Reflections on nearly a year in China, Part One

I don’t know how much more I will write before we go back to the U.S. for the summer, but I’ve been thinking that I would do a bit of a roundup on impressions and experiences. Although I have a few coherent thoughts collected, this will mostly be a stream-of-consciousness. Therefore, sometimes I might have organized categories, and sometimes I probably won't. A great deal of it will doubtlessly be redundant to things I've written before.

Argument as a form of street theater:
The Chinese love to argue, although thankfully not with me (it would be rather one-sided). They must enjoy arguing in public, because there is often a great deal of theatricality, and a sense sometimes that they are playing to crowd. And there is always a crowd. Spectators gather to enjoy the show, and they react when someone gets off a good line (although I can only judge this by reactions), or when someone gets flustered. People get out of cars and shake fingers in each others’ faces. They yell and gesticulate. What they don’t seem to do is threaten (although there are exceptions, as I retold in one of my earliest blog posts). I have seen more arguments in public here in less than a year than in my entire previous lifetime.

The argument that I was closest to was also one of the strangest (and depending on your perspective, funny). I was in a line waiting to buy an inter-city bus ticket. The queues were separated by railings. Within that confined space, I got caught right behind a young couple, with other people behind me so I couldn’t escape.

It appeared that the young woman was trying to leave the young man (as in, leave, go home, and never come back). Every time she tried to buy a ticket, he would thwart her in some way, with that trying to act gentle but in reality using his superior strength sort of man behavior. She would try to put money on the counter and he would try to grab it. She would grab the money back with her other hand before he could get it. She would try again, only this time he would grab her other hand so that she couldn’t use it. She would try to talk to the ticket seller and he would put his hand over her mouth. She would stop and act defeated just long enough for him to let his guard down, and then dive for the ticket window again. He would block her path with his arms, but try to make it look like he wasn’t using force, while he had one of those but-baby-I-love-you looks on his face. She would turn her back to him and then when he got to close try to elbow him in the gut, and then make a fresh push for the counter.

It went on and on, and everyone stood by watching. Finally I just forced my way past them with a swimming motion, and then leaned in and bought my ticket while their wrestling match continued in my armpit.

At least I made it out of town and back home to Suzhou.

Public transportation:
In a nutshell, it is far to public for me. I don’t like it. I have a lot of experience with European public transportation, and I never get quite the feeling that I’m getting stared at like I do here. Actually, I don’t really mind subways. I find them easy to work with, and the passengers are varied enough that we Westerners don’t stand out so much. Beijing and Hong Kong have very nice subway systems, although Beijing could really do with filling in some of the gaps with some additional lines, as there are huge areas of the city without close access to a subway. Hong Kong’s is the best I’ve ever seen, although the accessibility is helped by the fact that the city is so linear. Shanghai’s subway is a bit shabby by comparison, but I’m sure it will be much more spiffy by the time the Shanghai Expo (World Fair) comes along next summer. Suzhou’s single subway line is slated to be completed next year as well. Also in the works is a light rail line into Shanghai, which would be so much more convenient than buying advance tickets to use the train.

Very few of the westerners drive. Cars are not really any cheaper than they are in the U.S., and parking is a nightmare. A lot of the higher-up expat corporate guys have private drivers. That might seem better, but frankly, I don’t want it. The people I know with drivers have a lot of scheduling headaches. Having a driver becomes sort of like having just one more person in your family that you have to work out your plans with. I’d really rather live without.

I really hate buses, although I do use them. Westerners rarely ride the buses, so we are really conspicuous. The drivers aren’t always that good, and are prone to really hard stops. Also, the buses can get amazingly crowded. I don’t know about you, but I think it should be one of the lesser human rights to never have to ride in a bus that is so crowded that your crotch is in contact with strangers.

Construction:
Nobody can build fast like the Chinese. Amazing what can be done when you work hard, work constantly, and cut corners. As to the stories about the workers being kept energized with rations of methamphetamines, I don’t have any way to know.

Just as important, I’m sure, is the capacity to make quick decisions. Perhaps, behind closed doors, it takes months of wrangling to make a plan. However, the state technically still owns all property, so although people are able to own pseudo-private property, there are not zoning and eminent domain issues. All that is required is one single decision.

And once the work gets started, the buildings can go up almost in front of your eyes. There is a new shopping center next to us that is nearing completion, and it looked barely started 10 months ago. There are a couple apartment towers right across from the school that are now up to about 20 stories, and they were working on the foundations when we got here. That allows for the nearly one month when everything stopped around Chinese New Year. Speaking of the school, the story is that it went up in only eight months, and was in use while still under construction. At one point, the workers were living in the gymnasiums.

Quality is what you would expect. Buildings no more than five years old look twenty. There definitely is a different standard of quality for important buildings, and I am sure that they have elite building crews for those, apart from the migrant workers who do most of the building.