Snapshots of the Orient

I recently took a two-week cruise on Holland America’s “Amsterdam” that began in Hong Kong and ended in Kobe, Japan.  (Actually, my trip was only a segment of the ship’s round-the-world excursion,)  At Kobe I undertook four days of independent travel in Japan by visiting the nearby city of Kyoto and then returning home by way of Osaka’s airport.  This brief encounter with the Far East provided a few scattered impressions that may be of general interest.

HONG KONG: The 3 km-long, pedestrian nature walk around the rim of “The Peak,” the city’s high point, was posted, understandably enough, with signs admonishing dog owners to pick up their pet’s leavings.  Similar postings in the US, I recalled, were but carelessly observed and so my steps ahead were guarded.  Surprisingly, my traverse of the scenic path found not a single violation despite the presence of a goodly number of four-legged potential felons.  With time to puzzle over this extraordinary display of diligence, it occurred to me that if Chinese dogs were as proportionally literate compared to American dogs as Chinese schoolchildren were to American, they deciphered the signs for themselves and accordingly exercised the necessary self control.

HONG KONG: I know it’s another trivial matter, but I could not help noticing that the street markings here were bright and spanking white-a far cry from the faded, often indiscernible, markings on my home town’s thoroughfares.  It was as though every night street crews rushed out to repaint afresh every last lane-divider, directional arrow, crossing hash marks, etc. in the city.  Visible evidence, it seemed to me, of a determination to do things well.

HONG KONG CENTRAL:  I would challenge anyone to erect an outhouse here without first having to make room by tearing down a skyscraper.  What with the columns of workers rushing in, out, and around of all these buildings, the city left me with the image of one, huge, smoothly-functioning, concrete manhill.

SHANGHAI:  Our handsome, late-twenties, likeable guide on the bus tour seemed generally contented with his lot.  He did admit, however, to a longing for an apartment of his own.  But thanks to skyrocketing real estate prices-they had increased three-fold in the last five years-and the thirty-percent down payment required, this was out of reach for the present and, thus, marriage to his girl friend would have to be postponed.  Although he would have had a legitimate reason for doing do, he tactfully avoided mentioning the disparity between his living standard and ours-my guess being that his living area was scarcely larger than our staterooms on board the ship.  The circumstances surrounding our relative affluence struck me as more than a little incongruous, for he was, in a real sense, our creditor and we, his debtors.  More precisely, every American man, woman, and child, on the average, owed his country $2,838 (based on China’s holdings of US Treasury Securities as of February, 2010)  Thus it would have been altogether fitting were each of us sightseers to have wiped out our individual imbalance by handing him that sum as we left the bus.  Such an openhearted gesture would have provided a practical example of our country’s unquestioned creditworthiness, but, alas, none of us volunteered to do so and, as a result, I’m afraid, his tips were considerably less.

Although, like most Shanghaiese, our guide had not officially joined the Communist Party, he had no quarrel with its administration of China’s affairs.  After all, he contended, there was no point in needlessly debating the validity of the leadership’s plans when no one could accurately foretell the future in any case.  The point was to continue to unite behind the party’s policies and maintain the progress already achieved.  Less there be any doubt in this regard, he proudly called our attention to the Pudong district across the river-an imposing cluster of skyscrapers that now served as the city’s financial center and home for some 1.5 million people.  Twenty years ago, the land Pudong now occupies was nothing but vacant farmland.  That so much could be planned and built in so short a time gave indisputable evidence that, when they put their minds to it, these people get things done.  One can only hope that what they put their minds to is salutary to the world’s health.

BEIJING: The bus trip from the port of Xingang to the capital took two hours-more time to contemplate the landscape than I might have wished.  The flat terrain was uninteresting and the greyish, damp weather did nothing to enhance it.  Nor did the unbroken stream of slowly rumbling trucks that seemed to barely tolerate the passenger cars they outnumbered three to one.  Roadway lined almost continuously with industrial parks stretching into the distance on both sides.  Interspersed among these areas were apartment blocks of, say, twenty-four, domino-shaped, orderly buildings each some twenty-thirty stories high.  Billboards, planted along the entire length of the roadway, were evenly spaced about one-hundred yards apart.  Notable for their uniform size and construction, they were composed of a single, ten-inch diameter, steel pole twenty-five-foot high upon which two large, lighted billboards were sturdily affixed-one sign facing traffic the other, away.  Stations of the Cross, as it were, mutely testifying to the country’s commitment to the compromise between laissez-faire commerce and socialist control.  More decoratively, miles of newly-planted tree saplings, four to six rows deep, were destined, one assumed, to soften the scene with greenery.  Whereas it was by no means the most dismal stretch of industrial landscape I’ve been down elsewhere, it felt somehow as one of the more humorless.

BEIJING:  On a tour through the Forbidden City, our instructor’s elaboration on the history of the resident eunuchs seemed disproportionate given the magnificence of the surroundings and the wealth of more edifying information they should have inspired.  Most probably he found the subject a crowd-pleaser and, part showman that he was, stuck with it.  And, like everyone else, I attentively lapped up the details.  One particularly touching note stuck in my mind.  After fifty years of faithful-and undoubtedly scandal-free, service-a eunuch was honored with a retirement ceremony at which time a jar containing his own carefully-preserved organ was presented to him for proud display, one supposes, on his fireplace mantle.

BEIJING:  To cap off the ship’s visit to China, we passengers were to hear a chamber music concert performed by a group from New York’s Lincoln Center who were flying in expressly for the one-night occasion.  It was not to be.  Their travel agent had reasoned that the Chinese custom officials would surely not require the musicians to hold visas for a single-night’s performance and immediate return to the US thereafter.  He was wrong, of course.  A New Yorker, of all people, should have known never to underestimate the officiousness of petty authorities.  The musicians were abruptly turned around and sent home at the Beijing airport to endure yet another fourteen-hour plane ride.  To compensate for our deprivation, we passengers ordered a mixed drink and descended upon the ship’s accomplished pianist for our evening’s entertainment.

KOBE:  Endeavoring to assure myself that I was on the right train platform, I asked a pair of middle-aged women if this was indeed the place to catch the train to Kyoto.  They understood me well enough to affirm my assumption and explain that they were headed there as well.  On board the train, their being seated ahead of me did not prevent them from looking back at each intermediate stop to ensure that I did not get off prematurely.  Then, as the train approached Kyoto, they alerted me to the need to disembark.  Once this clearly incompetent American was safely deposited where he presumably wanted to be, they released me from under their wing, and waved energetic goodbye smiles as they sauntered off chatting amiably.

KYOTO:  Nothing to the left or right in the extensive railroad station gave me any hint as to which direction lay the taxi stand I sought.  However, ahead was an imposing flight of stairs-three long flights actually with two landings-upon which a number of people were scurrying up and down.  With no better evidence than this casual observation, I stupidly assumed that it represented the way to a street entrance at which I would find my needed transportation.  Manfully, I took hold of my two suitcases and trudged upward only to find that the stairs were, in fact, a way out-a way out, that is, for those who owned cars.  The reward for my trouble was the discovery of the entrance to the station’s parking garage.  Retreating down the stairs was a worrisome prospect for a man of my age used to holding onto a banister as I descended.  So, opting on the side of caution, I left one suitcase at the head of the stairs and went down to the next landing with the other, intending, of course, to then rescue the temporarily abandoned case and, by repeating the procedure two more times, eventually make it back to where I had started.  I had no sooner embarked on this plan when a young couple came to my side gesturing that they were there to help.  Running up the stair, the man retrieved my suitcase, ran back down to grab the other, and with both cases in hand led me down the length of the station to my destination-his companion heading off in the opposite direction.  I had obviously obliged him to go out of his way and taken up his time, not to mention his energy, for no better purpose than to help an elderly, obviously confused, foreigner.  After an exchange of mutually incomprehensible pleasantries, we shook hands and he was off.  My first day’s impression of Japan was a favorable one.

KYOTO:  Arriving at my hotel before its normal check-in time, I lunched at its coffee shop and was somewhat taken aback when, afterwards, I converted my yen-denominated check to US dollars.  I was relieved, therefore, when my room number of 1825 was not on the eighteenth floor but on the eighth.  Apparently, I concluded, for some idiosyncrasy of its own, the hotel made a practice of adding a superfluous digit to the left of all the numbers it presented its guests.  What pranksters these Japanese!  And the guide books hadn’t even mentioned it.  At any rate, once this adjustment was taken into account, my lunch bill seemed more or less reasonable given the excellence of the restaurant’s food and service.  Alas, as the reader might have already guessed, later dealings with the hotel proved my supposition unduly optimistic.

KYOTO:  Streets in the older section of town ran helter-skelter until ramming abruptly into the sheer walls of the adjoining mountain.  The streets were jam-packed with buildings of every sort pressed wall to wall-some of them with frontages that could have been no wider than fifteen feet.  There was no logical explanation for so dense a landscape, it seemed to me, other than at some time in the distant past the town consisted of a normal arrangement of livable spaces when some huge seismic event caused the mountain to shift inward thereby compressing, accordion like, everything in its path.

KYOTO:  Glimpses of Japanese culture along a particularly pleasant, personally-guided walk in the western outskirts of the city reached by subway and local train:

A small, confined schoolyard in which two rows of uniformed schoolchildren stood quietly at attention while listening to their teacher’s instructions.  Above them wafted four or five kites tethered to a mast.  The kites were in the form of carp-a fish known for its determination to swim upstream in the face of daunting obstacles.  It seemed that in Japan children are taught that self-esteem had to be earned as opposed to something with which one was automatically endowed.

A small plot of land spilling over with miniaturized shrines served as a cemetery of sorts where surviving kin could pay homage to their ancestors, the bodies of whom had been cremated.  Yet another practical Japanese solution to their perennial shortage of space.

A contemplative garden renowned for its designer who had the uncanny ability to carefully study each prominent stone prior its placement and then, in one bold stroke, directed it to be planted in such orientation as to be in perfect harmony with its surroundings-the same sort of keen expertise, one imagined, as that of calligrapher who had mastered a perfect brushstroke.

A small courtyard in front of one of the more modest Buddhist temples where the resident priest was kind enough to patiently and earnestly explain, with the aid of my guide-interpreter, a few tenets of his faith.  No amount of book learning would have been nearly as comprehensible as his brief lecture.

A solitary, open-air stand perched high up on one of the hillside walkways on temple land.  It was manned by an elderly retired merchant who daily trudged up the hill to offer an assortment of trinkets to passersby.  After we enjoyed a cup of his tea, he opened his guest book for me to sign and plied me with questions.  According to my guide, who knew the gregarious shop owner well, his objective was not the stall’s meager profits, but the companionship it allowed and the ability to serve, as it were, as the revered ground’s unofficial host.

Reaching a high point on the path, we were rewarded with a beautiful view of the domineering mountains and evidence everywhere of the town’s effort to make peace with them.  My penultimate day in Japan, I decided happily, had turned out to be as favorable as the first.

FLIGHT FROM OSAKA TO SAN FRANCISCO:  Sat next to an American gentleman who had married a Japanese woman.  By now, he claimed to speak Japanese intelligibly but admitted he still could not read it.  For years the couple had divided their lives more or less evenly between their respective countries, but this trip he was going alone for the purpose of selling their home in Arizona so that, thereafter, they could live exclusively in Kobe.  He seemed content with the prospect.