...and the North Pole is really the Pearl River Delta.

In 2002, Li Chunmei died after working sixteen-hour shifts on the Bainan Toy Factory's assembly line to meet the demand for Christmas toys. Hers is not an isolated case; deaths like hers have become so common that even Chinese journalists have dared to coin a word for them: guolaosi, or death from overwork.

Eric Clark, in The Real Toy Story devotes a chapter to Chinese toy factory labor ("Santa's Sweatshops").

See also The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard. Important. Thanks, GG!

Labels: china, green, mothering

The Great Wall was touristy, and dirty, and buggy, and hot. But this view made it all worth it.

We drove through the countryside for a while on our way back to Beijing. The land is -- or so it seems -- incredibly fertile and it is cultivated intensively. I saw enormous squashes hanging from trellises, huge pumpkins growing in backyard gardens, peaches the size of grapefruits, apple trees loaded with fruit, endless bushels of gourds, and enormous ears of corn in piles on the road. "For the pigs," I was told.

I also saw field laborers sleeping in tents, and hotels that did not have plumbing. The tap water here, as everywhere in China, is not potable. There were factories next to corn fields next to perfectly square lakes where people were fishing. At many attractions, you could get a discount for having a "deformity". It seemed like just about everyone in Beijing was coughing, sniffling, sneezing. A national investment in spittoons would not go amiss. I don't even want to talk about the airport, where it is necessary, upon arrival, to join a crowd of hundreds of other nervous travelers trying to squeeze through a single entryway -- this is "customs" -- before getting to the airline check-in counters. You do this while you are still in view of the road, where cars and trucks are pulling up all the time. Naturally, no one's been checked for weapons or explosives...

Labels: china, travels with jane

Hot, crowded, dirty, steep, and swarming with gnats.

Labels: china, travels with jane

I snapped this one before I saw the sign: PICTURES OF THE CAMEL ARE NOT FREE.

Labels: china, travels with jane

This was one of the prettiest displays.

The vendors all knew the same English phrases, which they repeated over and over.

"Hello!"
"Remember you!"
"Dollar!"

This soundscape was so strange, like something out of a bad 50s film about the Pacific theater of WWII. It was impossible to really take in the enormity of the Wall as an engineering feat or a piece of history, with all the shouting and huckstering. But, in a way, that was the truth of the experience -- even the Great Wall is as commodifiable as anything else.

Labels: china, travels with jane

We'd been told that the part of the Great Wall we visited, Mutianyu, was less touristy than other places.

Well, it was still pretty touristy. Lots of vendors hawking various souvenirs, including plenty of communist kitsch. Ah, the contradictions of late capitalism.

This bit of the walk up the Great Wall took us up a slope to a cable car, which went all the way up the mountain. The walk was steep and promised to get steeper.

Just after I took this shot, a group of guys came running down the path bearing a man on a stretcher who'd apparently fallen down the Wall. He was bleeding quite a bit from the head.

After he passed, the crowd was quiet for a bit as everyone reconsidered their plans for the day.

An American behind me said, "Be careful..."

Labels: china, travels with jane

When we decided to visit the Great Wall, we hired a guide and a driver for the trip, which was supposed to go from the hotel to the Great Wall at Mutianyu and back again.

Like most things in Beijing, this trip was full of surprises. Like the unscheduled stop at the cloisonné factory in Huairou, a place whose primary claim to fame is that it is the suburb of Beijing with the least air pollution.

Now, cloisonné production is not exactly environmentally neutral and safe. The process involves heat, adhesives, and chemicals. The workers we saw were not using masks, gloves, or eye protection. When I asked about the glue they used to attach copper strips to the copper vessels that would eventually become vases, I was told that the glue was made from an herb of some kind.

We were not allowed to see the plating part of the process. Given the messiness and hazards of plating, I was not too surprised.

Labels: china, travels with jane

From the map, it looked like the Forbidden City was only five or six blocks away.

What we didn't understand is that those are BEIJING blocks, which go on until you drop dead or reach the Mongolian steppes, whichever happens first.

We met a number of interesting people on our long hike. Most were young, eager to explain that they had been to university in the United States (the U of Chicago is a favorite), and even more eager to take us on guided tours of the city. We declined these offers, for obvious reasons. More than one person approached us crying, "I am a teacher!" Another woman approached us several times, apparently forgetting that she'd already told us her story and made her pitch. She was surprised when I said, "Hello, Grace! It is nice to see you again, on this corner where you introduced yourself last time! We must hurry along now."

Everyone seems to be running some kind of ... enterprise. People do hustle here. The rule for getting through doorways and other tight spaces is the person with the biggest muscles goes first. Traffic signals are honored more in the breach. I am getting used to it.

On our hike, we discovered a hutong, or alley, where we were befriended by a woman who explained to us that the street itself was four hundred years old before urging us to visit her art gallery at one end of a deserted, though rather picturesque, courtyard. Again, we had to decline, as we were on our way to the Forbidden City. She told us it was not open; evidently she had been misinformed. At any rate, the street she so helpfully dated for us certainly looked old enough, and narrow, and very traditional, with men sitting outside shops on little stools, smoking and chatting and sipping drinks.

There were fruit and vegetable stands and hot food stands where all sorts of delicacies were on offer -- buns, roast meat on skewers, thin fried pancakes. All of it looked very delicious, but not compatible, alas, with the Wonky Gallbladder Diet.

Labels: china, travels with jane

Here is what they have in Beijing: Starbucks. Everywhere. Including right in your face as you pass through immigration at the airport.

Starbucks had even set up shop in the Forbidden City -- but this, apparently, was too much. Now there is a government-sponsored tea house in the same spot instead.

The prices are much the same as in New York, Boston, etc. If you want a latte and a pastry, it will set you back about six dollars or 50 yuan.

Bear in mind that most Chinese make about two dollars a day. In the cities, a clerical worker makes about 50 dollars a week, and that is a good living.

I have lots of good pictures and stories from Beijing that do not involve multinational corporations. But the Starbucks thing really got to me. Stay tuned.

Labels: china, travels with jane

"Want to play 'princess' with me?"

"Princess" is a dreadful game in which two plastic Disney Princesses say mean things to each other, do handstands, and change into different dresses. It is not so much a game as a ritual. Jane reserves the right to make all the rules, to change those rules when she likes, and to make up all the dialogue.

"Okay," I say.

She hands me Sleeping Beauty. "Now I am Cinderella, and you are Sleeping Beauty."

"Yes. I think Sleeping Beauty needs some coffee to wake up."

"NO! You say..." And Jane tells me what to say.

"Jane," I say, "if you are always telling me what to say, playing 'princess' is not very much fun."

She looks at me blankly.

"For me," I clarify. "Not much fun for me."

"But you are supposed to say..." And I get the same instructions again.

"Sleeping Beauty is sitting down," I say. "She is resisting your orders. I can't make her do anything."

"What?!"

"That's right. This princess is so stubborn, I can't believe it."

"What?!"

"She says she is engaging in a form of nonviolent protest against a despotic regime."

"Tell her to say..."

Labels: china, jane, travels with jane

Dooce took her kid to San Francisco and it was not a lot of fun:

"Everything that they tell you about the love you'll have for your child is true, but there's all this other stuff that is true, too, stuff that you're afraid to talk about, stuff that you carry around and try to hide. Stuff like resentment and fear and anxiety and longing."

We're having a good time here in Beijing. But I've been having these feelings, too. One of the things I wanted to do on this trip was confront this stuff -- figure out why I sometimes feel this way, and what it is all about. Travel is good for this kind of exploration-- I am alone with Jane for long stretches and without babysitting options so it's critical that I just learn to deal.

One thing that's occurred to me: I love Jane for her innocence and beauty (I admit it). I also love watching her in new situations, because I feel like I am discovering who she is. But she is not only some kind of sui generis entity. She needs to learn things, important things about how to be with other people and how to give and take. A certain, uh, reciprocity is missing from our relationship. I am starting to think that it is my job to help her learn this.

I suspect lots of parents feel the anger and resentment Dooce mentions. Mostly no one talks about it. Our ideas about motherhood and childhood do not include this discourse, or if they do, it's only in the context of illness, like postnatal depression or valium for stressed-out mothers or ritalin for off-the-wall kids.

Which is what they all are, sometimes.

Speaking of walls -- the Great Wall is on the agenda for tomorrow.

Labels: china, mothering, travels with jane

Our first day in Beijing was mostly lost to travel and catching up on the sleep we lost as a result of our early flight out of Tokyo.

Today we got up, visited the local Starbucks out of curiosity and the crying need for really big cups of coffee, and then walked to the Forbidden City, about a mile away.

Everywhere, we were greeted by smiles and cries of "piaoliang" (pretty). Jane stuns them all when she says "xie xie ni" (thank you) and addresses people using (mostly) the right honorifics. People ask how does she know Chinese. This is our secret: Chinese for Children. Naturally, MJ and I have been watching it as well, and as a result we can say things like "Hello, Grandma" and "That is my doll" in flawless kiddie Chinese. So useful, especially for communicating things like "I have a disease that does not permit me to eat fried food, eggs or red meat, I hope your chef can accommodate me." Or even, "Ah, forget it, I'll just have the soup."

In the Forbidden City, a group of girls were so smitten they asked to be photographed with Jane. We took a picture of them, too.


New kanji we've learned: airport, airline, China, Beijing.

Labels: china, travels with jane