Things China just does better

I have a lot of rants to do with China, so I decided it was time for a post about some things that China just does better than back home in Australia.

Playing

After work my Chinese friends usually ask me to  出去玩 (chuqu wan) However, when they literally translate this sentence into English and ask me whether I want to “Go out and play,” they subsequently ask me why I’m laughing. They get really confused when I say that children will “play” but everyone else just kind of…Hangs out. Chills. Has a drink or something. Which got me thinking…why is it unacceptable to ‘play’ back home, but here, I always ‘go out to play.’ ? And I’m not exaggerating either. Most of my activities here consist of games and sports. Like, after work we’ll grab a ball and muck around for a couple of hours. It doesn’t even matter that none of us are very good. Whereas I kinda get the feeling the only people who play sports back home are people who are actually somewhat decent at sports. It’s not really ‘playing’ it’s ‘practicing.’ I also run this theatre workshop in the office every Sunday, and it always surprises me how damn enthusiastic everyone is about playing theatre games.

The University is about five minutes from my apartment and at all times of the day there are people utilising every bit of space with their activities. It’s about 6pm and students are out practicing a  dance routine together, teaching each other kungfu on the basketball courts or even rollerblading (I am so keen to get myself some rollerblades and join in!) And that’s just the students. The infamous ‘square dancers’ come out at about 8pm and proceed to take over the school grounds. These dancers are groups of old (50+) women who gather and spend hours dancing together in a strange pop/aerobics/traditional Chinese fusion dance. I don’t know how they get themselves so organised, but anywhere you go in China, the ‘square dancers’ will be there. So, maybe the community has a bit of a problem with them (think: noise complaints, see: http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/stories/residents-buy-speakers-to-yell-at-noisy-public-plaza-dancers.html)  But I think they are absolutely wonderful. Because this desire they have to get together, be outside and be active is so healthy! The phenomenon of isolated, lonely, unhealthy retirees happening in the West can be combated with this sort of activity. It would be great if I could start dancing in the park for the old people back in my town.

Overall, we could definitely learn from the Chinese attitudes of being outside, in groups, having fun. It is my favourite thing about China.

Also, to anyone who says that Chinese people are generally ‘shy’ or ‘quiet’ I will laugh in your face, because there is definitely a lot more noise and enthusiasm on the streets here than I’ve ever seen in Rundle Mall.

 

A pretty standard afternoon on one of about 20 University courts (Photo: Emccall 2014)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not giving a shit about what others think

I went to a theatre performance the other day and was pleasantly surprised yet again by people’s willingness to laugh. I say that, because, I dunno, if I went to a theatre performance back home people would feel that they would have to keep the laughs to a polite level, make sure that everyone else was laughing too, so as not to show that they were enjoying it too much and thus risk looking like a fool. At this show, people were standing up and laughing, guffawing, my friend was actually slapping her knee and tears were coming from her eyes. All from a skit that went for about two minutes and was somehow mocking Titanic. But it’s something I love about a lot of people I meet here, they’re quick to laugh and smile and don’t seem to care whether anybody else found it funny or not. They always seem to be looking for the next joke.

Also, I’ll add to this category with sneezing and burping in public. I have never heard one of those weird ‘stifled’ sneezes here. If you gotta sneeze, you gotta sneeze. And burping cracks me up. On a public bus? No worries. Nobody turns around or gives the perpetrator that squinty eyed look of disapproval. Everyone continues as normal and it’s only me, the foreigner, feeling like a should be offended. But somehow I can’t bring myself to care.

Recycling

Ok, so overall China isn’t exactly leading the way with this whole environmental stuff. But at the grassroots level, I would have to say that people are always looking for ways to reuse things. They don’t seem to like throwing things away (although as to where those piles of rubbish are coming from…?) I  bought a little convector stove top for my apartment and I put all my rubbish in the box it came in to throw it away later on. My friend comes over and she asks me whether I’m just going to throw that box away, didn’t I have any use for it? I said that I didn’t, so she took the box and gave it to the landlady who accepted it happily. I also give all my bottles to the landlady and she uses them for various things.

Those are just small examples, but my favourite instances of recycling usually involve gardening. Since a lot of people around here used to live in the countryside and farm, they are very good at growing things in the most seemingly inhospitable environments. I’ve seen a construction site with piles of slag rock and dirt which have been planted out with seedlings in perfect rows. They don’t seem to mind that ‘one day’ their little gardens will be destroyed for the next apartment block. They’ll just keep planting. In buckets on the street, on the nature strip next to the road. It is all fair game. And it is beautiful to walk past these flourishing little gardens everyday, old women harvesting their veggies from down the road while chatting to passer-by’s, old men sitting outside their homes in the evening selling bunches of organic produce for one RMB a piece.

I think the thrifty culture of China persists to this day, strangely in juxtaposition to the rampant materialism which also is very visible here. It’s funny how hard people try to be ‘environmentally friendly’ back home (paying through the nose for organic produce and setting up complex recycling systems), but here reusing materials and eating your own organically grown vegetables is just a way of life. I hope this way of life can persist as more and more Chinese are moving (either forcefully or by choice) into the big cities.

Peace Y’all

Reusing an old suitcase for some plants is really quite common (Photo: Emccall 2014)

Hunan 湖南，Hubei湖北 & Henan 河南: Three provinces, a mountain, a dam and some Kungfu monks

During times of extreme boredom, namely exam revision, Lea, Anja and myself dreamed of an adventure which would take us out of the cities and to new and exciting destinations, to forge new paths, to write our own travel guide. This blog post is the conclusion to the trip, and first and foremost it is intended to inspire others to strike out to the lesser-known parts of this diverse country. The greatest thing I took out of our trip is excitement, excitement in the realisation that in one city, one province, one country there are corners, hidden wonders which are unknown, forgotten, undocumented (even by the likes of lonely planet, contrary to popular belief.)

There are so many places in the world which have the ability to inspire and amaze, that one cannot possibly see them all in only one lifetime. Isn’t that sad, yet oddly reassuring.

Hunan 湖南　Ａ　ｍｏｕｎｔａｉｎ

The first stage of our trip was Changsha city in Hunan province. Due to the timing of the trip (close to the Chinese New Year) we were unable to go directly to Changsha, and instead went via Wuhan. The unfortunate thing about catching connections is the absolute importance of making your train, you miss one, you miss both. We managed to run onto the train in Nanjing moments before the doors closed and the train sped away, we smiled to each other as the adrenaline slowly filtered away, and knew that this was the start of a truly ultimate adventure. In Changsha, I immediately took a liking to this smallish city, maybe partly due to the charming YHA hostel we stayed in that night. [Changsha-Hunan International Youth Hostel, Dongfeng Rd.]

The next day, we bought tickets on a 5 hour bus to another small city, Zhangjiajie 张家界. The bus station is outside the normal (not G train) station of Changsha, but the long distance buses leave from another area around the corner and across the road from the train station. Ask for directions earlier than us, when we were told ‘it’s over there, but you’re gonna miss it anyway.’ Ha! She didn’t count on us sprinting and jumping the dividing fence to make that bus.

Zhangjiajie is a city built up due to tourism (mainly domestic) because of its surrounding mountainous area. It seems to have recently been experiencing boom, but still shows evidence of its history as a more isolated small town, we walked past a sign spray painted on a wall saying ‘男生，女生一样好’ (boy or girl, both are equally good), discouraging abortion or abandonment of female babies, nowadays more common in rural areas. The hotel we stayed in wasn’t much cop, and it was freezing at night, but the owners made up for that with their total helpfulness with our travel plans [www.zjjyjq.com, 一家亲旅馆, yijiaqin hotel.] The owners knew people in all the tourist spots and made calls for us to confirm opening times, prices, etc. They don’t speak English, however.

The first place we went in this area was Tianmen Mountain 天门山, the cable car left from the middle of the city, near the train station. The tickets are only discounted for students under the (arbitrary) age of 24. The cable car ride itself seems obligatory, because I couldn’t imagine how long it would take to climb up yourself. Probably days. Although there is a winding, unfenced, abso-freaking-amazing looking road which goes into the mountains, twisting like the Great Wall. In the summer, you can bike it. One day, I will cycle (or maybe rollerblade) down that path. Going into the mountains, even on a misty winters morning, was incredible. Even better for being so unexpectedly amazing. The mountains layered onto each other in shades of sky blue, I realised then that traditional Chinese landscape inkbrush paintings are not as fantastical as I once thought, these paintings are realistic, the ink is pale, dreamy, translucent, reflecting perfectly the subject matter.

It turned out that it had snowed the night before, and the entire mountain was a winter wonderland. I had never seen snow before and became absorbed in throwing it, photographing it, stomping on it and eating it, much to the amusement of my European friends. The paths were quite slippery, and the glass walkway we had wanted to go on was closed due to ice, but it was worth it to see the blue mountains contrasted with the stark white snow and the red silk ‘blessings’ tied to overhanging trees. The caves were also closed that day, probably most of winter, and we managed to make our way around the entire Tianmen mountain, all the while marvelling that we were walking on a flat surface, like an island suspended in space. The last cable car back left at 6.30pm on that day. We got to see the sun setting on our way down, over the mountains and the city nestled at its base, perfect.

After a good rest we were ready for our next outdoor escapade, following our hotel-turned- travel guide to the bus station, we were pushed onto a bus with no number going to town only 45mins away (last stop, 12 yuan.) From here we took a taxi to the ticket office of 武陵源 wulingyuan, one of China’s largest national parks. Again with the student under 24 restriction (?) the price of the ticket is 160 students and 240 normal. The ticket is valid for 3 days, so make the most of it. A 7 day ticket is about the same price, and would be a good option as there is accommodation within the park, I’d love to stay at the YHA there and wake up to the sound of golden monkeys calling. There is also a cave area the opposite way to wulingyuan, which is cheaper but apparently not so impressive. We gave it a miss. There are shuttle buses to various parts of the park, so get a map and plan your route to see everything you want to. We went to a high point via cable car and worked our way down (cable car to tianzi mountain 天子山, 40 yuan conc. , 100yuan normal.) We walked the entire day, only taking one free bus between one area and another in order to make it out before closing. The scenery was amazing, but it wasn’t until we found a secret path through the rocks to a stone jutting out over the abyss did we really get so gobsmacked that we actually shut up for a moment to honour the view. We had a small picnic on that stone, and found it was hard to look out to the forest of craggy, sandstone, time-formed pillars, which stretched as far as the eye could see, because it hurt our heads, it was so beautiful and surreal. My mind was trying to convince me it was photoshopped, I’m sure, because how could something like that be real?
We also revelled in the quiet, hardly another tourist around in some parts, so quiet we could hear the wind, and the birds, could notice the strange bright orange squirrels before they were scared off by any loud noises.
We enjoyed ourselves so much, that by the time we came to the final valley, a creek running through it, it was dark and we had missed the last bus out (6.30pm) Not to fear, we found a taxi at the gate who took us back to Zhangjiajie for 100 yuan. Another exhausting, beautiful day. I will go back yet.

Over Wulingyuan from our secret lookout (Photo: Emccall 1/14)

The sunset over the mountains and zhangjiajie city (Photo: Emccall 1/14)

Hubei 湖北 　　Ａ　ｄａｍ

Putting aside our hiking gear, we managed to get a train from Zhangjiajie to Yichang in Hubei province, taking about 6 hours, although in the middle of the day, so a travel day it would be. I wasn’t expecting anything from the city, but it was clean and modern, the hostel we stayed at [yidou hostel, 宜豆] was located in a bar and cafe district so it was nice to have a few luxuries again. The staff spoke English, and the dorm rooms were only 50 yuan a night. They were also really helpful, one even using her own bank card to buy us train tickets on the chinese website 火车票网, to save us the hassle of doing it in the station. (The website seems to be trying to exclude foreigners from their convenience, it is only in Chinese and you must be using a Chinese bank card, although if you can manage this you just need to book and then take your passport and booking number to the train station to pick up the tickets before you depart, although times may change slightly and you wouldn’t know it as you don’t have the tickets, allow about an hour.)

The reason for being in YiChang was to see the three gorges dam, the largest dam in the world and which was surrounded by a lot of controversy during its construction. It affected the Yangtze River flow so that already endangered wildlife (including fresh water dolphins) became even more threatened, if not already extinct. It also covered homes, an entire village, displacing people. Ancient temples, steps carved in the Ming dynasty and other treasures were also covered by the high water level in the name of progress. So, on a misty morning we went to check out this monstrosity, public bus 4 to yemingzhu 夜明珠, then travel bus 8 to the dam. Get off at the last stop, climb the lookout point for 5 yuan, demanded by a random villager. We… Couldn’t see anything. The visibility was just too low, maybe winter wasn’t the best time to go. We went back on the bus to the museum and had a private English tour for 20 yuan, she explained the processes involved in the dam. I wasn’t too interested, admittedly, I wanted to discuss the social problems it created, not look at diagrams of boat lifts and photos of presidents looking happily out to the dam over the years. There were also poems penned by presidents, praising the dam, a tradition started by Mao Zedong. In this fashion, I write my concluding thoughts in poem form:

The Three Gorges Dam
shows me
The Unnatural Stillness
Of Industry
It shows me
The Shadows among Piles
Of Slag rock
The Vegetables Which Grow
between scars
Living Things
Which can’t quite cover
Blank Spaces
A gravestone,
which stares solemnly

into nothingness.

After our disappointment of the dam, we still had another day to burn, and so went to a cave site suggested by the hostel staff, The Three Visitors Cave sanyudao (not sure of the characters, as ‘yu’ must be an old word not in my dictionary.) Regardless, I wouldn’t recommend it. You can pay about the same price as to get into the three visitors cave as to the entire area, in the area you can see some stupid totem poles, take a stupid speed boat ride for two minutes and steal some pomelos which don’t taste so nice. Ok, there is a cave called 白马 white horse, which is so-so, and I was happy to tick off that particular activity from my travel wish list. And seeing the Happy Valley area was also nice, another perspective on the Yangtze River. Otherwise, a tourist attraction gone to seed. The three travelers cave wasn’t even very ‘cave-like,’ although it had some interesting history attached to it.

The end, I wash my hands of further explanation.

Henan 河南　Ｋｕｎｇｆｕ　ｍｏｎｋｓ

The next day, leaving Yichang to Luoyang, Henan Province via train, it was 8 1/2 hours and one of the slowest, grossest trains I’d been on to date. I was laughing getting onto the train, having seen an old woman happily climbing onto the conveyor belt for luggage x-ray, and her daughter who pulled her off before she could get through to explain that they could simply walk through a people scanner.
It was the middle of the day, another travel day, but we made up for it with an exploration of the amazing street food night markets two minutes walk from our hostel [YHA Hostel yijia, 宜家]. Red lanterns line the cobblestone street of this area and we drank the local specialty, hot fruit and red date tea and ate a special type of long fried dumpling.

The next day, we took the public bus to the train station in the hopes of getting a bus direct to shaolin 少林, to see the world famous kungfu Shaolin temple, the purpose of our trip to Luoyang (and my precious brainchild). Asking at the ticket office, they claimed that there were no more buses to shaolin that day (it was before noon) and that we needed to get a bus to dengfeng 登封 first and then transfer. In hindsight, I believe taking up the hawkers on their offer of a bus/taxi to shaolin would be the better option and probably not particularly expensive if you haggle well. Anyway, so we took the bus to dengfeng and then did the transfer, it took about 3 hours in total (25 yuan) and really wasted a lot of our precious time unnecessarily. We were (I was) quite worried because the temple closed at 5.30 and I felt we wouldn’t have enough time. We lucked out though, because the first place we went to was the hall where the monks did their performances which ran roughly every hour for half an hour. And there was a performance just about to start, so we got a great intro to the temple by watching the animal style patterns of shaolin kungfu, as well as some amazing feats of rigorous training in action, one performer did a show of gathering qi (life force, 气) in his arms, then preceded to throw a pin at a thick pane of glass, a balloon being held on the opposite side of the glass. The pin bounced off. He threw another pin. The audience held a collective breath as it, too bounced off and onto the floor. And a third pin. Finally, he threw a fourth pin and the balloon popped. The pane of glass was turned towards the audience and we could see that a single, perfect hole had been worn clean through to the other side. Every pin had been thrown with maximum force and perfect mimicry to the exact same point each time. The Shaolin kungfu is legendary, the Shaolin monks would have been practicing and using martial arts as defense since about the Tang Dynasty (618-907CE) and would even assist others, they were so successful in helping out one emperor defend his lands that they were rewarded with the privilege of drinking wine. Drunken Boxing style Kungfu was invented shortly after (no, I’m serious, check this out [Wikipedia, Zui Quan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zui_Quan%5D) The temple was eventually raided and sacked during the cultural revolution, the monks were executed.

I had already heard a lot about the temple before going there myself, it had been on my bucket list for a long time, not only because of its legendary status, but because of the more recent criticism of the rampant commercialism of the temple. Monks are sent around the world performing shows, lessons are offered at the temple starting at $5000USD, heck even their now deceased head monk had a car engraved onto his grave pagoda. I was going into the temple to see for myself, but I already had a preconceived idea of how I would dislike the ruination and exploitation of a place which could have otherwise been so tranquil, cultural and mystical.

After the Kungfu demonstration, we fought past rows of hawkers trying to sell us holy beads and made our way to the stone pagoda forest, where you could walk around the hundreds of pagodas marking the deaths of important monks of the temple. It was quite beautiful, but we decided to move along quickly as we were running out of time. We went to the original temple, the original training grounds of the monks. Some things were closed already, and there was almost no one about. We admired the ancient, twisted trees in the temple courtyard and wondered at the many small holes bored into their trunks. Later on, I would read that the monks of old would strengthen their fingers by stabbing them into the trees. We wandered around, lost in our own musings of the place, when I heard some chanting coming from a hall. I investigated and found around 30 monks, dressed in saffron robes, chanting to the beat of a gong. I sank down onto a step, amazed that through all the temples I had been to in China,the temples forever playing the same recordings of sutra chanting, the people in those temples who dressed in robes but wore jeans underneath and tried to sell you things, out of all those places, it was in the supposedly most commercial of them all that I finally found what I had been looking for. I sat alone, entranced by the monks, the setting sun, the bell on the pagoda which seemed to ring in time to the chanting. A monk pushed aside a commercial billboard to step out of the temple, bow, and pour water across one of the statues to return again, replacing the board as he stepped through. Because that, I think, is the real beauty in what has happened at the Shaolin temple. People criticise, but primarily the temple should be for pursuing their faith, and what more is the Kungfu for, both now and in the past, than a method of protecting their faith. If they hadn’t exploited their Kungfu today, they would have been in the same situation as so many temples in China, dead or dying, never fully recovered from the Cultural Revolution.

A novice monk performing in the stage show (Emccall 1/14)

Our final day was spent wandering around the old streets of Luoyang, taking photos of beautiful old tea houses and pointing out the many buildings with the character for ‘demolish’ spray painted in red on the sides. In a way, it was the perfect ending to our adventure. We saw some really amazing places, historically significant, yet so often forgotten by the masses who flock to other, more well known tourist destinations. China is constantly changing and developing, so much has already been lost. I hope that more people will get off the beaten track, because as challenging as travel can be in China, it is also totally worth the rewards.

Rubble surrounding a building in old Luoyang (Photo: Emccall 1/4)

Ji’An 吉安 (Jiangxi Province): Impossible Red tourism

You know you’re going off the beaten track when the only website in English to provide information about the city is one Wikipedia stub, it’s not mentioned in your China Lonely Planet guide and your Chinese friends have never even heard of the place.

Welcome to Ji’An city. Population 500,000. Small by China’s standards.

I was leaving the big lights of Shanghai behind, after spending a rather laid back New Years there with my boyfriend, Steve, and friends from Nanjing University after the end of our classes.

Steve and I decided on Ji’An as our next destination, partly out of a sense of adventure and partly due to an offer I had received to do an NGO internship there. The NGO in question was centered around a typical social issue befalling the small cities of China, youth are rapidly leaving their hometowns to seek employment in bigger cities, namely Beijing or Shanghai, themselves and their families believing this will provide them with a better quality of life. Unfortunately, these youth (who are often highly educated) are going into big cities and being faced with discrimination due to their ‘migrant worker’ status, they will often fall into working menial jobs such as production line/manual labor work. Living conditions are extremely poor for many migrant workers, and rates of depression and suicide are high. This NGO is trying to stop the brain drain at its source, by creating programs for community and youth education, enrichment, volunteering and artistic expression. They want to show the young people that their community, culture and city is valuable to them and that they are valuable part of this.

The train was overnight from Shanghai to Ji’An, it was nice to get a chance to see the countryside. Early in the morning, I sat watching the layered blue mountains in the distance, the sun struggling through the grey overcast winter sky to reflect on the rice paddies below. It was a moving moment, I had caught another glimpse of the China that I am forever seeking.

The moment was squashed quickly as black clouds of smoke ran cartoonishly across the landscape, more industry of a type. Grey rows of spooky, uninhabited highrises. We were in Ji’An.

The hotel we stayed at (Vienna International Hotel) was close to the train station, they had no record of our online booking, could not read the English booking form, did not know the company we had booked through. We payed for another room with cash, because they did not accept our credit cards. I asked them to speak slower, they did not, they had an unfamiliar accent and their Mandarin was anything but standard. Some words were different to the ones in my textbooks and in Shanghai. We had a difficult time communicating, I had to embrace the opportunity to adapt to an unfamiliar place and culture. Right then, I was just too tired.

Steve and I decided to venture out to the centre of the city to find the pulse of Ji’An, to see if it even had a pulse. We found the People’s Square comfortingly familiar, a typical winter clothes market and an array of street food which I knew and loved and which Steve quickly came to appreciate too. Everywhere we went people stared, pointed, took photos and speculated about our nationality. We didn’t see a single other foreigner the whole time we were there, but the attention wasn’t as unpleasant as it can sometimes be. Mostly people were curious and shopkeepers were happy to strike up conversation. I tried to get a feel for the issue of mass migration, but the only young person I spoke to was a 17 year old waitress, who took a photo with me for her Weibo and told me she liked Ji’An and had a lot of friends here. She would start at the city’s only university in a couple of years. She waved goodbye and then skipped happily away as it was the end of her shift.

I spoke to a taxi driver (mid-30’s) as well, he told me he dreamed of going to Chengzhen, when I asked him why he just shrugged and said that you could earn money, really better yourself in a city like Chengzhen. I said I hadn’t been there, only to Shanghai, was it similar? He emphatically waved his finger and told me that Chengzhen was the most beautiful place in China. He then gave me a 5 yuan discount for the ride.

Ji’An doesn’t exactly get tourists, and a lot of information that we found was from scouring Chinese websites and speaking to people at the bus depot near the train station. There was a lot to see and we were very excited when we discovered that The People’s Liberation Army had formed in a town nearby in 1927, and was a significant place for Red tourism (touring areas which were somehow related to the rise of communism in China.) The area is called Jinggangshan and there you can see The Mint of the Red Army, The Revolution Museum, The Martyr’s Cemetery and Mao’s Former Residence. It is a full day trip from Ji’An and we saw that there were specific buses from the depot which were labelled with the area. We didn’t have time to make it out there, unfortunately.

The next place we wanted to go to was a bit closer, Diaoyuan Ancient village (钓源古村），a 1000 year old village which was still functioning. On the first attempt, we were sent to People’s Square to wait for a bus which never came. On the second attempt I had the correct bus number, 203, and stop, 兴桥（钓源）from a Chinese website. However, when the bus came to People’s Square 人民广场 I spoke to the bus driver and he shook his head, saying that the only bus that day had left at 8.30 that morning. We abandoned the quest after that. The only bus leaves at 8, 8.30 or 9am every day. I’m not sure when the bus returns to Ji’An.

We went for the closest and simplest option, Jinju Buddhist temple in the QingYuan mountain Scenic area 青原山, opposite one of the entrance gates to the bus depot is a China mobile company building, it has a private parking lot next to it. In front of this parking lot you can wait for a bus that comes every 15 minutes to go to QingYuan. Bus 208. It takes about 30mins to get to the area. The last bus back to Ji’An leaves at 6.30pm and you can wait for it in the central square of the tourist area. The 1,200 year old temple was under restoration, but it is fully functioning and is surrounded by amazing rainforest-like scenery. We bought some incense after being pestered by old village women and lit it in the temple. We drank out of the ‘Clever Spring’ and admired the view of the temple and the mountains from a quiet shrine with a softly chanting monk.

We got pointed to a walking track by a vendor cart woman, which took us easily up the mountain to a small lookout of the industrialised valley below.

At 4am the next morning we took a 7 hour train to Wuhan to recover with some Western food and to meet a friend of mine.

I don’t know what I think of Ji’An, but the people, and the surrounding mountains and villages forgotten by the tourists definitely draws me to it…

Main Bridge in Ji’An (photo: Emccall 1/14)

Steve and I resting near the lookout of QingYuan mountain (Photo: Emccall 1/14)

Hangzhou 杭州: Another weekend escapade

Hey!
So, finally, what you’ve all been waiting for…another travel post!

Last week some random French guy decided he wanted to go to Hangzhou for the weekend, seven people in ear shot casually shrugged and voiced their agreement. Thus, setting the laid back tone of this particular escapade.

I knew nothing about the city, only that it was located in another province (gasp!) 浙江, zhejiang, by ‘G’ (speedy) train it took about an hour and a half. Oh just a fun fact, you can tell the speed of the train by the letter in front of the train number, see this site for more info. http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/types.htm [Travel China Guide, 2013]

We stayed in Wushanyi, a YHA Hostel, highly recommended hostel chain in all parts of China for the most communal/back-packing/inexpensive/clean/trustworthy accommodation http://www.yhachina.com/index.php?hostID=2 [YHA China, 2013]

The hostel was located in the middle of an awesome district with wide streets, vintage style buildings, vibey cafes, interesting knick-knacks and street food. After one particular night of drinking we decided we needed food, so we weaved our way to a stall selling joy-on-a-stick. The centipedes looked appetising, the dried snake a tasty morsel and the seahorse most intriguing. After a discussion with the stall owner we settled on large, shiny black scorpions and a tarantula. The people stood and watched in horror and curiosity as we cackled over our purchases. After the obligatory selfies with my scorpion, I then looked at it to see which part I would eat first…the wicked curved tail? The little spindly legs? How about the head? I finally settled on the claw, fighting back my gag reflex and trying to not make eye contact with it, I crunched off a claw and chewed heartily. Hm…not bad. The shell got caught in my teeth but other than that…fine. I quickly polished it off with a victorious grin. Next, the tarantula. It was…as big as my palm. Breathing deeply, I grabbed a leg and snapped it off. My hand had a wild spasm at the revolting furry feeling of it and I dropped it. I almost left it at that, but then I realised that eating a tarantula is kinda a cool story. Almost eating one, not so much. Trying again, I took another leg and threw it in my mouth. Chew, chew, chew, swallow. Breathe. Such a cliche, but it tasted like…chicken. Burnt, furry, chicken. The abdomen was quite meaty and tasty, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat the head/body/pincers/eyes thing. Too creepy. I used to be quite afraid of spiders, but I hope that I can live by my friend, Nanna’s, philosophy and will think to myself everytime I see a spider “I nommed on your cousin, I ate his little legs one-by-one and they were tasty… watch out, I’m top of the food chain.”

Yeah, spiders beware.

Joy on a stick. All sorts of street food goodies. (Photo: Emccall, 11/13)

Hangzhou is a really nice place, we went to a tea village 龙井茶园 longjing chayuan and admired the view of the plantations whilst avoiding the hawkers. At the heart of the city is the UNESCO World Heritage site, West lake 西湖 xihu. If we had more time there, we would have hired bicycles and cycled around the lake to see all the gardens and temples etc. We also went up a mountain area to 灵隐寺 lingyinsi, a Buddhist monastery, there are other temples around on the mountain but this is the one to see. There’s an area called 飞来峰 feilaifang, it’s the opposite side of a wide brook, and little paths take you around to see amazing Buddhist rock carvings from the Yuan Dynasty 1271-1368AD. Jungle and cave exploration combined with the bright colours of Autumn and the fresh breeze made it the perfect end to our trip.

It was the first time I had returned home feeling completely refreshed and ready for another week of classes.

Buddhist rock carving in Feilaifang (Photo: Emccall 11/13)

Nanjing Massacre Museum

I decided that it was time to face something which I had been dreading, the Nanjing Massacre Museum, detailing the mass slaughter of Nanjing civilians by Japanese invading forces during the Second World War (December 13th, 1937). The grey, November sky was a perfect backdrop for our visit to that sombre, black stone building.  The first thing that you see as you walk to the entrance is a series of statues, human figures, bodies and faces distorted in various states of pain and panic. Look at the translated plaque beneath them, “The Devils have sent the bombers again, the poor orphans. Frightened by the vicious laugh of the brutal devils, Terrified by the corpses piling up in the alley…” Gritting my teeth, I mentally prepared myself for an afternoon filled with human tragedy and undisguised, volatile hatred towards the perpetrators. Visitors walk past a series of square-cut, grey structures. A monument stands with a repeatedly translated “300,00 victims” cut deeply into the side. Finally inside the museum. One of my group recognises the entrance-way as being built from the stonework from the destroyed old city wall. After an impressive light and sound show simulating a battle-field, we walked through to a room with a wall covered from top to bottom with the names of all the known victims. The character “女“ (nv, female) was written after many of the names, presumably to demonstrate that they are civilians rather than soldiers (I thought it was unnecessary, undoubtedly the males were just as innocent and defenseless). The memorial wall was a beautiful gesture and my defensive stance against the museum relaxed a little.

I waded through the swathes of highschool students in order to stand in front of each individual display, to read the plaques (translated from Chinese into English and Japanese) and to ponder on both the massacre as well as the present-day attitudes towards it. The first thing I noticed was that everything seemed very…disjointed. Each room had a loose theme, but it seemed as though someone had hoarded together everything which had a connection to that period in history and had scattered them throughout the exhibitions in a sort of “Find the Odd One Out” treasure hunt. You are looking at a torch used by a Chinese general moments before being shot in the leg, then you sidle along to the next artifact to read “This is a number plate from a wheel barrow used in 1937.” Wait, what? At best, it was bemusing, at worse, confusing and even insulting. Why would the curator place a photo of three children who had been killed by the invading force, directly next to a photo of the British ambassadors Mini? Are these two things somehow of the same import? How about the photo of a woman who had just been raped, next to a card about China’s financial situation of the times.

Smack bang in the middle of the building is an open mass grave, bones litter the ground and you can go around the outside to read in what horrific ways these people were killed. It was definitely too much, I cannot imagine why the bones needed to be on display, were the curators so desperate to make sure that the evidence was irrefutable that they would display human skeletons from only a couple of generations ago? I assume that these skeletons had not been identified, relatives would not know that their grandmother was down there, permission was not sought. In the same room were gruesome photos of the victims, next to them was a picture of two Japanese soldiers, noted for boasting about killing hundreds of Chinese single handedly. I noticed someone had slashed across their throats in that black and white photo.

Slit throats on photo of Japanese soldiers (Photo: emccall 11/13)

It was at this point I just wanted to walk straight out of the museum, indeed two of my friends left quickly after that. When I inquired as to why, they just said that they “got the idea pretty quickly.” However, hold strong and linger at the last couple of rooms. Bland, in comparison to the grand displays of the other rooms, but I stopped and read every bit of text and was very glad for it. A wall of pictures of present day survivors, as well as their testimonies, hung next to the quote “What we must remember is history, not hatred.”- Li Xiuying  “要记住历史，不要记住仇恨”－李秀英

Yes…YES!Was this the same museum? I felt like I was suddenly dealing with a whole different place. In that same room, the opposite wall was lined with present-day images and video archives of the people who had taken part in the massacre, with their testimonies. It made a strangely poignant juxtaposition with what we had been shown so far. These old Japanese men, crying and apologising for what had happened, taking full responsibility for their actions, saying that it must never happen again. Both sets of testimonies were used as evidence in the law suit which successfully brought the war criminals to justice. At the memorial site, were piles of paper cranes, folded by Japanese highschool students, wishes for ‘Peace’ were attached to them. A garden, donated by Japan, with a white statue of Lady Peace standing out amongst the grey buildings leads you out and back onto the streets of Nanjing.

My thoughts drifted back to the last thing visitors see before exiting the museum.

“Under the inspiration of the patriotic enthusiasm, we should struggle unceasingly for the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the realisation of the peaceful reunification of our motherland, and the maintenance of world peace.”

I can’t help but feel disgusted by the governments use of a tragedy, the loss of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, for their own propaganda purposes. They had clumsily added and subtracted from what could have been a poignant reminder of this incident and in doing so, had confused and dulled the lessons taught by history.

Paper cranes and wishes written in Japanese in memorial (Photo: emccall 11/13)

苏州 SuZhou: Fun-times with Oxygen

After some depressingly difficult Mid-Term exams, I decided to reward myself with a day-trip to the nearby city of 苏州 (Suzhou.)
My lovely friend, Lea, also wanted to escape the climbing air-pollution index of Nanjing for a bit of (sorta) fresh air and sight-seeing.

The great thing about a day-trip to nearby cities is simply the ease of travel, there are 20 trains a day going from Nanjing to Suzhou and back again! And transit time is only about an hour on the faster trains.

When we arrived in Suzhou we were typically swarmed by dodgy ‘taxi’ drivers and people wanting to take us on overpriced tours. But atypically, once I had attempted to shoo them away using Chinese, they were genuinely curious about us and struck up conversation. Apart from being offered to be ‘introduced’ to some nice Chinese boys (one old man was especially despondent when I told him I lived in Nanjing), we were also advised what to see whilst in Suzhou and how to get there.

One driver even went as far as to point us towards the bus station, told us how many stops we had to go and warmly welcomed us to China.

It definitely pays to always smile and laugh when dealing with people doing this sort of hassling, it’s their job and being outright rude will get you nowhere.

The bus system in Suzhou is really great, don’t bother getting a taxi anywhere. For 1 元 (yuan), you can walk out of Suzhou train station and get on bus 1游 (yi you), which will take you to almost all tourist sites.

Lea and I left Nanjing at 8 in the morning and got home at 1am, and I can safely say that we made the absolute most of our time.

Firstly, we went to the Humble Administrators Garden 拙政园 (zhuozhengyuan). It was stunning, we felt dizzy from the amount of oxygen and fresh air. We meandered around and I fell in love with a particularly nice section of wall with leaves growing all over it. I will go back just to see that wall again.

Next, we went to the highly recommended Tiger Hill 虎丘(huqiu). It is a 300 metre man-made hill, which sounds kinda pathetic, but it was lovely. Gardens and ‘interesting’ rocks (including one called ‘pillow rock’ because it looked like a pillow…seriously?), it also had a little waterfall area and just enough people to be 热闹 (renao- lively) without being 麻烦(mafan- troublesome.)

Grabbing the bus back to the centre of the city, we went to the silk museum 丝绸博物馆(sichou bowuguan) which was FREE and looked at exhibitions dating from 200AD to present day. Silk is what Suzhou is known for, so I felt that I needed to know a bit about it. There were also women working invisible threads of silk into patterns on giant, old-style looms. Definitely worth a look.

Opposite the museum was the North Pagoda Garden, 报恩寺 (bao’ensi), so we climbed the pagoda and admired the not-so-smoggy view of Suzhou, took some deep breaths and reflected that yeah, it had been a pretty fun day.

To burn time before the train, we wanted to play cards and have a slow beer in a pub, 酒吧 (jiuba). We wandered around for hours, asked multiple people (NO! Not Karaoke…BAR!) and ended up drinking over-priced beer in a cafe instead. Nanjing may have a pollution problem at the moment, but hey, at least it has pubs.

At the Humble Administrators Garden (Photo: Emccall 11/13)

View of Suzhou from pagoda (Photo: Emccall 11/13)

VIP

Proof that the next adventure might be just around the corner.

Forgoing the weekend travel for some quality time in Nanjing, some friends and I decided to check out a band that we had seen advertised as part of the International Jazz festival.

There were no details other than the name of the venue, “ZhongShan Golf Resort.” The taxi driver was confused, but after pulling out a couple of maps he nodded to us confidently.

It wasn’t until we pulled up to a set of wrought iron gates that we got any sort of inkling about what was to come. We all simultaneously shrank into our seats as the resort came into view…it was magnificent. Surely, this is the wrong place. We walked through the revolving doors. Surely, they’re going to tell us that they don’t want us riffraff in here. We walked past the dining hall and the indoor pool and up winding staircases. Surely, someone will stop us…
We were then led by a attendant through the building. We heard music drifting through the polished marble corridor. We were almost at the door…and were finally stopped.

The doorman bowed to us, “And…what company were you ladies with tonight?”

Anja stepped forward, “Ah..Nanjing University…?”

We were already planning our hasty retreat.

The doorman paused, confused, he clearly didn’t know whether we were supposed to be there or not. “Oh, international students?”

We nodded simultaneously. The doorman apologised and then bowed us through.

He bowed us through.

“Act like we belong” I hissed to the others, as we stepped into the function room filled with waiters and foreign business people. And canapes. Hesitantly, we found a table and stood to listen to the band. Before long, however, we noticed the bar tender was pouring drinks and leaving them on the bar. I glided (in my thongs) over to the bar and snagged some glasses of Red for us.

No one took any notice.

Then we started eying off the tables laden with food. We walked up and took a truffle each. And ate it. It was delicious!

So from there it was a short step to grabbing plates and piling them high with little delicate cheesecakes and chocolates and shot glasses of yoghurt and then to decide we needed to eat dinner there too and so we grabbed oysters and caviar and Western food which we hadn’t even seen in over a month.

Eating and drinking and dancing to the band from Belgium (Les Busiciens, check them out!), only in China.

On the way out we got given the band’s CD, a gift bag, a voucher to use the golf range and were wished a ‘safe flight home’

“Thankyou” I replied, as the manager handed me his business card and asked me to return soon “It was a splendid evening.”

We then got the doorman to call us a taxi to the top of the driveway, as everyone else had remembered to arrange for a chauffeur.

(Check out Les Busicians at: http://www.busiciens.be/en/index.html)

The golf resort (Photo: emccall 10/13)

The band playing in the Function Room
(Photo: Emccall 10/13)

North Zhejiang, Lin’An Mountain

Go to historically significant place, buy ticket, wait in line, push past other tourists, take photo, go home.

Why does China only seem to cater for this style of travel that allows you afterwards to say “Been there” rather than “Done that”  ? China is a huge, diverse country that has  the potential to satisfy adventure travelers, but even scanning through the Lonely Planet Guide yields very little.

I am totally sick of Chinese style travel.

Myself and Anja decided this whilst in a queue for the umpteenth time.

We tried to buy tickets to mountainous Chengdu (West China, relatively close to Tibet.) Unfortunately we could only find seats on the slowest train (30hours!!)

Determined, we began a hunt frantically for something a bit more accessible from Nanjing (Think: Google searching “Adventure” “China” “Real” “No People” “Mountain”)

Surprisingly, there was one result that seemed to match all of our keywords.

http://www.yejocircle.com

YEJO Circle, a company dedicated entirely to adventure traveling in China, based in Shanghai.

This fairly new, grassroots company offers travel to all areas of China (including Tibet) and  includes kayaking, yoga retreats, martial arts, painting retreats, aqua trekking, rock climbing, horse riding and cultural encounters.

I emailed them with tears in my eyes and we were quickly signed onto to a group which was going to a small mountain village for a few days of mountain climbing, only 5 hours out of Shanghai. Transport, accommodation, home-cooked meals and two amazing guides with a wealth of knowledge about the area all for less than $150.00 AU.

The other travelers came from many different countries but they were all very like-minded, friendly, open people. We quickly swapped WeChat ID’s and agreed to keep in contact.

The actual hiking was very tough, and I was thankful for my expensive hiking gear. The weather unfortunately was less than ideal and I couldn’t remember what it was like to be dry after two days of heavy and constant rain.

Sliding down the side of Ling’An Shan in the mud on my bum, desperately clinging onto a rope tied to a bamboo plant, keeping an eye out for leeches on my socks, wet through from 5 hours out in monsoonal rain, all I could think of was “I am so glad that I didn’t have to wait in line for this” with the biggest grin on my face.

Anja and I left with a bag of wet clothes, new friends, litres of locally brewed 白酒 (baijiu, rice wine) and our heads swimming with plans for our next adventure.

Me, completely wet and completely happy
(Photo: Emccall 10/13)

The view from Lin’An Shan down the valley
(Photo: Emccall 10/13)

City of noodles

Last week I went to Xi’An for the 中秋节 (zhong qiu jie) translated as Mid-Autumn festival but also known in English as the Moon Lantern Festival. We had a few days off of classes and I wanted to make the most of my free-time.

The train ride was 14 hours there, which sounds awful, but was actually a great chance to get a look at the countryside and to catch up on sleep. I was travelling with a friend from Nanjing Uni, Anja, but she had bought her tickets before me so we were not in the same cabin. I was sharing with two old Chinese men from rural China and another woman. The old men immediately bonded over stories of their childhood and a love of the same cheap cigarette brand. I didn’t have much to do with them other than to compliment one on his cap (leopard print, the words “Super Fresh” on it) and to ask the other one whether his wonderful waistcoat was handmade (it was, his wife knitted it for him 30 years ago.) The woman seemed more interested in consuming three bags of food, so I let her be.

I’ve been to Xi’An before, so I wasn’t really that blown away by it, other than to note the incredible amount of development since I was there in 2010 (apparently, it’s set to be the next boom city in China.) But it really is a nice city, the ancient city wall is worth going to and bike riding along so that you can see the dichotomy between the city inside of the wall (temples, winding streets, markets) and the sprawl of modern buildings and shopping centres as far as the eye can see on the outside.

People often say that Xi’An is worth visiting purely because of the 兵马俑 (bingmayong) terracotta warriors, however, I would beg to differ. Yeah, UNESCO world heritage site. Yeah, ancient. Yeah, 80 years to create. Yeah, individually crafted faces from an incredibly influential period of Chinese history.

But…let me know how the warriors compare when you’ve eaten the food in Xi’An. Think: Giant 包子(baozi), dough filled with tofu, vegetables or meat, handmade and available for 1yuan each in the mornings (equivalent: $0.05 AU.) For lunch, grab some handmade noodles in broth with a variety of ingredients for less than 8 yuan ($1.40 AU.) Don’t forget to try the Xi’An specialty noodle variety, 面 (biangbiangmian) which is indescribable and so amazing that it requires the most strokes of any Chinese character still in contemporary use (58 strokes.)

We also went to the Muslim quarter and browsed through overpriced knickknacks and incredible foods and spices which were being prepared using traditional methods.

You really only need a couple of days in Xi’An, maybe check out the Big Goose Pagoda if you have time (very touristy, but has wonderful Buddhist artwork inside.) The Small Goose pagoda isn’t worth the trip, and most of the shopping that you can do in Xi’An (other than food) is designer. The Shaanxi Museum is apparently worth a look-in but it has odd opening and closing times (which we got foiled by.)

Also, Xi’An is difficult to navigate and GPS doesn’t work too well in China generally. Buy a map! Or a lonely planet travel guide…

My favourite thing about Xi’An though, is walking aimlessly through the winding old alleys. I did this for only an hour or so and came across a beautiful functioning Taoist temple which wasn’t even on the map.

Back on a slightly faster train (250km per/hr) for an 8 hour trip back to Nanjing. 1 hour sleep. 8am class.

Vendor in the Muslim quarter
(Photo: Emccall 09/13)

Riding on the city wall, a dichotomy
(Photo: Emccall 09/13)