Pomp and Levers

Ceremony is an integral part of public events in China. Conferences, seminars, and grand openings are excruciatingly formulaic and full of pomp. I was at one such conference this afternoon. It took place at the old Russian-built Exhibition Hall on Nanjing Road in Shanghai. Every conference is opened by local government officials and this one was no exception. The director of a government agency was led onto the stage by a pretty young lady in a red Chinese dress. With sweeping Vanna White gestures she directed him toward a large prop that resembled a giant gearbox with an over sized lever. The official could hardly reach the handle on the contraption but with effort he grasped the lever and to the tune of Star Wars he pushed it forward, engaging the electronics inside the fake gearbox ... and lit a small lamp. With this grand gesture the conference was opened and the official tottered back to his seat in the front row.

A bike lane with challenges

Easter by West Lake

We spent the weekend in Hangzhou. I had to give a talk in Hangzhou on Saturday so we all went and stayed overnight beside the beautiful West Lake. Saturday was rainy but Easter was sunny and warm and a great opportunity to walk around the lake. We caught a fast train back to Shanghai on Sunday in time for Gman to have his martial arts lesson.

Shanghai's Shoeshine Crips and Bloods

I mentioned before about the shoeshine terrorists that attack the shoes of tourists (or foreigners) in downtown Shanghai. Last weekend when I was on the Bund again I wore my tennis shoes as a precaution - thinking that would remove me as a target. But the very first shoeshine terrorist I ran into actually tried to squirt paste on my tennis shoes! He was within inches of my new canvas shoes before I could shove him away. We got into an argument that evolved into a discussion. He explained that he was from Anhui Province and had been in Shanghai several years as a shoeshine man. "Anhui is rotten", he said. "There are no jobs and the government is so corrupt." He said that the police in Shanghai only bother him when they need a bribe, otherwise "they leave me alone." "These two blocks near Fuzhou street belong to shoeshine people from Anhui. If you go west two blocks the Zhejiang (province) shoeshine people take over." Apparently, the city is broken up into Crips and Bloods-type rival shoeshine gangs.

Rob Gifford

This is the third and final weekend of the Shanghai Literary Festival at M on the Bund so I had some Powdermilk Biscuits and gathered up the will to go downtown to the Bund to listen to Rob Gifford talk about his book, "China Road". Gifford, previously NPR's bureau chief in Beijing and now bureau chief in London, traveled Highway 312 from Shanghai to the border with Kazakhstan in 2004 and wrote about his journey and his encounters with ordinary Chinese and Uighurs along the way. If there was one big question he wanted to answer for himself was whether China is headed for greatness or whether there is trouble ahead.

Gifford is thoughtful and measured. He lived in China for much of the time since he arrived in 1987 as a language student. He's neither in the "panda hugger" or the "dragon slayer" camps so his conclusion that we can't take for granted that China's rise to greatness is inevitable, is sobering. According to Gifford, China is full of social and political fault lines that could rumble at anytime. He questions how long a 21st century economy can co-exist with a 1950s political system. "Once you let the people start choosing their pizza toppings how long will it be before they want to choose their leaders?"

A Blank TV Screen

I was watching the BBC News tonight when it suddenly went blank. A few seconds later the video reappeared and I caught the last second of a news promo piece about a story on Tibet. A few minutes later, after a story on the Spanish elections the story about Tibet started and the TV screen immediately went blank again. As soon as the story finished, about 2 minutes, the video came back on. Obviously, the Chinese censors are again blocking all incoming news about this subject. It's no wonder why the Chinese people don't have much information about the matter.

What I wonder is how the censors block satellite transmissions. Many of the TV broadcasts received by upscale housing units in China are via technically illegal satellite dishes and the BBC News is not really legal in China. But this law is, like many laws in China, rarely enforced. But how does the Chinese Government block these transmissions through space?

String Theory Illustrated

I was reading about string theory today. It helps me take my mind off the politics back home - which you might say cries out for a diversion. Anyway, I was reading a physicists explanation of how incredibly small strings make up our universe and control its form. Not one to just accept what I'm told, I decided to test it out on my own. I coiled up the wires on my earphones, set them next to each other and quietly left the room. I even turned out the lights and waited five minutes. When I returned to the room - sure enough, the wires had repositioned themselves and gotten hopelessly tangled up. I guess those guys/gals at MIT do know what they are talking about.

Beckham Comes to Shanghai

We went to see the Los Angeles Galaxy play the Shanghai Hong Kong United soccer teams tonight at the Shanghai Stadium. There's some guy named Beckham that plays for LA that seems to be a bit of a star - even the Chinese were rooting for him. The US beat China 1-0. It was interesting to shiver through my first professional soccer game but it's a bit of a low-scoring pasttime.

The sun sets between the buildings of the Bund

Sunday Afternoon

On Sunday afternoons I enjoy the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf cafe at Xintiandi. I'm there right now. Not only does the cafe have free wifi but good tea, comfortable chairs, and plenty of people to watch. Plus, they don't try to run customers off with aggressive waiters or loud music. It really bugs me when waiters hover over you and try to snatch away dishes the moment you aren't paying attention. They take a stand back attitude at the Coffee Bean.

Today at the Coffee Bean is a bit noisy however because the weekly Shanghai Expat meet up is taking place here. There's a lot of jabbering. At least there's no smoke - the Coffee Bean segregates smokers in a room where they can focus on killing each other instead of the rest of us.

Later this afternoon I'll take bus 42 to the Bund and the Glamour Bar/Cafe where the annual Shanghai literary festival kicked off yesterday. I have a ticket to listen to one of my travel writer favorites - Colin Thubron.

Late Afternoon - As I waited for the talk by Thubron to begin I strolled around the Bund as the suns rays disappeared over the old Customs House. During my stroll I was accosted, twice, by a shoeshine-monger. She was the first woman I had seen engaged in this irritation that is visited upon foreigners and tourists. Each time she swooped down and planted a gob of white paste on my shoe as I walked. Insanely, she expected me to pay her to wipe it off. The first time I admonished her in Chinese, "acting this way is not okay!" The second time she did it I turned and wiped it on her pants. Still, my shoe smelled strongly like paint thinner throughout Thubron's lecture.

Forgetting about the irritation of the shoeshine woman I enjoyed Thubron's discussion of his most recent book, "Shadow of the Silk Road", a journey he took from China to Iraq. He apologized up front, explaining that people are often disappointed when they meet their favorite authors in person. He offered a quote from someone whose name I didn't catch, "if you fancy Pâté, don't bother meeting the duck."