Can I Have It?

In college, my friend Al made an excellent observation. When you have something, like a sandwich, and you accquire this in a large group people often ask you
"Is your sandwich good?" and then when you say yes, they immediately ask, "Can I have it?" A bite? A sip?

This is what traveling in China with wealthy retired people is like.

"Ladies and gentlemen, these are the ancient Chinese bronzes of the Shang dynasty, testifying to the independent evolution of the Chinese civilization in the Yellow River valley. Yes, question?"

"It's beautiful. Can I have it?"

A parade of Veruca Salts.

I'm a little bit weary of it - there's a store or a vendor or some sort of buying thing everywhere we go and everywhere we've been peole buy things and then tell these really boring stories about the things or ask what things other people got or how they got them or how clever their bargaining was. There's no break. And some of the "sites" we visit are just fronts for American people just freaking out and buying every Chinese thing they see. How precious! A mass-produced landscape painting! Sure can't get that in America!

Below is the template for the quintessential conversation enacted 7.8 times per day with Wendy, our national tour guide, to whom we've given a lot of grief and the stomach flu.

PERSON: Wendy, is there a good silk store around here?
WENDY: Ah, yes - two blocks away from the hotel is one. And it's supposed to be very nice.
PERSON: But is it *good* silk?
WENDY: Yes, it's very nice.
PERSON: But is it - how shall I put this? Silk of good quality? Because, see, at home I have this Chinese friend who warned me - warned me - that sometimes a lot of the silk they sell to tourists (hand indicates self, me, tourist), you know, tourists, is not the best silk and I'd like to find really good silk. Bring some home. My daughter in law loves Chinese silk. It's really her passion.

WENDY: The silk is very nice.

Select any object traditionally associated with China and substitute it for the word silk in the dialogue above: ceramics, vases, carpets, jade. JADE.

Arg.

I will write more about China and Shanghai tomorrow - the withering group dynamic is sort of crowding my brain right now and I need to vent a little. We leave tomorrow. I will have time at home to flesh things out.

Quickly - I saw Brit yesterday and we went out walking, ate some dinner at a little out of the way place and ended up at a bar on the roof of a hostel overlooking a river and talking with a bunch of people. It was so great to see her and talk to her and walk around Shanghai with a friend who speaks Chinese and has lots of interesting observations and not feel like such a knobtooly tourist. Hopefully we'll get to hang out tonight too.

One of the kids at the hostel was a 25 year old Irishman named Peter who thinks improv comedy is his destiny and wants to move to Chicago.

Improv. There is no cure.

I told him to try out for an incubator team. :)

Getting Past the Eggplant

We got off the boat on Sunday. Then we got on a bus. And then a plane. And then a bus. And then a rest, a boat, a bus and now, SHANGHAI! The center of the immoral in the universe or at least in the Tintin books!

But I can't talk about Shanghai quite yet, because the boat still looms large in the collective imagination of the 45 members of this tour who are now fraying at the edges, getting sick and snapping at each other amid moments of pure jollity and more actual informal humanity than witnessed before. The things a boat can do. Eggplant discussions are a thing of the past.

One of the positive effects of being on the boat for three days was that we had to talk to each other and sooner or later we ran out of polite inquiries or good manners and just descended into the regular human sorts of things. There wasn't much to do on the boat besides look out at the river, except on our morning excursions which involved smaller boats and other parts of the river.

What we looked at was bittersweet - the Three Gorges, other gorges, some occasional monkeys, and a number of incredibly breathtaking sights that are becoming markedly less breathtaking by the day as the new Three Gorges dam backs up water for about 400 miles on the Yangtze. I talked about this a little bit, I think, in the last entry. The effects are fairly dramatic. There are white markers along both sides of the riverbank that illustrate the 176meter mark, which is how high the river will eventually get. Most things below the markers are abandoned, but many villages, coal deposits, and factories still remained, belching out their final smoky belches.

But, despite the massive change occuring, and all the resettling, and the genuine controversy in a country known for its strong oppostion to opposition - we were reminded, China needs the electricity, China needs the dam. And this seemed like a good enough reason until we drove through the town of Yichang on our way to the airport to come here. Yichang is the center of the building frenzy - all the temporary engineers and laborers are residing in Yichang. Yichang is also the last city in China to get the power provided by the dam and the place is a mess. All the still water behind the dam inspired an outbreak of schistasomiasis (probably misspelled) a very nasty disease I learned about in school that involves parasites invading and mating (cue undergraduate chorus of: eeeewwww! grossss!) in your bloodstream. Mao had almost eliminated the disease, but it's back and the place, despite all the construction work, is in poverty. For the dam.

The extraordinary dam. It's so compelling to look at -a huge man made thing that controls so much you can't take your eyes off of it. The only analogy I can think of right now is the Death Star. Yes, the Death Star. It's like looking at the Death Star might be if we were in space and the Death Star wasn't imaginary and people could travel in space and there was also an intergalactic battle for justice. Cool? Glad you follow.

The final night we went through the ship locks to get us around the dam. In each lock they pack in as many as six to ten ships, drain the water from the lock and move you through the five stage process. At night, under bright lights, surrounded by concrete and enormous lock doors making huge low thrums and the slipped shut - well, it reminded me of landing in the Beijing airport. Scary. Fun! Communist! I stood on the prow as we went through the locks and invented the various plots of spy movies that might start in the locks of the Yangtze. This, of course, was before I learned about the schistasomiasis.

And after the talent show. The what? Oh yes. The onboard talent show. Which, of course, is different from the fashion show of the night before. Especially since the passengers participate in the talent show.

This summer I went to a wedding in New Hampshire which was at a "family camp" up there and involved lots of planned activities and beautiful rustic surroundings and cabins and general bohomie. I compared it to a WASPy version of Dirty Dancing. At that point in my life I did not expect to see a talent show on board a river cruise, performed mainly by the staff, and realize that the entertainment aesthetic of Dirty Dancing is carrying its watermelon all over the globe.

Watching the staff perform in the fashion and talent shows was a blast. Mainly because the more improv I do, the more I enjoy amateur theatre that aims for spectacle - costumes! dancing! music and lights! Techno beats matched with outfits from the Ming dynasty! GIVE ME MORE!

A couple of the staff members, I could tell, just lived for it and I loved watching them. One guy - a great hammy physical comedian, did three short routines in different outfits, all non-verbal in order to vault the language barrier. One of the girls had definitely choreographed everything - you could tell by the smile and the utter panic of one of the other dancers stepped out of place. It was great.

And on the second night - the talent show, the cast did some more modern routines, the super-Ham came back as a magician, and one guy breakdanced. How does it feel to be the skinniest 24 year old Chinese guy in the world busting a move for a boatload of ancient white Americans?

No one applauded for the coupld in their fifties - a man who's profile was chisled like a 50s film actor and his lady friend. They did a "medley of songs to show how men are different from women." I didn't recognize his song, but she joined in with "All I Want Is A Room Somewhere" from Sound of Music. Seriously, that is the difference between men and women. We just want a room, somewhere, please god, with chocolate and maybe by ourselves. Even Virginia Woolf thinks so and we all know she was super weird for a woman.

Anyhoo, there is so much more to say about the talent show, but here in the city of sin the internet is very expensive. I'll just say I taught and led a quick game of "Dr. Know It All" which seemed to be a success until The Benevolent King of the Unsolicited Monologue told me I should get a job. Thank you!

Besides him, it went as well as I thought it might and to my surprise, the trip Professor played! The China Professor whose presence makes this whole thing untaxable (good scheming, Harvard!)! She's an awesome woman and I should write more about her later, but it was very game of her to step up there and answer questions.

One. Word. At. A. Time.

For the IGPers out there, I'm seeing Brit tonight (Tuesday). Yeah! She's been here three days! Woo!

The Curse of The Jade Figurine

The guilty little imperialist has left.

She was replaced by the mildy spastic little imperialist last evening as, at 7:30, we boarded the boat that will take us most of the way down the Yangtze river to Shanghai. If you've got your map of China handy, the Yangtze, or the Chang Jiang, is the southernmost major river in the country. It's muddy, and it's in the news recently for being the site of the new Three Gorges dam, which is going to flood most of the area around it in order to create a hydroelectric powerplant. The Chinese government is relocating 1.2 million people, which is like a little eminent domain picnic for them. Still, it's very controversial because a lot of environmentalists think it will create more severe flooding problems. And we're going to roll by it.

The boat looks like a Mississippi river boat, sans the big wheels. About five decks with tiny staterooms (well, ours is tiny), and classic boat things like a bar, a library and an internet. Well, perhaps not the last one. But I've never slept on a boat or really spent any time on anything bigger than a Chris Craft. So, last night in a manner far from the cosmopolitan, I ran around the boat taking pictures and poking my head into things.

I can see why Agatha Christie and her cohort got so wound up about murders in these sorts of places. There's something highly sinister about luxury, a river, foreigners and China that makes me look for murder and intrigue in every corner.

I also spent a fair amount of time on the rooftop deck imagining various scenarios from Masterpiece theatre as we took off under a very orange moon. I was a governess, sent to China to tend for a rich (but handsome) Earl's children. Or- better - I am a lady of the noble class, but my stern and uncompromising father is sending me away to China to be a governess because he found out I was in love with the poor miller's son who is sensitive and intelligent but not of my class. AND I have an illegitimate baby. And I am a nurse. So I can cure typhoid. And Yellow Fever. And when I get to Shanghai to work for my corrupt Uncle I find out he's dying! And I have to run his business! And I'm the only woman in business in Shanghai and my Uncle's parter, a devastatingly handsome but very surly young man has to help me. We bicker. Man, do we bicker. But we get the job done. All that jade exporting. And I end up understanding a lot about China and escaping my xenophobic background to lead a rebellion of the peasants in order to end the barbaric British practice of importing opium to ease the trade deficit. I am almost killed (by my own countrymen no less!), but we escape to Australia (me and the young partner) where I find out he is surly because he was kicked out of Oxford for a crime he didn't commit and hates people like me. But then I tell him the truth, that the baby's father did not die of whooping cough like I said and...

Anyway. 19th century British novel or Danielle Steel. You decide. This is the primary influence of this boat on my imagination. It was really exciting for me. It _is_ really exciting for me. And there's all these hilarious planned activities on board. Like acupunture demonstrations, which are currently being done in the same room I'm in on a man with a prodigious amount of wiry backhair - nevertheless, the audience is rivited. And mostly 80 years old. So maybe they don't have a choice.

We departed gqing, the former "Chungking", where we dithered away the day, but actually saw a very cool site - the Stillwell museum that honors General John Stillwell, the American general that helped the Chinese fight the Japanese in WWII. You might have heard of the Flying Tigers - a volunteer air unit that preceeded Stillwell's more official assistance. At that time the Americans worked with both the Kuomintang (the "democratic" political party of Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai-Shek) and the Communists in order to defeat the Japanese in China and in Burma. So we're wadering around the museum in the former home of Stillwell in Chongqing when one of the Harvard alums reveals that he was one of the pilots that flew supply routes from Burma under Stillwell! He's going to tell us about it later. That's one of the cool things about this trip - sometimes, in museums where I'm remembering my history, I'm surrounded by people who lived and remember these events. There are a lot of people here with really interesting stories - I mean, I'm convinced everyone has one (except maybe the bus switchers) and they're slowly leaking out. One woman's Dad was a naval engineer on the Yangtze and later went to Casablanca on a top secret mine-planting mission.

I am acutely aware of my parochial midwestern background with these sorts of tales flying around.

Yesterday we also saw Pandas at the zoo. I bought a panda puppet which is now the object of most of the communication between Mr. Frustratingly Good Question and myself. He asks the panda a question and the panda answers him. Why not? It's puppet diplomacy. We both think the Panda puppet - he's a French panda named Frederick by the way - is very critical of humans but very interesting. I suspect Frederick is a Maoist spy sent by the government to monitor us.

So, two days on a boat. Lots of spare time which will be nice. I will finally read, perhaps. And document the emerging class warfare between the people who got fancy cabins and the rest of us. I suggested we start smoking pipes and gambling in the lower decks to give this trip an air of historical authenticity.

That's right! I'm an Irish servant, forced to go to China, and below decks where the relentlessly classist British force us with the Chinese, I discover an opium ring willing to do anything to succeed. I team up with a young Chinese worker (this is a post-colonialist novel)nd we trace the opium ring all the way to the Provincial Governor of Shanghai...

What will we do?

How will we stop this sinister trade?

When is lunch served?

find out next time -

The Voyeurism Express

Guilin: it means "Plenty of Accacia Trees." If I could identify any flora or fauna besides a sunflower I could tell you if that's accurate. But take it from Guilin. Loads of accacia trees.

But what makes it so amazing, this very tropical tiny city (just a million!) is that it is surrounded by towering limestone formations that jut up from the ground like dozens and dozens of craggy thumbs poking into the land from below. They're called karsts, and they are astonishingly beautiful, and covered with greenery. So this city has a rural feel, and a less relentlessly mercantile feel than the places we've been so far. The highlight of our unfortunately short stay here was a cruise down the river Li, where these crags gather to form an almost otherwordly landscape. It's like something I imagined when I would read the Narnia books or Tolkien. I sort of wished I was on a great adventure.

And perhaps not so much on another vessel designed to show foreign tourists the very best of China. I'm getting uncomfortable with the form of the trip - I feel like a little imperialist, toted from sight to sight while our government approved guides rattle off positive facts and negative facts with a positive spin. Our current guide claims not to have minded being relocated to the country and forced to harvest rice during the cultural revolution because she got really strong. Maybe. Maybe.

I know this is the dominant way we see things because most of the other people on this trip are 55+, but it still seems a little fake, or a little too easy - in our safe American hotels at night, eating our western buffet breakfasts, and all the adults getting wildly constipated from dinner.

It's nice in some ways because I can't speak Chinese, obviously, and that would make getting around an interesting but out of the way area like this (we're only about 200 miles from Vietnam) very difficult.

All this made me feel very strange today when we stopped at a tiny farming village to look at a house. 45 huge white people clomping around and being interested, but without bearing anything practical. Without communicating. Just checking out the local state of impoverishment.

This, some of the same people who pushed off a beggar our last night in Xi'an, dismissing him like he was too lazy to get a job or something. I mean, he's going to die pretty soon. But when we're in the country it's so "fascinating."

Contradictions, complications - I'm feeling ashamed sometimes for being on a trip like this, but, at least I'm seeing things, and at least these people are too (although I flinch at the thought of the dinner table conversations that will go "Oh, Well when Chet and I were in China...")

Gar. Unavoidable.

In other news, this trip is starting to feel a little like Freshman Orientation. The activities are fun, sure, but when does school start? The social makeup is also getting hilariously screwy. One couple SWITCHED BUSES. Why? Who do they not like on Bus B? What did we do?

And because as Americans we're too polite sometimes to get around the walls of formality, many of our conversations are about the food. Just about the food. Good, bad, what it compares to, how it made all these stopped up Western intestines recoil, etc. I almost cried after a 45-minute conversation about eggplant.

That ignores the good conversations, though - my Mom and I had a great dinner last night with a couple from St. Louis. It was so great that even though it was about law school, I enjoyed it! The husband is a lawyer from St. Louis who went to law school at U of M and is a very nice and funny guy and made a number of points that supported the Pro and Cons of graduate study in the law. Good for my Mom and me! We're both justified in our respective feelings about law school!

We've also had some really interesting conversations about politics/Bush/the Republican convention with a number of people on this trip. Although by really interesting, I mean that we all get into a worked up liberal rabid frenzy and find interesting ways to agree with each other. And try not to do it within earshot of the guy who is rumored to work for Haliburton.

That's only partially true. It's fun.

I also went out my last night in Xi'an with the 29 year old employee of the Harvard Alumni Association who organized and came on the trip. As one might imagine, a person that works with picky Harvard alumni has a lot of very funny stories. For instance, on one trip a man lost his toe and didn't know how. She does a great job with everyone, though. I would be very bad at this job. She's amazing.

We were accompanied by Michael, a lawyer, a little younger than the rest of the folks and we returned to the faux sports bar in Xi'an where we walked into to the strains of a cover band rocking it to Wonderwall. And then UB40 and an instrumental version of "Unchained Melody." It was amusing, and also nice to hang out and have a conversation and not be in bed at 10pm. I went to bed at midnight! Wild times!

To finish up quickly - the last morning in Xi'an we went to the Muslim neighborhood there - started at about the time the Silk Road began to operate and brought Islam from Arabia. The Grand Mosque was built during the Ming dynasty as a thank you to the Hui (Chinese-Muslim people) people who helped out in fighting the Mongol hordes. It's built in a Chinese style - the minaret is a pagoda. Really cool - lots of street food, people around and about. Just a pretty morning in a real part of the city. I liked it.

Okay - in one last related anecdote I overheard someone on this trip call someone else a "Chinese toilet lover." Like an insult! Not an insult, but doesn't it sound like a seven-year old's idea of an insult?

Guilin!