Term is over but the young and amorous linger with an
edifying nonchalance. Indeed, Chinese provincial students have a way of carrying
themselves with an understated grace I can scarcely define: sweet and
bespectacled, they stroll in pairs with careless poise, monotonously innocent
yet ineffably urbane. I marvel at the ease with which they browse – content to
peruse back-issues of Agrarian Reader’s Digest whilst sipping tins of
saccharine iced tea.
To my left a bicycle rickshaw paddles along the dusty,
tree-lined pedestrian thoroughfare with the only plumpkin I’ve seen in days. The
air smells of pollen and petrol yet hums with an elusive virility. As in most Chinese metropolises, the sun’s not
wont to show its face – but today, for some reason, she’s cast a sheet-like spell
of monolithic fulgor over all of campus. Amber flashes shoot through ancient
oaks like bullets through water; one is hard pressed to spot a placidly
adorable pupil without parasol in hand.
A favorite writer of mine once castigated the Japanese for
absorbing but the most desultory aspects of Western culture – imperialism,
hedonism, consumerism – while rejecting its countervailing qualities – creative
expression, reason, romanticism, redemption – to name but a few. While I cannot
verify his statement (just yet), the inverse might be said of the Chinese Provincial
University, namely that it’s absorbed the better surface aspects of the Western Research University – academic
rigor, scholarship, socio-economic leveling and a seeming modicum of communal
socialization – whilst rejecting the less noble virtues of American Higher
Education – debauchery, misogyny, (intellectual) apathy – to name but a few. Of
course, for all I know their stoically studious countenance collapses behind
closed doors, leaving them prostrate before an altar of Angry Birds; I’ve no way
to say. On the momentary surface, however, one is left with the sweetest image
of a cheerful, timeless academic piety.
It is Sunday so we head for brunch at the only American
joint in town. Immediately we’re amongst 40% of the expat scene, a typical mélange
of teachers, NGO workers, oil consultants and consular diplomats. When word of the
Wang Lijun incident had first been leaked to the New York Times – leading to
China’s largest political maelstrom since Tiananmen – it was reckoned to have
been leaked in this very establishment. In a city of 14m, Western journalists
only convene at two locales. One of my lovely hosts, a Fulbrighter poking through
the world of Great Unknown Chinese Fracking, had been evading a Times reporter lurking
about the diner all that week: all too often our window on the world is but a
window.
To my great dismay Paddy and Vermont Dan get cocktails – but
stick with drip I must. We tip the friendly, heavy-set Chicagoan and set off for
the tea gardens, Chengdu’s most illustrious attraction.
Whereas People’s Square in Shanghai is an acclamation of Chinese
modernism with an eye for historical flare, its equivalent in Chengdu is an
unadulterated ode to the imperial past. The Red Guards may have taken down the
great walls of the city with a whimsical nod from Mao, but the gardens within
the Square retain all the cultural splendor of ere.
The entrance to the park was somewhat insignificant but once
inside a world of subdued splendor meets the eye. Stands selling brightly woven
demi-gods float from cracked-wooden hangers in the afternoon heat, while skewers
of barbecued lamb scatter mouth-watering aromas into the air. In each opening, elderly
tai-chisters bob and weave to the remembrance of things past. Beyond the
opening, where the willows resume, the 40- and 50-somethings congregate to
peruse the public marriage proposals posted along a wooden fence like inquiries
from American doctoral students in every épicerie
on the Left Bank. I could make out nothing of the Chinese characters, but was
told that below the unassuming photo of each young, procreationally-aspiring man
was an all-too-unambiguous listing of his age, profession, salary, education
and, finally, name. For all our touted American pragmatism I suppose they’re better
at cutting to the chase than we.
Bride-grooms aside, we made for the Mahjong tables, where
the real magic occurs. In a shaded piazza of low-flung tables, endless clusters
of Chinese men and women – always separated by gender – sip tea, banter and
strategize the afternoon away with the Chinese predecessor to Rummikub – often
in wildly varying stages of mirth and ire, and always for money. We take a
table of our own and begin the draw. Within a match, we’ve three lookers-on,
each keen to gauge whitey’s strategic acumen – and each scheming to hold the
balance of power amongst us like Lord Liverpool in the age of Napoleon. The
moment one of us pulled ahead, they’d seize upon a neighboring apprentice,
whispering, quite literally, sweet nothings into his ear to effect a change of
course. In the end, we roughly split games – though not before several hearts,
dare I say reputations, were mildly tarnished along the way.
The proceeding nights and days unfold with delicious
uniformity. Upon awakening, one saunters down the lazily bustling avenue
bordering campus. Motley local delicacies await: Uighur spicy noodles;
piping-fresh Tibetan samosas; Sichuan-peppered delights of every sizzling
variety. First, however, we must make for the art-house café on the other edge
of the Kingdom. What appears an old military canteen is in fact a massive,
kaleidoscopic collection of cultural artifacts, both Chinese and Western,
gathered in arguably the best café I’ve been to. Red bicycles, broken clocks,
statues of Mao and Marylyn grace the flower-laden, daisy-cloth donning tables
at every turn. The waitresses don unassuming bangs (as most good Chinese girls
currently do) and don’t let off they understand English. The Americano is
giant, strong and expensive – the ash tray overflowing.
There is far more character in Chengdu than immediately hits
the eye. Granted, a new downtown development is named and partially modeled after
my own very raucous, crudely Western and, how to say, culturally unforthcoming,
neighborhood in Hong Kong – but that did not prevent the city from constructing
a gorgeous Yuan-era temple-cum-restaurant over the pedestrian-bridge leading to said development. Down the street lies
the city’s most renowned hotel, the Shangrila. Descending the floors below the
lobby – usually reserved to staff or those attending private group-oriented
entertainment chambers (you guessed it) – is one particularly enticing gem,
arguably the world’s most amusing portrait. In a stoutly 8-by-5 foot painting
tucked into a small, unlit, auxiliary hallway is President Bill Clinton,
flanked by Monica behind him and a screaming Hillary, a la Munch, in the
distance to his left. The catch? He’s a minotaur and Monica’s topless:
We only know of the aforementioned because an old friend was
until recently on duty at the American Consulate. Mining the hotel in the days
before a Biden state visit, Secret Service had stumbled upon the quasi-hidden painting.
Whilst they could hardly reveal it to a democratic VP (which I no doubt hope
and trust they did), it became something of a legend in the hearts and minds of
those lucky enough to stumble upon it via word of mouth. According to legend,
it was a personal gift the hotel’s proprietor simply could not refuse: hence
the clandestine location where he hung it. An incredibly subversive political gesture
or merely poor taste? I suspect the distinction is less stark than many are
loath to admit.
The days amble by, then, with a carefully measured
insouciance. One strolls the boulevard and the back-way, nibbling on
street-food and stopping off for tea. We make several trips to varying ‘urban
reconstructions,’ zones of ‘ancient renewal’ where Han Chinese tourists go to unload
their wallets and feel at home in both the contemporary architectural wasteland
that is most of urban China and simultaneously relish their own historical
legacy. Of what do I speak, you must surely be asking yourself. Imagine, as it
were, the Bavarian castle at Disneyworld, the neo-Gothic spires of recent
American universities: we New Worlders haven’t a monopoly on
historical-architectural appropriation. Nay, the Chinese, despite their no
doubt recurrent taste for reconstructing Bruges along the Yangtze, have an even
deeper reverence for their own architectural past. And all over Sichuan they’re
building living, breathing replicas of entire ancient neighborhoods – and then
filling them with merchants of caffeine and corn-on-the-cob. A tragedy? Not
quite. These recreations are deeply attractive and seem architecturally sound.
Given New Money’s urge to dwell upon a cultural achievement of its own, these
commercial communities are also likely to have been built with far higher
standards than many of the make-shift schools that imploded without resistance
in the earthquake that ravaged Sichuan province in 2008.
What, then, to conclude of this town? Peaceful, booming,
graceful and bustling, a mouthwatering delight of culinary charm, Chengdu is a wistfully
enchanting giant too lazy to disappoint. Like the miraculous panda bears who
half-slumberingly hang from the trees in the National Research Center outside
of town, Chengdu indolently clings to its laurels of good grub and even better
culture. Despite the economic wave that’s swept the entire province, in five
days I saw one tie, much less a suit or, Lord forbid, a briefcase. Nay,
Chengdidians are content to ramble along with history at their own pace – with
tea, beer, noodles and Mahjong along the way, preferably in the shade – though
not because they’re solipsistic or simply don’t get it. Rather, I suspect that we
do not get them – and, if so, only to our detriment. As Vermont Dan said when
his lady rang from Indonesia: “I’m with Pheiff – we’re sittin’ on a bench!”
Where abouts? She asks. “Overlooking the lotus pond.”
