The Hindu Business Line : Understanding the dragon

Any book written by an Indian on China has to include some comments/insight into an Indian’s food experience in that country. Pallavi Aiyar, in her book Smoke and Mirrors — An experience of China (Harper Collins), does not disappoint her readers on this score.

Freelancing as a journalist in China from 2002, she had to supplement her income and became a part-time consultant to the CII. This position taught her more than Sino-Indian economic engagement; it took her to business lunches and banquets too. She also met Nigami, the local representative of an Indian bank, who disapproved not only of the “lack of diversity” in China compared to India, but also hated the Chinese addiction to baijiu, “a local liquor, gallons of which were consumed during business dinners”.

He took off on how they loved to “smoke and drink”, and disapproved of the Europeans for doing the same and even marrying Chinese girls, confident the author shared his abhorrence for such traits as, well, non-vegetarian food. Soon to be married to Julio, a European, Pallavi wondered how this “middle-class, middle-aged Indian male (the bulk of the country’s business community) would react to the fact that I liked to drink on occasion and smoke and eat non-veg”!

In this immensely readable and interesting description of the various facets of Indo-China engagement amidst a plethora of differences, the author deftly describes the one on food. “In India, elite Brahmins delineated their status by increasingly finickier food choices: no meat, no garlic, no onions, no non-vegetarian in the kitchen. In China the greater the variety of things you could afford to eat, the meatier and the weirder, the higher was your status.”

Chicken feet, intestines!

The average Chinese wondered at the Indian non-vegetarian who would eat “only certain animals and only certain parts of those animals. So chicken was okay, but not chicken feet. Lamb was fine but not the intestines. Prawns were good, but not octopus.”

So imagine her plight when she had to explain before banquets the requirements of a Jain diet. “Their eyes simply glazed over and they often acted as though they hadn’t heard”. So she sat through such business dinners where “Indian guests sniffed suspiciously at their soup for traces of animal stock”! On one occasion she had Nigami sitting next to her, and as “course after course of exotic, expensive foods made an appearance” Nigami turned paler. “By the time a bowl of soup with floating sea slugs made an appearance, he was positively white.”

But there is more in the book than food habits and “forced smiles” of Indian businessmen sitting through such banquets, watching with disdain the Chinese drown glass after glass of baijiu, taking tiny sips from their wine glasses, and frequently wiping with napkins the corner of mouths that had taken little food! It’s almost like watching a movie.

Pallavi’s trip to China began with employment with the Beijing Broadcasting Institute in 2002; she later became the China correspondent of The Hindu. Having lived in Los Angeles and London, foreign cities had little terror for her. But China was different with “an alien and impenetrable language, inscrutable people and exotic cuisine”. But how the “large, China-shaped blank existing north of the Himalayas” in her mental map of the world got filled with colourful details over the five years is what this book is all about.

As the prologue points out: “Over the course of my stay, China would complete the world’s biggest dam and highest railway line; begin work on the world’s largest airport and museum; introduce the world’s fastest train and acquire the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves.”

An honest account

Pallavi’s narrative stands out not only for an engaging style, and telling a story with lots of frills and humour; it comes through as an honest account of the economic superpower with its multiple contradictions — “a blend of authoritarian politics and liberal economics (that) required of the leadership a tightrope act that could not last forever”.

Take for instance the chapter “Roof of the World”, which is a captivating account of the historic 4,000 km train ride by 850 tourists, journalists and government officials from Beijing to Lhasa. The Qinghai-Tibet railway, the completion of which had taken place a year ahead of schedule, unlocking the gate to the roof of the world, had also “unsurprisingly unleashed with it a torrent of admiration and criticism.”

Along with official briefings on the engineering marvel of the world’s longest and highest highland railway that the “Chinese government claimed would bring about an economic renaissance” in Tibet, Pallavi also spells out the concerns. Human rights organisations ringing alarm bells on the destructive potential of the Railway for Tibet’s pristine environment and unique culture. “The Dalai Lama had highlighted the increased ease with which troops could now be deployed in the TAR increasing Beijing’s military hold over the region,” she says.

Critics also questioned Beijing’s claim that the rail link would unlock great economic opportunities for Tibet, arguing it would only facilitate the “more efficient exploitation” of its rich mineral resources, which would be carted off by train to other parts of China. Also, it would ease the influx of Han Chinese migrants into Tibet.

“It was a kind of story that was honey to journalists, combining controversy and drama with the romance of a great, long cross-country train journey,” notes the author. Full marks to her for recreating this drama for the readers in all its three-dimensional splendour.

Refreshingly, in Pallavi’s lingo, there are no holy cows — not in China, and certainly not in India. Tune into the chapter on religion titled ‘Opiate of the Masses’. After landing, she soon realised that she had come to live in a country where “the new God lived in banks and ATM machines.” Wu Renjie of Huaxi village had told her: “I don’t believe in Buddhism, Taoism or any ism at all. I only believe in money.” And this was a punch line often heard in China. She contrasts this with the India she had grown up in where “you awoke to statues of Ganesha miraculously drinking milk; where people outside the finance ministry genuflected to monkeys who had just emerged unmolested from the ministry building sated after a morning romp destroying files and government furniture.” And, where you were “more likely to be thought of in need of a shrink if you claimed not to believe in God than if you admitted to intimate chats with Him on a daily basis.”

As the author understands China over the years, she shatters many a myth that Indians have about China, taking them through a journey of China with respect but not undue reverence, now chuckling at the country and its people, now admiring them and, above all, giving insightful pointers to what we can learn and emulate from our neighbour, particularly on the economic miracle that it has become. The chapter ‘Olympian makeover’ describes the aggressive manner in which China is trying to replace Chinglish with English. But there are stumbling blocks when it comes to public signs. “The Chinese could build massive flyovers in months, kilometres of expressways in weeks, but when it came to the smallest of tasks involving labelling in English, they invariably messed up.”

Pallavi describes how she was once wowed by the “electric hand driers and foot-operated flushes of a newly built obviously expensive public toilet”, until she read this sign in English above the commode. “Please remember flush after shitting or pissing.”

A must read for anybody who is intrigued, fascinated or distressed with China, particularly its food habits!

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