Welcome, Giant Pandas

As a prelude - and to explain the joke in the heading - in Madagascar, the best animated film of our time, the pompous King Julian, lord of the lemurs, greets his visitors from New York with:

"Welcome, giant pansies. Please feel free to bask in my glow."

At Chengdu's Giant Panda Sanctuary, the roles are reversed. We are welcomed by the giant pandas - with a nonchalance that King Julian would be proud of - and spend the next couple of hours basking in their glow.

The youngest "giant" panda was curled up in an incubator, weighing in at a precious 122 grams on day one. Three cubs played in a wooden cot, two metres by two metres. Two twins, five months old, spent most of their time wrestling with each other, only to be interrupted from their minder to sit in plastic bucket on a set of digital scales - Weightwatchers for pandas. The third cub, almost three months old, spent all of her time trying to play with the older two, but was having difficulty getting traction on the polished wooden floor of the cot. She spent most of her time on her stomach, feet splayed wide, a plump, cuddly Chinese version of Bambi on ice.

Outside, in the mid-morning Sichuan mist, the adult giant pandas had a late breakfast of bamboo. Each day, the gastronomically-confused "carnivores" munch through nine to fourteen kilograms of bamboo shoots. It's no wonder that they spend some of that eating time lying down.

Unfortunately, all of this eating seems to affect the pandas' libido, making it difficult for conservationists to increase the captive population in Chengdu. In the name of "science", the male pandas have been shown videos of other pandas mating (i.e. panda p*rn) and some have received trial doses of Viagra.

We have been mesmorised by the pandas' laconic mannerisms and (literally) laid-back attitude. With their teddy-bear good looks, it is hardly surprising that the giant panda found itself in a diplomatic position in the 1970s, smoothing tensions between China and the US in the détente period of the Cold War (the so-called "Panda diplomacy") as well as the mascot for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). In the spirit of modern Chinese capitalism, these days each giant panda leased to foreign zoos earns a cool US $1 million a year.

It is incongruous that such laid-back bears are such diplomatic and economic dynamos. After all, in the words of King Julian, "They are just a bunch of pansies."

 

King Julian is here: http://www.entertonement.com/clips/bzhstzsycb--Just-a-Bunch-of-Pansies

 

Our photos, including the pandas, are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/fletchheinemann/ChinaNov09

 

 

Two warriors walked into a pit...

Time: 209 BC.

Scene: Under the shadow of Lishan (Li Mountain).

Two warriors wait patiently as the ranks of an army swells around them.

Warrior 1 (T): Hi.

Warrior 2 (W): Hey. How's it going?

T: Not too bad thanks. There are a lot of soldiers here. Do you know what's going on?

W: I heard that there's a battle brewing. The emperor has called in 8,000 of us infantrymen. Then there's another 100 chariots with 400 horses. There's even 300 cavalry horses - can't stand those pompous riders - you watch, they will be prancing around on the battlefield, not wanting to get their feet muddy.

T: Who are we supposed to be fighting against?

W: No idea. Could be anyone. Emperor Qin has his fair share of enemies.

T: My name is Te Re Co Ta, but my friends call me Tere.

W: I'm Wo Re-a. But call me Wazza.

T: Good to meet you Wazza. I'd shake your hand but my elbow's awfully stiff.

W: Tennis elbow?

T: What's tennis?

W: Never mind. What's with the bow tie mate?

T: I thought the summons said black tie. Apparently, Emperor Qin just rides under a black flag. Besides, it never hurts to look one's best, even in the thick of battle. I like what you've done with your hair. How do you keep it up like that?

W: Sorry mate, can't share those secrets with you. Otherwise, everyone will be wearing their hair like mine.

T: Oh come on, I promise I won't breathe a word of it to another soul.

W: Well if you must know, it's the clay from further upstream - it's much finer, so there's less volume. It's so much more manageable. But sshhh! OK?

T: Yeah OK. Why are you holding your hand out like that?

W: I'm waiting for my beer, but with service this slow, it'll take about 2,000 years.

T: Geez, what's that stench?
W: Smells like rotten fish.

T listens to a conversation in front of them.

T: Did you hear that? That officer just told his battalion that Qin Shi Huang is dead.

W: There you go. You learn something new every day. Dead emperors smell like rotten fish.

T: No, the rumour is that his eunuchs kept his death a secret for three months, but he started to get a bit on the nose, so they carted around loads of rotten fish to disguise the smell.

W: Why not stinky tofu? That stuff reeks.

T: Dunno. Maybe they were worried the villagers would eat the stinky tofu and that would be the end of the disguise. Or maybe the stinky tofu would have just made everyone want to gag.

W: All a bit strange for my liking. Guess Emperor Qin never found his elixir of immortality?

T: Guess not. I heard he sent off 1,000 humans to look for it. They never came back. Rightly so too - Qin would have executed them if they came back without it. He liked to rule with an iron fist and a sharpened sword. Hey, what are those humans doing up there?

W: Looks like they have massive timber beams. Ahh, they're building a shelter for us. Bless their mortal cotton socks. I hate it when my armour colour runs in the rain.

T: I'm not sure it's a shelter Wazza. We're in a pit. How are we supposed to get out?

W: You're right you know. They're covering the beams with reed mats. What's that thudding sound?

T: Clay and earth. They're piling it up on the reed mats. Confucious help us! What will we do? They're burying us alive!

W: Take it easy mate, we're not really alive anyway. It's going to be a bloody long wait for this beer though.

　

　

When size does matter...

The room phone rang. We exchanged confused glances. Fletch casually reached over the bed and picked up the phone. We had checked into Xi'an's the Super House Inn (another

www.elong.net find) only a few hours earlier. Zhe shi shei? Who is this? We have been thinking in broken Chinese for a while now. Ni yao shenme? What do you want?

Our little room in the Super House Inn was very clean, cosy and critically - after being in a state of perpetual frostiness in Pingyao - came with 'independent temperature control system', otherwise known as reverse-cycle air-conditioning. We washed off the remnants of last night's overnight train trip - in a steaming hot shower - and wandered aimlessly through Xi'an's old town - a Muslim Quarter.

We lunched on tasty, although unidentifiable, street food. I gave the young boy cooking our lunch a brief English lesson. "Potato," I said, pointing at the white chunks frying fragrantly in his monstrously oversized wok. He threw in some chillies, cumin and coriander.

"Po-ta-to", he practised dutifully, tasting the new words in his mouth for the first time. "Pota-to. Potato!" I gave my new student the thumbs-up sign. He gave me a toothy smile and a steaming hot plate of "po-ta-to" in return. It only took one mouthful to realise that we were not actually eating potato at all, but a jelly-like substance that borrowed all of its flavour from the spicy sauce around it.

But I digress. The receptionist was on the other end of the phone to Fletchie, talking quickly, excitedly and very loudly in Chinese.

"What's she saying?" I quizzed Fletch. He shrugged his shoulders.

"Dui bu qi, wo ting bu dong," he told the girl on the phone. Sorry, I don't understand you.

The girl continued to talk just as loudly and excitedly, but slowed her pace.

"I think she's asking us if we want another room," Fletch said to me, his eyebrows raised with this new hypothesis.

I then overheard the English-speaking manager cut in: "Hello, you want room upgrade? We think, this room to small for you. We give you deluxe room." If only he knew that last night we slept in bunk beds designed for far smaller bodies than ours.

Our new room features two beds (one which we assume is considered large enough for us - it's a king), two tables, three coffee tables, a sofa, two armchairs, four lamps, a mini-fridge, a kettle, a king-size bed, a single bed, a big flat screen TV (which we lack the skill to turn on), six coat hangers, a spare pillow, four pairs of slippers (enough for Flatuch as well), one shoe shine cloth, two big windows to gaze out at the melting snow, a sign in the bathroom advising 'Electricity hot water - shower time last 40 minutes' and - critically - our very own freestanding 'independent temperature control system'. Now we just need to wait 24 hours for our deluxe room to reach the 'tropical' climate setting.

　

In the Ming Style

Tonight, we are resting in Pingyao, a small town in snow-dusted Shanxi province. Our guesthouse has been decorated in the "Ming Style". We concede that, despite our interest in Chinese culture, we have not yet gained a true appreciation of the "Ming Style". We now understand the "Ming Style" to mean that:

… your bed is a huge mattress, the equivalent of two double mattresses side-by-side, placed on a shelf that takes up half your room. Due to space constraints, your Ming Style mattress also serves as your Ming Style lounge chair, Ming Style luggage rack and Ming Style coffee table.

… your room light is red and embroidered with flowers.

… your wall is garnished with a poster that resembles a 14^th century Chinese version of Where's Wally? and four red lanterns hanging from the ceiling.

… your heating only comes on at 6.00 pm (the Ming were so advanced to have digital clocks back then), at which time you can curl around the hot water pipe rising from one corner of the mattress.

… your television and air-conditioning unit are, in the Ming Style, historically accurate because neither of them work.

… your "hot" shower dribbles out of the showerhead, requiring you to jog on the spot (as practised by Ming soldiers) to maintain your core temperature while in the shower.

… you have no need for a refrigerator because your beer has frozen on the journey home.

 

Further (and possibly more historically accurate) things done in the Ming Style are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Dynasty.

 

 

A Kind of Beijing Opera

In the early afternoon, at Beijing's Grand National Theatre, we were marginally disappointed that there were no shows on that evening.

We contented ourselves with a visit to Laoshe Tea House, which promised all manner of entertainment, but apparently not much of each, as the show was advertised to go from 7.50 pm to 9.20 pm. The programme listed a piece of Beijing Opera - Fairy Throwing Flowers. The Opera itself lasted perhaps fifteen minutes, during which time we seriously contemplated whether the green tea they were serving contained hallucinogens. It was Priscilla Queen of the Desert meets Austin Powers - a female character with long flowing sashes (played by a man) in front of digitally-projected flowers spiralling on the curtain behind. The fairy's voice screeched and wavered, prising out each note as slowly as a drunk implores a bartender for just one more drink. Fifteen minutes of this particular fairy was enough.

The other acts were more palatable to our western sense of entertainment. But the three girls sitting on our table stole the show when the Kong Fu exhibition started. The girls had chattered away to each other all night, with only a passing interest in the events on stage. It took the final act, with five young men flinging themselves about, until their attention was glued to the front. They looked at each other pointedly, This is what we have come to see. All three girls sat wide-eyed, literally perched on the edge of their seats. In a particularly acrobatic movement, the boys' shirts flew up revealing well-toned torsos, and almost simultaneously, one girl's hands moved into the prayer position. We both knew what she was praying for.

The Buffet that is Beijing

The

staples of Chinese food in the western world - sweet and sour pork, honey chicken, beef and black bean sauce, fried rice - are conspicuously absent in Beijing. From the street vendors selling snacks from their tricycle-mounted hotplates to neighbourhood restaurants and finer establishments, we have discovered that Beijing, just like the Colonel, keeps its secret recipes… well… secret.

Strolling out of our neighbourhood hutong and onto the main dajie, we sauntered down the line of local restaurants and street vendors. The smell of barbecued meat came out of the brightly lit restaurant on the corner. A couple of doors down, the windows of another restaurant were dripping with condensation as hot pots steamed away. Next door, a doona-thick curtain kept out the arctic winds. Inside, baozi - steamed buns - were kept warm in circular bamboo steamers. On the footpath, you could buy a kebab in a kind of toasted pita-bread with pork, cabbage and onion for three yuan (A$0.50) or a folded pancake number (with eggs, sesame paste, chilli, cabbage and a crushed up waffle-looking item) for about the same small change.

In restaurants, we discovered that there's wisdom in following the waitress' recommendations. We had lunch in one restaurant near Beijing West Railway Station, which evidently does not see many foreigners at all. Our waitress was not happy with the food we were selecting (from the pictures) and assumed responsibility for our ordering. There were snow peas tossed with garlic and bacon, eggplant sautéed in soy sauce and steamed dumplings. It was our new favourite meal (but we both knew that the record probably wouldn't stand for long). Along with two beers and too much green tea, we paid 56 yuan (A$9).

We stumbled across a lively little restaurant while waiting for the opening of a theatre session one night. It's specialty was duck. The chef wheeled an entire roast duck out to us for our cursory inspection, before wheeling it off towards the bar, but still in full view, and started carving it up. The crackling was brought out first, which our waiter indicated should be dipped in sugar. A couple of minutes later, our waiter returned with strips of breast meat, which he gestured for us to dip in the garlic sauce and thick soy-sesame sauce. It was all highly indulgent. At the end of the meal, the chef returned with his trolley, this time adorned with a duck carcass - as evidence of our gluttony. The waiter returned one last time, with a colossal bowl of soup, flavoured with the broth of our duck bones.

At the end of the evening, walking home to our little hutong, we would pass the street vendors and wonder if we didn't have enough room for maybe just one more baozi.

Beijing Subway

Tiananmen Square is icy. There is literally ice on the concrete. A northerly wind blows from the Artic Circle, over the mountains of Inner Mongolia into the plains of Beijing, through the Forbidden City, past Mao's portrait hanging from the Temple of Heaven and straight through our jackets.

In the distance, there is an understated sign with the letter D in a circle. D is for ditie - subway. In these conditions, every subway station becomes a little oasis. Descending into the underground world, we meet our first current of warm air rushing the other way. The stations are clean and efficient. Touch screen vending machines dispense tickets for two yuan (A$0.33) each, regardless of how far you want to travel, which - since the Beijing Olympics - includes all of Beijing's treasures (except the Great Wall, if you want to include that in Beijing).

The trains are even warmer. A twenty minute journey across town is just long enough for us to thaw out our fingers and toes. Digital screens show footage of Chinese tourists enjoying Harley Davidson rides around Uluru or saddling camels in Kakadu… all wearing T-shirts and shorts. It's well-targeted marketing. We almost forget that it's -10° C outside.

And to complete the cosiness, the light symphony from Amelie* accompanies the train's rhythm as it accelerates to the next station. It's hardly surprising that half of our carriage is snoozing.

*If you have not seen the movie Amelie, starring Audrey Tautou, shame on you… but you can listen to clips of the soundtrack here:

http://www.myspace.com/ameliethesoundtrack. The Beijing subway plays the La Valse D'Amelie Symphony.

Simatai - China's Best Great Wall

The flags lining the avenue to Simatai proudly proclaim "China's Best Great Wall". Semantics aside (China has only one Great Wall, even if strictly speaking it is not one continuous wall), it was a bold claim.  

 

But after a sunny, blue-sky day on a snow-dusted wall - free from the repairs and renovations that have tourist-ified other parts of the wall and with vast sections of the wall to ourselves - Simatai might just be "China's Best Great Wall". Its charm is that it is rustic, wiith original bricks and mortar, remote and wild: some parts of the wall look over a deep abyss. Ther watchtowers are in various states of disrepair and the wall itself is steep (and in the snow, slippery), prompting one particularly high and perilous section to be dubbed "Stairway to Heaven".

 

Enough words, please check out the pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/fletchheinemann/SimataiNov09.

 

 

Snowy Beijing

Beijing has turned on its winter magic. We arrived on the bullet train from Qingdao, a smooth five and a half hours to cover 888 kilometres. About halfway through the journey, the snow that the arctic wind had been threatening in Qingdao but had not quite delivered was blanketing the fields of Shandong Province.
 
Beijing had its makeover for the Olympics and it shows. The train station is airport-sized and spotless. Thanks to a user-friendly subway, we were across town and into our hotel within 30 minutes, for two kuai each ($A0.33), even if we did have to listen to an English accent tellling us to "Mind the gap".
 
The good people at www.elong.net suggested that we might consider staying "old style" in a courtyard hotel in Beijing. And for RMB 320 (A$50) a night, we figured we couldn't go too far wrong. The place has been beautifully decked out in Ming furniture, the foyer has a pastel-blue painted ceiling, and the reception desk sits in front of a magnificent screen of painted Chinese ladies. Our room is no less interesting, with a cute China tea-set, dark polished furniture and red and gold furnishings. The basin in the bathroom is a (replica) Ming vase. And I will have to write a separate entry about the slippers.  In fact, the only things that are not historical are our speedy broadband connection (broadband in China makes Australian access feel like dial-up) and reverse cycle air-conditioning.
 
Just on the corner of our Hutong (alleyway) is a little restaurant, where we feasted on kebobs, duck skewers, a tofu-number described as "Stir and Mix Cloud Silk as it Happens" and three tall beers. The nearest street is Jiugulou Dajie, which is lined with fruit shops, street stalls selling all sorts of barbecued skewered numbers, a hot pot restaurant and a Chinese chemist with an aisle marked "Not Medicine". We met a middle-aged couple from Xinjiang Province (far north-west of China), who loved Australian beef. It must have been the topic of the day, because a man selling street maps of Qingdao was telling me that there were lots of sheep in Australia.
 
Pictures of our first night in Beijing are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/fletchheinemann/ChinaNov09.This includes the sort after bum-slit picture.
 
The good news is that tomorrow it will be snowing and somewhere between 0 and -8^C.

A good yarn...

Dongjiadu is a three-floor building near Nanpu Bridge, in the west of Shanghai. A sign on the door - which is largely ignored - asks visitors to abstain from smoking inside so as to avoid a disaster should thousands of metres of fabric incinerate. It's English name - ironically more difficult to remember and trickier to pronounce than the Chinese name - is The South Bund Soft Spinning Silk and Textile Market. We call it, 'The Cloth Market.'

Outside, a few hopefuls hawk their wares on mats lining the roads; an eclectic jumble of cheap jewellery, packs of cards and faux antique figurines. Men with little white caps - members of Muslim Chinese minority groups - sell dried fruits and nuts from side carts clinging to their rusty bikes. Across the street, Westerners sip coffee in the T-Café as they share tales of new clothes and good bargains.

But it is inside that the real action is taking place. Dongjiadu contains around 400 fabric and clothing stalls, all competing with each other to snag the next customer. Waiguoren wander the aisles, getting lost in the maze of stalls and disorientated by the endless reels of textiles on offer. You can buy off the rack, choosing one of the pre-made pieces of clothing hanging off the mannequin models, or - more commonly - let the small Chinese lady attempt to wrap her tape around your girth , take down your measurements, marvel and tsk at your enormous size, and finally return a few days later to retrieve your made-to-measure outfits. .

With thousands of items of clothing on display, its one of those places that makes you think, 'Hmm…maybe I really would look good in a pair of tight, bright red Chinese silk pants with dragons and flowers embroidered down the sides…I might get some made". The entrepreneuring stall holders only fuel your desire, proffering everything from suits to socks as they call from their stalls;

"Beautiful jackets in here, Miss!'

"Sir, you want suit? We make you good suit, very nice."

"Chinese silk scarf, for you Miss!"

"Come in, just looking, okay, we have scarf for you, jackets, suit, coat, tie, pants, gloves, skirt, …."

The invitations, however, were a waste of breath when directed towards me. I was a woman with a one-track mind as I marched past stall after stall. I knew exactly what it was I wanted. Clutched in my hand was an oft-folded picture I had printed off the internet back home, and in my mind I was conjuring up secret images which I could not reveal to Fletch. My mission? Getting me a wedding dress.

After scanning all 3 floors to find the one who would be offered the privilege of being my personal tailor, I decided to hedge my bets and contracted two different stalls, arranging for a different designed dress to be made at each. Shop 302 promised me they could recreate the dress on the picture that I had brought from home, and Shop 361 convinced me to get one made from a magazine they had in store. So, whilst Fletch was away organising some shirts and pants to get made for himself, I was busy bargaining for a price and getting measured from top to toe

It is really lots of fun to get measured by a personal dressmaker, and it is also quite easy to forget that lots of small details can be lost in translation when an Australian girl is dealing with a Chinese lady. Alarm bells should have started ringing when Shopkeeper 302 had finally finished measuring me up. "Wedding dress - very special" I had repeated to her, subconsciously imploring her to do a good job I had already gone through my essential requirements with her several times - white dress, not puffy, no sequins, beach wedding, etc. I thought our understanding was mutual.. She smiled back at me. "Okay, wedding dress, very good. Now, what colour? Red?"

Shopkeeper 361 was a young, smiling woman who was heavily pregnant and, in hindsight, I think she had a serious case of baby brain . I was drawn to her stall by her big belly and big smile - she was so friendly and enthusiastic about making my wedding dress, I felt I couldn't let her down. After flicking through page after page of dresses in the magazine she had, we decided on one and I - stupidly - verbally requested a few small changes to be made to the original design. After lots of nodding and smiling, for the second time that day I mistakenly believed we were each on the same wavelength, and left the tailors to weave their magic. I found Fletch sitting patiently waiting for his bride-to-be on a flight of stairs between levels 2 and 3, gave him an enigmatic smile and left The Cloth Market with my hopes in the sky.

However, it wasn't meant to be. Two more subway trips out to Dongjiadu - one for a second fitting and one to pick up - and I am now the proud owner of a sequinned potato sack, and a cupcake-like fairy godmother dress.

I am convinced that 361 made me an entirely different dress to the one we picked out in the magazine - the straight sections of the dress were okay, but evidently the sewing machine couldn't turn corners. Then, against the rules, they went and put sequins all over it. Lesson number one: do not get a wedding dress made by a shop with embroidered tablecloths as their headliine product, however pregnant the shopkeeper may be.

Shop 302 - while slightly closer to the mark, presented me proudly with a cupcake dress and then admonished me when I dared tug slightly on the skirt to ease the puff. I almost asked if they could make me a wand to complete my dress up outfit. Lesson number two: do not allow the shopkeeper to convince you that 'just a little bit' of tulle under your dress would look "very beautiful".

Fletch, of course, was considerably more successful - his 3 new shirts and pair of pants fit perfectly and look very smart. Lesson number three: Fletch had the right idea - give them something to copy, and they can't go wrrong!

But even with the disastrous dresses, our experience at the South Bund Soft Spinning and Textile Market was lots of fun, and it was certainly worth a try! In reality, its not all bad - we are now on our way to Beijing, where the temperature is dipping well below zero degrees. I'm going to need as many layers as I can get - and my sequinned potato sack and fairy godmother dress might just come in handy after all!

Shanghai Shenanigans

Reecey's debut appearance in Shanghai and Fletchie's encore performance had the following acts:

 

1.  Shanghai World Circus

 

Four Chinese girls climb out of a three foot high vase. Six Chinese boys contort their bodies to leap through hoops. One man, the only of the entire acrobat troupe who has eaten a cheeseburger in his lifetime, catches a massive Ming Vase on the back of his neck. One boy on stilts backflips off a catapult-see-saw-type apparatus.  Another boy on a pogo stick manages the same.  Then there are the motorcycles in the wire cage. We're not going to spoil the surprise. Go and see it. 

 

2. Shanghai World Circus... Fletchie & Reecey Version

 

One Australian boy takes the skipping rope from a Shanghai local on the third floor of the Fake Goods Market (this is not its official title). One Australian girl performs amazing feats of skipping over the rope backwards.  The entire third floor of vendors crowds around to see the two Australian skippers on their international tour. At the presentation ceremony, the winning skipper (Reecey) is given a beautiful bottle of Nong Fu Springs Water 600 ml (retails at RMB 1.5 or A$0.25).  Fletchie declines to buy the skipping rope because its counter is broken.  (He is secretly upset that he lost the skipping competition). No need to go and see it.

 

3.  The Shanghai Shoe Box

 

FH (to Receptionist 1): Can we have a non-smoking room please?

Receptionist 1 (to Receptionist 2, in Chinese):  Do we have any non-smoking rooms?

Receptionist 2 (in Chinese): No, we don't have any non-smoking rooms.

Receptionist 1 (to Fletchie, in English): OK, no problem sir.

 

We lasted one night in our "non-smoking room", which smelled suspiciously like it had been declared a non-smoking room approximately two minutes before we opened the door.  It had no window.  No internet.  No flushing toilet.  And was about 30 degrees inside.  We had booked six nights, but armed with serious faces and a story of a sick friend in Suzhou, we were out of there by 9.00 am the next morning.  Our new apartment on Yan'an Road West was, for the same RMB, infinitely more comfortable. We decided that the moral of the story was that when booking a room on www.e-long.net avoid the "discount room".  It is sometimes mistaken for the cleaner's closet.

 

4.   A Poignant Reminder...

 

On our second night in Shanghai, we had dinner with Ava, a former colleague of mine at Deloitte in Shanghai. Ava was exceptionally pleased to meet Reecey, and interested to learn that she was not in fact Thai, despite having taught in Thailand for a good eight months or so. We may have also cleared up some of Ava's misconceptions that Thai ladies are 5 foot 11, blonde haired, green eyed and teach English to Thai children. 

 

Over dinner, Ava checked off a list of names that had left Deloitte. It was good to be reminded that, while working in Shanghai was a great experience, it definitely had a used-by date.

 

5.  Number 5 on the Bund

 

I had heard on the grapevine that Number 5 on the Bund, my favourite Shanghai lunchtime haunt, had closed its doors for the last time some years ago.  Reecey and I went to pay our last respects to the fine basement establishment that offered RMB50 (A$8) lunches - soup/ salad, pizza/pasta and a soft-drink plus all the games of pool you could play in your lunch-hour - to discover to my amazement and excitement that Number 5 was still open for business, albeit with some construction works going on in the building above.

 

The happy hour drinks' special was Buy 2 Beers Get 1 Free.  Our ever-helpful waiter could not quite grasp the concept that we wanted our three beers brought out in succession, rather than all at once. We kept him on his toes though... by playing the indecisive couple that could not decide what beer they wanted next until they had finished their current one. 

 

Over the last three years, the pool table has become a bit worse for wear.  It has lost two of its pockets, so the entire bar knows when a ball is sunk in either of those pockets, as the ball crashes on the timber floor and the crack reverberates through the bar. It's lucky that Shanghai has shrugged off its gangs culture, otherwise Number 5 would be full of highly-strung patrons.

 

6.  We Love Haibo

 

Shanghai will host World Expo in 2010, with the result that the city is currently littered with construction works. On the brighter side, Haibo, the World Expo mascot, now makes an appearance at almost every public place.  You can meet Haibo here: http://www.goshanghaiexpo.com/node/44. He's blue. He's happy. He looks like a blue, happy dish cloth.

 

7.  The Bullet Train from Shanghai to Qingdao

 

Pros:

1.  Seating that would give any airline's business class a run for its money and more coat-hooks than you could possibly own coats for.

2.  Announcements in English, which is particularly courteous given that there were only two non-Chinese on the 16-carriage train.

3.  Great facilities. But bear in mind that Chinese aren't hugely keen on refrigerating drinks.

4.  Top speeds of 250km/ hr, which is particularly useful when the vista of the countryside is obscured in smog.

 

Cons:

1.  Passengers three seats in front of you decide that a ten hour train journey is the perfect opportunity to eat crabs, which due to its fiddly nature would otherwise consume too much time in one's day.

2.  Passengers two seats in front of you decide to check out their mobile phone's store of polyphonic ringtones. At maximum volume, which is the only volume setting for phones in China.

3.  Passenger one seat in front of you speaks on his mobile phone as if he is trying to speak to someone in China... oh wait, he is in China... as if he is trying to speak to someone in Australia.

 

Zaijian!

 

By golly...

Our feet were aching. I reckon we walked 13 kilometres through the streets of Shanghai. Reecey reckons 18. Dad says 29.

The Cloth Market (officially titled South Bund Soft Silk and Textile Spinning Market, but known only as Lujiabang Lu to taxi drivers) was heaving with waiguoren (foreigners), getting measured for shirts, suits, jackets, coats. A girl gave her best Narcissus impression, gazing at her image in the full-length mirror, surrounded by fabrics.

We sat on the steps of the third floor, waiting for Reecey's dress to arrive from the tailor, surveying the interactions between waiguoren and locals.

A young Chinese lady trendily clad in a hot-pink tracksuit top walked towards us.

"Ni hao," we said in unison. She nodded and smiled politely, lips pursed together. She continued to walk towards us, stopped abruptly in front of a large green rubbish bin, and head down, unhurriedly let a giant golly fall from her lips into the bin. Her immediate task now completed, she beamed a smile at us: "I'm fine! How are you?"

Snoozing on the Shanghai subway

As some of you might be aware, I'm afflicted with a chronic condition which I call MVIN - or Moving-Vehicle-Induced-Narcolepsy. I've fallen asleep on planes, trains, cars, taxis, buses, ferries and tuk-tuks all over the world. More precisely, I find it virtually impossible to stay awake. My greatest achievement to date was to fall asleep on a very brief sawngthaew trip in Thailand, hugging my big backpack as I shared the hard wooden bench seat with about 20 locals, some chickens and a wild boar .

So now I found myself, blissfully, in China - a land where it is perfectly permissible to fall asleep anywhere, and at anytime. You can fall asleep whilst waiting for your lunch to be served in a restaurant. You can fall asleep whist waiting for some customers to come into your shop. It's okay to pull over slightly to the side of the road , apply the handbrake and snooze in the front seat of your car. The Chinese have discovered that parking your motorbike on the footpath and reclining on the seat is, indeed, an ideal way to catch a bit of shut-eye. Buses and taxis provide endless opportunities for locals to catch up on some sleep before work, or after a long day at the office. I have fallen in love China's embrace of the humble kip.

A sign at the Jjiangsu subway station proudly proclaims that spitting, smoking, urinating and dropping rubbish are all forbidden on the subway; a welcome oasis from the sanitary standards of greater Shanghai. At 3RMB a pop (AU$0.50), the subway is a clean, air-conditioned, efficient and hassle-free way to get around town. When Fletch was in Shanghai in 2006, there were 2 subway lines - that has since expanded to 8 lines which stretch like a cobweb to every corner of the massive city. The subway was our primary means of transport during our 6 day stay in Shangers - the two waiguoren joining the millions of other Shanghaiense traversing the city's underground network. During peak hour, I would often 'lose' Fletchie amongst the heaving crowd, fortunately he is a tad taller than the average Chinaman so it didn't take long to 'find' him and swim towards him again.

But back to the snoozing. There are only about 20 seats lining the walls of the subway trains - unless you're one of the lucky few, chances are that it'll be standing room only for your entire journey. The inside of the carriages resemble a kid's jungle gym, with steel bars assembled in various directions for travellers to grab onto as the train lurches through the subway like an snake with a limp. People rush on and off as the doors slide open impatiently at each station.. The brakes squeal around bends, passengers jolt and sway in an awkward dance, and there is always someone who wants to try out every single one of their mobile phone's polyphonic ringtones at top volume. It would seem an utterly impossible place to sleep. Unless you are Chinese.

The challenge was set by Fletchie on our final subway trip in Shanghai. I had watched in awe, trip after trip, as passengers nodded off all around me as they stood clutching the cheese graters , their knees slightly bent to enhance their balance, their heads drooped into their chests, their eyes closed peacefully and their breathing the slow and steady rhythm of someone who is deep in sweet slumber. Fletchie and I would often chat in hushed whispers, so as not to "disturb the growing grass". Shhhhh.

"Reecey - we have 7 stops 'til we arrive at Jiangsu station. Bet you can't fall asleep standing up?"

It was all the motivation I needed to attempt the impossible. I linked my fingers around the top of the jungle gym, allowed my body to relax and gently closed my eyes. For the first time in my life, I had to actively will myself to fall asleep on a moving vehicle. A few minutes passed, and despite the efforts of Fletchie as my anti-cheerleader ("Sleep Reecey, sleep! You can do it Reecey!") I slipped slowly out of wakefulness. The background noises merged into an incomprehensible mumble, and I became oblivious to the human baton change occuring as we stopped at various stations. I even grew delightfully ignorant of the waft coming from armpits of the handsome man next to me, which were a bit on the bugle (sorry Fletchie!). And it took me more than a few seconds to react when that same man pinched me on the bottom, dragging me from the periphery of consciousness to let me know that - miracle of miracles - two seats had become available!!

I stumbled across and plonked down in the seat next to Fletch. Now, this was child's play. With still 4 stops left until we would arrive at our destination, I rested my head against Fletchie's shoulder and snoozed soundly on the Shanghai subway. I even had a little dream about flying, which ended abruptly when our plane - errr, train - slid into the station and Fletch woke me up with a nudge. We had arrived at Jiangsu station, and I had achieved the unachievable!

I may have been slightly fuzzy- headed, but I swear the little old lady sitting next to me gave me a slight nod of respect as we squeezed past her out of the train doors. Or perhaps, she was just nodding off to sleep.

　

　

　

The 7 Most Wondrous Treasures of our Fickle Friend Hangzhou

(Running joke, please see previous post)

 

1.  Steaming Hot Steamed Buns

 

Nothing beats four piping hot pork steamed buns (zhurou baozi) for breakfast (Y6 = A$1), along with some sort of biscuit number (Y1 = A$0.16), enjoyed al fresco style on the West Lake.

 

2.  University Students Practising their English

 

En route to dinner on a crowded bus, we met a 19 year-old university student with grand plans to study in America ("Do you think I should study business or engineering?" he asked us). His father had spotted us as a useful target for his son to practise (or show off) his English. After 10 minutes, we asked how close we were to our intended destination. "I'm sorry," he said, "The West Lake is... ah... ahhhh... ehhh... how you say?  Op... Opp... Apposit..." "Opposite?" we asked.  "Yes, opposite direction. If you want to go to West Lake, you must... ahh... ummm... (pointing in the other direction) get off!"

 

3.  Paparazzi

 

Our stroll around the beautiful West Lake was graciously recorded by the local Hangzhou folk. Digital cameras and camera phones, overtly and covertly came out to record our presence. The shy ones pretended to check their text messages at eye level. The braver ones would approach us with camera in hand, "Keyi ma?" It's OK? "Keyi." Yes, it's more than OK for you to photograph us. Our question is, however, where are these pictures ending up? Is someone posting these on MySpace (Facebook is interneta non gratis in the PRC) with the status update of "Met the foreigners, anyone know which movie they are from?"

 

4.  Accidentally Walking into a,,, how you say?... Gentlemen's Club

 

(In Chinese) FH:  Can we come in?

Chinese Hostess: You, OK. Her, no OK.

 

5.  Accidentally Ordering Rat

 

Well, we're not exactly sure it was rat. But we went through the alphabet for all forms of small mammals and birds. It could have been a squirrel, but we stopped at "R", the circumstantial evidence was that great. Whatever it was, it eye-balled Reecey disconcertingly enough to get covered in green beans. Next time maybe we will spend more time with the pictures on the menu.

 

6. Line Dancing

 

It was no longer Halloween, but the 500 strong troupe of line dancers boot-scooting their stuff in the darkness that enveloped the shore of the West Lake by 9 pm on a Sunday night was comical, and just a little scary.   

 

7.  Reecey's First Encounter with the Jumpsuit Bum Slit

 

The Chinese response to toddlers' toilet accidents is ingenious for its simplicity: remove the seat of their pants. It was a bracing 8 degrees walking around Hangzhou today, and the poor kids, rugged up like little Chinese Michelin Men, had their @rses hanging out in the breeze. What a great incentive to learn how to use a (squat) toilet.

 

Email in a bottle...

Or maybe here: http://picasaweb.google.com/fletchheinemann/ChinaNov09# (with the asterisk at the end). Our apologies, but we cannot access Reecey & Fletchie's Humble Wanderings and Accidental Adventures (RAFHWAAA) from China. We can only send an email to an anonymous automated recipient and hope that it posts it with the rest of our ramblings. It's a bit like a message in a bottle, just 21st century style. In a similar vein, we can upload photos (and know how many have been uploaded), but cannot view the uploaded pictures. Eh, mei wenti (no worries).

Dreamy Hangzhou

"Lingering snow on the broken bridge", "Autumn moon over calm lake", "Orieoles singing in the willows", "Leifeng  Pagoda in evening glow", "Precious stone hill floating in rosy cloud" are just some of the names of the sights around Hangzhou's Xi Hu (West Lake). And while we didn't see any snow, orieoles or hills floating in rosy clouds, it is hard to go past the natural beauty of Xi Hu. Our photos are here:  http://picasaweb.google.com/fletchheinemann/ChinaNov09