Luke Skywalker Where are You?

This weekend we continue a tradeshow where we have a pavilion. It started on Thursday with the usual opening ceremonies with interesting (not) speeches from dignataries. There are always the young women in red chipaos (the dresses with the slits up the side) who pretend to be Vanna White as they direct the aging VIPs to and from their seats. I can't tell you how hilarious it was to watch all the dignataries (mostly Party bosses) wobble onto the stage to the blaring sounds of the Star Wars theme. Can you picture that?

Well, I have to go take a tour of something called "Orient Land". I'm not sure what it is but it's something I was invited to. I'll let you know later, if I return.

Thinking about a little History

Good weather brought me outside most of the weekend. It all started on Friday night after a dinner with students from a southern US university. I couldn't find a taxi so I started walking, I walked across the Suzhou River, down the Bund, down Nanjing Road, past People's Park, past Tomorrow Square, past Jingan Temple ... I walked almost three hours to my neighborhood and decided to stop there - I thought there might be a danger of getting into a Forest Gump cross-continental groove. But I got up Saturday and started walking again and didn't stop for seven hours. On Sunday, I rested.

On Sunday I took the bus downtown with the intent of studying in People's Park but I couldn't find a single bench or rock to sit on - they were all occupied. Shanghai folks get there early and sit there all day - I never saw anyone leave. So I went to Pizza Hut overlooking the park and had a little lunch. Looking out the window down Nanjing Road and across to the park I thought about the tremendous changes this spot has seen in the last century. In the early part of the 20th century the large park across the street was the European's horserace track. The street below, Nanjing Road, was the Park Avenue of Shanghai and saw the first big Chinese department stores open up along it in the 1930s. Out the window I can see the Shanghai No. 1 Department Store is still there - old and out of place among all the new skyscrapers. I also see the old YMCA between my window and the old department store. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the old YMCA was used by Mao's Red Guards as a part-time interrogation center. More than a few murders were committed there. Worried family members used to sit in People's Park and stare at the building and hope their children or parents were still alive. There's a lot of history outside the window of Pizza Hut.

You're Kidding?

Went to a dinner a couple of days ago and suffered some yucky dishes and enjoyed some others. The host ordered a vegetable dish for me and I was delighted to see a heap of unadulterated crisp veggies but then I saw that the veggies rested in the split-open bodies of deep-fried songbirds. Gag! Who in the world would think that was appetizing? Just please, please give me a simple cheese pizza!

Leave a Little on the Top Please

It was time for a hair cut so I walked down the street to a black and white barber pole. When I walked in a young woman and a teenage boy were sitting in chairs with their heads buried on tabletops. They seemed surprised to see me - or anybody for that matter. I asked for a haircut and an hour later I walked out having had the strangest barbershop experience ever. The lady had shampooed my hair, given me a 20-minute head massage, pounded on my neck and shoulders and (this is weird) cleaned my ears with cotton swabs, popped my fingers - and then turned me over to her barber husband who gave me a careful scissor cut. All this cost me US$4 It's worth a trip to China.

Slow Living 

Tired in People's Park 

Red Guards

This weekend I did a lot of walking - mostly in the old French Concession part of Shanghai. This area is lined with trees and colonial-style buildings from the early 20th Century. I retraced the story of the author of "Life and Death in Shanghai". I walked from the old YMCA building where her daughter was murdered by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution to the house they put her in after her release from seven years solitary confinement. Walking these streets today it takes some effort to picture how things were in the late 60s and early 70s when all of China went crazy. Walking down the street looking at the faces of people in their 50s you wonder if they were some of the millions of Red Guards that turned China upside down at the behest of Chairman Mao. Today, no one admits to having been a Red Guard.

All that walking on the first clear weekend since I got here reminded me that prolonged exposure to the sun cause painful burns. I just hadn't seen the sun in over two months. Too much smog.

Grousing Dragon, Hidden Panther

There are two groups of very senior senior citizens (AARP+) that gather on the sidewalk in front of my office building early each morning to do tai chi and to dance with each other in slow rhythmic circles. One group occupies the street corner and dances with red fans. The other group stays about 30 feet away and dances with gold fans. The two groups eye each other suspiciously as if they were ready to rumble at the slightest provocation. The tension between the reds and the whites is palpable. I thought the competition was over technique but today I noticed that women outnumber the men in the groups by about 10 to 1. Is competition over this scarce resource the origin of the red/gold schism?

Momlls wants to know how my tai chi is coming along. Well, I wouldn't say I was proficient. During class this week I fell over and toppled the lady next to me. I call the move the "Hidden Panther" because the victim never sees you coming.

Chunky Air Delays Flight

After an hour of flying through a "white-out" of smog I arrived in Hefei, the capital of Anhui Province. There's so much smog and dirt in the air in East China that one can barely see the ground from several thousand feet. There's no way the pilots could see an approaching mountain or aircraft unless they are using instruments. The plane was three hours late taking off because of inclement weather over Anhui. I think they just meant that the air was especially chunky today.

My gracious hosts provided a four-hour-long dinner upon arrival and treated me to innumerable bottoms-up toasts of wine, beer and baijiu jet fuel. By the fourth hour half the 20-odd guests were slumped in overstuffed chairs in a corner and the other half were still at the table trying desperately to make profound statements while smoking "Long Life" cigarettes like chimneys. And I was the only person at the table that was not a doctor or health official. Back at the hotel I'm breathing through a wet cloth to clear out my lungs.

The Oscars

Last week I went with the Big Boss to a grand opening of a company. We were zipping along with the Murkin flag on the fender and pulled up to the front of the building. When they saw us coming fireworks went off, a red carpet rolled out (I'm not kidding), dancing girls pranced over and put flowers on our lapels, executives and local govt officials welcomed us with fervor - it was overwhelming and humorous at the same time - but while this was going on I felt like I was watching this whole hoohah from above - a kind of out-of-body experience, and I thought how curious we humans are. Instead of cutting a ribbon they had us take a bow and arrow and pop huge red balloons with the arrows. Odd custom. But I thought to myself that I was glad Dick Cheney wasn't there.

Mountain Roads...

On Friday I'll be flying to Hefei in Anhui Province for a trade show and conference on one of the industries I cover. I'm told Anhui is the West Virginia of China - mountains and not so prosperous. Ought to be fun flying on China Eastern Airlines! I wonder if they have hillbillies in Anhui?

International Women's Day

This was the first time I ever got International Women's Day off. Since it is a holiday in China we got half a day off. They used to let only the women off but someone filed an EEO complaint so now men get half a day off too! Only fair since they don't have an International Men's Day. I celebrated by coming home and cleaning the house.

I'll be glad when American Idol is over - it's on the Star World channel here every Wed - Friday evening and they preempt the Simpsons and Malcolm in the Middle for it.

A Note to Calisooner: I'm still trying to find information on QQ for you. No luck so far.

A Long Walk

Another good weather day in Shanghai so I took the 925 bus to People's Park, had lunch at Taco Bueno, walked the length of the Nanjing Road pedestrian Mall to the Bund, went south along the Huangpu River to Yuyuan Gardens and then hopped the 911 bus back home. A six hour trip. Along the way I visited a bookstore, a vegetarian dumpling shop, and sat and watched people go by on the Bund.

I also declined the offers of about 60-80 people trying to sell things or make money someway. Some of them can be incredibly aggressive - one fellow trying to sell me an electric razor actually tried to apply the buzzing razor to my face as I walked along. One of the most bothersome come-ons are the young women that approach tourists or foreigners walking along the Nanjing Pedestrian Mall. They try to chat you up and then invite you to have tea with them. I'd read about this gimmick before I got to Shanghai - they take you to a "tea shop" in a nearby building that exist only to charge an outrageous price to suckered tourists. Tuffs make the duped tourists pay up before they'll let them out of the "tea shop". You have to be careful.

Flying Roofs of Yuyuan 

Traffic on the Huangpu in March 

Shopping lane at Yuyuan 

It was a pity I wasn't hungry. Click on photo to enlarge.

The Huangpu

I enjoyed a walk by the Huangpu River in downtown Shanghai this afternoon. The weather was warm enough for a change - a light jacket was enough. I took a crowded subway from Puxi (west of Huangpu) under the river to Pudong (east of Huangpu) and crossed the world's longest pedestrian crossing to the Super Brand Shopping Mall where I had a pizza with a friend. After lunch I strolled along the river and enjoyed the afternoon view of the old Bund across the river.

One of the things I find odd about Shanghai and China in general, is the way I see most people treating handicapped people. They aren't treated very well at all. In the shopping mall elevator today I watched from the rear of a crowded elevator while four men pushed their way in front of a old woman in a wheelchair to get on the elevator. After they got on there wasn't enough room for her to get on. There wasn't a look of anger on her face but rather a look of resignation. What's the use of being angry all the time over the way you are treated? I was sickened by this and when I exited the elevator at the next floor I suddenly and uncontrollably found myself shoving one of the men aside and shooting him a look. I'm sure he had no idea why I was angry.

I say it's odd the way handicapped people are often treated here because most people here are extremely friendly and very nice. So I don't understand this anomaly of behavior.

A Talk by the Huangpu

Peavine Politics

A lot of people I know (some way too well) are running for political office back home in Peavine. It's interesting to read about the political goings on from halfway around the world. According to the Peavine World the campaigns have become pretty dirty. Anyone that runs for office has to expect that their lives will be looked into by others and any dirty laundry (real or not) revealed. Some deserve it (you know who you are), many don't.

This is not the case in China however. The press is controlled and only good ol' comrades are allowed to take power. There aren't any real elections. If those in power displease their rivals within the Party they are found guilty of corruption and executed. Their families are forced to pay the State for the cost of the bullet used to kill their relative. The dead prisoner's organs are harvested and sold to hospitals here.

Those politicians back in Peavine better count their blessings.

No Censorship Here!

I've been watching CNN tonight and reading a copy of the China Daily (English version) at the same time. The headline in the China Daily (published in China by the government) says that China doesn't censor the Internet or news in general. But for some reason everytime a story comes on CNN tonight about a newspaper in China that was shut down by displeased authorities the TV goes blank. It stays blank until the story is over and then CNN comes back on. This happens each and every time. Quite a coincidence don't you think?