At least the weather in China was better than it was yesterday. The day started off with a lot of smog, but I guess most of it blew off. The afternoon was really quite nice. While Michelle was attending meetings on plant stuff, I went on a tour of the Hutong district in Beijing. We drove around the Hutongs on a rickshaw--a bycicle with a seat for two behind the driver. In general, the Hutongs were an interesting mix of a traditional society that people could have seen 300 years ago and the modern global economy. On of our rickshaw drivers, for example, talked on his cell phone for about a quarter of our journey. The courtyard home that we visited seemed very well kept for a house that is almost 700 years old. It was constructed according to the traditional familial structure. The master/lord's section was bordered on either side by the smaller rooms for his wives. The head--or first--wife got the biggest wing to herself. The other wives--concubines--shared the other wing between themselves. There were also two wings for the children. The sons, of course, got the bigger of the two wings. The home I visited was actually owned by the state. One of chairman Mao's generals lived in the courtyard home, and now his children live there. If they decided to leave, however, they could not sell the home as the home belongs to the PRC. Within the home, there were several artifacts from the Maoist era. In addition to the standard photo of the chairman himself, there were more personal photographs of the man whose children lived there. It seems that he was a participant in the Long March.
The Hutong ended with a "tour" of "the Silk Market." Actually, we went to a silk market that was really more like a clothing store. The staff gave us a fairly interesting description of how silk is made, but then we got a tour of the store. In general, Chinese merchants seem rather pushy. They don't take no for an answer, and I think that most of them believe that Americans have money to burn. If there are Chinese vendors reading this posting, please note that if an American tells you he does not want/need another watch he really does not want to buy a watch no matter how low you drop the price. It seems like basic economics--if demand is zero then there really is no need for a supply--but its a concept that is foreign here. It seems like the Chinese economic model is as follows: if I follow him around long enough there may not be any demand for my product, but the customer will be willing to purchase peace from pushy vendors.
