fron Shanghai to Ulaanbaatar

I'M PUBLISHING THIS POST, BUT WILL ADD PICTURES LATER DUE TO A TECHNICAL GLITCH:

Leah:

NEWS FLASH: FIRST GRANDBABY BORN THE DAY BEFORE YOM KIPPUR!! And here I am in China... Can't wait to get to NY to get to know my granddaughter!

*******

Our one night in Shanghai, we walked through nearby streets, which were lined with outrageous neon, open shops, street vendors, bicyclists, older people shmoozing and smoking, young people in groups laughing and talking, often with punk style hair or clothes, women hanging out laundry, white tablecloth restaurants, massage parlors with the girls sitting in the window like merchandise, hawkers of every description, etc. Houston's lack of zoning is tame in comparison. We ate very well for about $2.50 each in a place that had three tables. We browsed the street vendors and looked at Nike knockoff and rows of skewered grilled asparagus. Then we dodged bicycle traffic and walked back to the hotel and fell into bed. In the morning, we ate dragon fruit, persimmon (both purchased from the street vendors) and our own coffee with soy milk. Dragon fruit has a milky white interior and tiny black seeds.

The train to Beijing was fast, clean, quiet, and comfortable. We arrived after dark with the somewhat daunting task of finding our way to our hutong hotel, down a narrow, obscure lane. The taxi driver asked three people along the way, but we made it.

Scattered throughout Beijing are these old-style Chinese neighborhoods, usually enclosed within a low wall, and inside each one is a collection of family compounds, tiny living spaces around tiled courtyard, without grass or dirt. Very narrow lanes run through the hutongs, meant for foot travel, but now traversed by cars rather dangerously. There are many shops and public toilets because many don't have running water. We chose a hotel in a houtong because these ancient structures are being destroyed at a fast rate.

***

Everywhere I go I see people in Western clothes, eager to speak English, and Western products fill this place. I'm surprised, sometimes saddened, at how much we have exported. The prosperity seems to be a good thing, but there are Chinese values that I admire that are different from what I associate with how I grew up. People here have a very healthy diet,they are very fit and trim -- they believe in exercise as part of a having a healthy mind and spirit -- and the degree of discipline and hard work is extraordinary. Will the influx of Western culture be added on, or replace traditional values? I did not understand the impact that American products and economics have had on the world until I came here. It is good that other countries have taken our lead and gone on to produce their own. Our waning as "world leader" (whether or not that's true) is only because the kids are growing up and doing it on their own. Our impact has been immeasurable, and the global economy, the global community, is infinitely more integrated, and homogeneous, because of it. An awesome concept.

*******

Woke up early and went out walking in the hutong. In this city of something like 18 million (???) I found myself in a small town. Across the lane there is a school, and I listened to the children inside singsonging their lessons. Parents congregated outside; it was the beginning of the school day. Old people held small dogs in their laps and visited with one another. Often the dogs wore sweaters, or sat on their own chairs. Bikes passed pulling carts loaded with enormous piles of merchandise. One man pulled a cart with his toothless old mother in it. Shops were opening, and people were buying street food, produce, talking to one another.

After listening to tapes of chinese phrases in my car at home dozens of times before this trip, and now with this immersion, I can finally hear the four distinct tones of the Chinese language. This language isn't spoken. It is sung.

******

We took the fast, silent Beijing subway to see tinamen Square and the Forbidden City. Subway tickets are 32 cents, and it is very easy to navigate. Walking toward the square, Susan looked up and noticed the silhouette of an ancient Chinese astrological observatory. We turned down a narrow lane and walked through a hutong that is being destroyed. one family was living in a tent. There were bulldozers and piles of rubble that looked like pieces of very old bricks. I've read about the destruction of the hutongs, but it doesn't compare to standing there and seeing it, thinking about the communal sense within a big city now lost to residents who may have been living there for generations. Where did they all go?

The observatory was built in the fourteen hundreds. The instruments built for observing and measuring movements of the stars are elaborate, accurate, quite large and absolutely beautiful. It is no coincidental that the observatory is very near the Forbidden City. I imagine 15th century Chinese astronomers as servants of the emperor. It seems the knowledge they gained was pretty well contemporary with Western advances at the time. The Chinese astronomers certainly knew the world was round for many centuries, albeit supported on the back of a turtle...

*******

Tianmen Square is a vast, flat concrete patio built to allow a million people to congregate in front of the Great Hall of the People and also in front of what is now Mao's tomb, where his body still lies on display. We didn't care to go in and see. Standing there among thousands of Chinese tourists taking pictures, the thought of tanks rolling in in the midst of that was terrifying.

We took pictures of over-the-top topiary, put up in honor of the Olympics, alongside Tianmen.

*******

Across the street is the great Forbidden City, home of emperors for hundreds of years. A small city of elaborately decorated buildings of red and gold are enclosed inside a red wall. For centuries, no one was allowed entry except the court of the emperor. Now it is claimed by the People, and chairman Mao's portrait hangs in the front. Thousands of visitors a day, mostly Chinese, stream through.

We entered the first building, which was once a guardhouse, its architecture within and without is sumptuous and grand, to find it dark and empty, and at the opening, kiosks of schlock. the sublime has become common. It felt like I was being subjected to propaganda; the People supplant the Emperor, who has been brought down to... this.

We took over an hour to walk through only a portion of the "city," and all along, I felt awe and loss and a sense of inevitability -- none of the triumph I was being directed to feel. No claiming of this as my own. After all, I am not from here.

The buildings are all open, but there is a bar across every doorway. You can look in at a sampling of the unbelievable furnishings and gilded and painted doorways, columns and molding. You pass through building after building that forms a series of guardhouses, some over moats traversed by elaborately carved bridges, before coming to the palace itself, which is more of the same, but much larger. Susan's comment: this seems to have been the home of a bird in a gilded cage, trapped and powerless. That indeed was the case of the last Emperor.

I was most impressed with the royal garden. It is filled with very old cypresses that seem to have been trained to grow in sinuous curves, like the trees in old Chinese scrolls. I felt I was looking at a source of those pictures.

As we were heading back to the front to leave the City, it began to rain. People were running to leave, and it seemed that, in a few minutes, the huge crowds were gone. We huddled together under our single, small umbrella and walked the deserted walkways. We took a picture of the large square at the empty, usually filled with crowds, now empty, in the rain, at the end of the day.

We wondered if we would be sleeping that night in the Forbidden City -- a sentiment that only increased when we got to the front to find guards had drawn the huge red doors shut and locked. We found a few other people also locked inside. If you need English in China, ask someone under 25. One young man explained that we had to wait for the closing flag ceremony to end. Still, it was one of those moments when I became more conscious of the ubiquitous military guards, and how silent and obedient everyone is before them. One must not speak to them or ask questions. None of them know English. They are not there for your protection or aid, but to watch you, and that is all.

********

We spent nearly thirty hours on the Trans-Mongolian Railroad headed to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. We had a small sleeper car and enough room to sit and work or eat. There was a common dining car. We crossed the mountainous Gobi desert for many hours. We saw open pit coal mining, grazing camels, many towns of gers (round tents) in the middle of nowhere, and men on motorcycles herding horses and cattle.

*****

from Susan:

Beijing public transportation is a generation evolved from my visit of 2005. Gone are the paper tickets of varying amounts corresponding to the distance traveled, all fares are Y2, and a recyclable reloadable plastic hard card is given instead. The card is swiped on entry and gobbled at the exit turnstyle. Although some of the trains are new, proudly manufactured in China, the grab bars are proportioned for taller westerners. Hanging straps of hard acrylic drop six inches. All of the cars have intelligible Chinese/English announcements; a few have electric maps depicting stops to come.

We found the ancient observatory by accident. I knew we were in the general area, but a large art car -esque sculpture made us enter a teardown jutong. The observatory was fantastic. Rose gardens and a moon gate complemented the bronze sextants and sundials. We ascended the exterior wall to find more phantasmagorical celestial instruments juxtaposed with the contemporary skyline.

We declined a Mao audience and visited the Forbidden City. Like a temple structure, the successive gates became more ornate. I enjoyed the marble carvings and doors pulls. After a good soaking rain we chose a restaurant, ordering a cucumber and chrysanthemum salad, eggplant and fungus, and a half chicking for $9 total.

On her morning walk, Leah had seen a man selling puffy coats. We went to the puffy coat store stall in the hutong. It had two industrial sewing machines, forty bolts of nylon, and bags of, allegedly, down. The owner offered her the coat from the mannequin, but it wasn't quite right. Out came the dictionary, and "made to order" was translated. His seamstress began to tape measure every imaginable proportion of her body; it would be complete tomorrow evening.

*****

Leah:

But before we got the coat, we spent the day making our way to, and then through, the Beijing zoo. We wanted to see the pandas that were brought to Beijing for refuge after the earthquake in Szechuan province, home of a large panda sanctuary. Half the fun was getting there -- the subway, finding a place to purchase train tickets to Mongolia, the long walk stopping in shops along the way and haggling for merchandise. I bought a small, hand-carved monkey. (I was born in the year of the monkey, and, unrelated to that fact, that was my nickname as a child). Susan bought beautiful cards at the post office, and also some carvings. Every price is highly negotiable, a game we both enjoy.

After the zoo, we parted company. I finally felt confident making my way back "home." Susan went on to the Olympic site to scope it out. She brought back gorgeous pictures of those buildings at night.

I stopped for dinner, about three dollars, and walked back to and then through the hutong. It was dark, but I felt safe. People were packing up and heading home, but many of the shops were still open. I got to the coat stall around eight thirty. My new coat is full length, black with red top-stitching, a hood lined with indeterminate fur (Susan says its cat), and fits perfectly. Very well constructed. I paid $48 dollars, and could have paid less, but I didn't want to. The young girl who sat all day making it was very proud.

******

Now, back to the Trans-Mongolian railway. It is possible to sit for hours looking out a train window, especially with a companion who shares the excitement and interest and awe. Train travel is a nice time to recoup between the arduous days trekking to sites.

Ulaanbaatar is a dusty, aging city, filled with Soviet era block buildings, several massive and beautiful state buildings (this is the capital) and two glitzy high-rises. After the abundant, healthy Chinese food, we have to adjust to a cuisine that is largely red meat and root vegetables. Service people in the stores have been far less eager than the Chinese, and prices are are higher and far less negotiable. Soon, we will go out to a national park for a nature adventure. Today we will see several museums and, I hope, some ethnic theatre in the evening. More on this later.