Wanderlust

Yangshou, China.

It’s been over a week since I wrote last. We’ve been very busy with classes and also with doing some fun stuff since the weather is finally nice–sunshine and chilly, my favorite. We’ve almost finished all over our Christmas shopping and we’re planning on going to Guilin this weekend to finish up and then mail it off. I doubt they’ll get to the states by Christmas, but maybe by Chinese New Year (which is mid-January this year)! In Guilin we want to take a day trip to the nearby rice terraces that are supposed to be just amazing. We were told that they aren’t good this time of year since all of the rice has been harvested, but then we talked to someone who went last week and said that it was spectacular. In the end I think it’s the terracing, not the colors of the rice, that are interesting to us. So we’re going to give it a shot. And then from Guilin you can take a boat trip down the river to Yangshou through the karst mountains. I can’t wait!

Last week went by pretty quickly. We had off on Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday we shopped in the rain and Thursday was sunny and hot so we rented bicycles and went riding around near the school. It was gorgeous. We saw rice paddies and water buffalo and the beautiful mountains. We took a little dirt trail through some farms and it was just awesome. I got to see the rice close up and take some cool photos. We ended the day with a speed ride home since it started to rain on us! It was strange being on a bike since I haven’t really ridden one since I was a kid. But the old saying is true, and it felt pretty natural. Although my hands got pretty beat up from the crazy handlebars, but oh well.

On Friday we had planned to go to the Liu San Jie light show. A sadly cheesy name for the beautiful, nightly show that was created by Zhang Yimou, a famous Chinese director who did the movies “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers.” I’ve seen both movies, and although the stories aren’t fantastic, the use of color and sound are just stunning. Surprisingly the show (which has been open since 2004) is not listed in our China travel book (which was published this year). It turned out that because of all of the rain the river was too high to do the show. So we had to wait until Sunday to see it. And it was well worth the wait and the 150 yuan it cost. It was beautiful. The show was set on the river with the karst mountains as the backdrop. The entire show was done by 500 local people and it was just spectacular. Our seats were very close to the front which meant that we lost some of the big picture beauty, but as compensation we got to be right in front of the “actors” as they came off of the water and walked into the audience to sing. A line of beautifully dressed girls were singing right in front of us and it was like they were singing just for me! It was really wonderful. The photos I took don’t come near to doing it justice. And I’m afraid that a lot of tourists might skip it because the ‘light show’ title puts in mind something more on the lines of a Pink Floyd the Wall experience which doesn’t sound very Chinese. But instead it’s a beautiful mix of color, gorgeous scenery, singing, and Zhuang (a Chinese minority) costumes. We were all very impressed both by the show and the genius of Zhang Yimou who came to Yangshou, looked at the amazing mountains and thought to himself: “Yeah, I can make this better.”

The rest of the weekend was pretty peaceful. Saturday I stayed around the dorm napping, reading, and doing laundry. I was pretty beat after a week of teaching and planning lessons and talking (slowly) to Chinese people. I normally talk so quickly and being here is really teaching me to speak slowly and simply. But it’s exhausting thinking carefully about what you want to say and how to say it. I needed a lazy day. While I was lazy, Steve went with a group of people to play bb gun war. It was basically paintball with bb guns instead of paint guns. They got all decked out in helmets and fatigues (and even some SWAT team outfits!) and shot each other bb guns while running around in an old school. The pictures and stories were hilarious. I’m glad he had a good time, but I’m also glad I didn’t go. After my mom’s story of getting shot in the butt with a bb gun when she was getting the mail and her little brothers thought they were being funny, I think I’m scared of bb guns for life. Saturday was also a bad China day for me. Sometimes they just happen. My plan for the day was to go to the internet for some photo uploading and blogging and then do some more Christmas shopping on my own while the laundry was drying outside. But I got only as far as the internet cafe where we’d been going almost every day since it opened. It cost 2.50 yuan for an hour. But when I went in and told the (new) guy I wanted one computer for one hour (all in sign language) he put up three fingers. I shook my head no and smiled. He got out the calculator and typed in 2.5. I said okay and gave him a 20 since that was the smallest bill I had. He gave me back 17. I shook my head no and pointed at the drawer and said 50 in Chinese. He looked confused. I pointed and said it again. Confusion. I pointed at the calculator (which he had put under the glass desk. He wouldn’t get it. Finally he said “I don’t know” in English took away my change and my password for the computer and gave me back my 20 and then ignored me. I was so mad! And all over a stupid .50 yuan which is like 10 cents! It doesn’t make any sense logically. I would happily give up ten cents change in the states. I don’t care. But after being cheated so many times and always having to bargain for everything and check everything some days I’m just so fed up with it all. And it was so ridiculous that he wouldn’t give me my change. I think what really ticked me off is that while he was ignoring me a Chinese girl came in gave him 3 yuan and he gave her back .50 and her password! Very frustrating. After that I just gave up for the day. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with bargaining at the shops in town. I just went back to school and got on the internet there (which is too slow for the blog or for uploading photos). I decided to look into planning where we’d go in S.E. Asia. I was pretty into what I was doing when a new Chinese guy at school came up to me and asked if I could help him understand something in the book he was reading. Of course. I helped him; he thanked me; and he went away. A little while later he came back and asked me if I’d seen the movie “Silence of the Lambs.” I said I had and that it was a good movie. He proceeded to tell me that he was confused about this movie and what about American culture it represented. I thought this was a valid question, and I told him that it really doesn’t represent anything about American culture except that we like to watch scary movies. He then began to talk at me for about fifteen minutes about how he admires Hannibal Lector and wants to be as strong in mind and body as he was. This sort of freaked me out, but I figured it was some language barrier thing and I just let it go when he left it again. But about fifteen minutes later he was back again and again talked at me but this time for about a half an hour. He started by talking about the movie again, then how he’s traveled to America (NYC) and other places and how he knows all about other places and people and how people in America know nothing about China and don’t understand anything and that he’s an intellectual. Yep. I’m just too nice. I couldn’t figure out a way to interrupt him and get the hell out of there. The more he talked the more I both disliked him and wanted to have nothing to do with him. He ended his speech by pointing at me emphatically and repeatedly saying “You” followed by some stereotype about America that doesn’t apply to me or my views in any way. He seemed to get very angry as he talked which was confusing since I wasn’t saying anything. At one point I was able to squeeze in a “no, not me because that’s not what I think.” But he just sort of ignored it and continued on. He ended all of this by asking me what I did in my free time which I took to be the beginning of some kind of pass and so I quickly started talking about Steve and how he was coming back soon and we had plans for dinner, etc. It was the single most bizarre and creepy conversation (if it could really be called that) that I’ve had in China or anywhere else for that matter. Weird, weird dude. He’s still around, but I’ve managed to completely ignore him and he has stopped saying hello to me. Which is great.

Saturday night we went out for dinner and drinks. Sunday we did some shopping and then the ‘light show.’ The last few days we’ve been busy with school and saying goodbye to Gordon and Sue. We have one other voluteer, Bob, whose last day was today. So we thought we’d be on our own, but a couple from Sweden showed up and will be staying for 2 or 3 weeks which means that we’ll get to stay in our classes together for our last week and I won’t feel so guilty about leaving since there will be volunteers to continue on. Laurie keeps trying to get us to stay longer, but I think we’ll be moving on to Nanning where we’ll pick up Vietnamese visas and then we’ll cross the border into Vietnam and go straight to Hanoi. We still need to work out what we’ll do from there, but the idea is to travel either through Vietnam or Laos and then go into Cambodia to visit Angkor Wat and then into Thailand. We’re not sure where along the way we’ll stay to volunteer, that’s another thing we need to look into! But that’ll come soon.

 (continued from a few days ago…)

Thursday I went for a bike ride to Moon Hill with Duo Duo (one of my favorite friends here), Euan, and Jack. It was Duo Duo’s last day and I wanted to spend some time with her. The bike ride was pretty long and it was on a main road. Not a particularly pretty ride but the end result was this crazy karst mountain that has a half-moon shaped hole in the top of it! Jack is a Yangshou local, so we were able to sneak onto the trail without paying the 15 yuan fee! It was a pretty stiff climb up stone steps (which I should be used to after Machu Picchu!) but the view was really fantastic and worth the walk. We took photos and enjoyed the top to ourselves for a few minutes before it was taken over by a group of foreigners. Yangshou is known for its mountain climbing, and a woman was climbing up Moon Hill while we were there. It was crazy (and frightening to watch). I could never do it, that’s for sure. On the way down we all chatted and I got to know Euan and Jack better. I’ve noticed that there are a handful of students whose English is a little better and who are generally more confident people and they dominate the converstions at meals and in general when we’re around. So it was nice to have a chance to talk to people who were too shy to talk to me when others were around. They taught me how to eat watermelon seeds, something I never even dreamed of needing to know how to do! I think they must cook them or dry them or something, but they’re crazy hard to eat since if you get them too wet they turn back into slippery little buggers. For every one I managed to crack open and get something out of they each ate about ten. But the last one I had I opened up perfectly and was very proud of myself! They tasted sort of like how you’d imagine them to taste, I think. More fruity than sunflower seeds, but they look just the same on the inside.

At some point during our cycle back Duo Duo left to run some errands to get ready to leave that night. I was a little sad not to be able to say good bye then and give her a little present, but I was sure I’d see her before her 7 o’clock departure. I was pretty beat both from getting up at 8 and riding the bike and climbing a mountain all day, so I happily went and took a shower and napped a bit. When it got to be about 6:30 that night and I still hadn’t seen Duo Duo I was getting concerned. We waited at school for a long time, but she didn’t turn up so we left thinking we’d missed her, but it turned out her bus wasn’t until 8 and she came looking for me but we were gone! So sad. But I got her email address so I’ll try to mail her her present. It’s sad that friends here are leaving. A lot of people are done with their studies and are ‘graduating,’ but a lot of otehrs are going home in preparation for Chinese New Year and the other holidays. But I guess I shouldn’t get too attached anyway since we’re leaving soon, but it’s hard. It’s not in my nature to make friends halfway.

There’s a pretty common stereotype about Chinese made things being crappy. Well, we’ve had quite a few run-ins with this while we’ve been here, and so–even though I generally avoid putting any faith in stereotypes–I’m starting to believe this one has some base in truth. We have had 3 disasters in our bathroom since we arrived three weeks ago. The first was pretty minor, the hose to our showerhead was leaking and when Steve tried to tighten it it popped off and sprayed water everywhere. But he was able to just stick it back on and it was fine. Then a week ago Steve went to wash his feet under the conveniently located spiggot at feet level. He literally broke the spiggot handle off while it was on–breaking a rod of metal! It was ridiculous. He couldn’t turn the spiggot off, and he couldn’t get the handle back on! We had to go get help from the front desk who called someone and they turned the water off and bought a new spiggot. (At one point someone in the building turned the water back on and water came flying out of the hole in our bathroom wall! It was hilarious!) And then Wednesday night Steve was in the bathroom (do you see a theme here? I think Steve is a bit of a brute…) and was going to wash his face and somehow managed to rip half of the spiggot thing off the sink so that water was flying out everywhere! The poor maintenance guy and a plumber type guy couldn’t fix it (after trying for 2 hours!) so they had to turn the water off for the whole building until the next morning! It was crazy. The only good part of all of this is that the bathroom is set up so that you just shower in the whole room and the water drains down the squat toilet which is flush with the ground. So all of the pouring water didn’t do any damage and stayed contained to the bathroom. But we started thinking about the recent crappy Chinese things lately–all of the schools that were poorly made and collapsed during the earthquake in May, the lead paint in childrens’ toys, and most recently the melanine (or something like that) in dried milk products that caused children to get sick and some to die. It seems like there is definetely something going wrong with Chinese products and their general safety. At least our poorly made products were just silly and inconvenient instead of life-threatening.

But in completely unrelated news, we found out this afternoon that due to some crazy twist of fate we will be participating in a free, government-sponsored tourism trip this weekend to Guilin and the rice terraces! As far as I can tell, every year the government int his area does some sort of trip where they get a group of foreigners to accompany Chinese people to tourist destinations for publicity and to boost tourism to those areas. Mary, a Canadian English teacher at Owen (the school where we’re staying) went last year to some amusement park through this program and had a really silly time. They pay for everything–transport, entrace, food, and a 4 or 5-star hotel. And all you have to do is walk around, see the sites, eat good food, and be in about a thousand photos with the Chinese tourists and other people. It sounds awesome and hilarious and I can’t wait! We leave tomorrow night at around 8, so it still gives us time for class in the morning and to do something fun in the afternoon. We won’t get a chance to finish up our shopping, but Guilin is only an hour bus ride away, so we can go next weekend or sometime before we leave. And really we could wait until Nanning to send our presents if we really can’t get to Guilin before we leave. But, I think it’s going to be very silly, and I’m sure I’ll have funny stories to tell about when we get back! What luck!

Tags: China, free volunteer, Yangshou

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 at 6:08 am and is filed under China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.