The Fabulous Life of Ponteuf

Neither Fish nor Fowl

Hong Kong, that gloriously acclaimed meeting of East and West – it just didn’t light my fire. Maybe I’m jaded. Maybe, spoiled by the bizarre glamour of Tokyo and the brash striving of Shanghai and the surprising solidity of Beijing, I’ve come to Hong Kong too late. Too long British to be truly Asian, too essentially Asian to be truly British and too built up to be as down at the heels as it appears at street level, I never got a good handle on Hong Kong, I never saw the appeal.

I owe it a disclaimer, of course – we weren’t there but 48 hours, a mere pitstop on our southward trek from the formality of Japan to the all out chaos of Bangkok. In that way, it was a timely stop; the glittery glass buildings stretching up to the sky crowd hungrily on limited land, packed with high end shopping of the platinum-card-only variety while the streets outside and in the alleys leading up to the Mid-Levels are smudged with grime and pushcarts. Narrow double decker trolleys hurtle along the neon streaked streets; crossing to Kowloon produces the street peddlers and pushy salesmen we’d left behind in Shanghai, as though Kowloon side, closer to China proper, allows that case of fake watches while Hong Kong Island looks down her formerly British nose and sniffs.

The indoor malls are packed with the kind of goods that start at four figures. The commerce palace attached to our hotel, reflecting money in every direction, had more designer goods than I’ve ever seen in one place…but no one was buying. In Tokyo, at least, people were clearly wearing the couture. Here the marble floors echoed, monotony broken by gawkers, locals heading to the food court and wealthy tourists spending Hong Kong dollars on what were clearly not the bargains they had once been. Mind the gap, please. Lorries. Pret a Manger. The British hangover is in full force, with more signs in English than anything else. We ate dinner at a well recommended restaurant, The American Place, that could have been any banquet hall Chinese at home. The food wasn’t bad, but it confirmed our growing suspicion that we just don’t like Cantonese food and drove us to Pret a Manger the next noon for lunch.

We found ourselves making more comparisons than discoveries. The buildings scale the side of a hill as they do in Monaco – but without the beautiful water of the Mediterranean. There’s a jungle like quality to the foliage as in Singapore, but without the extensive lush parks and public spaces. The alleys and lanes untouched by western brands have the same frenetic quality as in Shanghai, but without the old Chinese buildings and tea houses. Hong Kong was a long list of similarities falling short, and the three economic powerhouses of the east seemed, to us, to be a timeline of progress: Hong Kong was what Singapore is and what Shanghai is striving to be.

My mental image of Hong Kong, an exotic outpost of glorious Britain where 007 heads to the Bottoms Up club and into the darkness of the harbor, followed by sinister cars and doe-eyed women in silk slit up to their waists – how could it still exist today? I know better, really, but I still expected the glamour to rise up, shimmering, from the harbor or dark alleys, a whiff of something more exotic than fumes and money. Instead, I found a city too Western to be exotic, and too mundanely modern to be exciting. For thrills, I think I’ll stick to Shanghai.

The Pearl of the Orient

Our last stop in China, Shanghai was decidedly different than anywhere we'd been to that point. We ate dinner the first night at a restaurant along the river, sitting inside a sampan turned into a personal dining car and staring out at the neon reflecting in the water from every direction, wondering just where we were. The difference from Tibet was marked - not the least significant being that we could walk without gasping - and I mentioned that I was expecting the scene before me in Hong Kong, but not in Shanghai.

Shanghai has been exposed to the west for far longer than the rest of China; after the Opium Wars the European powers carved up this 'open city' into a group of concessions, the French here, the British there, the Germans over there...The main waterfront area, known as the Bund, is a long line of grand European architecture, unapologetic about its complete refusal to blend in (much like the colonials themselves who paraded around and raced horses in formal spats). Today every one of those western buildings flies multiple Chinese flags, lit as proudly at night as the buildings themselves.

Stand on the promenade between the Bund and the river and look West: this could be a street in Europe. An amalgamation of power architecture from the turn of the last century, grand and imposing, the buildings are unmoved by the streams of traffic rushing past. Trees line the edge of the waterfront walkway, no neon sullies the facades. Now turn East, across the river to Pudong. This is modern China, modern Asia - monolithic buildings stretching up to the hazy polluted sky, reflecting each other and the river, clogged with shipping traffic. Bigger than everything rises the Pearl TV Tower, a giant modern pink and silver tinker-toy of a structure, clearly announcing the supremacy of the future. Its legs, giant metal tubes, form a triangular base topped by a large ball - the pattern repeats at the next level, tubes taller and closer together, ball smaller. A little further up is the highest sphere, then spires and antenna reaching all the way up to the sky. At night the whole thing will light up in pink and purple dots, patterns moving across the skin of the balls, reflecting into the river, dancing with the neon across the river and behind the Bund, similar modern towers marking Nanjing Road, the 'number one shopping street in China.'

Neon and glass, money and rapid growth - these are the hallmarks of Shanghai, the city boasting the world's tallest hotel, and immense pride in its future. We rode the 'Mag-Lev' train in from the Pudong airport - magnetic levitation, 300kms per hour. The trip took only seven and a half minutes; from the costumed girls advertising it at the baggage claim exit to the sleek interior and exterior, it felt like something from a sci-fi film. Still, underneath the metal skin lurks an older city, one that hasn't quite been bulldozed into submission. Yet.

The tea house used as the model for Blue Willow china is here, still approached by a nine zigzag bridge (protection against evil spirits, who can only travel in straight lines). Surrounding it are old Chinese style buildings, all sweeping roof lines, tiles, dark lacquered wood. Now cleaned up, repainted and filled with 'authentic' shopping, they are packed with Chinese, local and tourists alike. Off to one side is a garden, walled and peaceful - walking through it is a trip back to the time before the concessions arrived, pure Chinese aesthetic. The surrounding area has been sanitized, but this old core of the city, a temple not far away, the garment district, full of warehouse stores selling bolts of silk, sewing notions and all manner of decorative junk, hasn't yet been rebuilt. The subway doesn't tunnel beneath it, the shopkeepers don't speak English. A pocket, at least, of old Shanghai.

Our hotel, the Astor House, had been the swanky address of the city before the Peace Palace was built on the Bund. Now the very description of faded glory, hardwood floors unpolished, parquet floors dull, high ceiling rooms lit by fluorescent lights, the hotel isn't so overshadowed by its former rival, which is similarly down at the heels. We did go to the bar at the Peach Palace, though, to listen to jazz played by old Chinese guys in a bar styled like a Tudor dining hall. Incongruous. Mike's word for Asia in general, and certainly appropriate for Shanghai.

The tunnel under the river connecting the Bund and Pudong is labeled the 'sightseeing tunnel' - and too high tech for mere foot traffic. Instead, we rode in a self driving capsule through a sound and light show, flashing neon and squawking computer generated noises. On the other side we were treated to side show attractions of the worst variety, including, yet again, horrendous taxidermy, this time of sea creatures. The aquarium was supposed to be a big draw, but it looked more like a cheap, condemned pet store, fish belly up in molding tanks. Outside, above us, the gleaming sphere of the TV tower; underground, coexisting with the light show, this bizarre and unsophisticated display of nature - incongruous. Modern and old, high tech and backward, it seems that things coexist but don't yet gel, an uneasy alliance from the outside looking in, but probably one that hasn't occurred to the people immersed in the changes. China. Shanghai. Fascinating.

The Things People Want to Hear About...

...rather than the existential slobber I keep writing and posting, much (I'm sure) to everyone's dismay. I didn't want this to become a journal (today we went here and saw this, then we ate lunch, then we took a taxi because it was too far to walk) because it would be boring to write and even more boring to read. That said, I think that the 'major' sites that we saw in China really do deserve some explanation beyond a footnote in my cultural ramblings. We found it interesting that the entrance fees in China were particularly high when compared to other costs in the country. I know that the locals are on a totally different fee schedule, but we were surprised at how many 100RMB notes left our pockets every time we went to a site. (100RMB = $12)

The Great Wall
There are three places just outside Beijing to visit the Great Wall, and we picked the easiest and closest, Badaling. Our Lonely Planet and Rough Guide books advocate the others - less tourists, they say, and more opportunity to slip away from the guards and climb on the un-restored sections, perhaps going far enough to camp overnight. Since we had no desire to camp illegally and had limited time, we chose Badaling, but honestly, I don't know what was so bad about it. This is where everyone goes, so we got not only a visit to the wall but also the cultural experience of being one of very few white tourists in a huge group of Chinese. This part of the wall is clearly set up to accommodate their needs and wants, so the snacks are authentic and the shopping is the odd mix of cutesy and cultural that seems to be so popular in China.

The land outside of Beijing is flat, and the mountains that the wall coils over rise up quickly from the plain. We hired a private taxi from the hotel rather than take an all day tour that stopped places we didn't care about or take the tourist bus very early in the morning and paid far, far more than we would have to take the bus, but it worked for us, and having just flown in from Germany, we napped on and off in the taxi on the way there. We had our first glimpse of the wall not long after we entered the mountains; a bit of it snaked down the mountain, growing taller as it approached a gate or temple just near the highway, became a bridge and wound up the other side of the valley. As we approached it looked as though the whole wall had been painted - the entire top section was filled with moving, liquid color. A little closer and we could see that the wall was packed with people holding colored flags and waving them over their heads in unison. Red, blue, green - we think this was some sort of practice or commercial for the Olympics, spectacular in its effect.

The actual approach to the wall was a few miles further up the valley, a tourist mecca filled with busses, cabs, souvenir stands and an enclosure of bears very adept at catching apples with their mouths. Our cab driver bought us our tickets, insisting that we take the 'ride' to the top, a strange sled on rails contraption that we rode up slowly and down a bit more quickly. The wall itself still required a steep flight of stairs from us before we were on it, then more leg exertion to walk it - I think I was most surprised at how steep it was, and how difficult it was to climb the ridges. Wide enough for five horses to ride abreast, and much taller than I expected (a tumble off the top would be a nasty multi-story fall) the wall is impressive in its solidity and its symbolism. The ridges drop away steeply to both sides, particularly the 'outside' with its crenellated edge. Without explosives, it would have been quite difficult to breach, but the audacity of building it is more what struck me. It must have been a massive undertaking, and if that Emperor could see it today, I'm sure he'd loathe all the common tourists crawling on it.

Because of the way it winds around, there are magnificent views even while standing on the top, and in the distance the un-restored sections can be made out, crumbling mounds of stone and packed earth. Here, as elsewhere in China, serious effort has been made to restore, rather than preserve in ruin. Intellectually, I suppose I like the idea of leaving things in ruin, but the experience of walking on the wall, even if it has been shored up and isn't all ancient bricks, makes me think that restoration isn't a bad idea. Of course, it is just a wall, and you walk on it, and that's it. As Mike said, once you've climbed up onto it and taken some photos, there's a certain 'what next' feeling. We walked to the highest point of the section we were on and looked around, resting our legs before the decent and letting people squeeze Ponteuf. The scenery beyond the wall itself is wooded and, in late October, dotted with orange and gold, the craggy mountains in the distance forming a charcoal smudge backdrop for the sinuous line of masonry winding away from us.

Entrance: 60RMB, 40RMB for round trip 'sled'
Taxi: 800RMB, round trip with driver waiting for us while we were on the wall

The Forbidden City
I hate to say this, I really do - but it is the most apt description of the place that I can come up with: the Forbidden City is forbidding. Separated from the rest of Beijing (which surrounds it completely and thickly for miles and miles) by a wide moat and extremely high walls, it was, for hundreds of years, the domain of the imperial court and completely off limits to anyone not directly associated. Access was strictly controlled, even to the level of who could go through which gates at which times: only the Emperor could walk through the central arch of the gate that faces Tiananmen Square. The central space is filled with a series of gates, palaces and open squares with names like Eternal Harmony; aligned on the east/west axis are the many palaces where the Emperor and his concubines actually lived, each enclosed by a wall with a small gate and courtyard in front.

But to the forbidding: the entire place is paved. With the exception of a few stray trees (and the garden at the back which was beautiful in its austerity) not a shred of anything green grows anywhere within the grounds. Growth not authorized by imperial decree was, apparently, not tolerated. The flagstone squares are vast: people on the far side look like miniatures and the steps are perfectly symmetrical and high. Right angles prevail and everything is balanced, but instead of being harmonious this ends up feeling oppressive, a rigid adherence to policy. With no visual break in decoration the eye has nowhere rest. The living palaces are separated from the main governing and worshipping structures (and from each other) by walls three times the height of a man, painted a dull, bloody red. No windows, no breaks, only occasional doorways that lead to tight alleys of that same hard flagstone, unsettling red wall. Huge, heavy doors close off parts of the compound completely with doorsteps almost a foot high and as wide and giant locks bigger than my head.

The audio tour related stories of court intrigue and history along with information on the buildings themselves; living here would not have been easy for many reasons, not the least of which the buildings themselves. Designed that way or not they clearly convey the Imperial mindset of complete control, of micro-management of people and of seclusion as a means to power. Fascinating place to visit (our four hours there didn't allow us to see everything) but oppressive. As we walked through the back gate and crossed the moat, I took a deep breath and felt lucky to have escaped unscathed. 

Entrance: 60 RMB
Audio Guide: 40RMB (with 100RMB refundable deposit)

The Terra Cotta Warriors
In 1976, a farmer outside Xi'an was digging a well - and stumbled into stardom. Today, he sits at a table in the very shiny gift shop at the Terra Cotta Warrior museum complex and signs books, looking bored and a bit bemused. His hands are noticeably free of dirt, and he doesn't look too concerned that his well - indeed his entire farm - is now covered by a vast airplane hangar housing the terra cotta army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang.

The warriors are a good distance outside Xi'an proper, along a road that is an odd mix of new modern industrial and old school farms and roadside stands. Mini-mountains rise up at odd intervals, but they're not natural - these are the tombs of old emperors, most unexplored. We got smart in Xi'an and managed to take the tourist bus: for $1 each we rode out to the site in a bus held together by baling wire and duct tape, clearly the only white people brave (or stupid) enough to try. Incidentally, the further we went from Beijing the more of an oddity we were, and it struck both of us as odd that the only other 'whiteys' we saw were Russians. That, we decided, was a sure sign that we were far from home.

I had expected very little from the warriors. After all, I'd seen the photos, and they were a bunch of clay statues in a pit. Interestingly, it was the statues, in person, that moved me, while the Great Wall didn't feel particularly more impressive than it does in photographs. Each statue is an individual person, modeled after someone in the emperor's army. They all have a specialty - foot soldiers, cavalry, archers, captains. Their dress is different, their hair is styled differently - and they are life size. The main view, from above in the first of three hangars, is impressive because it illustrates the sheer size of the army. Only about 1000 figures have been rehabilitated; the rest still lie in a jumble of pottery fragments cemented in dirt. The army had been assembled in trenches and covered with wooden boards, then with dirt, but a fire set by the successive emperor destroyed the wood and caused a general collapse: only a few figures have been found intact.

On stepping lower, to the walkways alongside the army and closer to its level, the individual features become clearer, and I felt as though I was reviewing a group of real troops. The features are surprisingly clear and perfect, a testament to the skill of those long ago sculptors of clay - even the hair is realistic. When the warriors were uncovered, they were painted: bright green tunics, black armor, yellow sashes. The colors faded within a week, oxidizing upon contact with air and giving the men their current reddish tone, but some still have traces of their past glory. Our guide told us that researchers are looking for a way to preserve the paint, so some pits are deliberately not going to be opened until they can restore the men without turning them terra cotta. When that happens, I'm going back to Xi'an. So lifelike as they are now, I expect that with color, the soldiers might just walk out of the pits and say hello.

Entrance: 90RMB
Private Guide: 120RMB
Bus: 8RMB, one way

The Giant Pandas
Chengdu is the jumping off place for Tibet and a bit off the tourist-path; as I've mentioned before, English knowledge was scarce. We gave ourselves a little more time to eat Sichuan and see the Giant Pandas - the breeding base in Chengdu is the most successful in the world and I figured when in China...

We took a tour offered by our guesthouse, arriving at the panda park when it opened at 8am. The fog was still heavy on the ground and the bamboo groves we walked through to get to the panda enclosures were silent and shadowy, nothing more than slender green suggestions hidden in gray. Signs all over the park urge visitors to keep quiet, but as we walked we could hear someone yelling (it sounded impatient and repetitive) in Chinese. Rounding a corner, we saw that it was a keeper - and he was talking to a panda who couldn't be bothered to eat the huge load of bamboo that had just been delivered to its enclosure. All the literature says to visit early in the morning because the pandas are most active when fed, but if this was active, I'd hate to see lethargic.

Honestly, for all the fuss about the panda, they are possibly the least interesting animal to watch (though the koala comes in a close second). Huge and round and slow, they munch bamboo, roll around on their platforms and generally look at the world with a vacant gaze. We moved on to the next enclosure where the two pandas were actually eating, sitting up and grasping at bamboo with their almost opposable thumbs. They were slouched forward like they had no backbone and would occasionally roll around lethargically - but I had to admit that they were cute. Giant stuffed animals, honestly - kind of dumb and sweet looking. Further walking did reveal one trotting, one climbing out of a tree and a few doing more of the roll around maneuver. In the panda nursery were a pair of cubs that were stuffed animals, I swear. Those pandas made me think there might be something to this gooey panda adoration that the center is both promoting and capitalizing on. Its breeding track record is impressive, though the museum (strong on the worst taxidermy I've ever seen) does a slick job of passing over just WHY the panda is in decline and just WHY its habitat has shrunk to nothing.

The giant pandas, though had nothing on their smaller, red cousins. Sized like very big and fuzzy cats, the red pandas seem to be what would turn out if a cat, a raccoon, a fox and a lemur were shaken hard in a big bag. Little white masks and white tipped ears, black underbellies and rust colored backs leading to ringed tails - the coloring is only a bonus: these guys are playful. They ran, jumped, rolled, fought, danced on hind legs in front of the keepers, chased each other - for all the lethargy of the giant pandas, the red panda paid us back in spades. They may not have been printed on the tickets, but they stole the show.

Panda tour・ 70RMB (included r/t transport, entrance tickets and breakfast snack)

Mrs. Cleaver Goes to China

Stack up the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans and Europe until the Renaissance and you’ve got the history of China. The Middle Kingdom has staying power in a way that makes the Pharohs look weak and the Romans positively useless. This country has been a unified entity for so long that the history is difficult to even begin to understand; I took a Chinese history class in college and I’ve still been walking around like a doofus, not really sure which dynasty did what, which emperor went where. Thankfully, lack of knowledge (like my lack of Chinese language skills) hasn’t at all inhibited my enjoyment of being here. The third largest country in the world, it is understandable why China has always seen itself as the center of the universe: when you’re here, it feels like it is.

And yet (I’m going out on a limb here) China feels more like America than anywhere else we’ve been on this trip. There’s something so western, so American about their pursuit of monetary success, their lusting for bigger cities and shinier buildings and more more more. That sounds dismissive, and I suppose at some level it is, but I don’t really mean it that way. In the rushing and the hurrying and the consuming, the Chinese who so recently were Communist and are only now in a “socialist-capitalist experiment” seem to be more like us than we’d ever presume.

You’d never mistake Beijing for Los Angeles, or (despite their proud claims) Shanghai for New York… the architecture isn’t the giveaway. Too many modern streets dead end into tiny alleys crammed with tinier houses, or into swoop roofed temples to be western. And the cities at night? Not a chance! I’ve never seen such an affinity for neon as China has – every building lights up the minute the sun goes down, like Fremont Street in Vegas, but amplified. Beijing is all modern glass or fortress-like brick, tall and crammed together with wide roads connecting all parts of a huge and far flung metropolis. At its heart, Tiananmen Square, bigger than the TV shots and aerial views could ever have captured. Walking through it, we were ants next to the monumental buildings lining every side and the hulking bulk of Chairman Mao’s tomb. The open area of the square is currently occupied by a huge floral and statue display of the five Beijing Olympics mascots on one side and a scale replica of the Potala Palace on the other. Every round little kid has a red plastic Chinese flag clutched in a round little hand and the square is busy with people, seemingly just out enjoying themselves.

Xi’an is south west, a manufacturing center in the middle of a largely rural area. The very modern airport is 50kms from the modern city and in between peasants are still scratching a living from a land that would be beautiful if you could see it: the air is so hazy and disgusting that anything not close to the road is just an idea. The city itself is still ringed by an intact Ming wall and has been expanding and contracting since before the Greeks dreamed up the Olympics. We visited a pagoda 2kms outside the city wall – it was once 7kms inside it. The wall was built by a Ming emperor in the late 1300s, so consider that the city was already in decline by then and you can more adequately understand why the Emperor buried his terra cotta army here – Xi’an was the ancient capital of the Middle Kingdom. Now it is a pleasant city, remarkably prosperous and a pleasant place to wander. One of the largest communities of Chinese Muslims lives here and the streets around their mosque are picture perfect: wooden buildings with tiled roofs, red lanterns swinging from the eaves, bikes propped against the trunks of shady trees. Fruit sellers with pyramids of pomegranates and persimmons line the sidewalks and locals fill the street and the stores, browsing and buying.

Shopping is the thing in Xi’an. Besides the alleys filled with art supplies (handmade brushes, cakes of paint, carved seals) the city has some serious shopping malls. We wandered into one populated by Mont Blanc, Gucci, Cole Haan and the like. It wasn’t overcrowded, but the fact of its existence is more telling. Even more interesting is that as we wandered, we realized that none of the sales staff spoke any English – less, in fact, than some of the taxi drivers and street vendors we’d encountered. This was not a mall built for tourist money.

Chengdu was the biggest surprise – I expected a country town and found, instead, a huge and determinedly modern city. Our guesthouse was on a funky alley in the middle of town that I don’t suspect is long for this world – the wooden building and piled on each other architecture clearly don’t fit with the new Chengdu that is taking shape. Walking to dinner one night we could have been in another century but for the groups of Chinese huddled into cubby hole rooms along the alley watching a flickering TV together. Turn the corner, though, and we were in a cleaned up and patrolled “atmospheric historic district” filled with expensive tourist-type artisan shops (jewelry, paintings, carvings, silk) and restaurants. This street reminded me of the “old towns” you see in American cities – cleaned up historic buildings housing overpriced stuff that locals don’t want or need, with explanatory plaques every few feet.

We heard and saw the least English in Chengdu – even the restaurant names were written in characters only and we had to match up the symbols with our guidebooks – but the Western influence was pretty obvious when walking down the paved and prosperous shopping district. On a weekday afternoon it was packed – couples, groups of women, moms with kids. People were out shopping, and they were loaded down with bags. Streets were jammed with cars and we had a hard time getting a taxi after leaving the park at dusk – this is not a city that is struggling, and the middle class here, just as in Xi’an and Beijing, are extremely noticeable.

Middle class might be the key actually, to the familiarity – the middle class here is emerging, stretching its damp consumerist wings and starting to fly. Walking into the Forbidden City on our second day in Beijing we passed a photo stand – for 25 Yuan (about $3) people were dressing up as emperors and concubines and having their photos taken on yellow painted thrones or nasty stuffed animal looking horses – and Mike made the pronouncement that every city has confirmed for us. This is like post-war America, he said. America in the 50’s. Suddenly the middle class has more money, more leisure time – more of everything than they perhaps know what to do with. For the first time they can travel, indulge in buying things that don’t really matter. I know that China’s population is still, in large part, extremely poor, but the people we saw in the cities clearly were not, and with the Chinese economic boom, it is their status and wealth that is growing.

This Chinese middle class is having fun doing all the things that we, as Americans, think we’re too sophisticated to enjoy. Dress up photos? Well, maybe, but only as a joke. Here, people were lined up around the block for their turn, and the whole line laughed and teased each person as they emerged from the makeshift tent decked out as royalty. In Xi’an, people waited in line to look through a telescope at the moon. In Chendgu, they gladly paid admission to a chrysanthemum show in the park, large groups taking photos of the flowers and admiring them. Restaurants are staffed by people in period costume-type uniforms, and they don’t look put upon about it – nor do the dining patrons scorn them. Department stores, fruit stands, candy stores – in each place you, the customer, do not touch the merchandise or carry it to the cashier – they do all of that for you. At first I thought it was a theft prevention method, but then I watched the careful way they handled the items, the wrapping of the bag, the formality of the cash exchange and I realized that this was service; a level of service, I might add, that we haven’t seen in the US in my lifetime, at least not at the middle class level.

There’s something innocent about the whole scene here, and it is hard to put a finger on – maybe that’s why we reached for the 50’s and have held on to it; we may not have lived then, but we certainly know the image. China isn’t going to be America tomorrow –the modernity and rapid growth we’ve seen aren’t familiar, and even we can’t match the Chinese for their emphasis on brands and status – but it may well share a great deal with America half a decade ago. This is a precarious time; so many things could go wrong, economically, environmentally, politically – and many will, just as they do for us. I hope, though, for the Chinese, that they don’t lose that good natured innocence that we’ve seen, that ability to enjoy the simple pleasures that the middle class has brought. We joke that we judge a country on how much they like Ponteuf, but it has a layer of truth: at home, people look at me as though I’m nuts and ignore the purse. Here they walk right up and touch him, giggle, squeeze his nose – even though we clearly can’t communicate in the same language. If we as Americans could dress up as Abe Lincoln and laugh at ourselves without having to be sardonic or “retro” about it, if we could tweak Ponteuf’s nose, I think we’d be a happier people. In this, (for now, at least) the Chinese have got us beat.

Tibet: People Watching, Bargaining & Altitude (He Says, She Says)

She Says:
Tibet was high on my list of places we to include on this trip; remote, not completely modern and a bit difficult, it fulfilled my need to feel like a real adventurer. Since Mike was not going to budge on the Pushkar Camel Fair in India and we really didn’t have time to jump through the hoops of getting a rare and time limited tourist pass into Bhutan, I got my way. When we visited the travel doctor for our shot-o-rama, he prescribed us altitude pills to take before and during our stay on the roof of the world. Somehow, I think my brain wasn’t really clued in, because I was considering not taking them. Hah!

He Says:
The altitude pills began their work not long after taking them – the time being two days before departure.  We were still in the Sichuan province and I half wondered if the strange tingling I was feeling was coming from the food or the pills.  The tingles felt like a body part falling asleep, only that pins and needles feeling typically strikes other places.  For example, rather than my toes feeling odd, my instep would tingle, or maybe my palms of just the joints of my fingers, never really the whole hand, foot, arm or other appendage.  No big deal I thought.  The feeling passed fairly quickly and life went on.

She Says:
Landing in Tibet was an exercise in hoping that a mountain wouldn’t accidentally get in front of the plane – most of the flight was over steep, snow capped peaks that marched endlessly into the distance, not unlike the view flying in or out of Anchorage. For the highest airport in the world, the landing was remarkably smooth and the building all chrome and glass, but the walk from the gate to baggage claim made me tired. Clearly, I was going to have to walk slower. We took a tourist bus into town and I rode over the wheel, forcing me to scrunch sideways into Mike while staring out the window at the stillest landscape I’d ever seen. Brown flat plains, low scrub, steep mountains; nothing moved. Even the shallow river we crossed seemed motionless, though it wasn’t frozen. My toes and the soles of my feet kept falling asleep, and I told myself it was the angle of my legs, but a small voice warned that it might be altitude. I was overtired, too: the Sichuan hot pot and a leaky roof at the guesthouse had kept me awake far too late the night before, and we’d been up at 6. Still, walking the three blocks to the hotel dragging my bag made my feet, fingers and lips numb, and set my heart was pounding in full out sprint mode. By the time we reached our hotel lobby, I was only dimly aware of my surroundings and I was clammy. Head between my knees, I forced myself to breath deeply and slowly while Mike checked us in.

He Says:
Arrival in Tibet wasn’t as bad for me as it was for Aimee.  I consciously didn’t move fast and tried to avoid unnecessary exertion.  The tingles continued, but I assumed that was a sign that the meds were working.  Check in was a breeze and the two girls behind the desk helped my carry our luggage up.  Aimee wasn’t up to task at the moment.  What surprised me is that neither were the two girls.  I’d have figured lugging our luggage wouldn’t have been too tough for a native.  We were both quick to assume the horizontal, drink some water and relax for a bit. The climb up the stairs winded me as well.

She Says:
The cruelest trick of the day? Our room is on the third floor, and there are no elevators. I barely made it to the top, and then had to lie down, mumbling something about oxygen. I had no idea that 13,000 feet was going to be so difficult. We moved very, very slowly for the rest of the afternoon, though my yak burger in the garden really did seem to help my energy level, if nothing else. (Yes, I should have eaten, but would you eat congee with fish on an airline in China?) Any time I exceeded my body’s limits, it let me know without hesitation: numb lips, spinning head, pounding heart. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so like fainting from nothing more than hurrying to cross a street, and I’ve never felt the lub-lub of my heartbeat so clearly. Today was better, which was a good thing – the Potala Palace is on top of a hill and full of the steepest stairs I’ve ever seen. Enclosed ladders would be a more accurate description, really, and to prove that I’m not a total wimp, even the locals were out of breath at the top. After that, flat land seemed possible, but hurrying wasn’t pleasant and climbing stairs is still downright heart trauma. On top of that, I’ve had a low level headache and low level nausea since we landed, and I suspect those two visitors are here to stay as long as we are.

He Says:
The Potala Palace put me in my place.  The climb up wasn’t too terrible, but by the time we got to the ticket window, the combination of cold (a light snow had begun to fall) and altitude had taken their toll.  The tingles got to two of my fingers and came back with a vengeance.  My ears started to hurt and for the first time and I had to stop Aimee to sit down and compose myself.  I got some feeling back into my fingers and we pressed on.  I did a half hearted check for oxygen at the couple stalls and climbed up into the rest of the palace.  Out of the exposed courtyard, with hands warming in my pocket, I began to feel better and had a greater appreciation for Aimee’s plight. 

She Says:
The area around the old temple in town is a pilgrimage circle called the Barkhor, still traveled by the pilgrims and lined with stands selling all manner of interesting things, the most prevalent being religious artifacts and supplies, jewelry and heavy coats. Slowly, we traversed the circle, Mike walking, me browsing and practicing my deep breathing. When I found something I wanted, I made him barter. I know that’s how it’s done, but I just can’t seem to do it. I can ask how much, I can say no thank you and walk away, but I can’t haggle. I don’t know where to start, and the suggested half of what they ask seems rude and dismissive. Yesterday a pretty woman with exotic hair jewelry slipped her arm through mine, held my hand and dragged me to her jewelry. I liked her things, but more importantly, I liked her. There was something both charming and crafty about her: she knew she had me from the beginning, and had I been alone, she would have gotten the ridiculous sum she asked. Mike refused and lowered the price to a reasonable level, sure he should have asked for more. On the jewelry, I knew she was high, but when the price is low… I just don’t have it in me.

He Says:
Bargaining is a bit of an art form.  It’s kind of like negotiating for a car when you don’t know either sticker or invoice.  When it comes to this kind of thing, it’s a shot in the dark for me.  If I don’t have a standard price level to work from the whole process gets fuzzy.  The bargaining is a great sales tool too.  If you were on the fence about the item and the price was fixed and too high, you’d walk.  But if you walk, they’ll just clamor for you to name a price, and then you’re into the bargaining and psychologically set to complete the transaction.  From there it’s my favorite phrase from economics: inter-temporal arbitrage (OK, do it has little to do with time and the phrase doesn’t really fit, but I’ve always wanted to use it, so there).  Anyway, from there you’re hooked.  I try to figure the max Aimee will spend and then I go to work.  All the bargaining takes place on a calculator so there’s no confusion.  Amazingly, most of the calculators are the talking variety.  I should have brought my Speak-n-Math.  Usually, I start at about half of what they offer, unless they’re way out of Aimee’s ballpark.  The amount by which they move their price down, indicates how hard I stick to my price.  They move a lot, I move a little and vice-versa.  If I can’t get them to a reasonable level, we walk.  That either gets the price to Aimee’s threshold or not.  I kind of like the process, usually its all done with a smile on the other end.  I never want to feel like they’re taking a loss, but I doubt that it ever happens.  Invariably, when you conclude a transaction, the vendor next to you will try to sell you a similar, if not the same item, for half of what you just paid. 

She Says:
Tibet has been interesting to me mostly for the people. The temple and the palace were both exotic and gilded and interesting, but the people are fascinating. We stood in the square yesterday and watched a river of them flow past and around us, and I could have stood for hours. Each face was a story, each group a painting. The clothes were exotic, the jewelry (the sheer quantity of it!) even more so. I like the high color in the women’s cheeks, so red against their clay skin. Babies, bundled in bright red silky papooses, stared big eyed at the world around them, eye to eye with the adults from their sling perch on the women’s backs, little tan butts exposed to the cold in slit pants. I like the old women with three teeth, bent over canes but clearly carrying ornate jeweled knives. I liked seeing the modern shoes under the timeless clothes and then, as a reward, I’d see a pair of handmade, curled toe wooden and straw clogs, lined with yak wool.

I am as much a novelty to them as they are to me: one man carried his boy over and pointed to my blonde hair, speaking rapidly. Many groups of women turned to stare, watching me walk past, little kids look and gasp. I’m taller than most of the men and my hair just doesn’t fit the color scheme. When I carry Ponteuf the fascination crosses the line from observation to interaction: my armadillo is a cultural ice breaker of the highest order. Men here laugh and point (one lunged at me and made a roaring noise – Ponteuf, naturally, roared back). The women, especially the old and toothless, walk right up and tug on him. Some jump, some giggle, but they all want to touch him. Ponteuf wiggles his nose and ears, swishes his tail and the crowd grows quickly, reaching in for a squeeze. The more bold ones will take him from me and cradle him like a baby, but they always hand him back politely and smile or give me a thumbs up. Sometimes Ponteuf gets antsy and lunges at people, always getting a roar of laughter: one woman took him from me and whacked me with his tail. I spent about ten minutes this afternoon playing with a boy of about 4 and his wind up frog – he really thought Ponteuf and the frog should battle, so they did.

He Said:
Tibet: land of political intrigue and bumper sticker sympathy.  Subtle and not so subtle changes are underway here.  And for the most part, none too good.  I expected a much smaller town than I got, but the parts that made up my idealized small town are here, intact and thriving.  The Tibetans are a hardy lot.  There’s talk of their ways disappearing, them along with it, but I don’t think it will happen.  Pilgrims with leathery skin trek through one of the most inhospitable countries of the world to prostrate themselves in front of their religious temples.  Even in the rain and snow today, the faithful were lined up in front of the Potala Palace lowering themselves to the wet ground and raising back up only to do it again.  The challenge of reaching Lhasa 100 years ago killed many men.  The Tibetans have been living comfortably here for centuries, as early as the 700s, there was a structure on the Potala Palace grounds.  By Chinese standards, they may be a bit primitive, but at least they haven’t caught the wave of consumerism that’s gripped the rest of China.  Sometimes resisting change is a good thing.  I don’t think the Tibetans would have it any other way.

She Said:
I’ve really enjoyed being here – I could people watch for hours, and I think that and the scenery are the reasons to come. I’d return and do a trek at some point, but I’d give myself at least 4 days of doing nothing but watching the pilgrims in Lhasa to acclimate before setting out. I wish that being in fantastic shape would help, but Mike says the more muscle mass you have the harder altitude is on your body (which is why my gym time hurt me and his lack thereof was a blessing). I’ve never seen anything like it here, and I have a feeling that in not too many years, I wouldn’t be able to, so I’m pleased to have made it now – but I won’t say that the altitude hasn’t been a shock!

He Said:
Tibet doesn’t feel like the rest of China.  The pace is a little slower, the people are a little friendlier and damn, is it cold.  I wasn’t sure what to expect coming here.  Lhasa is the backpacker hub of Tibet and I expected to see more of that here.  Of course, the backpacking probably slows down a bit by November, so I guess it isn’t that big a shock to have not encountered any in the past few says.  I’ve seen some Germans and a couple French, but that’s about it for the white people.   I’ve been impressed by the natural beauty of the land and the quiet hospitality of the people.  To say that Tibet is out of the way is an understatement.  Other than geographic concerns there are a number of political hoops to jump through to get authorization to travel here.  And I’ve got to say that they are worth it.  This is a unique place.  And while the place may not be unique forever, the people will be.

In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn…

… a stately pleasure dome decree. Xanadu is Tibet. Tibet is Shangri La. No, wait, Ojai is Shangri La. But I’m definitely in Tibet. I’m high, high, high. 13,000 feet, not really sure I can feel my feet high.  Did someone say Yak burger and fried cheese balls? Perfect, I’ll take it. Is there a reason my fingers are tingling, my upper lip feels dentist-ed? I’ve sworn off the Sichuan peppers. My attention is slipping again, I’m in some sort of altered state.

I blame the temple, the smoky air, the perpetuity of incense. The continuous clockwise motion of the faithful, around and around the Barkhor, around the outside of Jokhang temple, around the beads and the prayer flags and the cloths and the horns. The prayer wheels, clockwise, spinning, spinning, animated by chants and imperceptible wrist motion. The people, the throng of people, packed together and moved onward by unseen force. Inside the temple the light is dim, the faithful faster, more intent. Clockwise, they circle the inner temple, prayer wheels like drums imitating them at a faster pace, spinning with the brushing of hands, the muttering of mantras in a language as unfamiliar as Mars. The inner sanctum, dim and smoky, the walls and statues humming with the monks at its heart, cross-legged in orange, rows and rows of chant moving the feet of the pilgrims, still clockwise, still steady.

Look up, only smoke, look to the sides, only gold and silk, objects of veneration, look ahead, a line, anticipatory, snaking around the monks, past the chapels, to the back. Pulled into line by a strong hand belonging to a lined face, high pink in the cheeks, black hair braided with colored silk and silver and hunks of turquoise, we gasp, out of breath” no air, no light, no orientation. Slipping on the floor, stones yellow and slick with yak butter slid from the buckets refilling the flaming bowls flanking an immense gold shape, piled with silk scraps, money, unknown shapes. Smoke mingles with the richness of fat, butter gone off, people, unknown spice. Caught in the circle we shuffle forward, hear the chants, mantras, see the rubbing of the holy objects, feel the faith, the charge, the thickness of the emotion (fear? exhilaration? devotion?) crowding the remaining oxygen from the air.

Stagger out, slip, recover, hear the spinning of the prayer wheels, see a slant of light. My head, like a balloon, threatens to rise, fly, tangle with the prayer flags on a distant peak. The courtyard becomes a prayer wheel, clockwise; the ground shifts to sustain the motion. Outside the temple, the faithful prostrate themselves, up, down to the knees, forward, flat, nose to pavement, drag back the hands, up again. Still the pilgrims swirl, illustrations from a history book, babies on backs, silver and turquoise and shiny bits in their hair. Belts around waists swathed in multiple layers of dark cloth swing with jewelry, cups, knives. Strong, unbending, undeterred, they circle. Is their motion the vacuum that removes the air, knifes my lungs, or is it just their existence?

Where is the pleasure dome, which direction holds eternity? Behind which snow dusted dry mammoth is the valley of perfect happiness, will someone escort me? Or called upon an errand of little importance, will I forget the swirling motion, the color, the heady smoke, remembering just a crowd in a cold wind?

Eating Fire

I’ve just finished a meal that beaded my forehead with sweat, made tears stream down my cheeks and freed snot from my nose. This is my second such meal in 24 hours; we’re in Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province and we’ve been eating local. I’d like nothing more than to climb into our rickety but comfortable bed right now – my shoes are cement boots and my demeanor as energetic as the giant pandas we saw this morning thanks to the Acetazolamide we’re taking for altitude adjustment, but I don’t think lying down with a belly full of battery acid is a good idea, so I’m recording our culinary foolishness for posterity.

Sichuan cooking is hot, red and largely based on the chili pepper, but since my familiarity with it extended, before yesterday, only to the eponymous beef served at home, I wasn’t prepared for its true self. I’ve never had Chinese food this hot, and the chilies are only part of the game. Like Thai food, Sichuan has a blend of hot, salty, sweet and sour that is referred to as manifold flavor as well as aromatic heat, the element added by the Sichuan pepper itself, huajiao. I think that my ability to discern the first was directly proportional to the amount of heat in a dish, but the second is just a nice way to say that your gums, tongue and lips will be numb after dinner. That’s numb like you’ve been to the dentist numb, in case there was any confusion. The entire eating experience raised my body temperature significantly, so I can see some truth in the Chinese assertion that the cooking style is climate acclimated: chili is warming in the winter and cooling in the summer (that last being related to drinking hot tea in the heat which, oddly, works).

Last night’s dinner was at the restaurant that supposedly invented mapo dofu, tofu cubes swimming in a virulent red sauce. Though our information gave an English name for the place, we only knew we were there by matching the characters to those on our photocopied restaurant guide; Chengdu has the least non-character signs we’ve seen so far. We arrived just in time (9pm closings are a shock after Italy) and sat in the low rent, low tabled downstairs area where we had a view of the kitchen. The waiter seemed confused that we didn’t head for the glossier upstairs but seated us anyway, and I think this may have accounted for the non-waiguo spice level of our food. They rustled up an English menu for us and then hovered while we made quick decisions on ordering: the signature mapu dofu, of course, plus twice cooked pork and that most boring of dishes, gongbao jiding, otherwise known as kung pow chicken. Almost immediately after we ordered there was a flurry of activity and the entire staff gathered at the tables around us to eat their own dinners, leaving us to wonder if we’d get ours at all.

It came soon enough, and just looking at it was enough to flag our waiter down and order rice, that bland cooling element it was obvious we were going to need. The pork looked innocuous enough, and it was, really: green onions and some other similar shoot, chopped into 2-3 inch spears and sautéed with thin slices of fatty pork that had been boiled before their brief meeting with the greens, chili oil and fry pan. This dish had some spice to it, but nothing burning; the flavor was bright and balanced against the sweet richness of the pork perfectly. I’d rate it as about the hottest I’ve had Chinese at home, but here it was positively cuddly compared to what was to come. The mapo dofu looked the most evil: the tofu cubes were coated in ground black pepper across their tops, and they floated in a bowl of inky red, the non-pepper coated sides quickly turning orange from the chili oil. The whole bowl had a sheen across the top of it that made me nervous, and the smell of the vapor made my eyes water. Still, it was edible. I found the pepper to be overpowering and spent some time breaking tofu cubes to remove it, but the red stew had that manifold flavor that the books talk about, and I could detect the subtleties of sour and salty lurking under the fire. It was hot, and the heat grew with eating, but I understood the appeal.

The gongbao chicken? That was another story entirely, but it was also the best dish on the table. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to eat its sad cousin in restaurants in the states again. This chicken had flavor, and the peanuts were intensely rich and nutty, not some dry roasted Planter’s nuggets. The dish was pretty, too, glistening with a light sauce that clearly represented the entire manifold flavor and studded with bright red chilies. The chilies, though, were my downfall. They tasted wonderful, but they were hot, and each one seemed hotter than the last. I alternated dishes and shoveled rice into my mouth when I needed a break, but it wasn’t long before I was sweating, and I could feel my nose start to drip. Mike’s face was shining, and I could feel a strange heat growing in my chest – suddenly my clothes were too warm and hair felt damp. With the pork and rice gone and only scratchings and chilies left on the chicken plate, I ate something that instantly turned the left side of my mouth to fire and I called uncle. My tongue was burning, my cheek was numb and I wasn’t sure if the tears were involuntary anymore. Still, I liked it.

Tonight’s dinner just proved that these humans, at least, have not evolved enough to learn from their mistakes. Our lunch was tame enough – the sampler platter at a “snack” restaurant, something also common to this province. We had no idea what we ordered, but we ate it, and I’d say we had at least a 75% enjoyment rate. The entire table was covered with small dishes and not one of them was spicy. Not one. That must have been what induced Mike to order the Sichuan broth at the Hot Pot restaurant tonight, then, because common sense wouldn’t have played into it at all. Hot Pot is like fondue without the cheese and chocolate course, and with the ability to pick what you want to cook from a large list that, unfortunately, consisted of mostly organ meat and other bits that I didn’t need to know people ate voluntarily. We stuck with two kinds of beef (clearly flesh not organ) and vegetables: bamboo shoots, mushrooms, potato and lotus root. When the pot arrived, carried over by one waitress and watched by half the staff, we knew we were in trouble.

If I were a set designer, this pot would be in a movie as witches brew. Almost as big as the table, but shallow, the liquid it contained was a shade of red that I don’t think exists in nature. Deep maroon but strangely translucent, it was suspiciously darker in places where currents of Sichuan pepper, garlic and ginger swirled. Chilies floated on the surface, schools of lethal koi gliding hither and yon, disturbed by the bubbles rising from the bottom. Quickly, it began to boil, emitting steam that made Mike’s face look ominously red and smelled pungently of heat. One of the employees came over and poured two cups of lukewarm, celery green tea rather ceremoniously; I tasted it and thought of old mushrooms and wondered why the fuss. Another arrived and started helping us cook our food, as it was clear that we had no idea what we were doing. I can count on one hand the number of white people I’ve seen today, so I can understand both why people stare at my hair and why the entire Hot Pot staff watched us and our pot of evil so intently. Not only were we foreign, we were clearly out of our league.

Still, we were here to eat Sichuan, and eat Sichuan we would, even if it killed us. It was good, too. The lotus root, once cooked, took on a nutty, sweet taste that was reminiscent of potatoes, turnips and something dessert like, a combination which, I’m sure, reads as awful but tasted quite wonderful. The potato adapted, as potatoes do, quite well to the spicy flavor of the hot pot, and the thin slivers of beef were intense, bits of chopped chili hidden in the folds like small nuclear gifts. I could taste the manifold flavor again, but the numbness also came sooner, announcing the unmistakable presence of aromatic heat. The longer the pot boiled, the hotter it became, so the lotus root and potato, needing a longer cooking time, became more and more incendiary as the meal continued. The meat was hard to find: fishing expeditions with a slotted spoon and chopsticks turned up peppers, peppers and more peppers more often than they revealed edible bits, so each discovery was hotter than the last.

We were both less comfortable than the night before and finally decided that we could do no more when the grandma of the kitchen came over to pour us more tea. Yes, tea: that nasty mushroom tea was the miracle elixir, stopping the oral fire quite effectively, if briefly. Without the tea, I don’t think we would have made it past the first few pieces of beef, and we were on our umpteenth cup. No, we told her, passing our hands emphatically over the bowl which by now looked like red used motor oil. Ahh, she said, and turned off the burner. We sighed with relief – until she started digging around the sludge, talking to us rapidly and finding every. last. edible. bit. in that hateful pot. Each discovery went into our staging bowls, filled with vinegar, oil, onion, garlic, ginger, salt and, I fear by the headache behind my eyes, a healthy spoonful of MSG. She filled those bowls, with bamboo shoots, mushrooms and a few stray pieces of lotus root, then, smiling, refilled our teas and left us to our misery. We surreptitiously slipped some of the greatest offenders (bamboo shoot turned red, mushrooms coated with crushed chili) back into the pot, pushing them down to drown them, but we ended up eating most of her finds, since she cruised around our table often, making sure we had tea and smiling.

We were crying. We were done in. We were on fire. We were white people in Sichuan, and we were in over our heads. I looked at Mike and told him that we were going to have to borrow a phrase from Bob. He laughed and knew exactly which phrase I meant, and we staggered out of the restaurant, quoting Bob and throwing in a few words as virulent and foul as the hot pot that had bested us. A few Peptos later and I think I may be ready to assume the horizontal, but if you’re the praying type, pray for us tonight.

First Impressions

Beijing is nothing like I expected. The streets are wide and well paved - the airport modern and gleaming. Buildings seem to come in three varieties: ancient and monumental, shiny glass modern art and rectangular concrete blocks. There is an African/Chinese summit on right now and all the main roads are decorated with red and gold garlands and red lanterns. The people are stylish and modern as well and the city is clean - much cleaner than Cairo, certainly.

I think I was expecting Saigon, but colder and more bleak. Instead, I feel like I've popped through a rabbit hole into a modern friendly city that seems to be remaking itself by the moment, rushing towards the Olympics in 2008. We saw the stadium, still under construction but looking impressive; our cab driver asked a policeman for permission, then stopped on an overpass to let us take a photo. This is a city looking for the spotlight, and if our first glimpse is accurate, it is going to shine.

We went to the Great Wall at Badaling, about 70kms out of the flatlands of the city and well up on a steep ridge. I understand now why it is referred to as a dragon - it coils back on itself as it follows the ridges, one side saw toothed, the stones like sinuous scales. Fall colors spotted the hillsides below the wall, people filled the wide walking space on top of it. Ponteuf was a hit, particularly with the men, who wanted to tweak his nose and touch him. I think a lot of Chinese learned the word Armadillo this afternoon. Anywhere Ponteuf is accepted gets high marks in my book, and he says he's already fascinated by China. Beijing, at least, has already exceeded our expectations.