Last week teaching in Yangshuo
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008Yangshuo, China.
We had a good time this weekend going on our Chinese government sponsored trip to Guilin and the Longji rice terraces. We stayed in 4 star hotels, ate yummy food, and saw the rice terraces that were really strikingly beautiful. I was told by one of the students that this was not a good time to go see them because all of the rice has been harvested so it’s not as beautiful. But really, it’s hard to imagine it being more beautiful than what it was, so it was well worth the trip. I think the difference was just one of taste–we wanted to see the actual landscape of the terraces while she was more interested in the colors of the rice. It might have been neater without the rice, really, because it made the steps cut into the mountains stand out that much more. But we had a good time. We left Yangshou Friday night, stayed in a hotel, got up at 6 in the morning for breakfast and then an opening ceremony for the event (the IVV Walking Club or something like that). Then we were bused over to Longji (about 2 hours from Guilin) and we had photo ops with some of the women from the local minority group who are famous for their incredibly long hair (it was longer than they were tall!). Then we started what turned out to be a five hour hike through the mountains and the terraces. It was a gorgeous day. Very hot and sunny. We were supposed to stay with our little group (which consisted of about 20 foreigners and the other 200 people at the event were all Chinese), but they walked much faster than I wanted to walk, especially since I like to stop and take photos. So we just bounced around and had a good time and didn’t worry too much about our group. We definintely learned a lot about the Chinese organization system. We had heard that in China you’re given information on a strictly need-to-know basis. And man, is that true. We had absolutely no idea what was going on or what to expect which for us made things very difficult. For example, we were given a little bag with some fruit and some bread and a really gross meat stick that was sort of like a vienna sausage wrapped in plastic. We all thought, “Hey, we get a little snack for the road.” But no. It turned out to be our lunch. So for lunch and to sustain ourselves for the 5 hour hike, we had almost no food. We had asked if food would be provided before hand so that we could bring stuff if we needed to, and we were assured that yes it would be provided. And we asked what kind of food, they just didn’t answer us. Luckily we went through lots of little villages on the walk who had snacks and drinks for sale. So it was okay. But in general it was just difficult to be a part of a group tour where you have to stay with the group but aren’t given any information or warnings for when you need to do something. Literally we’d be all waiting around for ten or fifteen minutes and then all of a sudden our group leader would pop up and say okay we have to go now. And if you were in the bathroom or had wandered off they would get really angry. It was strange. So we were all sort of annoyed and tried to explain about the need for a five or ten minute warning, but the Chinese guide just didn’t get it at all. It’s just a totally different cultural experience.
montarsig