The perspective has not been changed
Sunday, October 19th, 2008Fenghuang, China
Steve and I have been in Fenghuang, an adorable little touristy town in the middle of China for 6 days now. I haven’t been writing much partly because we haven’t been doing much. It’s been a wonderful little break where we’ve slept in, watched movies, read books, and generally been lazy. We’ve now finished both of the China books we brought with us–“Oracle Bones” and “Wild Swans.” We both really loved Wild Swans. It was a very sad but probably very accurate history of China covering the not so distant past. I didn’t particularly enjoy Oracle Bones. Partly I didn’t like the writer’s writing style. He was a journalist and a lot of the book reads like a cross between a newspaper article and someone in the middle of Creative Writing courses. I had quite enough of journalism in college and more than a lifetime’s worth of creative writing courses in high school (I went to an art school where I majored in it…). It just bothered me. There was a lot of interesting facts and theories throughout it, though, so I stuck it out. But in the end it was a disappointing mish-mash of half-stories that never really concluded and fragment sentences that were supposed to be profound. I wouldn’t recommend it (even though it won some literary award, so what do I know, right?). We picked up a couple of classics while in Shanghai–Crime and Punishment for Steve and Jane Eyre (which I’ve surprisingly never read) for me. I’m looking forward to some nice fiction that’s completely unpolitical.
The first day or so in Fenghuang we walked around the little town a lot taking pictures and enjoying the sunshine. The town is situated around a river where one of the ancient city walls still stands (probably reconstructed, but I can’t remember). This used to be just a quiet little town where two ethnic minorities lived and fished, but now it’s become a tourist destinations for tons of Chinese. We’re still quite popularly on display with lots of ‘hellos’ and not-so-subtle photo and video ops (including another posed shot with two college-aged girls). Sometimes it’s fun and entertaining, but sometimes it gets a little old. I had the misfortune of getting my boat soaked in river water one afternoon when we were sitting by the river eating yogurt and cake (we wanted ice cream, but you can’t find it anywhere in this town! It’s completely baffling. It makes me want to open up and ice cream shop. I think I’d make a killing in yuan). People wash their clothes, vegetables, and mops in the water and one woman decided to put her mop up to dry directly up the hill from where I was sitting. I had to walk back through the crowds with a very wet arse, the whole time dodging photos and hellos and generally feeling crappy. But usually it’s just very cute and funny, and Steve enjoys saying hello back which causes lots of amusement on all sides (he usually does it in a funny voice, which makes it more fun for us).
montarsig