Abercrombif and Titch

Call me Bill Murray, because I'm a disenchanted American living aimlessly in an Asian country.  

Alright, so maybe I'm not middle-aged enough or melancholy enough to deserve my own Lost In Translation allusion, but the point remains.  As the days creep by here in Beibei, I am finding myself adjusting to life abroad more slowly than I would have liked.  The endearingly mistranslated phrases that are so plentiful in Beibei are loosing their comical sheen, and are now just venturing into annoying.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Lets look at a typical day in Beibei, China:  

I wake up at 7:50am to the sound of the Chinese National Anthem outside my window, which blares from loudspeakers to signify the start of the school day for the kindergarten behind our dorm.  NesCafe instant coffee mix clears the mental haze, sipped from a classy mug adorned with kittens; I was going for ironic humor.

Class passes quickly enough, and soon I am on the hunt for lunch.  Choices include Grandma's - a delicious restaurant the size of my old dorm room, run by the nicest old woman in the entire world - or for a change of pace, Dr. Dre's - a small lunch spot known for its wraps (Get it?  Raps...ha).   

The rest of our days usually includes a bus ride in Chongqing to explore the city, or simply a few episodes of Heroes or Entourage to pass the time.  Today, however, we were treated to a special field trip: a visit to Mexian, China's largest door manufacturer.  Be still my heart.

Steel doors, revolving doors, car doors, Hello Kitty doors; they had it all.  The one thing they didn't have, we quickly found, was anything interesting to tell us.  In fact, the most interesting part of the trip was when an oddly patriotic song started over the loudspeakers and all the employees gathered in the hallways for calisthenics.  The event wasn't entirely a waste though, as we got two important parting gifts: a deck of playing cards emblazoned with quasi-mysogonistic proverbs, and a visit to Mexian's bizarre (and arguably misguided) investment, "Foreign Land", an amusement park akin to Disneyland except much, much weirder.

In Mexian's defense, a Thursday morning was probably not the best choice for getting the true amusement park experience.  This inconvenient timing resulted in a park that was nearly desolate, save for a handful of bored employees.  The already awkward circumstances were only exacerbated by loading us, the only caucasians for miles around, onto a large yellow truck blaring Britney Spears music to tour the park.  Essentially, we became the attraction in the park; hey everyone, look at the white people!  Pictures were taken.  Fingers were pointed.  It was weird.

If I can draw any lines between the isolated dots of my China experience, it would be that Chinese businesspeople seem to lack the idea of maintenance.  A massive amount of capital had to be raised to build Foreign Land - it has the world's largest bathroom, for Pete's sake - and it must have taken a considerable amount of business savvy to garner that type of support.  Yet after walking around the park for a few minutes, it looks as though it was build over a decade ago.  Paint is peeling, metal is rusted - it is certainly not anywhere near the happiest place on earth.

I see this type of disrepair everywhere in China, from broken sidewalks to decrepit housing projects, yet they aren't solely victims of age and wear, but simply poor planning and maintenance.  Would an influx of city planners and proficient engineers

fix the problem?  Perhaps, and a change seems to be in sight.  Large glass-and-steel apartment complexes are slowly replacing the discolored cement of older buildings, and a more sophisticated engineering movement seems to be taking place.  But can a pleasing aesthetic make up for poorly thought-out sewer systems, and other basic infrastructure needs that just aren't being met?  

The more I see of Chinese cities, the more thankful I am of the largely cohesive city planning that I unknowingly enjoy in Seattle and Portland.  An under-appreciated field, to be sure.

And no, this is not simply a veiled show of support for Obama's previous profession.  Promise.

Zai Hui,

-McG