GO LOCAL, MOVE TO CHINA!

I remember from school in England learning about the Industrial Revolution, and Britain becoming the “workshop of the world.” I suddenly get an inkling of what that may have been like, because in China, I do feel like I am right in the middle of the workshop of the world. 

Places I’ve been to so far:

• The toy market at Hongqiao Market. Wow. Every single toy under the sun for sale, and for a fraction of the price they go for in the US or Europe. German wooden dolls houses, American Barbie Dolls, Wii’s, tennis rackets, roller blades, gorgeous wooden puzzles. I really felt like Charlie entering the chocolate factory, like all my wildest consumer dreams had come true.
• The Silk Market, Yashow Market in Sanlitun, Hongqiao Market. The clothes you can buy for very little money – gorgeous cashmere sweaters, silk dressing gowns, beautifully embroidered shirts, incredibly cute cotton children’s dresses - just blew me away. (Bargaining can be a bit exhausting though.)
• The Fabric Market. This was like a sight for sore eyes to me. Clothes in the West are so cheap these days that no one makes dresses anymore, and I wouldn’t even have known where to buy fabric in upstate New York where I live. Here in Beijing's fabric market there are shops selling every type of material – cotton, t-shirt, fur, rainproof, curtain material, bedding material. There’s also every kind of button, including, for example, cute ones in the shape of flowers that the girls and I made necklaces out of. Then there are shops filled with every colour of thread under the sun. There’s even leather and buckles you can make belts out of. The wonderful Sophia – wife of FT correspondent Jamil Anderlini – also introduced me to her tailor, so I am going to get clothes I’ve always wanted -- but never been able to find -- made. I can also finally afford  curtains for our house in upstate New York and sofa covers to replace the ones the dog chewed up.
• Wooden furniture. Thanks to Yvonne, we found this amazing place selling not only old Chinese furniture, but new furniture made out of old wood they get from old houses in the countryside. We bought cupboards, a wooden table, wooden benches. There were literally warehouses full of stuff I really, really liked. This is quite a big contrast to my experience in the West, where I always have immense trouble buying furniture because I don’t like much of it in the mid-price range. Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel don’t seem to be much better quality than Ikea, just a lot more expensive. In China, I’ve found something matching my own aesthetic. Not super-cheap, unfortunately, but not too bad either (RMB4800 for a big wooden dining table)
• The flower market. To be able to fill our living room with fresh cut flowers every week, without being a millionaire, is, quite frankly, amazing.

And all bought locally! No more carbon footprint from this stuff going over the ocean in order for me to buy it at ten times the price from Toys R Us or Banana Republic! (True, the flowers are flown from Yunnan…slight guilt there...)

P.S. I’m not as excited about pirated DVDs as last time I lived here. Yes it’s great being able to watch lots of movies, but in the US we now have Netflix, whose choice is – now I’m one of those 40-somethings who watches documentaries and isn’t that interested in the latest Hollywood blockbuster – quite frankly better. 

TIPS FOR EVERYDAY LIVING IN CHINA #2

PARK FOR FREE AND AVOID PARKING TICKETS BY BLOCKING THE SIDEWALK! 

I can’t say I’m entirely on top of the Beijing parking rules yet, but a couple of observations so far (feedback welcomed) 
1. If you park in what looks like a parking space along the road  -- white lines in a car-sized, box shape – two things are likely to happen. If there is someone in a worn-out, slightly faded uniform around, you’re likely to be charged a fair amount to park there (Rmb10 per hour on average). If there is no one like that around, and you go ahead and park anyway, you’re liable to get a Rmb200 parking ticket. 
2. If you just drive headlong onto the pavement, blocking the entrance to shops and restaurants and preventing pedestrians from passing except by stepping on the road, you may get yelled at by a few people but you can park for at least 2 days without any of the financial disadvantages of option 1.  It could actually be longer than two days, that’s just the longest I’ve tried. 

AT THE AIRPORT

In his interview about China for The Browser, New Yorker correspondent Evan Osnos introduced me to the idea of the “airport” view of a country. This is a concept devised by political economist Huang Yasheng. It means you see everything about the country through the prism of what the airport is like. Fancy airport, great country, great economy. (I have a slight suspicion this is what Niall Ferguson has fallen victim to recently, he seems to be very ra-ra about China at the moment).

Today (April 6^th) I flew out of Beijing Capital Airport with my two girls (age 4 and 3) and so I’d like to include my own airport observations.

• The architecture seemed fine: it’s not something I pay much attention to.
• I’ve travelled a lot, and whether the airport carts are free or not says a lot about a country’s attitude to visitors. If you have a system where an exhausted person, coming off a 12 hour flight, has to fumble with change which -- given they’ve just come from a foreign country -- they might not even have yet, or a credit card they might not own (remember in some countries not every sentient being uses Mastercard or Visa), I feel that, on balance, as a country, you haven’t given much thought to making foreigners feel welcome. At Beijing airport, needless to say, the carts are free.
• Ditto Wifi.
• No waiting in line anywhere at all – that was very liberating, especially travelling with young children.
• Check out the picture below from immigration control! Yes, in a one-party state, where government officials traditionally had no accountability, the potential immigree can -- with the press of a button -- give feedback on the performance of his immigration officer. Sorry mate, but your "checking time was too slow"…I hope the INS and immigration services around the world take some tips from this approach, because I’ve had some bad experiences.

• There was a children’s playground. A simple concept but again, if you’re travelling with young kids, what a Godsend. I happily sipped a latte by some plants (which someone was in the process of dusting) as the girls played and watched tv.

• I could send a parcel by express mail!  Of course the moment I was through security, I realized I still had our Chinese car's registration documents in my handbag. In the US or the UK, I’d be completely sunk. In Beijing, I knew I would probably be OK, and lo and behold I was. There was a desk where they picked up the documents and sent them by overnight mail to Charlie, who is still in Beijing. He can put them in the car tomorrow. [Update: the car documents didn't arrive until five days later! So much for overnight express...]

TIPS FOR EVERYDAY LIVING IN CHINA # 1

(This one from my friend Yvonne) THERE'S A BURGLAR IN MY HOUSE! HOW DO I MAKE SURE THE POLICE COME QUICKLY (...because...I've heard...that sometimes...they don't)?

When you call, feel free to gloss over the fact there is a man in your living room trying to steal all your worldly belongings. For a faster response, mention your suspicion that someone is putting up a Falun Gong poster on your front door. When they arrive minutes later, you can just say you were mistaken.

AT THE LOCAL SUPERMARKET

I know I should begin this blog with lofty reflections on China today compared with when I first visited at the end 1994, and maybe I will at some point. For now, I just want to talk about my experience with the local Chinese supermarket, which, as a mother buying food and clothes for a family of five, is a major (possibly THE major) point of contact for me with the outside world (so much for women's liberation)

* Profound observation number one. The Chinese really do not like cheese. There is no cheese in this supermarket, unless you include a few plastic slices in a packet, which go by the name of Milkana, propped somewhere by the yoghurt, and even these are exceedingly few in quantity and somewhat pushed to the back. For all the talk about China's development, in the cheese-making arena, this is definitely a step back from 1995. In those days, there was a joint venture selling mozzarella and taleggio from a kiosk in Sanlitun, one of Beijing's embassy districts. The taleggio was so delicious I ate it virtually every day (and I'm quite picky about cheese). I am told they are no more. I did read an article about a Dutchman making Gouda locally. I would love to meet him, because I'm not going to pay fancy imported prices to get my fix of cheese.

* I got back my electric blanket!  So I am riding a bicycle around, which is far too small for me, as I guess Dutch people are still taller than Chinese people, on average. The advantage is that it's easy to put my feet on the ground. I am also wearing a helmet, which I never have before, as helmet-wearing seems to be de rigueur these days. I also have to wear gloves thanks to the biting cold (it's snowing today). The result is that when I leave the supermarket, I have a lot of stuff, and some might say, am even a bit all over the place, dropping things on the ground, holding up the checkout queue because I am so slow etc. When I got home last night, I found that the most expensive item I had bought, a Rmb 100 electric blanket, was not amongst my purchases. I bought it for my mother-in-law Tessa, who is coming to visit in less than a week and is -- very rightly -- concerned about the cold in our courtyard house. Well, I thought, it's less than 20 bucks down the drain, annoying, but not a big deal. The thought crossed my mind that maybe someone had stolen it, but it seemed more likely that I had just dropped it. So today, when I was back at the supermarket, I couldn't help but show them my receipt and ask if they'd seen my blanket. They had it right there, stored away, with a little note on it. They said, "You had so much stuff, you left it here." And that was that. One of those things that restores one's faith in humanity.

* No cereal. I really couldn't see any at the local supermarket, but perhaps I didn't look hard enough. It's sort of a relief. I find American-style cereal a depressing variety of food, even though hubbie and the kids love it, so I always have to buy boxes of the stuff.

* It took me a week to find the salt. Yes, really. I bought MSG first time around, by mistake, because it said "China Salt" on it. It's only when I got home that I checked the small print.

* There are a lot of staff. Hold off on the comments about rising labour costs in China, we're really not there yet. There are just too many people around doing minor tasks (dusting plants etc.) to make this a credible argument.

* In China it’s OK to call someone fat. I found this out as I was browsing some puffy jackets in the department store just above the supermarket (in China, supermarkets tend to be in basements, for some reason, and there are often offices or department stores above). I was being very attentively attended to, when a Chinese woman came in and asked if they had any jackets for fat people as she was a bit fat (she pointed to her waist). I wouldn’t have called her fat myself, but anyway. The shop assistant’s response: “ No, we don’t have jackets for fat people, sorry.” And that was that.