6 AM - Saturday in Qingdao

  Qingdao, Shandong, China
Sunday, August 17, 2008

6 AM - Saturday in Qingdao

Restless I awoke with the morning light, again, which on the eastern coast of China brighten the skies at around 5am. By 545, I was out the door for a walk and to take some pictures of how this modern section of Qingdao awakens. From my hotel, I can always see lots of people out and about early, very early, along the waterfront park near our hotel. This is just a few shots and thoughts from an hour on a Saturday morning.


Around the corner and down the block is May 4th Square. A modern park that extends from a seawall about 500 meters to city hall. 


The activity here in the morning is not much different than that of any city park. Dog walking, exercise, walkers, talkers, and groups of adults practicing Tai Chi. This form of exercise dates many generations in China, yet is not the common site I witnessed on my visit in '85.
Then, city dwellers dressed in common clothing, practices in hutong (neighborhood) courtyards in mass.
Today, I see exercise for modern China has evolved to a wide variety this early Saturday.



For the middle aged and older who are out at this early hour, stretching and walking is the most common, with an occasional jogger or cyclist, not too mention the men who seem to be arguing or debating, and all this before their coffee? I wonder.


A younger group of men and a few women, stretched in pro bike wear, near a few European road bikes, a bike club of sort, gathering for a weekend ride. One woman practiced tennis on a wall below a set of stairs, gaining more of a workout chasing down the one very used ball far too often.




Like at home, many older couples were together, some with radios or small boom-boxes playing exercise tapes. The Tai Chi gathering played traditional music, where the more modern exercise tapes heard were even  "jane fonda-esque", as music was mixed with vocal instructions.


The park was busy with city workers cleaning sidewalks, watering flowers, weeding. These blue uniformed men looked weathered from years of outdoor work.


This in contrast to the fully clothed, even umbrella toting visitors who even at the local beaches, cover up from the sun. On the other hand, many of the younger Qingdao set seem to blend more to western coastal style. Board shorts and t-shirts on tanned legs and faces, another contrast the typical middle age local or out of town visitor.


This place is changing so rapidly, from the water, the skyline looks like Honolulu or Singapore with its modern high rise buildings and warm blue-green waters. But the semi-tropical weather ends soon Jian tells me, winter can see temperatures dip to 2 degrees (35 f). But what was here in Qingdao before the time of "reforms and opening up" ?. The population has exploded over 20 years in Qingdao and all along the eastern coast of China. Manufacturing and shipping them west has transformed this place. Foreign capital has developed this part of the world with modern facilities and cheap labor that we can compete with or live with out. As I write this in the morning, a container ship passes a few miles at sea, departing Qingdao harbor for the shipping channel. Fully loaded with goods heading for the west no less.

Along the sea front, family's couples young and old and even a tour group were present all posing for pictures. Qingdao is a famous seaside area and for sure, many of these people this early Saturday where seeing the open ocean for their first time. A sort of pilgrimage takes place along the Yellow sea in Qingdao, a city known for its beauty and waterfront holidays.



Down from the park, the seawall opens to a sandy beach. Number 2 Bathing Beach is filled with people and children for sunrise activities. People are out swimming at this early hour, some for exercise and others for pleasure. At the end of the beach is a building which must be a heath club of some sort, complete with weight lifting machines and free weights outside, right off the sand. Qingdao version of "muscle beach".

Back in the park, I was drawn to the serene sound of traditional Chinese flute coming from a grove of trees bordering the road. Expecting a modern cd player,
I was pleasantly surprised to see a middle-aged man, playing a wooden flute. A picture from me would have spoiled his moment. Nearby a women quietly sang to the sounds as her husband read a newspaper.

A six day work week for many in China, summer labor can start with the sunrise. Even kiosks selling newpapers or food and drink open quite early.



Just outside our hotel (next door) is a very large construction project going on. In fact, this project was under way 12 months ago on my first visit to Qingdao. I wonder why so little progress. At work I shared some photos with Jian and asked him a few questions on this project, who, what, etc.



The project is funded by a state owned bank, designed by a Shanghai firm and being built by a large construction company from here in Qingdao. An office building, which will be about about 30 stories. The foundation is being shored up with bamboo scaffolding in a honeycomb style. This I am told will use less cement and hold firmer.  Last August they were digging and dredging out the dirt and water from the ground, completing very little in the past 12 months. This can be because three things. They are slow, under-funded or like in many project the past decade in Beijing, they may have come across ancient artifacts, causing the construction project to become an archeological dig (for a while).



Most of the workers are migrant from western provinces like Xinjiang, or the Uighur Autonomous Region (Chinese Mongolia). China is so vast a country, that these men look very different than the Chinese of the east. These men earn very little, maybe 2 or 3 dollars a day and are given housing by the company. Often this arrangement is shanty housing at the construction site. Next door, there is an office and a 2 story dorm on the edge of the giant hole. Who knows how many migrant workers are crammed into this home.


Factory work in China, which we all know has exploded over the past 20 years, often supplies it laborers with housing and food. Working 6 day weeks for a few dollars a day, workers migrate from very rural, agricultural areas to the east to provide labor. State run agencies help promote (recruit) individuals from these areas, charging foreign owned companies and factories a "finders fee" so to speak. In a country of 1.3 billion, the workforce is never ending. Think Wal-Mart and Nike shocks.

Back to the dig, safety signs are posted and everyone inside wore a plastic hard hat. One crane operates, swinging multi-ton payloads, just a meter from the edge of the site and actually over the driveway of our hotel. This to me is a bit un-nerving as one mistake and one could become a Chinese statistic. One guy was sitting on a small stool, running an acetylene torch with no shield, using his loose hand to "shield" the blue flame.


 Not the first I've seen doing this in here, as building projects seem to going 24/7 everywhere. The work next door shuts down around 10pm from what I can tell.