In the wake of yesterday's failed ballistic missile shot by North Korea, I was reminded of the value of the East-West Center. The EWC provided a timely analysis of the domestic political context in the hermit communist state, written by North Korea specialist Marcus Noland, who blogs about that country at http://www.piie.com/blogs.nk, and posted his thoughts yesterday.
Who or what is the East-West Center? Glad you asked.
The EWC was founded in 1960 by the United States Congress, with the aim of promoting mutual understanding among the countries of the vast Asia-Pacific region through exchange visits, sharing of information and ongoing conversations. These days, it is a thriving, non-profit think tank and academic institution with a 21-acre campus bordering the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, and an office in Washington, D.C. I turn to the EWC (www.eastwestcenter.org) often to gain context and insight that informs my travel journalism.
The center is independent and non-partisan, funded by a combination of private and public sources. Among them: The U.S. Congress, corporations, non-profit foundations and private individuals. It is not a branch of the U.S. government in case you're wondering, but does have excellent contacts with Uncle Sam, as it does with dozens of governments, academics, politicians and media people. I spent a month under EWC auspices a decade ago as a Jefferson Fellow; the Jefferson Fellowships bring professional journalists from around the region together for seminars, classes, and trips. I visited Japan, China and Vietnam with my Jefferson group at the EWC.
So, consider this a plug. For me, the EWC is an information one-stop. It's definitely worth checking out the Web site (see above), to see the latest and greatest about this dynamic, fast-growing and volatile part of the world.
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Friday, April 13, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
The Coming Aviation Trade War
It pales in seriousness next to the showdown between Iran and the West, to be sure, but there is another war brewing. This is of the non-shooting variety. It is a trade war between the 27 member nations of the European Union on one side and the United States, Russia and China on the other.
The trigger is a carbon tax that the EU has slapped on all airlines flying into, out of, and around the EU.
The Europeans say the tax is needed to offset rising atmospheric emissions from civilian airliners that contribute to global warming. Everyone, they say, has to pay their fair share.
Opponents of the tax, which formally went into effect 1 January, 2012, counter that it amounts to an extraterritorial power play that extends EU authority over non-EU airlines. Additionally, they say, it will prove ineffective, as solutions to a global problem have to be global, too.
The EU counters that counter-argument by holding that the aviation industry has been foot-dragging for years, and we have to start somewhere.
The threat of a trade war comes in, in the event that the U.S., Russia and China - which has forbidden its airlines to pay the tax - decide to retaliate against the EU, whether targeting its airlines for punishment or retaliating in some other way.
Commercial aviation accounts for just 2 percent of the world's carbon-heavy emissions and is superceded by trucks, cars and other sources. Moreover, the aviation industry has made great progress in recent years, building lighter, more fuel-efficient planes that pollute less than did their predecessors. Nevertheless, aviation's share of emissions is expected to rise to 3 percent because the fast- increasing number of flights is more than off-setting the savings on individual flights.
And there the matter stands, with both sides trying to stare down the other and international diplomats trying to come up with a, well, diplomatic solution that will allow all parties to back away from the brink of a trade war and save face. Just how to do that remains a mystery.
Personally, I can see the points being made by both sides. The Europeans are right that something has to be done and it needs to begin ASAP. Critics of the tax are right, too, in that the aviation industry is getting greener - albeit under pressure from environmentalists and regulators. The industry, as represented by groups such as the U.S.-based Airlines for America (A4A) and the Geneva-based International Air Transport Association (IATA), are right in saying solutions have to be global. Emissions, like airplanes, fly across national borders, oceans and continents.
What to do? Can we split the difference? It's hard to see how. Modern-day Solomons, please step up. And do it soon. The clock is ticking.
The trigger is a carbon tax that the EU has slapped on all airlines flying into, out of, and around the EU.
The Europeans say the tax is needed to offset rising atmospheric emissions from civilian airliners that contribute to global warming. Everyone, they say, has to pay their fair share.
Opponents of the tax, which formally went into effect 1 January, 2012, counter that it amounts to an extraterritorial power play that extends EU authority over non-EU airlines. Additionally, they say, it will prove ineffective, as solutions to a global problem have to be global, too.
The EU counters that counter-argument by holding that the aviation industry has been foot-dragging for years, and we have to start somewhere.
The threat of a trade war comes in, in the event that the U.S., Russia and China - which has forbidden its airlines to pay the tax - decide to retaliate against the EU, whether targeting its airlines for punishment or retaliating in some other way.
Commercial aviation accounts for just 2 percent of the world's carbon-heavy emissions and is superceded by trucks, cars and other sources. Moreover, the aviation industry has made great progress in recent years, building lighter, more fuel-efficient planes that pollute less than did their predecessors. Nevertheless, aviation's share of emissions is expected to rise to 3 percent because the fast- increasing number of flights is more than off-setting the savings on individual flights.
And there the matter stands, with both sides trying to stare down the other and international diplomats trying to come up with a, well, diplomatic solution that will allow all parties to back away from the brink of a trade war and save face. Just how to do that remains a mystery.
Personally, I can see the points being made by both sides. The Europeans are right that something has to be done and it needs to begin ASAP. Critics of the tax are right, too, in that the aviation industry is getting greener - albeit under pressure from environmentalists and regulators. The industry, as represented by groups such as the U.S.-based Airlines for America (A4A) and the Geneva-based International Air Transport Association (IATA), are right in saying solutions have to be global. Emissions, like airplanes, fly across national borders, oceans and continents.
What to do? Can we split the difference? It's hard to see how. Modern-day Solomons, please step up. And do it soon. The clock is ticking.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Hu the Man
The first time I visited China, in 1996, I went, like all traveling pilgrims, to Beijing's Tiananmen Square and gazed at the massive portrait of Mao Zedong at the entrance to the Forbidden City. More than anything, it was the sight that made me feel: I'm really here.
Current Chinese President Hu Jintao doesn't have anything like the cult of personality that surrounded Mao, and that is probably a good thing. Hu, presently on a state visit to the United States, is a different kind of leader: a technocrat, a hydraulic engineer by training, member of a post-revolutionary generation who worked his way up through the ranks of the Communist Party. He is not a dictator in the Mao mold, but Hu is very much the Man in Chinese politics. Hu has overseen the historic boom that followed the economic makeover put in motion by the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping in 1978. Today, China has the world's second-largest economy, after the U.S. (though it has just one-10th the per capita GDP of the U.S.). That hyper-growth has put the Middle Kingdom on equal footing with the United States and cast it as the rising superpower of the 21st century.
One can't visit China and not be impressed or come away from China without feeling that you have seen the future. I have been to China a dozen times now, most recently last month when I visited Beijing and the Hong Kong SAR. In Beijing, I stayed in a hip boutique hotel called the Opposite House, in a fashion-forward district near the cluster of foreign embassies in the centeal city. I flew to the capital onboard the Chinese carrier Dragonair, deplaning in one of the world's biggest and newest passenger terminals, at Beijing Capital Airport. The city of 18 million - maybe more, who's counting? - was pancake flat when I first visited. Now, it is festooned with highrises and choked with cars. Modern shopping centers pulsate where traditional hutongs - back alleys - lined with courtyard houses once stood.
Progress has come at a cost: Chinese cities are among the most-polluted in the world. Cities like Beijing have bulldozed much of their heritage - even though such sites are, among other things, prized tourist attractions - in the rush to develop. Freedom of speech and religion are still tightly controlled. China's sway over Tibet is hugely unpopular around the world.
All this change comes courtesy of China's hybrid economy, a form of state capitalism that concentrates political clout among party leaders and gives the state power to own or otherwise control major home-grown corporations. China is expanding aggressively in both the economic and military spheres and it bargains hard to get what it wants - the U.S. agreement to let Chinese companies have access to more-sensitive American technology, announced today in Washington, is one result of China's leverage and hard bargaining.
Of course, Hu has granted concessions, too, to further at least the impression of international harmony between the two rival powers. The biggest deal in that regard is China's agreement to buy $19 billion worth of aircraft from the Boeing Co. Those airplanes will come in handy in helping China carry out a major expansion of its own airlines, which are struggling to keep up with the surge in air-passenger traffic as a newly empowered Chinese middle class discovers the joys of overseas tourism.
Count on this: As Sino-American relations evolve, travel and tourism will continue to play an important and emblematic role.
Current Chinese President Hu Jintao doesn't have anything like the cult of personality that surrounded Mao, and that is probably a good thing. Hu, presently on a state visit to the United States, is a different kind of leader: a technocrat, a hydraulic engineer by training, member of a post-revolutionary generation who worked his way up through the ranks of the Communist Party. He is not a dictator in the Mao mold, but Hu is very much the Man in Chinese politics. Hu has overseen the historic boom that followed the economic makeover put in motion by the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping in 1978. Today, China has the world's second-largest economy, after the U.S. (though it has just one-10th the per capita GDP of the U.S.). That hyper-growth has put the Middle Kingdom on equal footing with the United States and cast it as the rising superpower of the 21st century.
One can't visit China and not be impressed or come away from China without feeling that you have seen the future. I have been to China a dozen times now, most recently last month when I visited Beijing and the Hong Kong SAR. In Beijing, I stayed in a hip boutique hotel called the Opposite House, in a fashion-forward district near the cluster of foreign embassies in the centeal city. I flew to the capital onboard the Chinese carrier Dragonair, deplaning in one of the world's biggest and newest passenger terminals, at Beijing Capital Airport. The city of 18 million - maybe more, who's counting? - was pancake flat when I first visited. Now, it is festooned with highrises and choked with cars. Modern shopping centers pulsate where traditional hutongs - back alleys - lined with courtyard houses once stood.
Progress has come at a cost: Chinese cities are among the most-polluted in the world. Cities like Beijing have bulldozed much of their heritage - even though such sites are, among other things, prized tourist attractions - in the rush to develop. Freedom of speech and religion are still tightly controlled. China's sway over Tibet is hugely unpopular around the world.
All this change comes courtesy of China's hybrid economy, a form of state capitalism that concentrates political clout among party leaders and gives the state power to own or otherwise control major home-grown corporations. China is expanding aggressively in both the economic and military spheres and it bargains hard to get what it wants - the U.S. agreement to let Chinese companies have access to more-sensitive American technology, announced today in Washington, is one result of China's leverage and hard bargaining.
Of course, Hu has granted concessions, too, to further at least the impression of international harmony between the two rival powers. The biggest deal in that regard is China's agreement to buy $19 billion worth of aircraft from the Boeing Co. Those airplanes will come in handy in helping China carry out a major expansion of its own airlines, which are struggling to keep up with the surge in air-passenger traffic as a newly empowered Chinese middle class discovers the joys of overseas tourism.
Count on this: As Sino-American relations evolve, travel and tourism will continue to play an important and emblematic role.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Travel and Myanmar/Burma
Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's release today from her latest house arrest at her lakeside villa in Yangon took me back to my visit to Myanmar (also known as Burma) at the start of the decade, and sparked renewed thoughts about the interplay of travel and politics.
I published some thoughts about that in a travel piece I wrote for the San Francisco Examiner, which the paper published as the Sunday travel cover story back on Oct. 22, 2000. Re-reading the piece today, I see very little I would change - including my comments about Suu Kyi's support for a trade embargo and total avoidance of travel by foreigners to her country.
Below are excerpts from that story for the Examiner. (Which was, by the way, then a professionally produced daily newspaper owned by the Hearst Corp.. Save for the name, it bears no relationship to the giveaway tabloid published today by other owners and written in large part by unpaid or barely paid aspiring writers):
YANGON (RANGOON) - It's mid-afternoon in the beating heart of the city. Traffic rumbles around the downtown park in the dry, baking heat. Local people stroll by, snacking on grilled meats at sidewalk food stalls, nibbling slices of fruit and cupping tins of cold water - captured from big chunks of ice that drip in the heat.
Burma is a beautiful country lost in time.
Aung San Suu Kyi is a woman of courage - demonstrated anew in September (2000), when she tested the limits of personal freedom by attempting to leave Rangoon for a political meeting, as she has done several times in recent years. The military, as it has done every time before, stopped her car, detained her, brought her food and water for a week, then forced her to drive back to Rangoon, where she remains under de facto house arrest, physically unharmed but also not free.
Viewing these struggles, I am hopeful that Suu Kyi and people like her will prevail and that deomcracy will come. But, in the meantime, as a journalist, I want to see things for myself and write about a wide variety of experiences. If I wrote only about people and places I approve of wholeheartedly, I would publish far fewer stories.
Most importantly, I am not convinced that tourism necessarily has to legitimize the status quo. In poor countries, it may well do the opposite - provided visitors deal directly with independent merchants and ordinary people outside official circles. In Burma, the average yearly income per person (circa 2000) is $300, one of the lowest in the world. Putting some money into their hands counts for something.
Moreover, tourism puts local people in contact with the outside world, easing their isolation - and lessening our blinkered provincialism. That counts for something, too. Burma/Myanmar calls itself the Golden Land, but in most of the world, it is more like the Unknown Land.
At my request, a senior U.S. diplomat in Rangoon explained U.S. foreign policy, which seeks to isolate Burma. He related some sobering facts: The junta closed the universities for four years because they were hotbeds of dissent, and it gunned down 3,000 protestors in the streets of Rangoon in 1988. To weaken the junta, Washington imposed an embargo in 1997 on new investment by American corporations (though not on Americans traveling to Burma).
But politics are rarely clear-cut, and sanctions and embargoes are not simple matters.
In the ''Lonely Planet Guide to Burma,'' a prominent dissident imprisoned by the military for three years takes strong exception to the U.S. embargo. Ma Thanegi writes:
"Two Westerners - one a prominent academic and the other a diplomat - once suggested to me that if sanctions and boycotts undermined the economy, people would have less to lose and would be willing to start a revolution ...
"Burma has many problems, largely the result of almost 30 years (now 40) of isolationism. More isolation won't fix the problems and sanctions push us backward, not forward. We need jobs. We need to modernize. We need to be part of the world. Don't close the door on us in the name of democracy.''
Ma Thanegi made me think about sanctions. Nelson Mandela credits international sanctions with helping to bring down apartheid in South Africa. If so, score one for sanctions. But the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba, in place since 1962, has only impoverished Cubans and has not accomplished the announced goal of toppling Fidel Castro. And sanctions against Iraq don't appear to have harmed Saddam Hussein, just Iraqi children. Saddam, still in power (until 2003), seems to get all the goodies he wants.
As for staying away from countries with pariah governments, I think I smell a double standard. America resumed trade and travel to China shortly after the Tiananmen Square shootings of 1989. And Mexico, where students were mowed down in the streets of Mexico City in 1968, was a one-party dictatorship for 71 years before July 2000, but Mexico has not lacked American tourists.
Is Burma worse? I don't think so. I think it's smaller, weaker and farther away. It's easy to demonize.
I decided to go.
I published some thoughts about that in a travel piece I wrote for the San Francisco Examiner, which the paper published as the Sunday travel cover story back on Oct. 22, 2000. Re-reading the piece today, I see very little I would change - including my comments about Suu Kyi's support for a trade embargo and total avoidance of travel by foreigners to her country.
Below are excerpts from that story for the Examiner. (Which was, by the way, then a professionally produced daily newspaper owned by the Hearst Corp.. Save for the name, it bears no relationship to the giveaway tabloid published today by other owners and written in large part by unpaid or barely paid aspiring writers):
YANGON (RANGOON) - It's mid-afternoon in the beating heart of the city. Traffic rumbles around the downtown park in the dry, baking heat. Local people stroll by, snacking on grilled meats at sidewalk food stalls, nibbling slices of fruit and cupping tins of cold water - captured from big chunks of ice that drip in the heat.
Burma is a beautiful country lost in time.
Aung San Suu Kyi is a woman of courage - demonstrated anew in September (2000), when she tested the limits of personal freedom by attempting to leave Rangoon for a political meeting, as she has done several times in recent years. The military, as it has done every time before, stopped her car, detained her, brought her food and water for a week, then forced her to drive back to Rangoon, where she remains under de facto house arrest, physically unharmed but also not free.
Viewing these struggles, I am hopeful that Suu Kyi and people like her will prevail and that deomcracy will come. But, in the meantime, as a journalist, I want to see things for myself and write about a wide variety of experiences. If I wrote only about people and places I approve of wholeheartedly, I would publish far fewer stories.
Most importantly, I am not convinced that tourism necessarily has to legitimize the status quo. In poor countries, it may well do the opposite - provided visitors deal directly with independent merchants and ordinary people outside official circles. In Burma, the average yearly income per person (circa 2000) is $300, one of the lowest in the world. Putting some money into their hands counts for something.
Moreover, tourism puts local people in contact with the outside world, easing their isolation - and lessening our blinkered provincialism. That counts for something, too. Burma/Myanmar calls itself the Golden Land, but in most of the world, it is more like the Unknown Land.
At my request, a senior U.S. diplomat in Rangoon explained U.S. foreign policy, which seeks to isolate Burma. He related some sobering facts: The junta closed the universities for four years because they were hotbeds of dissent, and it gunned down 3,000 protestors in the streets of Rangoon in 1988. To weaken the junta, Washington imposed an embargo in 1997 on new investment by American corporations (though not on Americans traveling to Burma).
But politics are rarely clear-cut, and sanctions and embargoes are not simple matters.
In the ''Lonely Planet Guide to Burma,'' a prominent dissident imprisoned by the military for three years takes strong exception to the U.S. embargo. Ma Thanegi writes:
"Two Westerners - one a prominent academic and the other a diplomat - once suggested to me that if sanctions and boycotts undermined the economy, people would have less to lose and would be willing to start a revolution ...
"Burma has many problems, largely the result of almost 30 years (now 40) of isolationism. More isolation won't fix the problems and sanctions push us backward, not forward. We need jobs. We need to modernize. We need to be part of the world. Don't close the door on us in the name of democracy.''
Ma Thanegi made me think about sanctions. Nelson Mandela credits international sanctions with helping to bring down apartheid in South Africa. If so, score one for sanctions. But the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba, in place since 1962, has only impoverished Cubans and has not accomplished the announced goal of toppling Fidel Castro. And sanctions against Iraq don't appear to have harmed Saddam Hussein, just Iraqi children. Saddam, still in power (until 2003), seems to get all the goodies he wants.
As for staying away from countries with pariah governments, I think I smell a double standard. America resumed trade and travel to China shortly after the Tiananmen Square shootings of 1989. And Mexico, where students were mowed down in the streets of Mexico City in 1968, was a one-party dictatorship for 71 years before July 2000, but Mexico has not lacked American tourists.
Is Burma worse? I don't think so. I think it's smaller, weaker and farther away. It's easy to demonize.
I decided to go.
Monday, August 2, 2010
The UAE and the BlackBerry Blues
The goal: The United Arab Emirates - super-ambitious Dubai, super-rich Abu Dhabi and five other statelets - wants to become a major player in air travel, tourism, banking and finance, ocean shipping, trade and construction.
The problem: The UAE - mostly, though not entirely, excepting Dubai - is very nervous about allowing the free-flow of information essential to realizing its loftiest ambitions.
The latest evidence: The UAE's decision to ban, starting Oct. 11, Web-surfing, e-mail and texting on Research In Motion's very popular BlackBerrry digital handheld device. Using the BlackBerry for phone calls will still be OK.
The reason: The BlackBerry, beloved of corporate executives and government officials around the world - Barack Obama has one - is carefully encrypted. It's so well encrypted, governments can't easily monitor the data, which are sent to a few key operation centers, in RIM's home country, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The UAE deems this a threat to its national security, saying it could make it impossible to carry out criminal prosecutions or monitor threats to safety.
The conservative Muslim government of the UAE isn't the first regime to fear the global commerce in digitalized information. When I traveled in China last September, I ran headlong into the Great Firewall of China, finding it impossible to access Blogger to write this blog, or to access Twitter. Control-freak governments, in authoritarian states even more than in nervous but relatively tolerant democracies, can't abide the fact that some exchanges of information escape their scrutiny. National security' becomes the catch-all justification for clamping down.
People who romanticize the Internet and other forms of digital information - and there are many who do, all across the political spectrum - have to acknowledge to some degree that their long-time belief that governments can't control information anymore is wishful thinking. They most certainly can, as I saw in China. Iran, Saudi Arabia, India, Turkey, Bahrain, Pakistan and others have recently expressed deep misgivings about letting people communicate with each other outside prescribed channels on devices like the BlackBerry or have free access to the Net.
In the long run, their efforts may fail. Short- and mid-term, they can make their presence felt. Google discovered this in China when it struggled over Beijing's demands that it censor search results. RIM is discovering it in the UAE. Facebook and YouTube have also run into restrictions.
Only 17 percent of the people living in the UAE are native Emiratis, as I learned last year when I traveled in Abi Dhabi and Dubai. The many foreigners who work in the federation like their gadgets, and the BlackBerry is one of their most popular choices. Travelers, too, will find their BlackBerrys affected if the restrictions go into effect as promised.
The UAE has internationalized in a short time, and this has unsettled parts of the country's society, as well as high officials. The UAE has welcomed the world, launching two modern, fast-growing global carriers in Emirates and Etihad Airways, and building showcase airports in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. But the welcome is conditional. Is the country shooting itself in the foot? I think so. But this is pain that UAE leaders are willing to bear, at least for now.
The problem: The UAE - mostly, though not entirely, excepting Dubai - is very nervous about allowing the free-flow of information essential to realizing its loftiest ambitions.
The latest evidence: The UAE's decision to ban, starting Oct. 11, Web-surfing, e-mail and texting on Research In Motion's very popular BlackBerrry digital handheld device. Using the BlackBerry for phone calls will still be OK.
The reason: The BlackBerry, beloved of corporate executives and government officials around the world - Barack Obama has one - is carefully encrypted. It's so well encrypted, governments can't easily monitor the data, which are sent to a few key operation centers, in RIM's home country, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The UAE deems this a threat to its national security, saying it could make it impossible to carry out criminal prosecutions or monitor threats to safety.
The conservative Muslim government of the UAE isn't the first regime to fear the global commerce in digitalized information. When I traveled in China last September, I ran headlong into the Great Firewall of China, finding it impossible to access Blogger to write this blog, or to access Twitter. Control-freak governments, in authoritarian states even more than in nervous but relatively tolerant democracies, can't abide the fact that some exchanges of information escape their scrutiny. National security' becomes the catch-all justification for clamping down.
People who romanticize the Internet and other forms of digital information - and there are many who do, all across the political spectrum - have to acknowledge to some degree that their long-time belief that governments can't control information anymore is wishful thinking. They most certainly can, as I saw in China. Iran, Saudi Arabia, India, Turkey, Bahrain, Pakistan and others have recently expressed deep misgivings about letting people communicate with each other outside prescribed channels on devices like the BlackBerry or have free access to the Net.
In the long run, their efforts may fail. Short- and mid-term, they can make their presence felt. Google discovered this in China when it struggled over Beijing's demands that it censor search results. RIM is discovering it in the UAE. Facebook and YouTube have also run into restrictions.
Only 17 percent of the people living in the UAE are native Emiratis, as I learned last year when I traveled in Abi Dhabi and Dubai. The many foreigners who work in the federation like their gadgets, and the BlackBerry is one of their most popular choices. Travelers, too, will find their BlackBerrys affected if the restrictions go into effect as promised.
The UAE has internationalized in a short time, and this has unsettled parts of the country's society, as well as high officials. The UAE has welcomed the world, launching two modern, fast-growing global carriers in Emirates and Etihad Airways, and building showcase airports in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. But the welcome is conditional. Is the country shooting itself in the foot? I think so. But this is pain that UAE leaders are willing to bear, at least for now.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Zhang Yimou and Hangzhou
HANGZHOU, China - These days, Zhang Yimou is known chiefly as the show-biz whiz who staged the spectacular opening and closing of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In fact, he has had a long and varied career, directing operas and making justly acclaimed movies such as "To Live'' and "Raise the Red Lantern'' with the exquisite actress Gong Li.
When Zhang was warming up for the Olympics, he put together an imaginative and entertaining multimedia show in this east-central Chinese city, called "Impression West Lake.'' The show includes many of the elements - light, music, movement - that captivated a worldwide TV audience during the Olympics, if on a smaller scale. It has run for several years and is staged right inWestLake, the premier attraction for visitors in this old city, China's capital during the Song dynasty. I saw it last year and was taken by its luminous qualities. At under an hour, "Impression West Lake'' doesn't tax the patience; even the camera-carrying tourists and texting spectators paid close attention most of the time.
This year, it rained hard at showtime, so I didn't attend a repeat performance. However, in the grand, show-must-go-on tradition, it was staged despite the elements, with spectators donning raingear and gamely enjoying the show. The reason I say it is staged in the lake is because dozens of performers float by on slightly submerged barges, creating the illusion that they are gliding on the surface of the water. Recorded New Age space music plays and the light show glows and glimmers throughout the nighttime performance.
Spectators sit outside on bleachers in the lakeside park, located a couple of hundred meters from the hotel I stayed at, the Shangri-la Hangzhou. The hotel itself, built in the 1950s and 1960s and managed since 1985 by Hong Kong's Shangri-la Hotels and Resorts, was one of the first 5-star hotels in post-revolutionary China and has been upgraded several times. It is known for its lush, spreading grounds and is located at the foot of a swiftly rising hillside on the road that rings West Lake. Big camphor trees more than 100 years old grace the garden.
The plant Hangzhou is best known for, however, is the tea plant. Hundreds of years ago, traders brought tea bushes from India and farmers have turned the plants into reliable producers of China's most famous and probably best green tea:Dragonwell tea. Independent growers typically live in modern houses in front of small, terraced hillside fields where the plant is grown and leaves are harvested by hand. I was taken there on my recent visit by a local guide who doubled as a taxi driver and seller of ginseng and furniture, surely an unusual combination. I didn't buy any ginseng or furniture but I enjoyed the rich brew of hot dragonwell tea. On a previous visit, another driver-guide took me to her family's house, where I observed a worker with one gloved hand roast green tea leaves in what resembled a very large wok. I later sipped tea in the fields where it was grown and bought some directly from the farmer to take home.
Such are some of the attractions of this old Chinese city, now swollen with a population of 5 million, with misty, manmade West lake serving as its liquid heart.
When Zhang was warming up for the Olympics, he put together an imaginative and entertaining multimedia show in this east-central Chinese city, called "Impression West Lake.'' The show includes many of the elements - light, music, movement - that captivated a worldwide TV audience during the Olympics, if on a smaller scale. It has run for several years and is staged right inWestLake, the premier attraction for visitors in this old city, China's capital during the Song dynasty. I saw it last year and was taken by its luminous qualities. At under an hour, "Impression West Lake'' doesn't tax the patience; even the camera-carrying tourists and texting spectators paid close attention most of the time.
This year, it rained hard at showtime, so I didn't attend a repeat performance. However, in the grand, show-must-go-on tradition, it was staged despite the elements, with spectators donning raingear and gamely enjoying the show. The reason I say it is staged in the lake is because dozens of performers float by on slightly submerged barges, creating the illusion that they are gliding on the surface of the water. Recorded New Age space music plays and the light show glows and glimmers throughout the nighttime performance.
Spectators sit outside on bleachers in the lakeside park, located a couple of hundred meters from the hotel I stayed at, the Shangri-la Hangzhou. The hotel itself, built in the 1950s and 1960s and managed since 1985 by Hong Kong's Shangri-la Hotels and Resorts, was one of the first 5-star hotels in post-revolutionary China and has been upgraded several times. It is known for its lush, spreading grounds and is located at the foot of a swiftly rising hillside on the road that rings West Lake. Big camphor trees more than 100 years old grace the garden.
The plant Hangzhou is best known for, however, is the tea plant. Hundreds of years ago, traders brought tea bushes from India and farmers have turned the plants into reliable producers of China's most famous and probably best green tea:Dragonwell tea. Independent growers typically live in modern houses in front of small, terraced hillside fields where the plant is grown and leaves are harvested by hand. I was taken there on my recent visit by a local guide who doubled as a taxi driver and seller of ginseng and furniture, surely an unusual combination. I didn't buy any ginseng or furniture but I enjoyed the rich brew of hot dragonwell tea. On a previous visit, another driver-guide took me to her family's house, where I observed a worker with one gloved hand roast green tea leaves in what resembled a very large wok. I later sipped tea in the fields where it was grown and bought some directly from the farmer to take home.
Such are some of the attractions of this old Chinese city, now swollen with a population of 5 million, with misty, manmade West lake serving as its liquid heart.
I.M. Pei and Suzhou
SUZHOU, China - The distinquished Chinese American architect I.M. Pei crafted what may be his last major commission when, in October 2006, his masterful Suzhou Museum opened in this east central Chinese city. An artful fusion of traditional Chinese elements - garden, pond, footbridge, rocks recalling mountain peaks, a circle incorporated into the main entrance, a high water wall inside - plus Pei's trademark triangles and pyramids, the museum is a must-see for any visitor to this part of China who nurtures an interest in art and architecture.
Pei, who is now 92, used elegant whites and greys in his design. He has told interviewers that he took on the job because his forebears came from Suzhou, a city of 6 million that was a center of art and culture during the Ming and Qing dynasties. For Pei, who was born in China but emigrated to the United States as a young man, the museum presented an opportunity to make an architectural mark in his native land, where he has done no other work, save for a Beijing hotel in the early 1980s.
Pei's work on the museum is subtle and contemplative - fitting for an institution that boasts major holdings of classical calligraphy, sculpture, ceramics and painting. Some artworks by contemporary Chinese artists are included in the museum's collection, too, but this is principally a home for classical art - and classical architecture.
Suzhou, about 100 miles northwest of Shanghai and easily accessible by fast train or by car - allot 90 minutes or so to reach the city - also plays host to no fewer than 9 UNESCO World Heritage gardens. I roamed through several great gardens on my recent visit, but perhaps the most memorable garden experience I had in Suzhou was at Master of Nets Garden, the first Chinese garden I have visited at night.
It was illuminating in both the literal and figurative sense to see the garden, with its pagodas, neatly tended plants and waterways, under sensitive night-lighting. The nighttime garden also is home - from mid-March to mid-November, when the weather is warm enough - to site-specific performances by entertainers in vintage Chinese clothing. Two masked actors greet visitors with a good-natured blessing, and as a guide shows the way, the action moves from place to place, outdoors and indoors. An enchanting performance by a man playing xiao (a bamboo flute) was almost, but not quite, ruined by a drunk braying into his mobile phone. For me, the highlight was a performance on the stringed zheng by a young woman with dexterous fingers and graceful arm movements who coaxed celestial sounds out of the instrument.
Much of Suzhou is determinedly modern, but the city retains oases of calm among the hurly-burly. Master of Nets Garden and Pei's new Suzhou Museum are chief among them.
Pei, who is now 92, used elegant whites and greys in his design. He has told interviewers that he took on the job because his forebears came from Suzhou, a city of 6 million that was a center of art and culture during the Ming and Qing dynasties. For Pei, who was born in China but emigrated to the United States as a young man, the museum presented an opportunity to make an architectural mark in his native land, where he has done no other work, save for a Beijing hotel in the early 1980s.
Pei's work on the museum is subtle and contemplative - fitting for an institution that boasts major holdings of classical calligraphy, sculpture, ceramics and painting. Some artworks by contemporary Chinese artists are included in the museum's collection, too, but this is principally a home for classical art - and classical architecture.
Suzhou, about 100 miles northwest of Shanghai and easily accessible by fast train or by car - allot 90 minutes or so to reach the city - also plays host to no fewer than 9 UNESCO World Heritage gardens. I roamed through several great gardens on my recent visit, but perhaps the most memorable garden experience I had in Suzhou was at Master of Nets Garden, the first Chinese garden I have visited at night.
It was illuminating in both the literal and figurative sense to see the garden, with its pagodas, neatly tended plants and waterways, under sensitive night-lighting. The nighttime garden also is home - from mid-March to mid-November, when the weather is warm enough - to site-specific performances by entertainers in vintage Chinese clothing. Two masked actors greet visitors with a good-natured blessing, and as a guide shows the way, the action moves from place to place, outdoors and indoors. An enchanting performance by a man playing xiao (a bamboo flute) was almost, but not quite, ruined by a drunk braying into his mobile phone. For me, the highlight was a performance on the stringed zheng by a young woman with dexterous fingers and graceful arm movements who coaxed celestial sounds out of the instrument.
Much of Suzhou is determinedly modern, but the city retains oases of calm among the hurly-burly. Master of Nets Garden and Pei's new Suzhou Museum are chief among them.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Pandemics of Panic?
The swine flu - er, Influenza A H1N1 - seems to be stabilizing following the initial outbreak in Mexico that sent scary images of people donning face masks and reports of school shutdowns and business closures shooting around the world. What at first appeared like a possible pandemic now seems more likely to be a dress rehearsal - and a wake-up call for public officials, journalists and travelers.
The flu certainly got the travel industry's attention, and as a travel journalist, I can see why. It hit travel at a delicate time, just as the travel biz was already struggling with the global economic crisis. Airlines already burdened by falling consumer demand in the Great Recession slashed the number of flights to Mexico. Some cruise-ship lines aren't even calling at Mexican seaports, preferring to err on the side of safety, till the all-clear finally and definitively sounds. In China, there was an overreaction, as Chinese officials interred Mexican travelers, to show how tough they could be - on others - after dragging their feet with SARS and avian flu a few years back. In Hong Kong, officials quarantined a major hotel for a week, following one confirmed H1N1 case.
Hindsight is always easy, of course. But even in the early days, back in late March and April, the flu outbreak seemed to me to be generating more fear of illness than actual illness. I thought: Why disrupt the routine operation of business, and throw the multi-billion-dollar travel world into turmoil for what even then appeared to be a disease only marginally more serious than seasonal flu? I think it, still.
Consider the numbers: Some 500,000 people worldwide die from influenza every year, according to the World Health Organization. Two months after the H1N1 flu was first reported, about 8800 cases have been recorded and 74 deaths attributed to the illness. I don't mean to make light of this; any illness is unpleasant and any premature death tragic. But seen in context, this is a minor spike in disease.
Of course, this flu could still have a resurgence. Absent that, lessons from this outbreak are clear: We should all take prudent steps to prevent contagion, on the road and at home, and we should not panic. Political leaders should stick to the facts and not posture or take ill-advised decisions to cover their backs.
Travelers should use common sense and follow the guidelines posted by tourism authorities, airlines, tour operators and industry groups such as the International Air Transport Association (www.iata.org) and the U.S. Air Transport Association (www.airlines.org), and health authorities such as the WHO (www.who.int) and America's Centers for Disease Control (www.cdc.gov). Broadly, that comes down to washing your hands, keeping your hands away from your face, using hand-wipes on planes and in airports and not traveling at all if you are sick. Do these simple things, and the risk of transmission will be reduced.
Tourism in Mexico - which accounts for about 8 percent of that country's economy, according to the New York Times - will come back. Huge hotel discounts (think 50 percent and more) and government subsidies to Mexican airlines and airports will help. But some of this could have been avoided. Thanks to the worldwide system of disease reporting and the 24/7 news cycle, speed can easily outstrip judgment; at its worst, this can produce pandemics of panic.
Next time, we need to keep all this in mind.
You can find more thoughts on travel and my recently published articles on my Web site, www.wishyouweretravel.net.
The flu certainly got the travel industry's attention, and as a travel journalist, I can see why. It hit travel at a delicate time, just as the travel biz was already struggling with the global economic crisis. Airlines already burdened by falling consumer demand in the Great Recession slashed the number of flights to Mexico. Some cruise-ship lines aren't even calling at Mexican seaports, preferring to err on the side of safety, till the all-clear finally and definitively sounds. In China, there was an overreaction, as Chinese officials interred Mexican travelers, to show how tough they could be - on others - after dragging their feet with SARS and avian flu a few years back. In Hong Kong, officials quarantined a major hotel for a week, following one confirmed H1N1 case.
Hindsight is always easy, of course. But even in the early days, back in late March and April, the flu outbreak seemed to me to be generating more fear of illness than actual illness. I thought: Why disrupt the routine operation of business, and throw the multi-billion-dollar travel world into turmoil for what even then appeared to be a disease only marginally more serious than seasonal flu? I think it, still.
Consider the numbers: Some 500,000 people worldwide die from influenza every year, according to the World Health Organization. Two months after the H1N1 flu was first reported, about 8800 cases have been recorded and 74 deaths attributed to the illness. I don't mean to make light of this; any illness is unpleasant and any premature death tragic. But seen in context, this is a minor spike in disease.
Of course, this flu could still have a resurgence. Absent that, lessons from this outbreak are clear: We should all take prudent steps to prevent contagion, on the road and at home, and we should not panic. Political leaders should stick to the facts and not posture or take ill-advised decisions to cover their backs.
Travelers should use common sense and follow the guidelines posted by tourism authorities, airlines, tour operators and industry groups such as the International Air Transport Association (www.iata.org) and the U.S. Air Transport Association (www.airlines.org), and health authorities such as the WHO (www.who.int) and America's Centers for Disease Control (www.cdc.gov). Broadly, that comes down to washing your hands, keeping your hands away from your face, using hand-wipes on planes and in airports and not traveling at all if you are sick. Do these simple things, and the risk of transmission will be reduced.
Tourism in Mexico - which accounts for about 8 percent of that country's economy, according to the New York Times - will come back. Huge hotel discounts (think 50 percent and more) and government subsidies to Mexican airlines and airports will help. But some of this could have been avoided. Thanks to the worldwide system of disease reporting and the 24/7 news cycle, speed can easily outstrip judgment; at its worst, this can produce pandemics of panic.
Next time, we need to keep all this in mind.
You can find more thoughts on travel and my recently published articles on my Web site, www.wishyouweretravel.net.
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