Marketplace Blog: December 2005 Archives

It was an unusual RSVP.

Lawyer Gao Zhisheng phoned to say he'd like to attend my holiday party, but do I mind that he’s being followed? Several police cars?

Lawyer Gao is a champion for the abused and downtrodden in China. He fights for peasants who lose their land to unscrupulous local developers. He writes open letters to Chinese President Hu Jintao protesting torture and detention of followers of the Falun Gong spiritual group.

Since I last interviewed him in the spring, the Beijing government has forced Gao to shut down his lawyers office, and stripped him of his lawyer's license.

We finished the last bottle of water as the hour hand pointed to five. Five am. Luo Shoucheng had just carried the hand drums, which he'd borrowed from the Traditional Orchestra, out of the recording room and was ready to put them into his car. Chen Dawei sat in front of the mixing table, taking a last sip of his cold green tea. After the recordist, Xiao Xu's, raucous shout of "Let's hear it!" we all trooped back into the mixing room to listen to the final mixed version of the complete new music tracks.

There’s something about our China project that’s been bugging me for a while. And I couldn’t really put my finger on in it until one night in Shanghai a couple of weeks ago.

I was getting ready to go out to meet someone for a story, and I had CNN International on the TV in the background as I was getting dressed. The news went on by without really making much of an impression. Until the anchor started reading the introduction to a report on a visit to China by a United Nations human rights official. And then, as he said something like ‘The United Nations today found torture in Chinese prisons is widespr…’ the screen went blank. Three minutes later, it came back on again as if nothing had happened.

In China when you need help with your business or your home, you go down to the labor market to hire somebody. To get a feel for how it works a few of us visited one in the western city of Chengdu.

This labor market is the world’s most organized version of the day laborer pools you see outside Home Depots in the United States, and on a much larger scale.

About one thousand guys wait inside a where house for the right opportunity or just about any opportunity. They stand mostly or crouch on haunches in a rag tag stream. Those who can afford it pay a calligrapher to scrawl their profession in thick black characters on a two foot by two foot piece of butcher paper. They set the sign at their feet and use pebbles to keep it in place.

One guy says he’s a welder and he has a job already but he’d like a better one.

Another man says he’s an electrician, very skilled.

One man’s a chef. He can cook western style food as well as Chinese, he says.

Scene:
Jean-Georges restaurant on the Bund in Shanghai. The Asian outpost of big-name New York restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Exquisite food and impeccable service. Bill for two, including drinks and wine (by the glass): $250 U.S. Not so much, really, for two Americans on a working vacation. And the tab certainly would have been much higher in any major American or European city.

Conundrum:
As my wife and ate and took in the atmosphere, we were surprised at the number of Chinese guests. And how young some of them were. Directly across from us was a table for four. The women sitting there couldn’t have been more than 30. 25 was more likely. But there they were. Paying $125 or more a head. Even though Jean-Georges sits on the 4th floor of a building that has an Armani store as the anchor tenant down at street level, that’s a staggering amount of money for most people in this country.

When I was with our scouting team traveling in Wan Zhou for story about Three gorges Dam relocation of farmers, an environmentalist and an local NGO guy accompanied the Marketplace crew. After we finished a simple lunch in a sidewalk restaurant, the most embarrassing moment came. American colleagues were discussing who should pay the bill and how to share the bill.

For Chinese it looked really impolite - for such simple and cheap lunch foreigners had to discuss how much each should pay. The environmentalist almost offered to pay the small bill to show his discontent. He asked me "Are they short of cash? if so, we can pay the bill." He did not really mean he want to pay the bill, it's actually a sarcastic attitude to show he wants to insult them. I stopped him and was trying hard to explain American's custom. But it's still hard for him to understand - how come rich Americans discussing to pay such a cheap bill in front of their guests!

Clearly, my American collages hadn't read the "Chinese Etiquette for Dummies."

Here is the rule.

The payment should be done fast by the host at the end of the meal and not questioning about the price detaiL. If you are hesitating or checking whether they added the bill correctly in front of your guests, it's a sign for Chinese that you're not sincere to invite him/her, and you think the meal too expensive! The guests are not worth it. Chinese way of paying: pay it no matter how much it is to show how generous you are to your guests.

In some cities like Beijing and Shanghai sometimes young people go Dutch. In Chinese we call it "AA" because we imported that idea from western countries. Can anyone tell me what "AA" means?

OK. Come back next week for lesson two!

Comments please! Xiao Yu, Beijing Bureau Assistant.

I have no return story to tell when it comes to China. Everything was new to me from the minute I walked down the runway and settled in for the 13 hour flight to Shanghai. China is a place you can research endlessly but there’s no way to prepare for the shock of seeing the world’s fastest growing economy first hand. Even the airplane was full of speculators hoping to cash in on China’s rise... a former Marine with plans to make it rich opening English language schools in overlooked cities, a Ferrari dealer hoping to cash in on China’s newfound love of cars. China is this century’s gold rush and everyone is trying to get a piece of it. Sounds easy enough... until you get here.

The closer this project gets to deadline the more I have to work out, preferably every day to relieve the stress. So I joined my ambitious boyfriend for a run around the reservoir near our apartment at 6:30 this morning. Ears throbbing and lungs heaving, I started daydreaming of a more tranquil and mentally engaging fitness routine I’d be able to do in China.

In China young, wealthy urbanites go to gyms, just like we do, but the generation that preceded China’s economic boom learned calisthenics at collective farms Chairman Mao sent them to during the Cultural Revolution. They also learned tai chi, fan dancing, badminton and ballroom. The “old people,” as the young people like to call them, congregate at city parks and just about any public square or sidewalk to exercise early in the morning—and I mean early.

It's an intimidating task, being the lone Marketplace correspondent in the world's fastest growing major economy, and its most populous nation.

How to explain in daily 50 sec or 4-minute nuggets what China is about?

When I travel back to the U.S., I am confronted with so many misconceptions about China. Not surprising. This is a fast-changing place, full of paradoxes. Often, it seems everything and its opposite is true. You know, the Yin and the Yang?

In many ways, China is a lot freer than many back home think. People in parts of this country aren't afraid to mouth off about the government, even into my microphone. Many are eager to! But elsewhere, it's like "old times," when folks feared a disparaging comment could land them in deep trouble. A reporter friend in one place China Week plans to visit said there are spies in her news office. She doesn't know who is monitoring her. But she could lose her job if she's heard talking openly to me about the wrong topic. She only dares tell me the "real" news, the stuff that’s been deleted by the censors, when we are in person.

I never thought it would take me this long to get back to China. When we left in ’97 my wife and I were sure we’d be back here living and working within a couple of years. But life and kids and jobs and…stuff…got in the way – you know how it goes. So when I landed last Monday, it had been eight years since I’d been back. Eight years for me, maybe, but somehow way more than that for Beijing and the rest of China. And maybe the best way explain why Marketplace is going to China is to talk about that first morning of my trip back.

We lived in a neighborhood called Sanlitun. Back in the mid-90’s it was just getting started as a place where ex-pats could get a taste of home. There were one or two places where you could get a passable cup of coffee. I managed to find a dry-cleaners to take care of my suits. There was an open-air market where you could by everything from a wok to toilet paper. And there was a fruit and vegetable stand we used to go to called Jenny Lou’s. Bare floor, a tarp for a roof, single lightbulbs so you could see the produce, but a clean and well-stocked supply of pretty much anything we’d like.