edifices

Photo evidence!

Here I am with my friend Lijuan, who came with her husband to cheer me at the finish. Later, they took  me to a buffet in a fancy hotel, featuring both Western and Chinese food, so I could have the traditional post-marathon binge.  A good friend, indeed.

A couple things I forgot to mention in my first list of thoughts, in my post-marathon haze of endorphin rush/depletion.

During the race,  someone was setting off bunches of fireworks around mile 8, for what reason I’m not sure.  General celebratory glee? 

The photo with which I ended my previous marathon-themed post received much attention throughout the Chinese internet world.  Apparently a popular search on Baidu, the Chinese equivalent of Google, was 尿红墙, or "urine red wall."  One of my friends just today said, "How was the marathon?   I hear there was a problem involving toilets."

The finish—how could I have forgotten that?  Totally memorable, occurring on the plaza between the Olympic Stadium (the “Bird's Nest”) and the Water Cube swimming facility, the two most architecturally memorable parts of the Beijing games.  I have a terrible memory, but still vividly recall my first sighting of the Bird's Nest as it was under construction in 2007.  I was here on sabbatical, on a bus going along the North 4th Ring Road when we passed it.  I was utterly dazzled by the sight of it, this majestic structure going up amidst the mostly blah, dreary Beijing apartment blocks.   Here it is again:

 

This was one of the first of the new wave of Beijing architecture, with much of the city still unexciting today but punctuated by occasional breathtaking or just strange edifices, the most famous example of which may be the new China Central Television (CCTV) Building.

You are not mistaken, it does resemble a pair of pants.

Yet, grandiose architectural statements have been a part of the People's Republic since 1949 when Mao mounted the Tiananmen Gate and declared that "The Chinese people have stood up!"  One of his first projects was to destroy what was left of the Beijing city wall to build broad socialist boulevards, along with creating Tiananmen Square as a place for gatherings of mass politics.  (Interestingly, the critic Dai Jinhua writes that the word often used for "shopping mall" in Chinese these days is the same as that for "Square" or "public plaza," 广场.  There is much to make of that in terms of the shift in China in the past 30 years from a highly public to a privatized society.)   Amusingly but also tragically, apparently the current set of architectural statements have made a positive impression on at least one audience, the North Koreans, as shown in these propaganda posters from Pyongyang:

No Mao suits or Young Pioneers were actually sighted amidst the sea of yellow race shirts at the marathon finish line.

FOOD

I shall post another marathon-related blog when I have more photos.  Here is one taken by these nice ladies at the finish:

In the meantime, why don’t we talk about food?  I’ve certainly been consuming enough of it, and in fact it is one of the chief joys of spending time in China.  The traditional greeting in China is “你吃过了没有?”  “Have you eaten yet?”  I think it hearkens back to the days when food was scarce here and people often didn’t get enough to eat, but it also reflects the courtesy prevalent in Chinese culture.  I often take the question a little too literally and respond, “Yes!  I’ve just had lunch!”  or “oh my, of course, I’ve just had the best _______ (fill in the blank with whatever delicacy I’ve just enjoyed)!” You are supposed to leave food behind, to be polite and show your host fed you enough, but apparently now there is a bit of a “clean your plate” push going on. 

Food is central to the corruption epidemic and endemic in China today, so much so that the anti-corruption campaign initiated by new head honcho Xi Jinping has received the tag line of “three dishes and a soup.”  However, savvy netizens, through close analysis of photos of elites supposedly hanging out with the masses, sometimes notice that such frugality is not necessarily always happening.  It does seem that certain efforts might bear some good results, as apparently the demand for shark fin soup is in decline, which may also bode well for the tragically booming trade in ivory. This could be at least in part the result of celebrity campaigns against demand for products of wildlife crime headed by Jackie Chan and Yao Ming, as seen in these posters from a subway station:

But, back to the cheerier topic of food.  Apparently Julia Child once said that she could eat in China for the rest of her life and never grow tired of the food.  It is true that a typical menu here can be 50 pages long, albeit like the 50 pages of a children’s book with lots of pictures.  The pictures are great, as they allow me to order a much wider array of dishes.  Otherwise, without pulling out a dictionary, how might I really know what this is?

 or this?

How can you go wrong?  I actually prefer the simpler food, the common dishes that people eat daily but are not the fancy, exotic banquet fare.  I Love It.  (And, please know that it bears little resemblance to the slop that passes for Chinese food in many American Chinese restaurants, especially any of those with “buffet” in the name.)  Take, for instance, my dinner last night which cost a total of about U.S. $6:
 

A delicious cold dish of  spinach and peanuts marinated in vinegar and garlic and chili peppers, and guotie, Taiwanese-style dumplings.  These are extra special, because they take the deliciousness that already characterizes the Chinese 饺子(dumping) and add amazingness on top of it by frying them.   Wow.  And beer, which goes so well with the food here that I don’t feel the least bit bad about drinking alone when necessary. 

Two other things.  Now that the weather is cooling, the little lap dogs that dominate the canine scene here are appearing wearing t-shirts and sweaters.  Most of them. I’d say the proportion is about equal to that of those who wore the yellow race shirts in the marathon.   This has nothing to do with food, really, except that our dog, Abbey, refers to such creatures as “snacks in wrappers.”

And, finally, since we were briefly on the topic of Yao Ming, this is How Tall He Is:

The relation of this to food should be self-evident.

happiness

A few summary points from today’s event, with photo accompaniment.  Because I made the ultimate mistake of not carrying a camera, I shall use photos stolen shamelessly from the Chinese internet.* Some friends took pictures of me at the finish and I hope to post those later.

Some benefits of running the Beijing Marathon (some probably also offered in other Chinese races):

o    Being frisked by the People’s Armed Police when going to the start area (except the second they noticed I was a foreigner I was somehow exempted from this).

o   The perky Chinese exercise instructors leading everyone in “warm-up” exercises that resembled an aerobics class.  I sat that one out.  Who the hell wants to do aerobics before running 26 miles?

o   The palpable joy felt by all at the starting line.

o Starting out next to Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum, and then passing under his ever-watchful eyes, and wondering what the guy would think of the whole thing.

o   The first two miles or so along Chang’an Avenue (the Avenue of Eternal Peace), with all five westbound lanes closed for runners.

o   Approximately 2/3rds of all runners wearing the race shirt, this year a cheery bright yellow color (hard to miss in the above photos, yes?).

o   Cheering sections shouting 加油 (“step on the gas”) along with way, with the occasional woman shouting into a megaphone sounding like Chai Ling in the film Tiananmen.

o   Other cheerers yelling, “外国朋友加油” (“Step on the gas, foreign friend”).

o   People running along with music emanating audibly from unknown places on their bodies.  I was especially thrilled to hear my Favorite Chinese Rock Song Ever (with the caveat that I don’t actually know that many Chinese Rock Songs), the probably clichéd but still amazing “I Have Nothing” by Cui Jian.  It was the anthem of hope and protest in China in the late 1980s.

o   The course being marked in kilometers rather than miles (I am aware that it probably is only the US and UK that mark their race courses in miles), thus leading to the disheartening realization that, for instance, you’ve already run 12 km but still have 30 to go.

o   The large number of people running the whole race with the race drop bag on their backs rather than turning it in to be picked up at the finish.

o   The barefoot running team, all wearing little bells around their ankles making a lovely rhythmic sound.  Here is one such man at the finish, continuing his delightfully eccentric behavior.

Some things more universal to the marathon experience regardless of location:

o   The sound of 60,000 feet pounding the pavement at the start.

o   The self-talk going something like “Only 20 minutes till my next gel!  Only 90 minutes till I can take another ibuprofen!”

o   The inevitable betrayal by some body part when everything thus far has been going well.  This time, it was my breathing.  Around 22 miles or so I suddenly had a hard time getting a breath.  I’d like to say it was the fault of the Beijing air, but today was probably the best air day here since I arrived (at the time of the start the AQI was 91, only “Moderate” in terms of its risk level).  So alas I cannot blame the air for my end of race trouble and instead see it as the nearly-eternal dilemma of running long distances, expecting that a wall will be hit, just not knowing which one it will be.

o   The ultimate male privilege being manifested with men getting to go to the side of the course pretty much anywhere to take a leak.  This fact was apparently one of the top attention-getters for Chinese news media, as these photos have appeared on numerous websites here: 

In case what is going on there is not totally clear, here is another, with special Beijing flair, and lots of yellow t-shirts.

_____________________

*If you are the sort of person to care about trifles like intellectual property, good luck finding someone here who would agree.

goodness

My race number:

I texted it to a friend who is meeting me at the finish and she called me immediately and said, “你的号是很好的!”  “Your number is really good!”  Eight is a lucky number in China, the luckiest, because it sounds similar to the word for “getting rich.”   (In case anyone wants more information about Chinese numerology, the unluckiest number is four, because it sounds almost the same as the word for “death.”)

On Thursday morning during my final short run before the marathon a phrase/cliché kept going through my mind.  “Good as gold.”  It had nothing to do with me or my expectations about the race, or getting rich, but rather contrasting what I was observing as I ran my last few 0.45 mile laps of the little park nearby with the recent phenomenon here of the newest iPhone, in gold, selling out really, really quickly. So quickly that clever retailers here have developed stickers to put on your regular, plain, not-gold iPhone so you too can jump on that bandwagon.

Deng Xiaoping’s apocryphal slogan from early in China’s reform process, “to get rich is glorious,” has definitively taken hold, and produced a society where gold iPhones  at nearly US $1000 each are apparently a desirable acquisition.  In a more mundane, middle-class development, more and more people also acquire pets.  These cats and dogs are well-cared for if they are fortunate, but if not, they suffer the fate of unwanted animals around the world and end up on the street.  China does not yet have much of an infrastructure to deal humanely with stray animals.  Stray dogs are not seen and I’d rather not think of what happens to them.  But there are many stray cats, some living in my walled-in apartment complex, and many others living in the Shuangxiu Park where I sometimes go for my morning run. 

At first I found it so piteous, and still do to some extent.  But then I’ve started seeing older, retired ladies with small red tote bags and plastic bowls and bags of cat food.  Feeding the cats, morning and afternoon.   Sitting with the cats affectionately on their laps.  These women are likely on very limited incomes, having had most of their working lives before the opportunities of the market really came to China.  Yet, there they are in the park, feeding the cats.

So, “good as gold.”  Or goodness vs. gold?   Better than gold, actually.  Much, much better.

cars

Only three days till the marathon, so I’m tapering now.  The race starts here:

and ends here: 

 This is a map of the course:

I did my last long run on Saturday, about 10 miles in the Olympic Forest Park, which seems to be one of the two chief benefits that ordinary Beijingers ultimately received from hosting the Olympics in 2008 (the other being a substantial expansion of the subway system—more on that below).  The park is really quite lovely, with marked paths of varying distances making it the best place for running in this vast city.  Other than this, I’m not sure what Beijing got from the Olympics.  The pollution went away for awhile, mostly because the government forced industries to move or close down during the Games, but now of course is back.  I suppose they received an infusion of happy self-esteem, but it seems to be akin to the kind that one might get by buying a really nice dress, wearing it with the tags still attached, and returning it after the party, subsequently returning to wearing regular, more mundane frocks.

I spent most of my run in the Olympic Park with a Chinese man who is also running the marathon, his fourth.  I asked if roads were closed for the race and he said yes.  I think that this will potentially be the most politically or sociologically interesting part of the race.  It’s hard to imagine Beijing drivers patiently waiting for runners to trundle by at various paces, since there is a constant low-intensity conflict here between pedestrians and drivers that sometimes erupts into outright aggression, or at least angry words uttered with raised voices.  

This is mostly a consequence of major and rapid changes in lifestyles.  Beijing used to be a city of bicycles.  When Jim and I lived here in the mid-‘90s, we rode our bikes frequently for transportation.  One day I even had the brilliant idea that I could ride my bike to conduct some business all the way on the other side of town.   We lived far northwest of the 3rd ring road, in Shangdi, which at that time was considered to be the back of beyond, and I rode all the way to the central-eastern third ring road.  I didn’t think it would be such a bad ride—Beijing is an incredibly flat city, built on a massive plain.  According to Google maps, that ride was a distance of about 30 km one way, so 60 km (about 36 miles) roundtrip.  More than I was used to riding.   The map does not really prepare you for the distances here.  The city is a landscape of broad boulevards, making distances deceptively long.  What appears to be a simple walk to the nearest subway stop can actually be a trek of 45 minutes or so.  

The plain on which Beijing is located is part of its problem.  It can expand seemingly infinitely outwards, at least until it hits the hills on which the Great Wall rests to its north, thus converging with the barbarians beyond who were supposed to be kept at a distance.  When we lived here there were two ring roads (like the Washington beltway but in the city), the 2nd and the 3rd (not sure what happened to #1).  Now, they’ve added numbers 4, 5, and 6, concentrically expanding outwards.

I used to have a theory that it took an hour to get anywhere in Beijing.  Shorter distances you would walk and, like I said above, that can itself take about an hour.  Medium distances, perhaps the bus, and, again an hour.  Long distances, taxi, voilà, one hour again.  That has somewhat changed due to the helpful expansion of the subway system.  In the ‘90s, there were only two subway lines.  It felt a bit like I must imagine Pyongyang, North Korea must feel today—“look at our awesome modern subway!  too bad it only covers a fraction of the distance that it should!”     Now, there are some 12 lines.  Most of the time it is a useful mode of transportation, except for morning and evening rush hour, when it can be horribly crowded (acknowledged recently when London mayor Boris Johnson took a ride on it).

Despite the broad boulevards, it is not a city that was fundamentally designed for everyone to have their own car.  Now that most people do have them, it has changed the city's feel in profound ways.  For one thing, there aren’t clear places to park, so people just park wherever they like, including on the sidewalk.  This creates a vicious circle—walking is harder because of sidewalks being blocked, so you need a car even more.   Clearly, officials here have not considered all contingencies of developing the auto market.  Years ago, I had a conversation with a Beijing cab driver who was waxing rhapsodically regarding the joys of Beijingers owning cars (not sure why, since it would mean less business for him).    But, I asked, where will they all be parked?

“In the countryside!”

dilemmas

Only one more week till the marathon and I’m really, really concerned about getting sick, which is a much more likely proposition here than at home.  When in graduate school, I spent two months solo backpacking around China and lost nearly a week to illness, rarely leaving my dorm room bed in Chengdu’s Traffic Hotel.  The generally close proximity of 20+ million other human beings is a relentless condition.    For instance, sometimes the subway platforms look like a mosh pit, albeit a relatively well-organized one (Figure 1).    Street food is a constant temptation and today I think I’ve consumed my last bit of it until after the race  (Figure 2).  Restaurants also sometimes feature questionable hygienic practices (Figure 3). 

What to do?  Promoting good pre-marathon health seems to be a series of dilemmas. Drink more beer (kills germs),  or drink less beer (reduces resistance)?   Eat nothing but packaged food (less sketchy cooking methods), or eat no packaged food whatsoever (due to lack enforcement of regulations here, that is the stuff that might really kill you)?  Another option is to adopt a new approach to fashion, one that combines the best looks of the Unabomber, a member of Hezbollah, and a Japanese teenager (Figure 4).   Face masks are increasingly common here—they combine health, environmental, style, and political statements all in one, kind of like Chinese rocker Cui Jian’s song “A Piece of Red Cloth” but for the mouth instead of the eyes.   In 2008, some members of the United States Olympic team caused a stir by wearing face masks, and had to apologize for causing the Chinese to “lose face,” but these days you can get face masks with all kinds of adorable adornments, such as one that says “Because I have nothing to say, I’m wearing a face mask.”  

Figure 1: Beijing rush hour subway platform.

Figure 2: Beijing street food--jianbing.

Figure 3: note the cat on the table of this café.

Figure 4: selfie with ridiculous face-mask.

yellow

“Why is this blog called Running While Smoking Coal?”

Thank you so much for asking!   

6 ½ years ago I spent a semester in China, doing research on a Fulbright and also running the Great Wall Marathon.  The Insider’s Guide to Beijing had a section called “running in Beijing,” which began with a sentence going something like, “I know what you are thinking—why not just get on a treadmill and light up a brique of coal”?  Thus, the name of this blog was born.  All the stuff below is a chronicle of that experience. 

Yesterday I spent a really wonderful day with some great friends, eating a lunch supposedly favored by Ming emperors when they visited the countryside to get away from the renao of Beijing.  Renao is a word denoting “lively” but literally meaning “hot and noisy”—usually it is used here in a complimentary fashion, as in, “it is a really renao restaurant, you should go!”  If the Beijing of the 16th and 17th centuries was too renao for those spoiled royal dudes, I’d hate to think what they would have made of it yesterday.   The sky was cloudless but not blue—it was more like an ominous shade of yellow.  Bad for photography.

And lungs.  This time, before I departed home, I started following @BeijingAir on Twitter, which is the feed of the United States Embassy’s air quality monitor.  A few years ago, because the air quality index was over 500, the Embassy caused a stir by describing it as “crazy bad” in a Tweet.*   In America we have the color-coded Homeland Security Advisory System, letting us know how worried we need to be about terrorism.  Here, there is this:  

You can see that above 500 is in fact off the charts.  In fact, in the American terrorism warning system thingie, red is the worst color, but on the air quality index chart there are two colors that are worse than red.   Due to the “crazy bad” international incident, causing China to “lose face” about its all-too-obvious pollution problem, some detective work is needed**  to realize that @BeijingAir is in fact still the U.S. Embassy’s air quality feed.    It now posts things like this when the air is particularly (or particulate-ly) bad:

My eyes do burn pretty much constantly.  Perhaps an investment in whatever corporation is responsible for Visine might make up for my Beijing real estate fail.

This morning I ran 11 miles and before I went out checked @BeijingAir and found today’s number:

  

Not a good air quality day, but I ran anyway. It’s like acclimatizing to high altitude—best done before the big event.  For awhile breathing was difficult but then it got a little better.  11 miles is three laps of Houhai-Shichahai plus the 1.25 miles to and from my apartment.   I swear I heard a few people saying things like, “Look at the foreigner running in the pollution!”  But, then again, that might have just been a hallucination of my jetlagged mind.

So, let’s review!  “Beyond Index”=”crazy bad.”    Air China=China’s national airline.  BeijingAir=a really depressing and constantly-updated reminder of the unfolding environmental catastrophe in China.   Yellow air=bad.  Yellow day on air quality index=better than orange, red, super-red, and extra-extra-red!

__________________

*This index is in fact that of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the same bureau that some members of one political party love to hate (though it was established by Richard Nixon, also of that same party), and that has had some 93% of its workforce furloughed due to the government shutdown.  The origins of the index may help explain the Chinese objections to it, as an indicator of American arrogance/socio-political-environmental imperialism.  However, this also invites consideration of two propositions.  (1) Members of Congress should spend some time in a place where you can actually taste the air (say, Beijing) before they decisively vote to rid the U.S. of the bane of environmental regulations.  (2) Some things (for example, determinations of air quality) may in fact just be freakin’ universal.

**or,  in the 21^st century, some Googling—here it is Google Hong Kong because Google left China a few years ago, ostensibly for political reasons but probably just because they weren’t making any money.