David's Big Adventure in China

Last Friday was a holiday (“Pure and Bright Day” for honoring the dead) so many people had the day off. Some friends invited me to go with them on a trip to Dali and Jizu Shan (mountain). Four of us (3 ladies and me….I know what you’re thinking but you’re wrong…lol….the 3 of them shared a room and I had a room to myself) boarded an overnight train at 11:00 p.m. (see pics) on Thursday night and arrived in Dali at about 8 the next morning. Dali is famous for its ancient city (see pics) and its Bai minority people. The taxi driver that took us from the train station took us to a hotel operated by friends or family and we got a nice room for about $6. We then hired him for about 7 hours to drive us around to show us the sights and he charged us $14. We spent the evening walking around the ancient city and had drinks in one of the many bars. Saturday morning we took a local bus to the long distance bus station then took another bus to Jizu Shan which was about 3 hours away.

Jizu Shan is famous for its many temples and monks. We arrived at about noon, had some lunch then began climbing the mountain. Like most famous mountains in China it had a paved walkway and many stairs. There was one section that had 476 stairs (see pics). In roughly 3 hours we climbed about 3500 feet over a total distance of about 5 miles. After spending about 45 minutes visiting the temple and pagoda at the top we went back down quickly in about 90 minutes since it was almost dark. We stayed near the bottom of the mountain in a building that is combination restaurant and guesthouse. It was the worst place I’ve stayed in China. The room was very basic and there was a Chinese style toilet down the hall and a simple sink outside the toilet. There was no shower or bath and no hot water. The cost was the same as our nice rooms in Dali. The next morning a van took us to the nearest town and we took a sleeper bus from there back to Kunming and arrived at about 5:00 p.m.

I just finished reading a couple books about China that I’d like to recommend to you. The first one is a fiction based in Tibet called Lost Horizon by James Hilton and it is a very enjoyable book even if you have no real interest in learning about Tibet. The second one is Forgotten Kingdom by Peter Goullart and it is an account of his time living in Lijiang (referred to as Likiang in the book as the names of many places in China have changed over time) in the 1940’s and working for the Chinese government. It gives a very interesting account of the history of that time and place and the different groups of people that inhabited the area and talks about the communist takeover in 1949.

The last thing I’ll write about this time is regarding the degree to which China is bilingual. There are English signs in most places and the buses in Kunming have English announcements of the stops in addition to the Chinese announcements. In general, China and its people are pretty accommodating of those of us who don’t speak the language well. Of course having English in so many places makes life for us laowai (foreigners) so much easier. I know many Americans get very frustrated with foreigners coming to the U.S. and not being able to speak English. I have a different perspective on that now living as a foreigner in another country. I am trying hard to learn the language but it is a tremendous challenge. Of course, since they have a written language that doesn’t use English characters it is even more difficult. I am not trying to learn to read and write, only to speak. I have gotten to the point where most of the time I can express what I want but still have great difficulty understanding when someone replies to me.

In the span of less than 6 weeks it has gone from winter with snow on the ground to summer with temps in the mid to upper 80’s. It’s not humid so it still feels pretty comfortable. Until next time…….