Dull Ochre Constellation

We had blue skies for two days.  I told my guests to enjoy it.  I told them they were lucky.  An it looked clear as the sun came up this morning, but it didn't last.  I wrote a colleague who had saved a Saturday to explore Beijing that the good weather was continuing.  “Enjoy the day."  And now I regret thumbing that line.  The sky is thick and getting thicker.  There’s a chalky taste in my mouth.  A dull ochre constellation of particulate haze arrests visibility beyond two hundred yards.  It doesn’t matter that I’m heading into the city.  It wouldn’t change things if I drove for five hour out of the city.  The northern plane of China is blanketed in an unhealthy haze.  I don't need a forecast to know.  

Today is the first day of the break.  I’ve waited a long time for this day, when there are no more must-do meetings nor hosting obligations left to attend to.  I was longing for this day so I mustn’t let the air bring me down.  I do have one obligation today that I’m in the middle of fulfilling.  I borrowed a battery charger yesterday and after our collegial feast, complete with a toast to this and a toast to that, I wound up taking it home.  I will drop it off with the concierge and swing right back around to my compound.  

Everyone should be enjoying themselves today.  It’s the first day of the holiday and everyone should be strolling about the city laughing.  Perhaps they are but as I look out and see people sitting at an outdoor café I worry about them.  People are riding their Mobikes and their Ofo’s around and I worry about them.  Perhaps the abandoned Mobikes and Ofos strewn about waiting to be picked up are a more apt metaphor.

Speeding back home now.  A friend stayed last night and he’ll stay again tonight.  He came to Beijing for work and booked his homeward ticket for the wrong day back.  No worries. Change the flight for something back this morning.   Ahh, but it’s the first day of National Holiday and all the tickets back to Japan are gone, and the prices for the subsequent days now all terribly inflated.  He’ll need to take a train somewhere else tomorrow morning and fly on from there.  I don’t think anyone regrets leaving Beijing they see the air like this.  A woman in the car beside me just rolled down the window and stuck her head out to vomit.

Saturday,  9/30/17

A Paragon of Confidence

Up early.  Rather ready.  I’ve got to be there in two hours.  It will take an hour and say, five minutes to get there.  So I’m fine.  I order my cab, he comes on time.  I’m in my cab, I write all the other people to ask:  “Are you on your way?”  Because even though its 7:30, I’m already en route or our 9:00AM meeting. 

One person writes back.  “Yes, looking for cab.”  “I see.  OK.  Let me know if you have any issues”, I thumb, a paragon of confidence.   Another says he will be on the way shortly.  I notice that I’m behaving this way as I pull up on Gaobai Road to some impenetrable traffic.  What’s this?   I have a look at the drivers GPS and then my own.  There is a solid red line all the way up to the high way entrance, some three kilometers on from here. Cars try to advance in the oncoming traffic lane.  Everyone is more important than everyone else.  The time I’d imagined as productive is spent in the moment, fretting, minute after minute.  Nearly three quarters of an hour later we discerned that a broken traffic light was the cause of the problem.

The one hour trip took two.  All my early preparation, and preparedness  was wasted.  Now people began to write back.  “We’re arriving.  We’re here.  “Where are you?”  A long, long way off.  Please, start the meeting without me.  I'll send you the lady's number.  I’ll let you know when I arrive.  I told the cab driver if I had been ten minutes late it would be embarrassing.  Forty-five minutes late . . . that is just a joke. 

This driver was reasonable.  Someone you could laugh with.  After lunch, on our way to the next meeting, we had a driver who you could laugh at.  He set off confidently enough and took us to the wrong place.  We renamed the company tower we were heading to.  "Who?''As though someone in San Francisco said:  "Twitter?  What the hell's a Twitter?"  The driver did not know of this company or their tower.   I put him on the phone with someone who was already at the location.  He yelled.  He yelled again.  He yelled again much louder into the phone.  Then he turn and quietly ask me, “where are we going?”  These guests were one part amused, one part shocked and there wasn’t really much of anything to do about it.

Eventually, I suggested he simply pull over please, right here.  He was going around in circles that could be more profitably traversed on foot. 

Friday, 9/29/17

They Savour Their Grumble

I have guests.  Those of you who are Americans may have a quaint sense of what that means.  “Hey, welcome.”  “Mi casa . . . ” The obligation, the modest obligation, is noted.  In my host civilization however this notion is rather more significant.  Guests and hosts have all but religious significance in Confucian thinking.   You should be a good host. This is widely understood.  The burden is on the host to welcome the guest.  Otherwise you are nothing but a “small man.” 

We hopped in a cab with an older Beijing cabbie.  He drove off down the road and then began to suggest that the people in the back seat were too big.  One of the guests was rather tall.  This was a safety violation.  He complained as he drove forward.  In this context I humored my cabbie and said:  “Sir, you are our host, please be polite.  It will be OK.”

As often happens with these perennial hosts, the hosts who are fated by geography to have been hosts for the last thousand years, whether they want to be hosts or not, the people of old-Beijing, they make a sport of grumbling.   They savour their grumble, chewing all the juice out of it.  “Well, who talks about hosting when safety is at stake?”  “This is a fair point my friend, but you have already taken the fair, you have already driven off.  Let’s be polite and welcome our guests like a good host.  This is their first day here from the U.S."

He raises his voice.  I raise my voice.  “Oh, I’ve had enough of Americans.  I don’t want to deal with them any more.”  He’s kidding.  He’s not kidding.  He's trying to lacerate me, in kind.  I continue:  "You know, in Confucian thinking, a good host makes his guests feel welcome.  You are making these people feel that the people of Beijing have a low civilizational level.  In fact China has a remarkable cultural level, but your behavior suggests otherwise.  Slighting their country is beneath you as the host from the capital.  These are things you already know sir.  You already know this.” 

He absorbs this.  I absorb this.  We both resort to being quiet.   The people in the back want know what just happened.

Thursday, 9/28/17

Ma Shang is Meaningless

Four people are arriving.  Four is one person too many for a regular taxi.  The last time someone arrived late I dutifully shuffled him down to the cab queue and soon regretted it.  "Civility will get you no where.  Don't let that guy cut in."  This time I’m definitely ordering a car.  But do I really want two vehicles?  “Why not use our car, I’ll get you a driver?” my wife suggested.  I considered the music I could mandate along the way and quickly agreed.

A ring from the front gate and the driver is here.  Lanky, smiling, he seems a pleasant young gentleman.  He puts his folding bike in the trunk and we’re off.  I check more closely than I would if it wasn’t my car and he seems confident driving the vehicle.  I confirm that he is not from Beijing.  “Shijiazhuang, I see.”  He is needlessly deferential in a way that Beijing drivers never are until its too late.  I tell the guy to wait at the arrival drop off and that I’ll call him when I’m ready in about fifteen minutes or so.

My visiting colleagues pop out, one, two three and . . . four.  They’ve all managed to book different hotels, though fortunately there all there around Liangmqiao area.  One elevator is overwhelmed with people.  "Let's head to that one."  We're not the only ones with this idea and a crowd quickly forms.  Two of the team manage to squeeze in and I tell everyone else we'll take the escalator instead.  

I escort the crew out towards the arrival curb and give my driver a ring.  “Ma shang.” He replies. “right away.”  Sounds good.  We all make small talk.  I begin to suggest unsolicited commentary about Beijing.  “Yes, yes, this is actually a very clear evening.  Yes.”  I call the guy again to clarify his location.  “Ma shang.”  Yeah but where are you? Near the entrance?  Are you on the ramp?"  Another call, another "ma shang."  "Ma shang is meaningless. Don't use the word any more.  Where are you physically?  I get that you're sorry.  Where are you?"  Turning to code switch back to English I try to be all smiles.  He's approaching from the gate down there." I say soothingly.   One colleague can speak Chinese and he is laughing with me, at all that I've said and then suppressed 

Driving in.  It’s a pleasure at 11:00PM.  There’s no traffic.   No one has asked but I have many things to explain about the city.  Orchestra Polyrhythm De Cotonou sounds extraordinary and goes unnoticed.

Wednesday, 9/27/17