The Last of China, and Zooming Home

The Last of China, and Zooming Home

Guilin, Yangshuo and Nanning 
May 28 – June 12, 2009

As we headed south and east from Kunming, to Guilin, Yanshuo and Nanning, the weather became progressively hotter and muggier. We spent several hours in the middle of the day hanging out in our hotel rooms, fans whirling. We even resorted to using the air-conditioners: they were too tempting!

Guilin and Yangshuo are real tourist hot spots. As usual, Chinese tourists far outnumber western ones, but there were more westerners than we've seen anywhere previously. And there were more signs in English (although still precious few) and way more restaurants catering to western palates.

It was in Guilin that we had our first really good meal. The meals in Yangshuo were even better. So now we can say that we did have some good food in China.

In Yangshuo I also saw Chinese women breastfeeding their babies for the first time. Two of them in one night! The ethnic/tribal women all breastfeed, but so far all the Chinese women I've seen have been using bottles of melamine – oops, formula! Not sure if these gals were breastfeeding due to western influences, but whatever the reason, it was good to see that there are at least a few women who are not only breastfeeding, but breastfeeding in public. Both were in their shops, feeding their babies as customers looked over their merchandise (as it were).

It was also in Yangshuo that I saw many many older women and men with backs bent permanently double. We've seen quite a few throughout our trip here, but there seemed to be an inordinate number in Yangshuo. Hardly surprising given the heavy heavy loads that many people here carry, day after day.

Guilin and Yangshuo were basically just glitzy shopping malls, as all Chinese tourist cities are. But they did have some nice walking streets and parks. And they are both blessed with rivers running through them.

In Guilin we were lucky to catch a wonderful martial arts and dance performance put on by about a hundred kids – some very small. They did several long and complex choreographed numbers, mostly pretty high energy. One of the dances was to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy, although the words, in Chinese, were likely quite different. They wore very bright costumes – sparkly neon oranges, pinks, greens and yellows. The 'older' kids (maybe 12-14) did a couple of ballroom dance numbers – mostly Latin salsa and jazz dances. Very professional. It's easy to see why the Chinese scoop up the trophies in ballroom dance competitions: they start young!

Right after the show we walked across the main square to watch one of the main attractions in Guilin: the Waterfall Hotel. At 8:30 sharp every night the hotel becomes a waterfall. It is quite incredible. One whole side of the hotel, some 15 stories high, is a sheer black glass wall. It's length is a convex curve, maybe 60 feet long – or more. The waterfall – great gushes of water – comes cascading over the top of the wall. Huge white lights make it look even more dramatic, and there's musical accompaniment to boot. It lasts for about 20 minutes. Towards the end there are 'super-gushes' of water along some sections of the wall that make the whole building look like a wedding cake. Quite a sight.

We also went for a long walk into the countryside around Guilin. Saw lots of great flowers, along with the usual amazing rice paddies and gardens. The Chinese are great gardeners.

In Yangshuo we went for a 'bamboo raft' trip up and down the Li River. The 'bamboo raft' was in fact made of PVC pipe, which the boatman assured us was 'much better' than bamboo. I'm sure it is, in terms of durability, but somehow it just doesn't have the same romantic quality. Still and all the ride, through a landscape of fantastic karsts, was lovely.

We also took a nice bike ride in the countryside near Yangshuo, pedaling on dirt paths through karsts and rice paddies.

Nanning had no redeeming features. Just one big modern shopping mall. And because it's not such a touristy place, we were back to the usual fare of yukky cold and tasteless food. I even managed to get a stomach bug there (hardly surprised when the food, most of which is served buffet style, is pretty much cold by the time you get it).

Caught a bus from Nanning to Hanoi. Around 8 hours, including the border stop. Must admit we felt relieved to be back in Vietnam. The landscape, through less developed and certainly with its share of garbage dumped by the side of the road, was somehow friendlier than the Chinese landscape. Everything on a smaller scale, not so monumental. And much less developed.

Hanoi was, well, Hanoi. Big and bustling and busy. We had some good meals – at last! - and bought some more embroidered t-shirts. We exchanged books. And I uploaded writings and photos to blogspot and flickr, neither of which I'd been able to access during our last two weeks in China. It was nice to be back in a land of (relative) freedom – of information and expression.

It was also wonderful, absolutely wonderful, to be in a land of clean toilets. I took two photos of 'the last Chinese toile, for posterity, and in the hopes that I never see another one:























From Hanoi we flew to Bangkok, jumped on a bus to the Bangkok train station, and got there just in time to catch an overnight train to Butterworth, Malaysia. The Thai train was ... fantastic. Such a difference from Chinese trains.

First: QUIET! No one shouting into a cell phone. No raucous groups all yelling to be heard over one another. No one throat-clearing, hoiking and spitting noisily morning, noon and night. The Thais are such a wonderfully soft-spoken people. We even heard people whispering for the first time in months! Also, there was no loud canned 'music' (patriotic songs and/or screeching Chinese opera), no political nationalistic harangues, and no annoying t.v. sound tracks which, on Chinese trains, played the entire time, until lights out at 10 pm. It was glorious!

Second: PRIVACY! The berths all had curtains, unlike the 'open plan' in the Chinese trains. It was nice not to feel so totally exposed when you were changing, sleeping, etc.

Third: CLEAN sheets and pillow cases. In China the linens on the trains are just folded up and re-used. Yuk. On the Thai train we got sealed plastic bags with fresh linens. A steward came and made up our beds. He brought us drinks and dinner. He was friendly and courteous.

Fourth: TOILET PAPER in the bathrooms, and much cleaner bathrooms, including one western style toilet.

Fifth: ROOM to move. Instead of three tiers of berths, there are only two, so you can actually sit up on both lower and upper berths. And they're arranged along the long axis of the train, on either side, so that the aisle is wider than on the Chinese trains, where the berths are arranged perpendicular to the long access, with a narrow corridor on one side, and silly fold-down seats in the corridor that make it impossible to walk up and down without tripping over peoples' feet and belongings, which are of course stacked in the aisle because there's nowhere else to put them.

Sixth: READING LIGHTS! There were no reading lights on the Chinese trains. Maybe because few people read. On the other hand, the overhead lighting was kept on all night, which was a little annoying. But still...

Looking out the window of the train at the passing landscapes – rice paddies still, but now studded with palm trees – it all seemed much gentler, much less monumental, than the Chinese landscapes. Everything in China is so large scale. Here in Thailand the farming was less orderly – there were lots of untended fields, wild areas. It felt somehow calmer, more serene. I felt I could relax... .

As we approached the border between Thailand and Malaysia a few Malays came onto the train and stashed bags of Thai rice under all of the seats. We've seen the rice smuggling many times before. Thai rice is highly prized. The train guys were clearly in on the smuggling, helping stow the bags behind bags of linens and under seats. Most of this rice is not for sale, but for family consumption. Pretty funny. And relatively harmless.

More serious smuggling was being done by a young Chinese couple (there are many Chinese in Malaysia). Again with the assistance of the train crew, they had stashed large packages of some kind of fabric or clothing (Thai silk?) in the overhead compartments of the train. Once the train pulled away from the border, they started collecting them up and putting them into two HUGE new suitcases and a third very large bag. Clearly this was a business.

Somehow the smuggling being done by this young well-heeled couple summed up what I feel is one of the main hallmarks of China and the Chinese: it's all about money. Getting and spending, getting and spending. China is indeed the new Asian America. Chinerica.

Here in Malaysia there are three distinct ethnic groups: Malay, who are mostly Muslim, Indian, who aer mostly Hindu, and Chinese. Despite the fact that they are in the minority, in terms of numbers, it is the Chinese who control Malaysia's economy. They own all of the big, and most of the small, businesses – certainly all the real money-makers. The Malays however control the government. The Indians control nothing, but make up the majority of the money changers on the street, and definitely make some of the best food in the country.

Sign of the Times

December 2010

 

Traveling in foreign countries can sometimes be trying.  Especially when there’s little English spoken, or written.  It’s hard to get answers to questions like ‘How do I get to Dali?”  or  “Where’s the bus station?”  or  “When does the train leave?”  

 

Fortunately, there is often considerable comic relief in the English that is written – on signs and t-shirts and menus. 

 

In China, Li Jiang and Shangri La topped the list for hilarious signs.  

 

In Li Jiang the beautifully carved wooden signs with green or yellow lettering exhorted tourists and travelers alike to act in a ‘civilized’ manner: 

 

To be a Civilized Tourist Please Keep the Place Clean

To be a Civilized Citizen Littering prohibited!

To be a Civilized Citizen Please walk bicycles and motorcycles

Do not make noise in the civilized ancient town

It is everybody’s duty to take the ancient town fire prevention

Beware of slip

Or how about this one, not far from our

lodgings in Li Jiang....

Sexy Tractor: Your Living room in Lijiang

Wine and dine happily and healthily – Do not waste food!

Don’t fouch me, or I will feel a shamed

Less footprints, more aroma

Mountains and rivers will be your friends and you will be with good reputation as a civilized tourist

Cherish the environment please, or beauty will lose 

Green mountain is good to your health and the clear water makes you pleasant

Beautify our lives, purify our minds

You cherish my life, I repay your meadow

Grass-selling Square

Adore the green, embrace the life

Enjoy the cool under tree, beantify the homeland on us

Keep away from the green grass

Waste papers you pick, deep affections you send

…and our favourite… 

Twenty-five Wonderful Things about China

June 9, 2009

1. Stately tree-lined country roads and urban streets. Especially the big old trees, green and graceful, offering shade and shelter, and reminders of the abiding beauty of the natural environment.
2. Tile roofs with upturned corners. So lyrical and light.
3. Free exercise equipment in many parks and playgournds. Sturdy, colourful machines for exercising legs, arms, torso and heart. Well-used, especially in the evenings, when many Chinese come out for their daily exercise.
4. Temples. Everywhere.
5. Women who still dress up in style and can go anywhere in high heels – down uneven cobblestone streets, through muddy paths and across narrow, broken wood-slat bridges.
6. People with lots of time to play mah jong, cards, Chinese checkers, and go, or just sit or stand around drinking tea and watching others play.
7. All things old and ancient.
8. Colourful, friendly minority ethnic groups, especially in Yunnan, where their numbers are plentiful. Especially the ones who still dress in traditional garb, not just for tourists, but for themselves. Who keep their culture alive despite pervasive attempts to Disneyfy.
9. Kites. Wonderful, complicated, colourful, fun and free.
10. Solar water heaters on almost every roof. Subsidized by the Chinese government. And they work like a hot ....!
11. Beautiful night lights. Flood-lit buildings, bridges and trees in warm golds and greens. Fancy street lamps in all colours of the rainbow. Huge neon signs with brilliant multi-coloured lights blinking, swirling, waving. Night symphonies of colour and light.
12. Manicured gardens everywhere. Everything in neat rows. No weeds.
13. Cobble-stone and flag-stone streets. 
14. Hair cuts that come with a half-hour massage – head, neck, shoulders, back, arms and hands. Wonderful!
15. Children. Cute, curious and very friendly. “Hello!” “Hello!” As always the best ambassadors.
16. Trains that run absolutely on time. Absolutely. To the minute.
17. Electric motorcycles. So clean and quiet. What a difference from Vietnam!
18. Evening dancing in the park, square or street. In almost every city folks gather at night and dance together. In some places they do traditional dances in a big circle. In others, ballroom dancing. The music is canned, but lively. It's absolutely free, everyone is welcome, and everyone joins in. They have such fun!
19. Incredibly intricate and beautiful wood carvings, everywhere. Temples, houses, hotels, around windows, on doors. Birds, flowers, animals, Chinese symbols. Some painted gay colours, some 'au naturel.' Whichever, always a feast for the eyes.
20. Cheap buses. Just 20 cents will get you where you want to go.
21. Walking streets. Every city has a pedestrian area. No cars. No motorcycles, often not even any bicycles. Street and food vendors set up in them. 
22. Beautiful mosaics created by patch-work rice paddies in the flat valley bottom, or by terraces cascading down the mountainsides. Flooded and shimmering, or glowing green with new growth. Often enhanced by the sight of peasants with hat and hoes and once in a while by water buffalos working the fields.
23. Bonsais and bamboo.
24. Cheap beer. Not too strong, but not too bad – and the price is right!
25. People's Parks in every town and city. All with lovely gardens, big old trees, bamboo stands, flowers and water features like lotus ponds, rivers with carved stone bridges or lakes with boats for rent (pedal, row and electric motor). Tea-houses or pavilions where you can play games – mah jong, cards, checkers – or do tai chi or yoga. And best of all, people playing music and dancing. Solitary musicians practicing their scales by the edge of the pond. Duets and groups plugging in their sound equipment and playing for whoever stops to listen. People clapping, people sing,ing people dancing to the music. And right beside them another group singing and dancing another tune, another drummer. And several dancercize groups where lithe young men and women lead participants in fast-paced but graceful dance-aerobic numbers. For me, the People's Parks, and what goes on within them, may be The Most Wonderful Thing about China.

 

Eastern and Western Attitudes towards 'Moral' Behaviour

June 8, 2009

This morning we met a Japanese man at Mimosa, our favourite cafe in Yangshuo. He was sitting by himself at a table, busily writing something in English, and conferring with the waitress about translation into Chinese. We were having breakfast.

He was a typically neat and trim Japanese fellow, late middle-age, wearing a light blue tailored shirt and dark slacks. He looked like a professor or business man without a suit jacket.

At one point he looked up from his endeavours and said 'hello!' It was clear he wasn't Chinese, but not clear where he was from, so we asked him, and he answered, “Japan, from a city about half-way between Tokyo and the island of Hokkaido.”

In his own words, he's 'half-retired,' and has been coming to Yangshuo for a couple of months every few months to learn Chinese. He intends, once he learns it, to travel more widely in China.

He stood up and approached our table. “My wallet was stolen yesterday,” he said, patting his pants pocket and shaking his head. “So I am writing this message. Can I read it to you?”

Here's what it said:

“Please make China an even more fantastic country. If any of you friends are about to lose their conscience, then please tell them the story below for their own good. To steal something from others means to throw away your conscience which was given to you by your parents who wanted you to be happy. Happiness exists only in a sound mind.”

He wanted to know if the English was correct. Later that day I saw him again. He had a handful of printed papers. He gave me one. The word 'conscience' had been changed to 'morals.' As the saying here goes, 'same same but different.'

What intrigues me is the very different approach taken in the east towards 'bad behaviour.' Appealing to the higher moral being, making reference to parents, and the concept of happiness. Here in the East these things still appear to have some meaning, to exercise some influence on people's behaviour.

I mentioned this to him, and said, laughing, that in the West, our response to a stolen wallet would more likely go something like this: “if you're gonna steal stuff, you're gonna get caught, maybe by the police. And then you're gonna be sorry.” Crime and punishment.

Although I liked his approach I couldn't imagine it having any effect at all in the West, where morals seem to have gone awol, and parents are definitely passe. Where most people wouldn't have any idea what a 'sound mind' was, and would define 'happiness' quite differently.
And I wonder, given the rapid pace of Westernization in China (and other Asian countries), especially among the i-savvy, hip-hopped and hyped-up young, how much longer his approach, as high-minded as it is, will be effective here.... .

The real China – I’m Lovin’ It!

From Xi-Chang to Xi'an, Chengdu, and Kunming by bus and train, May 14-28, 2009

Cigarettes and cell phones, the air thick with smoke and Chin-chat, loud. There is no other volume.  Cities redolent of urine, shit, vomit and garbage. Eau de Chine.  No fragrant incense here to mask the rude odours of the great unwashed; the smoke from raw Chinese cigarettes a poor but often welcome screen.

 

So many people everywhere. And so noisy.  Nonstop talking. Loud, shrill, insistent voices hammering home their points at one another.  The China din starts well before six am, and carries on, a constant cacophony until well after midnight. When the dogs start barking.

 

Cities so Western – concrete, glass and steel.  Cars, buses, trucks everywhere –even on the sidewalks.  This could be Chicago, New York, Vancouver. No oriental flavour here to savour.  

 

But the language survives, thrives – no English here – nary a word or sign: no catering to foreign tourists.  There is no need: so many Chinese tourists, spending spending spending. Big Yuan.

 

Communism well replaced (and replaced well?) with Consumerism, writ large. Unbridled Capitalism.  All the big name brands – Nike Converse KFC Starbucks Hilton Holiday Inn Toyota Honda – are here.  And all the most exclusive, most expensive brands are here too – Mercedes BMW Gucci Hugo Boss Ralph Lauren Dior Dunhill Luis Vuitton – and doing well.

 

But is that bag a Gucci?  Is that watch a Rolex?  Is that belt real leather?  There are no regulations here, and even if there were, no one would heed them, no one enforce them. Anything and everything goes.  China is the counterfeit capital of the world: buyer beware!

 

The Chinese who have money – and there are plenty who do – have lots of it. And like to spend it. Like to buy things that make them look good.  It's all about face. Appearances. China's about face: from stringent Communism to rampant Capitalism in just a few short years: Where to next?

 

Women in cocktail dresses, baby-doll pajamas, poofy-hemmed curtain dresses, tight mini-skirts.  Like Disney dolls, in Minnie Mouse and Betty Boop outfits. Big buttons and bows, knock-off Gucci purses, and always high heels, strappy high heels, clattering down cobble-stone streets, tip-toeing through mud puddles and seas of litter.

 

Little girls in fairy dresses and party shoes, pink and white princesses.  

Babies with great gaping holes in the bums of their pants – crotch coolers? - being held out over the sidewalk by squatting parents, whispering shh, shh, shh...  

Puddles of piss, baby and otherwise, all along the street.

 

And globs of phlegmy goo. Hoiking and spitting a national pass-time.  More dangerous and disgusting than the globs underfoot the flying globs – spat out the windows of passing cars and buses.

 

Walkers vie for space in the streets with buses, trucks and cars.  They stand, like rocks in a fast-flowing river, the stream of traffic momentarily separating to go around them, but never stopping – there is no stopping!

 

With luck, a critical mass of pedestrians builds up, enough to coax first one car, then another, to slow down or even – wow! - stop, for just a second.  Pedestrians dash across, watching out in all directions: nowhere is one completely safe, not even on the sidewalk.

 

Motorcycles in particular may come from anywhere – they obey no traffic rules at all – don't stop for red lights, ride on the sidewalk, sail the wrong way up one-way streets, and even highways... but then so do cars and buses.

 

China's finest, street-corner cops, sheltering under Coca-cola and Macdonald's umbrellas: I'm lovin' it!  Particularly fitting as no one pays these, or any, authority figures the least attention: regulations abound, enforcement's non-existent.

 

If you have a problem, don't call the police. They're busy drinking coffee, having a smoke, reading a paper, playing a game of checkers, sleeping, smiling. Or riding around on their dinky blue and white scooters with their fellow police persons. 

 

We have yet to see a police person doing anything remotely like 'policing.' Perhaps there is no need here. Certainly we have seen no crime – no one even misbehaving. No punks on the street, no graffiti, no reckless driving (well, that's relative...). 

 

If I lived in China I'd like to be a police person: nice uniforms, cushy job and a free scooter! Yes!

 

We travel through the countryside by bus and train, passing through mile after mile of agricultural mosaic – rice paddies, wheat fields, corn, garlic, tea, vegetables – carefully tended, all by hand.  In all our travels we've seen just a handful of tractors, one or two rototillers.

 

China's agricultural production is achieved, almost entirely, by peasants with shovels and hoes.  They are out there, from dawn until dusk, backs bent to their labour.  China is literally feeding herself on the backs of her peasants.

 

Fields interspersed with drab, dingy towns; heavy, gray Soviet-style buildings and apartment blocks.  

Piles of brick, rock, sand, dotted everywhere, blocking sidewalks, roadways – what are they all for?  

Acres of rubble, covering up old farmland, old rice paddies – what are they going to do here?

 

We cross over rivers long dry – dammed and damned.  And in the rocky river bed, back-hoes and trucks busy mining sand and gravel, digging great holes, making big piles, hauling the rocks and sand away to build more roads, prepare new lands (most previously agricultural) for housing, factories... . 

No fish in the rivers here – there’s no water and nowhere to hide from the hungry.

We wind through mountains scraped and scarred to make roads, grand double-lane highways, freeways. 

 

But where are the cars?  

We pass by miles and miles of new roads with nary a vehicle. 

Who and what are these roads for?

 

 

Careening through these landscapes, no choice but to listen to endless dreadful screeching music, people screaming on their cell phones, or at one another, all talking at once, talking talking talking.  

The Chinese do not know how to be quiet, do not know quiet.

 

Stopping for a 'nutrition' break – nothing to eat but watery noodle soup, a few green weeds masquerading as vegetables.  Or a mountain of rice and a few pieces of pickled cucumber.  Stale popcorn, undercooked potatoes, tough corn on the cob, warm sodas and soft drinks.

 

In the bigger cities, where western tourists are more plentiful, a few restaurants produce somewhat better food. But still always too oily, and often too hot.  Coffee $3-5 a cup, and tea – Chinese tea! - not much cheaper.  We leave most restaurants disappointed, and often hungry.

 

We ask 'where's that great Chinese food we get in Vancouver (San Francisco, Singapore)?'  'Ah, that's not 'real' Chinese food! That's Americanized, westernized Chinese food!'  No chow mein or chop suey here. No sweet and sour spare ribs. No lettuce wraps.  Few vegetables or fruits.  It's noodles and rice, rice and noodles.

 

We watch the Chinese chowing down on rice with soups of chicken heads and feet, pigs' livers, and unidentifiable innards.  

More often it's just instant noodle soups, the Chinese staple food, eaten on the run.  

Or KFC or Dicos – its Chinese cousin.  

I'm lovin' it!

 

Public toilets are despicable. 

We find the toilets by their stench: 'just follow your nose!'  

Inside no separate cubicles: a long, open, cement or tile trough runs alongside the walls.  

The stink inside is overpowering: you hold your breath.

 

You squat over the trough, in front of or behind someone else.  You do your business, trying not to look at anyone else, although they have no compunction about staring at you – do foreigner's shit like we do?  

You avoid looking down into the trough, try not not to splash.

 

There's no water to flush. Of course no toilet paper.  

No water either to wash your hands; maybe a hose outside where someone's doing their laundry, or washing a fish... . 

Maybe not.

 

In hotels and guest-houses we use clean toilets, gratefully. Still we are instructed not to toss the toilet paper in the toilet.  It goes in the disgusting overflowing bin beside the toilet – or the floor if no bin's provided. 

 

And this a nation where everyone has a cell-phone, where cells work everywhere, where high-speed internet access is accessible everywhere.  

A nation proud of its space program, its medical advances, its advanced education.  

So what's with their toilets? 

Why can't they get their shit together?

 

But wait! Here come the symbols of the ‘real’ China!

 

A young man in pleated pants and a tailored shirt, holding a cell phone against his ear with one hand, and a cigarette with the other; weaving gaily through pedestrians and vehicles on his red motorcycle, helmetless and happy.

 

A young woman in rough peasant clothes, bent over double, a baby on her back, and up to her knees in the muddy water of the rice paddy, planting fistfuls of young rice as night falls, wondering what she will give her family for supper.

 

The 'real' China: I'm lovin' it!