On
the plane ride up the eastern seaboard of China. I’m probably somewhere over Shandong or northern Jiangsu by
now. I had two delicious,
monster size slices of pizza last night in Shenzhen, and I feel like they were
immediately converted into some pachyderm storage hump in my stomach before me,
which I am now regretfully sporting.
The gals on Shenzhen airlines asked: “Chicken with rice, or fish with rice?” Neither please.
I am on Shenzhen Airlines because it too is a “Star
Alliance” partner. The food trays
look different as are the staff’s uniform. Perhaps not surprisingly the in flight entertainment is
exactly the same as my beloved Air China. It is precisely the
same insipid movie I am trying to ignore as I did on the flight down. Turbulence are, of course preventing me
from using the facilities. I used
to wonder why every single flight one
ever takes in China, anywhere, always has a multiple bouts of turbulence. Every time, like clock work, and the stewardesses always
pronounce the word incorrectly as if they all learned it incorrectly from the
same flight-attendant school manual.
“We are experiencing some turb-a-lance.”
Last year I read James Fallows, “China Airborne” which
pointed out that, because all airspace is controlled by the military, no change
in flight plans are allowed. So
that, in the U.S., if one pilot encountered turb-a-lance,
they would radio back and all other pilots would adjust their altitude or
direction accordingly to ensure a smoother ride. No such luck here, as we bounce and shake the familiar
eastern seaboard bounce and shake.
The Times had a good article yesterday on the situation
between China and Vietnam. Inside
they quoted my former professor, David Zweig whom I studied with at the
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, but who has been teaching now for years
in Hong Kong University. He makes
a very important point, which up till now I hadn’t considered: China’s default position for regional
relations is to keep them unilateral.
Bilateral negotiations where China is just one among many stakeholders
is, for matters of core interest at least, an anathema. Regionally China is the center and
conceptually there are no true equals.
But if the older brother is supposed to evidence wisdom and high moral
standards, this week with water cannons blasting leaves us a bit 难兄难弟[1]
The Philippines has a mutual defense treaty with the United
States. They can afford flatly
deny China bilateral negotiations, given the powerful suggestion of U.S.
backing. Vietnam, without any such
back and with no sea to protect them from a land based invasion, must be more
prudent. And China was glad to
have their engagement and support for unilateral negotiations over the Paracel
Island dispute. Having abruptly
asserted their claim and ignored diplomatic niceties with Vietnam this week,
China has effectively illustrated the uselessness of unilateral
negotiations. Who has anything to
gain by dealing with China directly if this is the result. Every other regional player with the
possible exception of Cambodia and Laos, and of course North Korea, will either
decide to hang together or hang separately, hence forth.
A bit formulaic
perhaps but I aint through with stride piano players. I went ahead an cued up another gent I hadn’t heard of
before, the one Dick Wellstood.
Born, like me, in suburban New York, there in Greenwich Connecticut,
Dick Wellstoood doesn’t sound like he’s from Greenwhich. On a live album that sounds like it was
recorded at a Cricket pitch, “Live at the Sticky Wicket” in 1986, we get to hear Dick
Wellstood speak between songs and I’d have pegged him for having grown up in
Flatbush. Perhaps he did. The Wiki entry is a bit paltry.
I liked the fact that he was one of the few stride piano
players who came of age during, and not before the bebop ear. At the time of the his death in 1987 he
was the pianist for the Bemelman's Bar of the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan where,
as I recall, Bobby Short must have also been a regular feature. I tried to bring him on board the
plane, but the sync with Rdio that had me good for a tune or two on my iPhone,
strutting through the ultra modern, moderner-than-though airport in Shenzhen,
but he conked by the time I reached my seat. Blue Mitchell is filling in for him, nicely.
OK. All devices
must be powered off. Over to my
Kingsley Amis novel of drunken Welshman and Welshwomen.
[1] nánxiōngnándì: lit. hard to differentiate between
elder and younger brother (idiom) / fig. one is just as bad as the other
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