It’s strange how illnesses develop sometimes.

Yesterday started with me waking at 5, unable to get back to sleep. Bugger it, I thought, might as well get up, check my email and the news, surf for a bit before we head up to the village.

A couple of hours later, my mood plummeted into a deep depression and all the energy drained from my body. But after maybe an hour, I managed to get up enough energy to contemplate getting my shoes on and leaving. In hindsight, it wasn’t any mood issue, I guess it was whatever infection was starting to wreak its merry havoc in my gut sucking up all the energy in my body like some mad electric vampire.

We were just approaching the gate when suddenly my mouth went dry and my stomach turned, like I was about to vomit. Felt a bit light-headed, too. So we headed back home to see if we have any medicine. Nope. And as lzh was searching the medicine cabinet, I sprinted for the toilet, and not to vomit.

I imagine I must’ve looked fairly pale and drained as I re-emerged, cos I was certainly feeling worse. And it was the kind of feeling bad that is not conducive to travel over a plain, across a mountain range, then across a basin by at least three forms of transport, especially when holiday crowds are added to the equation. Last thing anybody wants is to be stuck on a crowded bus in holiday traffic on the Badaling Expressway Carpark with no kind of privacy, let alone a toilet, in sight feeling like their gut is about to explode. The most likely prayer to arise from such a situation would perhaps be “Dear God, why did you have to choose such a messy way for me to go? And so unpleasant for my fellow passengers?”

Anyways, so the holiday turned into me crashing here trying to recover from whatever dreaded lurgy it was that laid me low, lzh heading up to the village alone. It’s been a brief reminder of both the advantages and disadvantages of bachelor life: Sure, I can do what I like, watch movies into the wee, small hours if I want, and so on, but there’s only so much fun in doing that alone, and besides, my wife is a better cook than me. As solitary as I can be, I have to admit life is better off shared.

But it seems lzh has been hit hard by the switch back to Country Time. This morning’s trip to the county town left her knocked out, so she’s staying out there one more night, heading back tomorrow morning. Country Time? Yeah, in my admittedly limited experience, Rural China functions by an entirely different clock to Urban China. Capitals because in so many respects the two are as different as America and New Zealand. Our trips out to the village result in a kind of jet-lag as we adjust to Country Time.

Not much happens around this corner of Beijing, which is why I like it down here. Strange as it may sound, the most interesting parts of a city are the boring parts. Most people don’t notice, though, because it takes so much time and patience to see how interesting such places can be. It’s a question of quiet, day-by-day observation rather than the in-your-face spectacularity most people seem to require these days (I blame Hollywood). But two things have grabbed my attention these past two days, two things that will seem completely inane to anyone reading this, because these things are small issues, not even issues, really, just two microscopically local things that for no particular reason grabbed my attention.

One is that a section of the wall around a neighbouring housing estate was torn down, and is now being rebuilt. At first I thought, hey, cool, a wall is coming down. (China seems to have a rather inordinate love of walls and fences. In fact, one of the things I loved about Changsha was the lack of walls and fences around the housing estates on the west bank of the Xiang River in the area I lived and also the open, unfenced and heavily-forested nature of the campuses of Hunan University and Hunan Normal University (the two are right next to each other at the foot of Yuelu Shan, and the lack of fences means their campuses blend together beautifully)). But they started rebuilding that section of wall as soon as they had knocked it down, and I realised today they’ve built it higher than it was. Oh well.

And then as I was sitting in the campus Muslim Restaurant- which sits on the northwest corner of the campus and looks outward, meaning if you choose your seat well, you get a good view of goings-on outside that corner of our campus- I noticed on the northeast corner of the intersection a very bored-looking young man dressed head to toe in those cheap camouflage fatigues popular among the labouring classes, black cloth shoes, and white socks and with a red armband sitting on a stool in the shad of a tree. I have no idea what he was doing. I was too far away to see what may have been written on his armband, and I didn’t see much point in getting any closer, having no business on that side of the road and lacking the energy and intestinal confidence to stray unnecessarily. At one point, somebody, just as young but dressed in more civilian clothes, did seem to talk to him for a couple of minutes, but otherwise this lad just sat there, staring westwards.

You do see red armbands appearing around this area at “sensitive” times. March’s Two Meetings (NPC and CPPCC) seem to bring them out. Last summer was the classic example. But they’re usually middle-aged or elderly people and there’s always a reason. I haven’t seen any sign of increased security in this neighbourhood, nor could I see any reason for extra security on that particular street at lunchtime today.

So here I am, alone, uninspired, trying to find something to write about. If you’ve read this far, all I can say is: I’m surprised.

It’s been a long time since I was last in Haidian, but a friend of lzh’s got married out that way today, so off we went.

I’ve always hated Xizhimen. It’s a collossal, busy mess. When I first moved to Beijing, I’d pass through Xizhimen fairly often, and it took me forever to figure the place out. Of course, it’s also constantly changing… Anyway:

1. Alright, there’s lots of construction being done there, and construction creates mess. Nothing to be done.
2. Sure, but is making the northern end of the platform of Xizhimen’s Line 2 station entry only and forcing passengers for Line 13 or the northern exits walk a ridiculous loop right round the station really the best solution?
3. Still, it is nice that you no longer need to go outside to transfer from Line 2 to Line 13 (and presumably vice versa).

Ah well, we escaped Xizhimen and found ourselves a bus up to Xiaotun. Neither of us really knew where Xiaotun was, just that it’s somewhere in Haidian. So the bus comes, we get on and sit down, it takes us off in what turned into a weird zig-zag through Haidian that wound up killing my sense of direction.

At first, of course, we were moving through the high-rise jungle of downtown Haidian, all fancy new skyscrapers and shiny signs. We did an odd loop right round the Golden Resources mall, covering three of its four sides. Isn’t that supposed to be the biggest shopping mall in the world? If so, I was underwhelmed. And it has an odd facade, somewhat reminiscent of a kindergartner’s collage.

But the bus continued, and gradually the high-rises and shopping malls thinned out and the space opened up. Wasn’t long before we were in the low-rise fringes of urban Haidian with the hills steadily approaching.

Still we continued, getting more worried about whether we’d get there on time- as it turned out, we missed at least half the ceremony, unfortunately (well, fortunately for my ears- I like Chinese weddings, but my ears find the volume just a tad painful). And the buildings thinned still further, with low-rise urban fringes giving way to almost semi-rural edge. Eventually the bus arrived at the Xiaotun stop, and we got off, finding ourselves at T-intersection trying to be a proper crossroads (one of the roads was little more than a country lane which didn’t get much respect from its better-built brethren and wasn’t fully open to the intersection), a recently-planted forest on one corner, a field of villas bisected by the T-part of the intersection on the opposite side, and an odd building looking half-Western/half-Chinese on the corner behind us. No sign of a hotel or restaurant where a wedding would be held.

lzh phoned and got dodgy directions, so asked around the locals. Eventually she found one who knew the place and pointed us in the right direction- the right direction being completely opposite of the one she had first been told to walk in. So off we go, and find ourselves entering some kind of “ecological park”- except all the trees look like the same species to me, and they’re planted in perfect rows like a field of soldiers. We follow the lane to some distant building and discover we’ve taken the back entrance. Walk around the building and find the main entrance, ask which of the multitude of weddings is the one we want, sign the guestbook, and we’re in.

We’re in a huge indoor space that seems to be made out of the human equivalent of spider web, thin steel posts and beams with what might be translucent silk, some kind of plastic, or some fancy glass stretched over it. And vegetation, plants everywhere. This huge space is divided into smaller spaces for each wedding by thin, pink curtains, meaning we can hear every other wedding in the building. We find ours, and find a table with spare seats and two of lzh’s university classmates.

As I said, we were late. Well, the bus driver didn’t help, proving a good example of how the word ‘geriatric’ could be applied to driving styles. Anyways, we’d made it, but only in time for the end of the ceremony. Oh well.

We still got the food and drink though. Still, our table turned out a little odd. There were 3 distinct groups: My wife and her classmates were one; then there were four people, evidently two couples, that my wife’s group didn’t know (and if they didn’t know, I couldn’t know); and me. Well, given the sheer amount of background noise, I couldn’t even hear anything my wife was saying, and she was sitting right next to me, so I simply couldn’t be any more sociable than I was. I could only eat, drink, and enjoy the spectacle from the point of view of a stone-deaf outsider, that’s the state the level of background noise from all the weddings had left me in. But those other four, well. Playing the lazy susan so that the food is always in front of your own group and the rest of the people have cigarettes they don’t smoke and drinks they don’t want sitting in front of them is somewhat less than polite.

Still, I somehow managed to get a good enough feed. lzh helped by loading me up with shrimp- I’d grab one, she’d dump two on my plate.

lzh decided that because we’d come so far, and there’s no knowing when the next time we’d be heading out that way would be, we might as well stop by the newlyweds’ house. So it was arranged for us to hitch a ride in some friend of the groom’s car and off we went, further out into the wilds, past another field of villas and more young, monocultural-looking forest, to an area of four-storey apartment blocks. Yeah, I guess up in the foothills space is not quite at such a premium as it is down here. And thence down to the row of apartment blocks overlooking those villas, and up to the fourth floor. The groom’s parents had one of the fourth floor apartments, and the newlyweds the other, nice and convenient. Not big apartments, mind, but certainly with space enough and kitted-out well, and with windows open wide to get that cool mountain breeze.

Well, we weren’t quite in the mountains, but in that odd space, that wide, flat area where the valleys are opening out into the plain, somewhere up behind the Summer Palace. A nice area, if perhaps a bit too empty. It’s hard to judge from such a short trip, but there didn’t seem to be much in the way of community. A proper, long-established village up there would’ve been very attractive.

And as we were sitting in their apartment, an Avril Lavigne concert came on TV. Oh dear. If this is the state of modern Western rock, I’m very glad to be living in Beijing. This concert came with the lyrics in bilingual subtitles, just to make sure we got what she was singing about. Their ‘look’ was enough, but the lyrics took the cake: I was left with my first impression strongly reinforced: A bunch of kids from affluent families taking regular teen angst and turning it into the closest approximation they can of ‘suffering’. Elevator music, in other words.

Anyways, after a bit we got back in the same car, a Nissan Tiida, I believe, and we were taken back into the urbs and dropped at Suzhoujie’s Line 10 station- perfect, claim a seat and just sit until we reach the terminus, the terminus, Jinsong, being the closest subway stop to our place. lzh took advantage of the convenience of Line 10 by sleeping off the excitement on my bony shoulder. She must’ve been exhausted if she could sleep on such an uncomfortable shoulder.

But that wee Nissan was a pretty sweet ride. Very roomy and comfortable despite its diminutive size, very quiet, and, well, I don’t know, having been only a passenger, but it seemed pretty easy to drive. It accelerated with ease, seemed to handle comfortably. Pretty nice.

So we’re back from our little adventure out into the wilds of Haidian. It’s an intriguing area, quite attractive, but on the whole, I think it’s better down here in Chaoyang.

The conversation took a turn along these lines:

San Fran: But was his shirt tucked in or out? Pink shirts should never be tucked in.

Me: It’s simply illegal for men to wear pink.

Boston: Y’know, pink shirts were all the rage in the 70s.

Me: Yeah, and as a result, the UN Security Council in 1981 passed Resolution 2014 forbidding the wearing of pink by all men. It’s just plain wrong, and has been straight out illegal since then.

Please note: I was not being entirely serious, and apart from certain factual details, I am not being entirely serious with the rest of this post. Anyway, that was a couple of days ago, and since then- as a subconscious result of that conversation or perhaps because it’s becoming fashionable again, I don’t know- I’ve been seeing more and more men wearing pink shirts.

But today takes the cake. Today I was sitting in a window seat at a nearby restaurant I visit infrequently- it’s a friendly enough place and the boss is decent, but the food is merely edible and does not justify the very slightly longer walk- when a man parked his Suzuki Swift outside. A Swift- so what? Indeed, so what? I’ve always been partial to smaller cars, they’re much more fun to drive. But this Swift was painted the kind of 13-year-old-girl-and-her-Barbie-dolls pink that no car, no matter how “feminine” should ever be painted.

And here I was thinking that the apparent increase in pink shirts showed the decline in this city’s morals….

***

[ahem] Yeah, so I was sitting there alone in 不二家 eating lunch, nursing a beer or two, watching the world go by, sometimes pondering, mostly just feeling and absorbing. The group behind me sounded like their conversation was about to heat up, judging by some of the words thrown around, but they stayed calm. Off in the far corner a large group was getting stuck in to the booze and the- what’s the Irish word? craic?- and voices were raised in excitement and syllables drawn out in that beery attempt at emphasis and good-natured smack-down. The TV was on CCTV 5, which switched between F1, football, and table tennis before settling on snooker (or pool or billiards or one of those non-sports that have been elevated to a ridiculous status. Sports involving hitting balls around a table are activities for washing down beer, not sports). Outside, the wind, which had been breezing all morning, was starting to pick up, and the cloud cover seemed to be getting thicker. There was- still is- a certain energy in the air, a certain ragged, still unfocussed edge to the weather suggestive of another of those summer storms that hit hard and fast, leaving the air scrubbed clean and the city battered but grateful. I decided it was time to move, so availed myself of a certain facility then paid the bill.

The combination of spring weather and my workload have left me feeling permanently worn out, but I was picking up some restless energy from the air and feeling in need of at least a stroll, so hung a left on stepping out the restaurant door and wandered down through the alley. The, umm, “bar”- a bar of a kind I’m not sure I’m young enough to venture into for curiosity’s sake anymore-  just 20 metres on had a cop car parked out front. There was a cop and a civilian outside the bar talking, partly to each other, partly the cop on a cellphone. A security guard was standing by the car- an old Santana station wagon, lights still flashing- with another sitting on the car’s back seat, both looked eternally bored. Nothing was happening, sorry, no excitement to report. And so I wandered on.

I stopped in the market whose name I never remember, the one roughly at the mid-point of Wusheng Lu, and decided to sift through the DVD stalls. Slim pickings. I think that’s the first time I’ve been DVD shopping and left with only one DVD- Jia Zhangke’s latest. They also had one claiming to be Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking, but I’ve seen and read that a long time ago, and I’m more interested in seeing the two new ones, Lu Chuan’s and the one about John Rabe, at least to see what the fuss is about.

On my way out of the market, some middle aged guy waving a broom was sprinting around making weird noises like he was trying to call a mutant cat and yelling about a 耗子- a mouse or rat, that he insisted was huge. It apparently ran under the pot plants in the pot plant/goldfish store, and a couple of kids and one or two of the neighbouring shopkeepers gathered around, one getting another broom to help the first guy flush the giant rat out. I decided to hang around to see just how big this rat was- and in the process, heard a woman at a stall behind me point out to her neighbour that I’m from New Zealand (I’m wearing my Kiwi Club t-shirt, all she needed to do to figure out my nationality was to read). No luck. The rat- which by this time others were insisting was just a little mouse- had managed to disappear in that way rodents have of disappearing into holes us big, dumb humans can’t see.

So I wandered down another lane, one that runs parallel to the one I’d come down, that pops out on the northern side of the hotel built on top of what not too many years back was a stinky canal, the sky getting heavier and seemingly more pregnant, but the wind seeming to die off a little. The lane isn’t much, just a stretch of hastily laid concrete lined with apartment blocks varying from that ’50s or ’60s, brick, 5 to 7 storey barracks style up to medium high rises built probably in the 90s, but very few buildings younger than 10 years old, bisected by a high-tension power line that puts a convenient break in the apartment blocks allowing for a small, make-shift park with a few trees and some sparsely-grassed dirt.

Popping out on Xidawang Lu, I stopped in Dia for a few supplies, then came home.

The breeze isn’t as strong as it was this morning, but even so the sky seems darker. Feels unsettled in that late-spring, early summer way. Weather-wise, it’s a very comfortable day for a Wellington lad.

Yeah, I s’pose I should be busy googling around for evidence to convict certain of my students of plagiarism, but it’s the kind of day that requires laziness, the kind of day that demands to be wasted.