Beijing to Berlin

Nearly a month on the road and we have been growing pooped.

Tony has been sick how many times? I've had my own health issues (not to be discussed here). We've been road-weary, longing for a couch and a movie, or perhaps a panini sandwich at an outdoor cafe. At the very least, a place to stay put where we could empty our backpacks into dresser drawers and live like civilized people.

As Jacob said one fine day, "Sometimes you wake up and you don't feel like China."

Fish dried on an outdoor sidewalk. Maybe this explains why we keep getting ill.

So we decided to take a vacation from our vacation. This, of course, involved transporting ourselves somewhere else, which brought another dislocation and working out of details.

After much trampsing around Shanghai looking for ferry tickets, and a two hour boat ride, we arrived at the Buddhist enclave of Putuoshan Island in the East China Sea.

The first thing we did was hop a bus and were greeted by a friendly monk in ochre-colored robes, a fellow passenger.

Later that evening, Jacob and I met up with Tony on the front steps of our hotel where he was holding court to two other monks and a gathering crowd of Chinese onlookers.

"Saved" by Jacob and his rudimentary Chinese, Tony was let off the hook in communicating with the curious audience. The two monks, it turned out, came to Putuoshan from Llasa to study Buddhism at one of the many temples on the island.

We were to see them repeatedly over the course of our three day stay. One taught us a Buddhist prayer, and lacking much else to be able to say, we chanted together to the amusement of still more onlookers as the monk fingered his wooden prayer beads.

A monk stands in quiet contemplation on the Putuoshan beach. The monks shunned photographs, so this was captured from a distance.

Putuoshan was as close to Chinese paradise as we've found. Its dense foreses, quiet beaches, and clean air was a much needed break from the bruskness of the mainland.

Temples, shroaded by mist and camphor forests, perch on the edge of steep hills and have a decidedly "lived in" feel. The monks are there and everywhere, talking on cell phones, strolling the beaches, licking popsicles, and the younger ones horsing around with each other as they keep watch over the numerous Goddess of Mercy statutes.

The temples have a decidedly lived-in feel.

Putuoshan is a holy site for Guanyin Buddhism, which worships the Goddess of Mercy. There is a 33-meter high gold statue of her visible from around the island.

We don't know how seriously the throngs of Chinese tourists take the religion, but when faced with the Goddess they certainly seem to use the opportunity to ask for help, offering her incense sticks and kow-tows and flower and fruit baskets.

We thought it amusing to see some of the young monks picking off the candy offerings from the alter. "Hey, those are for the Goddess," we objected (to ourselves).

The nice thing about Putuoshan is that it has walking trails everywhere, and we spent several leisurely days roaming around and wearing off the calories for our next meal.

We were glad to see the island when we did because Putuoshan is undergoing a major building boom, probably for tourism development. We, however, liked it just the way it is.

As we were about to leave a temple one day, I smiled and made eye contact with a group of nuns, heads shaved like the men, who were eating apples next to me on a bench.

Next thing we knew, one approached us and handed us each a golden-colored apple. She smiled back, and bowed her head towards her hands perched in prayer then returned to her group, asking for nothing more.

Then we ate the Goddess's apples.

Alison spends a quiet evening at rest reading.

East is West

There is one product that seems to measure how Western a place is in China: coffee.

At the moment, I am sipping my drink of choice, an Americano, at a hostel in Shanghai. This is the first coffee I've had since Beijing, and though I think I've finally broken the addiction (for now), I am reminded how much coffee is the drink of the West.

Across the countryside, in small towns and large, the Chinese, as everyone knows, are tea-totalers.

Hotel rooms come with hot water heaters and carefully doled out tea bags, and often the first service customers get at restaurants are filled cups of tea.

But Shanghai, the "Paris of the East," has a coffee house (including Starbucks galore) on nearly every corner in the downtown shopping area, known as the Bund. And it's not just the lao-wei (or "foreigners" as the Chinese like to say in passing, often to no one in particular), that partake in the consumption. The Shanghai-ers, beautifully donned, seem to love the Western-style sophistication that coffee-drinking connotes.

It's not a cheap drink either, by Chinese standards. One cup typically runs nearly $2, making the drink unaffordable to any middle-class worker.
But no matter in Shanghai -- a city of 18 million that flouts its glamour like the many women here in shorts and high heels -- whose purpose seems to be high-end shopping and hosting international business conferences.

One easily noticeable difference to Beijing are the downtown squares. Beijing has Tian'anmen Square, a massive and monolithic expanse of concrete that creates a feeling of smallness under the weight of the state. The only things to buy are Mao's Little Red Book and Chinese flags.

Shanghai has People's Square -- a welcome shock of greenery in an otherwise garden of neon and shopping malls. The space is also given over to at least three museums and a theater. The square has its quieter spots but hawkers have intruded in many areas selling jewelry, "Rolex" watches, and whatever else sells.

This town has given itself wholly over to buying and selling. There are video screens playing advertisements on the sides of buildings and on boats traversing the river.

High-end international brands are sold everywhere, both real and fake.
Crazy-looking skyscrapers compete for skyline attention -- one that opens into a lotus flower and lights up at night and another that forms a diamond at its top.

We plunked down the $5 per ticket one day to see Shanghai's "20-year masterplan" model and wondered if the city is making a huge mistake in not planning for more green space.

Tony and a small boy "play" one one of the many adult exercise playgrounds in China.

What it's aiming for, it seems, are more high rises and skyscrapers. More dazzle at a distance and more soulless streetscapes. Only 20 years ago, as the pictures in the city design museum attest, Shanghai was still very much a city of intimate, earthy spaces.

A Garden City

China's new aesthetic is curious because the culture knows much about how to create beauty in smallness.

We saw this in the traditional gardens in Suzhou, a town a couple hours to Shanghai's west. Suzhou, which has its own love affair with high-end shopping districts, has kept its dozen or so gardens intact as tourist attractions. They were built centuries ago by wealthy officials and businessmen and still provide a peaceful oasis from the noise and bustle of the streets.

The gardens have three major components: greenery, water, and buildings (usually a pagoda of some sort). And the main structure is the creation of numerous intimate, small spaces within the overall scheme.

Which means it's possible to wander around with hundreds of other people and take a seat in some corner and still feel like you have the place to yourself. That is, until a tour group with loudspeakers arrives in your formerly quiet neck of the garden!

We particularly loved the way the interior windows in buildings framed the exterior scenery, almost like pictures on a wall.

The only downside was the expense. It seems rediculous to complain, until you know the local prices of things, but a ticket into the garden can run you the price of a fine meal. An oasis, maybe, but only for the deep-pocketed.

Actually, the price of tourist attractions is something we've been noticing for some time. Every place in the guide books cost money (even the tunnel under the Huangpo River in Shanghai). If the Chinese government can slap a high-priced ticket on a place of interest it will, affordability be damned. Even as the notion of privacy is so foreign to a country of 1.7 billion people, few spaces are purely public. And everything costs.

The Village Whore

Of course, sex sells too.

Every time I leave Jacob and Tony, they become the instant attraction of Chinese women and pimps. The pimps come up from behind and whisper in their ears "lady massage." The women are less direct, asking them if they would like to be "friends."

Apparently two lao-wei men walking unattended down the street is quite a catch. And indeed, we see examples every day of white men flirting with younger Chinese women on the streets, or as couples out on the town. Call it love, but it's hard to believe if that's all it were we'd seen examples of the reverse.

A man needn't even leave his room to obtain female companionship. At night in our hotel, the phone rings repeatedly with offers. I've taken to be the one who picks up and my voice on the line usually stops a repeat call. This, even though most Chinese women find white men, and all their hair, repulsive.

I've never garnered the same kind of attention, though all over China there are now photos of me posing with Chinese men. In one town, I became an instant hit. I came out of a shop to find Jacob the photo centerpiece for a group of young men, but when they saw me he quickly got pushed out of the way. One by one, each man would stand beside me, his arm around my shoulder, for the camera.
This went on for some time. I joked that I had become each of their "American girlfriend." Or perhaps the village whore?

Doggy Bag

As we left Beijing by train, the urban landscape blended into countryside but only partially.

Eastern China, it seems, is never fully rural. Warehouses and factories spot farm fields, where laborers still till the soil by hand and by horse and plow.

We took "hard seats" on the train, as opposed to the "soft seats," a communist-era distinction that mainly comes down to space and comfort.

Instead of being assigned to seating based on Communist Party ranking, the almighty yuan is the determinate these days as well as available seating.

A hard seat buys a passenger a brutally straight seat and closeness to fellow travellers, an arrangement that despite a modicum of discomfort allows for a degree of comaraderie that lends itself to easy introductions and sharing of food.

This is how, in fact, we came to eat dog.

The train had pulled up to Ji'nan, and one of our seat-mates, a young man with an incessant fidget, hopped off a moment to buy fresh steamed buns.

He came aboard and handed the bagged buns to his buddy, who smiled and held the bag open for us. We graciously popped the buns into our mouths, remarking on how sweet the meat tasted and must be pork.

It was only later that Jacob informed us off-handedly that he was told the meat was dog.

We were to see dog meat again, though I did not have the psychological stamina to overcome my aversion. It was in an outdoor night market in Qufu, where skinless dog heads, canines exposed, perched on meat stands.

I always thought that eating dog meat was a stereotype of the Chinese, something told to scare away the curious from ever trying unnamed meat on menus. But we learned that in northern China, dog is a specialty. We didn't get so far in learning the details: which breed, what they're fed, and if dog farms exist.

As pets, dogs seem to be treated as beloved family members in China. They're usually the small, yippy sort and have much better standing than the mangy stray cats that roam the streets.

We've decided to make our way to Guangzhou in the coming weeks. This southern port, near Hong Kong, is a crowded industrial area, home to the country's first SEZ's (strategic economic zones). It's also where the food gets really interesting: snake, roaches, snails, and beetles. Not sure yet how far I'm going to push my palate.

Almost footloose

The trains bring a delimma.

Up until this week, we've always preferred to travel footloose, flitting from one place to the next as the mood struck. But the Chinese train system prohibits this lack of itinerary. Seats routinely sell out days in advance. We wonder if this is intentional or ill-planned on the part of the state-run system, since it bars any last minute movement (although buses are still available).

In any case, we ran into a bit of a jam in Qufu (a smallish town south of Beijing whose claim to fame is the home and 2500-year-old gravesite of Confucious).

Seeking to get to the garden-city of Suzhou, just west of Shanghai, we were informed that the next train available would be in three days. No big deal. Lacking firm plans, we were flexible, and made our way on the (available) bullet train to Qingdao on the coast. We're scheduled for a 16-hour train ride to Suzhou today by sleeper car.

But the experience got us thinking. Two months in China is not so much time that we can afford to wait around for available train seats. We've started planning.

Bavaria on the Beach

Qingdao is not your ordinary Chinese city, though it does have the requisite soulless skyscrapers and one of the best night markets we've yet encountered.

Built by the Germans at the turn of the century, then occupied by Japan after World War I, Qingdao has an international flavor. Bavarian-style buildings with red roofs and half-timbered walls cluster in the hilly corner of town along with two churches which have become tourist attractions not because they are extraordinary in design but merely for being in China.

Qingdao is home of the internationally famous Tsingdao beer, found in most American Chinese restaurants. We've had many bottles (and drafts) so far over lunches and dinners, and though it's a bit watery ranks superior to other local brews we've tasted.

Leave it to the Germans to come to China's shore and create the best beer in the region, if not all of China.

The city cuddles around its coastline, though we don't believe the Chinese get beach culture (at least as we Westerners know it). Swimming is clearly for men only, and everyone else wades into the ocean with pant legs hiked up. Men sun themselves like beached seals, without towels.

The other major beach activities are clamming and wedding photography. By early afternoon, brides and grooms are competing for rock space, draping their skirts and coattails in graceful poses as if their matrimony was sealed in sand and surf.

Most pleasing (to us) was the active market. Qingdao, like many Chinese cities, really comes alive at dusk and with the lure of food and drink. Since Qingdao is on the ocean, seafood seemed to be the specialty, notably all manner of fried and spiced fish, clams, shrimp, and oysters.

Now, Suzhou here we come.

From streetside holes-in-the-wall to among the highest priced restaurants, Peking duck is a beloved dish in Beijing.

At the lowest prices, the mahogony-colored ducks, basked in plum sauce, hang from the necks in windows ready for eating. At more upscale joints, revellers must call ahead for a ready-made duck, then turn up and watch it be carved with great care on a wheeled cart in front of the table.

"Made in China," reputed to be one of Beijing's finest duck houses, costs a mere $25 for a meal with multiple side dishes and drinks. Located in the Grand Hyatt, in anywhere-international waters, the restaurant manages to create an intimate space where diners can watch the cooks through glass windows while enjoying the heavenly crispness of duck skin and meat wrapped in thin pancakes, tortilla style.

The dish, traditional and straightforward, is, in some ways, a stamp of the old Beijing, which has survived a century of political, cultural, and economic upheaval.

As the city races toward some newly-created identity, it's interesting to see that the food, in some ways, very much remains the same. Besides the spruced up (and more hygenic) nicities at upscale restaurants like Made in China, the food retains a strong link to what's sold at street level.

The last few days we've spent tasting much of what Beijing has to offer. We didn't need to wander far as the streets are teeming with fruit-sellers and subsistence level cooks grilling, baking, and frying for their customers' immediate gratification.

In the mornings we've picked up "Beijing Breakfast," a crepe smeared with eggs and sauces and folded over crispy-fried dough and sold at a street stand. Also in front of our hotel, we ate bread baked in some kind of portable tandoor oven, filled with a spicy anise-spice mixture. And we can't forget the egg woman, who appears under the subway station overpass frying little quail eggs into balls, pasted sauces, on a stick.

Much has been written about Beijing's Olympic fever, the storyline of which is often how the city is modernizing rapidly to put on a good show for the international audience.

The Olympics are a way to showcase the nation's standing in the world, as is true for most hosting countries. But China seems to have something added to prove. This nation, the Chinese seem to be saying, has moved beyond the age of cheap knock-offs to an economic and political player of equal standing on the globe.

Everywhere, there are prideful reminders of the coming "One world, One Dream" games. At nearly every tourist destination, t-shirts and Olpmic kitch is sold. "Friendlies," the cutsy five-figure mascot, appear on subway ads to snuggly stuffed replicas sold in the austere People's Congress. An entire glass building has been constructed on the outskirts of downtown for the Olympic organizing committee.

We wonder how Beijing will hold itself together next year. Fifteen years ago, at a previous international gathering, students used the opportunity to press for greater political freedoms. Will the Olympics spark a new effort?

Despite all the dazzling new buildings (which pay no attention to the streetscape, or even to each other), an older Beijing persists, which both tempts and tests us.

The bathrooms (on a star-rating system) are mostly flushable pit toilets without toilet paper. The traffic, as we found out yesterday on a ride to a section of the Great Wall, is trecherous, with cars and heavily-loaded trucks passing eachother, sometimes two abreast.

When the subway doors open, the waiting crowd rushes forward trying to beat one another for coveted seats (sometimes people forgo the train to wait for the next one so they can be first in line for seats).

The air has been relatively clear, but people tell us that the skies turn yellow and choking during the winter.

Soldiers march in long lines along Tian'anmen Square and police and military are stationed everywhere, their uniforms disguising very youthful face fuzz even as they cut an impressively straight pose. Mao's portrait above the gate to the Forbidden City is the most distinctive (and imposing?) element to the massively unadorned square.

Today we leave the city on a six-hour train ride south to Taishan, one of China's holy mountains. From there we will make our way through silk-production territory on our way to Shanghai.

We're curious how the landscape, food, and people change with the passing miles.

On our way to the Temple of Heaven mid-morning yesterday, we were wandering along the narrow back alleyways of a centuries-old hutong when a cheerful woman stopped us.

She spoke broken English, which was more than that of most Chinese we've met in Beijing, so we felt compelled to soak up whatever interaction we could with a local.

Hutongs are the Chinese version of the labrynth of narrow alleys -- much like mideval towns in Europe or Arabia -- that make up the old parts of town. Pleasant because of the intimacy of space of life within, they afford a glimpse at an older, more established Beijing away from the polluted roar of traffic outside.

After a few questions, the woman invited us into her home, only a few steps away through a narrow doorway. We had been wondering what life is like hidden behind the hutong walls and she was offering us a chance to see.

Inside, she made no apologies for her cramped and shabby quarters: one room and an outside, covered kitchen. Her husband was at the stove, and she urged us to sit on the edge of their double bed while she immediately commenced making us lunch to the tune of an opera performance on the television.

"America goorrd," she crooned, explaining that she sells tourist souveniers at a nearby hotel.

She took out a ball of dough from a covered bowl and with a rolling pin began skillfully rolling perfectly round pieces, which she then filled with some sort of minced green vegetable, folded, and pinched at the top to make dumplings. Two whole trays of them, it turned out.

We talked of many things: how Bejing's rapidly-changing landscape and culture are good changes, but the poor farmers coming into the city are bad. How life is expensive in the city, but we paid too much for our hotel. She was bright-eyed and warm, repeatedly impressed by our prospective careers and pointing to her head to show her husband that we had "knowledge."

We began to wonder two things. Would we get sick off lunch? And were we being set up for some scam that would be presented after we were well-fed and appreciative.

The scam didn't happen, though we did walk away with two "Beijing 2008" t-shirts for a commendable price of $3 a piece. Tony was the lone casualty on the first front (which is why no photos have been uploaded -- still! -- to this blog).

A warning not to take up a lunch offer again? Hardly. The experience was by the best yet in the first few days of our three month trip across Eurasia.

Beijing is massive, sprawling city. Though it has some pleasant corners, in ticketed parks, it is quickly-modernizing metropolis of scary highways and soaring skyscrapers and dusty sidewalks teeming with people.

The Beijing subway (indeed "convenient" as the intercom says) has three lines: Line 1, Line 2, and Line 13. The 10 in-between lines have not been built yet, but are in the city's ambitious plans.

The youth have, it seems, abandoned any pretense of communist ideals in favor of blatant, apolitical materialism. They are matching the latest New York fads in dress and style, with heavy bangs and shag, permed haircuts (because if you have straight hair, clearly wavy is better).

One clear distinction between West and East is the presence of skin-whitening cream here. As Americans head into sunbathing weather to achieve that healthy glow, Chinese women are carrying umbrellas and covering their faces with whitening masks in order to become perfectly pale.

The hutongs are a remaining vestage of the old days, exploited as a tourist attraction even as they are quickly becoming rubble to make room for the new Beijing. Our tour guidebooks are nearly useless on the subject of hutongs, since they are being razed faster than the books are updated.

Before we left, the woman gifted us these red paper cut-outs for our windows. "Good luck," she explained. Indeed, we felt lucky, from her gesture of friendship and in the reminder that there are good, caring people everywhere.

Please see photo gallery for more pictures. Click on Author "ahawkes" in the right column.