Shanghai – Better City, Better Life

Better City, Better Life. That's the official phrase of Expo 2010. It's plastered in English all over Shanghai along with their rendition of Gumby which they call Haibao. Haibao appears in neighborhood squares sculpted out of bushes, in both male and female form, unlicensed bootleg stuffed Haibaos are sold by hawkers on the stairways down into subway stations. You can buy a tiny Haibao to hang from your cellphone, blow up Haibaos, all sorts of Haibao shirts, there are Haibaos that wear a Mexican sombrero, Haibaos that play the bagpipes; collect the set! Olympic tchotchkes are for sale at official souvenir stands. The Chinese public has been whipped up into a nationalistic frenzy over Expo 2010 in a similar fashion to their fervor over the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The Chinese government supposedly spent the equivalent of $60 billion US dollars on Expo 2010, rivaling or exceeding what they spent on the 2008 Olympics. Thousands of people and business were uprooted from what is now the Expo site, new subway lines were built and brought in. There are Expo information desks staffed with young English and Chinese speakers wearing white Expo 2010 uniforms set up in subway stations, hotels, airports, shopping malls and street corners. Handles for standees on the Shanghai subway bear the Expo logo. There's an official Expo song by Jackie Chan (who also appears in ads plastered all over China and all over town for frozen dumplings, appliances, Canon and some kind of Chinese herbal hair darkening shampoo for men called Bawang. Is there anything that Jackie Chan won't shill?). Attendance figures are updated the days Expo highlights are transmitted to displays inside Shanghai's subway cars on the Shanghai Metro's TV channel every 15 minutes.

So after the Chinese government unloaded their fat piggy bank on Shanghai what's the Expo like? I found it sterile. Security is tight, tighter than any recent US domestic flight I've taken since 9/11. My possessions were x-rayed and I was fully wanded before my $13 US ticket for evening admission was accepted (a whole day at Expo 2010 costs a steep $23.50 US).

The first thing I saw after passing through the turnstile was the China pavilion. It's a massive, in your face, upside down red pyramid of a structure and very popular with Chinese fair goers. I saw no reason to go inside, it had a giant line snaking around it and I was already inside China. For me being in China is sort of like a visit to a giant China pavilion anyway so why brave the lines to see in miniature what was already before me?

The European and USA pavilions were very popular as well with lines snaking around them. But unlike most of the Chinese visitors to Expo 2010 I can probably go to these places if I want to. For most Chinese today world travel is just a dream. It's a dream that's closer to reality for your average Chinese national than it was 20 years ago and China's rich and well connected does travel internationally but for most of China's 1.3 billion it's out of reach and will remain so for their lifetimes. Expo 2010's expensive day pass will be as close as they come to seeing the cultures of the world.

With that in mind I chose to avoid most of the pavilions and exhibits. But while the throngs of Chinese fair goers had no desire to see one particular pavilion, I did. No waiting! The North Korean pavilion was much smaller and more sparsely attended than the one from South Korea but it was the #1 pavilion on my to do list. For a follower of all things DPRK such as myself who has come as close as a cruise on the Yalu river it might be as close as I come to actually experiencing the closed land of Juche. What's inside? Not much. North Korea must be a pretty boring place. There's a model of the Tower of the Juche Idea in front of a large mural of Pyongyang and a few other cheap statues, artworks and recreation. Any good souvenirs for sale? Kim pins are mandatory for DPRK citizens, maybe I could buy one to go with the one I bought years ago in Dandong? Nope, just some postage stamps and a small gaggle of Chinese Expo fanatics wanting to have their Expo 2010 passports stamped. Whoever was in charge of the placement of the national pavilions either has a sense of humor or once worked in the Bush administration, or both. Yes, Expo 2010 has its very own Axis of Evil section. Right next to the DPRK discount house of dioramas was the pavilion of the Islamic Republic of Iran, howdy nuclear neighbor!

Without the Expo Shanghai is a bustling city of 20 million or 25 million, nobody's really sure. There are many more subway lines than when I was last in Shanghai a few years ago and trains are frequent, cheap and backside to navel SRO any time of the day. The food in restaurants ranges from Chinese and American chain fast food to what to North American eyes is most unusual. A sharply dressed middle class is on the move. The women are sharp dressers who tend to wear more cosmetics, higher heels and show more skin than their poorer and more peasant western sisters in Chengdu. Thanks to the Treaty of Nanking Shanghai has more western influence than perhaps any other Chinese city except for Hong Kong. Some of old Shanghai hasn't fallen to the wrecking ball and the historic Bund along the Huangpu river has just completed an expensive makeover.

As when we took the high speed CRH train to Tianjin I had wanted to take a CRH train for a day trip to a different Chinese city. Nanjing is 2 hours from Shanghai by CRH, other cities are closer. These trains leave from Shanghai's North railway station but unlike Beijing's sedate and organized railway station Shanghai's was a madhouse of peasant migrants with stained decaying teeth bearing huge cheap plaid bundles made out of a shiny cheap tablecloth material full of god knows what along with buckets of bottled water and packages of instant noodles for their long journey on the what the Chinese call “Iron Big Brother” to the provinces. Security was tight as it is at most Chinese transit facilities so we couldn't even investigate buying tickets without waiting on long slowly moving security lines where the peasants got wanded and their bundles x-rayed so we gave up, it was simply too much of gauntlet to run.


Shanghai pictures are here
Panda pictures are here

Chengdu – A 2nd Tier Chinese City

Beijing and Shanghai have had billions of dollars lavished on them for recent or ongoing international events and their citizens have been taken to charm school to smooth over bad habits such as suicidal driving, Chinglish and loud public spitting. So what about a large Chinese city that isn't on the prosperous coast and that hasn't had the benefits of the international spotlight?

Welcome to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in China's interior. No obvious sophistication here, the start/end route information on the side of the #6 bus route says it all, and in English: “Engine Plant → Sewage Treatment Plant”. Chengdu has only one real internationally known attraction, the Chengdu Panda Base just outside of town. There foreigners and Chinese tourists alike oh and ah over the local and endangered bamboo eating bears with stubby legs and cute coloring. Otherwise Chengdu is a large city deep in the Chinese interior that hasn't had a reason for the central government in Beijing to put it through finishing school. People fire up butts almost everywhere, smoke free sections in local restaurants are unknown. People spit in a very loud public trumpeting exuberant phlegm clearing way that is so common that it has been described by Western expats here as the Chinese National Anthem. It sounds gross and it is too. Going for a walk? Best to forget the sandals. We rode a packed Chengdu city bus and heard a grumpy passenger go off on the driver. She screamed back at him for the entire ride. Chinglish abounds.

There's no subway yet (it's scheduled to open in October) so we took buses and cabs. Traffic is hellish. The cab drivers all drive like Stevie Wonder, in NASCAR, on meth. Which doesn't really differentiate them all that much from other local drivers. Unlike Beijing there are a fair amount of bicycles, pedicabs, mopeds and three wheeled trucks in the traffic mix too. The driver of the cabs we hailed all seem to like weaving in and out of lanes and cutting over double yellow lines to play chicken with oncoming packed city buses. Near misses seem to be the rule and it's a ballet of organized chaos that all the locals, drivers and pedestrians alike, seem to be in on. I don't pity the pedestrians, they're as fearless as the drivers and have more to lose.

For anyone who melts at the sight of a panda Chengdu is the panda Vatican. It's the headwaters of panda, the home office of cute. The pandas live up to their advance billing too, they are cute, they spend their days in captivity on display in open areas surrounded by people clicking camera shutters. The pandas don't have much to do, bamboo is delivered to them and they spend their days either playing with each other, climbing trees or on their backs chomping bamboo. Keepers dressed in blue smocks enter the enclosures when the pandas aren't looking and whisk away the panda poo. Pandas are cute but they're still powerful wild animals and when a panda decides he wants something he gets it. Tourists come from overseas, stay in nice hotels and are bused to and from the panda reserve in plush tourist buses. I imagine that other than the pandas the overseas tourists have very little contact or interactions with the locals. Just to be different Eleanor and I took a cab to the reserve and took public transit back to town. I didn't come all this distance to be isolated, if I want that I can vacation in a guarded camp.

Other than the pandas there's not much going on in Chengdu for someone who has no other reason for being there, doesn't know the place and can't pierce the language barrier. There's upscale shopping, there's middle class shopping with all of the worlds chains, there's Wal-Mart, Carrefour and their Chinese imitators like Ren Ren Le (which has shamelessly appropriated Wal-Mart's trademarked yellow smiley face) and there's shopping for the poor; a gigantic local market near the north railway station which has nearly everything at dollar store prices with dollar store quality. I bought a few Chinglish shirts but this place has everything you wouldn't want: rabbits and gerbils (rodent: it's what's for dinner), baby chicks dyed in dayglo colors that nature never intended for poultry, stuffed animals, cheap shoes, cheaper clothing, and all kinds of knock off cosmetics that fell off the back of a homemade three wheeled truck.

The food in Chengdu is outstanding and cheap and we didn't even try the local hotpot Sichuan province is famous for. Eleanor speaks enough Mandarin to make sure that we didn't order dog or chicken feet or pig blood pudding any other local specialties that might offend our (well, my) tender North American sensibilities. But some of the locals seem to take a little too well to fast food chain restaurants. KFC and McDonald's are very popular along with some Asian chains (like Dicos) and local knock-offs. Eating at these joints is somehow trendy but a burger, fries and a Coke not only is crap, it costs more than a belly plumping local lunch for two at a nice restaurant. A grande drip at Starbucks costs close to $3 US and most locals drink tea but trendy types manage to drink and be seen with the other local beautiful people at Starbucks.

Except for one slightly surly cab driver the locals were great. The folks at the Buddhazen Hotel went out of their way to help us. When we wanted to take the local bus the hotel manager didn't try to talk us out of such folly, he walked us the 3 blocks to the right bus stop. When we were looking for a nice place to go in the evening the manager took us in a cab with his girlfriend to what turned out to be a fast food chain preserve. But without Eleanor and her grade school Mandarin none of this would've happened. When I'm alone in a place like this I'm like a dog with a wallet. I can buy things but, what? I can't read (she can't either), I can't write and I can't say anything that anybody in a position to help me can understand. I can pantomime but unless you're Marcel Marceau that looks stupid. Besides, I long ago got tired of the various kind of gestures I've thought up when I really need the mens room.

More China awaits. Next stop: Shanghai and the World Expo.

Click here for Chengdu pictures.
Click here for panda pictures & video.

Chinglish Choice

I get it, leave valuables in the hotel safe or they could get stolen.  Or, “be ready for lose”. 

Every blog on China seems to have some obligatory Chinglish and it would be bad ju-ju for me to upset this tradition. As for just what Chinglish is check out Wikipedia's extensive entry Many humerous examples here: http://www.engrish.com/ There's no need to hunt down Chinglish in China, it's everywhere so it finds you. It's usually well meaning on the part of the writer and I still wonder why the Chinese think it's necessary to have English (or their own unique interpretation of it) everywhere. I'm glad that they do it, it means that I can read street signs and figure out where I'm going on the metro and get just a little bit less lost.

Behold! Maybe this is the origin of the phrase "Chinese Fire Drill". I found this on the inside of the door of my room at the Jin He Hotel in Chengdu.

Like most Chinglish the true meaning can be grasped after some thought. I found this one outside of a monorail station in Chongqing. It shows 3 businesses that have done well in the shopping center by the monorail. So "Tertiary Is Happy" probably means that good things come in threes. Or not.

Just a misspelling, I hope.

From Beijing: I have no clue of what they were trying to tell me. Change for parking? Since only a complete stark staring suicidal lunatic would attempt to drive in any Chinese city I didn't have to concern myself with whatever this is.

This one's from Hong Kong. English is one of Hong Kong's official languages so they ought to know better, unless I'm not up on my art and fashion and there is something called a digital perm.

Check this guy out, I shot this billboard in Chengdu. The text says, "The strongest potential makes the Chinese arrogant Men's clothing brand". Change the word arrogant to confident and it suddenly makes more sense.

This is from Dandong on the North Korean border. I found it outside a men's room. It means more than just keep the place clean.

The message is helpful, noble yet strangely phrased.

Fashion! For Men! China Style!

Now that I'm back home nearly everything I read makes sense. I can walk into just about any restaurant and make sense of the menu, no more taking the waitress to the tables of my fellow diners so I can grunt and point. Unfortunately for me even the conversations of passersby now make sense. At least all of the T-shirts slogans I see make sense. All of them except mine. When I ran out of clean shirts in Chongqing I went on the hunt for the goofiest, most inane T-shirts I could find. A fool's errand? Not in China, everybody wears them. I now have a golf shirt that says,

Golf: The Purpose of the golf link to urnamen is to adsance the game of golf

None of these shirts was purchased in shady knock-off joints, they were all bought at a French based chain Carrefour.

I'm going to be getting some strange looks this summer because I'm going to be a walking billboard for men's fashion in China.

(Below) I took this picture in Guangzhou in 1982. Notice the English on most of the shirts.

Hotpot and a Communist Era Hotel

Sichuan Province is famous for hotpot. To eat hotpot you sit at a table with a large burner in the center that heats spiced oil with floating chilies. You order the ingredients and then cook to taste, being sure to dip into a bowl of garlic flavored chilified oil before putting your chopsticks into your mouth. Or, if you're a spice wimp like me, they'll float a smaller pot of boiling water in the boiling oil. The water for my dinner contained a small whole fish, scallions, some small bean-like fruits and various spices. I ordered some small mushrooms, bean curd skins and some other vegetable that I had never seen before. I was told that the menu was in English and technically it was. I passed on "cow spinal column" and I almost ordered "American tender boot" just so I could see what it was. The menu was full of English that had been massacred, sliced, diced, pureed and heavily spiced. Since it was dark and I was only out cruising for dinner I didn't have my camera.

Chengdu is full of fractured English, even Helen Keller could find examples of Chinglish here. Why someone would call a clothing store "Lesbian and the Life" is beyond me, just like the guy who sat at the table next to mine at the hotpot restaurant wearing a T shirt that said, "Jew Jeans" or the man out for a walk with his wife and their one government approved child wearing a black T-shirt that said, "Glitter Bitch". I've taken a few pictures of it but to take many more would be pointless, it's everywhere. The locals must think that it's cool otherwise why would they bother?

The Chinese hotels that I've stayed at before were a step up from the old commie era hotel where I'm staying now in Chengdu. They would cater to western palates with coffee, eggs and other breakfast items that we pampered westerners prefer. There wasn't even the pretense of western breakfast this morning. No coffee but I did have my choice between hot milk and a hot white fluid that I think tasted like soybean milk. There were also 3 different kinds of congee, some cookies, spicy salted beans, heavily salted peanuts and various fried buns and vegetables. I also ate something that was vaguely chowfun-like. Nothing was labeled in any language. I'm not sure what it all was but an hour later I was alternating between thinking that it was pretty good and wanting to hurl. I think it was all the oil, they're big on oil here and I have a low oil threshold. There must be some kind of edict handed down from the Communist Party in Beijing that all food consumed in Sichuan Province must be fried or at least passed through some oil, preferably chili infused oil I seem to be the only Westerner who stumbled into this hotel. For less than Motel 6 prices I'm getting a slightly run down commie era hotel. If there's A/C here it ain't working. Some of the hutong roofs are strewn with rubble, during the night someone decided to loudly shovel some if it. Perhaps it was done on one side and needed to be turned. To get hot water turn the sink spigot to the left, the shower control to the right (even though the left of the control says HOT in English). No fridge, no safe.

The people in town have pondered me a bit as I passed by but very few have shouted "Hello" or "lauwai" but I did attract the attention of the local pimps who had access to girls who could show me a massagy good time. I must look like a high roller. The hotel staff though speaks no English and when I arrived they treated me as if I had just emerged from a flying saucer. The mattress is the typical Chinese sheet of drywall. Internet connectivity here makes me long for the good old days when I had dialup. I'd like to send pictures but my LAN connection chokes on anything bigger than text. But it's nice to know that some things in life can be depended upon, I'm somehow still getting all of my spam. There's a wireless router hiding being an Intel Centrino ad at the front desk, I may go down there and lurk for awhile if it's not just for show because I can't pick it up in my room.

This afternoon I did a deal with one of the two government owned phone companies. At least I think I did. I was walking though a part of town that seemed to specialize in cell phone stores. Some people sat on the sidewalk selling old cell phones, others kept trying to hand me 8.5 X 14 pieces of paper filled with columns of numbers. They looked like large bookie sheets. Then it dawned on my tiny pea brain, they were selling cell phone numbers. Since I've learned that under the New Communism everything is negotiable I turned down a cell phone number at 100 Yuan (about $12.50). We bargained via calculator and settled at 50 Yuan but when he tried to add in an extra 30 I walked away. I may look funny but that doesn't means that you can take advantage of me. A woman who had been watching the deal go sour approached me and indicated that she'd do the deal for 50 Yuan. I agreed but she wanted me to chose a phone number. Fung Shui? They're temporary telephone numbers, they're all the same to me. She took me down a grimy alley filled with used cell phones and dealers, she took me right to her Mr. Big, the phone pimp. Mr. Big looked about 16 but he spoke some English. He assured me that I could call the USA. He recorded my number and who made the sale and I was back out on cell phone street. Seeing that I had no idea how to use my new service I stopped in at my new phone company, China Unicom. More language problems. They said that I could not call overseas until they recorded all of the information from my passport and then I had to wait 24 hours. Bureaucracy? Secret police? I agreed. The people with the sheets of phone numbers kept coming into to the phone company to try to sell the phone company's telephone numbers to it's customers. Maybe it's just business. And under the New Communism business cannot be stopped. When I was in Dandong in November I bought a SIM for my cell phone from a street vendor, no Mr. Big involved. The street vendor never told me about checking in with the phone company, probably because she didn't speak English. After I got home I read that the Chinese government had put a stop to such street sales citing security concerns. And while China Unicom did record all of my information (my papers were in order) it was only for the green light to place overseas calls. I was free to use the card within China before I voluntarily visited the phone company.

While walking around this morning I bought yak milk. Why did I buy yak milk? Because I could, that's why. I bought a 250 ml box of the stuff, I may bring it home if I can figure out a way to keep it from rupturing inside my luggage. It's not every day that one can buy a box of yak milk. When I'm walking the streets vendors are constantly trying to hand me advertisements, for what I don't know. I usually point to the Chinese printing, then to my eyes and shake my head, pantomime for I CAN'T READ so your ad is wasted on me. It usually works.

I  just went to the lobby and tried the wireless, my laptop reads it loud and clear. Unfortunately it's hooked up to the same sorry Internet connection I have in my room so it doesn't work. Or it does work, but only with Chinese web sites. http://www.google.com.cn/ works fine, http://www.google.com/ is dicey. All the guys on the hotel staff come over and played with my laptop, which I'm convinced is just fine. And Hotmail won't come up on my laptop or their PC in their business center, which makes me suspect the heavy thumb of the government. This hotel has some odors that I've never experienced before and now it's going to have some more. When I was on my way downstairs to try the wireless I noticed that the entire hallway on this floor, except for maybe 20' around my room, the carpet was covered in sheets. The sheets squished and darkened when I walked on them. I could hear a woman sobbing loudly in a utility closet while others tried to comfort her. I'm not sure what happened but it can't be good.