I managed a 7 hour layover in Beijing so I just drove in an out of its major tourist trap.

Tienanmen Square is a huge empty expanse of flat stones. Mao used to stand a million people in there just to have a chuckle at being leader of all China. Its surrounded by soviet inspired architecture and sitting in the middle of it is Mao’s reliquary hall containing his remains preserved in stasis.

The forbidden city really is a small town within Beijing. Huge halls that now contain museums surround even larger ornate buildings and vast empty plazas. The city gives echos of its past power, but denuded of the live processes that would surely have filled it while it was active. It might be cheesy, but I think historical re-enactors would help fill the vast and dead feeling courtyards in the forbidden city.

I was reminded I was in Asia on the way back to catch my plane when my taxi driver pulled off the highway to urinate against a tree.

I only managed a couple snapshots of Beijing.

Geoff and I took the train into Shanghai for the weekend. In between Chinese cities the landscape alternated between abandoned communes, and freshly stamped out planned communities. Five hundred units of the exact same house arranged in maddening tessellation. The families I saw on the streets and in restaurants were odd inverted pyramids of attention. Grandparents and parents all focused on one single child.

I hadn’t seen many pictures of Shanghai, so the quantity of inventive, colorful sky scrapers that appeared all around us surprised me. The 1930’s architecture of The Bund has banker’s granite fortresses standing shoulder to shoulder with each other. They form a stolid line of columns that look out over the river over at the new growth appearing every year in Pudong. China is pouring money into Pudong to see how many crazy looking multicolored steel and glass buildings its can stuff in one small area before cosmic fish mistake it for a reef and start swimming about it.

Other than touring The Bund, Pudong and Nanjing Road, we didn’t have time for much other than drinking formaldehyde free beer. A barmaid we talked to wanted to know all about the USA. “Is there really a problem with racism against black people?” Every time China is in our news, we feel obligated to mention Tibet or Falung Gong. I think Chinese news compulsively mentions that the US keeps huge populations of black people in rape cages for smoking joints.

Photos of Shanghai.

I went to China for work a couple months ago. It was my second time in China and I got to visit much more central urban places. My workplace was in Hangzhou, a small city of six million people built around an enormous lake. It felt like walking around a city of one million in a rich country with an excess of tall apartment buildings and hotels. Geoff figured that it was indicative of the fraction of people there with enough disposable income to patronize shops and services.

Every horizon was prickly with cranes pulling up dozens of new high rises. Little patches of old asia were still around, but I almost missed the narrow alleys of vendors and people squatting to play cards or eat noodles entirely in the cities. There wasn’t much street food in the parts of China I saw on this trip. The traditional markets were there under old cement communist bunkers, taking cover from the shiny new towers. Several times a day small colorful bursts of fireworks pop off over the sky, likely launched by individuals. Occasionally larger barrages go off that might be part of a corporate or government event?

On our daily commute to work we often couldn’t see across the river through the smog.  Due to the oppressive pollution, the Chinese have outlawed most petrol fueled bikes. So the scooters are all silent electrics with a few propane models scattered among them. We did see a cop on a proper 450cc motorcycle.

The overall level of wealth in Hangzhou was  greater than I’m familiar with from southeast Asia, but there’s clear economic disparity. There aren’t legions of beggars in Hangzhou. Actually, there were hardly any beggars. The wealthy were far more noticeable. Buick is doing quite well there. Owning one of their vehicles is a status symbol. The VP of my company’s China office had a personal driver for his. There were plenty of Audis and BMWs on the road. A Ferrari was parked on the sidewalk outside my office building. We saw Porsche’s, Maserati and an even a Bently on the road. Near our hotel was a Rolls Royce dealership. Geoff commented that he saw more exotic cars in Hangzhou than he has in San Francisco.

With an inexhaustible cheap labor pool a great many people are paid to stand around. At the entrance to restaurants two girls would hang out like curtains and sometimes two more inside just to usher you to the host. Standing around all day doing absolutely nothing, the girls look more look bored and dejected than attractive. Men who are paid to stand around look a little better, mostly because they’re wearing security uniforms or are actually in the military. Standing at forced attention masks their brains melting under the excruciating tedium.

Despite the plight of the underclass, one of my favorite things about China is how assertive the women are compared to other Asian countries. I’m guessing its a product of communist egalitarian ideology. Its quite pronounced when you compare it to the rest of Asia, where women are very subservient, basically do most of the work and reap few of the rewards.

Some photos of Hangzhou.

As we walked over the bridge, China looked like a wilted Vietnamese plant finally getting water. Tall glass, shining steel and strobing asian neon loom over the border. On entry, our bags got scanned with color coded 3D X-ray gear. The cities were clean and investment firms held up by giant stone columns took up entire city blocks. Instantly everyone was bigger, taller and healthier. Most of the vehicles on the broad streets were cars. Cops in white gloves directed traffic that obeyed set rules. Bike lanes, pubic recycling, public toilets, and clean working public transit stopped striking me as European or Asian. Its just anywhere in the world with money that’s not the United States.

There were people with lots of leisure time in urban China. Women seemed assertive. Men were seen playing with their children. Fashion was back. Billboards with half naked westerners selling expensive clothing filled the sky. Everyone had a mobile phone. We saw a girl with pink hair and rainbow colored clothing. Everyone was very friendly, if a little unused to seeing westerners. Being among economic equals again was a pleasant change but there was almost no English, very little Pinyin, and there are so many Chinese characters.

In Kunming we lived and mostly ate in the muslim quarter where there was lots of yummy street food. After being in Indochina our sketchy food detectors were set on high, but everywhere sanitation standards were beyond worry. We sat down at one restaurant and tried to interpret the menu with the help of the cooks and waiters. We had successfully translated several dishes when we realized we had ordered all of them. We ran back to the kitchen, set things straight and had a very tasty meal. The next time we played roulette with a menu we got a bowl of warm water with organs floating in it. We opted for food we could point to after that. The Chinese eat some wonderful things, but they eat everything else as well.

China has clean, white, modern, herbal pharmacies dispensing traditional Chinese medicine. Their windows showcase giant twisty roots, strange powders and big shark fins. Professional looking massage, acupuncture and reflexology clinics are common as well. There are a couple of tea shops on every block with tiny teapots, big coin shaped bricks of leaf and huge glass jars of loose tea for sale. A nod was all it took to get us sat down for a tasting. Several tastings. Mmmmm tea. We didn’t sleep much after these sessions.

We heard the communists instituted an anti-spitting campaign that was wildly successful. I can’t even imagine what it was like before. The Chinese are constantly coughing with their mouth open and spit like its their job. The whole place is a rhinovirus swap meet. This might have been only a curiosity, except that Mandy came down with a very debilitating cold. Its making exploring Japan a little difficult.

We didn’t get to spend much time in China and we were sorry to give it such short shrift. We were supposed to stay long enough to meet George and her friend Alanna skipping over from Hong Kong and Pippin and Caitlyn traveling over land from Nepal via Tibet. But we had reached the end of our money, so we had to bail. The remainder of our travels have been subsidized by some generous contributors.

Photos of Yunnan.

We had an unexpected layover in Bangkok (Damn, but the Thais can cook!) and eventually we flew into Japan…