Red guards in Chengdu and Red Detachment of Women

Emy and I chanced upon a dance school performance in Zijing Park yesterday. Groups of little girls (and a few serious kungfu boys) dressed in all manner of costumes and colours scurried about, got shouted at by their dance instructors, scolded by their mothers (who primped and bettered make-up, tweeked costumes and acted general maternal fuss-buckets), jumped up on stage, twirled around (pink butterflies), flapped their long sleeves (Tibetans) and brandished large red stars (red guards), all with enormous dedication, enthusiasm, flashing of blinding white teeth, boldly made-up eyes and tightly pinned and coifed hair. Seldom have I seen so many ponytails in one go.

It was the last group of red star carrying girls that caught my attention though. Their faces were heavily painted, they wore braids and grey Mao caps each with a red star in front, had militant little shorts-pants on and bold red leggings. Their faces were frozen in dedication, perfect miniature Red Guards (紅衛兵 Hóng Wèi Bīng) about to perform a dance from the model opera Red Detachment of Women (红色娘子军 Hóngsè Niángzǐjūn). Emy who is 10 years old didn't give it a thought and most likely not the little girls themselves who all seemed to be the same age and probably had no understanding of late 1960s China and its politics. But I wondered what the people in the audience felt when seeing these girls dress as they were and dance as they did.

But how wrong I was. According to Wikipedia this Chinese ballet premiered as early as 1964, two years before the start of the Cultural Revolution. It was adapted from an earlier film that was in turn adapted from a novel which was based on a true story that happened on the island of Hainan in the 1930s. During the Cultural Revolution however it was selected as one of the "eight model operas" (八个样板戏 bā gè yàng bǎn xì) permitted. It was this opera that Richard Nixon saw when he visited China in 1972, seven years before the normalization of the Sino-US relationship. It remains a very popular ballet today and is still performed, both in China and around the world.

Wikipedia:
Despite its political overtone and historical background when it was created, it remains a favorite of music and ballet lovers nearly 30 years after the Cultural Revolution in China. Many numbers were based on the folk songs of Hainan Island, a place that, with its coconut trees rustling in tropical wind, evokes much romantic ethos. Though there are unmistakable elements of Chinese music, the music of this ballet was performed with basically a Western symphony orchestra.

A photograph will be posted sometime in the future...

Penises and breasts

Yesterday was a day of Chinese studies at Chinese Corner, art class at QSI finishing up the mosaic project we've been working on with the 11-12-13 year olds and also...penises and breasts. I'm not trying to capture your attention in the most spectacular way because I can't post any pictures for the moment - believe me when it's possible again I'll post the evidence to prove to you that yesterday was just another typical day in China, i.e. a series of both mundane and bizarre experiences.

I had to go up to Jinli Street yesterday to buy a birthday present and was wandering around the back alleys when I heard the magnetic pulse of salsa music. I could hardly contain myself and had to immediately figure out where this music was coming from. Salsa is not the usual Jinli fare which usually specializes in classical and vernacular Chinese culture and rarely anything Western. But lo and behold salsa it was and I finally found where: The back of Jinli is now connected with the Wuhou Gongyuan and they were participating in the ongoing "Intangible Culture Festival". A group of scantily clad Australian dancers were doing a ripping salsa with all body parts jiggling and wiggling to the beat. How certain parts of the ladies anatomies stayed inside their dresses I think it was not only me wondering but all the mesmerized old Chinese men and women who made up the greater part of the audience at this time of day. The rhythm and enthusiasm of the dance troup was great though and I couldn't help jiggling along with them.

After the Australians bounced off the stage there followed a group of Chinese men balancing a large bamboo pole on their foreheads, juggling with it etc. On the sidelines I noticed other Chinese acts, most unusual being a group of very serious looking men dressed entirely in straw: straw hats, straw skirts, straw leggings and strangely each one had a substantial-looking straw "attachment" dangling between their legs. I didn't pay it much notice until they started dancing. Whoops! That dangling straw thing sure caught the audience's attention now as it turned out to be the focal point of the dance, help up high in the sky with a eye-riveting red-painted tip, jerked about and held with firm determination by the wildly dancing men.

The old ladies in the audience were giggling now and I asked the young man beside me where these dancers came from: "Hunan" he answered, as he distanced himself from me and my questions. When I later showed Burton the pictures he said "Must of been some kind of fertility dance". What a way to be distracted on this certain day.

Remembering the earthquake

Here is a brief description about what happened to us in Chengdu one year ago, something I wrote to tell friends and family. Our experience of course was nothing compared to what the people (who lost so many loved ones) up in the quake epicenter area experienced, something a hundred thousand times worse: 

As you all know the earthquake happened on Monday May 12th, 2008 at 2.28 pm in the afternoon. This was our daughter Emy's birthday and luckily, because of this we were all in Chengdu city and not up in the mountains where I had planned to take visiting friends. 

The day before the earthquake Paddy had just come home from Yunnan in time to celebrate Emy's big day. On the morning of the 12th we got Emy out of bed and celebrated her birthday in the Swedish way with presents and treats. She and Burton went off to school and I and Paddy spent a leisurely day catching up on talk and work. Just the week before I had been away in other parts of China working for 34 days straight. The day after I arrived back our guests from Sweden arrived and Paddy left for Yunnan. The 12th was a fantastically lovely day, sunny and warm and wonderful. I had sent our guests off to visit a temple in another part of town. I was feeling exhausted and loving the peace and quiet at home. For the evening we had planned to take Emy swimming, then all join up for a dinner at her favorite restaurant. 

At 2.28 pm I was sending off some pictures on the computer when the house started to rumble. It was like the whole building was in spin-cycle in the washing machine and something had gone terrible wrong. I knew immediately that it was an earthquake and shouted to Paddy in the next room. We both ran to our front door which is made of metal and thought we would be safe there. But the rumbling had turned into a roaring boil and it was like being inside of a popcorn maker. The noise was deafening. We live on the 13th floor and the house was being shook back and forth and everything was bouncing up and down and crashing on to the floor. All the other earthquakes I have been in (in California) lasted only 10-20-30 seconds. This one didn't want to stop. Paddy shouted that we should try and get out of the house. We were convinced the house was going to come down - working in China for so many years has made us all too sceptical and cynical about how houses are constructed and if the proper methods and materials were used. We both flew down the 13 flights of stairs in our bare feet (there was no time to take anything with us). I was still in my pyjamas. Bits and pieces of cement were falling around us and on every floor we met more people trying to get out. The earthquake finished just after we got out the front door where we met hundreds of other people streaming out of all the buildings around us. It had lasted for a full three minutes. All we could think of after this was to find our kids, our friends and get away from any building as soon as possible. Paddy braved running up 13 flights of stairs again to quickly get our passports, money, shoes, computers and to lock our door which we had left wide open. We had no idea if any large aftershocks would bring the whole house done. All the time he was up there I could see the windows quietly vibrating. It felt like the earth was a living, breathy animal, panting after an enormous exertion. He was gone for about five minutes, when he came down again a large aftershock hit and we all ran out into the streets. 

We quickly bought water and then two bicycles, shops were closing up and people were trying to contact friends and relatives by cellphone. Mobile connections weren't working and the streets were clogged with vehicles and people trying to find each other. Luckily no one was showing panic, even though we have heard that a small number of people in Chengdu leap out ofbuildings in fear and died that way. We made our way to where we could find our friends and children. Luckily everyone was safe and sound. Only then did we learn where the epicenter was -- just outside of the city in the mountains to the NW and that it had been enormous (7.9 magnitude). We also learnt name of towns and cities that I had never heard of: Beichuan, Hanwang, Yingxiu. Quickly we heard that two large schools had collapsed on top of 900 students. 

As time went on the numbers of casualities increased and unspeakable horrors were revealed about what had actually happened.  It is incomprehensible how entire cities can be crushed to rubble within a few seconds.

After the earthquake we have experienced fantastic warmth and generosity from all people around us (thank-you Kim, Johnny, Barry and Carin!) and we have all, Chinese and foreigners alike, gotten to know each a little better and been pulled closer together. I love Sichuan even more today than before and don't want to leave the area. Fun-loving Chengdu isn't the happy-go-lucky city it once was and everyone seems to be suffering from a collective depression, but day by day things get a little better. The Chinese people are incredibly resilient and tough and outside the city everyone is concentrating on getting through each day, minute by minute. It is too painful otherwise. 

 The kids have also been fantastic and seem to be doing all right after a few ups and downs. At the moment they are concentrating on getting through their last two weeks of school. During the actual earthquake they were thankfully outside of their school building doing sports. They felt the earth rumble and shake (it sounded strange they've said) and watched the school clocktower sway back and forth in an odd way, the lightning rod a top whipping frenetically back and forth. They didn't feel scared at that time and their teachers were very calm and responsible. Only afterwards when they joined up with their parents and witnessed all the adults acting scared and weird did they feel fear. Something for me to think about in the next disaster. Up on the 13th floor when the earthquake hit and I could hear the buildings crashing together and our terrace ripping apart, I experienced true, primitive anxiety. I wasn't at all brave, I was terribly scared and realized that I very much like being alive. I was no hero during this time and it taught me a lot about myself and my weaknesses.  

When Emy realized there would be no birthday celebration this day she said "This is the worst birthday of my entire life". In the evening, when we and a hundred plus other people had all gathered together in a garden to spend the night outdoors out of range of potentially falling buildings, Barry Jones got everyone to sing Happy Birthday to her in English and Chinese. It was very moving when we all knew that not so far from the city there were thousands of children lying dead, their parents distraught, searching for them. When Emy and Burton were allowed to drink a lot more soda pop than usual during the first earthquake week Emy said: "This is the best earthquake I've ever had".

 

Written June 2008

Incense burner and huā 花 niǎo 鸟 chóng 虫 yú 鱼

Incense burner from Hua Niao Chong Yu ©IBM

Hua niao yu chong ("flower, bird, fish and insect") is a common expression for a special kind of Chinese culture where the practitioner indulges in raising and growing small plants and animals, recreating a simile of nature in an urban environment. Crickets, birds, turtle, goldfish and ornamental carp are the typical animals and the flowers, of course, are endless, although leaning towards ones that have symbolic meaning like peonies, orchids, narcissus etc. Without knowing it I have been trying to create my own little hua niao yu chong world on our apartment terrace. I have a pond for my eight koi carp, flowers and plants galore and numerous trinkets to play with when drinking tea (usually coffee for me). I perfectly understand the need to retreat from the maddening crowd and spend time surrounded by beautiful things. This ideal life was of course reserved only for the rich in the China of the past, but today anyone with a few yuan can put a goldfish in a bowl of water and watch it swim around in circles. 

As I mentioned yesterday I have found a wonderful shop in one of Jinli Street's newly opened back alleys where I can buy all sorts of delightful ceramics from Jǐngdézhèn in Jiāngxī Province. The name of the shop is appropriately called Niao Hua Chong Yu and they have created a wonderful logo from the characters, painting them to look like what they represent (bird, flower and fish are originally pictographic representations. I don't know about worm/chong though, here is how it is written in traditional chinese 蟲). There is a very Japanese feel to this little shop, and I have to force myself to stay away. Latest purchase (actually my mother bought it for me as an early birthday present) is the incense burner above (xiāng lú 香炉). On the way home it only took a second to buy sandalwood incense (tán xiāng 檀香) in one of the many Tibetan stores on Wuhou Hengjie. 

huà niǎo chóng yú 花鸟虫鱼.

Check out their website: hcny.blogbus.com

Lumpy laile!

090428 ©IBM

Our neighbors left for the states this morning and yesterday we inherited a bunch of down and out plants and a goldfish named Lumpy. Lumpy came in a glass bowl in as bad a state as the plants so to make "her" feel better I moved her into a new home and blinged it with a few trinkets I bought on Jinli Street. Jinli has recently expanded and there is a new shop that I am absolutely crazy about selling artisan ceramics of all kinds from China's porcelain capital Jǐngdézhèn 景德镇. So Lumpy has a ceramic lotus seed pod, blue and white floating balls and a ceramic fish in whose mouth you can anchor the plant roots. She's got so much furniture now that she can hardly swim around, tomorrow she will be upgraded to a larger bowl. But for now, like it or lump it, Lumpy!

Hemorrhoid cushion anyone?

Hemorrhoid rings for sale outside Huaxi Hospital, Chengdu 090427 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

You know you are near a Chinese hospital when you notice the sidewalks full of people walking outside in the open-air in their pyjamas with movable IV-drips or catheter bags in tow. Chinese hospital patient-garb is striped jammies for men and pink floral for women. Women are not so often seen outside but men are because they’re trying to catch a smoke before the nurses shoo them back in again.

I went to our local Huaxi Hospital (Huaxi: West China) yesterday to have a check-up and waded through the usual mix of hundreds of people, cars, taxis and rickshaws before entering the hospital grounds. (How an ambulance can get through this mess is beyond me.) All around the main gates are numerous small businesses that cater to staff, patients and their families. Thus the apothecaries selling medicine and vitamins, the small shops vending scores of donut shaped hemorrhoid rings (labeled “anti-decubitas cushions”, tiffen carriers, spoons, bed pans, and wash basins; florists with their huge floral arrangements; candy, drink and cigarettes kiosks and small restaurants serving food to the hundreds and hundreds of relatives that seem to accompany every patient to the hospital, be it just a regular check-up or a near-death recovery. The hospital itself is massive with numerous floors, departments (with odd English monikers like the “Nuclear Dept”, which I assume is radiology) and even a special Gold Card VIP building for well-to-do Chinese and foreigners who want to fast-track their health-care and avoid the plebes (me included).

I have an acquaintance who works at this hospital and she explained that Chinese hospitals appear extremely crowded but that for every patient there are at least 5-6 relatives in tow. You notice them all jammed up in the elevators, transporting bedding, equipment, extra food, basins and vitamins back and forth, tagging along to examinations, keeping granny company, interpreting a doctor’s advice, listening in for an elderly deaf ear, pushing wheelchairs, giving emotional support or just doing their filial duty.

She feels that Chinese hospitals and hospital care, although appearing chaotic and inefficient on the surface, is much cosier and more personal than Western hospitals. There’s always someone to keep you company, run after a prescription for you or wait in line when you yourself, the sick person, clearly isn’t quite up to it. She related how patients who shared the same diagnosis grouped together and willingly gave each other advice, went off to examinations together and comforted each other, sharing the misery and trying to make it a little less.

Herself a smoker she enjoyed visiting the area where the surgeons hung out to smoke, their ashtrays overflowing with piled up butts. She related how doctors’ in general are very abrupt, curt and matter-of-fact, totally lacking bedside manner and how they could easily tell a patient in front of an entire room of other patients that their diagnosis was cancer. Sometimes the sheer immensity of human beings in China deadens one's sensitivities. 

Jiàn zi 毽子 Chinese shuttlecock

Wuhou Hengjie 090425 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

Right after I made the posting below with a picture of a man playing Chinese featherball in Beijing I met this sweet old lady on the street here in Chengdu. She makes handmade featherballs at home and sold me two for 4 yuan a piece. 

Ze Puppies Rocked the Worm!

Chengdu Bookworm April 24, 2009 ©IBM

ZePuppies blew away the crowd yesterday at the Chengdu Bookworm, even the old neighborhood ladies, passersbys, rickshaw drivers and parking attendants were packed in the doorway hoping to catch a glimpse of Chengdu's latest music phenomenon! Playing everything from The Ramones to AC/DC they totally bombarded the Du with their ultimate SWEETNESS! Those who want to see Harley Fagan, Charles Dupont, Romain Rabany and Burton Booz perform again will hopefully catch them next time at the Bookworm's May 12th earthquake commemorative benefit event organized by Sichuan Quake Relief. Huanying guanglin!

 

©Fagan

Viagra in China

Wan ai ge! Chengdu 090424 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

Many Westerner's believe that China and the Chinese are shy and squeamish about sex. Not so I think, they have a much more healthy attitude towards sex and the body than say that prudish and many times hypocritical of all nations the United States. Sex shops can be found all over China, staffed by matter-of-fact grannies in drab-gray doctor's coats willing to explain every sex aid in excrutiating detail, never blinking an eyelash. The body and its natural functions and ailments are treated quite matter-of-factly and a good example is this quite large advertisement for Viagra at the front of a drugstore on the First Ring Road in Chengdu. (The young man in the picture is selling cosmetics and has nothing to do with this story ;-). 

Viagra is well-known all over China and can even be bought over the counter in bus stations and airports. Fake Viagra exists of course and a Chinese equivalent is also produced (much cheaper but clinical tests...who knows? ). On tours some of my Swedish travelers ask for it, thinking it would perhaps be much cheaper to buy in China than in Sweden, but the cost is about the same and I would be very careful about recommending anyone to use the fake pills, who knows what the Chinese put into those! Even though millions and millions of Chinese men supposedly use Viagra today (Pfizer must be raking in the dough) since it is still so expensive most men here can't afford it. Traditional medicines exist aplenty but seemingly don't do the trick like Viagra - Chinese scientists even feed it to pandas (they also let them watch x-rated movies). Besides putting the tickle back in your pickle it can also be used to prevent flowers from wilting and a more recent discovery is that it works well combating high altitude pulmonary edema associated with altitude sickness. Hey, if that's true I'm on! 

The ad above offers a 145 yuan reduction/savings on the standard price and the three large characters are its official Chinese name (chosen I guess because it sounds roughly like "Viagra"): Wàn ài kě 万艾可 roughly translates as "10,000 - beautiful (or more commonly - mugwort (Artemisia vulgris) - possibilities", Below this in red is its more popular colloquial name wěi gē 伟哥 ("great elder brother", or even better "Mighty Brother"), Supposedly in Taiwan Viagra is known as wei er gang, "fierce and strong". All right already, strong is fine, drop the fierce! 

In traditional Chinese thinking "like is cured with like", thus you can find snake skin in Chinese apothecaries used for curing skin conditions and unfortunately all those rhino horns, dried penises and tiger bones, causing the eminent extinction of many animal species. The poor little seahorse is racing on its way to complete elimination because of the belief that eating it in a wine or rice porridge can cure impotency. In Beijing there is even a restaurant that serves penis of all shapes and sizes from almost any animal (with a penis) you can imagine.  (Paddy's comment: "Did you know that there's a worm whose reproductive organ is half his body length?")

Sad that all this isn't as easily fixed as flicking a light switch!

At anytime of the day or night  this lamp will "rise to the occasion" and wake you. "Viagra" blue lampshade included!

Cornflowers

Chengdu April 24, 2009 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

Today's flower purchase, five bunches of cornflowers for 20 yuan (22 SEK) from a farmer lady walking the streets with a basket backpack. The color combination is incredibly beautiful with different shades of blue, pink, purple and vermillion. They are just too beautiful!

Cool girls

Click on image to make larger! Wuhou Hengjie April 23, 2009 Chengdu ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

Met these wild girls on the way to dinner today. They were just too irresistible to not photograph. Reconfirms what I have said so many times before: I live on the cooooooolest street in Chengdu!

# 59 Today's picture Garlic Man

Shanghai Garden, Chengdu 090419 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

This afternoon I came across this man chopping large cloves of garlic in a plastic box in front of a restaurant behind Shanghai Garden. The garlic was about eight inches deep and he was deftly wielding two large Chinese cleavers, preparing finely chopped and minced garlic for the restaurant's evening session. That he was sitting outside on the curb doing this, chatting with the kitchen staff who were taking a break and catching up on their smokes, seemed perfectly natural.

Thai, Chinese and learning a foreign language

My Swedish friend photographer Susanna in Bangkok wrote this week on her blog "Bangkok Life" about how she has gone about learning Thai. She went to a language school where the students weren't allowed to speak! (Paddy's comment: "very Zen"). The students were expected to learn the language by listening like small children on their parent's laps, imitating the sounds and eventually getting it right. Sounds like a kind of "Suzuki" method of language comprehension to me. But it seemed to work fine for Susanna and others.

Susanna's teachers were very clever at acting out everything they were saying in Thai and this made me think about my own Chinese lessons at "Chinese Corner" here in Chengdu. Chinese people in general are not very good at using their bodies and physical gestures to convey thoughts. Their body language is virtually silent which can often be frustrating when I myself am trying to convey something in broken Chinese and use gestures and pictures in the air - most people just don't get it. Their trust in the verbal language is so great it can sometimes be very frustrating. I have to repeat myself over and over, more and more exaggerating my movements each time, in the end resorting to drawings etc until my need is conveyed. Even pictures and especially maps and "directional, spatial, abstract thinking" seems to be something that Chinese lack general training in. When shown a city map it is often held upside down, a picture is scrutinized in laborious detail, as if hunting for a hidden clue unlocking its secrets. I have found though that as more and more Chinese travel outside of their own "comfort zone" of regional and cultural  familiarity, their ability to communicate and think abstractly develops. Perfectly understandable.  

On the other hand they are usually extremely forgiving of a foreigner's idiotic attempts at speaking the language. They listen very patiently, offer umpteen loud suggestions as to what on earth you are trying to say, the volume of their suggestion increasing with each sentence, and generally end the entire inane conversation with a positive compliment of  "My, you really speak fantastic Chinese!" Even when what has just come out of your mouth were more like the insane incoherent ramblings of someone with their tongue cut off having an epileptic fit with their arms flying about in the air like a windmill that has lost a few screws and threatens to decapitate the audience........(Something like what Paddy calls an "illogical fit".)

I have two teachers at Chinese Corner, one is better at acting out the language than the other and it is also reflected in her personality. I enjoy these lessons immensely and because the classes are almost all "one on one" we are encouraged to speak as much as possible, of course only in Chinese and never in our native tongue. One day a week I share a lesson in "conversational Chinese" with a Spanish friend B. from Barcelona. We get to talk about whatever we want and being two ladies with a latin background we never lack for anything to babble on about. Usually we are screaming with laughter, the teacher too who loves to teach us lot's of slang and colloquial sayings. Last Friday she commented that I was good at "tooting my own horn" and taught me two ways to say this in Chinese:

Wǎng zì jǐ liǎn shàng tiē jīn.往自己 脸上 贴金. Pasting gold on your face.

Gěi zì jǐ dài gāo mào 给 自己戴 高帽 Put a tall hat on yourself.

I.e. "pay myself a complement", (svenska: en riktig skrytmoster med andra ord).

B. from Barcelona commented that in Mexico where she grew up they say it like this:

"My, aren't you putting a lot of sour cream in your tacos!"

Flower delivery and Chengdu of the past

1980s Chengdu, mobile  bicycle florist  ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn 

Flower delivery by motorcycle and on foot. April 14, 2009 Wuhou Dajie ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

When I first visited Chengdu in 1985 I was impressed by the amount of flowers being sold in the city. At that time Qingshiqiao Flower market was a wonderful, crazy mix of old wattle and daub houses, lively street life and vibrant flowers. More unique though was that in Chengdu flowers were sold from the backs of bicycles, the flowers gathered in bouquets and stuck into bamboo "vases". Intrepid salespeople bicycled all over the city on their "Flying Pigeons" and "Forever" brand bikes in search of customers, calling out their products just loud enough as a free-market economy like this was still in its nascent years in China and people were a bit leery of anything so unorganized and freewheeling as this. The colour that these flowers brought into everyday life had a great impact on my psyche, as China at this time was one of the drabbest, greyest, most visually depressing countries I had ever been in. I hadn't yet made it down to Yunnan Province (or other minority dense areas) where colour was a given everyday of the year. 

Red mums and purple flowers (eterneller in Swedish, "everlasting") that you could later dry were one of the most common flowers sold at this time and I always regretted that my dormitory bed and room at the infamous Black Coffee Hotel on Binjiang Lu (dungeon is a more appropriate word as it was actually a converted bomb shelter, it was located just about where the five star Sofitel is now) didn't lend itself to floral decoration. Anyway, plastic flowers were more the Black Coffee's style. No matter that I never for one day ever experienced a clear blue sky in Chengdu I immediately fell in love with the city and returned over and over again in the following years. There was just something unique about Chengdu and the Sichuanese.

During my 1980s seven month backpack around the country I only found flowers commonly being sold in Yunnan province and in Guangzhou near Hong Kong. China was still too conservative about bourgeois self-indulgent things like colourful flowers for the rest of the nation to dare have them in their homes, potted or cut. It was of course also a question of money, the country was still extremely poor and few could afford extravagant luxuries - ration coupons for food staples were actively in use and 1,2 and 5 fen notes were still considered important (they were phased out eventually in 2006 the first year we moved permanently to China). 

Little by little, China, the Chinese economy and the Chinese consciousness opened wider and wider and today few foreigners (or for that matter young Chinese) anywhere in China can imagine a day without a riot of flowers and colour. Florists in Chengdu are now chockablock and wonderful flower markets like Sanshenghuaxiang can be found all over the country, selling the most incredible flowers for - in our foreign minds - ridiculously low prices. Qinshiqiao, like almost all other street markets that undergo renovation/reconstruction (I call it "market economy reschooling") by the government has unfortunately lost most of its former charm. Almost everyday I remind myself that China in a thousand ways has become a much more pleasant country to live and work in - especially for the Chinese themselves, who had to live through every depressing, constricting blue-grey second of the past and who today surely find it a better place to be. 

Thankfully, bicycle sellers still exist in Chengdu, cycling around town with their lovely flowers fresh in from the countryside. Soon enough though I will have to let go of this colourful feature of everyday life and let it fade into the past, as today it is only the poorest of the poor who do these jobs and I would prefer that they too could take a step into the bright, colourful world of a better economy and everyday life. 

Panda Card

Today we went and got five "Panda Cards" for each member of our family and my mother who is visiting from Sweden. They only cost 1 yuan a piece. We had to show our passports, but didn't need to do anything else. We got Gold Cards (there are silver cards too) that supposedly allow us free entry to eleven tourist spots in and around Chengdu. The cards are good until the end of the year. As yet I don't know if we can use them for multiple entry or for one entry only to each site. But even one entry is a considerable saving for a family of five. We got our cards at a local Hongqi store but they are available all over the city, at the airport, at tourist sites etc . In addition to this card many tourist sights in Chengdu will be open to all for free on the anniversary of the May 12th Earthquake. During the month of May tourists sights will also be heavily discounted. 

Information from the Sichuan Government website:

Chengdu Issues 20 Million “Panda Cards” of Tourist Consumption

　　Chengdu, for the first time, issued tourist consumption cards——“panda cards” to domestic visitors on Mar 24. From Mar. 24 to Dec. 31 this year, 11 key state-owned scenic spots in Chengdu will provide free or discounted entrance to card holders. “Panda cards” have two kinds: “gold panda cards” and “silver panda cards”. “Gold panda card” holders enjoy free entrance to the 11 scenic spots in Chengdu while “silver panda card” holders enjoy 50% discount. These 11 scenic spots are: Dujiang Dam, Mount Qingcheng, Xiling Snow Mountain, ski resort on Xiling Snow Mountain, Wuhou Temple, Du Fu’s Thatched Cottage, Jinsha Site Museum, Yongling Mausoleum Museum, Giant Panda Breeding Base, Liu’s Manor and Mount Tiantai. 

　　As planned, Chengdu will issue 15 million “gold panda cards” to tourists from other provinces as well as 5 million “silver panda cards” to tourists from within the province. It is preliminarily calculated that the sum of the entrance charge for the 11 scenic spots amounts to 708 yuan, and it is estimated that the discounted and exempted sum of the entrance fee will reach over 12 billion yuan in total for the whole year. Yesterday Chengdu issued “panda cards” to more than 10 representatives at the National Sugar and Wine Trade Fair, and 500,000 “panda cards” to the club members of Southwest Airline of Air China. 

　　For the convenience of tourists to apply for “panda cards”, Chengdu identified 10 ways for issuance, including cooperation with tourist departments of other cities in China in issuing cards; distribution by the Airlines to their members; issuing at the commercial bank branches and offices; downloading from the website or printing temporary electronic cards and converting them to real cards in Chengdu; and issuing cards at the airport, train stations, expressway entrances in Chengdu as well as gates of scenic spots.

　　◆ Linkage

　　Apart from the reduction or exemption of entrance fees, “panda card” also has the following functions:

　　“Preferential discount”: card holders will enjoy the discount in the member units of “Best Travel Alliances”, which has currently attracted more than 300 tourism-related enterprises within Sichuan as their members. 

　　“Recharge”: card holders can recharge cards for use in the member units of “Best Travel Alliances”; and 

“Point collection”: card holders can be rewarded with points according to the sum of money spent with the cards, and the collection of points will bring prizes or gifts.

Sunshine in Chengdu! The dogs are howling!

Polka dot visor and the Chengdu speciality - the bicycle umbrella clamp!

A big envelope will do when leaving the office.

Monks throw their robes over their heads.

Even boys are vain and don't want their forearms to get burnt.

Shades the size of deep sea turtles. Watch those arms though!

Solar topi hat and white gloves. A little Japanese me thinks.

Darth Vader style face guard. 

All photos ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

"Shu dogs bark when the sun comes out", 蜀犬吠日 (shǔquǎnfèirì) is a very old local Sichuanese saying that implies that it is so unusual to see the sun that even a dog considers it a stranger. Well, I didn't actually hear any dogs barking today (other than the pesky little mutt that barks everyday in our garden at the Wuhou Mingyuan) but the sun has really been shining! Winter ended with two weeks of spring then rapidly segued into full blast summer. It's wonderful but getting hotter by the minute. The Chinese are scared of the sun (dark skin is considered lower class and infoerior) and want as little of it as possible to touch their precious whitey-white skin so all kinds of preventive measures are taken as you can see above. Here in Chengdu we also have a very practical bicycle invention whereby you can attach your umbrella to the handlebar, rain or shine. I remember with fondness the beautiful ladies of Vietnam buzzing by on their motorcycles wearing long white opera gloves! I think it's time for me to go out onto the balcony and give a shout at the sun.

Pickled bullfrog

©Paddy Booz

On Sunday we went to Jia Jönsson's 40th birthday party at Pinde Bar, in the (since last year) newly deconstructed/reconstructed Kuanzhai Xiangzi in Chengdu. Pinde Bar specializes in western food and a wide selection of imported and domestic beers. The food was just fine, but our eyes quickly latched onto the buffet sign for pào jiāo niú wā 泡椒牛蛙: pickled bullfrog. This particular dish is for bullfrog in a kind of Sichuan chili-pepper pickle sauce. I seem to remember that I prefer my bullfrog in a French cream sauce but last time I ate bullfrog was in 1969 so I'm not too clear about it.

# 58 Today's picture Goldfish

Goldfish kites, Jinli Street, Chengdu 090414 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

Fisken är en av de vanligaste och viktigaste symbolerna i Kina, laddad med löftet om rikedom, överflöd och välstånd då alla delar samma uttal, yu. Fisken har avbildats genom hela Kinas historia eftersom den alltid har varit en betydande näringskälla. En landsdel som har ett överflöd av rikedomar kallas för "fisk- och rislandet", (yú mǐ zhī xiāng 鱼米之乡) . Guldfisken (jīn yú 金鱼), som här avbildad på två drakar, är den ultimata penningsymbolen. Jīn 金 betyder guld och fisk, yú 鱼, rimmar på överflöd, yù 裕, med andra ord "ett överflöd av guld". Därför ser man ofta en skål med guldfiskar placerad vid affärskassan, eller enorma krus och till och med fiskedammar fulla av guldfiskar eller koikarpar i hotelll och flotta restauranger. 

Deformed man end place

Chengdu 090409 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

When I left to fly to Beijing on Thursday this was the sign that met me in the woman's bathroom at Shuangliu Airport here in Chengdu (handicap toilet). The Chinese is: cán jí rén zhuān wèi: cán jí rén = handicapped or disabled person (jí is sickness or disease) and zhuān (for a particular person) wèi (place or position). I didn't know whether I should cry or laugh.

What is a man doing in the woman's bathroom anyway?

# 56 Today's Picture 090406

Chewing the fat at the teahouse in the People's Park, Chengdu, Sichuan 2006 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn