Notes From Xi'an 西安随感

Two days ago in Xi’an, while workmen were planting pine trees into the central reservation of the new upgraded Chang’an Road, I could hardly make out the tall television tower a short distance behind them for the polluted air that surrounded it. However, while today the workmen were still planting trees, the TV tower, itself recently refurbished, was sparkling white and clear in a beautiful blue sky.  And there was I, led to believe that those Copenhagen talks were “at best flawed, at worst chaotic” or even worse a “climate crime scene”. Not so, by the looks of the results on the ground here in happy, naturalistic China.

Now, maybe there is no call for the use of such a jocular tone towards what is obviously a very serious issue. An issue with an agenda that, in recent weeks, has drawn much brow beating and finger pointing from members of government and civil society alike. However, I have also attempted to consider these issues a little from the perspective of having lived in China for a few years.

The first thing to note, that pollution in China, for the Chinese, is aserious issue. (Documentary Photography: Pollution in China). Second, the recognition, that the processes adopted and the new relationships involved in the decisions taken at an inter-state level are of fundamental importance going deeper into the 21st century. Third, it would be better for all concerned in such inter-state processes, such as those that took place in Copenhagen, if the participants were able to recognise their own personal/cultural perspectives, attitudes and circumstances, and the context that defines them and that the same situation with different sets of conditions exist for others. Finally, it is good to see so many trees regularly being planted around this sprawling urban centre of Western China!

Pollution in China for the Chinese

So, the first thing to note is that although the scale of China’s carbon emissions is a world problem, it is still first and foremost a Chinese problem, for the Chinese people. It is due to centuries of development and historical levels of emissions across the globe, that China’s present position has been placed into such sharp relief.  There are at least a couple of strands to this. The first is that in taking into account China’s historical sense of isolationism and self-determination, any debate and dialogue is perhaps best understood within the context of responsibility, for and by the Chinese people. This might not be liked by some but is maybe a necessary perspective to recognise. This may explain why such an emphasis is placed by Chinese negotiators on “domestic statistical, monitoring and evaluation”, and is not in fact a de facto form of dis-responsibility.

Secondly, that the security of China’s Developing Economy, especially in this unclear and unstable economic time, will be seen to be of great short-medium term importance and not something to be guided by a global summit agenda, especially one hammered out through sleeves-rolled up, back slapping, back room agreements. Wen Jia Bao expressed this tricky dichotomy between Economic Development and Environmental Salvation, when he noted that: “China is now at an important stage of accelerated industrialisation and urbanization, and, given the predominant role of coal in our energy mix, we are confronted with a special difficulty in emissions reduction…we have set the new target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 40-45 percent by 2020 from the 2005 level.”

It must be noted that the jump we are expecting these developing nations to take, is not a small step, as alluded to, again by Wen Jia Bao: “To reduce carbon dioxide emissions on such a large scale and over such an extended period of time will require tremendous efforts on our part.” It is also not a process that we had to face in our own development, or certainly not one we had the foresight to recognise or, as is more likely, were willing to address. It is easy to take the moral high ground on the basis of scientific data and impending planetary/ humanitarian doom; it is another to actually be those in power who have to make those decisions. It might seem clear to some but they carry different cultural, social and political baggage. Like it or not, disappointment and indignationwill not get you very far, though of course natural reactions.

Global Groupings and the Maintenance of State Sovereignty

If the United Nations wasn’t discredited enough during the shenanigans leading to the conflict in Iraq, then Copenhagen may shine a brighter light upon how we are going to be able to decide globally significant issues between existing sovereign states. Especially states like China, that have such a strong sense of national identity and autonomy. We also need to consider what would be defined as “legally binding” in this context. Remember that Kyoto has been held up in recent days as a legally binding Climate Agreement but that it was comprehensively written off at the time by environmentalists as not going far enough and was not even signed by the US. Legally binding it might have been but it doesn’t seem to have carried much weight.

Going forward, there of course needs to be what existed in Copenhagen: the main players getting around the table or teleconferencing suites and discussing these issuesfurther. Politicians can talk of being held to ransom and not letting agreements be dominated by minority members, but if those members are the US or the Chinese then there is not a lot that can be done: they need to be onside and that needs to be remembered when the bitter lessons, drawn from the recognition of impotence, are learnt. Like it or not, vis-à-vis Climate Changethe US has never really come on board; we may just find, in the time we still have, that the Chinese are more willing.

Contextualisation, Indignation and Tree Planting

Perhaps, only by understanding the Chinese context and attitude and giving space and room for understanding and dialogue, will the greatest polluter the planet may well ever know, continue to sit at the table. Though I suggest there is a greater sense of responsibility there than Copenhagen suggests. This is not simply a doffed cap approach to diplomacybut a recognition of reality. It seems to me that by allowing ourselvestoissue ‘Demands’and letting our own indignation get the better of us, we do nothing but antagonise those we are appealing to. Life isn’t what we expect or even what we desire and very rarely is it or should it be made up of demands made on others, even if those demands are made from our own earnest sense of responsibility. Life, or one that takes a peaceful, harmonious path, tends to be made from holding a light to ourselves, as well as to others.

Finally, I am jolly happy to regularly see new parks appearing, tree lined avenues created and sometimes even prime real estate land becoming wooded city centre oases. Now, by no means is China about to be defined as a neo-naturalistic landscape but if we can but see the light or the potential for photosynthesising light at least, in the polluted darkness that often shrouds the street scapes of down-town Chinese cities, we can see the light elsewhere and we can move forward.

Belief And What’s Left

Maybe time isn’t on our planet’s side but indignation, insults and socio-cultural subjectivity aren’t going to keep the Chinese at the table, and they need to be there. If the European Union nations and the US had shown more of the selflessness that, in reality, is now being expected to some degree from the Chinese, then we wouldn’t be here worrying so much. And please, don’t kid yourselves that a turn to democracy in China would make these issues and decisions any easier, at least in the short-term, I don’t believe it would. This is not a case against reform just a note that it would, one, not necessarily be the all seeing and doing saviour that we might like it to be, and two, such political reform here, in my opinion, is a very long way off, maybe even something for another world or life- time. If I have become anything since living in China it is a realist, though, with a still hard to extinguish belief in humanity. And from my own anecdotal and generalising experience, a belief in the Chinese people, at least as much as I have in humanity generally. As many Evangelical- Missionary Christians here might tell you, belief is all we have, but as I might add, the rest is up to us. The Chinese, I might proffer, recognise that more than most.

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So, National Day is upon us and the geese have gotten fat. The roads have been rebuilt, shop frontiers have been homogenised in gray, buildings; whether old, new, run-down, falling down or in the process of being built, have been painted and we are all being told to wear gray pants, shirts and a cap. Ok, the last point strays slightly from the truth but maybe not too far from the essence of life here at the moment. In fact, the Chinese teachers at my school have, after practicing for weeks, just put on a public performance singing two passionate anthems dressed as a China Work Unit from a period past. During these days the past has been impacting on the present but I suppose, more so, the present is influencing the past- the Party of Mao Ze Dong being justified by the results of today.

There has been debate circling around for months about the reasoning behind the re-developing, upgrading and most certainly improving of the main trunk roads in Xi’an, particularly Chang’an Lu. First, it seemed a consequence of the subway construction process, then I was told it was part of the 60th anniversary celebrations, and with the work only now coming to a close that seems about right. However, I had assumed there must be some huge procession going to take place, maybe something similar to the military/ firework extravaganza about to take place in Beijing.

Not so. There is nothing planned to take place on the streets of Xi’an. Thus, it seems that these recent upgrades of main route shop frontiers, building face lifts and of course the huge main road re-construction process have all been in the name of psychological well being: of a nation, for a nation, by the love of the people, for the love of the people – or something like that.

When I was questioning my teacher about all these recent developments and how some seemed a touch superficial and homogenising, she was about to respond with something but did not, explaining that she could not tell me.  Of course, I now felt she possessed some interesting secret or insight and I certainly wanted to know what, so I pointed out that she cannot dangle such a statement in front of me and then not come through with it. In the end she pointed out that she should not be saying this to a foreigner – at which point I became concerned that I was to be bearing a state secret or two and things may never be the same again – we continued anyway. She told me, slowly and not particularly directly, that Chinese people are very concerned about maintaining face and that all this money invested, arguably wasted on superficial projects (my point not hers and which didn’t include the road re-development), was actually to do with this maintenance of face. Now, I am not sure what was more worrying: the reality, the symbolism, the known, the unknown, the secrets or the not so secret secrets?

However, we have a new road and it is Great and China is Great and I love China. So, that’s all alright then. Happy National Day.

What is it that makes people so self-concerned and so blinkered to the consequences of their actions? I don’t know but check out any road junction here in Xi’an and you’ll see the consequences. I have arrived back in Xi’an to discover that the road maintenance work on Chang An Nan Lu has nearly been completed. There is however a small stretch that remains without road markings and that includes a small side road junction with traffic lights still not turned on, the road at this point has space for about six lanes. I was stuck in an almighty traffic jam this week realising that though we were in the third (outside) lane going south, the three lanes further over were also going south, to put it another way all six lanes of traffic were going in the same direction! I thought for a second whether there was anywhere the oncoming traffic may have been re-routed to but realised there wasn’t, simply the cars behind had grown impatient and dived for the space to their left.

Now we were waiting as all six lanes of traffic funnelled back into one lane. The oncoming traffic was obviously causing a blockhead further down the road but because they in turn had become frustrated, buses and lorries had crossed over and were heading north on our side of the road. The situation then being: six lanes of traffic heading south, being met at some point by three lanes heading north, correctly on their side of the road, and two lanes of traffic heading north on our side of the road. This left one lane for all of our six lanes to funnel back into.

Needless to say, a journey that at that time of the day usually takes about one minute, took close to forty-five minutes. A couple of days later I was at the same junction on my bike and was faced with vehicles that were pointing as if to every point on a compass, in a vehicular state not dissimilar to one of Mr. Pollock’s most random of paintings. I actually tried to help out a bit, holding back a line of traffic for a minute to let two buses that were sitting perpendicular to a line of traffic pass through. However, no sooner had they moved out the way when three cars appeared on the wrong side of the road facing the line now freed by the departed buses, freedom was here a fleeting thing and only felt, not actually realized. I cycled off down the road.

I will finish this note with the observation that this kind of thing is not uncommon on the roads here, not always on this scale but scale is itself relative to circumstance- meaning: road junctions here are often a baffling, exceptionally frustrating, crazy mess of the most incomprehensible congestion, whether made of many or just a few vehicles. However, the majority involved do tend to stay remarkably calm and that I suppose, amongst the things that aren’t, is to their credit.

A note back on the streets of Xi’an and rainy streets they are to this week. The dry and, no matter what other hardened foreigners might say, humid city streets of Xi’an have been turned into May-soon washed, quagmiresque tributaries. In other words, it does not rain here much, it was just becomingly stiflingly hot but this week it has pretty much rained non-stop. However, being English and having recently re-engaged with my old running regime, I was happy to be out there jogging in the rain and not in the 25+ summer evening temperatures that I can never quite get used to.

Amazingly, or it would have been if I had only just arrived in Xi’an, as I have not it was actually to be expected, that on arrival at Shi Da’s running track I was to discover that I was one of only three on the track. Normally, this time of year and around that time of the evening, 9ish, there are literally hundreds strolling, walking the dog, chatting, romancing and even running around the track. Not to mention the soccer and badminton players, the Tai Qi exponents and the rhythmic line dancers taking up many of the other available spaces. The Chinese do not do going out in the rain.

I will take a moment to dwell on these dancers as they are always a joy to behold and I have watched them a few times in different locations this week. These dancers are not restricted to the wonderfully peaceful environs of Shi Da’s Campus sports ground but are to be found in public spaces all over the city. Someone has usually assembled some kind of music system that can actually create quite an imposing sound and through which it is not uncommon to even hear a little western dance music. A collection of women, often in there early 40′s and upwards, proceed to move in rhythmic harmony, legs and arms swirling in synchronised flourishes.

The core of regulars are usually joined by a few young hopefuls attempting to keep in step with their more mature partners. I like to occasionally observe these gatherings because whether they are middle-aged regulars or young track suited students there is a conspicuous lack of self-consciousness in their movements, no matter their ability, which is rather refreshing to behold.

Now, to continue on a different note but still with a rainy reference, I decided today to stand and contemplate one of the many minor road collisions that increasingly occur during this time of main road madness. A direct consequence of roads a plenty being ripped up in the name of the subway construction process, or as some say in preparation for the 60th anniversary of the Party. Of course, a greater number of accidents occurred in the torrential rain of this week.

Two cars had a minor coming together at the entrance of a two-lane road near my house, blocking one side completely. The cars on the side of the accident tailed up behind the two stationary vehicles at the front, while those on the other side continued to swing on down the road, access unimpeded. I had inside me at first a growing sense of frustration as I watched the two drivers just sit at the entrance of the road, paying no attention to the congestion they were creating behind them (not though an unusual fact). Then becoming increasingly annoyed at the way in which the oncoming traffic made no concession to those left stuck behind the two motionless vehicles. I wanted to get in the road, traffic attendant like, letting cars out here, holding others back there and generally getting the traffic moving on both sides.

However, as I continued watching I realized that even though nearly all the actions that took place were being decided upon on selfish grounds, the natural flow of life allowed a reasonable give and take of cars moving in both directions. People crossing the road, a stalled engine, a turn taken too wide, a traffic light further down the road, a U-turning vehicle all added to what became a natural flow of traffic up and down both sides of the road. A little stilted maybe, and on occasion more frustrating for one side than the other, but in the great scheme of things not a great deal less fluid, if at all, than would have been managed by a Chinese police officer standing there intentionally directing traffic. Apart from one of course, who had got those two cars moving in the first place.

A couple of things that stood out on the Chinese culture front last week. The first, was listening to a Chinese colleague outline her lunchtime ritual. She noted how she goes from school to her car across the road, which she pays to park, then drives straight down the street to her daughters school, also where her husband works. This whole process takes under 10 minutes. Her and her husband then have lunch with their daughter, before retiring to a school provided dormitory for a siesta. She then drives back here for afternoon classes before returning again to meet her daughter after she finishes school. They wait at the school while their daughter does her homework and plays in the pleasant surroundings of the near-by university campus. They then drive home, about 5-10 minutes by car.

Why do I note this? Maybe back in Britain or in the States this scenario seems oh so normal. But, this is a nation of cyclists, bus catchers and walkers. No longer.

One of the great things about living in China, and particularly here in Xi’an, as it is less developed than Beijing for example, is that it places many of the norms of our own societies in sharp contrast. The society here maybe in the process of going down the same route we took, but by doing so from a different starting point or time period, it sharpens the focus from which we view not only the changes here, but our own norms of behaviour.

Just weeks ago this lady cycled down the road at lunch time and then home in the evening, with her daughter on the back of her bike. Now, she makes 5 journeys a day in her VW Golf. I suppose this is all-good for the economy and is being increasingly supported by many major nations, particularly here and in the United States. These are the realities of the principles that underpin our societies. It is just that they seem to me a little crazy really, and that is without taking into account the environmental costs.

Secondly, I was sitting in a small fast-food restaurant doing a bit of studying when a young lad, your average looking student, sat down at the table just across from me. He began to chomp and slurp his way through his lunch, as if oblivious to any of the evolutionary etiquette that has emerged over the last however many centuries, in various parts of our various societies.

Now, I am quite used to this really, living on the street I live, which is not inhabited by the wealthiest of people and has an abundance of hole-in-the-wall restaurants. I have also stayed a number of times in rural village communities where the old noodle suck and slurp is going strong. I can actually manage a good noodle slurp myself and even recognise the benefit when the noodles are piping hot. However, there are levels, it doesn’t matter how you cut it, listening to this guy eat was no different from listening to an animal munching, noisily at its trough, every open mouth(ful) chomped, sucked and slurped over. Quite amazing.

This, of course, may well not be a bad thing, certain levels of etiquette go far too far and I particularly enjoyed eating with my right hand in India, but…

…I wished this bloke would just shut the —- up!

I woke slowly and with sleep still in my eyes peered out through our new ‘dust-net’. I was soon aware that an inch-thick layer of lunar-like dust had again settled and completely covered the bedroom. I carefully rose from the bed, shaking a thin layer of dust from my hair, that troublingly had managed to find a path inside the net. My girlfriend still lay sleeping peacefully.

I padded through into the living room, creating a clearing trail of footprints as I went. I quickly realized, as I slipped headlong into a three foot high pile of dust, that I had left the window open overnight. We recently however had a nifty new particle-vacuum installed, patented here in Xi’an’s very own High Tech Zone. It is positioned beneath the air-conditioner on the wall. I placed the blue mask that came with it over my mouth and turned it on.

It is a quite wonderful contraption, quietly going about its duties, or rather its single duty: the silent and speedy removal of these pesky white particles as I watch. I am not entirely sure how it works, though water has something to do with it, but it does remarkably manage to distinguish the dust from all the other bits and pieces scattered around the house. Within moments it had syphoned the house clear. I had not enquired, nor had I wished to, about where all this stuff goes to. I did hear, though, that it is trucked up to Taiyuan in Shanxi and loaded onto transporter spacecraft and exported to the moon. All part of China’s New Greener Earth space programme. But, I am not sure.

I was no sooner out of the flat and off to work when I found myself falling footlong into a huge hole in the road: “That wasn’t there yesterday,” I had thought to myself as I descended into the pit. Upon landing and while scrambling to my feet I had looked up to see a couple of friendly Chinese faces peering down at me, they muttered the comforting words “Lao Wai” (foreigner) before continuing on their way.

Once I had clambered out and continued on, I happily consoled myself with the fact that this huge hole outside my home was probably part of Xi’an’s subway construction process, now, so I am also told, visible from space. I hope that in time I may well be allowed a more sedate way of descending into the same place, an electric escalator carrying me from the entrance of my apartment to the underground platform below.

This thought made me think of those moving walkway things that you get in airports, so good for a bit of induced urgency and the correlating sense of being important: “I am a world traveler with countries to go and people to see”. I like those things. To think we could have one here on Yang Jia Cun was quite a great thought and left me feeling rather positive about the day ahead.

When I got to the crossroads, and after looking left and right, I calmly approached the mass of entwined vehicles in front of me. Nonchalantly, I clambered over the bonnet of the first car, squeezed agilely in front of a bus, stepped over the rear saddle of an electric moped, which was sandwiched between two taxis, apologizing as I did so, ducked under an open lorry door and made it to the other side of the road. I turned momentarily to observe again the interwoven pattern of vehicles at the junction of my road, before continuing on my way to work.

Tomorrow is another day but I was up again and heading off to the bus station just as I had done two days earlier. This time as I arrived at the station I was relieved to see the line pleasingly manageable, probably about where I had entered it the first time just this time I was to do so legitimately and with over an hour before the station doors were to be opened. I had a good book tucked in my pocket but was more interested in just watching the morning’s activities unfold from a more secure vantage point than previously, although with a gathering crowd that was beginning to look increasingly unmanageable.

This time people were steadily allowed to gather in quite a large group around the head of the queue, with various characters skulking in the still darkened hours of early morning amongst them. Some of them, not happy enough to have slipped into a forward position while pretending to engage others with mild morning chatter, silently and slowly drifted even further forward in the line. Until a collection of men, who I had individually observed moving in and about the line, had gathered at the head of the queue; first subtly pretending to peer searchingly inside the as yet unlit station before forming a niche of bodies infront of all others. This whole time people were steadily arriving and noticeably, like myself a couple of days earlier, unsure whether to stand their ground around the head of the line or take their place in the ever extending train of people heading backwards. I began to notice that there were a few men seemingly quite familiar with proceedings and confidently bestriding the line. I also recognised a couple of men in the queue who I had seen the previous morning and began to get the impression that there must of course be some kind of third-party system for buying tickets.

The station attendants who the previous morning had been wielding people into line with their sticks were conspicuous this morning by their absence. I was, from a reasonable starting point, beginning to worry that the large crowd that had formed around the entrance would actually lead to quite considerable delays and even a little bit of chaos and anger, if they did not soon manage it. I need not have worried, although some earlier organisation may have been better for all concerned, but with only 10 minutes to go they arrived. The guards first, amusingly, removed the shadowy gentlemen at the head of the queue before creating a division between the single line and the rest. This was the time for some to take a place where they hadn’t previously but many were too slow to do so and were soon being jettisoned by a pointed finger, a shout, a rough banging of a stick on the ground at their feet or a quick pulling of an arm. From chaos moments earlier came calm; an orderly queue on one side and a collection of sleepy, unsure, slightly confused and frustrated, though still hopeful figures on the other. The line moved off inside the station.

I was one of the first in the queue and had my ticket in my hand within about 20 minutes, by which time the line at the window for my own particular destination was already over 100 souls deep. After some difficulty exiting the station through a mass of entwined queues and bodies I arrived outside again, to discover the line still disappearing into the distance down along the pathway. I was happy to have had this more sedately experience compared to the previous morning and the opportunity these two days to observe New Year matters down at the bus station, but happier still to be heading home with ticket tucked away securely.

Chinese New Year is fast approaching and people in their masses are heading home. Yesterday I wandered down to the bus station to buy a ticket for my girlfriend who is also returning home for Spring Festival, a few days before I join her. No problem I had thought, a bit of a wait then I would arrive back at the flat a knight in shining armour, clutching a much sought after ticket when she returned from work. However, upon arriving at the station I was faced with the unexpected sight of lines circling, exiting and then re-entering the building. This meant I would start off in the building, follow the line back out of the building, back in again and then wait with the 90 odd still ahead of me who were pressed as tightly together as possible, so to make the numbers seem smaller than they actually were.

Sadly, the numbers were themselves actually greater, swelled by those nipping in with the offer of cash to the lucky ones already edging towards the front of the queue. After surveying this scene I decided to check what time the station opened in the morning and what time I should realistically arrive. I was told it opened at 7 and I should be there by 6.30. Ok.

I awoke earlier than intended and headed off on my bike. Upon arriving again at the bus station, this time in the dim light of morning and with hat and scarf sheltering my face from the cold, I discovered the queue to already be leading away from the main entrance, along the path and around the furthest corner, the end out of sight! I hovered for a few minutes by the entrance working out if it was possible to just join the line at this end but the yelling and wielding of 1-2 metre long sticks by security guards made that option look bleak. The guards were creating a safety zone around the official queue so anyone attempting to push in would be spotted, prodded, potentially whacked and then ejected. I slowly walked the length of the queue weighing up the depth of my chivalry, as I considered the necessary 2-3 hour wait that now faced me. Then as I a sauntered back up the line un-decided, worried in true prisoner’s dilemma style that if I joined the line around the corner others would join it further up when the queue started moving, there was intense activity at the front of the line as the station opened.

At that point I was walking quite close to the queue and a gap appeared as people moved off ahead, without thinking I just stepped into it. It wasn’t my greatest chivalric moment and my heart was beating a lot faster having done so but I was glad to be in line. Many others had done the same and the guards began running the queue, pulling out people here and there and at one point one headed straight for me with stick brandished, but instead threw out a chap just behind me. I heard one man behind me say I was a Laowai (foreigner) and not to worry. Terrible I know but great! These actions meant that once inside I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to the ones’ offering cash to those just ahead of me in the queue, where otherwise I probably would have done. I was out of the station and home before my girlfriend had even left for work. However, I was unsafe in the knowledge that as I am planning to leave on Thursday and with the fact that you can only buy your ticket three days before departure, I would be back at the station on Monday morning for more of the same, or maybe a little worse.

Chinese New Year at Xi’an’s Bus Station. Part II.