California magazine blog

Postcard: The Kiev Express

Author and journalist Frank Browning was in Ukraine reporting on the efforts of Berkeley PhD and Haas International Award recipient, Marcos Espinal, to eradicate tuberculosis. Browning's article will run in an upcoming issue of the magazine. In the meantime, he sends this postcard from the road:

The prospect of 27 hours on a train from Bucharest to Kiev posed certain problems: first, there was no food service; and second, because Romanians aren't authorized to sell first-class tickets (a carryover from the Soviet-era), we got stuck in second-class. Not that there's much difference between the two. They've just removed the upper bunks in the second-class cars to turn them into first class.

Natasha and I boarded in Bucharest at 6:30 in the morning. A Ukrainian emigrant to Kentucky, where she runs a restaurant and directs a theater, Natasha was afraid to speak Russian right off. Who knows what those grim-faced officials might do to her passport? So I sputtered a few phrasebook questions, and the conductor answered me in good-enough English. If I wanted better accommodations, he said, I should wander back to the Russian car.

"Possible first class?" I asked. The man's brow creased. He examined a seating chart. He sighed. "Maybe.  Maybe." I rubbed my thumb to my forefinger. A glimmer of a smile crept up his jowls. One eye drew half shut. "One hundred fifty Euros." I shook my head. We had already paid 84 Euros for the passage. "Maybe one hundred fifty dollars," I proposed. He sighed again and pushed his hat back a bit, then nodded, "OK." Fortunately Natasha had brought dollars from Kentucky.

A half hour later he arrived carrying an only slightly battered silver tray with two Russian tea glasses in slightly tarnished silver holders, Lipton tea bags alongside. "First class!" I said, smiling.

"First classs, da!" the conductor answered.  We were his only passengers.

-- Frank Browning

Postcard: Uniformity

Lisa Margonelli, who is on assignment for us in China right now, sends the following:

In 1991, when I first visited China, blue and green "Mao" uniforms were still seen in the countryside, but people had already abandoned them for more individual clothes in Beijing. Fast forward 17 years and uniforms are back. Subway employees sport black net hats, like stewardesses from the 1960s. At the airport, employees march to their posts in a line of dark blue pants and light blue shirts with epaulets. These days Beijing is far more visually chaotic than it used to be--there are signs and stalls and advertisements and scrims of plastic and tile where once there were mostly low gray concrete blocks. Sometimes the density of people, cars, and commercial activity is so thick that it's hard to sort out... but then patterns emerge. In this case, I realized that the three women on their lunch break in front of me were wearing some kind of unofficial uniform. By the time I had my camera out, two women pulling identical totes, also dressed in an "almost" uniform, passed me, symmetrically, on the right and the left. Perhaps they saw me wearing the tourist's "uniform" of chinos and decorated T-shirt, purchased in the US but made in China.

- Lisa

Look for Lisa's story on Berkeley-led efforts to green China in our November-December issue.

Postcard: Blue skies and spies

April Rabkin, who is living in Beijing and working as a freelance correspondent, sends this snapshot and note in the lead-up to the big event:

Last night an undercover agent was playing the part of a bumbling student who randomly found his way into our foreign correspondents' happy hour. Less than convincing. "Does everyone take me for an idiot?" He asked me. "Not an idiot." I started, before he finished my sentence, "a spy?" and giggled.

Beijing is so uptight right now, can't wait for this whole show to be over. On the brighter side, blue skies today. I hope they last.

- April

Postcard: Taking aim at the Fuwa

This is the first in what we hope will be a series of postcards sent to us by our far-flung correspondents and globetrotting readers. Lisa Margonelli (author of Oil on the Brain: Petroleum's Long Strange Trip to Your Tank) is in Shandong province to report for California on Berkeley-led efforts to help green China. She kicked things off with this e-card, writing:

Check out the olympic mascots.....nuttin' like a panda with a gun!! It's the
icon for the shooting event. -Lisa

The mascots, in case you're not yet acquainted with them, are formally known as the Fuwa, or "good luck dolls;" the five characters are: Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini. Jingjing, the panda, is the one with the pistol.

Perhaps not suprisingly, the Fuwa have become a lightning rod for criticism. Amnesty International parodied the little guys with a disgruntled monkey named Nu Wa ("angry young man") and the Wall Street Journal reports that, after a string of natural disasters, including the Sichuan earthquake, many Chinese have taken to calling the little guys Wuwa, or "witch dolls."

Let's hope the curse wears off in time for the opening ceremonies on 8/8/08. PS: If you're going, be sure to send us a card.