APEC: Air Pollution Eventually Controlled

As the temperature continues to drop outdoors APEC fever has descended on Beijing, and the capital is enjoying some unwanted attention from foreign media sources.  Yes folks, all the old "whipping boys" are making their appearance in the western media from poor air to China's infamous social decay.  In an effort to combat it's less than stellar image abroad, the Chinese government has stepped up "face saving messures", and it's the citizens of Beijing who are benefitting most.  Some great APEC related externalities are making the lives of Beijingers easier.  This phenomenon was highlighted in a recent article in the South China Morning Post where the paper referred to us a "long-suffering".  While I wouldn't go that far, it is nice to finally see somethings work right.....or some people work (at their jobs) for that matter.    

VACATION - APEC isn't just a meeting of important word leaders.  To millions of Beijingers it is a bona fide holiday.  Non-essential government personnel and students all getting the week off for the event.  However, the resulting babysitter shortage is really putting a crunch on working class Beijingers.  I am taking the opportunity to write a few blogs and read now that baseball season is over.  It also might be fun to watch the political chess game unfold at the conference, considering I have a ringside seat to the event.  I am very curious to see what Chinese state media has to say about the Taiwanese delegation (if anything), considering the comments of the nation's president regarding the Hong Kong democracy protests.          

AIR QUALITY - The title of this post comes from a joke circulating on the Chinese communication app, We Chat.  Think the Chinese carbon copy of What's App.  Beijingers awoke yesterday to the first blue-sky day in a long time.  I am taking the opportunity to breath as much moderately clean air as possible before the smog returns.....which will likely be in ten minutes.  The clean air initiatives have been so successful that there are already calls for holding a BPEC, and if need be, a CPEC.

CROWDING - Those stories you hear about homeless people in Beijing disappearing before the 2008 Olympics are probably true considering the evaporation of the city's street people in recent weeks.  They are cleaning up everything here, including people.  There are so few people in Beijing right now that I actually go to sit down on the subway for 10 whole minutes yesterday.....which leads me to my next point.  

SUBWAY SECURITY - Travelers to the "Big B" are usually shocked when they learn you must go through airport-style security every time you enter the city's expansive and terribly inefficient subway system (now the world's longest).  My loyal reader (that's correct...reader) will know that I have no love for Beijing's subway as explored in the post Trainspotting.  It should come as little surprise that security has increased for the event.  However, the situation isn't all bad.  The security screening staff are now actually doing their jobs.  It's sort of like the equivalent of going to 7-11 everyday and the woman behind the counter makes you checkout your own items and make your own change.  Then one day you come in and suddenly they actually do it for you.  Crazy idea right.   Trays have appeared at most of the subway screening machines, meaning I no longer have to place my items on the disgusting conveyer belt.  I also witnessed a security person check the x-ray screen when my bag was going through the machine.    

Yeah times are good here in Beijing thanks to APEC.  It's up to the livability of Chernobyl outside the immediate fallout zone.  So anyone contemplating a visit to the capital should certain consider visiting during BPEC.  I'll keep you posted on the upcoming dates.

     

Royals vs. Giants: All Cards Are Wild

The World Series starts today, or yesterday depending on where you are in the world, and I am excited for this year's matchup.  Both wild card teams will meet in this year's Fall Classic and their respective paths to the postseason highlight all the things that make the sport so great.

Kansas City enters the series undefeated in this year's postseason.  Amazing for a team that had the longest postseason drought in any of the Big 4 sports.  Royals fans had to wait 29 years for a trip to the postseason after Kansas City's victory over their instate rival, the Cardinals, in the 1985 World Series.  The Royals finished last in home runs during the regular season and usually rely on stolen bases to score runs, making them both incredibly exciting and boring at the same time.  The team barely escaped an all-or-nothing wild card playoff game with the A's that went into extra innings.  They then swept the Angeles, who had the best regular season record in baseball, and went on to sweep the heavily favored Oriels.  The Royals have earned the title of "America's Team" this year.  A scrappy bunch of players you couldn't pick out of a police lineup who don't look old enough to buy beer for the post-game party have captured everyone's hearts with their run for the Commissioner's Trophy (Bud Selig's last by the way).  

The Royals opponents, The Giants, are no strangers to this situation.  They are hoping for their third World Series in five years.  This is the point in the post where I formally declare my support for the Royals.  The Giants, along with a handful of other clubs like the Yankees and Red Sox, seem to have it all.  Sustained on field success, a gigantic fan base, and what many consider to be the best stadium in baseball, if not all of sports, make it difficult to support the Giants in this situation.  Especially when you consider the underdog Royals are such a young team in a mid-western city starved for sports success.  

Certainly looking forward to watching this one.  Sorry there aren't any pictures for this blog.  I failed to secure written consent to retransmit images from the MLB and not both written and oral consent....sorry.          

Tsukiji Fish Market

Tuna (Or maybe something else.  I don't know).

Something fishy is about to go down!

On the edge of Tokyo's glittery, expensive Ginza district sits Tokyo's best tourist attraction.  It might surprise you to learn it has nothing to do with Japan's Emperor or up-market retail stores selling the latest fashions.  I know that the idea of visiting a fish market on your vacation might not seem like a traditional or exciting choice.  Trust me on this one.  The Tsukiji Fish Market earned its place atop Time magazine's list of things to do in Tokyo for a reason.


I don't know much about the market, but rumor is that it's moving soon.  Make sure to arrive early.  The market only allows about 120 people to see the start of the auctions.  We arrived at 4 in the morning, and about half of the spots we gone.   We waiting in a giant holding tank before they let us into the "fishbowl" to watch the auctions.  I don't really have much else to say, so checkout the pictures and enjoy.

Auctioneers going a mile a minute.  The only person we
heard raise their voice our entire time in Japan.

The "Holding Tank"

Out of focus shot of  ice in a fish's belly

Lined up and ready

The hustle and bustle of the loading
docks

Buyers in the "fish bowl"

Inspecting the tuna

They literally had fish "coming out the ass" here

Fish heads sold separately 

Seventh Inning Sushi

Ironic sunset in the the "Land of the Rising Sun"

The Japanese wife of Comic Book Guy, the iconic character from The Simpsons, once said, "In Japan, no one ever says what they think.  We know our game shows are degrading and our baseball fences are too close.  But no one says anything."  

The Girlfriend and I travelled to Japan last week and seeing a Japanese baseball game sat number one on my list of things to do.  Most Americans know the league for its famous differences from its American cousin; team names are corporate sponsors not cities, choreographed cheering sections, and ties after 12 innings.  Tokyo's home to six of the 12 teams in the league, and most foreigners with a vague familiarity of the league will know the Yomuiri Giants and the Yakult Swallows.  Many people consider the Yomuiri Giants to be the Yankees of Japanese baseball, and the team has a strong rivalry with the Hanshin Tigers.  I decided to checkout a Swallows game for a few reasons.  One, I didn't want to indirectly support a team labelled the "evil empire" of Japanese baseball, and second the Swallows have a great stadium.  Only one of three remaining professional stadiums left where Babe Ruth played, the stadium sits next to a large Shinto Shrine dedicated to the spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife.  

It isn't baseball without cheerleaders

One of the official cheer coordinators 

I got tickets in the outfield section for around 15USD a seat for a game between the Swallows and the DeNA (sic) Baystars.  Warning, I don't advise buying outfield tickets to a Japanese baseball game.  While it seemed like a good idea at the time, the outfield bleachers are home to the choreographed cheering sections.  Tickets here mean standing while the home team bats.  The cheers are, of course, in Japanese, so don't expect to pick them up halfway through the game.  We ended up moving about halfway through the game, but it's certainly worth a trip to the outfield bleachers to checkout the spectacle.  The sections even boast full-time cheer coordinators.  Its here you can see some of the game's great quarks.  For example the people sitting in front of us wore matching Swallows kimonos.    

Awesome team kimonos

Aside from the differences that I expected, some other things peeked my interest. The seats in the ballpark fill up the opposite they do in the United States with tickets for the outfield (cheap seats) selling first.  Not many people sat in the grandstand at the game we attended.  Also, the teams downplay individual stats.  I don't remember seeing anyone's batting average or ERA posted on the jumbotron.  The event truly reinforced my perceptions of Japanese society as "collectivist", though I stress this isn't a bad thing.  They play as a team, win as a team, and lose as a team, and the fans share in the success or failure of the team.  

After the home run

The game we saw was awesome.  Down by one run in the bottom of the eight, bases loaded with two outs, a Swallows player hit a home run over the right field fence.  I let out a loudly obnoxious, "YEEEEEahh," only to hear my voice echo in silence for a full second before the choreographed home run cheer started from the Swallows fans.  That is the great thing about Japanese baseball, the game is the same, but the atmosphere made it sometimes felt like they were playing on another planet.  

Post game cheerleader show

So maybe the fences are too close, but the game ended up being the highlight of my trip.  It really got me excited for the start of the Royals-Giants Worlds Series next week.  But more on that in a future post.   

        

From Beijing Without Love: The Hong Kong Protests

Protestors outside a government
building

You might be wondering how the Hong Kong protests are being covered in mainland China.  The short answer is that for the most part they aren't.  However, yesterday the party mouth piece, The People's Daily, published a front page editorial about the protests.  It's significance cannot be understated due to its prominence and reactionist tone.  Shortly after the protest began last weekend, people began to post news items on my We Chat feed (We Chat is the Chinese carbon copy of What's App).  It didn't take long before these were deleted by the state censors.  The "Great Firewall" is legendary, but Chinese censors have been forced to work overtime as mainlanders start to ask just what the Hell is going on in Hong Kong.  Unsurprisingly, the Chinese government suspended travel group trips to the territory a short time ago.  The South China Morning Post ran a great editorial cartoon about the suspension.

Love this cartoon

Rhetoric from the party and Beijing loyalist isn't surprising, calling the protests the product of foreign conspirators and chaotic.  The only words missing from the party's news coverage of the event and Tiananmen in 1989 is "counter-revolutionary".  The main argument of Beijing loyalists stems from the fact that Hong Kong didn't enjoy a form of representative democracy under the British.  This isn't entirely correct considering Hong Kong has a tradition of elected local assemblies.  I don't buy the argument because it rests on the assumption that something denied by one party should be continually denied by another, and that Beijing's election plan should be embraced because it is a slight improvement.  The only group the election plan pleases are those in power.  This shouldn't come as a surprise.  The week before the protests started, Chinese president Xi met with a group of notable Hong Kong billionaires, showing once and for all that the Communist Party of China isn't the party of revolution, but the establishment.

The last thing the Chinese ruling elite want right now are photos of young, umbrella holding students being tear gassed by the police, particularly during a slowing economy and political "corruption crackdown".  I am curious to see how the relationship between Hong Kong and the mainland affects the events.  Having worked and lived regularly with groups....let's just say the bitterness runs both ways across the border.  The days ahead will test the relationship between Hong Kong and the mainland politically and culturally.  I unabashedly support the protests.  I am proud to see a group stand up and demand their voices be heard.      

After living here for over a year, I have had several things repeated to me over and over again.  "The Chinese don't care about politics", "The Chinese people can't handle democracy", and "the Chinese people worry more about what they can buy than freedom" appear commonly at dinnertime political discussions.  I have heard these same phrases multiple times, always from wealthy, male Chinese who are well-connected with the party elite.  One even went as far as to try to tell me that it was racially ingrained into the Chinese to unquestionably obey their superiors.  The official stance of the party explicitly rebukes the idea of universal rights and the "western" style democracy.
These protests show this provincial, racist thinking doesn't hold water.  Now the same people who routinely say these lies must either admit the statements are untrue or that Hong Kong is fundamentally separate and different than the mainland, and it is highly unlikely they'll do the latter.   

  

Beijing Mysteries: Hutong Weasels

I know that at first glance stories about weasels thriving in Beijing's hutongs might not seem very plausible or interesting.  A breed of weasel adapting to Beijing's hallmark hutong alleyways?  Sounds like a bad joke.  Especially for those of us that experienced the right of passage "Snipe Hunting".  However, you know this one is true because the Chinese government officially doesn't acknowledge it.  The image of a fleeting weasel scurrying through the hutongs at night has taken on a cult mystic for many Beijingers.

Let me state on record that they do actually exist.  The real reason this topic is making an appearance in the Beijing Mysteries series is that most expats don't know they exist and the government officially doesn't recognize that they exist.  Most people have seen a hutong weasel, but many might not know it. This is due to the fact they look like long yellow cats.  Usually the pointed nose of the weasel is only difference.  They often live in downspouts and pipes, likely due to Beijing's scarce rainfall.  Most longtime Beijingers have a good weasel story or two.  Supposedly it isn't unusual for them to find their way into hutong houses, particularly if you live on the ground floor.

The elusive hutong weasel has had a lasting impact on Beijing's hutongs.....at least until they tear the rest of them down.  Many of the locals say seeing a weasel is good luck.  One travel agency even had a contest to see who could snap the best weasel picture.  This reputable news source wasn't able to secure a satisfactory photo of the creature.  Despite being unphotogenic, the weasel population has spawned its own subgenre of expat folk tales.  Beijing's most prominent ( and as far as I know only) square dance band takes the name Hutong Yellow Weasels in honor of the local mascot.  So the next time you're strolling through the hutongs at night and see a yellow cat run by, remember it might be one of the city's famous hutong weasels.          

For Whom the Wedding Bell Tolls

The Bride on the big day

I attended a Chinese wedding over the October 1st holiday, and I must say, I found it interesting, surprising, and enjoyable.  Thoughts about the Chinese wedding traditions I might see during the wedding ceremony dominated my thoughts the day before the event.  I hoped for crazy and unique traditions that might perk up the tired formula of the old "here comes the bride" style wedding that I am used to back in Indiana.  The pre-wedding festivities certainly delivered the goods.  I tagged along with my girlfriend to the bride's hotel room at the terribly early time of 7 in the balmy Beijing morning.

Tang Qi having a bit of fun

We arrived to discover the bride sitting on her bed dressed in a western-style wedding dress.  In one hand rested her cell phone, in the other sat an apple.  After a volley of photos and congratulations, the door of the hotel room slammed shut and things became quieter.....though still loud by most standards.  The groom and his groomsmen showed up at the hotel room to claim the bride.  A symbolic bargaining session transpired with the groomsmen slipping "hongbaos", or traditional monetary gifts in red envelopes, under the door.  Eventually the goodnatured negotiations broke-down, and the groom and his groomsmen politely forced their way into the hotel room, handing out hongbaos to the bride's entourage with complementary smiles thrown in for good measure.

Getting ready for the reception

The groom carried the bride to the elevator and out to a waiting car, because the bride's feet aren't supposed to touch the ground before the wedding ceremony.  Both entourages filed to the ground floor where a fleet of black Audi's waited.  Note: A black Audi is the official car of party cadres and symbolizes power and status in China, so it was little surprise what kind of cars were waiting for us.

The Bride and Groom meeting in the aisle

Friends and family greeted our arrival at the groom's apartment at 8:30 in the morning.  Another wave of pictures followed after we made landfall at the groom's apartment, and the atmosphere was smoky as a honky-tonk, but very amicable and excited.  Again the bride sat cross-legged on a bed, clutching an apple.  Next we moved the party to the venue at the Hepingli Hotel.  Here is where the traditional Chinese wedding stopped being so traditional, and became more "western", or at least what passes for "western" in mainland China.  If you can't tell by my condescending tone, the way the term "western" is applied to everything in mainland China as a substitute for "new", "foreign", and "popular" has started to wear on my nerves.  The ceremony resembled an abbreviated version of an American wedding reception.  Speeches were made, food was eaten, toasts were made, and an MC (I don't know who the guy was) presided over the event.  The only traditional part was the food, and it was worth the price of admission.  I was a little worried by the cold, meat appetizers.  They are very common in China.  Despite a year here, I haven't adapted to them.  I just find it difficult to eat cold meat, but my fear were silenced by the great shichime and squirrel fish.  The menu boasted some great gastronomic surprises.  I didn't know the country of Georgia produced wine, but do yourself a favor and go pick up a bottle.

By western standards, Chinese weddings are short affairs, and this was no exception.  The entire thing, ceremony and reception, lasted about an hour and a half.  On a personal note, I had a great time, and it was interesting to see the melding of Chinese wedding traditions and western television weddings.  The bride and groom looked happy, and there isn't much else you can ask for.