monarchism to maoism

after southern thailand i headed back up to bangkok to meet eli and prepare for our departure. i stayed with couchsurfer (CSer) fang again, and she helped me get all my errands done. shipped a package back to the states, took care of chinese visas, did some shopping. fang finally found employment the last day i was there, after searching for about two months. its clerical work, for a big international corporation, so she'll get health insurance and a higher salary than she expected - sounds like a great deal, and quite a relief after such a long search. we celebrated by going out to dinner with her mom, fong, who spoke french with me and told me i was a good son. it sounds like i am welcome back any time. i loved them, felt perfectly at home with them, and will certainly try to visit them again.

eli stayed at a hotel in the city, and i spent a couple nights with him there. he stayed on a street called petchaburi, near the ratchathewii stop on the BTS, the elevated train system. petchaburi is great - if i lived in bangkok i would live near there, and in any other big city i would try to find the equivalent. there's nothing like it in the states. there are vendors of street food, noodle soups mostly, open all night, at least til 2 am. there is a constant bustle, people cleaning and getting ready for the markets of the next day. there are internet cafes open late too. it just felt lively, spirited, just oozing solid, lovely character.

another neighborhood we spent time in was on silom street, a couple kilometers to the south. this was an international neighborhood, with many expats and tourists, and many businesses catering to them and run by them. there was every type of food, including lebenese which we went to twice in one day it was so good. there were irish pubs, and coincidentally we found ourselves in one on st. paddy's day night. it was hopping, with an irish cover band playing great rock and roll, football on all the tvs, packed with foreigners. quite a sight, rivaling that superbowl scene back in chiang mai last month.

wednesday we caught a flight to beijing, four hours north which took us from a tropical climate headed into the hot season (nearing 100 degrees when we left) into a temperate climate in early spring. its cold. low 50s and high humidity, but it feels freezing to us, spoiled as we are with the tropics. many deciduous trees, most just barely starting to bud leaves, but many with flowers in full bloom. very nice.

although, its hard to appreciate it with the level of pollution. it really is horrible. each day so far, the last three days, we've barely been able to see two blocks down a street. the sun is barely visible through the haze, which is kind of brownish yellow, although i'm sure foggy clouds are there too. tons of cars here, none of the massive flocks of motorbikes from SEasia. most men appear to smoke cigarettes, lots of them, inside any type of building too. men are constantly hacking and spitting, which is a cultural habit sure, but must be physicially based on this environment too. so, breathe shallow, try to ignore it, remind self that we'll only be here a week.

the food has also been a problem. on the first two days we ate three normal meals at restaurants of varying class ($1 to 4 a plate), and they were invariably, if it can be beleived, many times more greasy than chinese food in the states. again, a complete physicoligal rejection. not fun at all. so, we've been avoiding it - we stocked up at grocery stores, both local and an international one, ate baked biscuits and little light dumplings from street vendors, lots of fruit, peanut butter and jelly, got pizza last night, and tonight, in a stroke of brilliance, cooked ourselves some pasta at our hostel's kitchen. it was amazing, perfect comfort food, no grease at all, just solid carbs and veggies. the only meal in china so far that we could stand repeating.

we are staying in a wonderful neighborhood just south of tienanmin square. i imagine it is one of your butongs, grandma, for there are plenty of older folks here, every type of shop necessary (one could probably live their whole life here and never have to leave for any material reason), what appears to be a well-integrated and well-adjusted community. there are also plenty of young people here, with 24-hour internet cafes where they play video games and modest little restaurants where they drink these olymics-edition 3.6% alcohol tsingtao beers. plenty of familes too, babies and little kids riding bikes, everyone mixed in this mini melting pot with the travelers from the few hostels around here. this latter group supports a few tourist shops, many selling buddhist and communist souvenirs and propaganda (eli and i bought 14 posters, even maoists can't help being just wonderful).

i've been calling this the petchaburi of beijing.

i'm sure that there are other good spots, but all we've seen so far besides this has been very unattractive. massive highrise edifices, being built on top of each other, huge eight-lane intersections, wide bleak empty sidewalks, everything paved sterile and grey. middle class consumer goods and restaurants if anything, but usually no store fronts at all. no street vendors, so crazy little shops, no one just hanging out on their stomping grounds, chatting with their neighbors, people-watching. on the bus ride into the city on wednesday night we passed mile after mile after mile of this foreboding unheimlich mallish hell. i feel very lucky that we are staying where we are.

yesterday we tried to get russian visas, but were told that we had to have an itinerary for our entire stay, hotels booked, train tickets bought, entry and exit dates set in stone. this confirmed some rumors we'd heard and things we'd read on line, but contradicted other stories we've heard of travelers just winging it through, stopping whenever wherever they wanted. the embassy bureaucrat who shot us down spoke to us condescendingly, telling us that these are big cities, who will be responsible for you?

that flies in the face of our traveling style and experience. so far we've just been showing up in cities, often with no map or guide book or contact info, just knowing how to say hello and thank you, and we've done just fine. within 24 hours in beijing we had a hostel in an awsome neighborhood and were comfortable with the public transportation system. as long as the stress of wandering lost and aimless doesn't bother you, this is just fine. we are loath to use travel booking agents, as they nearly double the costs and provide a service for us that we easily do ourselves. we don't like planning ahead because we have no idea how we will feel about the places we visit and need to be able to improvise along the way. so screw that bureaucrat. basically the only thing keeping us on our track into russia is eli's ability to speak the language (which both of us enjoy emensely. its just delightful to hear him successfully communicate in that mad tongue - we met a couple from vladivostok the other day and he made instant friends with them). so, we will see how this develops. we're going to try our luck with the russian embassy in ulan-bator, mongolia, next week.

today we explored the beijing military museum, a massive place with entire wings dedicated to certain stages of the wars with japan and the great march and whatnot. very interesting, just brimming with chinese communist party propaganda - some hilarious, awkward, silly. it got old after a while though, just too repetetive and mind-numbing. how many murals and statues of happy, diligent, placid-faced maoist soldiers helping old peasants can you put in a row before you drive visitors out? we also visited tienanmin square.

we've been trying to visit only political/historical or communist based museums and tourist attractions, avoiding those of buddhist, bourgeois and cultural character on principal (although we did transgress once in chiang mai and a couple times in luongphrabang). we don't want to provide any material support to these insitutions by buying tickets, or social support by giving them an audience, or ideological support by reinforcing the stereotype that westerners are all liberals who will swallow this crap. considering our political orientations, this is just being consistent. we feel perfectly comfortable hanging out with the chinese cops and soldiers who are all over the place, whereas in thailand or the states (or any capitalist country) we can't stand them, as they are literally class enemies. sure this is an extension of our theoretical worldview, but more importantly its just a gut reaction to the vibrations these maoists are giving us.

next time i will write about tibet, which will add another important dimension to this issue.

the chinese government blocks tons of websites (it is a bureaucratized stalinist deformed workers state after all), including youtube, wikipedia, almost all the sites of my trotksyist parties, and of course blogger.com. so my dad is posting this for me.