Impressions of China: Closing the Old Year, Ringing In the New!

     For me, the end of 2017 and the beginning of the New Year began Christmas Eve with a 5:30 am flight from Palm Springs to San Francisco’s airport – SFO. Watching the weather forecasts on the nightly news I was heartened to see, for once, the west was clear even as a new ice age seemed to engulf the south and east. With San Francisco’s famous fog you never know. The flight left SFO on time to begin my 12-hour flight to Beijing. Oddly I couldn't sleep and read, watched the onboard movies and one on my iPad.

China has one time zone and they are 16 hours ahead of us so it’s a long flight (and a very long day). I arrived on Monday, Christmas Day at 3:30 pm in Beijing, went through Immigration and customs and was done quickly. The hold up was the nearly 90 minute wait to get my luggage. I had about given up hope when suddenly the conveyor started up again and suitcases began to spill out. Part of the problem is that you are miles away from where the plane disembarks and where you get your luggage.

Not only was there this complex, it's sister was across the street. In summer the pond is filled. Now, everything is frozen.

My host and friend was waiting for me in the international lobby and we began looking for a bus to take us to Tianjin, his home, and China’s third largest city. This was about a 3-hour journey and once in Tianjin we had to find a taxi to get to his complex. Let me say right here, in America you build a condo with maybe one or two towers, in China or at least Tianjin, Beijing and I would guess Shanghai, you build 10, 20, maybe even 30. Walking past them they loom up like mountains above the street. In my case his towers were identical on both sides of the street. I know, I got lost on the wrong side and freaked out. I learned to tell what stores were in the front of both sides of the street.

The weather was clear and sunny the first few days but cold. It never got over 42º and nights could drop down into the teens. The worst day, the day we went to the street market, with wind chill it was 5º and we had to bail after an hour or so. And yes, there were smoggy days that resembled LA in the 80’s.

Walls of condos seen from bus

In China our states would be called provinces but their three biggest cities are given province status not unlike Washington, D.C. Tianjin is huge. 13 million people in an area the size of LA’s city limits. Condo towers are everywhere, the main streets are huge, often 8-10 lanes wide. Crossing the street is like playing a 6 dimensional game of chess. People, bikes, mopeds of which there are many hauling any and everything you can imagine, cars, trucks and buses all vie with each other going across an intersection. There are signals of course but NOBODY obeys them. I never saw a wreck or someone hit like I do in Palm Springs, but it’s not for lack of trying. You must look 360º before you cross just about any street. The city needs to bring in a few California traffic cops. With the fines they would get, just on the first day, the city would literally be rolling in money. Somehow it all works but it can be pretty scary.

Tianjin's 1404 Drum (clock) Tower

Our first day sightseeing together we went to the area of a drum tower built in 1404. It was the town clock at its center and every hour someone would bang the bell. Now you can do it anytime its open but it was an impressive structure and the museum inside gives you a view of its place in Tianjin’s history. His condo is inside what would have been the ancient city walls. He is close to the river and several temples and areas that were developed by Europeans. In some dispute with the Emperor a force of 8 European nations tore down the ancient walls in 1908. We found the old Austrian-Hungary Empire consulate built around 1889. From what I could understand the Europeans and Japan made increasing demands on the weakening Emperor and those demands increased with the birth of the Republic. It’s not a kind history and explains much of their distrust of the West.

Our next day, with smog forming, we visited a preserved merchants house built in 1911. The compound had 288 rooms some with the finery they would have had then. I was stunned. The man only had one child and yet he had all this. It wasn’t hard to see why there was a revolution. If you were to see the hutang’s, tiny narrow streets, still visible today, with the one-story homes with no heat, electricity or water, you would understand that this home and lifestyle was very different from how the majority lived.

This home was along the river and all around it a new mall in the classic temple design was being built. It was a shame but then, maybe, like in ancient Rome, this was how the home would have been located. In it’s history so much of China has changed and was changed especially during the Cultural Revolution.

One of the many beautiful malls we saw.

Since I was not staying in a hotel, I had to register with the police within 24 hours of arrival. It took 3 days, really. My friend called when we got to the condo. Wait until tomorrow he was told. We walked in the next day. The person we needed was out sick. Finally on the third try there was someone that could register me. Now, not unlike a Chinese Mandarin only speaking visitor coming here, my going there, and not speaking Mandarin, well you can just imagine. What made it worse, it looked like they had never done this before? After about an hour I was a legal visitor to that neighborhood and we went about our business.

I would walk each day exploring and since few spoke English and I saw few Westerners ever, I had to be careful to watch where I walked. Photos helped but I got lost in the wrong condo complex because I turned right instead of left.

Bikes for rent are everywhere. The mall in the background
is vacant. One of many deserted ones that I saw.

On my walks and discussions, I discovered that Chinese merchants are experiencing the same dilemma as America. I found several huge malls that were abandoned. One of the most popular at one point, huge by any standard, had a high wall around it and had no way in. Beams were rusted out, windows gone; it was literally derelict. Yet there would be a mall across the street bustling. Of the malls I saw and they are everywhere, at least 25-50% of them were closed. We found a similar story with office buildings, a museum that was built but never opened. 
The malls had interesting names … Lucky City Mall, Joy Fashion Mall and such. Those that were open were magnificent rising 5, 6, even 7 stories high. Floors also were concentrated in offerings. Most had a kid’s floor with shops aimed especially for children, food courts were actually restaurants offering not only Chinese but Korean BBQ and hot pot, a variety of Japanese cuisines, Muslim Chinese, American McDonalds and KFC (if you saw a McDonald’s there would be a KFC in line of sight) even a western style pub. Because Tianjin is a port city their specialty is seafood and the food was delicious. However, I also ate things I never thought I would but survived without a single day of the touristas. My friend and I have similar tolerances and if he wouldn’t eat it, neither would I! We drew the line at grilled scorpions on a stick we saw in a food court.

We passed up scorpions
and crickets on a stick.

The highlight of the trip, for me was Beijing. I had wanted to see the 798 Art District, obviously the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven. It was cold and because of that and the distance away we decided to hold a visit to the Great Wall until there was warmer weather. He sent me a photo of the walls covered in snow with nary a person in sight saying, “We should have gone. No one was there.” And I could see why!

We spent our Beijing arrival day traipsing around the 798 Art District, something he had not seen. While there were many galleries and such, it was a gentrified vision of art, very different from the grittier Dafen Village in Shenzhen. Prices here were expensive and you rarely saw the artists. It was fun but given a choice I would head back to Dafen Village.

That night we had Peking Duck in a famous restaurant. It was my first time and it was heavenly. Since our hotel was nearby we walked over to Tiananmen Square to see it at night. Much of the area has barricades, we had to pass through metal detectors and I had to show my passport to enter the area. There, smiling down at us was an illuminated Mao. It looked big but the next day in daylight I was stunned at the size of the Forbidden City.

After a feast of Peking Duck, we walked over to Tiananmen Square.

We got up early and walked over to get tickets. You can buy them online but because I was a foreigner we had to show up in person, passport in hand. They limit the number of tickets sold each day so we were there when it opened. I should mention here that I have never shown my passport as much as I did in China. In fact, I showed it more times in 21 days than the rest of my life … say 50 years of traveling. The crowds were light that day and we spent the entire day exploring. I had just seen a NOVA special about the building of the Forbidden City and scientists were amazed that it’s over 900 buildings had never failed despite horrific earthquakes. In fact in 1976 a nearby city was destroyed and 250,000 lost their lives in an earthquake. It appears that the earth’s crust is shallow there and subject to periodic shakers. Tests of perfect miniatures on an earthquake table showed the structures could withstand a 10.5 earthquake and maybe more. Scientists are studying the reasons why they survive.

Nothing prepares you for the vastness of the Forbidden City. I mean nothing!
I had seen a PBS Nova special on its construction before coming and that alone  was amazing.

Once through that first wall you are stunned to see an open space that must measure at least 5 football fields in size. A vast, stone expanse opens up to the outside walls and the interior structure and its wall. It goes on and on. In magnificence it rivals Karnack in Egypt. Every balustrade, many of the stairs and spaces between are carved with intricate images. The buildings are wood and one has burned several times, the Emperor’s changing building, but not one has been lost to an earthquake.

The travelers!

It was cold and several times we ducked into a trinket shop to get coffee or just warm up. Starbucks opened a coffee shop inside and the outrage was so great they took it out. I was approached once and then many times by locals who wanted a photo with me. I had on a red knit hat and so I guess with my white beard they thought (and told my friend) I was Santa. It happened other times as well; the last time was in the seafood restaurant the night before I left. The manager begged me and so I had him also take a photo with me!

By about 5 pm we were cold and hungry so took a cab to a famous Korean Hot Pot restaurant. If you have never eaten this, seek it out! You start with a bubbling broth usually filled with mushrooms. You pick your meat served fresh and slivered to be dropped in the broth. Also veggies, of any variety, are cooked and eaten. You can make your own dipping sauce. It was fun and absolutely delicious. We thawed out and then headed back to our room.

Breakfast came with our room and it was an interesting experience too. There doesn’t seem to be as clear a demarcation of what they eat compared to westerners. The food was good and I tried out a variety of items I would have normally equated with lunch or dinner. We packed it in as we usually missed lunch.

Lama Tibetan Buddhist Temple

The next day we didn’t have to check out until the afternoon so we headed over to the Lama Tibetan Buddhist Temple. Again, it was painted with intricate paintings and scenes. Next came the Temple of Heaven, the famous round temple so many photos show when showing Beijing. It was late morning and while clear the wind came up and we hurried around before we froze. After here we got our stuff and headed to the train station to go back to Beijing. One thing I noticed was that there were stewardess’s … uniforms and all. Also train security was no different than what you would find at the airport.

The Temple of Heaven

It’s hard to tell where Beijing ends and Tianjin begins. There were open spaces and we saw the ruins of old village homes razed and huge complexes rising next door. In the distances you saw huge cranes rising from empty fields. I was told that when that happens, the people displaced get first dibs on a new home for free. They only pay a bit more if they want a larger size. Since I never got into one I don’t know but I imagine they were grateful for inside bathrooms, an inside kitchen, heating, electricity, running water. What I thought were public toilets were the toilets for residents on these small hutang’s who had to go outside and down the lane for basic needs. This was how my friend grew up.

If you ever saw the movie “Lost In Translation,” a movie about two Americans in Tokyo and how alienated they felt (I had been there just before the movie came out and could identify) I found that China was very similar. Tianjin is not a western tourist destination though many visit the city from Beijing. You could tell by their accents. There was only one English TV station and it was basically a PR mouthpiece for the government. I was cut off from the outside world. No Google, no Gmail, no Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, normal news feeds, any of the things you look at every day! I went to the Apple store and had them help me attempt to get my mail through a VPN, as I needed to pay bills as the newly elected treasurer for my HOA. It never worked well and I had to use his laptop, tap into Yahoo and could see some of it. However, his screen was in Chinese and I could only click icons I recognized that hopefully would get me where I wanted or needed to go. In some ways it was rather liberating and in others you felt like you were living “1984.”

No one reads a book or newspaper anymore!

One of the great ironies is that cell phones are like appendages to the Chinese. I can see the first smartphone implants being done here! You would get on a bus or train and everyone, and I mean EVERYONE is holding a smart phone. Other than rushing through tunnel noise, trains were silent for the most part with everyone holding and reading a cell phone earplugs in place. I would also see them looking online to buy things. My friend admitted he bought most of his things online … from vendors he trusted, trusted more than what he could buy in a store.

One of the mysteries of the first arrival of Chinese immigrants in the mid 70’s was their attempt at bargaining over prices. Americans look at a price and buy or not, you hope maybe there’s a sale but to bargain at the register? Never. I was told that prices, even tagged prices were routinely high and you bargained at the register to get a better price. Ah! Mystery solved. Also, I learned from an Asian friend here to always check your register receipt. When he found a mistake at COSTCO, of all places, I started paying closer attention. One purchase at another store was over $20 off and while he grumbled the manager gave me credit and had to re-ring my purchases. The other lesson is to always ask if there is an additional discount. I laughed when he told me this in Palm Springs. I stopped laughing when he would ask and get an additional discount!!! When I did it and was given one I asked, “Why didn’t you just give it to me? I was told, “You have to ask for it.”

After a 40-hour day coming home and greeting my rapturously happy dog, it felt strange not wearing a scarf, a big puffy coat, a knit hat and gloves while walking her. Balmy 70’s at night replaced a nippy 18º.

New China, as the natives refer to it, is amazing. You see old and new literally rubbing against each other. They, like us are suffering economically (though they don’t want to admit it), and young people are having trouble finding jobs. Children and parents go abroad to get jobs because there aren’t any, with their training, available at home.

One of the greatest pleasures ... shopping here on shopping street

I realized sitting at the mall one day eating ice cream that everyone I saw 40 and younger was born under the one child policy. So in essence you had a country filled with single, and as many sociologists would note, selfish, indulged children. Being an only child, they had never really learned to share. They also had never gone through the privations of their parents; the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, just like the Boomer generation never experienced the Great Depression and World War II.

I loved China and realize that even at my age I need to learn at least some Mandarin and some of the characters. While I can hear their sounds I just can’t seem to get my mouth to repeat them. Looking at the characters that are ubiquitous everywhere, it wouldn’t hurt me to learn ones I need to know. But even there, I learned characters are contextual and meanings depend on characters that surround them.

Sellers were already getting ready for Chinese New Year
next month. Out with the old, Year of the Rooster, and in
with the new, Year of the Dog.

Until you are the only Westerner you don’t realize how alienated you can become. One night we decided to go to the Blue Frog Bar & Grill. We discovered that Monday night was a 2 for 1 menu. They had a huge luscious looking hamburger and both of us were ready for something different. We also discovered that covered everything on the menu so I had a Hoegaarden beer and hamburgers.

In many ways, the Chinese are much like Americans. They all hustle in one way or another. You would see craftsman outside in the cold creating things, everyone seemed to want to deal. I had first experienced this in Hong Kong where street vendors worked until late every night to be ready to sell in the morning. You wonder how all the restaurants can survive when you see only a few or no patrons inside. We think of them as copyists but we tend to forget that many of their inventions preceded Europe’s and historians are beginning to understand they invented things long before the Europeans. In 1434 a treasure fleet visited Venice and the Pope was given a printed book with all the knowledge of China at the time. Printed materials with movable type were invented in the 1300’s in China. Gutenberg’s printing press created a printed Bible in 1452.

The leaders of New China are everywhere. This poster
was inside my friends condo complex. We could never
imagine posters like this here.

China is an evolving, enduring and dynamic place. Politics aside, it has a healthy distrust of the west. Since the first contact in the late 1400’s on their homeland, others have tried to shove their influence on them without realizing the vast, proud and very wealthy country they have always been. There is so much yet to see and I can’t wait for my next visit.

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where the emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! Be sure to check my re-opened ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. Many of the items talked about here are for sale there!