Remembrance of four-car pileups past

Before you read any further, I will warn you: this post is about Beijing. I’m not in Beijing at the moment. The last time I was there was two months ago. And it’s not even really about Beijing; it’s about a tiny hamlet in rural Hebei, the kind whose American equivalent I would describe as being in the ass end of nowhere. I don’t know its name and I don’t know if it even has a name, or if it’s big enough to warrant mention on a map.

At the moment, I’m thousands of miles from that hamlet in pretty much every way and I’m looking at my left foot, which apparently is not full broken, but one of the bones in there has been ‘chipped’. ‘What do you mean, “chipped”?’ I asked the NHS nurse. ‘Like a coat of paint. Nicked, if you will,’ she replied, and sent me away with instructions to ice it, load up on pain pills and maybe be more careful next time. To be fair, the poor foot has taken a real beating—the big toe was broken in a particularly forceful high speed ski crash when I was seventeen, and then I managed to fracture the fifth metatarsal in the autumn of my first year. The combination of the foot, the pile of coursework and job applications sitting in front of me and the sleet forecast for the next few days suggests that my immediate future does not hold anything terribly exciting.

Which is why I found myself reminiscing about my flying visit to Beijing and the Great Wall a couple of months ago (fondly, I might add). Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and the Wall itself were all spectacular, of course; they’re famous for very good reasons. But one of the most enjoyable afternoons I spent up north was in that hamlet straddling a minor motorway—a lazy, sweet afternoon that could have only happened by accident.

We were on the road from Beijing to Simatai, where our traditional Chinese guesthouse was nestled at the foot of the crumbling Wall, and had managed to pack an unlikely number of people into the back of a rattling van. Jess, Prudence, Pae and I were squashed into the very back row, whose batik print-upholstered seat was dubiously attached to the rest of the car and had a tendency to fly loose and launch us all into the air every time we hit a bump. At two and a half hours into the drive, I could feel the metal framework digging into my spine (the cushions were long gone) and my arms had grown tired from awkwardly propping up my book in front of me. The others felt much the same way, and when the van slowed to a crawl, and then shuddered to a complete halt, we all gave an inward groan. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why there would be traffic in, well, the middle of nowhere. A herd of goats or sheep had perhaps escaped. Maybe there was a dead cow on the road (a dead cow apparently held up a train in Lincolnshire for four hours the other day—they’re bigger than you think, and surprisingly hard to move apparently).

Our driver, a wizened little Northern woman whose head was wrapped in a balaclava, grumbled something, put the car into park and hopped out. She returned a few minutes later and informed us that, up ahead, there had been a car accident. And not just any accident, either, a four-car pileup. How four cars managed to collide with each other—we’re talking a head on collision—on a clearly divided road with such minimal traffic was beyond me. At any rate, the mess was blocking both sides of the motorway, bringing everyone, northbound and southbound, to a dead stop. This being rural northeast China, there were no policemen or tow trucks in sight. The van, with the late afternoon sun beating on its roof, was marooned in a tiny but impenetrable sea of cars and lorries for the time being. Around us, we heard car doors being flung open and then slammed shut as people spilled out of their vehicles to observe the wreckage, take guzzles of water or tea in the open air, or just weave leisurely through the stopped traffic and take a look at the surrounding village.















Gorgeous day for a four-car pileup

I could feel a bruise blooming on my spine where one of the vertebrae had been pressed up against the metal skeleton of the seat, my limbs were stiff and prickling from being folded up for so long, and it was a beautiful summer afternoon, so I, too, opted to clamber out of the van. Prudence and I ambled down the motorway for a hundred metres or so and scoped out the village shop, where we were greeted by two grinning and wrinkly old men and a jolly elderly woman with great fanfare and much laughter. What were the chances of foreigners ever having set foot in that shop, let alone two blonde girls who spoke a smattering of funny-sounding Chinese? we wondered. As the massive fan in the corner blew around warm air, we slowly scanned the aisles, our sandals lightly slapping at the concrete floor. ‘My God, everything here is so cheap compared to Shanghai!’ I exclaimed, examining a tube of toothpaste that cost 5rmb. ‘I feel like I should do a massive shop, as long as we’re here.’ I realised what a loser I sounded like—was that how I got my kicks and giggles now, a bargain on toothpaste?—and put it back. It is easy to forget, though, that Shanghai, which those of us who live in the West consider one massive bargain, really is the most expensive place in mainland China.

After the obligatory ‘ni men shi na guo ren?’ (‘where are you from?’) conversation with the shopkeeper and his two friends/relatives/whoever they were, we strolled back into the open air to take a look at the wreck itself. Sure enough, there were three cars and a lorry all smashed together, doors bent off their hinges and windows shattered, glass thrown all over the tarmac and glittering in the sun like razor-edged confetti. There were plenty of people milling around, very much without urgency and very much without any idea what to do. It was clear that none of them were policemen or tow truck drivers, which meant we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Fine with me, really. As we wandered on packed-dirt lanes through the rest of the hamlet and watched kids weave unsteadily on their bicycles, trailed by a couple of loping dogs, I personally thought that it couldn’t have happened on a better afternoon. Above us was a thrown-open blue sky, and the air, drier than in Shanghai, was both gloriously hot and fresh. The mountains of Hebei, steep, high and jagged, were a deep green where they rose around us from all sides. With traffic brought to a halt, the only noise came from the chatter of those waiting idly for the jam to be resolved, the birds and cicadas in the surrounding trees and the occasional bark of a dog (and to clear this up for those less informed about life in modern China, no, I did not eat dog whilst there; end of discussion). This far out of Beijing, the air was sweet and clean, and this, along with the stunningly blue sky, brought to mind the myriad summers of my youth spent at Lake Tahoe, high in the Sierra Nevadas. The lazy summer afternoon: it’s the same everywhere, really.
















This is how I spent a lot of summers too, minus the whole being Chinese thing

We made our way out of the village and back to the van; unsurprisingly, no progress had been made in moving the pileup. I ducked back into the car for a second to pluck my book off the seat and then sat myself down on the roadside, where I spent the next hour trying to make sense of Haruki Murakami and munching on the dried sweet potato sticks I had bought at the shop (which pretty much everyone I knew seemed to find distinctly unappealing). To my left a few men stood with their hands tucked behind their backs, heads turned to the pileup and watching to see if anything would happen. To my right, another handful were engaged in a lively card game in the middle of the road. There was an atmosphere almost like that of a carnival, or a 1950s American block party.















Haruki Murakami: writing for crackheads since 1979

Eventually the owners of the cars and lorry found a tractor to tow the mess off the road, and a lone policeman even showed up. He didn’t do much, as far as I could tell, mostly waved his arms around without saying anything. As people hopped back in the cars and started to weave through the stopped traffic, slowly untangling the mess, chaos reigned briefly. Cue much inching forward and braking abruptly on the part of our balaclava-wearing driver. I was blissed out and full of fresh air and sun, however, and hardly minded as I was alternately thrown backwards and then jammed into the seat in front of me. I knew we’d get to Simatai in the end.

There was something so simple and enjoyable about those hours spent on the northern roadside that I can still remember it all in vivid detail, even as I’m cocooned in my duvet up here in Scotland and watching the icy rain fall outside my window. A dozen job applications, a few hundred pages of reading and a daunting five thousand-word essay on Malaysian political and economic involvement in sub-Saharan Africa await me. I wouldn’t mind a warm, sunny afternoon waiting for a traffic jam to clear.

A few brief things:

-Last Saturday, when Zoe was visiting from Glasgow (yay!), we were walking up Alexandra Place when we saw a girl riding a unicycle. I kid you not. She was pedalling her way down the pavement perfectly steadily, and her face gave no indication that it was anything other than completely normal. I, personally, have always wanted to learn to ride a unicycle, so this blew my mind.

-In preparation for my little holiday in Krakow, I am teaching myself to read Polish. I don’t know why we even bother using the same alphabet.

-We have a pair of regular buskers here in St Andrews: the accordion guy, who's usually somewhere near the Subway, and the flute guy, who stations himself outside what used to be a wine shop (thank you, recession). Even though I've never given either of them money, I've always liked the accordion guy because for some reason he reminds me of Christmas. The flute guy is also okay, I guess. My issue is: does he EVER play any other song than the Beatles' 'Yesterday'? Walking past an abandoned wine shop on a grey, drizzly day to hear a particularly mournful rendition of 'Yesterday' is the definition of 'downer'. Maybe if he played something a bit less depressing people would be more inclined to throw him money.

-Winter has come to the UK so early this year that it is cruel. When I say ‘winter’, I don’t even mean my definition of winter (10 degrees, overcast and a slight breeze), I mean SNOW. Well, not in St Andrews, but quite close by. I’m already wearing my heaviest sheepskin coat, but I haven’t yet brought out the ski socks, gloves or hats. I’ll confess that I’ve worn my black fleece-lined jodhpurs, though. It’s not obvious that they’re riding trousers—they just look like thick leggings with black patches on the inside of the knees—and they’re just so warm. Needless to say, whenever I speak to someone back in California and they tell me how it’s been NINETY DEGREES! (somewhere around thirty) and sunny, I want to throw something breakable at the wall. I do love you, St Andrews, but I also love vitamin D and looking as though I live above ground.

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.

The blonde effect

Were I to say that I do not look particularly Chinese, I would probably be found guilty of gross understatement, and indeed, my round blue eyes, pinky-white skin, kangaroo feet and perhaps most of all my blonde hair make it utterly impossible to blend in over here. Of course, the number of foreigners (waiguoren) in Shanghai is substantial, considering that it's a world capital in the throes of the Expo, but the ones who are shorter and darker aren't considered nearly as freakish and therefore don't attract quite the same attention.

Before you roll your eyes at my unbelievable narcissism, let me describe what exactly this 'attention' comprises. I'm not talking about modelling scouts coming up to me or starting wars that launch a thousand ships; I'm talking about people's reactions to seeing a circus freak or zoo animal walking the streets in broad daylight. Imagine if you saw, say, an ostrich strolling around your neighbourhood. More than likely you would think, 'Jesus Christ, an ostrich!' and take a picture with your mobile, maybe elbow your friend in the ribs to have a look as well and point. I get much the same treatment. Most of the time, people stare unabashedly, take surreptitious or not-so-surreptitious pictures with their phones, point and say (and I'm making a guess here), 'Look at that massive pink thing with the yellow hair'. Children alternatively grin with delight at seeing something so strange or look as though they're about to burst into tears. The elderly, often hunched with age, usually just fix their eyes on me and exhibit no discernible emotion, leaving me to wonder if they're cursing my laowai self. Laowai, by the way, is the...erm...old-fashioned term for foreigners and doesn't carry the best connotations (think 'foreign devil'). It's mostly old people that call me that, though there was one taxi driver who got fed up with us giving haphazard directions. And I think there was a bit of venom behind it.

That, of course, is cosmopolitan Shanghai. In Hangzhou, some less central Shanghai neighbourhoods, and in Beijing in 2007, it's been a bit different.

Beijing, April 2007: it's sometime before 6 am in Tiananmen Square, and the flag of the People's Republic of China has just been raised in time with the sun's first rays peeping over Chairman Mao's picture. My little Branson Mandarin class and I have been told that a 'small gathering' congregates to watch the ceremony, mostly provincial tourists. A 'small gathering' has turned out to mean several thousand people who are nonetheless easily accommodated by the looming vastness of the square. As we are taking it in, a man in a suit grabs my wrist and is excitedly asking for a picture. 'Why not', I venture, and before I know it he and four of his friends have their arms around my shoulders and waist and are all beaming enormous grins and flashing peace signs. A small crowd has gathered around us, most of them taking pictures of other people taking pictures of me. After they disperse, there are still several people trailing our class as we walk through the square and indeed until we climb into the car and shut the doors.

Walking home down Xinzha Lu from the gym, Thursday: gym bag slung across my shoulder, I'm on my mobile to my mother back in California, even though it's a bit early considering they're fifteen hours behind in the summer. 'People do tend to look at me like I'm a mutant here', I tell her, and glance to my left to see a man take a brief pause from chopping a plate of ginger to snap a picture of me on his phone's camera.

A cluster of shops in Putuo, Shanghai, the day before yesterday: my Shanghainese friend Rose, who works with Prudence and me at Riviera, has taken us shopping in a neighbourhood a few kilometres away from our flat in Jing'an. As Prudence sits down to wait while we try some things on, a little girl is peering at her with a combination of awe/abject horror on her face. When the girls mother tries to move between them in an effort to stop staring, the little girl leans around, mouth still agape.

Hangzhou, my first weekend here: read the earlier entry for a description of the mob that descended at Lingyin.






Some new friends in the train station at Hangzhou. It took them about half an hour to work up the courage to ask us for this, but they seemed happy as they ran off giggling wildly.






Richbaby, an all-Chinese nightclub, the wee hours of Saturday morning: this Swedish guy and I are dancing together when a smiling Shanghainese guy comes up to us and asks if we like free alcohol. We exchange glances and allow him to lead us to the VIP section, where he hands us champagne flutes of something much stronger and less pleasant than champagne, offers us all the cigarettes we want to smoke, and says that his girlfriend 'really wants to meet us'. His girlfriend is gaping wide-eyed as she shakes our hands, trembling with excitement.

I could go on, but you get the idea. A lot of Westerners get really annoyed at the stares and picture-taking and strangers 'accidentally' touching their skin or hair, but I personally find the whole thing hilarious. It's no skin off my teeth and it's a pretty effortless way to give someone their kicks. I also laugh when I think about what happens after they thank me and we part ways-what, for example, are all those people with pictures of a random white girl on their phones going to do with them? Show them to their friends and say, 'Look what I saw yesterday, it was f***ing weird'? Same with the people who ask to get a photo with me. Does this mean they'll have a photo of them and an odd-looking stranger in their 'Our Vacation to Hangzhou' family photo album? What on earth would they caption that? I will say that no one has handed me their baby yet like they did in India, which I found exceptionally strange...what if I had just run off with the baby, never to be seen again? Or what if I had dropped it? What on earth will those children's parents tell them in ten years' time when they're going through the family photos-'Here is a hilariously pale girl we found, so we had her hold you and we took a picture'?

The thing is, though, that I don't feel much like a freak here. I go about my daily business like everyone else in Shanghai-work, errands, shopping, nights out, breakfast, lunch and dinner-and don't really dwell on the fact that I look so obviously different. It's easy to forget, actually, which has made Shanghai not only way too much fun, but really and truly an agreeable place to live.

One quick thing: I have gotten the first proper manicure of my life. What took me so long? I've bitten my nails since I could chew and nothing, not even painting them with this unbelievably bitter glaze, could make me break the habit. But much to my surprise and delight, a few days ago I realised that they were longer and healthier than they've ever been. I don't know if this is from the heat and humidity (hair and nails do grow faster in the tropics) or if it's because I'm so happy and NOT anxious, but my fingers are now presentable. The manicurist had to work on them for a good long time, but I couldn't be more pleased with them and their pink polish. I hope it's the first of many manicures to come. Call me shallow, but it makes me happy.