Lost In Translation

This morning (Friday), about half the group went on a very fast trip to the Suzhou Silk Museum (from 8:30-9:30 AM); the other half started the day at a more leisurely pace. The hotel served a “western style” buffet breakfast that included coffee, eggs, bacon, sausage, croissants, and a big platter of cold French fries.

At 10 AM, we all reconnoitered in the lobby and boarded our chartered bus for the train station. The bus is standard size, but the streets leading to the hotel were so narrow that people actually had to pull back their store awnings and umbrellas to let us pass through. We made our way back through the construction zone on foot, eventually arriving in the boarding area at the railway station. Shortly after 11, an announcement was made (in Chinese) and hundreds of people began rushing out of the waiting room and on to the platform. We followed the flow. Dragon informed us that the train paused to let passengers off and on for exactly two minutes, which meant all 17 of us (and our luggage) had to move quickly.

After we boarded, the bullet train sailed along to Nanjing, a distance of about 150 miles. The trip took just 90 minutes. It was interesting to watch the scenery flash by along the way—we went through three cities with populations of two million people or more, and I had never heard of any of them. Most of the route was lined with tract after tract of six-story walk up apartment buildings, all arranged like sideways dominos. There was construction and new development everywhere---mostly mid-rise and high-rise housing with occasional big industrial parks in between.

We arrived in Nanjing at around 12:30 and made our way to our bus. The railway station was more like an airport, set on the shores of an attractive lake with a view across to the City skyline. From that vantage point, Nanjing looked much more like an American city than Shanghai or Suzhow. We drove across town to our hotel, which is located in a “pedestrian-only” quarter of the City. I always thought “pedestrian only” meant cars were prohibited, but apparently here it just means the cars drive on the sidewalks and honk so you move out of the way. Buses, however, stay on the perimeter.

The hotel is nice—probably the best place we’ve stayed so far, although the standards and amenities are still several notches below Western hotels. The staff is kind of surly, but I think that’s just because they don’t understand our questions.

At 2:30, we headed off to the Planning Institute of Jiangsu Province, which is the state planning organization for this region of China. The province is 40,000 square miles (about the size of Virginia) and has 75 million residents. Basically, just picture five Los Angeles Metro areas lined up end-to-end. The Planning Institute has a wide range of responsibilities, including doing long-range planning for many of the cities without the resources to do their own plans.

The planners escorted us into a big conference room with cups of tea and platters of bananas and lychees on the table. It was clear we were “special” guests, as there were about 10 staff members in the room, including one who took photos of us almost continuously for three hours. Several senior staff people were present, including the Director. He welcomed us in the local Mandarin dialect (Dragon translated), and then introduced the speakers. For the next couple of hours, we heard presentations from two staff members and two professors. Only the first presentation was in English—Dragon translated the remainder. However, he is a professional tour guide and not an urban planning translator, so much of the content may have been lost in translation.

The first speaker was the most cogent, describing how planning was done in Jiangsu and giving us some statistics and data on the province. The second speaker highlighted one particular project, which involved connecting two central business districts a few miles apart with a 300-foot wide grand boulevard with fancy stores and high rise towers. The third speaker was from the Public Works Department and gave us a presentation on drainage, all in Chinese (including the powerpoint slides). The final speaker was a professor who talked about how principles of New Urbanism were being applied in the planning of Chinese cities. Again, the language barrier made the presentation difficult, though the concept was intriguing and important.

When we finally got to the Q&A it was already 6 PM. At this point, everyone was pretty tired and a little frustrated that we couldn’t have a more meaningful dialogue. We went on for another half hour, with us responding to their questions about how changes in the Chinese land ownership system would impact planning, and them responding (sort of) to our questions about small business protection, campus planning, growth management, and other topics. We came away with the sense that they could benefit enormously from our collective wisdom and experience, but not without very sophisticated translators and a lot more time and preparation.

We were on our own for dinner tonight. Different groups paired up and went to various places here on the block where the hotel is located.

In driving around Nanjing today, it seems like a very nice city with a high quality of life. The City looks pretty prosperous and some of the architecture is not bad. The historical stuff all looks great. There are several universities, many ancient landmarks, several canals and rivers, and beautiful tree-lined streets with block after block of low-scale apartments with small shops on the ground floor. God help them when Walmart arrives.