Snow is finally
here. My family and I have been waiting
till February 5, of this year to finally experience nieve. But Qingdao is at the
front end of a blizzard, apparently and it is lovely to finally see. While we’d all love to confront a 鹅毛大雪[1], this is so far big fat wet flakes that
melt as soon as they hit the concrete.
But who’s complaining? I was
beginning to wonder if we’d get through the entire year without seeing the
white stuff fall. I wonder and since I’m
on line I checked, and sure enough, back in Beijing, the precipitation is
“zero.”
As suggested I
followed the thread on from Henry Threadgill to the guitarist who appeared on
the album I mentioned yesterday, one Liberty Ellman, from the U.K. I am mid way through “You Have Ears,” and I
sent the link over to may step son whose a fine guitar player residing in
Japan. But Rdio isn’t yet available
there. What a drag. How’d they figure it out in China first? Fortunately he must have found something on
Youtube. His IM comments to me on Skype,
concerning Mssr. Ellman: “lol that's tight.
These guys are definitely on something tho.”
Settled in the car
now taking on Qingdao. We’ve entered out
on to the only exit which affords us an egress on to Xuzhou St, and . . . it
ain’t moving. We’ve shifted on from
Liberty Ellman to Duke Ellington out here in the car, on the album wherein he
“meets” Coleman Hawkins. This swings a
big more accessibly then Mssr. Ellman, but then Duke swings more accessibly
than anyone who ever walked the earth.
Different times, different tunes.
Well, at least the traffic has, eventually, let through.
We’ve been put out
on to a back alley area that won’t let us turn the direction we want to go.
Well, this is the backside of the city then.
I keep telling my wife to turn left and she isn’t taking to my backseat
driving well. Shift then. We’re playing the “license plat game” with my
younger one, wherein you get a point for any car upon which you spot a
neighboring province license plate from.
You find a province farther from one adjoining and its two points or
more.
On the drive out here
the license plate game was pretty boring stuff with Beijing, and Tianjin and Hebei
all not really counting since they all adjoined to closely as we drove through
them each. But driving around this city
we’ve just noticed a gaggle of “out of state” plates. Zhejiang,
Fujian, Anhui . . . there must be story there somehow. Perhaps it is all property owners who are
participating in the great property game we referenced yesterday. But that’s unlikely. Other-province-people all have great property
extravaganzas of their own to exploit.
Probably just folks home for New Year’s.
Nice! I just got a Jiangsu.
We’re heading over
to the Badaguan area that apparently has lots of extant German
architecture. I’d like to see the
Governor’s House, constructed in the style of a proper palace, that the German
Governor had built in 1903. When Kaiser Wilhelm
II got the bill for the facility he fired the Guv, on the spot.
The physical stock
of people in Shandong is quite noticeably different from nearly anywhere else
in China. As the saying goes “Shandong
Da Han,” which means, essentially, the local people tend to be taller, bigger
than your average Chinese person. I’m
biased, but I also think they’re a rather handsome part of the population as
well. People are comparatively more
statuesque across former kingdoms of Qi and Lu.
One unavoidable confrontation here, whether in Weifang, or Qingdao is
that I’m engaging people more regularly are at or above my 6.2’ height. And ‘tis a good thing, for my older daughter
who just turned thirteen yesterday. She
is nearly 5.8’ and will invariably rise for a while. There are no dearth of people here in Qingdao
that she can still stare up at. My
younger one is asleep, which is a drag because we just noticed a Guizhou province license plate. That is a mighty long drive from Qingdao. For sure, that’s a four pointer.
Driving around and
you realize the build out of this neighborhood, once upon a time, was
enormous. We just drove past the Mayor’s
residence. It was a “European”
style. There are plenty of buildings
that speak to a Japanese Imperial style of aggressive Nazi-like Deco. The Germans were only here so long. They certainly covered a lot of ground in
their short tenure. The building frenzy
must have been not unlike a smaller version of what I witnessed yesterday down
the coast. Build, build and build some
more as there is no logical reason for the boom to end. Everything is a sure thing, except for
something utterly unexpected, like World War I.
A frenetic build out of modernity that continued beyond European terms
into something forcefully modern and Japanese that similarly had no obvious way
to end, other than more prosperity . . . or implosion.
OK. Car’s finally parked. We’ll get out and have a wet, snowy look.
Reporting back
that, as might be expected, the coast in the wet snow fall, was wet and
cold. The colors were beautiful. But the kids wanted to bale pretty
quickly. We’re back in the car and this
may be the preferred way to see things today.
We’ve covering a lot of ground, even though there are fifteen one-way
streets in a row all heading the same direction. I’ve just learned the high billboards to my
left on this street, Wen Deng Lu, is the city’s subway construction now in
progress, underneath. More and then more
to come, for sure.
I’m pushing the
squad to head to the tip of the craggy peninsula today, where I hope to find
more old architecture that we could walk around within. Right this way . . . You want to go
left! But it was not to be. Our driver’s made an executive decision and
we’re at the “Underwater World” instead.
OK . We’ll make the best of it.
Closing facilities in
a mere fifteen minutes. No luck. Turned away.
A few photos of wet old trees.
Use of the facilities. Back to
the car.
One thing you
notice driving here, certainly on the coastal roads is that the cab drivers have
a habit of coming up fast behind you and ramming the horn. That, because half the traffic, like us, is merely
day-tripping, enjoying the winding seafront view. Driving isn’t a bad way to take on this city
of hills in the winter. We just drove up
to old railway station and then wound around up into the top of the old city
hill. What a change! Suddenly it is an utterly fascinating
setting. Deco Buildings, buildings that
look like Vienna or someone’s idea of Tudor living. What a beautiful extant urban
environment. I somehow don’t remember
Qingdao being quite this exceptional. Perhaps
I’m just in the mood to appreciate art deco things that remain in China, so
many years on from first footfall. I’m
so glad to see that there is this much that still stands.
I’m now pitching my
wife on seeing if there is a way to buy one of the broken down old store fronts
on this hill and fixing it over in anticipation of the great reclamation of
these neighborhoods that is bound to come.
I’m no better than folks with stars in their eyes down the coast in
Huangdao. But it speaks to a different
kind of urban expertise, perhaps less of a “sure thing” but with the added
preservationist buzz that inflates you a bit, striving for something
vintage. My particular preference as an
old foreigner predictably enough, is to protect the old European flavor, I
suppose. Still, it is now part of the
city’s tradition more than it is the tradition of one race or another. Qingdao’s China now. That’s irrefutable. With a bit of courage, China will do some
remarkable and aesthetically potent things here. It seems foretold.
They can start, by
trearing that wretched hotel down, that stands on the seaside bluff, just south
of Badaguan. Bo Xilai get’s bad press but you need someone with that sort of
juice to identify the ten most offensive eyesores in Qingdao, and, since this
is a dictatorship, make a philosopher king-like decision to eradicate the ten
most prominent and ugly buildings constructed in the last thirty five
years. Sorry. No vote.
Remove them. Then, bring in Shui
On who built XinTianDi or someone of taste to create some multi-use, livable
space that grows on that hill. If you
did that, you’d attract an international environment and, just maybe, some
genuine innovation.
For now, wet snow
still parades earthward. To actually see
snow gather and accumulate on the Chinese yellow earth, the wait
continues. Till now, everything melted
as it fell. The evening’s freeze may
yet yield a morning snowball fight.
My wife is looking out the window. From the 19th floor, the car is, finally, covered in snow!
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