Postscripts

China Visits Steve - 7/13/07 - Two high-level managers from towns in China came in to our office today, wanting to talk to a planner to get a feel for how planning works in the U.S. I was the one who ended up talking to them. I was better able to answer their questions because I had just been there and could use their own cities and processes as points of reference. They had a Thank You gift for me as well, a silk handkerchief.

Reunion Dinner - 7/11/07 - Both groups met in San Leandro for dinner and story swapping. The first group's membership almost all showed up, and they cheered as each person showed up. the second group, the one I was on, was more sedate. The best part of the evening was when Rob asked each of us to share a moment on the trip that they felt was most memorable, and also what they learned from the trip.

Letters of Appreciation - 6/15/07 - Several people have sent emails to the group thanking everyone for making the trip so nice. Everyone seems really pleased with how the trip went.

Bargaining Skills Improved - 6/13/07 - I was at an office supply store that was offering a "Buy 3 get 1 free" deal, but I asked for and got 2 free on the grounds that the 2 free things I wanted were together less expensive than some of the other free things I could have asked for. I initiated the negotiation effortlessly and without any hesitation. Negotiating became natural after two weeks in China.

Homecoming

Early Sunday morning we grabbed one last monster breakfast and scurried to the airport. It was a 100 Yuan ride on the freeway to the new Beijing International Airport. This airport was as modern and as clean as any in the West, and checkin went just as smoothly. We all made it to Hong Kong, where we did not have to go through customs but we did have to go through the temperature detector one more time. The temperature detector is like a metal detector, except that it works with something like a radar detector for heat. A person with the camera and monitor views people as they pass, and if your face shows up in any other color than green or yellow, they will check you for bird flu. I wonder what happens to people who do have a temperature as they pass, but for something innocuous. Do they lose their flight while medical technicians diagnose your case?

Both Dragonair and Cathay Pacific were wonderful airlines, and got us home on time. The first thing I noticed was how clean the air looked and smelled. I felt I could see for miles, and the sky was the first blue sky I had seen in 10 days. While coming back from Europe, Highway 101 might look a little run down, but coming back from Asia, its beautiful. I am glad to be back home.

The Forbidding City

On our last full day in China, we had one last planning-related presentation, then had the afternoon free to complete whatever final tour goals each of us had set for ourselves. For many of us, the final task was to attend the third fitting of the $150 hand-tailored suits many of us bought. For others such as myself, it meant visiting the sites that we hadn't been able to visit on the other days. This included the Planning Museum and the Forbidden City. But for five of us, the day began at 6:30 at the flea market.

The flea market has a permanent location in the southwest of the city and is held every Saturday and Sunday. It is about the size of a football field, with the area in the middle covered by a high roof, and the areas at the edges being occupied by tiny 10x10 lockable storefronts. I suspect the fleamarket is the wholesale source for all the trinkets that are sold by all the kiosks in all the tourist areas of the city. The storefronts house the most expensive goods with the most expansive selection, and are probably rented on a semi-permanent basis. The areas in the middle, long aisles with long tables hosting perhaps 40 sellers per bench, look like they could be reserved for regulars, rented on a month-to-month basis, with the better spots on the bench going to the highest bidders on a given week. Around the entrances and in remote corners of the complex are the amateurs who might go once a year in the same way we might hold a garage sale once a year. Those spots probably aren't reserved, and are assigned on a first-come first-serve basis. The aisles themselves were arranged by type of good, with a jade section, wood section, mask section, old farm implements section, and sections for every other type of tourist item. The sellers were not agressive in the least. It was a crowded but pleasant place to shop.

The prices here were not marked any more than at any other place, but for the smallest items, there was very little haggling, or need to haggle. Prices for bracelets started and ended at 7 Yuan. I could get beads at .8 Yuan per piece. Prices for larger items could still be negotiated.

We spent 90 minutes there then rushed back to the hotel for the huge buffet breakfast. This hotel had omelettes and breakfast steaks on offer. It was the best and most expensive hotel on the trip, but was worth it for the breakfasts that also served as lunch. Rumor had it that Hillary Clinton stayed here when she was in town once for a conference.

After breakfast we went to a newer district of town to listen to an Italian architect who has spent many years working in Beijing. We learned a lot about the design of Beijing, particularly the importance of the North-South axis, and about hutongs and their ability to serve as a mix of private and public space. Hutongs are endangered because an important element of their design is that they are one-story buildings, and thus can't handle the required densities of modern Beijing. Someone tried to develop a 2-story hutong, but the result lost the hutong flavor, and the locals didn't go for it. Either hutong or high-rise, nothing in between.

After our last lecture, I went to the Silk Market, where the hawkers were the most consistently agressive I had seen on the whole trip. Along some aisles, each hawker would claw at your arm in turn as you passed, and one of them grabbed one of us around the wrist with both hands and would not let go until support came. Nevertheless, it was the best place to buy nice silk shirts, and you could get them for 50 Yuan, about 10% of the initial asking price.

In the afternoon, some of us went on a tour of the Olympics sites, and the reports were all good. The Birds Nest stadium (it is made of long thin tubes arranged in a weave) and the Aquatic Center (it looks like it is made of blue bubbles pressed almost flat) were particularly impressive. I saw models of them at the Planning Museum, where I also saw a scale model of the city that filled half of the third floor. 3D was the fashion of the hour in the museum, as I saw another 3D model, smaller and in brass, on the wall in the stairwell, and they also offered a 3D movie showing the city and its development over history.

After the museum, two of us went to the Forbidden City. We may have been the only two in the group to have gone. The Forbidden City is under serious renovation, and the three main buildings were scaffolded up. Those smaller buildings that had already been renovated displayed rich reds, greens, blues, and golds. When the whole place is finished, it will be beautiful. The most impressive aspect to the place was the scale. The walls are huge and thick, and the plazas between major structures are vast. What the complex does not do well is vegetation. The whole place is stone, there are no incidental plants, trees, or lawns, and the one garden did not measure up at all to the peaceful and restful gardens of Suhzou.

We finished the evening with Peking Duck served in a restaurant that was probably once a hutong. We had a back room reserved for us. Our room overlooked the courtyard, where other guests ate and demonstrated their operatic prowess. The restaurant was located on a street that was lined with red Chinese lanterns, and was lined with one restaurant after the other. It could have been any place in the West.

The Great Wall

Yesterday we traveled to the Great Wall. The section we visited is a restored section of about 2 miles in length. A restored Great Wall is about 50 feet high and 20 feet wide. It varies in steepness from gentle slope to 2:1 staircases, and is lined with crenellations that are parallel to the path rather than to gravity. It runs along the crest of the hills and mountains. There is greenery on both sides, and you could easily see an enemy approaching from miles away, back in the days before smog. There were no blue skies to see on that day, and we could only see a shadow of the far towers of the wall through the smog, even though they were less than two miles away.

The wall beyond the restored section is intact, but covered with dirt and weeds that have grown over the neglected centuries. I could begin to doubt that you can see the great wall from space, because of all the overgrowth.

We got down from the Wall with a toboggan run. It lasted about 3 minutes. In the line I met a bunch of 10 year olds from an international school in Beijing. One of them approached me out of the blue in German and asked me if I was Deutsch. I answered in German that I was not German but could speak it well. They were impressed, though every one of the kids was fluent in English and at least one other language. They were really impressed when they found out I also spoke French. Then they actually said 'wow' and started vousvoyering me. They were mostly the children of diplomats, and in their group they had English/French mixes, Japanese/Canadian, and of course Germans. The least spoken language among them was Mandarin, though they had a working knowledge of it. I went down the toboggan right ahead of them, and managed to not let them catch up with me.

After the Wall hike we had lunch at the foot of the Wall, and walked a bit across some farmland on what felt like a French Grand Randonnee. After that we went back to Beijing and prepared to visit the Kung Fu & Opera. We could choose one or the other, but the reports afterward indicated that they were almost the same thing. They both had acrobatic Kung-Fu like dancing and music, and the main difference seemed to be the plot. The Opera was about love, and the Kung-Fu was about, well, Kung Fu.

For dinner I finally ate at one of the cultural icons of modern China, KFC. KFC is everywhere here, as popular as McDonalds, and KFC was here first. Its such a part of China that their presence here has made it into books. The Chinese KFC recipe is slightly more spicy, but recognizeably KFC. They have one thing here that I don't remember seeing in KFCs in the states, the custard/flan desert. I got a 6-pack of them, and they are delicious. The top is slightly caramelized, and the crust is flaky and light. The other KFC surprise is that they closed at 11. This was a KFC in the center of the capital city of the most populous nation on earth, and they kicked us out at 11. They didn't even let us linger. They turned out the lights like parents at a middle-schooler's party.

Beijing

Our first day in Beijing was not too eventful. We spent most of the morning trying to check into our hotel room and arranging for coffee. Getting coffee for the group can take a long time, because we tend to wander off while waiting for others. Its like herding cats. It was so bad today that we ended up taking our tour of the hutongs by rickshaw instead of individually driven bicycles. Our leader felt we would be easier to guide that way, and he was right.

We saw Tiananmen Square, and looked at the outside gate to the Forbidden City. We had lunch at the home of someone who showed us how to make dumplings, let us roll a few, then fed them to us. As usual, there were eight other dishes accompanying the dumplings. The meals are always huge, because we are always wanting to try everything. However, it is always healthy food, not junk food, and I had lost 10 unwanted pounds so far on this trip.

Xi'anadu

I was so impressed with Xi'an that I have more to write than I could finish in one typing session. Internet access is not ubiquitous here, even though the Xi'an hotel had free internet access (another example of Xi'an's class), and the hotel rooms have a bathroom sink made of clear glass, mounted above the granite countertop. It was the best hotel we had been in so far.
The hotel also served the best and most varied breakfast buffet so far on the trip, including Cheerios and Rice Krispies. Even the KFC here was excellent, and they had flan / custard cake desserts on the menu.

Xi'an is the most real city we have been in so far, with both positive and negative experiences. For example, at the end of the last post I mentioned Calligraphy Street. As we sat down to our kebabs and beers, we were immediately joined by one of the locals who wanted us to buy him a beer even though he had obviously had too much already. I thought he was going to get sick right in front of us. He sat down between the two of us with the best Mandarin, and made his desires known. We were considering honoring his request, but he lost patience before we could decide, and he grabbed for one of our beers. Quickly there were three hands on the bottle, and even more quickly his niece rushed in and whisked him away. We were left in peace after that. The pickpockets were also active in Xi'an. I caught someone trying to open my backpack while it was on my back, and someone else caught a strange hand in her purse.

Both of the pickpocketing incidents occured in the pedestrian tunnels, where it is easy to disappear in a crowd, or pick someone's pocket as they step on the down-escalator, so that if they try to chase you, they have to run up the down-escalator first. Imagine the head start they get. But those same tunnels are wide, well lit, and clean, and even had the first street musicians I had seen on the trip.

Our main purpose in going to Xi'an was not the Silk Road but the Terra Cotta Warriors. They have the exhibition site housed in a big open-air hall. They let you take pictures, with flash, and do not seem too concerned that all the visitors' sweat and CO2 will harm them. The warriors themselves were not so grand. I think the real attraction is in their age and the majesty of the undertaking. One is supposed to be in awe of the effort.

We left Xi'an by sleeper car. It was another type of bonding experience for the group, and very fun for all of us. We played hearts and chess, and watched movies on a portable taptop run off electricity from the train. The train passed through territory that reminded us all of the movies Blade Runner and the Terminator. In the night, through the lingering smog, we saw several nuclear and coal power plants spewing steam, several other manufacturing facilities outlined with lights, and passed through several fields where waste vegetation was being burned. Some of the grass fires were so close to the train tracks that I could feel their heat on the window as we passed. I would expect a similar scene after a battle between mechanized armies. There could be no humans in such a landscape.

At 7:18 and 30 seconds, we arrived punctually at Beijing train station. All of us had managed to get some sleep, and we walked to our bus (there is always a bus waiting for us, its like magic) and went to the new best hotel we have stayed in so far on this trip.

The End of the Silk Road

I thought I would start out with a picture today. I am the one with the beard. I thought a beard would be appropriate for a visit to the city where the Silk Road ends (from the Chinese perspective, the Silk Road starts here), but none of the chinese muslims sport beards. In every other way, however, the Silk Road has made its presence known here. This is the first city where people who really look and act differently are all living together in an integrated and organic way. It is a sense of mature multiculturalism that Shanghai, for all its international businesses and people, does not have.

One nice thing about Xi'an leapt out immediately. I saw a schoolyard with kids for the first time on this trip. This town has lots of children running around. I even saw toddlers wandering around. The kids have the strangest alternatives to diapers. Their pants are split at the crotch, so that when they squat, their bums are in the open air. The toddlers go right there in the street, both No. 1 and No.2. The city seems friendly to all of the young and innocent; even puppies and kittens look happier. In Nanjing I saw cats tied with leashes on the porches of storefronts, and they looked stressed and lost. Here in Xi'an I saw a puppy playing with a piece of paper. I later saw a second school, and in the Muslim Quarter I saw baby buggies, multi-child families, and 10 and 15 year old sons running restaurants.

There are 60,000 Muslims here in Xi'an. The Muslim Quarter has an outdoor market that looks like a bazaar, not a farmer's market. The streets are lined with merchants selling all kinds of trinkets (similar to most tourist districts in China) but also a wide variety of food I have not seen anywhere else in China. They specialize in breads and fruits, and of course the best stuff is when they combine the two to make dessert. We had dinner at a place where dinner's first step is to shred your own breadcrumbs to put into the soup. The soup itself was a mix of broth, rice noodles, beef, tofu, and other assorted vegetables. Eating it made us all sweat. Its a good thing the meal came with plum juice. We spent more on plum juice than we did on the soup. We were waited on by an 11-year old and a 14-year old. We got a look at the kitchen ou our way out, and the oldest son was standing in front of a 5x12 foot oven cooking with a wok over three foot high flames. When he sat the wok down on the oven, the flames would flare out around the sides of the wok with the look and hear of flames from a blowtorch. We saw a few more outdoor coal-burning jet engines being used to heat water and recycle plastic. They use coal here for all the cooking that I could see.

Later that evening we went to a shadow puppet show in a villa near the center of the Muslim Quarter. The villa and show were traditional Chinese. The puppets were pretty to look at, and the songs were done with the classic Chinese voices and instruments that I know only from TV. That show ended with a tea tasting that again reminded me of wine tasting (tasting is in order of lightest teas to strongest teas), and a presentation by an Australian woman who has lived here in Xi'an for several years on how Xi'an has developed recently. She told us that the city wall and moat have only recently been restored, that the South Street district was created in its historical style only last year after razing the old block-style apartment buildings that previously occuppied the site, and that the smog was not as bad as it used to be (she sometimes sees more than one blue-sky day a month now).

One of our group is almost confined to air-conditioned spaces because of the smog, and everyone has either burning eyes or stuffed sinuses. Still, its better than Nanjing by far, and all of us who braved the smog found that it did not prevent us from enjoying a 14 km bike ride around the top of the city wall. The wall is 50 feet wide at the top, and forms a square around the old town. The streets within are laid out in a grid, so you can get a good view across town along the main streets from the East Gate to the West Gate, and so on. The moat is another 300 feet wide, and has a park, a path, several ponds, public meeting areas, and mini-ampitheaters in the corners. It is all well used except for the top of the city wall, for which they charge admission. The walls themselves are about 100 feet tall.

Near the entrance to the gate where we entered the wall was a little historic district where the calligraphers and artists sell their goods to tourists and other artists. This is South Street, colloquially known as Calligraphy Street, and you can get nice trinkets here without being hassled too much by hawkers. Prices are marked on the goods. I bought a carve-it-yourself soapstone stamp for 30 cents. This is the district that was created from scratch to look historical, after some old apartment buildings were torn down. We went back to this district in the evening after our visit to the Muslim Quarter. They were very accommodating. When we expressed disappointment that the beers were not cold, they sent someone out to get cold ones for us. We had beef-kebab skewered on bicycle spokes, with a pinch of Cumin.