From -5C in Beijing to 39C in Bangkok

Before we leave Beijing someone says we have not been to the silk market yet. We decide to make a last-minute visit. We pile into a couple of taxis and end up in the vast six-floor silk market building. Besides all the silk scarves, pajamas, underwear and much else there is a never-ending collection of top-end brand name rip-offs. I see Hermes, Paul&Shark, GANT Ralph Lauren MaxMara all at rock-bottom prices. And on the face of it the quality does not seem bad. We start to wonder. These days, just about every genuine big brand has their stuff manufactured in China. So if you are buying the real stuff from China anyway why feel bad about the rip-offs? And is it even vaguely possible that the copies are made in the same sweat-shops as the real ones, and if so, why pay the difference? I pick up a good looking GANT shirt which would sell in Sandton for around R1500, and the price here is about R200, before trying to bargain down. But I have no appetite for more stuff, and so leave it.

We arrive in clammy hot traffic-choked Bangkok, schlepping all the heavy padded winter gear.We look like freaks.When we settle in we start walking the side walks and realize how much of life for them happens right there on the pavement. Not surprising really, because they have warm weather all year round so no need to seek the shelter of life indoors. In front of the Isetan department store there are two big shrines. One for the Bhuddists and one for the Hindus Many people praying earnestly and lighting joss sticks and bowing in reverence. On the shrines are figures of elephants, bulls, roosters ,dogs and other mythical animal deities. We wonder what it all means.

The next day we start the departure program for the Easter&Oriental Express. We have been looking forward to this, imagining all the Oriental luxury, but are somewhat taken aback by the tiny pullman compartment. All beautifully wood-paneled but so small that we have to unpack our big suitcases, take out the necessary summer clothes and have the rest stored in a wagon at the back of the train. But the service is immaculate. We have our own charming Thai butler/attendant who services the pullman, brings splendid trays of tea and puts on fresh beautiful bed-linen every morning. The dining experience is quite formal and the food is the best we have ever eaten, anywhere. Table settings with silver, crystal and starched cotton At one point one of the chefs walks past us, through the dining carriage. We stop him and compliment him on the food. He says he comes from La Rochelle in France. We should have known.

Your Best Friend in your Breast Pocket

We are driving through Beijing when I hear a sound very much like the chirping sound of of a cricket. I try to ignore it, but eventually ask Rick, our guide, if anything is wrong.
Rick looks at me with the dewy eyed look of a proud parent and takes out of his breast pocket a small perspex cylinder.
In it is his pet cricket...I kid you not. This grown Chinese man tells us that many Chinese men have a pet cricket which they keep with them, as a friend and precious companion. He says he feeds it from his hand. He gives it carrot and water.
The reason we heard him was because his cricket was unhappy and wanted to be in the sunshine.
We all think it is hilarious. Rick is deadly earnest.
The cricket has an unpronounceable Chinese name and obviously has an important place in his life.

I said once before, we just don't understand the Chinese.

Quickl-Look Beijing Impressions

Who are the Chinese?

We are in sub-zero Beijing. Dropped the first morning at the one end of Tian'an Men Square to walk across it to the Forbidden City.
It is so cold we cannot focus properly on anything but keeping ourselves together and hoping that the walking will generate some body heat.
But more than the cold, it is the vastness that overwhelms. The guide tells us that a million people have gathered here. I reflect that for a vast country with more than a billion people a very big heart of the empire is probably appropriate. But there is no human scale here.No trees. Just the massive Great Hall of the People at one end, the China National Museum opposite and the Mausoleum of Mau in the middle. We walk through the Ming dynasty gate of Tian'an Men where Mau proclaimed the People's Republic of China in 1949 and where his huge photograph still looms, into the Forbidden City. Past the still standing Red Guards and among thousands of visiting Chinese. Hardly a Westerner to be seen anywhere.
Again the feeling of structures so big that there seems to be no human scale. I think of royal palaces and imperial complexes built at about the same time, in the early 15th century, in England, Europe, the Middle East, South America and even Japan, but nothing as forbidding. We walk through the various gates from Gate of Supreme Harmony through several more until the Gate of Heavenly Purity and all the time a feeling of being diminished by the scale of the structures. And the superstitions. From the child-like, water suggesting animal figures to protect these wooden buildings from fire, to the ever-present dragons indicating the power of the Emporer and to ward off evil spirits. Still no trees. The guide tells us that the word for tree is similar to that of death, so no trees. Life at the Imperial court is dominated by staus and hierarchy. Only the Emporer may walk in the middle. No house or structure that he can see may be higher than his. Ministers and other court officials have offices that are substantially lower in the same complex .
If a significant purpose of travel is to understand something of other cultures, what am I experiencing and learning about China? And the Chinese personality? If these people are becoming a dominant force in the world owning increasingly big chunks of Africa and much else including a substantial part of the debt of America, what are we dealing with? The modern Chinese are obviously different from their early ancestors but the roots of their culture and the DNA of their values must be influenced by where they all come from. In looking at the psychology of people we conclude that if someone tries to be 'closed off' or tries to build a wall around himself that he is insecure and vulnerable. Someone making grand imposing gestures and focussing on status may be seen as hiding some sense of inferiority. Is any of this an indication of a 'Chinese Personality'?
When we finally settle into a warm tea house, we cautiously start questioning our guide. He tells us that he, like the many millions of modern Chinese has one son. No other children are allowed. If they have a daughter as a first child they may, with permission try again. (Any sense of gender-equality has a long way to go here..) If a 'secret' child is born the child may not claim an identity card or have access to national privileges such as education. In the country farm-and peasant-folk may have a second child. Presumably because they provide a source of labour. They say the Chinese have a much longer strategic view of leadership and political governance, but I wonder how they did not anticipate the need for wives of these one child boy-families who often abort girl-fetusses.
Perhaps one of the most impressive aspects of this country is that when a decision is made, somehow, everryone proceeds in lock-step to make it work. How could one man change the entire philosophical structure of such a populous country? With what seems like relatively little opposition. How do businesses manage to get everyone tp work together without dissenters and rebellion? Look at Chinese projects in Africa. They get things done!

The crazy International Date Line

We fly out of Honolullu at 11h00 on Christmas day, heading to Beijing via a transfer in Tokyo.
Big excitement. We are going through the International Date Line.
We wonder..Is there some electronic revolving door we have to go through? Or a membrane in the sky of some kind? Or does someone righ a bell, or what?
About twelve hours of flying time later there is an announcement "The time is 8pm on the 26th December.."
We have lost a day.
Strange thing Time. Our lives are totally regulated by it .We respect time-based appointments and manage our daily agendas very carefully.
We all believe 'Time is Money'
So have I just had 24 hours of my time-capital whipped away from me?
We look forward to Beijing, and have chosen it as our stop in China, rather than Shanghai, because having visited China last time, twelve years ago, we think Shanghai is too much like New York. On crack.. more or less.
So our first impression of Beijing is the spectacular Norman Foster, Terminal Three of Beijing International Airport. Breathtaking.Vast. Like being under an expanse of starlit sky, with massive pillars holding the whole thing up.
And then into the downtown area to our hotel close to the Forbidden City.
But there is nothing traditional here. Down the main drag it is more like Las Vegas or Dubai now. The booming face of China, no doubt prepped for the Olympics, but very impressive. In a totally capitalist way.
Is this really still a communist country? What has happened? Have the bright lights of consumerism cut off capitalist ideology at the knees?
Are these people confused about their country and what it stands for? And what about the old people who went through the Mao years and the Cultural Revolution? Do they see themselves fitting into this?
Our hotel, the splendid new Regent, could be in Singapore or Los Angeles or ..anywhere.
We were met at the airport with whooping and squeels of delight from Madeleine who has joined us with Michelle for three days from Taiwan.
We continue the celebration.

Hawaii: The smile on the face of America.

If Washington and Chicago represent the frown on the face of current America, Hawaii must be its smile.
Its not just the picture-book image which reminds us of our old Viewmaster images of Hawaii. Its not only the turquoise sea and the swaying palms which are all real. Its the wonderfully smiling, utterly engaging people who steal your affection. Big, heavily built men who are the tour guides, hosts at the Polynesian Cultural Centre, taxi drivers and hotel concierges. They all exude gentle good humor and kindness. They laugh, they crack jokes and they talk with disarming honesty about everything from their pride that Barack Obama was born here to the very high cost of living in Hawaii. Honolulu is the third most expensive place to live in the US after New York and San Francisco.
We spend much of the first day at the Polynesian Cultural Centre where they have built a kind of Disney World to introduce visitors to the culture and backgrounds of six distinct Polynesian island groups. From South Africa my knowledge of Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti New Zealand and Hawaii stems almost exclusively from what I know about their rugby teams. So this experience is an eye-opener. Mostly its their humor that gets you. Who'd have thought to look at those rugby players, whose people all do some form of the Haka, that they have this dry, self-deprecating sense of humor.They tell about mundane activities like how to break open a coconut and shave the contents into useable flakes, and making a fire without matches as if they are stand-up comics. The audience roars with laughter and loves them.
The second day we have a surprisingly emotional experience when we visit Pearl Harbor. This is particularly significant for me because the Japanese attack happened same year, same month, four days before I was born. In the excellent visitor centre we see the whole story of Japanese ascendence and increase of power in the Pacific to the final surprise attack on the base of the American fleet in the Pacific. And when we analyze what led up to it we see that, again it was oil! The Americans, wanting to stem the tide of Japanese aggression and influence initiate sanctions against Japan. This immobilizes their fleet. They decide to attack. And all of us listening to the story think 'what were they thinking?' Japan humiliates America and did they imagine that the most powerful country in the world would just roll over? The most poignant part of this visit is to the memorial now built on the surface of the harbor's water where the USS Arizona was bombed and sank, losing the lives of 1177 men. Their bodies are never recovered. The memorial simply straddles the sunken vessel and lists the names of each one of the dead. Even though we are not American and have no real connection to this event, you can't help the lump in your throat. And the somber pride America feels for the valor of young lives sacrificed. It was Pearl Harbor that brought America into the war in 1941, and it was at Pearl Harbor where the Japanese signed their final surrender.
We wonder, when we discuss this afterwards, how the Japanese visitors feel when visiting Pearl Harbor. And how confident Japan must have been at that time, and how it seems to have lost much of its world influence and leadership now.

What happened to the America we knew?

In his engaging new book "The Time of our Lives" Tom Brokaw asks "Have we simply wandered off course..?" and "Is the essential part of the American dream disappearing?" And most importantly that question again.. "Will our children and grandchildren have better lives than us..?" This apprehension and self doubt is evident just looking at the people in the streets and airports. It comes through clearly talking to taxi drivers, hotel clerks and in the media.Admittedly this is a very small and totally unfair sample, but we experience in our brief visit a demeanor of Americans which is gloomy and unattractive. They just don't look like we expect them to look, and they don't speak confidently about their future. The hangover from 9/11, ten years later still seems to be there. The economy in trouble and leadership from Washington is constantly being challenged. But while we are here Barack Obama scores a welcome break just before Christmas, or as they call it here "The Holdays", by winning a major tax battle for the Democrats.

There is much introspection and rigorous self examination. The sources of concern are wide. Brokaw looks deeply into American society and says that the country is loosing the competition for successful achievement with China identifying education as one of the most serious problems. I quote from his book.."In 2010 more than 40% of Americans are functionally illiterate. Ten percent of students at colleges need remedial reading. Fourth and Eighth graders are rated eleventh and eighth respectively in international science aptitude tests.. By grade twelve Americans are near the bottom of the international scale.."

On television, in the space of two days we see several adds for self-medicating depression. And much else on TV adverts shows how to have a better life with more convenience. But typical, still, of America there is a splendid solution for every ailment or discomfort. An extended TV add proclaims the miraculous benefits of a product called SENSA which enables you to eat as much as you like, not take any exercise, and then loose as much weight as you wish by simply sprinkling SENSA, a powder, over your food! Seriously.