CONTRADICTION: Haves and Have Nots

When you drive out of downtown Beijing, before you're outside of the 6th Ring Road you begin to pass through villages where you can see the development of recent years has not yet come to pass. Storefronts vary between brick or concrete blocks to tin-roofed shanties selling groceries and mobile phone charge cards, and everything is surrounded by farm fields. The people here aren't destitute, but they are generally the part of Beijing making less than the city average of about 5,000 RMB (~$800 USD) a month--probably much less.

And then there's the haves. Grabbing lunch just now at 7-Eleven the guy behind me asked for a box of condoms from behind the cashier. Not a totally uncommon request, but it was asked in a kind of brazen way that's uncommon with locals here. He was wearing a baseball hat, common for Korean folks especially and Wangjing, but more and more for internationally-inclined Chinese locals as well. Walking outside I was impressed to see him driving away in an Bentley with no license plates--a sure sign of government connections, which I guess is ubiquitous for most rich folks here.

It comes up quite often in staff discussions, how unfair it must seem that foreigners make such high salaries for jobs like English teaching in comparison to Chinese white-collar workers doing work of equal or more difficulty and making fractions of foreigner pay. Then again, you see locals driving around in Bentleys and begin to see that the have-nots here are just surrounded by what must appear like ridiculous opulence at times, and there's not a whole lot to do about it.

We had an employee post a very damaging message yesterday on our company microblog site that gets circulated to all of our clients. It was known for a while that he wasn't happy with his pay, though he was being reimbursed at market with relatively decent working conditions. To be honest, can you really blame young Chinese professionals for the resentment they must harbor against all the riches they see around them? Thinking about it more, this is the same vein that Mao must have tapped into in inspiring popular support for the Communist revolt.

Devils and Everyone Else

In watching the the New York Rangers play the Winnipeg Jets right now, I'm entertained by the end to end action and by the momentary feats of individual achievement. Hockey isn't a sport that lends itself to stand-outs: things happen too quickly, it's too team-based to have superstars like in basketball or baseball, where fans have time to realize who has the ball and how good they're doing with it. Ryan Callahan just had a fantastic period, blocking 3 or 4 shots face-first, 2 on one shift, and scoring a nice garbage goal. The action is very end-to-end, odd-man rushes going back and forth, lots of posts.

It makes me think of the amazingly boring hockey that the New Jersey Devils play, and how that boringness is the result of a team of mediocre players that simply don't screw up as often as players on other teams. Each of Callahan's momentary heroics was the result of some kind of breakdown: the offside wing is out of position and he has to jump out, twice in one shift, to cover. Odd-man rushes are usually the result of an ill-timed pinch or missed hit; you just don't see Andy Greene or Marek Zidlicky do that as often. New Jersey goals are pretty evenly dispersed up and down the roster, because if you're moving that thing around the right way you don't need Gaboriks and Nashs to manufacture goals with one-man efforts. What amazes me, more than anything, is the consistency of Devils coaching that routinely produces a team-wide discipline and dedication to success as an organization, as opposed to an individual. I can see the bright lights of MSG making life difficult for even a personality like Tortorella to draw guys together around a collective goal. Give me the slightly-dimmer lights of the Rock across the swamp in Newark any day.

CONTRADICTION: Savings and Waste

The Chinese really know how to save. Pre-2007, when the savings rate in the UK averaged a slight negative percentage of earnings, the Chinese were saving 30% of each paycheck. Day to day you can see the incredible pragmatism of the people here in the ways they come up with to make money. Your local newspaper stand owner will generally also be able to fix your leather shoes and copy your housekey. Retirees drive around three-wheeled tricycles covered in recyclable styrofoam, cardboard, and metal that they exchange at the local dump for cents per kilogram. Waste is hard to find, as most of the time waste materials mean some kind of opportunity to someone else.

The blogosphere has been erupting recently about waste, however, in the form of food waste at restaurant banquets. When eating at home with their immediate family, even monied folks will eat a balanced meal consisting of simple stuff like rice, a couple meat dishes, and some vegetables. During business meetings, holidays, and special events, most locals celebrate by heading out to a restaurant, where they sit around a large table and order a ton of dishes, usually way more than could be eaten by double the amount of people sitting at the table. Between wanting to provide a show of genuine hospitality, and the high minimum fees required by restaurants booking rooms popular for private meals, almost anyone who's spent a significant amount of time here has been privy to scenes of waitresses dumping out handfuls of uneaten food into garbage cans after a Spring Festival bash. Recently, Xi Jinping came out with an "internal memo" made public about disgust with the practice. We'll see how much that changes things, and how quickly.

Words and Magic

I didn't understand Yeats when I first read his essay about magic. Incantations and spells is what came to mind, and given his reputation for being, well, very poetic in his take on reality, I couldn't really wrap my head around language having that much power.

Anyone who has ever experienced a deep relationship with someone else has been a part of the phenomenon: a thought, a sentence, even a word--the wrong adjective, modifier, choice of noun--slips out and changes the whole nature of an interaction, a conversation, a relationship. The language comes out and, like it or not, synapses fire, neurotransmitters move from dendrite to dendrite, and before you know it, you're in a lurch. Conversely, something apropos a bit of humor, an observation at just the right time unexpectedly makes the whole thing disappear again. Chemicals settle back into equilibrium. What's more magical, in that case, than a conversation? And what's more impressive, sometimes, than getting across to someone you love exactly what it is that you mean?

Snooze button

I can't believe it's taken me until my 20s to discover the snooze button on alarm clocks. Now that I have, it's been a love/hate relationship. Why is it that it always seems an extra 10 minutes of sleep will make the difference between waking up rested or exhausted? It doesn't make a difference--the coffee will wake you up just as well now as it will a few minutes from now. What I do like is how an early wake-up does really make you appreciate a good cup of joe.. and by "joe" I mean instant Nescafe packets and not 粥.

Costner: Spring Festival

There's nothing quite like driving home to the sounds of high explosives after a good meal of pulled pork. Despite a generally quiet demeanor, it is incredible to see the interest people take in these parts to ear-shattering kabooms that accompany some of the rockets used during Spring Festival. For each of the past 10 or so nights, the explosions have been practically continuous, beginning early and the morning and continuing straight through until now, almost midnight. I am not sure where the tradition comes from, and what the bombs are intended to do--scare spirits away? Attract distant spirits closer? All I know is that the face of your average man on the street is changed during this season from a mask of general malaise, to a tinge of a smile, with a spring in his step and a ni hao for all passers-by. It is uncommon to see people grant strangers such consideration in public, holding doors and standing patiently in line, as they do during Spring Festival in Beijing.

Costner: P90X

I began the day with Tony Horton's P90X workout regimen. During our jump training time, he admonishes himself as "a merciless man." I believe him to be a fine man with a dedication to making us all better, to "do [our] best and forget the rest." Though he looks something like a gecko, I have never seen calves of such sculpture on a man his age. As active as my lifestyle is out here, I would not be able to match his physique. In hunkering down for the remainder of the winter, I feel warmed by the inspiration of Horton's drive and enthusiasm. Although sore today, I know this morning's exertions will strengthen me in the end.

CONTRADICTION: "Police state" and "lawlessness"

The grand bargain made between China's leaders and the guy on the street goes something like: "The big guys assure steady economic growth, and in return you agree not to rock the boat." Sounds surprisingly similar to the Emperor's rule by the Mandate of Heaven back in the day, no? Another key component of the bargain involves assurance of stability in the form of an expansive security presence, from police to plainclothes cops to the People's Liberation Army officers to the young guy in the guardhouse at our front gate. To live in China is to be surveyed, watched, kept tabs on. If you cross a certain line, particularly the line of trying actively to involve Chinese citizens in some kind of mobbish political behavior, or group people together for an event of any purpose, you run a risk of activating this surveillance force. This is how folks "get disappeared" (Chinese folks mostly, as the international outcry if this was to happen to a foreigner would add to the massive PR problem China has already).

There is, on the other hand, kinds of lawlessness here that are startling to Westerners. To drive in Beijing, or even to be driven in a cab or bus here, is to feel a fear possible only in the midst of total chaos. Recent government transition has led to recent enforcement of several traffic laws, but in general, lane lines and street lights are interpretive, backing up on a busy highway to get to the exit ramp you missed is a frequent occurrence, accidents happen all the time.

More recently, at a pond hockey tournament on Houhai Lake this weekend, the organizers overlooked the need for a good, accessible bathroom for use by the players slamming copious amounts of Heineken over the course of the day. Eventually, the guys started pissing through a chain-linked fence bordering the hockey rink area, directly onto the ice being overseen from shore by hundreds of tourists. In a place where infant children routinely crap on the sidewalk, unable or unwilling to wait until the nearest public bathroom, and with parents who are remiss to throw money away on diapers, this must not have seemed like too much of a big deal to onlookers--at least the Chinese ones.

Beijing pollution and financial crisis

It struck me today that the recent spate of gross pollution is doing to Beijinger's sense of the pollution scale what the global financial crisis did to our sense of the idea of billions versus trillions of dollars. A reading of over 500 pm2.5 (technically "beyond reading" on the US Embassy pollution monitor) has been crossed so much recently that it's been reduced somewhat--just as reports of Trillions of dollars lost in the CDO market and bailout funds of the past decade have reduced that once enormous amount of cash to the level we once associated psychologically with smaller amounts of money. Trillion is the new billion; 500+ pm2.5 is the new 150 pm2.5. Let's hope everyone's respiratory systems are able to keep up...

Costner times and places

I reserve the right to write as First Lieutenant John J. Dunbar as if he's living across a number of different times and places, including the following:

• Present-day Beijing/China
• Present-day Great Plans
• Olden-days Beijing/China
• Olden-days Great Plains