We are in Guanzhou, and have been here for several days. It is here that we shall end our trip, and me this journal. Nothing of interest happens at this point, at least nothing I shall tell you.
Our hotel is the White Swan. I could write to you of its placement and its decadence, but I’ll let the promotional materials speak for themselves:
The White Swan Hotel is set on the edge of Shamian Island. Originally a beach on the Pearl River facing the White Goose Pool, Shamian was separated from the mainland in the Qing Dynast and turned into an island which overlooks the River on one side and has the city at its back on the other.
It is very nice here. All the staff of the hotel and all the shopkeepers outside speak English, as this is a hotel where United States parents bring international adoptees on their way out of the country to get the proper certification from the consulate. And Americans are not exactly known for speaking Chinese.
I get a lot of compliments on my speaking from the shopkeepers. A few tell me that I have a Beijing accent. None of them say it believably; everybody’s just trying to make a living.
It is not appropriate to end an adventure without learning something. I have learned the following:
1. Parenting is hard. Do not think that there is wide agreement on what to do. There is not.
2. Great empires grow because the people there do things that are difficult. Great empires die because the people there refuse to do things that are difficult. People in the United States assume that if they go to work and do their job and pay their mortgage that things should just Magically Work Out For Them. Sorry kiddo, but no. Working really hard in something that many people can do is insufficient. Working for a long time is also insufficient. We have to do the things that are difficult to do. That said…
3. Chinese is not a difficult language to speak. Tones are not as hard as you think. Learn how to speak it. Yes, that means you. Now. I write to you from a bastion of Western opulence in the middle of the next great empire. Either you will learn to be a part of it, or outside of it. I have always enjoyed the inside, thanks.
4. Chinese is a difficult language to read and write. It is as hard as you think. Learn how to read and write it anyway. Children here start learning English from the age of six. Even the beggars even know enough to be polite. The least literate person of this century will not be the one who cannot read, but who cannot read fluently in more than one language.
I am among those who did not take 3 and 4 seriously in university, and now I have catching up to do.
Zhe shi Ba. Zai Zhongguo. Zaijian.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
The Pass at Caradras, Part Three
The last portion of our Taiyuan Temple excursion is the Tian Bo, the Heavenly Dragon Mountain. It is decidedly heavenly; it takes nearly a half hour to climb in a van, on a narrow two-lane road. At one point we pass a massive compound and ask what it is. “A cemetery,” Niu Yun replies. That’s right: in China, you cannot be buried on the ground, but you can be buried on the side of a mountain. It’s like being taken straight to heaven!
When we arrive at the top, we are surrounded by junk. Junky restaurants, junky stores filled with, well, junk. There is no sage at the top of the mountain, only capitalists. I am disappointed; even I enjoy places where the market does not exist, even if I am impressed by its invasiveness.
There is a temple. We enter. It is calm, serene. There is no market here; it ends at the door. A division between the sacred and the secular. I look out to the proprietors of the junky little shops. They do an extraordinary job, to run junk shops at the edge of civilization.* I bow nine times to Guan Yin and return to the world.
* The edge of civilization is still in civilization. Dave sees two cell phone towers at the top of the mountain.
When we arrive at the top, we are surrounded by junk. Junky restaurants, junky stores filled with, well, junk. There is no sage at the top of the mountain, only capitalists. I am disappointed; even I enjoy places where the market does not exist, even if I am impressed by its invasiveness.
There is a temple. We enter. It is calm, serene. There is no market here; it ends at the door. A division between the sacred and the secular. I look out to the proprietors of the junky little shops. They do an extraordinary job, to run junk shops at the edge of civilization.* I bow nine times to Guan Yin and return to the world.
* The edge of civilization is still in civilization. Dave sees two cell phone towers at the top of the mountain.
The Pass at Caradras, Part Two
The first temple is unremarkable, though it is very beautiful. I am not, nor have I ever been a student or admirer of architecture; my tastes are likely quite quotidian, even if I find unnecessary ornamentation interesting. Architecture or no, there are several good moments.
To start, within the compound dedicated to a long-deceased governor is the Temple of the Sacred Mother. The sacred mother, that is, of the governor. It is in the middle of a courtyard, and was built a few hundred years after the entire complex to memorialize the woman who raised the man that everybody thought was pretty swell. This reminds me of my own mother, which makes me happy, except that she wouldn’t like the giant wooden dragons that crawl up each of the columns of the temple. I guess even a sacred mother’s temple has her kid’s toys lying all around.
Next to this temple lies a tree. And “lies” is the proper word: if not for another similar tree (Cyprus, I think) and a good deal of manmade support, it would have fallen long ago. Niu Yun tells me the story of this tree, which I herein share with you.
It is called the Male tree; it once had a “wife”, the Female tree. Somebody planted both trees more than two thousand years ago. Several hundred years ago, the Female tree died from a disease, and the next year the Male tree slowly began to fall. But suddenly and without warning, a new Cyprus grew up next to the Male tree to support it.
Niu Yun seems to want me to see the beauty of this story, but all I can think is, “So the Male tree’s a widower for a whole year before he finds a new Babe tree to fall back on? Wow.” Sometimes it is better not to exchange one’s thoughts on culture.
The Chairman sees stairs leading downward towards water and bolts for them. He is caught and regretfully restrained, but on to a good idea. There is a little creek down there, with small stone walkways, a pagoda, and a little stone Buddha sitting beneath water pouring from the wall. I learn that this water bubbles up from a spring that has flowed for over a thousand years. Its water is now, and has been for some time, considered a source of longevity.
I have to touch it. I wait for the Chairman to lose interest (he leaves for the bathroom), then I creep down the staircase to the spring water. There is a crowd in the pagoda; some take pictures while others dip their hands, arms, and head it the water and touch the white head of the grayed stone Buddha. From my position, I can touch the water, but I cannot reach the Buddha; the crowd gestures that I must touch the Buddha. Three times. Three is always better in China. It means that things are finished.
I gingerly make my way across a wet stone walkway in the middle of the creek to arrive at the pagoda. I move through the throng of a dozen or so people, who enthusiastically push me forward. I get to touch the Buddha; I “baptize” him three times. The crowd smiles. I smile. One woman holds a bag filled with water and mandarin oranges. She offers me one. No thanks, I say.
Even I have a limit to enthusiastic participation in cross-cultural experience.
When I get out of the creek, Niu Yun informs me that touching the Buddha three times makes one clever. The water gives longevity. I wonder aloud: does the experience give people longevity and cleverness, or just weed out those who can’t walk carefully on wet stone?
“It’s a melding of philosophies,” says Dave. “Buddhism and Darwinism.”
To start, within the compound dedicated to a long-deceased governor is the Temple of the Sacred Mother. The sacred mother, that is, of the governor. It is in the middle of a courtyard, and was built a few hundred years after the entire complex to memorialize the woman who raised the man that everybody thought was pretty swell. This reminds me of my own mother, which makes me happy, except that she wouldn’t like the giant wooden dragons that crawl up each of the columns of the temple. I guess even a sacred mother’s temple has her kid’s toys lying all around.
Next to this temple lies a tree. And “lies” is the proper word: if not for another similar tree (Cyprus, I think) and a good deal of manmade support, it would have fallen long ago. Niu Yun tells me the story of this tree, which I herein share with you.
It is called the Male tree; it once had a “wife”, the Female tree. Somebody planted both trees more than two thousand years ago. Several hundred years ago, the Female tree died from a disease, and the next year the Male tree slowly began to fall. But suddenly and without warning, a new Cyprus grew up next to the Male tree to support it.
Niu Yun seems to want me to see the beauty of this story, but all I can think is, “So the Male tree’s a widower for a whole year before he finds a new Babe tree to fall back on? Wow.” Sometimes it is better not to exchange one’s thoughts on culture.
The Chairman sees stairs leading downward towards water and bolts for them. He is caught and regretfully restrained, but on to a good idea. There is a little creek down there, with small stone walkways, a pagoda, and a little stone Buddha sitting beneath water pouring from the wall. I learn that this water bubbles up from a spring that has flowed for over a thousand years. Its water is now, and has been for some time, considered a source of longevity.
I have to touch it. I wait for the Chairman to lose interest (he leaves for the bathroom), then I creep down the staircase to the spring water. There is a crowd in the pagoda; some take pictures while others dip their hands, arms, and head it the water and touch the white head of the grayed stone Buddha. From my position, I can touch the water, but I cannot reach the Buddha; the crowd gestures that I must touch the Buddha. Three times. Three is always better in China. It means that things are finished.
I gingerly make my way across a wet stone walkway in the middle of the creek to arrive at the pagoda. I move through the throng of a dozen or so people, who enthusiastically push me forward. I get to touch the Buddha; I “baptize” him three times. The crowd smiles. I smile. One woman holds a bag filled with water and mandarin oranges. She offers me one. No thanks, I say.
Even I have a limit to enthusiastic participation in cross-cultural experience.
When I get out of the creek, Niu Yun informs me that touching the Buddha three times makes one clever. The water gives longevity. I wonder aloud: does the experience give people longevity and cleverness, or just weed out those who can’t walk carefully on wet stone?
“It’s a melding of philosophies,” says Dave. “Buddhism and Darwinism.”
Bree
Each time we approach a change of scenery that suggests a place less grandiose or wealthy than where we have been, somebody says, “So this is China.” As if this is the real China, and the rest is all a show or a movie set.
On the trip to the temples near Taiyuan, we pass through towns I that deserve the name of village. A few hundred people or less. Old-style houses with courtyards. Little community farm plots. Gripping poverty. All of it and more, just a few kilometers from cities bigger than any to be found in my home state. All of it in a country with high rise buildings that scrape an ever lower sky.
It’s all China.
On the trip to the temples near Taiyuan, we pass through towns I that deserve the name of village. A few hundred people or less. Old-style houses with courtyards. Little community farm plots. Gripping poverty. All of it and more, just a few kilometers from cities bigger than any to be found in my home state. All of it in a country with high rise buildings that scrape an ever lower sky.
It’s all China.
The Pass at Caradras
To pass the time in Taiyuan, we visit temples. There isn’t a whole lot to do in that part of Shanxi Province, or, as Andrea says, “if the most exciting thing in Dodge is a double pagoda, we’re gonna go see a double pagoda.” The double pagoda is beautiful but ultimately not at all story-worthy. The other temples we visit, however, are.
We begin the journey by taking an hour or so ride. Normally I choose not to mention our driving. The drivers thus far have all be excellent, strong-silent types, and I have liked each one. But our driver in Taiyuan goes above and beyond the call of duty, and thus his actions deserve mention.
Normally, our drive would take an hour. It involves taking one relatively new road to another relatively new road that leads more or less to our first destination, a temple dedicated to a former governor of the province (and by former, I mean several centuries former.). The first road, however, is under reconstruction, and thus we need to take a detour. We do, straight through the woods to the side of the roadblock.
No, I am not kidding.
The driver takes us off-roading in an eight-passenger van. And he is not alone. Several other drivers follow suit, including a small truck that somehow ends up in front of us. As we approach a place to re-enter the blocked-off roadway (the road, by the by, is totally fine, completely useful, and has almost no workers on it. Yet it is blocked off. Hmmm….), some laborers from a little nearby village appear. We are using their little road onto the main road. They want compensation.
Again: no I am not kidding.
The driver and Niu Yun, along with the drivers of other vehicles, begin bargaining with the villagers. We sit for fifteen or so minutes. All parties strike a deal; Coasian bargaining works even with transaction costs. Yay!
As we pull out of the woods, our driver hands payment to the villagers. Five yuan; a little less than seventy U.S. cents.
[Had I known, I would have offered to pay everybody’s toll, just to get moving. By my reckoning, that little stop cost me seven dollars as is!]
We ride to the main highway. The driver enters the highway. As we approach a toll booth (most, perhaps all?, main highways are toll roads), he turns around and begins to drive backwards on the highway. Let me emphasize this.
He drives backwards on a highway. Got that? Good.
We pull off down an entrance ramp. The driver drives us back around the “roadblock” on the other side of the road. The side where the village isn’t.
The whole point of the exercise is to turn around on the non-village side of the road. He knows this the entire time, but we don’t. “This is why China will rule the world!” Andrea exclaims. Indeed.
That kind of ingenuity to avoid a roadblock? They can do anything.
We begin the journey by taking an hour or so ride. Normally I choose not to mention our driving. The drivers thus far have all be excellent, strong-silent types, and I have liked each one. But our driver in Taiyuan goes above and beyond the call of duty, and thus his actions deserve mention.
Normally, our drive would take an hour. It involves taking one relatively new road to another relatively new road that leads more or less to our first destination, a temple dedicated to a former governor of the province (and by former, I mean several centuries former.). The first road, however, is under reconstruction, and thus we need to take a detour. We do, straight through the woods to the side of the roadblock.
No, I am not kidding.
The driver takes us off-roading in an eight-passenger van. And he is not alone. Several other drivers follow suit, including a small truck that somehow ends up in front of us. As we approach a place to re-enter the blocked-off roadway (the road, by the by, is totally fine, completely useful, and has almost no workers on it. Yet it is blocked off. Hmmm….), some laborers from a little nearby village appear. We are using their little road onto the main road. They want compensation.
Again: no I am not kidding.
The driver and Niu Yun, along with the drivers of other vehicles, begin bargaining with the villagers. We sit for fifteen or so minutes. All parties strike a deal; Coasian bargaining works even with transaction costs. Yay!
As we pull out of the woods, our driver hands payment to the villagers. Five yuan; a little less than seventy U.S. cents.
[Had I known, I would have offered to pay everybody’s toll, just to get moving. By my reckoning, that little stop cost me seven dollars as is!]
We ride to the main highway. The driver enters the highway. As we approach a toll booth (most, perhaps all?, main highways are toll roads), he turns around and begins to drive backwards on the highway. Let me emphasize this.
He drives backwards on a highway. Got that? Good.
We pull off down an entrance ramp. The driver drives us back around the “roadblock” on the other side of the road. The side where the village isn’t.
The whole point of the exercise is to turn around on the non-village side of the road. He knows this the entire time, but we don’t. “This is why China will rule the world!” Andrea exclaims. Indeed.
That kind of ingenuity to avoid a roadblock? They can do anything.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
The growth of Middle Earth
Everywhere we drive I see old buildings torn down and new buildings rising. Even in the poorest villages through which we have passed, this phenomenon occurs. I rarely see such things in my home state of Ohio. Thus do I wonder: is Ohio on its steady-state growth path, or is it merely stagnant? Furthermore, is China “leveling up” to the steady state, or is this what a country with so much labor and human capital, but so little physical capital looks like? And how could the Solow model, so simple in hindsight but so elusive before discovery, keep me awake at night?
My macroeconomics professors were correct to quote Lucas. Once you start thinking about growth, it is difficult to think about anything else.
My macroeconomics professors were correct to quote Lucas. Once you start thinking about growth, it is difficult to think about anything else.
Return of the King
Two days after the Chairman’s arrival, we take a two-hour drive to Victor’s village. Niu Yun arranges for us to visit the orphanage, but having done so, informs Andrea and Dave that the mayor of the town would like to greet Victor and his family when they arrive. The city would like welcome him, then the city fathers (and yes, they’re all men) would like to have lunch with the family. “It’s a village,” I think. “This must be a pretty big deal to a small village.”
Let me disavow you of any misconceptions. When Victor was adopted, his hometown had a mere 80,000 people living in it. Today over 400,000 individuals live there (and yes, you read that correctly). And yet it has the feel of a village. Only three years ago, the only road out to it was a two-lane coal road, not the highway we use to get there. Most of the buildings are low, and there are many of the traditional houses with enclosed courtyards. The streets are uneven and not often paved. And yet it will be as big as Cleveland in a few years. Wow.
When we arrive, a car awaits us at the off-ramp of the highway. It guides us into a town that is growing and prospering, but it is not wealthy. It seems to me that the wealthiest part of town is city hall, though many factories and high rises appear in the works. We are escorted to city hall, where fifteen people, including the mayor, deputy mayors, assorted associates, the dean and administrator of the orphanage, a television reporter and a newspaper reporter flock to us. This flocking phenomenon follows Victor everywhere this day. People touch him, hug him, lift him, pull him, and kiss him. “This is, like, too much!” declares Andrea amazedly at one point. It’s a big city, but it acts like a small town.
As this is Victor’s story, I shall herein keep my remarks to my own very small experience in it.
During lunch, we dine not only with the city officials, but also with the General Secretary of the District. Each official makes a toast to us with “fenjiu”, a locally produced liquor. Let me say that, as the one sitting closest to these officials and of drinking age, I am privy to many side toasts, on topics as diverse as the use of chopsticks to the ancestry of my beloved. I am informed that I like fenjiu more than the Russians or the Japanese, both of whom are big drinkers. We toast to that, too. I believe I engage in nine or ten toasts. Nine is the luckiest number in China; I probably have ten.
Dave makes an excellent toast when presenting each of the officials with a small token of our trip. Then I do something stupid: I, too, make a toast. I will write it here in English, though I attempted parts of it in Chinese:
“In college, my friends and I had a toast we made at every gathering. ‘To the continued wealth of the Republic.’ In thanks for the affection you have shown us, I say to you today, To the Continued Wealth of the People’s Republic!”
Or something like that. After ten toasts, everything everyone says is clever, right?
Let me disavow you of any misconceptions. When Victor was adopted, his hometown had a mere 80,000 people living in it. Today over 400,000 individuals live there (and yes, you read that correctly). And yet it has the feel of a village. Only three years ago, the only road out to it was a two-lane coal road, not the highway we use to get there. Most of the buildings are low, and there are many of the traditional houses with enclosed courtyards. The streets are uneven and not often paved. And yet it will be as big as Cleveland in a few years. Wow.
When we arrive, a car awaits us at the off-ramp of the highway. It guides us into a town that is growing and prospering, but it is not wealthy. It seems to me that the wealthiest part of town is city hall, though many factories and high rises appear in the works. We are escorted to city hall, where fifteen people, including the mayor, deputy mayors, assorted associates, the dean and administrator of the orphanage, a television reporter and a newspaper reporter flock to us. This flocking phenomenon follows Victor everywhere this day. People touch him, hug him, lift him, pull him, and kiss him. “This is, like, too much!” declares Andrea amazedly at one point. It’s a big city, but it acts like a small town.
As this is Victor’s story, I shall herein keep my remarks to my own very small experience in it.
During lunch, we dine not only with the city officials, but also with the General Secretary of the District. Each official makes a toast to us with “fenjiu”, a locally produced liquor. Let me say that, as the one sitting closest to these officials and of drinking age, I am privy to many side toasts, on topics as diverse as the use of chopsticks to the ancestry of my beloved. I am informed that I like fenjiu more than the Russians or the Japanese, both of whom are big drinkers. We toast to that, too. I believe I engage in nine or ten toasts. Nine is the luckiest number in China; I probably have ten.
Dave makes an excellent toast when presenting each of the officials with a small token of our trip. Then I do something stupid: I, too, make a toast. I will write it here in English, though I attempted parts of it in Chinese:
“In college, my friends and I had a toast we made at every gathering. ‘To the continued wealth of the Republic.’ In thanks for the affection you have shown us, I say to you today, To the Continued Wealth of the People’s Republic!”
Or something like that. After ten toasts, everything everyone says is clever, right?
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