Snapshots

I took more pictures on this trip than I have on any other trip, ever. Still, there were many things that I wanted to capture with a camera but couldn’t. Sometimes my photography skills just weren’t up to the job. Sometimes a particular moment happened so quickly it was impossible to have the camera ready. Sometimes it just felt disrespectful to photograph people as though they themselves were tourist attractions (although many Chinese people didn’t feel that compunction towards us waiguoren). Sometimes what I wanted to capture was less a particular scene than a more general impression.

I’m afraid my skill with words is not much better than my skill with a camera; nonetheless, here you are—snapshots of China in words:

The bottle collectors

There’s a Chinese expression, “chi ku,” which means “eating bitterness.” It’s used to describe any kind of miserable situation, but in some contexts it can be used with a kind of admiration for those who can “eat bitterness” and persevere. One picture that I would have liked to have captured, to my mind, epitomizes this expression. The picture is a woman, or maybe an older man, with stringy hair and a sun-tanned face, wrapped in ragged clothes that, like the person that inhabits them, haven’t been washed in awhile. The person has a big, gray, woven plastic bag slung over her shoulder, and is digging through the trash can outside the department store with a stick. There are people in Shanghai who earn money by collecting plastic bottles, digging through trash cans or dumpsters to find them. Nasty work, as you can likely imagine. They earn 1 yuan (about $0.12) for every 10 plastic bottles they turn in. This picture would capture the drudgery, the resignation to such lowly work. The determination to find enough bottles so that his or her family can eat this week. “Chi ku.”

High heels

Women in high heeled shoes seem to be ubiquitous in China. One of my Chinese friends tells me it’s because so many Chinese women are short. I suppose, things being relative and all, that high heels aren’t so bad for a culture that used to espouse foot-binding, but still… Many Chinese women wear high heels all the time—not just when they’re dressed up, but even when they’re wearing jeans and t-shirts. Now, I can understand why a shorter woman might want to wear heels to look nice when she was dressed up (except that if everyone is short and no one wore heels, everyone would be a similar height and no one would be uncomfortable…), but these women carry the heel-wearing to extremes. For example, Daniel and I hiked two butt-blaster mountains while we were in China (and walked up a couple more that weren’t quite as steep), and in both places there were women climbing those stairs in heels. And not sturdy heels either, but the stiletto kind with beads and bows. Ouch.

Urumqi head scarves (while I’m on the subject of women’s fashion)

One of the distinctive features of Urumqi is its sampling of different ethnicities and religious practices. I really enjoyed seeing all of the different headscarves that many of the women here wore. Some wore the full-length, cover everything, only dark eyes showing out from underneath, type robes. Others just tied sheer scarves--often silk interwoven with gold or silver thread in intricate patterns--so that the scarf covered most of the top of their heads and was tied at the back of their neck.

An NBA fan

The area where Daniel and I stayed in Chengdu was really close to a Tibetan neighborhood. One night, we went wandering through this area and chose a little Tibetan restaurant for dinner. The food was just alright, but it was fascinating to watch the other diners. A table full of shirtless men were eating and chatting and generally making an evening of it. A waitress sat at another table, sipping a coke and watching music videos on the TV hung from the ceiling. A couple of Tibetan monks, dressed in the traditional maroon and gold robes, were sitting by the door where they could enjoy the occasional breeze. We finished eating and got up to leave. As we were almost to the door, one of the monks pointed to Daniel’s feet and said, in English, “Wow! So big!! You can play in the NBA! Play with Shaquille O’Neal!!!”

Bike carts and hand-pulled wagons

I actually tried to take a picture of a couple of bike carts in Shanghai, but the picture didn’t turn out so well. It’s a common sight in every Chinese city I’ve ever visited (except maybe Chongqing, where the porters carry packages hung from poles across their shoulders)—a bike cart or hand-pulled cart, loaded so high that the pedaler or puller disappears when you look from behind. Bottles, wood, vegetables or fruit, old computer parts, furniture, rubbish, people…it seems anything can be loaded on one of these carts. Old men, women, young teens, lots of people use these things to get stuff where it needs to go, lugging it along behind them, struggling either with pedals or rough wooden handles. And the carts seem to always be piled with stuff at least several feet above the cart, tied on with plastic or twine. Another example of “chi ku.” Add “trucks” and “moving vans” to very long list of things we take for granted in the US.

Smiles in Turpan

Turpan, a small-ish city in the northwest province of Xinjiang, is the second lowest spot on earth. The temperatures there, however, must be among the world’s highest. Maybe because it was so hot, life seemed to move at a slower pace in this city. It was fascinating to wander through the neighborhoods and under the grape-vine arbors and around the commercial areas of this city. The best part, however, was that whenever I smiled at someone here, they all smiled back. Real smiles, too—not just fakey polite smiles, or embarrassed who-are-you type smiles. More like a welcome-to-my-town-hope-you-like-it-here smile. It was truly refreshing—maybe even more so than the frozen bottled waters sold by the street vendors.

“Ni hen piaoliang,” or, “You are very pretty”

This can be a very nice phrase or a very irritating one. I guess there’s no really good way to capture this in a photo; arrange a split-screen in your mind, then just try to imagine on one side a shopkeeper trying to convince me to buy whatever she’s selling, at the price she’s asking for it, and on the other hand, an earnest college student shyly giving me a very nice compliment. In some ways, this little phrase encapsulates one aspect of the waiguoren experience—it’s oftentimes very frustrating to stick out so obviously, but it definitely has its good points. I suppose I shouldn’t mind so much being the target of persistent, forceful, or whiny sales efforts. The flip side of the coin is often rewarding interactions with people who are interested in talking with me for the sole reason that I’m a waiguoren. And of course, it’s always a boost to the ego when I get emails that contain lines such as: “sometimes I really miss the glamour of being with a foreign beauty.” Heh. These kids must not have cable.

Long pinkie fingernails

This was something I thought very strange on my first visit to China. Many men in China (in places that I visited, at least) will let the fingernail on their pinkie finger grow really long. I think it’s supposed to show their status—that they don’t have to do manual labor for a living. And it’s practical of course—useful for digging in various bodily orifices. It’s a small picture of the ironies that so much characterize present-day China—a symbol of development that itself might seem like a mark of backwardness in an already-developed nation. Part of the transition stage, maybe. It’s a fascinating time to be studying China.

Pictures

I've gone back and added links to pictures in some of the posts. If the pictures are from my Webshots page, I took them; otherwise, they were found through Google.

If you want to look at all of my pictures, I've got them all up now: http://community.webshots.com/myphotos?action=viewAllPhotos&albumID=551178662&security=Ibilom

Our river cruise

Our tour of the Yangzi River began in Chongqing. I don’t know why I was surprised, but it startled me I guess that they segregated the waiguoren from the Chinese people. We had our own English-speaking tour guides, our own ship announcements, activities, everything. (Well, we were all together for the nightly entertainment—the crew prepared karaoke songs and minority-group dances for us, and had some games for us to play. Daniel got drafted to play musical chairs with the kids, and then again to dance the “funky chicken.” Tee hee hee.) Our table-mates for meals were all waiguoren of course—4 Canadians and 2 New Zealanders. They were all really nice, and we enjoyed their company. Daniel was thrilled to have someone other than me to talk to. Apparently at first they thought Daniel and I were dating; one of them asked Daniel how long he’d known me, and Daniel was a little confused before he figured it out and explained that we’re brother and sister.

Our first shore excursion was a temple in the “ghost city” of Fuling—didn’t see any ghosts, and the temple decorations were a little strange, but there was some pretty scenery. I got into a conversation with some monks in one of the temples; they’d stopped to look at Daniel’s feet and measure how tall they were next to Daniel. We chatted for a few minutes—it’s always really interesting to see what people want to talk about. The monks told me they didn’t like George W. Bush; I told him a lot of American felt the same way, but that he was our president nonetheless. They asked me if I thought the Iraq war was a mistake. I translated for Daniel and asked what he though; he just looked at me like, “I can’t believe you’re talking politics with MONKS!” and shrugged. I told them I thought maybe it was a mistake, but that I hoped things would be better there in the future. They seemed to accept that.

The next day we went through the first two gorges and enjoyed the stunning scenery. The water of the Yangzi is a brownish-yellow—not really something I’d want to swim in as it’s no doubt polluted, but I think the color mostly comes from silt. Where tributary rivers and streams flowed into the Yangzi, the water was more green/blue. It was all really pretty. All along the river there were signs posed on the banks, showing the level the water would rise to when the Three Gorges Dam project is completed. The water’s already risen a significant amount; several towns are already underwater. Over a million people have had to be resettled. That afternoon we got of the big boat and onto a ferry, which took us up one of the tributary rivers, where we got out of the ferry and into small “peapod” boats that “trackers” paddled and pulled up the stream. Those guys WORK for a living. The water here was clear, and the surrounding mountains incredibly beautiful.

That night we went through the ship locks at the Three Gorges Dam site. There are 5 locks, but the water hasn’t risen high enough yet to make the first lock necessary. It took about 3.5 hours to go through the locks; I went to sleep after the first lock because it was already 1 a.m., and the classical Chinese music “Butterfly Lovers” would be piped through the ship as our wake-up call at 6:30 the next morning.

We woke up to “Butterfly Lovers,” had breakfast, then took a tour of the dam project. The dam is massive, and I have to say the whole compound was impressive. There’s still some controversy about the dam of course, and it has already had some cracks in the concrete, although the Chinese government says they’re normal for big dams and have already been repaired. It would be disaster on a massive, massive scale if this thing burst.

We got of the ship that afternoon and saw a little of the city of Yichang before catching our flight back to Shanghai, ending our grand tour. It was a wonderful trip.

Chengdu and Chongqing

(We're leaving on our cruise down the Yangzi in a little while, so I'm typing in a hurry.)

Chengdu deserves a couple of superlatives:

~Hardest-to-understand taxi drivers. I don't know if they were speaking in the local dialect (or a mixture of dialect and Mandarin) or if it was just the accent, but whatever the reason communication was especially difficult here.
~Friendliest hotel staff/guests. The youth hostel we stayed at in Chengdu wins this one hands down; not only was the room cheap and clean, but the staff spoke excellent English and were super helpful, and the other travelers were fun.
~Least observance of traffic laws. Don't know why, but driving habits here were bad enough to even scare me--a seasoned China traffic traveler--once in a while.
~Most crowded bus. It was a double-decker, and stuffed completely full and then some. I counted 6 people in contact with my person for most of the ride. And it was hot. At least people were friendly.
~Strangest consistent-translation: "overpasses" were called "flyovers." Could be in reference to the local the driving habits, I guess. (**edit: I was reading more of the travel guide book, and it used “flyover” too; I guess I’ve just never heard it called that.)
~Most laid-back atmosphere. Maybe because it's so hot here. Shirts (for men) seemed to be optional, and lots of people wore flip-flops. At any time of day or night, people were relaxing in the parks, hanging out with friends in the restaurants, and taking naps in their cars or under whatever shade they could find.

The panda center in Chengdu doesn't get any superlatives, although it was nice--much better than I had expected, actually. The pandas were fun to see, and the propaganda signs were almost as much fun. One example from in front of one of the enclosures: "I am the national treasure and I don't like noise."

We took a sleeper train to Chongqing, where we were met by our tour guide--the first and only guide on schedule for the grand tour. His were included with the river cruise package, and I had decided since we only had one day in Chongqing before getting on the boat that night, it might be nice to have a car and driver. Anyway, Mr. Zhang met us at the bus station at 7:30 with driver Mr. Wang, and off we went. First to the Liberation Memorial, which is now in the middle of a giant upscale shopping district. Nice. It was fun to watch the early-morning fan dancers and qi-gong-ers though, and it wasn't too crowded because none of the businesses were open yet. After the memorial we went to an old part of town that's been preserved for tourists. I don't think Mr. Zhang was thrilled when we led him away from the tourist part of the street back through the neighborhood, but he didn't complain. We wandered through the area for an hour and a half, then Mr. Wang met us with the car to take us to the Stillwell Museum. General Joseph Stillwell was an old China hand sent by Roosevelt to command the China-Burma-India theater during WWII. He spoke Chinese fluently and understood much about the culture; he also happened to be a tough old bird who called it like he saw it. He was not a big fan of Chiang Kai-shek, and as the feeling was mutual, he eventually was called back to the U.S. before the end of the war. I'm not really sure why Communist China wants to celebrate this American general who worked so closely with Chiang; the museum wasn't opened until the 1990s though, after the U.S. and China were friends again. Anyway, the museum is in the house where Stillwell lived when he was in Chongqing during the war, and it's very nicely done. Lots of pictures, all with English (occasionally Chinglish) captions, and minimum propaganda.

By mid-afternoon we'd seen everything on the itinerary, and I was getting tired of being baby-sat. We had lunch in a hotel, where Mr. Zhang ordered for us then left (to eat elsewhere, I guess). The food was fine, but it made me laugh because Mr. Zhang was like, "Local food here is often spicy, so I just ordered one spicy dish for you to try and some other milder dishes." The spicy dish was gong-bao-jiding (rendered kungpao chicken in the U.S.), which we've had quite often during our 2 months here. Because I know what it is and how to read the characters, it's been kind of a staple for times when I can't read much else on the menu. Anyway, Mr. Zhang and Mr. Wang were nice, but I wasn't sad to leave them when we got to the boat. We stowed our luggage and set of wandering (Daniel's favorite! hehe) to find an internet bar.

Tomorrow and the next day we'll be on the Yangzi, stopping occasionally to visit some side-sights, then going through the three gorges and to the Three Gorges Dam site. Should be fun!

Street Food

Street food is one of my favorite things about traveling in China. Daniel refuses to eat it--he's grossed out by the fact that it's often cooked over coals in a metal pan or on the top of a fifty-gallon drum. (**UPDATE: I win!!! Daniel has started selectively eating street food! Muahahaha!) But I really don't think it's unsanitary. Occasionally I've come across a street-food vendor that doesn't look exactly clean, but I think the food is generally ok. Anyway, baozi are of course a long-time favorite, but I've discovered several new treats this trip:

Giant greasy onion pancake: found in Yangzhou and sometimes in Shanghai. Batter is spread over the top of a greased 50-gallon drum; egg and onion is added. A greasy but tasty treat once in a while.

Tiger Paws (couldn't find a picture, sorry!): Found at the center of the human mob by the Shanghai hotel. Dough is kneaded, beaten rolled, pinched, then half-cut into quadrants to make the paw shape, then somehow stuck to the inside of some kind of modified 50-gallon drum with coals in the bottom and cooked. Butter and a little sugar are thrown into the drum, then the paws are pulled out with tongs to the delight of the mob which has by this time gathered. Kind of like a bagel/soft pretzel/bun, with a hint of sweetness.

Green-bean popsicles: Ok, not exactly street food, but they're sold in just about every shop along the road, so they kind of qualify. I've long loved red-bean popsicles, but discovered recently that the green variety are just as tasty.

Spicy "lamb-burger": Found in Luoyang and Xi'an, it's a bun with a crunchy crust, shaped kind of like an English muffin, cut in half and stuffed with spicy mutton or beef and green bell pepper.

Nan (also naan, and various spellings/pronunciations): I think it was originally an Indian or Middle Eastern dish, but it's an Urumqi specialty. Daniel calls it "Muslim bread" and likes it a lot. It comes in different shapes, mostly flat like pita bread or pizza crust. Quite tasty.

Kebobs: Found throughout China, but especially good in Xinjiang and Chengdu. The spices are better here, I think. You can find lots of different meats, seafood, veggies, songbirds, tofu...you name it, it's probably on a stick on some kebob vendor's stand.

Yummm...typing about them makes me hungry. Don't be surprised when I come home fat (er)!
I'll add to this post as I discover new delicacies on our grand tour.

Urumqi and Tian Chi

Urumqi is a fascinating city. It's a nice city, in terms of weather and relative cleanliness; I keep wanting to take pictures of the sky--I guess because it's been awhile since I've seen actual blue sky, clouds, and sunsets. Incidentally, the sun doesn't set here until about 10 p.m. As Daniel put it, the sissy businesses close around 10-11 p.m., but the hard-core shop owners stay open til midnight or later. Close to our hotel there is a giant night market, with an entire street dedicated to street food. Kabobs of lamb, beef, sparrow, liver, seafood (in the world's most land-locked city, interestingly enough), bread and other ingredients wait to be grilled; noodles of all different shapes and varieties, rice pilaf, dumplings, soft serve ice cream, yoghurt, and all kinds of fruit are either sold from street-side stands or carried through the crowd on platters or in boxes.

Yesterday morning we slept in a little and we went to the Urumqi museum--one of the best I've been to in China. There was an entire exhibit about Xinjiang's minority cultures (13 of them, with Uighurs being the largest, and including such others as Kazakh, Hui, Manchu, Russian, Tajik, Mongolian, and Bulgarian), with mannequins in traditional dress, cases of jewelry, musical instruments, and handicrafts, and rooms set up in the styles of the different living arrangements. There were a couple rooms of yurts--giant circular tents. Another exhibit had displays of mummies from the days of the silk road--some 4,000 years old, but in remarkable condition, and displayed very well. We also enjoyed the air-conditioning during the heat of the day.

That evening I left Daniel in the hotel and went wandering. I walked up to People's Park (there's one in every Chinese city, I think) and then caught a bus and rode it almost all the way around. I got off in the Muslim quarter and wandered around there for awhile, picking up some street food to snack on for dinner. The bread I liked a lot, but the pomegranate juice was a little sour. I walked almost the whole way back to the hotel, but as I wasn't exactly sure where I was I decided to take a taxi to the night market and wander through there before walking back. There's just a huge mass of humanity in places like the Muslim bazaar and the night market--it fascinates me, but it wears me out! I was happy to get back to the hotel.

Today we took a day trip to Tian Chi--Heavenly Lake, north of Urumqi. We got up extra early to catch the bus--a minibus operated by a tour company. They packed us in and we were off on a 2.5 hour ride through the desert. They played ridiculously awful music for most of the ride, and described (in Chinese) the special features of Xinjiang, Urumqi, and the minority cultures. I liked this better than the music of course, but it didn't do much for Daniel. He was immensely grateful for his MP3 player.

We finally arrived, were given instructions to be back at the bus at 4:30 p.m., and set off on our trek uphil to the lake. We wound our way up the mountain along a river rushing through incredibly beautiful scenery. A pleasant temperature of 65-70 degrees made the day that much better. Finally we reached the lake. It was a beautiful blue-green, surrounded by mountains. We thoroughly enjoyed our half day there, although I was really disappointed that we didn't get to eat lunch in a yurt.

The ride back was much less enjoyable. The terrible music was back in full-force--a mixture of American dance music and Chinese pop--ugh. For some reason they didn't turn the air conditioner on, although the day had gotten significantly warmer and the sun was strong. We stopped to "xiuxi"--rest--supposedly. Then we had to stop to change a tire. Then to visit a suvenier shop. Please, just take us back!! Finally, we were back in Urumqi and caught a taxi back to the hotel. We hit the night market for a street-food dinner, and then back to "xiuxi" and pack for our plane ride tomorrow to Chengdu--stop number 4 on the grand tour!

Days 4 and 5 of the Grand Tour -- Xi'an and Urumqi

After visiting the Terra-cotta Warriors in Xi'an, we had dinner at a local restaurant recommended by the guidebook. The "yang-rou-pao-mo" was excellent (but I think it was almost as good at the hole-in-the-wall place where we had lunch the next day). Basically it's bread pieces in a mutton soup with mutton, onion, maybe some cilantro, and some other spices. It's a Xi'an specialty, and it's quite tasty. After dinner, we wandered through a tent market with souvenirs and lots of dried fruit and then down the walking street by the Drum Tower and browsed for a while (Daniel's favorite!) The next day, we went back to the street for lunch, and then to the Xi'an city walls. We rented bikes, and rode on the wall, 14 km around the old city. A little hot, and noticeably polluted (as China's cities tend to be), but quite nice. After our exercise, we wandered the downtown part of the city by the Bell Tower, then back to the walking street for street food before we caught a taxi to the airport for our flight to the wild wild West!

Our first full day in Xinjiang province (Urumqi is the capital) we took a day trip to Turpan, about a 2.5 hour bus ride. Turpan is in a basin, and is actually the second lowest spot on earth, next to the Dead Sea. It is therefore quite hot. Forty degrees Celsius hot, in fact. That's 105 degrees Fahrenheit. So we took a walk (to Daniel's delight!). The goal was the Emin Minaret, some 3 km from the long distance bus station. I had copied the map from the travel book, and thought the walk would give us an opportunity to see the city, so I felt good about the walk. Except I had forgotten that although Xinjiang is officially on Beijing time, it's actually several hours behind, meteorologically speaking. So what I thought was South, judging by the sun, was actually North, because although it was 14:40 the sun was still in the East. Minor miscalculation. We figured it out about 20 minutes later, and set off in the right direction (Daniel complaining in the faux British accent the whole time). We finally made it to the minaret, after touring a good deal of the city on foot. The minaret is beautiful; the tall adobe tower seems to rise from the middle of grape fields, the patterns in the brick stand out against the blue sky.

We decided to take a taxi back to the bus station.

"Poshi-doodle-doo" (or, "What happens when you spend 7 weeks in one person's constant presence")

It started with the faux British accent. Hearing a foreign language around you all the time does funny things to your psyche, I admit. After a long day of interviews I'd be thinking in Chinglish...but Daniel instead has adopted a faux British accent. After the accent came the nicknames. "Pointy-head" was the first one, but I really just didn't like that one. After a day or two of being called "pointy-head" I decided to cure him of the habit by pure Skinnerian conditioning--every time he said "pointy-head" (or "pointy-nose" or "pointy"-anything for that matter), I whapped him. So a new nickname had to be chosen. "Poshi"emerged as the winner. Consequently, it has undergone several mutations--"Poshi-doodle-doo," "Poshi-snosh," and just "Snosh" are just some of its several forms. All are spoken in the faux British accent.

I was on dorm staff my sophomore year at Sewanee (I know this doesn't sound related, but hang on--I'll make the connection), and we had to do a whole training course on roommate conflict. We had all been told of course that it's dangerous to room with your best friend--you might not be friends at the end of a year living together in a small space. And we had been trained in how to talk to roommates about roommate issues, how to advise the little freshmen, etc., so I came into this 7-week roommate arrangement with my brother well prepared. And too, my brother and I actually like each other and enjoy each other's company. We fought some as kids, but mostly grew out of that. Of course, fighting hit an all-time low when we were no longer living in the same house. That could have been a source of worry as we began our 7-week trip living not in the same house, but the same room. And not talking to anyone else very much. But I figured, you know, we're both semi-mature young adults (tee-hee-hee) or at least semi-mature college students, we should be able to handle this.

And handle it we have. The only real arguments have been about my navigational skills (Me: "You try reading the bus map!" DTB: "Duh, I can't, it's in Chinese!" Me: "Oh you're kidding! Give me a break, this is not exactly easy!!"); mostly the problem is that when I have time, I don't mind meandering for awhile, seeing the sights so to speak, before arriving at the destination. Daniel, however, is a git-er-done type person. He wants to have a destination, know exactly how to get there, and go, no detours, thank you. So this has caused a little friction. I should admit here, I once led him on a very long kind of hot meandering walk through the streets of Shanghai in search of--wait for it--a bookstore. I messed up the navigation pretty badly that time. But only that time. Overall, I think I did a pretty good job of getting us around, if I do say so myself. And if you've never looked at a Shanghai bus map, I can assure you, it's quite complicated and all in Chinese.

So basically what happens is Daniel complains, or makes snide comments, one after the other, endlessly, in the faux British accent. It grates on my nerves. And I tell him so. And he replies that meandering, or shopping, or waving to Chinese babies, or whatever it is that I'm doing that he's making snide comments about, gets on his nerves too, so we're even. He told me yesterday (walking, on a kind of hot day) "You know, when we get back to the US, I don't think we're going to need any more brother-sister bonding time for awhile." Yeah, ok. But he also tells me a lot, "You know, you're gonna miss me when this trip is over." He's probably right about that too.