In Which We Spend The Year In China

Letter from Beijing

by JOANNA SWAN

In 1985, 1.4 million tourists came to the Middle Kingdom, perhaps curious to see how Deng Xiaoping's Beijing Spring was moving forward, or how red the East actually was.

In 2007, there were 54.7 million tourists here, buying Mao's little book as a gag gift, queueing as at Disneyland to see the Last Emperor's throne room and conjugal bed, and also to see if there really was a Starbucks in the Forbidden City. (There isn't, anymore.)

Deng ushers in Sino-American relations in a ten gallon hat.54.7 million people isn't negligible by any means, but it stands dwarfed by the incredible vastness of this country. As I planned my year-long stay in Beijing, I'd look at maps on Google and imagine bicycle routes — "I'll get to the middle of the city down this street" and "oh good, the galleries are only a few blocks away!"

The naivete of "a few blocks" in Beijing sounds painfully quaint now.

photo by Galen Phillips

A Swedish friend who studies trends in China lamented the Sisyphean task of ever producing some semblance of a "big idea", as exhorted by English teachers past, from the innumerable voices on micro-blogs and comment forums. Our wits softened from sips of warm 3-kuai Yanjing, we'd have long-winded and tangential conversations about the colossal country, unfathomable like a headcount of all the stars in the universe or all the digits of Pi.

Many of Mom's piano students' parents are Chinese intellectuals, inventors, and teachers who escaped during the Cultural Revolution. I remember eating at the No. 1 Buffet in Sacramento with the Yeung family, inhaling shrimp and plucking up courage to try a chicken foot as Ms. Yeung recounted the public shaming and subsequent internment of her grandmother as punishment for a bourgeois life and factory ownership in Shanghai. I think a lot of people left during that time.

photo by Galen Phillips Now, families take wholly Chinese tours of "Big Plazas, Big Windmills, Big Gorges," they "Visit the New and Yearn for the Past in Eastern Europe," or, like New Yorker columnist Evan Osnos, they opt for the "Classical European" experience. For those wishing to visit this country of superlatives, every year has a different domestic tourism theme. This year it's "Traveling in China and Appreciating Its Culture."

I arrived in China on a day when the country forgot to put on its meteorological makeup when answering the door. The Beijing Capital International Airport is engineered in such a way that, upon leaving customs, one remains "inside" but is suddenly confronted with the atmospheric conditions of the Great Outdoors.

photo by Galen Phillips

With a spring of apprehension and anticipation in my step, I tripped into the humid oppressiveness that characterizes Beijing in August. Bleak, crazy-bad smog (or fog) blanketed the landscape, though thoroughly manicured bushes and well-watered flowers remained visible through wide pane windows. Huddled in the back of a Jeep sans seatbelts, we raced towards town.

Beijing's air on any given day

Frameworks, impressions, and, by extension, appearances are everything; so said some wise man, PR whiz, or perhaps Donald Trump (though a recent Pizzagate may leave some doubt as to the Donald's all-American sanctimonies).

Beijing does its damnedest to keep every stitch in place and even when the exclamations of rock drills, paving breakers, and air compressors fill the air incessantly and inescapably, the city succeeds with surprising frequency. 

someday, it will look like this behind here

I went to see The Beginning of the Great Revival, or 建党伟业(Jiàn dǎng wěiyè), a blockbuster financed by the state and released in conjunction with the Communist Party of China's 90th anniversary. I entered the theatre as I have the Duomo, Taj Mahal, or Yonhegong Lama Temple: moving lithely and solemnly, painfully aware of my Otherness, making absurd attempts to seem smaller and quieter so as not to upset the balance of the hallowed ground.

Behave Yourself being the theme of the night, I reminded myself that many Chinese revere Mao and his party's accomplishments; laughing, revealing my debaucherous imbibed state, or making myself obvious as the sore-thumb foreigner would be ugly at best. Happily, the distractions came not from my murmurs of confusion or the rustling of my wasabi cracker bag, but from the dozens and dozens of cameos in the film.

Handfuls of famous actors worked gratis on the film, drawing media attention and large crowds. Each time "Zhou Enlai" or "Yuan Shikai" (aka Chow Yun-Fat) appeared onscreen, excitement and amused chortling could be heard throughout the solely Chinese audience. Though perhaps failing to draw revolutionary fervor from its Generation X, China's handlers manage to further the image of a country united, put together, and in line with historical roots.

Morning calisthenics--sometimes there is dancingNot that there isn't a steady seepage of well sought-after Western goods. In fact, if homesickness found remedy in popular culture's libations, my experience in China may have differed dramatically from the one I currently live.

With an upbringing in strictly classical music (that's pre-Stockhausen) rivaling that of David Helfgott, I arrived late to the MTV party and, first (clandestinely obtained) Daft Punk cassette aside, I held piddling emotional attachment to the Let's-Dance-Baby-Baby-Baby-Ooh-Poker-Face-Beat-It radio compendium. Still, when I first heard my small Chinese pupil exclaim "Oh, my Lady Gaga!" I was pretty impressed - mainly because his ability to express himself in complete English sentences was, as we sanguinely told expectant parents, "making great progress."

photo by Galen Phillips

I am also surrounded by a shiny skeletal framework of vaguely-familiar pop culture. Teaching the Vegetables and Fruits unit to my ESL kids was nearly always made facile by their prior acquaintance with the game Plants vs. Zombies (usually played via iPad, a toy most kids in the upper echelons of Chinese social class seem to have these days).  

Is this iPhone 4? was a question repeatedly asked of me by nearly all of my students, as well as a few parents; what could I do but nod ashamedly and admit that in fact, 'twas but a lowly iPod touch...from last year. I don't even know the difference between iPhones 3, 4 and 5. Am I simply démodée when it comes to technology? Is my knowledge of pop culture frumpy and unsexy, like the look my mother gets on her face when I try to watch America's Next Top Model in her living room? From their excellent mimes and quotes (albeit in Chinese), I'd assume that my old Beijing friends, whilst blind-drunk on baijiu, even know more of Ānuòdé shī wǎ xīn gé, maid-diddling ex-governor of my home state, than I. 

experts in the art of chuan'r and Arnold impressions

Hearing "Telephone" thrice daily at the local gym, Burger King and MANGO does little for homesickness, though the usually worst bouts are merely manifest as a desire for vegetarian food without clandestine pork bits, or the ability to see more than a few blocks through the smog.

China is often portrayed as Iron Curtain 2.0 by foreign press — and it surely is a challenge to enter this country as anything but hapless tourist. I find myself here under a most fallacious title of Food and Beverage Consultant due to visa hindrances.

fitting in is hard work  There are many things I miss: being understood without wild gesticulation; potable water; being able to jog outside; a vista revealing more than skyscrapers, construction, and tawny dull skies. But as Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager said in nearly every episode of Season 4, "I will adapt." I did so far faster than I think I expected, transforming from blubbering dupe with weird hair into something resembling a Chinese citizen. I can down baijiu with a "ganbei," I can take public transportation with my nifty bus card, I can navigate sweet, sweet deals on the Chinese eBay; I've even gone the TCM route:

Reasons for Gua Sha: my internal heat was way too high and my yin was in deficiency

Of course, no matter how many propaganda movies I attend, foot massages I receive, or Chinese cabbages I eat, I will always be the selfsame Westerner — at once conspicuous and external and not-really-super-relevant in the scheme of all things Progress. Which is fine for me, really. On occasion I am perturbed by the water waste, destruction of historic homes, and Beijing's treatment of migrant workers; I am, however, conveniently situated on the 16th floor of my apartment building. I can't vote or stroll. I am also a wai guo. The last thing I'd want to do is upset my hosts.

Joanna Swan is a contributor to This Recording. She is a writer and artist living in Beijing. In addition to writing cryptic restaurant reviews on the Beijinger, she has contributed to Printeresting.org and blogs here. This is her first appearance in these pages. She tumbls here. 

Photographs by the author and Galen Phillips.

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