This past Saturday our group went to the Antique Market, Temple of Heaven, Pearl Market, and an acrobat show.

I have never experienced such humidity. Here’s a visual humidity barometer, taken right as I arrived at the Antique Market. Note the positioning of the people to get a sense of how much time elapsed.

The Antique Market is very overwhelming. Too overwhelming, to the point where it might limit consumption. In Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell writes that shoppers, when allowed to taste only six types of jams, are 30% likely to buy a jam; once the jam flavors quadruples to twenty four, the shoppers are only 3% likely to buy. Too many choices can be a bad thing, especially if you do not know what you want. There were stalls filled with jewelry, rugs, weaponry, “antiques,” propaganda posters, replicas of Chinese contemporary art, clothing, books, and on and on. 

The one to the left is "by" Yue Minjun, a member of the Cynical Realist movement, “a label encapsulating the despair and hopelessness of this era” (29), as Barbara Pollack describes the group in the The Wild, Wild East: An American Art Critic’s Adventures in China. She writes:

“Fearing that I could be as narrow-minded as those French connoisseurs who dismissed abstract expressionism, I made a considerable effort to get to know Chinese contemporary art from the time I first saw it in the late 1990s, even before it became a hot commodity in the international art market. At the beginning, I spent a lot of time looking for the Chinese-ness in Chinese art, a criteria that has dogged this field for over three decades…. Yue Minjun made what I considered silly pictures of himself, multiplied many times over in a single work like a troop of Yue Minjuns, each with the same shit-eating grin on their face. I was told that this symbolized the aggressive narcissism of a generation brought up under the one-child policy. Were these works Chinese? And was that enough to redeem them even though they made such miserable first impressions?” (13-14)

While walking through the rows of vendors, I thought of the marketplace as a hidden museum. Many of the items seemed old, interesting, significant and/or splendid enough to belong in a museum. If the placement, lighting, and surroundings had been purposeful, and if there had been a plaque explaining their origins, I would have walked past the items more slowly and spent more time observing their details. 

Next, we went to the Temple of Heaven, built in 1420 during the Ming Dynasty by the same emperor who created the Forbidden City. As the Son of Heaven, the emperor would go to the temple three times a year to offer sacrifices to the source of his authority and pray for a good harvest. Bad harvests or natural disasters indicated that Heaven no longer favored the emperor, and thus undermined the emperor's legitimacy. 

Pearl Market was our third stop of the day. For bargaining, Yashow in Sunlitun is the absolute worst—filled with tourists and stubborn vendors who will not lower their ridiculous prices. Next comes Silk Street, with the most aggressive salespeople who, when you leave their stalls, will yell after you, if not hold onto your arm. Pearl Market was relatively calm, and the pearls there are the cheapest.    

Walking around, I found fakes of Tory Burch, Juicy, and Lesportsac but no stands filled with Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chanel etc. I stopped for a moment at a counter and immediately the lady pulled out a magazine filled with pictures of Louis Vuitton fakes. First I asked to photograph the magazine, then after being denied asked to see a purse. She said that, of the few she had there, I could see one for a minute at most because of the policeman walking around; he might confiscate her merchandise. From the magazine of fakes you select which bag you want, and then the shop owner retrieves it from his or her house.  The police cannot not know about this system, but as we discussed in my economics class, will look the other way. The industry of fakes, while against China’s intellectual property rights, creates jobs and generates revenue. The officials will allow the business to continue, but randomly seize the merchandise to create a disincentive for entry and to ensure that the vendors are subtle about their technically illegal business.

Finally, we ended the day with an acrobat show. It was actually unbelievable. Piling thirteen girls on one moving bicycle?  Doing a headstand on another girl’s head, and each girl spinning eight plates whilst balancing? My favorite part was when three towers of two men each—one man standing on the other’s shoulders—juggled three six-year-old girls from one tower to the other. Definitely more thrilling than a rollercoaster.

Old Lijiang, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, does not seem to belong in the same time, or the same country, as Beijing. Old Lijiang was once a stopping point on the Southern Silk Road and the Ancient Tea-Horse Road (茶马古道, click on the link and look through the photo gallery, it's very cool), a trading path that connected China and Tibet, from Yaan to Lhasa, so China could get horses from Tibet and Tibet could get tea from China. 

Old Lijiang's history of 1,000 years is well preserved. Paved paths have not buried the cobblestone. There are no modern or post-modern buildings, just Naxi folk architecture. Machines still haven’t replaced people; much of the items for sale were handmade. It was almost like a time capsule, but with electricity, English signs, and thousands of tourists to feed their huge tourist industry. 

The Naxi tribe lives in Old Lijiang. I'm going to take from my brother's blog here: 
[The Naxi] are a minority that have been based in Lijiang for around 1400 years. The Naxi are descendants of ethnically Tibetan tribes and have matrilineal families. The Naxi women pretty much run the show - couples don't live together, and if a man spends the night with a Naxi woman he has to leave before the next morning to go back and work for his mother, any child belongs to the woman, and while the father supports the child and woman, once the relationship between the parents is over so is the support provided by the father, and finally women inherit all property. One thing I really liked was the role of gender in Naxi language, which my guidebook briefly described. The example they give is that when the word 'female' is added to the word 'stone' it becomes 'boulder' but when the word 'male' is added to 'stone' is becomes 'pebble.' 
Sounds right.

The day after my brother and I arrived, we went to the Black Dragon Pool Park, from which we were supposed to have a great view of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. 

After, we went to the Mu Family mansion, the former residence of Lijaing's Naxi chieftans. Almost all of the original buildings, built over 800 years ago during the Ming dynasty, were destroyed during the 1996 Lijiang earthquake. I couldn't tell that these buildings were less than two decades old, though.

At the mansion, I was taking pictures of these performers of Naxi ancient music, and they asked if I wanted to join in. 

After dinner one night, my brother and I walked to one of the main squares. In the center was a bonfire, and soon music began to play. About ten Naxi ladies held hands in a chain and danced by themselves; within a few minutes, two rings formed around the bonfire. The simple steps—cross your legs, tap your feet—reminded me of the Hora. It was a lot of fun to dance with them; unlike my bar and bat mitzvah years, guys actually wanted to dance with me. 

On the third day my brother and I took a two-hour bus ride to the Tiger Leaping Gorges, possibly the deepest gorge in the world. Legend goes that at the most narrow part of the gorge (66 feet wide), a tiger jumped from one side of the gorge to the other, hence the name.

As we got up at six for the trip, I napped for most of the bus ride to the gorges. When I woke, it was raining, we were driving up the side of a steep hill, the road had no rail guard, and the driver was talking on his cell phone with one hand and idly holding a cigarette with the other. China, you crazy bitch. 

We originally planned to spend two days hiking the gorges, but because of the slippery paths and threat of rain we only spent four hours hiking and returned to Old Lijiang that day.

First, we made a turn where were not supposed to and walked up a steep, muddy and rocky path. Then, we didn’t turn where we should have, and the road ended at a farmer’s house. The farmer stopped what he was doing and lead David and me through the forest to a guest house for lunch. Such a nice guy. 

Because of our route, it took us two and a half hours to get from the bus to the guesthouse, while it took only an hour and a half to return on the actual trail. But our path allowed us to see more people, animals, and houses. 

Kunming, the capital of Yunan province, is a rapidly expanding metropolis that surprisingly, given China’s 4,000-year history, lacks historical sites. The 270 million-year-old Stone Forest, a two-hour drive outside of the city, makes up for this dearth.

Looking at the karst landscape is a bit like cloud watching: you have to use your imagination to find the pictures, but once you do that's all you can see. Here's what I mean:

Halfway through our hike, one of the Stone Forest’s workers began to walk with Susan, my dad’s business client, and me. Speaking with him personalized some of the problems you hear about in China. In addition to working at the Stone Forest, he is a field hand. He used to own land, making him a middle class peasant (as defined in our Chinese history class), but now must work for others, making him a poor peasant. The land he owned was taken to create a golf course; I did not mention that my brother, at that very moment, was hitting balls on what probably used to be his fields. He said that he did not want to “rent” his land to the company to create the course, but in China you don’t have a choice. Under a Communist government, projects are completed much more efficiently than in a democracy, for the benefit of the group at the expense of the individual.

At the Stone Forest, he works for four hours a day, seven days a week, picking up trash and helping visitors. In a month with 31 days, he works 868 hours; for this work he is paid 500 kuai a month, or $73.52. That is 1.74 kuai, or $0.25, an hour. A quarter will get you much more in China than in America, but still, as Susan commented, that really is not a lot. Meanwhile, admission to the Stone Park is 169 kuai ($24.85) for an adult, 130 ($19.12) for a student, and there were at least a thousand people there that day. Clearly this worker is being exploited, but by whom?

The Chinese Communist Party should be proud to own this beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Last week I went with my group to 金山泠 (Jinshanling), a much more dilapidated section of the Great Wall, making for a more challenging and fulfilling hike. In case anyone is wondering, I went to Northwestern this past year and am transferring to Columbia in the fall. Right now I am on a two month Northwestern summer study abroad program in Beijing called Emerging Legal and Economic Structures; we study Chinese for three hours in the morning, and history or economics for an hour and a half in the afternoon. I am loving the program, and definitely would recommend it to anyone at Northwestern interested in speaking Chinese and understanding China.

Anyway, some pictures from 金山泠:

I'm very grateful I got to go to both sections of the wall. Badaling is the best-preserved section of the wall, and most resembles how the wall looked during the Ming dynasty. Jinshanling is representative of how the majority of the wall currently looks, and as I mentioned it was a more difficult and fun hike. Plus, it was great to have the wall to ourselves; like many other tourists, I hate being surrounded by tourists.

The Great Wall is 5,500 miles long. That’s a difficult number to grasp. According to Google maps, you need to drive 2,905 miles to get from New York to California. So it’s as if a giant wall existed along that route.

And then as if a wall was built along 984 miles of this route, and the remaining 1,970 miles were trenches or natural defense barriers. (Getting this composition from BBC.)

A map of the Great Wall. Most of what remains was built in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty to keep the Monguls out.

Two weeks ago I went with my dad’s friend Tina and her boyfriend to 八达岭 (Badaling), the most visited section of the Great Wall, receiving millions of Chinese and 老外 tourists each year. This is the section of the Great Wall President Nixon visited in 1972.

After the break are some pictures from my trip to 八达岭.

The Chinese perspective on pale skin is a good example of how some markers of beauty are socially constructed and can vary completely from country to country. 

In America, people compliment my hair, but rarely has anyone ever said to me, “I love how incredibly pale you are.” Tan skin is much more desirable than Casper-white skin. It is associated with good health, with having leisure time to go to the beach or money to go on a tropical vacation, and with American celebrities, whom we emulate. But while America has tanning lotion to achieve a fake glow, China has whitening lotion to reverse any natural suntan.

In China, as in Thailand, tan skin is associated with poor farmers, who must work in the fields instead of indoors at higher paying and more desirable jobs. Everywhere girls and guys carry umbrellas to shield their skin from Beijing’s brutal sun. Even in sweltering weather, girls cover their arms with detachable long sleeves and many wear pants. Here, soaps and creams are marketed as whitening soaps and whitening creams. I accidentally bought a whitening soap the other day. I’m afraid it might have worked, although admittedly it’s difficult to tell.

To this:

To celebrate the clean air and normal sky, I went for a run around Tsinghua, my first and so far only run in China. At some point I left the campus and ran along the highway. When I tried to reenter a different set of gates, the guards were reluctant to let me in without an ID. After explaining in Chinese (or rather trying to explain) that I am a student at Tsinghua but my ID still has not arrived, one took pity and let me in.

From the signs on the buildings I quickly realized this was not a part Tsinghua’s campus, but still I wanted to explore. It was really fancy for a high school. In the center of the quad koi fish swam in shallow ponds, and red winged blackbirds hopped around. Towards the back of the campus, past the red-bricked school buildings, was an outdoor stadium. I then observed the wire gates and security cameras—time to go, really sorry, didn’t mean to trespass.

As I turned to leave, I noticed two guards coming at me, Pac-Man style: one from the center, and one from the right. I apologized and told them I was lost, just trying to find my way back to Tsinghua’s campus. Then I power walked out; running might be considered suspicious.

It turns out I ran to The High School Attached to Tsinghua University. Yesterday I learned that this is where the first Red Guard formed in 1966 during the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guard at Tsinghua High School was a gang composed of the children of high-level Communist officials who were inspired by Chairman Mao’s orders to purge the party of the rightists and capitalists. At first, with Mao's approval and encouragement, they began putting up big-character posters. Then they developed a bloodline theory: as the offspring of the revolution, it was their duty to pursue radical policies.

This group of high school students looked around them for the rightist and bourgeois elements of the party. It couldn’t be their parents or other high level officials. Clearly the rightist, capitalist, bourgeois, elitist, anti-Communist members undermining the party were their teachers, who still used corporal punishment, and principals.

So the Red Guard started to punish the academics, in some cases beating them to death. Mao tolerated this for two months, then sent these Red Guards to jail for years, and after that the countryside for hard labor. It turns out that being the children of high-level officials—the people who threatened Mao’s power, the so-called “rightist” members of the communist party Mao wanted to purge through the Cultural Revolution—was not an automatic invitation to rule the party, at least not back then.

Today, some of these people—the members of the original Red Guard, those who created a bloodline theory, who beat to death their teachers, who were sent to jail and then the countryside for "re-education"--control much of China. They are the very important CEOs (such as Kong Dan, the chairman of China CITIC Bank, whose father, Kong Yuan, was once the Minister of Investigation), chairmen, and party officials. Would you want to mess with them?

It was really interesting to learn all that history yesterday, and find that I had accidentally penetrated the site where the Red Guard formed. The Red Guard spread all over China’s high schools and universities during the Cultural Revolution, beating or  killing their teachers and principals, or forcing them to commit suicide. From January 1967 to 1968, the Red Guard--just a bunch of university students, really--replaced the Municipal governments, ruling China alongside the military in Revolutionary Committees.

Crazy history, right?