Driving along the
coast in area between Yantai and Penglai during our ongoing New Year’s
exploration of Shandong. To our left is
an enormous faux Bavarian monstrosity that is apparently the Changyu wine maker’s
“Wine City” wine park. Fortunately, it
is closed.
My dear friend sent me a link to a comparatively recent
album by Mulatu Astatke. I wrote him
back that I already had it and that it was on regular rotation in my car. I can remember I was on a visit to San
Francisco a few years back and popped into Rasputin Records there near Union
Square. On one of the top floors
dedicated to “international” I got to work searching for things and suddenly
noticed the remarkable sounds they had playing.
“Who is this?” I asked. “Oh,
Mulatu Astake” said the young gent with the commonality of delivery he might
use to say “Mick Jagger” or “Ricky Martin.” “Oh, I see.” It sounded vaguely Ethiopian and he confirmed
that it was. “You can find him over in ‘African’
under “A”.
My buddy wrote me back quickly, though and said “How about
this one?” And provided a link to “Inspiration Information 3” which is Mulatu
Astake with the London based, solar system focused, Heliocentrics. “No.” I replied. “I’ll dig in.” I’m quite
glad I did. It is absolutely
gorgeous. Born in the Ethiopian city of
Jimma, having grown up in the U.K. and later lived in the U.S., Mulatu Astake
it seems, is devoted to fastening a perennial grasp on angular modernity. I thought the last disc was disturbingly
contemporary, but this new collaboration is refined gutter-grit, polished
sophistication. I still haven’t got my
arms around it. It’s wonderful to approximate an embrace. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulatu_Astatke
Making our way down the eight-laned boulevard known as
Yangze River Road. Pedestrians have no
choice, and no fear, to cross the road before us, randomly, compromising all
traffic flow. The buildings along the
road are mostly ten to twenty years old, which makes them look forty to fifty year
old. Rust drops down from the
charactered signs, billboards covering construction sites are torn and flapping. To my right is an enormous red sculpture,
that probably came with instructions for how to keep it looking new to which
the village elders have said apparently replied: “Phooey.
No need” to.
The place we’re staying is right on the beach and indeed,
the rolling beech is beautiful. With a
widows-walk you could stare out all day and just muse on 碧海青天[1] But, alas, across the street is a tremendous General Motors
factory and beside the little stretch of beach they’ve tried to protect are
seventeen skyscrapers that tower over the surf.
The word “unspoiled” as assigned to beaches, comes to mind, longingly. This road towards the city of Yantai along
the coast has a host of huge chemical plants along it that we passed last
night. Our hotel manager was boasting that
unlike Qingdao, the beaches and the sea here were not polluted. I’d like to believe her. As my wife says, “the old, the new are all
mixed up here.”
I should take a picture of some of the machinery equipment
stores that flash product up above their
meager store fronts on this road. Hand
drills and peanut oil machines modeled as if they were this season’s cool
clothes to wear. Reminds me of seeing
automatic weapons modeled as such on the Afghani boarder in Pakistan. How
confusing and rough it must have all been when this traditional Shandong
population was ruled by Europeans, in the port city they called “Cheefoo” some
110 years ago.
Having arrived and toured, Yantai is a bit rough. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yantai Charming, and evocative in a poorly managed,
poorly preserved, poorly serviced sort of way.
On the coast, set below a rough hill face, with odd bits of extant
architecture in the ‘old’ town, I had my fingers crossed. We went to the Changyu wine museum. Initially I was fascinated that the company,
Changyu, is actually over 120 years old.
The great Qing diplomat, statesman Li Hong Zhang helped to launch the
company with state funds in the 1890s.
The cellar was rebuilt three times and now stands as the oldest in
Asia. I was having a grand old time and
developing a taste for libations until I got to the tasting room, where the two
ladies in drab over coats welcomed me with all the panache of washroom
attendants. “There’s a dry red and a dry
white. Huh? The Grape?
The bottle’s over there.” “Gimme your ticket. Ticket punch before you taste
anything.” http://www.changyu.cn/english/homepage.asp
Safely below expectations.
I shook it off and proceeded on the tour. Upstairs they have a state capitalist
approach to the question of: ‘the world of wine.’ Who makes the most? Stats were provided for each country. Surprise, France not only makes the most wine
in the world, but also drinks the most per capita. Surprise, China’s production is catching up. The label exhibit was pleasant and more than a
little alluring and once again I was starting to get thirsty.
Ahh, just the thing.
Up ahead they have a bar with stools and a chalkboard menu. “Hi, please let me know about the different
things you have available?” “Oh, sure. Oooh.
We have nothing. Nnnnnn Yes. Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Looking: “Ahhhhhhhh,
let’s see. Hmmmm Nothing.”
“Nothing? Why? You have eight million bottles of wine here
in this facility, let’s find one we can open, shall we?” We got another lady who confirmed that if I
really wanted, she had one bottle in the fake oak cask refridgerator, from
which she could provide one shot of ice wine to sell to me for $8.50. They had nothing else, whatsoever. I see.
Yes, well that’s just how it is.
I tried to complain as politely as I could to a lady who
assured me she was a manager and who looked very grave and serious as she
nodded. Waste of oxygen I suppose. I decided to head out to the car. My wife stayed with the girls to have a wine
label made from one of their photographs.
I chatted with a friend on the phone.
Then, my gal stormed out with them a moment later fuming “that little
girl was so rude, it’s unbelievable!”
This from the home-team Shandong lady.
I’m always half certain it is my issue when I get peeved, but now I’m here
talking my wife back from the brink of the “they don’t get it!” paradigm.
We were told to head to “Chao Yang Street” to see old
architecture. Walking along the kids
were cold and done rather quickly. I
soldiered on. There are some lovely, haunting
old European buildings. Someday they’ll
do a good job with whatever remains. But
they’re too busy now building the ‘new’ city, it would seem to protect
something that someone else built that doesn’t tower over much of anything. ‘Cheefoo’，the colonial name (zhi fu) for Yantai always strikes me as a homophone
for the Chinese word qifu, 欺负, which means ‘to bully’, which is, or was, perhaps
a rather appropriate assignation.
We’ve now driven on to the “horse rearing island”
YangMaDao. It’s a bit of a stretch from,
say, Chincoteague, but it has its own uniqueness. I haven’t seen anyone riding a horse nor any
sign of manure yet. The racetrack is
closed. There are some equestrian statues. The road around the back of the island is
pretty. There’s a tasteful little walkway
amidst the pines and a museum that would have been interesting if it was
open. But I’ll have to look it up as to
why, precisely any of this this was important for horse rearing. The island is basically a hilly outcropping,
not a broad, gallop-able plain. Apparently the original roughneck emperor, Qin Shi Huang
named this island his horse stable of choice.
I would have thought the grasslands in the north, where the enemies
always hailed from, would have been a better place to raise stallions.
Pull over. We just
referred to a large roadside map that has “You Are Here” marked with a
triangle. Alas the map has two triangles
at opposite sides of the island providing a metaphysically challenging plotting
for my daughter and I. In a heliocentric world, you can’t be “here”
and “here”, simultaneously.
Safely back at the hotel.
Sea outside continues to crash, blue to green on the yellow sand. Penglai, with a bit of luck, tomorrow.
[1]
bìhǎiqīngtiān: green sea, blue sky (idiom); sea and
sky merge in one shade / loneliness of faithful widow
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