Ping & I - A Lovers' Adventure in China (pt. 1)

I was Yangguizi, but never knew it. All my life, I have looked at China and seen what Americans see. It’s an enormous, featureless blob on the map. I could guess the location of Beijing about as well as I could pick the spot for Washington, DC on an outline of the U.S. I might hit my own capitol, or I might as easily make a mark on Baltimore, or Virginia Beach. I grew up with movie images of beautiful women in tight silk gowns, and short men who avoid the eyes of towering westerners. I believed that everyone in the world was American inside and could understand English if you spoke it to them slowly enough. I knew nothing of the culture and history, the diverse dialects, the poetry, the re-integration of people into the natural order, the smells, sounds and essence of China. So, I approached this trip as an opportunity. My beautiful bride was returning home. This foreign devil was living an adventure.

May 27-28, 2006

Sunday

Atlanta, San Francisco, Beijing

Atlanta boasts the world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson International. The atrium decor sports gargantuan ants and a T-Rex from the Fernbank Science Center, large art rendered by paint roller and welding torch, plus lots and lots of frazzled people. On this Memorial Day weekend, the commotion of pre-dawn preparations coupled with the world’s biggest bureaucracy, the spuriously named Homeland Security, adds mightily to our need for this vacation. One uniformed HS wonk allows dozens of us to stand in line for 20 minutes outside the terminal. As each reaches the front of the line, he politely points to the very small sign that clearly states that international travelers are supposed to be in a different line inside.

Ping and I wrestle our six over-packed bags through the packed crowd as our eight a.m. departure time draws closer. Somehow, we make the flight; and enjoy the sheer luxury of spending two weeks’ pay packed ten abreast on a cross-country bus with wings.

The stop in San Francisco lasts long enough for a meal at an authentic Chinese restaurant with one of Ping’s old friends. That’s followed by a snack an hour later with a couple who drove in from San Jose to spend an hour with Ping. I’ve come to understand that my wife makes friends easily and keeps them for life. It feels as though she has friends in every major city on Earth. She spent several years in San Fran working and looking for a husband. On the verge of giving up and returning to China, she moved to Atlanta and found me.

The twelve hours between San Francisco and Beijing are endless, spent wedged into a space the size of the mini-fridge I had in college. The company is good. The movies are bad. First up is “Big Mama’s House 2.” ‘The Onion,’ which keeps me laughing far too much at work, ran an article just last week on the brave passengers aboard a jetliner who valiantly choose to down the aircraft (a la Flight 93 on 9/11) rather than allow the showing of “Big Mama’s House 2.” It’s the kind of humor I don’t dare share on an actual flight in a post-9/11 world. I just laugh to myself. Then, the screen lights up with the 2005 version of “King Kong.” I enjoy it until I realize they’ve cut a full hour out of it. Gone are the gore, the sex, and half the plot.

Sleep is out of the question. There’s not enough legroom to reach my shoes, much less take them off. Ping sleeps. She’s been up even longer than I have, since she handled 99% of the packing. And that was on top of her spending weeks making 100% of the plans.

I wish Ariana and Aaron were along for this trip. Still, maybe it’s just as well. The two women in my life don’t exactly see eye to eye. Ari and her brother are headed to Ireland with their mom for a vacation of their own. They’re having fun. There will be a family trip for all the Rikers later. This is a second honeymoon for my bride and me.

We arrive in Beijing without fanfare. Sometimes I wish airports were not the first view people get of a city. They mostly look alike. Beijing’s airport is state of the art. It’s modern, pretty, efficient and clean, with no hassles to speak of. The thing is it’s not all that different from Atlanta’s busy airport. When they elect me emperor, I’ll decree that all airports include a live band and perpetual banquet to offer visitors a true sample of the local lifestyle.

Christina and Frank pick us up. She’s a giggly Chinese gal and a dear old friend of Ping’s. He’s a friendly German businessman. A second family consisting of Du Weiqing, her husband Dong Liqing, and their kiddo round out the welcoming party. They’re both military; she’s in the army; he’s in the air force. I’m trying to register everyone in my mind, but know the information won’t stick for long. We pile into two SUVs with our ridiculously heavy luggage.

We check into Beijing’s fabulous Sino-Swiss Hotel. It’s a palace, with every imaginable amenity, gleaming floors, glass and brass everywhere, and beautiful people wandering in all directions. A teenage porter takes over the chore of wrangling our herd of luggage and we settle into our sumptuous room.

Ping showers and meets Dong Liqing and Weiqing Du for coffee, while I grab a brief nap. A few hours of sleep in a five-star hotel cannot blow away the fog of the three airports and ten thousand miles we’ve covered in the last 30 hours. At eight-thirty, she fetches me and we all head out to dinner. I could skip the meal entirely, since I’d been munching from a big container of gorp (peanuts, M&M’s, raisins et al) on the flights. The couple drives us to dinner in a vehicle with military plates, taking advantage of this perk to park in prime spots and occasionally zip through red lights.

The restaurant is called Fei Teng Yu Xiang, which translates roughly to ‘Delicious Boiled Fish.’ It’s wonderful and nothing like the American reinterpretation of traditional Chinese restaurants, except for a predominance of red in the décor. I have to laugh at the way Americans change incoming culture. Chinese restaurants must choose from about a dozen names. I’m waiting for someone to open The Lucky Golden Bamboo Jade China Garden. They must offer dishes never seen in China: Mongolian Beef, General Tsu’s Chicken, and the like. Here, people are busily eating real food and conducting all forms of social activity. We take an upstairs room and sit at two large tables. There are at least 20 people in the room. I know two, including the one I’m married to and Christina. Others include a Daphne, and a Kathy. I say, “Ni hao ma” to each in turn, being careful to drop the tone on the second word and raise it again on the third. It’s the best I can manage. The girls laugh and reply, “Ni hao.” I smile and nod. English? Not a chance.

Most of the folks are members of a party that saw Ping off on her American journey five years earlier. Ping’s large eyes and easy smile flash from conversation to conversation as she holds court. I don’t know the words. The sounds and the laughter speak of shared memories. Large bottles of beer encourage more talk. I wish I could join in on that, but I’m being good. I stick to my coke.

Waitresses serve dinner on more than a dozen heavily laden plates. More continue to arrive throughout the evening. I don’t recognize the order. I also don’t recognize even half the items, which include vegetables, pig ears and snouts, chicken feet and duck necks, snails and much more. Ping says one of the dishes is Shui Zhu Yu, fish cooked in chili peppers. The tables are each equipped with a large Lazy Susan turntable. No forks or knives here. At least in formal settings, it’s considered bad manners to have a guest cut up his own food. Guests are provided plastic gloves in order to handle the spicy, greasy snails. This makes it that much harder for me to work the chopsticks. I’m pleased to see several people are less than perfect in their use of chopsticks as well. Chunks of fish or veggies wind up on the table or in someone’s lap. My own mistakes don’t feel so glaring. I load my plate with enough to last a while. Others grab a single mouthful and spin for the next. For a while I’m timid, eating only what I think I can identify. Eventually, I work up the courage to eat my first snail. Rule one for cowards eating abroad: jie mo is your friend. Brown is Chinese style. Green is Japanese style, essentially wasabe. Pick one of the small bowls, dunk the snail/pig ear/bull heart/tentacle in the hot stuff, put it on the back of your tongue and swallow. Wait a moment for the chilies to work their magic on your sinuses. There, now you’ve eaten just like a big boy!

The night ends well after midnight, and then it’s back to our wonderful hotel room twenty-two stories high for a weary round of romance and a few precious hours of sleep.

May 29

Monday

Beijing

Ping’s brother, Fusheng, and another driver meet us at the hotel very early. Fusheng is a pear-shaped man about my age who dresses in loafers and casual wear, a generous gregarious man who chain-smokes and farts loudly without apology. Fusheng is in charge of business licenses. That means he gets ‘gifts.’ Not bribes, gifts, like nice dinners, cigarettes, car usage, gift certificates, and other goodies. Ping notices that since she’s been gone, five years of gifts have added to her brother’s belly.

The valiant porters load the heavy bags into a Honda and start off on the 85-mile drive south to Tianjin. Fusheng plays some music. Many of the songs are sung by young boys and girls. It’s like one of the animated musicals Aaron and Ari used to watch not so long ago. There aren’t any kids in the car at this point; this is for the grownups. Child vocals seem to be more common here than at home, although we have some (“The Wall,” even “Can’t Always Get What You Need.”)

On the long drive, I press Ping to tell me what she can. I point repeatedly at a truly endless collection of newly planted trees. They line every street and continue the entire trip from Beijing to Tianjin. Atlanta planted crepe myrtle and other trees for the 1996 Olympics. There was nothing on this scale. I’m told they’re at every venue the Olympics will touch. So, there must be tens of millions of new trees, mostly poplars, planted along the roadways. The Chinese can accomplish things on a staggering scale. I just can’t imagine any level of American government ponying up the money to plant trees in these numbers.

I ask Ping what variety of trees these are. She says yang shu. After a moment, I press her to translate that. She says it means “poplar tree.” I think she’s saying “young” shu, young tree. To my American ears, a lot of the Chinese language is like that: utilitarian and perhaps generic. A TV is dian shi ji, electronic vision machine. A washing machine is xi yi ji, clothes washing machine. It’s not too different from taking an English word and breaking it down to its Latin roots. Lawnmower is ge cao ji, cutting grass machine.

We arrive in Tianjin’s Old Town still tired from our long trip, long night and brief rest in Beijing.

Compared to modern Beijing, Tianjin appears worn out. It wears a mantle of human filth. Buildings are gray and square. Awnings hang in tatters over most of the windows, literally burning where they stand in the acrid air. I swear these buildings look like 1950’s Communist monstrosities. Ping insists they’re much newer. They rise six stories above dirty paved streets and alleys littered with what look like junk heaps. The piles may actually be raw materials for entrepreneurial mechanics. Everything gets used here. Bicycles, for instance, run through their own wheel of life many times, whole or in pieces.

Ping grew up in this city, one of four children raised in a one-room apartment. Ping says they had to walk around the corner to use the public toilets. That’s if they made it. Here, many children walk around in split pants. There is neither crotch nor diaper. When the mood hits, the toddler simply squats and whizzes. Ping says it’s a country habit.

Tianjin, were it clean, would be the exotic destination of films and books. The chatter is constant and friendly. Non-stop car horns add to the atmosphere. There is sameness to the outfits on the backs of many of the people. Dark, monotone pants and white shirts cover the majority of the men. The women seem to favor simple, understated outfits. Here too, the elderly wander around still wearing their Mao-era banded collar tunics and caps. These are almost always gray in color.

Don’t get me wrong. The people here are open and warm. Long conversations pass easily, even without English. No need for it, at least not yet. The people are very accepting of me, despite my failure to learn Mandarin. I tried to study by CD. An ad says the Pimsleur method will have me speaking fluent Chinese in ten days. Pimsleur claims to be what “Spies use to survive and cope overseas.” That’s more than I needed, but so be it. I played the first two discs over and over again in the car. I was fine for the early parts.

Each time the proctor’s voice would ask if I remembered how to ask a simple question, I’d be cursing at the traffic on I-85 – in Anglo Saxon. I came away with less Mandarin language skills than a dimwitted child.

We pull into a non-descript alleyway. Two elderly Chinese are waiting. The reunion between Ping and her parents is less emotional than I expected. They talk for a few minutes, then we unload our bags and head inside. Guiju Yan (Mama) is a lively, busy woman, despite a little trouble with her legs these days. She’s a little round lady, dressed in a comfortable outfit. Dianlan (Baba) sweeps his front steps and makes his daily rounds to the street markets. He’s a slim man who likes his cigarettes. Both are in their seventies, and look very fit. It’s the first time I’ve met my in-laws, though Ping and I have already been married for two years.

Or three, actually. A judge married us one Monday in August at the DeKalb County courthouse outside Atlanta. We wanted to get Ping’s paperwork started towards citizenship since we knew the process would take years. Somehow, though, this wedding day atmosphere was not what I wanted to tell the kids about one day. Maybe it was the bored judge, who kept half a dozen couples waiting by returning from lunch 45 minutes late, smelled vaguely of alcohol, and remained seated while we stood to exchange our vows. Or maybe it was the inmates in orange jumpsuits and shackles shuffling passed in the hallway on their way to court. We got it done; put the rings on each other’s finger. That’s about as romantic a description as I can offer for our precious moment. I called work, told them I was running a little late because I was getting married. Then, I kissed my new bride and headed off. The following April, I gave Ping a proper church wedding with all the trimmings. I wish my in-laws had been there.

Today, my father-in-law, Ping and I walk through the open-air markets outside the Yans’ apartment. The farmers and merchants have arrived in decades old vehicles. The sedans, mini-buses and pick-ups bear signs of habitation: piles of clothes, a blanket/curtain for privacy, and toddlers staring out through the cracked windshields. Families live in and work out of these tired farm trucks. There’s no apparent thought to sanitation. Flies orbit fruit carts, as smashed produce litters the ground. Tubs of live (or not) fish smell a bit off. I hope it’s the fish. I keep an eye out for whiz kids. With all of this going on, police routinely disperse these sellers of fresh fruit, vegetables, and low-end merchandise. Then, after a day or two, the merchants gamely return and set up shop again.

Ping buys li zhi’s (more familiar to Americans as lychees.) They’re a fruit the size of a walnut with an ugly skin you peel back to reveal milky colored sugary-tasting meat inside. Ping says one of the empresses of the Tang dynasty ordered horsemen to fetch them. Freshness was important. Many couriers rode their horses to death to get The Empress her fresh li zhi’s. Ping (my empress) gets a scalp massage with her hair wash. She says everyone envies her wavy hair. It is lovely, I must admit.

I take in more of my surroundings while she’s being pampered. There is graffiti everywhere. Much of it is in the form of tiny ads, plastered or stamped directly on to every common area surface, even around the doors to apartments. The air is a misery. Diesel, dust, cigarette smoke, and trash. Everywhere, there is litter.

Ping speaks with fear about how common ‘blood cancer’ is here. I think she means leukemia. She says it’s from the water, which is just as bad as the air. This hits home, because my Mom died of cancer just a few years ago.

I have to remember that in America it took generations of public service campaigns and public school indoctrinations to raise the public consciousness and make people care about cleanliness. There are 1.4 billion Chinese and counting. That’s a lot of people to teach about picking up after themselves.

Ping says street names don’t matter. I think she doesn’t know some of the names, because many of them have changed in her five-year absence. Moreover, the street names change every block. So, it’s hard in some areas to refer to a major roadway. There is a great deal of construction. The old and crumbling buildings are being steadily swept away, as if by massive brooms. In their place, more and more bright, sharp, stylish places are springing up, in time for the 2008 Olympics.

After our shopping and preening, we return to the Yans’ apartment. It’s on the ground floor, through an unlit front hall. The common spaces in these buildings are dark, unpainted and generally grim. Inside, though, the floors are swept, the walls brightly painted. It’s a mix of new and old. Space is limited. There’s a common room, a bedroom, an appalling makeshift bathroom, and a kitchenette. There’s more storage and living space in the hallway in-between the main rooms, which is the traditional layout. There are improvised wires tacked to the walls. Surprisingly, the television set is new. Ping bought this place for her folks. The difference in earning power made it possible. Baba made several pieces of furniture himself out of scrounged materials. Many look as though they’ve done a long tour of duty. On the walls, Baba has posted several stiff sheets of white cardboard covered with hand-drawn calligraphy. It’s only after awhile that I connect Mama and Baba’s non-stop smoking to the supply of art material. The calligraphy is drawn on the inside of emptied cigarette cartons. Everything gets used.

Mama and Ping sit on the bed where Ping and I will sleep tonight. It’s in the main room, which also has the TV, dining table, and couch. Mama hurries to the hallway and returns. She presents us with a pair of homemade comforters. They’re gorgeous, with silk linings. And they’re huge. We wrestled six suitcases here, including two large ones filled with gifts. These comforters will overstuff one of the big cases on the trip back. Fortunately, they’re lightweight. We return the favor, offering a number of gifts, including vitamin pills, candy, and toys for many nephews, and clothes. Baba gets a peek into my suitcase and laughs at how many pair of socks I have brought. I don’t know why, I just jammed them in there. I give him a few of the new pairs we bought for the trip. I also give him one of my blank notebooks, because he likes to write.

My in-laws also laugh as I jot down my thoughts in this journal. They think it’s hilarious that I write with my left hand. I like the laughter; it’s familiar and warm.

It’s also great to see Ping with her family. Idiot pencil pushers back in the states have kept them apart for five years. The paperwork is truly endless, and the meetings unproductive and repetitive. Somehow, this process goes through Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy ever created by man. Unless the bad guys have decided to start filling out paperwork before doing whatever they’re going to do, I seriously doubt we’re any safer because of HS.

Here the Yans sit, commenting over family photos. A cousin has gotten old, while Ping has not aged. They like one picture we’ve brought. It shows Ping picking a watermelon we grew in the front yard of our home in Lawrenceville, Georgia. I planted that one. The year before I had Ping attempt gardening. She dumped all the seeds in one hole and never looked back. I found the only Chinese girl without a green thumb. She likes to eat the watermelons, at least.

Ping shows me the site where her childhood house once stood. She explains that it was smaller than the apartment we’ve just visited. I can’t imagine raising four children in such a cramped space. The house is long gone. It’s now a commercial area. Ping says about five years ago, the government forced the family to sell for five thousand yuan, which most everyone here calls ‘bucks’ (a buck is one-eighth of a U.S. dollar) per square meter. The government then built this new property and sold the space for twice the previous amount. Gentrification or eminent domain, I’m not sure. I am no fan of either. I will say the area shows a marked improvement over other parts of Tianjin. These streets are beautiful.

The air is humid and still dirty, but not unpleasant at this late hour. We see a couple playing badminton without a net, while their Pekinese watches. Every few blocks, we pass circles of men playing poker.

We visit the apartment of my sister-in-law, Shuhua, and her husband Kuan Wang (pronounced Kwan Wong.) Ping makes the mistake of telling me that kuan means “wide.” I have to fight back a sophomoric grin.

Their home is more spacious and modern than Baba and Mama’s place. Outside, the brick streets are cleanly swept and well lit. There’s a modest playground for the kids, and a huge mural of a nature scene on one wall. Gone are the open-air markets and the accompanying smells. Inside, the furniture is modern and nice. The layout is familiar, although there are two bedrooms, a small porch or sunroom off the kitchen area, which is in the front entry area. Shoes are removed and stacked near the front door. We’re invited to take house slippers or sandals for inside use. This visit is short, cordial. We’ll return here tomorrow night.

Back at Mama and Baba’s, we prepare for sleep on the day bed. It’s a platform, about as high as a Western-style bed. A thin mat covers the wood underneath. Firm! I start to think about the comfortable bed I saw in my sister-in-law’s apartment.

Using the bathroom in the middle of the night is an adventure. There’s only one light, and it’s about a 20-watt job. I decide against using it, and fumble around in the dark. My aim appears to be true, thankfully. Baba installed the seatless toilet, using improvised plumbing. I lean down to find the valve that flushes the toilet, meaning I must bring my face practically into the bowl. The contents kinda sink down. The smell is indescribable. There is no shower stall. If you’re in the bathroom, you’re in the shower. There’s a grated hole in the floor. It’s kind of like the facilities on a boat. Towels are everywhere. All are wet.

Ping and I talk about hiring a plumber to install a proper toilet. I hate to think of Mama trying to navigate that arrangement in there. As long as the move wouldn’t insult Baba, who’s proud of installing what’s in there now, then the money would be well spent.

There could be a problem. Baba doesn’t like people changing his home. Ping says Fusheng and Kuan got into a fight with Baba about some chairs that had become so junky, the sons decided they had to go. Baba didn’t appreciate anyone making changes to his castle. We’ll have to see whether we can get him to accept decent plumbing.

For now, thoughts turn to sleep. I make my way back to bed and fall asleep quickly, next to my bride.

May 30

Tuesday

Tianjin, Old Town

In China, one time zone fits all. It’s a governmental decree. The sun comes up at five a.m. in Tianjin at this time of year. In the western regions, people spend half their morning in the dark. Supporters argue that creating different time zones would lead to total confusion. I’m not sure I agree with that, but of course the Chinese are used to their system.

The early start helps with our efforts to get Ping pregnant. We’re as quiet as possible, since there’s no real privacy in the Yan apartment. The effort has been going on for two years with no luck. There is a strain here. Ping has a plan, if not an obsession for the life she’s been dreaming of for years. She calls me her “dreaming man” (man of her dreams.) She also dreams of a little girl named Samantha, and maybe a little boy as well. This colors everything. I know it’s difficult for her to want something this badly. The doctor put me out of the baby-making business after the birth of my son, Aaron. I had the plumbing turned back on, trying to please Ping. I wouldn’t mind another kiddo, either. To that end, I’ve taken every pill Ping can find, from Viagra to chicken extract, plus some foul smelling ones I’d rather forget. So far, nothing. Maybe China will work some magic of its own.

China has been good for my writing. It’s been years since I kept a journal. I know my technical skills are strong, or at least serviceable, from twenty years of broadcast writing. I’ve come to fear that the bulk of TV journalism is more about distraction than enlightenment. Whether this journal proves to be interesting, who knows?

Ping’s still trying to go back to sleep. I’m bugging her. It’s 7:15. I find it hard to go back to sleep two hours after the sun’s come up. Her father is shaving. Ping says Chinese prefer to shower in the evening. They don’t like to take their daily dirt to bed. I’m a morning shower person. I don’t like to take my night grime to work. I’m skipping the whole shower experience here, since we’ll be moving to Shuhua’s apartment today.

Outside, the junkmen pass, calling out on bullhorns for people to sell their recyclables. That is, old castoffs are cleaned up, repaired a little and resold. Bicycles, TVs, furniture, whatever. Some of this stuff looks as though it’s been around forever.

Ping points to an exposed heating pipe. She says the government turns on the heat from November 15 to March 15. If it’s cold outside the range of official winter, people must make their own heat.

Baba has been out. He brings back Ping’s favorite breakfast, cooked up in Tianjin style. I’d call it a spicy crepe with hot soymilk. Ping says this is a ‘Jian Bing.’ The bread is a mix of peas and local onions, thinner than a tortilla, fried in salt, pepper and oil, rolled loosely in several layers. This time, it’s served with a tea egg, which is simply a boiled egg marinated in tea, salt, soy sauce and Chinese basil. There’s soymilk to drink, plus fruit, a sweet rice-based soup Ping calls white congee, plus whatever leftovers are around. Damn Yank that I am, I chase it all down with coke, warm this time.

After breakfast, Ping and I make our way out into the streets. We’re off to buy our train tickets for our trip to Shanghai. She wants soft seats tickets, meaning a bench, and a bunk if you need it. For some reason neither of us understood, the teller wasn’t selling those kinds of tickets today. We’ll have to come back tomorrow.

Adding ickiness to injury, the only facility at the train station was a water closet. I’d seen, and smelled, plenty of those while visiting my sister in Istanbul. I vowed then not to be a wimp. It’s just something to learn while traveling: pace your intake, plan your outflow.

The heat is nearly killing me. If you feel humidity more than heat, then you feel airborne crud more than both combined. It stings the skin. People refer to buses as “city squid,” because the thick, dark cloud of diesel smoke they spew from their exhaust looks like a squid using its defense screen. My skin is covered in squid spew.

Kuan takes us to lunch at a hot pot restaurant. It’s similar to fondue, although there’s no cheese. There are chunks of tofu, lettuce, potatoes, lamb, beef, tripe, glass noodles and squid. It all goes in. Kuan is very good about not making fun of my clumsiness with the chopsticks and scaldingly hot food. Hot pot should be more popular than it is in the states.

After lunch, Ping spends a few hours in conversation with her parents while I read the books I’ve brought and catch up on my journal. We deposit most of the heavy things here, then head over to the Wangs’ apartment. It’s a welcome change.

After Shuhua serves us a dinner of more dishes than I can remember, Kuan takes us to a massage parlor. Yes, some of that goes on at these places. Actual massage is a regular part of the landscape and massage parlors are a common business here.

We walk. It’s just around the corner. The lighting is very low inside. It’s a hot night, and there is no air conditioning in the building, which looks like a Red Cross blood collection site, with tables and curtain partitions. There are several workers. Most appear to be functionally blind. They meet my gaze. One has a cockeye, another a milky eye. Ping says blindness is common, and massage is a typical business for the blind to go into.

One of the girls begins by drawing a tub of hot water and adding Epsom salt, or something. And it is hot. Not just warm, it’s nearly scalding. I’ve been walking around in sandals most of the day on the dirty streets. I don’t envy her having to work on my feet. She lets me soak for a bit, then dries my feet and ushers me to one of the tables. I lie on my stomach, my feet hanging off the end. I’m far too long for this table. She gives me some towels to rest my face on.

My luck runs out and my male masseuse (masseur) takes over. He has very strong, practiced hands. We don’t talk. He just begins. The first focus is my feet. He works for a good twenty minutes, crushing them. Again, this is taken to the point of pain, and I wince like a little girl. It continues, and I finally have to ask him, as best I can, to lighten up on me. He does, somewhat. The rest of the massage is still quite grueling. I guess this is a deep tissue massage. It hurts so good.

I can see Ping getting her own massage. She has a woman. Damn.

May 31

Wednesday

Tianjin

Slept late in the comfortable bed provided by Ping’s sister, Shuhua. The junkmen can be heard at a distance. Ping and I appreciate the quiet.

I need a Coke or three to wake up. There’s no ice. The fridge is maybe a third the size of ours back home. There’s nothing lacking here. It’s just that I’m used to filling the fridge with many, many non-essential goodies. Do smaller fridges mean smaller waistlines? Hmm, could be.

Ping is lecturing me about drinking directly from my soda can. She doesn’t want me getting hepatitis from mouse pee left on the cans at the warehouse. This from the woman who eats tea eggs she’s left out on the shelf for days.

A nice morning with Ping, talking about sex. She says Chinese men speak like women and have no ass. She prefers 18-year-old American men. (They’re potent.) I’d better watch myself. Still, it’s good to have a naughty Chinese wife. Very good, indeed.

Ping gets on the phone to the U.S. embassy, trying to get clearance for her parents to visit the U.S. The call costs us $6.50. That’s pricey in the states. Here, it’s preposterous. Ping says it’s because the embassy kicked out the Chinese phone service, so we must pay for whatever service the embassy saw fit to bring in. Perhaps they were worried about security. The end result is another layer of inefficient bureaucracy in a process that’s already dragged on for years. No luck today getting this resolved.

Minutes later, a call comes in on the cell phone Shuhua loaned us. Ping takes the call in the bathroom. I can hear the usual Mandarin chatter, then the word “dumb ass.” It’s our restaurant calling. Ping’s partner, Liqun, has a question. She and her husband, Rich, own 50 percent of Il Forno’s. We own 25 percent and Ping’s brother Fuming owns the other 25 percent. Turns out, “dumb ass” was directed at the staff. They had the radio too high and weren’t working hard enough. Yes, that certainly rates a long distance call to China.

Out on the street, I stand out. Aside from being the only American, I’m wearing shorts. People seem reluctant to dress in shorts, despite the hot weather and the oppressively dirty air. Ping says they read the calendar rather than checking the actual conditions outside. I guess it’s still technically Spring. Long pants. Long sleeve shirts.

Bicycles outnumber cars on the side streets. Someone’s always fussing over a bike, oiling it, locking it, and removing the front wheel to prevent theft. The bad air takes its toll on the young trees. Workers sweat to cut or dig out the dead trees.

Women wear protective gear while biking. Many wear gloves and mesh veils of varying colors over their face, against the sun and smog. Some have visors over the veils, making them look like cycling beekeepers. It’s got to be tough to dress like that in this heat. Ping says there’s an extra motivation. Women here hate to tan. Dark skin is for peasants. Ping frets tremendously when she sees the skin on her arm tanning in this sunshine. Freckles are equally frowned upon. White skin is valued. And big eyes. Ping has both, and she never lets me forget. In fact, it’s funny how she frets when she gets too much sun. She hates having a tan; says it makes her look like a peasant. I remember, growing up in Rhode Island and visiting the Newport mansions, learning that the wealthy at the turn of the 20 century also hated to go out into the sun because it made them look like lower class workers.

We stop back at the internet café to indulge in some much deserved gloating via email to friends, family, co-workers, anyone. Beijing offers a free online service. Of course, it’s monitored and censored. It’s also slow. It’s easy enough to go around these encumbrances and find more familiar servers. I don’t think they’re monitored. I remember reading how Google had to agree to certain censorship in order to come unhindered into China. So, I’m not really sure.

I briefly kept up an Internet correspondence with a girl in China. She warned me that the government read everything. Eventually, she said she felt it was too dangerous for her family for her to talk with me. That got me pissed at Beijing, big time. My last message was a copy of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. I don’t know what good that could have done, but somehow it felt good to be a troublemaker. Of course, she could have been lying so she could totally blow me off. I’ll never know.

I check on the news. God, Iraq is a mess. A successful, young network reporter, Kimberly Dozier, is clinging to life after a roadside bomb killed her crew. U.S. marines are accused of a revenge massacre. This war is, was, and ever will be about oil. It’s a mistake on a grand scale, made by a drunkard. And of course, there’s no end in sight.

Enough. This is why I’m on vacation.

I look around the cyber café. The place is packed with teenagers. Ping says they should be in school. They may be dropouts. She says they use the money they get from their parents to for homes, cars, and the Internet. There’s a new word for this generation of Chinese that neither works nor studies: ken lao. It means, “bite the old” or “eat the old.”

Many of the teens are playing online games with opponents in other cities, or perhaps just a few seats away. Others are going online looking for dates and of course sex. There’s a pretty even mix of boys and girls here. All are looking for social interaction. Here they are, shoulder to shoulder, staring at computer screens. None seems to have the emotional circuitry to turn to the person next to him and say, “Ni hao.” I wish I could say this is uniquely Chinese.

We spend the day shopping with Lily. She and Ping have known each other since they were five. I risk a social experiment. I’m curious whether humor translates. I haven’t prepared anything elaborate for this effort, just a few favorites. I know word play won’t translate well at all. No puns, nothing too clever. Timing won’t work, obviously, since I have to go through a translator. In fact, it may not work at all. My best guess is that it has to be something visceral, universal. I decide to skip fart jokes and go straight to smut.

The first is something I heard on Prairie Home Companion. “A man asks his girlfriend, ‘Honey, am I the only one?’ She answers, ‘Why does everyone keep asking me that?’” Lily laughs at the translation. Score one for Garrison Keillor. Next, comes the story of the woman who was having an affair. Her rich boyfriend gives her a mink coat. Knowing she can’t take such a lavish gift home, she pawns it and presents her husband with the ticket. She innocently tells him she found the ticket and asks him would he mind stopping by the pawn shop to find out what the item might be. He returns home that night with a cheap tea set. A week later, the husband’s secretary is seen wearing a new mink coat. Lily and Ping like that one, too. I risk another, this time dipping into the vault of Rodney Dangerfield. “I came home and found a man in bed with my wife. I asked him, ‘Who told you you could sleep with my wife?!’ He said, ‘Everybody.’”

Our trio stops at an antique market in Tianjin’s Hexi district. Merchants arrange their wares on carts or on blankets spread in the market area. We buy some trinkets that seem to me to be charming and reasonably well made. Ping’s friends laugh at them. They say they’re all fakes. The government owns all the real antiques of any serious value. There are private collectors, but it’s virtually impossible that anything presented on the street as an antique is the genuine article. Ping says there’s a television show similar to “Antiques Roadshow” on PBS back home. Here, guests come on with their antiques, hoping to learn that they own a great treasure. The major difference is that if the host announces that the piece is a fake he smashes it with a hammer.

The streets are a living mass of cars, buses, bikes, and pedestrians. Drivers everywhere survive by doing complex geometry in their heads. Driver A travels at Velocity V, while Driver B approaches at Vector X. It becomes routine to the point that most of us don’t even think about what we’re doing; we just do it. Here, the math doesn’t work. By any calculations, there should be four wrecks per minute. Drivers simply don’t obey the rules. The result is noise. There’s a non-stop blaring of horns, and the metal-on-metal screech of worn-out brakes. Even the bikes make that sound. Traffic police are everywhere, on foot or on bicycle. Occasionally, an officer singles out one unlucky fish and writes him a ticket.

I would have expected there to be damage on most of the cars, but they are scar-free. Likewise, the roads are not littered with chrome and glass, as I would have thought. In fact, the only accident we’ve seen involved a cyclist who ran into Lily’s car back in Tianjin. He was quite pissed, as if she was in the wrong because she was in his street.

The Chinese are rapidly falling in love with cars. The roads are not built for this many. The interstate (interprovince?) highways are not built for them. The air can’t handle the load, either. I have no idea whether the government has any plan. Then again, I have no idea whether any government ever has a plan to deal with traffic. Certainly, none does more than fill the pockets of a few politicians to the detriment of the masses of fuming drivers.

As I write, Ping offers Kuan one of the Viagra we packed. I haven’t actually needed it on vacation. Something about a stress-free lifestyle coupled with plenty of activity and food. Here, Ping says Viagra costs an astounding fifty U.S. dollars per pill. A person can fork over a lot of money while dreaming of great feats in the sheets, only to be stiffed by someone passing off little blue fakes. There’s a good deal of smiling and laughing as Ping passes along the health caveats that go with the drug. I’m kind of glad I’m missing most of the conversation. We’ll leave it to Kuan to explain the situation to Shuhua.

We also give Kuan a small teapot we found at the market. He has a collection on display in his living room. He asks what we paid for this one. Ping tells him. She had haggled, getting the vendor down substantially from his original asking price. We wound up paying 80 bucks, or ten U.S. dollars. Kuan tells us we paid too much. He seems to like the teapot, though, and that’s what matters. I wish all the ‘overpriced’ gifts we give could be just ten dollars.

Next, Kuan does something interesting. He demonstrates the proper way to check the quality of a teapot. The vendor had done this earlier. It’s fun to watch. Filling the teapot with tea, Kuan holds his thumb over the vent hole in the chimney of the lid. If he’s able to pour tea with the chimney blocked, the seal is not strong. No good. If it doesn’t pour, then it’s a good teapot.

Kuan finds that our teapot is good, and adds it to the collection on his shelves. Ours has a nice engraving on the bottom. Others in the collection include one done in a fish motif. There’s even a fish inside the teapot. Fish and water together speak of good fortune.

Our days’ shopping also secured a set of calligraphy brushes and some sheets of parchment for Dianlan. I hoped Baba would appreciate an improvement in materials, so he wouldn’t have to render his art on cigarette cartons.

Dianlan smiles and shows us his other brushes. He seems to indicate that we’ve wasted money on these gifts. Ping has warned me about how Chinese people show certain emotions. I also think Dianlan is a little set in his ways. Change of any kind is met with resistance.

We won’t give up. We’ll shop for Mama next. There’s a big red carton-cross on their wall, another of Baba’s handiworks. Ping says she’d like a cross to wear. I hope her reaction to a gift is better. That’s just my selfish desire for a “thank you.” Again, Ping reminds me that elders don’t necessarily offer thanks to their children. It doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate the gift. It simply isn’t done. Ping’s also told me parents think it’s wrong to praise their children too much for fear of spoiling them.

I suspect these customs are passing with Mama and Baba’s generation. The younger people we’ve met seem far more western in their ability to show sloppy emotions. Not good, not bad. Just a change in progress. Even in slow-moving China, things change.

June 1, 2006

Thursday

Tianjin, Jinan

We board the train for a travel day. It’s modern and well maintained.

It’s also crowded. Migrant farm workers pay full price for boarding tickets that don’t come with actual seats. Ping was apparently careful to make sure we have a place to sit. The workers carry their lives with them, rolled into one large bundle.

The crappy slums of Tianjin’s outer city start to roll away. Within the last few blocks of them, I notice familiar gray cylinders under construction, several stories tall, tapered slightly towards the top. Cooling towers. It’s their location that catches me off guard. It appears there’s no public outcry to building nuclear plants within a few miles of a heavily populated city. You don’t see that in the U.S., land of lawyers and environmentalists.

There is no suburbia. Cityscapes give way instantly to country. And the countryside is heavily used: crops, fruit and nut trees in neat rows. There’s not one square inch of land that isn’t touched by man on a daily basis. Homes appear simple, single-level brick affairs. They’re similar to the slummy edges of Tianjin, although there appears to be less trash on the streets.

Ping, God bless my wife, is the center of attention. She’s holding court with half-a-dozen passengers. One middle-aged lady is heading to Xu Zhou to pick wheat. She smiles at us as she speaks. That’s a relief since we kicked her out of our seats, where she apparently had hopes of passing the trip. Our tickets had seat numbers. Her ticket did not. She probably bought it in a hurry, paying full price to someone who may or may not have worked for the railroad. Now, she squats in the aisle.

The conductor makes her stow her sack below one seat. Our stuff goes in the overhead compartment. The woman says, “Pretty bags overhead. Ugly ones down.”

These workers make 50 bucks ($6US) a day. A workday is 13 hours long. A train ticket may have cost her one or even two days’ pay. I have Ping half-jokingly suggest that they come to Atlanta. We are already getting a flood of Hispanic workers. They earn more in one hour than these workers can get exhausting themselves.

The Olympics is helping somewhat. The workers split their time between taking in crops in the countryside and contractor work on new venues in host cities such as Tianjin. Still, they live 30 to a room. Often that room has only one lamp. I suppress the urge to ask them about other facilities. I can guess.

I ask about their names. Ping says people don’t exchange names like they might in America. It’s not necessary, she says.

Ping continues to act as translator. I want to know about their lives. They watch me write in my journal and think my left-handedness is hilarious. I don’t think there’s an actual prejudice, at least nothing mean-spirited. I know that Chinese schools discourage left-handedness, as did American schools for many generations.

The train attendants wedge their carts through the packed aisles. They’re selling cup-o-noodle, pork sausage and beer. The train makes a stop and even more passengers shoehorn in. The air-conditioning has long since passed the point of effectiveness. It’s now little more than a good intention.

The lady we’ve been talking with says her children are attending Tianjin University. She’s very proud of them. It’s taking all she has, but she’s seeing to it that they’re getting an education so they won’t spend their lives on trains like this, going from job to job. They’ll have a profession. I think to myself, her kids are not ken lao.

Another passenger asks about army benefits in America. He wants to know what the government pays to the families of soldiers killed in Iraq. I don’t mind the question. I seem to remember that congress recently raised the figure to $250,000, or about one-tenth of what the young man or woman would have earned in an average lifetime. The army is far more of an integrated part of Chinese society. The pajama-like uniforms are everywhere. Positions in the army are highly coveted. Competition is strong. Young women seek soldiers for marriage, because of the benefits. There are many, including death benefits. Those total about 200,000… bucks.

Mile after mile of tree farms fly by the train’s windows. This is where the yang shu come from. These will be added to the millions of others already planted in and around Beijing and the other Olympic venue cities. They’ll hide some of the crappier areas from the millions of tourists, and from the television cameras. I suspect buildings that are too big and ugly to hide, will be torn down. Atlanta did much the same thing in 1996. In fact, Atlanta went one step further. It quietly rounded up its homeless population and moved them to areas outside of the Olympic venues. I’ll be interested to see whether Beijing allows its street homeless to remain when international journalists pour in. Beggars are an accepted part of society here. They’re as much a part of street life as smoky buses, squeaky bicycles, neon signs, noodle stands, young sweethearts or yang shu.

The train has a closed circuit TV mounted at the end of the car. English, I think. It’s hard to hear, but words aren’t important. They’re playing “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” A small child over swings his baseball bat and squarely connects with his father’s groin. Passengers laugh. Ah humor, the universal language.

The overcrowding slows the train’s speed. We’re late getting to Jinan. Mr. Liu and his family meet us on the platform. He easily picks out the yangguizi in the crowd. He doesn’t say that word. In fact, no one says it to my face. If they say it behind my back, I can’t tell. I’ve read about it, and Ping smiles when she translates it. Yangguizi, “foreign devil.” It’s an old word, not really used much anymore. To my ear now, it’s more comical than menacing. I’m tempted to have a t-shirt made. It would have to be for me to wear back home.

Mr. Liu’s family group includes his son and daughter-in-law and his grandson Yang, who is a handsome young man of perhaps 12 or 13 who I’m guessing will soon be taller than his father. Also along for the trip is Auntie. Mr. Liu also has a daughter named Linda (the same as Ping’s American name.) Linda lives in Germany with her husband, Lars. The list of names and relations gets a bit confusing. OK, more than a bit. I double-check details with Ping. The introductions were quick and she can’t remember Auntie’s real name either. (I discover only much later that her name is Wang.)

Mr. Liu is a healthy man of sixty or so. His thinning still dark hair is combed back, and he dresses in a starched white shirt and non-descript pants. Auntie Wang is a slender, elegant woman, more than a decade younger than Mr. Liu, who wears a black evening gown. Ping says Auntie sometimes sings with the Beijing Opera. I also pick up something else in their behavior together. It’s not in the words, which I obviously don’t understand. There’s something proprietary in her physical actions around Mr. Liu. Maybe it’s the way she’s never far from his side as we walk. Maybe it’s the way she holds her head high, as if to send a signal to any female competitor. She wants him to marry her. Ping denies this. She says Auntie’s hope is to go to the states. She also says Mr. Liu refers to her as “another new girlfriend.” I have to go with my gut on this. It seems more serious than that. Anyway, the interplay between the two is darling to watch.

It’s after ten-thirty by the time we arrive at the restaurant. Yang says, “See you tomorrow” in a nice, clear voice. Then, he and his parents drive off and leave the four of us to ourselves.

The restaurant practices a custom of putting its dishes on display in the entryway. Plates are loaded with somewhat familiar fare. There are pig ears, beef slices, green vegetables, soups, and of course dozens of kinds of fish. As Ping, Auntie, and Mr. Liu point to the dishes they want the waiter to bring us, I notice a couple of other entrees: silk worm, scorpion and beetle. Thankfully, the waiter does not jot those two onto our dinner list.

The wait staff brings plate after plate of food. At this point, I’m in the mood for no more than a light snack before bed. No dice, Fella. Eat! My tablemates accuse me of not eating enough. They say I eat like a cat. I’m not sure what that means, aside from being a bad thing. Meanwhile, Ping has related to Auntie my opinion of the Beijing Opera. Months earlier, I had watched a few minutes of it on TV back home. Now, my stupid comment came back to bite me. Ping tells Auntie I think Chinese Opera sounds like cats being strangled. Thanks, Honey. All in all, a bad night for kitties.

June2, 2006

Friday

Jinan

We wake up to more Rube Goldberg plumbing at Mr. Liu’s apartment. The hot water heater is mounted on the wall, above a western style (Thank God!) toilet. The heater’s tank holds enough for a couple of carefully measured showers. As in most of the bathrooms I’ve seen, there is no tub or stall, and usually no shower curtain. There is a drain in the floor, which is slightly concave. At Mr. Liu’s, the showerhead is a handheld number, leaving one whole hand for scrubbing. Unfortunately, during the night, the hose connecting the showerhead to the water tank has come loose. The drain is overwhelmed and the floor is flooded. I think it’s just a missing clamp. Atlanta-based Home Depot is gonna make a fortune in China, where Mr. Liu and everyone else plays urban pioneer.

Auntie slept on the couch. Turns out she’s 47. Mr. Liu is 67. Ping says Linda’s mother died nearly twenty years ago, when Linda was 17. Mr. Liu remarried many years later. No one liked that lady, so he divorced her. He and Auntie (“another new girlfriend”) have known each other for two years and have been living together for several months.

I married Ping five months after we met. I saw her ad on a computer-dating site. I’m not sure what attracted me. I do remember thinking she was too young for me, but I should give it a shot anyway. I sent her a long email. She didn’t answer at first. But, I sent her a second one and she liked what I had to say. Thank God. Twenty years as a professional journalist and I finally wrote something that was worth a damn.

We arranged to meet at a little café called the Intermezzo. It was a late meeting, just after midnight, since both of us were working night shift jobs. We chatted over cheesecake and coffee. I listened to her describe her life, from her jobs in San Francisco to her efforts to make a life in Atlanta. I saw a young woman with great self-confidence and a glowing personality. She laughed easily and listened when I spoke. Her command of English, as well as Chinese, German, and Italian, betrayed the intelligence behind her smile. Ping says she liked me, except for the beard I was wearing at the time. I immediately asked her for a second date. Ping later told me she was impressed by my confidence. On our third date, I took her back to my apartment, shaved off the beard and won my first kiss from her. What followed was a flurry of late dates, including a few at Waffle House. She seemed to enjoy those, and I joke that she’s a cheap date.

Within weeks, we were in love. I was able to tell my mom that I was serious about Ping, shortly before Mom succumbed to cancer. That was a difficult summer. I knew I wanted to make a life with Ping, but I waited a couple of months to make sure my mind and heart were clear.

One night in early August, I took her shopping at the mall, stopping in at jewelry stores. Ping kept dragging me over to the engagement ring case. I acted disinterested, to piss her off. I told her those rings were cheap, not good enough. She got mad, but I could hardly keep from laughing. Then, I took us to a not cheap dinner at “Dante’s Down the Hatch” in Buckhead, where we shared an elaborate fondue meal at a table built on the second level, overlooking the pirate ship that’s built into the interior of the place. (Yes, and the restaurant has four live crocodiles inside, too.)

After dinner a hired violinist played something appropriate while I got down on one knee and pulled out a silly porcelain pillbox with a kitty cat figurine on the top and handed it to her. Inside, was the ring Mom had given me when I told her of my intentions towards Ping. It’s a family heirloom and much nicer than the rings we had seen earlier. I asked Ping to marry me. I figured there weren’t that many beautiful China Girls headed my way and I should be grateful. I try to act grateful.

The four of us head out for a walk and some lunch. Jinan is vibrant and alive. If that sounds childish, that’s because this place seems to have been built with childlike joy. The architecture is adventurous. Colors are daring. Streets are wide and drivers are slightly less homicidal than they are in Tianjin or Beijing. (Ping disputes this, saying the capital and her hometown are larger and nicer.) Oh, and it smells good here in Jinan. You can make out the individual foods from one restaurant to the next, with trees perfuming the air with springtime in-between.

An official government website puts it a different way: “All in all, Jinan, a city full of vigor and vitality, is marching towards modernization.”

I take a picture of Ping and Mr. Liu in front of the China Telecom tower, a fanciful spire that lords over the Jinan cityscape. Mr. Liu is career military who went on to China Telecom and retired from there. Even afterwards, he has continued to carry influence. When the company was downsizing, Mr. Liu dropped by and had a talk with the bosses. They spared his son from the axe.

We stop in at a Brazilian restaurant off the main avenue. Yang and his parents are already there. I resist the offer to use a knife and fork. I flash back on a lunch in America where Kelly, who’s married to Ping’s brother, struggled with a fork and knife as if they were totally alien. She’s been in America for some time, but still doesn’t speak much English, at least not aloud, and can’t seem to get the hang of silverware. I’m told American utensils look like weapons to some Asians. So, I can only image how difficult it is to eat with something you don’t really use well that you also consider to be a rude implement.

The lunch menu is an exotic delight of lamb, beef, squid, squishy delicious sea pumpkin, and several kinds of mushrooms. One of the shrooms looks like a cabbage; another is translucent white and served in soup.

Ping gets angry because I say no to the Bull’s heart. These are the moments I understand the culture shock that Kelly goes through. One of Ping’s great strengths is that she embraces new things. I try, but I’m not nearly as game as she is. With or without the bovine heart, this is a lot of food. Yang, who reminds me very much of Aaron, pat our tummies to indicate we’re full. I’ve eaten twice what I usually do, but still hear comments about how I eat like a cat.

I ask Ping why everyone in China doesn’t weigh 400 pounds. She says it’s because they walk or ride bikes. They don’t drive everywhere.

After lunch, we do more of that walking. I point to the sidewalk and ask about the ‘lane’ of raised bumps that runs the entire length of it. The Chinese have included this feature to help the blind to navigate the streets and avoid turning in to traffic.

We pass a number of posted ads featuring pictures of Yao Ming, the 7’6” NBA center. Ping insists people here don’t really like him. She says he’s arrogant, from Shanghai. I don’t follow that, but the two apparently go together in her mind. She says there was a better basketball player, but he fell into disfavor with the government. Yao Ming, she says, is better at kissing ass.

Our little entourage visits Baotu Spring Park. People say the cool, placid pond here was the first spring in the world. The park entrance is decorated with large Olympic mascots, the Five Friendlies. Aimed at children, there’s one for each color of the Olympic rings. There’s blue Beibei the fish, black Jingjing the panda, Huanhuan the red Olympic flame, gold Yingying the antelope, and Nini the green swallow. And this is too cute. Put the names together, without the traditional doubling for children’s names, and you get Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni, or “Welcome to Beijing.”

Does anyone remember Izzy the blue morph from Atlanta’s go around in 1996? As in, “What Izzy?” (“What is he?”) He kind of looked like a smiling blue sperm. Ah well, all fame is fleeting.

We visit a museum within the park. It’s either a renovated home or made to look like a home from a long ago era. Airy rooms with high-beamed roofs open at one end where walls have been removed or doors widened. It’s dedicated to Li Qingzhao, a famous poetess of the 12 century. Ping says she had many years with her husband, Zhao Mingcheng. They wrote poetry together and shared a full, active life. Then, he died and Li Qingzhao’s poetry turned sad.

Months after our trip, I copied down one of her poems.

Wuling Spring

“The wind is stilled; the dust is fragrant, the blossoms already fallen.

As the day grows late I am too weary to comb out my hair.

His possessions are here, but his essence is gone: everything has ceased. I long to speak, but the tears stream.

I have heard it said that springtime at Shuangxi is yet lovely.

I intend to sail there in a dainty boat.

I fear only that the featherweight Shuangxi boats would be unable to bear such a burden of grief.”

I’ve since learned that her work was too progressive for a woman of the time. People came to revere her, and yet she died in poverty. On the walls of this magnificent half-museum half-botanical garden are charts showing her movements from city to city throughout her life. Her admirers collected her sad, rhythmic tonal poems, which influenced countless generations that followed. I look at Ping and know how lucky Zhao Mingcheng must have been, and how sad he must have been to leave his wife alone.

Back in Mr. Liu’s spacious apartment, he comments that it’s messy because he’s a bachelor. It looks fine. The walls are white; the furniture is neat and well considered for the room. There’s plenty of space, including the two bedrooms, the living room, laundry area, a solarium of sorts, and a separate dining room.

Ping shows off pictures of our cats. She laughs every time she points to Talia, rolling on the floor and showing her belly like the slut she is.

I am far more curious about my hosts than they are about me. Still, Auntie shows amazement at my left-handedness. Each time I jot down a line in my journal, her face lights up with a smile and she makes some quick comment to Ping. I have no idea what they’re laughing at, except that it’s me. I smile back and eat a li zhi.

Mr. Liu complains that our visit was too short, and he’s right. I’d love to watch these two longer, just for the entertainment value. I make the offer for them to visit us in Atlanta, but I know that won’t happen. Beijing does not let its citizens go wandering without strict controls. No tourism abroad. There are two reasons: many would not return, and many would bring back dangerous ideas. Already, the appetite for all things western, from clothes and music to standard of living, is sweeping China in an irresistible wave. Beijing knows change is happening. Still, the old guard is not going to lie down just yet.

We’re tempted to offer Mr. Liu some of the Viagra. Ping says his heart might not take the strain. I don’t know about that. I do think it’s probably not necessary. Auntie seems to have things covered in that department. As we board the train, Ping tells me what happened after I turned in last night. There was a flooding disaster as Auntie tried to take a shower. Mr. Liu rushed to her side to help with the tricky plumbing. I don’t know whether any plumbing got fixed. Had it been Ping and me…

After smiling goodbyes, we board the train for Qingdao. This is the travel style Ping had wanted originally. Unlike the crowded run from Tianjing, here we have so-called soft seats. It’s a cabin with two benches and bunks above for sleep or storage. This is the train of old movies and mystery novels and it’s pure luxury. We have company in the cabin. They don’t say much. That’s a luxury, too.

As Jinan rolls away outside our window, the topography rapidly changes. Gone are the endless flat acres. For the first time since my arrival in China, I see actual hills. There are even buttes here. These are the scenes I’ve noticed in the art works at restaurants or in museums. Still, the farmers own every spare inch. There is industry here, and more of the ominous cooling towers. It all fits together in a crazy quilt designed by 1.4 billion people. (That’s the common guess, which is higher than the official population number.) It’s quite beautiful, despite the pollution-stained gray sky.

As we arrive in Qingdao, we’re met by a large SUV with military tags. Inside are two uniformed Chinese soldiers. This throws me a little. I’ve seen the military everywhere. Now, being this close, I get a “What seems to be the matter, officer?” twinge in my stomach. That quickly fades as our hosts smile and greet us. One, the driver, is a skinny young man who doesn’t say much. The other is a round, giggle-prone woman named Liu. Ping says she’s a non-commissioned officer and is due for a promotion. There’s a star and two bars on the gold-trimmed epaulets of her tunic. There’s also the issue of China’s love of its so-called 100 Names. This Liu is no relation to Jinan’s Mr. Liu. I read somewhere that some of the more common names may repeat tens of thousands of times across the country. To avoid confusing myself, I just dub her ‘Officer Liu.’ I think Officer Liu is a friend of a friend of Ping’s. My bride’s network knows no bounds. And again, it’s helpful to have friends in the military here.

Officer Liu drives us through the nighttime streets of Qingdao. Government types often make their homes here, using their influence to secure the best places. This is also a favorite destination for tourists, with bungalow homes dotting the hills over the ocean.

We pass a billboard of Deng Xiaoping. He’s portrayed in a heroic pose, looking a good twenty years younger than what I remember of him. Deng is the people’s favorite because of his reforms. He’s lauded as the architect of China’s unprecedented prosperity and freedom.The Communists’ hero is Mao. It’s his face on all the money. Ping says people openly hate Mao, but the Communists keep his memory alive.

Qingdao is easily the prettiest city we’ve seen so far, lit up tonight by the countless neon signs. I can just make out that roads in the bar district are colored green.

This is the city that gives the world Tsingtao beer. I ask Officer Liu about the difference in spelling. She has no idea. I don’t think she’s familiar enough with western lettering to recognize the difference in spelling between the beer and the city signs for tourists. More likely, she doesn’t care. The Germans founded a brewery here, taking the spelling from something called Ecole francaise d’Extreme-Orient. The Japanese grabbed the works during World War I. The Chinese got hold of it and hold it still. Back when I could, I tried a Tsingtao or two. Goes OK with pizza, but with its rice flavor it’s much better with Chinese food.

We park amid a long row of well-lit restaurants. All are seafood. We choose one that looks like a friendly hangout. It’s quite crowded on a Friday night. As we’re making our way to the table, I’m jotting something in my journal, or trying to. A group of obviously drunken men in business suits fixes on the left-handed yangguizi. They hurry over and begin speaking very loudly to me and pump my hand with a greeting. “How do you do?” they each ask in turn. It’s quickly obvious that’s as far as their English goes. I smile and say “zuo shou,” which means left hand. They laugh loudly and exchange comments with each other. I’m a hit.

We get to the table and order a big meal, including two squid dishes. That’s four meals back-to-back, in three cities that have included the little suckers. I’ll be shitting tentacles for a week. There’s also nice, grilled chicken. It’s all quite spicy, so I wash it down with a coke.

As we eat, Officer Liu asks about life in America, particularly in regards to military pay and benefits. My brother was career army. I wish he were here to answer some of this. I applied twice to the Air Force, but never got passed the initial contract. I wanted money for college. At that time, it wasn’t happening. The contract, meanwhile, made it clear that if I signed it would be the last clear choice I could make for two years. Part of me still regrets not going in. Another part knows I’m not the type to handle regimental bureaucracy with a smile.

I tell Officer Liu what I can. She understands a little English. Her subordinate doesn’t seem to know any. She got us a great deal on a room at The Overseas Chinese International Hotel. It’s a three-star, despite the ponderous moniker.

After dinner, Officer Liu and the quiet officer drop us off at the hotel. As it turns out, it appears to be a little past its glory days. The high-rise building has a nice view of the ocean. It’s also been left to the ocean air far too long without proper maintenance. There’s minor mildew and corrosion on many of the surfaces. What was once nice wood paneling has warped. Still, it’s clean and there’s a real toilet! Ping and I settle in. We’re tired enough to fall asleep… almost.

June 3

Saturday

Qingdao

We awaken to gray skies. Street noise manages to climb nineteen floors to our window. Breakfast at this hotel is definitely not three stars. It’s a little fruit, some local soup and bread. A teenaged waiter wears black jeans with Che Guevara’s face on his ass. It’s too early for irony. I sip my morning Coke.

We make a trip to the bank to exchange some travelers’ cheques. We spot two moneychangers. They’re apparently in competition with each other outside the bank. I’m not entirely sure their business is legal. They get into a vociferous turf battle. I don’t need to speak Mandarin to glean that one is questioning the other’s parentage. The argument ends with the first moneychanger whacking the smaller second man in the face with a sack of 100,000 bucks.

We take a taxi to the docks, to catch a ferry. Our destination for the day is Xuejia Dao, an island off the main island of Qingdao, named for the family that once owned it.

It’s a beautiful day for the brief crossing. We pull into the dock to find Ping’s nephew, Jiabin Wang, waiting for us. She calls him Binbin. I’m six-one and he’s at least as tall as I am, and solidly built. I’ve long since dismissed the stereotype of the undersized Chinese kowtowing to the tall American, but this guy is built like a linebacker. He could snap me like a twig. He’s much too tall for a diminutive like Binbin. I’ll call him Bin, a good lazy Americanization of his name. Ping is actually Shuping. She prefers Linda, but I call her Ping, because I know lots of Lindas. My sweetie is the only Ping I know.

Ping sometimes loses patience with my lack of Chinese language. We fight like cats over it. Then we make up in a very nice way, so that’s OK. Through this, I learn another Chinese phrase: “Hao le Hao le.” It comes out sounding like “Holly, holly.” Ping says it means, “Got it.” Or “enough already, I get it. Let’s move on.”

Bin’s pretty girlfriend, Jing, joins us. She doesn’t speak much. As Bin chats with his Auntie Ping, we walk around the Qingdao Tech campus, where the couple attends classes. Looking around, it’s a fairly Spartan campus. There is a basketball court, and roses growing in places, but little else in way of decoration or landscaping. Then we see the men’s dorm. It’s a rat hole. Laundry hangs from every window. Even from street level, I can see the dorm rooms are small and cluttered with junk. Bin says eight men live in each room. That makes for what Ping calls “chicken noodle feet smell.” Thankfully, we give it a pass.

Bin is studying construction management. He reads English. He chooses not to speak it, at least not in front of me. I try to assure him his English must be better than my Mandarin. I promise not to laugh at him, but he decides not to try it.

We walk off campus for about a mile, past primrose hung fences and a park filled with dancing fountains, then hop a bus. Auntie Ping slips Bin enough bucks to have some fun. He has a part-time job at the local McDonald’s. It pays five bucks an hour. That’s about sixty-five cents. Things are cheap in China, but that still stinks.

We have what to me is an elaborate lunch of hot pot inside a hotel that Ping picks out. We’re one of the few groups there. It’s a two level room, with marble floors and mirrors on the walls, making it feel like we’re eating in some grand chamber. The meal is now familiar: tea, many courses of meats, fish, soups, glass noodles, and vegetables. Again, Auntie Ping picks up the check. She’s clearly loving this.

We’re back on the street after lunch, walking for a few miles. We pass a number of young girls holding hands. It’s a charming custom. I also spy a June bride. Then another and another. It’s almost funny to see so many. There’s a beautiful use of green space on the island, as indeed there is throughout Qingdao. Homes come in a variety of cheerful hues, surrounded by flowers that seem to explode from every crack and cranny. I see several public workers carefully tending the pyrotechnic foliage. Qingdao means “Green Island” and it shows. It’s obvious from the gleaming opulence of the area tourist money is flowing freely. The government’s presence reflects that flow of cash as well. The island’s main government complex is palatial. Standing behind fountains and a great field, it’s bigger than the Georgia state capital building in Atlanta.

We wish Bin and Jing goodbye and take the ferry back to the main island. Ping takes us into a huge department store, where I find a much-needed man purse. Until now, I tried using a carry-on bag to hold my journal, camera, books, and assorted junk. Despite the fact that it’s made to look like a backpack with wheels, the carry-on is far too bulky. When I strap it onto my shoulders, it chokes me. So, I am thrilled to get the man purse. Twenty-two dollars, U.S.. It’s stylishly black, with a smart shoulder strap. It’s just right for the crap I’m carrying with me. I know I couldn’t get away with carrying this thing back home. But here, students and young people have similar bags with them. I don’t see anyone staring at me, and decide I can get away with it. I’m happy to empty my pockets into the man purse so it doesn’t feel like my shorts are gonna fall down. I’d much rather be a man with a purse than a man without pants.

Officer Liu and her husband show up to take us to dinner. They have their little girl with them. I try to teach her a little English: “Rei Han Wang is cute.” She smiles as she recognizes her name, but doesn’t make the attempt at speaking my language.

We pull come to a scenic stretch of road that winds along the beach. More June brides stroll with their wedding parties along the boardwalk. Cameras snap away at the young couples as they pose against the flowers, gazebos, and the sea. Like most grooms I’ve seen, the young men here look a little bewildered. The brides appear to be in their element, enjoying this special day, the magnificent surroundings, and the attention. Ping says June is very popular here, as in the states, for weddings. Saturdays are best, but not days that end in 4 (i.e. the 4, 14, 24.) Those are considered unlucky.

I take a few pictures of my own bride, next to some fishing boats and on the red rock jetty. A few people notice the dabize, “big nose” foreigner. Mostly, they have their own lives to focus on.

We walk along the path to a strikingly attractive Korean restaurant. Large natural wood framed windows look out onto the waves. Inside is spacious and scented with the various foods being offered. Our party of five nearly doubles with the arrival of another couple, who are both police officers, and their son. We take our seats in a private room overlooking the beach. The table is built around a sort of grill or heating area, similar to Japanese restaurants. The kids don’t stay seated long. They run in and out, slamming the door loudly at every chance.

The adults talk about many things. Ping fills me in every few minutes. The others want to know about things like military benefits, Republicans versus Democrats, welfare, race relations and crime. I have no idea how to cover all of that in one chunk, but I try to answer their questions the best I can. If I’m supposed to be some kind of ambassador then the impression I hope to give is one of openness. I’m proud of my country, but not fool enough to believe it’s perfect. Besides, I have yet to find anyone in China who claims everything here is perfect. Ping loves her home, but loves America, too. Back in Atlanta, she’ll bore me to tears with protestations of what’s better here. Here, she talks about how great the shopping is in the U.S.

As Ping bounces from conversation to conversation, I focus on the food. My God, there’s a lot of it. A salad with ginger dressing helps set each place. Each of the main dishes is served in relatively small portions, which are replaced as you go. The waitress brings bowl after bowl. There are fillets of various meats and fish, plus sea thingies and veggies I can’t name. It’s all good. Our server plucks some of the meat out of each vessel and deposits it on the grill. She then slices it with surgical expertise. We pluck the cooked pieces of beef, lamb, or fish and deposit it onto a bed of rice. Another option is to lay it onto a dark green lettuce leaf, daub on some chili sauce and roll it into a taco-like affair. The meal proceeds unhurried for two hours, which is typical.

Against our protests, Officer Liu picks up the tab. It comes to about fifteen dollars per person. That’s about half what I would expect to pay at home for a meal of this size and complexity. Ping says Officer Liu will put the meal on an expense account, which means we’ve just had dinner on the Chinese army. Thank you.

We have an 8:30 flight tomorrow morning. It’s 8:30 pm now. Ping says she wants to go shopping. I’m ready to scream. I’ve told her this is all getting to be too much. The big dinners are overwhelming. I beg her to cancel some of the rest of the plans, so that we can carve out time for just the two of us. I don’t know whether that will happen. She spent months planning every detail of this trip, including the dinners with her legions of friends.

I know I’m being selfish here. This is Ping’s first homecoming in five years. But, it’s also our time. I’m falling in love with my wife, and I don’t want to share her with a roomful of strangers. China is an adventure. Marriage is a lifetime. We’ll see how it goes.

We enjoy some play, then sleep. She decides to skip the shopping tonight, a small concession to her weary husband.

June 4

Sunday

Qingdao, Shanghai

Officer Liu’s silent partner from our first night in Qingdao, Officer Wang in civilian clothes, picks us up from the hotel early. It turns out they’re married. Mr. Wang says he’s got a busy day planned. In addition to giving us a ride to the airport, he’ll spend his Sunday taking his daughter to both English and piano lessons. She’s four.

I recognize the green Mitsubishi Panjero from the other night. I’ve never heard of a Panjero. I wonder whether the dash-mounted compass, altimeter, and artificial horizon are standard. The military plates are definitely not standard. Officer Wang uses them to breeze straight through a number of red lights and tolls without slowing down. The conversation turns to another perk of military life. Apparently, it’s common to pay one’s superiors in order to secure a promotion.

We offer another round of pleasant farewells, as Officer Wang drops us off at Qingdao’s sparkling new airport. He parks improperly if not illegally, in front a police officer, who does nothing because of Officer Wang’s military plates. We wish Officer Wang a quick promotion.

The terminal is breathtaking. It’s just been completed, ahead of the Olympics. It’s got every amenity all covered in a sleek dome of glass and steel. At this point, we’re traveling with only a few bags. My man purse over my shoulder, it’s quite easy to deal with the tickets, money and I.D. involved in travel.

We decide to stop for breakfast and get a shock. A snack cake – served with the first fork I’ve seen in a week -- and two glasses of milk costs the same as a full dinner would cost in town. Olympic prices. I saw plenty of that in Atlanta in 1996, where a bottle of water suddenly cost four dollars. I wonder how the vast majority of Chinese will deal with this. They don’t earn anything like what it will cost them to take part in the Olympic venues.

We board a modest sized plane for the flight to Shanghai. It’s only one-third full. Despite this, two passengers get into a heated shouting match, with one man accusing the other of bumping the back of his seat. It’s ridiculously overblown. Either man could easily change seats. I can’t help but wonder whether the captain would land an American plane just to kick these two off. Here, nothing comes of it. Most of the other passengers don’t seem to notice.

Ping says – no, Ping finally admits – that the Chinese like to argue. It’s a level of conversation here. To me, it seems like pointless bickering, but it’s an accepted form of speech.

I read an English language edition of The China Daily. It says Shanghai is cracking down public spitting and drunk drivers. In particular, police are focusing on jaywalkers through a Scarlet Letter approach, posting their pictures on TV. and in the paper. It’s a major problem in Shanghai, as indeed it is in other cities we’ve visited so far. Even so, the reporter says the public humiliation violates the jaywalker’s civil liberties. Somehow, that phrase sticks out. It’s followed by a dissertation on how jaywalking is an acute symptom, not a chronic disease. So, use of humiliation would seem, in the reporter’s view, to violate the teachings of traditional Chinese medicine. Um, O.K.

We arrive in Shanghai with plans to spend some alone time. That plan lasts about two seconds.

Mr. Zhang shanghais us at the airport. (Yes, I will burn in hell for cracking that joke, but really, how often do I get to use it?) Huaiqing Zhang – I got his full name for a change – is a middle-aged man in a neat white shirt. His brother-in-law does the driving, taking us to an airy sunlit home in a gated condominium complex with an abundance of flowering hedges, neatly trimmed landscaping and winding lanes of brick between the buildings. The home, which belongs to Mr. Zhang’s brother-in-law, Mr. Cai, is filled with people.

We shed our shoes in favor of house slippers provided for us by the Cai (pronounced tsei) family, to help preserve the lovely warmly colored hardwood floors. It’s a custom we’ve seen at most of the homes we’ve visited. The custom also explains Ping’s habit of leaving her shoes in the front hall of our home. I scold her when the pile gets too big, and throw them into a closet. Within a day, the shoe collection is back on the floor.

The group here includes Mr. Zhang’s nephew, Xiao Cai, a graduate student studying biology at Jiao Tong University. I’m grateful that Xiao speaks passable English.

The gathering is already too large for me to take in properly. Some of the people crowd around the piano. Someone plucks out a little Beethoven. I smile. Mr. Zhang talks about the voice acting he’s done on the radio. He talks about broadcasting jobs and how you have to kiss up to people to get them.

Xiao’s father serves tea in lidded porcelain cups with animal carvings on the lids. It’s definitely too hot at first, though I have no idea how long it’s supposed to seep before I drink it. This is flower tea; it has the bloom of a chrysanthemum floating in it. It tastes like a flower smells. I don’t know why that surprises me. It’s just an insistent difference, like the way carrot juice tastes like carrots but fails to crunch the way carrots should crunch.

After some conversation, we head to a restaurant for lunch. We get a private room, several floors up in some office building. I don’t know how, but suddenly there are twelve of us. An elderly couple has joined in. I’m not sure to whom they belong. There’s a baby and her mom in the mix, along with a businessman who seems very animated. At this point, I’m very tired from the traveling. If there are introductions being made, I’m not registering any of it.

The waitress scurries from person to person around the round table. Everyone else is drinking water or liquor. I ask for a Coke, and remember to ask for ice. That’s a mistake. The waitress brings me a Pepsi, with ice. That’s fine. What’s not fine is that the glass apparently never holds ice. It shatters from the uneven temperature, leaving me with a serious case of Pepsi crotch. Some of the organizers of this lunch scold the poor waitress. I hardly think it’s her fault. It’s the damn left-handed dabize insisting on ice in his drink. She brings some napkins and another glass. I hope for the best this time, and there’s no repeat of the disaster.

Mr. Zhang and Xiao’s father ask about American politics. In particular, they’re curious about the Monica Lewinsky affair. Ping is acting as interpreter. She loves this kind of conversation. I’m fine with it, I guess. I don’t really know how to explain the particulars. I just say it was overblown, and hope no one catches the pun. On Chinese politics, people here agree that Chairman Mao sucked. The old man says Zhou Enlai had a voice like a woman. That’s a major insult.

The lunch is excellent. There’s an enormous sauterne of a congee, soup made with egg, corn, and chicken broth, that’s spicy enough to clear the nasal passages. That’s good, because I’m starting to feel a head cold. I’m also getting better at eating sea snail. Pluck one with my chopsticks, dunk it in the jie mo, place it on the back of the tongue, swallow, repeat. In fact, the food here is very helpful as well as healthful. I learned in Mexico to eat as much raw garlic as possible. There’s something wonderfully simple in garlic that battles foreign bugs in the system. Here, garlic is part of almost every meal. It’s frequently mixed in raw.

The fatigue and the head cold are taking their toll. My fingers have trouble manipulating the stainless steel chopsticks. (Wood is easier.) I’m also wet and sticky and grumpy because of the social overload.

The three men at the table split a bottle of over proof liquor. I can tell that the businessman is getting lit. He’s getting very friendly and talky. He also seems to be getting more refills than the others. Mr. Zhang, who I think is still quite sober, sings Edelweiss and then Doe-a-Deer. I have no idea what led up to this, but what the hell. I join in with what lyrics I can remember. Somewhere, Julie Andrews weeps.

The waitress brings in a cake with glossy frosting. We all sing “Happy Birthday” in English, although I can’t make out the name of the birthday boy. It’s the elderly man at the other side of the table. I take it, he’s Xiao’s grandfather. Ping has me take many pictures of the cake, and especially of the baby girl. I know the sight of a cute bundle like that makes her ache for one.

Back at the condo after lunch, I change into dry pants and take some cold medicine. I talk to Ping about getting some alone time. I bug her to think about switching plans. I know I’m acting selfishly. I don’t know why she puts up with me.

But she does. After all my grousing, Ping agrees that we’ll have tonight to ourselves. In fact, I get to take my bride on the town in Shanghai!

We grab a clean, ultra-modern subway to Huaihai Road, in the downtown shopping district. Think of block after block of the best shops of all sorts you’ve ever seen, clothes, jewelry, florists, beauty boutiques beyond count, coupled with restaurants, clubs, gleaming office towers, and street life streaming along sidewalks and skywalks. It’s hard to capture it all in words, except to compare it (favorably) to New York’s Fifth Avenue, all spruced up and modernized. Simpler still, I should just call it Disneyland for chicks.

After some window-shopping, we stop in to an RBT, a watering hole for twenty-somethings. I’m feeling very young tonight. The loft area is done up in papier-maché to make it look like a cave. It’s got a low ceiling that doesn’t seem to bother teenagers. I’m forced to duck a stalactite or two on the way to the table. Something plays on the music system. It’s in Mandarin, except for the phrase “Shanghai Rose” in the refrain. We sip some orange-egg thingie, not unlike a Frosted Orange back at The Varsity in Atlanta.

In this moment, I’m able to enjoy the trip. This is why we came to China, to spend a few quiet moments together in a wondrously diverting world.

But, we can’t sit for long. There’s shopping to be shopped. My bride leads me into various stores, including a couple of jewelers. She teaches me how to haggle in Chinese. As I’m looking at a nice, gold cross for Mama, Ping asks the price. The shopkeeper makes an offer, Ping indignantly rejects it as outrageous. The nicely dressed man makes a counter-offer. Ping rejects it loudly and forcefully. I think I’m getting the hang of it, so I continue this process with hand signals for “lower.” The jeweler appears to agree, so I turn to my partner, who has left the shop entirely.

After a few moments of feeling cut off at the knees, I smile, bow, apologize in English to a man who doesn’t understand it, and leave. I catch up to Ping and demand to know why she didn’t let me know she was leaving. She’s still jazzed by the business transaction and explains that the price was far too much for that item. She knows a better place. Fine, I say, but don’t just leave me there. This doesn’t seem to register. Instead, she tells me to stay out of the bargaining process. I’m just no good at it.

We find a second jeweler and find a very nice gold cross for Mama. The price seems fair to me. In fact, it seems dirt-cheap. The main thing is that it’s an appropriate gift for Mama. She and Baba are Christians. They have the cross on the wall of their bedroom. I don’t know what church, if any, they attend. But, I like the idea of giving a woman a little luxury item. Besides, brownie points are important for sons-in-law.

After shopping, we spoil ourselves. We seek out the Portman Ritz-Carlton Hotel. It’s five stars with multiple restaurants, fountains, grand staircases, bronze statuary and megatons of marble making up an entryway that leaves many Las Vegas palaces looking tacky and pale.

We both love Italian, and since we haven’t had any in a week, we choose the hotel’s Palladio restaurant. I wish it were around the corner, it’s so low key and comfortable. Ping has some pasta, while I go for a fru fru steak and potatoes meal. The price would have been reasonable, in fact great. But, I push my luck a little far. I order Ping a single glass of Dom Perignon. That adds considerably to the bill. No regrets. The candlelight and the company make up a picture I’ll always carry inside. If there are perfect nights, this is mine.

June 5

Monday

Shanghai

After getting home after midnight, we sleep in late back at the Cais’ condo. I’m still nursing a head cold, but feel much more rested than I have during our whirlwind tours of the past several cities. This condo has all the Western fixtures. It’s laid out well, with an eye to ease and comfort.

I’m just finding out now that Mr. Zhang, who jumped in as our taxi driver yesterday, lives 400 miles away. He’s staying in another home, about an hour away. He came all that way to see Ping, and today he’ll play tour guide. For their part, the Cai family is housing virtual strangers, based on Mr. Zhang’s affection for my wife. I could be jealous, but instead I’m just impressed.

Mr. Zhang occasionally hums strains of Beethoven as he drives us to the subway station. Once there, we stop in at a kiosk to get some Jian Bing. The merchant fries it up in a homemade wok in front of us. There’s no counter. The whole shop is little more than a space and equipment set up on some crates. The smell is wonderful. I’m even able to buy a cold Coke from a portable refrigerator chest. As we eat our deliciously greasy breakfast at a nearby table, I attempt to explain America’s addiction to fast food to Mr. Zhang. I tell him Americans love salt, sugar, and fat. And we insist on convenience, regardless of quality.

The German-designed subway is exhilarating, because of the sheer number of people. It’s not unlike MARTA in Atlanta, although most of the passengers are young students or business people. Just stepping outside prompts a photo opportunity. The station itself is done up in like a work of modern art. The iron frameworks spin off in wild directions. I have Ping and Mr. Zhang pose and then step in for a few. I’m sure I appear hopelessly American to anyone looking. No one seems to care.

One of our first stops is the Oriental Art Center. It too has an unworldly feel, with enormous open space in the dark marbled lobby. I notice a woman cleaning the floor. Something makes me look again. She’s on her hands and knees polishing. It’s not the black floor she’s working on. It’s the brass inlay. Slivers of the shiny metal form an opulent web matrix around the stones. This is a big area. There are hundreds of square yards of flooring and she’s doing the work by hand.

Perhaps because it’s Monday, we’re the only visitors. Several docents show us the various exhibits. They’re not rushing, and I’m enjoying the easy pace. This pays off as we get a private showing of an exhibit of music boxes. One of our docents turns on an jukebox sized device built in 1900 that still reproduces perfect notes from its slotted three-foot steel discs. There are all sorts of contraptions, complete with decorative casings. Some are made to look like birds, others like dolls. They come from China as well as Europe and the U.S. Many are centuries old, threadbare with painted expressions fading off their yellowed ivory faces. Amazingly, many still function, offering the songs they’ve played for generations of children and adults. I’m amazed at how many the docents are willing to play. Each looks like it will snap a mainspring at any second.

We sit in a raised row of chairs while another museum attendant activates several reproductions. At something approaching four feet tall, these automatons are halfway between robots and figures from an enormous cuckoo clock. A drunk dreamily takes a pull from his bottle as the sleeve of his empty jacket comes to life to turn the musical crank of a vendor’s wagon. A little boy steals a snack from his grandmother’s kitchen. Suddenly a jam jar revolves to reveal the cross face of the boy’s grandmother.

The show brings to mind “The Emperor and the Nightingale.” For some reason, I always thought Hans Christian Anderson was simply telling a Chinese tale he’d heard during his travels. I’m surprised to learn that no one here has heard the story.

We walk down to the river for a good look at the Shanghai they put on postcards. Across the Huangpu, at the mouth of the Yangtze delta is China’s formidable hope for tomorrow. This section is Pudong. With futuristic buildings looking like something out of my beloved Star Trek, it is home to one of the most powerful economies in the world. Pudong stands in stark contrast to the old guard structures on our bank of the river. Together, they form a financial juggernaut that will not be ignored. Everywhere we see evidence of the love young Chinese for western luxury. And yet I know that China exports exponentially more than it imports. I smell a feint. The products and jobs are indeed coming here. Beijing is consolidating the resultant wealth. And the government is using the growing consumerism in its own backyard to expand its own frontiers. China is a global player, and a damned powerful one.

We have lunch in a noisy noodle shop, and share more conversation. I learn that Mr. Zhang cares for his 92-year old father-in-law, who has been crazy since the death of his wife. I can’t help but notice there’s always a little sadness to the loves and relationships here. Maybe that’s everywhere.

Mr. Zhang talks about the girl he loved many years ago. He was a young man from a wealthy family. She couldn’t stand life in China during the Cultural Revolution. She went off to America (no small feat at that time), leaving Mr. Zhang behind. At some point the Communists took everything his family had. By the time he was thirty, he had neither the love of his life, nor the means he once knew. During this period, those who had always been poor lorded over those newly stripped of wealth. Food became the new gold. The poor knew how to stockpile. So Mr. Zhang was suddenly at the bottom of the ladder. Eventually, Mr. Zhang settled for a working class woman he didn’t really love.

I finally ask the question that I’ve been dying to ask. Even so, when it comes out I’m shocked by my own bluntness. I ask why people didn’t rise up and kill the Communists, and especially Mao? Mr. Zhang answers matter-of-factly, “Chinese are too quiet.”

His answer played through my head. “Chinese are too quiet.” I wondered whether he meant that people had become so docile that anyone could commit atrocities without the victims acting out in self-defense. I know Mao was a master at turning neighbor against neighbor in his quest to murder tens of millions. But, “quiet” didn’t seem to describe the people I saw around me. Ping says that the people back then were stupid. She says if Mao or someone like him were to come on the political scene today, the people would in fact get rid of him quickly. That seems like a conceit, but possibly a good one.

I wondered instead whether the Chinese were totally fatalistic about government, having seen emperors and communist leaders who acted the same with only a slightly different sales pitch to tell one from another. I have often wondered about Americans’ core beliefs in government: a) if citizens work hard enough they can get the government they deserve; b) everyone in the world wants democracy. I go back and forth on the first point. I know corruption is endemic to government. Democracy is the hope that constant renewal can weed out corruption, and ineptitude, time and time again. As for the second part, I know this to be false. Democracy is hard work, and it is slow to address the needs of its people. No, not every person on Earth believes democracy will work for him. Others are satisfied with a full belly and a job. They decide that their government works just fine as long as they can work that government, turn it to their advantage, regardless of what level of society they occupy.

And I think there is something of that attitude in the Chinese people. They are closer to their beginnings than are Americans. Americans live in a very abstract state, with technology and democracy connecting us indirectly to our own self-determination. The Chinese, by contrast, appear to have long ago discovered that family is the base building block of all society. Bad government? Not a big concern, as long as it’s possible to provide for the family. For many, nature is a bigger friend and a more fearsome enemy than any man-made government can be. Ping and Mr. Zhang both repeated a favorite metaphor: the people are the ocean and their rulers are the boat on the ocean. The ruler may ride high on the waves, but he may also disappear beneath the eternal sea. Chinese history shows that emperors who forgot that lesson sometimes found themselves hanged.

Mr. Zhang’s comment could be all of these things, or it could be just another question that’s worth asking, but that has no real answer.

We take a rest in an enormous Shanghai McDonald’s after a day of shopping, shopping, and Godmakeitstop more shopping. Ping sorts through a street collection of DVD’s. Some of these are seventy-part soap operas she’ll play when we get home, staying up until three in the morning, night after night, much to my frustration. Nearby, a little boy is grinning ear to ear as he marks his territory on the sidewalk.

The dumb dabizi is very quick to reach for the cash. Ping snaps at me several times to stay out of her way when haggling. Again and again I watch as she demonstrates her willingness to walk away from a deal, even after the merchant has lowered his asking price. In this way, she manages to secure a decent bargain. She patiently explains to me that most things should be argued down at least seventy-percent. Bear in mind, even the opening prices are about half what I’m used to.

This is the China I expected. Most of the shopping we’ve done today has been in areas on the west bank of the Huangpu River that retain the old Colonial British architecture. The gothic-style buildings bedecked with Griffins and lions are a little dourer now than when the British got kicked out in the 1940’s. Many of the buildings could use a good acid wash. It’s just another sign of how the Communists took the third leading financial center of the world and let it go to pot. Ping points out that the other prominent buildings here, squat row houses with tiled roofs that remind me of “The World of Suzie Wong,” are hardly as romantic as they seem in the movies. Until recently, families crammed in six to a room. The buildings had no plumbing at all; people used buckets, which were collected by sanitation carts each morning. And yet, there’s something so right about the mix of cultures and periods, as the people borrow from many sources to form a world of their own.

Counterfeiting is everywhere. I think it’s simply accepted practice to try to put one over on the next guy. Ping haggles with one young man selling Couch handbags. I know nothing about handbags, and less about designer fashions. Even so, I get the idea that what he’s selling is a cheap knock-off. He’s not very good at his con. He keeps pointing to the Couch bag and insisting in English that it’s “real Gucci.” The two brands do look somewhat alike, which I am very sure is no accident.

The list of fabulous fakes is endless. I really want to snag some Communist medals, old coins and anything jade. It’s all phony. Ping shoots me a look each time I ask about one. I’m slow to learn. They’re so shiny.

We wrestle the day’s booty back to the Cais’ home. That evening, our large group walks along the brick pathways to a restaurant within the housing complex. A couple of servers keep the food and drink coming. Xiao is absent. Everyone else from yesterday’s lunch is here. The businessman is back. He’s brought several bottles with him.

Mr. Zhang, who drinks only moderately, needs little encouragement to voice some familiar song. It sounds like Italian opera to me. I’m told it’s the theme to a local soap opera.

Conversation ranges freely from subject to subject. As always, I’m smiling and eating, while my wife looks back at me from the discussion to bring me up to speed or pass along a question. The focus tonight is politics and poetry. The men at the table share their thoughts on Mao. Although they despise him, they think he wrote magnificent poetry. The women agree with the statement.

I’m invited to recite poetry. I know everyone’s supposed to memorize a few poems; at least that’s what I’ve always thought. I struggle for a moment and then recall a few lines from Poe’s “El Dorado.” “Over the mountains of the moon,” I recite with a dramatic flare,” through the valley of the shadow. Ride, ride the shade replied, if you seek for El Dorado.” It’s not much, but they like the sound of the words. Not for the first time, I wish I had my laptop and the Internet. As a journalist, I like to research things before answering complex queries or trying to perform material.

My turn again. Yesterday was the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. In China, they talk about it in hushed tones. I’ve never heard exactly how many died or how many may still be in prison. The government says it was in the hundreds. Most people believe it was in the thousands. All I know is that some starry-eyed university students gathered, put up their own version of the Statue of Liberty, and called for democracy. Beijing responded with tanks and troops. Lady Liberty was burned. We saw that on TV, but the details are still foggy seventeen years later. I ask the men here why no one seems to have demanded an accurate accounting of those who died. If someone had asked me about Ohio State, I would have become emotional. Here, the tone is distinctly Chinese. The businessman and Mr. Cai offer an answer that Ping translates: “People are like mown grass, like ants. There are so many.”

Essentially, it’s the same answer that Mr. Zhang tried to give to me. I have the same trouble with it. The barrier is not language. I have trouble because there really is a different way of looking at big issues. There’s no dismissal of the value of those “quiet Chinese” lives, though. The families still remember the young people who never came home.

All of this plays out over a two and a half hour meal. Afterwards, we walk off some of that food, with a stroll over to the businessman’s home. After living and working in Japan for many years, he’s opened a Japanese school here. He’s clearly an intelligent and hard-working man. Even so, I’m glad he’s not driving. He’s not falling down drunk, but he’s definitely toasty.

The house is the first multi-level home we’ve been in on this trip. In fact there are three split-levels, like a stack of cards about to be shuffled. On the entry level are a kitchen and a dining area. That area overlooks the living room half a level below. There’s a basement below that. As the floors ascend by half-flights of stairs, there are four sizeable bedrooms. As we climb an endless succession of stairs, we see three or more bathrooms tucked in as well. Up top, the roof includes a patio and sunroom. In fact, the home is quite accommodating for something that looks so skinny from the outside.

I’m amazed to learn that four generations share this home. There’s Yan Yan, the little girl. Her mother’s father-in-law is the businessman. His parents join us for tea at this point. Ping is taking pictures, but the great-grandmother hides.

I finally learn that the man I’ve been thinking of only as “the businessman” is Mr. Lee. He spent five years in Japan. He points out several souvenirs around the house. I have to admire the fact that he’s got his parents and granddaughter under one roof. I keep Ari and Aaron on the weekends. There are times the house seems tiny with only four of us there. Here, I count seven, and I’m probably missing a few.

I’m also fighting a cold. The tea helps, but I wish these nights ended a little earlier. Instead of walking, we take a car back to the Cais’. On the way, we stop off to pick up my laundry. It’s 10:20 at night, and the business’ lights are off. To my surprise, the family that runs the business answers the door. They live in an apartment in the back. I don’t know of any businesses that work that way back home. But, I’m grateful for their commitment to their business.

I’m also grateful that we’ve booked a hotel room tomorrow night. I love these people, but I need some quiet time with my missus.

June 6

Tuesday

Shanghai, Suzhou

Somewhere, I’m sure someone is fretting at the date: 6/6/06. For boneheaded bible-thumpers, that’s the number of the beast. In the northern part of China, it’s a lucky day. Sixes are lucky. Three sixes together is very lucky. I’ll take it as a good omen. This is the halfway point of our oriental odyssey.

We squish ourselves in with the other canned flesh of the subway. This is the busiest I’ve seen it so far. It’s quite a send off for our trip to the gardens of Suzhou.

We make our way to the train station. We board car number six. Mr. Zhang is now playing both tour guide and porter, all of our shopping yesterday adding to the load. He points up to an overhead speaker. After a moment, I tell him that’s Whitney Houston singing and that she lives in Atlanta. (It’s actually McMansion in Alpharetta, but we claim everyone as an Atlantan.) I don’t mention how her life has become a drug-soaked mess. The woman does have a nice set of pipes.

Arriving in Suzhou, we’re met by a cab driven by Miss Jiang. She’s a lively, attractive woman in her middle years. At first, I cannot hear the difference between her name and Mr. Zhang’s name. She looks me over, then says in English “very handsome.” I get that a lot here. It’s a tremendous stroke to the ego. She drives us to our next hotel, which is stylish and clean, if a little simpler than some of the five stars we’ve visited. I notice computers in the lobby and wonder whether I’ll have time to use them. I’m totally addicted to going online, and our trips to the cyber cafes have been kind of hit-and-miss.

Like everywhere else along the east coast, Suzhou is undergoing massive construction for the Olympics. New buildings rise everywhere we look. At the same time, there’s evidence that the city fathers are careful to preserve the charm and history of this place. I’m grateful to them for that.

Miss Jiang drives us to what looks like the middle of nowhere, a non-descript street of low buildings. We get out and walk a short distance to a bridge over a canal. This is Shantang Street, our destination. Buildings here are old, perhaps one thousand to fifteen hundred years old. Many have been converted into bars and restaurants. Others are home to families who’ve built their lives along the waterway for more generations than I care to consider. They were already here when the Romans were just running out of steam.

I’m glad we have a digital camera for this trip, but already the memory stick is filling up. Ping deletes some out of focus items and pictures she says make her look fat. (She’s not fat.) Chinese lanterns hang over the doorways; while bridges cross the narrow canal every few hundred yards. Dark teaks make up the faces of the buildings between white stone skeleton walls. Shantang Street is China’s answer to Venice.

We sail the canal in a gondola. A spacious cabin takes the sun off our heads for half an hour or so. I watch as the postcard homes float by. There are caged songbirds everywhere, filling the air with music.

Our trip takes us to Hu Qiu, Tiger Hill. Ping says this is even older than what we’ve just seen. It goes back twenty-five hundred years to King Wu. We stop to admire a crooked pagoda spire atop a hill. This off-kilter skyscraper from another era gives the place its name. Looking at the angle, I can’t help but think of the Tower of Pisa.

Enormous boulders form a footpath that takes us next to the king’s tomb. It’s in the middle of a cool, sylvan area. Workers carved the mausoleum from a native rock face. They stuck in old Wu and flooded the box canyon around the tomb. For their troubles, the workers were put to death to safeguard the secrets of the king’s final resting place. Ping says many believe the waters are still poisonous, two-and-a-half millennia later. The story goes that many grave robbers have tried to go in and steal whatever fortune may be in there. None has come back. Ping says the U.S. has offered to bring a crew that can recover the cache of wealth… for thirty-percent of the take. Beijing has said ‘no.’

I flash on the conversation from last night. King Wu must have been a powerful man in his day, to command enough men to build this place. And yet, for all his treasure, he’s just as dead as any of his slaves. Tourists now claim this magnificent preserve. The tide of humanity wins out over the powerful, the living over the dead. For myself, I don’t envy this king. I’d certainly never trade a day with my warm bride for an eternity in Wu’s lonely wet hole.

Next, Miss Jiang shows us the modest tomb of a beloved virgin prostitute. The story goes that her family sold her into a life of sexual servitude to the king’s guard. Rather than submit to being a slave and prostitute, she leapt to her death from one of the homes. Her heartbroken admirers built her a tomb. Four of them inscribed an ash-colored stone obelisk with simple seven word poems. The scholar’s message roughly translates to: beautiful soul fell to earth. The businessman’s poem means: beyond price, even thousands in silver or gold. The monk prayed for the gods to take her into the West. The butcher declared he had lost his own “meat,” meaning his own flesh and blood.

After we finish our visit to Tiger Hill, we hop two motorized rickshaws. Ping’s and mine is bright green and bears a clashing sign that advertises Coca-Cola. Miss Jiang and Mr. Zhang take an orange number that spews diesel smoke.

We head to Zhouzheng Yuan, the Administrator’s Humble Garden. These perfectly groomed acres date back to the early 16 century. The grounds were once swampland. Workers or monks managed to drain and clear the land, to make it home to Dahong Temple. Later, a valued civil servant took the land for himself, no doubt with a wink and a nod to Emperor Zhengde. The civil servant, known as The Administrator built these sprawling tracts of land into the most renowned private retirement spot in southern China.

We head into an old part of town to see a traditional home built for a businessman in the Qing Dynasty. It reveals itself as a series of courtyards, each with enormous gates. Inside the stone walls all is cool, which is good because the heat of the day is taking its toll on us. We tour the building’s many generous sized rooms. I confess I’ve taken in more than I can assimilate on this day. The home is pleasant, but I’m ready for a rest. Back home, I’d push myself for several hours, then finish each day in front of a TV set. Here, there’s no TV, just a water sculpture. I wonder if people sat around watching it at night? Actually, I’m sure they spent their evenings reading, writing, and tending important family business. Oh, and fooling around.

We check in to a hotel. The room is pleasant, with an extra large shower. Big enough for two, one might say. It’s very invigorating after a long day of sightseeing.

Miss Jiang picks us up for dinner. She’s got her husband and daughter, Huazhang Liu. I don’t waste time trying to figure why we’ve been calling her “Miss Jiang.” I just go with it. Including Mr. Zhang, our dinner party is now six.

We enjoy a simple ten-course meal. Huazhang Liu is a doll. She’s in second grade, and has already learned several phrases in English. Ping compliments her and tells her how beautiful our baby is going to be. Someday. Ping talks about a picture that’s stuck up on our refrigerator. We jammed five dollars into a machine that took both our pictures, then Frankensteined them together to show what our child might look like. We selected “girl.” The result is a composite of an attractive Chinese woman and a moderately goofy American man forming one butt-ugly little girl. It’s got Ping’s eyes, my nose and fake-looking pigtails. The hideous photo hangs on the fridge; Ping refuses to let me get rid of it.

The conversation again turns to politics. Miss Jiang and her husband talk about the good and the bad emperors. The Qing dynasty had some of the best, they say. In the 18 century, Kangxi and his grandson, Qianlong, went out among the people and learned what mattered to them.

They compare those leaders to the Communists and the comparison is not favorable. The feeling at this table is that the new leadership is getting better, largely due to the advent of better communication, such as the Internet. The thought is that the new leaders realize they cannot treat the people as pawns or idiots anymore. As I note the number of McDonald’s, designer clothing shops, and discos here already, and think of how many more western companies are storming the gates, I wonder how far this openness will go.

After dinner, we drive out to a renovated section of the old city wall. Many of China’s cities still retain remnants of their old defenses. This one in Shanghai no longer encircles nor does it protect. It is, however, an important piece of living history. Even though it’s nighttime, locals stop by to stroll through the thirty-foot gate.

There’s a statue here, dedicated to an adviser to King Wu. (I’m not sure whether that’s watery Wu whom we met earlier, or another Wu.) The adviser, who had been prime minister to the father, lived on to serve Wu’s foolish son. In an effort to mellow the young emperor, his aides secured for him a foreign wife. (In fact, this royal concubine turned out to be a spy.) The union didn’t reduce the young tyrant’s anger, which became legendary. The old adviser offered a grim prophecy: that though Wu was faithful, the young emperor would kill Wu and hang his head over the main gate of the city. There, the adviser’s dead eyes would watch as invaders seized Suzhou. The young emperor became so angry at the tone of the warning that he ordered Wu to take his own life on the spot. He did. The rest of the warning soon came to pass.

(continued)