Years of Poems and Spirits

Song and I wanted to go to a sunny, warm ocean front to escape from the depressing Seattle winter. We settled on Los Cabos over Hawaii because the it is the rainny season in Hawaii and we thought Cabos, being part of Mexico, would be a cheaper option.

Boy, were we wrong about Cabos being cheap! For a while, I thought I made the right choice when looking around at price tags until I found out they were in … U.S. dollars! A three-mile taxi ride costs $12, car rental starts at $70 a day, the cheapest half-day snorkeling trip is over $100 per person … Even a big Mac costs over $8–more than it does in Seattle!

For a moment, I felt we were trapped: we’ve already committed to a week-long stay. But unless we stayed inside hotel eating cookies everyday, we could easily spend $2000 more than budgetted!

Soon, I realized that there was a reason why everything was so expensive and there was a way out of this bind. The key? One word: timeshare.

Yes, timeshare industry attracts thousands of middle class Americans and Canadians with excess income; Timeshare provides good jobs for the locals; Almost every hotel or resort has a timeshare program; Many locals–street vendors, bartenders, restaurant waiters, taxi drivers, tour guides … are timeshare referrers. In short, Los Cabos is built by timeshare, of timeshare and for timeshare.

To entice people to listen to presentations, timeshare vendors offer deep (between 60%-100%) discounts on almost everything. It is like a currency–you can get vouchers for lodging, food, rental, activities and tours. To us, this means that we either have to pay the inflated price on everything or to earn the equivalant by going to sales presentations. What should we do?

A presentation lasts at least two hours. Because a sales rep gets either 10% or nothing for a day’s work, you will be treated with thousands dollar-worth of intensity. If you fail them, you will be cursed behind your back as though you have stolen thousands of dollars from them. Timeshare sales rep is an unique specimen that lives on anticipation, disappointment, ecstacy and anger everyday.

Still, we chose to earn our vacation. The first presentation lasted over four hours; The second two and half . The last, just over two. As we were getting more fluent at how to say No, the conversation got uglier linearly too.

But we have to: the first one gives us $800 off lodging (from an Expedia quoted $1400) and $200 dinning. The second one gives us almost-free tickets to “Swim with Dolphins” (although I am not a circus-goer–either on land or in water, Song is dying to pat those cute creatures, ohhhh …). The third one gives us free deep-sea fishing trip! A $250/person value! And wait there is more …

If anything, we certainly did as Romans when in Rome, so to speak.

1. Los Cabos: a county/region name because having two towns named Cabo (or cave, lands’s end, or army private?): Cabo San Lucas–where we are staying, and San Jose del Cabo.
2. We saw gray whales puffing and leaping out of water from our hotel room! I thought they are not supposed to be here till late Dec? Thanks to global warming I guess … heyhey, not bad.
3. Local economy: STRANGE!
a. The “invitacion” economy. Timeshare sales dominates and fuels tourism: we got a 60% discount on our hotel stay for listening to a presentation. Although I worked for a timeshare company before, I was still green in the handling pressure sale.
b. The dollar economy. When I pay peso, people frawn on me as if I am the only cash user in the Visa commercial.
c. The stratified/tiered pricing. Locals pay different prices, which is perhaps one tenth of what we pay for food and transportation. An average dinner in a so-so restaurant downtown–not even waterfront, just two dishes with a Margarita, cost us $60!
d. Colonialized economy: full of Gringos shopping in/with Walmart, Costco, McDonalds, Harley Davidson, Hummer, etc. More so than any place I have been to.
4. People we met: mostly old and retired. But met a woman who overheard our conversation and spoke Mandarin back. She can write Sanskrit too! And shared with us on how to get out a presentation: “just tell them, we are here for the cash back and the discount. Sorry for your time, but our time is up.” Ha! We will try that tomorrow.

After we came back from Xin Jiang, we had very busy days: family visits, old friends, etc. So I never had the presence of mind nor the time to write down my daily experience. Here I am just writing down pieces of memory here and there. Not sure how readable they are but hopefully they will remind me of this trip in the future.

Eating Buddhism
9/18
Went to a vegetarian restaurant (with Teng Song). Exquisite setting, excellent presentation–reminded me of scenes from 韩熙载夜宴图. But a lot quieter.

Waiters dressed like Buddhist monks. Quiet voice and gentle demeanor. Menu full of Buddhist terms–as if dish names were randomly inserted into 大般若波罗蜜多经. When we walked out of the restaurant, 人人躬身合十，如送施主。据说开餐馆的老板是个五台山还俗的和尚，想来是不慎把“禅”经念成了“馋”经。

What is Buddhism any more? Are these “knowledge”? Metaphysical concept becomes stimulants for sensual pleasure. The force of commerce dictates interpretation.

Art Beijing 2007 and the Art of Commerce
9/19
My old pal Sun Ning is a newbie art dealer in Beijing. He took me to Art Beijing 2007. an industry expo.

Surprised by how many art works bear naked political statements: an artist uses egg shells to build a model of the iconic CCTV building. Chinese newspaper printed on a huge roll of toilet paper. Met a guy from Germany who was totally awed by another work: a pair of bloated breasts on top of a pile of RMB cash, 100 millions worth. And another: a bronze sculpture with very classic looking dragon on top of a characterless middle aged women as if raping her.

A very impressive piece of work: a bunch of toddler boys, dressed in full military uniforms as if in a meeting, all watching one boy whipping another boy who is kneeing on the floor with pants pulled down. The watching boys all appear disinterested and absent minded, with a hint of boyish innocence on their faces.

I was told the work is priced at $600K. I thought it was pretty high for an artist in mid 40s. But SN told me it is how the market works nowadays: an artist creates a unique style, manages to get in an oversea’s show, and being recognized by Western critics, his/hers works rocket up immediately. Then copycats will spurn up and fill in the lower tiers with less distinquishable works.

There are many many excellent works I’d love to have. But there are some that have too much 匠气.

Talking to Sun Ning really helped me to appreciate contemporary art. True appreciation has to come in incremental steps: who are the contemporaries, what are the works before and after the one in front of you, what segment (even age group) the artist is in, what others are saying, etc. Gone is the time when one can look at a piece of work and say, “I like it”.

颐园日暖桂兰香
9/20
Seeing blue sky for the 2nd day in Beijing. Visited 颐和园 with my parents.
Visited 文昌院 inside YHY. A pleasant surprise: it houses the best of antiques found in YHY. Because it charges extra, very few people were in there. We hired a guide to show us around. Having visited the Art expo the day before, I was not surprised at all at the selection by the guide: she picked the ones with the most stories, not those that appealed to our eyes.

After seeing so many tourist art works, it is easy to tell how great the collection is. I felt it wasn’t bad to be an emporer after all. Fell in love with a piece of 释迦摩尼, reminded me of those I saw in 敦煌. Didn’t buy after all.

Many bronze pieces from pre-Han dynasties. Great stuff.