Train to Xi’an

Yesterday afternoon we went to the Baoding train station where Zhou had arranged tickets for the three of us on an overnight train to Xian. This is not as easy as it sounds as tickets are hard to come by at the last minute. So Zhou called in a few favors with a couple directors working at the station and we were given three sleeping cots.

It was not the best night’s sleep as the cots were hard and whenever the train passed another train going in the opposite direction, both blasted their horns. For some reason, I was in constant dread of derailing. I must have been confusing the Chinese train system with the English.

It felt like I slept five minutes at a time the whole night. Five minutes on my left side – five minutes on my back – five minutes on my right side. Repeat. Otherwise, I felt fine and I have had worse nights.

In the morning, I had to use the bathroom, a harrowing experience. It was a floor toilet and either the car had exhausted its water supply or service had been discontinued as we approached our destination. I was sufficiently traumatized but I have lived to tell the tale. I believe it is another one of Mao’s famous sayings: “A man is not a man until he has used a floor toilet that will not flush.”

We arrived at the station at about 6:30am. As soon as we got on the platform, we were approached by a fast-talking young man. He handed Zhou his card and made his pitch. It must have been pretty good because Zhou hired him as our local guide. The scene just outside the station was a madhouse, the kind of chaotic press of people that I instinctively associated with China but hadn’t really encountered before now.

Our guide obtained a little taxi-van for us and we were driven to a high rise on the other side of the city center where Zhou and S spent several minutes negotiating with staff at the front desk...

Back at the Internet Cafe in Baoding

Just return from Gaodong (very sticks.) Very happy to be back in Baoding. Had a marvelous lunch. We're off to Xian this evening by train for the Terra Cotta warriors. Much to relate but short of time at the present. Still can't check my Gmail -- bloody hell. Try again next time.

A Note on Driving in China

The freedom and creativity with which the Chinese interpret the rules of the road makes the American highways look like the height of totalitarianism. With the variety of vehicles on the road, ranging from bicycle to tractors, donkey carts to full-sized buses, some flexibility is required. That a pedestrian isn’t killed every two minutes on a street corner in Beijing is a miracle of modern life.

Turning left at a signal generally involves driving straight into oncoming traffic and veering off toward the cross-street at the last possible moment. If one is experience at doing this – or lucky – he will end up going in the right direction.

In America, honking your horn is no less than a declaration of war. In China, it is as common as saying, “excuse me” though it might be more accurately translated as “pardon me, six inches to the left and you’ll be as flat as a noodle.”

Oncoming traffic is otherwise known as the passing lane.

Remarkably, this seems to be an efficient system. And while traffic is almost always heavy, gridlock is rare. One traffic citation would probably bring the whole system to a grinding halt.

Dirty Dancing in Gaodong

The ballroom was a bar/club on the second floor of the other wing of our hotel. Disco balls, dance floor, television monitors for karoake, Chinese pop music blasting. The room was empty when we arrived except for the bartender, who was over in the karoake control room fiddling with the sound system, and four or five young women in make up and tacky clothing sitting in a clutch over by the door. S referred to them as "dancing girls." Apparently, they were staff members.

A dancing girl was distributed to each of the males in our party (Uncle Bobo, myself, the mayor and his assistant) as we sat down. Uncle Bobo took to his girl, the tall one, immediately and when he was not dancing with her, he avuncularly ran his hands up and down her legs. I felt awkward dancing with my girl, but Uncle Bobo encouraged me and S acted like it was the most natural thing in the world. I couldn't say anything to my girl except "thank you," but I tried to be a gentleman. She kept me well supplied in bottled water and insisted on shelling my pinenuts, despite my gestures not to trouble herself. I shelled some pinenuts for her. To my knowledge, it is the first time I have danced with a, ahem, professional. A rite of manhood, I suppose, right up there with walking on the Great Wall.

Later another group of Chinese businessmen entered the club and was seated at a little table on the other side of the dance floor. Instantly, more young women appeared wearing too much cosmetic. The men looked like they were already flowing with rice wine and, while on the dancefloor, I noticed a couple girls having to practically resort to martial arts to extricate themselves from the aggressive embrace of their partners.

S had a grand time singing karoake and dancing with the mayor and his assistant. There was one page of Western song titles that ran about halfway through the letter A. S cajoled me into singing one song. I gave a rather mournful, off-key rendition of "All You Need Is Love." I'm no Bill Murray.

I think Uncle Bobo ended up taking one or two girls back with him to his room across the hall. As we left the club, he pulled the mayor and his assistant aside for some kind of intense, private negotiation. And though he was alone when we got back to our rooms, I've heard the door to his room slam twice since then.

S just backed up the toilet. Unable to flush it clear, and the phone out of order, she sent me down to the front desk with a note. The girl there read it and said something to me in Chinese, at which point I realized that I don't even know how to say, "I don't speak Chinese" in Chinese. (And, stupidly, it's not in my phrase book.) One of the busboys followed me back to the room, retrieving a plunger along the way. Once back here, I asked S how to say, "I don't speak Chinese":

Wo bu hoy shwa zhong-wan. (phonetically)

"Does anyone here speak English?"

Shway hway jong ing-wan?

We offered the busboy ¥5 for his trouble. But he steadfastly refused, saying it was against hotel policy to take tips. (I just read in my phrase book that tips are illegal in China.) So S decided to write a letter of compliment to the hotel manager -- or she decided to have me write one which she would translate into Chinese. She says it will be a big lift for his career.

Another Day, Another Hotel

Another rock hard bed. Today started out in Baoding, but Uncle Bobo (S's old family friend) met us with his car and driver and we drove out to Gaodong, a small town about a half-hour outside Baoding, to meet the local officials and tour the environs. Best weather since I arrived in China. A stiff breeze blowing. Still warm but not quite as humid. Blue skies with wispy high clouds (white clouds!) -- the haze cleared away by the wind. Reminded me of Santa Anas back home.

In Gaodong, we were received at the restaurant of our hotel (perhaps, the hotel) by the mayor, his assistant, and a couple other officials, for lunch. The mayor was earnest young up-and-comer within the party -- in his late 30s, but looked ten years younger. During lunch, he reminisced about his youth and how the saying of Mao had inspired him during the coldest, darkest winter nights. The sort of claptrap that back home comes in the form of boyhood paper routes and seeing Kennedy (or Reagan) speak. His assistant was even younger, looked like he was about 18, and was referred to as Chairman. (I gather everyone in the party is a chairman. Then you are promoted to director.) The mayor's driver was 18 but looked 12.

At lunch, we were joined by the local senator, a big wall-eye old man with liver spots and hands all a-tremble. S told me was 70, but he looked at least 80. He wore a gold set of dentures in the bottom of his mouth which made him look a lot like a James Bond villain. He had 9 sons, each a successful monopolist in some local enterprise. Everyone was very deferential to him and throughout lunch various sons and sycophants peeked in to toast him, and perhaps steal a glance at the strange company he was entertaining. Happily, I couldn't understand a word they said.

Later in the afternoon, we were taken on a tour of some of the local factories. The first produced a beverage called Yam Dew. They gave me a promotional flyer in English. If it's at all characteristic of the genre, there's unlimited opportunities in English copy-editing in China. [Note: I was going to quote the brochure, but I've misplaced it since my return home. I think it's in a pocket of my other suitcase. Will try to locate later.]

The second factory, from what I could understand of the synopsis I was given, was a pharmaceutical company producing some kind of low-cost alternative to dialysis. We talked with a couple of the scientists, a young man and young woman, working there. They said most people in the US and Japan can afford dialysis, but it's too expensive for most Chinese.

The last factory we visited was immediately distinguished by two brick smoke stacks belching thick black smoke. The air was acrid and heaps of slag were deposited around the grounds. The company produced cloth dye. As with the other two factories, we were received in a large delapidated, dimly lit office. The company's president boasted that his plant was the second largest operation of its kind in China. Most of the production, he noted, used to be done in Russia and India, but had ceased due to the environmental regulations. Now China was the leading producer.

From there, we headed to a run down little shop further down the dusty road. This was a bank. Although it was now almost 6pm, the door was still open (shielded by the familiar hanging curtain of heavy plastic strips) and we were greeted by the bank's manager, a deferential but hard-working middle-aged man, and two pretty young clerks. The 6 or 7 of us in our party wee shown to a cramped room in back furnished with three cots lining the wall. We took a seat, the senator rolled up his pants legs (as was his habit) and described the operations of the bank. It turned out that it was his bank -- his own private branch. This was, needless for S to tell me, a rather unusual arrangement and one for which he had needed to obtain a special dispensation from the state. There were no computers, no security cameras, not even a printing adding machine. Rather, each clerk had an abacus on her desk. Honest to god, an abacus! Suffice it to say, I wasn't able to use my ATM card.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Senator's compound to pay our respects to his wife and slurp on melon. As we drove through the dusty streets of the neighborhood, the Senator pointed out the gas station he own, the theater he owned, the local school named after him, the park he had had built. Everything, with the exception perhaps of the local Communist assembly hall, looked worn and crumbling. At the school, a couple kids played basketball on a rocky field. S was impressed with the senator's generosity and influence. It struck me as the epitome of the Old China.

I thought we were done for the day, but I just learned that we have a ball to attend. I am sure it will be enchanting.