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Postcards from:
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Greetings from From the geographical center of China, Seven hours by train out of Tienshui got me to Lanzhou (pronounced LAN-JOE), the nearest place where I could find airline service to Urumqi, the northwestern largest city in China. The "soft seat" I bought for the train ride helped to distract me from the game of musical chairs people played at ever stop. About half way through the trip I finally got a forward facing window seat and enjoyed the rest of the trip. Coming into the city on the train we passed a pair of Three Mile Island style cooling towers, presumably associated with a nuclear power plant supplying electricity to the city. Considering all the power the city uses to keep the bright city lights running all night, they must have some source of plentiful and cheap electrical power. As our train had arrived in Lanzhou mid-afternoon, still early because of the single time zone practiced by China, I had plenty of time to hotel shop before it turned dark. Hotel rates vary from a low of 18 Yuan per night ($2.25) to 1200 Yuan ($150) in the exclusively international establishments. All of the hotels post exorbitant rack rates and all offer substantial discounts ranging from 40 to 70 percent... even in the five star places. Hotels and department stores have daily morning inspections of staff, complete with pep talks and staff cheers. One morning in my second hotel I witnessed a new staff training session in the back of the dining room. Among some of the items being covered by the teacher I saw the use of western eating utensils being demonstrated. The only English language television in any of my three hotels here has been provided by CCTV, which tries very hard to mimic western services. The news station looks a lot like CNN, except the news is obviously cooked and rather bland. Street merchants use obnoxious bull horns loop programmed to repeatedly shout their offerings. The racket begins at first light and continues unabated until the last shopper escapes. Several of the guys worked at the intersection below my last hotel guaranteeing I'd never oversleep past seven each morning. One day I noted a bedraggled beggar sitting on the curb. His dirty torn clothes and unkempt hair added to the disoriented expression on his face. He might have been mentally retarded or just really out of it or possibly drunk. As I slowly strolled in his direction a well-dressed lady approached him from behind and thrust a 100-Yuan note into his face. He looked surprised, bewildered and just looked at her. She said something and finally stuffed the bill into his coat pocket. Her entire matter of fact mannerisms suggested she might have done this many times before. I later wondered if she might have known the guy; her ex-husband maybe? Another time I came upon a street demonstration in front of a government building. Spiffy uniformed soldiers standing at rigid attention guarded the heavy gated entrance. Several people who seemed to be disabled beggars with signs were loudly protesting something. A long Queue of three wheel taxis two deep appeared to be supporting the protest. A small contingent of police stood some distance away watching the orderly crowd, but not intervening in any way. I snapped a picture as they watched me nonchalantly. Written Chinese is not a phonetic representation of the spoken words. So, I must learn both the little pictures and the sounds. It is like learning two different languages. To make matters worse, a large proportion of the people in this region speak other languages entirely! I am learning more of the characters by necessity... slowly. City names are especially important, and of course the signs for "WongBa". I see plenty of signs presented in both Chinese characters and English translations, or to be precise pinyin... a phonetic representation in the Roman alphabet of the spoken words. During most of my encounters with people I invariably get long-winded explanations of something in Chinese. My first response is to respond with my own long-winded speech in English. That usually produces a pause, soon filled with more and louder Chinese speeches. Now, early in the obvious no-communication exchange I put a finger to my lips and start the pointing and gestures game. In most cases I get what I want, be it information or food. I'm always careful to reveal little about my personal situation to strangers, so when someone asks in English "Are you alone?" I usually answer: "No. I'm with you." That always brings a smile and ends the inquisition. Every block, it seems has a China Tobacco Company retail store. The government has a near monopoly on cigarette sales and pushes the weed. It makes me wonder if it is a planned part of their population control program. The one child policy has slowed the population growth in much of eastern China, but with a billion and a quarter people in the country and the western autonomous regions exempt, more drastic measures might well have been considered. I see no women smoking, though a majority of the men do. On the occasions when I've indicated an objection, the men have promptly extinguished their smokes. Most buses prohibit smoking, something often ignored by the addicts. On two occasions I've converted our moving smoking room into a healthy smoke-free salon. Spitting is another matter. There is much less of it in public, but here I see as many women relieving themselves of phlegm as men. Rarely do I hear the loud obnoxious hacking prevalent in the other cities I've visited. I notice I get lots of phlegm myself. It is so cold and dry here that walking down the street static electricity builds up in my polyester pants, which suddenly cling, to my legs. Wool socks that took 24 hours to dry in India are ready to wear in less then five hours here. Being so cold, stores have heavy flexible plastic strips hanging down the entry doors. I am impressed with the level of hygiene evident everywhere food is handled, even on the street! I still will not chance eating street food here any more than I would in California, but it is clear people know how disease is transmitted. A graphic television infomercial shows a little girl getting ready to get off her school bus. As she chatters away with her classmates, the camera zooms into her face. She coughs into her hand and then extends it for a parting handshake. Though in Chinese, the voice-over clearly notes the importance of personal contact in passing around disease. The infomercial ends with a pair of little hands being washed in soap and water. Lanzhou is an exciting, vibrant, sophisticated city. Any American would feel perfectly at home in the First World surroundings. In fact, most of the people on the street would pass as ordinary Americans were they in California. Women favor extremely pointed shoes and tight fitting dresses or jeans. Even facial expressions and body language look familiar. Head nods and shakes mean the same thing here as they do in California. If it were not for their curiosity and constant staring, I might easily forget I am half way around the world in China. Everyone is friendly and the toddlers are darling, sometimes frightened by my strange appearance, hiding behind a parent's leg until the adult pushes them out and tries to coax them to wave or to say "hello." Hidden off every other block is a colorful street market with vendors selling every imaginable fruit and vegetable, and some unimaginable ones, too. I have seen at least three KFC stores, but not a single McDonald's. There are many fast food places that seem to be copying the popular western franchises. I am amazed how many Kodak film-processing stores are here. Obviously Kodak is still selling a lot of film in this part of the world. Buses follow predictable routes and work the same way they do in America except fare collection is automated; people just wave their smart card by a detector and the fare is recorded. When I get on a bus the conductor often turns on a English translation of the stop announcements; very considerate. Able riders are unusually kind to older riders or disabled people. On numerous occasions someone has surrendered their seat to me... usually a younger middle aged woman... rarely a kid or husky male. Buses following the same route are painted a distinctive color pattern making it easy to spot your number at a distance. Most or all of the bus drivers are women in this city... polite and careful. Linxia One day I took a bus down to a small Hui town four hours south of here and the gateway to Xiahe. Xiahe City is famous for the Labrang Lamsery of the Yellow Sect of Tibetan Buddhism and had been on my short list of places to visit, but my reluctance to plan left no time for the extra trek. Linxia is in an all-Muslim part of Gansu State. To ride a bus in this state, every foreigner must buy a 40-Yuan ($5) life insurance policy. How's that for building confidence in the driving skills of drivers and reliability of equipment? Actually, the ride seemed safe enough to me, long but not particularly dangerous. Our driver took no chances on passing and kept his speed at moderate rates... good thing, too as there were many heavily loaded sand and gravel trucks on the road between Lanzhou and Linxia. Getting a ticket in the Lanzhou bus station involved more aggravations than the trip with its frenetic activity. Bus touts grab prospective passengers and bodily drag them to specific ticket windows and then push them onto buses. My early protests produced milder handling, but handled I was. However, without the touts I might never have figured out the highly competitive private bus company’s procedures. Buses leave when full or threatened by increased competition from other companies. Our bus left only half full. That changed as it stopped numerous times to fill vacant seats and load big bags of passenger's "cargo." I immediately complained about a nearby smoker who graciously put out his smoke. Than another boarded, and I again complained. Finally, the conductor lit up and I decided the time had come to put-up or shut-up. Standing, and projecting I delivered a health lecture on the hazards of second hand smoke... in English, of course... accompanied by wild gesticulations and pantomimes... pointing to my eyes now, my nose, at my lungs with both hands flat, and finally making a heart of my pulsating fist. Most Chinese naturally find my appearance curious, so I had no trouble getting everyone's attention. In the end, all cigarettes were extinguished with a good deal of jovial conversation among the passengers and several congenial "thumbs up" in my direction. The entire four-hour trip passed smoke free, earlier passengers alerting new ones of the health rules on this particular bus. The return trip I had no energy left for another education ordeal and coped as best I could with the blue haze. In Linxia I found one entire block occupied by wild animal fur stores. Many had lots of spotted cat furs hanging on display. When I started to take a picture of the astonishing array, a storeowner vigorously waved me off. Foreigners are so rare in Linxia no one failed to notice my presence, most staring uncontrollably, sometimes smiling, and often showing unbelief with mouth agape. The sight of a foreigner especially thrills little kids; parents use them to cover their own astonishment, curiosity and embarrassment, nudging them forward for a close encounter of the scary kind with this creature from another world. Our bus arrived in Linxia's north terminal, but left for the return trip from the south terminal, a couple kilometers away and completely unknown to me. Finding it took a couple hours and threatened to strand me in this small town as the return buses stopped running shortly after dark. Fortunately, with the entire country on Beijing time it gets dark here after nine. On the return trip a grizzled old bearded peasant coughs up a big slug of phlegm and proceeds to spit in the isle between us, spraying bits on my pant-leg. I gave him my most shocked look of disgust. He replied with a pleading tone of voice and gestures indicating he felt it no big deal as he had only spit on the floor! I'm learning useful Chinese phrases. The most useful so far is: "Bushy, share, share." Easy to remember it means "No, thank you." The largest currency denomination is 100 Yuan, about $12. Merchants large and small check 50 and 100 Yuan notes for authenticity on a regular basis, suggesting there must be a lot of counterfeit bills in circulation despite all the security measures built into the paper. Lanzhou sits on the southern bank of the Yellow River. One night I wandered down to the long distance bus terminal and discovered every one of the night buses are sleepers: three beds across and two bunks high. Actually, they look pretty comfortable. The Cultural Revolution pretty much stamped out religion here. I personally see very little observance by anyone, even on holy days of Friday and Sunday. One of my informants confirmed religion is irrelevant in the lives of everyone he knows. "Religion is not a good thing for people." he added. Lanzhou has the reputation of being the most polluted city in China. However, only during my last two days did I see why. Those days I choked on what may have been coal smoke. Charcoal briquettes are widely used by street food sellers. My eyes and lungs actually hurt from the pollutants. One day we had a sand storm accompanied by light rain. Everything ended up covered with a film of mud. My personal web site, www.fredbellomy.com is being blocked by all the ISP's providing service to the Internet cafes I've used so far. A member of the World Bank delegation visiting here checked with one of her academic colleagues who confirmed the government scans all domains on the web for certain combinations of words and blocks any they find. Nothing personal, she says. They can't check the actual content of any specific site unless there is some vital over riding reason; so all sites matching the criteria are automatically blocked. Breakfast eggs are usually fried hard, hard enough to make them easy to eat with chop sticks. One morning I saw a guy trying to eat a pair of sunny side up eggs with sticks. He struggled to grab the floppy yoke gently with his sticks, but eventually broke the yoke before getting much of it up to his mouth. A common Chinese breakfast usually consists of a glass of hot tea, some congee (a bland rice soup into which is stirred things to give it some flavor), salad vegetables, steam buns and a hard fried/boiled egg. The deluxe hotels add sausage and/or bacon. I have been surprised this time to see so many pet dogs on leashes, so I guess fewer are now made part of the diet. As far as I know, I haven't eaten any pooches so far. Internet cafes are called "net bars" or WongBa’s and are invariable dark and smoky. Close by smokers always respectfully respond to my indication of health concerns and pinch out their smoke. Most people using the computers are playing games or looking at match making sites. Very few people actually browse the Web here. M/S Internet Explorer is available in a Chinese version, but all transmissions in either direction seem to be monitored, sometimes getting through with surprising speed, sometime suffering long delays, sometimes never getting through at all. All the cyber cafes I've used have had Microsoft Windows operating systems installed; usually Win98, but occasionally Win2000 or WinXP. A few use equipment new enough to have USB ports enabling me to process my KEY007 camera. So far none of the WongBa’s have had a recent version of M/S Office installed, meaning I have not had access to FrontPage. As my web host is being blocked, that is not really an issue, though it is an aggravation. Next stop will be Urumqi in the far west province of Xinjiang. My plane leaves 5 April.
Peace,
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 Reference photo:
authorAugust 2002 |
