Beijing, take two

I should have posted this weeks ago, really-I've been back from Beijing for some time now. Sigh. Such is life.

The first time I went to Beijing, and indeed my very first time on the Asian continent, I was seventeen. The year was 2007-China's much-talked about coming out party of the Olympics was still a while away, Sarkozy, Obama and Cameron weren't yet in office, the financial crisis was only just brewing and my little mind hadn't yet been blown wide open by the sensory smorgasbord of the Far East. Needless to say, I loved my brief time in the capital and am still immensely grateful to the Buies for making it possible and for our Mandarin class at Branson for making it so much fun. Landing at SFO, though, I couldn't help but feel genuinely sad-and normally I love coming back to its silent sterile emptiness (not sure why, but I do). When, I wondered, would I get the chance to come back? I could have easily stayed in Beijing for months more and felt that I had barely scratched the surface of the behemoth of the People's Republic, and the UK-which would be my new home in a few months' time-was just as far away as California.

Really, I have such amazing memories of that first visit, and they've hardly faded since then. I still remember how the late winter air felt, the dusky early morning light over Tiananmen Square at the flag raising ceremony, the gritty black tickle in my throat I developed after just a few days and, at the foot of the Great Wall, laughing over something that was distinctly un-funny so hard that we were all in tears. Plus, I brought back loads of STUFF-souvenirs, I guess, but not much in the way of 'I went to Beijing and all I bought was this stupid t-shirt!' sort of things. The massive brass Tibetan ceremonial dagger still resides on my mother's coffee table, the Cultural Revolution-era propaganda posters are folded up in storage boxes in St Andrews as I type this and I still lounge around in my mint green and navy silk bathrobes. In short, that trip to Beijing has stayed with me, and I couldn't wait to go back. I just didn't know when I would be able to; as hard as I tried to think like General Patton ('I shall return'), it's not easy when you're a just a dumb seventeen-year-old.

So fast forward a bit to me in Shanghai Hongqiao train station, getting ready to board the night train to the capital, and you can imagine that I was rather excited. The train, first off, was so pristine and white that it kind of looked like a mental hospital-a bit different from the lovable but grimy third class cars in which Natasha and I trundled around Rajasthan. I could wax poetic about the downy white comforters and bottled water in our private compartment, but, so as not to sound like a country bumpkin/weird train afficionado, I won't. Despite having lived in Britain for three years, in which the trains are overpriced, often delayed and generally a bit crap, I still find train travel novel, which I suppose comes from growing up in California. The sleeper train had me excited enough as it was, and when I opened my eyes to the early morning fog, birch trees and low blocky buildings, it brought to mind my first glimpse of northern China from the plane and had me raring to go.




















Yours truly getting way too excited over how clean the train was

Beijing and I have both changed a lot since 2007-they had the Olympics, and I moved to a tiny wind-blasted town in Scotland (though I suppose some other stuff has happened too). Anyone who's experienced pre- and post-Olympics Beijing will tell you this, but it really is striking how much cleaner the whole city is-the air, the sidewalks, the streets, the buildings. In my Chinese politics module last spring, our tutor (the famous Marc Lanteigne) told us that, in the months leading up to the opening ceremony, the government kept running tally of all the 'blue sky' days in the capital. 'Blue sky' didn't actually mean perky blue expanses with puffy white clouds; 'blue sky' meant looking at the pavement and being able to see a faint shadow. Kind of misleading. When we were there three years ago, we had quite a clear first morning, but mostly it was mottled grey haze of varying thickness. Even out by the Great Wall at Mutianyu the sky was the colour of dust. By the time we headed back to California, most everyone had a low hacking cough that sounded terrible, which was particularly unfortunate considering that this was the height of the avian flu epidemic. US customs is notorious for holding people for hours at a time, and I think that the combination of death-cough and 'I've just been in China' would have set off some alarm bells. (Ahh, the memories.)

So when that early morning haze burned off to reveal crystal-blue skies overhead, I was pleasantly shocked. No more black lung for me! Up at the Great Wall at Simatai, the difference was even more pronounced. Up in the lush and verdant mountains, I felt as though I was in Tahoe-not the country that boasts seven of the world's ten most polluted cities. Not to digress, but I'm looking over a list of the planet's most polluted places right now, and it's making my stomach turn over (though that might also be last night taking its toll, oops). When I did a paper on the impact of environmental problems in China, I looked over a photo essay of some of the cities in the rust belt up north. And let me tell you, Jesus Christ, it simultaneously made the bile rise in my throat and brought tears to my eyes. Photos of places like Linfen make Guatemala City look like a garden spot. Very distressing.

Anyway-it wasn't just the air that seemed so much cleaner; everything generally looked as though it had been hosed off and given a new coat of paint. Even the hutongs looked as though they'd been spruced up a bit...which, to be honest, made me a bit sad. I really do love the sleek, spotless efficiency of Geneva and Singapore, but I'm a big fan of chaos as well. I love hectic markets with monkeys running around and people selling mysterious meat on sticks and haggling and dilapidated buildings festooned with clotheslines. The Beijing government certainly did what it set out to do for China's coming out party, but I hope they leave the hutongs alone now.

It's also a lot quieter in Beijing now, as people actually seem to be taking notice of the no horn signs all over the city (yes, the ones that I first thought meant 'no playing trumpets here'...embarrassing). Rather than the cacophonous symphony I remember, it just seems to be occasional beeps now. My mother, who literally jumps when she hears loud or sudden noises because I've 'shattered her nerves', will be relieved to know this (because I WILL drag you to Beijing one day, Mom).

Another difference is that the streets are no longer mobbed by the same throngs of bicycles anymore. There are still loads, of course, but it's nothing compared to the swarms I remember. Our flat in Embassy House back in 2007 looked out onto a massive intersection, and I remember that we could watch the frenzied dance of trucks, cars, people and bicycles for a good twenty minutes at a time. The bicycles were like locusts, threading in and out of cars and somehow avoiding getting flattened. I suppose it's not just Beijing, though-China is going car-crazy at the moment. Think 1950s America, but with 1.3 billion people. Kind of frightening, actually.

But so much of Beijing is exactly the same-the stunning monuments of the imperial past, the wholly delicious kao ya (roast duck!), the heavy curly sound of the northern accent. It's impossible not to be blown away by the splendour of the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace or the Great Wall. Tiananmen Square-the very very first emblematic place I went in China-was just as I remembered it, which is to say HUGE. Pictures can't capture the scale of the place. And looking at Mao's portrait gave me history-geek chills-another thing that was just the same. Oh, Mao-'cult of personality' doesn't do him justice. Even after doing a lot of really stupid s*** and being dead for 30 years, he's got a larger-than-life portrait in the nerve centre of the world's burgeoning superpower. It sort of floors me that one guy with poufy hair and poor dental hygiene was able to alter the course of human history this much. Historiography as an academic discipline tends to sneer at using individuals as the primary unit of analysis-you know, the whole idea that history has been determined by a succession of kings and emperors-but when you look at people like Mao Zedong, it makes you think. And in Beijing, you definitely feel his presence more than you do in Shanghai (though I'm sure there's a less creepy way to say that).



















There he is!

One nice difference about this time around? It was a lot easier to say goodbye, because I know for sure, like General Patton, that I shall return.

Worshipping in the Mecca of free stuff

Back in St Andrews, it is really and truly difficult to get anything for free. Anything major, I mean-maybe a drink here and there, like the time I asked for a vodka cranberry and the guy at the Vic made it with tomato juice instead, or when there are old moneyed golfers lurking about. For the most part, students are stingy, things are costly and the weather is cold.

Here, things are a bit...different.

First off, there's a 'ladies' night' every night of the week at some bar/club or other. My first Wednesday, for example, we went up to the 96th floor of the World Financial Centre (the building that looks like a massive bottle opener) because they were offering girls free champagne. I'm not talking about a tiny little flute of mediocre bubbles; I'm talking about unlimited proper champagne in a gorgeous posh bar with an absolutely mind-boggling view. Just a typical Wednesday night, you know? And ladies' nights can be found everywhere, from places like the World Financial Centre to the crappy little frat house basement-style bar down the street from our flat (we did give that one a go and personally I found it off-putting and surreal, what with its pool table, crowd of 'low maintenance' American girls, plastic cups and John Denver-esque music selection-there's a reason I didn't go to uni in the States). Anyway, it's entirely possible to have a night out in Shanghai for the equivalent of about 3 quid, assuming your taxi fare is a bit higher than normal.

Then there's the fact that the crowds that frequent Shanghai bars are decidedly NOT comprised of miserly students. I've always liked that St Andrews is a town run by students, but I'm starting to wonder if that's just because the alternative-a town being run by the Fife locals-is so terrifying (I can understand some of their reasons for hating students, but I would definitely feel more charitable towards them if I didn't get spat at whilst withdrawing money, shoved out the way by the schoolkids, or made to feel guilty for using the NHS). Going out and meeting 'real people' has proved to be quite fun; usually their stories are a bit more interesting than 'I grew up in X and I'm at X University' and they are much, much more willing to treat you to a drink. Or five. For some reason we always seem to end up chatting to businessmen, either located in Shanghai or just passing through, and they're probably the most generous of all.

The time is a few weeks ago on Saturday night, the place is the iconic Bar Rouge (the one right on the Bund, daahling, you must know it). Riviera has put together the White Party, and thanks to our oh so valuable business connections, my chums and I are able to waltz past the queue of people at the entrance and the cover charge is waived. Upon being treated to a free bright green cocktail by the bartender, we head out to the terrace to look for someplace to sit down, weaving through the throng people clad in all manners of white and admiring the sublime view of the Pudong skyline. We spy some couches that probably have the best view of all and exclaim, 'Oh, look! Empty seats!' Now, looking back, it seems unlikely that, at an absolutely packed party, there would be free seats on a comfy couch overlooking the river, but at the time we just thought it was luck and settled in with our drinks next to some well-dressed guys. The conversation flows easily; two are American, one French and they're in oil and gas and passing through Shanghai before heading onto Dubai and then Paris. They also inform us that the table was actually reserved-cue gasps from us-but hastily assure us that they really don't mind if we sit there, and would any of us like a drink? Cosmos are fetched and replenished without us having to ask; I suspect they go onto the company card, which appears to be one of the very few black American Express cards on earth. The whole night costs us about $3 each (taxis, of course), which is less than a single pint at a downmarket pub back in the UK. God knows how much it cost our new businessmen friends.

Later, our boss Stephane told us that reserving a table at Bar Rouge on a night like the White Party is around 10,000rmb-approximately $1500. Probably not something we would have elected to do on our own...


Thanks, obscenely wealthy businessman!






















Reserved section? What?












Some other fun instances featuring free stuff:

-My friends and I are always a hit at Richbaby, as any cluster of foreign girls at an all-Chinese club would be. The whole place is hilarious anyway; the best way I can describe it is like a collective acid trip. One minute I'm just dancing and enjoying myself, the next a guy grabbing me by the wrist-alarm bells! is he dragging me away or am I in trouble; are they for some reason chucking me out of the club?!-and leading me to the bar, where he presents our group with two flasks of vodka and green tea. For no apparent reason. Green tea and vodka, by the way, is really not bad.
-Mint (or, to be precise and pretentious, M1NT...I know) is a really lovely lounge with a great ambience that happens to feature a bar menu full of rather costly drinks. We're sitting enjoying the view, but I'm thinking that I wouldn't mind another beverage, so I'm pondering how to do it without spending a fortune. Finally I think, 'oh, whatever' and go plunk my elbows down on the bar with no real plan in mind. I get to chatting with two Brazilian businessmen, one of whom is actually called Julio (priceless!), who sort of give themselves away when one of them asks, 'So what do you do in Shanghai; are you a model?' Oh, Julio, sto-op! You are TOO sweet! Really, I didn't even know that people used that line anymore. Anyway, they ask if I'm drinking anything, so I say no, but would they know what the good cocktails are here? In response, they get a bottle of black label Johnnie Walker and another glass. Not exactly what I would have chosen, to say the least-whenever I've tried whisky, I've hated it. Like really and truly hated it; I've thought that it tasted like compost (and not in a good 'I make odd comparisons when I taste wine' sort of way). To my surprise, after Julio fills my glass to the brim and we all toast to something or other, I find that it's not terrible-bitter and smoky, but not in an entirely bad way. It appears that the reason I don't like whisky is that I haven't been buying the stupidly expensive vintages; it all makes sense now.
-It would be a shame to be in Shanghai for three months and not take a stroll on the Bund. This is prime tourist territory in Shanghai; you've got the beautiful old turn of the century architecture behind you in Puxi and the alienesque skyline of Pudong right across the river. On any given day it's packed with tourists-Chinese, Japanese, European, North American-and Saturday is no exception. When Jess, Prudence and I alighted at the intersection of Nanjing Lu and Zhongshan Lu, we trotted over to the riverside and got the standard pictures with Pudong in the background. Almost immediately we were mobbed by people wanting pictures with us-imagine the double whammy of a freak blonde girl and iconic Shanghai in ONE photo! We've been debating about charging for photos, something like 50rmb a pop, but I personally haven't had the heart (okay, the courage) to do it yet. However, one man actually had one of the professional photographers trolling the Bund come over and take a picture of him being flanked by me on one side and Prudence on the other. As we were walking away, he tugged me back by the wrist and presented me with a professional picture of the three of us. It now resides in our flat behind a glass cabinet-a beautifully shot photo of us and a random portly Chinese man.

Needless to say, when I get back to the UK and have to shell out 10 pounds for a bus, I will not be terribly pleased. The good thing? Shanghai and all of its perks will be waiting for me after graduation.

Pǔtōnghuà, anyone?

Some time ago, I was told that I am a 'language person'. I'm certainly not a numbers/science/technology person, and the Romance languages and Swahili came easily to me, so I assumed that this was at least partially correct.

Much like the modernisation theory (I won't go into that, I promise), China has blown a huge hole in that hypothesis.

Characters have always been hard for me; my expectations regarding reading and writing are low. I know a handful of characters, some of which come in handy-'Shanghai', 'Beijing', 'entrance', 'meat', 'tofu'-and many of them nice, but really rather useless-'jade', 'Vietnam', 'heart', 'safe', 'hero'. But even the verbal part of the language is tough. Mandarin only has five tones, compared to Cantonese's nine, and I don't have to worry about tongue clicking like I would if I were seeking to learn Khoisan, but there is no getting around the fact that it's a hard language to learn. For those not in the know, Mandarin uses a variety of pitches to differentiate words with the same basic sounds; for example, depending on the tone, 'ma' can be mother, horse, scold, hemp, or used to indicate a question. Understandably, this leads to saying something nonsensical/confusing/hilarious/really really inappropriate (to find out more, look at the entry for 'grass mud horses' on wikipedia; apparently it's been driving the government crazy).

Not being able to read or write is also a rather surreal experience. I now know what it feels like to be illiterate, because no matter how well I can write in Roman script, over here, it's pretty much just squiggles. That sign over there? It could be for a restaurant, or a slaughterhouse, or a brothel-pathetically, I wouldn't know. Someday, hopefully, I will learn these things, but today is not that day. At the moment learning to speak and listen presents enough of a challenge.

This is where my status as resident pink-and-white freak comes in handy (sort of). The way I figure, everyone already regards me as an oddity/mutant/mythical creature anyway, so really, there's very little I can do to shock people. I could probably walk down the street on my hands and people would stare, but oh wait! They stare anyway. So when it comes to Mandarin-pǔtōnghuà-no matter how crudely I speak or how garbled and weird my speech is, my guess is that people will just say, 'That laowai was so weird, telling us that it wanted to buy forty-six giraffes...and did you see the size of its feet?!' In other words, my sounding like I'm either retarded or on an acid trip is really just part of the whole strange package.

A few notable instances of my failing to scale this rather intimidating language barrier:

-Sometime last week I went out to the Marriott Hongqiao on business (haha! This still cracks me up whenever I say it!) with Isabel, a Shanghainese woman who works at Riviera. We got a ride back to the office with a guy called Zane, who was looking over the site (distances, dimensions, etc), and his girlfriend in their car. His girlfriend was holding the tiniest golden Chihuahua mix puppy with the biggest, darkest eyes I've ever seen, drifting in and out of a nap, stretching its little toes, yawning and blinking its long dark lashes, and of course the little thing simply enchanted me. 'Hen xiao!' I squealed ('very small!'). I realised then that I could also ask if this was their dog-'Zhe shi ni de gou ma?' Hurrah! I knew enough to start a conversation in Chinese! Very unfortunately, what came out of my mouth next was, 'Zhe shi ni de rou ma?' In accidentally saying 'rou' instead of 'gou', I had just asked his girlfriend, 'Is this your meat?' The whole car turned to look at me in quiet horror before I exclaimed, 'Aaagh! Ni de GOU!' They laughed, but in the end I didn't get to hold the dog. Understandable, from their point of view, but still pretty gutting for me.
-A few nights ago Jess and I decided to go out for dinner at this little hotpot place on Yanping Lu, which, in retrospect, was probably biting off more than we could chew in terms of our Mandarin capabilities. Hotpot is not one of the more laowai-friendly cuisines to order, as one has to mark tick off boxes on a menu to indicate what one wants. We decided to order three of something random, but then realised that this was not going to work when the perplexed waitress asked the two of us if we really wanted three 7-Ups. In the end, she actually brought us into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and told us to point out what we wanted. Again, kind of embarrassing, but I think we were the only people that got to go into the kitchen all night (it was very nice and clean, by the way).
-It seems as though every time I turn my head in Shanghai, I see a bank-Bank of Shanghai, Bank of China, Bank of Ningbo, China Construction Bank, Everbright, the list goes on. Last night I was down to eight kuai, which for those of you keeping track at home, is about $1.20, or less than a pound sterling. I set off after my Mandarin lesson with two goals-withdraw some cash and get some dinner, as I had had the lesson straight after work and was bordering on ravenous. I suppose that my hunger affected my brain, because as I walked down the pavement I spied one of those places where they give you a box of rice and you get to pick out three vegetable or meat dishes to put on top of it, and it all looked sublime. These places are great because you don't have to know the name of anything or how to say it, and because you can look at exactly what you're ordering, there's no danger of ending up with a slab of lard/a duck head/a raw egg. 'Eleven kuai,' the woman told me. S***! my hungry, hungry brain thought. I showed her my lonely eight kuai and made a pathetic helpless gesture with my hands and then probably made myself look even dumber by taking out my debit card and doing a very bad job at miming withdrawing money. I'm guessing that the proprietors and patrons of this tiny little restaurant couldn't read 'Charles Schawb platinum checking card', or that they had any idea who Charles Schawb was, so they probably thought I was some Western moron who was trying to pay my whopping eight kuai bill with a credit card. I handed over the rest of my cash, held up a finger-wait!-and started to walk out the door, when the woman holding my dinner took my hand and simply placed the bag in it. They clearly felt so bad for me-either they thought I was absolutely destitute or I had lost face so badly-that they knocked three kuai off the price. I was mortified and wished more than anything that I could knew how to say, 'If you wait just a second, I'll withdraw money at the nearest bank and then come back and pay you that last three kuai'. As it is, I don't. So even though they were laughing and smiling as they sent me out the door, I still feel like I owe them three kuai, and it's going to be really, really embarrassing to pay them back.

Other things I lack the ability to talk about are burnt out lightbulbs, clogged toilets, shoe repair, stain remover and life-threatening emergencies. It's cool, though; when I go to a restaurant, I can order something other than beef noodles now.