Shanghai

March 23-25. Shanghai. Late afternoon on the 23rd we sail up the murky brown Huangpu river, past ship yards and dry docks, past endless stacks of cargo containers, past the puffing smokestacks of big factories, through the choking smog.  We forge ahead, challenging the countless small cargo boats that crisscross the river ahead of our massive ship, ferrying their commodity morsels in an endless waltz of commerce.

Finally, after more than an hour of this mesmerizing dance, we arrive in the parakeet-pleasing city of Shanghai, a shiny new object upon the planet's crust.  The city has hundreds of brand new skyscrapers - some that look like temples, or pineapples, or bottle openers, others just big monolithic structures.  Our ship anchors adjacent the Bund, right in the heart of the city, filling our view with the sparkling, neon Legoland that is Shanghai.

First thing the next morning we go into the city to explore.  It is a vast landscape of modern construction, punctuated with small green spaces, laced with a spiderweb of freeways.  There are so many cranes working to expand this capitalist mecca, that some consider the crane the national bird of China.  Salaries are low, energy is high, real estate is bubbling over.  Taoists, Buddhists, Christians, atheists - twenty six million people whose common threads are the pursuit of money, and a curious habit of wearing their pajamas in public.  Only 5% of the citizens have cars, yet since there are no parking spaces, they must forever navigate the highways and byways in a sort of eternal quest for that which does not exist.  With modern GPS technology, drivers always know where they are, even if they don't know where they are going.  Similarities to much of human existence abound.

Shanghai natives have their own dialect distinct from other areas in China, and some legal and cultural differences as well.  Men outnumber women, thus tipping the scales of romance in favor of females.  To obtain a wife, men must posses the four 'C's.  They must have cash, a condominium, a car, and a career.  The more discerning ladies also demand a fifth quality - the prospective husband must be cute.  Mercifully for these young men, there are no requirements to be communicative or emotionally available.  In Shanghai parents will often supply their sons with an apartment for the sole purpose of enabling them to marry.  With such expensive requirements for young men, it is no wonder that Shanghai couples seeking to produce a child have a strong preference for baby girls.  By contrast, in most other places in China the preference is for baby boys, who are duty-bound to support their aging parents.

To be sure, Shanghai has a lot of history.  It has the dubious distinction of being a verb - shanghai'd - the practice of drugging, kidnapping and ultimately enslaving victims into forced labor.  Today the city's rapid transformation into a modern, international center of commerce leaves it with barely a trace of its ancient past.  They have an ongoing rivalry with Beijing, which tour guides in both cities make apparent.  During our two days here, we are mostly in the city, though also visit an old water village about one hour outside of Shanghai (with gondolas and waterways similar to Venice).   We ride to the top observation deck of a tall building, where we get a great view of other tall buildings and can see as far as the smog will allow.  We stroll the famous Bund, which is a Hindi word meaning waterfront.  A new waterfront path was built by the government for the 2010 world expo.  It is a pleasant walk, crowded with tourists, 99% of whom are Chinese.  We enjoy lunch at a wonderful Tibetan restaurant called Lost Heaven.  Walking back toward our ship, an old Chinese man sitting on the sidewalk tries to squirt white shoe polish on my brown shoes as I walk by.  He gets within inches of my shoes, but I manage to jump out of the way, do a jig and avoid his little scam.  He laughs heartily to see me move so sprightly.  I look at him and we share a brief moment.

In the water village I am not so quick.  A female shoe-shining vendor stalks me with her polishing kit.  I make the tactical mistake of pausing, so she swiftly swoops down to squirt brown polish on my shoe.  Now I have no choice.  I play the game and sit to have both of my shoes polished.  She does a fine job and I pay her the negotiated fee of 5 Yuan, about $1.  With my shiny shoes, we go to a tea house overlooking the canal.  We haggle over the price of a pot of tea.

On the Bund we wait at a busy intersection to cross the street.  Our light turns green, but as if to haggle over our very existence, the drivers wear an expression that betrays any intention of stopping for pedestrians.  We inch out into the street, using the green light not as an entitlement, but as a sign that the traffic gods have conveyed a slight advantage to us, 30 seconds of moral high-ground from which to negotiate.  The drivers ultimately slow down enough to avoid hitting us, but not enough to allay our fears.  They lose this barter transaction though manage to save face.  We survive, but our confidence in the roulette of Shanghai intersections is shaken.

In the evening we are treated to a magnificent acrobatic show performed at the Ritz-Carlton.  Top-flight dancer/contortionist/acrobats perform seemingly impossible acts of strength and beauty.  The same show travels around the world, less theatrical than the famed Cirque du Soleil, but every bit as humanly remarkable.

We learn of Shanghai's colonial past, that it once had a British section, a French section, a Jewish section.  Today it does not even have a Chinatown.  On almost every apartment building we see what is jokingly called the national flag of China - laundry hanging out to dry.  Millions of undergarments dancing in the breeze - not pretty, but less expensive than electricity-guzzling washers and dryers.  We are also told that most apartments do not have heat.  In winter they just wear extra layers of clothes.  We leave Shanghai impressed with the place, curious what will become of this city if the growth continues.  We enjoy a glittering sail-away passing brightly lit boats cruising the waterways beneath the neon towers. Like parakeets, we bob up and down snapping pictures of the pretty lights.  If you like the energy of a big city and don't mind its detractions, Shanghai is a great destination.  Regardless of your tastes, their rapid transformation is an impressive accomplishment, one of the more positive examples of China's political system.  We sail out to sea heading south, with favorable feelings about Shanghai.

Beijing, China

March 20/21:  Capitalism, Communism, Confucianism & Corruption.   We arrive in the cold gray port city of Tianjin.  It's early so I head to the top deck for a walk.  But the deck is icy, the smog is thick, and the landscape dreary.  I decide it's probably healthier to go inside for a pastry and cup of coffee.

After a few hours we offboard into a huge processing terminal where we are 'processed', then board a bus for the 3-hour ride through a cold gray countryside, finally arriving in the huge capital city of Beijing.  This is the first of three cities we will visit in China.

Beijing is a sprawling metropolis of 20 million people.  Like any good capitalist city in a communist nation, it spans the full range of just about everything.  Great wealth and desperate poverty - great modern architecture and decrepit old buildings.  Five-star dining, Big Macs, and things that look like eye-of-newt.  Home to the 2008 Olympics, Bird's Nest and Water Cube.  Economically capitalistic, politically communist, culturally Confucist, transactionally corrupt to the core.  Too big and too complicated to summarize.

We see Tiananmen Square, which is the world's largest rectangular square.  It was built as a convenient location for popular uprisings.  Lots of history there, most recently the infamous, deadly protests of 1989.  The Chinese government, while presumably headed in the direction of increased freedom, is still very sensitive about that episode.  Before entering the square our tour guide mentions that he cannot comment on events of 1989 while in the square, even though he was there and has vivid memories.  He says one never knows who might be eavesdropping on his conversation.  In fact because of his participation in that protest the government prevented him from entering the teaching profession, despite his college degree in Chinese history.  So he became a tour guide.

We see the Forbidden City, which was home to a killjoy emperor who forbade just about everything.  We spend the night in a fancy hotel called the Shangri-La where we enjoy an overpriced meal with friends. The young waiter speaks surprisingly good English, which he says he taught himself by watching American movies, probably on pirated DVDs.  We know that the Chinese like to negotiate everything, but we are still surprised when the hotel staff haggles over our purchase of a single postage stamp.  Once we agree on a price, they still try to cheat us.

We visit the Great Wall.  We buy silly-looking hats and hike the wall, which is really a series of steep and uneven steps, none built to code.  Guides tell us the wall is over 4,000 miles long and can be seen from Jupiter.  Originally it was painted with a faux finish to look like stone.  This attracted armies of Outer Mongolians who became very fond of climbing the big structure.  They would sit on the wall and meditate for hours and hours, trying to get in touch with their inner Mongolian.  The visiting armies created a bustling trade that kept the various dynasties in business right up until the opium wars. 

The opium wars occurred in the mid 19th century.  They were instigated by British and French, ostensibly to combat trade imbalances between China and Europe.  An alternate explanation however is that it was started by some merchant-sailors looking for a good time on a Saturday night.  There are no reliable eye-witness accounts from these wars, since all of the participants were rendered useless by their opium-induced mental fog.  They would spend lazy days sitting atop big pillows, safely ensconced in dark smokey rooms, sipping on their hookahs, thinking deeply about nothing, battling the munchies.  That is to say, they were stoned.

In fact they were so stoned they signed away Macau to Portugal and Hong Kong to the British, granting 150-year leases without so much as a security deposit.  Macau became a gambling mecca and Hong Kong used its' cool name to attract big shot industrialists.  Today both sides have sobered up and both of those cities have reverted to Chinese ownership.  However they still maintain their own currency, government, and limited marketing rights.  Their opium dens have been converted to shopping malls, and four hundred million Chinese citizens now work hard at manufacturing everything from soup to nuts.  The other eight or nine hundred million work in agriculture, which is also related to both soup and nuts.

After much struggle and an excessive amount of history, thousands of years of imperial rule in China came to an end when the last emperor took the early retirement option.  He abdicated in 1912, and at the tender age of 6 began a humble life of gardening and imprisonment.  This ended 5,000 years of chaos and struggle, and ushered in a new and improved period of chaos and struggle.

Mao Zedong, despite his limited knowledge of trivia, became head of the Communist party.  The Cultural Revolution was Mao's attempt to bring some culture to China.  He offered low-cost tickets to the ballet, special museum events and communist poetry readings.  He decreed that all citizens were entitled to his own opinion.  But Mao was out of touch.  People wanted to drink and gamble and watch world wide wrestling.  Inexplicably, the few intellectuals who actually would have enjoyed some refined culture had been imprisoned by Mao's own cultural police, so the revolution never really achieved the popularity he had hoped for.  Frustrated by starvation, low ticket sales, and other domestic issues, the communist party had no choice but to open for trade with the outside world.  One way or another this meant having lunch with President Nixon.  The two leaders met at a trendy Asian Fusion restaurant in downtown Shanghai and had a nice afternoon eating noodles and exchanging old war stories.  They became Facebook friends for a while.

And such was Chinese history.  Despite his brushes with harsh communist rule, or perhaps because of it, our tour guide emphasizes the intensity of the capitalism in China and downplays the fact of communism as their political system.  He speaks openly of his father's imprisonment by Mao's cultural police.  He speaks at length about the one-child policy, and the unintended consequence of significantly more male births than female births.  Eventually we learn that in Shanghai, it's the opposite.  In that city girls are the preferred gender for new parents, since modern cultural practices make them less expensive than having boys.  He notes that at the local level there is an increasing degree of democracy, and that the popular belief about internet censorship is grossly overstated by western media.  He notes that Beijing has 100 McDonalds and 110 KFC stores.  With obvious pride he characterizes his country as 'more capitalist than the United States.'  And in the next breath, and without the slightest trace of irony, he warns us not to buy from any street vendors, stating that they are all dishonest and will cheat us outright.   

And so with that heartwarming advice, we leave Beijing to return to the soothing luxury of our ship.  We are of course glad we visited, yet equally glad we don't live there.  We reflect on our freedoms, our spacious living.   However we cannot deny our connection to China; commercially, spiritually, historically and in many other ways, it is a part of our lives in this connected, incredible shrinking world.

For more photos see Brigit's blog at http://anchorsawaygrandworldcruise.blogspot.com/

South Korea

March 18: Throughout history war has been a popular activity.  In the 12th and 13th centuries there was the so-called '100 years war' between France and England.  The king of England "Edward the Squeamish" received false intelligence that the French were planning to invade his palace and force him to eat snails cooked in butter.  Dreading such culinary unpleasantries, he launched a pre-emptive attack.  The fighting continued for 100 years, yielding some creatively named battles.  There was the Battle of the Herrings, and the lesser known Battle of Sour Cream.  Both skirmishes occurred in 1429.  Today we don't have such interesting names for our military events.  For example, the war in Korea was simply called the 'Korean War' and lasted only 3 years. 

That conflict occurred in 1950 on the newly divided Korean peninsula.  North Korea kicked off, hoping to gain the element of surprise.  They were indeed surprised when the U.S. sent 80,000 troops under the command of General MacArthur.  MacArthur's men landed at Inchon and bravely pushed back the northern army.  It ended in a tie, which was of course disappointing to both teams.  Each side got roughly half of the peninsula.  The south got all of the arable land, capitalism, and U.S. military support.  The north got all of the minerals and a President with remarkably white teeth.  The Soviet Union took their ball and went home.

Today the north is a very poor, insular dictatorship possessing nuclear weapons.  South Korea on the other hand is an economic success story that shows just how far a country can go on a diet of kimchee and Korean barbeque.  Since most of the citizens there have the same last name, as a country they get huge discounts on monogrammed towels and stationary. 

For our tour we visit a 19th century village to see how folks lived back then, which was pretty much the same as people live today, minus anything that requires electricity, running water, internet or fossil fuels.  We enjoy a traditional Korean meal, with kimchee and other fermented foods.  I enjoy the spicy dishes, though most of my fellow travelers find it too hot.  Next we go to the capital city of Seoul for some shopping, sightseeing, and of course a visit to Starbucks.  Seoul is one of many big cities around the world that was destroyed and rebuilt after war.  In just over 30 years it has grown from a pile of rubble to an industrial powerhouse of 12 million people.  Lots of industrial pollution, lots of new construction, high employment, everyone lives in apartment buildings, English language mandatory in schools.  Capitalistic economy, elevator is going up. 

We learn some curious tidbits about Korean culture.  When you ask a Korean their age, they respond with their birth year as defined by the zodiac - year of the monkey, year of the ox, etc.   With that clue to work with, you then have to figure out their age.  Golf and baseball very popular.  Family values undergoing some of the same changes that occurred in western countries a few decades ago.  Diet is traditional Korean, with fermented vegetables, though western fast-foods are becoming widely popular among the widening young.

We leave South Korea glad that we saw it, another example of the stark contrast that develops quickly when a society is cut in two, with one half adopting the economic engine that is capitalism, and the other half choosing the wound-up rubber band called communism. The satellite photo at the top of this page is of the Korean peninsula at night, showing that the north is both literally and figuratively a nation in the dark.  Tomorrow at sea, headed to Beijing.

Taiwan

March 14,  Ring of Fire, western rim, about 4 hours away from Taiwan.  I check my email before heading to lunch, see a message from Phil - he is flying into Taipei to meet us, tonight.  A welcome change in plans.  We cancel our tour and plan to meet him.  Sail into Keelung Harbor in Taiwan, hop into a cab and ride to Taipei.  Arrive at the hotel around 7:30 pm just minutes before Phil steps from his cab.   We have dinner together, find a quiet tea house, enjoy a wonderful evening catching up, comparing notes about the world.  Spend the night in the hotel and the next day seeing a bit of Taipei together before we return to the ship, and Phil returns to Hong Kong.

Taipei is a thriving city of 2.6 million people and capital of Taiwan.  It is relatively clean for a city of its size.   Walking around, we see a mix of modern highrise buildings, green public spaces, and a few pockets of third-world shacks clinging to simpler times in the shadows of new wealth.  Like much of the world, English is taught in grade school.  No problem communicating.  We ride to the observation deck in Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world.  Was briefly the tallest building until Dubai claimed that distinction.  Great views of a prosperous city, despite the inclement weather - looks much less chaotic from above than from the back seat of a taxi.

Like many places in east Asia, Taiwan was once occupied by imperial Japan.  As a country, imperial Japan did not play well with others.  After WWII Taiwan reverted to Chinese rule, but when the communist party gained control of China, Taiwan moved toward independence, embraced capitalism as an economic system and gradually become a democratic nation.  They have enjoyed spectacular economic growth since then.  Today relations between Taiwan and China are gradually improving.

Back to the harbor in the afternoon, then back onto the ship for two more days at sea.  Next stop South Korea.

Manila, Philippines

March 11/12 - Earth hiccups, Japan shakes, tsunami to follow.  Then Earth sneezes, Kilauea volcano on Hawaii erupts.  Floods in Brisbane, quakes in Christchurch - this world journey heightens our awareness of an itchy-scratchy planet.  We arrive in Manila, an industrial metropolis of 15 million people, capital of Philippines.  As we sail into Manila Bay, we smell the city before we see it.  If I were a glass-half-full type, I'd see the thick pollution as the hallmark of a bustling economy, human industriousness, and the creation of wealth - a tide that raises all boats.  If I were the glass-half-empty sort, I'd rant about the environmental damage and subjugation of the masses.  And finally if I were a Matrix-inspired 'there is no glass' person, I'd say the city is an illusion - the world is what you make of it.  Today is reader's choice day, so I'm allowing you to choose your favorite description. 

We tour some historical sites around Manila.  The archipelago of the Philippines has over 7,000 islands, making it the largest archipelago in the world.  It has been continuously inhabited for over 20,000 years and once was connected to Asia via a land bridge.  The bridge disappeared long ago, though the islands were still visited and ruled by many foreign peoples: Polynesians, Persians, Arabians, Indians, Chinese, Indonesians, just to name a few.

Magellan was the first European to travel here, and Spain ruled the Philippines for over 300 years.  The Spanish empire came to an end however in 1898, when they lost the Spanish-American war to the U.S on a coin toss.  The two sides met in Paris, generally had a good time, and ended up signing the Treaty of Paris.  They chose Paris primarily because that seemed like more fun than meeting in Philadelphia.  During the negotiations, the U.S. agreed to pay $20 million to Spain in return for Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, plus an option on a future country to be named later.  Buy two, get one free.

In this crowded city street peddlers seem to materialize whenever a tour bus shows up.  They are assertive, though less so than Balinese.  Actually I needed a hat this morning to protect against the bright sun, and magically a hat seller materialized and sold me a stylish cowboy hat for $3.  I'm sure that if I needed a lawn mower or set of steak knives, those would have materialized as well.  I just love the entrepreneurial spirit.

Next day took a cab to the Mall of Asia, said to be the largest shopping mall in Asia.  Of course we negotiate the cab fare before getting in - no metered cabs here.  Wander the mall for no particular reason.  It is crowded with Philippino people, very few foreigners.  Good prices, much lower than the tourist-centric mall a few miles away.  Good energy here, lots of young people, ice-skating rink, stores very well-staffed. 

Much migration to Manila from rural provinces as people seek economic opportunity.  Some take the migration concept further by moving to wealthier countries where pay is good and work is available.  This makes people one of the Philippine's most important exports.  About 11 million Philippinos live and work abroad, and with their strong sense of family responsibility, they send remittances regularly to help care for those back home.

Tonight we will leave Manila around midnight.  Never did find the factory where they make manila folders, but did acquire a general impression of the place.  Generally educated people who want to work, strong family values, bilingual.  Lots of traffic, low wages, pollution, simultaneous construction and decay in the city.  In many ways similar to the constant growth and decay of a rain forest.  Or perhaps my impression is just an illusion.

Tomorrow at sea, heading to Taiwan.

Australia & Bali

Completed our tour of Australia about a week ago.  Visited eight ports there: Hobart (Tasmania), Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Townsville, Cairns, Thursday Island and Darwin.  The mood in Australia, particularly in the southern half, is palpably optimistic and confident.  It is a country rich in natural resources at a time that the world is hungry for these raw materials.  Prices are rising, real estate is booming, employment is high, shops are full. In Australia the elevator is going up.  In the more northern ports, which are closer to the equator, the appearance of wealth diminished and the mood was not as good.  And so it goes throughout the planet - pockets of wealth and optimism bordering regions of quiet subsistence, or worse.

On a cruise however, no time to reflect on all this - before we can decipher a place, we move on to the next place.  Memories of Australia:  riding through the countryside outside of Melbourne, very reminiscent of driving through northern California with its rolling brown hills, oak trees, agriculture, wineries.  Seeing kangaroo, koala, wombats, dingoes, Tasmanian devils.  Sailing into the magnificent Sydney Harbor, past their famed opera house and under the Sydney Harbor Bridge.  We hiked to the top of the bridge to take in great views of this vibrant, attractive and expensive city.  Saw Brisbane, impressed with how they recovered from devastating floods just four weeks earlier, then a cyclone two weeks after that.  While there, we learn that Christchurch in New Zealand suffers a major earthquake, just 8 days after our visit.  Earth speaks to us, sometimes harshly.

Then to Cairns where we sailed on a catamaran across mystically beautiful seas to the Great Barrier Reef.  We snorkeled for hours in an area dense with fabulous coral and teeming with fish that would have made Dr. Seuss proud.  Learned a bit about aboriginal cultures, believed to have lived in Australia as early as 60,000 years ago.  No written language however, so much of their cultural heritage has been lost.  Saw tiny Thursday Island on a Wednesday, then Darwin on a Thursday.

After Australia, we spend one day in Bali, which is one of thousands of islands in the archipelago that is Indonesia.  Bali is the only island in that country that is primarily Hindu.  The others are mostly Muslim.  It is a tropical place with about 3.5 million residents, mostly poor.  Tourism is an important element of their economy, and it has been depressed since bombings there in 2002 and 2005.  So far the Balinese win the award for most aggressive and persistent peddlers.  We didn't see it, but we've read that in other parts of the island, begging is rampant.  It's also big business, often controlled by unseen bosses who reap most of the daily harvest.  The Balinese that we encountered literally swarmed around us as soon as we left the ship.  Men, women, children, five or more at a time, shoving all manner of goods in our faces, trying desperately to sell anything to us at any price.  They interpreted my complete and utter disinterest as a negotiating tactic, which made them try even harder.  Eventually I came to admire their focus and intensity of purpose.  They did manage to extract 40,000 Rupiah from Brigit (about $5).  My currency however never saw the light of day.

After Bali, we spent 4 days at sea.  Were supposed to stop in Malaysia, but due to various mishaps the schedule changed, so now we are headed to the Philippines.  So next two days in Manila.