Hey ho, another week has gone by. And what an eventful one at that!! Sunday night I took a cab off to the airport, sad to be leaving my family for five days, but also excited to be going back to China to snoop around in the Chinese banks. Took a 1:00 AM flight, they served breakfast at 1:30, and I was sleeping around 2:30, the plane landing at 5:30, out of customs at 6:00, checking into the hotel just after 7:00 AM. Yoiks! The prettiest thting that I saw was the full moon at 30,000 feet, like a beacon casting moonshadows on the billowing clouds below. In the airport I was surrounded by touts trying to get me into a taxi. I tried to find the magnetic levitation train, which gets you into Shanghai at 7 AM – when it runs – but it wasn’t operating at 6 AM actually. I eventually got a taxi from some tout, but I didn’t seem to be over-charged, they used the meter. Weird. The hotel I checked into in Shanghai was the Peace Hotel, an institution in Shanghai since 1912. Great old art deco interiors, heavy wood, and lots of classy fixtures, the place is very well kept. Peace Hotel is on the Bund, an old part of Shanghai done in heavy European style. The Shanghai Pudong Development Bank building is a massive structure with grand staircases, a huge bank lobby, mosaic cielings, marble columns, heavy wood desks with only a few books and a laptop on them, nice. ICBC is fantastic, and BOC is being gutted otherwise that might be nice to look into as well. But checking into the Peace Hotel at 7 AM was not all that glamourous – what few guest there were were all checking out, the girl was surprised to see me checking IN, really. Oh well. Got into the room, considered calling Joanna, but I thought it would be too early for her. I dozed, and SHE called ME 45 minutes later. D’oh! Oh well. Napped a bit, showered, walked around the neighbourhood, saw the local “adult products” shop. Seem to be a few of these in China, actually. Met up with her at noon, ate a huge Sichuan lunch set that is supposed to serve four, but it was just about enough for the two of us. Nice beef tongue soba. Went off to our only interview of the day, then back to the hotel to chill out for a while. Went off by taxi to meet Joanna and her husband for dinner. Had some good food and talk and a few local draft beers, then home to sleep – I was dead tired. Still, did my duty and checked out th famous Peace Hotel band, listening in from the front door. Nice – next time I’m in Shanghai I’ll have to actually have to go in. Tuesday I got up at 7, wandered around looking for a good place to eat. Nothing. Shanghai was rainy nearly the whole time I was there, and it was so bloody cold, right through into my bones, and Tuesday morning was no different than Monday morning or Monday night. So I ate in the hotel restaurant, had a crap meal that I was over-charged on. Oh well. Met Joanna, went off to two busy interviews, checked out of my hotel, then ate McDonalds in the taxi on the way over to another interview, which went really well. Went off to the airport, checked in to our flight to Shenzhen, then yummily off in flight to another town, where we land, move off to the hotel, go through internal customs – normal Chinese people can’t just pass into Shenzhen just like that, although now it is easier then before, we just got waved through. Check in to the hotel, it’s now quite late, we go off for our dinner walking along the wide Shenzhen boulevards, feeling the warm air. Some suspicious looking youngsters lurking about, but not too bad. Shenzhen is a young town, a newsly developped working town, a bit different than other parts of China mostly. Home of at least two big banks. I notice the absence of bank ads when I got to the airport – HSBC has plastered ads all over Shanghai, including the loading tunnels for the airplanes, and Citibank is the first thing you see when you get into the arrival lobby at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, and Beijing is also full of ads, including a huge Standard Chartered Bank ad that straddles the highway, but Shenzhen is different. We walk down the street, eventually finding a cantonese food shop. The girl working there seems a little dim – I ask her what “French fried rice” is, as it says on the menu, she doesn’t know, she goes off to ask, comes back and still doesn’t know. Bad sign. Oh well. We wonder if we should go out looking for the “Colors” pub after that, like we had been advised by our new friend Michael in Shanghai, but in the end of course we didn’t. Back to the hotel and some sleep. Wednesday we had breakfast buffet at the hotel, which was cheaper and nicer than the Peace Hotel’s breakfast, but we still got ripped off. Of course. Had two good interviews, and I was even asked to do a videotaped message “happy new year” to the bank and all that. Nice.
Went off to eat lunch, gorgeous Shaanxi and Sichuan food, nice. Back to the hotel, pick up luggage, fly off to Beijing. Got to Beijing, checked into the place. Beijing is freezing, but it doesn’t FEEL as cold as Shanghai, probably because it is at the edge of a desert and very dry. Joanna had plans to meet a friend, so I was on my own. I tried to use the computer to check my emails, but the darn thing wouldn’t work. I mentioned it to front desk, they recommended I try another room, this didn’t work either (and it didn’t work until the next day, when we got an incompetent technician to come and figure it out, and even he took a while to get it going – same guy later on couldn’t get Joanna’s phone to work. I’m never staying there again). So, no Internet, I went out to bar Mix, which Joanna said it was good. Paid 15 RMB to get there, then 30 RMB to get in, and it was boring hip hop and R&B, nothing recognizable until that Kris Kross song “Jump” came on. I found a spot on the dance floor and stayed there, watching the others twirl around me. Not really fun. Young kids, not so well dressed. Went into the other room, an older crowd and a few Russian hostesses, or something. Not my scene. Went out, there was a cab driver waiting right there. Took a ride with him, he told me all he knew about Canada, Norman Bethune, and Singapore. Nice guy, knew a lot about the world outside of Beijing. Probably reads a lot and takes note of what he reads. Thursday there was a morning appointment. We had a nice McDonald’s breakfast (coffee, eggs, buttered muffin, jam) that was OK, although I sensed that the butter was a bit off. Took the subway to the first interview, but started off going in the wrong direction in a crowded train. Oops. Corrected ourselves, and then on we went to the interview in a massive, new, shiny building. Very nice. Went off by cab to another interview, only to find out that it was cancelled. The next interview was cancelled too. So we suddenly found ourselves with 5 hours off. Then our 4:00 appointment became a 5:00 appointment. Cool. Ate Xinjiang Muslim food for lunch in the cool Red Rose restaurant near the Worker’s Stadium, where there was lamb pile (chunks of bony lamb on top of bread), lamb kebabs, and some other cool stuff. Walked around behind the restaurant and discovered a funkier version of the same restaurant right there that we hadn’t noticed earlier, which is more like a beer hall, and where the belly dancers would perform (at night). Oh well,next time.
Went back to the hotel, got coffee, surfed the internet and checked emails for a while, then went off to a final interview which went really well. Then, a quick taxi ride to Joanna’s favourite Beijing pub to meet some friends, nice. The pub was an old country and western place on the old pub street, which was being torn down to make way for an all-new pub street. OK. But at least the Nashville was still standing somewhere in that construction site. Ate a hamburger and talked Chinese for a long time, this annoying businessman came in and tried to make our acquaintance, then finally wanderd off on his own. Later there was live music in the other room, I watched Chris from the Philippines play, very excellent, talked to a young English-teaching couple from Virginia, and the next thing I knew there was Mickey, who had tracked us down and was coming along to have a drink with us. I guess I impressed him with my dancing in Shanghai last time. We talked business, talked Texas, talked music, and eventually had to get going. Stepping out onto the dark street, eyes adjusting to the dark, car oncoming with big headlights, we move onto the sidewalk to avoid the car, all of a sudden my foot goes through an open manhole that had been covered over with a thin piece of board. OUCH!! I was down, and then I was up, my hand and leg all sore. Got to the street and into a taxi, then I saw that there was no blood, but my hand was already very swollen. Ouch! Back at the hotel, I briefly contemplate my original plan, which was to go see what was happening at Banana disco just around the corner, but in the end I decide to just to chill the hand with a few beers and go to sleep. Friday, woke up in slight pain after a fitful sleep, got showered, and went off to my first interview of the day, which went fairly well. Nice stuff. Then off to eat lunch with a law professor, a very nice, interesting, intelligent, highly qualified guy, only 2 years older than me, excellent English, excellent Chinese of course, ate Peking duck (so-so) and Sichuan fish (great, but lots of small bones) that had been broiled in chili oil and a sea of floating chilis – ouch!! But it wasn’t too spicy. Washed down with tea instead of beer (for nearly the first time this trip – I wasn’t feeling too well). Went off to the hotel to check out, were nearly charged for a half day, but got out of that one. Joanna went off to a sales meeting, and I had some time off, so I went to the Tower of Heaven, south of the Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City regions (and also south of our hotel – we were just off Tiananmen by a bit), which is one of the only major Beijing sites that I hadn’t seen when I was in Beijing with Naoko July 1 to 11, 1997. The park was nice, although the trees were bare. A cold wind whistled around and blew up dust. I wandered along, marvelling at all of the retirees who go to the park to hang out, sell handicrafts, and play classical Chinese instruments, but mostly, it seems, to play cards. Or do lame exercises in the children’s playground area, like rub their various body parts on the metal poles, etc. OK, whatever. Wandered around a bit, ten got to the Tower of Heaven, which was two thirds covered with scaffolding – d’oh! But it was a crisp, clear, beautiful day, and somehow the scaffolding makes it all look pretty surreal.
There were also super-nice forests flanking both sides of the Tower, as well as a minor tower, as well as a “platform” of sorts. There was a special collection of trees in one area, including two “brother trees” which were of different species but had grown together, as well as a “nine dragons” tree, where the wood had formed into “ropes” of bark going up the sides, very striking and all very cool. I walked in the east gate, I walked out the west gate, an entry to the Tower that we had visited in 1997. Cool, but now I notice that a whole swath of huts has been wiped away and replaced by some sort of road project. Wow. Some development project, probably financed by one of the big state banks, now a non-performing loan. Oh well. Walked up the road a bit, thinking I could soon get to Tiananmen Square for a quick look before I went back to the hotel to collect luggage and then go off to the airport to meet Joanna… but of course it was too far. I grabbed a cab, but not before I found a shop that sold DVDs, picked up a copy of Medieval Dead (i.e. Evil Dead III, Bruce Campbell vs. the Army of Darkness, or just the Army of Darkness). Well, whatever. Got to the hotel, collected luggage, took the same taxi on and on to the airport, checked in, flew with Joanna to Shanghai, said goodbye to Joanna, then off to Shanghai Pudong International Airport and a mignight flight to Singapore. Flew all, nothing eventful, then got to Singapore, bought my bottle of duty-free gin, as is my duty, and greeted the Singapore Saturday morning on two hours of plane sleep. Took a cab home, got home at 6:00 AM, got another two hours of home-sleep, then was woken up by Zen. Naoko had to go to work, so I was looking after Zen as mum and dad went off grocery shopping. After we saw Naoko to her bus, Zen wanted to go to the park, so we walked off for a while in the hot sun, coming back home to eat onigiri and watch Thomas the Tank Engine. At 11:15, took the bike to the clinic, waited over an hour. Zen got antsy and wanted to leave, so I said I’d drop him home and he could stay with Oma and Opa and I’d go back to the clinic, he said OK, but when I got him back home, he didn’t want to leave me, he wanted to go back to the clinic with me, so in frustration I went back with him, only to find the doors closed. I thought that the people might be inside still, but I was fed up, so I went home to have lunch with mum and dad. What a time-waster. Luckily, Zen fell asleep at 2:00, which is when the clinic opens, so when I got there I was queue numbere 5 and only had to wait an hour to see the doctor, who referred me to a hospital, so I went off by taxi to the luscious Alexandra Hospital, very nice, and did all the necessary waiting and bouncing around between attendants and physicians. Sigh… Finally, three hours later, I was all patched up with a tetanus shot, an x-ray with confirmation that nothing is broken, only a slight fracture, antibiotics and painkillers and antiseptic creams and ready to go home, the day shot. Stayed up until 9 or so, then passed out into a gorgeous 11-hour sleep!
Sunday was a chilled out day. I don’t remember what we did, but it wasn’t much.
DVD review – “Army of Darkness”: from Sam Raimi, a sequel of sorts based on the Evil Dead storyline, this time Ash is transported back in time where he must steal the Necronomicon ex Mortis in order to get himself back to his own time. Yeah, whatever. Seems like the story was built up around a pun – the Medieval Dead, instead of the Evil Dead. I don’t really dig medieval stuff too much, considering swords and sorcery a bit boring, but Raimi manages to inject some fun into all of the drizzle and mud that you associate pictures like this with, and there is great slapstick, surreal moments (such as the birth of “bad Ash”), and all sorts of other goodies. The film falls apart at the end, as man promising films do, by showing a lot of useless “hero saves the day” kind of stuff, while going light on the humour, but at least the ending is saved by some very dark irony. Ash – what a dumbass. I hear that Bruce Campbell is going to resurrect Ash to create a kind of film franchise, a la Freddy and Jason and all that, so let’s see what develops. Bruce Campbell, the indie actor who almost was.
The Zen report: Zen is a very clever boy, very well behaved, and recently he has sprun a proper appetite! He is in love with Thomas the Tank Engine, so every night before he sleeps he reads two Thomas books and the Osaka trains book. That is invariably what he watches on TV now, since Christmas when he got the DVD, and he sings the songs, or follows the dialogue as much as he can. He also still watches the Shinkansen video tape we bought at a garage sale for peanuts. Last night he ate ice cream, but told Naoko it’s too cold, requesting that we warm it up in the microwave. He likes the doctor, so the other day when he woke up from his nap and didn’t see me, mum told him that I was at the doctors, Zen said he wanted to go too, saying that his knee hurt, pointing at an old sore that is now well healed-over. I don’t really like that he mentions the doctor so much, I hope he doesn’t become obsessed with doctors and hospitals and clinics. Should be OK. He is very loving, and gives me big hugs when I come home from work, also gives mum hugs in the evening and morning like he never used to do before, being a shy boy. Yesterday he asked us for a haircut, so we gave him one. How unusual for a kid to ask for a haircut. He has nice, thick, wavy, shiny brown hair and it looks good long, or as a Beatlesesque mop-top, but I can understand that it is hot in this weather, and it gets stinky quickly.
In the walman: (China trip) Machines of Loving Grace, Pop Will Eat Itself, Atari Teenage Riot, NIrvana box, Mekons, Godflesh, Pitchshifter
