Unicycle Head Noodles in Taiyuan

Does cutting Shanxi-style noodles off of dough on top your head sound impressive? How about cutting noodles while on a unicycle?

Cutting noodles off of dough on top your head while on a unicycle? Now that's really something.

The noodles I had just finished before watching this performance last night at a well-known restaurant in Taiyuan were another type. On one hand, I doubt they were cut by somebody on a unicycle. On the other hand, I can't completely rule out they were cut by somebody on a tricycle.

Under the Ding in Taiyuan

The Spring and Autumn Large Ding at Longtan Park in Taiyuan

Barbecue and Baijiu in Taiyuan

It was late, and I hadn't yet had dinner. So I went out and headed to a late-night barbecue place in Taiyuan. Due to the recent rains they didn't have any vegetable options. I am unclear about the connection, but "tomorrow" they said.

As I waited for my meat kebabs, the cook took a drink of a clear liquid from a thin plastic cup. When I see people drinking water I sometimes joke that I think they are drinking baijiu, a rather strong Chinese alcohol. But as I made the usual joke, I realized that the cook was probably really drinking baijiu.

He smiled and spoke to his assistant. A jug of baijiu appeared, and soon I held a plastic cup with a healthy amount of baijiu.

And so, we drank.

Trump in Taiyuan, Trump on Tiananmen

This afternoon in Taiyuan I came across a newsstand.

One of the featured magazine covers included a mockup of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton having what appears to be a vociferous discussion. So I wondered if when I returned to my laptop I would be able to find a new quote regarding China from either of them to accompany the photo I took.

As it turns out, today The New York Times published the transcript of its recent interview with Donald Trump. In reference to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the President of Turkey, surviving a recent coup attempt, Trump had this to say:

I do give great credit to him for turning it around. You know, the first hour, it seemed like it was over. Then all of a sudden, and the amazing thing is the one that won that was the people. They came out on the streets, and the army types didn’t want to drive over them like they did in Tiananmen Square when they sort of drived them over, and that was the end of that. Right?

I will refrain from commenting on Trump's perspective. I will just say that it should be interesting when he and Clinton face off for real in a debate.

A Few Modern Tweets and an Old Newsreel on Flooding in Beijing and Tianjin

Today flooding is affecting Chinese cities such as Beijing and neighboring Tianjin. A tweet by Bill Bishop reminded me of some points raised in yesterday's post about flooding in Taiyuan.

Guess beijing didn't upgrade its sewer system after the 2012 floods. https://t.co/9l5yQK2MKc

— Bill Bishop (@niubi) July 20, 2016

Sam Crane remarked on a sliver of positive news:

Crazy rainy here but it's a good air day. #TakeWhatYouGet https://t.co/Tuk049G0g2

— Sam Crane (@UselessTree) July 20, 2016

Rain doesn't always mean much better air, but I similarly noticed the air during yesterday's flooding in Taiyuan was unusually good. That didn't last very long though.

Matthew Stinson remarked on some misleading posts regarding the flooding in Tianjin.

As so often happens many people recycling old WeChat videos and pics to make the flooding seem worse than it is. It IS bad, though.

— Matthew Stinson (@stinson) July 20, 2016

I doubt Stinson was referring to 77-year-old newsreels. But I will share below a brief account of the 1939 Tianjin flood which left thousands dead. The video includes some striking scenes from another time. It also includes a striking concluding statement: "So once more the swelling flood adds another burden to the tragedy of modern China".

More Flooding in China: Twenty Scenes from Taiyuan, Shanxi

In a piece about widespread flooding in China this year, Te-Ping Chen explored the possible causes, such as:

“China’s urban construction was carried out at too fast a pace,” says Jia Haifeng, associate professor with Tsinghua University’s environmental science and engineering department. Officials have tended to focus on visible projects such as roads, bridges and housing, he said. “They emphasized infrastructure above ground, but not so much infrastructure below ground.”

Many roads are built without being properly leveled, said Andrew Buck, an urban planner at Beijing landscape-architecture firm Turenscape, meaning that water easily accumulates. Older drainage systems often can’t accommodate current demands.

During my recent time in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi in northern China, I noticed it too apparently lacked appropriate infrastructure to deal with wet weather. Almost any time it rained, some streets became challenging to cross by foot or walk on (sometimes there isn't a useable sidewalk) due to water quickly accumulating in places.

Today the rain was especially heavy. When I went out for lunch I was soon faced with an unusual decision: try looking for food in another direction or step into water nearly knee-deep with a slight smell of sewage. I had deliberately put on sandals, was wearing shorts, and didn't have any open sores, so I figured I would take the submerged route to get a better sense of the extent of the flooding.

Below is a series of photos presented in the order they were taken during a brief outing this afternoon in a popular central shopping district. They include scenes of people crossing roads, vehicles trying to make it through high water, not-so-lucky vehicles, people dumping out water from an underground garage, a person clearing debris from a grating where water drained, and water flowing out of a sewer hole. Based on the pattern of garbage on the sidewalks, the flooding had already subsided from its high point by the time I made it outside. None of what I saw was as dramatic as what I experienced in Hengyang, Hunan, two years ago — in other words, no chengguan offered me a ride on a raft. It also wasn't as dramatic as many other recent examples of flooding in China. But the photos capture a side of life in a city, and in a country, in need of a water drainage infrastructure upgrade.

A Monday "Hello" in Taiyuan

While I waited for a crossing signal to change at a street intersection in Taiyuan, Shanxi, today, a little girl noticed my presence and immediately shouted, "Hello!"

Her adult appeared surprised by the excited outburst. I have had many similar experiences in the past, though this girl was especially enthusiastic. I replied with an upbeat "hello", admittedly toned down compared to the girl's. The girl then had a suggestion: I should take of photo of her and her friend. After I expressed willingness, the two adults with them, who still appeared a bit surprised by everything, helped position the girls while making sure they weren't in the photo themselves.

Then this happened:

"Hello" from Taiyuan

Once the photoshoot was complete, in Chinese I asked the more outgoing girl (the one holding the flowers) whether she wanted to go to America. She said "yes", so I said "OK, let's go" and started walking away. Without hesitation she happily joined me. Not wanting to spark an international incident, I quickly turned toward the two adults to make it absolutely clear I was only joking.

As we parted, it was evident the interaction had launched the two girls into an extra-high level of activity. And it left me in higher spirits as well.

An Unexpected Fix for a Possessed Laptop in Shanxi

This large screen wasn't displaying anything when I recently visited a riverside park in Gujiao, Shanxi.

Things have been quiet on this blog the past several days. This was not intended.

The long story . . . ah, I won't bother with the long story.

The relatively short story . . . not long after the previous post, my laptop became possessed by a demon — or something like that — which wasn't so intelligent but was determined to cause chaos and heartburn. Sometimes all I could do was watch as my screen flipped through multiple modes as I was unable to stop it. One especially worrisome moment was when the cursor moved to a a file and then deleted it. Strange stuff.

The troubleshooting was a slow, frustrating process. At one point, I assumed I would need to make a long journey with significant expenses at the end to address the problem. Yesterday, the problematic symptom subsided enough for a period of time that I could try some other fixes. One involved changing a setting. So I did that, although it only required reverting something I had changed since I had initially discovered the problem. And then I considered another piece of advice I had just discovered which seemed potentially relevant.

But slapping the trackpad hard with the palm of your hand? It didn't seem entirely wise.

Of course, I did it.

I'm not 100% sure what did the trick, but my computer is no longer possessed. Since achieving that state, I have taken the time to address other potential issues just to be safe. Fortunately, I didn't blow things up in the process. In fact, I might have fixed an unrelated nagging issue. The verdict is still out on that though.

So, hopefully things are back on.

Cleaning Crayfish in Taiyuan

Tonight at a famous food street in Taiyuan, Shanxi, I saw a man cleaning live crayfish one at a time with soap, water, and a toothbrush.

Because who wants to eat a dirty barbecued crayfish?

I share this because there are so many perspectives from which to view it. Choose one. Choose them all. I lean towards the latter.

Mickey Mouse Spirit at a Wholesale Clothing Market in Beijing

Over half a year ago "a Chinese government agency singled out the Walt Disney Company as the focus of a new nationwide 'special action' aimed at stamping out imitation goods that infringe on Disney’s trademarks."

About a month ago at the large Shiji Tianle wholesale clothing market in Beijing, I noticed a lot of clothing with Western brands, including Disney. I don't know the story for all of the clothing sold at Tianle. But there were plenty of examples which made it easy to question how much of it was genuine, including a Donald Duck shirt with a creative spelling.

Does "LOVE DONPLD!" have Disney's approval?

Below are some examples of Mickey Mouse shirts I saw for sale at the market. The last photo includes a shirt that would have been a more clearcut example to use in an earlier post about Disney and American influence. Based on what I have seen elsewhere, they are representative of the popularity of Disney-themed clothing in China. And like a "Mockey" mouse shirt I saw in Xiamen, they may represent the challenges Disney still faces with regard to imitation products in China.

A Dash of News for Today

I am not an expert on the South China Sea territorial disputes, but I feel safe saying this is big:

An international tribunal in The Hague delivered a sweeping rebuke on Tuesday of China’s behavior in the South China Sea, from the construction of artificial islands to interference with fishing, and ruled that its expansive claim to sovereignty over the waters had no legal basis.

The tribunal also said that Beijing had violated international law by “causing severe harm to the coral reef environment” and by failing to prevent Chinese fishermen from harvesting endangered sea turtles and other species “on a substantial scale.”

The website for the Permanent Court of Arbitration is down at the moment. Andrew S. Erikson has helpfully posted links to download the full award and the more compact 11-page press release.

There are now many questions about what happens next. Given some of the rhetoric currently coming out of China, I wonder if I will soon be sharing more experiences like the one four years ago of a Japanese mother living in Shanghai during a time when another territorial dispute stirred up China.

I am going to digest this all more before possibly saying anything further. For now, here are some relevant tweets (possibly not fully viewable in an RSS reader and better to view on the blog) made after the announcement:

A breakdown of how the #SouthChinaSea arbitral Tribunal has ruled. pic.twitter.com/mnZrMG4l7G

— Yanmei Xie (@YanmeiXie) July 12, 2016

Xinhua, tweeting South China Sea News from...Dublin?
Or...the magic of VPNs. pic.twitter.com/XTOLKY9GwQ

— Mike Forsythe 傅才德 (@PekingMike) July 12, 2016

The Chinese are censoring the BBC's coverage on the South China Sea ruling. @BBCWorld just gone to black as we crossed to the Hague.

— Maria Byrne (@byrnebbc) July 12, 2016

#SouthChinaSea arbitration: A #US-led conspiracy behind the farce https://t.co/izjemh5M5t pic.twitter.com/L9MVQQB32r

— People's Daily,China (@PDChina) July 12, 2016

Stung by a ruling against its maritime claims, China's Xinhua blames, who else, Japan, of course. https://t.co/m9oMrdgIwl

— Chuin-Wei Yap (@YapCW) July 12, 2016

Pic online: Hague ruling is "anti-China farce..starring the Philippines..maneuvered by the US and its shill Japan." pic.twitter.com/z5sERrlTvz

— Eunice Yoon (@eyoonCNBC) July 12, 2016

Many videos of military nature just appeared on popular PRC social media portals. Nationalistic comments uncensored. https://t.co/IkMkySgIZt

— C.A. Yeung (@WLYeung) July 12, 2016

The smog in #Beijing lifted completely as #PCA #SouthChinaSea ruling came out. Tempting to run out of the office! pic.twitter.com/hzuwYYnzG0

— Joanna Chiu 趙淇欣 (@joannachiu) July 12, 2016

Note we have turned off pollution so foreign friends in Beijing can run home before “spontaneous protests” begin. Seriously. Start running.

— The Relevant Organs (@relevantorgans) July 12, 2016

China says it won't even read Hague ruling on South China Sea. "We won't accept any of their so-called materials." https://t.co/NNN6xMtmiy

— Mark MacKinnon (@markmackinnon) July 12, 2016

People's Daily weibo weighs in: "Don't accept, don't participate, don't recognize, don't carry out" #SouthChinaSea pic.twitter.com/BjbGUAGlac

— Austin Ramzy (@austinramzy) July 12, 2016

NULL, VOID, NO BINDING FORCE. China neither accepts nor recognizes award of #SouthChinaSea arbitration pic.twitter.com/TF0g4BUHQD

— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) July 12, 2016

Chinese government mood now #CHexit pic.twitter.com/TpLRCKbvvc

— JPE Borja 務實 (@jpeb) July 12, 2016

Just for sh-ts and grins, Nintendo should put a bunch of rare Pokemon on the Diayu/Senkaku Islands & Scarborough Shoal.

— Mike Forsythe 傅才德 (@PekingMike) July 12, 2016

From Beijing to Taiyuan

One early and dreary morning not long ago in Beijing I raced out of my hotel, in part due to an unexpected delay. I considered taking a taxi but given rush hour traffic I suspected the subway was a better option. So I headed to the nearest station.

After my bags went through a X-ray machine at the subway station, I heard security request a check. The security worker near me said there was no need since I was a foreigner. This was met with a less-than-approving expression. I figured the issue would be best discussed without me, so I gathered my belongings and headed off while recalling a similar experience I had four years ago in Shenzhen.

I raced down to the platform level where a packed metro train waited, though not for long. I headed toward a semi-random door and fortunately there was enough space to barely squeeze in. A number of stops later, I changed lines and caught another train just as it arrived. A number of more stops later, I was at the Beijing West Railway Station. I boarded my train minutes before departure sweaty but successful.

Hours later the train slowly passed through Taiyuan Railway Station without stopping. It would have been a far more convenient place for me to disembark, but high-speed trains from Beijing don't stop there. Instead, I disembarked at the less-conveniently located Taiyuan South Railway Station. None of the lines for Taiyuan's under-construction metro system are finished. And a bus adventure would include multiple buses and a lot of walking. So I headed to the taxi pickup area where there were two different lines which functioned almost completely like lines.

When I opened the door to my taxi, the driver shouted to a man assisting people boarding the taxis. The assistant asked me in English where I was going. I told him the address in Chinese. He shouted back to the taxi driver "He speaks Chinese!". This brought amusement to many people still waiting in line.

As we left the station the driver used his mobile phone to send a voice message in Chinese — "I have a foreigner with me!" Soon there was as apparent reply. After I heard "Foreigners have a lot of money!" I made a sound somewhat between a sigh and grunt.

The taxi driver soon sent another message, this one rather brief — "He's speaks Chinese." He didn't listen to later voice messages.

After passing the main railway station, it wasn't long before the quiet ride was over. The route and price were all within expectations, so all was good.

As the photo in the previous post hinted, I am now in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province. More from Beijing is still on the way though. And of course Taiyuan . . .