Lost on Planet China: One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation (19 page)

But, apparently, the Chinese regard counterfeiting a little differently than people do in the West. “The Chinese believe they can make the same thing, same quality, at lower cost, and pass the savings on to consumers, while making a profit,” Dan had explained one afternoon as we perused the DVDs for sale on a Beijing sidewalk. “So it’s a win-win for everyone. That’s the Chinese view. No one is going to spend $100 or whatever buying an operating system from Microsoft, when they can buy a counterfeit operating system for $10. It’s just inefficient.”

But hadn’t they been forced to crack down since joining the World Trade Organization?

“Sure. It’s not as blatant as it used to be. There aren’t as many people selling counterfeit DVDs as there used to be, though, as you’ve seen, there are still a lot of them. In the Silk Market, you used to be able to buy fake Armani. Today, you can still buy fake Armani. But it doesn’t say Armani anymore. Same jacket. Different label.”

The result being, of course, that it is nearly impossible to ascertain the authenticity of anything in China, and while I walked around magnetically attracting every peddler of Rolex watches or jade pendants, the Chinese, too, could find no assurances that the baby powder they bought was really baby powder or the High-Quality DVD Genuine Imitation Mission Impossible III was, in fact, High-Quality, and not, in fact, the recording of some guy with a camcorder sitting in a theater. Near the river, in the warren of alleys that is the Yuyuan Bazaar, between the clusters of old men playing mah-jongg, I’d spotted absolutely everything ever made for sale—buttons, cloth, yarn, fans, belts, sunglasses, beads, tea, antiques, so alleged—and I even beheld in my hands a carved mammoth tusk (!), which has to be just about one of the finest things one could ever have on a shelf of curios. Mammoths, of course, have long been extinct, which solved any potential moral qualms I had. And while I wasn’t at all certain whether the global ban on ivory trading extended to mammoth tusks, I did very seriously consider beginning bargaining proceedings with the proprietor, who assured me that it was very real. But I didn’t completely believe her. You can’t in China.

After I’d been accosted by the twentieth watch peddler, I began to wonder if there was anything else of interest on the Bund. I’d popped into the Peace Hotel, the home away from home for luminaries like Charlie Chaplin and Noël Coward. I’d turned to glance up at the apartment of Victor Sassoon, bon vivant of the Shanghai of yore. I’d pondered the boundless river traffic, the trawlers bearing coal and trucks beneath the steel-and-glass facade of Pudong. And then, as I ambled onward, I came across the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel and I thought, Hey, I’m a sightseer on the Bund, so why not have a gander?

All I can say is that if you happen to find yourself in Shanghai with a bag of magic mushrooms and you were looking to maximize the sensory overload of your magic mushroom ride, the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel is just the place for you. I was led to an underground monorail that called to mind a Jetsons cartoon, and soon I was experiencing one of the trippiest journeys I’d ever made. There were flashing lights and lasers, and then suddenly balloonlike figures, like the ones you see fluttering in suburban car dealerships, appeared, followed by a film screen with sharks on it, which quickly rolled up, and all the while a strange, female voice would murmur
space swirl, magma, fossil variations, shooting stars,
and as I stepped off with a baffled air—
what the hell was that?
—I soon found myself confronted by a big sign that read “China Sex Culture and History Exhibition: First Time in 5,000 Years,” and I began to wonder, What doesn’t this tunnel have?

In the spirit of journalistic inquiry, I put on the proverbial raincoat, bought a ticket, and entered the exhibition, which could have been called The Art of the Dildo. I had assumed that China maintained a relatively repressed attitude toward sex, but in this, too, I was wrong. True, the government holds a prudish disposition and keeps a careful eye on the lyrical content of pop songs and the skin content of films, but Chinese society, at least its urban variation, seemed to have a rather Swedish disposition toward sex. Whereas the French suffuse sex with romance and eroticism, Swedes have a much more matter-of-fact approach. It’s just something people do. No big deal. The Chinese, thus, are the Swedes of Asia (you heard it here first), and nowhere is this more evident than in the sweeping proliferation of dildo shops in urban China. Every neighborhood seemed to have one. It’s true. You can’t buy
Playboy
in China, but should your sexual needs involve battery-operated devices, just head on down to your friendly neighborhood sex-toy emporium and pick up the new and improved Deep Thruster—made in China, of course, which has pretty much cornered the global dildo market.

And, as I was now being informed, China has a long history with dildos—5,000 years apparently. There were jade dildos and ivory dildos and wood dildos of every size and shape. And there was also ancient porn. I’m partial to an illustrated Kama Sutra. (Have you seen the ancient Hindu goddess of fertility? Hot, even with four arms.) But, as I peered a little more closely at these crudely rendered porcelain depictions of intimate acts, I gathered that these images were not meant to arouse but to inform, and I can only say that if I were an ancient Chinese lass on her wedding day, spending a few minutes with Mom, who was informing her daughter of what exactly was expected of her on her wedding night, I’d flee. Though I did note that the evening would end with cuddling.

Toward the end of the exhibit, near the plaques commemorating the awards won by China’s leading sexologists, was a sign that pretty much summarized the purpose of the items on display.

The sex medicine and sex tools were popularized in ancient age because men needed sex medicine to strong their sex ability and women needed sex tools for masturbation because the women had to keep their chastity and couldn’t remarriage, and the wives and concubines couldn’t satisfy their sex desire from their husbands.

Which is just so thoughtful.

Soon thereafter, I found myself in a restaurant, gratefully perusing an English-language menu, which informed me that I might want to consider the Bullfrog. It’s not very often that I ponder the wonders of a bullfrog, but this one would come barbecued. I have a soft spot for barbecue. Not so much for its Southern porky manifestation (too sweet), but for, well, pretty much everything else that’s grilled over smoky embers. Purists and semanticists, of course, would argue that only a pig cooked in the Southern manner can be considered true barbecue and any deviation should be called grilling, to which I say
whatever.
On many a fine evening, and even those that are not so fine, I can be found standing over a Weber, barbecuing fish, shrimps, hunks of flesh, and myriad vegetables. It is, frankly, the only way I know to make squash taste good. I do it because I like it. And it makes me feel like a Man.

But never had I considered the possibility of grilling a frog. Not once. Clearly, when it comes to barbecue, the Chinese are out-of-the-box thinkers. I was in a busy restaurant on a side street near the bustling pedestrian arcade known as Nanjing Lu. I was intrigued by this barbecued bullfrog, and then I noticed that the menu also offered a barbecued goose, my all-time favorite bird for eating, and I thought, Why not? Let’s have both. I’m crazy that way. “And some vegetables in supreme broth too, please?” I said to the waiter, very carefully pointing to the correct Chinese translation lest I accidentally commit myself to a heaping platter of sheep gonads. “
Xie xie
very much.”

As I waited, I noticed an Englishman sitting with an attractive Chinese woman at a nearby table.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked her. “Rum and Coke? Do you know where rum comes from? The West Indies. Scotch? Scotland. Vodka comes from Russia…”

And on and on he went.

“…in France, people drink wine. Wine also comes from Italy. Slivovice comes from Serbia…”

What a dork. Here he was in a restaurant in China with an actual Chinese person who could speak English—though this might have been a fanciful presumption; she hadn’t uttered a word—but still, presumably, a person who could unlock the mysteries of the Middle Kingdom, and he’d decided to educate her about Europe, which we all know is a totally irrelevant region that’s about to be subsumed into the Muslim caliphate (I watch Fox News occasionally too). Here he was with a person who could resolve some of the most curious Chinese puzzles—like why, for instance, every day in China there are tens of millions of toddlers piddling on sidewalks. Why is this so? I understood the reluctance to use disposable diapers. It’s the eco-friendly thing to do. But for those little ones that aren’t quite babies and aren’t quite ready for potty training—or squat training, as the case may be with Chinese toilets—why have them waddling around in split pants? Are the results not regarded as a little messy, a wee bit unsanitary? I could understand the reluctance to use a public toilet in China. They’re hideous. There are few things more disturbing to the soul than the sight of thirty men squatting side by side in open stalls, smoking and shitting. But still. Every day, toddlers in split pants unleash rivers of pee and dollops of poo on the streets of China, and this seemed strange and peculiar and in need of questioning, though possibly not in a restaurant.

Meanwhile, as I sampled the frog (legs only, like chicken with Chinese characteristics) and savored the goose (excellent, but why so many bones? And difficult to eat with chopsticks), the Englishman next to me continued to prattle on about Europe.

“…Italy is known for art. Germany for music. England for literature…”

Truly, a nitwit. I paid the bill, and as I walked past them, I noticed that he’d become a little more expansive in his sharing of knowledge.

“…Suits are single-breasted or double-breasted…”

And this was interesting how?

“…there are two countries famous for silk, Thailand and China…”

And you don’t think she knows that, Romeo?

Really. I had never encountered such a pedantic clod in my life. I left, and as I turned the corner, I nearly tripped over a dead pig on the sidewalk. They’re perilous places, sidewalks in China. It’s not just leaky toddlers one needs to watch out for. But I sidestepped the carcass, and as I digested my bullfrog I refused to let my mind linger on food-sanitation issues because, really, in China it’s just pointless.

I returned to bustling Nanjing Lu, noting the bamboo scaffolding climbing up the sides of these modern buildings, and far above me the window washers dangling on swings cleaning the facade of the Marriot Hotel next to the Ferrari dealership. Hordes of shoppers were going through the 10-yuan bin at the Shanghai Number 1 Department Store. Soon, I was encountering all sorts of friendly people again offering to sell me a Rolex or a Mont Blanc pen, or inquiring whether I’d like to
make love Chinese girl
or possibly visit their art studio. I talked to everyone who approached me, whether loathsome tout or earnest art student, simply because it’s good to talk now and then, and in China I made do with what few opportunities came my way.
A Rolex? Is it real? Make love Chinese girl? Gosh. Sounds intriguing. But how about make love Chinese man?

My conversations with pimps were brief.

I made my way across the expanse of Renmin Square, declining friendly offers from pretty women to enjoy a traditional Chinese tea service with them, knowing as I did so that this was not actually an invitation to experience traditional Chinese culture in a flirtatious environment, but simply an opportunity to drink highly overpriced tea with a woman counting the minutes until she can bolster her commission by luring another befuddled
laowai
inside. Instead, I wandered onward to the Shanghai Museum, the contents of which once needed to be hidden under banners of Maoist slogans to prevent the Red Guards from smashing its collection of old culture. Today, however, the museum was offering an exhibition titled “From Cezanne to Pollock: Master Drawings from MOMA,” which was interesting—but not nearly as interesting as the game show being played live on national TV right there in the lobby. There was an enormous JumboTron television that featured game-show participants and a studio audience who were apparently watching the goings-on inside the museum, where a cameraman was filming a game-show host in TV makeup asking questions to several museum visitors. I spent a moment watching them tape this show inside the museum. I didn’t really know what was going on, though it seemed strangely loud and raucous given that we were in the general hushiness of a museum. I made several attempts to try to get into the picture, where I hoped to avail myself of the opportunity to make silly faces and peace signs on Chinese national television, but there were twenty guards minimum and they did not look like the sort of people one should trifle with, so I headed onward to the Chinese Calligraphy Hall.