Clinton’s coming to the two-condom hotel

SHANGHAI – Our world is full of tragedy and comedy. Tragedy as in the Louisiana "Hurricane Katrina" flood, violent looting and starvation-panic disaster where National Guardsmen’ winging home from the battlefields of Iraq had to rush with their M-16s "locked and loaded" (as Government Blanco warned) to New Orleans to shoot down rapists and robbers.

Comedy as in the angrily-debated "impeachment" process, with the antics of "Arroyo allies" and "foes" being described in big newspaper back cover headlines here – like the Shanghai Daily – as a "tug-of-war."

This world, and I don’t mean just surprising Shanghai, is also full of surprises. In Urumqi, the now-bustling capital of Muslim-predominant Xinjiang Province in China’s Wild West – the former hub of the famous Silk Road – my wife was surprised when we checked into the city’s most modern hotel, the Yin Du Hotel which proudly banners its 5-stars on its facade.

When she went into the bathroom of our 19th floor executive room, she saw the usual array of cosmetics and powders, i.e. body lotion, shower cap, toothbrushes, detergent – plus two condoms – all in neat boxes sporting the Yin Du hotel colors.

I guess this hotel provides male guests with a protective "condom," but why two condoms daily instead of just one? It’s one of the mysteries, perhaps, of the dessert.

This city of 2 million throngs with formerly warlike races, mostly Uygurs of Turkish extraction; fierce Kazakhs, Mongolians, Tatars Xibes and Khalkas. However, twice a day "protection" suggests too vigorous a level of activity. Nonetheless, I was impressed. The Yin Du is obviously prepared for any exigency.

One of them is the fact that America’s former President Bill Clinton is arriving today and checking into the Presidential Suite of the Yin Du (which boasts 14 apartment-suites). People are paying more than $1,000 a plate I hear to attend the dinner at which he’s speaking on the renaissance of the Silk Road. It’s appropriate his caravanserai is our hotel, where full service is provided.

* * *

The evening before our departure from Xinjiang to Shanghai was a gala one. Urumqi’s increasingly impressive city skylines, with newly-erected highrises towering neon-lit over old minarets, and advertisements winking in bold colors over storied domes is of fairly recent vintage. The city has mushroomed with smooth expressways, avenues and leafy parks only over the past five to six years. Its importance has been enhanced by the fact that Xinjiang (Sinkiang) has become a major artery in the oil pipeline feeding, in prospect, 10 billion cubic meters of oil and gas yearly to the eastern industries of China, such as those in Shanghai.

The other month, Chinese President Hu Jintao went on a state visit to next-door Kazakhztan which oozes with huge oil reserves and bought an entire oil company and oil field. Kazakh oil will soon begin pumping via the new pipeline through Xinjiang to the East of the Country. The Silk Road has been converted into the Oil Highway.

Mayor Shokerat Zakir, the Mayor of Urumqi (an Uygur) threw a big party, open-air, for visiting delegates to the world trade fair – us luckily included. The Communist Party Chairman – the real boss of the city, and always a Han (Chinese), Mr. Yanggang Pawty – came to sit with us. We had met the Governor, Simaiel Tilevarde (an Uygur) at a dinner the night before. Ms. Lei (Chinese), the Economic Development Zone Party Secretary also joined us.

Party Secretary Yanggang said that Xinjiang attracts 10 million tourists a year – half a million of them overseas "foreigners" – a fact which ought to put our own Department of Tourism to shame.

Wake up, DOT Secretary Ace Durano, Please! Being pogi and a former three-term Cebu congressman (LDP) is far from enough. In the past three months, alas, our friend Ace – perhaps cocooned by his cordon sanitaire of contract advisers – has been an almost "invisible man" when it’s imperative for the embattled La Presidenta, lately dancing the "Yamashita Surrender" jig in Ifugao costume, to give the impression of forward movement.

Xinjiang, which contains China’s biggest desert, but also soaring snowy mountains and rushing streams, could teach us a few tricks about promoting tourism. In China, everybody pitches in to entertain.

They have singing soldiers and singing, dancing policemen, for starters. At lunchtime we were amazed at an entrancing performance sponsored by the People’s Liberation Army. The beautiful ladies who danced, or crooned, and the handsome men who belted out "tartar Toasts" or Kazakh love songs, all had army rank – ranging from sergeant to major.

That same night, at his gala, the Mayor called out his policemen. Lovely girls, each empowered to arrest miscreants or traffic offenders, shucked off their uniforms to perform beguiling folk dances, a police captain sang in golden baritone a Mongolian love ballad, then a rollicking Tibetan folk song; a major, Pavarotti-style, did a powerful "Che bella cosa." (What a beautiful thing) in flawless Italian. A bunch of school kids did a rousing Mongolian dance, while fiddling away, miming in pantomaine how the hordes of their ancestor, Genghis Khan, swept victoriously over Asia.

And the toasts flowed freely – in Muslim country, mind you. A good time was had by all.

* * *

Shanghai is half a continent away from Xinjiang. Our flight to this ultra-streamlined skyscraper metropolis by China Southern airlines B-757 took more than four hours.

But Shanghai, China’s jewel on the Huangpo is another story altogether and will be told another day.

The GMA "economic team exceeds its revenue target by P10.5 billion"? Wonderful, if true.

Another headline which caught my eye was: "RP to Send 25 Aid Workers to US" for the New Orleans tragedy. There would be 25 million volunteers if they got US visas.