After a short night we woke up and opened the curtains of our 30th floor window to enjoy the view only to see, well, not much, because we were surrounded by even higher buildings. Next door, for example, a 70 story building was being finished, but that, our new guide -- Alan -- informed us, was nothing special: the tallest building in Asia is under construction in Chongqing.
And that's the city in a nutshell: built, and being built, on a huge scale. For a start there are the two massive rivers coming together (it wasn't clear to me at first which was the Yangtze!), then there is the almost mountainous terrain upon which the city is built (from the rivers and the bridges the city rises up around you like a bowl -- so you can see much more of it than you can in a city built on flat ground), then there are the hundreds of skyscrapers and the massive new civic buildings, and lastly there is the sheer size of the central city -- some 8 or 9 million people, Alan said. Breath-taking. The only city that I've seen that is comparable, at least in size and setting, is Istanbul.
Alan was in his early thirties, spoke pretty good English, was friendly and helpful, and didn't seem to be infectious (but it is probably still to early to tell for sure :-(. I asked about earthquakes, thinking of the major quake a couple of years ago next door in Sichuan, but he said that that the city isn't in a seismic zone and had suffered no damage from the quake. Since, however, it is surrounded by two concentric rings of mountains (which is odd geologically-speaking... I'll have to read up on it when I'm back) there must have been some serious upthrusting at some point. Hope it's over....
Dazu is about two and a half hours drive from central Chongqing, so we had plenty of time to observe the Sichuan countryside. Well, technically it isn't Sichuan, but that's only because the powers that be carved off eastern Sichuan and defined it as Chongqing... geographically and historically it is part of Sichuan -- a large and fertile low-lying region with a strong regional identity due to being cut off from northern China and the eastern coastal plains by high mountain ranges with 3000+ meter peaks, and with a lower, but still significant mountain range to the east, and steep hills to the south.
Anyway, the countryside seemed fairly prosperous, at least in comparison to Shanxi (which we had seen from the trains to Datong and Pingyao). Like Shanxi it was being intensively farmed, with every little bit of land, it seemed, in use. But unlike Shanxi, which has large flat areas, much of the land seemed very uneven -- unsuitable for modern, mechanized farming. Knowing that the young are abandoning the countryside for the cities I asked Alan who was working the farms these days. He said, mostly old people. As they retire, I wonder what is going to happen to China's agricultural production....
The carvings in Dazu were more amusing than stunning, educational rather than devotional. Made during the Ming dynasty, they were intended to teach visitors correct Buddhist behaviour (such as vegeterianism, teetotalism, and filial piety) as well as the consequences of not doing so. I've not seen depictions of hell in Buddhist art before... very amusing, with monstors sawing off legs, chewing on body parts, and doing various other depraved things with those flawed souls heading away rather than towards Nirvana. Heaven seemed very dull in comparison.
On the way back to Chongqing, when not napping, I tried to derive the rules underlying the apparent chaos of Chinese traffic etiquette. For while it appears chaotic, we have only seen the aftermath of one minor accident in forty plus hours of driving in China, so I figured there must be an underlying order. As far as I could tell the basic principles are:
o smaller should give way to larger unless ahead
o drive fairly slowly under normal circumstances, and more slowly if there is the possibility of misunderstanding
o beep your horn if there is any possibility that you has been overlooked, or might be overlooked, by other traffic participants
o overtake wherever and whenever -- somehow it will work out
o do not wait for a gap in traffic when joining flow, changing lanes, or crossing a road: a gap will form without fuss (perhaps due to the importance of community and conformity in Chinese society, other drivers are remarkably tolerant of this sort of thing)
o pedestrian crossings and indicators are only relevant for pedestrians -- cars turning right or left over pedestrian crossings have right of way
o however, stationary pedestrians and cyclists will be calmly detoured around even if in the middle of traffic
o everyone is calm -- nobody gets angry
o all traffic signs and controls, except for speed limits, are optional
Totally different from Western traffic culture... the first couple of trips in Beijing were nerve-racking, and even after getting used to it I wouldn't have wanted to drive myself. But it seems to work well for the most part. Only the last rule is impractical... at least in cities, where there is the possibility of gridlock (which we saw happen in Xi'an).
We had some time before we needed to board our Yangtze River cruise ship, so Alan suggested we go and see one of the few older buildings remaining in Chongqing (what Japanese bombing didn't destroy in the Second World War, or was "modernized" during the Cultural Revolution, has mostly been replaced by high-rise buildings during the frenetic development of the last 15 years).
The building, actually more a compound covering a couple of acres, was built by a family association in late 17th Century in the early years of the Qing dynasty when Chongqing was being repopulated after the war that ended the Ming. A family association was like a location-based guild: families moving to Chongqing from another city would live with and be helped by former immigrants from that city, and as they became more settled and prosperous they would do the same for those who came later. It was a beautiful place, in which descendants of the families had lived until it was turned into a museum in 2003, with large and elegant rooms for gatherings both formal and informal, and even a couple of small theaters. As the excellent museum guide explained, much of the original furniture and art had been preserved by the families, who buried it during the various upheavals and then dug it up again when things settled down, and it had avoided damage in the Cultural Revolution because it was used by the Red Guards as their headquarters.
The museum guide made one of the few political jokes, or even references, that we have heard in our time here in China. I'm not sure if our regular guides are schooled against it, or if people in China (as used to be the case in Eastern Europe and Russia) are afraid to talk about politics with foreigners, or if everyone is so focussed on getting ahead and making a living that politics is for the moment comparatively unimportant, but we have heard almost no political comments during our time here. The joke came as she pointed out a perspective in which we could see the old buildings, some 10-20 story apartment buildings from 70's (many of which, apparently, were built without elevators!), and new skyscrapers behind them. "Qing, Mao, and now", she said, "and Mao will be gone soon". Respect. We liked the guide.
For dinner we went to a popular restaurant to have hotpot -- a local specialty we know from France and Switzerland as fondue chinoise. The place was full, mostly of locals, and it was cacophonous. The Chinese are a noisy people -- and have a great tolerance for noise -- and for them a successful social gathering is a loud social gathering. Between the fiery spices, the steam rising from the hotpot, and the din on all sides, we felt quite battered afterwards as we drove down to the river.
We boarded our cruise ship, which was a decent size -- I'd guess 150 passengers (although it turned out to be only half-full) -- let ourselves be upsold to one of the Presidential Suites (much more space and a private deck at the front of the ship... well, we told ourselves, we'd probably only cruise the Yangtze once :-), and then attended an amusing orientation given by Ivy, a girl hardly older than Madeleine who was the hospitality director. We called her IvyIvy thereafter, due to her habit of repeating everything twice when speaking to a group. At 10PM we cast off and surrounded by the neon and laser nighttime lightshow of Chongqing (that science fiction feeling again) we motored off downriver.
