Bulk Cloth Saturday

Riding down along the airport expressway into the city.  Miraculously, it isn’t particularly crowded, mid afternoon on a Saturday.  Touring along as I have for two decades now it is surely a 轻车熟路[1] of familiarity.  And usually every individual with a car, of whom there are now fifteen million or so, take their drive out on the weekend, making it rush-hour all day.

Packed or fluid, it is quite a scene.  We’ve gone from the days, twenty years ago when there were “mian bao” bread box min vans for taxis and state cars called “red flags” that were refitted Audis occupying most of this road, to now, a whose-who of luxury vehicles to match the piercing envy of Highway 101 south from San Francisco to “Larry Land”.  Maserati’s, and Jaguars make the myriad BMW and Benz drivers jealous.  Plenty of family vehicles as well, Honda mini vans and Hyundai SUVs and the big popular Buick: the mini van that seats the nuclear family, both sets of grandparents then some. No cars are old.  No cars are "vintage."

I’d love to tell you it's a bright, clear Mediterranean-like day, zipping along the ring roads now, but it isn’t.  There’s a dull haze over the city.  I’m not on line or I could confirm what is invariably a dismal air quality rating.  We’re heading down to the southern part of the city, which is always a bit of a throw back, developmentally.  My wife needs to pick up some fabric and my daughter has her friend along for the ride.  Something new:  Dizzy Reece the Jamaican born trumpeter on a 1960 Blue Note set and the tune, "Sands" is so aggressive and compelling it makes me miss New York City like it hurts.  

We just passed a four car “accident.”   Each one, it appeared, had ever so slightly grazed the other and so everyone must necessarily stop, argue, take photos and await the cop who will adjudicate, irrespective of the impact to regular traffic.  I remember accidentally tapping the car in front of me on Mission St. in San Francisco when I had a Chinese guest with me.  The victim got out, looked confirmed that it was nothing and waved me off, saying “forget it.”  My Chinese guest said: “Oh my, that is something that would never happen in China.”  It’s the sort of thing that makes you ever so proud of America. 

Moments that flash and disappear.  Now, now what’s going on in San Francisco, now?  Someone decided to flame the entrance to Chinese Consulate, there across the road from the Japantown mall on Laguna St.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/us/attacker-sets-fire-at-chinese-consulate-in-san-francisco.html  I’ve walked through that door myself a few dozen times.  That doesn’t make me feel especially proud.  The conservative “Global Times” here in China suggested it was a result of all the anti Chinese rhetoric in the U.S. media.  My initial reaction was that this was nonsense and simply a mirroring of what U.S. press says about anti Americanism in China; that it is state sponsored.  But what do I know of the mood back home these days.  Perhaps the xenophobic sentiment has waxed louder than I know.  

No one has yet to claim responsibility.  There are no shortage of people angry with China Inc.  Thoughts turn immediately to the FaLunGong protestors who usually camp out across the embassy and the various Chinese Consulates, exercising their rights to protest every day for years now.  Perhaps someone snapped and decided to go from full-lotus meditation to full-on conflagration.  Tibetans and Uighurs have plenty to be upset about and again, every group has its’ extremist element, which wring their hands and say non-violence just isn’t working.  No one, I believe, thinks this has anything to do with the arch state-enemy, Japan.  For now we must speculate.

We’ll learn more, certainly in the days to come.  I suppose this means that, not unlike the aftermath of the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Sarajevo which killed three Chinese staff, and resulted in state supported protests, with rock throwing at the U.S. embassy in Beijing, and ultimately the relocation of the U.S. embassy to a more fortress like compound across town . . . that the little white building there off Geary Boulevard will now have armed guards and barricades.  People who want to go to either country for business or tourism will feel increasingly, from the start, as if they’re preparing to visit some enemy territory.  That is the purpose of any terrorist, of course to breed fear and suspicion, amplify nerves.  Create a climate where miscalculation is more likely where rhetoric is flush, and overreaction is legitimized. 

We’re in the south of the city now.  There are far more of the old six-story walk up brick apartments built en masse in the 80s.  These haven’t been targeted yet for demolition like their northern cousins.  It looks quite a bit more, for better or worse, like the only Beijing there was, fifteen years ago.  Let’s get out and take a few photos and see what the state of bulk fabric sales are like in the Beijing of today.  

By the way, where do you suppose all the vendors are from?  I asked in every shop we visited.  Everyone, it appears, is from Wenzhou in southern Zhejiang.  This, the fabled mercantile, powerhouse that always punches so far above its weight.  I'd venture to guess there are some nice cars in Wenzhou cross-town traffic, as well. 

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[1]   qīngchēshúlù:  lit. to drive a lightweight chariot on a familiar road (idiom) / fig. to do sth routinely and with ease / a walk in the park