Ape Rifle

Zibo is not so much of a city as it is a decent swath of central Shandong. The “city” encompasses a huge area and the “districts” are not neighbourhoods but rather distant, separate urban entities joined only by municipal amalgamation. The central district, Zhangdian, is considered by most to be Zibo. The outlying satellite districts are kept at bay by miles of farmland and industrial belts.

In 2002-2003, I called the outskirts of Zhangdian my home. I worked at Shandong University of Technology, and the experience was so great that it brought me back to China for a second year (although the horrible pollution sent me fleeing to greener pastures in the South). Hangzhou was a bustling town and all, but there was something about this grimy northern city that I missed.

View of Zhangdian from SDUT campus

So when my mom decided she wanted to see where I spent my first year in China, I readily agreed to make a quick detour on our way to Beijing (Henan had scared us off, and we had a few days to spare). It was an opportunity to say goodbye to some good friends before my “for-the-time-being permanent” return to the West.

We only stayed a few days, but that was thankfully enough to see some old friends and students. My old boss arranged room for us in the campus hotel; brand new, comfortable and dirt cheap (that last one due to my, umm, ex-employee status). He then proceeded to take us out for a great meal, in which my mom was introduced to the wonders of 白酒. Seeing that we had been driven to the restaurant in a black Santana, it was the perfect Shandong experience (yes, the snails and garlic were present). Sometimes it is damned hard to beat Chinese hospitality.

My mom helped give me a different perspective on my former “home”. She found Zibo really pleasant and spacious place, something you’d never have heard from my mouth a year ago. But she’s right: after life in Hangzhou, there was just something relaxing about this town. The city had much less clutter, really wide roads and the sidewalks were calm rather than crazy. Everything was moving in slow motion. The foreigners always complained (and still do) about the frighteningly heavy pollution, but since then I have come to the realization that Zibo hardly has a monopoly on that. After the energy of Hangzhou I could never move back, but after Henan it was a welcome breather.

A pleasant street

Could be anywhere in China

Downtown intersection

My return there also provided yet more examples of China’s mind-boggling modernization drive. The great restaurant behind the school? Bulldozed along with all the internet cafes, leaving nothing but a dirt lot as a quiet memorial. The great Evergreen Tree bar/restaurant downtown? Bulldozed, along with its whole block (which must have been about half a kilometre long). Its memorial? Plans for a giant shopping mall (the third in two blocks) that looks like it crash landed from Shanghai. The farmland around the school? Growing cranes and generic apartment blocks.

The most popular crop in the country

I got that weird nostalgic feeling you should get visiting your old university town thirty years on: “Gee, I remember when that used to be a…”. Except all this change had taken place since Christmas 2003, the last time I was in town.

Zibo is an average Chinese city in many ways: it is neither dirt poor nor conspicuously rich. It is growing quickly, but the development is surprisingly understated; you won’t find any faux-Roman pillar, Vatican-style condo towers here. In fact, it still looks like an overwhelmingly Communist place, with new faceless concrete apartment blocks rising up to replace the older ones. Factor in the concentration of heavy industry, and you have an urban area that, aesthetically, leaves a lot to be desired.

Urban communism in all its glory

This drab environment, however, is what helps the hospitality of the people shine through so much. I’ve heard all the stereotypes about Shandong being the friendliest province in China, and they are not far off (the stereotype about Shandongren being the heaviest drinkers isn’t far off either).

As our bus pulled onto the highway heading back to Jinan, I took one last look back at the memories I was leaving behind. This wholly unremarkable place had provided me with many of my best (and craziest) times of China. If you want to be comfortable, go to a big city. If you want to have a truly memorable time, go to a mid-sized town. In many ways, Hangzhou drove me out of China. But visiting friends in Zibo reminded me of why I will, someday, come back.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 4th, 2004 at 9:59 pm and is filed under China, Photography, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.