My eyes! I'm blind!

MARCH 1, 2008: I haven't been exposed to this much light for a good 10 months. Perth's very, uh, a very bright place. Photos of Australia, Hong Kong

Anyway.

We got jobs proofreading ("editing" when we choose to get grandiose about it) - Boxxy at a Shanghai expat mag, me at a small-time publishing house that's republishing old English-language books about China from between 1800 and 1950. Two days a week pays the bills for the whole month, so i'm fresh out of excuses not to get writing.

Many of these old books embody the classic old Yellow Peril/Foreign Devil antipathy, and the first job I got is worthy of attention, if only because you'll never read it. It's called "Beleaguered in Peking", and it's the diary of an American doctor who was caught up in the siege of the foreigners in Beijing in the Boxer Rebellion (1900). It was published just a few weeks after the siege ended, so it was pretty sloppily done and has a predictable amount of knee-jerk ranting. Which is hilarious of course. And though the title was "Beleaguered in Peking" - even on the title page - on the original front cover it's called "The Yellow Crime". Probably a shrewd, last-minute move by the publisher at the time.

Other highlights include:
- The 'heroine of the siege', Mrs Chamot, "after some shells burst in the baking room and killed one and severely wounded others of the Chinese bakers, Mrs. Chamot, rifle in hand, held the coolies to their work."
- "A Peking Belle: Perhaps, after looking at this picture, there will not be so much wonder that occasionally a Caucasian selects a Chinese girl for a wife. That there are very attractive Chinese girls this picture evidences."
- "Norregaard drew his revolver and fired two shots into the mob. The effect was instantaneous. The brutal cowards dropped Cox at once, and ran away like sheep toward their encampment."
- "Thanks to Mr Stell in the coolie supply department."
- "[T]he seeds of disorder and riot that yielded such a bitter crop when they ripened; just as only a poorly-organized, semi-patriotic, but fully looting society could do".

And a very entertaining obsession with the words "ruffian" and "filth".

Just after starting these jobs, we had to leave Shanghai to use our return plane tickets to Australia. Timing, as usual, was exquisite: this time just as the largest annual human migration on the planet began to take hold. The 300 million-odd migrant workers, in their efforts to get home for Chinese New Year, were just beginning to bring the transportation system to a grinding halt. Our plane was departing from Hong Kong on the 27th. Around the 20th I went to the train station to 'pick up' a couple of tickets to Hong Kong. [Insert Family Feud shut-down noise.] No chance. So I went to a different ticket office to get a couple of tickets to Guangzhou, near enough to Hong Kong, instead. No chance. I went to another station and there, after standing in line for about half an hour in the crowded hall, managed to get my hands on two tickets – hard seats for the 20+ hour journey.

So we packed up and left, just as a fear-inducing "public announcement" got delivered to us, warning all residents of our compound that no-one going away for Chinese New Year should leave anything inside that they don't want stolen. Crucial to your chances of having anything left when you get back, but no guarantee, was to inform the landlord of your dates of departure and return. My impression of the greasy, slick-headed landlord (actually the landlord's agent) had not been positive. He's one of these Chinese blokes who reeks of baijiu in the early morning and apparently never speaks at any volume below shouting. The idea of telling him of the long period we would be away filled me with doubts. We slapped the padlock on the door, tried to make the place look empty, and left.

Of course, before long it all went horribly wrong. Unbelievably, we were once again misinformed as to which train station to go to, this time by the clerk who sold the ticket. Luckily this time we had left 2 hours early for this very purpose, remembering that with 2000+km to travel and migrant workers creating mayhem at every turn, just one missed train or connection, one delay or mishap and we would miss our flight home. So, laden with suitcases and various bags, we descended again down into the subway. But the normally unstoppable subway train kept stopping in the tunnel. Then the doors at several stations apparently wouldn't open. At this point it was clear: though we in fact ARE migrant workers, heading home for Chinese New Year, our fellows were going to fuck us over.

But by some miracle we made it, and indescribably lucky we were. As we got into Guangzhou, after 1 hour's sleep (on the train floor, under the seat), the transport system went into its well-documented meltdown, due to the severe snowstorms across the country. Supposedly tropical Guangzhou was cold, colder than Perth in winter, and very very wet. The only accommodation available near the station was about 200 stairs higher than we were longing for. A little consolation of all this luggage-laden climbing was witnessing the strange arrangement of tall, narrow apartment buildings with narrow alleyways in between, creating what are effectively hutongs (tightly packed villages) stacked on top of each other. This means Guangzhou residents live about a metre from various neighbours' windows, but about 200 metres from door to door. I haven't explained this very well but the pictures sort of show it.



I'm glad I'm not one of the friendly staff on the Chinese train service, who would have copped it nasty from the millions and millions of stranded, shattered passengers being denied their only chance to see their families all year. When things go wrong, well, i wouldn't blame them for being a little confused as to how to handle the situation. This slogan on the red sign in the following pic reads: "Passengers first, safety first, service first".


So what happens, then, when snow storms make providing train services to carry millions of passengers home extremely dangerous? Which comes first - passengers, safety or service? The pictures on TV made the answer pretty obvious.

You know you're safe behind the razor wire of Hong Kong when you see a sign that states Falun Dafa (Falun Gong) is, gasp...


They carry out an extraordinarily aggressive propaganda campaign in Hong Kong against the Chinese Communist Party. The display in the picture below was in the middle of the Causeway Bay shopping precinct on a Saturday night, where body space is severely scarce. Surely they would need permission from the local authorities (who are actually selected by the Communist Party), to set up a stall like this in the middle of one of the busiest streets on earth. The "Practitioners demonstration" sign is interesting. The claims of organ harvesting are seriously horrific, but apparently Falun Gong is worried there are some who would see this and go home to try extracting organs for themselves. The Chinese writing above the English actually reads, "Practitioners demonstration, please do not copy."



So, homeless once again, after we got bored with riding up and down the above escalator we dumped our bags at the train station and headed for an internet bar to sleep. On the way, we passed Kowloon's harbour promenade to check the latest fashions. Not really, but Boxxy couldn't help but notice this picturesque couple.


Here they are, officially on "the Thrillseeker fashion blog, a daily digest of the best dressed people in seven cities across the world". That's what they think anyway, poor fools.