Window on China

The fork danced gingerly over the scales, hesitantly prodding and probing the remains, verifying the creature that watched me from the plate was really dead. I could see my unsure reflection in its bulging glassy eye. It was late in the night and I was out of options and I knew it though. We had scoured the nearby blocks for an eatery and this was the only one still open. I was absolutely famished after one airplane meal after another as the international flight flew counter to the Earth’s rotation, condensing two days into 36 hours. Borderline feral from hunger, I brought the dead fish to my lips, took a final breath, and let a soft chunk of its flesh swim down my throat and into my gullet.

Fuck, it’s going to be a long two weeks here.

We had met our first challenge right after getting settled in the Beijing hotel and heading out into the city for dinner. I can’t read Mandarin but after looking at the other tables around us, it didn’t seem like any of the characters on the menu indicated bacon cheeseburger. Luckily a tech-savvy guy in our group came in clutch and opened a translator app on his phone that translated in real-time the characters on the menu so that the video on the screen looked like we were filming a menu in English. The local Chinese in this hole-in-the-wall joint, already impressed by the presence of foreigners, oooh’d and ahhhh’d as they looked at us and our phone app (I’m claiming the phone for all of us). They all had phones with that could download apps like this too, but they had little reason to do so in this working-class neighborhood in the heart of China. They were evidently familiar with photo-editing technology though, because I ordered something called “The Big Fish” and it came out looking nothing like how it looked like on the menu. It looked like something that would be dredged out of the local reservoir back in Colorado, and gave me the evil eye the whole time I ate it.

After the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square we visited the Museum of China, the flagship museum of the country. I’ve never seen such high ceilings before. In the museum I saw stone carvings from the Song Dynasty, depicting maids and servants in everyday life 1,000 years ago, doing things like holding makeup mirrors and wine jugs. I’m also told that they even had a corner on the Chinese Space Program. Damn! I was hung up on the stone carvings and I missed it.

But I didn’t come here to be just a tourist. Accompanying me are my grad school peers, MBA students that have come to witness a country advance itself into the world's economic forefront. To accomplish this, we take planes, trains, and automobiles across the country to see the emerging business climate under the guidance and tutelage of our professor who grew up here. To date, there has been nothing as horizon-expanding in my adult life as seeing the greatness of a capital city of another superpower. Days are spent visiting businesses and becoming individually more humble. I’m amazed by the technological evolution of this country, and this MBA trip has offered the perfect opportunity to see it. At IBM they talked about a project they’re working on to install video cameras for an agricultural company, which will monitor the color of the leaves and provide an early warning system that will indicate when growing conditions are sub-optimal. At a travel company they talked about their efforts developing electronic tour guides in the form of apps that can determine a traveler’s location down to the meter and use machine learning to develop hour-by-hour itineraries, guiding them and offering explanations and insight to attractions along their way. They’re working with car companies to integrate their technology and think that in 3-5 years the app could let an automated car take over as the travel guide.

Only cameras are watching the empty line.

At Bao Steel we only saw only a single man on the entire half-mile long production line. Everything was automated, from the transport of the steel along the line to the heating and cooling to the final product rolling out. A robotic arm tagged each completed steel role while a line of trucks waited outside to receive them. It wasn’t until this point that humans were involved, and I’m sure that will change soon too. Next, we visited a GM assembly line where robots all worked in rhythm to the sounds of electronic tones and beeping synthetic music playing in the warehouse’s speakers. The bots seemed happy while they cranked out the 1.2 million units that GM ships annually from this location. The company came here 21 years ago, which is about as old as the Chinese auto industry itself. Back then only government officials had cars, yet soon this factory will be producing EV’s with autonomous self-driving technology for the masses.

After a whirlwind of business and introductions we took the high speed rail out of Beijing’s smog, glimpsing farmers wading through rice paddies as we zipped by at 300km/h. A first trip to China wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the Great Wall, where in Badaling I learned that there is no such thing as personal space in this country. One guy reached past me while I was standing right at the urinal, business in hand, to point to a map on the wall in front of me. I wouldn’t expect much room to move around in a country of 1.3 billion though.

My professor is a mad lad and had the Uber Eats guy that delivered lunch sit down in the middle of us and talk about his job and experiences working with the new tech company.

In Nanjing a storm system rolled into the city and blanketed everything in a heavy layer of mist that eventually developed into rain. Climbing the steps to the shrine in the dense fog was a surreal experience. Being a 2nd-tier city, there aren’t as many foreigners around and the locals took note of our presence. One girl even stopped me and asked to take a picture with me. The top of the stairs led to a shrine that was much akin to the Lincoln Memorial and had a solitary figure seated and overlooking the hillsides below. After drying out in the bus afterwards, the ride felt suddenly solemn knowing I’ll never see these people again or know their stories.

At the Summer Palace we saw the old house of the emperor of the Qing Dynasty and the long covered walkway where he would walk, followed by his ministers and servants. I want a life like this one day, determining the fate of my subjects as I walk my palatial palace with servants in tow.

It’s not all hustle and bustle.

Then school is out, and I recuperate at the hotel bar. The TV has a channel dedicated to local car crashes using footage from traffic cams. I wonder if the city is a partner in the production?

Realizing that my time in China is quickly coming to an end I cashed out after a single drink and emerged into the Shanghai night, that bold beautiful neon playground sitting along the bottom of glass canyons. It was a legitimate cyberpunk reality and in a few moments, complete with rain.

Amid the hive of feverish activity we came upon a watering hole where the the bartender spoke English and was a huge fan of WWE. He knew all of the wrestlers including my favorite, Rikishi, the sumo guy that would suffocate his opponents with his huge belly. Afterwards we came across a Brooklyn-themed restaurant and I sunk my teeth into pizza. Sweet baby Jesus, it’s good to not be eating banana fungus soup or cow intestines for once. The owner is from California and came and hung out with us at the table. She showed us a couple card games that she kicked my ass at. This is clearly a reflection of her failure as a teacher and not on my capabilities as a student of course.

A friend pulled up a nearby tattoo shop on his phone. He had to run for minute so I took a pic of the map on my own phone (my phone didn’t have reception here). I was pretty wet by the time I found it, but when I did I finally in the midnight hour of this trip felt like I had acclimated to this country. Maybe it was the new ink I picked up that joined the rest of my collection, maybe it was navigating on my own, maybe it was just time.

My friend and another fellow student showed up to catch the last of the ink session. I love that - even these business-minded fellows are excited to see someone get tattooed. Afterwards we found a billiards bar where the next table over had a Swedish guy behind the cue and a couple big French guys sitting at the bar that looked like they were in a heavy metal band. They all spoke English and it was a worldly night in that little billiards room.

Mixed drinks aren’t popular in China and looked at like some sort of weird medieval apothecary, so no one in this country seems to know how to mix drinks or even had the reagents for them. When they do have both the cranberry juice and vodka that I’m fond of, they’re apprehensive about mixing them together. This place was no different and the server brought the mixers to me in separate containers and let me pour them myself.

At dusk we walked The Bund and found an old jazz bar where weordered drinks off an illuminated menu similar to an iPad. The musicians were all in their 90’s and had been playing for decades. What a melting pot of history for our final night! Even half-way through their careers the city across the river didn’t exist.