Chinalogue Epilogue

A few more thoughts: it is quite amazing how steeped in symbolism the Chinese are. Let's talk numbers. Note the 2008 Olympics begin on August 8, 2008. Apparently numbers are huge in China. Thus, the lucky number 8-8-8 was chosen for the beginning of the games; they had to get a waiver to start the games on that date. The number eight is extremely prized, with a wealthy Chinese businessman having paid millions of Yuan for a license number with all eights.

One sees it too even in names of restaurants in the US with numbers in them--Three Happiness, Three Harmony, Sixty Five Asian, Nine Restaurant, etc. What you will not see is the number four. That is anathema. I did not see one auto with a number four at the end.

Next of course is the reverence to animals, real and mythological. From the ever present dragon to the ferocious beast that cannot defecate--no doubt the source of the joke about the meanest animal in the world. So much of daily life seems to be hinged on numbers and animals or beasts.

Every important building has a menagerie on the roof; the building's importance is denoted by the number of carved animals following the emperor. Only the emperor's residences may have as many as eleven figures--under penalty of death, or worse. There, the melding of animals and numbers.

To a lesser degree is the importance of color. Everyone is familiar with the brilliant reds in the society. I understand that only the emperor could wear or display yellow. Buddhism is supposed to be the most prominent religion and we all know about the saffron colored robes.

And then, there are flowers. As Portland is to the rose, Beijing is the magnolia. All sorts of flowers are significant.

Fellow rhino expeditioner who suggested "-logue" said she would not like to be among the masses of people in China. Well folks, this cannot be avoided. Bear in mind that the Chinese walk they way they drive. There is constant jostling no matter where one goes. There is no right or left lane. Physical contact is inescapable. The paranoid would have to constantly be feeling for their billfold.

Furthermore, we were advised by our guides to never carry our passport and to carry a minimum amount of money. Of course no one had an incident among our group. China is not the place to get away from it all.

Our Guides: they reminded me of the pre-perestroika Soviet Union. They seemed to emphasize the extremes--the largest KFC in the world, a three story fat producing edifice. Three Gorges Dam. The Pearl of Orient, the highest structure in the world that is a communications tower in Shanghai containing the most expensive hotel room in the world (more than Dubai?). The tallest building in the world under construction.

All of this seeming to emphasize "The New China." That phrase was used over and over again. Of course New China also means one child per couple. Our guide in Xian, a beautiful young woman of 31 who looked to be 21, spent a lot of time rationalizing the wisdom of that governmental decree. She seemed very distressed that her mother-in-law hated and blamed her because her one and only child is a girl. We all volunteered to instruct her in X and Y genes.

Nevertheless, there are loopholes in everything. The wealthy can buy the right to have more than one child. Chinese can have a dog in the city, not more than 35 centimeters, for a heavy, heavy price relative to wages. You can have a moped, but the cost is so prohibitive that a car would make more sense.

All our guides and experts have English names. We tried valiantly to get Chinese equivalents, but there was none. They just picked names they liked. Robert, Ivy, Rose--just anything they liked. There was no transliteration.

Chairman Mao: several days went by before Mao was mentioned in spite of the fact that we often drove past a huge picture across from Tian An Men at the exit of The Forbidden City. Finally. The Cultural Revolution (never mentioned explicitly) was put down to Mao having grown old. End of discussion. Significantly, there was never any other evidence of The Chairman (other than my wagging arm watch). And of course there was no mention ever of Tibet, the demonstrations at TAM, and, except for the Taipei 101, no mention of Taiwan.