But only just; I'm going home tomorrow. Am I ready? Ask me next week!
I crave spinach and simply cooked salmon, and wholegrain rice, and perfectly boiled eggs,
and chocolates that Their Excellencies wouldn't dream of Spoiling Anyone with, but rather keep for Themselves.
But, on the other hand, you see, I'm spending the last few days on my own in a traditional courtyard hotel, where it's quiet (no drilling, no huge holes in the ground ...) and the staff treat me like a long-lost favourite granny. They speak English and love to try it out as often as possible. I've walked up and down the hutong outside (narrow lane bordered by ancient walls and houses, shops, restaurants) where the residents smile and nod. The renovation work going on means a ton of rubble heaped against a wall, and a bit of half-hearted banging, but mostly its bustling at its slowest. It's dusty, and the trees choke on it, leaning limply against their bit of wall. They have to contend with the scooters, mopeds, bikes and trailers, rickshaws, cars, vans, big and small, police cars (the station is 30 yds from the hotel), but my room is tucked away in the corner of a back courtyard. I can sit at a table with my coffee when it's sunny, or relax in the cosy room watching Chinese opera on tv with the volume down! I'm hooked after a month! I can't listen to it for very long, but I can't stop watching the intricate movements and body language; every one is meaningful, if I knew what it meant. I particularly like the male lead, usually wearing a false beard so you can't see his mouth, with his eyebrows painted into a fierce arc, making him look like an angry wasp. When he's wearing the most imposing headdress, with silver wobbling baubles that tremble with every warble, just the tiniest twitch of his head sends two impossibly long peacock feathers jutting from the top into writhing, flicking whips, and then he stands on one leg! Oh magic! And there are other masterpieces of drama -- the army serial which has captains and generals as the main characters, being challenged to make the right decision in Difficult Circumstances and, after gazing manfully into the distance, usually burst into tears in the process, and there's one beautiful young woman in it, who spends her time being quiet and looking wistful, her eyes lumimous with Unrequited Love underneath the lumpy army cap she's wearing. And this being the 60th anniversary of Mao's "reign" there's a docu-drama being shown daily about his life. He was a handsome chap when he was young, wasn't he, and obviously a great wit, for every time he makes a Pronouncement to his young colleagues they all slap their thighs and say "Ha ha ha" in manly tones.
Have I got any work done since I've been here in Beijing? Well, yes, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I was made welcome at the British Embassy and shown round the Consulate's green and lovely garden which has garden statues and stone pots and things brought from the old British Legation when they relocated in 1950. And there was a large iron bell hanging from a Chinese red and green wooden frame. I swear the holes in it were bullet holes, and the bell was clearly very old ... could it be the bell which was rung in its own small belltower as a warning of imminent danger such as fire, or fire-power about to be unleashed from across the Legation wall in 1900? I think so.
My grandparents lived through the siege that summer, with Granny's world shrinking suddenly to one bedroom when their only son, Murray, was terribly ill with scarlet fever and diptheria. The worst night was during a storm, with the rain lashing down and thunder and lightning adding to the sound of rifle-fire, shouting and the clash of steel weapons. Murray lay asleep in his cot and had just turned tail, with his feet where his head should be, when a bullet smashed the window, cut through 2 layers of curtain and fell, spent, at Granny's feet, just inches from where Murray's head should have been. She pulled her mattress from her bed, shoved it into the window and stood all night holding it in place.
The siege lasted for 55 days and there was no good food to help Murray recover. He died six days after the relief and Granny describes in a letter home how his little coffin was wrapped in the Union Jack, and laid to rest between 2 of his favourite people, Capt Strouts, and a young student interpreter, Henry Warren. So bravely did Murray fight for his life she called him Little Soldier.
I was shown a memorial corner of the garden, and the first plaque I looked at was from the old Legation. It was a memorial to those who'd died in the siege. There was Capt Strouts' at the top and there was Henry Warren. And near the bottom: Also of Murray Ker, aged one year and ten months who died six days after the siege. Son of W P Ker Assistant Chinese Secretary HBM Legation.
I'd found little Murray at last.
I was introduced to our Ambassador who showed me some old photographs of the legation; could I identify any of them? A couple I was sure of and another couple I was nearly sure of, so now I'll go home and check. He told me that there was an effort being made to build up their historical archive which has been lost, one way or another, over the years. So I gave them a start; the photo of Murray I was carrying and 2 photos of my grandparents standing alongside Pu Yi. I think they'd like that idea, being the start of a new archive. I was invited to attend the Remembrance Day service tomorrow, but I'll be in the departure lounge again, sipping endless cups of lemon tea ...
PS The Summer Palace was fogbound yesterday, and so was the Forbidden City today, though the sun struggled into view for a little while and I took lots of photos. It's difficult to show the size and power of those buildings. And the red of the walls looks wrong in photos. It's somewhere between a darkish rose pink and brick red. It's not apricot, and its not peach, or pomegranate, or water melon. I love the roofs and the decorations under the eaves best, and the patterns in the stone pathway leading to the outer halls. I started at the back of the place and am glad I did because I wandered on my own (well, give or take a few hundred others) along the alleyways leading to the living quarters. I took photos of neglected corners and corridors because you can almost feel the presence of all those people running around.
My favourite opera character is on. Sorry, but you know how it is ...
Monday 9 November 2009
Monday 2 November 2009
Sophia's Mum has a Premonition
Off we went to Beidehe (28th Oct) in hot foggy weather. No wonder they dreamed up steamed dumplings in this country; that's what my skin is beginning to resemble.
We travelled light, just for a couple of nights, and I was wearing a chunky long cardigan over a thin top and had a woolly thing in my bag. Sophia's mother had insisted it would be cold so I'd added my scarf and vest.
More blasts of horrible music on the train, which my iPod lost its battle with (try listening to Bach's concertos for 3 and 4 pianos with Chinese Kylie Minogue-a-like. Go on, just try!), so I arrived hungry (this is my permanent state now, and am more or less Imodium-free) and not a little taxed.
A colleague of Sophia's father's picked us up after the 4 hr journey and drove us about a hundred miles to our hotel. On the way he pointed out the President's holiday home, a huge European-style mansion, near the road and behind vast, presidential, black iron gates. Near it were slightly smaller houses, and down the road huge estates of white or stone villas adorned with balconies and turrets. What did it all remind me of? Ah yes, my only visit to Torrivieja in Southern Spain! The same but bigger, mucho mucho bigger.
All these belonged to members of the government; for their hols.
Someone had told me before I came to China that Beidehe was now full of government elite, and fat wealthy Russians. Well, there was the evidence, a lot of hotels and shops and restaurants had Russian names. They were closed after the summer. They'd all gone home. In fact everybody had gone home. The streets were almost deserted apart from a couple of bikes heaped with sacks of Stuff which, presumably, the put-putting tractors were too rickety to carry.
We turned left up a small lane uphill to our hotel at the top. "Mmm," I thought, as we drew up beneath the huge portico held up by ten fat pillars, "This is better than Butlins!" I must have been very very tired!
We trooped across acres of cream and black marble to the tiny figures at the far reception desk. Unsmilingly, they gave me the keycard to our room, and the static crackled from their acrylic suits.
This cheap deal was cheap because it was the end of the season and the breakfast was disgusting, absolutely disgusting. Cold fried egg, cold pre-boiled greens lying in their water, a doughnut-type of croissant was grey and limp, the teacup was dirty on the inside, and unrecognisable things lay in despondent heaps on the lidded "hot" plates. Oh Imodium, My Imodium ...
We went for a walk down to the beach in hot foggy twilight, and looked at all the fun people might have had a few weeks ago.
Next morning, walking out on our breakfast and deciding on an early lunch in town later (if you see what I mean) we set out for the beach again. The fog rendered the horizon null and void, and most of the coastline, but I took photos anyway from a rocky place on the end of a spit of sand that divides the beach into 2 small bays, both safe for swimming and pedalloes, judging by the rows of them. We paid 80p to walk on the sand, and joined a platoon of soldiers practising ... shooting at targets! I smiled and nodded for all I was worth and we did that silly sandwalk past them.
Granny gave no clues about the whereabouts of the bungalow they built at Beidehe. She and the boys, all 3 of them, are photographed swimming there with my grandfather, and they are sitting on a wooden raft with seats on it. I'd seen this raft in a book at the Old China Hand Reading Room in Shanghai, which I didn't buy, damnit, because it was so heavy, but I needed it now. I didn't know where to start. I know! Let's try the museum.
We got there in the end; miles and miles away for under a pound's taxi fare and were dumped at the bottom of its long flight of steps. He drove away. We went to the ticket office. No one there. We called (my best Nihao!). We only heard our echoes. So I took pictures of one of the many "ding"s; huge bronze vessels for good fortune, on the steps, and some of the roof, close-up.
We went into town, via a park, and there was the real Beidehe. Oh what a shame. Another sprawling city but one without grace, and never will have as all the money goes to the beachside villas and roads where the government spends its summers. We walked down a grotty side street on the lookout for a McD's which we'd been told about. The pavement was blocked by 6 rows of bikes and scooters all in their rusty glory, and in front of some shops were street vendors selling Stuff and 3 crates of puppies, some of which look sick. I nearly was.
We entered the haven that was Mc D's (did I really say that?). I had nuggets and sweet and sour sauce and pear drink, and as I sat writing notes an old woman gesticulated to me through the glass door. She came in to beg and was ushered out by the manageress. Seconds later in walked a policeman in cap and shirtsleeves, and Sophia said he was Traffic. Probably in for his lunch. Next thing, he was clearing a table and wiping it down! And then another, and another. His mobile rang and he answered it with his right hand while expertly mopping the table with his left. He sauntered out, swaggering a bit, and then returned 2 minutes later to continue where he'd left off. We reckoned he was married to the manageress because Sophia said his father-in-law had just helped himself to some water from the old drinks machine! Was his office here as well?!
On our way out Sophia spotted this large sign in Chinese above a hardressing salon. It read -- International Designer Of Bird's Nest. Then we couldn't help noticing that a lot of women had just that kind of hair!
And then it hit me. This city must have a bookshop. It did, it was huge, and I bought a couple of cutout and stick-on books for Ji Ji as I looked for maps. And then it hit me again (Granny has not ruled out clubbing my head in her ghostly way!), it might have a book about old Beidehe.
Well it did, and Sophia looked at the photos charting its history and there was a photo of the first building to be built on the British area in 1912. The area was nearly 68 acres. But where? I thought it must have been near the sea, near the centre of that resort, because my grandparents would have visited here in the early days; I imagined from 1910 onwards. 1912! Sophia read out a name of the road. It didn't mean anything. I bought the book (oh, I'll just have to charter my own plane at this rate!!) and she translated it properly for me.
I see. The name of that old road is now the name of the district. Our hotel's on the seaside edge of it! I looked at the photo more closely (it wasn't foggy in there) and could just make out the beach below the wooded hill the building stood on. There was the spit of sand and the rocks at the end of it. I'd already taken a photo of the right area, in the fog. My dear little camera (thank you Jane and Martin) picks up every available light source. And there it was, their wooded hill.
That dark and stormy night meant clear skies the next morning, but with a bitterly cold wind. On went the vest and scarf. We walked along the beach for seconds 5!
It took many many hours to get back to Tianjin, involving cold waiting area at station, so we escaped to McD's again to drink terrible tea and giggle at another Traffic policeman in uniform, younger and bespectacled like, his dad? His big brother? Uncle? What? We wanted to know! He cleared the tables diligently and then puffed off to return pushing a big cardboard box full of Stuff along the floor to behind the counter. As he disappeared round it we could see his ample backside peeking over the top of his belt (I hope you're not eating your lunch or anything -- we were!). The train was cold (the government doesn't switch on the national heating until Nov 10th), the long queue for taxis was in a cold wind tunnel, the first driver refused to take us any further than the car park outside where it was cold and raining hard, and the second took us a hundred yards further and dumped us in a dark street. We were 2 hours standing in the cold rain before Sophia's mum came to the rescue. Why were we dumped twice? Because the drivers wanted double fare because it was cold, dark and raining!
Yesterday I bought a long down coat for 35 pounds in a sale. This morning it was -4C and its been snowing all day and we were a long time outside praying to several gods at a Buddhist temple this morning.So if you don't mind, I'll go and have a nice lie down!
We travelled light, just for a couple of nights, and I was wearing a chunky long cardigan over a thin top and had a woolly thing in my bag. Sophia's mother had insisted it would be cold so I'd added my scarf and vest.
More blasts of horrible music on the train, which my iPod lost its battle with (try listening to Bach's concertos for 3 and 4 pianos with Chinese Kylie Minogue-a-like. Go on, just try!), so I arrived hungry (this is my permanent state now, and am more or less Imodium-free) and not a little taxed.
A colleague of Sophia's father's picked us up after the 4 hr journey and drove us about a hundred miles to our hotel. On the way he pointed out the President's holiday home, a huge European-style mansion, near the road and behind vast, presidential, black iron gates. Near it were slightly smaller houses, and down the road huge estates of white or stone villas adorned with balconies and turrets. What did it all remind me of? Ah yes, my only visit to Torrivieja in Southern Spain! The same but bigger, mucho mucho bigger.
All these belonged to members of the government; for their hols.
Someone had told me before I came to China that Beidehe was now full of government elite, and fat wealthy Russians. Well, there was the evidence, a lot of hotels and shops and restaurants had Russian names. They were closed after the summer. They'd all gone home. In fact everybody had gone home. The streets were almost deserted apart from a couple of bikes heaped with sacks of Stuff which, presumably, the put-putting tractors were too rickety to carry.
We turned left up a small lane uphill to our hotel at the top. "Mmm," I thought, as we drew up beneath the huge portico held up by ten fat pillars, "This is better than Butlins!" I must have been very very tired!
We trooped across acres of cream and black marble to the tiny figures at the far reception desk. Unsmilingly, they gave me the keycard to our room, and the static crackled from their acrylic suits.
This cheap deal was cheap because it was the end of the season and the breakfast was disgusting, absolutely disgusting. Cold fried egg, cold pre-boiled greens lying in their water, a doughnut-type of croissant was grey and limp, the teacup was dirty on the inside, and unrecognisable things lay in despondent heaps on the lidded "hot" plates. Oh Imodium, My Imodium ...
We went for a walk down to the beach in hot foggy twilight, and looked at all the fun people might have had a few weeks ago.
Next morning, walking out on our breakfast and deciding on an early lunch in town later (if you see what I mean) we set out for the beach again. The fog rendered the horizon null and void, and most of the coastline, but I took photos anyway from a rocky place on the end of a spit of sand that divides the beach into 2 small bays, both safe for swimming and pedalloes, judging by the rows of them. We paid 80p to walk on the sand, and joined a platoon of soldiers practising ... shooting at targets! I smiled and nodded for all I was worth and we did that silly sandwalk past them.
Granny gave no clues about the whereabouts of the bungalow they built at Beidehe. She and the boys, all 3 of them, are photographed swimming there with my grandfather, and they are sitting on a wooden raft with seats on it. I'd seen this raft in a book at the Old China Hand Reading Room in Shanghai, which I didn't buy, damnit, because it was so heavy, but I needed it now. I didn't know where to start. I know! Let's try the museum.
We got there in the end; miles and miles away for under a pound's taxi fare and were dumped at the bottom of its long flight of steps. He drove away. We went to the ticket office. No one there. We called (my best Nihao!). We only heard our echoes. So I took pictures of one of the many "ding"s; huge bronze vessels for good fortune, on the steps, and some of the roof, close-up.
We went into town, via a park, and there was the real Beidehe. Oh what a shame. Another sprawling city but one without grace, and never will have as all the money goes to the beachside villas and roads where the government spends its summers. We walked down a grotty side street on the lookout for a McD's which we'd been told about. The pavement was blocked by 6 rows of bikes and scooters all in their rusty glory, and in front of some shops were street vendors selling Stuff and 3 crates of puppies, some of which look sick. I nearly was.
We entered the haven that was Mc D's (did I really say that?). I had nuggets and sweet and sour sauce and pear drink, and as I sat writing notes an old woman gesticulated to me through the glass door. She came in to beg and was ushered out by the manageress. Seconds later in walked a policeman in cap and shirtsleeves, and Sophia said he was Traffic. Probably in for his lunch. Next thing, he was clearing a table and wiping it down! And then another, and another. His mobile rang and he answered it with his right hand while expertly mopping the table with his left. He sauntered out, swaggering a bit, and then returned 2 minutes later to continue where he'd left off. We reckoned he was married to the manageress because Sophia said his father-in-law had just helped himself to some water from the old drinks machine! Was his office here as well?!
On our way out Sophia spotted this large sign in Chinese above a hardressing salon. It read -- International Designer Of Bird's Nest. Then we couldn't help noticing that a lot of women had just that kind of hair!
And then it hit me. This city must have a bookshop. It did, it was huge, and I bought a couple of cutout and stick-on books for Ji Ji as I looked for maps. And then it hit me again (Granny has not ruled out clubbing my head in her ghostly way!), it might have a book about old Beidehe.
Well it did, and Sophia looked at the photos charting its history and there was a photo of the first building to be built on the British area in 1912. The area was nearly 68 acres. But where? I thought it must have been near the sea, near the centre of that resort, because my grandparents would have visited here in the early days; I imagined from 1910 onwards. 1912! Sophia read out a name of the road. It didn't mean anything. I bought the book (oh, I'll just have to charter my own plane at this rate!!) and she translated it properly for me.
I see. The name of that old road is now the name of the district. Our hotel's on the seaside edge of it! I looked at the photo more closely (it wasn't foggy in there) and could just make out the beach below the wooded hill the building stood on. There was the spit of sand and the rocks at the end of it. I'd already taken a photo of the right area, in the fog. My dear little camera (thank you Jane and Martin) picks up every available light source. And there it was, their wooded hill.
That dark and stormy night meant clear skies the next morning, but with a bitterly cold wind. On went the vest and scarf. We walked along the beach for seconds 5!
It took many many hours to get back to Tianjin, involving cold waiting area at station, so we escaped to McD's again to drink terrible tea and giggle at another Traffic policeman in uniform, younger and bespectacled like, his dad? His big brother? Uncle? What? We wanted to know! He cleared the tables diligently and then puffed off to return pushing a big cardboard box full of Stuff along the floor to behind the counter. As he disappeared round it we could see his ample backside peeking over the top of his belt (I hope you're not eating your lunch or anything -- we were!). The train was cold (the government doesn't switch on the national heating until Nov 10th), the long queue for taxis was in a cold wind tunnel, the first driver refused to take us any further than the car park outside where it was cold and raining hard, and the second took us a hundred yards further and dumped us in a dark street. We were 2 hours standing in the cold rain before Sophia's mum came to the rescue. Why were we dumped twice? Because the drivers wanted double fare because it was cold, dark and raining!
Yesterday I bought a long down coat for 35 pounds in a sale. This morning it was -4C and its been snowing all day and we were a long time outside praying to several gods at a Buddhist temple this morning.So if you don't mind, I'll go and have a nice lie down!
Just Dessert (Tiramisu continued)
After Mr Feng's lunch, which I couldn't eat, Sophia and I went for a wander in the nearby old Italian concession. We sat under an awning of an Italian restaurant, complete with trees in pots and red-checked tablecloths, and Domingo singing his heart out, looking out onto a very ugly modern municipal building (but never mind). The Chinese waiter spoke good English, and they do like to practise. The Italian menu looked tempting even though I don't really like Tiramisu ...
Sophia, her mother and I had been to Tianjin's museum a few days previously. I had been taken in hand by Sophia's 4yr old cousin, Ji Ji, who recognised instantly that I couldn't join in adult conversations. Therefore she became my tour guide, leading me carefully down steps, warning me of slopes and slippery bits, and leading me to the various exhibits, some of which were in cases too high for her to see into. I was flagging after a couple of hours, we all were, and this little friend kept going, and kept me going until we escaped for tea, but ended up in Mc Donald's. She chomped her way through nuggets, chips, chocolate ice cream (which she spoon fed me like a nanny), sachets of ketchup (sucked, and thankfully didn't offer me any), and drank the sweet and sour sauce straight from its plastic pot. Not in any order, of course, but in true Chinese style; a bit of chocolate sauce, a chip, ice cream, nugget ...
That evening (24th Oct), we'd been home about an hour when an uncle and aunt arrived in their car and we all, plus Sophia's father, went off to the other side of the river, opposite the city rail station (there are 2 others). Ji Ji came too. The fog lent an almost Dickensian air, but suddenly relocated to this extraordinary place. A village-sized area had been built in a year. Huge Italianate buildings soared above us, all lit, and judging by the empty plinths and alcoves, ready for a contingent of gods and goddesses to be delivered. It looked so new that only a handful of shops and estate agents were open for business, but when the rest arrive it will be a huge plaza, well 3. The buildings surround 3 of them and will house very expensive shops. As we ambled about, along with hundreds of others on that balmy evening, I turned a corner and burst out laughing. There was a pastiche of the Bridge of Sighs! It was a walkway linking 2 buildings. I was about to tell Sophia how funny this was when I saw another one. 2 Bridges of Sighs! Beat that, Venice! When we'd all got the joke, Sophia's mother said, "Oh well, but of couse, we can build eight of them if we want to!!"
Sophia, her mother and I had been to Tianjin's museum a few days previously. I had been taken in hand by Sophia's 4yr old cousin, Ji Ji, who recognised instantly that I couldn't join in adult conversations. Therefore she became my tour guide, leading me carefully down steps, warning me of slopes and slippery bits, and leading me to the various exhibits, some of which were in cases too high for her to see into. I was flagging after a couple of hours, we all were, and this little friend kept going, and kept me going until we escaped for tea, but ended up in Mc Donald's. She chomped her way through nuggets, chips, chocolate ice cream (which she spoon fed me like a nanny), sachets of ketchup (sucked, and thankfully didn't offer me any), and drank the sweet and sour sauce straight from its plastic pot. Not in any order, of course, but in true Chinese style; a bit of chocolate sauce, a chip, ice cream, nugget ...
That evening (24th Oct), we'd been home about an hour when an uncle and aunt arrived in their car and we all, plus Sophia's father, went off to the other side of the river, opposite the city rail station (there are 2 others). Ji Ji came too. The fog lent an almost Dickensian air, but suddenly relocated to this extraordinary place. A village-sized area had been built in a year. Huge Italianate buildings soared above us, all lit, and judging by the empty plinths and alcoves, ready for a contingent of gods and goddesses to be delivered. It looked so new that only a handful of shops and estate agents were open for business, but when the rest arrive it will be a huge plaza, well 3. The buildings surround 3 of them and will house very expensive shops. As we ambled about, along with hundreds of others on that balmy evening, I turned a corner and burst out laughing. There was a pastiche of the Bridge of Sighs! It was a walkway linking 2 buildings. I was about to tell Sophia how funny this was when I saw another one. 2 Bridges of Sighs! Beat that, Venice! When we'd all got the joke, Sophia's mother said, "Oh well, but of couse, we can build eight of them if we want to!!"
On the way back to the river Sophia and I bought a red paper lantern each (30p). We lit the firelighter/candle in mine first, as I made my wish (that bit was easy), all holding the lantern until the hot air lifted it up, but we were near the buildings with a large skyscraper behind so the ascent was shakey.Would it make it? Or would my dream come crashing down? Oh no! I was standing in front of everyone and was mimicking blowing at it and flapping my hands. I turned round to encourage the others to do the same, and there was a crowd of Chinese people standing, blowing and flapping their hands! On my behalf! They all laughed and beamed and nodded. I turned back to look up, and there it was, my lantern, soaring up the side of the skyscraper, to the top, where it burned out. Well, that'll do me...
Wednesday 28 October 2009
Tiramisu In Tianjin (19th Oct)
We got to Nanjing airport just in time for a three hour wait! We spent it drinking every last drop of a pot of exhorbitantly priced lemon tea (I think I'm sick of it now!), plus free refills of water. My BBB weighs less after a thorough purge of summer clothes, and I pray for frosts. Well, I couldn't leave behind the 12 metre long painting in its scroll and box, could I? It was a bargain! And it came with a free fan. I shall look at it, metre by metre, on quiet days at home where it'll live in its box due to short walls!
The 2 hour flight was uneventful to Beijing, but I was totally unprepared for the difficulty in getting a taxi to Tianjin, which I'd decided on as a treat as I was very weary and teary and trying not to show it. I thought we were too late for an evening meal. Anyway we got one eventually and we drove there in the dark. It was a registered taxi, but I still get just the merest flicker of a "what if..?" thought on occasion, but the car was newish and far cleaner than others and he was Buddhist, judging by the dangling tassel from the rear view mirror.
Sophia's parents insisted we stay for a few days and welcomed us warmly. They were glad to see their daughter in one piece and we smiled and nodded at each other. It was lovely to see them again after our day out in Petworth last May and they lost no time in giving me (another packing dilemma) a beautiful teaset to drink green tea from. The real green tea, as opposed to the bagged stuff I've been trying to like, is heaven. Pale, fragrant, with just a hint of flavour drunk from 2-sip cups, and poured with due ceremony from the family heirloom pottery teapot. It's very expensive.
Unfortunately, as much as I try to like Chinese food, it doesn't like me, and now I'm wondering if I can like it. Soup is made out of every available, edible source and is slow-cooked overnight to have for breakfast. Anything not eaten is put into the next pot on the go. It makes for interesting mealtimes! And there are no rules; all food is eaten at any time of day. I was offered A Certain Gold Wrapped Chocolate usually served by Their Excellencies when they're Spoiling People, for breakfast on my first day. Odd, I suppose, but I wouldn't dream of eating chocolate before the evening.
Jenny from the Suzhou art gallery gave us a contact in Tianjin and Sophia rings him. He (Gung Gung) phones back to say he has arranged a meeting with a Mr Feng who is advisor to the local government on historical buildings. He is trying to save the old foreign concession buildings from further destruction, with some success. We are to meet him for dinner on Wednesday at the old German Club, now headquarters of the Tianjin Historical Society.
So we walk into Germany; all wooden panelling and very grand, and acres of newly installed marble flooring, which I can now skate across with elan. We are greeted by Gung Gung who leads us miles to a private dining room where Mr Feng and his friend Mr Song are seated at the round, elegantly laid table. Flowered curtains hang down into puddles on the floor and waiters and waitresses glide around, twiddling things into place and I notice a knife, fork and spoon have been arranged at my place. We smile and nod. Granny wrote a lot about doing that, and now I see what she meant. It's the universal language for every cordial greeting you can think of.
Mr Feng has great feeling for Tianjin's history and appears on radio and tv to speak about it. He also attends conventions and conferences as speaker and is the only real authority in Tianjin on the foreign concessions and their legacy. There were nine countries represented in this city!
The "lazy butler" was groaning with sumptuous looking dishes which reminded me of the Chinese restaurants in the UK. This can't be right, I thought! I left the "squirrel fish" with its insides a rather violent shade of orange, and the melon-something-unexplained which lay in aspic? I didn't trust it, whatever it was, but the beansprouts in rice and the duck in a dark sauce, sizzling vegetables on a trivet, and the little sugary pumpkin sweet, oh and the sort of Chinese Apfel Strudel, were too good to miss ... with unsurprising results. Oh dear. Blown it.
The talk went on around me for about four hours, but without great success. Mr Feng had been looking into the facts about the White Russian refugees when they arrived in Tianjin, having fled the Revolution. He said most of them were wealthy businessmen, but when I showed him the photos I had of the wooden folder and accompanying letter of thanks to my grandmother from a Father Victor on behalf of the destitute Russians, he said I must treasue it. I will, of course. I couldn't see a way round this. He explained that there was no record of these people due to the enmity between the two countries at that time. This I already knew, which was why I was here, really! Someone must know something, surely.
Now what?
He offered to take us round the old British concession on Friday morning in his official car with driver. We met at 9 in hot sunshine outside the old German Club and sat in the marbled lobby's leather sofas, which were three Hagrids wide. He gave me a brown envelope. Inside was a letter in Chinese describing the career of Father Victor. I was speechless. I wrote down everything it said, to make sure the translation was correct between him and Sophia. Father Victor was a White Russian refugee himself and arrived in China in 1920. He showed me an old photo of a Russian church, no longer there. Could this have been his church? As it turned out, no, it was far too big. The one Father Victor built only held 20 people. His career was meteoric and he ended up being (prelate is it called in the Orthodox Church?). Anyway, at the very top. He was a determined man when Granny knew him, for as we purred along the wide roads and eventually came to the British concession, there was my grandparents' official residence, just opposite All Saints' Church (now scaffolded), behind which the area where the poorest refugees were given shelter. I bet he knocked on Granny's door and her "kind heart could not look with indifference". Tears threatened again, but one look from Mr Feng and his driver corked them immediately!
Sorry, got so carried away I forgot all this; inside the brown envelope was a gift. Mr Feng had painted, in beautiful calligraphy, a poem from the Sung period about a Mongolian horse separated from his herd. The imaginary picture is of the wide, Mongolian steppe at twilight with the horse, looking. It's on thick, tissuey paper and folded in the envelope until I can frame it. First, the car parked in an improbable place and we got out into the middle of The City of London. Huge, stone-built banks with giant porticos and columns stood either side of the narrow street. A photo I had shown him at our meal believed to have been taken on Armistice Day in 1919, and with my grandfather in splendid Consul General plumed hat, standing feet away from Pu Yi, the last and "Little" Emperor, was actually taken in 1926 on another occasion entirely. The Pu Yi Museum had it on their wall! Next we went by the river where the British Consulate once stood. Granny would be appalled to see that their splendid consulate has been replaced by a very tall tower block. And it's pink!
Then he took us out to lunch! This time to a renowned Tianjin-style one where Mr Song joined us again, and Mr Feng's driver, too. I had leant my tummy-lesson and only ate tiny amounts (excuse me, but ..boohoo!), it smelt delicious.
Next day we visited the Pu Yi Museum, which had been his ancestral temple before 45 families were installed and nearly wrecked it. It has been renovated and restored and its monastic/Deco interior is one of the saddest places I've seen. His bedroom was particularly poignant in its simplicity and brownness. I suppose the last of his treasures have gone and the furniture might not even be his; it does have that air of uneality, a superimposed idea of what his life was like. Still, I found it moving, imagining what it must have been like to be so reviled, and forcibly moved from your opulent home (oh dear, that hardly describes the Forbidden City, does it, get a grip, Girl!).
Next day. oh dear, I remembered my memory stick but it's taken 2 hours to put my photos on it and now I don't have time to finish this. Off to Beidehe in a minute.
I shall send the dessert (Tiramisu) in a few days ...
The 2 hour flight was uneventful to Beijing, but I was totally unprepared for the difficulty in getting a taxi to Tianjin, which I'd decided on as a treat as I was very weary and teary and trying not to show it. I thought we were too late for an evening meal. Anyway we got one eventually and we drove there in the dark. It was a registered taxi, but I still get just the merest flicker of a "what if..?" thought on occasion, but the car was newish and far cleaner than others and he was Buddhist, judging by the dangling tassel from the rear view mirror.
Sophia's parents insisted we stay for a few days and welcomed us warmly. They were glad to see their daughter in one piece and we smiled and nodded at each other. It was lovely to see them again after our day out in Petworth last May and they lost no time in giving me (another packing dilemma) a beautiful teaset to drink green tea from. The real green tea, as opposed to the bagged stuff I've been trying to like, is heaven. Pale, fragrant, with just a hint of flavour drunk from 2-sip cups, and poured with due ceremony from the family heirloom pottery teapot. It's very expensive.
Unfortunately, as much as I try to like Chinese food, it doesn't like me, and now I'm wondering if I can like it. Soup is made out of every available, edible source and is slow-cooked overnight to have for breakfast. Anything not eaten is put into the next pot on the go. It makes for interesting mealtimes! And there are no rules; all food is eaten at any time of day. I was offered A Certain Gold Wrapped Chocolate usually served by Their Excellencies when they're Spoiling People, for breakfast on my first day. Odd, I suppose, but I wouldn't dream of eating chocolate before the evening.
Jenny from the Suzhou art gallery gave us a contact in Tianjin and Sophia rings him. He (Gung Gung) phones back to say he has arranged a meeting with a Mr Feng who is advisor to the local government on historical buildings. He is trying to save the old foreign concession buildings from further destruction, with some success. We are to meet him for dinner on Wednesday at the old German Club, now headquarters of the Tianjin Historical Society.
So we walk into Germany; all wooden panelling and very grand, and acres of newly installed marble flooring, which I can now skate across with elan. We are greeted by Gung Gung who leads us miles to a private dining room where Mr Feng and his friend Mr Song are seated at the round, elegantly laid table. Flowered curtains hang down into puddles on the floor and waiters and waitresses glide around, twiddling things into place and I notice a knife, fork and spoon have been arranged at my place. We smile and nod. Granny wrote a lot about doing that, and now I see what she meant. It's the universal language for every cordial greeting you can think of.
Mr Feng has great feeling for Tianjin's history and appears on radio and tv to speak about it. He also attends conventions and conferences as speaker and is the only real authority in Tianjin on the foreign concessions and their legacy. There were nine countries represented in this city!
The "lazy butler" was groaning with sumptuous looking dishes which reminded me of the Chinese restaurants in the UK. This can't be right, I thought! I left the "squirrel fish" with its insides a rather violent shade of orange, and the melon-something-unexplained which lay in aspic? I didn't trust it, whatever it was, but the beansprouts in rice and the duck in a dark sauce, sizzling vegetables on a trivet, and the little sugary pumpkin sweet, oh and the sort of Chinese Apfel Strudel, were too good to miss ... with unsurprising results. Oh dear. Blown it.
The talk went on around me for about four hours, but without great success. Mr Feng had been looking into the facts about the White Russian refugees when they arrived in Tianjin, having fled the Revolution. He said most of them were wealthy businessmen, but when I showed him the photos I had of the wooden folder and accompanying letter of thanks to my grandmother from a Father Victor on behalf of the destitute Russians, he said I must treasue it. I will, of course. I couldn't see a way round this. He explained that there was no record of these people due to the enmity between the two countries at that time. This I already knew, which was why I was here, really! Someone must know something, surely.
Now what?
He offered to take us round the old British concession on Friday morning in his official car with driver. We met at 9 in hot sunshine outside the old German Club and sat in the marbled lobby's leather sofas, which were three Hagrids wide. He gave me a brown envelope. Inside was a letter in Chinese describing the career of Father Victor. I was speechless. I wrote down everything it said, to make sure the translation was correct between him and Sophia. Father Victor was a White Russian refugee himself and arrived in China in 1920. He showed me an old photo of a Russian church, no longer there. Could this have been his church? As it turned out, no, it was far too big. The one Father Victor built only held 20 people. His career was meteoric and he ended up being (prelate is it called in the Orthodox Church?). Anyway, at the very top. He was a determined man when Granny knew him, for as we purred along the wide roads and eventually came to the British concession, there was my grandparents' official residence, just opposite All Saints' Church (now scaffolded), behind which the area where the poorest refugees were given shelter. I bet he knocked on Granny's door and her "kind heart could not look with indifference". Tears threatened again, but one look from Mr Feng and his driver corked them immediately!
Sorry, got so carried away I forgot all this; inside the brown envelope was a gift. Mr Feng had painted, in beautiful calligraphy, a poem from the Sung period about a Mongolian horse separated from his herd. The imaginary picture is of the wide, Mongolian steppe at twilight with the horse, looking. It's on thick, tissuey paper and folded in the envelope until I can frame it. First, the car parked in an improbable place and we got out into the middle of The City of London. Huge, stone-built banks with giant porticos and columns stood either side of the narrow street. A photo I had shown him at our meal believed to have been taken on Armistice Day in 1919, and with my grandfather in splendid Consul General plumed hat, standing feet away from Pu Yi, the last and "Little" Emperor, was actually taken in 1926 on another occasion entirely. The Pu Yi Museum had it on their wall! Next we went by the river where the British Consulate once stood. Granny would be appalled to see that their splendid consulate has been replaced by a very tall tower block. And it's pink!
Then he took us out to lunch! This time to a renowned Tianjin-style one where Mr Song joined us again, and Mr Feng's driver, too. I had leant my tummy-lesson and only ate tiny amounts (excuse me, but ..boohoo!), it smelt delicious.
Next day we visited the Pu Yi Museum, which had been his ancestral temple before 45 families were installed and nearly wrecked it. It has been renovated and restored and its monastic/Deco interior is one of the saddest places I've seen. His bedroom was particularly poignant in its simplicity and brownness. I suppose the last of his treasures have gone and the furniture might not even be his; it does have that air of uneality, a superimposed idea of what his life was like. Still, I found it moving, imagining what it must have been like to be so reviled, and forcibly moved from your opulent home (oh dear, that hardly describes the Forbidden City, does it, get a grip, Girl!).
Next day. oh dear, I remembered my memory stick but it's taken 2 hours to put my photos on it and now I don't have time to finish this. Off to Beidehe in a minute.
I shall send the dessert (Tiramisu) in a few days ...
Monday 26 October 2009
Train In To Nanjing (17th Oct)
It took a couple of hours from WuHu. We got to the station on Sophia-time; we only had an hour and a half to kill, which I spent people-watching or trying to but being outwitted by people watching me. I'm getting used to it, and most of the time accept it with good grace. I have had a couple of incidents when someone deliberately stared me down with a truly beligerent glare, and one of them cut across my path 3 times in 20 minutes (on that tour to the traditional village) when I yielded T'ai Chi-style twice, and stood my ground at the third attempt. I think I learnt something from that. He didn't try again! But one very old lady on the arm of her daughter spotted me in the street and stared, open mouthed, as her daughter nudged her. As we overtook them I gave her a smile and little wave and she beamed a huge toothless beam, eyes crinkling with delight. It doesn't take much to make someone's day sometimes.
There was ample opportunity to get a glimpse into people's lives at the station. Sophia explained that the huge plastic drums, the even bigger plaid plastic bags stuffed with God-knows-what and so heavy that the tiny women carrying them had to drag them on the ground, and the smartly-dressed woman taping several standard lamps into bubble wrap were all going back to the countryside. The buyers were probably small restaurant owners and in the smart woman's case, maybe a wedding arranger or photographic studio owner.
We were coralled on the concourse in long rows of metal seating, each aisle for a given train, and when it was due to arrive we were shouted at to get up and get going. I got up immediately and went nowhere for about half an hour, but we were shouted at some more and we all shuffled towards the narrow gate onto the platform. The train came; one of those ones like in the USA -- not so much Mind The Gap as Mind The Ascent. I heaved my Big Bag (Blinking thing) up the first and second steps, tried and failed up the next one and fell backwards, hitting my arm on the metal rail; another bruise I shall wear with aplomb. There was a collective gasp from behind me and a smoking man in the corridor way up above me felt duty bound to help. When we reached our seats the BBB was lifted gracefully up onto the overhead rack by a lovely army officer, and down, 2 hours later, by 4 lesser mortals.
Nanjing has roads 16 lanes wide. I know -- it's unbelievable. Crossing said roads on foot takes about 20 minutes and half a sandwich and you have to have eyes with 360 degree swivel attachments to avoid a regiment of bikes, scooters and mopeds careering round the corner (your corner). No one looks each other in the eye, but gently swerves or veers towards their intended goal. Oh, add rickshaws and bikes with long trailers piled high with allsorts. You're in the middle of the crossroads now and you might as well be halfway across the Gobi desert, so far away is The Other Side. You're pretty sure you remember starting out on a pedestrian crossing but it was so long ago, and now, somehow, with all these cars coming towards you with the same intention as yours, it matters less and less. They come at you 8-wide, sometimes 6, but will that make any difference to your Maker? I think not. Decisions are out of the question, no time, just go with the flow. Aim for the nearest, tiniest space, everyone else is! The Pedestrians streaming towards you and behind you do a sort of dance with the Pedallists. The cars oversee the melee and put it in its place, parting the crowd with no malice, just a volley of tooting to let you know they are about to run over your toes or their bumper is going to meet up with the backs of your knees. The 40 second clock on the gantry ticks down to a terrifying 6-5-4 .. will you make it? Will it matter? No one seems to take a blind bit of notice except me. Pedestrians saunter, chatting, dawdling, cars and bikes continue to take aim at their exits whether the lights are red or green. When you're in a car it's a whole different thing. By the time you get to the middle of the crossroads the turning you want is so vast it scrambles the brain and people forget how to indicate or perhaps lose the will to actually go to where they want to get to. It's possible, and if anyone admitted as much to me I would believe them.
At night, the gently polluted air forms a fine mist, and out of the gloom appear lightless bikes, scooters, mopeds and rickshaws, and a lot of cars have optional lights as well as the more common optional indicators. And the pedestrians are mostly in dark clothing, it being misty and everything.
We were walking along a main street in Nanjing, where our hotel was, in the old French concession (they went in for splendid trees that line the streets and give cool shade in the hottest mist). My ankle ricked into a crack or a gulley and I looked round to see which, and Sophia said, "Oh it's for the blind people"! This sent me into helpless giggles as I imagined people pitching into the purpose-built gulley one by one. In fact it's foot-wide paving with raised lines on it which can be felt underfoot, the only trouble being that it separates from the rest of the pavement at intervals, and as the pavement is cracked and sometimes completely disappears at random, I could imagine blind people deciding to stay at home.
The pavements aren't safe for other reasons; cars are often allowed to park there, and bikes of all kinds are parked and double-parked on them so that there's no room to walk. Bikes come up behind you on the clear stretches and shopfront stalls and street vendors fill up the rest. So you walk in the road and on the bike lanes where life expectancy can be very short indeed.
At WuHu I'd known about my grandparents' consular residence, separate from the consulate, but here there was no mention of it. The internet said the old consulate building was now a museum, but it was a hotel, on a main road. It was of British Colonial vintage; white, imposing, with large windows, now double-glazed, and with double doors under a grand portico. A brass plaque mentioned its history. We peeked through the glass to a long hall, but no reception area, so I went in, rather tentatively, and the first thing I saw was an enormous picture hung on my left. It was a bad copy of the Constable with big tree and sheepdog.
Brass wall lamps were lit, but no one in sight so we walked round the garden and took pictures. It was made up of formal flowers standing in serried ranks of orange and maroon. The car park bordered it and I don't think Granny would have been too pleased about the huge coach backing into her flowering shrubs! I swear I could feel her bristling! Round the back had been rather lovely at one time, with shady trees and pools leading to a fountain and a long one leading to a lion's head fountain in a wall. Everything was dry and dead leaves lay in drifts at the bottom. When I turned round to look at the house from this angle there was another portico; this one with properly fierce Chinese lions on either side. This was grander than the other and I could see a narrower corridor leading to the hall with Victorian bannisters running down the now marble stairs. (And that's another thing -- I've never seen so much marble in my life -- its on shopping mall floors, hotel floors, bathrooms, stairs. It's all Chinese, which is a good thing, or they'd have dug up the whole of Italy until it disappeared by now! It's also lethal, of course, when wet.)
We went inside and braved the stairs. I went first to face the expected volley of outrage (easier in a foreign language I feel!) but none came. The first staff we met defrosted enough to allow us entry into the rooms that had their doors ajar. There were only 2 rooms, both used for private dining now. Bedecked in draped flowery curtains and busy wallpaper with a chandelier over the table I tried to imagine it as perhaps my grandfather's dressing room. Next door was much larger and had a quiet view of the back garden. Could this have been their bedroom? I suppose it doesn't matter. Oh, but it does.
The Foreign Office blurb says my grandfather was made Consul at WuHu in 1902 and was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 1903, so presumably they both returned to London for a year or so before going back to WuHu when my father was born in 1904. Then my grandfather was "transferred" to Nanjing, I assume as Consul again, in 1905. They were there for 3 years.
At the moment I feel so overwhelmed by the size of the buildings, the constant noise and travelling that I'm finding it hard to connect with this place. Perhaps I'm at Halfway Point in my mind, and I've just had photos emailed to me of my golden retriever, Arlo, having fun on his hols in Richmond Park. I'm so glad he's having a ball but I never thought homesickness for me would be a problem, not for just a few weeks. But even that thought is useful. How did they manage that? "Get on with it," roars the reply! But privately, Granny must have had her moments of despair and I can understand now why the foreigners needed their home comforts and even, dare I say it, their life of privilege. They couldn't integrate into Chinese society in any real sense; only with a few people, their other friends had to be Brits and Americans for the common language (and how I love listening to Jeeves and Wooster, and Mr S Fry, and Dickens on my iPod, thanks Sheilagh and Richard) and the foreign, tight little community would have had its own cliques. I think Granny would have been in the thick of it as the wives had a lonely life if they weren't gregarious. Their husbands were working and playing hard, and from May to September the women and children escaped to the cooler hills, lakes and, for some, the seaside. The men would visit when they could.
A lovely tale my grandmother told was of Mr Bax-Ironside (universally known as Iron-Backside), a batchelor of mature years, who lent them his villa outside Beijing for the summer, and he would visit when work allowed. And what would he require for meals when he arrived, asked Granny. "Oh anything for breakfast -- eggs, bacon etc. For lunch, keep it simple; quail, pheasant, fish, green vegetables, and for dinner? Oh anything but pork, one tires of it so easily, perhaps some good red wine and cheese if you have any, and some of those little pastries I like ..." She rather wisely doesn't record her thoughts at that moment.
Change of plan.
Tianjin next.
There was ample opportunity to get a glimpse into people's lives at the station. Sophia explained that the huge plastic drums, the even bigger plaid plastic bags stuffed with God-knows-what and so heavy that the tiny women carrying them had to drag them on the ground, and the smartly-dressed woman taping several standard lamps into bubble wrap were all going back to the countryside. The buyers were probably small restaurant owners and in the smart woman's case, maybe a wedding arranger or photographic studio owner.
We were coralled on the concourse in long rows of metal seating, each aisle for a given train, and when it was due to arrive we were shouted at to get up and get going. I got up immediately and went nowhere for about half an hour, but we were shouted at some more and we all shuffled towards the narrow gate onto the platform. The train came; one of those ones like in the USA -- not so much Mind The Gap as Mind The Ascent. I heaved my Big Bag (Blinking thing) up the first and second steps, tried and failed up the next one and fell backwards, hitting my arm on the metal rail; another bruise I shall wear with aplomb. There was a collective gasp from behind me and a smoking man in the corridor way up above me felt duty bound to help. When we reached our seats the BBB was lifted gracefully up onto the overhead rack by a lovely army officer, and down, 2 hours later, by 4 lesser mortals.
Nanjing has roads 16 lanes wide. I know -- it's unbelievable. Crossing said roads on foot takes about 20 minutes and half a sandwich and you have to have eyes with 360 degree swivel attachments to avoid a regiment of bikes, scooters and mopeds careering round the corner (your corner). No one looks each other in the eye, but gently swerves or veers towards their intended goal. Oh, add rickshaws and bikes with long trailers piled high with allsorts. You're in the middle of the crossroads now and you might as well be halfway across the Gobi desert, so far away is The Other Side. You're pretty sure you remember starting out on a pedestrian crossing but it was so long ago, and now, somehow, with all these cars coming towards you with the same intention as yours, it matters less and less. They come at you 8-wide, sometimes 6, but will that make any difference to your Maker? I think not. Decisions are out of the question, no time, just go with the flow. Aim for the nearest, tiniest space, everyone else is! The Pedestrians streaming towards you and behind you do a sort of dance with the Pedallists. The cars oversee the melee and put it in its place, parting the crowd with no malice, just a volley of tooting to let you know they are about to run over your toes or their bumper is going to meet up with the backs of your knees. The 40 second clock on the gantry ticks down to a terrifying 6-5-4 .. will you make it? Will it matter? No one seems to take a blind bit of notice except me. Pedestrians saunter, chatting, dawdling, cars and bikes continue to take aim at their exits whether the lights are red or green. When you're in a car it's a whole different thing. By the time you get to the middle of the crossroads the turning you want is so vast it scrambles the brain and people forget how to indicate or perhaps lose the will to actually go to where they want to get to. It's possible, and if anyone admitted as much to me I would believe them.
At night, the gently polluted air forms a fine mist, and out of the gloom appear lightless bikes, scooters, mopeds and rickshaws, and a lot of cars have optional lights as well as the more common optional indicators. And the pedestrians are mostly in dark clothing, it being misty and everything.
We were walking along a main street in Nanjing, where our hotel was, in the old French concession (they went in for splendid trees that line the streets and give cool shade in the hottest mist). My ankle ricked into a crack or a gulley and I looked round to see which, and Sophia said, "Oh it's for the blind people"! This sent me into helpless giggles as I imagined people pitching into the purpose-built gulley one by one. In fact it's foot-wide paving with raised lines on it which can be felt underfoot, the only trouble being that it separates from the rest of the pavement at intervals, and as the pavement is cracked and sometimes completely disappears at random, I could imagine blind people deciding to stay at home.
The pavements aren't safe for other reasons; cars are often allowed to park there, and bikes of all kinds are parked and double-parked on them so that there's no room to walk. Bikes come up behind you on the clear stretches and shopfront stalls and street vendors fill up the rest. So you walk in the road and on the bike lanes where life expectancy can be very short indeed.
At WuHu I'd known about my grandparents' consular residence, separate from the consulate, but here there was no mention of it. The internet said the old consulate building was now a museum, but it was a hotel, on a main road. It was of British Colonial vintage; white, imposing, with large windows, now double-glazed, and with double doors under a grand portico. A brass plaque mentioned its history. We peeked through the glass to a long hall, but no reception area, so I went in, rather tentatively, and the first thing I saw was an enormous picture hung on my left. It was a bad copy of the Constable with big tree and sheepdog.
Brass wall lamps were lit, but no one in sight so we walked round the garden and took pictures. It was made up of formal flowers standing in serried ranks of orange and maroon. The car park bordered it and I don't think Granny would have been too pleased about the huge coach backing into her flowering shrubs! I swear I could feel her bristling! Round the back had been rather lovely at one time, with shady trees and pools leading to a fountain and a long one leading to a lion's head fountain in a wall. Everything was dry and dead leaves lay in drifts at the bottom. When I turned round to look at the house from this angle there was another portico; this one with properly fierce Chinese lions on either side. This was grander than the other and I could see a narrower corridor leading to the hall with Victorian bannisters running down the now marble stairs. (And that's another thing -- I've never seen so much marble in my life -- its on shopping mall floors, hotel floors, bathrooms, stairs. It's all Chinese, which is a good thing, or they'd have dug up the whole of Italy until it disappeared by now! It's also lethal, of course, when wet.)
We went inside and braved the stairs. I went first to face the expected volley of outrage (easier in a foreign language I feel!) but none came. The first staff we met defrosted enough to allow us entry into the rooms that had their doors ajar. There were only 2 rooms, both used for private dining now. Bedecked in draped flowery curtains and busy wallpaper with a chandelier over the table I tried to imagine it as perhaps my grandfather's dressing room. Next door was much larger and had a quiet view of the back garden. Could this have been their bedroom? I suppose it doesn't matter. Oh, but it does.
The Foreign Office blurb says my grandfather was made Consul at WuHu in 1902 and was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 1903, so presumably they both returned to London for a year or so before going back to WuHu when my father was born in 1904. Then my grandfather was "transferred" to Nanjing, I assume as Consul again, in 1905. They were there for 3 years.
At the moment I feel so overwhelmed by the size of the buildings, the constant noise and travelling that I'm finding it hard to connect with this place. Perhaps I'm at Halfway Point in my mind, and I've just had photos emailed to me of my golden retriever, Arlo, having fun on his hols in Richmond Park. I'm so glad he's having a ball but I never thought homesickness for me would be a problem, not for just a few weeks. But even that thought is useful. How did they manage that? "Get on with it," roars the reply! But privately, Granny must have had her moments of despair and I can understand now why the foreigners needed their home comforts and even, dare I say it, their life of privilege. They couldn't integrate into Chinese society in any real sense; only with a few people, their other friends had to be Brits and Americans for the common language (and how I love listening to Jeeves and Wooster, and Mr S Fry, and Dickens on my iPod, thanks Sheilagh and Richard) and the foreign, tight little community would have had its own cliques. I think Granny would have been in the thick of it as the wives had a lonely life if they weren't gregarious. Their husbands were working and playing hard, and from May to September the women and children escaped to the cooler hills, lakes and, for some, the seaside. The men would visit when they could.
A lovely tale my grandmother told was of Mr Bax-Ironside (universally known as Iron-Backside), a batchelor of mature years, who lent them his villa outside Beijing for the summer, and he would visit when work allowed. And what would he require for meals when he arrived, asked Granny. "Oh anything for breakfast -- eggs, bacon etc. For lunch, keep it simple; quail, pheasant, fish, green vegetables, and for dinner? Oh anything but pork, one tires of it so easily, perhaps some good red wine and cheese if you have any, and some of those little pastries I like ..." She rather wisely doesn't record her thoughts at that moment.
Change of plan.
Tianjin next.
Thursday 22 October 2009
Nearly Whooping It Up In Wuhu
But before I go there, I haven't told you about the tour I took to a traditional Chinese village an hour's drive from Suzhou (on the 14th). A people carrier pulled up at the hotel and as soon as I'd sat down I knew, Piglet-like, that this was a Bad Idea. The window had to be opened immediately and alcohol gel rubbed on the hands to sniff. You get my drift. More people climbed in at 2 more stops and then we hit the motorway, almost literally. There were 11 of us on board and no room to breathe (fortunately).
We arrived unscathed and drove through a grand entrance with clipped grass, flowers and banners and tiny new houses; all a bit Stepford, where was the tradition? I had my tour ID photo taken along with the hundreds of others who'd arrived in coaches and we trooped into another world. This was the real thing, even though I knew that the residents made their living from up to 40,000 tourists every day, and I would too, given the tourists' close proximity to the houses. I could hardly look into most of them, even though it was encouraged.
We walked behind our guide holding a blue flag aloft, giving us a detailed description of every corner, plaque, urn, stone and bridge, but giving us no time to stop and waste money, so we got separated. Sophia had his number on her mobile and got a signal. Amazing, that! How come I can't get one in Surrey?
Then he gave us our ID photos and told us the meeting place and time. It was a hot day with that Milk of Magnesia sky (hmm, no, no more Imodium stories) that the sun only manages to burn through when its very hot, and then only for a while. It was cool by the canals and lovely if I could have sat on one of the tiny, perfectly curved bridges, for longer than 5 seconds before someone else wanted it. So on we went, walking past women washing clothes on stones, men fishing or dozing, I'm not sure which, and one or 2 dopey dogs sprawled in the shade of overhanging trees. Skinny cats slept on vacant seats and stallholders called out to me "Herro, herro. Lookee, lookee." And the same wonky little houses held up by imaginary foundations lined the water's edge as in Suzhou. The people living here do so under strict state laws and are not allowed to sell to incomers. Apparently many live elsewhere and let their relatives do the work, just coming back at weekends.
I try to imagine the whole of China like this, a nation of villages and small towns. Now it's in a big hurry to build high. I've never seen anything like it; it's overwhelming. Something might have been pulled down, looking at all the rubble, but equally it might be going up, looking at all the rubble!
And so to WuHu, a 5 hour train journey that takes nearly eight. I eat melon chunks and a small moon cake proffered by a retired metallagist who's company made these train wheels. We've got bunks, but they're a cruel trick; 3 tiers and metal hard. They come with lumpy pillows and duvet. I simply have to rest and am only woken by three bites on my arm that weren't there half an hour before. I sit up to find a pregnant woman gazing at me wistfully. Oh dear. She stays like this for hours, so in the end I smile in a Helpful Sort Of Way. She beams back and says to Sophia, "She is so pretty, she has a big nose and big eyes. And her beautiful golden hair." What a lovely lady! My friend for life, obviously. Actually, it won't be long before the bags under my eyes will exceed the plane allowance and I'll be glad to get a good night's sleep.
Our hotel room has other ideas. Again, our cheap deal has bought us a room at the top end of an enormous hole in the ground. I can just see tiny dots wearing hard hats and as it gets dark the swarm of diggers put their lights on and ... eight ear-plugged hours later ... have dug about 6 inches down. This is the 3 star hotel's new 5 star foundations.
I avoid the duck's blood soup for breakfast and we giggle at "Chinken Soup" and "Face Rolls". How Spring turned into Face Sophia doesn't know.
WuHu is on my father's passport. I knew the consulate building was still there, used by the Chinese local government. It was known by everyone and we found it easily. Another hot and humid day was left far below as we chatted to 2 security guards, asking permission and telling them why I was there. We were under huge trees lining the small road winding up the hill. There was the consulate, unmistakeably colonial, at the top. Its windows were large with semi-circular tops and it was grand. As we walked round to one side I looked up to see a flight of stone steps leading to a red brick building I could just make out through the trees. It was underneath one of those those, oh what's it called; not an arbour, a ... (please fill in the blank), made of stone. I could imagine it covered in wisteria and clematis. We climbed the steps, rather daringly, and were surrounded by a pretty, old garden with paths amongst the shrubs and stone seats. Granny had her hand in this, I'm sure; there were shades of her rose garden in East Horsley. This was the summit of the hill. It was a rarefied atmosphere in both senses, peaceful, catching a cool breeze through the rustling leaves. The trees were so dense that it was hard to make out the road below. All that noise and bustle were beneath us. Beneath them?
This was an important new treaty place in my grandparents' time. It was small and out of the way, but this building was a promise of more.
My goodness, they should see WuHu today; a forest of skyscrapers and 6 laned roads.
I wasn't allowed to take photos because it was government property and I only took a peek through the open front door to see where they lived. The entrance hall was dark and shiny with a Victorian wooden staircase leading to a barred window on a landing. This was their official residence. They had arrived.
I felt terribly lonely until I pictured Granny or the Amah carrying my father as a baby down those steps to a waiting sedan chair or horse, and my grandfather's sister puffing up the steps when she arrived for her periodic visits form Canada. The heat. The corsets. The staunchness and the stiff upper lip.
This country is getting to me!
We arrived unscathed and drove through a grand entrance with clipped grass, flowers and banners and tiny new houses; all a bit Stepford, where was the tradition? I had my tour ID photo taken along with the hundreds of others who'd arrived in coaches and we trooped into another world. This was the real thing, even though I knew that the residents made their living from up to 40,000 tourists every day, and I would too, given the tourists' close proximity to the houses. I could hardly look into most of them, even though it was encouraged.
We walked behind our guide holding a blue flag aloft, giving us a detailed description of every corner, plaque, urn, stone and bridge, but giving us no time to stop and waste money, so we got separated. Sophia had his number on her mobile and got a signal. Amazing, that! How come I can't get one in Surrey?
Then he gave us our ID photos and told us the meeting place and time. It was a hot day with that Milk of Magnesia sky (hmm, no, no more Imodium stories) that the sun only manages to burn through when its very hot, and then only for a while. It was cool by the canals and lovely if I could have sat on one of the tiny, perfectly curved bridges, for longer than 5 seconds before someone else wanted it. So on we went, walking past women washing clothes on stones, men fishing or dozing, I'm not sure which, and one or 2 dopey dogs sprawled in the shade of overhanging trees. Skinny cats slept on vacant seats and stallholders called out to me "Herro, herro. Lookee, lookee." And the same wonky little houses held up by imaginary foundations lined the water's edge as in Suzhou. The people living here do so under strict state laws and are not allowed to sell to incomers. Apparently many live elsewhere and let their relatives do the work, just coming back at weekends.
I try to imagine the whole of China like this, a nation of villages and small towns. Now it's in a big hurry to build high. I've never seen anything like it; it's overwhelming. Something might have been pulled down, looking at all the rubble, but equally it might be going up, looking at all the rubble!
And so to WuHu, a 5 hour train journey that takes nearly eight. I eat melon chunks and a small moon cake proffered by a retired metallagist who's company made these train wheels. We've got bunks, but they're a cruel trick; 3 tiers and metal hard. They come with lumpy pillows and duvet. I simply have to rest and am only woken by three bites on my arm that weren't there half an hour before. I sit up to find a pregnant woman gazing at me wistfully. Oh dear. She stays like this for hours, so in the end I smile in a Helpful Sort Of Way. She beams back and says to Sophia, "She is so pretty, she has a big nose and big eyes. And her beautiful golden hair." What a lovely lady! My friend for life, obviously. Actually, it won't be long before the bags under my eyes will exceed the plane allowance and I'll be glad to get a good night's sleep.
Our hotel room has other ideas. Again, our cheap deal has bought us a room at the top end of an enormous hole in the ground. I can just see tiny dots wearing hard hats and as it gets dark the swarm of diggers put their lights on and ... eight ear-plugged hours later ... have dug about 6 inches down. This is the 3 star hotel's new 5 star foundations.
I avoid the duck's blood soup for breakfast and we giggle at "Chinken Soup" and "Face Rolls". How Spring turned into Face Sophia doesn't know.
WuHu is on my father's passport. I knew the consulate building was still there, used by the Chinese local government. It was known by everyone and we found it easily. Another hot and humid day was left far below as we chatted to 2 security guards, asking permission and telling them why I was there. We were under huge trees lining the small road winding up the hill. There was the consulate, unmistakeably colonial, at the top. Its windows were large with semi-circular tops and it was grand. As we walked round to one side I looked up to see a flight of stone steps leading to a red brick building I could just make out through the trees. It was underneath one of those those, oh what's it called; not an arbour, a ... (please fill in the blank), made of stone. I could imagine it covered in wisteria and clematis. We climbed the steps, rather daringly, and were surrounded by a pretty, old garden with paths amongst the shrubs and stone seats. Granny had her hand in this, I'm sure; there were shades of her rose garden in East Horsley. This was the summit of the hill. It was a rarefied atmosphere in both senses, peaceful, catching a cool breeze through the rustling leaves. The trees were so dense that it was hard to make out the road below. All that noise and bustle were beneath us. Beneath them?
This was an important new treaty place in my grandparents' time. It was small and out of the way, but this building was a promise of more.
My goodness, they should see WuHu today; a forest of skyscrapers and 6 laned roads.
I wasn't allowed to take photos because it was government property and I only took a peek through the open front door to see where they lived. The entrance hall was dark and shiny with a Victorian wooden staircase leading to a barred window on a landing. This was their official residence. They had arrived.
I felt terribly lonely until I pictured Granny or the Amah carrying my father as a baby down those steps to a waiting sedan chair or horse, and my grandfather's sister puffing up the steps when she arrived for her periodic visits form Canada. The heat. The corsets. The staunchness and the stiff upper lip.
This country is getting to me!
Tuesday 20 October 2009
Blessed Is That Which Is Imodium ... Hmm, enough said.
And so to Suzhou on the 12th by slow queues and fast train from Shanghai. I was quite relieved to leave there; tall place, deep potholes, smelly smells (pong hi in Shanghai) and astonishing pace of rebuilding (you had to mind your head!).
The irate taxi driver in Suzhou couldn't put me off watching out for the canals which I caught tantalising glimpses of through the phalanx of bikes and mopeds whizzing along beside them. The hotel was in a main shopping area and we weaved our way through said phalanx plus hundreds of pedestrians to get, well, almost to the door. The cheapest deal meant the room was opposite a building site, with drilling the wake-up call at 6am.
We woke early (!), I avoided the duck's blood soup for breakfast, and scuttled off to the museum as I hoped to find an old map which might give clues as to where the British consulate was. Granny described it as being near the city wall and a few yards from the canal. She wrote that HM's government had rented 9 rooms in a 500yr old palace belonging to Li Hung Chang (Chinese envoy in the late 1800's). The museum was singularly unhelpful and Sophia was told that there never had been a British consulate in Suzhou. We went round the exhibits anyway, because they were interesting.
I was itching to leave, though, and I couldn't fathom why. Following the exhibits in an exit-only fashion the modern building finished as I stepped over a high doorsill and into a small and ancient courtyard, surrounded on 3 sides by the red/brown wooden latticework of the verandah topped by steep roofs dressed in curved clay tiles. I was amongst hundreds of Chinese tourists with cameras flashing, all jostling for a good position, but they couldn't compete with the silent antiquity of that place. My flash was still off from the museum and I took pictures of nearly every room, courtyard, alleyway and corridor that wasn't full of people (I had to be patient).
It occurred to me that this was the consulate, after all it was opposite the canal. This must be it, this is where they lived. My grandfather was Acting Consul in Suzhou in 1897. I told myself off for being ridiculous, but I went on taking pictures because this might be the only type of place I see that they might have recognised.
I tottered out to the street and 20 yards away we came across stone steps leading down to the canal and boat trips. It was a cross between a punt and a gondola, covered, and the boatman manning the eulow (oar) at the back was 5'2'', wizened and wiry. I nearly drowned, obviously, when the boat slid away from the bank with my right foot in it; dignity apparently not an option on this trip. The canal was just wide enough for passing boats, and the very old whitewashed houses backing on to it had their stone foundations held together with fresh air and green water. The steps leading to each one stuck out in desultory manner, ready to clip the ear of the unwary, and had gaps between each stone step. What on earth was holding them up? The plaster crumbled like pastry into the water and the tiny landing stage doubled as a washing stone. Clean clothes dripped from poles and rusting air exhilarators (no, what do you call them? I'm tired!) hung as a testament to modernity from every house.
The canal was over a thousand years old and remained unchanged except for a couple of new road bridges. So my grandparents would have seen this, travelled on this waterway in the official boat with Mary and Brother at the eulow.
The inevitable question came, and when Sophia answered, the boatman's response was to announce his intention to sing 3 songs dor me, about family, love, and life. He held the collar of his shirt and began as the youngsters up front collapsed into giggles. I was transfixed and although strange to my ears I could tell he was a real singer, and it turned out he had once belonged to a local opera group.
Once I've remembered to buy a memory stick (yes, well..) I shall ask Sophia (sainted, and second only to Imodium) to upload her video clip of his performance for us.Supper beckons (it could be the soup).
The irate taxi driver in Suzhou couldn't put me off watching out for the canals which I caught tantalising glimpses of through the phalanx of bikes and mopeds whizzing along beside them. The hotel was in a main shopping area and we weaved our way through said phalanx plus hundreds of pedestrians to get, well, almost to the door. The cheapest deal meant the room was opposite a building site, with drilling the wake-up call at 6am.
We woke early (!), I avoided the duck's blood soup for breakfast, and scuttled off to the museum as I hoped to find an old map which might give clues as to where the British consulate was. Granny described it as being near the city wall and a few yards from the canal. She wrote that HM's government had rented 9 rooms in a 500yr old palace belonging to Li Hung Chang (Chinese envoy in the late 1800's). The museum was singularly unhelpful and Sophia was told that there never had been a British consulate in Suzhou. We went round the exhibits anyway, because they were interesting.
I was itching to leave, though, and I couldn't fathom why. Following the exhibits in an exit-only fashion the modern building finished as I stepped over a high doorsill and into a small and ancient courtyard, surrounded on 3 sides by the red/brown wooden latticework of the verandah topped by steep roofs dressed in curved clay tiles. I was amongst hundreds of Chinese tourists with cameras flashing, all jostling for a good position, but they couldn't compete with the silent antiquity of that place. My flash was still off from the museum and I took pictures of nearly every room, courtyard, alleyway and corridor that wasn't full of people (I had to be patient).
It occurred to me that this was the consulate, after all it was opposite the canal. This must be it, this is where they lived. My grandfather was Acting Consul in Suzhou in 1897. I told myself off for being ridiculous, but I went on taking pictures because this might be the only type of place I see that they might have recognised.
Half an hour later Sophia and I walked to the little art gallery opposite the museum entrance that we'd already noticed served tea and cake (museums always make me famished, I don't know why). We went down some steps into the cool dim interior and were ushered to a huge table by an open window. Its shutters were folded back and outside, a few feet below, were the green waters of the canal, and 15 feet away was an old man sitting on his tiny landing stage smoking his pipe. His beady eyes met mine without a flicker. I suddenly felt like a big blundering foreigner encroaching on his home and by the time I'd turned away he retreated indoors.
The gallery's owner and manageress served us my favourite lemon tea and little biscuits and we got chatting, Sophia being asked the inevitable question; What is she doing here? She explained as they smiled and nodded at me and I felt able to ask; Was there a British consulate here in the late 1800's?
"Oh yes," the owner said, waving her hand in the direction of the museum, "It was over there in Li Hung Chang's palace."
I was right! I knew it, I just knew it! The tears threatened to spill over. We all sat there, stunned, until my hand was patted, more tea was brought and I had myself under control. All those years of waiting. This place was somehow the most precious in my mind, I don't why. And now I'd been walking in the same rooms and the same courtyards. (Thank you WCMT).
The gallery's owner and manageress served us my favourite lemon tea and little biscuits and we got chatting, Sophia being asked the inevitable question; What is she doing here? She explained as they smiled and nodded at me and I felt able to ask; Was there a British consulate here in the late 1800's?
"Oh yes," the owner said, waving her hand in the direction of the museum, "It was over there in Li Hung Chang's palace."
I was right! I knew it, I just knew it! The tears threatened to spill over. We all sat there, stunned, until my hand was patted, more tea was brought and I had myself under control. All those years of waiting. This place was somehow the most precious in my mind, I don't why. And now I'd been walking in the same rooms and the same courtyards. (Thank you WCMT).
I tottered out to the street and 20 yards away we came across stone steps leading down to the canal and boat trips. It was a cross between a punt and a gondola, covered, and the boatman manning the eulow (oar) at the back was 5'2'', wizened and wiry. I nearly drowned, obviously, when the boat slid away from the bank with my right foot in it; dignity apparently not an option on this trip. The canal was just wide enough for passing boats, and the very old whitewashed houses backing on to it had their stone foundations held together with fresh air and green water. The steps leading to each one stuck out in desultory manner, ready to clip the ear of the unwary, and had gaps between each stone step. What on earth was holding them up? The plaster crumbled like pastry into the water and the tiny landing stage doubled as a washing stone. Clean clothes dripped from poles and rusting air exhilarators (no, what do you call them? I'm tired!) hung as a testament to modernity from every house.
The canal was over a thousand years old and remained unchanged except for a couple of new road bridges. So my grandparents would have seen this, travelled on this waterway in the official boat with Mary and Brother at the eulow.
The inevitable question came, and when Sophia answered, the boatman's response was to announce his intention to sing 3 songs dor me, about family, love, and life. He held the collar of his shirt and began as the youngsters up front collapsed into giggles. I was transfixed and although strange to my ears I could tell he was a real singer, and it turned out he had once belonged to a local opera group.
Once I've remembered to buy a memory stick (yes, well..) I shall ask Sophia (sainted, and second only to Imodium) to upload her video clip of his performance for us.Supper beckons (it could be the soup).
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