China and the year of the snake

Today is the start of the Chinese Year of the Snake. There are several different snakes, Metal Snakes, Water Snakes, Wood Snakes, Fire Snakes and Earth Snakes. 2013 is the year of the Water Snake. Water Snakes are influential and insightful. They are motivated and intellectual. Very determined and resolute about success. They are affectionate with their families and friends but do not show this side of their personalty to colleagues or business partners. The last Water Snake year was 1953.

Ancient Chinese wisdom says a Snake in the house is a good omen because it means your family will not starve.

The only snake we have in the house is this one on a Portuguese Palissy Majolica tobacco jar made around 1860. I am not keen on snakes so this one spends his time looking at the wall, I prefer to view the other side of the jar....

....showing a frog and a moth.

China Town, London via wikipedia

The top London auction houses are doing very well, thank you, even though we have a credit crunch. The shops on Bond Street could be struggling, but are not. Designer gear and luxury handbags are flying out of the doors. All of this is as a result of the mighty tiger’s roar from China.

Huge tourist groups are arriving in this year of the snake to snap up anything, the sky is the limit.

I am finding it difficult to comprehend. H and I visited China in the early 1980s, before tourism had gained a foothold. H was invited by the Chinese Government to advise them on their maritime shipping and environment problems.

Chairman Mao had only been dead a few years, and his crystal coffin could be seen in his mausoleum in Tiananmen Square.

Everyone still wore little Chairman Mao suits in various shades of navy blue, or khaki green, pudding basin haircuts were de’rigueur, and the most common form of travel was on a bicycle.

There was absolutely no private car ownership, all taxis and cars belonged to the Government. The official cars were rather quaint with sets of curtains all around the back and side windows, so that no one could see you.

my snapshot taken in Beijing

We were there for a month, and during that time they looked after us kindly and graciously, but if H had been a chicken he would have been plucked bare, they wanted every single bit of knowledge he could give them. They were consummate absorbers of his expertise and squeezed him dry.

Whilst H was working, the government would send a young student learning English to accompany me on outings along with a government driver. They kindly took me all over Beijing and the surrounding area - I saw Peking man, Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Beihai Park, and the Lama Temple.

A bust of Peking Man on display at Zhoukoudian via wikipedia

When H had a free day, a leading Government official in the Environment field took us to the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall. As we talked to him we began to realise how little we actually understood what life in China then was really like. He was married to a scientist whom he had not seen for four years. She had been delegated to work in Baghdad by the government - no choice was given - you had to do as you were commanded. His two children, I think the one child policy did not apply to high officials, were living in the country with grandparents, and he very rarely saw them. I learnt that one of the students who accompanied me had grown up in the countryside where his parents kept pigs who shared their small accommodation with them. I really admired the fact that he had succeeded in getting to university, and was learning to be a translator. I couldn't help but compare him with my sons who both had their own rooms in which to do their studies. He lived in a dormitory with other workers, and everything, his welfare, health, food, etc were all courtesy of the particular government department he worked for. In China, if you did not work you were excluded from everything.

I snapped these little toddlers all strung up together with their minder in the grounds of the Summer Palace. Their care would come with their parents job - part of the package. Just after this I saw something that really shocked me. A group of old ladies came down the palace steps with bound feet. Their feet were about 15 cms long, they must have been the last of their generation to have bound feet.
We travelled many miles on an overnight steam train to Qingdao, a hair raising plane flight to Shanghai, then on to Hangzhou before finally returning to Beijing. Everywhere we went we were treated like royalty - shown all of the sites, treated with kindness, and given some wonderful banquets.
It is very difficult for us to envisage the huge changes that have occurred in China since our visit less than 30 years ago. The China that we saw is already history.
At some stage, I will do another post on a few of our adventures in Qingdao, Shanghai, and Hangzhou.

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