Fuzhou: Final thoughts

This morning was fairly straightforward: breakfast, check-out, taxi to the Apollo hotel, then shuttle bus to the airport. (Note: Our hotel staff said there was no shuttle service from the Min Jiang hotel, so don’t believe any website that tells you otherwise.) We had to check our suitcases because they were deemed too large for carry-on luggage, but good thing I kept everything important in my backpack anyway.

One rather disgusting-but-typical-of-China experience this morning: Dad went to the bathroom and I was waiting to check in for our flight. Ahead of me was a family with a young boy, perhaps 2-3 years old. He apparently reeeeally needed to go to the bathroom, so his mother took him a few feet away from the check-in line, pulled down his pants, and there he went, right on the tiled floor. I’m used to seeing families do that with toddlers outdoors, but at least they usually go over a drainage area, on grass, etc. This was just there! In a puddle! In a heavily trafficked area!

What bothered me (besides the public health issue of public urination/defecation) was that there was probably a bathroom less than 50 feet away, and there were a bunch of potted plants less than 10 feet away for sure, so it’s not as if there weren’t other options. The unfortunate cleaning lady came by a few minutes later holding a roll of toilet paper and shaking her head – she clearly knew what happened – she had to first dry the puddle, then sweep the wet paper into her handheld dustbin.

Other passengers seemed pretty nonchalant about the thing – one man wearing business casual stepped away from the first-class check in counter, then paused to recheck his boarding pass literally 2 inches away from the puddle. I’m sure others who saw this were thinking something about the crassness/provincial-ness of this mother, but as Dad said when he came back, it’s not my place to say anything, and it seems no one wants to take responsibility for anything in this country unless someone higher up complains first (e.g. trying to prevent people from wearing pajamas outside in Shanghai)

Anyway, Fuzhou has more or less met my (admittedly low) expectations: a business-focused city undergoing massive renovations with a few pockets of historical charm. The highways and roads are wide, well-paved, and tree-lined, but the architecture is dominated by indifferent business hotels and corporate buildings. It might be interesting to come as a jump-off point to Mawei or Wuyi Mountain, but the city itself is not worth staying in for more than two days, and even then only if you’re a serious scholar of Chinese history.

It's raining, it's pouring...

…but Dad and I are still trying to have fun in Fuzhou =P

This morning after breakfast, we decided to go walking around the “Little West Lake,” a smaller and less famous cousin of the one in Hangzhou. It started drizzling just a few minutes after we arrived, but luckily I came prepared with both an umbrella and my trusty blue poncho from Malaysia. The taxi dropped us off on the eastern side, and we simply walked over the causeway to the small islands in the middle, where there are umpteen pavilions, some gardens, and even a small amusement park (though none of the rides were running).

The gate where we entered the park

Willow-lined walkway (very much like Hangzhou!)

We ambled around, crossed another bridge, and found ourselves at the West Lake Academy, where Dad was pleased to find a bust of Lin Zexu (1785-1850), a Qing dynasty official who fought against the British in the Opium War. There wasn’t much left of the academy, just the central courtyard, a couple musty-smelling exhibit halls, a small garden off to the side, and a plaque marking where a Song dynasty temple had once stood. We walked around some more, occasionally stopping to take shelter in a pavilion when the rain became too heavy to see easily, then eventually found ourselves at the Fujian Museum. I had been expecting something about the province’s history, economy, geography, etc, but what we found was more of an art gallery, with an eclectic mix of pieces.

Lotus pavilion at West Lake Academy

Main courtyard of the academy

Dad in front of the Fujian Museum

Mural around the side entrance

Below: artwork from the Fujian Museum

Unfortunately, the museum was also tucked away in a quiet backstreet, so we had to splash through a couple blocks of deep puddles and pouring rain to find the nearest taxi stand, where we caught a cab back to the hotel to dry off. A quick lunch later, we were in a car on the way to the Mawei shipyards and former naval academy, where we met a Mr. Lin who took us on a tour of the historical museum. The facility is fairly large (the building was formerly used as a boatyard), but most of the archival material (e.g. photographs and drawings) is in a smaller space upstairs. The main hall downstairs has precisely 14 busts of historically important people (one for each column) opposite several sculptures of various tableaux.

Main hall of the shipbuilding museum

Bust of Zhan Tianyou, the "Father of China's Railways" and a Yale alum

One of several sculptures showing the ship-building process

It's still a functional shipyard!

Sculpture at the upstairs entrance

As impressive as this may sound/look, the reality is kind of sad. The museum is little-visited –our touching the busts left marks in the layer of dust and half the lights weren’t on upstairs – and Mr. Lin is probably the only person who is really passionate about preserving the stories of the shipyards. He was able to tell us about every single person who was represented in the line of sculptures, and he’s also written several essays/edited several books (he gave one to Dad as a gift). When he retires next year, it seems doubtful that anyone will be interested enough to take his place…

We next drove up the hill to the freshly-restored A-Ma temple overlooking the shipyards, as befits a goddess of the sea. The main courtyard was huge, even incorporating a stage for theatrical performances, and everything was beautifully detailed. According to the guide, some of the woodwork was actually Canadian maple, all carved by hand. Dad went around with a bunch of joss sticks (try lighting a match in pouring rain!) and burned paper money/firecrackers as well (they have a covered bin that you put the firecrackers in, so it’s slightly more safe).

Main courtyard

Stage on the other side

Central statue of A-Ma

Dad attempting to burn paper money in the pouring rain

Firecracker bin (those worked, clearly)

After that, it was an extra-long drive back to Fuzhou because the rain was coming down more heavily than ever. Every car and motorcycle created huge plumes of water, soaking all the poor pedestrians on the sidewalk, and the shallow gutters were not nearly enough to handle the downpour, so they simply overflowed as well. Some unfortunate police officers were at the worst intersections trying to direct traffic, but it’s kind of difficult to do so effectively when one hand is holding an umbrella. We finally made it back to Wusi Road and met Mr. Chen for a rather fancy dinner in a private room of his hotel restaurant. Sorry, no photos (that would have seemed weird/impolite), but it was quite good. From there, it was back to our hotel, where we dried off and now we’re going to sleep =P

Finally in Fuzhou

Today started rather abruptly when we all woke up around 6:40 AM…although we had planned to be out the door by 6:45. Oops. We still made it out in good time – Susan and Walter stopped by the bakery while Dad and I hailed a taxi, and we made it to the border gate by 7:10 AM. Dad joked about using the senior (65+ years) line, but hey, it got us through more quickly than Walter and Susan, who couldn’t pass as “companions.”

More trouble came when we hauled our suitcases over to the Gongbei coach station that I’ve used before to get to Guangzhou airport, only to find that the bus was leaving from ANOTHER station across the street and down the block. Dad and I rushed over there, making it with about 10 minutes to spare, but we were worried about Walter and Susan, who hadn’t shown up by 7:55, but the bus didn’t leave either. Around 8:00, a van pulled up next to us and they hopped out, so it was ok. It turns out that if we had waited at the first station, we too could have gotten the shuttle, but the station staff didn’t say anything about it.

The bus ride was fairly uneventful, minus a few people throwing up in the rows ahead of us, but there must have been something wrong with them because the ride wasn’t that rough. We arrived by 11:00, got slightly lost looking for the check-in counter, but then found the electronic check-in machines and printed out boarding passes. Susan and Walter went to gate 104 for their flight to Beijing, while Dad and I headed to gate 111 and just hung out there for a couple hours.

Around 1:00, however, things started going downhill again. We were wondering why things were so quiet – boarding was supposed to start at 12:50 PM for the 1:30 flight to Fuzhou. There was a plane outside the window, but mysteriously, it wasn’t connected to the boarding extension, it wasn’t being refueled, or anything. Suddenly, the gate sign flashed that the Fuzhou flight had been moved to Gate 103, so we rushed over only to find ourselves waiting for another half hour. Around 2:00, we finally boarded a bus that took us to the plane, got on, listened to the security features video, etc. After that, however, the plane just stayed put…and I dozed off =P

I woke up around 3:00 to find that the attendants were passing out food – noodles with chicken or pork, plus a small piece of cake, some dried fruit, and a choice of water or “liang cha” (cooling tea, with chrysanthemum, lotus, and a few other things). Apparently the delay was not because of problems in Guangzhou, although it was cloudy, but because of heavy rain in Fuzhou, so air traffic control wasn’t letting the plane take off. Everyone ate quickly and the flight attendants even had time to clean up before we finally started moving around 3:30, and we got to Fuzhou around 5:00.

Another 90 minutes later, we thankfully made it to the hotel via bus/taxi, which is where we are now. Dinner was just in the hotel restaurant downstairs for convenience, but the food was ok: tofu cubes stir-fried with young chives, another squash dish, and mushroom soup. They even gave us a bonus of two small zhong zi at the end, in honor of Duan Wu Jie (still kind of sad that I missed the dragon boat races in Macau, but oh well). As I’m writing this, Dad is watching something on TV about how to pick the best turtles for cooking, but he’s dozed off and I think I’m going to sleep early too. Good night!