Monthly Archives: July 2013

Hong Kong

Shanghai

I arrived in Shanghai after a five hour bullet train ride from Beijing at 310 km/hr. The ride was so smooth and unlike the American Amtrak Acela train – it puts the U.S. rail to shame!. Shanghai is SO different from Beijing. Beijing is steeped in the past and Shanghai is about the present and future. Unlike the Beijing apartment complexes that are identical and look like they were just plopped down, Shanghai consists of apartment complexes of varying styles and skyscrapers of every size, shape, and material. This city has a very different feel from the nation’s capital.

The first day I walked the Bund which is made up of buildings from colonial times. It was originally a towpath for barges – and barges galore still populate the Huangpu River. It was transformed into the banking area and the Bund is where the majority of art deco and neoclassical buildings were built in the early 20th century. Today, it is filled with fancy shmancy hotels and retail stores like Cartier. Across the river is the Pudong area where they have built, in the last 20 years or so, the futuristic part of Shanghai. This includes the site of the famous Oriental Pearl Tower. I also walked along Nanjing East Road which is a pedestrian mall with simple stores, primarily, but some fancier stores too, and Chinese delicacies and tourist shops. Nanjing East Road is where the first department stores in China were opened in the 1920s. There are still many neon signs from the bygone days that mingle with the contemporary shops.

Shanghai

I stayed with my new Italian friends, Laura and Luca, who I met in Yunnan Province and whose company I enjoyed very much. Their children, Vanni and Ada, are a pleasure and Luca has a great sense of humour. I spent time with Laura talking about the arts and exploring parts of the city when she could join me. I was so fortunate to have met such gracious and welcoming people. My whole 3.5 months in Asia, in fact, was virtually nothing but pure pleasure and wonderful people. I was very lucky.

One of the only sour notes was that on my first day out and about in Shanghai I was scammed. I kind of realised it was happening but I do believe that one tends to doubt oneself. And the funny thing is that I had approached these people. Had I not done so I would not have lost $320USD. I read in the guidebook, after the fact: Beware of English-speaking students asking you if you want to walk around and spend some time together and then wanting to take you to a tea house… Two days later I knew better when I was approached…

On a happier note, I took the time in Shanghai to go to a few museums: The Shanghai Museum and the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum. I tried to go to the Museum of Contemporary Art but they were closed and in between installations; that was a disappointment. I went to M50 where, unlike at the very vibrant Art Zone 798 in Beijing , I saw a lot of mediocre to bad art. There was though, one truly wonderful exhibition, “Across the Waibaidu“, at Island6 Gallery. I also spent time wandering The People’s Square and Park as well as the Yuyuan Gardens.

Shanghai

Shanghai

I had the opportunity to dine with the brother of a friend and his girlfriend. In typical Chinese fashion they treated me to quite a feast and it was nice to get to know them a bit.

Shanghai

On my final day in Shanghai Laura and I went to the French Concession. As the Lonely Planet says: “Once home to the bulk of Shanghai’s adventures, revolutionaries, gangsters, prostitutes, and writers, the French Concession is the most graceful part of the city. Today a residential, retail and restaurant district with atmosphere tree-lined streets… The cream of Shanghai’s old residential buildings and art deco apartment blocks, hotels and edifices are preserved here… The district naturally tends toward gentrification, but it’s also a trendy and happening enclave, excellent for random exploration…..” The neighbourhood was excellent for walking and exploring and I was tempted into splurging a bit.

Shanghai, so different from Beijing. How I love Shanghai!

Beijing

China: Guangxi Province

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Xingping

Xingping

Chinese tours walk by in what seems to be the hundreds – up and down the streets, going to the water to ride a boat on the Li River, or heading back for lunch and their buses. The hostel in XIngping in Guanxi Province and just south of Guilin is on the main thoroughfare (albeit very small) and between the people, cars, trucks, and motorcycles and the noise is unbelievable. Drivers in this country seems to LOVE honking horns as they pass every moving thing – although the same was true in Vietnam.

I hiked along the spectacular karst mountains in the area as well as the country roads surrounding the town. Xingping is small and very walkable. It has a market that I visited and at which I ate lunch several times. I also found a few places, introduced to me by Li Ya and Baozi (two young women who worked at the This Old Place International Youth Hostel and with whom I became friends), that I frequented almost daily. Here is a recipe for ginger milk tea which I drank every afternoon in Xingping and which I now make and drink at home in the U.S.

XIngping

I had plans to stay in Xingping for a few days but loved it so much that I used it as a resting place and spent over a week there. It is truly a lovely region. You can, as I did, hike around the mountains but also walk along pathways or even do some real mountain climbing. It is easy to get into the countryside and see the many farmers (the majority of people here are farmers or are in the tourist business) pick vegetables or fruit, plant seeds, work in the rice fields, and tend to their crops. Depending on the clouds and sun on a given day the mountains appear otherworldly. And of course it’s so much fun to be asked/told, “hello, bamboo!” This is an invitation from those working in the tourism industry for you to take a bamboo boat ride along the Li River. I learned to cut the women short when I received a “hello” and not allow them to continue on to “bamboo.” Instead I quickly had to say “bu shi, xie, xie.” Thank you but no.

XIngping

XIngping, People Preparing for a Funeral

One day I spent three hours in the market, going up and down the stalls, taking photographs, “talking” with people, and checking out and buying food for lunch (not knowing what in the world I was buying/eating). I was invited by three men to join them for tea and I accepted. They did not understand a word I said and I did not understand them but we had a hoot sitting and attempting to talk with each other. They laughed every time I answered, “bu mingbai” — I don’t understand.

XIngping, Woman Carrying Goods from Market

I discovered that despite *completely* adoring Lao, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Thai food — as well as the variety and excellence of food in Singapore — Chinese food remains my favourite. It’s such a big country and every region has its specialty. As my friend Michelle has said multiples times, I must have been Chinese in another life. And the Chinese people I met were uniformly surprised that I – unlike most tourists – ignored western food and ate what the locals eat.

There are three things, though, I may never get used to in China: 1) the retching sound just before a big gob of spit comes flying out of a mouth (mostly men) and onto the street; 2) people smoking everywhere (mostly men) and; 3) trash thrown with abandon on the street — all of the time (everyone). I have to admit, though, that even I ended up throwing garbage onto the street when there was so much of it around me and I could not find a container to throw it in. Maybe I am getting used to that!!??!!! 😉

China: Yunnan Province

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Lijian and environs

Yunnan 2012

Twenty-five of China’s fifty-six ethnic groups live in Yunnan Province. Close to 40% of the province’s population are members of minorities, including: Yi, Bai, Hani, Tai, Dai, Miao, Naxi, Yao, Tibetan, Mongolian, and many more. I learned that there are some minority groups who do not live in separate settlements or do not even reach the required threshold of five thousand, in order to be given the official minority status in the province.

Yunnan’s landscape is beautiful. And the truth is it is almost completely landscaped. When you are not in a city or town but on the road you see some small towns or large factories but mostly completely landscaped land for farming – much of the land is terraced in Yunnan (at least until Lijian which is the furthest north I travelled). Even forests seem to have been burned so that trees can be planted.

Outside Kunming

I met mostly very sweet people. A few came up to speak with me in mixed English and Chinese so I had some very good conversations – or at least as best as we could manage. A few Chinese speak excellent English (there are 11 universities in Kunming, alone) although the majority of people in Yunnan and Kunming, so far, do not understand English at all – even in banks and hotels..

In this part of the country, I saw very few Western visitors. Most tourists are from China.

Chinese Tourists in Xingping (Guanxi Province)

Part of this, of course, has to do with the fact that there are so many people in China and everyone who can, travels. So, no matter how many Westerners may be travelling at any given time they are completely outnumbered. When I went to the Stone Forest — 1.5 hours south of Kunming – there were *throngs* of Chinese and I bumped into a very small handful of Westerners.

One thing I noticed is that many people speak VＥＲＹＬＯＵＤＬＹ！！！
I have to admit it took some getting used to. However, it is simply a cultural difference and I learned to accept it.

The worst driver I have ever experienced was on my trip from Mohan to Jinghong. The driver of the bus looked everywhere but at the road, kept on grabbing this or that from under his seat, stuck his head out of the window to look behind him, smacked his hand o his head multiple times and kept on jerking his head as if he was dozing off and was trying to stay awake. Luckily that kind of driving was not the norm.

I stayed in Jinghong for two nights, enjoyed my 1.5 days ambling the city, and ate some excellent spicy Dai food.

Dai Food Cooking, Jinhong

Dai people eat mostly plain rice often along with ground meat made into thin patties, grilled on sheets of metal, and then cut. They eat a lot of green seaweed which is found on rocks at the edge of rivers near their houses on stilts. The seaweed is roasted and wrapped in banana leaves. Many of their dishes are very spicy hot and/or sour and are filled with coriander, onion, sour pickled olives, VERY hot peppers, and pickled bamboo. Beef and fish are usually roasted. In Jinghong, on the streets, are a wide array of fruit and vegetable stalls selling among other produce: breadfruit, papaya, pomelo, dragon fruit, etc. As you can see I found Jinghong very food-centric (as is the whole country, actually) and happily ate a lot, there. Lastly, I discovered a stall (part of a food chain) where you could buy an amazingly fresh, hot, soybean drink. SOOOOOO delicious.

Leaving Jinghong, I took an 18-hour overnight, local bus, to Jianshui and then another three-hour bus ride to the Yuang Yang Rice Terraces. On the night bus to Jianshui I was seated next to a man who received telephone calls hourly, almost, and repeatedly lit up cigarettes. I was the only westerner on the bus and no one else seemed to mind/complain (despite the bus being a no-smoking bus) so I just said nothing and suffered, quietly.

I spent one full day in Yuan Yang Rice Terraces; I walked 18km and took photos of the land (the rice paddies were flooded so there were reflecting pools – spectacular to my eyes) and people (with whom I tried to talk – not easy since the majority of people there are of the Hani tribe).

Yuan Yang Rice Terraces

At the guesthouse, I met an Italian couple and their two children (ages 7.5 and 6). We ended up travelling together for a few days and I spent my stay with them in Shanghai (Luca was teaching at the Jaio Tong University for 6 months).

The five of us travelled next to Jianshui together and met up each night for supper. Jianshui is considered a state historic and cultural city. It is one of the earliest developed cities in south Yunnan. It was the political, cultural and communication center in south Yunnan for centuries. Because of the Jianshui Confucius Temple, the city has been called “the Cultural City” since the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The food in Jianshui was excellent – lots of grilled tofu and bamboo and marinated vegetables and meat. I also saw a stall selling, along with garlic, grilled beetles, larvae, grasshoppers, etc. As well, I spent time walking beyond the historic part of the city in alleyways and areas where the older buildings were in the process of being torn down.

Jianshui

Kunming is known as the “Spring City” because of its climate; temperatures, throughout the year, do not get much colder or warmer than a typical spring in places that have four seasons. It once was a laid-back place, so I was told by a retired Canadian now living in Australia – who I met at the youth hostel we were both staying at. He was last in Kunming five years ago and claimed the city hired a governor to turn it into a prime Chinese city. Kunming is clearly that, now.

Kunming

I found an excellent and cheap resto that I returned to a few times where I tried Kunming’s famous “across the bridge noodles.” This consists of a bowl of very hot soup (stewed with chicken, duck, and ribs) on which a layer of oil floats. Alongside the broth: side dishes of raw pork, vegetables, an egg, and noodles are given to you and you put all these sides into the bowl of soup right away so that the ingredients cook quickly.

One day the project manager/coordinator of the hostel in Kunming invited me to join him for supper. He’s from Hong Kong, originally, and lived in Great Britian for many years while he worked at the International Youth Hostel headquarters in London. He was asked, ten years ago, to coordinate different youth hostels in China and is now based in Shenzhen and Kunming while travelling around the country. Here is what I learned from our conversation, in no particular order of importance:

Some Chinese speak loudly because they are from the north. Apparently it is considered macho/manly for men there to talk loudly. Others speak loudly because they are from small agricultural villages and are used to yelling at each other across the fields
Almost all motor bikes in China are electric
Chinese call the Chinese language Chinese (zhongwen)orPutonghua (the common language)whichis based on the Beijing dialect
- Westerners called/call the Chinese language Mandarin because the upper classes and ministers during the Mandarin Dynasty in the 19th century were based in Beijing and this was the standard for the language in the country
China now has its goods manufactured in countries like Cambodia and Sri Lanka because labour is cheaper. Hmmm… sounds familiar!
Many cars and trucks madeinChinaare exported to Eastern European countries as well as some Latin and South American countries (and I ignorantly thought they were only sold in China since I have never seen a Chinese car elsewhere in my limited world travels!!)
- What you also see: a number of VWs, Mercedes Benzes, Suzukis, and some Fords and Buicks which are all manufactured in China

Lijiang (Shuhe) and Beyond

Lijiang

After a nine hour ride by bus to Lijiang I moved to the youth hostel in Shuhe which is about 4km away from Old Lijiang as well as the new city of Lijaing. The common areas as well as rooms allowed smoking which was the first time I experienced this at a Chinese youth hostel; this was disappointing but I simply had to adjust. Most tourists who go to the Lijiang area are from China so few people speak English which sometimes made it difficult for me. However I met a lovely young woman from Beijing who spoke English and was travelling on her own for the first time (I met up with her again in Beijing). We spent one afternoon cycling the countryside together. Another woman I met is part of the Naxi ethnic group. I ate a number of meals at her little resto and this helped me to feel at home. Strolling through both Shuhe and old Lijiang was very pleasant. They are quaint places with fantastic architecture, often made of mud bricks. However, because of tourism, both are also full of tacky shops with jewellery, clothing, trinkets, etc.

If you have looked at the links above, you will have have noticed that there are a couple of rivers running through Shuhe. In the “olden days” there were three wells — one was used for cleaning oneself, the 2nd for washing vegetables and dishes, and the 3rd for drinking water. I don’t know where the drinking water comes from today but the rivers are used by all the locals for washing oneself, washing food, and washing dishes. I also saw little boys pee in the rivers and, unfortunately, garbage is thrown into it too….

I met a Canadian man in Shuhe who had worked as a chemical engineer. Having worked and travelled in China he decided he wanted to start a new career. He and his Chinese girlfriend had taken a trip to Shuhe 2.5 years ago and fell in love with the place. He went back to Ontario to save up enough money to build a small hotel. When he returned, a year later, the place had almost tripled in size and had lost its quaint small village feel. Despite this they built the hotel: Lijiang Lazy Tiger Inn. The nearby town of Baisha which is 8km away is slowly growing, too; he (and I) believe the two towns will become one at some point soon. Both are officially part of the Unesco World Heritage Site — they used to be just off the radar but the Chinese government wants to increase tourism to these places.

When I returned to the youth hostel in Kunming it felt like returning home. I guess when you go from bed to bed you (or at least I) began to crave staying in one place.