Heading out to do some shopping I find I have to pick my way down the pavement and across the street even more carefully than usual. The main north-south road, linking the two centres of town, is currently a major construction zone; large slabs of concrete are being broken up and bulldozed out, roundabouts are transforming into intersections, bus stops and palm trees are being relocated, and the entire 9 kilometre length is being surfaced in bitumen. A team of women are scrubbing pavers while other labourers are carefully scavenging recyclable material, usually reinforcing bars but I have seen a neatly loaded handcart of very dirty PVC pipes. However traffic management doesn’t seem to be an integral part of the process; coming back into town one weekend we discovered the bitumen-laying machines on one side of the road had caught up with the concrete foundation preparation team on the other side, resulting in a section of the road being completely impassable. Consequently we spent an hour and a half, mostly stationary in a side street diversion, travelling a distance that usually takes 15 minutes. And, of course, this is a good time to upgrade services so the traffic lights are out too, and the water pipes are being replaced with unannounced shutdowns of supply. On 3 days we have found ourselves without water, not that pleasant in this hot climate, but, fortunately, the supply has returned each evening.
I make it safely to the nearest intersection passing groups of men waiting for casual work and a woman pushing a garbage tricycle. Hovering over the crossroad is a huge billboard poster of China’s great American based, square-jawed, sporting hero, Yáo Míng. I love the floating basketball and the curious sea and cityscape and speculate on the insurance company’s message. Beneath the billboard is a man, with a sound system on a small luggage trolley, selling music CDs and barrows selling fruit, though we usually use the fruit stall tacked outside a small supermarket, one of three within about 200 meters. Further on is a little vegetable and meat market with produce, living, dead and reasonably freshly picked, displayed on concrete slab tables. I’ve given up bargaining for fruit and vegetables, as my efforts result in next to no discount. I know I am paying too much because the stall holders keep giving me extra produce! I wave to the woman with a mobile glass cupboard selling roti-style flat bread, and move on past the poultry cart, and, horrifyingly, the dog cart. Both will sell you roast meat to take home or to eat ‘in’ at little pavement-side tables with tiny stools.
Other services cluster round the market. A hairdresser sets up on the concrete forecourt with battery-powered clippers, chair, booster seat for kids (a smaller chair placed on the adults’ chair), a mirror and an umbrella for sun and rain. When finished for the day it is all loaded on to the ubiquitous blue flatbed tricycle. Lined up beside him are three cobblers, each with a free-standing hand-operated sewing machine that looks like it came out of the industrial revolution. These three women, surrounded by leather scraps and half repaired shoes, chat as they wait for work. Back in Zhāngzhōu a similar setup re-heeled a worn pair of shoes for me. I was horrified when I was charged 5 yuán (about $1), which, at the price of a simple lunch, seemed a lot, until I realised I was actually being asked for 5 jiǎo (half a yuán)! Out by the side of the road is a bicycle repair man with a number of spare inner tubes slung on the handle bar of his bike. He is often crouched over a bowl of water testing a tube, and I have seen him with a completely disassembled bike scatted across the pavement. Should you need a new watch battery look out for a little booth, almost a sentry-box, perched at the front of a shop. For ¥10 the elderly man, as they always seem to be, will deftly open up the back, replace the battery and hand it back to you before you can negotiate a price.
I catch the bus to one of the two main shopping centres and, paying 2 yuán for any length trip, I recover in its beautiful air-conditioned. Leaping off the bus, before it speeds away, I wander past elderly women crouching by black plastic bags of Chinese medicine; woody fungus and dried lizards and seahorses.
Other kerb-side vendors sell local snacks, Western soft drinks and newer services such as supplying and applying protective film to your new mobile phone or MP3 player. Motorbike and 3-wheeled scooter taxis congregate at entrances to buildings, their drivers calling out for business, and the pavements are thick with bikes overseen by vigilant parking ‘officers’ waiting to collect the 1 yuán parking fee. Finally I reach the shopping centre discovering the forecourt swamped with red tents and umbrellas, basketball hoops and inflated beer cans. The marketing team for Pearl River Beer is in town and, as sponsor for the Chinese basketball team, is encouraging product awareness though a range of basketball related and other games. Music blares out, young men enthusiastically compete for prizes and I find myself dazed by just a simple shopping trip with its heady mix of old and new China.
Taking advantage of the cooler weather, we head out to Tèchéng Island, a small and largely flat island just a 20 minute ferry ride from the centre of Zhànjiāng. We’d been there before, by accident. I thought I was buying ferry tickets to cross the estuary as we wanted to explore the other side of the river. The ferry staff obviously didn’t think that was where we really wanted to go and put us on the boat to the island; a known tourist destination. It all worked out remarkably well as we met some of Roger’s colleagues and their families on the ferry, and all ate together at a small waterside restaurant we’d have never found on our own.
This time we take our bicycles and we’re joined by a Chinese friend, Jim. After some technical difficulties; a slow puncture and the need to install extra padding on my bike seat, we arrive at the wharf to find we’ve just missed one ferry and the next is in 2 hours. But this is China – there is always an alternative! Jim tackles the negotiation with a boat man and, for what he considers an outrageous fee of 40 yuán (about $6.50), we and our bikes, are soon on an ageing but serviceable speed boat.
Arriving at the jetty at the other end we discover we have to pay a landing fee, which, oddly, is the same cost of catching the ferry! At 3 yuán each (about $0.50) it is a small cost, but somewhat perturbing. We pay our way off the dock and cycle out into the fields of Tèchéng Island. Despite it being Sunday the fields are busy with people completing the harvest. Some are burning off stubble, some are spreading out Chinese medicinal roots to dry, on the road, and some are turning the soil with buffalo-drawn ploughs. Here and there are clusters of houses forming villages, and occasionally there is a ‘mansion’ under construction. Jim tells us these are probably built by families no longer resident in their home town. He talks of his own Father’s desire to have a home in their birthplace, which, though they visited infrequently, allowed them to provide a place for his grandmother to live and, possibly more importantly, gave them good fortune. Jim talks animatedly about his parents’ horror when their home was demolished and how they linked a string of bad luck to this event.
I remember Jim’s story when we are on another trip, further a field this time. I had been eager to get to Kāipíng, about 4 hours northeast of Zhànjiāng heading to Guǎngzhōu, since we arrived in Zhànjiāng a year ago. We had seen pictures of some intriguing buildings called diāolóu, or watch tower, dating from the early 20th century. These defensive towers are a mix of Chinese and Western architectural styles and have been recently placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. After several aborted plans to visit we final find 3 free days and have identified the bus time and departure point. Waiting at the bus station, luggage, maps and phrase books in hand, we are told our bus, the one bus a day to Kāipíng, has broken down! There is a solution; take the bus to Guǎngzhōu and get dropped at the toll gate at the Kāipíng motorway exit, some 20 km from the centre of town. A trip that should have taken 4 or 5 hours takes 8! However having finally made it we have a glorious, if cool, day for our trip to the surrounding villages in our rented mini van, with a driver of course. In no time we see some towers, they are littered all around the region, some 3000 I have read, but many are decaying, ‘modernised’, or built out by other properties so are next to impossible to view. Yet a few villages have taken advantages of the heritage listing and are making tourist attractions out of their homes. While this alters the untouched charm of the towers it does provide a much needed impetus to protect and maintain them.
Walking into one tower, maintained by the Chicago branch of the family, I find the floor plan is derivative of many traditional Chinese homes; a central lobby, that originally would have been the courtyard and family altar room, which is flanked by 2 living rooms. However behind the normal position of the altar is a stair that leads up to another 4 floors. The altar has been relocated to the top floor, where there is also a lovely terrace looking over the rice fields. While the layout is Chinese, the decorations, inside and out, are heavily influenced by Western architecture. In this example, and not typical of other towers, black, classically embellished, timber panels line the walls with etched glass inserts incongruously depicting Chinese scenes. More common are floors painted to look like Victorian encaustic tiles and wall frescos that seem to have come straight from Italy. Classical columns, domes, arches and balustrades adorn the top floors and terrace. I can imagine the expatriate Chinese builder returning to his home town from America, where he struggled to make his way in the new world. The elaborate and soaring buildings of the late 19th Century American city are still vivid in his mind as he plans a tower to display and protect his wealth, and, just as Jim’s family feels, to provide him with the good fortune of a presence in his home town.
