They promised end of 2008 and sure enough, with a few days to spare, the Wuhan Yangtze Tunnel is finally open. Started in 2004, this massive project is, in fact, the first tunnel under the Yangtze River and cost RMB1.7-2.0 billion (about USD250-300 million) depending on your sources. Though this tunnel is the first, it won’t be the last as other sous-Yangtze tunnels are in process in both Shanghai and Nanjing.
I remain skeptical that this four-lane marvel (pictures make it look like two) will truly relieve the traffic burden in Wuhan. One article claims travel time is reduced from 30 to 7 minutes. It’s a neat engineering feat, but I’m not convinved that Wuhan couldn’t use the cash for other more pressing projects. Like the horseracing track.
Ever since Michelin announced they were adding Hong Kong and Macau (as a unit) to their expanding list of restaurant-reviewed cities, the burning question was “what will the Frenchies make of Cantonese food?” The answer? Quite mixed. They have a lot of homework to do before the next edition. From the day the guide was published, they definitely got mouths flapping debating the guide. But they also seriously undermined their credibility by doling out stars to several question mark eateries. Here’s the complete list of starred restaurants:
Three Stars:
Lung King Heen
Robuchon a Galera
Two Stars:
Amber
Bo Innovation
Caprice
L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon
Shang Palace
Summer Palace
T’ang Court
Tim’s Kitchen
One Star:
Fook Lam Moon (Wan Chai)
Forum
Hutong (What the F? Seriously. What the F.)
Lei Garden (IFC) (Again, what the F?)
Lei Garden (TST) (Ditto)
Ming Court
Petrus
Pierre
Regal Palace
Shanghai Garden (I’m not going to pull punches. Flat out bribe.)
The Golden Leaf
The Square (I’m in between either “What the F” or “Flat out bribe.”)
Tim’s Kitchen
Yung Kee
Imperial Court
The Eight
Tung Yee Heen
Ying
Points for:
Bilingual – Nice to see them at least make the effort of having the guide in both English and Chinese.
No stars for Nobu and Spoon. They avoided giving recognition to two of the most over-hyped places (both basically high-end chains) that serve very mediocre food. Good on Michelin.
Points against:
One star each for Hutong and The Square. Are they mad? Did money change hands?
Not enough Japanese restaurants. Sushi Hiro doesn’t even get mentioned?
Serious mis-steps with the Bib Gourmand. This was where the Michelin Guide should have really shined in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a veritable treasure trove of cheap no-frills places that serve outstanding eats. And they flag up Cafe Siam? Lian at IFC? That place is gar-bage. Crystal Jade? 1/5 Nuevo on Star Street? I’m sorry, but not even close. This is where the criticism of no (or not enough) Chinese judges is truly vindicated. Chinese judges would’ve been much more on-the-ball with finding better spots to highlight with the Bib Gourmand than the chain restaurants at high end malls that got their plaudits. Where’s Lan Fong Yuen for milk tea and other Cantonese diner specialities? No place serves Bib Gourmand worthy roast meats? No hidden treasures at any of the da pai dangs at the wet markets?
If the point of a guide like Michelin is to get people talking and debating where to eat and who serves the best this and that, then mission accomplished. If the point was to become a guide locals use and respect, well, try again next year.
The Cat has even gone one step further and took the time to translate it, as follows:
Make haste to Somalia, cruise the Gulf of Aden
With lofty sentiments, the Chinese navy heads for the deep blue
Braving wind and waves, the warship’s flag flutters, The Chinese navy, a bright sword to harmonize the ocean.
Chinese warriors, valiant men with iron wills,
Intrepid journey, 600 years after Zheng He.
Heroic sailors, forge bravely ahead,
Bearing heavy responsibility, the motherland will see our triumphant return.
Play it loud, dont play it low. Blow your speakers!
MUL Adds: Borrowing media relations tactics from the U.S. in Iraq, they even embedded a reporter with the ship!
Global Times, a newly launched English language newspaper headquartered in Beijing, is looking for full-time, on-site native English-speaking copy editors and sub-editors to strengthen its international team.
The website administrator for globaltimes.com.cn has an “@globaltimes.com.cn” email address, as does the admin for huanqiu.com, the website for Global Times(环球时报), a Chinese-language newspaper. Mul introduced me to Global Times several years ago; it’s a good place to get the Party line on foreign affairs and military issues.
Here are a few scans of past editions, along with translations of the headlines:
May 14, 2007: “America understands China’s desire to build aircraft carriers”
June 11, 2007: “An American magazine admits it was wrong about the ‘The Death of Hong Kong’”
August 31, 2007: “The US and Taiwan clash over Taiwan’s attempt to join the UN”
October 12, 2007: “Russia caught 300 Western spies in the last four years”
October 26, 2007: “Online spies threaten China’s safety”
November 16, 2007: “Who is spreading false rumors about the Beijing Olympics?”
Should be an interesting gig for some lying, spying Americans!
Israel’s Calcalist (Hebrew only) reports on quite a little scandal at the Israeli embassy in Beijing. According to the newspaper, the consul in the newly opened Israeli consulate in Shenzhen is under heavy criticism for choosing to live in…
Beijing!
According to the article, the newly appointed consul has been living in the nation’s capital for the last three months and has been commuting to work on a weekly basis. Not only that, according to the article his weekly travel expenses amount to USD 2,000 which is approximately RMB 14,000, and which also seems to me just a little too much…
Frankly, I don’t understand why he didn’t just stay in Tel Aviv. Not only is the weather much nicer but return flights to Hong Kong only cost around USD 1,000 or so…
Fortunately I am not the only one that thinks that there is something wrong with this picture and an official complaint has been filed with the Israeli State Comptroller.
The folks at Chinalyst are organizing the Best China Blog Awards 2008. If you think Truth From Facts is one of the better blogs out there, vote for us here. Voting is open for all of December.
We started this blog primarily for ourselves, but we are interested to see if anyone else reads it and likes it. As SHTig eloquently wrote:
Truth From Facts (实事求是) is run by four expats, residing in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Each of them brings over a decade of experience living in and studying China, and all of them speak and read Chinese. This gives Truth From Facts a bit of a local taste as many of the postings are derived from Chinese language news stories and blogs, as well as information received frm Chinese friends. Together the bloggers have living experience (study and work) in Bengbu City (Anhui), Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Wuhan. Visitors to Truth From Facts note that it is picking up momentum and becoming a favorite place to browse.
The South China Morning Post had an article last week whining about the profileration of bar streets in the hutongs and how they were destroying the character of old Beijing. Not exactly an original topic, but I wanted to comment on parts of it:
It’s hard to believe now, but Beijing was once a nightlife desert. In the 1980s, foreigners living in the city who wanted an evening out had little choice of where to go. “A few hotels had bars. Some of the embassies had them too and they’d put on events on Fridays. It was a very small town,” says Frank Siegel, an American who came to the mainland in 1981….
Traditional hutongs such as Nanluoguxiang have become home to bars, restaurants and boutiques, while the area around the Shichahai lakes, better known as Houhai, is firmly established as a bar zone.
But the transformation of Beijing’s entertainment scene has come at a cost.
The village-like atmosphere that expats remember from the early 90s is gone. The character of entire districts has changed, nowhere more so than Houhai. The lake near Beihai Park is surrounded by some of the oldest hutongs and siheyuan (courtyard houses) in Beijing….
In early 2003, the outbreak of Sars kick-started Houhai’s metamorphosis into one of Beijing’s nightlife centres. “People wanted to be outside rather than indoors and many of them weren’t able to work, so they started to spend the day in Houhai. Then some businessmen realised that was a good opportunity to open bars and restaurants,” [Bai Feng] says.
No offense to Bai Feng, owner of No Name Bar, but I think it was clear a couple of years before SARS where Houhai was headed.
Perhaps the worst aspect of Houhai now is the cookie-cutter nature of the bars. Just as scores of towns across the mainland start to look alike thanks to uniform development, many of the bars and clubs in Houhai, as well as elsewhere in Beijing, are indistinguishable from each other….
A group of cookie-cutter bars all in one spot was what made the old Sanlitun South Street so great.
“The easiest thing to do in China is to copy a place that is making money. It always works,” says Nee Bing, owner of the popular Song Bar, which has an innovative interior inspired by the Yuanyang rice terraces of Yunnan province.
Beijing should follow the example of Shanghai, where thriving nightlife areas such as Taikang Lu are strictly controlled, he says.
“The local government keeps a very close eye on Taikang Lu and they’ve planned it well. I wanted to open a restaurant there earlier this year. When I told the local officials it would serve southwestern style food, they said, ‘Sorry, we can’t allow it. We have a Vietnamese restaurant there already. It’ll be too similar’. That wouldn’t happen in Beijing,” says Nee.
Great idea, Nee Bing–let the government strictly control Houhai and only allow one type of restaurant in each bar. Beijing already has that; it’s called Lucky Street. Actually, Houhai already has it as well; it’s called Lotus Lane.
That Beijing authorities haven’t learned any lessons from what happened to Houhai is apparent in the way Nanluoguxiang has been allowed to develop. A short walk from Houhai, the 800-year-old hutong is now a traffic-clogged strip of identical bars, cafes and clothes and jewellery shops.
Nee sees that as a wasted opportunity.
“If Nanluoguxiang had lots of different shops and bars, then everyone would go there. It would be more popular than Sanlitun. But it doesn’t, so the people who go there tend to be tourists,” he says.
Just like Houhai, Nanluoguxiang has been transformed in a few years from an old-style neighbourhood into something resembling a theme park.
Nanluoguxiang is a commercial hutong running north-to-south through a series of residential hutongs running east to west. Stepping off the main drag and onto the side streets, one finds that the traditional neighborhood is largely intact.
“It’s good for business, but the atmosphere has completely changed,” says Wang Haiyan, who opened the first pub in the hutong, the Passby Bar, in 1999. “It’s like a fake hutong now. Most of the people who lived here have moved out. I think there are only three or four families living on the hutong now.”
Wang’s Passby Bar is surely the main reason Nanluguxiang has become what it is, and thus the main reason that most of the people have moved out. He’s cashing in just as much as anyone else, having added a gift shop and upscale restaurant.
As their houses can fetch rents of up to 250,000 yuan a year, it is no surprise many residents have gone.
Despite the worsening economy, there’s little sign that the rush to open new bars is slowing. With Houhai and Nanluoguxiang saturated, the nearby area north of the Drum Tower and Gulou Dongdajie is tipped to be the next hot spot.
However, Nee predicts the hipsters will head further out to the suburbs.
“All the cool things happen in places where the rent is low,” he says.
“That’s why Berlin is the club capital of the world.”
After savoring that sublime final paragraph for a moment, consider this: For all its problems, Nanluoguxiang is the best solution yet for solving the hutong dilemma and retaining old Beijing’s identity, whatever that means. Everyone gets a good deal out of it:
Hutong residents: Instead of being forced out by a large developer and given a nonnegotiable settlement, property owners on Nanluoguxiang can sell or rent out their property for a fair price. 250,000 RMB a year sounds like a pretty good deal, and the price will surely go up in the future.
Preservationists: Unlike most of Beijing’s other historical sites, the attraction of the hutongs comes largely from the people going about their lives there. Strict preservation–that is, turning entire hutongs into museums–is not a viable option, and with standards of living rising throughout Beijing, fewer and fewer people are willing live without a toilet in their home and other modern amenities. The best way to preserve the look and feel of the hutongs is to gentrify them.
Tourists: These days the hutongs are popular enough that most tourists spending a few days here will get to see them. But few want to spend more than an hour or two in an authentic hutong. At some point they’ll get hungry or thirsty; with places like Nanluoguxiang, they will actually be willing to spend some money in the hutongs instead of back at their hotel or on Wangfujing. Some will even consider finding a hotel there.
It’s also worth mentioning that Nanluoguxiang has been this successful despite often being clogged with cars. If north-south traffic can be blocked (while still allowing cars through the east-west hutongs. The government has shown good judgement in laying a nice cobblestone-esque surface keeping store signs tasteful; keeping the cars out would be another step in the right direction.
If anyone has a better idea for preserving the hutongs, I’d like to hear it.
