Born in the 1970s in Hunan province, Sheng Keyi now lives in Shenyang, Guangdong province, and is usually considered one of the group of “female writers from Guangdong” that includes Wei Hui. Sheng is one of the newer generations of writers who deal primarily with modern China.

“You lay low now, I’ll deal with your sister.” The brother-in-law was attending  to the aftermath, and it sounded as if he had his wife in hand.

“What about you? You’re not laying low?” She asked sullenly.

“You haven’t found a husband yet! I’m a man, what’s a little thing like this to me?” He said loyally.

Hong pursed her lips, swallowed what she was going to say.

The next day, she left for a job in a small hotel in the county capital.

The hotel was on the edge of town. It looked a bit run-down: bare concrete walls and bare concrete floors, thirty-odd rooms spread over three floors. Hong forgot all about the ugly business in her village, telling herself that there was nothing unnatural about it if it was your brother-in-law. Plenty of fathers slept with daughters-in-law, or brothers-in-law with sisters, the whole thing was just a bout of bad luck. At first she worried he’d knocked her up, but then “Aunt Flo” showed up on time, and that meant a brand-new start.

Predictably, Hong’s bosom was most prominent among all the hotel employees. Her behind was perky, too, and it swiveled like mad when she walked, like a dog beside itself with joy. Her behind spoke as it swiveled; it invited the men who saw it to mount her. Guests called the front desk from their rooms, asking to chat with Hong, and Hong was only too happy to oblige, giggling from time to time as though someone were tickling her armpits.

Hong made a habit of chatting with one guest in particular, a northeastern man. “Come to my room, “ he told her, “I’ve got some northeastern specialties for you to try.”

She went to his room after she got off work at midnight that night. He opened the door and pinched her as she squeezed by, saying, “What a waist!” Hong twisted away, her mounds colliding with the wall; by the time they rebounded the man had closed the door. The room was cramped and smelled of mildew; the lamplight a dim yellow; the bedclothes stained; the bed narrow. In an ashtray on the wooden shelf at the head of the bed a cigarette butt smoked.

The northeasterner made some exploratory moves, to which Hong’s body tacitly acceded, and he grew bolder. He went on squeezing, now rough, now gentle, until Hong was whining like a mosquito. Suddenly she thought of something. She pushed him away, giving him a coy glance, and asked, “What about your northeastern specialties?”

He brought his face close to hers, chuckling, and said, “Right here.”

Hong giggled uncontrollably: “You’re such a joker!”

His hand ventured boldly downward, but she stopped him. “Playing chaste?” he laughed.

“I’m having my period, can’t do it!”

He didn’t believe her, said, “I’ll pay you!”

Hong said, “Look for yourself!”

She raised her skirt and dropped her underpants, showing the man a stain of blood. He said, “That’s not dirty, I don’t mind. It proves I really like you, right?” Back in the village there was a taint on this business, Hong thought, no one there would dare look, let alone touch. City people really are different. She gave the man another coquettish look, thinking again what a fine figure he cut. She said, “You look like a teacher to me.”

“Middle school teacher,” he said.

Hong bit her lip and asked, “You don’t have a wife?”

“Sure I do, that why I’m here.”

Hong didn’t see the logic.

“You only have affairs if y ou’re married; you only want other women if you have a wife. You wouldn’t understand.” That’s what the man said.

“Who needs to understand that crap? I’m going to wash.”

After Hong had finished splashing around in the bathroom she was still hesitant, but in the end she listened to her body, and went ahead. The man flipped her and flapped her like a fried salt fish, and when he was done he pulled up his pants and asked, “How much?”

Hong blinked at him. “How much what?”

He was even more nonplussed than she. ‘Haven’t you ever sold it before?”

“Sold…what?”

“Sex!”

“So what are you doing now?” Yang Chunhua asked, glancing surreptitiously at Hong’s bosom.

“Working at the county hotel.”

“How much?”

“150 yuan a month.”

“Not enough! Come work in my friend’s company.” As Chunhua nattered on she took Hong’s hand and led her away, as though she were leading away a chick.

The office was only a bus stop or so away. It was a good area of town, plenty of restaurants and bars nearby, not exactly prosperous but definitely lively. County towns were all like this: the streets narrow and uneven, the walls plastered with political slogans, tree leaves coated in dust, the ground littered with chewed-up betelnut, the marks of life strong and deep, the whole place a roiling potful of turbid water. People lived in this city the way you chewed a mouthful of betelnut – while you chewed the savor was strong, but when you spit it out it left your mouth dry and numb. Yang Chunhua’s grip was tight as though she feared Hong might fly away.

Through a wide revolving door and past a long reception desk they came to an office with black sofas and men chatting amid cigarette smoke. A girl clattered away at a desktop calculator. Yang Chunhua said, “Boss Tan, this is my old classmate! Take a gander!” Yang Chunhua was suddenly speaking in a false voice, and it gave Hong a start. The man she addressed as Boss Tan stood up; he was around 40, balding not particularly tall, running to fat. His gaze swept swiftly over Hong’s chest, then he smiled and waved a cigarette-clenched hand, saying, “So, what’s your name?”

Yang Chunhua answered first: “Qian Xiaohong! The qiang for ‘money’, the xiao for ‘small’, the hong for ‘red’!”  Then she sat down very close to a y ounger man, who wound his arm around her waist.

Qian Xiao Hong gave Boss Tan a radiant smile.

Boss Tan acceded swiftly: “Excellent! Come to work tomorrow morning.”

Boss Tan treated them to dinner that night, in a private room at the “Yingchun Pavilion”. Factory Head Liu of the Hongqi Chemical Factory, Manager Zhang of the Peach Orchard Shopping Mall, Director Li of the Import/Export Company…

One by one, Hong toasted them all on behalf of Boss Tan. Factory Head Liu, his face shining red, was fat as an aging hog; his eyes rolled across Hong’s chest in a way she didn’t like. Hong didn’t know how to decline the drink gracefully, and she finished it all obediently, not spilling a drop. She’d never really drank before, and was feeling dull and sleepy, like she used to feel in the classroom in summertime, listening to the cicada’s numb roar.

“You brought a real pro today!” the men said approvingly to Boss Tan, their eyes bloodshot. Hong knew an onerous task lay before her. She made a trip to the washroom, where she puked and crapped and felt a bit more clear-headed. Glass after glass: from wuliangye to erguotou, from erguotou to red wine, from red wine to beer. She tossed it all down, as though her gut were a latrine and she were producing compost. At the exact moment required by protocol she stood and took another round on behalf of Boss Tan; even Yang Chunhua looked stunned.

The next day the bare crest of Boss Tan’s skull was gleaming. Two diehard holdouts had finally folded, he said, and the money would soon be rolling in! Hongqi was a major factory, signing a deal with them meant a fat harvest year. “Come with me,” he said, “and I’ll get you acquainted with the goods.” Boss Tan opened his warehouse. Hong saw only heaps of trash and junk metal. Boss Tan said they were valves; these flimsy little bits of brass were worth hundreds each.

“So what are they good for?”

“They’re good for plenty!”

Boss Tan seemed to have brought her into the heart of his operation; Hong felt flattered, but also alarmed. She didn’t understand – she’d only just arrived, had hardly done anything for the company, why had the boss taken her into his confidence?

Boss Tan seemed to know what she was thinking. “You can tell someone’s character by the way they drink. You’re a straight-shooter, and trustworthy, I’m never wrong about people.” After a bit he added, “Starting tomorrow you sleep in this warehouse. There’s a room through that door, you’ve got a bed, blankets, TV, everything.”

“Whatever the boss says!”  It was the first time Hong had really kissed ass. Boss Tan just chuckled, saying, “You learn quick.”

The Richest Place in China?

-by  Ernie Diaz

A list of China’s wealthiest cities recently came out, with hardly a place recognizable to the average westerner. Many Chinese themselves were surprised to notice Beijing and Shanghai nowhere on the list, mistaking GDP, a more abstract yet more publicized form of wealth, for a more personal, tangible form – per capita income. Here are the top ten: why they’re making so much money, and why you might want to know more about them.

#10 Changzhou:

Why It’s Rich: What, you’ve never heard of the southern Chinese, and how tricky they are at business? Besides stereotypes, Changzhou, “The Dragon Town”, has levels of industrialization and infrastructure approaching Shanghai’s, without the associated costs (or associated snootiness). A well balanced portfolio of old business (agricultural processing, especially cotton) and new (engineering, hi tech) means Changzhou should keep prospering long after the last China bears have stopped growling.

"They're moving in herds. They do move in herds."

Why You Should Visit: How about twenty-five hundred years of history – no? There’s a pretty groovy dinosaur theme park.

Should You Live There? Not without getting sick of Shanghai first.

#9 Wenzhou

Why It’s Rich: Here live the southern Chinese other southern Chinese stereotype as godawful slick at business. At the dawn of the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao’s wife singled them out for punishment first, irredeemable capitalists that they were and are. Despite a good century’s brain drain, renowned for its citizens leaving town and striking it rich abroad, Wenzhou enjoys early economic reform and inexhaustible supply of entrepreneurs, who turn out all and sundry varieties of electrical, plastic, textile, and leather products. They also turn gladly to illegal loans when the banks tighten up, and tend to use the window exit when they can’t pay back.

Why You Should Visit:  Wenzhou claims fame as the Home of Swimming, City of Chess, and City of Poetry, so odds are you won’t.

Should You Live There? You think Mandarin is hard? Try the local Wu dialect. Winters are mild, though.

#8 Zhoushan

Why It’s Rich: This city built on an archipelago was for centuries a pirate haven, so that’s a start, and then an important commercial entrepot, third only to Amoy and Canton during the Qing Dynasty. Today Zhoushan relies on boring old shipping and real estate development, but that’s enough to keep the income per capita of barely a million Chinese quite high.

Why You Should Visit: Because you’re a good Buddhist, who wants to join the millions of others there three times a year, the nineteenth of February, June, and September, to celebrate the birth of the Guan Yin. She’s a Bodhisattva – she can have as many birthdays as she wants.

Should You Live There? If you’re a fan of mid-grade Chinese sand and surf, sure.

#7 Zhongshan

Why It’s Rich: We’re in the Pearl River Delta part of the list now, Guangzhou’s necklace to grace the diamond that is Hong Kong. Then too, Zhongshan is one of the Four Little Tigers, Guangdong cities famed for clawing their way to preeminence in the manufacturing jungle. Each of the many towns that comprise Zhongshan specializes in its own pillar industry, tying product to patriotism.

Why You Should Visit: Wide, leafy boulevards, hot springs, eco-parks. And don’t forget the lamp museum!

Should You Live There? If China outsourcing is your game, you may as well.

#6 Zhuhai

Why It’s Rich: Another pearl, shining brighter than Zhongshan next to it on the string. A deep port and great infrastructure have attracted more than its share of foreign investment, from Exxon to Matsushita. The government has made special plans for Zhuhai to grow into a science and education hub, which will soon make it what Venice was to renaissance Italy, minus the tights and swordplay.

Why You Should Visit: For now, though, Zhuhai is the “Chinese Riviera”: warm and breezy, palm leaves waving at the growing number of private craft gleaming in the bay.

Should You Live There? You could do far worse in China than its Riviera, plus you’re a walk away from Macau. Winner winner chicken dinner.

#5 Wuxi 

Why It’s Rich: You knew it was coming – Forbes called it the third best city for business in China back in 2008, even though many expat freebooters have never heard of it. A long time breadwinner in textiles and light industry, Wuxi is now going 21^st century in a big way, with plenty of growth in software and solar tech.

Why You Should Visit: We gave you the whole shpiel years ago. Think of it as the closest place to Shanghai to make you forget that there’s a Shanghai.

Should You Live There? Wuxi has ever been a retreat for the wealthy from the turbulence of life elsewhere in China. Definitely a place for the wise and mellowed to retire, and write their memoirs.

#4  Foshan

Why It’s Rich: And we’re back in the Delta. Food is the one business in China you’ll never go broke with, and Foshan made it early on as the largest base for agricultural processing in southern China. Of course, manufacturing gives Foshan the bulk of its fortune nowadays, which gives it right back to the many Hong Kong and Taiwanese folk who build businesses there.

 Why You Should Visit: It’s shouting distance from Guangzhou, only without quite so much shouting.

Should You Live There? Pick it over Guangzhou to preserve your sanity, and to polish your kung fu skills. Their Wing Chun style is much better than your Shao Lin, hahahaha!

#3 Suzhou

Why It’s Rich: We were kidding about Zhuhai; Suzhou is your Chinese Venice. Not just for the canals and bridges, but for its transport hub inclinations, and the uncanny ability of those who dwell there to strike it rich. Being the second biggest industrial city in China next to Shanghai helps.

Why You Should Visit: Because every China tour planner expressly bids you to. Nowhere else will you be more inclined to buy the old ‘Five thousand years of civilization’ line.

Should You Live There? This is the classic Chinese water town with sushi buffets and 3D cinemas. Nice blend.

#2 Dongguan

Why It’s Rich: The last pearl on the Ten Richest Cities list, Dongguan is behind only Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Shanghai in sheer volumes of cheap crap shipped abroad. As long as there are semi-employable Americans mumbling “Welcome to Walmart,” Dongguan will be making bank.

"ZOIKS Scoob! It's the haunted mall of Dongguan!"

Why You Should Visit: Because you spent enough dough in Hong Kong without getting fleeced on a hotel room with no windows.

Should You Live There? If you’re one of those frequent “visa run” expats, you couldn’t pick a more convenient spot.

#1 Karamay   

Why It’s Rich: With nary an old foreign port nor a sizeable sweatshop, and way out on the ass-end of the great chicken that is China, what could an obsolete Silk Road stop like Karamay offer in order to be the country’s richest city? Oil, in such abundance the cats can’t do their business without digging up a pool of black gold.

Why You Should Visit: You’re a geologist, or naïve enough to be sold on a trip to see a petrified forest.

Should You Live There? Heavens no. Not for any but noble reasons, at least.

Sa Dingding, Funky Chinese Folk Singer

-by Ernie Diaz

Anyone mind if we bash pop music in general for a bit, and Mando-pop in particular? In an age when everything is manufactured cheap, shiny and disposable, buying into the same kind of music is an act of surrender. At least your average western pop chanteuse makes an effort at sincerity. Oh, a Mando-pop singer will look genuinely pained, warbling through the interchangeable love song some anonymous schlep wrote. But the singer is drawing on the pain of not yet being a movie star, and the yearning to someday be an endorsement-star, for the trifecta. Oh, and while we’re at it – dubstep? Go get a Casio keyboard and a bottle of cheap scotch. You should be performance ready about half-a-liter in.

“So what should we listen to, for the authenticity that begets the true cool of not lying to ourselves?” you wonder. Good question. The answer is folk music. Everything old is new again, now that new iPads become artifacts before the year grows old. Best of all, no one is getting into folk music to sell you something, or to fill with your attention the ravenous void left by bad parents.  Folk musicians make their own music, as irrelevant as that may seem to the outsource-dependent. And they draw inspiration from the best of tradition, the tunes and stories that have survived by generational popularity. That it drives twenty-and-unders crazy is an added bonus.

Now, we’re not expecting that the music of the following Chinese folk singers is your thing. It’s just nice to know that, just as in the West, in the East there are still pockets of musicians doing it because they won’t do anything else, money and fame be damned. They’re rich and famous now, alright, but there are plenty more who aren’t.

Han Hong

Ain’t she something? You know Han Hong ain’t in the music game because everyone loves a pretty girl with a pretty song. That heavy duty torso houses pipes that can soar and boom like a spring rainstorm in the mountains of her hometown, Tibet’s Xigaze.

“Is she Tibetan or Chinese?” Please believe that in this case, it really doesn’t matter. Folk from China Sea to the Kunlun Pass have taken Han Hong into their hearts, where there is no patriotic strife, as there isn’t in a truly functioning brain. Her mom was a Tibetan folk singer, but this is no Iglesias-style mantle-passing. She’s been winning prizes and honing her craft hard since she was nine.

The vocal results are impressive enough, yet even better is the fact that she writes her owns songs. She penned six of the songs on her debut album, Rays Over the Snowcapped Plateau. “Hometown” went to number one three months after the album was released. Like Merle Haggard and other American originals, China’s back country singers get worked up about the place of their birth like few others.

 SONG ZUYING

Another minority-oriented folk singer, Song was born in Guzhang, a Miao autonomous prefecture in Hunan. Song and dance proficiency are(were) as instilled in Miao kids as cramming skills in Han youth, all the greater distinction that she was chosen from among her many talented peers to study singing and dancing at the Central Institute for Nationalities. If you wanted to keep up the performing arts pre-2000 in China, your best bet was in the military. Song joined the PLA Army-Navy Song and Dance troupe, and now holds the rank of Rear Admiral, so she’ll be on one of the hindmost battleships, singing a martial air, when China attacks the Philippines. We kid, we kid.

Actually, more than any other Chinese folk singer, perhaps Chinese musician of late, Song Zuying is a cultural ambassador, belting her songs from Australia to Canada, and places with culture in between, like Vienna, as both a benediction and a peace offering. Recognition comes in far more commercially favored forms than her work with the China Art Delegation, however. In 2006, her album The Diva Goes to the Movies: A Centennial Celebration of Chinese Film Song was nominated for a Grammy, for Best Classical Crossover Album. It must have been an even sweeter moment than her duet with sweaty old Placido Domingo at the 2008 Summer Olympic closing ceremony.

We’re not usually ones to dish, you know, but this is just too juicy. The rumor about Song Zuying is that she has been romantically involved with former Chinese president and Communist party chief Jiang Zemin. This is Jiang Zemin:

"It's good to be da king."

A Vice-Admiral, currently serving life for corruption, introduced the alleged paramours. Call Amnesty International if you don’t hear from us for a while, please? The last scholar to make allegations about the affair, in 2004, was arrested.

PENG LIYUAN

We were going to tell you about Sa Dingding, pictured up top, the eclectic half-Mongolian folk songstress who is China’s answer to Bjork. But then you might start thinking that success as a folk singer in China involves being at least part minority. Peng Liyuan is full Han, full-on-talented at folk music, and soon to be the most high-profile singer in China’s history.

She started out humbly enough, as an ordinary soldier in the PLA. Soon, though, her preternatural voice was on demand for boosting morale, and she was redeployed as a song and dance trooper. Years later, studying for a master’s in ethnic music, she was introduced to the son of a famous revolutionary. He went with the nerdy approach, making dates under the pretense of wanting to know more about his nation’s minority tunes.

You would have thought Peng’s parents would be ecstatic at the prospect of having a communist princeling for a son-in-law. Quite the contrary. Even in the 1980s, scions of China’s top cadres were famed for their arrogance and corruption. This one played it modest and patient, though, and after her parents finally consented, Peng married Xi Jinping in 1987.

They’ve lived happily ever after since, using the high-power couple principle of hardly ever seeing each other. He can always catch her on CCTV’s Spring Festival gala. We’ll all be seeing much more of her soon, when, barring some bureaucratic coup, Xi Jinping will be China’s next president, and Peng first lady.

-from “The Glasses”, by Lao She (b.1899-d.1966)

Although Sung Xiushen was a science student, he was not particularly scientific in his daily habits. He took no trouble, for instance, to keep away the flies from his food; he seemed to believe that they had been disinfected. He was near-sighted but never wore his glasses except when he did his studies, because he shared the traditional belief that the more you wear glasses the worse  your eyes become. If he couldn’t see what was going on around him, it was just too bad.

One morning he was walking close to the wall, as he always did to avoid bumping into people. He kept his glasses in their case, rolled up in a magazine that he was carrying. Evidently, he knew that they were not very safe, for he would stop once in a while to make sure they were still there.

As he turned the corner he ran into one of his schoolmates. The latter called to him and he had to stop and exchange greetings with him. Just then a motor car passed by. Instinctively he flattened himself against the wall. It wasn’t really necessary, but since his eyes were bad he had to take extra precautions. At the entrance of the school he stopped to make sure that his glasses were still there and to his horror found that they had gone!

None of the rickshaw men at the corner admitted having seen them. He tried the stretch between the corner and school again, but all he succeeded in doing was to get his hands muddy. He was exasperated. He fished out his roll and threw it away angrily. If he had not run into that wretched schoolmate, if he had not had to dodge that car! He was sure that one of the rickshaw men had picked up his glasses but would not admit it. What a miserable world! And of what earthly use could a pair of near-sighted glasses be to a rickshaw man?

Wang Su, one of the rickshaw men at the corner, did see Sung drop his glasses. His first impulse was to call the owner’s attention to it, but when he saw who it was – for Sung had never used a rickshaw – he suppressed the words that were at the tip of his tongue. He picked up the glasses and put them in his pocket without a word.

He felt sorry for the poor student when the latter came back looking for his glasses, evidently very much distressed, and felt like giving them back to him, but it was embarrassing to spit out something once you had put it in your mouth. Moreover, he would probably get nothing for their return, while his fellow rickshaw men were sure to chaff him for not having told them about his good luck. They were sure to say: “What’s the idea of not saying a word? Afraid that we would snatch them from  you?” It was just too bad for the student. He was better off than a rickshaw man, however poor he might be.

Wang Su found a junkman with his wares spread out on the ground.

“Hey! Sell this to you!”

“I don’t want it,” the man grunted without looking at the glasses, although he had quite a few pairs spread out, including some with old-fashioned embroidered cases. Not in a mood for a quarrel, Wang Su did not even say, “Mother’s —–, how courteous you are!” loud enough for the junkman to have heard him.

He encountered another junkman carrying a basket at the either end of a pole. “Hey, sell this to you! Frames made of tortoise shell.”

“Never saw such tortoise shell in my life,” said the man after a brief glance. “How much do you want for them?”

“How much would you give?” asked Wang Su.

“Twenty coppers.”

“What?” exclaimed Wang Su, taking back the glasses.

“That’s the best I can do. Plain and far-sighted lenses are easier to sell; these are near-sighted. The frames are made of chemical stuff and may break as I carry them about in my basket.”

Wang Su’s enthusiasm cooled off. Only twenty coppers! If he had known he would have given them back to the student. No, he wouldn’t sell them; he’d give them back to their original owner the next day. He might yet get a dime or two as a reward.

The next morning Wang Su again parked his rickshaw at the corner, but there was no sight of the student even after the bell rang. He waited until after ten; still no sight of the student. He got a fare and returned to the corner after twelve. The students all came out for lunch but the near-sighted student was not among them.

Sung Xiushen did not go to school at all the next day.

He was lost without his glasses. He had not been able to see much of what was written on the blackboard, though he had sat in the front row and strained himself as hard as he could. By the time the first class was over, he had developed a splitting headache. He had no heart even for mathematics, his favorite subject. He wished he could go some place where no once could hear him and shout.

He never had time to think about life and its implications; for to a poor man a stick of firewood was a godsend. He could not afford another pair. He had brought only seventy dollars with him at the beginning of the semester and did not know what to do about food for the next two months. The harvest had been good, but there was no market for grain. He thought of his father and his brother and how hard they had to work to reap the grain that they could not now sell.

He had not time for these thoughts ordinarily; today the mathematical formulas that his head was usually full of seemed to have decided to make room for these thoughts. He wouldn’t be able to do his assignments today and as long as he did not have his glasses, his head would ache and prevent him from his work. He did not want to withdraw from school, but he could not see how he was to go on.

The long hour came to an end. He decided that he could not bear another class. He did not ask for leave to be absent from the school the rest of the day; it did not even occur to him that it was necessary or that there were more classes to attend.

He did not stop to inquire among the rickshaw men again, though the thought came to him when he passed by the corner. He did not go to school the second day and so Wang Su waited in vain for him.

-by Ernie Diaz

Beijing and Shanghai’s rise in fortunes has been aptly mirrored in the pin-cushion’s-worth of internationally-designed buildings that have sprung up apace. Grand, these buildings, staggering even, but not beautiful, not truly beautiful. You’ll rarely see anyone outside Beijing’s CCTV building taking photographs, and then usually only for commercial purposes.

Impressive, yes. Beautiful? Not so much.

Everyone with a schoolboy’s grasp of architecture has heard it, but how many have listened? “Form follows function.” It doesn’t matter how grand, or how pretentiously cute your themes are, CCTV tower, bird’s nest. OK, the bird’s nest is safe; hard to mess up “form follows function” with a stadium. But it misses on the next principle of beauty, that beauty is pain.

That’s why now, as was and will always be, the tulou buildings of south China draw people the world over to ogle at and appreciate their true beauty. First was the pain, the pain of a people rooted to the land, having to flee that land from invaders, wave after wave, diaspora after diaspora, always south, to new lands where they were no more welcome. Such is the short story of the Hakka, the ‘guest families’ who built the tulous out of desperation, born of clans having no choice but to huddle up in one fortress, the form following the function of defense against persecution.

Built to last, and to serve, but not for beauty. Besides, if you’re trying to be beautiful, you’re better off straining to be natural. The circular,fengshui-friendly layout of the tulous was no pre-meditated attempt at glamour. The tulou formula had as its variables forced communalism within, crushing feudalism without.

But by no means think of the Hakka as a monolithic, mono-racial people. Are the Jews all one? The two groups share similar histories in terms of paradoxical clannishness/assimilation, oppression/wealth, dispossession/cultural richness, and in terms of not being a race. But the Jews have their faith to unify them. The Hakka – even their peculiar brand of Chinese, once the standard tongue, has splintered into variform dialects. Their story – no more, no less – keeps what is left of what it means to be Hakka.

Not that there aren’t folk still trying to fill out that story, and at last connect the Hakka to their various roots, and in what corresponding regions of China those roots lie, and what branches of early Chinese people they came from. Lee Lock even has an Eyebrow Theory, whereby thick and straight eyebrows denote Hakka originally from northern China, shorter and wispier from southern stock.

Much less interest, for whatever reason, is directed at the Hakka still living in the tulous. You’d think an enterprising Chinese television impresario would at least be shopping a reality show concept based on the premise of an extended community calling the same building home. Having your whole community knowing the frequency of your conjugal relations, your quarrels word-for-word, would only be the start. The tulou youngsters would provide stark contrast, with their non-stop efforts to live modern lives and escape the confines of their beautiful homes for city apartments.

Of course, those Hakka still living in tulous are a tiny fraction of the millions of Hakka who have long since left the tulous, for lives that were no less demanding abroad, but where their cohesiveness and diligence paid richly, after a few generations. More Hakka have English as their native tongue than their ancestors’, as well as Malay, Indonesian, even Hindi. Perhaps the Hakka majority themselves privately think of their still tulou-bound kin, “C’mon, what are you waiting for! The Punti no longer lie in ambush outside the walls!”

So that leaves the tulous themselves to stand the test of time, and buildings this old and over-occupied have claims to fame, even if the lives within play mum on the stories. Longyan, northwest of Xiamen, marks the watershed where the first Han bid the Jin Dynasty adieu and moved to the relative wilds of Fujian, the first Hakkas. Longyan’s Changting town is therefore their nominal capitol, the Tingjiang flowing beside their mother river.

Goatou Village’s Chengqilou is the non-sanctioned “king of tulous”, reigning since 1709. Four concentric rings graduate from four stories outside to the community hall-bungalow in the center, 144 rooms in all. These rooms housed over eighty families in its heyday, six hundred people. We can guess that those six hundred lived lives far more autonomous than their fellow Hakkas beyond, for the strict levels of seniority and generational authority as common to them as to traditional Chinese have always been much relaxed here.

Ironic that China’s most defensive architectural legacies are round, empty in the middle, symbolically female. It sounds like guff to a westernized mind, but said guff still throws weight behind many Chinese judgments. Thus is three-century-old Heguilou one of the most sought after tulou destinations. No circles here, just hard squares and edges. Ah, except for the yin yang drinking well at its soft center, whose waters are a progenitor’s best chance at having male children. Those of you needing ideal offspring for farm work best beware bottled water claiming to be Heguilou well-water, and drink from the source.

The new James Bond film Skyfall, starring Daniel Craig, is to be mainly set in Shanghai and Macau, Empire Magazine has revealed in interviews with producer Sam Mendes. Bond will mostly likely be revealed anew in a scene set in the “Golden Dragon Casino,” featuring an impressive display of pyrotechnics, red and gold chrysanthemum decor, massive Chinese dragons heads and huge stone-carved lions. Bond is set to arrive via a small boat, punted by a Chinese coolie, then step into the casino where….whatever, its apparently to be the most memorable opening Bond sequence since Pierce Brosnan jumped off the Verzasca Dam in Goldeneye (at the time the highest free-fall bungee jump ever attempted). This, the 23rd Bond film, also takes him to Istanbul and London, while the film is being largely shot on location at Pinewood Studios. What else do our dear readers demand to know? Of course, who are the co-stars and where are they likely to hang out while filming in Shanghai:

006: Ralph Fiennes

Cool quotient: 10/10

This is the man who played Voldemort, starred in Schindler’s List, and likes Guinness. No, that’s not him as a regular expat down at the Big Bamboo.

The Babe: Berenice Marlohe

Sexy Quotient: 9/10

She’s French and is currently starring in “Un bonheur n’arrive jamais seul” with Sophie Marceau (a former Bond girl herself). She’d like David Laris’ chocolates. Probably the special-order arsenic soft centers.

The Car: Aston Martin DB5

Awesomeness Quotient: Totally Awesome

Good to know that it’s back after flirts with German machines. The DB5 makes the Porsches on Shanghai’s Nanjing Xi Lu look like Toys “R” Us.

The Villain: Javier Bardem

Nasty Quotient: 11/10

An Oscar winning performance as an assassin in No Country For Old Men and rumored to have bedded Madonna. Now that’s bad. Likely to hang out at The Shed drinking Maotai out of the bottle – not that anyone would make it out alive. Except perhaps Fidel.

Skyfall is set for release on November 9, 2012.

Official site: http://skyfall-movie.com/
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K13hg5DXfdo&feature=related

-by Ernie Diaz

The Polish are to photography what the Filipinos are to music, disproportionately talented beyond all reason. And among those genetically-gifted Polish eyes, Janek Zdzarski’s see deeper than most. It’s not all talent: he is the scion of a line of Polish photographers and journalists, in times and places when it was a heroic occupation.

Today, anyone can snap pics, but with the feel of a Zdzarski, we’ll leave it for you to see otherwise below. Janek is Polsat’s man in China, producing slick news pieces that include time-lapse, collages syncopated to house music, and pro interviews, all done solo. On the clock or off, Janek’s clicking finger is seldom still, and this Saturday he’ll be showing some of his favorites at the Chaoyang Culture Center, in Beijing

-by Ernie Diaz

One of many sayings attributed to the Chinese which you never actually hear them say, is “May you live in interesting times.” It’s a curse, you see, for interesting times lack harmony, and promise suffering aplenty. However, there are always types who thrive in a given environment, whose characters match the times, interesting or otherwise.

In these times of distraction and instant communication, the tech-savvy schmoozer thrives. You may call these times interesting, what with all the digital entertainment to soak up, but from a historic, Discovery-Channel-documentary standpoint,, today will never compare to China from the fall of the Qing Dynasty to the founding of the PRC.

The Chinese can tolerate much, but chaos least of all. Easier to ask Americans to refrain from applauding themselves. And that interregnum between emperor and chairman was China at its most chaotic, the era of the Warlord. These characters thrived on chaos, life or death stakes, Russian roulette. In these prosperous Chinese times, you find erstwhile warlords running KTV parlors, or the odd rural police force. Back then, for the few, the vainglorious, the completely amoral, China was their oyster. Let us learn to recognize their type, so that we may check them in their rise to power, no matter how good their connections with the IMF or Goldman Sachs.

"The Christian General"

Which is not to say that warlords are born rather than made. However, as the son of an officer, Feng Yuxiang came mighty close. He had to earn his way in, nonetheless, starting out as a non-salaried junior soldier at fourteen, who passed muster by sixteen. A serious youth, Feng saved his meager salary, and used it to help friends who still got no pay, and needed it for their families. Warlords were complicated characters, as a rule, and it was unchecked power which turned them to the dark side, as it does to all. It does, after all, take great heart to come close to that kind of power, and Feng displayed his with all sorts of idealistic stands against non-populist military orders, losing stripes for insubordination over and over, only to gain more as times got more desperate, and higher-ups recognized his mettle.

Feng was idealistic, or let’s say crazy enough to convert to Christianity, famed for baptizing his troops with a fire hose, and forbidding prostitution, gambling, and opium in the territories he ruled after the collapse of Yuan Shikai’s government. In and out of favor with warlord-supreme Chiang Kai-shek, he later spoke out against his regime, going so far as Berkeley California to do so. No wonder the communists commemorated him as “the good warlord”.

“The basest warlord,” on the other hand, so dubbed by Time, was Zhang Zongchang, who saw little use in wielding so much absolute power if he couldn’t enjoy it. Those who knew him better that Time called him “the Dog-meat General” and “72-Cannon Zhang”, which suggests more closely his larger-than-life appetites. The ‘dog-meat’ actually refers to the card-game he loved, which also kept his international harem in constant rotation: Koreans, Russians, Americans, so long as there were new ones for his bed after a hard night’s gambling, Zhang asked little more from life, humble soul, besides the usual warlord hustle, of course.

Zhang impressed not with brains but that other biological component seen as critical to worldly success, and a super-canny feel for the workings of paranoid minds. None more paranoid than Zhang Zuolin, who raised Zhang Zongchang in the ranks after a birthday party. All the sycophant generals outdid themselves in gold and jade gifts for Zuolin, Zongchang only sent two empty coolie baskets. The message: here’s a man who can shoulder the dirty work. In truth, though, Zhang Zongchang was much more given to grand gestures than modest drudgery. He took his aged mother along with him on campaigns to reassure quailing troops; he incorporated Russian nurses into his corps. Once, after promising to come home from a battle victorious or in a coffin, and having lost, he was paraded through the streets in the promised pine-box, bemusedly puffing a stogie. To be sure, his whims were often cruel, and life was cheap to him, but for an age almost entirely ignorant of PR, Zhang was a natural.

"The Mukden Tiger"

Feng Yuxiang and Zhang Zongchang were all-star warlords notwithstanding their idiosyncratic approaches to raping and pillaging. A warlord in the purest sense of the term, the roadside brigand who takes his career to national levels, was one Zhang Zuolin. He made his bones as a teenager, murdering a local bandit for his horse and taking his gang in the bargain. He worked his long tail like a CEO, though, renting his men out as mercenaries to the Japanese against Russia, as escorts during rare spells of uneasy peace, and protection against lesser bandit gangs on the Manchurian border.

He was as coy and fickle in his relationships as a head cheerleader, one day throwing his weight behind Yuan Shi-kai for emperor, the next planning to restore the deposed child-king Puyi. All to the end of power, becoming governor of Liaoning Province in time for the zenith of the warlord era. By 1920 he was supreme ruler of Manchuria, commanding from his chateau, his night job wrangling five wives. He used his fortune of some $18 million to acquire the Fengtian army, with which he turned Manchuria into a de facto independent kingdom, part of the Chinese Republic only nominally.

It’s only fair to mention that Zhang Zuolin set about transforming his fief from one of China’s most backward provinces into its most prosperous. His main step in doing so was to banish all the worthless scrip circulating about Manchuria and put it on the silver standard. It raises interesting questions about the fine line between dictators and national saviors, if one holds up Che Guevara’s or Chairman Mao’s economic policies for comparison. May interesting times bring us warlords who at least have a practical man’s sense for business.

There are realists, and there are dreamers. When it comes to national holidays in China, such as the week-long one starting tomorrow, realists outweigh dreamers by nine to one. The vast majority will hunker down at home, or out of obligation make a claustrophobic trek to their hometowns, to hunker down with family.

That still leaves over 130 million people who have convinced themselves that national holidays are a perfect time to stroll the Bund, scale a holy mountain, or pet a panda. These hardy idealists are genetically equipped to chi koo, eat bitterness. To them, the airports and train stations resembling the fall of Saigon are a rite of passage. The six kilometer conga lines to the peak of Huang Shan, a convivial tourist atmosphere. The touts and knick-knack peddlers thick as flies in an outhouse, evidence of China’s booming economy.

The rest of us aren’t so sanguine. But the one in ten rule still applies. And it is to that tenth part we suggest that, this holiday, you go nowhere. Don’t stay home. Go. But head for nowhere, where you can see for miles, breathe volumes, and hear only the occasional grunt of a dyspeptic yak. We refer to China’s vast prairies, wide-open therapy for your cement-pounded soles. Here are our top five picks.

Hulun Buir – Inner Mongolia

A map of China doesn’t resemble a chicken, thank you very much; it’s a rooster. And in the furls of the cockscomb lies Hulun Buir, a prairie named for the two biggest lakes of the region’s six hundred. The two lakes were once star-crossed Mongolian lovers, and the waters are still as pure as their affections. Some 3000 rivers nourish lush prairies as inviting as any Ma and Pa Ingalls ever set eyes on.

But keep your eyes peeled for little yurts rather than little houses. Hulun Buir is known as the Kingdom of Pasturelands to the nomadic tribes still fattening stock there. Even so, there aren’t nearly enough nomads, horses, or sheep to prevent you from clambering over a low rise or two and finding yourself the soul aberration in a world of green grass and blue sky. Make that greenish-brown grass. Early October is a little late in the game to visit, and the nights will frost your nose, but that only means fewer people to disturb your splendid isolation.

There are daily two-hour flights from Beijing to Hailar, closest city to Hulun Buir, and train 1301 leaves Beijing at 9:52 every morning (if 30 hours on the huo che doesn’t phase you). From Hailar, it’s Lets Make a Deal time with local mini-bus drivers. Rest up at Hailar’s Friendship or Laodong Hotels [0470-8332511 / 0470-83338111], or camp under the prairie stars. You could do a lot worse than knocking on a yurt door-flap – local hospitality in Hulun Buir is as warm as the nights are cold.

Zoige Grasslands – Qinghai/Sichuan/Gansu

These are actually the Ruoergai Grasslands, but try saying that five times without needing to spit. The prairie forms a nexus at the three aforementioned provinces, yet the feel is Tibet. Unsurprisingly so, as Zoige prairie greens the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.

Gentle verdant hills and Alpine meadows will have you twirling and singing like Julie Andrews. Just don’t get dizzy and stumble into a low-land bog. The prairie is bordered by wetlands that are of crucial ecological import to China but of cold muddy peril to your feet. Both meadow and marsh are paradise for the bird-watchers among you, though. Gray shrikes, snowfinches, perhaps even a rare black-necked crane or Saker falcon may reward the patient with a ruffled feather.

To avoid quicksand or a disgruntled eagle-owl attack, however, stick to the first bend in the Yellow River. Here you’re ringed by green and blue horizon, but never too far from a Tibetan cowboy putting around on an FK125. Besides, the entire vicinity is under the protection of Tibetan monastery Suokezang Si, which faces the bend. You can also orient yourself by the numerous white chortens, or the smell of yak.

The only city you’ve heard of near Zoige is Chengdu. Buses depart from 6 – 7:30 am and take six to twelve hours. The ugly dilapidation of Zoige town will make you appreciate the pristine meadows all the more, as will the nearest settlement to the Yellow River bend, Tangke. Try the Xiangbala [0837 - 2291666] or Tibetan Sunshine [Dazangyangguang - 0837 2292999] Hotels, with an open mind, of course.

Nagqu – Tibet

‘Nagqu’ refers to a river coursing along the southern slopes of the Thanghla Mountains, through valleys and hills best suited to the deep-chested. At an elevation of 4,200 meters, Nagu’s oxygen and warmth will be scarce, even if the skies are deepest azure, with numerous hot springs awaiting by the river.

Much of the area is covered in wormwood rather than grass, which makes for a russet blanket effect reaching to the frosty peaks beyond. The most likely phenomenon to animate your vista are herds of Tibetan antelope and wild asses, or a Tibetan cowboy putting by on an FK125.

Nagqu is a six-hour bus ride from Lhasa, two hours from holy Lake Namtso. You can warm up from the experience at the three-star Nagqu Hotel [0896 - 3822424].

Qilian – Qinghai/Gansu

Back when men were men, the pastures at the foot of Qilian – Heavenly Mountain – were the preferred summer grounds of Attila the Hun. His descendants, the Uygur, still call the meadows at its base heavenly. The Mongols call it “Golden Pasture” for the sea of yellow caragana that bloom on it each summer.

Qilian is the most picturesque of a series of grasslands surrounding it: Xizhang, Dongzhang, and Damaying. With a good horse and a year’s supply of instant noodles, it would be easy to forget that the world was anything but field, stream, and sky. Then again, one would most likely use the mountains as a focal point and eventually wind up at the Qilian Nature Reserve, a trove of virgin forest where snow leopards still prey on musk deer.

Unless you count Attila as an ancestor, you’ll need a sport-utility vehicle for hire in Qilian town, anywhere from a few hours to a day by bus from Xining (former Qinghai tourists understand).

Xilin Gol – Inner Mongolia

It’s another 55 kilometers south to these grasslands from Xilinhot, which in itself requires a considerable shlep from Hohhot by air, or Jining by train. If you make it to that far, try to rent a utility vehicle for the ride out on route 303, where the asphalt ribbons through poplar forests and around Zagyastil Lake. Otherwise, your view on the bus is likely to be compromised by cowboy hats and Elton John style sunglasses.

Or you could do the conventional thing and jaunt fifteen kilometers southeast of Xilinhot to Xiri Tala resort. The area is only nine square kilometers square to Xilin Gol proper’s 3,370, but there you can rent a yurt and battle the eight-legged, hairy brown residents for right of occupancy. Should you survive un-poisoned, make your way to the bend of the Xilin River, Ujimqin, considered by locals the soul of Xilin Gol. If the scenery doesn’t take your breath away, the Mongol’s show that night back at the yurts will, and their fiery liquor your inhibitions and cares.

One view of Qingdao Lake

by Ernie Diaz

This year in China, national holidays have been divvied up. A transportation system, once pushed to collapse by hundreds of millions on their week-long odysseys, will now whistle along a mere hundred million or so. Gone are thoughts of a day’s travel. The formula for three-day weekends allows at most an early morning Friday departure and a late Sunday return. More than four hours in transit reduces the all-important chill quotient. The odds of dropping your China cool coefficient skyrocket.

With that calculus in mind, and assuming you inhabit a Chinese megalopolis, your getaway circle has shrunk threefold, if you’re going anywhere “away from it all”. So for those of you in Chengdu, Shanghai or Beijing, China Expat humbly suggests these destinations. Remember, you never have to go too far in this country to crack your urban casing.

From Beijing: Jiu Long Tan

Nine Dragon Springs is the marketing name: when you pull over to the side of the road, you might ask the helpful roadman Xinlongzhen Shuanlingcun?. Hebei, slandered by its workaday rep, holds a fairytale valley of ancient forests, hoary cliffs , and nine springs. The latter are earthly manifestations of a divine dragon’s sons. They protect Longwocun, an authentic village which features their likenesses on every roof or otherwise auspicious spot. Stock up on the famous local chestnuts, mushrooms, and hawthorns, and cross yourself against Monsanto.

Long ago, at the foot of the mountain where the dragons spring, they fought a terrible battle. The tumult threw up great cliffs, and the combatants turned to stone: two lions, the double eagle, a great turtle in the water, everyone but Mr. Tumnus. The springs offer more peace, except for the 9^th son, Taijibagua. A nine meter deep Dao mystery, its depth will freeze water in summer, and draw sweat in the winter.

Unless you don’t mind getting dirt all over your Jeep decals, it’s best to take the train to Chengde, and get off at Xinlong Xian train station. That’s when the traditional May holiday games begin. The dazed cabbie or the packed bus?

From Shanghai: Qiandaohu, Thousand Islands Lake

Closer to Hangzhou, but a four-hour bus ride from the long distance terminal next to Shanghai’s south railway station, Qiandao is a man-made monster formed by the creation of Xinanjiang hydroelectric station. Close to six hundred square kilometers of relatively clear water hold 1,078 large islands, and thousands of smaller ones. Do not, repeat do not, get hustled into one of the boat tours. Hire your own craft , and spend at least a day salty dogging it, island hopping to your heart’s content.

More rock formations wait here for those who can’t make it to Jiu Long Tan, a veritable stone forest, the fourth largest in China, as though such rankings matter. Rock hounds can make at least a day of the twenty square kilometers, and it’s good fun for at least an afternoon. The forest is split into three sections: Blue Jade Plateau, West Mountain Plateau, and Hawksbill Hill, each a stretch of the legs and a photo op in its own right.

To one-up everyone at the water cooler next Monday, explore Qiandao’s Lion City, submerged under forty meters of water fifty years ago during the Xinanjiang dam’s construction. Big Blue, a Shanghai-based dive operator, runs weekend excursions to the depths of Lion City. No pieces of eight, but many pieces of soggy masonry.

From Chengdu: Luo Dai

A glance at the map makes Lijiang look comfortably close to Chengdu. But mountains are still a nuisance, and plane tickets still expensive. Besides, there’s an ancient town less than an hour from the heart of Pepper City, Luo Dai. A mere jaunt on the 219 bus or from the Hong’an railway station, this cluster of fifteen quaint villages commands forty three square kilometers and a population of just over thirty thousand. By Chinese standards, we’re talking about a hamlet.

But eight out of ten people in Luo Dai are Hakka, which means not just any other ancient town. No defensive tulou structures here, but plenty of that Dali/Lijiang restored ancient street action. Specialty knick-knack shopping and local Hakka dim sum for the pedestrian, and amazing architecture for nerds with more than snacks and tchochkes on the brain. There are more stylized dragons per block than in a teenage Bruce Lee fan’s bedroom, especially at Golden Dragon Temple. The old guildhalls and folk houses are a treat in themselves. When you start feeling claustrophobic, Golden Dragon Lake Tour area lies hardby.