Here in my neck of Tianjin, along with the historic blockages, we are living through a week of audio overload coming from the square in front of the Olympic-built stadium. Late yesterday afternoon it was banjo music, which I can handle, though five minutes before that it was Chinese female faux operatics. And for four hours prior to that it was all over the place even more, matching the last three days and two nights (I fear we are in-prep for a zhongqiu-ed Night Three) of bits of Nirvana, Paul Simon, random rap and reggae interspersed with odd sound effects and periodic female militarized nationalistic screamers, all in one minute (or less) snippets. It’s like a kid with serious ADHD and a thing for not swallowing his meds has been given access to someone else’s iPod along with a large set of industrial speakers. I have no idea what is going on, though I do know how unpleasant it is living within the fallout zone. I have given up trying to  fathom what Mao, the Great Leap Forward (you know, when everyone became steelworkers) and “serving the people” has to do with amped-up and mostly western music. We tried to watch the Tian’anmen show on Thursday, but when we turned on our television – one that comes with the flat – it didn’t work. The last time I’d turned it on was back in June to watch the NBA final game. Sometime between then and now it went “bad.” Oh well. So, we couldn’t watch the Flamingos (women in pink with Uzis) and Chairman Hu, the architect of the last two decades of the pre-Confucian minority policy, in a Mao suit.

But on a more serious note, all you folks who said something to the effect of, “Ahh, ain’t those colorful dancers just so dawgone cute, Andy?” you need to know that many, if not all of them, were forced into being there. (I’m pretty sure that one of the primary missions of  Zhongyang Minda is to provide extras for official extravaganzas: “Listen kid, you get to go to school for a reduced fee, but when we say dance, you gotta dance. Capiche?”) That would be the only way you’d get Tibetans to dance down Chang’An Jie. Chang’an, Tibetans and the Chinese have a contentious history that goes back to the Tang. And let me tell you, nobody’s forgetting that. It’s like a chapter from deepest Deuteronomy. The symbolic value of “peripherals” dancing like chained bears at the navel of the CCP is akin to making the big guy dance by shooting at his feet. Students who were on the Chang’an dance floor had dramatically foreshortened (or cancelled) summer breaks. Many of the Tibetans dancers barely got home when it was time to turn around again and head back to practice, thereby denying their families their much needed help at harvest. These were not volunteers.

So, we continue to endure the holiday in the blast zone of one of the largest officially restricted “public” spaces in the city, making it difficult for everyone who lives within a one-click radius to have anything that could possibly be misconstrued as a restful holiday. (I know, it’s China and holidays are times for highly magnetized nationwide “attractions,” where great numbers of people hive and are happy to do so. But not everyone. Last night they gave us back our ability to be able to speak in our own home to each other at 9:47 PM. And this morning they tore into it again at 6:42. Or more accurately, Day Three-And-A-Half of idiots with microphones, going for the Guinness record for running sound checks nearly continuously since early Wednesday evening (it is Saturday morning here) and for the last two weeks, off and on. This morning the man at 6:42 AM read from his script: “Wei… Wei…. WEI! YI-ER-SAN-SI. WEI! WEI! WEI! XIEXIE! XIEXIE. SEN CUE! SEN CUE! I don’t think he’s thanking me for waving my finger out the window every hour or so for the last trio of days.

So, am I happy for China and their celebration? Well, if the people are happy then I am happy, but how are we to really know how happy (or unhappy) the people really are as long as there is nothing but the one and only official story. I think everybody’s happy to have a few days off, though the migrant workers one floor below us who fired up their hammer drill and sledges at 8:08 this morning are working like it’s any other day, despite all the official puff-up across the street. Though noise is noise and it all keeps you awake, there is clearly a different intent informing what’s coming at as from below and what’s shoving it’s way officially in through our windows. It’s hard to judge which one is more desperate.
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Eat a moon cake!
Red bean paste.
Mmmmm….

Reporters noticed that many people in Tianjin had developed this conditioned response. Everyone consciously maintained a distance from other people on the street. Violating this distance would often be met with heightened vigilance or even an antagonistic expression. A Ph.D. graduate at Nankai University says, “This is because the rumors have formed a response of tension and anxiety in people’s minds. It has made them feel as if they are surrounded by chaos and danger.”

In fact, none of these people have personally seen these incidents take place. What they imagine and understand about the incidents is based entirely on the rumors. In other words, it is the rumors and not the facts themselves that have created this social anxiety.

A Nankai University Ph.D. graduate who has an interest in rumors says, “The uncertain and random nature of rumors often produces exaggeration, distortion and fabrication.”

Well, it sure produced a lot of that here in Tianjin. The worry was that it began at the end of December and threatened the seasonal economy leading up to Spring Festival. The streets in the main Binjiang Dao/Heping Lu shopping areas were, in fact, deserted. That was one of the truths of the rumors.

Have a look at Black and White Cat’s work on this. Worth the read.

One of the summer highlights (h/t to Moira) has been the discovery of Google Music China, a legal music download site available to anyone visiting the site from a China-based ISP. There is a lot of music here for free, and much of it is at a near CD quality 192 kbps bit rate. Warning: you can get lost here for great chunks of time, and it might cost you the price of a new external drive. For those reading this outside of China, you can still go and see what’s available to us here for free, but you’ll get the message “Music streaming/download services are not available in your region.” For those in China using VPNs, you’ll need to turn them off to tap into the goods.

I’ve also been poking around the Tianjin rivers, though the clammy haze has dramatically cut down on visibility. Below are a few of the photos taken over the last couple of months.

Neighborhood charcoal 'factory' in Liuxia Dongli (Hongqiao). This is where loose coal is pressed into charcoal briquets (mutan): perforated cylinders of granular coal, approximately 6 inches in diameter and 4 inches high, used for cooking and heating throughout the ping fang areas, the one-story brick homes that are still found in some parts of the city, especially in Hebie and Hongqiao districts. The delivery men with flatbed trikes and small motorized carts are waiting for the next batch to finish.

Lock at Erzha, at the conflunece of the Xinkai and Ziya rivers.

Fisherman on the Ziya River north of Yongle Bridge, home of the Tianjin Eye Ferris wheel which spins through its cycle between the bridge's east-west traffic lanes. A first in the world: a Ferris wheel in the middle of a traffic bridge! This is another one for the "Why didn't I think of that?" list. I blame it on having slept through "The Geometry of Visual Sloganeering: Soaring with the Pigeons" classes.

Tianjin's stone boat along the Ziya River, at sunrise. The stone boat, a soon-to-open monument to the final victory of tourism and entrepreneurial excesses over official history and deep-rooted hatred of the foreign Qing, is a stellar example of the decadence that runs much deeper than the ideals and lessons of any party principles.

A recent samplings of tweets include ass kicking, very cool and amazing. And it is all of the above, especially considering what it was before. A decade ago it took close to two hours, sometimes longer, and the exit scrums at both ends and the attempts to get taxis (or a subway tickets at the Beijing terminus) were battles that could go either way. For more than a year leading up to the Olympics the Tianjin end of the line got even worse, since the main train station, closed for renovation, meant that all trains were routed into a warehouse district in the eastern part of the city, a temporary situation that added several degrees of pain and inconvenience to the journey.

Though ingress and egress has been vastly improved at both ends, there are still no subway connections at either terminals and unless you want to deal with very crowded buses, a cab is still a must if you need to get away from the stations. At the Tianjin end of the line there is more to see with easier access if a leisurely stroll through the center of the hometown of mahua, goubuli baozi and Wen Jiabao is the point of your visit. Beijing South is quite a different deal, since it really is in the middle of nowhere. A subway line is coming, but I am not sure when. At one time Septembers 2009 was the target date, though a cab is still the only way I get away. I am sure there are buses, though I’m holding out for the subway.

The always informative and ever-exuberant David Feng (TechBlog 86) provided the following info for purchasing an express rail card for those who travel back and forth on a regular basis.

Head straight for the Tianjin Railway Station and ask station staff where to get the “kuai tong ka” (express rail card). Initial load is at CNY 1,000 for standard class (standard card; about 17 rides) and CNY 3,000 for first class (gold card), and the card’s good for two years. Be prepared to pay cash only in one lump sum.

Look for a blue/yellow arrow beneath a fare gate (often to the right in Tianjin, but at times left at Beijing South). Don’t insert your card on the fare gate, but instead, dip it over the bulls-eye icon. Your credit will be shown and doors will open.

Standard class gets car 6, seats 1-80 reserved; first class gets seats 1-10 reserved in the sole first class car. Within those seats you’re free to pick window or aisle. Show staff the express card when requested.

If upgrading from standard to first, be sure to pay the extra fare difference. Gold cardholders travelling standard do not get the fare difference credited. Cardholders do not have access to Deluxe Class, which are limited to eight per train and can only be bought at ticket counters and are only available for series CRH III trains.

So what does a trip between two sprawling east coast Chinese cities have to do with Tibet? It’s all about the ‘free’ water available to riders.

Tibet Spring water, part of the price of the Beijing-Tianjin bullet train ticket.

(To be continued)

There were great superstitions that ran through the Tianjin streets during the time of SARS, all set in motion by the supposed discovery at a construction site of the remains of a very large and very dead snake that was declared to be shewang, the snake king. Then things got really fun as remedies for the disaster, portended by the discovery of mighty legless lizard, took off. There were two folk remedies that readily come to mind, though I am sure that there were more that I am forgetting. The first had to do with buying 6 eggs , though you could only buy one egg per vendor, and the sixth egg had to be from a seller named Liu. If you really wanted to gather creds you could go for eight, the eighth egg, as you might expect, having to be purchased from Eggman Ba.

The other magic bullet was in the form of canned peaches, to protect small children from the disease. Jeremiah at the Granite Studio has the explanation here, a remedy he discovered from his mother-in-law who lives in Tianjin, and which he wrote about last year after the Sichuan earthquake and the Olympic Torch debacle had everyone on edge. In the spring of 2003 there was not a can of peaches to be found in Tianjin after shewang showed up.

So, when I heard the fireworks a few minutes ago I flashed on the latest disaster that China is fending off: the swine flu – and I wondered if this was a dispersal of the memo. Once canned peaches start to disappear I’ll know that the cloud has settled in. I guess I could go check the local shops to see how their stock is holding up – which may be a better indicator of the buzz on the street than I could get by watching CCTV or reading the People’s Daily – but it looks like rain, and I think I’ll wait until tomorrow.

Early morning Tianjin, May 5, 2009. Fisherman and the curious, watching. This is one of my favorite photos. So many hands behind so many backs, watching guys gut fish. This is Tianjin: men with fish and others watching beside the river. There is a story here in the shadows of the Jingang Bridge, though it is one I’m not kitted out to tell. But it’s always worth a closer look, a flip through the pages. Jewels like these always fall out.

Here are a few more from the same morning, same area, the Jingang Bridge.

click for larger photo

And here’s one more from the Harry Lime Tribute file. Harry could have done well, at least for awhile, in this brave, new China. I could imagine him as a silent Sanlu partner.

For more photos along the Haihe go here.

I’ll be turning my cameras on the Haihe over the next few weeks and uploading them here. Below are a few samples. Click on the photos for a much larger version.