Let's talk about money, not politics

My friend told me that my blog was banned in China. "No long accessible", he said.
That's kind of funny actually. Does that mean I can now write whatever I want? Good timing, because June 4th is coming. The 20th anniversary of the student movement on TianAnMen square .
The other day, I read an article about an autobiography by the former prime minister of China, Zhaoziyang. Zhao died 4 years ago after more than 15 years of house arrest in Beijing since the summer of 1989. He secretly taped his own biography on top of Peking operas. The records were later smuggled out of the country and is now published. The book comes timely to reveal the inner political struggles within the communist party. Zhao's pro-democratic stand was crashed along with the students on the square.
Then two days later, two simultaneous articles in NYtimes and Financial times reported a recent pool from interviewing students in major universities in Beijing. The Result: the memory of TianAnMen is distant and blurry if there is anything at all. What students care, after 20 years, is no longer politics, but personal development, that is, what's good for ME.
Maybe this is a good sign of individualism in an otherwise long-time totalitarian society. But we must remember that they are university students in Beijing, the front runners of the intellectual. If anyone cares about politics, it would be them. Can you imagine what the common people care?
One thing clear now is that the government succeeded in getting people's mind completely off politics. Big time. For what else would be more interesting than thinking and talking about money! Maybe I haven't been back for a long time, my three-week stay in China was full of over the top money talks.
First off, money has never been a taboo in Chinese culture. Friends and family openly discuss salaries, bonuses, numbers in the bank accounts, gain and loss in stock market. It is like the national pass-time. In general, money talk seems also to be a good way to break the ice and start off a conversation between strangers. I had many taxi drivers asking me how much I make after they found out that I am from US. Then one taxi driver proceeded to tell me exactly how much he lost in his investment in a restaurant business. I didn't even know his name.
My friends, some of whom I haven't seen for years, would call me up and wanted to meet for a meal. We would talk about many things yet the conversation would eventually turned toward economy before heading straight to personal salaries and asset. And at the same time it all felt strangely nonchalant and benign, if conspicuously nosy. After a while, I dreaded for such meeting to catch up because I found that I took pleasure in it myself by telling them about our newly acquired mountain house, including how much we had to pay for it.
Money money and money. Kevin and I spent a good deal of time talking about money too. When I got a little fed up and pointed it out to him, he got defensive, saying that I looked down on him and his vulgar talks of money. The truth was that I'd want to talk about something else, like some books, or a movie we saw, even celebrity gossips. He promised not to talk about money with me anymore and his promise was kept exactly for 12 hours.
Finally, I think I understood. The money talk is part of the social fiber now in China so we must face it. It is largely a reflection of the politics that focused on getting wealthy, aka, making money, for the past three decades. At the same time, deep down, the Chinese attitude toward money is nothing but practical. Credit card debt is a rare thing there and saving is still a fortunate national virtue given how much allures out there in that huge bedazzling commercial market. It may be a natural step of the so called market economy, a term coined by the government. Where is it heading? I am not so sure, but hopefully not to a place where money is speculated and air-castled, like in this country.

Thoughts on coffee

Are we what we drink?
Am I a bipolar if I alternately prefer mellow skim latte and tongue-numbing espresso?

I am not a coffee snob by any means. If I go to 1369, an independent coffee shop in Cambridge more than the Starbuck down the street, mostly because it's one block closer to my house, plus the guys who make coffee there are kind of cute.
I don't shun Starbuck by any means, not when I am in need of a C-boost. While the omnipresence of the green logo on American cityscape does take away the delusion of an exclusive taste, there is no statistics based on blind tasting showing which coffee is superior. I certainly don't think it necessary to elevate the phenomena of its popularity into the demise of our contemporary culture. (like we still can't accept who we are as Americans?) But that doesn't mean I don't appreciate the coffee culture in places like France or Italy, but again, those are foreign countries where straight men appear gay and talk about operas.
The rule is that I basically submit to my physical needs, wherever, whenever. How can a beggar be a chooser?

In China, my conquest for good coffee has been proven as a lost battle. Obviously, Chinese don't drink coffee on a national level, and on rare occasion when they do, it morphs into something else. I learned this during my recent China trip.
To begin with, it was hard to find a serious cafe in China. Coffee tends to be treated as a marginal drink, confused with cocktails, or a kind of capitalist lifestyle in general. It was presented in tall glasses, garnished with twisted straws, and came with shocking price tag. Most of all, the names were as puzzling. Latte is translated into iron-holding. I got that because it was phonetic, but what kind of coffee is Palm Tree Sunset? or Love in Paris?

It may sound surprising, but the most expensive coffee I have ever had in my life was not in Paris, nor Rome, but in an airport coffee shop in GuiLin. The cocktail-wanna-be cost me 9 US dollars and tasted funny. In Chuongqing Airport I had to submit to another craving and had no choice but to settle with Hagan-Das's ice latte. I was served in the style of a high-end restaurant. It was a sweet flute-y drink, from which I did obtained enough caffeine to go on. I was told that I could have the table all to myself as long as I want because of my consumption of the drink. Clearly, in addition to the coffee, I also paid for a piece of temporary real estate, an oasis in a chaotic and noisy airport.
When I got to the Hongkong airport at the end of my trip, I was almost in tears to see the green fairy logo of STARBUCK.
No more guessing of what I would get! With 4 dollars, I got my skim latte, and with the first sip, a familiar taste enthralled my being. Consistency never felt so good.
Right there, I regained myself and officially started my journey home.

Posers

Kevin is a great poser for pictures. And I couldn't catch up with him.

JiuZhai Paradise: The intercontinental

One of my favorite hotels in China. The setting amidst the snow-capped mountains is truly spectacular. The postmodern glass architecture is curiously yet seamlessly blended with the local tribal masonry. The whole structure appears like an alien spaceship assimilated into the land, flora and culture.
One strange thing was that they won't let me swim in that gorgeous pool until 8pm and even then it was packaged into the hot spring deal and I will have to pay 20 dollars. I certainly protested in vain.

Tibetan Dinner - JiuZhaiGou

One evening, we were highly recommended by the taxi driver to attend a family style Tibetan feast in one of the villages. It sounded like a great idea to me because I’d like to see some real Tibetan culture and life, not mentioning some authentic cuisines. And it turned out to be one of the most bazaar experiences I've ever had. We were greeted at the gate by a Tibetan girl who presented us Hada, a silk scarf, as a welcome gift as a Tibetan tradition. After told by the house hold owner not to discuss the fees with the other guest (according to him, we paid much much less than the others because they are in tour group), we were ushered into a gaudily decorated dinning room on the second floor. A woman who looked dubiously Tibetan was our hostess. She was there to entertain, but she was neither a good singer nor a decent dancer. Most of her songs are Chinese pop songs and in between she performed an Indian dance, a belly dance and a tap dance. The rest of the time, she cracked vulgar jokes in bad tastes using superficial Tibetan cultural references to please the crowd. She called all men SeLang which means horny wolves, all women Semo, a Tibetan slang roughly means a pretty woman who is horny. She also played with the rare and old tradition of Polyandry and took several guests as her "husbands". I was her number two husband the moment I walked in. For the next one hour, I was tortured to get up to sing and dance, given a Tibetan name something sounds like Yak Diarrhea in Mandarin, and then being dressed in a woman’s robe and cap that were more Mongolia than Tibetan to perform the wedding ceremony with our hostess, together with her first husband, who was in a wig. In the end, we had to exchange gift and because I had nothing small with me, she took my polo belt.
I don’t know what to say about the whole thing. I was amused by the fact that I was amusing other people. It was one of those ridiculous situations that I had no choice but stringing along in order not to spoil the party, while Kevin and everyone else happily snapped the pictures away, yes, with me in drag and a microphone forcefully stuffed into my hand.
While laughing most the time, I was also kind of outrageous and acutely aware that that so called cultural experience was nothing but a tourist entertainment trap that cashed out the Tibetan culture and the curiosity ignorance of the tourists. It was not only pseudo-culture but also a bit anti-culture.
It was a strange, outrageous experience for me, hilarious and also a bit sad. When I looked around, everyone was having a good time. I told Kevin what I thought. He told me nonchalantly that that was what entertained people here. That’s what the tourists wanted to see. That’s what was normal there.
Later the taxi driver told us that these kinds of business brought huge income to many households in this region, the estimated household income exceeded 100,000 USD per year, and that’s why they never wanted to be independent. This confirmed that the operation was purely commercial. It made me think that our host was probably jia de (fake ) as well as everything else in that country, someone who simply works here and draws a salary. Who am I kidding? She didn’t even have an accent speaking mandarin.

JiuZhaiGou

Jiuzhaigou is located on the border of SiChuan and Tibet. The three valleys were originally populated by nine Tibetan tribes, therefore the name Nine Tribe Valley.
It is probably one of the most beautiful and non-polluted places in China nowadays. In contrast to Chengdu which was permanently shrouded by a thick layer of smog, it is a paradise of blue sky, white clouds and snow-capped mountains. One can indeed breathe here, that is, if one can deal with the high altitude. The airport is located on a plateau that is about 3000 meter high, which is close to 10,000 feet above sea level.
Coming to JiuZhai, water is what one should see. The three valleys between the snow-capped mountains stretch out as a Y. Water flow through the valleys, forming strings of lakes, pools, streams and waterfalls. Depending on the geography, the lakes took different shapes and forms. And further depending on the depth, the types of microbes growing in them, the lakes display a wide range of colors, from the most dramatic emerald, to a kind of turquoise that is beyond words. The water seems to take on personality. In some lakes, it is completely motionless and free of wrinkles. In others, it is brooding and moody, getting ready to flow down a cliff to form a waterfall. And the water also plays with the land and the plants. Many fallen tress in the water become “Water coral”, a fossil like corpse of the high calcium content in the water. For two days, we hiked along the valleys for a total distance of about 15 miles so that we got close and intimate with the scenery, while most tourists prefer riding the bus and get off at the scenic point. Perhaps the images will be more effective in showing the beauty of the place.