
I arrived at Kunyun International hotel late in the evening, after a ten hour flight from London to Beijing, dawdling in the airport between flights,
drinking beer and eating pickled vegetables, then an hour and a half in the air to Yantai. Driving to the hotel seemed endless (we later realized the distance was not great at all, the length of the drive was due to fixing/building/improving the road. A week later, when we left, the ride to the airport was swift and easy on a brand new motorway) and when we arrived at the hotel, finally, all I wanted to do was settle into a nice quiet roomThe Hotel was not far but not too close to the airport, the beach, pretty far (an hours drive) from the center of Yantai and a 18 yuan taxi ride from the activities of Gourmand Cookbook AWards and Cookbook Fair. Everything seemed far far away from everything else.
My room, on the 14th story, was large and airy. I unpacked, tried to check my email to no avail–not even with a VPN–which I had had high hopes would keep me connected to the outside world and perhaps even to Facebook, then, without my worldwide connection I was at a loss for what to do.
The constant motion that took me across continents, from Europe to Asia, to this hotel room, had left me full of nervous energy but exhausted: I brewed a large mug of tea–wonderful green leaves and stems, I think DragonWell–then slept fitfully for a few hours until daybreak. At the first sign of the sun I flung the curtains open, wide, to see where all of this traveling had taken me.
A hazy early morning sea fog hung over the area; a shadow of mountains lay ahead of me and to my left, the sea. To the right was the center of Yantai, which might sound like a small town but in fact has about 8 million citizens. Inbetween the mountains and sea, the outer reaches of my vision, were wide straight city streets with high rises sprouting out of the land like bamboo: everywhere. A large square building flying the red flag of China with its golden yellow star/s; next to it a large playing field and track looked mysterious: when I saw children pouring out of the building, I knew: a school.
But it was directly downwards, 14 stories, that caught my eye. A large plot of land, strewn with stones and rubble, bordered by sidings and what appeared from the outside to be billboards. Soon, I thought, it will probably be a construction site for another high rise.
I was transfixed though: such a large area of rubble. And were my eyes playing tricks on me? Something about the field of rubble and rocks, weeds and small hills of dirt, there was something that kept pulling at my attention: was there order to this plot of land? Was this space more than just an empty lot in the stage between tearing down one building and putting up another? I looked as closely as I could from my 14th story vantage point: there was no one there, no movement; nothing gave any indication that there was more to it. I couldn’t see any entrance or exit. If this WAS anything more to this place, how did people get in? And WHERE were they?
I went down to the breakfast buffet and began my first day in China–at the Cookbook Fair and centre of the Gourmand Awards events. But that afternoon, I returned: and as I gazed out at the area 14 floor down, it began to take on some organization!