We
arrived very early the next morning at our final river destination, Chongqing,
Chiang Kia-shek's emergency capital during the second Sino-Japanese war. Chongqing, a bustling city of around 7
million (and a metropolitan area of over 25 million), has taken on new importance
as one of China's central government's directly controlled municipalities since
the completion of the 3 Gorges Dam.
(The other directly controlled cities, all on the coast, are Beijing,
Shanghai, and Tianjin.) An
historic and ancient city, it was the center of the Ba empire in the 4th
century BC. It is fast growing,
but unlike most Chinese industrial centers, it is highly diversified and
produces goods and products mainly for Chinese consumption, not export,
although that is changing quickly now that the 3 Gorges Dam has allowed larger
ocean going cargo ships to reach Chongqing directly. But our purpose in Chongqing was merely as a transit point
to connect to the airport and our flight to Xi'an, with one small, wonderful
exception: a 90 minute visit to the Chongqing Zoo.
Arriving
at the waterfront docking area on a side tributary to the Yangtze, it was
clearly all newly constructed to meet the newly raised river, with a massive
concrete embankment slanting down to the relatively low river. But not all the new infrastructure was
in place: it was a very steep climb up the staired slope to our awaiting
buses. As usual, Viking handled
our copious luggage with efficiency and aplomb; we were surprised to see old
fashioned Chinese porters with bamboo poles balancing heavy suitcases agilely
making their way up the incline faster than we could walk unburdened.
The
Zoo revealed herself to be a rambling, lushly landscaped Art Deco retreat,
complete with elderly women practicing Tai Chi and young girls in traditional
dance classes. The Pandas were
comfortably ensconced in spacious natural settings and we were fortunate to be
there early enough so that they were hyperactive (by Giant Panda standards, who
tend to do little more than sleep and eat with the emphasis on eat; thus their
very low rates of reproduction) waiting for their morning bamboo. Even a rare baby Panda came out for a
quick jaunt up a tree. Our guide
was effusive: "I never see baby, maybe now for three or four years; this
is a very big treat. And, watch
baby Panda in the tree. Often they
climb up but can't get down so just let themselves fall to the
ground." Luckily, the young
Panda we were observing seemed more sure-footed and had no issues retreating
back down the tree. And, of
course, we observed that the Pandas weren't black and white, but, rather more
dirty brown and black. Our guide
responded, "Yes, Pandas don't know how to groom themselves, so the dirt
and mud stay on. In the wild,
Pandas are almost all black!"
Buses,
planes, and buses, and another easy, flawlessly handled trip to Xi'an, one of
China's ancient capitals and home to the Terracotta Soldiers. The Hilton Hotel, within the intact
walls of the old city, overlooking the night food market, was our destination
after another plebian "Lazy Susan" meal. The weather was starting to break, and the rest of the trip
would be spent hoping that soaring temperatures in Beijing wouldn't compromise
our last leg of the journey. But
first: Xi'an.
Located
in almost the literal heart of China, and historically the beginning of the
Silk Road, Xi'an's history as a city goes back over 3,000 years. But it's human history is even older:
Lantian Man, a 500,000 year old skeleton that is a sub-species of Homo erectus
was found in the 1960s about 30 miles from Xi'an, and remains of Neolithic
villages at least 6,500 years old have been discovered in Xi'an. It's old city restored walls (dating
from the Tang Dynasty, 600-900AD, and reconstructed during the Ming Dynasty in
the 14th century AD) provide an almost ten mile long perimeter around the
oldest part of the modern city of 6.5 million people. (You can rent bicycles and ride around the top of the wall;
we, unfortunately, didn't have time.)
Like Beijing, the oldest part of the city is framed by the restored Drum
Tower and Bell Tower that used to signal the beginning and end of each day for
Xi'an's citizens. Xi'an is also
home to a large Muslim population, known for being the primary merchants in the
old city's night market, which meanders around the Bell Tower and reaches its
peak after midnight.
We
did not have enough time in Xi'an and if we ever go back to China, we will make
a point of coming back for a longer visit. Besides the aforementioned prehistoric sites, there are also
some of the oldest and most spectacular pagodas in China (the Giant and Small
Wild Goose Pagodas, both over 1,000 years old), the Great Mosque of Xi'an
(founded in 742AD), and numerous other Buddhist temples and imperial burial
sites. But we did make it to one
of the must see destinations in China, and it did not disappoint: The
Terracotta Soldiers that are part of
the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang.
Huang
is generally recognized as the First Emperor of China, having united the Five
Warring states in 221BC. The
Chinese throughout their written history have been compulsive chroniclers. About 100 years after Huang's death,
the Chinese historian Sima Qian provided a description of the building of
Huang's mausoleum (which began while he was still alive) in which Qian claims 700,000
men were employed in the project.
(Modern historians are quite skeptical of the number as in this era, no
city in the world had a population even approaching 700,000.) The 6,000-8,000 buried terracotta
warriors, although not mentioned in Qian's work, were constructed to protect
the emperor from evil spirits in his afterlife, as were the thousands of bronze
weapons also found on the site.
The warriors, of which about 1,200 have been reconstructed so far, guard
the main burial mound, which has yet to be excavated and is believed to be
intact.
Although
the area had been known since ancient times to likely contain imperial tombs
and relics, and occasional discoveries of terracotta shards were not uncommon,
the scope and size of the field was not realized until 1974 when a group of
farmers building a new communal well came across unprecedented pieces of the
soldiers. The farmers were removed
from their land and the archeologists moved in. (We were strongly encouraged to meet one or two of the
farmers at the end of the tour at the gift shop where they would provide
autographed copies of a book about the soldiers for a small fee. Both Tony and our local guide told a
varied story of how the farmers weren't famous until Bill Clinton came to visit
the site and asked to meet them.
The story is alternatively told as "when Bill Gates" came to
the site. As Tony would frequently
joke with us, "We Asians can't tell you Anglos apart.")
The
Chinese have done a magnificent job of building three enormous structures
around an active archeological site to allow the public to experience the
monumental majesty of the underground army in place. Each soldier was crafted by an individual artist and
represents different ranks and importance and is signed. No two faces are the same; some
conjecture that they represent self-portraits of the craftsmen who created
them. A fourth building houses
some of the thousands of bronze weapons and artifacts found on the site
including a detailed, dazzling, full-scale bronze chariot.
We
tasted another bit of authentic China that evening, choosing to pass up the
planned Lazy Susan dinner and instead met an American friend and his Chinese
wife (and her teenage daughter from a previous marriage) who had taken the
train in from Zhengzhou to see us and were staying at the Hilton for the
night. They took us out for an
authentic local cuisine meal, and then we walked to the Muslim night market
around the Bell Tower in search of red tea and local life. It was still early, but the streets
were already filling with people browsing the various tea, souvenir, household,
and food shops. (We were carefully
steered away from the shops owned by Indians, who the Chinese, in general, do
not trust.) By the time we
returned around 10PM, lanes of the street in front of our hotel were being
blocked off by the fresh food shops who were converting themselves into
restaurants and setting up outdoor seating for the late dining night market
crowd. Ordering was simple: point
to the live fish or meat you wanted and it would be prepared in the store's
local cooking style, be it kabob style or hot pot method, steaming, frying or
stir frying, often with heavy Sichuan spicing. We could hear the market last late into the night, past 3AM,
as our hotel room faced the street.
The
next day we were allowed to sleep in a bit as we packed up, loaded onto buses,
and headed to the airport for another smooth transit to Beijing. Now on the last leg of our journey, our
group was tiring a bit and hoped to head straight to the hotel for some
settling in time (also known as "nap time") before our afternoon in
Beijing. However, Viking plans
were different. Instead, we
proceeded to perhaps our worst Lazy Susan lunch of the trip directly from the
airport (this, in Beijing, one of the finest culinary cities in the world), and
then a tour of a Hutong.
Beijing
is laid out in concentric circles with The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square
at the center. The neighborhoods
of the ancient city were arranged by class with the upper classes being closest
to the Imperial palaces. Hutongs
are the ancient residential style of Beijing, with shared wall houses lining
narrow alleys, but facing in, not out.
On the narrow streets, the houses present a continuous high, grey wall
broken up only by gates (with markings indicating the profession of the
resident behind the gate) leading to residential rooms surrounding a central
courtyard. By law, the walls and
roof shingles must be grey.
Hutongs
are fast disappearing in Beijing, as the land on which these last neighborhoods
stand has become so valuable.
Skyscrapers, upscale shopping streets, and elegant hotels are quickly
squeezing out this last remnant of old Beijing, but still abut them leading to
the incongruity of modern high rises interspersed with Hutong remnants.
But
living in a Hutong is not easy: the spaces are small, cooking is often outside,
and there are no bathrooms in the actual residence, other than perhaps an
outdoor, cold water shower and a place to urinate; instead, at the end of each
alleyway, there is a modern communal bathroom, which usually has long lines
early in the morning as people prepare to go to work.
And,
while most of the Hutongs are privately owned, the government owns the land
underneath them and can force the owners to sell at any time. And, while many residents cling
stubbornly to their old style of life (including the nasty habit of spitting in
the alleys), the temptation of the huge amount of money if they sell is hard
for the younger generation to resist; the Hutongs are fast disappearing.
The
weather had turned hot, but the wind off the Mongolian Desert tempered the
sun. We were thankful that the
notorious Beijing air pollution was being blown away, although there was
noticeable grit from the fine sand that covered exposed skin by the end of the
day. We were instructed to get up
early for our journey the next day to the Great Wall; the plan was to leave
promptly at 7AM so as to avoid the brutal Beijing traffic. The number of registered cars in
Beijing had tripled in recent years and now there was a long waiting list to
get a proper license, but the controls now in place are too late.
We
were surprised how quickly Beijing's urban sprawl gave way to rolling
foothills. Beijing is surrounded
on three sides by low mountains, which exacerbates the pollution problem when
the winds die, especially in the hottest part of the summer, where temperatures
routinely exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
But it also allows for a fairly quick exit from the city into wooded
hills and rocky vistas. Many of
the small traditional farming villages around Beijing near the wall are quickly
being transformed into weekend suburban retreats for new wealthy classes of
Chinese; property values are soaring and tensions are sometimes quite high
between the gentrifiers and the remaining farmers and workers in the villages.
The
Great Wall is still surrounded by myth and legend, which Tony happily
repeated. "The Great Wall is
the only man-made object visible from space"; from how far in space? Not really: many man-made objects,
including huge urban areas, arenas, the Pyramids, roads, dams and bridges are
visible from quite a distance in space.
"The Wall was never breached and served it's purpose, except for
the Mongols and the Manchurians who crossed the wall because of betrayal by the
guards"; also not completely true, as both groups commanded huge armies
and both ruled China for centuries.
And the wall isn't continuous and was built over centuries beginning
around 200BC under the first emperor Huang, and was porous even in times of
political stability.
We
accessed the wall at the closest location to Beijing, Badaling. Arriving early, we were ahead of most
of the crowds. A small shopping
city has formed at the bottom of the access to the wall; our guides strongly
urged us to shop at The Friendship Store, where all the guidebooks warn you to
stay away as the merchandise is significantly overpriced. We noticed our guides waited for us in
the back of the store while we explored; we conjectured that they received
commissions on any purchases we made (as was also likely the case at the many
factories we visited.)
The
day was sunny and warm, but the strong wind kept us cool. We had a choice of two paths: the one
to the right was not as steep but more crowded. We chose the path to the left, which was demanding, but not
difficult, and was well worth it as we had the top of the wall practically to
ourselves at times, while we could see the other section of the wall was often
packed shoulder to shoulder with walkers.
You almost can't take a bad picture: the vistas were nothing short of
spectacular.
Our path....
On
the return trip to Beijing, we stopped at the Ming Tombs, where 13 of the 16
emperors from the Ming Period (1368AD to 1644AD) are buried. The complex covers a huge area, around
15 square miles, and includes the only excavated imperial burial chamber open
to the public, the Ding Ling Tomb.
Unfortunately, we had only a short time at the site, and could only do
the Spirit Way walk (lined by 18 majestic pairs of carved giant stone guardians
- Generals, warriors, court officials, horses, lions, and mythical beasts) and
the Stele Pavilion, which houses a huge stone pillar on the back of a turtle
with all the names of the emperors engraved.
The
next day began not quite as early as it was a short bus ride to Tiananmen
Square from our hotel. Tony began
on the bus with the usual litany of Chinese triumphs: "Tiananmen Square is
the largest public space in the world," etc. etc. We were relieved to find that the plan
was not to spend much time in the square, it was meant just as a walking
introduction to The Forbidden City.
Considering
the high political tensions just shy of the 25th anniversary of the student
massacre on the square, security was very light; we were not even chosen to be
screened - it seemed mainly younger school groups were being targeted. Tony pointed out all the government
buildings surrounding the square and noted that the Chinese Senate seemed to be
in session. He commented,
"Chinese people used to be very critical of American Senators and their
corruption. But then we see how
many of our senators becoming billionaires, so now we don't say so much."
The
line to view the body of Chairman Mao was already long, filled with countryside
tourists who still regard Mao as a god.
Surprisingly, 64% of China's population is still rural. For these mainly older people, Mao
delivered them from thousands of years of serfdom. During the first five years after the 1949 revolution,
weather was ideal and crop harvests were huge; it was the first time these
farmers were allowed to keep all of the food that they grew. What followed however, was the
disastrous "Great Leap Forward", when Mao tried to convert the
countryside into mini-industrial centers.
The people were ordered to build kilns in every village and melt down
everything made of steel or iron to create pig iron to make China the biggest
steel producer in the world.
Literally almost every tree in the rural areas of the country was cut
down to fuel these kilns resulting in horrific erosion and catastrophic crop
failure. And, the resulting pig
iron was of such low quality that it was useless for industrial production. (The Chinese government now admits that
between the famines created by the Great Leap Forward and the executions and
deaths from The Cultural Revolution, an estimated 40 to 70 million people
died.)
Yet
even this disaster didn't turn the farmers against Mao. Instead, he had all the villages
organize into co-ops where they shared their food and were given one big iron
cooking pot for the whole village.
This move prevented even further deaths and solidified Mao's support in
the rural areas of China. The
Cultural Revolution, where Chinese intellectuals and urban educated were
beaten, relocated to the countryside for "re-education", imprisoned,
and often killed, was a boon for rural residents who were in the vanguard of
the "re-education" (the Red Guard) and given special privileges and
favorable treatment by Mao. After
Mao's death, and these twin disasters, a huge power struggle within the
government lead to a year long civil war and the eventual ouster of the
"Gang of Four" and the beginning of the economic reforms that have
allowed China to flourish in a short three decades.
A
huge banner of Mao's image still hangs over the main entrance to The Forbidden
City that faces Tiananmen Square.
For almost 500 years, until the First Republic of China in 1912, The
Forbidden City was the center of dynastic power in China, from the Ming Dynasty
to the end of the Qing Dynasty.
(And, yes, the brilliant Bernardo Bertolucci movie from 1987, "The
Last Emperor" was actually shot in The Forbidden City.) A sprawling complex of almost 1,000
buildings that covers about 180 acres, it was already filled with aggressive
Chinese tourists. And, our tour
was all too brief; we did not even enter the museum on the grounds, and getting
close enough to get a picture of the Emperor's Throne required me to bodily
elbow tough little old Chinese ladies out of the way who did not hesitate to
use THEIR elbows on me (they started it): for once, I felt big (all of 5 feet 7
inches of me...)
Mao still watching...
The Throne I had to push and fight my way to see....
The
afternoon took us to The Summer Palace, the royal summer retreat on the cooler
outskirts of Beijing connected to The Forbidden City by a series of
canals. The palace area was first
landscaped and used as an imperial park in the 12th century, but it was not
until the mid-18th century that an artificial lake, several additional hills,
and a full palace was built. The
complex was destroyed several times after that, and the re-built structures on
the site date mainly from the late 19th and early 20th century. Regardless, the park is a splendid
pastoral retreat and still reflects the personality of the original
"Dragon Lady", the Empress Dowager Cixi, who diverted a small fortune
designated to build China's navy into construction of her summer retreat and
the current buildings. (This
diversion was one of the factors that contributed to China's loss of the first
Sino-Japanese War in 1895 and the eventual downfall of imperial China.) Cixi was notoriously fickle and
difficult; she suffered from seasickness and couldn't go out onto the lake on a
normal boat, so she ordered a boat built for her out of marble so that it
wouldn't sway in the winds or waves.
Of course, the boat was too heavy to move away from the dock, but she
was content to sit on its upper deck, look out on the water through a mirror
(as she couldn't stand seeing the motion on the water directly), and receive
select visitors.
The covered walkway from the Summer Palace Residence to the Marble Boat, so Cixi would never have to get wet...
That
night, we broke away from the tour again, and wandered trying to find a
particular "Peking Duck" restaurant recommended in our
guidebook. Wander we did, unable
to find wherever it was hidden, checking out the Beijing Night Market (a huge
disappointment - a cleaned up, sterile version of what it used to be, selling
exotic foods; now, all uniform and clean with no character) and finally
settling on an elegant hideaway named, "1949." The modern interior was done in ancient
peg and beam style with soaring spaces and natural materials. We sampled our first Chinese wine (an
okay cabernet, they still have a way to go) and the duck was superlative and
inexpensive; it made us wonder again why on such an expensive tour Viking could
not have provided better meals.
Reflecting
on our experience, we felt the dual nature of China: the pride in their ancient
culture and vast accomplishments both in the past and more recently, as well as
their strength from thousands of years of struggle. (As Tony said, when discussing all the special diet requests
from us fussy tourists, "Chinese people don't know what is food allergy;
in the past, if you were Chinese and you had food allergy, you didn't survive,
you just die. So, no food allergy
in the Chinese people now.")
Yet there was a constant chip on the shoulder, too, a need to show that
there way is best, and that they have the foremost this, the biggest that, the
most fantastic of whatever the world could have. They don't want to dominate the rest of the world, they just
want them, especially Americans, to not just respect them, but admit they are
better. Given the shameful
colonial history of western powers and Japan in China, this attitude is
understandable.
But
China also remains an enigma, confronting huge problems: all those construction
cranes and empty apartments, coupled with soaring costs in Beijing and
Shanghai, is this the beginning of a bubble burst? Even the centralized Chinese government doesn't know for sure. And, with a huge male/female population
imbalance, are young men going to be satisfied with material accomplishment
alone if they can't find a wife and start a family, something that is deeply
ingrained in Chinese culture? And
the one child policy has created another skew, with people living longer and
fewer young people to support their retirement; China is already taking
measures to relax the policy. And
the opaque politics of China are perhaps still dominated by a split in values
between the 64% of the people who live in rural areas and the more
sophisticated and better-educated urban population that tends to dominate
business, higher education, and government. The Chinese don't like political confrontation, but they are
keenly aware of their long history of fallen empires because of autocratic
rulers who ignored the needs of the peasants or allowed corruption to run
rampant.
But
does it all matter to us, living in our American bubble? Of course it does; the world is just
too connected to not pay attention.
We should all pay attention.
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