2006 °   "前方到站是复兴门。有在复兴门下车的乘客，请准备下车。"

There she got off the subway.

The sleep-inducing, self-looping music still drilling through her ears, Sis would return to Changping by hopping on a bus at Deshengmen, strolling in her usual carefree manner through this busy city of endless, incremental repetitions. In another week, we would meet again, in Singapore. But with a convocation ceremony and a series of throttling deadlines, I have to make my move - first.

Still in the train, me and the Folks would continue on line one, interchange at Jianguomen, before exiting at Beijingzhan. The torment of walking through the sea of questioning buggers chanting “fapiao” or “zhusu” to every passer-by no longer trouble us. Occasionally an elder walks up hoping you could hand over that plastic bottle in your hand; other times he is seen scavenging the bins for similar recyclables. The LG advertisements on the bus-stops are crying to me aloud, and they are everywhere: pillars, tunnels, linkway posters of subway platforms: KG90, "I chocolate you". The gorgeous little kg90 black label series beckons, one that is impossible to find in our part of Asia. (Or so I thought, since my eyeing on its release in the Far East market a few months back. I saw the ad on TV mobile today... so it has arrived!) Yet, tracking the temptations are a pair of watchmen known as the eyes of truth: manifesting as the Folks in tow, they would watch your desire bubble in size loftily before pricking it burst with a gentle reminder that I ought to watch my spendings.

Or, specifically, the lack of capital for needless spendings.

"挣钱，挣钱，你算算看，那可要挣上多少钱啊！"

Let’s begin with the basics. A few weeks ago we would land in China in the hope of checking into an ideological concept known as “minsucun”, literally folk village, which are abundant in the outskirts of Beijing, especially Badaling. On the hosts' end, minsucuns are developed to revitalise the outlying villages by building on the essence of rurality: a form of simple, low-energy, back-to-basics lifestyle that would in turn generate income for the villagers; on the guests' end, it offers city-dwelling tourists an alternative to the trite sightseeing of the same-old-great-wall and the same-old-Tiananmen-square and the same-old-every-other-thing-we-know-about-Beijing that they are still boasting of like we-don't-already-know.

"西拨子到不到？西拨子？"

We gave it a shot. So based on the instructions of how to get there, we got off the bus at some deserted stop after a few hours and several transits, and tried to "see" where this so-called village located 1-2 km away is. Nowhere. A cab came by, we haggled the price, ok-ed, and drove to the so-called minsucun. An abandoned cluster of houses in the outskirts? The place is dead. Completely. A few kids running in the back alley. A lazy dog. Not a stir. Just stagnant, dead air. The driver asked the kids to bring us to any family that can host us. They tried to offer their own room. Yes, this is the right place, just that this hotelling idea has gone wrong since eons ago for the village. it's not making money, the driver said. once in a while some travellers drop by, but it just isn't paying well. The villagers have gone into the city to work. This is all there's left.

师傅说："民俗村这玩意儿特不挣钱！大伙儿都不干了。"

We drove to another minsucun which is still "alive"; at least they have a little garden where they grow fruits and vegetables, at least the rooms are decent there; or so I was trying to convince myself. We are the only occupants for the night; they served “nongjia” dinner, and soon the night was cold, with the moon laughing. So it was - a silent and cold night, a feeling of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

"喔，那儿啊，有钱人去的。"

A few kilometres away the Badaling highway is teeming with liveliness. thousands of visitors clog the street outside the Badaling great wall. We decided to give it a miss since the gradient wasn't enticing. Sis and me went up to the commune, and visited four villas: the forest house (Nobuaki Furuya), the bamboo wall (Kengo Kuma), no.3 house (Cui Kai) and the suitcase house (Gary Chang). I still remembered what another cab driver said the day before when we asked why he doesn't want to bring us to the commune.

"Too far, too dangerous," he said.

"So who would go to the commune then?" we asked.

"Oh, rich people."

Ironically, the commune is reachable by foot (if you have an hour plus to spare), and certainly not dangerous to get to. And I am not rich.

The next day we would aerobically challenge ourselves to Juyongguan, the steeper great wall, and return to Changping for pizza. (we would love to do Simatai or Jiankou, but that would have to be another time). we moved to the youth hostel next to Beijing train station the next day, the one where the toilet cubicle doors are labelled with "Chinese style" or "Western style" (when they could just say squatting or sitting type, or simply do away with the labels). We bought a bus-guide at the bookstore and found a route to the artist clusters at Dashanzi - also known as 798. The bus trip was only one yuan per person compared to a typical 15 for a cab. So it was - a pretty place albeit a tad too commercial. A particular Long March Gallery was putting up an exhibition titled "Building Code Violation", which was a variety of media and installations that set me back by a good many hours. At the entrance it was written:

"NO FOREIGNERS BEYOND THIS POINT"

If you recall, the message used to be "no dogs and Chinese". Some of the old factories have galleries upstairs, apart from the usual loft decks, so roaming about do bring pleasant surprises.

Lunch was spent at a convenient Lanzhou Lamian store, the kind that is abundant in China just as Turkish kebab would show up all over Europe. The old Muslim chef spoke perfect Beijing accent. a 50-year old man on another table drowns himself with beer, and talks aloud as every Beijing citizen does, recollecting his memory as a worker in the factories before the place closed down and turned into lofts and galleries. The day ended with us tiptoeing to peek over the site boundary walls at the upcoming "Niaocao" stadium by H&dM - in the rain - and the skeletal framework of the "Shuilifang" aquatic sports center just beside it, currently overloaded with scaffolding obscuring its true form.

"从北京开往杭州Z9次班列车的乘客，请注意。"

That night, I was on a zida ruanwoche (soft sleeper) to Hangzhou.

I woke up to find that it was drizzling. The train zipped past old Jiangnan houses and fields, and the suburbanites are going to work in raincoats of all colours. Awhile later we were at west lake, where tourists can opt to cycle or stroll to get from one part of the lake to another. The stroll in the park eventually turned out to be a half-day trek (especially tiring when you have Folks in tow). A bunch of local folks were doing some waltz in an open square to the beat of really archaic numbers. After another temple the next morning, we left the city for a small idyllic town called Wuzhen, literally "dark town".

"喔，这就是所谓的 '鸟镇' 呵..."

Having finally settled into something slow-paced, it would be delightful to spend two days simply doing nothing in this little town, but on the very night the Folk Dowager declared that there's nothing much to see in Wuzhen, and we should pack up and leave straight after lunch for the next town after a quick morning tour. It was a disappointing decision. As the tourist crowd started building up in the town, we took our lunch by the stream and left for Xitang, via Jiaxing.

Unlike Wuzhen, Xitang's waterways are lined with canopied walkways known as “yanyu changlang”. If you still recall MI3, tom cruise didn't wake up for a morning jog down the old roofscapes in shanghai; it was in Xitang that the scene was shot. by night fall, red lanterns light up the townscape, and musicians break the silence of the night as they play traditional tunes on boats. As the Dowager watched this from atop the arching bridge, she was somehow taken by this serenity, and realised the irony of rushing from one place to another. so at Xitang, we stayed another night, despite the mosquitoes.

"京杭运河... 北京、杭州之运河..."

As usual, wandering afar from the crowd, we enter into the other reality of Xitang, just like how Badaling isn't really about that touristy great wall, but rather the empty, deadened, ideologically ambitious yet practically implausible revival of the villages through the making of minsucuns (and the milking of the riches via developments like the commune, which is tripling its size with phase two). From Dongtang Street we crossed the road to enter into the local backwater district of Xitang, a place left out of the tourist picture. The waters here are murky and stagnant, since the streams of the gated town are filtered from the canal network. Old, disused boats are parked in the dirty brook and used as a mini-market. There is a canopied walkway as well, made of wooden poles and fabric shelter. There are no tourists here, only flies and spitting old men.

"新加坡投资建设的工业园? 没听说过，这儿只有一个工业园。"

We left Xitang for Suzhou via Jiashan, and settled into the youth hostel at Shiquanjie. after two hot days of gardens, pavilions, and a trip to the Expo at Suzhou industrial park, we headed for Tongli, the third shuixiang (water town) of our trip, and was surprised that there was absolutely no buggers of any sort asking if we needed a ride into town, or whether we would like a "specially priced" entrance ticket or accommodation. By the time we lug our baggages into the ancient town, we saw so few visitors around (and the locals were perhaps too lazy to attend to us) that we seemed to have the whole town to ourselves... Well, actually it was a sweltering 36 degrees. Everyone is probably indoors.

No wonder we felt quite alone.

At night, the town was so dark we almost lost our way.

On the second day, the pretty streams and stone bridges of Tongli did little to soothe the unbearable summer heat, which was up by another three degrees. The sunned laundry smells good though.

"江泽到了。江泽。请前后门下车。"

We left this feverish place by taking a bus to Jiangze - a standalone bus-stop in the middle of an open field before walking a short distance into the fourth water town on our itinerary - Zhouzhuang.

Zhouzhuang was also suffering from the hot spell so we were glad to find a place quickly, near to Shenting. The next day, at about 4pm, ten minutes into the opening of an opera performance at the Guxitai, the sky turned dark and the wind got so strong that many windows were heard slamming shut across town. Just as the emcee came out to announce that the show would be cancelled, a thunder tore through the air and sent the emcee and Huadan scurrying for shelter rightaway - to the amusement of the audience. So from that fateful afternoon flash storm onwards, it was intermittent showers and thunders across Jiangnan. The walls got darker, and the willow trunks turned black with moist. the locals took to mopping the streets - or maybe they were into synchronised watercoloring on a massive urban scale?

We left Zhouzhuang via a secluded nong beside Shenting, which, long and winding, lead us to a carpark where buses would bring us to shanghai. Most locals do not know of this carpark - in fact, there are three ways of getting to shanghai from Zhouzhuang, and they usually only use one.

"对，这部手机要叁千捌百捌拾元。今天买有打折，算叁千捌。"

Shanghai! Lujiazhui, Nanjinglu, Bund, People's Park, MoCA... what else? Again I thought I saw tom cruise jumping from one tower to another, before sliding down its sloped roof and breaking out of the building by doing a death-defying parachute drop. No, that was MI3 again. I wasn't sleeping ok. This one is definitely in Shanghai.

Since the week was the 9th shanghai international film fest, I went for a French movie, “Yamakasi”, at peace cinema, raffles city, which happened to be about climbing up and down buildings and jumping from roof to roof as well. The rest of the time in shanghai was spent shopping, visiting the museums and old places, tracking down Mada's works (Longyang residence and Vanke Soho street), Xintiandi, and simply walking the streets.

"香格拉你去了吗？没去？那莫干山呢？就在火车站旁边。"

One morning, I decidedly left the Folks to their own devices, and took the hour-long shuttle to Zhujiajiao, another secluded old town in the outskirts of shanghai. Along the way on the bus I fell asleep and woke up to realise it was raining - again. With dampened mood and soaked shoes I walked into the town and saw the usual feast of waterways, temples and bridges, and soon got tired. I came to a quiet lane, and walked past an open door. An old granny was reading inside. Then I saw two words on the wall: "artist studio" and decided to go in. the path of arrows led to another sign saying - "expressionist painting gallery at no. 68". From a distance I could see a topless man stepping out of the door at the end of the nong, looking up at the drizzling sky. He caught sight of me and hurriedly went in to pull on a t-shirt; that was the artist, Liu Wei, from Nanjing.

The studio was only a storeroom, too small to qualify as a gallery. Splashes of orange and red oils hung on the walls of this agonisingly tiny quarters. The paints and brushes were still on the floor, suggesting unfinished work; large full-height canvas frames were stacked against one side of the room; attached is a separate living cell - inside, an overcrowded table, a bowl and chopsticks, and probably last dinner's leftovers. "Are you working in china?" he asked. The place was so small you need only stand at the door to take in everything, and too congested to feign ignorance and stay away from conversation. We chatted a bit, and I asked "I’ve always been curious, how do artists survive?"

Its been this way for the past 20 years, he said. There’s a group of artist in Zhujiajiao, and they used to have a big studio across the canal until it was deemed too dilapidated and torn down. They managed to source a bunch of disused old houses in another part of the town and are negotiating terms to use them.

"How old are you, may i ask?"

"Forty-seven." he said, even though he looked so much younger.

Come to think of it, I am 27 this year. What will I be doing 20 years from here on?

I told him I went to Dashanzi. he asked if I’ve been to Shanghart or Moganshan. Oh - there are artist clusters in shanghai? But of course there should be. yet I’ve got a train to catch by seven and it is already noon, in Zhujiajiao... fortunately for his tip-off, Moganshan is located near Shanghaizhan, which eased the wayfinding. it was an old factory site again, infested with art galleries, loft studios, and design houses... and the necessary graffitis.

The conversation with Liu Wei ended abruptly that morning, when the landlord came into the tiny studio. They were talking about rents... "So you write a note about the payment, I’ll let my mother know," the landlord said. I took my leave. As I walked out of the deep house, i saw the same granny coming in, slowly. From afar, she mistook me as the artist. "No, not me," I said "he's inside."

She took a while. "Ah, you are not Liu Wei..."

"早餐有需要的吗？面条饺子凤爪..."

The soft seater zida train took us to Beijing, and we had a full day's sleep, before going for a Peking duck dinner. The next day I took the two-hour journey to get to Sis' place and cleared some web work on her notebook, leaving the Folks in the Forbidden City; it rained while we were on our way to dinner, and by the time it stopped it was getting late. So I stayed over at Changping.

I got up early and returned to the hostel. Later that day we would find ourselves drifting from Liulichang into Yanshoujie and Da'er Hutong. We were walking down the inner alleys of Dazhalan area, where we witnessed various facets of heartland Beijing residential life - old style. Contrast this with the Yandaixiejie beside Shichahai, near to Gulou, where many Tibetans are selling their craftworks, like a gypsy market. On other days, we went up Xiangshan for another sweat-out uphill hike, if not visit more exhibitions, like the courtyard gallery at Sihexuan, on Donghuamen Avenue, which happen to be featuring "cctvtvcc by OMA", curated by T Carlo. Jianwai Soho didn't quite make sense to me. Then I woke up on Garuda, and saw it touch down on the familiar Changi runway. It was around 3pm when I switched on the phone to a local network again. Collected the gown at six. Got a necktie. Relearnt how to tie a tie. Fell asleep and next thing I knew, it was security check.

And the fuss was soon explained - so it was not just the prime minister and minister mentor gracing the commencement ceremony, there was Li Lanqing, china's former vice-premier, present as well. The last burst of confetti marking the closing was so loud I was surprised the bodyguards in the hall didn't pull out their well-hidden revolvers for stand-to. So that details the end of the China trip after graduation. If I had known, I would have taken the same flight back with comrade Lanqing.

"决定了的事，定下了心就别回头。老想着想着的多费神！"

Or so I heard. later in the day, after 36 exposures on the roll and many smiles, it was 4:30 by Royston Tan, which led me to recall the peidu-mama and her nine-year old son I saw at the airport on the very first day of my trip - having spent a great amount of time, effort and money bringing her son to Singapore for studies, she found that the education of Chinese language here far too substandard (it was one of the top schools, by the way) that she felt there was no progress in his learning. in typical Beijing manners, she would speak of her "plight" aloud in the waiting lounge and, in typical Beijing manners too, the fellow Chinese standing by would respond to her monologue and get into a loud conversation - "c'mon, since you are already decided on going back, don't keep thinking about what you're missing out and lose sight of your decision!", one of them said, before turning his eyes to the world cup telecast. And in typical Singaporean manners, we listen, glance at each other, and smile through such eyeball actions, standoffishly.

Embarrassed, the kid hug her mum and pleaded:

"别说了，别说了，大伙儿都听着呢，多不好意思啊！"

(文取自"工作日记 － 毕业后的那次中国行"小册，狂狁著)

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