Notes from Beijing

[NOTE: This is the first in a series of posts on our recent trip to Beijing and Hong Kong. More photos on Flickr.]

Beijing Hazing, Part I

The plane was going too fast. As we came in for landing, I whispered to Alan, "it's going to be a rough landing." A few seconds later. Thud! "I told you so." Landings and takeoffs used to fill me with such fear, I would pay close attention to every detail, trying to figure out which one would spell the end of Jenn. Now, I get a kick out predicting which landings will be rocky and which will be smooth. I even enjoy the turbulence. This is one of the benefits of frequent travel.

In the past three years we've been to Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Peru, Spain, Morocco, that alternate universe known as Burning Man, and now China, where Alan's been invited as a reviewer at the first ever Fotofest Beijing. Steve and I are along for the ride. While Alan spends long days in the hotel auditorium looking at the work of 300 Chinese photographers who've flown in from all over the country, we get to play tourists.

It was midday. We needed to keep our eyes open until at least 9 PM. A nap, even if it's only meant to be a short one, would undoubtedly stretch into the dead of night, setting our internal clocks to crazy time for the duration. Still, after nearly 20 hours, most sleeping fitfully in the posture of a crushed bug, staying awake is no easy task. Our bottoms could not so much as touch the bed. Pillows remained upright and unused. We hit the bar for a couple beers and, hoping to boost our energy, before taking the subway to the Donghuamen Night Market, where weary travelers like ourselves could find ample stimulation for the mind and palate.

Delectable steam rose up from the kitchen stalls lining the narrow passage. Noodles, soups, and skewers tempted us from every side. We started out on the safe side. Lamb and beef skewers, stir-fried noodles, and some beer to wash it down. But this was Beijing, damn it! And just beyond our table rows of baby scorpions, cicada pupae, and tiny sea horses—still alive!--squirmed on their skewers. We ordered a baby scorpion kebab.

"Beijing hazing," Alan announced. Steve went first, sliding the first grilled morsel off the metal skewer. "Tastes like protein," he declared. Alan went next. I resisted first, but peer pressure got the better of me. I only managed to get the tail end off the stick. It reminded me of the ground meat you get on frozen pizzas, only with a crunchy, shrimp-like shell that gets stuck in your teeth. Alan's posted a little movie we made of this on YouTube.

Beijing Haze

There are currently 9000 active construction sites in Beijing, according to CNN. Apartment buildings, Olympic stadiums, business parks are all going up, up, up at a rapid clip. With the exception of a few protected areas, everything old and decrepit is coming down. If this doesn't kick up enough dust, try the Gobi Desert sands that blow in from the north. A perpetual brown haze hangs over the city. Plants are coated in layers of dust, as are our shoes after just a few hours of walking around.

It is as though the city is born anew every morning. Paths taken one day are changed when we repeat the route a couple days later. It is exciting. It is exhausting.

Much of the construction is targeted to be finished by 2008, when Beijing will host the summer Olympic Games. Indeed, the entire city is getting a makeover in preparation, from the shopping hutongs around Tiananmen Square to the choppy English spoken by locals.

But there is a fine line between restoration and Disneyification, and the Chinese have trampled right over it. At the Temple of Heaven, where Steve and I head our second day, Ming-era architecture gleams with fresh coats of paint. This is not to say this sprawling park and temple complex, where sacrifices were made to ensure bountiful harvests, isn't beautiful. But Steve and I were most pleased to stumble upon those areas which hadn't been given a recent makeover, such as the Animal-Killing Pavilion (AKA Animal-Beating Pavilion).

Very Confuc-ing Day

In the Dongcheng district in search of Confucius's temple. We first head into Ditan Park. No temple, but quite a market going on. Flowers give way to fish. Fish give way to woks, shoes, socks, and every imaginable of doodad. We eventually find our way back out of this scenic maze of commerce. Tempted by the scent of burning sandalwood incense, we wind up at the Lama Monastery. It turns out to be our favorite site of the trip. In this large, Ming-era complex, you pass through a succession of temples, each one bigger than the last.

Tibetan Buddhism is very different from the Marin Buddhism Lite I practice. So many unfamiliar characters and rituals. I felt like a poseur and immediately swore to do my homework. But I do know from Buddha, and the last of the Buddhas in this temple was not to be missed. Eighteen meters high and carved from sandalwood, head shrouded in darkness, he sits. Yak butter candles flicker. Heads strain to see the top of him. If Jesus were this big he'd be terrifying, but not Buddha. Even big-ass Buddhas some off as nice, mellow sorts.

Impressed and hungry, we set out for the hutongs, wandering alleyways that contain an older way of life in Beijing. And we have barely entered "old Beijing" when we stumble upon the filming of one of many Chinese soap operas. Having channel surfed a bit, we're already familiar with the plot. There's always a rich, beautiful woman, a poor, honest soldier, a foil to their love, and maybe a half man/half monkey running around making trouble. Indeed, the beautiful, rich woman was clearly telling the poor, honest soldier it wasn't meant to be. We watched for awhile, got scolded for taking photos, and then lunch.

And then we tried to go to Confucius's temple, but it was not where it was supposed to be. Indeed, we could not find it at all. So we gave up, figuring we'd seen enough for one day.

Mind our manners!

We're off to FotoFest Beijing in a few days time, where Alan will be reviewing the portfolios of some of China's best photographers, while Steve and I explore the city and environs. I hear they have a really big wall.

In a search for China etiquette do's and don'ts, we've discovered that there are quite a few seemingly innocuous ways to say, "I wish death upon you." Particularly troubing is the fact that we are arriving when, according to this report, "Beijing's Communist Party leadership has called for a full-blown campaign to improve etiquette and politeness ahead of the expected deluge of foreign visitors." Talk about pressure. It's enough to give Miss Manners hives!

Here are a few of the ways you can tell your Chinese hosts that you want them dead:

• The following gifts and/or colors are associated with death and should not be given:

• Clocks
• Straw sandals
• A stork or crane
• Handkerchiefs
• Anything white, blue or black

• Never place your chopsticks straight up in your bowl. By placing your sticks upright in your bowl your will remind your host of joss sticks which connotes death. [LINK]

• The colors black, white and blue and the #4, or four of anything, are negatively associated with death or funerals. Also included in this category are clocks, handkerchiefs, and straw sandals. [LINK]

• Don't stick your chopsticks upright in the rice bowl.Instead,lay them on your dish. The reason for this is that when somebody dies,the shrine to them contains a bowl of sand or rice with two sticks of incense stuck upright in it. So if you stick your chopsticks in the rice bowl, it looks like this shrine and is equivalent to wishing death upon a person at the table! [LINK]

• Don't let the spout of the teapot face towards anyone. Make sure it is directed outward from the table or to where nobody is sitting. Apparently a pointed spout symbolises death. [LINK]

• Though four is an even number, it reads like death in Chinese thus is avoided. So is pear for being a homophone of separation. And a gift of clock sounds like attending other's funeral so it is a taboo, too. [LINK]

--JENN

Burning Man!

It is, in fact, impossible to talk about one's experiences at Burning Man without sounding, well, like everyone else who talks about their experiences at Burning Man. This is perhaps why I have taken so long to post about it here on our travel blog. It was an awesome, transformative experience. OK? We want to go back. OK? Our pictures, which look like everyone else's pictures, are available here. And, no, we are not naked in any of them.

Here are a few highlights:



1. Arriving in an hour and a half-long white out. Sand + wind = blinding conditions, though I was able to make out a man in a bunny costume dancing with two scantily clad women atop an RV.



2. Managing to accidentally park directly across the street from our camp without realizing it (it was dark), and, on our first trip to the portapotties running into our friend Andrew, dressed in lingerie and sporting a fresh mohawk. In a city of 38,000, the chances of this happening are very, very slim. A fortutitous beginning, to say the least.

3. Speaking of Andrew, it was he, Alan, and I (plus a few other friends) who came up with Yearning Man, an alternative celebration for those of us who refused to go to Burning Man. Hard to explain, but Teletubbies factored largely into YM, so imagine my surprise to be camped directly across the street from the camp that projected the Teletubbies each night at dusk. (Andrew, who was also there for the first time, took way more pictures than we did.)

4. Camp Zero Expectations was way better than I expected. Thanks, Wolfie and Space Man, for allowing us to join you! Bryan! Reem! Michael! Alan's college friends sure are wonderful to camp with.






5. Geotensic dome! 18 feet of pure playa luxury. Thanks to our friend Jen for loaning it to us.

6. Back to bunnies. I caught the bunny parade, and one fellow dyed his dick orange and his pubic hair green. I, for one, was so glad he went there.






7. The waffle! The flower and the venus fly trap! Mega watt! The cubitron! Serpant mother! The art was stupendous and simply defies description. You had to be there. Really.



8. Riding your bike across the playa in the middle of the night is a sensation like none other. I miss it all the time.

9. When soft rock is heard, pancakes are served. We had our fill and got plaid shirts out of the deal.



10. We were arrested ... by the Black Rock Fashion Police for looking too normal. They gave us an instant makeover and we were soon on our way. Thanks for the corset, officer. I plan to wear it next year.

Next stop, Beijing and Hong Kong. See you soon!

--JENN

Separated at birth?

You decide.




vs.


























In other news...

Since returning from Barcelona/Seattle, we've been trying to treat San Francisco as though it were a new and strange place as opposed to an old and familiar one. This hasn't exactly been a successful endeavor. Some familiar things are just too good not return to. I'm back on my favorite running path, attending classes at my favorite yoga studio, getting together with my favorite people. Alan's back in his routine at Chronicle Books. At the same time, we've been more open to trying the new. I want to buy a scooter, and will soon be taking a motorcycle course. Alan bought a bike. I've gone to the museum I rarely go to. We've gone on walks through the parts of town we rarely visit. And I am for the very first time, and Alan is for the second time, going to Burning Man.

The preparations have taken over our lives. I really had no idea how much weird crap I would have to buy: everything from special goggles that block out sand and UV Rays and tennis balls to LED lanterns and duct tape, lots of duct tape. (It doubles as Homeland Security.) Just the other day, I found myself dragging a giant, stained yellow carpet off the sidewalk into our apartment, hoping it didn't have fleas, because one apparently must have a big carpet to keep down dust in one's camp. Our preparations have kicked up quite a frenzy, but I'm looking forward to it, and will be posting from the 33-year-old virgin's perspective on this very blog when we return.

--JENN

This is New York?

I don't think I've ever had a relaxing trip to New York. Usually, I start running the second my plane lands and don't stop until I'm crashed out on the couch back at home in San Francisco. So many meetings, sights to see, shopping to do ... But when I packed up for NYC last week to read at Seed Magazine's Literary Supplement event (my short story "Space Junk" was one of five pieces that appears in the current issue), I was determined to make as few plans as possible.

That was good, because I slept horribly on my red eye (I know, big surprise) and spent much of Friday sweatily napping in my hotel room at the Amsterdam Court. (Only when I was leaving did it dawn on me that instead of running the air conditioner, I had switched on the fan. Classic Northern Californian that I am, I've never learned how to run these cooling contraptions.) My lunch with Reuel, editor at PDN and friend for many years now, didn't help much. A 2-hour lunch of martinis, burgers, and true confessions is decadent in no small part because it sends you on the fast train to a long, decadent nap that feels more like a coma. Once I'd awoken and properly showered and refreshed myself, I took myself out to dinner and sat outside, reading and watching New York--in various states of undress--stream by on the hot, humid summer night.


The next morning, I rose early to catch a bus to Sullivan County, where my agent and friend Peter and his wife Amy operate a B&B called the Golden Guernsey. I'd never been "upstate" before, and while I've heard it was gorgeous, I was really stunned by the beauty of this rural landscape. Golden Guernsey itself is the name of the cow (pictured in this post) who lives across the street. I joined Peter, Amy, and her dad in some antique shopping and in the process came to understand, for the first time, Martha Stewart.

Now I've been a big fan of Martha for many years, especially the bitchy, crazy, crimial Martha. I love that Martha. But her aesthetic to me always seemed to derive more from outer space than any actual place. Nothing like it exists here in the West, where I've spent most of my 32.9 years. She says things like: Take an old window pane and ... I always thought, where on earth does one just happen upon a window pane? Well, now I know. Upstate there were attractively-yet-authentically aged window panes a'plenty, along with rambling gardens, barns, old books ... pretty much anything you've seen in the pages of that magazine you can find driving the back roads of upstate, where barns stocked haphazardly with old farm equipement and furniture dot the landscape.

Moving along ... that evening Peter built a bonfire and we enjoyed a delicious dinner and dessert around it. Neighbors and friends stopped by to join in the festivities. The following day Amy and her neighbor/friend Julie invited me along to take Peanut (Amy & Peter's dog) for a long walk. Most of the pictures on my Flickr set from the trip are from that walk. Amy and Julie are part of a local grassroots movement to stop powerlines from being placed on this land. Walking around this beautiful countryside I felt myself getting worked up for this cause. Land this beautiful should be preserved! I hope they succeed.

I got back to NYC feeling completely chill and incredibly grateful to my friends for their incredible hospitality and the invitation to come again. (I will.) I headed up to Queens (another first for me) to crash on the couch of my friends Buzz and Jill. Buzz, whom I met in graduate school, is now an editor at Mark Batty. I wrote the introduction and an essay for a new book he edited on Green Design. (Coming soon!) Queens has a very different vibe from the rest of New York, though when I try to describe it, it sounds like the rest of New York--densely populated, ethnically diverse, always lively ... Word on the street is it's the new Brooklyn. So buy your property now.



Last day, Monday, was the day of the reading. I strolled around the Village and met my friend Heather Sparks and her half-sister, visiting for the first time from Ohio, for lunch. Seed put together a very nice event at Piano's in the Lower East Side. Perhaps it was the super chill weekend in the country or the two glasses of wine I drank before getting onstage, but I was completley un-nervous, even going first.

So yeah, New York can be relaxing, especially if you get out of Manhattan. There was just one thing I didn't get to do: drink Dunkin' Donuts coffee, which you'll know if you've had it is crack in disguise. Having this cup of coffee should not have been difficult, but everytime I wanted a cup of coffee, I couldn't find a Dunkin' Donuts and when I did find a Dunkin' Donuts, I didn't want coffee or had my hands full (as in the airport, where I managed to drop at least six things). I did manage to find a super old-school (heavy, ceramic with '70s font) Dunkin' Donuts mug at one of the antique stores I visited upstate. I bought it as a gift for Alan.

--JENN

The view from Fell & Ashbury

If you think time is a fixed entity, then you're right. But you're also wrong. Two months in Barcelona stretched out slowly, deliberately, like a cat's first morning yawn. Mornings spilled into afternoons, poured into evenings, and the divisions between work and home and social and whatnot blurred into an indistinctive-but-lovely haze. In stark contrast, two months in the United States have whizz-zipped by, with barely a free moment to acknowledge the passage of time, nonetheless reflect and write on experiences had. Barcelona was the watched pot that never boils, while being back is the tea kettle that whistles sooner than expected.

Are Spain experiences superior to U.S. ones? Hardly, but that's hardly the point. We swore we would return home with fresh eyes, with the full intention of approaching the familiar life with all the enthusiasm, naivety, and freshness we had for the unfamiliar life. Thus far, we have simply fallen back into the routine chaos that passes for daily life here.

But, I shall try to remedy that now ... I bring you the Bay to Breakers.


This annual race/drunkfest passes right by our apartment building on Fell and Ashbury. The image above is typical of what one sees from our own vantage point. But I imagine, from the helicopter's perspective, the view is not unlike a person looking down upon a worm she's just squooshed with the blunt rubber hoof of her sneaker. The front half wriggles energetically towards the finish line while the rest dissolves into sludge and then merely damp concrete. Drunken, costumed damp concrete to be precise.

And were I not essentially of this place (I am from Lubbock and Salinas, but we'll save that for another time), I'd be fascinated by the mishapen nudists, the drunken girls and boys, the guy who danced his hot pants off atop a worse-for-the-wear SUV... But it all seems so predictable. Here's what I did like:

The women were sent out first. Not the fastest in the race, but the first to pass by our home so very early on a grey Sunday morning. Their bodies lean and taut and tan. I thought of beef jerkey being shot out of some poor choking bastards throat.

And then there's this notion of the Kenyans, which has become slang for the front-runners. They were all African men with extremely dark skin and very long legs. And Kenyan jokes were in abundance before they passed us by, but then as they did pass by a drunken, homeless man started screaming at them: "Kenyans, fucking Kenyans." My pale, mediocre-runner skin crawled, and I thought I might want to stop making that joke. After them, the white corporate teams, chained together like galley slaves. There should be a name for that.

I left. I went to "double down," Yoga Loft speak for back-to-back classes. I indulged in three hours of gradually more intensive poses while things in front of my apartment degraded into drunken, Bon Jovi mayhem. Witness image below.

But it was I who had trouble walking on Monday.

Yes, we are home and will post more soon.

--JENN

Where on earth is Ballard?

giant mushrooms in ballard

The city is booming. Condos are sprouting all around like mushrooms after a rainstorm. Restaurants are still jamming at 9 PM. The storefronts are occupied, the yoga classes packed mat-to-mat. The bassist/bartender Drew Church who co-owns Hazelwood, my new favorite bar, serves an amazing rose from Paso Robles between filling in the day's crossword puzzle. Everyone knows someone who works for Microsoft and hates it. Or they are that person. By all appearances Ballard is one happening place.

the view from my office window

And yet there are days when I can't shake the sense that I've been sucked down a vortex and deposited in the middle of small town America, circa 1954. I walk down the street and the Scandinavian Foods market and old lady thrift stores have gone unchanged since the middle of the last century. At other times, I could be in the most isolated spot on earth. I run out to the beach at Golden Gardens and there's nothing but water in sight, not even the mountains which surround the city. It feels like the edge of the world, yet it's not even the Pacific. It's the Sound. The sea is hours away. I'll never get there. It takes 45 minutes just to get downtown by bus.

my neighbor, Archie McPhee

I have plenty of associations with this rapidly gentrifying, Scandinavian-flavored fishing neighborhood, on the outer west edge of Seattle. As an undergraduate at the University of Washington, I came out here to shop at Archie McPhee (window display pictured below), among the world's greatest novelty shops ever. (If you don't get the catalog, you are missing out big time.) After college, I dated a boy who lived in Ballard, and with him explored the area's abundant divey sports bars and taverns--as mentioned in my article Liquid City, which appeared in Salon.com's doomed travel section Wanderlust. I came back a few years ago to write a feature for ReadyMade on an retro card-making concern named Shazaam. This time I'm subletting the apartment of my college friend-turned-travel writer, Amanda Castleman, who worries on her Web site that Ballard has become "alarmingly hip." Maybe it has. Shouldn't matter to me, though, as I'm here to write. It is my proverbial cabin in the woods, even though, well, it's more like a suburb here.

I forgot how much I love this city. Even with its gray skies and chronic Seasonal Affective Disorder, it's beautiful. Especially now, when all the cherry blossoms are in bloom. Passing their cotton candy pink and white branches, I feel as though I've landed in CandyLand. I love the illusion of the Puget Sound, masquerading as the sea, and the mountains that are so huge and imposing when they're "out," but they live most of their lives behind an opaque shroud of clouds. I love this city's quirkiness, exemplified by places like Archie McPhee's or the Coffee Shop/Cupcake Bakery (photo of giant glowing cupcake below) where I've been spending my afternoons writing and surfing the free wifi. You can be silly here and still be taken seriously. I still adore the Alibi Room, a bar tucked along an alleyway beneath the Pike Street Market, itself still an incredible, lively place to buy fish and flowers. And there are so many favorite places I've yet to visit: Gasworks Park, my alma matter, the James Turrell Sky Space at the Henry Art Gallery...

When not writing, I've been catching up with old friends from my wild, undergrad days at the UW Daily, the paper which declared me "The Most Controversial Student" when I graduated 10 years ago. My favorite line from this now extremely embarassing article: "I don't believe in marriage," she said. "When I am 40 I want to have a couple of lesbian daughters. They cost less, you don't have to buy them a $500 prom dress and they don't get pregnant or [get] AIDS." Wow. I was brilliant. Fortunately, most of us grow up.

A round-up of alumni I've seen since getting here:
--The ever-fabulous Robin G. is now a high-powered publicist for an architectural firm and has quickly renewed my interests in martinis and lingerie. Her friendship and company has really made my time here sparkle.
--Paul D. is a detective investigating things he can't talk about.
--John B. (aka Butter) is now a professional lute-maker. It's a career path none of us could have predicted. The last time I saw him he was living in Oxford, England, posing for police line-ups to make cash, and writing an epic poem based on the Odyssey and his experiences as an undergraduate Classics major. I visited his studios in neighboring Fremont and was blown away by his knowledge and skill of this obscure artform.
--Craig Romano is now one of the Pacific Northwest's most respected wilderness writers and provides tours of the Pyrenees with his fabulous fiance.

As for writing, I'm doing it. When my old, long-abandoned novel proved to be uninspiring, I started a new one. I'm about 40 pages/10,000 words into it and so far so good. Next week, it's back to San Francisco. After three months, it feels surreal.

--JENN