Street Scenes

So, it turns out that my digital camera doesn't take very clear videos. This is just an ordinary Sunday afternoon. The traffic is fairly light and the weather is pleasant. Notice the construction work going on in the middle of it all. No one pays any attention, since this is going on all the time everywhere. There are no barriers or flagging or safety equipment of any kind. It's hard to imagine what could be considered a public safety hazard here.

I'm a little behind, so here are a few random street scenes:



The is one of the squatting bike repairmen that are on almost every street, usually near large bike parking areas. The bikes here range from ancient to old to relatively new. Most of them are in relatively poor repair, although occasionally you see a shiny bike the looks like it's straight out of the 50s, usually being ridden by someone in their 60s, probably the original owner.



This is a more stationary version of the same thing. Notice how orderly the shop isn't. Very typical.


Hopefully, none of these birds have the flu...



There are many street sweepers in China. Thus, the streets can be fairly clean despite constant littering. In this area, they use a really colorful broom. I haven't seen these in any other province in China. They are made of used shredded plastic bags tied to a grass and bamboo frame. I've seen them repairing them on the side of the road. A very interesting handicraft.



Another broom:

Air...quality?

I've whined a lot about the air quality here, so I decided to post some documentation. This picture was taken last week from a park on a nearby hill that I like to go to. The park is very large and overlooks the north part of the city. These are not clouds:



Admittedly, this was a bad day, probably the worst day last week, although the rest of the days were about the same.

This picture was taken today, at the same time and from the same place. It rained Saturday night and all day Sunday so everything looks clean, including the sky:




This is why I get up at 6am to run...the sky is a little better at that hour of the day. Of course, if I can't see the building across the street, I skip it entirely.

While I was in Qingdao, this was happening about a 45 minute walk from my dorm:
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Professor beaten for honoring ousted China leader

By AUDRA ANG – 1 hour ago

BEIJING (AP) — A 75-year-old retired Chinese professor said Tuesday that he was beaten up for commemorating the death of a reformist communist leader ousted for sympathizing with the 1989 Tiananmen Square protesters.

Sun Wenguang said a group of five men attacked him Saturday while he was trying to pay his respects to Zhao Ziyang, the former premier and general secretary of the ruling Communist Party.

The weekend marked "Qingming" — grave sweeping day — an annual festival where Chinese honor the dead.

Sun said he was followed by a police car on Saturday when he went to visit a memorial honoring Chinese martyrs on Heroes' Mountain in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province. He said he carried five small banners, one of which said "mourning for the martyr Zhao Ziyang."

He said he was attacked when he entered the memorial grounds. He said he was then beaten and "kicked like a football" for more than 10 minutes.

"They were very strong. They did not say a word," Sun said in a telephone interview from a Jinan hospital. "They broke three of my ribs. ... I was just lying there. I couldn't move."

It was not immediately clear who the men were. Plainclothes security agents or thugs hired by local authorities often intimidate activists or residents who are involved in sensitive issues.

Telephone calls to the public security bureau and state security department in Jinan were not immediately answered.

Sun, a retired professor from Shandong University, said he has been repeatedly warned against honoring Zhao, who died in 2005. Zhao was forced to step down for sympathizing with pro-democracy protesters in 1989 and spent his last 15 years of his life under house arrest.

Sun said he had visited the memorial before with no repercussions. Last year, Sun said he did not make it because public security officials threatened Sun's wife about the "consequences" if he commemorated Zhao's death during Qingming.

He said he was beaten up Saturday possibly because this year marks the 20th anniversary of the military's crackdown on the Tiananmen demonstrators.

"I never expected them to beat me in broad daylight," Sun said in a weak voice, adding that he could not move his body.

According to human rights groups, Sun, a former physics professor who later taught management before he retired, was detained and imprisoned many times in the 1960s through the 1980s for expressing dissenting views such as criticizing Mao Zedong, founder of Communist China.

Sun said he also had recent run-ins with authorities because he gave speeches and posted articles about Zhao.

Qingming is traditionally a politically sensitive festival.

In 1976, thousands of people streamed to Tiananmen on Qingming to lay wreathes and flowers honoring Zhou Enlai, the beloved premier who had died in January.

The violent suppression of that spontaneous movement set the stage for the arrests of the ultra-leftist "Gang of Four," headed by Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing, and the end of the Cultural Revolution later that year.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Another story from the NY Times with more details:
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/asia/08china.html?ref=global-home)

April 8, 2009
China Rights Activist Beaten at Cemetery
By SHARON LAFRANIERE

BEIJING —For the past four years on a traditional Chinese holiday to honor the dead, Sun Wenguang, a retired university professor, has gone to the cemetery to remember a Communist party leader who sympathized with Tiananmen Square protesters.

The worst that ever happened was police questioned him, he said.

Last Saturday was different. Mr. Sun, 75, a former physics professor and longtime activist, said four or five men attacked him in the cemetery and beat him severely. He is now in the hospital with three broken ribs and injuries to his spine, head, back, arms and legs, according to China Human Rights Defenders, a human rights group.

The group said the attack on Mr. Sun is part of a concerted effort by the Chinese government to head off any efforts to commemorate the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. June 4 is the 20th anniversary of the government’s crackdown that led to the deaths of hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators.

“Chinese authorities are staging a campaign of terror to intimidate and suppress expressions of commemoration for the 1989 Tiananmen massacre,” the group said in a statement.

Security officials in Jinan, a city about 300 miles south of Beijing where the incident occurred, referred media calls to the propaganda office of the city’s communist party. No one answered the phone at the office.

Saturday was Qingming, or tomb-sweeping day, an annual Chinese holiday to remember the dead. Mr. Sun said he announced in an internet posting that he would visit a cemetery to honor the death of former Communist Party general secretary Zhao Ziyang, who was purged from the party and was placed under house arrest for 16 years after expressing sympathy for Tiananmen Square protestors.

“It is important for China to restore the memory of its history,” Mr. Sun said in a telephone interview from a hospital in Jinan, a city about 300 miles south of Beijing. “Zhou Ziyang is such an important person in Chinese history and students today have no idea who he is. That is outrageous.”

As he left the teacher’s dormitory at Shandong University Saturday morning, a public security officer and about 20 plainclothes officers tried to stop him. ”They said, ‘Don’t go there today. So many people are going there. It is dangerous’,” he said.

When he got in a taxi, a car followed him, he said. He had started down a cemetery path, carrying a banner that read: “Condolences to the heroes who died for freedom.” Then four or five men jumped him from behind, lifted him off the ground and threw him into a deep ditch, he said. Other people came to the edge of the ditch, he said, “but nobody tried to help.”

He said the men kicked and beat him for more than 10 minutes before a uniformed police officer showed up and summoned an ambulance. In the four days he has been in the hospital, police have not shown up to investigate the incident, he said.

“I still feel very weak. And I think probably my days are numbered. But I don’t feel regret. I am 75 years old and I would be very happy to sacrifice my life for my ideals,” he said.

Mr. Sun has a long history of pro-democracy activism. He was jailed for seven years in the 1970s and was one of the first people to sign Charter 08, which calls for democratic reforms.

Still, he said, “I didn’t expect this. I was not trying to organize any group of people. It was just a personal visit to a cemetery. In order to fight for democracy, we need to make personal efforts.”

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This is certainly not a rare event here, but I've been to this cemetery so it makes it very real and very disturbing. Of course, few people here are even aware of this happening. I stumbled upon this story less than an hour after it broke on AP. I copied it immediately, because I figured it would be blocked. I'm sure any Chinese site with the story was blocked much sooner. I was able to find one mention of this on a mainland Chinese site in Chinese, and it was a blog that depicted the event as an act of random violence as opposed to political violence. I think this kind of suppression is sponsored on a local level in an effort to keep dissidents down and prevent them from embarrassing (and thus damaging the careers) of the provincial officials. Very very strange.

Qingming Qingdao

Last weekend was Qingming, a 3-day holiday for honoring dead ancestors. We had a day off of school, so Anja, Stephanie, and I went to Qingdao. It's a coastal city in Shandong province, about 3 hours away by express train. It's considered to be a very livable city, quite touristy compared to Jinan，and like the rest of China, has undergone a lot of development in the last 10 years. This is particularly true in Qingdao since China was chosen to host the Olympics (sailing events took place off the coast nearby). The older part of the city was designed and built by the Germans during their occupation (1898-1914), so it has a rather distinct architecture. The Germans also established the Tsingtao (named after the city) Brewery, which still produces China's most famous beer (Tsingtao beer - think Corona).

I was anticipating western food (pizza) and espresso (Starbucks), and a few unplanned days spent exploring German-style architecture. I was also hoping for a room with a working heater, and maybe even a bathtub. These thoughts got me through the final freezing week of winter in Jinan, when it was just too cold to sleep. With these expectations, we set off from Jinan on Friday afternoon.

Stephanie has a relative (Shushu) living in Qingdao, and he offered to meet us at the train station and help us figure out how to navigate our visit, and even help us find a place to stay. How nice. And it was, but his vision of our trip and our vision of our trip were not the same. We actually had very little input. He and his wife met us at the train station and took us out to a great Chinese meal and told us about our plans for the following day. Since he doesn't speak English and my Chinese is still poor, Stephanie filled in what we didn't understand (80% at least). He then took us to the hotel he'd picked out, not too far from his apartment. The hotel didn't have a bathtub, but it did have a heater which was great since the nights there are still a bit chilly. I'd seen a Starbucks on the drive (horrendous traffic in Qingdao), so I was looking forward to coffee the next day.

In the morning, he picked us up and took us directly to a section of the city with some German architecture. We spent the rest of the day walking on the seaside and the nearby neighborhoods. The weather was lovely and the crowds weren't too terrible.

Marriage is still extremely important here, and love isn't necessarily that important. Matchmaking is still a big business, and shops like this are not uncommon. Stephanie was surprised at how funny this concept seemed to Anja and I.


There aren't too many curbside postal boxes, but the ones that exist are serviced by a China Post worker on a bicycle.


It's possible to tour the Olympic Sailing Center for a price, but I'm not much of a sailing fan.


This is a famous sculpture (Wind of May) in Qingdao very near the Olympic Sailing Center.
By day:

By night:



We walked all day and finally when I was giving up hope, we found a Starbucks. Unfortunately, just as I'd heard, the Starbucks coffee in China is as weak as dishwater. I made the mistake of getting a double tall latte. Forget coffee. There wasn't even much coffee flavor. Oh well. I was happy.


In the evening, we rejoined our hosts and went out to another huge and delicious Chinese meal. The seafood in Qingdao is incredibly fresh and varied (but it's not pizza...). Then they took us on the nighttime tour of Qingdao. There are so many lights and great views over the water. One of the local customs on Qingming is to light small hot air balloons while making a wish, and then release them into the sky. There were many people doing this along the water, and the night sky was filled with magically glowing red balloons.


The next morning, Shushu and his wife picked us up for a ride around Mount Lao. The government collects a fee for driving around the mountain, and for us it would have been $50, but some phone calls, some connections, some favors...we didn't have to pay. There is a famous Taoist temple there, and the traffic was very heavy, but the scenery along the water was beautiful.

Tea is grown on terraces at the base of the mountain and the view of green tea terraces interspersed with red brick buildings at the edge of a beautiful blue sea reminded me very much of the Mediterranean coast in western Italy. Unfortunately, there was no way to stop for picture taking.

We finally stopped for a picnic lunch on a not-so-scenic beach

and then headed back to Qingdao. And then to Shushu's place. He gave us a lesson on green tea culture and we talked about the state of the world while his very dutiful wife cooked for us. The food was delicious of course, and we had to keep eating past the point of saturation. There was just no way to refuse, polite or impolite. We were his guests. For the entire trip, in fact. He paid for everything, including the room. We practically wrestled to pay for the meals, but there was no way to succeed. This is very typical here, and also a bit frustrating, since the guest is almost like a child and has no control whatsoever.
Our hosts:


They do some creative things with food here. A stencil of a character is placed over the apple while it's on the tree, and the sun does the rest. This is a character meaning auspiciousness:


Did I mention that the seafood here is very fresh? That's a pumpkin in the shark's mouth:




Finally, on the last day, we had a few unstructured hours. We again went to Starbucks. I tried to get a triple, but they simply could not put an odd number of shots in the cup. Nor could I order a single shot. This wasn't a language problem, it was just outside the scope of what is commonly done and therefore was not possible. Tip: avoid Starbucks in China.


We then took the bus to the train station and briefly considered our options. There wasn't really time to do much, so we stood by the edge of the sea and waited for the train.


The return trip was five hours long, and then we were back in Jinan, and it seems like it's finally warming up.

Kodak China Moment

On my way to the store today, I had a distinctly China moment. I'm not sure why, but some migrant workers are digging a trench along the road (by hand of course) and so the sidewalk is more congested than usual. As I was passing a loudly coughing, smoke-belching Soviet-era contraption of some sort, I was straining to listen to the music of a dusty old blind man playing the erhu (two-stringed high-pitched violinish traditional instrument) accompanied by a younger man, just as dusty, playing a xylophone-type instrument. They seemed very accomplished, but I was distracted by a passing three-wheeled bike with a pile of salvaged wood at least the size of a Volkswagen that was passing by in the street. At the same time, the workers pulling an ancient earth-tamper (apparently powered by the previously mentioned safety hazard) were distracted by me. Obviously their province has never been visited by foreigners before, because the guy steering the tamper just about twisted his head off staring at me, and I'm sure his eyes will never fully retract into their sockets. Of course I didn't have my camera, but I don't think a simple picture could capture the flavor of the scene.