The swimming season has begun. I go to the reservoir at the foot of the mountain every morning on my own, and again in the afternoons with the children on our way back from school. It is early in the season, so we have it to ourselves. The water is warm on the surface and cool beneath it. The reservoir is about 300 metres long and 100 across. It sits in a high bowl in some foothills, with no buildings or cultivation overlooking it. There’s a gentle man who grows delicious peaches in an orchard just below the dam. A large bird of prey has a nest nearby and keeps an eye out for water snakes, like an airborne lifeguard. Swimming in the reservoir is of course forbidden. But in a few weeks’ time, the locals will be flocking here in the evenings too. What I call going for a swim, they call going for a wash. The area by the steps into the water is usually crowded with people soaping themselves, smoking cigarettes and flicking the butts out into the water. As the reservoir supplies drinking water to the nearest village, I protest at this behaviour—as politely as possible. The locals give me an uncomprehending stare that plainly states: this is our water, Mr Foreigner, so we’ll do what we like with it. Bending the rules Thanks to its status as national-level scenic tourist destination, there are two cast-iron rules in Moganshan, both designed to preserve its natural beauty. Rule number one is no new buildings. Rule number two is no felling trees. Break these rules and the local authorities will punish you. There are heavy fines for tree chopping, and illegal structures are promptly demolished. Yet these same authorities are free to do as they wish. They have cut down a swathe of pine forest round the back of the mountain, and in a neat double whammy are using the timber to build a restaurant on the same spot. To add to the irony, two tall disused chimneys obstruct the view from the site. Once the restaurant is finished they will still obstruct the view unless the authorities decide to break another of their rules (no knocking down buildings). China is not the only country in which people bend the rules. But “one rule for them, one rule for us” reaches a new level here, verging on the amoral. It is almost innocent in its lack of shame or guile. It is simply that society, and those in charge of it, see rules as tools of convenience—to be discarded at will and picked up again when deemed useful by the engineer. Three lessons from china I took my cousins visiting from Britain on a three-day road trip to see the “real” China. The rule for our party (three adults and four small children) was no travel by highway: middle to minor roads only. Our first stop was Yiwu, a commodities trading centre. Outside the city, trade halls line a four-lane ring road. The names read like a catalogue: kitchenware, ceramics, tools, bathrooms, textiles, zippers (yes, an entire trade hall of them) and so on. We kept driving until we saw the one we wanted. We told the children that they were entering the biggest toy shop in the world—and we weren’t exaggerating. As a trade centre, little was available for sale, but the children were allowed to bargain. It’s a good thing that I have a big car. And bargaining is lesson number one of China. The next day we drove to the top of Dongbai mountain, where we stayed in an old communist guerrilla base that is now a guesthouse. We walked through tea fields, talked to locals and ate a great dinner for £1 a head. While we were exploring and taking in the stunning views, we came across a wind farm under construction. Dirt roads were slashed through the grassy uplands, destroying everything in their path. Turbines were going up like mushrooms. This is lesson number two of China: vast spaces, with added desecration. On our final day we visited Shaoxing, a city of many rivers, home of fine plum wine and the early-20th century writer Lu Xun. The tourist-trap street named after him was remarkably non-tacky. Entry was free to the venues—the house where he was born, the ones where he lived, where he taught and so on. All were within yards of each other. We stayed in the Shaoxing State Guesthouse, where soldiers stood guard for banqueting generals doing business deals behind closed doors and the hotel staff let our children run amok. Which is lesson number three of China: everybody gets on with their own thing.
