China Diary                       

Summer 2007                           
Andrew Lovett

My partner, Melissa, and I are in China for five weeks. For the first three we will be in Jinan at the Shandong University, where Melissa is co-teaching with four other people, a summer-course for Chinese graduate students of Western ancient philosophy. After that we will travel for about ten days. We arrived in Beijing six days ago, tired and jet-lagged, so very grateful to be met at the airport by a young student called Jinfeng. From the start he seemed warm and friendly, smiling constantly and always speaking with a very gentle manner. It took a least an hour to get to our hotel, in the northeast of the city, close to one of the universities. So we saw the brutal traffic and the extraordinary amount of re-development. We passed what we guessed must be a stadium for 2008 - nearly complete - a very modern high-tech building.

My impressions of Beijing - and the little of China I’ve seen so far - chime very much with what I’ve read. I’m overwhelmed by the density of people in the city. It seems like a permanent rush-hour. When we went to the railway station to travel to Jinan, we had to join  a queue to get into the station. It didn’t take long and we discovered that part of the reason was that there was a security check. But when you got to the front, it felt like you had to run through just to keep up with the hectic pace. The crowd was enormous and extremely dense, Somehow we managed to stay together and get to the train. It took three hours to to Jinan - which is roughly halfway between Beijing and Shangai. The train was fast and comfortable and we got to compare the countryside to what - briefly we’d seen of the city. We passed many villages - not picturesque - with signs of agriculture still organised communally. Jinfeng was quite talkative and asked us how it compared to England. We struggled to explain that there aren’t many peasants in England - and no collective farms - but we do still have villages. The concept is clearly quite different, and I think Jinfeng was left very puzzled. He kept asking what the peasants do, if they’re not farming.

Even here, though signs of rampant development are clear. Concrete pillars - like enormous dinosaur’s teeth - sprout from the earth in long lines - for future motorways. It seems ruthless and unremitting.

When we got to Jinan, Melissa told me that someone had remarked to her that it was a city that looked much as Beijing had five years ago. Again, we were awe-struck at the amount of construction and building going on at a hectic pace. There are fewer western (english) signs, so it’s a little harder to understand what everything is and - if anything - it seemed even more frenetically crowded than Beijing. My first impression is that it is hot and humid; not a beautiful city, nor particularly easy to get around. We had a crazy taxi-driver to the university, one hand on the horn, the other flicking his headlights, as he drove at insane speed, weaving through traffic, avoiding collisions with other road-users by the smallest margins. He looked like a cool dude, but the effect was undercut by the music that blared from his radio: sickly-sweet Chinese pop music. His favourite track seemed to be played on - what sounded like -  bamboo flute with an incredibly hackneyed piano backing. Imagine Richard Clayderman without any of the musical sophistication.

We’d arrived in Jinan in time for dinner with the other visiting scholars. They’re a small friendly group: besides Melissa, there is a Chinese professor called Jiyuan, very warm and jovial, an Italian couple called Carlo and Cristina, and a young French guy who is partly here to help translate for Cristina (the course is in English, but she teaches in French, so - though to me her English seems extremely good - she felt the need for assistance).

The next day - Monday - the classes began. We were still getting adjusted, then, in the evening, we were invited to a formal  banquet to welcome us. It was a sumptuous meal, with copious amounts of Chinese wine (a kind of grain spirit, made from sorghum, we think). The tradition seems to be that you drink when - and only when - invited to do so in a toast. But the toasts are frequent, sometimes involving the whole table, sometimes just two people. The single toasts are the most challenging as - each time - we were told that you have to drink to the bottom of your glass.

Somehow, the next morning, Melissa was on time to begin a class at 8am. Since then - I’m writing this on Wednesday evening - we’ve gradually established a routine.  We live in a small, quite spartan - but perfectly nice - flat in the campus, close to where the teaching happens. Classes are almost all day-long - with just enough time between sessions for Melissa and her colleagues to prepare for the next one. We meet - the six of us - at lunchtime and at dinner time when we are fed wonderful Chinese food in a private dining room. The university grounds are very pleasant and used, it seems, by many citizens - old and young - for exercise, to stroll around, or just to hang out. It seems very relaxed and calm - especially compared to the frenetic energy beyond its walls.

I’ve been given the use of a piano at another campus, about 30 minutes walk away, so I go there in the mornings, play piano and compose, then return at lunchtime. It’s interesting to walk through the streets. Although, people must be used to seeing increasing numbers of visitors from outside China, there’s no doubt that we arouse curiosity. People call out “hello”, sometimes giggling, and suddenly will come over and start a conversation. One woman came up to me abruptly and asked if I could help with advice about her pet dog. A young man came to tell me that english is an especially difficult language. Carlo tells a funny story, too, about how in reaction to this attention, he waves to the crowd - “like the pope”. His beautiful Italian accent makes this all the richer.