Summer is finally over. It disappeared in an apocalyptic half' hour yesterday arvo. And it's about time. They call September's sweatiness the 'Autumn Tiger' in China - a summer that annoyingly hangs around like a drunk, lecherous headmaster at a Scandanavian Schoolgirls' Leavers Party. To be fair, the summer here in Shangers began far later than I had expected. It didn't start to get uncomfortably hot until the last 10 days of June - and between March and May it was positively pleseant temperature-wise. But, God, those of us who have learned to love the crisp cool days of September in the west cannot expect to enjoy the same climatic privleges here in the Orient.
But what a way to go. In a moment of Wednesday afternoon madness, the bright blue sky retreated across Shanghai's crenellated skyline and fled south. From the north came the front. I have never seen anything like it. From the 29th floor of the Zhaofeng Plaza, the city looked as if it was being sucked into a black hole. Buildings just disappeared. It was 3.45pm and as dark as it probably would be at about 2am during the winter solstice in the Artic Circle. Only without the bright, twinkling stars. The rains duly came, hammered the windows like a car wash and by 4.15pm or so, decided they'd had enough and left. Leaving work some hours later was, quite literally, a breath of fresh air.
And so it passed that today, for the first time since June, I didn't arrive at work with a back as soaked as Ian Thorpe's after a morning dip. Knowing that I don't have to experience that now for another nine months is very comforting. Summer is a season to endure in this part of the world. Knowing it's over, with only icy wind, cobalt skies and chilly mornings to come, is frankly, brilliant.
The picture at the top, by the way, wasn't taken on Wednesday. It was taken back in July from my apartment window, during the only comparable storm that I can remember this summer. There's been plenty of storms - as well as two or three typhoons - but only a couple where the sky has literally smothered the earth right down to grass level. The pic doesn't do it justice. But, well, putting a some kind of picture there is surely a far more respectable than writing the words 'hardcore porn', 'prostitution' and 'lesbian nymphs' in a desperate attempt to get more hits for this blog. The pic below that is how the view should look, and the one below that a particularly wierd red evening glow back in June (this shot has NOT been altered in photoshop!). Ah, the Shanghai weather. Some of the best in China. Scarey thing is, I'm not joking. Give me this over Chongqing or Guangdong anyday!
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Friday, September 16, 2005
The World Has Gone Mad
The world has come mad. Shanghai, in particular, has gone mad. My fiance had seen what I saw tonight before. She didn't even mention it during the dinner table conversation that evening. I can't stand by and do the same. I want to rage, I want to scream. I want to tell them to stop.
'They', in this instance, are the inisidiously devious, cunning, filthy purveyors of clever new ways of dulling our senses, corrupting our minds and collapsing our souls. In a word, advertisers. Us, well, we are the consuming public - the voracious Shanghai middle class. Dunno if you've noticed but 'they' have begun sending middle aged men onto the streets of Xujiahui with television screens strapped to their back. The men in question are made to wear James Belushi-style dark glasses and bizarre silver space suits. They walk very, very, very slowly. They don't speak, and they certainly don't smile.
Sometimes, they head out in groups. They walk down pavements, over bridges and across squares three abreast. People stop to stare. They notice the bright, flickering images and they stand, and stare, like monkeys. What in the world have we come to? Men - middle-aged, decent, upstanding respectable men (presumably who have no money or job) - are being turned into deaf, drumb, blind and mute vehicles for advertising. This is sick. This is really sick.
I hate Shanghai sometimes. I hate the fact that this happens and, as far as i am aware (which isn't very far given that I can't read Chinese fluently), there's very little debate or discussion about it. There are flat screens in the lift of my office block. There are flat screens on the underground trains. There are flat screens on the buses and even in the headrests of the front passenger seats in some taxis. And they all show the same things - endless, relentless adverts for sexy new products, featuring sexy young things with Nivea-clear skin and smiles that can ping open a wallet at a glance. Yeah, yeah, sometimes, to appease those finger-wagging do-gooding champions of education and progress, they show 'language' programmes, public information notices or something that can be classed as 'good for the children'. But increasingly, they are working for one master. Big business.
I argued with my fiance on the way home about all of this. She thought I had gone mad. She said it was wonderful. It was information, provided for free. We would be told what products were available. No-one was holding a gun to our heads. We didn't have to buy. I told her she was naive. I told her human beings are animals. We respond to simple stimuii. We can't just look away. If it's bright, and colourful and flashing, we will look. And the message creeps into our heads. It becomes normalised. It happens in our subconscious. And the message is: in order to be happy, in order to look like that handsome pop star, in order to belong - we really should think about buying something. Consume, consume, consume. And when you've had your fill and there's a bitter taste in the mouth, make yourself sick, chunder it up and find something else to gorge yourself on.
To coin a phrase: that's Shanghai.
'They', in this instance, are the inisidiously devious, cunning, filthy purveyors of clever new ways of dulling our senses, corrupting our minds and collapsing our souls. In a word, advertisers. Us, well, we are the consuming public - the voracious Shanghai middle class. Dunno if you've noticed but 'they' have begun sending middle aged men onto the streets of Xujiahui with television screens strapped to their back. The men in question are made to wear James Belushi-style dark glasses and bizarre silver space suits. They walk very, very, very slowly. They don't speak, and they certainly don't smile.
Sometimes, they head out in groups. They walk down pavements, over bridges and across squares three abreast. People stop to stare. They notice the bright, flickering images and they stand, and stare, like monkeys. What in the world have we come to? Men - middle-aged, decent, upstanding respectable men (presumably who have no money or job) - are being turned into deaf, drumb, blind and mute vehicles for advertising. This is sick. This is really sick.
I hate Shanghai sometimes. I hate the fact that this happens and, as far as i am aware (which isn't very far given that I can't read Chinese fluently), there's very little debate or discussion about it. There are flat screens in the lift of my office block. There are flat screens on the underground trains. There are flat screens on the buses and even in the headrests of the front passenger seats in some taxis. And they all show the same things - endless, relentless adverts for sexy new products, featuring sexy young things with Nivea-clear skin and smiles that can ping open a wallet at a glance. Yeah, yeah, sometimes, to appease those finger-wagging do-gooding champions of education and progress, they show 'language' programmes, public information notices or something that can be classed as 'good for the children'. But increasingly, they are working for one master. Big business.
I argued with my fiance on the way home about all of this. She thought I had gone mad. She said it was wonderful. It was information, provided for free. We would be told what products were available. No-one was holding a gun to our heads. We didn't have to buy. I told her she was naive. I told her human beings are animals. We respond to simple stimuii. We can't just look away. If it's bright, and colourful and flashing, we will look. And the message creeps into our heads. It becomes normalised. It happens in our subconscious. And the message is: in order to be happy, in order to look like that handsome pop star, in order to belong - we really should think about buying something. Consume, consume, consume. And when you've had your fill and there's a bitter taste in the mouth, make yourself sick, chunder it up and find something else to gorge yourself on.
To coin a phrase: that's Shanghai.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Military Secrets
After a 'free' breakfast, taken in the staff quarters of the completely empty hotel, we decide to head to the port to take a boat trip to Changdao County. The hotel reception staff had recommended it. It's essentially a series of islands which stretch north of Penglai, towards the Liaoning Peninsula and Dalian. They're famed for sandy beaches and great karst cliffs that soar up out of the sea. There are small communities - hotels and restaurants included - on the main island of Changdao, but there are scores of smaller deserted islands to explore.
Or there are if you are Chinese. At Penglai's port I get looks, sniggers and outlandish 'Hulllloooooooooos' as if I was the first foreigner ever sighted here. And it's not long before I find out why. At the front of a very short queue to buy two passenger tickets on the regular Changdao ferry, my fiance is told that foreigners are not allowed to visit the islands. She points us in the direction of a sign which, high up on the walll, declares that: 'Changdao is non-open region of the People's Republic of China'.
I had heard about this kind of stuff before I first came to China in January 2002. Through the eighties and nineties, much of the country was apparently off-limits to outsiders. Gradually these laws had been sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially, repealed to the point, now, where I was fairly sure there were no more 'non-open' places remaining. I was clearly wrong. Outside, we ask the most friendly-looking of a bunch of policeman why this is. He explains, rather tersely, that there are military bases on Changdao. This is an invasion point of old, I guess, and sensitivities remains now - the first line of defence against possible attacks from Korea and - especially - Japan. It's fine for Chinese, but no potential spies allowed. It's all very Cold War.
We head back to Yantai in an effort to get a connecting bus to Weihai, 60 kilometres to the east. On our way to the bus station we pass this vineyard on pengquan lu bang in the middle of a residential/industrial park. It's a strange sight. I hop out of the cab, grab and grape and suck the flesh out. Sour...
On the route out of town, just as a bumpy road leads up a gutter and, directly, onto an eight land highway, our bus passes a huge sign. 'Penglai', it declares, 'International City of Peace'. So peaceful that half of is off-limits, in order to ensure more of it.
The planned onward journey to Weihai proves a step too far so we opt instead to head to Kaifa Qu, a long stretch of beach to the west of Yantai - a newly developed area that two separate taxis drivers had previously declared was the 'best in Yantai' - cleanest, most peaceful etc.etc. We get a third of the way there before our current dirver declares the beach is dirty and spoilt. This is what I hate about China. It would be easier if people said, 'Listen, tell the turth mate, I've never been there....I haven't got a clue.' If people expressed doubt, it would be better. But no, everyone has definite answers on any question you dare ask. This man is in no doubt whatsoever, Kaifa Qu, the area declared so beautiful two days ago, is now a dirty, cramped little hell-hole. We turn around and embark on a long, expensive journey around town, looking for a hotel that suitably luxurious. After three days of budgetting, I need to experience how the other half live, if only so I can write about it.
We eventually settle for a room on the second floor of the Oriental Ocean Hotel, about 1 km to the west of the Marina Hotel. The hotel is three star but the room is, genuinely, five-star standard. There a sea view, a huge big bathroom with power shower and a lovely soft double bed. We can even watch cable on the gigantic TV, of which more of that later.
The afternoon is spent in a wander around a residential area just to the south of Nan Da Jie. Above is a perfect blue sky but we are down in the shadows of fairly scruffy 80s apartment blocks. But the atmosphere down here is anything but dull. Yesterday my sandals snapped as I walked up Penglai Pagoda. Today they will be fixed. On a street corner, we find of China's last breed of 'Mr Fix Its'. If anything is broken, this man will mend it. For 10 RMB, I hand him both sandals and he prods, levers, stitches and threads making them sturdy and wearable once more. I watch him work while sipping a 1.5 RMB glass of beer. The chap on the market stall across the street has about three kegs piled high. He doesn't mind that I take the glass away, on the strict understand I bring it back. This is fantastic.
While I am sitting there, watching this marvellous gentleman work, four other customers roll up. Each one wants something different done. One lady wants two strings of beads attached to a pair of high heels. Another lady wants a button fixed on her jeans. Another has an issue with a zip. This man, with dirty hands and dirty nails, is a total legend. I only wish I could do what he does. They are a dying breed, I fear. Soon nobody will bother fixing stuff. China will become rich and wasteful, like most of the rest of us. For now though - in my eyes at least - this man is single handedly saving the planet.
After an obligatory saturday afternoon hair wash, we head to the beach. The light is beautiful and the beach is packed. Saturdays are when the masses descend. It's not much good for feeling like Robinsoe Crusoe but, then again, you'd probably work out you weren't a paradisical desert island from the fact Celine Dion is still bloody crooning over the plaza's PA.Tthough busy, it's a beautifully atmospheric scene. There are kids playing with buckets and spades in the sand. Youngster tiptoe their way through the rockpool. Familes lounge on sunbeds, young lovers walk barefoot, hand in hand hawkers sell seashell necklaces and there are big rubber rings for hire. Down by the Marina, a group of men play beach volleyball as the sun dips down (see above).
Down here, where its quieter, various people have inscribed poems into the sand, written in beautiful Chinese calligraphy. This is the Chinese seaside. And it's jolly charming.
Just across the road is our old hotel - the Haibin Lou - looking as shabby as ever. It feels like an age ago that we were last there. Next to it is a hotel for the local military and just to the east again there are several barracks and training areas built into the hillside. Sunday evening is obviously drill-duty time. Above the beach cacophony - the laughing and splashing and the idiots advertising via megaphones - it's possible to hear the chanting of hundreds of soliders. Across the way at the Marina, a thousand suits are pouring out of the front gate. A sign, writ large, declares 'Amway Conference'. All in all, It's quite a bizarre Saturday scene.
We go for cocktails on the 25th floor (the top one) of the Marina Hotel. The sun is just bedding down into the orange haze above the knobbly skyline. It's a great sport to look across the city and out to sea. The cocktail - a Blue Hawaii - is a little dodgy but, no matter, this is the cocktail spot for lovers of the high life in Yantai. There are no seaside villas with private plunge pools or other signifier of high luxury but this feels just as good.
Tonight we eat a huge seafood platter at the Songdao Korean restaurant on Erma lu. The Korean owners, Shang and Amy, both speak great English having lived in California for a time. The food is REAL seafood, and not for the feint hearted. Raw scallops, pigs intenstines (not quite sure how that made it into the platter), firey Thai-style seafood soups etc. The size is immense, the quality superb and the presentation as good as I've ever seen it in China. A really great find.
Afterwards, we wander up steep hilly seaside streets. All is quiet. After the chaos of Shanghai at nighttime, this is just heaven. We head into an internet bar. Nothing particulalry noteworthy other than to say that Yantai has the least smoky internet bars in all of China. Normally, the price for sending an email or two is 2 RMB and a decade worth of lung damage. Yantai's folk are far more civilised, though I wasn't too sure about the blaring techno version of 90s Cathy Denis pop hits that one guy felt the need to share with the whole room.
Back in our hotel room, there's an awful American show on TV. It's called The Swan and involves two women, deliberately made to look ugly, fat, weepy and neurotic, being made beautiful again by a team of very concerned-looking Nick Riviera-style 'experts'. Each gets to work on the two patients: with knife (surgery), with pyschobabble (counselling) and with pliers (the dentist). They batter these women into shape. The gals emerge three months later looking blonde, slim and disgusting. Everyone claps and the annoying Scottish presenter - herself a glamour puss and a half - grabs the ladies by the the hands and tells them they are now 'just simply gorgeous'. The women are asked what they have learned and inevitably respond by saying: 'Well Jessica, I've learned to love myself again.' Everyone dabs a tear from their eyes. And then, of course, there has to be a contest. They experts 'vote' on who has made the greatest transformation. The name is drawn out of an envelope. Lots of faux drama and, lo-and-behold, the big busted blondest bimbo wins. It's absolutely f-c-u-k ing sick. This is why I left my homeland. Big Brother in the UK was bad enough. This is horrifying. An unsettling end to a very pleasant day.
And, of course, a very pleasant trip. I fly back to Shanghai tomorrow. It's expecting a typhoon. And I will leave a Shangdong that, certainly for at least four days, hasn't seen a single cloud in the sky. The best way I think I can sum up Yantai is to describe it as a cross between Bournemouth / Brighton (you might need to be English to get this reference) and Macau. The seaside isn't glamorous or gorgeous, but genuine and full of character - and sounds and smells. The beer is wonderfully cheap, the seafood sumptuous, the wine ok-ish (at least there is a 'wine culture', more than can be said of most places in China), the history fascinating, the accommodation options varied - occasionally classy - and the atmosphere friendly and laid-back. It's less humid, less crowded and more relaxed than Qingdao (soooo last year). And best of all, it's only an 800 RMB return fare on Spring. Surely the next batch of maurauding outsiders (following in the footsteps of the Japanese and British) to descend on Yantai should be Shanghainese.
Or there are if you are Chinese. At Penglai's port I get looks, sniggers and outlandish 'Hulllloooooooooos' as if I was the first foreigner ever sighted here. And it's not long before I find out why. At the front of a very short queue to buy two passenger tickets on the regular Changdao ferry, my fiance is told that foreigners are not allowed to visit the islands. She points us in the direction of a sign which, high up on the walll, declares that: 'Changdao is non-open region of the People's Republic of China'.
I had heard about this kind of stuff before I first came to China in January 2002. Through the eighties and nineties, much of the country was apparently off-limits to outsiders. Gradually these laws had been sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially, repealed to the point, now, where I was fairly sure there were no more 'non-open' places remaining. I was clearly wrong. Outside, we ask the most friendly-looking of a bunch of policeman why this is. He explains, rather tersely, that there are military bases on Changdao. This is an invasion point of old, I guess, and sensitivities remains now - the first line of defence against possible attacks from Korea and - especially - Japan. It's fine for Chinese, but no potential spies allowed. It's all very Cold War.
We head back to Yantai in an effort to get a connecting bus to Weihai, 60 kilometres to the east. On our way to the bus station we pass this vineyard on pengquan lu bang in the middle of a residential/industrial park. It's a strange sight. I hop out of the cab, grab and grape and suck the flesh out. Sour...
On the route out of town, just as a bumpy road leads up a gutter and, directly, onto an eight land highway, our bus passes a huge sign. 'Penglai', it declares, 'International City of Peace'. So peaceful that half of is off-limits, in order to ensure more of it.
The planned onward journey to Weihai proves a step too far so we opt instead to head to Kaifa Qu, a long stretch of beach to the west of Yantai - a newly developed area that two separate taxis drivers had previously declared was the 'best in Yantai' - cleanest, most peaceful etc.etc. We get a third of the way there before our current dirver declares the beach is dirty and spoilt. This is what I hate about China. It would be easier if people said, 'Listen, tell the turth mate, I've never been there....I haven't got a clue.' If people expressed doubt, it would be better. But no, everyone has definite answers on any question you dare ask. This man is in no doubt whatsoever, Kaifa Qu, the area declared so beautiful two days ago, is now a dirty, cramped little hell-hole. We turn around and embark on a long, expensive journey around town, looking for a hotel that suitably luxurious. After three days of budgetting, I need to experience how the other half live, if only so I can write about it.
We eventually settle for a room on the second floor of the Oriental Ocean Hotel, about 1 km to the west of the Marina Hotel. The hotel is three star but the room is, genuinely, five-star standard. There a sea view, a huge big bathroom with power shower and a lovely soft double bed. We can even watch cable on the gigantic TV, of which more of that later.
The afternoon is spent in a wander around a residential area just to the south of Nan Da Jie. Above is a perfect blue sky but we are down in the shadows of fairly scruffy 80s apartment blocks. But the atmosphere down here is anything but dull. Yesterday my sandals snapped as I walked up Penglai Pagoda. Today they will be fixed. On a street corner, we find of China's last breed of 'Mr Fix Its'. If anything is broken, this man will mend it. For 10 RMB, I hand him both sandals and he prods, levers, stitches and threads making them sturdy and wearable once more. I watch him work while sipping a 1.5 RMB glass of beer. The chap on the market stall across the street has about three kegs piled high. He doesn't mind that I take the glass away, on the strict understand I bring it back. This is fantastic.
While I am sitting there, watching this marvellous gentleman work, four other customers roll up. Each one wants something different done. One lady wants two strings of beads attached to a pair of high heels. Another lady wants a button fixed on her jeans. Another has an issue with a zip. This man, with dirty hands and dirty nails, is a total legend. I only wish I could do what he does. They are a dying breed, I fear. Soon nobody will bother fixing stuff. China will become rich and wasteful, like most of the rest of us. For now though - in my eyes at least - this man is single handedly saving the planet.
After an obligatory saturday afternoon hair wash, we head to the beach. The light is beautiful and the beach is packed. Saturdays are when the masses descend. It's not much good for feeling like Robinsoe Crusoe but, then again, you'd probably work out you weren't a paradisical desert island from the fact Celine Dion is still bloody crooning over the plaza's PA.Tthough busy, it's a beautifully atmospheric scene. There are kids playing with buckets and spades in the sand. Youngster tiptoe their way through the rockpool. Familes lounge on sunbeds, young lovers walk barefoot, hand in hand hawkers sell seashell necklaces and there are big rubber rings for hire. Down by the Marina, a group of men play beach volleyball as the sun dips down (see above).
Down here, where its quieter, various people have inscribed poems into the sand, written in beautiful Chinese calligraphy. This is the Chinese seaside. And it's jolly charming.
Just across the road is our old hotel - the Haibin Lou - looking as shabby as ever. It feels like an age ago that we were last there. Next to it is a hotel for the local military and just to the east again there are several barracks and training areas built into the hillside. Sunday evening is obviously drill-duty time. Above the beach cacophony - the laughing and splashing and the idiots advertising via megaphones - it's possible to hear the chanting of hundreds of soliders. Across the way at the Marina, a thousand suits are pouring out of the front gate. A sign, writ large, declares 'Amway Conference'. All in all, It's quite a bizarre Saturday scene.
We go for cocktails on the 25th floor (the top one) of the Marina Hotel. The sun is just bedding down into the orange haze above the knobbly skyline. It's a great sport to look across the city and out to sea. The cocktail - a Blue Hawaii - is a little dodgy but, no matter, this is the cocktail spot for lovers of the high life in Yantai. There are no seaside villas with private plunge pools or other signifier of high luxury but this feels just as good.
Tonight we eat a huge seafood platter at the Songdao Korean restaurant on Erma lu. The Korean owners, Shang and Amy, both speak great English having lived in California for a time. The food is REAL seafood, and not for the feint hearted. Raw scallops, pigs intenstines (not quite sure how that made it into the platter), firey Thai-style seafood soups etc. The size is immense, the quality superb and the presentation as good as I've ever seen it in China. A really great find.
Afterwards, we wander up steep hilly seaside streets. All is quiet. After the chaos of Shanghai at nighttime, this is just heaven. We head into an internet bar. Nothing particulalry noteworthy other than to say that Yantai has the least smoky internet bars in all of China. Normally, the price for sending an email or two is 2 RMB and a decade worth of lung damage. Yantai's folk are far more civilised, though I wasn't too sure about the blaring techno version of 90s Cathy Denis pop hits that one guy felt the need to share with the whole room.
Back in our hotel room, there's an awful American show on TV. It's called The Swan and involves two women, deliberately made to look ugly, fat, weepy and neurotic, being made beautiful again by a team of very concerned-looking Nick Riviera-style 'experts'. Each gets to work on the two patients: with knife (surgery), with pyschobabble (counselling) and with pliers (the dentist). They batter these women into shape. The gals emerge three months later looking blonde, slim and disgusting. Everyone claps and the annoying Scottish presenter - herself a glamour puss and a half - grabs the ladies by the the hands and tells them they are now 'just simply gorgeous'. The women are asked what they have learned and inevitably respond by saying: 'Well Jessica, I've learned to love myself again.' Everyone dabs a tear from their eyes. And then, of course, there has to be a contest. They experts 'vote' on who has made the greatest transformation. The name is drawn out of an envelope. Lots of faux drama and, lo-and-behold, the big busted blondest bimbo wins. It's absolutely f-c-u-k ing sick. This is why I left my homeland. Big Brother in the UK was bad enough. This is horrifying. An unsettling end to a very pleasant day.
And, of course, a very pleasant trip. I fly back to Shanghai tomorrow. It's expecting a typhoon. And I will leave a Shangdong that, certainly for at least four days, hasn't seen a single cloud in the sky. The best way I think I can sum up Yantai is to describe it as a cross between Bournemouth / Brighton (you might need to be English to get this reference) and Macau. The seaside isn't glamorous or gorgeous, but genuine and full of character - and sounds and smells. The beer is wonderfully cheap, the seafood sumptuous, the wine ok-ish (at least there is a 'wine culture', more than can be said of most places in China), the history fascinating, the accommodation options varied - occasionally classy - and the atmosphere friendly and laid-back. It's less humid, less crowded and more relaxed than Qingdao (soooo last year). And best of all, it's only an 800 RMB return fare on Spring. Surely the next batch of maurauding outsiders (following in the footsteps of the Japanese and British) to descend on Yantai should be Shanghainese.
Friday, September 09, 2005
Penglai
Up at 7.30am to do some yoga on the beach. I’m used to having to do it in my bedroom, with the maniacal beeps from below my Shanghai window forcing their way into my consciousness as I try to breathe-in-breathe-out, breathe-in, breathe-out. This, by contrast, is wonderful. The sand is slightly sloping but the tide is out and the bit next to the sea is wonderfully packed. I can hear the ocean lapping the shore as I stretch. There’s a middle aged man who runs past, again and again, looking a little less fatigued each time he passes. His body is bronzed and muscles taut. I am white and pasty and, what with this office life that I now lead, belly-heavy. All the same, with the sun creeping up from around the mighty Marina Hotel and caressing my shoulders, I don’t really care.
I’ve always marveled at the way nobody stops to marvel at people doing Tai Chi in China. Old ladies who, by rights, should be wearing knotted handkerchiefs on their heads and mumbling through toothless gums, can be elegantly swirling and stretching, hopping and sweeping underneath a city centre underpass and still no-one will bat an eyelid at the incongruity of it all.
Yet I stand still in the tadasana on a Shandong beach and everyone stops to stare. The Chinese like to stare. They are unabashed starers. If you stare at them staring at you, they’ll just carry right on staring. When you are trying to practice the Tree pose and trying to focus your mind, entering an eyeballing contest with a Chinaman becomes a dangerous game.
A little dip in the ocean follows. Oh, the joy of waking up, stretching ones limbs in the morning sun and splashing about a little in the great blue ocean! What life is it I lead in Shanghai? Living in a 79 square-metre box, hammering a keyboard and clicking a mouse all day in a 40-storey office block? When I could be doing this. Yantai isn’t Male. The Bohai isn’t the Andaman. But this is elemental, this is spiritual, this is good for me.
Some might be put off by the fact Yantai is a port town - all those big boats polluting the seawater with oil etc. I don't believe that. A port town is romantic. Port town's suggest escape. They are cosmopolitan. There are Korean signs on all of the shops and Russian-looking sailors loitering around the markets. Fundamentally, there is nothing like swimming in the sea, your perspective warped and looking across the waves to a huge tanker, so far away on the gloupy horizon and yet still so big. It's on the edge of the world, and yet rears up like a colossus. From this angle, they look like giant spacecraft. Not only are there different countries somewhere out there, beyond the horzon - there's whole new worlds. That's what swimming in the sea at a port town does to you.
Checking out of the Haibin Lou is one of the easier departures I’ve ever made. Today we plan to head to the town of Penglai, 65 kilometres north west. First stop though is the Yantai Museum on Nan Da Jie. We may not have been able to persuade the Marina to shout us a freebie but we can sure as hell convince the old gentleman holding guard at the museum gate that we are worthy enough. The usual entrance charge may only be 5 RMB but, well, what the hell, it’s nice to get a little respect. The fact that he clearly cannot read the magazine that I hand to him is by the by.
The museum isn’t exactly essential to the Yantai experience, though it’s not without redeeming features. The feel, and design, is that of a temple courtyard. In the centre there is an impressive wooden gate, supported by 14 pillars with scores of carved and painted dragons, animals, flowers and murals depicting battle scenes and folk stories. Around the edge of the well-kept courtyard are various display rooms displaying ancient finds in the Yantai district. There are veyr few English descriptions. It’s a peaceful spot, but then again the whole town is fairly peaceful.
The journey to Penglai takes about 80 minutes. The bus passes the Changyu winery about 20 minutes outside town, where it’s possible to take a vineyard tour. Buses can drop off passengers on the way but talk to the driver in advance for confirmation. Beyond the vineyard there are yet more vineyards. An incredible eight lane highway passess out of an industrial belt and into hazy rolling hills. Changyu isn't the only wine maker to have concurred with the French. Great Wall also have huge billboards next to the roadside and the land on either side of the road is filled with grapes. Occasionally there are glimpses of the sea beyond the fields. Another sign declares that Penglai is one of the 'top seven seaside wine growing locations IN THE WORLD!'. The Chinese love to stare, and they also love to categorise so tenuously that any given plot of land in the great republic can be described as 'one of the world's top ten' in some obscure class. This is no exception.
Don’t be put off by the scene around Penglai bus station. It's grim. I intially resolve only to see the 'sights' as quickly as possible and get the hell out as quickly as possible. But my mind is quickly changed.
We hop onto a three-wheel moto-taxi - Penglai's equivalent of tuk-tuks. Our driver is a very kindly, frail elderly gent but he revs his engine like a good'un. We whizz to Penglai's Ocean Aquarium, an impressive great blue hulk of a building set amid inauspicious surrounds. Entry is 120 RMB so we laugh that idea off. Next to the former residence of Qi Jiguang, the second of Penglai's four tourist draws (according to the driver). Mr Qi was a Chinese national hero of the 16th century. He was born in Penglai and spent much of his life keeping China clear of Japanese pirates. He beat them to a pulp here in Shandong and then chased them down the east coast when they moved onto pastures new. After more than 20 years of this, he was then transferred to the northern front and fought of the Mongol hoardes at the Great Wall, assisting in the reconstruction in large swathes of it at the same time. All in all, a bit of a legend. His home is a beautiful spot and, once again, it's completely empty. It's possible to walk around the most interesting bits of it for free. Two genuine Ming dynasty gates stand at either end of a long avenue, lined by trees and flowers. There are a couple of early 20th cenutry churches close to the entrance too. The beautiful curled roofs of the Mr Qi's internal residential compound lie to the north. The view through the trees, across the roofs is more than good enough for me to feel justified in not paying the 20 RMB or so entrance charge.
Next to the 'Eight Immortals Ocean Crossing' area - a fantastical complex built on reclaimed land at the east end of Penglai's curved sandy bay. The complex comprises two huge pools, at the centre of which stands a huge pagoda and a palace, respectively. The whole thing juts out into the ocean. Entry is 40 RMB. The eight immortals, born of an ancient Taoist myth, are superheros of Chinese folk legends - models for those who want to find a more spiritual way of living. In the days before mortals could reach it, Penglai was the home of these eight immortals. This was their heavenly resting place, their having renounced the material world and crossed the sea. Here, in their final destination, they were surrounded by peach blossom and coral trees. These days things are a little less paradisical. Tens of tour buses are parked up when we arrive and there is a constant throng coming in and out of the main gate. A man on the door spends five minutes trying to persuade me to go in, which smacks either of desperate to practice his English, or pure greed. It's not like they need the business. He says we can entere here and then pay 20 RMB extra to get a speedboat across the bay and see the other of Penglai's famous ancient complexes - the Penglai Pagoda. 'No we can't enter the pagoda' he says, 'but we can get pictures so it's as good as.' I hate this about China. There are two major tourist attractions, both fairly impressive, competing with each other in a really aggressive manner. Private interests clearly are at stake somewhere, which is a shame. For this kind of stuff should be of the people, for the people - surely. Or is that just me being naive?
So we refuse and head to the final attraction - the Penglai Pagoda. We pass Penglai's beautiful sandy beach. It's longer, cleaner and whiter than Yantai's. The pagoda itself is he best preserved part of the huge wall that surrounded the entire city. It's essentially a cliff-top castle, with battlements, gardens and a beautiful landmark lighthouse tower. It's really lovely, despite the crowds. It costs 70 RMB to get in, with a further 18 RMB required if you want to ride the seaside cable car between the pagoda and bell tower, located on a more notherly headland, across yet another pretty little bay. To be honest, the price might irk initially but it's one worth paying. It's a great spot. From the lighthouse I look down onto the sandy beach. Three couples are having their wedding pictures taken in the setting sun. I really can't think of a nicer place to do it.
Half way up to the top of the cliff, there's a makleshift cinema where, for 5 RMB, you can watch a short video of one of Penglai's greatest claims to fame. Every year, or so , the people of Penglai claim that a mirage appears out in the sea, on the horizon opposite the town's sandy bay. I sweep aside a carpet and find myself in a darkened room with cheap wooden benches and walls made of rock. Real old-school. On the screen is video footage of said mirage. Each time the mirage comprises a cityscape, though it's always changing. Sometimes it takes a futuristic form, with lots of towers, in the shape of dumbells on their side - kind of resembling huge power station exhaust chimneys (what's the word I'm after?). Other times, it's like a little island citadel. There are lots of shots of residents standing, looking amazed, pointing out to sea. The video offers no scientific explanation of what's going on. It's all very strange. I'm convinced. Sort of.
A cliffside walkway has been built on the most distant peninsula. Two men stand guard on gates at either end. It's an all ticket affair, though it you have paid to get into the pagoda, you get a 'complimentary' pass. The landscape here is beautiful and the cliffs are equal to those of the Catlins, New Zealand or Southern Ireland. But you can only see them if you pay. This is nature at its best and it's denied anyone who can't afford 70 RMB. It's very, very sad and so typically 'China'. This is a county where in most places 70 RMB represents nearly a week wages. And the greedy tourism officials in Penglai think that it's acceptable to charge that to walk next to some cliffs? It's like asking for, say, 400 quid to enter the county of Cornwall. It's enough to make you sick.
On the way out, we are beckoned into a 360 degree cinema for the last showing of the day. Again, our 70 RMB ticket includes this 'extra'. For little or no reason, they are showing a half-hour clip promotional clip of Hawaii. It was clearly shot in the 1980s, when this kind of dizzying spectacle was common (I can remember being blown away by this kind of thing when I first visited Thorpe Park, a theme park on the outskirts of London, as an eight year old). It's all quite baffling.
Down by the gate to the pagoda, an old man marches up and down a cobbled street, next to the old harbour where speed boats have moored for their night. He stares straight ahead and swings his arms in a military manner. He is singing passionately. Despite his voice being old and croaky - or perhaps because of his voice being old and croaky - the sound is amazingly atmospheric, quite haunting as we go into the gloaming. I ask my fiance what he is singing. She tells me it's an old communist song about fighting and killing the foreign enemies. Up and down the street he marches, back and forth, singing merrily to himself about slaying the capitalist roaders. Oh, if only he could see Shanghai now!
Tonight I drink my free wine over a meal of giant shrimps and fresh crabs in a tiny backstreet restaurant that our secondly elderly tuk-tuk driver for the day leads us to. The food is sensational. The wine isn't.
Tonight we wander down Penglai's main street. It ends at the beach where a giant statue of the eight immortals is illuminated in an array of colours. Off to the left, the Penglai Pagoda is similarly radiant in bright yellow light, to the right, the Eight Immortals Palace appears to be competing for neon grandeur. Locals have gathered on the walls above the beach. Young lovers cuddle up on benches. And down below on the sand, there is something else stirring.
Penglai'ers like their karaoke. And they don't like to hide themselves away when they sing. Lining the beach are a series of karaoke stalls. There's a table, with a huge amplifer there upon. Next to it a TV screen and a little reception desk where walkers can take a browse of the available songs. And what songs. The first one that I come across has, without question, the best selection of songs in all of China. The 200-RMB an hour, huge karaoke emporiums of Shanghai are not a patch on this. I can sing Rape Me, by Nirvana, for heavens sake. Annie Lenox, Led Zeppelin etc.etc. Songs cost 2 RMB a go. It's a buy 10, get one free arrangement. I plonk myself down of the tiny little stools, wriggle my way into the sand to get comfortable and let loose. It's a magical experience. Penglai just gets better and better.
Eventually the crowd drifts off and we are the only ones left. Only now can we hear the sea. My finace and I walk back to our hotel - the Jipeng Bingguan - found after a lot of hoo-ha. There's a complex behind the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea complex called ba xian gu which has a variety of accommodation options. Our room costs RMB 180. It's fantastic. There's a balcony looking out over the trees, a huge TV and two great beds. And the carpet is white as white should be. Penglai is beginning to rival Yantai as the moment. I think I want to stay for a while longer.
I’ve always marveled at the way nobody stops to marvel at people doing Tai Chi in China. Old ladies who, by rights, should be wearing knotted handkerchiefs on their heads and mumbling through toothless gums, can be elegantly swirling and stretching, hopping and sweeping underneath a city centre underpass and still no-one will bat an eyelid at the incongruity of it all.
Yet I stand still in the tadasana on a Shandong beach and everyone stops to stare. The Chinese like to stare. They are unabashed starers. If you stare at them staring at you, they’ll just carry right on staring. When you are trying to practice the Tree pose and trying to focus your mind, entering an eyeballing contest with a Chinaman becomes a dangerous game.
A little dip in the ocean follows. Oh, the joy of waking up, stretching ones limbs in the morning sun and splashing about a little in the great blue ocean! What life is it I lead in Shanghai? Living in a 79 square-metre box, hammering a keyboard and clicking a mouse all day in a 40-storey office block? When I could be doing this. Yantai isn’t Male. The Bohai isn’t the Andaman. But this is elemental, this is spiritual, this is good for me.
Some might be put off by the fact Yantai is a port town - all those big boats polluting the seawater with oil etc. I don't believe that. A port town is romantic. Port town's suggest escape. They are cosmopolitan. There are Korean signs on all of the shops and Russian-looking sailors loitering around the markets. Fundamentally, there is nothing like swimming in the sea, your perspective warped and looking across the waves to a huge tanker, so far away on the gloupy horizon and yet still so big. It's on the edge of the world, and yet rears up like a colossus. From this angle, they look like giant spacecraft. Not only are there different countries somewhere out there, beyond the horzon - there's whole new worlds. That's what swimming in the sea at a port town does to you.
Checking out of the Haibin Lou is one of the easier departures I’ve ever made. Today we plan to head to the town of Penglai, 65 kilometres north west. First stop though is the Yantai Museum on Nan Da Jie. We may not have been able to persuade the Marina to shout us a freebie but we can sure as hell convince the old gentleman holding guard at the museum gate that we are worthy enough. The usual entrance charge may only be 5 RMB but, well, what the hell, it’s nice to get a little respect. The fact that he clearly cannot read the magazine that I hand to him is by the by.
The museum isn’t exactly essential to the Yantai experience, though it’s not without redeeming features. The feel, and design, is that of a temple courtyard. In the centre there is an impressive wooden gate, supported by 14 pillars with scores of carved and painted dragons, animals, flowers and murals depicting battle scenes and folk stories. Around the edge of the well-kept courtyard are various display rooms displaying ancient finds in the Yantai district. There are veyr few English descriptions. It’s a peaceful spot, but then again the whole town is fairly peaceful.
The journey to Penglai takes about 80 minutes. The bus passes the Changyu winery about 20 minutes outside town, where it’s possible to take a vineyard tour. Buses can drop off passengers on the way but talk to the driver in advance for confirmation. Beyond the vineyard there are yet more vineyards. An incredible eight lane highway passess out of an industrial belt and into hazy rolling hills. Changyu isn't the only wine maker to have concurred with the French. Great Wall also have huge billboards next to the roadside and the land on either side of the road is filled with grapes. Occasionally there are glimpses of the sea beyond the fields. Another sign declares that Penglai is one of the 'top seven seaside wine growing locations IN THE WORLD!'. The Chinese love to stare, and they also love to categorise so tenuously that any given plot of land in the great republic can be described as 'one of the world's top ten' in some obscure class. This is no exception.
Don’t be put off by the scene around Penglai bus station. It's grim. I intially resolve only to see the 'sights' as quickly as possible and get the hell out as quickly as possible. But my mind is quickly changed.
We hop onto a three-wheel moto-taxi - Penglai's equivalent of tuk-tuks. Our driver is a very kindly, frail elderly gent but he revs his engine like a good'un. We whizz to Penglai's Ocean Aquarium, an impressive great blue hulk of a building set amid inauspicious surrounds. Entry is 120 RMB so we laugh that idea off. Next to the former residence of Qi Jiguang, the second of Penglai's four tourist draws (according to the driver). Mr Qi was a Chinese national hero of the 16th century. He was born in Penglai and spent much of his life keeping China clear of Japanese pirates. He beat them to a pulp here in Shandong and then chased them down the east coast when they moved onto pastures new. After more than 20 years of this, he was then transferred to the northern front and fought of the Mongol hoardes at the Great Wall, assisting in the reconstruction in large swathes of it at the same time. All in all, a bit of a legend. His home is a beautiful spot and, once again, it's completely empty. It's possible to walk around the most interesting bits of it for free. Two genuine Ming dynasty gates stand at either end of a long avenue, lined by trees and flowers. There are a couple of early 20th cenutry churches close to the entrance too. The beautiful curled roofs of the Mr Qi's internal residential compound lie to the north. The view through the trees, across the roofs is more than good enough for me to feel justified in not paying the 20 RMB or so entrance charge.
Next to the 'Eight Immortals Ocean Crossing' area - a fantastical complex built on reclaimed land at the east end of Penglai's curved sandy bay. The complex comprises two huge pools, at the centre of which stands a huge pagoda and a palace, respectively. The whole thing juts out into the ocean. Entry is 40 RMB. The eight immortals, born of an ancient Taoist myth, are superheros of Chinese folk legends - models for those who want to find a more spiritual way of living. In the days before mortals could reach it, Penglai was the home of these eight immortals. This was their heavenly resting place, their having renounced the material world and crossed the sea. Here, in their final destination, they were surrounded by peach blossom and coral trees. These days things are a little less paradisical. Tens of tour buses are parked up when we arrive and there is a constant throng coming in and out of the main gate. A man on the door spends five minutes trying to persuade me to go in, which smacks either of desperate to practice his English, or pure greed. It's not like they need the business. He says we can entere here and then pay 20 RMB extra to get a speedboat across the bay and see the other of Penglai's famous ancient complexes - the Penglai Pagoda. 'No we can't enter the pagoda' he says, 'but we can get pictures so it's as good as.' I hate this about China. There are two major tourist attractions, both fairly impressive, competing with each other in a really aggressive manner. Private interests clearly are at stake somewhere, which is a shame. For this kind of stuff should be of the people, for the people - surely. Or is that just me being naive?
So we refuse and head to the final attraction - the Penglai Pagoda. We pass Penglai's beautiful sandy beach. It's longer, cleaner and whiter than Yantai's. The pagoda itself is he best preserved part of the huge wall that surrounded the entire city. It's essentially a cliff-top castle, with battlements, gardens and a beautiful landmark lighthouse tower. It's really lovely, despite the crowds. It costs 70 RMB to get in, with a further 18 RMB required if you want to ride the seaside cable car between the pagoda and bell tower, located on a more notherly headland, across yet another pretty little bay. To be honest, the price might irk initially but it's one worth paying. It's a great spot. From the lighthouse I look down onto the sandy beach. Three couples are having their wedding pictures taken in the setting sun. I really can't think of a nicer place to do it.
Half way up to the top of the cliff, there's a makleshift cinema where, for 5 RMB, you can watch a short video of one of Penglai's greatest claims to fame. Every year, or so , the people of Penglai claim that a mirage appears out in the sea, on the horizon opposite the town's sandy bay. I sweep aside a carpet and find myself in a darkened room with cheap wooden benches and walls made of rock. Real old-school. On the screen is video footage of said mirage. Each time the mirage comprises a cityscape, though it's always changing. Sometimes it takes a futuristic form, with lots of towers, in the shape of dumbells on their side - kind of resembling huge power station exhaust chimneys (what's the word I'm after?). Other times, it's like a little island citadel. There are lots of shots of residents standing, looking amazed, pointing out to sea. The video offers no scientific explanation of what's going on. It's all very strange. I'm convinced. Sort of.
A cliffside walkway has been built on the most distant peninsula. Two men stand guard on gates at either end. It's an all ticket affair, though it you have paid to get into the pagoda, you get a 'complimentary' pass. The landscape here is beautiful and the cliffs are equal to those of the Catlins, New Zealand or Southern Ireland. But you can only see them if you pay. This is nature at its best and it's denied anyone who can't afford 70 RMB. It's very, very sad and so typically 'China'. This is a county where in most places 70 RMB represents nearly a week wages. And the greedy tourism officials in Penglai think that it's acceptable to charge that to walk next to some cliffs? It's like asking for, say, 400 quid to enter the county of Cornwall. It's enough to make you sick.
On the way out, we are beckoned into a 360 degree cinema for the last showing of the day. Again, our 70 RMB ticket includes this 'extra'. For little or no reason, they are showing a half-hour clip promotional clip of Hawaii. It was clearly shot in the 1980s, when this kind of dizzying spectacle was common (I can remember being blown away by this kind of thing when I first visited Thorpe Park, a theme park on the outskirts of London, as an eight year old). It's all quite baffling.
Down by the gate to the pagoda, an old man marches up and down a cobbled street, next to the old harbour where speed boats have moored for their night. He stares straight ahead and swings his arms in a military manner. He is singing passionately. Despite his voice being old and croaky - or perhaps because of his voice being old and croaky - the sound is amazingly atmospheric, quite haunting as we go into the gloaming. I ask my fiance what he is singing. She tells me it's an old communist song about fighting and killing the foreign enemies. Up and down the street he marches, back and forth, singing merrily to himself about slaying the capitalist roaders. Oh, if only he could see Shanghai now!
Tonight I drink my free wine over a meal of giant shrimps and fresh crabs in a tiny backstreet restaurant that our secondly elderly tuk-tuk driver for the day leads us to. The food is sensational. The wine isn't.
Tonight we wander down Penglai's main street. It ends at the beach where a giant statue of the eight immortals is illuminated in an array of colours. Off to the left, the Penglai Pagoda is similarly radiant in bright yellow light, to the right, the Eight Immortals Palace appears to be competing for neon grandeur. Locals have gathered on the walls above the beach. Young lovers cuddle up on benches. And down below on the sand, there is something else stirring.
Penglai'ers like their karaoke. And they don't like to hide themselves away when they sing. Lining the beach are a series of karaoke stalls. There's a table, with a huge amplifer there upon. Next to it a TV screen and a little reception desk where walkers can take a browse of the available songs. And what songs. The first one that I come across has, without question, the best selection of songs in all of China. The 200-RMB an hour, huge karaoke emporiums of Shanghai are not a patch on this. I can sing Rape Me, by Nirvana, for heavens sake. Annie Lenox, Led Zeppelin etc.etc. Songs cost 2 RMB a go. It's a buy 10, get one free arrangement. I plonk myself down of the tiny little stools, wriggle my way into the sand to get comfortable and let loose. It's a magical experience. Penglai just gets better and better.
Eventually the crowd drifts off and we are the only ones left. Only now can we hear the sea. My finace and I walk back to our hotel - the Jipeng Bingguan - found after a lot of hoo-ha. There's a complex behind the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea complex called ba xian gu which has a variety of accommodation options. Our room costs RMB 180. It's fantastic. There's a balcony looking out over the trees, a huge TV and two great beds. And the carpet is white as white should be. Penglai is beginning to rival Yantai as the moment. I think I want to stay for a while longer.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Seafood
Spring Airlines has not – to date – inspired confidence (see blog of August 13). Which is a bad thing. Because, frankly, I don't want the undercarriage to drop off when I am 20,000 feet above the ground. The consolation of being able to plummet to earth clutching a free bottle of wine, knowing that my mother will at least try to sue the buggers, will just not suffice.
Budget airlines have always had this problem with passengers’ nerves. Just what are they up to offering seats that cheap? What corners are being cut? Who are they paying to turn a blind eye to the fact that they are not paying ten more people who definitely should being turning their (unblind) eyes to the fact that there's a big crack in the wing and a dead ferret stuck in the propellers?
Today I am travelling to the Shandong seaside city of Yantai with good ol' Spring. It's one of the four cities on their radar, departing from Shanghai. I guess I am going for no other reason than I want to see why a budget airlnie is flying there. It's cheap, and I fancy taking a little look-see. I just didn't bank on having these feelings of paranoia when I volunteered for the task.
The check-in staff don't ease my worries. Huddled around Spring's one and only desk – number 23 at Hongqiao Airport – they look frantic. The counter feels a bit like a back room store cupboard. I am packed off to another row of counters where I hand over the code that had been emailed to me and am given a huge stash of paper in return. I can't help but marvel at the efficiency of the e-ticketing revolution. I lug the big stash of paper back to the check-in desk and am told to immediately hurry to the gate. Spring obviously doesn't pay for terminal parking so we must take a bus out onto the tarmac. In short: make sure you get their at least 45 minutes in advance.
The flight, to be fair, is fine. The impressively polite, smiley staff greet me with an enthusiastic, and slightly surprised, 'hello', suggesting not too many laowai have travelled Spring to date. I am the only foreigner on the plane, and get the very fluent (far more fluent than any of the national carriers) English announcements all to myself.
There is, however, a series of announcements whch are not translated. About twenty minutes after take-off, one of the stewardesses asks 'the following list of people' to come and see them for a special present. It begins with a name, then another, then another and another and so on in this fashion for thirty or so minutes. It appears there is some kind of lottery. My fiancé’s name is called. She's won a ticket, redeemable at Yantai airport, for a free bottle of wine. Each winner must stand up, seek out a stewardess and prove their identity to claim their ticket - making the aisles a little crowded for most of the flight. After a few probing questions, it becomes apparent that every single person on the plane who has paid between 40 and 60 per cent of the full price (790 RMB) for their ticket gets said bottle of Shandong vin rouge. 'Why?' seems an obvious and reasonable question to ask at this juncture. Apparently not. Two of the three female stewardesses – extremely patient and polite in their replies – have absolutely no idea why they are being asked to hand out tickets for free bottles of wine on a budget airline flight. 'It's good for our customers', is the standard reply. That's what the doctors say too.
And there was cynical old me, suspecting that it had something to do with the fact that Spring had to offer some kind of freebie to make their cheapest ticket sales legal (for explanations of CAAC rules, see Aug 13 blog). Not so, given that those who paid less than 40 per cent get nothing. I then wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that Spring are feeling guilty about denying passengers a free hotel room in Yantai – initially offered as part of the bargain and then stopped before a single room was filled– but, again, the stewardess has never even heard of this promotion.
What is clear is that everyone who is entitled to a bottle of wine is damn well going to get a bottle of wine, whether they like it or not. Those who haven't responded to the initial roll call are called again. And again. Tickets are pressed into their hand. We are just beginning our descent as the last of the stragglers reluctantly accepts the free pressie.
There's a young lad at Yantai airport handing out the bottles. He too has no idea why he is doing what he is doing, beyond the fact that most people seem fairly happy with the arrangement. Hordes of passengers exit the airport with bottles jutting at odd angles from their luggage. I even bump into a few of them later on downtown. It really is most extraordinary.
Yantai Airport is a sight to behold. It is surely one of the world's few buildings whose designers have looked to Soviet-era nuclear reactors for architectural inspiration. Inside it's beautiful. Tiny (only two check-in desks), clean and efficient. Outside it is all curvy pipes and cylinders, in a spaceman silver and camouflage green colour scheme.
The weather is beautiful: 26 degrees and a perfect blue sky. The Shandong peninsula, home to Qingdao as well as Yantai, juts out into the Yellow Sea and, along with the Liaoning peninsula to the north, forms a pincer which - from the map - looks as if it's cradling Beijing against the potential advances of nearby Korea and Japan – two nations which have eyed up this territory covetously in days gone by. The landscape here is green and mountainous and the town itself is wonderfully hilly.
Immediately I feel relaxed. As the airport bus approaches town, I swear that I can smell the peculiarly seaside smell of fried fish and fat-drenched chips (though I am damned if I ever come across a restaurant selling such a meal).
Relaxation doesn't last long. At the beachside 'five-star standard' Marina Hotel I attempt to persuade management to let me stay a night. We had tried to persuade them twice over the telephone but they'd refused. I reason that by personally handing over the magazine and showing them we're professional, and serious, we'd have a better chance of success. Not so. The girl on the front desk laughs at me when I try to talk to her in English. After being passed between two different assistants, I get to talk to the Sales Assistant who then telephones the Sales Manager who, finally, comes down from on high. We talk, she listens. She explains that the GM is far too important a man to condescend to talk to a travel writer. Actually, they weren't the words she used but they were as good as. She says it takes time for the manager to make such a decision and I shouldn't expect an answer so quickly. I ask her to show the boss the magazine and for him just to give me one quick call with a final answer to our proposition– yea or nay. I wait and wait for the remainder of the day but the call never comes. And so, having been repelled from the underlings I head across the street to a overpriced, depressing little dive – the Haibin Lou. The carpet looks like it has about two decades of filth pressed into it and the bathroom is smelly. Oh, and the beds are as hard as granite. At least I get a pretty spectacular sea-view.
Yantai, like all Shandong seaside towns, is famous for its seafood. It's so fresh (and good) that there are traces of sand in the shellfish. It seems every region of China has its particular peculiarity. In Shanghai, for example – unlike the rest of the country - you never get tea in restaurants. In Sichuan, spoons are a rarity. And in Shandong, bizarrely, bowls are not the norm. One is expected to eat from saucer sized plates.
After the meal I climb a mountain to the south east of the city. Actually, a cable car takes me up. There's now a whiff of fresh pine in the air on the ascent and, from the top, there are great views back over the city, especially in the dying light. Of course, being China, there's a cost to all this. The mountain is located in the Tashan Scenic Area - a AAA National Tourist attraction which features all manner of other rides and pleasures. I must pay firstly to 'enter' the park area, secondly to take the cable car, and then, thirdly, to climb the pagoda at the top of the mountain.
There is not a single other soul in the entire park. The cable car has been shut down but resumes for our benefit. At the entrance of each attraction there is a little ticket/money-collecting man, or woman, sitting around, waiting for knocking-off time. In total, it costs a round 50 RMB just to get up to the top of the pagoda – approaching the price one pays (in winter) to enter the Forbidden City. It is taking the piss a little, I have to conclude.
A toboggan ride has been built into the mountainside. A huge sign advertises the fact that it is 'alarmingly dangerous' but reassures potential patrons by declaring it, in the next breath, 'comfortable and safe'. Another huge sign advertises the fact that monkeys roam free in this area and are likely to come and sit on your shoulder. I ask one of the park attendants where all the monkeys have gone and he says, without irony, that they have been locked up for the night. It seems the monkeys are only 'free' during working hours.
The bus back to town is memorable for the music. They have LED displays and songs. This town is seriously civilised. We disembark at the nightmarket, close to xi da jie. It's typically Chinese in that there is loud, lairy techno blasting from every stall, but quite unique in that there is a whole row of hardcore pornography DVD stalls. I am aware of the fact that such things exist in China but never have I seen it so brazenly displayed. Stack after stack of identical DVDs with the cover art leaving customers in no doubt what kind of home entertainment they are buying. Not hidden away at the back but spread, wantonly, across at least half a dozen tables.
I settle down at a little hawker eatery close to the beach. The beer here is sold from huge kegs. It comes out cold, is served in real thick beer glasses and costs a princely 1.5 RMB for a 500ml glass. And best of all, it's great beer. It's truly local, brewed at the Asahi-owned Yantai Beer brewery in town. As much as I enjoy the experience of handing over the cost of a beer in coins, I can't help but feel a little angry. In Shanghai I (begrudgingly) pay 40 RMB for glasses of dodgy Tiger beer. It really is enough to make you sick - both the contrast, and the fact that you can get absolutely ratted with a 10 RMB note in your pocket.
Along with the seafood joints that set up next to the beach, there's also a row of masseuses - just opposite my guesthouse - who wait for business well into the night. These are legit massages, evinced by the fact that – one – the service providers have makeshift treatment beds set up on the pavement – two – they are wearing long white doctors gowns and – three – are in the full view of passing pedestrians and traffic. It's a wonderful concept. With the sounds of the waves lapping the shore in the darkness to my left, the occasional roar of passing haulage trucks to my right, and the glittering stars up above, I am pounded about by an elderly, slightly overweight lady who is desperate to practice her English. The fact she cannot speak English is no impediment. Everything ends is ‘eeee’. ‘Masageeeeee’, ‘Noseeeee’ ‘churcheeeeee’.
She's a Christian, one of many in Yantai, it seems, and extends not only my limbs (with a series of violent tugs) but also, in pidgeon English, a truly memorably welcome to the city of Yantai. It's a lovely way to end my first day in a very laid-back little town.
Budget airlines have always had this problem with passengers’ nerves. Just what are they up to offering seats that cheap? What corners are being cut? Who are they paying to turn a blind eye to the fact that they are not paying ten more people who definitely should being turning their (unblind) eyes to the fact that there's a big crack in the wing and a dead ferret stuck in the propellers?
Today I am travelling to the Shandong seaside city of Yantai with good ol' Spring. It's one of the four cities on their radar, departing from Shanghai. I guess I am going for no other reason than I want to see why a budget airlnie is flying there. It's cheap, and I fancy taking a little look-see. I just didn't bank on having these feelings of paranoia when I volunteered for the task.
The check-in staff don't ease my worries. Huddled around Spring's one and only desk – number 23 at Hongqiao Airport – they look frantic. The counter feels a bit like a back room store cupboard. I am packed off to another row of counters where I hand over the code that had been emailed to me and am given a huge stash of paper in return. I can't help but marvel at the efficiency of the e-ticketing revolution. I lug the big stash of paper back to the check-in desk and am told to immediately hurry to the gate. Spring obviously doesn't pay for terminal parking so we must take a bus out onto the tarmac. In short: make sure you get their at least 45 minutes in advance.
The flight, to be fair, is fine. The impressively polite, smiley staff greet me with an enthusiastic, and slightly surprised, 'hello', suggesting not too many laowai have travelled Spring to date. I am the only foreigner on the plane, and get the very fluent (far more fluent than any of the national carriers) English announcements all to myself.
There is, however, a series of announcements whch are not translated. About twenty minutes after take-off, one of the stewardesses asks 'the following list of people' to come and see them for a special present. It begins with a name, then another, then another and another and so on in this fashion for thirty or so minutes. It appears there is some kind of lottery. My fiancé’s name is called. She's won a ticket, redeemable at Yantai airport, for a free bottle of wine. Each winner must stand up, seek out a stewardess and prove their identity to claim their ticket - making the aisles a little crowded for most of the flight. After a few probing questions, it becomes apparent that every single person on the plane who has paid between 40 and 60 per cent of the full price (790 RMB) for their ticket gets said bottle of Shandong vin rouge. 'Why?' seems an obvious and reasonable question to ask at this juncture. Apparently not. Two of the three female stewardesses – extremely patient and polite in their replies – have absolutely no idea why they are being asked to hand out tickets for free bottles of wine on a budget airline flight. 'It's good for our customers', is the standard reply. That's what the doctors say too.
And there was cynical old me, suspecting that it had something to do with the fact that Spring had to offer some kind of freebie to make their cheapest ticket sales legal (for explanations of CAAC rules, see Aug 13 blog). Not so, given that those who paid less than 40 per cent get nothing. I then wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that Spring are feeling guilty about denying passengers a free hotel room in Yantai – initially offered as part of the bargain and then stopped before a single room was filled– but, again, the stewardess has never even heard of this promotion.
What is clear is that everyone who is entitled to a bottle of wine is damn well going to get a bottle of wine, whether they like it or not. Those who haven't responded to the initial roll call are called again. And again. Tickets are pressed into their hand. We are just beginning our descent as the last of the stragglers reluctantly accepts the free pressie.
There's a young lad at Yantai airport handing out the bottles. He too has no idea why he is doing what he is doing, beyond the fact that most people seem fairly happy with the arrangement. Hordes of passengers exit the airport with bottles jutting at odd angles from their luggage. I even bump into a few of them later on downtown. It really is most extraordinary.
Yantai Airport is a sight to behold. It is surely one of the world's few buildings whose designers have looked to Soviet-era nuclear reactors for architectural inspiration. Inside it's beautiful. Tiny (only two check-in desks), clean and efficient. Outside it is all curvy pipes and cylinders, in a spaceman silver and camouflage green colour scheme.
The weather is beautiful: 26 degrees and a perfect blue sky. The Shandong peninsula, home to Qingdao as well as Yantai, juts out into the Yellow Sea and, along with the Liaoning peninsula to the north, forms a pincer which - from the map - looks as if it's cradling Beijing against the potential advances of nearby Korea and Japan – two nations which have eyed up this territory covetously in days gone by. The landscape here is green and mountainous and the town itself is wonderfully hilly.
Immediately I feel relaxed. As the airport bus approaches town, I swear that I can smell the peculiarly seaside smell of fried fish and fat-drenched chips (though I am damned if I ever come across a restaurant selling such a meal).
Relaxation doesn't last long. At the beachside 'five-star standard' Marina Hotel I attempt to persuade management to let me stay a night. We had tried to persuade them twice over the telephone but they'd refused. I reason that by personally handing over the magazine and showing them we're professional, and serious, we'd have a better chance of success. Not so. The girl on the front desk laughs at me when I try to talk to her in English. After being passed between two different assistants, I get to talk to the Sales Assistant who then telephones the Sales Manager who, finally, comes down from on high. We talk, she listens. She explains that the GM is far too important a man to condescend to talk to a travel writer. Actually, they weren't the words she used but they were as good as. She says it takes time for the manager to make such a decision and I shouldn't expect an answer so quickly. I ask her to show the boss the magazine and for him just to give me one quick call with a final answer to our proposition– yea or nay. I wait and wait for the remainder of the day but the call never comes. And so, having been repelled from the underlings I head across the street to a overpriced, depressing little dive – the Haibin Lou. The carpet looks like it has about two decades of filth pressed into it and the bathroom is smelly. Oh, and the beds are as hard as granite. At least I get a pretty spectacular sea-view.
Yantai, like all Shandong seaside towns, is famous for its seafood. It's so fresh (and good) that there are traces of sand in the shellfish. It seems every region of China has its particular peculiarity. In Shanghai, for example – unlike the rest of the country - you never get tea in restaurants. In Sichuan, spoons are a rarity. And in Shandong, bizarrely, bowls are not the norm. One is expected to eat from saucer sized plates.
After the meal I climb a mountain to the south east of the city. Actually, a cable car takes me up. There's now a whiff of fresh pine in the air on the ascent and, from the top, there are great views back over the city, especially in the dying light. Of course, being China, there's a cost to all this. The mountain is located in the Tashan Scenic Area - a AAA National Tourist attraction which features all manner of other rides and pleasures. I must pay firstly to 'enter' the park area, secondly to take the cable car, and then, thirdly, to climb the pagoda at the top of the mountain.
There is not a single other soul in the entire park. The cable car has been shut down but resumes for our benefit. At the entrance of each attraction there is a little ticket/money-collecting man, or woman, sitting around, waiting for knocking-off time. In total, it costs a round 50 RMB just to get up to the top of the pagoda – approaching the price one pays (in winter) to enter the Forbidden City. It is taking the piss a little, I have to conclude.
A toboggan ride has been built into the mountainside. A huge sign advertises the fact that it is 'alarmingly dangerous' but reassures potential patrons by declaring it, in the next breath, 'comfortable and safe'. Another huge sign advertises the fact that monkeys roam free in this area and are likely to come and sit on your shoulder. I ask one of the park attendants where all the monkeys have gone and he says, without irony, that they have been locked up for the night. It seems the monkeys are only 'free' during working hours.
The bus back to town is memorable for the music. They have LED displays and songs. This town is seriously civilised. We disembark at the nightmarket, close to xi da jie. It's typically Chinese in that there is loud, lairy techno blasting from every stall, but quite unique in that there is a whole row of hardcore pornography DVD stalls. I am aware of the fact that such things exist in China but never have I seen it so brazenly displayed. Stack after stack of identical DVDs with the cover art leaving customers in no doubt what kind of home entertainment they are buying. Not hidden away at the back but spread, wantonly, across at least half a dozen tables.
I settle down at a little hawker eatery close to the beach. The beer here is sold from huge kegs. It comes out cold, is served in real thick beer glasses and costs a princely 1.5 RMB for a 500ml glass. And best of all, it's great beer. It's truly local, brewed at the Asahi-owned Yantai Beer brewery in town. As much as I enjoy the experience of handing over the cost of a beer in coins, I can't help but feel a little angry. In Shanghai I (begrudgingly) pay 40 RMB for glasses of dodgy Tiger beer. It really is enough to make you sick - both the contrast, and the fact that you can get absolutely ratted with a 10 RMB note in your pocket.
Along with the seafood joints that set up next to the beach, there's also a row of masseuses - just opposite my guesthouse - who wait for business well into the night. These are legit massages, evinced by the fact that – one – the service providers have makeshift treatment beds set up on the pavement – two – they are wearing long white doctors gowns and – three – are in the full view of passing pedestrians and traffic. It's a wonderful concept. With the sounds of the waves lapping the shore in the darkness to my left, the occasional roar of passing haulage trucks to my right, and the glittering stars up above, I am pounded about by an elderly, slightly overweight lady who is desperate to practice her English. The fact she cannot speak English is no impediment. Everything ends is ‘eeee’. ‘Masageeeeee’, ‘Noseeeee’ ‘churcheeeeee’.
She's a Christian, one of many in Yantai, it seems, and extends not only my limbs (with a series of violent tugs) but also, in pidgeon English, a truly memorably welcome to the city of Yantai. It's a lovely way to end my first day in a very laid-back little town.
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