[ Note from 2018:
From an article in The Economist Oct 27th 2018/
The Chinese century is well under way
Many trends that appear global are in fact mostly Chinese
WHEN SCHOLARS of international relations predict that the 2000s will be a “Chinese century”, they are not being premature. Although America remains the lone superpower, China has already replaced it as the driver of global change. There is one economic metric on which China already ranks first. Measured at market exchange rates, China’s GDP is still 40% smaller than America’s. However, on a purchasing-power-parity (PPP) basis, which adjusts currencies so that a basket of goods and services is worth the same amount in different countries, the Chinese economy became the world’s largest in 2013. Although China is often grouped with other “emerging markets”, its performance is unique: its GDP per person at PPP has risen tenfold since 1990. ]
1990
In 1990, I was invited by the Zhang Long, the editor of Building in China Magazine, to contribute an article about my experience at Zhong Jing Architectural Design Office in Beijing. Below is the text of that article.
* * *
LOOKING AT CHINA FROM OUTSIDE: Working at Zhong Jing
Joe Carter, M.R.A.I.C
I signed a contract to work at Zhong Jing for at least one year. I was standing in a meeting room next to the boss’s office looking at a row of framed photographs. They spun round the room in a neat line, leaning out a little proudly. They included an International Trade Center with a revolving restaurant on top, in Nanning; the large Urban-Rural Trade Center in Beijing; a proposal for the redevelopment of the Qingdao railway station, and so on.
Urban-Rural Trade Center
Zhong Jing's Chief Architect. Shen Yadi, came into the room. He was the designer of the large trade center. As a young man he worked in Singapore and Hong Kong before coming to work at the Beijing Planning Department. Still full of energy after retirement, he now moves from desk to desk in the three design sections at Zhong Jing overseeing the work of some forty architects. He guided me into "Jian Er", the Second Design Department. I was welcome by Zhang Yangjie, the Head of this Department, and shown to the room’s only empty desk.
From left to right, Su Jia, Dai Dehua, Zhang Pei, Xiong Xiuwen, Zhang Yangjie, Yan Xinghua (Zhong Jing General Manager), Joe Carter, Shen Yadi, Chen Guang, Qian Man, Wang Xing Gang, Li Dongfang
Seating Arrangement with Names & Ages
My new desk had been occupied by a young woman who had gone to the United States. Beside me was a young man, Dai Dehua. He and the architect in front of him, a young woman named Li Dongfang, both attended Beijing's Qinghua University and knew my wife, He Hongyu, also a Qinghua graduate. It was comfortable to be sitting at a drafting table. The drawing instruments were familiar; computers were not widely used yet. At least while drawing I wouldn't have to put my thoughts into my ragged Chinese or endure the sometimes puzzled responses to my statements. My co-workers would say, "Do you really want ‘qiang bi’ (to be executed), or do you want a ‘qian bi’ (pencil)?" I can speak a very simple Chinese, have the reading level of a four-year-old and have just learned to write the Chinese version of my name.
Dai Dehua
Left to right: Zhang Yanjie, Wang Xingang, Dai Dehua, Joe Carter, Yang Xiwen
Wang Xingang, third from right; Dai Dehua, middle front; and Li Dongfang, second from left
When people around me speak to each other I understand about thirty per cent of it. It’s like being partially deaf. Fortunately, I can also talk with my pencil and in the past six months I produced designs for high-leader housing (160 sq.m. flats compared to the standard 55 sq.m.), a kindergarten, a Center for the China Writers' Union, a campus design for an Industrial Chemical College, a guest house for a hospital, a small commercial theater and dance hall, all in Beijing; a twenty-two storey hotel for Hainan Province, and most recently a library for an Electrical Engineering College in Jilin City. Very little is built. A lot of work comprises pitches to clients or submissions to competitions.
Front Elevation of the Center for the China Writers' Union of China
A space was left in the middle of the facade for a relief sculpture
Proposed Library for the Electrical Engineering College in Jilin City
Proposed Kindergarten for a Beijing Housing Development
The building for the Writers' Union will be built, according to our winning design, just opposite the north gate of Bei Hai Park near Shi Sha Hai, a special heritage area of Beijing. The client hopes to hold the opening ceremony before the Asian Games in September, 1990. The campus design for the Industrial Chemical College had six invited entries from various parts of China. The jury gave no first prize, two second prizes, and four third prizes. We received a disappointing third. A difficult end to a month's hard work. I forget what she said, but I remember Li Dongfang's kind words soothed my pain. Dai Dehua said, "Mei shi", “lt doesn't matter". The library design for Jilin City will be judged next week. Su Jia is doing the working drawings for my kindergarten design and is drawing them very quickly.
Architects in this office normally look after the complete job, from design to construction administration. I would be too slow at Chinese working drawings and my language ability is not yet good enough to independently work with clients. So, I all my time is devoted to design. In Canada I spent about ten per cent of my time on design; the remainder was for working drawings and administration.
Lunch Break Card Game
Since its founding in 1985, Zhong Jing has participated in fourteen competitions. Nine projects were awarded first prizes and seven others won second and third prizes. From February 1985 to October 1988, sixty projects of various kinds were designed with a total floor area of l,468,000 sq.m. of which 980,000 sq.m. have been built. A lot of the work involves the design of large housing districts.
In the past five months Zhong Jing has had a gross income of 1,000,000 Chinese yuan (about 250,000 Canadian dollars) based on billings for 47,000 sq.metres of working drawings. With a staff of about 80 people, that would average about 30,000 yuan/person/year. Such performance is good given the present economic environment, widespread listlessness, and the higher taxes that Ji Ti (collective) work units such as Zhong Jing pay compared with the more typical Quan Min or "state" work units. The above good news was shared in a buoyant mood by Yan Xinghua at the latest all-employee meeting. He said Zhong Jing would need some new employees to keep up with an expanding work load. Just last week he had a meeting with the parents of one prospective young employee.
He announced that negotiations with the owners of our building, the Yang Fang Dian
Primary School, were complete and we could rent it for another year. There had been a temporary threat that we might be evicted. Our building is one of two school-houses sharing a yard on North Bee's Nest Street in the south-west part of Beijing. The children are in the newer and larger building next door. With a declining school population (largely the result of the one family-one child policy) the school can rent out its old building. Also, with a low education budget, schools are strapped for cash. To further help raise funds the school is constructing a commercial restaurant adjoined to the kitchen of the main school. Zhong Jing, in the meantime, is looking for land for its own building.
Next, he told us that great progress was being made on a joint-venture with a Hong Kong construction company. Only one more government department needed to approve the proposed venture, then it could start. Three other departments had already agreed. Some encouraging words were given to the Zhong Jing staff member who would be hosting the banquet that night for representatives of that fourth and final department. Yan Xinghua puts energy and enthusiasm into connecting with the outside world. It was in this spirit he had said "yes" to having me, a foreigner, work in his office.
After 1978 the central government allowed individuals to act as small traders; introduced the family-contract agricultural system where production exceeding the contract with the state could be sold on the free market; and allowed the formation of Ji Ti, "collective" work units, such as Zhong Jing, in urban China.
It was founded with the approval of the Ministry of Construction to be a Grade A
architectural firm. Design offices have four grades and are ranked according to the complexity and size of projects they can design. "'A" is the highest level. The firm was originally set up by the China Architectural Society and the Beijing Civil Engineering Society, but is now under the wing of Yan Xinghua. Urban collective work units do not receive funding from the state; their income and location depend on their own initiative and contracts they make with other work units. They are also self-managing.
Members of Zhong Jing staff. Wang Quan, third from left, spoke English better than anyone in the office.
The absence of rewards and punishments in the former Iron Rice Bowl system has started to change with such measures as the introduction of bonus systems, a Bankruptcy Law, allowing economically dependent work units (schools, for example) to engage in economic activity, and experiments in the decentralization of management. Zhong Jing reflects the latter.
These new branches of the system are not entrusted just to anyone. Some one with Yan Xinghua's background has sufficient authority to administer a Ji Ti work unit. He is a former professor at Tsinghua University. He was invited to teach there by China's most famous architect, Liang Sicheng. Mr. Yan is the former Vice-President and Chief Architect of the China Ministry of Radio, Film, and T.V. for whom he designed the Central Television Center. In 1959 he designed the China Agricultural Museum, one of the ten monumental buildings erected in Beijing, with Russian assistance, to mark the tenth year of the founding of the People's Republic of China. He is Deputy President of the Architectural Society of China, and is a member of the China People's Political Consultative Committee (CPPCC).
Zhong Jing is self-managing. Although still cast in the mould of leadership by a strong older man, its management methods are not typical for China. In most work units design is done by architects and engineers, administration by managers, clerical work by clerks, and maintenance by service people. To reduce bureaucratic overburden, Zhong Jing employees only architects and engineers and they divide up the other kinds of work among themselves. The wearing of several hats goes beyond the larger financial, administrative, and public relations tasks; even the daily routine work is shared by the architects and engineers. For example, a schedule on the bathroom wall says whose turn it is to clean the toilets that day. Xiao Chen passes out the daily newspaper. Xiao Dai takes attendance in Department Two, Xiao Zhang distributes drafting supplies. Xiao Zhong looks after photocopying, Wang Rong Rong manages the hot lunch that's delivered every day at 11:30. The food company picks up numbered aluminum boxes and returns them full of lunch. Your box has your number on it. You clean your own lunch-box.
There's no-one assigned to the telephone. Calls are answered by whoever happens to be near one of the three hall phones when they ring. The random passerby answers the call and, in a booming voice, summons the person called to the phone.
Zhong Jing does not provide its employees with housing as most state work units do, but - in addition to salary - provides health and labor insurance, pensions, and many small services, such as: free hot lunch, subsidy for bus travel to work, payment in kind with winter coats, cooking oil, eggs, soap, etc. A certain amount of the latter form of payment is allowed; it reduces taxable income. Last month, courtesy of Zhong Jing, dentists came for a few days and looked after everybody's teeth. On your birthday you receive money to buy a large cake to treat your workmates.
Progress in China (after about 1985) is complicated by the lack of middle-aged people in the professional and administrative worlds. During the Cultural Revolution the universities were closed. Some were Red Guards. In the Second Architecture Department two men are over sixty. At forty-two I am the only middle-aged person. The rest, four men and five women, are all under thirty-three. In the three years I've Iived in China, I have always been surrounded by people who are either older or younger than me. It feels like my chronological peers are invisible.
The movement of experience and authority in China country must make this difficult leap over a missing or estranged generation. The problem is a mixed blessing for the younger professionals of China. While they have more chances to change things, they face capacity-testing responsibilities. Dai Dehua, for example, just finished the preliminary working drawings of his design for a 51,000 sq.m. commercial and office center; Wang Quan, aged twenty-four, who works in another Department and translates for me when I have difficulties, did the preliminary design for an 80,000 sq.meter hotel-commercial-office center. His work-mate Wang Songqing just finished the drawings for his design of a 27,000 sq.m. teaching building for the International Economic Trade University in Beijing. Qian Man single-handedly designed and did the working drawings for his 3,500 sq.meter modern library.
Library designed by Qian Man
Su Jia, 26, in four years, has done the planning and working drawings for over 330,000 sq.metres of housing and the planning for another 346,000 sq.metres. Li Dongfang, 30, recently designed and did the working drawings for a 360-child day-care center. In the West, this level of work would be done by architects in their forties or fifties.
There are many national standards for different building types published as handbooks for the use of architects and planners. Among the areas managed is the space between residential buildings. It is strictly controlled to ensure every window receives adequate sunlight and, in the winter, precious solar heat. Architects in every city know and use the required sun angle for their latitude. As much as possible every habitable room faces south. The result, when applied to housing, however, is often monotonously regular.
Chinese housing; an example from Beijing
On the right are 6-storey housing blocks built in 2003 and on the left are 18-storey slab-towers built in 2011. The spatial relationship between the buildings is the result of sun-angle regulations.
Library for Beijing's Normal Teachers' College 1989
Note from 2021: Original Library in 1989 engulfed by expansion in 2002
Our Department Head, Zhang Yangjie, with assistance from Chen Guang, designed a library for Beijing's Normal Teachers' College. Two long east-west blocks connected by a central stair hall would normally form an "H"-shaped building with fire 'escapes at the ends of each extremity. In this design the long ends are pinched together which reduces the number of fire escapes from four to two, and creates two triangular light wells that give adequate light to the northern book-storage half of the building. Reading rooms are on the sunny south side. Staff from the Jilin Electrical Engineering College liked it so much they asked Zhong Jing to join the competition for their new library. Note from 2021: Around 2002 a new and much larger library was built in front of the original one nearly engulfs it.
I used to imagine a Chinese work place would be fairly quiet and serious. However, at least once a day the mixture of banter and business reaches a lively pitch. Wang Xingang, with an excellent sense of timing and grace, tickles the "collective" funny bone and the room boils over with a round of laughter. I think he could be great T.V. host.
As we work in this former classroom, six days per week, sounds from the school children often pour through our tall windows. We hear exercises to the tune of a martial whistle, left-right, left-right; accordion melodies leading an outdoor song; after-school girls rehearsing a song and dance performance. When we stop work at four-thirty the children, wearing Young Pioneer red scarves and bright yellow hats that say "safety" are also heading for home.
Left: Leaving work at the end of the day.
Right: The large characters on the wall say "Exercise for the Revolution" (Wei ge ming er duan lian) 为革命而锻炼.
Led by flag-bearers, yellow-caterpillar chains of children ooze out the gate beside me. The little parades are for those children who are not being met my parents or grandparents. Children who live near each other go home in groups. I join another chain, the millions of cyclists weaving their way home. I will ride for about 20 minutes. Others in our office face an hour and a half bus ride.
Today more good news. The remaining government department to approve the joint venture had said "yes". Big black characters written on red paper were prepared for the signing ceremony. Zhong Jing now moves on to a new stage in its growth.
(End of Article)
* * *
1990 Dairy
Jan 1-5
Work on site planning for housing at Bai Wan Zhuang near the Ministry of Construction in Beijing.
January 6-25
Work on Kindergarten
At an all staff meeting downstairs around the ping-pong table, Yan Xinghua shared news, views, and information. He said he was relieved that last year around June 4th no-one in our office had attacked a tank.
January 20-21
Go to Tianjin.
January 25-30
Spring Festival: January 31- February 3
Kindergarten design completed, I gave it to Su Jia who will do the working drawings.
February 6-15
Work on Campus for Chemical Engineering University (Hua Gong Xue Yuan) Competition
The program requirements for the University was 128,200 m2 of buildings on a 21 hectare site:
- Teaching Space: 19,000m2
- Library: 8,000 m2
- Special Lab: 20,000 m2
- Factory: 11,000 m2
- Admin: 3,000 m2
- Student Dorm: 28,000 m2
- Dining Hall: 7,000 m2
- Singles Dorm: 8,000 m2
- Teachers Dining Hall: 1,200 m2
- Auditorium: 6,400 m2
- Gymnasium: 2,400 m2
- Service: 8,000 m2
- Track 400 meter
Typically, competitions requited a site plan showing all the buildings, simple plans of the main buildings, and a site model.
February 16-20
Work on Headquarters of the Writer’s Foundation of China
The head of the Foundation of China was Zhang Qi. He was the husband of Xiao Dong, Hongyu’s childhood friend. When Xiao Dong heard Zhang Qi was holding a competition she told Hongyu to tell me. I told Zhong Jing and our office decided to participate. My design was chosen from our internal Zhong Jing competition, and finally, my design was chosen as the winner of the Foundation’s competition. Located across the street from the north gate of Bei Hai Park, it had to relate to the old architecture of the city.
I knew the client wanted space. My design had as much area in the building as possible. Other entries inserted courtyards inside the small footprint available for the building. The client felt this was unnecessary.
February 21-23
Work on Kindergarten.
February 24-April 2
Work on Campus for Chemical Engineering University (Hua Gong Xue Yuan)
February 28
Meet leaders of the Writer’s Foundation of China.
March 2-20
Observe the Baha’i Fast. Hongyu is alarmed and frightened. As I was sitting before dawn, eating my porridge, she stabbed a long kitchen knife into the table beside me. Her concern was the fast would damage my health, which, in turn, would affect the heath of our family. She was also afraid I was being controlled by some unseen force beyond my control. It was hard for her to accept that it was voluntary. I was so tired at the end of the day. The rooms at Zhong Jing were cold, and I bicycled to work and back. I fell asleep a couple of times at the supper table. No wonder she was frightened!
April 4-19
Work on Feng Tai Hospital Guest House.
I met an architect, Jiang Ping, from another department. She and her husband and their baby son lived in one of the rooms downstairs on the ground floor. The baby's nick-name was Chuizi (Hammer). Her husband was a writer with a pen-name, Jian Ning. He spoke almost no English but somehow we managed to have meaningful conversations. [Note from 2021: We became life-long friends. Later he helped me publish a small book about China.]
April 18
Hongyu and Liang Liang went to Tang Gu, the port city near Tianjin, to fetch the computer Hongyu bought in California. It had been shipped to China and was in Customs at the port. You had to appear in person to pick it up. How to get it? This was a challenge. Individuals did not own cars. Work units owned cars. Drivers were employees of work units. Driving was a profession. No-one had (or needed) a driver’s licence. There was no such thing as a car or truck rental company.
There was no public transportation between our Beijing home and the warehouse where the items were stored. It was about 120km to Tianjin and another 40km to Tangu.
Hongyu’s eldest sister, Mao Mao, belonged to a national network of journalists. She contacted a colleague in Tianjin who knew people in the Customs Office. She also found a driver from a work unit who could take Hongyu to Tongu. Originally Mao Moa was going to accompany Hongyu to Tianjin, but couldn’t make it. Liang Liang, Hongyu’s next oldest sister, went with her instead. They drove to Tianjin and picked up the Tianjin journalist who knew people in the port and they headed there together.
Another challenge was the government limits set on what individuals could import. A Chinese citizen who went abroad had the right to buy ‘three big items’; typically appliances and electronic devices. You paid for them abroad, and with the receipt bought the item at designated centers in China. Your purchases were limited to the products available at these Mainland centers. Most of the products were made in Japan. Hongyu had been in California for a year, had earned money, and paid for a refrigerator, a sound system, and a TV. She had picked them at the foreign products center in Beijing.
Hongyu feared they might count the computer as a fourth item, outside her quota, and not let her bring it into China. This was the computer I saw on her desk last summer and had asked, “What did you buy that for?”. The Tianjin journalist who knew people at the port was brought along to argue that computers, being so new, did not appear on the list of importable items. Her point was, if a computer is outside the bounds of the rules, then the rules don’t apply. The mission was successful and Hongyu came home with our first computer.
April 20-21
Visit with David and Joan Rendell, old friends from Newfoundland.
April 23-May 3
Work on Xuan Wu Men Theater, 550 seats. Other than the LSPU Hall renovation project in St. Johns, I had no theater design experience. Yang Xiwen worked on theaters before and kindly help me with it.
April 25
Start an article for BIC about my time at Zhong Jing.
April 30
Zhong Jing office picnic at Yu Yuan Tan Park. The highlight was rowing boats.
May 5
I wrote a long letter to Robert Mellin and Heidi Kravitz in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.
May 4-21
Hai Nan Hotel
May 8
Lunch with Joerg Wuttke.
May 22-June 4
Work on Jilin Electrical Engineering University Library, 10,000 m2.
June 8
Phone Dad on his birthday from the Beijing Hotel. They had an international Post Office and telephone service.
June 8-June 18
Work on Xuan Wu Men Theater.
June 16
Meet with Dr. Arbab and Bijan Farid.
At the time Fr. Arbab was working at the Bahá’í International Teaching Center, based in Haifa, Israel, and was a member of that body until 1993, when he was first elected to the Universal House of Justice. Bijan Farid was one of a hundred or so Counselors of the Baha’i Faith. He was one of Continental Counselors for Asia.
Bijan Farid with two Baha'i Counselors from Mongolia
June 21-July 8
Every morning for an hour or so I work on my finishing my CIDA Report.
July 9-15
Qingdao Hotel
July 16
Drive to Qingdao with Yan Xing Hua in his Buick. Aggressive male driver. There were no expressways then. All the roads were two lanes wide. Somewhere in Shandong farmers stopped us by placing a large tree across the road. Yan Xing Hua said, “Do you know who I am?”. He showed them his ID as a member of the CPPCC (China People's Political Consultative Committee). They let us go. Stay at Ba Da Guan Hotel in Qingdao.
July 17
Attend meeting held by Qingdao Planning Bureau where they introduce the design competition for downtown district at Zhong Shan Lu and Jiao Zhou Lu.
July 18
Visit site Qingdao Old City downtown site.
Qingdao Planning Area of 1990 overlaid on Qingdao 2021
July 19
Visit Lao Shan Park about 30 km to the northeast.
July 20
Train to Beijing.
July 23
Hongyu very pregnant. We are getting our place ready for the arrival of Xiao Dongxi (Little Something). We rehearsed the subway and bus trip to the hospital, the Beijing United (Xie He Yi Yuan).
July 21- September 17
Qingdao Old City District Planning Competition. Send model and drawings to Qingdao.
Site Plan: Make alternate streets (red) into pedestrian zones. Take advantage of slopes to north and south to insert some semi-underground parking (see section below). Add park green space at center on smallest site.
Above: Sample Site Section
Below: Proposed monument connection the axis of the Pavilion in the sea to the south, the axis of the harbour to the northwest, and the axis of our site to the east.
August 2
The Iraqi Army invaded and occupied Kuwait.
August 15
BABY!!!! Hongyu and Dongxi move to Lao Lao Jia.
At the hospital I was allowed to accompany Hongyu into the birthing room. I was standing at Hongyu’s head and the doctor was watching the birth. At one point he put his hand inside Hongyu and said, “Go to the operating room”. The umbilical cord was coming out first between Dongxi and the exit. This could cut off the fetal supply of blood and oxygen, creating a life-threatening situation. I was feeling nausea.
I was not allowed into the operating room (nor was I in a condition to do so). Hongyu had a Cesarean Section. Normally the anesthetic was administered in the woman’s back. Hongyu was on her back and could nor be moved. They used shallow anesthetic on her stomach. An injection too deep would injure the fetus Hongyu fainted from the pain. While she was unconscious, the doctors pulled Dongxi out and gave Hongyu a general anesthetic.
Finally, all was well.
Xie He Hospital Beijing
August 18-19
Go to Tianjin with Joerg Wuttke in his Mercedez-Benz. We got a flat tire as we approached Jian Guo Men. It was raining so we stopped under the overpass at Jian Guo Men and he changed the tire.
September 16
Dongxi was one month old (man yue). We eat cake to celebrate.
September 21
Clean up house for arrival of Hongyu and Dongxi.
September 24-November 15
Work on Beijing West Railway Station Competition.
October 1-3
National Holiday. Play with Dongxi.
I came across an altar inside the Forbidden City called She Ji Tan (Society-Grain Altar). It was used to perform the national soil and grain ceremonies where the Emperor prayed for good harvests. It is a large outdoor platform with the actual soil from five different regions of China arranged in a symbolic map: yellowearth in the center surrounded by red to the south, blue to the east, white to the west, and black to the north. The colours also represent the five main peoples of China and the five basic elements in Chinese cosmology: water, gold, fire, wood, earth. It represents for us a strong, unified combination of differences. I sketched the design into the back of my pocket phone book waiting for a chance to use it.
Left to right: Aerial photo of the altar, slightly modified version, my abstracted sketch.
Forbidden City:
The Five Colours Earth Altar is inside the yellow circle just to the west of the central axis.
October 10
Letter to Mr. Fariborz Sabha, the architect of the India Lotus Temple.
November 4
Hongyu said, “It’s hard to be your wife”.
November 19-December 20
Work on proposal for northeast corner of Gong Zhu Fen to the east of the Urban Rural Trade Center.
November 20-24
Attend Housing Conference.
November 29
We are told we won an honorable mention for our West Railway Station design but no prize.
December 7
Writer’s Foundation. Meeting to discuss interior design.
December 8
PM Meet with Dr. Hossein Danesh, a psychiatrist (a Baha’i) from Canada.
December 11
Spent day with Dr. Danesh and Dr. Wang.
December 21-27
Do another design for Gong Zhu Fen based on Shen Zong’s concept
December 23
John Grentzner and his wife Sandy came for lunch at our Xuan Wu Men home.
December 28
Lunch with Beth McKenty and Hongyu.
December 31 - January 2
Holiday. Welcome 1991. Stay at Lao Lao Jia.
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