Stepping Stones Across the River

Often touted as a cure for the common cold in China, it is indeed a cure for cold.
I’m not taking about the sneezing, body aches, sore throat, run down cold (although it would not hurt). What I’m talking about is winter in southern China where it is colder inside than outside. Where the damp slides into your bones as the cold pulls the heat from your flesh. Cold as in shivering. Cold as in two pairs of long underwear, three shirts, a fleece coat, hat and there is still the desire to crawl under a thick quilt. Or two.

Southern China has no heat. But, it does have ginger and dates.

Old Mother Ginger tea is a popular winter drink in Taiwan as well. Spicy like over fizzy cola, it is made from the root of winter harvested ginger, combined with red dates, brown sugar and slow cooked into a thick syrupy delight. It has an incredible ability to chase cold out of one’s body, as it improves the circulation, warms the internal fire and will burn that damp from the bones.

Here in Guangzhou at the beginning of the Chinese new year, with a dampness like that of Taipei and a temperature just 20 degrees above Beijing’s high for the day, a warm bowl of ginger, red date and brown sugar soup makes all the difference in the world.

As for the “common cold,” taking this at the very first sign of the shivers, and then bundling up to get a light sweat can save one a few miserable days in bed.

In the west we celebrate the ticking of the year in the deep dark. Here in the middle kingdom the hope and dreams for the new year are celebrated in the deepest cold of winter. Both are a kind of leap of faith.
New year is not so different here; family, food, and a festive feeling of lightness. Everywhere is the color red. The red characters of Abundance and Spring, poem written red waterfalls of paper frame doorways, and new red clothes are worn to welcome the first day of the year.
Like in the west, time stands still for a few days.

In Beijing it is against the rules to play with fireworks, but it is not against the law. For the past week explosions have echoed down the canyon of apartment complexes setting off dogs and car alarms. The subway is crowded with luggage totting “not-Beijinger’s” on their journey’s home. In between the flash and blast of fireworks the city takes on a quieter feel as cars thin from the streets and the city quiets into the arrival of the new year.

Guangzhou is a thousand miles due south of Beijing, and has a winter like that of Taipei, cold and damp. Today’s low in Beijing is 14°F, the high is 42. In Guangzhou it is 50 degrees, but we don’t have the heated interiors of cities north of the Yellow River. The thin pair of long underwear seemed like a good idea as Miss Wang and I were packing for points south, our final destination of this Spring Festival is Thailand. In a word, another wrong choice. The heat of Thailand is still five days away.

There is something distinctively different between the feel of northern cities and those of the south. Perhaps it is the white tile and palm trees, or that the streets tend toward narrow, or that businesses tend to spill their goods out onto the sidewalk. Perhaps it is the rounded sound of southern slurred Mandarin that lacks the rubble of Beijing “hua”. Regardless of reason, spending the new year in a place that reminds me of Taiwan gives me the feeling of having returned home.

It is a company that does not revolve its business or practices around the pivot of profitability. Incentive, excellence, even mediocrity are not to be found within its fossilized business structure.
It is an old style company

This is the excuse given for why no one will ever, never ever give a straight answer, speak a truth, break the lock step structure of who is above or below in the interest of efficiency or productivity.
It is an old style company

Which means it operates on a kind of human capital of connection that is terribly elusive to the western mind. Iron rice bowls dull any sense of incentive or innovation. Individual brilliance is suspect; there is safety in the rule of committee where no one can be blamed, nor can they bring forth anything with a spark of metamorphosis or ingenuity.
It is an old style company

Horizontal communication is absent. No one would dare to step outside the rigid structure of their duties. Anything that might streamline or pre-empt problems, anything that could smooth a process, or remove an obstacle is experienced as a threat. A problem is not a problem if it can be ignored, or passed onto someone else.
It is an old style company

Which means nothing gets done between the hours of 11am and 2pm, and if it is after 4pm you had better come back tomorrow.
It is an old style company

Which means there is far more pride in past proclamations of victory, than curiosity and drive to create something unique for the future. Stealing or copying past their pull date ideas is preferred to taking a shot at the moving target of the unknown.
It is an old style company

Popular books which students and practitioners clamor for are not printed or shipped, they must resort to purchasing pirated copies. At the same time, resources are spent on sketchy markets which are not likely to turn a profit. Foreigners are not consulted on what opportunties lay within our borders. The all seeing top-down fantasy of Chinese know more about Chinese medicine is like an iceburg waiting for a shipwreck. But, after all it is….
…an old style company

Beijing has changed a lot since I lived here in 2002-04. Most of the old “hutongs” the winding alleys where the “Old Beijingers” have lived for centuries have either been replaced with 35 story apartment buildings, or have been rehabbed into tourist districts where endless streams of tour groups are ridden through on ricksaw/bicycle like things. The once emblematic bicycle of Beijing has disappeared like frogs from the rain forest.

While China opened one door to the world with the summer Olympic games, they slam another shut with torturous new regulations and rules concerning the acquisition of work visas. After three months in China, three months of rat maze regulations and evil-clown house of mirrors human resource procedures I am either one step away from the paperwork that will force me out of the country yet one more time so I can receive the coveted Z visa, or even further a field as yet more obstacles loving appear to test my commitment.

I really did think I would just slip right back into an Asian life, but I’m finding that I’ve brought more “baggage” than those two suitcases. Time to burn some more karma. Life is a bitch when the the man in HR with the iron rice bowl is your new meditation teacher.