Portrait of an LBX

By Evan

Note: This post is written about events before our arrival in Shanghai in early November.

Saloman and his lovely young wife in front of their pulled noodles business off a highway in the heavy manufacturing district of Kunshan, Jiangsu, by Andy

On the road from Suzhou to Shanghai, in the prefecture of Kunshan, on one of the four-lane provincial highways on which goods from inland manufacturing bases are sped toward the ocean, sits a row of restaurants catering to truckers and other passers through the dusty industrial zone. Amid shabby storefronts, we found the familiar blue facade of a Lanzhou Pulled Noodles restaurant, here belonging to Ma Jun (马君), where we lunched on the final leg into Shanghai. After ordering a cheap lunch of noodles and stir-fry over rice, we settled into conversation with the proprietor, who instructed us to call him by his Arabic handle, Saloman (think baby-splitting king).

Hailing from a little village outside of Xining in Qinghai province, the 30 year old member of the Hui Muslim ethnic group of China didn’t exactly do any pioneering work in his trade. There are tens of thousands of Lanzhou Pulled Noodles restaurants throughout China, including hundreds if not thousands of shops just in and around Shanghai. Whereas outside of Shanghai the owners of these restaurants could come from any number of locales of high Hui concentration, in and around China’s most populous city, all the Lanzhou Noodleries seem to be run by Qinghai’ers. (more…)

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Jour 40 (01/11/09)

Nankin(南京)-Liyang(溧阳)

Province du Jiangsu(江苏省)

-114km-

Nous nous levons sans trop nous presser ce matin: 9h. Nous avons tous les trois super bien dormis. Evan et Andy se sont même couchés plut tôt que moi, car la fameuse soirée halloween s’est avérée être un échec: ils n’ont parlé à presque personne.

Nous retournons à la boulangerie d’hier pour prendre un petit déjeuner spécial: sandwich-café. Lorsque nous en sortons, nous croisons un Ricain mormon avec son gosse sur les épaules, qui nous pose des questions sur notre voyage et essaie de nous traîner jusqu’à son église. D’après Evan, les mormons sont super balaises dans les langues étrangères, mais un peu fous et emmerdants dans leurs conversations, surtout lorsqu’ils ne cesse de répéter que la réincarnation de Jésus habite actuellement aux États-Unis. C’est dingue de voir comme des gens intelligents peuvent avoir des absences, des trous noirs, des moments de connerie intense, au point de pouvoir gober ça. D’un côté, ça m’énerve de voir des gens se pourrir la vie à cause de ça; mais de l’autre, je suis vraiment très admiratif envers ces magiciens de l’arnaque qui arrivent à convaincre leur assistance des conneries les plus ridicules. Là encore, Chirac a raison: « Plus c’est gros, et mieux ça passe! ».

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By Evan

Sorry for the massive delay in posting to all. We’ve been enjoying life / waiting out the rain in Shanghai for well past our anticipated rest time, but now we should be getting back on track. Back to the story, as of the last post, we had left the Nanjing Hopkins Center and the Halloween party for Liyang (溧阳) in the middle of Southern Jiangsu, where we found yet another cafe with wireless to update pictures and posts. At lunch on the day we got to Liyang, several of our friends sent us emails with pictures of the huge snowstorm in Beijing triggered by government weather rockets. That would never affect Southern China, right? When we woke up the following morning, the cold weather had indeed found its way south of the Yangtze, giving us a near-freezing ride through biting wind for the 40+ km to Yixing (宜兴). When we finally arrived in the city a little after noon, we stopped to ask directions in the first business that appealed to our sensibilities: a fireworks stand. The kindly patrons informed us that the clay pots for which the city is famous do not actually come from urban Yixing itself but from a little village 10+ km to the south called Dingshan (丁山). After buying 20 yuan of fireworks off of them (all work and no play makes PLBX a dull blog), we rolled south through the city and toward our destination. Yixing is actually geographically extremely well endowed, ringed by small mountains and with a smattering of little rivers cutting through the city. The architecture was refreshing compared to what we passed through in the North China Plain, especially the remains of older buildings. Of course, everything is relative, and it’s still a herculean stone’s throw from beautiful, but as Andy put it, at least we can imagine how it could evolve into something worthwhile. (more…)

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Jour 38 (30/10/09)

Lai’an(来安)

Province de l’Anhui(安徽省)

Bien que nous nous soyons couchés tôt la veille, nous aurions bien fait la grasse matinée. Malheureusement, quand l’hôte est chinois, l’invité n’a pas une minute à lui. Dès 8h, Bu et Shi nous attendent déjà dans le hall d’entrée. Bu, déjà chaud comme la braise, ne peut pas s’empêcher de nous dire, en présentant une des réceptionnistes: “你们看看我们你的中国美女！来，让她跟你们合个影吧！” (« Regardez nos belles Chinoises! Venez, je vais vous prendre ensemble en photo! »).

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Jour 36 (28/10/09)

Bengbu(蚌埠)-Huangnipu(黄泥铺)

Province de l’Anhui(安徽省)

-48km-

Aujourd’hui, étant donné l’état de santé d’Andy, nous nous levons assez tard. Nous verrons après le petit déjeuner s’il est prêt à prendre la route.

Sur la plaque d'immatriculation: "Interdiction aux Japonais et aux chiens d'approcher"

Alors que nous marchons dans la rue à la recherche d’un resto, nous apercevons stationnée sur le trottoir une moto à la plaque d’immatriculation assez particulière: 日本人和狗不得靠近 (‘Interdiction aux Japonais et aux chiens de s’approcher’), avec une traduction maladroite en japonais et en anglais. Je fais remarquer à Evan et Andy que ce genre d’écriteau ou de remarque est interdit et serait sanctionné en France. Ils me disent qu’aux Etats-Unis, n’importe qui a le droit de dire et d’écrire ce qu’il veut, même les pires remarques racistes, xénophobes ou homophobes. D’abord un peu surpris, je me dis que c’est en effet assez proche de l’idée que je me fais de la liberté. Après tout, être pour la liberté, c’est d’abord accepter ce qu’on désapprouve (même si c’est très très con!), et pas seulement ce qu’on approuve. Il est interdit d’interdire! (oui, c’est un journal, alors il m’arrive de dire ce que je pense parfois…)

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After a 50km ride through the freezing wind this morning, we stopped and spent our afternoon in the town of Dingshan under Yixing City in Jiangsu province. The town is known is the home of China's ceramics, china as it's popularly known, and also for its handmade clay teapots and other tea accessories. We did some asking around and found our way to some of the masters of the art. The pots they make can take two or three weeks to complete, although they are capable of pumping out several basic ones in a day if an order comes in. The most carefully crafted pots sell for thousands of dollars, while more basic ones sell in stores all over town for as little as 50 yuan, or seven dollars. Here, a third-year apprentice working in his uncle's studio hammers gold wire into characters and designs etched into the side of a teapot. It was incredibly refreshing to meet people who enjoy what they are doing and take pride in their work, and we had a wonderful time listening to their stories. Evan will post a full update on the day later, as he had a much better time understanding the local accent.

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The combination of mass migration to China's sprawling cities and manufacturing hubs and the effects of the One Child Policy mean that China's rural population and the number of those relying on agriculture for a living have been shrinking. One result is that farm machinery is becoming more commonplace, replacing the manpower or animal power that used to suffice. Generous subsidies from local, provincial and national governments for everything from tractors to televisions help the process along. Here, dirt flies as a man in Jiangsu tills his recently harvested rice paddy.

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