Double Handshake

I came across something that brought out my inner Hoosier some days ago over Pisco Sours at the beautiful Hotel Bolivar in central Lima. Next to our table on the restaurant’s terrace, I discovered the words “George Cutter Co. South Bend Ind” stamped on the ornamental lamps along the ledge.

A bit of internet sleuthing revealed that George Cutter, a friend of Thomas Edison, produced street lamps and other fixtures from his factory in South Bend, Indiana from 1906 until 1915. His company in South Bend was later absorbed by Westinghouse after his death. Interestingly, the George Cutter light fixtures at the hotel actually predate the historic hotel itself, which was built in 1924.

Note for Hoosier readers: Please do not go looking for the Hotel Bolivar the city of Peru (“Circus Capital of the World,” birthplace of Cole Porter). You will not find it.

There was one other agreement signed during Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping’s visit to Latin America last week not related to energy or commodities. China named Colombia an official tourism destination, the 9th country in Latin America secure such status. Other countries officially sanctioned by Beijing include: Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Chile and Costa Rica.

There are lots of impressive projections about China’s number of overseas tourists. From the Latin American Herald Tribune article linked above:

China is the fourth largest tourist-sending country in the world, surpassing Germany, Britain and the United States, and projections are that some 47 million Chinese will travel abroad as tourists in 2009 and 65 million in 2012.

Less impressive, however, is that the only direct flight between China and Latin America I’ve heard about was launched last year: Shanghai-Mexico City. And without direct connections, Chinese travelers to Latin America end up flying far out of their way to avoid layovers in the US and European countries that require transit visas. A friend of mine told me he spent 30 hours flying from Beijing to Lima, with a ten-hour layover in Amsterdam.

Asking Chinese tourists to spend 60 hours in airports and planes for perhaps a week-long vacation is a tall order. And for those who do endure the transit time, jet lag and foreignness of Colombia, I can already imagine their tour bus pulling up to the beach in Cartegena:

“It’s okay, but not as nice as Hainan.”

Image: francescamichael.dk

*A pinyinization of 哥伦比亚欢迎你! or “Welcome to Colombia!”

I spent Saturday afternoon at the Centro Cultural Beijing (北京文化馆) with two dozen, mostly young, Peruvians studying Chinese. The center is the biggest Chinese language school I’ve come across in Lima and is run by Benjamín Gutiérrez González, a Peruvian who lived and studied martial arts in China for years. One Saturday per month, the center puts on Chinese cultural activities. The occasion this past Saturday was the return of two Peruvian girls from their semester abroad in Beijing.

The girls sat at the front of the classroom, in front of posters of Summer Palace and the Great Wall, and addressed the group in Spanish. Most bases were touched: food, weather, safety, friendliness of the people, classes, professors, pollution, censorship, social life, etc. They gave Beijing fairly good marks, with exceptions being pollution – “the sky is gray; people wear masks,” initial comfort – “no one can really speak English, not professors, not other students, not people on the street, let alone Spanish,” and food – “it is not like in Peru, where we love meat; most food is cut into small pieces and greasy.”

I sat next to Ettorena, a Peruvian in her early twenties with long hair and faded blond highlights, and a predilection for all things China. Rena, or 琳娜 or 爱多琳娜 or 小爱 depending on who’s asking, has studied Chinese for two years and works in the center as a secretary during the week. When I first met her two weeks ago, she greeted me at the doorway with chopsticks stuck in her hair. We spoke in Chinese for an hour, and she showed me her key chain with the Olympic Fuwa. I asked her if she got bored at the office during the day with no one else around.

“It’s not so bad,” she told me, “I just chat with my Chinese friends on QQ. I can type characters really fast!” She jotted down some characters in my notebook, about twice as fast as I could have written them.

Rena’s dream is to go and study in China, of course. She told about a job she was planning to apply for here in Lima, at a casino called Atlantic City. The casino is looking for Chinese and Spanish speakers to cope with the influx of Chinese tourists (and gamblers). She reckons if she could land that job, she’d be able to pay for her plane ticket to Beijing sometime next year. During the talk last Saturday, Rena leaned forward with her elbows on the desk, engrossed.

After the talk, we broke into small groups around wooden tables. There were a handful of young Chinese guys there too, from Liaoning, Jilin and Beijing – themselves Spanish students at another language school twenty minutes away. The Chinese speakers dispersed to the seven tables and the groups spoke in a mash up of Chinese and Spanish.

There were three other people at my table: Pablo, a 21-year-old engineering student who’d studied Chinese for six months; Roxana, a Guangdong woman in her 70s who immigrated to Peru in 1982 and owns a shop in Chinatown; and, A Long, an angular foreign student to Lima who’d dropped out of college in Beijing and arrived here six months prior. The conversation was disjointed and tended to flow through Roxana, who was the only one who spoke both languages well.

“Let me tell you about my husband,” she began and proceeded to sketch a biography of the man for about 10 minutes, including his salary a various milestones. I followed about three-quarters of it. Pablo nodded.

“Where are you from?” Pablo asked me when Roxana had finished.

I told him and asked what the hardest part of learning Chinese was.

“Speaking and listening are not hard. Writing is hard. Reading is hard.” He paused for a beat and spoke rapid Spanish to Roxana.

“Money, health, family,” she answered, in Spanish.

Later, on my way out, I stopped by Rena’s table, which was littered with papers filled with Chinese characters.

“I’ve got to go,” I said. “Call or email me the next time you’re having Cultural Saturday, ok?”

“Dangran!” (Of course!) she beamed. “Zai jian!”

Despite the global recession, China is still looking to spend serious money on securing its supply of oil and other commodities. In South America, this is especially good news for Brazil and Venezuela, two of the Asian country’s biggest suppliers.

Today, it was announced that state-owned China Development Bank would loan US$10 billion dollars to Brazillian oil giant Petrobras to ensure a long-term supply the Asian country. The state-owned oil company had been looking for ways to finance its US$175 billion five-year investment plan. Petrobras also agreed to sell 100,000 barrels of oil this year to Sinopec, China’s largest oil company.

The deals were signed by Vice President Xi Jinping, who wrapped up his five-country South American tour in Brasilia. On Xi’s previous stop, in Venezuela, he inked a deal with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for China to add another US$6 billion to the countries’ joint-investment fund. The money, along with a number of other agreements, will go toward increasing oil exports to China. Chavez, whose political life is largely believed to depend on the price and sales volume of oil, seemed to be pleased. From the BBC:

Mr Chavez said the Venezuela-China alliance served “common interests” and that Venezuela was committed to being an oil supplier to China “for the next 500 years”.

The Brazil and Venezuela deals, combined with the US$25 billion oil deal it signed with Russia a few days ago, bring China’s oil investment total for the week to US$41 billion. Of course these are all long-term investments, strategically signed as oil and commodity prices are severely depressed. Yet, US$41 billion in a week? Now? Not in the coming months when oil prices hit bottom and China can land better terms on these massive deals? It’s got to make you wonder if Beijing is wheeling and dealing in oil behind a pair of rosy glasses.

Image: Treehugger

Walking around Plaza Bolognesi this morning, I came across a line of people filing into a Socialist Party office for a meeting. I fell in with them and shuffled toward a woman collecting a one sole entrance charge and handing out blue slips of paper. The line moved past bulletin boards of upcoming Party activities, stenciled portraits of revolutionary heroes and posters urging better working conditions for miners. I paid the woman and joined the stuffy back room where fifty-some people were chatting and fanning themselves on plastic Coca-cola and Inka Cola chairs.

“Are you a journalist?” the woman to my right asked.

“No, I’m a student.”

“Well, this meeting is really only for members…” she said, letting me complete the rest.

“Oh. Well, I’m only curious.”

I smiled helplessly, and we sat like that for awhile, watching two men jab wooden poles at the wall-mounted electric fans. I wished I’d sat against the wall.

Five minutes later, a thin man with salt-and-pepper hair and whiskers walked over and touched my arm.

“What time does it start?” I asked.

“Are you a journalist?”

“No, I’m a student.”

He nodded and kindly explained why I couldn’t stay. We walked back toward the entrance together. “Journalists are allowed to be here, but that’s all,” he told me. By that time is too late to try and explain that I’m a quasi-journalist as well.

I traded my blue slip for a refund of my sole, and the man walked me out into the sunshine. “Tuesdays and Thursdays”…”workers”…”I’m sorry that there was a problem.” I couldn’t follow much of the explanation, unfortunately.

As both a quasi-journalist and student, my first instinct had been to admit to the latter. This perhaps comes from spending time working as a journalist in China, where bearing the title “journalist” generally closes more doors than opens them. Moreover, in potentially sensitive or political situations, journalists in China are no strangers to detentions and harassment.

And while my point is not that Peru is some paradise for foreign correspondents, the incident made me reconsider when and where to label myself a “journalist.” Not all Socialists want to keep them at arm’s length.

As mentioned before, a number of top-ranking Chinese officials are currently on goodwill tours in Latin America. Thus far, declarations for “strengthening cooperation” and “boosting friendships” abound. Vice President / President-in-waiting Xi Jinping is now in Venezuela, having already made his way through Mexico, Jamaica and Colombia. Yesterday, he addressed President Hugo Chavez and Venezuelan entrepreneurs and “welcomed” Latin America participation in the 2010 Shanghai Expo.

The global recession has cast a dark shadow on the Expo, which is wildly anticipated within China. Last week, rumors started that the US may skip the Expo entirely as organizers are struggling to raise the US$65 million needed for a pavilion. The UK has recently reshuffled its “Expo Task Force,” and has yet to break ground on its pavilion.

Of course, things are different for most Latin American countries. China has already told Colombia and others that it “would try its best to meet [their] needs including both financially and technologically (sic).” Other Latin American and Caribbean countries are building joint pavilions instead of individually. El Salvador and Costa Rica, for example, are part of a nine-country Expo bloc. Ten countries in the Caribbean have also banded together for a joint pavilion.

Still, there are vows of participation and then there are official contracts. Many of the countries above, including Venezuela as of last October, have yet to officially sign on the dotted line or appoint a commissioner general to oversee development.

Xi’s Expo “welcome” yesterday may have been less of a friendly gesture and more of a reminder that, recession or not, participation is still expected.

Image: showchina.org

There are islands off the coast of Peru that owe their color to bird guano. I saw some of them this past weekend, after a thirty minute boat ride from the small coastal town Paracas, south of Lima. Once we made it out to the Islas Ballestas, our boat guide pointed out the species – Inca Terns, Guanay Cormorants, Humbolt Penguins – and told us that in five years’ time, workers would scrape 60-70 centimeters of guano off the rocks to sell as fertilizer. The islands smelled like old, sour fish.

There were two workers who lived on the islands, both guano harvesters. Our boat cruised by the old wooden docks that, a hundred and fifty years ago, were surely much busier. At that time, our guide told us, there would be five to six meters guano for workers to mine, annually. In mid-19th century Peru, no commodity was more important than bird guano.

The droppings were mined and exported as phosphorus- and nitrogen-rich fertilizer around the world. Peru’s guano was especially sought-after because the country’s climate (little rain, arid atmosphere) better preserves the nitrates from evaporating. From 1840 to 1880 (Peru’s Guano Golden Age), the country exported 20 million tons of guano, earning around US$2 billion in profits.

Chinese coolies began arriving to toil here after slavery was abolished here in 1854. The coolies in the guano mines and sugar plantations were nearly all men and all bound to eight years’ servitude if and when they made it through their passage from Macau to Lima.

In the New World, the coolies endured conditions on par with the slaves that had preceded them: squalor and neglect, prolonged bouts of illness, back-breaking work and physical punishment. At night, they were thrown together with the army deserters and convicts they worked alongside in cramped rooms and locked up until morning.

Guano harvesting in the 19th century was similar to how it is done today. From an enlightening New York Times article published last year:

Guano is also an undeniably strenuous enterprise from the perspective of the laborers who migrate to the islands to collect the dung each year. In scenes reminiscent of open-pit gold mines on the mainland, the laborers rise before dawn to scrape the hardened guano with shovels and small pickaxes.

Many go barefoot, their feet and lower legs coated with guano by the time their shifts end in the early afternoon. Some wear handkerchiefs over their mouths and nostrils to avoid breathing in guano dust, which, fortunately, is almost odorless aside from a faint smell of ammonia.

Meanwhile, the worldwide “guano rush” was on. The British Empire monopolized Peru’s guano trade in places like the Islas Ballestas. The US Congress, in turn, passed the Guano Islands Act in 1856. This allowed any American citizen to take peaceable possession of any “deposit of guano on any island, rock or key” not inhabited or occupied by another government. All told, the US would claim around 60 islands in the Caribbean and Pacific on guano grounds.

As artificial fertilizers were developed later in the 19th century, guano’s importance plummeted. Peru’s economy suffered a steep decline, acerbated by its foreign debt and years of mismanaging its guano income.

Fast-forward a hundred and fifty years, and now, Peru’s guano is back in demand. From the Times article mentioned above, guano from Peru is fetching up to US$500 per ton as an organic alternative to synthetic fertilizers. While the article isn’t positive about guano’s long-term viability – one interviewee predicts supplies will last another 10 years before bird populations are completely gone – it is a fascinating read.

I came away more (cautiously) optimistic after my guano run-in, however. Granted the islands I visited were in a national park, but there seemed no shortage of birds or guano. The droppings were sensibly being harvested every five years, and we tourists didn’t even step foot outside the boat. If nothing else, these small, barren rocks aren’t really usable for anything besides what falls on them. What would the government have to lose by protecting a few more guano islands from fisherman and trampling tourists, and making a few bucks in the process?

Shougang Hierro Peru, a Chinese mining company operating in Peru, announced it will invest US$1 billion to expand an iron-ore processing plant in southern Peru. The company is owned by China’s Shougang Group, one of the top five exporters to China.

The news is surprising. Most mining companies worldwide have postponed or curtailed their expansion plans in the face of the global recession. In fact, I can’t recall a single billion-dollar investment not made by a government in the last six months.

China’s demand for iron ore has plummeted in the last year as China’s steel producers have slashed production. As recently as yesterday, Bloomberg relayed this dour forecast from Morgan Stanley:

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — Latin America’s economic slump will deepen as the “aftershocks” from Asia’s slowdown hit the region, Morgan Stanley said.

Asia’s shrinking demand for raw materials amid a “collapse” in its own exports will show up in Latin America in February and March, Morgan Stanley economists Daniel Volberg and Gray Newman wrote in a report today.

Shougang says it will start the plant expansion later this year, to be completed by 2010. The project will increase the company’s capacity to 10 million tons per year. Taking a longview on the global recession is one thing, but 10 million tons is a lot of ore to have on hand without knowing where prices will be in a year’s time.

Pisco Sours, the national drink of Peru, were flowing in Lima over the past weekend to celebrate what has become my new favorite holiday: Pisco Sour Day. On Saturday afternoon, Barranco’s Plaza de San Francisco, pisco makers and restaurants had set up booths and displays dedicated to the cocktail. Vendors were handing out drinks, salsa music playing and kids chasing after pidgeons. In other parts of town, Miss Pisco Sour 2009 was crowned and there were countless professional Pisco Sour-making competitions.

The Pisco Sour is a mix of pisco – a locally produced grape brandy – lemon, egg white, sugar and a dash of bitters. Peru and Chile to this day fight bitterly over the origin of pisco. The production methods differ in the two countries, with plenty of scoffing on both sides. Until recently, Chile had been producing something like 50 times more pisco annually than Peru, but it seems that Peruvian exports of the drink have now surpassed Chile. From a Mercopress report:

Peruvian pisco exports have climbed 17 times in six years and the main markets are the US, Spain, Chile and Colombia.

“In 2002 we exported 80.000 US dollars and last year we jumped to 1.4 million US dollars, surpassing Chilean exports”, said Production Minister Elena Conterno.

In the same period pisco production soared four times from 1.5 million litres to 6.59 million litres.

For those like myself with little stake in the nationalistic struggle between Peru and Chile over the drink, the upshot is that Chile’s own Pisco Sour Day is coming on May 15. Mark your alcohol calendars!

Image: theworldwidegourmet.com

Tim Johnson has a nice post on China’s growing presence in Latin America at his blog China Rises. In it, he mentions China’s Vice President Xi Jinping setting off yesterday for Mexico, to be followed by Jamaica, Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil in an effort to boost ties. Xi, who is widely expected succeed Hu Jintao as president in the coming years, will be in the region for two weeks. China’s state media also reported that Vice Premier Hui Liangyu will be taking his own tour of Latin America, paying official visits to Argentina, Ecuador, Barbados and Bahamas around the same dates.

Xi and his entourage’s first stop is Mexico, where he is expected to be joined by 20 Chinese companies operating in Mexico for a business meeting in Mexico City Sunday night. Over the years, Mexico hasn’t welcomed China’s presence as warmly as other Latin American countries have. Whereas countries like Brazil, Peru, Chile and Argentina have profited from China by selling their natural resources across the Pacific, Mexico has little resources China wants. Worse, China’s presence has been largely viewed as a direct threat to Mexican industrialists and manufacturers. Mexico’s economy grew by just 1.8% in 2008, the second-worst in Latin America, behind Haiti.

Between the two separate official tours, some of the stops seem logical – Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina – while others may invoke some head-scratching. Jamaica? Barbados? Bahamas? One plausible explanation may be that these Caribbean stops would give the cadres some beach time, far from February in Beijing. But, there may be a political explanation as well.

There are still a handful of Caribbean and Central American countries that maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Though the number is dwindling – now down to 12 in Latin America and the Caribbean, counting Paraguay in South America – this fact still certainly irks Beijing. How much? For example, the PRC spent US$140 million in 2007 to help build sports stadiums across the Caribbean in an effort to woo countries away from the ROC. I wouldn’t be surprised if Xi, Hui and the others don’t spend their time on the islands asking for cooperation in converting the remaining hold-outs.

This is especially true since Taiwan News reports that Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou is planning his own visit to El Salvador and Panama in June or July. The Taipei newspaper doesn’t sound too exultant:

Taiwan only has 23 official diplomatic allies, mostly small or impoverished nations in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific. The Vatican is its only European ally.

El Salvador has long been a reliable ally, though occasionally reports have appeared suggesting that Panama might switch recognition to Beijing considering China’s growing economy and its interests in the Panama Canal.

Since Ma took office last May, he has been trying to achieve what he calls a “diplomatic truce,” calling a halt to the past competition between Taiwan and China for allies, often by promising money for development and other projects.

China has not officially responded to Ma’s offer, but no allies have switched sides since he took office.

We can only wonder how that news story would have been spun by the maestros in Beijing’s Propaganda Department.