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It's Dragon Boat Festival Day!

Happy Dragon Boat Festival Day!  It’s kind of like the Chinese version of Cinco de Mayo I think.  Lots of traditional food and festivities, costumes depicting ancient China, music and light festivals, lucky charms to keep away evil spirits and of course boat racing in the provinces.  These facts I have gleaned from the first English speaking TV we’ve had in two weeks—we haven’t actually experienced Dragon Boat Festival Day because now we are back in Shanghai and today we are going home.  Here are a few musings while we wait for our driver to take us to the airport…

One of the hardest things to convey about a trip like this, or to any Asian country for that matter, is something that doesn’t come through in photographs or in my deathless prose.  It is the myriad of sounds, smells and the minor interactions with the people where you “just had to be there.”  I’ve already talked a little about the fascination the Chinese people have with us Big Noses, so allow me to make a feeble attempt to put you in the middle of a Chinese city.

First, the traffic is like nothing we have in the states.  Horn honking is raised to the level of a fine art, and horns come in all gradations of the musical scale. No one pays any attention to the danger or to the distinct possibility of being killed at any moment, and pedestrians just walk out into the street without so much as a flinch.  The driver then leans on the horn without slowing down, mumbling what must be Chinese obscenities under his breath, and in every case—at least those we have seen—the persons emerge on the other side unscathed.  It is a miracle.

The drivers of these many and varied vehicles have also taken spatial relations to a new level.  In most of the cities we’ve seen, there actually are lane markers drawn into the streets but if, for example, it is a three-lane street, there will be at least five lanes of traffic abreast with barely a millimeter between the vehicles.  Cars, vans, buses, motorbikes carrying families of four, bicycles ridden by businessmen and women as well as farmers and peasants, funny looking little vehicles carrying three times their size in baskets or sacks of goods or even animals, and the Chinese version of the pedicab which is usually an unsavory and unsafe looking rundown jalopy—all consume their share of the road without regard to the others.  And all honking their horns in unison.  It is a giant game of Chicken, and yet we have not seen a single accident.  No one pays attention to lane markers and certainly no one signals a lane change or a turn.  

Along with the honking, screeching of brakes, motor sounds and other sounds of traffic, you have the sounds of the people—more obvious of course when you are walking down the street.  The Chinese have a way of talking to each other as if they are yelling at each other and many times we have mistaken a friendly exchange as a knockdown-drag out argument.  Even sweet Keren does this, and he will walk up to a stranger and shout something which to us sounds very rude, but invariably the person will laugh and answer him readily with another shout. And pretty soon they are both laughing.  And shouting.

There is also music of all kinds coming from the doorways and shops—everything from American rock n’ roll to Chinese traditional folk tunes and even the chanting of monks where appropriate.  And there are vendors hawking their wares.  Hello! Nihao! Look!  And of course whole spiels in Chinese that we don’t understand.   And let’s not forget the banging, chopping and squeaking that is just part of the general commerce.

One rather unsettling experience happened yesterday as we were leaving the Jade Buddha Temple here in Shanghai.  Outside the temple there are a number of beggars—all of them deformed in some terrible way, and one holding a small child with a large tumor on his neck—truly horrible.  We hadn’t seen much of this before because, according to Keren, the Communist government provides for everyone so there is no need to beg.  But at the temples the more destitute among them feel that there will be a larger number of charitable souls and so they tend to congregate there.

Anyway, evidently Keren had slipped the mother with the sick child a few Yuan and this was noticed by a man with a badly burned face and arms.  The man demanded that Keren give him something as well.  Noting his attitude, Keren refused and as we all got into the van, the man became more and more agitated, yelling at Keren and raising his fists in anger.  This was truly anger and not just the Chinese way.  After the four of us and Keren were all in the car, the man began banging on the outside of the car and then he came around to the front and grabbed one of the windshield wipers and pulled at it as if to break it.  Then he took off his shoe and banged it over and over on the windshield—the ultimate insult is to show the bottom of your foot or your shoe to another. This was more than the driver, Mr. Liu, heretofore very mild-mannered and sweet, could bear.  Instead of just driving off, he leaped out of the car and began yelling and gesturing ominously at the man with the burn scars.  Luckily, there were a few apparent peace keepers who entered into the fray, and eventually, after much shouting and after the two almost came to blows, the peace keepers won out, Mr. Liu got back into the car and we drove off.  I noticed as we escaped that there were shopkeepers and waitresses out on the street to witness the disturbance, so this was pretty serious even by normal street scene standards.  Keren, unperturbed, told us afterward that the driver was saying to the burned man that he was just a driver, we were his clients, and why was the burned man taking out his anger on the innocent vehicle!  Keren also said that if the burned man hadn’t been so hostile in the first place, maybe Keren would have given him a few Yuan as well.  One can only imagine what was going through that man’s mind at the sight of us.  But my point is to illustrate yet another instance where the sounds of the city are difficult to convey.  The sad fact of this poor man’s life is yet another story.

On a quieter note, inside the temple the atmosphere was relatively calm, most people respecting the holy place.  It was the only temple we visited on this trip—unlike other Asian countries where temples are among the most frequented sites—and it was a welcome respite to the usual cacophony of the streets.  The monks padded around on sandaled feet and people knelt and prayed before the various shrines to the Buddha.  There was some beautiful chanting going on in one of the shrines, led by some monks who were accompanied by ordinary folk who seemed to know all the words to the chants.  True believers I am sure although Keren seemed skeptical.  The smell of incense emanated from all parts of the old temple with many rooms.  The Jade Buddha is housed on an upper floor and requires an extra fee, but we went to see it and it is very beautiful although you can’t get very close.  No photos are allowed but Jane and I snuck a couple of pictures before the guard got wise and glared at us.  Keren said he believes this Buddha is not real jade but I looked it up and according to Wikipedia it is real jade and thus very valuable.  No wonder they are so protective of it.  Keren, after all of his travels, can be a little “jaded.”  By the way, Keren claims to have been to every country in the world except for Iran and when you question him about any obscure country, he will have an anecdote to tell about it.  I will spend the rest of my days pondering his many stories.

But I digress… The smells—oh dear Lord the smells!  Everywhere the air smells either wonderful or horrible depending on which moment you are talking about and where you are.  The fragrant spices of the ubiquitous street food mingle with some other pretty unsavory odors and of course the smell of the exhaust from the vehicles is everywhere.  As you walk down the street, vendors will hold out a can of tea or a bag of spice or some other substance and ask you to take a sniff.  Sometimes the substance is identifiable but usually not.  The smell of garlic and ginger lingers outside of every restaurant and sometimes you feel that it is in your pores.  In the best possible way…

And so, as before on our trips to Asia, we are in sensory overload—the sounds and smells of voices and music and clanging and chanting and honking and shouting and laughing and garlic and camphor and a little bit of sewage and sweat and dirt…but that’s okay,

And then we go to bed and all is quiet. 

On to Yangshuo

After leaving Ping An we drove back to another of Keren’s establishments where we had stayed before going on to Ping An.  He calls it his “B and B” but it is actually a beautiful apartment in a gated community in Guilin, which he rents out to travelers.  I will post a couple of pictures of it—beautifully decorated with more of Keren’s gorgeous photographs and collection of art and wood carvings—Keren does all the design and decorating for the B and B and also the Lian Lodge.   He is truly a Renaissance man.

We had left a bunch of our stuff at the B and B before going on to Ping An so that the village ladies would have a lighter load to carry up the mountainside, and thus we had to return to re-pack before proceeding on to Yangshuo.  We also had to pick up the artwork we had purchased in Guilin before our stay in Ping An.  I had told Keren I’d like to buy a painting if we could find one we liked and also reasonably priced, and so he took us to a wholesale art district where he knew all the artists.  Tom and I bought a beautiful painting of a Yi woman (I’ll post a picture of it) and then--in a different studio from a different artist who was not there--we also bought a very cool, somewhat primitive, painting of some old men, which was only $30.   I asked Keren if he liked it and he said it needed some Chinese writing on it to fill in some of the blank space.  He said that the first artist who did the Yi woman would be happy do that, and when Keren asked him to he said that he would and that he would put his signature red mark on it as well!  I’m not sure how legal that would be in the states.  And when I asked Keren what he wrote on the painting, he said it was something about old men kibbutzing in the park.  I will lie and tell people the writing is a famous Confuscian saying about growing old gracefully.

Then we went into another studio and couldn’t resist three long, very intricate, paintings of the only female Buddha and her male counterpart.  The paintings are done on what looks like parchment paper and are beautifully detailed.  We have absolutely no place in our home or in the Colorado house to put these paintings but we had to have them anyway.  The artist, whose picture I will post, is evidently quite famous, and he too signed his work and did some extra Chinese writing along the edges of the works.  I would have thought they were mass produced at the price we paid, but Keren assured me that not only was the artist legitimate but rather well known to boot!   In case you’re wondering, Keren is completely trustworthy on that score.  He (the artist) gave us some written information about him with his picture receiving some sort of award, but of course it is all in Chinese.  I can’t even tell you his name because Keren can’t say it in English!  Oh well, I have his picture…

We are on our way to Yangshuo, our last stop before returning to Shanghai and then home.   I can’t believe we’ve been here almost three weeks.  Still ahead, is Yangshuo and the beautiful Li River where we visited before in 2007.  We’ve had incredible weather, with only a couple of major rains and both on days when we were traveling anyway.  But yesterday as I mentioned, it began raining in Ping An and today it has rained steadily all day long.  On the ride from Ping An to Guilin, the river we followed was raging and much of the road was almost flooded.  Being mountainous, it is a winding road and we have joked that the Chinese national pastime is passing on a curve.  Especially fun is passing three or four large trucks and trying to squeeze between two of them in order to avoid a head-on collision with an oncoming bus or a large truck full of squealing pigs.   But this particular driver is careful and not as reckless as a few of the others we have had.  Enough for now…

Ping An Village and the LiAn Lodge

I must capture this experience while it is still fresh in my mind.  I have long since abandoned the idea of writing these notes in any sort of sequence, but I surmise that you don’t care since none of us have ever heard of these places anyway.

We are driving back to Guilin after leaving the village of Ping An where Keren has his lovely LiAn Lodge.  As I mentioned before, Mary and Neil and Tom and I were here in 2007 and that stay was the impetus for our interest in Keren Su and why we have followed him during the past years since then.  Now we have experienced it for the second time.  This visit was familiar but quite different from the first.  Ping An looked pretty much the same, but there are many more people here now and structures are rising everywhere to accommodate them.  As before, we rode a sedan chair from the base of the village to the Lodge, which is at the top of the village.  Beyond the lodge there are stone and dirt paths for trekkers and photo hounds and a couple of wood viewing stations for the panoramic views. 

Yesterday after breakfast, the weather was cloudy and threatened rain but we set out anyway for a walk beyond the lodge to experience the rice paddies up close.  During the 45-minute walk, it began to rain in earnest, but we had umbrellas and rain jackets.  The path is literally cut right through the rice paddies and we could see them right before our eyes.  On some stretches of the path there was a sheer drop on both sides and, combined with the uneven and wobbly stones, this made for a bit of a nerve-wracking walk.  But we made it to the lovely old bridge that you see in the pictures and had a good rest before going back the same way.  Keren gave a tai chi demo on the bridge to soothe our (or I should say, MY) frazzled nerves.  In looking at the pictures, it doesn’t seem as scary as it did at the time.   When we got back to the lodge, Jane and I went off in the opposite direction to bargain a bit with the villagers.  I bought a great looking batik round tablecloth and Jane got some fun stuff for her grandkids.

But the main thing I want to tell you is about leaving the lodge.  We spent two nights there and by now are great friends with the darling young ladies who comprise the front desk staff, but this morning it was time to go.  After breakfast, we were packed and ready, but it was raining again, this time a bit more insistently and Keren told us our driver, who was returning from Guilin to pick us up, was stuck in traffic and would not be arriving any time soon.  So we retired to the bar with cups of tea and homemade truffles to watch some of Keren’s photographic slide shows—all of which are works of art in themselves.

We had debated whether to hire a sedan chair for the trip down the mountain or to walk.  Last time with the Andersons we rode up and walked down which was fine.  This time, because it was raining hard, we were urged by Keren to take the sedan chairs.  And in fact, the same guys who had taken us up had been waiting by the door since 5:30 in the morning in hopes of more of the big noses’ business. 

When it was finally time to go, I was wondering how we were going to get down the mountain without getting soaked, with or without a sedan chair.  And what if one of our guys slipped and tossed one of us off the mountain?  But no problem—clearly these guys are professionals.  We need not have worried.  We were offered ponchos if we needed them, escorted to our respective chairs by men with umbrellas--all luggage having been sent ahead on the backs of village women--and settled cozily into our chairs which were swathed in plastic and protected from the rain.  The chair hoisters then picked us up, each in turn, and set down the stony path through the village as sure-footed as mountain goats.  I took as many pictures as I could through the protective plastic, but I can’t begin to convey the sensation of being carried down the narrow slippery path, with tourists and villagers alike passing us in the other direction despite the narrowness of the path.  But we’re here to tell the tale and at the entrance to the village our driver was there with luggage already stowed.

Our Itinerary

It is June 6 and we are on a small plane  (84 passengers max) to Guilin—maybe the first familiar Chinese place you’ve recognized except for Shanghai.  This has been our itinerary so far:

We began in Shanghai, then we flew to Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province, where we rode the cable car up Tianmen Mountain, A World Heritage site.  I think Zhangjiajie is a city of about a million and a half people. Each of the cities we’ve visited is large and fairly new having grown up in the last twenty years or less from villages and surrounding farms.   The term Zhangjiajie also refers to a large area which comprises not just the city but many miles of surrounding countryside containing villages and small towns as well as the National Park. 

The next day we drove by car from the city to Zhangjiajie National Park where we stayed in a farm hotel. Despite the number of tourists who are flocking to this area to view and photograph the scenic beauty, there are no big and modern hotels.  According to Keren people either backpack or stay in these farm hotels which are run by enterprising farmers who recognized the opportunity and built rooms onto their existing structures.  Our hotel was very simple with fifteen rooms, a central reception/dining/socializing area and a yard with chickens and ducks and debris scattered about.  Our rooms were knotty pine with two beds, a rod in the corner for hanging clothes and…I must confess that when I saw it I experienced severe culture shock—a bathroom with a Chinese style squat toilet and the shower right on the wall.  Now, after having stayed there for three nights, I can say that it was fine and I am truly acclimated to all things Chinese. 

This hotel is completely different from what we are used to.  No towels are provided unless you do what Keren did, which is to purchase the towels, which you are then free to take or leave as you desire.  The towels are about the size of our kitchen towels (or smaller) and he purchased four for each couple.  They are not replaced.  We stayed there for three days.

If I give the impression that the hotel was not modern, I apologize.  It is only two years old and caters mostly to serious photographers.  Thus, inside each room there was not only a television, but a complete computer setup with DVD player, computer screen, and keyboard so that the photographers can edit their pictures at the end of the day.  But no towels.  Go figure—such are cultural differences and why we travel in the first place.

I had noticed that there was a washing machine and dryer off of the reception area.  I asked Keren to ask the owner if I could use them, of course I would pay for their use and for the soap and water, etc.  He asked and the owner said no problem, she would do my laundry.  And so I brought out a bag with our stuff and also the four postage stamp sized towels and gestured could she give us clean ones.  No communication—she wanted to put the towels in with the laundry.  I wanted clean towels, different towels. This was before I understood that the towels would not be replaced with clean ones.  So I acquiesced and left the whole lot with her.  Later, I noticed our clothes hanging on the clothesline in front of the hotel—underwear, towels, and all—and Keren told me not to forget to bring the stuff in when it was dry.  And in the meantime we did without our towels.  Later I tried to find out how much I owed the owner for the service but she said not to worry, it was free.  This is something that would not happen at the Marriott.

This hotel, called the Inn of the Prince of the Heavenly Son, was our base for exploring the region, so in the morning we would meet Keren and Jane and George in the reception, now turned dining room, for breakfast, which consisted of noodle soup with a fried egg on top—quite tasty actually.  I have already posted some pictures of the beautiful park.  We explored several different scenic lookouts and ate all three meals at the Inn because there is no place else to eat.  The food was wonderful, varied and, if not gourmet, deliciously spiced and seasoned all the same.  We couldn’t get over how they were able to offer such an amazing variety of food in such a simple and remote place.  Another mystery.  Keren just shrugs and says it’s normal.

After we left the National Park, we went on to Furong, called Hibiscus Town, for its beautiful setting by a river and its flowered parks and walkways.  This has been the setting for many Chinese movies and really gives the flavor of what it must have been like hundreds of years ago for Chinese peasants.   You pay to get into this national treasure.  At the entrance there is a sign that asks the visitor “to be merciful to the resources” and instructs that “children and incompetent persons must be accompanied.” Once inside we walked along the cobblestone streets, up and down treacherous stone stairs and peered over the edge to the river below.  No safety regulations here and mind your steps says an occasional sign.  Then we came upon a large square full of young children, some on a large stage ready to perform and others standing to the side with a harassed young teacher trying to keep the order.  They were rehearsing for International Children’s Day which was coming up.  Really adorable and very talented!  Chinese discipline.  It was here that we noticed that the diaper industry is not big in China.  Small children have the seam in their little pants opened up and when they need to potty they simply squat wherever they are and go.  We have seen this a lot since then and I’m talking about kids who are under two that wouldn’t be potty trained yet in the U.S. I’m not sure what they do when they are inside.

After Hibiscus Town we continued on to Phoenix Town, another large city—more than three million in the metropolitan area—whose claim to fame is that the movie Avatar was filmed there.  I have already posted some pictures of the beautiful old town on the river with its lovely bridges and sampan boats.  It is much larger than Hibiscus town and crowded with tourists, all Chinese.  We are still the major sight for most of them.