Shanghai Nights

We got into Shanghai today. Shanghai feels like a European New York. It has New York's lights and energy, and has European architecture and sense of history. We spent 50 RMB on a gin and tonic which we enjoyed on the 6th floor balcony of a 100 year old building overlooking the Bund. This capped a presentation and walking tour of the development history of Shanghai.

The Shanghai internet cafes ask for passports, and would photocopy them, so I have not posted while in Shanghai. Other than that, Shanghai was a very nice city. The people looked relaxed, there are plenty of little districts to explore, and the town is busy without being crazy. I didn't make it to the district called the French Concession, but others did, and compared it to Beverly Hills. I did make it to old town, and it is now a tourist trap. The central square looked just like the central square of a chinese Strasbourg, with the central building being a tea house instead of a cathedral. The buildings were white with dark brown timbers. There were two Starbucks there.

A major site of interest for us was the Shanghai planning museum. This museum has two scale models, one of Shanghai in its entirety, another of the section of the river that lies at its heart. The river model is 10 feet wide and 50 feet long, the city model is 50 feet by 100 feet. It shows every building existing and proposed to be built in the next 20 or so years.

Another highlight was the visit to the EDAW Shanghai offices. We have someone in our group who works for EDAW SF, but it was interesting for him as well to hear about the Asia projects. Most of what they are doing is at the master planning and conceptual level, because the implementation and specifics of design must be done by the local planning and design schools. EDAW is getting more and more business here.

Each time we took the metro it was so crowded that someone in our party got either left behind on the platform or left behind on the train. That's right, it is sometimes so crowded that you can't even get off the train in time.

The second evening we went to a bar where a pint of cider cost $10 US. They had a DJ downstairs and live music upstairs. It was mostly European men and Asian women. The bar was showing Aussie rules football, which looks to be about the best sport ever invented. It is apparently similar to Gaelic football, which is the best sport ever invented.

Planning in Yangshuo

Tonight we met with a resident of Yangshuo who has some knowledge of city-building. Ian is an South African guy who has lived here for 6 years. In a previous life, he was an architect. He does tourism now. We were able to ask him questions and have an interesting discussion about regional planning, building construction, land ownership, governmental laws, building height, and historic preservation. Hing, Erika, and I decided to join forces and write a joint blog post to discuss what we learned tonight.

Tourism is a driving force in the development of Yangshuo. When Ian arrived, Yangshuo was a sleepy village with a few cafes and mainly a tourist destination for those living in China. It first became popular with Chinese tourists who were fascinated with the influence of western backpackers in the area. For people who have trouble getting to Hong Kong, this is the next best thing. Because of the boom in tourism over the last 5 years, money has been 'pouring out of this area', and he means this in a good way, as in, there is so much money here that the city cannot contain it all. An area of several blocks has been demolished to make way for the construction of a new complex of commercial and hotel uses.

There is no strict building code and enforcement system in China like that of what you would find in the United States. It might be comparable to a remote and unincorporated area of some rural counties in the States. Permits for construction are not enforced. People just build what they like, sometimes with the help of an ex-architect friend like Ian who draws up plans to help order supplies and guide the actual construction.

Land ownership is fuzzy as well. The government owns the land, but in urban areas you get and hold the right to use the land. People don't pay property taxes on rural land. In rural areas, every 5 to 7 years the government divides up the land in a region and redistributes it to the local population. If the population in a town has changed, one might receive more or less land. If you are rich, being nice to the mayor might influence the results of the redistribution.

In China, building height is regarded as a status symbol. It's a matter of "keeping up with the Chans." Frequently you will see farm land with a 4-story building with only a finished ground floor. The upper floors would be left as an unfinished shell because the family could not afford to finish them, but wanted the status symbol of a taller building. Even the height of your threshold is noticed and compared to the neighbors.

The government will supply your building with water and electricity if it is within the height limit, but the government uses utilities as a means of enforcing building heights. If a building taller than desired is constructed, the government would cut off all utilities and the building would be forced to become self sufficient. I can see that as almost being desirable, in that you get the height you want and you are free of the government's golden handcuffs. Government-subsidized utilities are cheap, though, a single-person household can run on 4 RMB (US 50 cents) for water and 25 RMB for electricity per month.

The government has recently changed the laws regarding eminent domain (what superpower hasn't?). Previously, the government was able to take land from anyone with a week's notice to use for any purpose. In the past few years law has changed to only allow the government to take land from residents for public projects and infrastructure. However, when tourism picked up in the Yangshuo region (oh, right, we were talking about China), the government realized it could take a cut of the profits made from the bamboo raft tours and made a new law that prohibited development along the Yulong River. Shortly thereafter, all of the existing cafes and guesthouses were given a 1-week notice prior to demolition.

In China, people would rather live in modern homes than older ones and don't place the same value on older structures as our culture does. Often an older building is demolished and a new identical building is constructed in its place.

Negotiating China

We had the day off today, and I used it to go shopping. On my shopping list were sandals with straps so that I can run in them, a Chinese Chess set, and 2 light-colored T-shirts. My planned route was to go to West street (the pedestrian zone where the westerners hang out), then circle around to the kiosks by the river, then end with a stroll down the pre-boom main street of town, where locals still feel comfortable.

West street was pretty much built in the last five years, once Guilin, the previous holder of the title of prettiest city in China, became overdiscovered. We are an hour upstream from Guilin. West street is 1/3 bars, 1/3 trinket shops, and 1/3 clothes. There is nothing else there. Our hotel is across the creek over a bridge at one end of West street. I walked to the north end of West street, and turned on to an alley that serves as the local's West street. I strolled through but had a difficult time identifying a store where I could just buy a couple of T-shirts. I guess I was looking for a Mervyn's. Near the end of that street I passed a kiosk run by our Tai Chi instructor for that morning. To supplement his income, he does calligraphy and makes custom stamps. I asked for a stamp with the family name 'Ross' written on it. I got the 'friend' price, which means we didn't haggle - they didn't try to see if I would pay twice the going price out of ignorance. We also talked a little about Kung Fu, and he showed me a very nice Chinese Chess set. I really did feel like I had bought something from the store of a friend.

The next part of my loop brought me back to West street, where I saw one member of our group who had earlier shown up with two beautiful hand-painted T-shirts. She showed me the shop where she had bought the shirts. I was told I was getting the special 'friend' price by Stephanie, but somehow didn't believe it, and when I pointed out the shirt I did want the shopkeeper said that that was a more expensive shirt that the one Stephanie had bought. I didn't negotiate, and ended up paying twice what I should have.

Next I went to the far end of West street, where all the day kiosks were. I went to the first kiosk, and started negotiations on a Beijing Olympics T-shirt. She said 90, I said 20, she dropped to 70, I kept saying no, and we finally settled on 30 Mainland dollars (about $4 US). I have been wearing that shirt since then, and finally feeling cool.

I then started hunting the biggest game of the day, the sandals. I knew from the previous night out with the Eastwoods that I could get minimum quality sandals for around 50, so I was hoping to pay only that. I went to a store on the local's main street, and found Tevas there. Tevas are a lot nicer than what I was initially hoping to get, so I bargained for them. He started at 250, I countered at 50, and we got stuck between my 70 RMB and his 85 RMB. I went looking for another shop that had Tevas, since I had tried the Tevas on at the first shop and liked how they felt. At the second shop, which was on touristy West street, the bidding started at 450! I again countered at 50, and she asked me which currency I meant. I couldn't get her below 100, so I walked away. That brought her price down by 200, which brought my offer up by 10. We got stuck again and I walked away again, and the price dropped to 100 RMB. I had done more work with her and not gotten as far, so I decided to go back to the first store and pay 85. As I rounded the corner he saw me and said "welcome back". I did feel welcome, and paid my 85 and left happy.

Postscript: In Shanghai they post prices even in stores in the most touristy districts, and while negotiation is possible up to maybe 20%, its a lot easier to buy things in Shanghai. The prices are reasonable compared to the volatile Yangshuo negotiated prices. In the future I would just buy my trinkets in Shanghai.

PostPostscript: Xi'an is the place to buy trinkets. Marked prices, volume discounts, and no aggressive hawkers.

Yangshuo day off

I found an internet cafe. There are 50 computers in this room, every one of them with headphones and a webcam. The browser interface is in Chinese, so I have to rely on memory to understand which buttons to click.

We did Tai Chi first thing this morning, and the instructor used fight examples to explain the moves. We then went to the noodle restaurant and had more of the freshest noodles I have ever tasted. They were probably the noodles I saw them making last night.

Yangshuo

Yangshuo is the place that we see on pictures with the hills that are very steep, green and poking up out of a very flat river valley. The countryside shows up on the chinese $20 bill. It is even more beautiful than you can imagine from the pictures. There are thousands of these formations extending as far as the eye can see. We are staying in an exquisitely decorated hotel right at the entrance of the tourist and nightlife district. On this day we went on a bike ride to a mini-cooking school in the countryside. They had woks, burners, and tables in two medium-size rooms, all set up to let students cook some local food. We made five dishes then ate them afterwards. Everyone's favorite was beerfish. We ate while looking out over the Yangshuo countryside. Idyllic.

After lunch, many of us rode further on up the valley for a further tour of the landscape. The road we were on got smaller and smaller as we progressed. We passed two graveyards and several settlements of maybe 10 houses each. At some points we were riding on 1 foot wide dirt paths that served as walls separating two rice fields. It was strenuous, and we weren't sure we were going in the right direction. At one point my front tire went flat. I was just getting used to the idea that I would be lost in the countryside with a bike with a flat tire, when we came across the sought-for bridge, and at that crossroads we found kiosks serving drinks, and one kiosk with a bike repair kit. The handyman charged me 10 times the going price for tire repair, but I think he well understood I would be happy to pay the extra $1.25.

After the bikeride we took a mini-bus a short distance to the home of some of the original settlers of this area, for dinner cooked in their style. They came at us with plate after plate of local specialty. We were overwhelmed.

We finished off the night by going to a nightclub to celebrate Hing's birthday. Our guide Mark scared up a cake, and we pretty much owned the upper room for the evening. We played a 7-hand round of liar's dice where those who had played the game the most were out the quickest and those who were in at the end were those who have faces that can only tell the truth.

The next morning we started out with another bike ride and rode to one of the more interesting limestone hills in the area, one that has an arch in it, which was right across from the village where we had dinner the previous evening. We hiked up to the arch, matched step for step by some of the women from the village who would fan people as they walked up the hill, and then at the top offer them a drink from the cooler they carried up. I could barely make it up the hill once, and these women might do the hike several times a day, carrying drinks for others. Its very hard work, but one of them mentioned that it beat farming.

In the afternoon most of the group went to the exact location where the landscape of the $20 bill is, but I stayed in town with Rob and family and got a tour of the local part of Yangshuo, the non-touristy part. They showed me the top noodle and dumpling store, and also helped me with my shopping bargaining technique.

On to Mainland China

This morning we got a tour of Hong Kong that included parts of the city where high finance has not yet taken over the land or the way of life. We learned about how development in the city was formed in part by the location of the water front at the time of development. They keep filling in parts of the harbor, so streets that were once at water's edge are now four streets back and hidden behind skyscrapers. Our guide told us one story about how an architect was hired by one bank to create a structure that would appear threatening to the nearby building of a competing bank. We also traveled a bit on the longest outdoor escalator in the world.

Most interesting on that morning tour was the appearance of little Manila. It was Sunday, and on Sundays all of the household help for the HKers have the day off. A vast multitude of them (150,000?) are filipinas, and they all meet in the public areas and just hang out, paint their nails, and gossip about their employers. This phenomenon was described in an Economist article called "The Filipina Sisterhood".

In the afternoon we began our journey to the Mainland. We used taxi, foot, minibus, ferry, and plane to get there. There were no immigration problems or questions at any time. The Shenzen airport reminded me of the former DDR. The buildings were all well maintained, but looked like they had been built a while ago and were not the most modern anymore. Also the cafes and the tables in them just seemed outdated. We had three waiters waiting on our table at the café where we ate dinner. The prices were still airport-high, relief from Hong Kong prices would have to wait until we got to Yangshuo.

Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8:30, but was delayed for two hours because of weather, but we called our minibus pickup and were able to get to our hotel in Yangshuo after midnight.

Lan Kwai Fong

We are in Mainland China as I write this. It has been difficult to get internet connections compared to Hong Kong, but we have two laptops with us on the trip so we manage. I will have to do a couple of posts retroactively.

After we got back from Macao we went to dinner in Kowloon and got the corner table on the third floor of a restaurant with a view of the waterfront. We didn't get too much of the view because the windows were fogged and we were paying to o much attention to each other. Where we in the west had marble on the floor, this restaurant had jade, and instead of the best silverware, we had gold-banded ebony chopsticks. After dinner several of us went to the Lan Kwai Fong district.

The Lan Kwai Fong district is the chief party place for ex-pats to meet. The demographics in Lan Kwai Fong matched that of clubs around San Francisco's financial district, with Indians replacing Hispanics. The first club we went to was the most exclusive one on the steet we ended up at, and we couldn't get in because of open-toed sandals, despite having a contact inside the club.

The second place we went to was hard to find and accessible only through a footpath, and was so dark that you could only recognize people from their silhouette as they passed in front of obscured red lamps. This bar was a little too loud and smokey for some of us, whe went around the corner to a quieter and more talkable place. When they had their fill, they came back to the group and we travelled to our third stop, the techno bar across the street from the exclusive bar that would have none of us.

The techno bar had been overflowing with people an hour previously, and still looked full from the outside, but we found a table right away. Just as quickly I decided this was the time to make my break for the German kneipe I had seen down the street the previous day. I took two others with me, and on our way their we past the Russian Ice House bar where they have a 10x10x10 refrigerator that you and several friends can walk into and sit down in and enjoy a few drinks in. Bearskin coats are provided. The German bar was authentic down to the type of benches they had at corner tables. It took just the right amount of time to pour a pils, and we managed to get a seat on the front porch. We people-watched for an hour, witnessed no fights, saw two chinese supermodels, and took a $20 US taxi ride home to the YMCA.


The next morning I found someone passed out in the lobby outside my 12th floor hotel room. I could not poke him awake but hotel security could and did. That was when I knew that my night in the Lan Kwai fong was over.

Macau

Today the group visited Macau during the day, and most of us also went to the nightlife district Lan Kwai Fong.

Our trip to Macau started with a 1.5 hour ferry boat ride across the Pearl River delta. For much of the ride it felt like we were on the open ocean, with only islands visible. Some of the islands looked like something someone could buy and build a house on, about the size of Angel Island in the SF bay. Our guide for the day, Christina, actually lives on one of the larger of these islands, one that is a 30 minute boat ride from Hong Kong and has a populatino of about 40,000.

Our visit to Macau had three parts. First was a lunch at a Portuguese restaurant, next was a long meandering walk through the older districts of Macau, and last we checked out the new casino district. From the ferry terminal , we immediately got onto a bus that took us down the main streets to our restaurant at the far side of town. Macau's european feel was immediately evident from the size of the cars, the size of the bus station, and the age and size of the buildings. The buses and other vehicles were smaller, there were a lot of mopeds, and the buildings were old and mostly 6 stories or less. It reminded me most of Malta, from density, the look and mix of the people, and the apparent wealth / poverty of the city. Along the drive we saw one classic pedestrian shopping zone, that would have fit in any Mediterranean town of decent size. The buildings also were mixed in age, with the older buildings being repainted in light colors with white trim.

The restaurant looked and tasted classic Portuguese. We shared about 6 different dishes, with seafood and curry being my favorites. The house specialty is chicken. We made the mistake of not trying the sangria with our lunch. At the beginning of our lunch we had as a guest an ex-pat from Idaho who works as a historian and culture specialist in Macau. He is attracted to Macau becausee of its laissez faire attitude. Macau does have a reputation as being a sort of frontier, wild west of the east town, but the town presented itself pretty well to us.

We walked from the restaurant on the far side of the island back through the old town to the casino district. On the way we saw some of the oldest cultural institutions on the island, including a temple with incense and prayers carved into rock, several centuries old churches, and fortress walls. The physical layout included town squares and walkways and pedestrian zones and 20 ft. wide streets lined by 6 story balconied buildings. That walk showed us the true Macau.

At the far side of the walk was the casino district. The new casinos and buildings are typical modern Las Vegas, with buildings recreating entire themes, like the roman colisseum, a volcano, and a smaller but still imposing copy of the forbidden city. We didn't go inside any of them, but one of them, the Sands, is supposed to be the largest in the world. Another, still under construction, is shaped like a lotus. Most of them are finished with gold-tinted glass, and some of them include other colors as well, either other mettalics (bronze and silver), or gemstone colors (ruby, emerald, and sapphire). The whole package does not yet compete with Las Vegas, but there is great potential in its own right.

View from Victoria Peak

Last night we finished our day by taking the tram up to Victoria Peak, then having dinner in a district of Kowloon that reminded me of the streets between Les Halles and the Pompidou Center in Paris. Hong Kong in general reminds me of New York, expecially with how quickly I can spend money here. Our lunch earlier in the day was in a party-district of Hong Kong, all-you-can-eat dim sum. The selection was enourmous, and I only recognized one item, pot stickers.

The view from Victoria Peak was great, and we were there around dusk so we saw both the daytime view and the nightlights view. It surprised me how small Victoria Harbour is, especially being used to San Francisco Bay. The tram itself was climbing at least a 45 % slope. From the peak we could also see some of the places we had toured earlier under the guidance of an urban designer who works for HOK here. Sylvester is a native of Berkeley, with family roots in Hong Kong. He gave us a lot of insight on how western planning interests in preservation help moderate some of the growth-driven plans for China.

In the evening we ate at a typical restaurant in Kowloon, chosen because we were standing next to it when we finally decided to get something to eat. Those of us that had flown in on that day from the US turned in early, and I think the rest may have stayed out until midnight.

There are not a lot of children running around Hong Kong. I don't see (or don't recognize) schools, and many of the children I do see are with tourists. Maybe those with children choose not to live so close to the city center.

Pause at Coffee Shop

We are about to take a tram up Victoria Peak, but all 15 of us need to get coffee first. The cafe has an internet connection and a free computer to use (for customers only), so I am logging on really quick to get another note in.

1) They have skyways here that have escalators. In some areas of the town the skywalks plus shopping center halls create a complete separation of pedestrian (2nd floor) and auto (1st floor).

2) I might be on a web cam right now.

3) They have 2 mini models of Hong Kong and Victoria Harbor, in the Planning Exhibition.

Arrival in Hong Kong

My flight to Hong Kong was uneventful. The flight was smooth, and I met three other tour members while waiting to board. After arrival a fourth caught up to us before we even got through immigration, and together we decided to take the express train into town. The shuttle is fast and comfortable, and took us almost directly to the center of Kowloon, just across from Hong Kong Island.

Our first impression was the view from the train. It was very green, and the apartment buildings are huge. Getting off the train we were introduced to Hong Kong air. It is thick with moisture, smells, and sounds. It could take some getting used to. Aside from the population density and thick air, it does seem very western. I feel very comfortable speaking English.

Our first adventure was in trying to choose a place to eat. We had all heard stories about how the food might upset a stomach not used to it, so we were reluctant to experiment too much. We ended up with noodles, topped with pork, steak, or steaming hot vegetables. Nobody touched the soup.

This will be a long day. Not only did we have the flight, but there will be lots of walking. This is the only day we will really get a chance to see Hong Kong. Tomorrow we will be in Macau, and Sunday we leave for mainland China.

Packed and ready to go

Tomorrow evening I leave for China, on a tour organized by city planners for city planners. The tour that we set up was attractive enough that we needed to set up a second group in order to accomodate all the people that wanted to go. I am going with the second group.

One of the planners in the first group set up a blog, and posted just about every day. I enjoyed reading it, so I am returning the favor by setting up this blog for the second tour.

I finished packing today, so for the first time since planning the trip I can concentrate on the enjoyment of the trip rather than on the work of planning and preparing for it.