Category: May Term 2006 China

May 21, 2006

I am mentally still in Shanghai.  The old city–in these pictures–still in my head. The old Palace Hotel from 1906, where I have stayed; the Broadway Mansions, a mid-30s creation.  It was headquarters of the American military during the Chinese Civil War.

However, I’m no longer in Shanghai.  It is 7:30 am and I am in Hong Kong, ready for another day in one of my favorite cities (and certainly one of my favorite locations for a city) in the world.

Hong Kong, which means–ironically–fragrant harbor, is part of China, but a special area. Mainlanders need a visa to enter the city, which was part of the British Empire until ten years ago. With 7 million people, it is one of the densest populated cities in the world.

We got in Saturday afternoon, and so Sunday at 6am, I was on the Star Ferry, riding across the bay from Kowloon (9 dragons–sounds like a patrol) to the main island, and back. Yesterday we had the sightseeing tour, though in the fog and rain (the aftermath of the typhoon), it was hard to see anything. It is a city where everyone is out and up and hustling, nearly 24 hours a day.

David joined me at 1 am, which made for a rather long day yesterday, but it is good to see him and spend some time.

As for China, a few comments:

1) There is censorship, but I don’t think that was the reason my last email ended so abruptly. I hit the wrong key, the instructions came up in Chinese, and it locked, so I sent the message and quit. Still, when I was watching CNN, they were interviewing someone and when they asked him a question about China, the screen went blank. Kevin Eack says they read every email, but I think they just have the capability to do so. Reading about the Olympics, they already have 260,000 surveillance cameras in Beijing and plan to add more….I think he’s envious

Their effort to control information and the “wrong” kind of information has been one of the most intriguing things to follow as the electronic revolution flattens the world. As I told our guide, you look foolish when you say something that is easily verified to be not true. Coming to Hong Kong, which has a free press, stories which we read on the mainland have a totally different slant here. For example, on Saturday, the Chinese poured the last concrete for the “new great wall,” the Three Gorges Dam. In the China Daily, the verbiage was about the great accomplishment, the flood control, electricity, etc. The HK South China Morning Post article was about displacement and environmental damage.

2) I left off talking (I think) about the 1930s Bund, which has the same foreign-built buildings it had on the eve of World War II. Shanghai as I think I wrote, is coming to grips with the fact that it owes much of its greatness to the fact that for a century it had foreign domination–an international settlement that because of its semi-independent status allowed refugees from Europe to settle there without a passport. Hence, at one time there were 30,000 stateless Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, and probably an equal number of Russians fleeing the revolution. Today, it is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in China. I liken Shanghainese to New Yorkers for a lot of similar center-of-the-universe traits

3) Two quick metaphors on where China has been (I have that perspective from the 1990s–my first trip here was 1990) and where I think it might be going.

a) Mayor Daley was in Beijing last week. David said the Trib featured him on page one, with a dust storm that has been bedeviling the capital city. Pollution and environmental damage–and the challenges of feeding, clothing, and housing a population on an economic binge (Beijing has 2.6 million cars, with 1,000 new ones added each day) highlight some of the negatives.

The report noted that Chicago added Chinese to the school curriculum in 1999, and now has the largest public school system Chinese instruction in the US, but Daley’s visit was not just about tribute, but trade–he was seeking investment in the Chicago area (and seeking tips on how to bid for the Olympic games in 2016).

Flash back to Fred’s visit in 1993, when he went to the new area in Shanghai (Pudong). At the time, it was rice fields. The folks building the new area were seeking US investment. A little over a decade later, we are seeking Chinese investors.

Again, regarding Pudong, when we were there in ’93, there was absolutely nothing there, except plans. The planners showed us what the city would look like. I was skeptical. There was incredible chaos in China. Today, Pudong looks like the plans, with about 4 million people, the tallest building in China, and it is the financial capital for the PRC. As I told my students, never say China cannot do…they can and they will. So learn Chinese, and be prepared to work as hard as they seem willing to….

4) Along the same lines, we were guests of Mizuno, a Japanese company in Shanghai (the president was an IWU alum). As is often the case with manufacturing, they had moved the factory to China, and were keeping the value-added parts in Japan. However, they did have research and development in China–and we read about Hewlett Packard, which has laid off 14,000 people worldwide, hiring 1000 Chinese engineers. Learn Chinese and be prepared to work as hard as they seem willing to….

As you can tell, it’s fun coming back and seeing the changes, but I think China will have to address its rural issues, because unrest on the farms has begun to be mentioned even in the controlled press.

We are off to Chinese university for a full day of talks with and by visiting Fulbright scholars, and then an evening with a dinner set up by a friend of mine whom I met originally in Viet Nam.

Hope you all had a great weekend and are looking forward to the end of the semester and a summer full of Troop 19 experiences. I am!

May 17, 2006 Now I’ve been Shanghaied

We’re in Shanghai, now, awaiting the arrival of the remnants of the typhoon–the first one they say ever in May.

Shanghai means above the sea, and this city of 19 million is as much fun for me as any city in China. It is very Western, a product of its history–if you have seen Empire of the Sun, you may recall the opening scene with the Japanese marching into the Bund. When Americans and Europeans crossed the ocean often their first view of China was the Bund, a series of buildings European style that reflected the fact that Shanghai was an international settlement, controlled until 1943 (legally anyway) by the foreign governments, who used their own stamps (till 1921), their own laws, and their own policy, etc.

We are in a new section for me, west of the downtown area I usually stay at. That meant a morning of exploration of new territory, down what was once the French concession–narrow streets with old villas and leafy sycamore trees the French planted to make the city less hot during the summer. The trees are still known as the “French” trees. Many of the old villas are still here, including one used by the Belgian consul, and an old Russian Orthodox church that now serves as a theater.  One thing Ruth Ann and I did was to explore the old Jewish ghetto. Shanghai, as an open city, welcomed Jews fleeing the rise of fascism and antisemitism in Europe during the 1930s.

We also visited many of the standbys, which included the Yu Garden in the old Chinese part of Shanghai.  It has always amazed me how serene it is in the garden, despite being surrounded by 24 million people.

One of the things I have noticed different this trip is that for one reason or another, the Chinese are acknowledging their western-imposed history. Many of the houses have plaques explaining the architectural history and sometimes the ownership. That is new—since 2005.

May 18, 2006
I’ve been Shanghaied

That’s better than I was earlier, when we were on the Yangtze.
There, I went to hell. Many have told me that’s where I should go, but the boat stopped at Fengdu, which has a “ghost city,” that includes hell. There were all sorts of Taoist spirits–including one that deals with wine–I pictured some of the fraternity boys there! I stopped there 8 years ago, when I took my first Yangtze trip, and there was still a city there. Since then, the river has risen due to the impoundment created by the Three Gorges Dam, and the 150,000 people have been relocated to the south bank, the old city destroyed and removed.

That is kind of a metaphor for what has happened with the three gorges project, a massive 22 billion dollar project that will flood about 300 miles of river valley and make it possible for ocean transports to reach from Shanghai to Chongqing. One thing it has already done is cause the city of Ichang (where we disgorged, so to speak) to increase tenfold—from 400,000 to a “small” Chinese city of 4 million.

The Chinese sometimes remind me of teen-aged boys. If you tell them no, or you cannot do it, they will. That is certainly the case with the dam and the massive resettlement it has caused. About a third of the population of China lives along the Yangtze, most of them downriver from the dam. The dam will provide electricity (5-10 percent of China’s needs), flood control (a major problem in the past), a transportation artery into the interior, and–this was new to me–a potential source of water for the parched north (including Beijing, which has major shortfalls in water supply). The world said, it is environmentally unsound to build the dam, and you lack the technology, etc. 12 years later, the dam is in place, and it will be fully functional in two years.

May 13, 2006

I am on a slow boat down the Yangtze, with even slower email.

Xian was, as it always is, wonderful. It has a past, as I mentioned, a long and glorious one. I am in awe of the first emperor, who died in 209 BC, after ensuring his immorality with the 7000 man army. They have opened three of the tombs, which the emperor started even before he became the emperor, and which employed over 350,000 people.

Here’s some interesting things we did:

1) Xi’an is a walled city, with the existing wall first built in the late 14th century. The Communists finally completed rebuilding it, which led to a 14k bike ride one cool morning. The wall was not finished last time I was there.

2) We went (a few students and I) to a church service. I was curious about the church, which was built in the 1920s by one of the missionaries for a (then) famous warlord, who baptized his troops with a fire hose and marched his troops to “Onward Christian soldiers.”  I had never found that building before.

3) One of my favorite places (not usually on the itinerary for Westerners) is the Great Mosque. As the capital of China and the beginning/end of the Silk Road, Xi’an attracted many foreigners. The Muslims came and stayed. There are about 10.000 in the city today (out of 7 million), most in the quarter around the mosque. We went first thing in the morning (17 of the 27 came voluntarily). Built first in 742, the mosque looks like a typical Chinese building, the minaret looks like a pagoda. Amazingly serene.

4) We visited two Buddhist pagodas, including one where Xuan Zang brought the original books from the Buddha in the 8th century.

5) Dumplings are one of the specialties of Xi’an, so of course when we had a free mealtime, we went there for the 18 varieties…quite a meal.

6) And the underground army.

From Xi’an, we flew an hour south to the largest city in the world (partly because of the size of its “territory”) Chongqing. A sleepy city until the Second World War, it grew enormously when the Nationalist government fled there in 1937. There are now 30 million people in the municipality, but about 70% are in the surrounding counties.

There is not much to see in the city itself, which has been rebuilt considerably since the first time I came to it about a decade ago. One highlight is the only museum in China to honor an American, General Stillwell, who commanded American and Chinese troops in World War II, but clashed with Chiang Kai-shek and eventually was fired.
We spent the day traveling to a Buddhist grotto where a serious monk had carved statues in in the late Sung dynasty period–our guide gave a great explanation of how Buddhism embraced both existing Chinese religions–Confucianism and Taoism.

Sichuan is also one of the main cuisines of China, so we went to a local restaurant for a hot pot. I bought some spices and if they make it home, we will try one on a campout. You chop everything and put it in boiling soup with spices, and take it out a few minutes later.

We got on the boat last night and sailed down the Yangtze. They gave all the women flowers for Mother’s’ Day, so let me close by saying happy Mothers’ Day to you all.

May 10,2006

I am in Xian, which was the capital of China a thousand years ago–and had been the capital for a thousand years.

We have had a very busy routine, but I’m delighted that I have some students who are as interested as I am in wandering around in the mornings and in those few hours that we have free time. As I mentioned, we flew over the North Pole, the new direct route from Chicago that reduces the flight to “only” 13 1/3 hours. That was about 2 hours sleep, three meals, four
movies, and one interesting book on Wal-Mart for me.

It was fun, as it always is for me, to come back to Beijing. The city is, like most capitals, imperious and imperial. The old is impressive, the new, impressive if you have my perspective, which goes back to 1990.   There has been a controversy about the Starbucks (gasp) in the Forbidden City.  I suspect it will be gone eventually, along with the mayor who approved it.  Ironically, it is an internet citizen crusade that has been spearheading the demand for its demise.

The city is preparing for the Olympics, and refurbishing its sights, which means there were several places (including the Forbidden City) which were “forbidden” because they were closed or parts were closed. One morning, I took some students to my favorite park (Jing Shan) which overlooks the Forbidden City. It’s where the last Ming emperor hanged himself (in 1644).

We climbed the hill overlooking the Forbidden City–only to find the pavilion was being reworked, so we had only glimpses of grandeur.

My fellow teacher, Ruth Ann Friedberg, with whom I traveled last time, and I have somewhat different interests, so we can offer students different options when we have free time. For example, our last day in Beijing, we had a visit to the Chestnut operation in Beijing, and then had the afternoon to wander. About half the students elected to take a tour of the (refurbished) hutongs, the traditional houses of Beijing, which involved a rickshaw ride. I offered an alternative, which was to see the real hutongs and to visit one of the temples. Ruth Ann needed to shop, but wanted also to see one of the temples, so we escorted about half the students to the Lama Temple, which was the location of the Tibetan monks in Beijing. It’s one of my favorite places anyway–with the half-man, half-animal versions of the Buddha followers. Having been to Tibet gave me a new perspective.

We parted. I took the Fred followers to Liulichang, an older area with real hutongs (without indoor plumbing and without air conditioning, and some without water), and traditional shopping. That was neat, since there’s a tea shop that JR and I discovered two years ago, revisited last year, and he was there in March. We spent about an hour with the owner, sampling teas (I do like the lichi red and 8 treasures, which are not available in the US) and departed with tea and memories. We took the subway around and felt like real Beijingers.

As many times as I visit Beijing, I’m still in awe. I can only imagine what it might have been like for foreigners, who came from lesser civilizations (as I sometimes think we do–we have little that’s a thousand years old) to walk the Sacred Way (to the tombs of the Ming emperors), or to walk through the Forbidden City for the coveted audience with the emperor or to walk the Great Wall and realize that it was built almost 2000 years ago. Pretty overwhelming

The train to Xian was fun, too. 12 hours, but overnight, so we got on and were on for most of the evening. We arrived in Xian in time to visit several Buddhist pagodas from 600 ad, to have dumpling dinner, and to wander through the Muslim area.

Today, the underground army.

Gotta run for breakfast. JR used to say it’s like scout camp, and it is–except I have never had fresh waffles with chocolate sauce at Scout camp.