Outside In

6 Degrees from a Blizzard

Earlier this week my mom, sister, and I took a trip up to the gorgeous North Shore of Lake Superior for a couple days R&R. It was typical June weather up there -- cold and wet!  Yesterday it was pouring cats and dogs when we set out for the drive home.  The wind and the rain were coming straight off the lake.  When we stopped in Duluth for lunch, the temperature was 38 degrees F.  38!!!  In mid-June!!!  That means we were just six degrees away from a blizzard.  Below are some photos that I was able to get in the few hours that the clouds lifted on Tuesday.  Gooseberry Falls, Split Rock Lighthouse and The Shore. Enjoy.

A Sick Tree

It's official.  I have now seen everything.  Truth-be-told, a person living in China these days can make that statement at least once a week, but this time it's quite possible that it's true--that there is nothing interesting or surprising left to see. I'm in Minnesota now, but a few weeks ago, just before I left town, I joined some colleagues for an evening at "The Bird's Nest," the local name for the main Olympic stadium in Beijing. It was a glorious summer evening and we were all very excited to actually get inside this structure that we have spent the last three years watching emerge from the land that used to house villages and farm fields. 

Upon entering the beautifully landscaped grounds leading up to this gleaming modern stadium, I spotted a quintessential Chinese sight -- peasants gathering plastic water and soda bottles to sell to recyclers.  It was an interesting juxtaposition.  As I was taking pictures of the peasants sorting bottles under a newly planted (replanted) tree, one of my friends said "hey, look what's hanging in the tree."  Lo and behold, there were 3 IV bottles hanging from the tree!  Stunned, we followed the tubes down the side of the tree to the base until we spotted the three attached needles sticking into the tree.  THIS TREE WAS ON AN IV DRIP!!!  No fooling. I offer the following photos as proof:

Once we recovered from our laughing fits, the questions that needed pondering in order to make sense of what we were looking at came fast and furious:
*What ailment does this tree have?
*Is the ailment terminal?
*It's a transplanted tree (all Beijing trees are transplanted from somewhere else).  Maybe it is being rejected by this particular piece of ground. 
*Is the air pollution killing it?
*Maybe it's just starving to death in Beijing's dry climate.
*What is in the IV bottle?  My first thought was Vitamin C, since in China the first attempted cure for just about any ailment is an IV drip of Vitamin C. Why not a tree?
*How did they decide where to insert the needles? Does the tree have a vein? 
*Will this tree live long enough to see the Games in August, or will it end up as charcoal for the guy selling meatsticks on the street?

Like I said, it's official now.  I have seen EVERYTHING.

Click here or the photo on the left to see more photos of The Birds' Nest Olympic Stadium.

New Olympics Funny Olympics

I've always said that my primary reason for wanting to be in Beijing during the Olympics this summer is that the comedy potential is unlimited.  Of things that are funny, there will be no end.  This is not in doubt, and a story coming out of China today only confirms this.  It's being reported by one of my favorite Beijing-based blogs, Danwei, and it's about the newly unveiled official Olympic cheer.  The link to the article and a video clip is here, but let me copy it out for you below: 

The cheer is a joint product of the Party Office of Spiritual Civilization Development and Guidance (GODPP), the Ministry of Education, BOCOG, and CCTV. Here's an illustrated guide, which will appear on television and promotional posters in the near future:

Step 1: Clap two times (while chanting 奥运, "Olympics")
Step 2: Hands in fists with thumbs up, arms extended upward (while chanting, 加油, "Let's go!")
Step 3: Clap two time (while chanting 中国, "China")
Step 4: Hands in fists, arms extended outward and upward (while chanting 加油, "Let's go!")

OK, let me get this straight----it took a government committee to come up with this cheer???  A joint committee made up of representatives from 4 different entitities?  And I just love that one of them is called "The Party Office of Spiritual Civilization Development and Guidance." 

Li Ning, president of the Beijing Etiquette Institute, described how the cheer can be adapted to different contexts (from The Beijing News):

At yesterday's ceremony, Li Ning explained that the uniformity of the cheer contained a multitude of variations. It could be "Go Olympics! Go China!" as well as "Go China! Go Yao Ming!" or "Go Brazil! Go Ronaldino!" It will work to give encouragement to every country and athlete in competition.

She said that the civilized cheer "Go Olympics! Go China!" expresses the "Citius, Altius, Fortius" Olympic spirit and is in line with general international principles for cheering, while at the same time possessing characteristics of Chinese culture. Overall, the cheer unites both gestures and words into a smooth, flowing whole.

There's a Beijing Etiquette Institute???  How can I become a member of that?  I'm glad that Li Ning saw fit to point out all the variations that could be used with the cheer.  That's quite nice of them to make their cheer available to other countries and athletes as well.  Here's another question--what exactly are the 'general international principles for cheering?' And other than the fact that that the cheer is chanted in Chinese, what unique characteristics does it possess? Oh dear, these are the questions that might keep me awake at night. 

What they need are some of the good cheers we used in college.  My personal favorite was "What do you want? What do you want? Dog meat! Dog meat!  How do you like it? How do you like it? RAW RAW RAW." I think that athletes from China's northeast would be particularly encouraged by that one.  Another one we liked was "Rah Rah ree, kick 'em in the knee!  Rah rah rass, kick 'em in the other knee." 

Something tells me that GODPP (Party Office of Spiritual Civilization Development and Guidance) would not approve. Definitely not harmonious!!! 

Do Ya Think?

The China Daily had an article today about the Tourism Bureau's announcement that the number of foreign tourists coming to Beijing in April and May dropped by more than 5% compared to last year. Here's the money quote:

Beijing saw a marked drop in the number of overseas tourists in April, which fell by 5.3 percent year-on-year, according to official statistics revealed on Tuesday. Yu Xiuqin, the bureau's spokeswoman attributed the decrease partly to Beijing's tightened business visa approvals on foreign visitors for international exhibitions and conferences, because of safety concerns for the coming Olympic Games. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said on May 6 that the tightened visa approval ahead of the Games was in line with international practices, and came from the need to guarantee security in the national capital in the run-up for the event.

Talk about stating the obvious.  Even tourist visas, which China has been giving out like candy for the past dozen or so years are now difficult to get, and the list of documentation required to obtain them now reminds me of what it was like to get a tourist visa to come here in 1984.  In fact, there seem to be numerous ways in which China is reverting to 1984 these days, but I'll save that for another post!

Let me get this straight.  The biggest world event is being held here this summer, and they are making it hard for the world to come. I imagine a room somewhere in the foreign ministry where the visa regulation working group sits.  They all have revolvers in each hand, and they are shooting away at their feet saying "this should work out just fine."

China welcomes the world.....in 2009!

A Nation Mourns

The Chinese government today declared 3 days of national mourning for the victims of last week's earthquake.  The official death toll has now passed 30,000 and is expected to reach at least 50,000.  Hundreds of thousands are injured.  Five million are homeless.  The observance began today with nearly a billion people stopping at 2:28pm to observe 3 minutes of silence.  Sirens blared.  Drivers stopped their cars and blared their horns.  Everywhere people bowed their heads in honor and remembrance. I decided that the place I wanted to be at 2:28 was Tiananmen Square, the closest thing that an atheist state has to a sacred space.  There were thousands who had the same idea.  At about 2:20, the loudspeakers started directing people to face the flag, which is now flying at half-mast (something I've never seen in my 20+ years in China) and prepare for the moment of silence.  At exactly 2:28pm the sirens went off, and the thousands of cars and buses on ChangAn Avenue came to a halt and started blaring their horns.  It was both moving and eerie.  I bowed my head and said a prayer for mercy and comfort for the afflicted.  When the 3 minute observance was finished, people just stood around wondering what to do next.  Wanting to demonstrate their solidarity with the victims, some students in the crowd started chanting ZHONGGUO JIAYOU (China! Go!).  The crowds joined them and soon there were thousands marching around the square, waving flags and chanting.  The folks in uniforms were definitely nervous, but did nothing to stop this spontaneous outpouring of patriotism.  Below are some photos that I took at the square today.

Earthquake Relief

By now you've all heard about the terrible earthquake in Sichuan province on Monday.  It was so strong that it was felt all over the country, even in Beijing.  I was out of the country on Monday so I did not feel it.  I'm glad, in that I'm quite terrified of earthquakes!  The stories and the pictures and the statistics pouring in on an hourly basis are really too much to comprehend. The scale of the lives and livelihood lost is staggering.  If you would like to donate to disaster relief in the area, here are some recommended agencies:

Operation Blessing

World Vision

Heart to Heart International

For some good reporting on the disaster, check out these:

NPR: Chengdu Diary ( a blog by NPR reporters who were in Chengdu at the time of the earthquake)

After the Earthquake, by Peter Hessler (New Yorker Magazine)

Beichuan: A Vision of Hell, by by Clifford Coonan (The Independent)

 

A Must-Read Article

The cover story in this month's National Geographic is about China.  The article, titled "Inside the Dragon" was written by Peter Hessler, one of my favorite writers about China. He always seems to be writing the articles and books that I wish I were writing!  Here's a teaser:

Perhaps this awareness of a painful history was also why the 1990s turned out differently. It became modern China's first decade without a major upheaval, and thus far the 21st century has also been peaceful. And yet despite the lack of political change, the nation has been radically transformed. For three decades the economy has grown at an average annual rate of nearly 10 percent, and more people have been lifted out of poverty than in any other country, at any other time. China has become home to the largest urbanization in human history—an estimated 150 million people have left the countryside, mostly to work in the factory towns of the coast. By most measures the nation is now the world's largest consumer, using more grain, meat, coal, and steel than the United States. But apart from Deng Xiaoping, it's difficult to credit these critical changes to any specific government official. The Communist Party's main strategy has been to unleash the energy of the people, at least in the economic sense. In today's China, government is decentralized, and people can freely start businesses, find new jobs, move to new homes. After a century of powerful leaders and political turmoil, Chinese history has become the story of average citizens.

The two books by Hessler that are must-reads:
Rivertown:  Two Years on the Yangtze
Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China

Beijing--The Forbidden City

For the past year or so, as we have been watching the Countdown clock for the Beijing Olympic Games wind its way towards 8-8-08, the question on everyone's mind has been, what will it really be like here this summer, in the run-up to the Games, and during the Games themselves. Of course no one really knew, but that never stopped us from speculating; however, we did know for certain that once we got within that magic 1oo days, whatever interesting things might happen would probably start. 

Well, here we are at 93 days, and full-scale zaniness has broken out.  Keeping track of the rumors of new regulations is practically a full-time job.  New visa regulations over here.  New security procedures for this.  No more doing that.  I'd like to list out all the rumors I've heard just in the past 48 hours, but there's even a regulation against spreading rumors.   Actually the regulation is against spreading false rumors, but the problem is that as the rumors are spreading no one knows if they are false or simply preludes to reality. Only time reveals which it is.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the folks in charge of this fair city are in a state of high anxiety, and if they can make it through August without having collective heart failure, it will be quite an accomplishment.  I've been here a long time and haven't seen this level of nervousness since the early 1990's.  The world is coming to town and they are suddenly afraid of what the world might do.

Slowly, but surely, Beijing is becoming The Forbidden City!

Here are two interesting articles about the mood in town (especially as it relates to foreigners):

China's Fear of Summer (Time)

For Chinese, A Shift in Mood from Hospitable to Hostile

To the Top

While the main Olympic Torch has been making its way around the world, and finally arriving back on home soil today, there is another torch that is being taken up to the summit of Mt. Everest, or Qomolongma, as it is called in Tibetan (and Chinese).  There's a large contingent of reporters (Chinese and foreign) at the base camp tracking the story.  Reuters has a team of reporters covering the story and they are blogging about it.  It's very interesting reading, and the photo shots are great.  Check it out.

Temple of Heaven

Last week I hosted some visitors from the USA for 8 days.  One of them is a semi-professional photographer, so one of the added benefits of being their tour guide was learning some photography tips, both in shooting and editing (something I didn't know anything about before).  On a single day last week we climbed the Great Wall in the morning, and walked around the Temple of Heaven in the afternoon.  The morning was clear and gorgeous, but by the time we got to the Temple of Heaven in the afternoon, showers were rolling in.  Since this was my umpteenth time to the Temple, and since I was very tired, I was tempted to just put my camera away.  How many different shots can I have of this temple, I wondered.  But I was inspired by my photographer friend who kept challenging me to look for shots I'd never seen before. By the time we got to the Hall for Prayer of Good Harvest (the famous round one), a heavy rain shower was upon us.  We sought shelter on the porch of a side temple to wait it out.  And it was here that I got a shot of the Temple that I had never gotten before, with the sky getting lighter from bottom to top as the shower moved by, and was thus reminded of the importance of always having my camera with me.