I head west after discovering that I no longer belong

I have to admit it was pretty weird being back. I knew all the sights and sounds intimately, but they didn’t feel like mine. I no longer had a connection to the place, certainly nothing like I had a mere month ago. It might be true that we lose that attachment to all the places we’ve lived, but this break seemed final and mutual. Work had pretty much gone on without me, much as I expected. Some people were glad to see me, others really couldn’t care. And in each case my feelings mapped theirs. I visited a few here and a few there and there were lots of hugs and smiles but overall I was really nothing more than an interesting oddity. Someone who had left; I had moved on and so had they. The evenings though were different because now I was back out in the street taking the same long walk I took just about every evening while I lived there.

Two and a half years ago I donned a hardhat and walked through a construction zone to have a look at some model apartments in an as yet unfinished building. I was concerned about where I was going to live during my stay in Dalian and this place offered a genuine opportunity at a higher quality of living. Of course riding up in the freight elevator and picking my way through a debris choked hallway didn’t speak well of the place, but once past the makeshift plywood door, I was in another world. The apartments were beautiful, modern and above all else as fancy as something I could expect in one of the finer cities of the world. I was in love and there would be no other place for me. There were framed prints of horses in the elevator lobby, as strong an omen of this being the right place for me as there could be.

Shama Luxe was supposed to be done well in advance of my November 2008 arrival but it wasn’t so I took a temporary place in an awful hotel and waited. Looking back at that time it was pretty sad, no, it was downright depressing. My room was a dark tube with a horrible view overlooking a shabby apartment courtyard. I hated every minute of my time there and the only thing that kept me going was knowing that sooner or later I’d be in the apartment I’d dreamed of. But the months went by and the delays piled up and finally I realized I couldn’t wait any longer – it was a choice between waiting for the ideal or moving and saving my sanity. I chose a nice bright apartment in a Chinese building and I made my home there along with the people in the elevator and the building guards and all the neighborhood denizens whom I came to know and who came to know me. It was the right decision and in retrospect, living there probably made my stay in China as good as it could be.

On second night back I had dinner with some friends in their apartment in that mythical mansion on the hill. This was my first time back since my construction visit. The lobby was posh, the staff friendly and the security staunch. I rode up to their apartment and rang the bell. Their place was just as I remembered the models – modern and simple and pleasing enough to the eye. But the more I stared and wandered around it became obvious to me that the place was really just a giant hotel room. They’d made it personal, with wonderful pictures of their handsome little boy and other things accumulated by their China travel. But in the end, it was so polished that its nature just couldn’t be overcome – this was temporary living and it was never going to be anything more. I realized then and there that I had made the right choice so long ago. I’d lived among the people and that had been the right thing to do for me. I put those thoughts away and had a great evening of conversation over some incredible Indian food. Of all my goodbyes, this one, realizing that this was almost certainly the last time we would see each other, was the most poignant. I’ve met and worked with a lot of people during my time here and for the most part I don’t care a whit about any of them. These two though and our time together will remain with me forever.

My neighborhood looked no different but the streets were not so vibrant due to the cold. The dinnertime food stands were gone as were the evening strollers. People were now bundled up and walking with a purpose, namely to get out of the bone chilling cold. I stopped by Sunny’s Expat Store for a candy bar and the little girls clearly remembered me. Not so at Starbucks where the staff was completely new. I sat there and had one last Iced Americano staring at the earnest young western women spending their time in this backwater teaching, thinking about how many hours I had sat at that very table, writing, talking or just thinking. One of those obscenely loud live entertainment shows was going on outside, designed to entice people into the mall for some shopping promotion or another. Even inside the beat was pounding and adding an odd accompaniment to the acoustic Christmas music that was playing. Someone sang Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” another “Silver Bells” both underscored by that driving beat. I finished my drink, tossed it in the trash grabbed my jacket and went outside. The music was bouncing off the buildings, following me down the street and back to my hotel.

I checked out of my hotel the next morning, having had a nice chat with the desk clerk who told me that my Chinese sounded “Chinese.” I couldn’t think of a better compliment. One last day at work and one final omen that my time here was up. My colleague Ben bought me lunch and we went looking for a table. The place was very busy, one last reminder of the half-baked job that was done with the design. When it came to the cafeteria, it seems that the design firm put the original plans into a copier and reduced it by 25%. A table cleared and we made a beeline. I was walking between two lines of tables when something caught my right shoe in mid-stride and I lost my balance. I did a reasonably good job of recovering, bobbling my tray full of food for what seemed like a full minute. But the momentum was too strong and I stumbled forward. The food flew off into space and I went down, hitting my right cheekbone squarely on the back of someone’s chair before ending up on all fours. I stood up and saw a horrified Ayi rushing towards me to clean up. I took a look back at my path and realized what had happened – a young woman was sitting half sideways on her chair, its leg straight out into the aisle. I gave her a stare and she looked terrified. As I sat down to get my bearings, she and her friends hastily gathered their things and left.

A little vacation was next on my agenda and so Ben and I left work late afternoon to head to the airport. Evening traffic was just picking up but we made it in plenty of time. Ben got busted at the bag check for having a brand new (empty) cigarette lighter he was bringing as a gift. The confiscated it but gave him a receipt so that it could be retrieved at a later date. We waiting and boarded on time entering through Gate 5 but walking about a half mile down the terminal to some other gate, far down in the International Section. This flight had apparently originated in Osaka, Japan and so had docked down in the area where they have Customs. I thought this was a pretty odd route, Japan to Dalian to Chengdu, on the other side of China, down in the southwestern province of Sichuan. As I walked I saw two or three people boarding from the last gate on the aisle making me think that there would almost certainly be a problem with my carryon bag if this plane was already loaded. It turned out not to be an issue, those three people were the only three continuing.

At the end I came to a pair of closed glass doors. I figured we had to wait for the agent to come up the jet way and open them so I waited. Down at the bottom some young man, flight attendant perhaps, made a gesture with his hands which I interpreted to mean “I’ll be right there” but the tiny woman behind me had a different assessment. She pushed me out of the way and gave the doors a solid whack with her palm. They opened right up and we went down.

This trip promised to be interesting - Ben, his wife Sahsa and a friend of hers, a wealthy Chengdu businesswoman. We were going to see all the sights while being chauffeured around in the friend’s BMW – a far cry from any other trip I’d taken in China which typically meant taxis and broken English. We arrived more or less on time, made our introductions although the friend seemed to be trying to decide between “Kelly” and “Jennifer” for a western name. I didn’t like either so I suggested “Zoe” but I’m not sure anyone was excited about that despite Ben’s explanation that it was a very classy appellation. In the end she decided to stick with her Chinese name Susu. We spent a half hour trying to find the car in the parking lot and then loaded up and left. We were off. It was close to 11PM, the skies were cloudy but the temperature was mild and it didn’t seem to be raining. I’ve been here twice before but never outside of the airport; I was excited.

The first thing I noticed was the amount of trees. I’ve never seen so many in China outside of the French Concession in Shanghai. Big Plane Trees, still bearing a full crown of leaves lined every road we drove. China is urban and modern but throw in a canopy of leaves and you’re taken back 100 years to when these cities were still clad in their Chinese history. I sat back and watched the shadows playing on the moon roof. They took me to what would be best described as a “food court”, a three storey alley lined with small restaurants and bars. We parked and walked in and were immediately harassed by a little girl, perhaps 6 or 7 trying to sell us a rose. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, at one point actually sticking one in Ben’s back pocket. Retail starts early here as it takes time to develop the fully obnoxious behavior necessary it takes to be successful selling things that no one wants. A young man in a shiny silver suit sidled up and asked us into his place; we walked on rounding a corner and entering the last place on the block. Brightly lit, seemingly clean and about half full of late night diners. Ben and I sat down and ordered, the girls stood up to leave but not before Sahsa asked me what flavor rabbit head I wanted. Ben and I had been joking about those the day before so I took that as a humorous question. I told her “very hot” and they left. A couple of courses came out – dumplings, fish, a couple of other things or two. We had a long discussion about beer, insisting on cold ones and they brought us a couple of bottles. Beer is almost always served warm in China and often it’s the only choice. The food was great - hot and tasty, the two hallmarks of “Chuancai” as it’s known here. I was just about stuffed when they returned with another meal in take out bags – it’s not a problem here to sit in a restaurant, order some things and then supplement the meal with food from some other place. Sahsa handed me a pair of plastic gloves and one of those bags that we use for fruit in our supermarkets. It contained a dark brown globe swimming in sauce – I was about to further extend my culinary boundaries, I was about to eat a rabbit head.

At first impression the thing looked like a bird. I guess when you strip away all the cute bunny exterior stuff like ears and cheeks you’re left with just those two buck teeth sticking out front. Sort of like a beak which makes you think Chicken. I was torn between digging right and taking some photos so I opted for the latter. Problem was I couldn’t handle the thing without using the gloves but I couldn’t work the camera with the gloves because they were coated with the sauce. I finally managed to turn them inside out before digitally recording this momentous occasion. Sahsa explained that you start by tearing off the jaw. Next you split the jaw down the middle like a wishbone which grants you access to the tender meat inside. I was able to get this part done and the meat was very tasty. I was dared to eat the eyeballs but I couldn’t meet the challenge because they were too hard to get out of the skull. The final phase involved biting down on the top of the skull and splitting it to get to the innards, but I drew the line there and went on to the other stuff on the table.

It was well past midnight when we polished off the last of the food and made our way back to the car. The little flower hustler was still there but she had lost her boldness on the second pass. Across the street a dance bar was just beginning to get busy, a throng of skinny Chinese women in skin tight pants and high-heeled boots milled around under a street light. We made a plan to start Friday at 10 AM, the Leshan Buddha was our destination, about 2 hours outside of town. Susu dropped off Ben and Sahsa at their apartment and then delivered me to the Shangri La. I climbed into bed about 1:30 and lay there thinking. This night was over but I could tell that this was going to be a special trip.

Heading back to the Middle Kingdom

My ability to read potential travel problems has continued to develop with each thousand mile bloc I've added to my Mileage Plus account. I first became aware of this semi-supernatural skill when I was getting out of the car at 4 AM on the departure level of the Albuquerque Airport one summer morning. A shuttle bus pulled into the disgorging lane a couple of car lengths ahead and when the door opened what seemed like a thousand Chinese students began tumbling out. I gave My Lovely Wife a dry peck on the lips and beat a hastier than normal path to the entrance. Once inside I got in the 1st Class line and frantically jumped up and down to attract the attention of the half-asleep ticket agent. She called me over just in time - the Red Tidal Wave was just breaking and had I been 10 seconds slower I would have been an hour late for my plane.

This morning there was no bus and so I said a leisurely goodbye to My Lovely Wife. Turning the corner though my cerebral klaxon sounded as I walked past a little boy, perhaps 9 years old standing alone in the dark wearing an expensive down jacket and guarding what appeared to be a brace of black cordura zippered dinosaur eggs. Little children in expensive clothes standing alone in the dark at the airport is never a good omen and while I like to think that I have a wonderfully magic power, it's likely that an ambulatory bunch of broccoli could read this one. Arriving inside I instantly knew I was right - the 1st Class line was littered with a dozen unmatched suitcases, duffels, and shoulder bags. There was a smaller little boy and a frantic father trying to keep all these metaphorical balls in the air. Over his shoulder was a relic of a bag with a hundred or more paper luggage tags from airports around the world. Odd airports like RIO and even stranger airlines like Pan-Am. I guess these were family mementos and the message was clear - "Don't mess with me because I am a world traveler." It kind of reminded me of those people in Yuma that leave ski lift tickets on their jackets all year long. They were in front of me and I knew I was doomed.

The littler boy stood there distractedly eating an apple while dad disappeared to get his brother. They returned with the dinosaur eggs which turned out to be cases for some sort of helmet, at least according to the conversation I was eavesdropping. An agent called them up which put dad into the next level of frenzy. The boys just stood there trying to be in his way as much as possible. I resolved to remain calm and wait out the hurricane.

Sadly my attempt to enter a Zen state failed - I got called about 10 seconds later. There was only one path for me and it meant winding to my left and cutting directly across their axis of disaster. I picked up my bags and stepping over their piles, cut to the right. The boys, sensing an opportunity to complicate someone else's life dropped what they were doing and stepping directly in front of me, stopped and looked up. This was apparently an early morning test of wills.

Now I'm not the most confrontational person, I'm slight of build, I don't have any tear drop tattoos under my left eye and I lack both gold hoop earrings and a grimy pony tail. I generally suffer in silence and look for a way to get what I need without raising my voice or pulling on my boxing gloves. But enough was enough and so looking at the little imps I said, "C'mon guys" followed with a reasonably nice "Excuse me please."

Of course this turned out to be one of those dads who lives on that planet where kids don't need to be told what to do because they're born fully sentient and embody a complete understanding of the rules and mores of society. Because of their advanced intellectual state, their rights are equal to those of everyone else. And if some of us don't possess that same view, well, we need to be straightened out. Dad looked at me, raised his voice and said, "Hey, he's in line in front of you!" apparently ignorant of the fact that as far as United Airlines was concerned, we were now both at the same place in line.

I took this in for about 8 seconds, continued on my way and turned, looking him square in the eye said, "You travel so you know what the problem is". That took dad back for a second, he looked at me as though in had brought a cricket bat down on the bridge on the bridge of his nose, shook his head and said, "You're right, I'm sorry." I had read him just right and reduced this battle to a knowing wink between two globe trotters. Score one for side of right.

Based on that last encounter it looked like today was going to be a bit of Yin and a touch of Yang. I picked the wrong ID check line that was manned by a Captain Kangaroo clone who spoke like a Mr. Rogers parody who insisted on reading the destination of each boarding pass he stamped and saying the destination with cloying amazement. The guy in front of me was going to "Ooh, Mexico City" and of course the traveler bit, asking what was his most unusual destination so far. "Peru" said Captain Rogers, "Did you see those people with the funny little hats?". I made sure I handed him my domestic pass as I was sure that San Francisco would not get a raise. I was right.


Of course it turned out that the Dad and Lad trio was on my plane. And naturally they lined up in the status boarding line in front of me. They were down to a couple of bags and those dinosaur helmets though so the chaos was more controlled. I gave them a wide berth nonetheless and spent my remaining waiting time staring at the ceiling. We boarded and they had the three 1st Class seats in front of me. While it would have nice to just get on the plane and sit down, we had to have one last drama - the helmet cases would not fit in the overhead bins. The flight attendant jumped in quickly and promised to solve the problem if they would all just sit down and get out of the way. Dad warned her to be careful, they were very fragile. Fragile helmets? At this point my Yin reservoir was full. I was ready for some Yang.

Dad started out by setting the ground rules -

"Boys, look around. Do you see any other children up here in this special cabin?"

"No? Well let's behave in a way that doesn't make the other passengers regret sitting near us. "

Okay, a perfectly clear and well crafted message for a pair of boys whose combined age almost assuredly didn't add up to more than 20. I was doomed. The two little ones sat in the window seats are pointed out that there were other planes here at the airport and that we weren't moving until we were at which point they pointed that out too. We taxied, got up to speed took off and banked to the west, putting the rising sun behind us.

It's amazing what you can learn by listening to other people's conversations.

Divorced - "I can't believe the movies your mother lets you watch."

Artist - "I was up late last night writing letters to people to convince them to buy my sculptures."

Traveling to a Thanksgiving reunion - "Aunt Bunny is coming in from Dubai."

Related to the movie industry - "Why Dubai? Because Uncle Richard is over there shooting a movie."

Geography - "Dubai? It's over there past England and France. You know, past Europe. It's where all the Arabs are."

Big family reunion - "All your cousins won't be there until tomorrow."

The term "Santa Fe" was liberally sprinkled through the remainder of the conversation which pretty much said it all. At least to those of us who live down the road from The City Different. The three of them finally fell asleep and my flight continued without further consternation.

I wish I could say that was the end of our relationship but it was not so simple. Like me, dad had had an oversized bag that had to be checked. Which meant we had to wait in the jet way for the bags to be brought up. We lined up and his came first. He grabbed it and started up the ramp. Mine came up next and I started up behind them. Back on dry land, dad reverted to his own frazzled self. Trying to manage all the carryon bags and the dinosaur eggs was pressing too hard on his organizational skills. The boys were once again on their own and the littler one went up ahead where he stopped and started to swing back and forth on the ramp railing, holding with one hand and planting one foot he was doing one sided vertical snow angels while the other passengers were approaching. I was at the head of the line and I had had enough so giving the little chimp a wide berth I made a move to pass. But it was not wide enough. On his return spin he stuck his arm out straight and hit me squarely in the crotch.

The rest of the morning went reasonably well. I sat in the lounge, ate a banana, went to the gate and boarded on time. I was taking this haul in Coach, having burned up the last of my upgrades on my trip home. Coach is such a crap shoot but I was reasonably sure the seat next to me would be empty, this being one of the perks of being a member with status who riding with the regular people. When a big scary looking guy came down the aisle I knew he was heading for me, I mean I had to expect that in light of my experiences so far. Sure enough he was; I stood up and let him in and he took the window seat. I was grateful for the small favors that life deals us because the first thing he did was to raise his arm rest so thatch could flow into the middle seat. I sat with my fingers crossed hoping that no one else would show up and no one did.

I guess everyone was in for some sort of confrontation on this day because one eventually played out right there in Row 22. Thankfully I was a participant this time. The guy sitting in front of my big scary row mate put his seat back apparently planning go get some sleep. Once back, the guy in front realized that Big Scary Guy's air jet was blowing right in his face. He sat up and turned around and what followed was one of those conversations that would be impossible to make up -

"Excuse me sir, you air is blowing right down my neck. I won't be able to sleep like with that."

"Sorry, I need the air on me."

"But sir, can't you adjust it a bit so that it's not blowing directly on me?"

"It's where I want it."

"But it's blowing right on me."

"Then your seat is back too far."

"That's what seats are supposed to do, go back so we can sleep."

"You seat is back too far."

"I don't understand what the problem is; I'm not trying to pick a fight."

At which point Big Scary Guy reached up and turned off the air with a clearly disgusted flick of his wrist.

From then on it was just that same old long ride on the bus. I joked with one of the flight attendants about how bad it was back here and she laughed and told me that they call it “The Grand Ballroom.”

With three hours left in the flight, Big Scary Guy and his pal got into it again with exactly the same conversation but this time the air stayed on. That got me thinking about what it must be like to be a big scary guy. You simply don’t have to cooperate or negotiate if you have no fear of wimpy little guys sitting in front of you.

This day ended up being one of those great ones in Immigration where you walk right up to the desk. I was praising my good luck when it ended with a passport problem that required a supervisor and a call to the higher ups. I’m guessing some combination of a new visa, being a former resident and my charm.

Because of the fall time change I could no longer catch the earlier flight to Dalian so I settled in for a 3 hour wait. Spent some of the time at my favorite secret Starbucks where I was finally able to gather evidence of the table service that never seemed to be on where I was there with someone else. I had a package of French Fries at Burger King and caught the bus out to the plane. Someone asked where the plane was and I said “Tianjin” which meant a 10 hour ride. Too bad we weren’t on Friedman’s bullet train.

The last emotions of the day surfaced when I rode into Kai Fa Qu. This is the first time in 4 years that I have not been returning to my apartment. This is a business trip. As we passed the smokestacks behind the Olympic Ring Park at the beginning of Jinma Lu, I was reminded how the stink of the air forced me to sleep with the air conditioner on throughout last winter. The lights were the same and the only discernable differences were buildings nearing completion and some new businesses. I got out of the car at the hotel entrance and looked up at my old apartment building. Way up high on the 24th floor a single light was on. My time was over and the torch was passed. I was a visitor now.

One more last early autumn afternoon in Beijing.

This was perhaps my twentieth or so day spent sightseeing in Beijing. I’ve been here so many times that I’ve visited all of the major sites at least two or three times and so today’s goal was quite different – far flung districts and third level attractions - three temples and one pagoda from the 11th century. While Beijing is an old city there really isn’t much left of it that predates the extensive building that the Mongols did in the 14th century at their beginning of their Yuan Dynasty and most of that was rebuilt after the British and the French were done burning all of it down at the end of one of the Opium Wars. I have a sweet tooth for really old stuff and so I was excited about these places - off the beaten tourist path and so perhaps quiet and empty. There was an additional last place I hoped to see, a bridge that figured prominently in the travel writings of Marco Polo but its location on the far western fringe of the city and away from a convenient subway station was enough for me to take it off my list.

On my next to last night here, I sat in the Lounge and had a conversation with a colleague about the nature of Beijing. He raised an interesting point, that although this city was big, an international capital and loaded with culture, it had not yet risen to the level of “one of the world’s great cities.” That idea got me thinking about what exactly qualified a place for this exalted list. Culture, history, appeal, night life, shopping, and “presence” – all things that we would attribute to the cities each of us might consider “great.”Beijing is certainly flush with all of those. I took it a bit further, fitting it to my recent experience, namely a place that would be judged by one and all as ideal for an expatriate life. I think if you asked just about anyone knowledgeable of the world, London, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Zurich, Rome and Tokyo would fit this lone criterion. Beijing I think would be categorized the way My Lovely Wife did so when I told her I had the chance to move to China, “Where on our list of places to live does China fall?” and the answer at the time (and today) was “It’s not on the list.”

So what’s wrong with Beijing? I’ve come to really love it after many visits. But its list of detriments is daunting – traffic, crowding, pollution, a restrictive government, an opaque culture and an incomprehensible language. Now most of the majors suffer from the first two and some of them from the third although the pollution in Beijing is in a class of its own. I mean, you don’t get Gobi desert sandstorms that turn the sky bright orange at midday in any desirable city that I know of. The nature of the governance doesn’t really affect most visitors so I don’t think it’s that. Rather, I think what keeps Beijing off the list of the most desirable cities are the last two items – the language and the culture simply make this an interesting place to visit but a tough place to live. A long term stay here simply grinds you down. And that jives pretty darn well with my experience at the end of these two years on this side of the Pacific.

It turns out that September must be one of the ideal months here in north central China. Mid-60’s temperature, crisp blue sky, and the hint of fall in the air. On this morning the traffic was still pretty messed up from the holiday as most people were off of work but still off visiting. I was committed on this trip to make liberal use of the subways so I left the hotel and headed north to Guomao Station choosing it instead of the closer Shuangjing Station because it meant not having to do a transfer. I walked past the restaurant where Aidan and I had seen the black bunny fattening up in a cage on the stoop on her visit in March. I went down the escalator, bought a ticket and caught the #1 line heading west. I was headed towards Fuxingmen Station on the far side of the city, it offering the shortest walk to the places I was going. While Beijing does have an extensive subway system, the distance between stations remains quite big in some locations and there is always some walking involved. But on a day like this I was not averse to a little exercise. The cars were full of people heading to Tiananmen Square for a holiday visit and as we passed those stops the crowd thinned out and I was able to sit down for a change.

Exiting the station I went south crossing one of the canals that winds through this side of town. A hundred years ago barges containing Qing Dynasty nobles would have been passing beneath these bridges carrying the elite from one spot of splendor to the other. Today nothing plied these waters but the scene was peaceful – a deep blue sky and the brown water of the canal slowing rolling along its way. I found my first stop pretty quickly – Baiyun Guan (Temple of the White Cloud) – Taoism’s major center of worship here in the capital. In Chinese, Taoist holy sites are not officially known as “temples” but rather Guan. There is no deeper meaning in the language; rather the use of unique words merely indicates the differing religious affiliations of the structures. Alternately, Buddhist temples are known as Si or Miao, the latter suggesting the presence of a monastery. The site was first built on in 739, but those structures were destroyed by fire late in the 11th century. Genghis Khan ordered a major renovation in 1224 as part of his overall rebuilding of Beijing, but what stands today dates from 1443. It was a wonderful spot but not very different than any of the dozens of other temples I’ve visited here. The guidebooks say “the incense smells sweeter” and I suppose that might be true, but perhaps at this point I’m simply a victim of temple burnout. The architecture, gardens and worshipers seem to have become pretty much interchangeable for me although I will admit that the lack of tourists made it a hair nicer. This is a functioning site full of regular people and not generally a tour bus stop. Given my goal of getting off the beaten path, this first stop was a success. I roamed the grounds watching Chinese performing their rituals in front of the popular deities that promised wealth and fortune and having had enough wandered back out into the streets.

Tianning Pagoda was next on the agenda and the path there was not particularly clear. There are a lot of major roads in Beijing that get in the way of walkers, often making it very hard to get to the other side. I could tell from the map that this was going to be one of those situations, with a Ring Road in between me and where I wanted to be. The map showed a couple of ways under it, but information like that really doesn’t mean much here – maps are little more than suggestions and the roads are laid out to serve drivers, not walkers. Walking east, I purposely overshot the place where I thought the pagoda might be, walking through some nice simple neighborhoods while looking for a right turn in order to head south. I found one that looked promising and sure enough I could see the top stories of the pagoda rising high about the freeways, looking at once marvelous, dingy and completely out of place. Next to it rose a much taller and far less interesting smoke stack, the perfect companion here in a country that doesn’t seem to be able to get anything right.

I fell in walking alongside an attractive young woman who gave me a smile mixed with friendliness and bemusement as though I was an attractive guy who stupidly far out of place. I stopped to take some photographs of Morning Glories partly because I thought that they were interesting but mostly because I wanted to get behind her thinking I’d feel far less self-conscious if she was ignoring me. She found this even more interesting, almost to the point of laughing at me. I considered making conversation but I’ve learned through many painful encounters that it’s a dangerous step to take given my limited listening comprehension skills. You speak and then they get this misguided notion that you can understand. After a block we hit the road that ran parallel and below the Ring Road and unfortunately she turned in the same direction as I did. I picked up speed, passed her and left her behind as I went looking for a way under the highway.

A couple of blocks up the road I found myself on the original street I had walked to find Baiyun Guan - apparently my sojourn in the neighborhoods had been unnecessary, I could have simply left the temple and walked straight here. I took a left and went under the Ring Road and taking another left headed towards where I thought the pagoda might be. I could no longer see it as these buildings were tall enough to block it but the smokestack still loomed so I knew I was on the right track. At the next intersection I took a right, again heading south and so hemming the pagoda within the city block to my right. As they presented themselves, I took a moment at each right turn trying to decide if these narrow streets were the correct way in. On a whim or a hunch I turned at the third opportunity and once through a busy neighborhood street market I found myself at the entrance.

I could tell immediately that this place was special. The compound was pretty much deserted aside from some construction workers busy on a renovation project and a handful of worshipers doing the same clockwise circumambulation of the shrine that once finds at the Jokhang Temple in Tibet although minus the prayer wheels and the beads. At the center of a courtyard formed by low crimson buildings with gray stone tile roofs stands a 189 ft. tall eight sided stone pagoda carved with the pantheon of Buddhism. These pagodas were built to house the scriptures and relics brought to China more than 10 centuries ago by itinerant monks who traveled the trade routes between here and India and as a result you see motifs that reflect not only the emergence of Buddhism here, but also those associated with the place of its roots. Indian Elephants carry Guanyin and Bodhisattvas across doorways guarded by the same fierce temple guardians you see in Lhasa. Persian fairies float in the air and Chinese saints stand guard above the bricked off windows. Everything stands supported by a base of overturned Lotus leaves, carved in the same gray stone and representing eternity. At the lower levels the carvings lack heads, knocked off by zealots during the Cultural Revolution but above, they’re intact, swirling above the now much changed urban landscape.

Built between 1100 and 1120 AD at the end of the Liao Dynasty, Tianning is truly a thing of beauty. Unlike the wooden pagodas throughout China that it mimics, this structure is completely solid and so was never used to house artifacts as its inspirations were. 3500 bells still hang from the tip of every eave and during a strong wind the place is said to be musical. On this day it was a bit breezy, but not enough to get the bells moving. A Buddhist nunnery stands at the back of the compound and saffron robed nuns were coming and going carrying food to some midday repast in one of the courtyard buildings. Out of respect I did three passes around the structure meditating on how I came to be at this place walking among people doing the same thing, although most of them must have been on their hundredth circuit by the time I joined in. I spent the rest of my time trying for the perfect picture, waiting for a while at one point while some Frenchman tried for the same shot. He stopped to talk and told me that he had been here once before a few years earlier but found it closed. He said he was happy it was open today and I agreed.

I have been to a few places that really pained me to leave, and this was one of them. But there remained things to do so I left and retraced my steps back towards the subway station. It was now midday and things were changing in the streets. I passed a long line of parked taxis, each with a driver stretched out and sleeping on the back seat, waiting for the lunchtime break at some factory. I walked past some sort of government gentlemen’s club (judging from the Mao over the front door). Inside a long line of beautiful young women stood shoulder to shoulder chatting, each dressed in identical yellow and pink cheongsam waiting for some functionary to arrive. It was a long walk back to the subway (isn’t it always longer heading back?) but I made good time, caught the next train and rode it to Wangfujing Station for a bite of lunch.

Wangfujing is a very fancy upscale shopping center a few blocks from the Forbidden City. There were a lot of eating opportunities but I chose Starbucks simply because it seemed the easiest. I grabbed my coffee and sandwich and sat back in a corner to do a bit of people watching. It was an interesting mix of wealthy Chinese out for a day of shopping with their kids, western tourists and what I would guess were expats. A group of ample Russians sat at the table next to me, chasing off a couple of quiet businessmen. They were there for deserts, sharing one of each on the menu. A western dad sat at a table with his son, neither speaking. He was engrossed with his Blackberry and the kid was occupied with a handheld gaming device - just a dad and his boy out for a day together, separately.

I left the mall and started walking roughly in the direction of my next destination, Dongyue Temple. Instead of walking the main streets I took a turn and wandered into Lumincang Hutong, one of the old neighborhoods that ring the former Imperial capital. These charming little ghettos used to house the people that worked in the Forbidden City and today they house regular people. Their condition got me thinking about a piece I had read the day before in the New York Times. Thomas Friedman was writing about his trip to the World Economic Summit and he was musing about the 200 mph bullet train that he was riding from Beijing to Tianjin. He said that they built it in only 9 months and he was wondering why America can’t do the same thing. I thought these hutongs said quite a bit about this. Tiled concrete blockhouse communal latrines every 10 yards and water taps at the intersection of the crooked little lanes, all within a half-mile of the center of the Chinese government made me think perhaps that the Chinese might be a tad more interested in providing impressive engineering projects for the consumption of naïve western journalists than in giving the most basic services in the literal shadow of the center of power. Built by men living in communal prefab dormitories governed by few safety regulations, things can indeed go up very fast over here. I didn’t arrive at an answer as to why westerners can’t see the forest for the trees when it comes to China, but I did have a nice time taking in the sights along the shady lanes. One thing I have taken away from my time here is that so much can be gained by just spending you time among regular people doing everyday things. Eventually I literally stumbled on Zhihua Temple, one that had eluded me on a previous visit to this district. It wasn’t a surprise that I had missed it before - it was one of those places that you can only find when you’re not looking for it as it was tucked into a niche at the end of a tiny lane.

Zhihua, which means “Temple of Wisdom Attained”, was also built in 1443 by one of the powerful court eunuchs by the name of Wang Zhen. He went in and out of favor with the court, eventually he was killed along with all of his family only to be restored post mortemto prominence by a succeeding emperor. Eventually his relics were destroyed again and the temple was given over entirely to Buddhist statuary of which there were several remarkable examples. At the back of the complex, a hall held an impressive diorama depicting the meeting between a Buddhist scholar and the Khan. Instead of a fresco, this tale was told via thousands of tiny carvings of mounted Mongol warriors surrounding a large covered wagon which hosted the meeting of the two notables. Zhihua used to also have a complicated set of carved panels that were somehow spirited away by some monks during the convulsions of the 1930’s, ending up in a museum in the US. Little temples like this are often gems – relatively unknown and yet quite beautiful. Zhihua did not disappoint me.

Before leaving Dalian I had taken the time to print out some maps of the location of the Dongyue Guan and as I walked along, I pulled them out for a review. Judging from the amount of traffic and construction, things didn’t look too promising - I found the right combination of streets but most of the area was hemmed in by construction fences and skyscrapers; all new building which led me to think that either the temple was gone or currently hidden or being incorporated into some sort of retail theme park. I tried the same trick I’d used at Tianning, walking the perimeter of entire block where Dongyue was supposed to be but there was no evidence that it was there, just offices, parking garages and shopping malls. Having just had the serendipity of finding Zhihua I took this as a sign and decided it wasn’t worth the effort so I left, heading back along Chaoyang Road towards the subway station home. Two blocks up the way I looked across the street and found myself starting at the red walls of a block-wide compound – Dongyue! I had been victimized once again by the Google Maps Offset that sometimes puts addresses a quarter of a mile off in the wrong place, so worried is the Chinese Government that someone might call in a missile strike. I crossed and went in.

Dongyue Guan was built during the Yuan Dynasty between 1319 and 1322. It was rebuilt in 1447 and twice more in 1698 and 1761 during the Qing Dynasty. For most of the 20th century it was variously offices, a school or an apartment block until 1996 when it was declared a cultural treasure and returned to its intended use.

At first this one seemed to be yet another temple but this one had something I’d not seen before. Forming the outer walls were dozens of little alcoves arrayed along long porticos, each representing the pantheon of Taoist deities. These little groupings are called “departments” and they cover the full spectrum of Taoist life in the spiritual world. Rivers, Forests, Truth, Heaven, Punishment, Records, Wisdom, Lies, Theft, Life and Death – each room had ten or so life-sized painted plaster carvings of the various players on their vast cosmic stage. Fishmen, Frogmen, Demons, Sages, Buddhas and Farmers – all present and accounted for in a half circle to each side of the celestial department manager. Taoist has 76 of these departments and there was a room for each, holding nearly 1000 statues. Out of respect I usually don't take pictures in these places but I snuck a few on this occasion when no one was around. In the most remote courtyard I found artists selling their rendition of the Jade Rabbit, that floppy eared fellow who lives in the moon making medicines for the gods. He is popular here as he is known to put an end to plagues. I fell into a conversation with one of the vendors, admiring his work and talking about the spotted animal that the Jade Rabbit was riding. I thought Appaloosa and so I picked out two to purchase. Upon closer review they turned out to have antler and so were not horses but deer but it didn’t matter, they were a nice trinket in spite of being the wrong mount. Dongyue also had a fine collection of stone stele, perhaps 1000 in total. The columns, recording the most mundane of life’s details – births, deaths, tax collections, visits by dignitaries and holy men – are a common feature at cultural sites across China. In this case they were arrayed in little squares beneath towering pines and offered a nice opportunity for a reflective walk.

I spent my last night in this fair city the same way I’d spent it a hundred times before – sitting in the lounge, eating snacks and working on a glass of wine. A planned dinner with a friend fell through when his plane was late so instead of heading back out I spent my time perfecting a photograph of a clear full moon rising against an indigo sky, above construction cranes across the street. The moment was one of those golden ones where just about everything seems to come into harmony. Never mind that the next day was another day of challenging travel, or that the upcoming weeks meant fitting back into my regular life and transitioning my career to its next phase. For this night, the view was beautiful, the light soft, the Lounge hostesses happy to admire photos and things just felt right - perhaps the best possible way to end my full time life on this side of the world.

Mid-Autumn Festival and those ubiquitous clay Rabbit figurines

It seems that clay Rabbit figurines were once a popular part of the China's Mid-Autumn Festival. But like the physical representations of so many old customs, today they are little more than collectables and found mostly in places that sell folk art (I found mine at Beijing's Dongyue Temple.) I've seen them many times in Beijing - small versions for sale in markets, larger statues outside of art galleries in the chic neighborhoods and even as coin-operated rides for children outside of shops in the hutongs. I remember the first one I saw standing outside a small gallery across the street from Beijing's Confuscius Temple. My daughter Aidan and I stopped, gawked for a moment, took a couple of pictures and wandered on thinking no more about it.

While the websites of the official Chinese travel agencies explain them away as a quaint custom, I wanted to find the source of the legend and sure enough, behind the quotidian lies the romantic.

Here is a rendition of the tale, conveyed via a most interesting translation -

"First give you about a legendary story: One year, the Beijing city suddenly Naoqi the plague, almost everyone has a patient, the kind of medicine is not brought the matter. See the world in the Chang'e moon incense scene of medical treatment was so sad, they send around to rabbit to human good of healing for the people who. Rabbit into a girl, came to Beijing. She left a further one, cured many patients. People to thank the moon, must give her something. What can Rabbit do not just borrow clothes to others. Thus, for a dressed rabbit Wherever he went on, and sometimes dress up like a sell, and, sometimes like a fortune teller ... ... while the men dress, while another woman dress. In order to give patients more treatment, the rabbit sat on horses, deer, or a woman riding a lion, tiger, traveled outside the city of Beijing. Rabbit plague to eliminate the city of Beijing, it went back to the Moon Palace. However, her beautiful image has forever remain in the hearts of Peking Man. Thus, people with a rabbit shaped the image of mud, with riding a deer, there by Phoenix, there are beaded with armor, and also dressed in clothes of workers all doing strange things, very cute. Lunar on August 15 every day, and everyone should worship her, put her delicious fruit bean, used to reward good fortune brought her to the world and happiness. It is also affectionately called her "rabbit Yeer", "Grandma Rabbit."