Terracotta Bus Driver

Nobody Underchans Me

Is it possible to be blinded by over-exposure to the awesomeness that is Jackie Chan?

I knew the guy was popular in China, but what I couldn't have predicted is just how much he gets around. He must hire lookalikes just to get through a day's work.

He plugs cameras, which is not so silly. He makes films. And cars. Not so silly; he presumably drives. Then there's Jackie Chan's Anti Dandruff Shampoo - a bit silly. (Or maybe he's bravely overcome an embarrassing scalp condition.)

That's just the stuff I can wring meaning out of. There are bundles more examples where he gives the Chan imprimatur to an esoteric collection of goodies, ranging from life insurance (plugged by a man who falls on his head for a living) to all sorts of other plugging. I'm pretty sure he's even given the thumb up to constipation. Or at least the medicine.

But what really made me think that JC had started to believe he could also walk on water, was when I turned on Chinese MTV and saw him in the top-twenty countdown. He was singing a romantic little ballad alongside a girl a third of his age. We then cut to ads where he endorses a credit card.

I used to like Jackie because he didn't take himself too seriously. But the parody has become a monster and it's eating itself. His involvement in pop-music does offer me an excuse to wander into an aesthetic minefield though.

I'll probably end up on a blacklist somewhere for saying this (at least corrected) but as far as I can tell, China has no pop-music that sounds Chinese. Certainly none being broadcast on TV. Maybe some things are just universally catchy, and some things aren't. Perhaps you can't modify a traditional Chinese musical style in a way that'll get you tapping your toes at the traffic lights.

The West's pop-music comes from its traditional music in a pretty straight line. The structure, the time-signatures and the harmonies don't stray too far from the baroque. From a three hundred year old European salon, they stroll out to a cotton field, or into a Jazz club or Gospel choir and from there, it's just a hip-shake to Elvis. (Even shorter paths sometimes. Take the traditional English song, “Whiskey in a Jar” as interpreted by that classic folk group, Metallica.)

The only difference between China's pop-music and ours is that the words are a bit harder to understand. Oh, and they're two years behind. Every big group of the last five years in the West has an analogue here in China. Nothing in the charts sounds Chinese. It's Euro-pop with Mandarin lyrics. No micro-tones or Chinese time-signatures.

The one concession I've seen (and it's as agreeable as it is contrived) is an all-girl super-group of talented, young musicians who are selling big at the moment*. The job advertisement read “... be conservatory trained in at least three different Chinese instruments. Must be outrageously good looking.”

However, their sound is anything but traditional music. Underneath the yangqin and erhu is drum machine and synthesizer, pushing out perfectly predictable four-four beats. They're Sky in cute outfits.

I've seen a bit of Chinese Opera on TV now, and as far as the theatrical traditions are concerned, it might as well be Gilbert and Sullivan, or worse, panto. There was even a Chinese Bert Newton playing 'that' role. (Any hammier and you could sell it at a deli.) I was sitting there, opening my mind to the new experience and waiting for the musical epiphany of connecting with another modality, but the cat-strangling sounds had the locals clutching their ears and reaching for the remote. They wanted Blitteny Speals.

*I asked a local about the name of the group. He answered, “Ah, yes. That is Black Swan... no, Duck. No. I think again and it is Black Goose." Majestic sounding bird names have suffered in China before. The manufacturer of the archetypal Chinese bicycle had the choice of translating the name of their product to either Flying Dove, or Flying Pigeon. They chose the latter... and after doing some research, the name of the band is 12 Girls Band. Probably to be translated to Dozen Slappers Posse.

Shanghai Ball

If you've ever seen Cirque du Soleil, you'll know what can be achieved using nothing but 12-year-old contortionists and endless training. Apparently those guys poach a lot of their talent from Chinese circuses like the Shanghai Acrobats, who we went to see last night. I almost had an aneurism.

First off, the MC was a gorgeous little SH girl in a flouncy dress who obviously got the job because she told the guys her English was excellent. It was excellent in that she didn't speak for longer than 30 seconds and we understood none of it. Didn't matter. She looked a bundle and had enthusiasm to burn.

Next came The Tumblers of Chaos (or something like that). Followed by the Hula Hoops From Hell. Then the Hat Jugglers of Doom, ably backed up by the Titanic Re-enactment of Insanity. The Bicycle Tumblers of World Economic Downturn followed. Then, The Male Pole Dancer of Certain Testicular Bruising and the Plate Spinners of the Apocalypse. But all these acts (which went for nearly 90 minutes of gut-busting antics) were but a mere lead up to... THE BALL OF DEATH.

Many of you will have seen a “Ball Of Death” act. It's a metallic, mesh sphere with a motorcycle rider inside who gets up enough speed to pin himself to the bike and the bike to the inside of the cage so he can ride it upside-down.

This was that act, taken to the next, China-driving-standard-level-of-certain-destruction.

The first bloke (dressed in red) comes out, belts around a bit inside the cage, builds up enough speed to go north to south - and then takes his hands off the handlebars and crosses his arms. We gasp.

Next guy comes out (fancy yellow and sequins), gets up enough speed and he's doing latitude passes of the globe, while first bloke does longitude passes. All the while communicating their intentions to each other with the ubiquitous Chinese traffic horn. We love it and clap and gasp.

Next bloke comes out (blue with tassles for him) and I turn to Daddy Gag Reflex next to me and say, “I've never seen three at one time.” He giggles and nods. Next bloke joins the internal spherical insanity and they are describing electron paths around a nucleus of madness. Then they all take their hands off the handlebars again and we start screaming.

Next rider comes out. Number four. (He's in flashing green.) DGR is screaming for pedestrians and a shark to be added to the cage, because at this point, anything is possible. We are going mental. Four guys doing about 40 kph in a 20 foot sphere at all angles that can be achieved in a three dimensional space... no hands. It cannot get any better and I start to hyperventilate.

And then... a girl in black leather comes out on a motorcycle and it appears that she wants in. We are screaming. People are throwing their undies. I'm just yelling “On. No. Get. Fucked. You. Cannot. Be. Serious.” But yes she is. In she goes and five nutbags on Shanghai motorbikes are whizzing around inside a globe of fencing wire, looking like a multi-coloured blender of lunacy. I don't know much more I can take, DGR and I laughing so much we can barely see the spectacle through the tears. I'm about to look for a bag to breath into when...

They separate the top and bottom of the Ball of Death from the middle latitudes. There is clear air between the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer. The riders are locked into their paths at whatever position they were in, or risk flying out into the audience. I start to choke with the pure love of it. I cannot be happier. The crowd is out of control and it is clear that we have all witnessed something wonderful.

The four male riders all exit the cage to ovations and only the girl in black leather is left, flying around the inside of the globe like a fly in a bottle. Just when I'm ready to think about an exit and a good lie down, she goes hands free, stands on the pegs, produces a Chinese flag from nowhere and holds it above her head. As she is tying it around her neck like a super-hero cape, the place loses what's left of its control and goes spare. I collapse on the floor in a laughing, applauding pool of protoplasm.

Ten seconds later, it's over. After cleaning ourselves up we exit to look for our transport, and there in the foyer are all the acrobats, still in costume, trying to sell us the DVD of the performance. I felt cheap saying no to Mr Red Costume, someone who's just risked his life to entertain me, but what can you do? Watching it on TV would be a pale imitation and I just can't do it.

The Ball of Death is a 'live' thing.

Feel The Noise

The roads in China are very noisy. There is some provincial variation but in general, the horn is used all the time and has many meanings.

It can mean, “Hello, I'm coming up behind you and will probably go past in a couple of seconds.”

Or, “Hello, I'm riding my completely silent electric scooter at 50 km/h down a four-foot-wide lane-way, crowded with stalls and shoppers.”

Or, “Hello, I am passing your loaded bus on the outside of a blind corner, on the crest of a hill, with sheer drops on either side, into oncoming traffic.”

I have personally experienced all of the above and they are but a small representation of the many and varied meanings of the Chinese horn. Sometimes it's a simpler message. Sometimes it simply means, “Death is imminent.”

Imagine the ideal driver in Australia. Someone who has good control of their vehicle, and has situational awareness at all points of the compass. The internal rear-vision mirror is checked often and the Australian driver will not pass their driving exam without checking the external mirrors and looking over their shoulder before changing lanes.

The ideal Australian driver will not survive here, or will starve before making it home. The approach is – you need only be concerned with what's in front or level with you. Behind you? Well, that is the problem of the person behind you. Lane changes (lanes, what am I talking about? There is a hell of a lot of wasted white paint on the roads here.)... Direction variations are made with impunity and on a whim. The person behind you adjusts or flows around the problem. I mentioned earlier that riding a bike here was alright once you became one of the little fish, and used the current. That's the approach you have to take. You can't get angry at the guy in front for driving like a loon and you yourself can take advantage of this forgiveness when you need to jag out across five lanes of traffic.

I can see how they have gained the reputation they have in other countries. Here, I've seen people stop their cars for a chat in the passing lane of a freeway. But nobody gets upset because it happened in front of them; it's their job to swerve around the impromptu picnic. The blithe lack of concern about anything going on behind their ears works, if everybody does it. It's a disaster in countries that expect orderly flow and predictable braking behaviour.

So if you're committed in some way to a maneuver that involves getting around someone, the horn is used to let them know you're drawing level. It's bloody noisy and this can lead to communication problems when you are on the bus and trying to listen to what people are telling you. For instance, I was quite excited to hear we were off see the Harry Potter Warriors. I've never seen a live game of quidditch and I was all keyed up.

I didn't get to see any quidditch, but the Terracotta Warriors were really very good, too.

Strangers On A Train

As I've always said, you don't know a people until you've shared home-brewed paint-stripper and smoked in the prohibited section between carriages on the overnight train between Chengdu and Xi'an with them.

Nixon didn't do dick while he was here and Kevin Rudd might be able to bang together a couple of sentences to nice public effect, but I have achieved more for international relations than either of those two try-hards, using only a 96 page notebook, an erasable pen and the translation function on a mobile phone. Besides, after a few shots of the rotgut liquor, my Mandarin and their English was flawless. Well... we did all come to some understanding at the very least.

As you and I are routinely told, China is the dragon. It will awake and rule the world. But no-one seems to have told the young Chinese this. The ones I've met and know, here and at home, are all painfully aware of the poverty.

If you lived here, you would be too. I cannot of course speak for the world's largest nation after only seeing chunks of a few provinces, but I can say the following:

One, when you travel through the countryside, it is largely empty. That means most of the people are in the city. Most of those people, it seems, live in appalling little, grey, concrete boxes. These things are depressing hovels. They stretch away in unending drabness and filth in just about every direction you look when you are in a decent sized city, and every city is a decent size. You can arrive in a town you've never heard about that's home to over ten million people. Imagine being able to say that about an American city. The scale of the horror is exciting to witness and I am deeply glad I am not a part of it. Think of the city scenes in either “Brazil” or “Blade Runner” and you only just start to get a feel for it.

Two, the place is in love with plastic. We were in the Chinese equivalent of a roadside diner in the middle of nowhere and all of our crockery was individually wrapped in heat-shrunk plastic after being washed. 1.3 billion people multiplied by three meals a day multiplied by... I can't go on and it's not much more than a small indicator rather than a real figure. But it is the way they are going.

Lastly, I have heard it said that 80% of the world's stuff (produced 'goods' from a factory floor) comes from here. When you see the depth of the smog and the unending mounds of production and waste, it fills me with fear and wonder. China is not just The Sleeping Dragon, it's the belching, farting, crapping and spitting dragon. Nothing this big can writhe around without knocking the other lizards out of bed.

Proof

If you've ever seen the Australian film by the same name, you'll remember that it had something to do with a blind guy who took photos. Well, that's a little like me in China. I am the world's worst photographer. I don't know why. It's sort of like an anti-superpower. Spelling and photography - I can't do either. (I won't pretend that's the limit of my shortcomings, but they're the two most relevant to a blob that includes travel posts.)

I've been making all sorts of wild claims about what I've been up to and not posting any evidence. I will put together a short photo essay when I'm back in Oz and not limited by technical issues. I simply can't load up photos at the moment.

I've been up mountains, in balloons, next to pandas, near dead dogs, on bicycles, between carriages and out to lunch. They're just a couple of the crackers.

Escaping The Jaws Of Evil

I have been to the Giant Panda Research Facility and escaped alive. Just.

In other news, Emergency Contact said it was the best day of her life.

We saw five panda cubs playing on a large wooden swing set. At one point or another, each of them fell off onto their heads. It appeared that they were never happier than when they were going base over apex. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen... now let's never speak of this again.

In still other news, we are in Xi'an which is a great town (only 7 million pop.) and I'm going to stick my neck out here and suggest that the air quality isn't great. Our hotel room comes with a complimentary respirator.

Note

Emergency Contact and I are in China having a strange and wonderful time, in a strange and wonderful place.

Today, I was on a bus weaving in and out of chaotic traffic and enjoying two new flavours of potato crisps. One was mango and the other, cucumber. No joke... and they're good.

Tomorrow, we leave Chengdu and head out to Giant Panda country. OMG. WTF!

The authorities have firewalled the server that I come off normally (no I don't think it's me, just coincidence) and it's only because of the genius and good will of Smurfy who rigged a workaround, that I'm able to update. But apparently that can be a pretty short lived.

So, if I go off the air until late October, it's one of two things.

The Great Firewall of China caught up. (Goddam Mongorians!)

Or the pandas did.