Surprisingly, the food in Chengdu, the capital of Szichuan, hasn't been ridiculously hot, although the peppers certainly are. I've had a lot of different dishes here that have come garnished by beautiful, bright red slices of these pungent peppers, which in this populous western Chinese province, are not the only hallmark of the local cuisine: they eat lots of peanuts, lots of tofu (we had four different kinds at dinner last night), and lots of mushrooms of all sorts. Sounds like a vegetarian's heaven except that there's meat in a lot of the tofu dishes. The group meals we have are always banquets served at big round tables with lazy susans. I always tell myself I'll try to write down all the dishesbut never manage to. Let's see if I can remember the lunch we had at a museum restaurant: we started with appetizers of thick, translucent noodles in spicy sauce,crunchy-yellow-vegetable-I've-never seen in orangey sauce, and something else. Then came the main dishes, one by one: a chicken and peanut dish, pork with 3 kinds of mushrooms, spicy tofu, shredded chicken and unidentified vegetable, huge plate of Szichuan noodles with spicy sauce, two plates of Chinese spinach, whole fishsteamed with ginger and soy sauce, squash or pumpkin soup, rice, watermelon, and individually wrapped "Uncle Pop's Roughage Party Cakes." (I know I'm leaving out several dishes.) But because we're American newbies, they really are taking it easy on the peppers, so overall the food has not been so hot.
And actually, the weather in Chengdu hasn't been so hot either. At least not today. From the moment I arrived in China last week, it's pretty much been one nonstop steam bath. In Shanghai and Hangzhou, we were all mopping our brows with sopping wet bandanas as we collapsed into our seats on our airconditioned bus. Yesterday in Hangzhou, the former imperial capital, I got up at 6 a.m. to avoid the heat as I bicycled around the famous West Lake (apparently the main reason that city is the #1 destination for Chinese tourists) but didn't manage to avoid the other 8 million people who apparently had the same idea. I think I saw most of the people of Hangzhou (and all of its retirees) on my nine-mile ride around the lake: riding bikes, stretching, strolling, doing Tai Chi, doing organized ballroom dancing (apparently for exercise), doing pushups off the curb, doing a sort of organized calisthenics involving a lot of slapping of one's thighs, flying kites, walking backwards--even practicing Chinese calligraphy on the park roads using a bucket of water and a calligraphy brush the size of a mop. When I got back to the hotel at 7 am I was drenched with sweat. But today it's been moderate--in the low 80's and so humid that when I was trying tovideotape the giant pandas today (guess what they were eating?) my lens was all misted up. Of course through everything we've seen, both beautiful and hideous, the sky has been a stolid, unmoveable gray. Only on the panda preserve did the sun threaten to poke through the clouds, but then decided it was too hot to bother. Still, Chengdu is a nice relief from the coastal cities.
Another thing that's not as hot here is the economy, although the government is trying to change that. The interior provinces of China have always been behind the coast, economically, and even though things are heating up, they'll never approach the frenzy of places like Shanghai or Shenzhen. Per capita income is 1/3 to 1/4 of what it is on the coast, and although the downtown looks reasonably modern and I saw a Starbucks and a Gucci when I posed to have my photo taken in front of the colossal statue of a serenely waving Chairman Mao, you can really tell the difference just by driving around the streets. The very streets, sidewalks and curbs are not as upscale and well-maintained. Many busy intersections seem dangerously devoid of traffic signals, and at busy times are manned by oranged vested "volunteer" traffic cops who wave red flags. Apparently, they can't arrest people, but if they catch a cyclist or scooter driver committing an infraction, they can make him or her hold their red flag for 20 minutes . Today the bus drove past rows of old-style tiled roofs covering warrens of alleys where people do their washing, hang out their laundry, and fetch their water. And the vehicles tell you everything.
In all three cities I've seen swarms of bicycles and motor scooters of every sort: two-wheeled and three wheeled, carrying goods stacked high and wide and with passengers precariously perched on the back. But here in Chengdu, I've seen fleets of battered green pedicabs of all descriptions, some with just a covered seat, others with a makeshift cardboard compartment suggestive of a 19th century stagecoach without doors. Another hallmark of a slower economy is the motorized vehicles. You see all sorts of underpowered vehicles hauling ridiculously huge loads. You'll come up on what looks like a small flatbed truck piled 7 feet high with bales of goods, and then see in the front an uncovered tractor motor jury-rigged to what is nothing more than a three-wheeled bicycle. As I negotiated the streets swarming with homicidal scooter drivers tearing throughy inadequatetraffic signals, I was amused to think that my guide first introduced us to Chengdu as a much more relaxed city than Shanghai. Supposedly, there's a huge tea house culture here, where people go to a tea house, order a cup of tea, and then just sit there all day. And it is true that you can walk the streets here without being assaulted by touts and hawkers. I suppose that's why, over the past ten years, Chinese from the coastal cities are coming to the interior provinces to set up businesses, and Szichuanese have been migrating to the coast to seek their fortunes.
One thing that may be too hot is this blog. Perhaps this is a delusion, but shortly after I posted the big brother post, I was no longer able to get into my blog. I had to send this one home by email and have them post it.
Well, time to go to bed. We fly to Tibet at 8:20 in the morning. Many in my group are feeling not so hot as a result of taking altitude sickness drugs (Lhasa is at 12,000 feet). I'm going to wait and see.
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