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!