sjrozan

Xi'an

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Sat, 17 May 08 18:13:00 UT

Was in Xi'an for three days, including the earthquake. You've heard about that; here are some other observations.

Xi'an's greatly shncged since I was here ten years ago. Then, it was a dusty, gritty city of 5 million, mostly a petrochemical industry town which also happened to be the closest city to the teracotta army. The army itself was housed in its archeological pit, where the dig was on-going, roofed but not enclosed at the end of a long hot parking lot. Now Xi'an's grown to 7 million, still in industry but, like a lot of China, having discovered tourism as an industry. The warriors have been enclosed, though the dig continues; the parking lot's been replaced with a huge garden, through which you walk and walk and walk to get there, and then you walk back through a shopping plaza where you can buy mini-warriors, chariots, postcards... The garden's a great thing, part of China's attempt to reclaim land the desert seems to be claiming at up to 15 feet a year. And the plaza's probably unavoidable. And enclosing the art is also a good idea. Coming face-to-face with the terra cotta army just didn't have the impact it did on me the first time, though. Maybe that's really because it was the second time; or maybe it's because the whole experience is now very polished, and so the sense of sudden encounter is gone.

In Xi'an itself, the Muslim quarter has become completely a matter of tourist shops, and the Drum Tower, the Bell Tower, and the city wall are all outlined in neon at night. Boy, the Chinese love their neon. Every ancient structure is neoned within an inch of its life, and no commercial venture worth anything is without a giant multicolor neon sign.

The Shaanxi Provincial Museum, on the other hand, is Asian art geek heaven, more Tang horses and camels than I'd have believed. And the tomb of a Han emperor with its 1/4 scale clay figures of people -- including a detachment of all-female cavalry -- and animals, was astounding.

And of course the food continues to be great.

Twentieth Saturday, from the Gobi Desert

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Sat, 17 May 08 18:10:00 UT

Moon throws sharp shadows.
Companions asleep on bunks.
Train clacks toward daybreak.

Sunlight bright and harsh.
Distant across blowing sand,
Snowy mountain peaks.

Concrete camels stand.
Between their legs, beside road,
Goats head toward downtown.

Shanghai, part 3

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Fri, 16 May 08 09:58:00 UT

May 10

So, continuing to be intrepid, Anne-Marie and I continued to explore yesterday, even though it was raining again when we set out. But only lightly, and after yesterday... Andy stayed home, things to do, but Nancy came with us in the morning, so we were again three. We went straight to the old Jewish quarter of Hongkew. Some of you probably know the book I just handed in, a Lydia Chin book to come out next spring, involves the Jewish ghetto in Shanghai during WWII. 20,000 European Jews escaped to Shanghai, the only city on the planet that would take Jews in as Hitler was trying to expell them from Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Poland. It wasn't for love of jews, but because of the strange historical accident that was Shanghai at the time; nevertheless, they came and they settled here and for ten years there was a European Jewish ghetto on the coast of China. Not much is left of the identifiably Jewish sites, but in the tiny lanes and alleyways life is lived in a similar way: still only cold water and often a shared toilet, or none at all -- the night-soil collectors still come around on their bikes, though the fields they used to take the buckets to are now gone and I think the stuff is disposed of in a treatment plant. I wanted to see these streets that I'd read about, see where my characters lived, where they walked and worried and fell in love. For me that part of the day was quite a thrill.

Then a shrimp and bokchoy lunch, Nancy went home with a big thank you for putting me up for 2 nights, and Anne-Marie and I headed over to the old French Concession. Tree-lined streets, wide sidewalks, big villas built for the French colonists, now housing a dozen families each. But the commercial strip is buzzing with small boutiques and a wonderful bookshop/reading room. We stumbled into a gallery, saw a show of an artist I'll keep an eye on. Then back to Anne-Marie's apt. for a complimentary buffet dinner for residents at the high-class restaurant at the top floor of the building. They do this once a month and I just happened to stumble into it. Once again, exceptional food, though this time western -- cheese sausage, Caesar salad. Since you'd have to be insane to eat uncooked vegetables west of here (think of that night soil) I chowed down. I spent the night with Anne-Marie's family (thanks, Edward, for giving up your room!) and then this morning they ran off to Beijing, leaving me the apt. until tomorrow.

I had breakfast and did some laundry -- do it while you can -- and then my friend Doreen came and took me outside Shanghai, to one of the old "water towns." These are cities built on canals, which Shanghai also used to have, but that was long ago. They're pretty touristy now, these towns, mostly Chinese getting away for the day, but this was a lovely place, even crowded. We took a boat ride on the canal, had tea, toured a temple or two, and saw a lovely large house-and-garden in the process of being restored. In old China, a "house" was different in concept to what we think of, or what they think of today. You built a wall, and inside had various buildings, pavilions, connected by walks and separated by gardens. The whole thing was the "house." Sometimes it had only two buildings, a front one and a back one with six feet of dirt between them, but that was the concept. This one was quite extensive and lovely, lots of different pavilions (including the "room for three daughters to do embroidering") and gardens.

Then back to Anne-Marie's, to find my dinner date, another friend, had cancelled on my. Oh well, I'm tired, there are leftovers in the fridge, and I'm flying to Xi'an in the morning.

Shanghai part 2

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Thu, 15 May 08 20:57:00 UT

May 8

Got up today to go out and explore Shanghai on foot with my buddies Anne-Marie and Andy, who are spending the year here and had saved the best of their walking tour book for me. Looked out Nancy's windows to the river and discovered it was pouring. I mean, POURING. Monsoon, typhoon, cats and dogs. It was actually beautiful, 30+ stories above the river, drinking tea and watching the ships -- mostly barges and cargo ships, some ferries -- chug by through the rain. Could hardly see the opposite shore. But being intrepid, Anne-Marie, Andy and I set out anyway. And had a wonderful time. We did one of the old neighborhoods, and in truth, once you're soaked, you can't get any wetter, right? We saw a number of landmarks of old Shanghai, including what was for me the highlight, the building that had been Great World Entertainment in the 20's and 30's. Great World had been the Shanghai Chinese answer to the European theaters and nightclubs where Chinese weren't allowed. It was wilder and more glittering, four floors of clubs, sing-song houses, gambling dens, and whorehouses, where it was reputed that the slits in the girls' cheongsams -- that tight, high-collared dress -- got higher and the shows more risque as you went up from floor to floor. It was at the heart of Shanghai's pre-war wild west reputation, and of course all the Europeans wanted to go there, so the Chinese let them in and took all their money.

After we squished our way throught the morning, I left Anne-Marie and Andy temporarily and went back to Nancy's, where 12 ex-pat writers were waiting for me to give them a talk. Nancy's a writer and these were her writers' group and some assorted others. We had a fabulous lunch, prepared by Nancy's ayi (housekeeper), a shy young woman who sure can cook. I talked to the group and then they talked to me while the rain fell in sheets beyond the windows. Then I had a much-needed nap, after which Anne-Marie and Andy came over for dinner as fabulous as the lunch and also produced by Nancy's ayi, who may, as Nancy claims, be one of the best cooks in Shanghai.

Earthquake part 2

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Thu, 15 May 08 20:50:00 UT

It's a little odd to be posting my trip blogs under these circumstances, with the earthquake news all around us. But China's a huge country, and though apparently half the population of the entire place felt some swaying or tremors from the quake, actual damage is limited geographically. The only effect up here -- now I'm in Lanzhou -- is the sight of convoys of army trucks on the highway taking relief supplies south. So if it doesn't seem too callous, I'm going to continue the trip posts, just as, after consideration, we decided to continue the trip. Remember, the Shanghai and first Xi'an posts are from before the quake.

Earthquake

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Tue, 13 May 08 07:50:00 UT

I have some more Shanghai entries to transcribe and post for you, and the early Xi'an one, but I'm interrupting the chronological flow of trip reporting to tell you about the earthquake.

The epicenter was near Chengdu, about 1,000 miles south-southwest of Xi'an, where I am. It'll give you some sense of the scale of the thing when I tell you we did feel it, and in a pretty big way. I was walking on top of the old city wall. It's 500 years old, 30 feet wide and 30 feet high, made of rammed earth and clad with multiple wythes of brick. So it's SOLID. On the city side is a low parapet, maybe 2 feet high, and on the outer side, where the invaders would have come from, are arrow slits to shoot at them from. I'd just passed a sign describing a new gate, built in the wall after the Revolution, the better to connect the city to the train station. I was peering through an arrow slit, holding onto the two walls beside it, when I felt a slight shaking. Just like people, I thought, to mess with an ancient wall in a way that now makes it shake whenever a train goes by. Then the shaking got stronger, and then it was a swaying, back and forth, and I could see the trees also swaying and bells ringing. A crane swayed also, and though I was alone on that section of the wall, far in the distance I saw people running, clearly panicked. The swaying lasted about a minute -- a long time in an earthquake, I'm told. After it had pretty much stopped I went to the other side of the wall and looked down into a residential neighborhood. Everyone was out in the street, talking, shouting; when they saw me peering over the wall they yelled at me to come down. But I figured, there was nothing around to fall on me if another shock came; and if this wall was going to fall -- a very unlikely event -- wouldn't I be better off on it than under it? So I stayed, and nothing else happened. It wasn't until I got back to the hotel that I found out how big and far away it was, and not until this morning -- now; it's 8am here -- that we knew how devasting it had been in Chengdu. We felt an aftershock here at about 3am, too, another indication of how huge an event it was.

Thanks, Debby, for checking and posting. It's even harder to get online right now that it has been, because everyone in China is checking on relatives, etc. Will get back to you when I can. But up here in the north, we're fine.

Shanghai

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Mon, 12 May 08 09:06:00 UT

May 7

Flew into the shiny new Shanghai airport, across the river from Shanghai proper in what was, until 20 years ago, villages and rice paddies in an area called Pudong. Was met by my friend Nancy's driver, an eager guy named Kevin, who took me to her apartment, also in Pudong but about 45 minutes away. Nancy's a writer, so to have a driver is above her station in life as it would be above mine; but her partner is a high-level exec with an American firm. Many of the ex-pats have drivers, because it's cheaper for their companies to supply them than to deal with an unwritten but iron-clad reality of Shanghai traffic law: in the case of an accident, a foreign driver is always wrong. And this despite the other reality, that cars are wielded as weapons here. Of course, so are motorscooters and bikes.

Nancy lives on a high floor in a building right on the river in Pudong. From the windows you can watch the river traffic on the Wangpu. Boats and barges go upriver in the morning, come back down in the afternoon. Occasionally you can hear a deep horn, though if river traffic is anything like car traffic it's less foghorn and more get-out-of-my-way-ya-damn-ferryboat. My bedroom has an antique Chinese bed, red lacquer with a canopy. Unbelievably comfortable. Tomorrow, with some other friends, a walking tour.

Hong Kong part 2

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Mon, 12 May 08 08:34:00 UT

(Note: I'm posting as I can, so the dates the posts are written will be different from the dates they're posted.)

Hong Kong, May 7

Got up early -- that jetlag thing -- and went for a walk. First, Kowloon Park, built on the foundations of the razed Walled City. This was not an ancient walled city -- nothing in HK is ancient, the place was home to only a few tiny fishing villages until less than 200 years ago, when the British came -- but was one of the most notoriously criminal and ungovernable areas in HK until it was torn down (we'd say "made the subject of urban renewal") in the '70's. I'd give you the Wikipedia link but I'm a little unsure about going to Wikipedia; I worry this computer might close Journalscape to get there. But check it out. Anyway, now it's a park, and since it was early in the morning, lots of citizens were out getting exercise. You can see this in Chinatown in NYC, too, and other Chinatowns. Kung fu, tai chi, sword dancing, aerobics... people playing badminton without nets, just on a streetcorner. It's a colonization of public space for private use in a way we don't do in the west. No one in NYC would consider getting together with a dozen other people and working out in front of the Apple Store before it opens, just because it has a wide plaza. And if you did, security would shoo you off. But in China, any streetcorner, plaza, park, is territory for individuals to take as long as they can hold it. That's pretty much until the workday starts and streets get crowded, though the street-corner cooks go out then and fry you up some dough.

Kowlooon Park, since I was here last, has put in an aviary. They used to have flamingoes, and now there are ducks and swans, too, and a peacock. Most of them were species I'm not familiar with but I have photos, you know I do. Can't post them until I get home, though. The park's pretty nice; HK seems to be putting a tentative foot in the go-green movement. Exhortations to save water and recyle, an organic framer's market by the Star Ferry (three stalls, but still).

After the park I wandered the streets, and after that back to the Y for breakfast, checking out, leaving my bag and then the Star Ferry across the harbor. More wandering around, up to Hollywood Road to look at antiques, and up and down alleyways. And I mean up and down; very little on that side of the harbor, on HK Island, is flat. Very hot and sunny, very horn-honking noisy. Well-dressed hurrying HKers, many young and cutting-edge stylish. Construction, but not as much as last time I was here; I think the building boom has ebbed, though they're still doing landfill projects, narrowing the harbor. (Have some photos of that, too.) Found, by golly, a veggie organic take-out place, paper boxes and cornstarch forks, to buy some late lunch. Took it back across the harbor, ate looking at the skyline, the ships. Busier than I've seen that harbor -- last time I was here things were pretty quiet. Now takers, cargo ships, cruise liners, yachts, patrol boats, ferries. No more junks or sampans, except a few big junks to take tourists for rides. Sat for awhile taking it all in, then retrieved my bag, took a cab to Kowloon Station, the train to the airport, and found my flight to Shanghai.

Nineteenth Saturday, from outside Shanghai, two days late

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Mon, 12 May 08 08:29:00 UT

I pause beside pond.
Bright carp, drawn by my shadow,
Gather to be fed.

Huge black characters
Brushed on ancient ocher wall.
Tourists snap, move on.

Sitting in flat boat
Floating down stone-walled canal
Watching teahouse pass.

The baggage carousel of life

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Tue, 6 May 08 22:24:00 UT

Or, what goes around comes around. Maybe I did something good in these last few weeks, or maybe in a former life, but anyway, here I am bloggin' atcha from the Salisbury Y, across from the Peninsula Hotel on the tip of Kowloon, Hong Kong. Got here on a flawless flight -- well, okay, there was the pesky business of the stopped-up first-class toilets, but they managed to get the non-functioning number down to one, pasted it shut, and we took off. From Newark Airport, by the way, where, since it was Cinco de Mayo, a 4-piece mariachi band was driving around the International Terminal in one of those little carts, two of them facing forward and two backward, singing and playing guitars, an accordion, and of course mariachis.

Cashed in a bunch of miles and flew business class, which has some definite advantages. One, the food is better. But more important, the seats, while they do NOT flatten out, make a good enough try that it's possible to sleep on your side, which means it's possible to sleep. When we got to Hong Kong my bag slid quickly up the chute, I slid quickly through immigration and customs, the airtrain came 3 minutes after I got to the stop and the fabulous free K3 bus was waiting at the train station. And then here I was at the Y, ready to go for a stroll in the Hong Kong night.

Hong Kong's changed since I was last here, but being Hong Kong, what that means is it's gotten more so. More neon, more shops open later, more traffic and new traffic controls which people obey, waiting at empty crosswalks until the light changes. Unless a New Yorker is in the front of the crowd. The walkway along the tip of Kowloon has been extended to be an "Avenue of Stars," honoring the Hong Kong film industry. And you now buy Star Ferry tokens from a machine, not a little man behind an aged counter you had to know how to find.

But the density, the energy, the smells of food and diesel and the sea -- all still here. Tomorrow I get up early and rush around doing as much as I can, then tomorrow night, I fly to Shanghai. Where I hope I can blog again.

Slow boat to China

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Sun, 4 May 08 11:26:00 UT

Okay, it's a fast plane, but no one wrote that song yet. I'm heading to China tomorrow: Hong Kong because I love it, Shanghai to see friends and see what's become of Shanghai since I was there ten years ago; and then on to Xi'an, to say hi to the terra cotta warriors and then join up with a Sierra Club group going out on the Silk Road. I'll try to blog the trip as much as I can, though when and where I'll have internet access and time to use it are big unknowns. If you don't hear from me until June, don't despair. I'm keeping a journal in any case, so if I need to post all the entries when I get back, you know I will.

Stay safe and behave yourselves until I get back!

(And don't forget to sign up for the workshop in Assisi!)

Eighteenth Saturday

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Sat, 3 May 08 10:39:00 UT

Party on south pier
Early morning rock and roll
Gulls swoop anyhow

Cruise ship looms through fog
Glides silently upriver
Disappears again

Long after ship's passed
Slow waves roll in, slide up wall,
Slip down, fade away

May Day

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Thu, 1 May 08 13:01:00 UT

Okay, all you good fellow travelers and Commie pinkos, let's rally to the party! No, seriously, I'm just a litle frantic here, it being Edgar Week, PEN World Voices Week, and at this point about 98 hours before my flight to China. I'm going for a month -- more later about that. Tuesday, co-taught a class with Naomi Hirahara in Character and Setting at MWA's Crime Fiction U; tonight, the actual Edgar Banquet; and in between, before, and after, more running around than you can imagine. Then tomorrow, my PEN panel, "Mean Streets." I'd include all the links here but I don't have time! But everything I mentioned is eminently Googleable.

And Monday, my flight. Charging around like a madwoman? Me? And in this freezing NYC weather, unusually cold for late April/early May. Sunny today, but it poured Tues. and is supposed to rain from tonight through Sunday. But as long as it's clear Monday, I'll be happy.

Rainy spring day

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Mon, 28 Apr 08 22:16:00 UT

It was so beautiful at the river this morning. Raining, but not cold, and not windy; still, for some reason I was almost alone. No dogwalkers, no joggers, none of the maintenance guys who usually rumble their barrels slowly along the walk as they pick up trash. One guy with golf clubs and a cell phone; must have come from hitting a few at Chelsea Piers, getting a jump on the season, now calling his office to make sure nothing happened while he was so temporarily out of touch. He lost points with me for the golf (don't get my golf rant started) but gained them back for walking in the rain with a smile and no umbrella.

The rain swept in gentle sheets along the surface of the river, which was surprisingly calm. Two mallards, a male and a female, tromped along the grass, nibbling. (Do mallards eat worms?) These two like that particular patch, and the other day I saw the male there and not the female, leading me to worry she's nesting in the bushes. That only seems like a good idea in weather like this. When it gets sunny again and people start to picnic and play frisbee, I think they'll realize they've made a mistake. The ducks, not the people.

The small red and yellow tulips stayed closed but looked gorgeous, glowing against the green grass and the brown mulch under the trees. The stone walks glistened, and so did the trees, both bark and fresh new leaves, as though everything were varnished. The wooden rail darkened and the aluminum glowed and the blue lights in the handrail supports came on. And as I passed, a young seagull, his wing and tail feathers still brown and his sides still spotted, swooped in and landed on one of those supports as though railing-sitting were a recommended exercise in the seagull handbook and he was trying it for the first time. He kept turning to look at me, first one eye, then the other, but he wouldn't fly away. I finally realized he was actually interested not in me but in the ducks. They were clearly eating something, and he was hoping it was something gulls liked, too. I left them to it.

Seventeenth Saturday

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Sat, 26 Apr 08 20:25:00 UT

Sidewalk beers last night
With poet from Singapore.*
Strong tea this morning.

In green shirt, brown tights,
Runner passes matching stand
Of newly-leafed trees.

On bench, man writes, hunched,
Pen clenched, chances raw chill wind
Churning white pages.

*(Kirpal Singh, whom I commend to you.)