Arrived in Xiamen yesterday. The flight with Hainan Airlines down here was slightly late but uneventful. They are apparently much improved these days, but still have the look and feel of a budget airline, though not in the same way as a European one. Rather than the garish cabins and incessant promotional messages of say, Ryanair, Hainan Airlines’ planes feel worn in like a pair of comfortable shoes and the music playing was a pan pipe cover of Imagine. Just under three hours later I was on the south coast.
Everyone I met in Xiamen was complaining that it was cold but coming from Beijing where the rivers were frozen solid it seemed just fine to me. On the subject of Chinese pessimism, an earlier point of mine, one of the people I had dinner with that evening said that this Winter would be a particularly bad one with no respite whatsoever. I can only say that I hope he was speaking as a pessimist and will not prove to be accurate in his prediction. Dinner was good and I met the other resident artists and people around CEAC.
The apartment is comfortable and has a view over the sea. The neighbourhood is modern and not quite like anything I know. Before I say anything more I shall have to observe who lives and works here in a little more detail. There are one or two things that mark me as a visitor. The furniture is quite traditional Chinese, that is to say hard and wooden. In order to be comfortable on it you have to sit very properly. It has been adapted somewhat to Western tastes by previous residency artists. The shower is also quite comical, as you can see. I have noticed that while I am tall in most places at 1 meter 89 cm, I am taller, relatively speaking, here. More so even than in Beijing where I saw young men my height on the subway. Here however, I am clearly more than just on the tall side, I am ‘not from here’ tall. I shall have to look out for ways this is manifest in daily life beyond the shower cubicle…
