Hammer and Sickle

In my naivity I have been under the impression that the hammer and sickle is exclusively Soviet iconography; Lenin, Trotsky, Brezhnev and all that. Not so! You see it in many places in China. I think it is associated with unions or workers at least. No matter, the Russian presence in modern China is strong. Putin is always on the tv news. Here in Beidaihe there are countless Russians, some perhaps foreign experts ( a term reserved for professional foreigners of which I am on the cusp) but most are simple vacationers. They regard this area in much the same way Canadians regard Cuba. I have been addressed in Russian several times now, the first in Beijing waiting for a train going to Tumen on the Soviet frontier near Vladivostok. The signage is often trilingual, that is to say Chinese characters, Russian and English. In Beijing on a hot night and after visiting the John Bull pub in the diplomatic district, haunt of ex-pats, I ate a meal outside in a Russian enclave. The quarters of some Soviets were spartan to say the least. A popular tv series on the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union ran in prime time for ten straight days not long ago. As far as I know Sino-Soviet relations have been on the up and up since the ideological fall out in the sixties. I'm off to check out the Russkies at the Friendship Hotel. Over and out comrades.

Swaztika

I came across some street theatre yesterday which was highly amusing. It came courtesy of the People's Liberation Army. I was not supposed to watch but I was on a public street and breaking no rule I could see. I got in ten minutes of viewing before being hustled along. The day was rainy and the sea breezes welcome after the heat of Beijing. Like in the swallows post you all remember, the rain scared everyone away. So here I am innocently walking up a hill with only hordes of dragonflies about when I pass a shaded basketball court with a batallion of army enlisted carrying out some enactment or other in front of the top brass. I stopped and was amused by the plain clothes villains, one in a swaztika emblazened t-shirt, the others demonstrators with signs. The army were reacting with telecommunications and grit to combat the subversives. I wondered how many degrees removed I was from being their target. Certainly a Chinese family that came along was ushered away before the henchmen turned their attention to me. Will I be put on a plane soon by their colleagues for not having a work visa?

Birds of a Feather Flock To-gether - Canary Club in the Park 

What do the five stars represent? Surely not this no star hotel? 

Pervasive Haze

To-day the pollution haze has followed up a depressing day of the same yesterday. I miss blue skies and wonder if that is affecting my mood since I am now going through a phase in which many things are irritating. Honking and aggressive taxi drivers are perhaps top of the list. This morning changing hotels I deliberately snubbed one who raced over honking furiously as he saw my heavy bags. He must have been thinking I would pay for his next round of drinks. I quickly flagged the next oncoming taxi of which there is always one. However to compensate I am in a great hotel with a view of the sea (when you can see it which may be a sea change if you forgive the pun). I am in Beidaihe and can now dump my heavy bag full of teaching materials of which I am overloaded. Maybe things are looking up after all. The temperatures are now very agreeable after the high thirties sustained over a week.

Yahoo

This is an unplanned post. My e-mail went ballistic on me as I was trying to delete an unwanted message (was it mine you all say?) so now I either give up and save a few yuan or I change course and send this out to all you yahoos. My surroundings are very pleasant in the heart of a hutong old style residential neighbourhood of which Beijing has fewer and fewer. I am at a guest house with lanterns, tiled roof etc. which is built around two courtyards and is definitely a place I would recommend, especially to those wishing to avoid the five star hotel syndrome this city suffers from. Yesterday was a visit to the Beijing International Tourism Expo. It was supposedly only a day for trade people which Helen and I did not know but they gave us complimentary tickets. We were dancing with the Phillipines crew within two minutes of entering the pavilion. Well I have a lot to say or nothing to say, take your pick. I am enjoying sitting here typing but must be moving on. Off to the seaside to-day.

OK Ladies Deploy Parasols

So it is hot in the northern plains. I am in Baoding, a tad to the south of Beijing. I have an extended visa in hand, albeit for a month. I still have to work out how to teach legally, although people keep on asking me to teach anyway. We are approaching the longest day (to-day, to-morrow?) and the daily thunderstorms are cropping up which makes me wonder about all that grain drying on roads and rooftops. The ladies love to keep their skin fair here so many go around with parasols deployed. Often the latter are attached by doohickies to their bikes. The Canary Clubs are out in full force as the caged-bird owners come to the park to let the birds commune (fortunately the owners don't sing too). Today I went to a rather obscure museum tucked away near my hotel. The theme? The Chinese youth who starting around 1911 when the last dynasty was overthrown, went to France to imbibe in communist thought. The values they learned went a long way to forming a base for the later Revolution. Apparently Chou En Lai and Deng Xiao Ping were among them. It was a long boat ride. Port Out Starboard Home (POSH for the uninitiated)? I doubt it since the trip straddled the Equator and would be exposed to the sun no matter. Most probably were in steerage and had no porthole anyway.

Down to the Wire

To-day is the last day of validity of my tourist visa. It is harder to get a work visa than I thought and the last few days have been ones of tales of unlicenced schools, deported teachers and more. My agency has been long on words, short on actions as someone called Confucius say (no relation to Colinfucius that I know of but they both can be traced back several thousand years). So I am scheduled to pick up a visa extension which allows me to travel but not teach. This is an unfolding story. As I write I am back in the fold with the Xu's in Xingtai, but about to decamp. I am scheduled to come back here in August to teach young kids at a summer camp but that is not a sure thing the way things look at the moment. Only time will tell where this all leads.

Five Pavilion Bridge on West Slender Lake in Yangzhou 

Qingdao on an idyllic night 

Jingle Bells

When you are 18 storeys up, it is just after dawn, it is June and the temperature is predicted to hit 37 degrees Celsius, there is something unworldly to hear Jingle Bells wafting in the air. Several days now I have heard the same. This morning I found the source. It is a street cleaning truck, the chimes a means to warn people they are heading for a drenching if they don't watch out. I wonder if the Peruvian army provides the same courtesy with its water cannon crews? A previous encounter in another city gave me a chuckle when I witnessed a taxi follow along under the nozzles, effectively getting a free car wash. China has adopted many western musical pieces and it is common to hear Edelweiss, Auld Lang Syne, Xmas carols and hits such as Moon River. I give a lot of credit to the persons involved in compiling the tapes played on the trains. Several tedious journeys were made much more palatable because of a very judicious selection of music, Chinese and Western alike. A channel on the tv plays Chinese Opera, whether Hunnan or Peking or something else I am not yet sure. The variety of jingles on cellphone chimes is vast. They go off in every conceivable situation. A friend in Xingtai whom I call the Piano Man runs music lessons at his musical instrument store. It was impressive one day to witness two kids aged around ten strut their stuff. One, an overweight boy, had been playing for six months only but already had a repertoire of pieces he could play without the musical score in front of him. Now where is that bazoo and I'll play you a piece myself. Two notes if I recall.

Yes Shanghai if not Shangri-la at the End of the Rainbow 

Anyone want a coolie way to see the city? 

This Ferry in Yantai off to Korea Maybe? 

Yellow Brick Road

Elton John has probably performed in China. He would be impressed by the industry of the peasants. Right now in the north mile upon mile of wheat is being harvested (does Canada still export to our once large trading partner?). Farmers use the roads to thresh and dry the grain. Vehicles drive over the stalks effectively separating the seed from the chaff. The roads and indeed roof tops are a sea of gold. Further south where I have just come from the transition is going on from wheat to rice. The coolies are out in full force in the paddies planting. Heavy rains have swollen the Yangtze to the point it might flood. The view from the sleeper trains I have been on has been a kaleidiscope. One can watch from the bunk or sit on a fold down seat in the corridor. I had a five minute conversation in Chinese to-day, my longest yet. Oh there goes the phone. The prostitutes are phoning each of the rooms one by one and you can hear the progression. Most calls go unanswered. I mistakenly checked into a massage parlour in Suzhou and checked out a couple of hours later when I confirmed my mistake. To end on a musical note, I am in Jinan on the Yellow River. Since the Christie hit in the sixties I have always wanted to see it. Maybe to-morrow.

Colinfucius Say

Serenity comes early in the morning on West Slender Lake. Cool breezes waft over lake but not over Colinfucius brow. Colinfucius see many maidens in a row glide by one by one in their floaty boaty. No one else in each floaty thing. Colinfucius think he must teach English to mermaid mariners. Then tranquility pond see many many man railway workers past their prime arrive to fill boaty things. Maidens tied up all day with babble bubble crowd. Colinfucius think sublime becomes ridiculous. Then he remembers mermaids must commute to work every day like this! Its a dog's life is it not?

Yellow Sea

I have now swum in the Yellow Sea. Before my 16 hour train ride south to Nanjing, then a couple of hours more to Yangzhou, I wanted something refreshing. I really started to warm up to Qingdao but the sea dampened that ardour somewhat as it was cool. I have taken to cold showers so really it was just more of the same. That makes having swum in the Adriatic, the Mediterranean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Atlantic, the Pacific and now in Asia. Not a tsunami in sight but who ever sees them coming anyway? Yangzhou is a city of canals. The Yangtze is just south of here and the Grand Canal just east. The town has aspects of Amsterdam to it. It is cleaner this morning now that the coolie in the hat (who shyed away from being photographed yesterday) cleaned out the dead dog just metres away from where last evening I rinsed my hands after getting water melon (yellow meat) juice all over them. Yesterday was eventful. The railway sleeper journey observing rice paddies and wheat harvest as we went. Navigating Nanjing railway station a real chore (it is being remade). Trying to direct the tricycle taxi driver to the Foreign Experts Hotel an endurance in 33 degree heat, checking in to a beautiful room on campus a delight, eating the water melon the best thing all day although it was nearly topped by the fight inside the confines of the buddhist temple. It had elements of Christ and the moneychangers. Merchants were at each others throats and started breaking pottery over each others' heads. The two policemen acquitted themselves well. What will to-day bring? The train journey was special and it may be my next post if it is not relegated because of something more interesting.

Eucalyptus

To-day is Qingdao on the whistlestop tour. China's fourth largest port, it is also a resort of tall order and will host the diving and sailing in the Olympics. When I arrived Wednesday I had an unfavourable impression. Haggling over a declared price for hotel room was one item, the haze which I thought was pollution another. Yesterday shone bright, as indeed is to-day, and I have seen some very beautiful sights. This was a German treaty concession, bombarded by the allies and Japanese and occupied by the latter. But the theme of this post is environment. The pollution north of here influenced my first impression. China has an air quality problem which of course affects us all. Mercury laden clouds from here show up in North America. A friend says Newsweek has just reported 200 new coal burning power stations are on line. Coal mining production has increased 100 per cent in the last two years. Unsafe coal mines lead to as many as 15,000 deaths underground each year. Asia Pacific Paper (Indonesia) has just opened a new pulp mill in Hainan, the Hawaii of China in the south, but the mill scrimps to find the trees. A southern province has just given the ok to the cutting of tree lined highways (a la France) to feed the mill. Any replacement of natural species will be monoculture eucalyptus. Sea landfill is rampant here in Qingdao and in Guandong. Fifty per cent of China's beaches have gone in the last few decades. Coral takes a beating. But the news is not all bad. Environmental issues appear in the engish language China Daily regularly. It reports on many initiatives. Beijing is to spend billions overcoming sandstorm problems. Hangzhou has opened a major wetland recuperation project. Solar panels and sound or movement activated lights are all over the place. I think I should found a Green Party here to take on the reds (no not the Grits).