POSTCARD FROM GULANGYU
Time warp
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Gulangyu island is China without the cars and the bicycles.
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Xiamen and Gulangyu present a perfect asymmetry: hungry modernity vs. decaying decadence.
PHOTO: PALLAVI AIYAR
Remnants of another age: Colonial architecture.
THE rush of a million cicadas singing blankets the island as I walk past gargantuan trees, trunks gnarled with age, roots overgrown and drunk on history. Early 20th century Art Deco mansions loom up from behind wrought iron gates and gardens gone wild with neglect. The distant tinkling of Mozart played on a piano in need of tuning, fades in and out. I am strolling through the living anachronism of Gulangyu Island, a five-minute ferry ride away from the booming special economic zone of Xiamen on China's southeastern coast.
Xiamen and Gulangyu present a perfect asymmetry: hungry modernity vs. decaying decadence. Xiamen was an early beneficiary of Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms, having been designated an SEZ in 1980 and is today the main gateway to trade with its estranged relative across the Formosa Straits. Taiwanese investment in the area is greater than any other part of the mainland. Deep ports, tall buildings, rampant consumerism is the stuff of contemporary Xiamen. But across the water on Gulangyu Island, stray cats and ghosts stalk the winding hilly lanes.
Haven for foreigners
Following China's defeat in the Opium Wars of the 1840s, Xiamen (or Amoy as it was known then) was one of the five "treaty ports" that the middle kingdom was forced to open to foreign trade. The island of Gulangyu, 500 metres off the coast of the main city, was designated an international foreign settlement and became a secure haven for Europeans, Japanese and wealthy overseas Chinese who built lavish homes, consulates and churches there.
Gulangyu is little known outside of China and I encounter less than half a dozen foreign faces during my two-day stay. This is typhoon season and just days before I arrived, the deadly Typhoon Kaemi blew through the region, leaving a trail of devastation across China's southern coast. Xiamen escaped relatively unscathed but the weather is stormy. Angry rain falls every half an hour in ten-minute bursts, followed by a lull of searing heat.
Most of the villas have fallen into disrepair and are shared by up to a dozen Chinese families. Dried fish carcasses and drying laundry hang from balcony railings. The sour smells of the sea mingle with the heavy sweetness of frangipani. This is China but there are no cars and even more astoundingly no bicycles. The island is a vehicle-free zone. To reach any destination one must walk.
But this is China after all, so that even if it lacks bicycles, McDonalds is present, prominently perched in front of the ferry terminal entrance. As the crowds surge in to sate their burger-craving bellies, they brush past a modest-sized billboard. On it a young professional with a blue silk tie and a determined expression clutches a laptop. Above him read the words: "APTECH: We Change Lives". The long arm of Indian IT has penetrated even here.
Gulangyu literally means Drum (Gu) Wave (Lang) Island. The island is surrounded by a reef and when the tide comes in, waves pound the reef producing a drum like sound. The island's musical association doesn't end there. It's also nicknamed the "piano island". An estimated 600 pianos are housed on Gulangyu and given that its total population numbers some18,000, the per capita piano density here must be one of the highest in China.
Music everywhere
Gulangyu's musical tradition took root when it was still an enclave of colonial culture. Music was played widely and taught seriously. During my visit banners for a national piano competition to be held in mid-August festoon the market areas. A piano museum displays 30 rare pianos and pianolas. On street corners buskers play the erhu (a traditional stringed Chinese instrument) and electric guitar. Saxophone and piano notes drift out from unseen windows.
On arrival at Xiamen airport, a gleaming international gateway that would put Delhi's decaying Indira Gandhi airport to shame, a grand piano decorates the baggage collection area. It had struck me as an odd choice when I arrived and only after visiting Gulangyu did it make sense.
Later, driving through the city I feel the usual amazement at the awe-inspiring infrastructure the Chinese have so routinely created. What is it about the Himalayas that allows for the construction of such world-class roads to the north, while the south suffers on in pot-holed discomfort, I wonder, somewhat facetiously. But then I spot a road sign and my mood lightens. Under a picture of a car horn with a blood-red slash across it, the sign sternly, if mysteriously, admonishes: "No audible warning in the city". They may have the roads but Chinglish is a disease the Chinese are still struggling to banish.
PALLAVI AIYAR
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