Part 2: Sichuan Province

(1/27/07) We had already spent eighty six hours riding trains in less than two weeks. We stopped in Xi’an for a day and then decided to just fly to Chengdu. It took us two hours to fly when it would have taken another twenty to ride the train again. We arrived in Chengdu (Sichuan Province) in the evening and rode a taxi into the city. Ben had arranged for us to meet up with his classmate who is a native to Chengdu, and travel with him during our stay. We met his friend, Yuan Fan, at the Chengdu Petroleum Hotel. Yuan Fan’s father works in the petroleum industry and he let us use his VIP card at the hotel. We got a really nice and comfortable hotel room for a really low price of 120 kuai. We went out that night and had a really good Sichuan style dinner. Sichuan is famous for its food, especially its spicy food.

We spent the first day in Chengdu relaxing. Chengdu is known for its laid-back lifestyle and easy-going activities such as playing mahjong (Chinese chess) and sipping tea at its many teahouses. Yuan Fan showed us around downtown and treated us to some Sichuan food. The rest of the day we sat outside with some tea and discussed our plans for the rest of the week.

The next morning, we got up at 7:00 and took a bus to Emei town, about two hours away. We spent the day visiting Leshan Dafu, the largest carved Buddha statue in the world. It was in a park with other various Buddhist statues tucked among green fauna. We experienced really comfortable weather in Sichuan and enjoyed all the green plants. We ate a big dinner that night and went to bed early. Our main event would start the next day, to climb Emei Shan.

It took us two full days to hike up to the top of Emei Shan (Emei Mountain). Forty kilometers straight up, but it was the most fun experience we had on our trip. We started the first day at Emei town, which lies at the bottom of the mountain, and began our ascent from there. Mount Emei is a very well known and visited cultural site in China, and is a sacred spot for Buddhists. The bottom and the top are full of tourists and day walkers. Most people just take the cable cars to the summit, but we were looking for a challenge and some interesting stories. Along the way, the three of us rotated our two backpacks around every hour. One thing that I found amazing was the stone walkway that was built the entire way up through the mountains. Only in China could there be such a construction. The whole two days we hiked, that path never ended, and we just kept following it up.

We started early in the morning and the sun was bright and shining nicely off the green tree canopy. The bottom had an almost subtropical feeling that felt a bit out of place, but comforting. There was an abundance of bamboo maybe reaching higher than thirty feet tall. Small rest stops, temples, and locals spotted the path, but became fewer and fewer the higher the ascent. We had brought food and water for two days worth, but managed to buy food easily along the way.

There was beautiful scenery along the whole way and we simply passed time by talking. We took a rest the first day on the side of a clear, cool mountain stream surrounded by lush green plants. That was very surreal for us, it being January and us coming from Beijing. The first day of hiking, the weather and climate of the mountain was really great. In the afternoon, we came to a wide river stream that cut through a small canyon. It was such a nice place, the Emei monkeys like to hang out there. Emei Shan is famous for its wild monkeys. Since it was winter, most monkey activity was low, but we got our chance to see here. The monkeys here are notorious for harassing visitors by stealing and attacking them. We were always prepared to encounter the monkeys, but I guess they were too cold to come out. Across the next bridge was a big group of monkeys. Lots of travelers crowded cautiously around taking pictures and giving special monkey snacks to them. The monkeys kept climbing on top of the visitors and annoying them, so that’s why there were local people there to help. Men and mostly women, who apparently lived there, stood guard to help people get up the mountain monkey free. Most of them had bamboo sticks, rocks, and slingshots. We crossed the bridge to the monkeys and got a close look at some of them. They were jumping and climbing all over people though. A big monkey king, about four feet tall, latched onto Ben’s leg, and a little monkey climbed on his back. A monkey jumped on the back of my backpack and then hopped off my head and ran away. An old woman guided us through the rest of the monkey pack, pointing her sling shot at any mischievous monkeys that came our way. When they saw her, they backed away with fear. I could see why those monkeys were afraid. Lots of old women were whacking them with bamboo sticks and throwing stones at them. We got back onto the main path and an old man said he should come with us to keep anymore monkeys from bothering us since we were still in their territory. After a while, he said it was okay and went back down.

The rest of the afternoon, we hiked up and up. It only became steeper and we were climbing on all fours most of the time. We enjoyed it though, and just took in the sights of the mountains. At about 6:30 P.M., we started seeing snow and ice. Luckily, we had arrived at our rest stop for the night. It was a Buddhist monastery that also offered housing for mountain travelers. It was snowy and cold now. When we got to the monastery, the people outside welcomed us and invited us to eat in their little restaurant outside. We had a good dinner and then went to our room. It was a really small room, white walls, two beds, a small table, and a light bulb hanging from the ceiling. We soaked our feet in hot water and warmed our beds. The beds had electric blankets. This wouldn’t be the first time the electric blanket would save us from spending a freezing night, like we did in Tibet.

Around 6:00 A.M. the next morning, we woke up to the sounds of somber bells and chanting from the courtyard outside. We got out of bed to the freezing cold air soon after, put on our warm clothes, and trudged our way outside to the stone cold bathrooms. Our friend, Yuan Fan, didn’t sleep well that night so he slept in while me and Ben went out to explore. We heard about a cave nearby the monastery and went to search for it along a snowy path. The mountain was completely silent and blanketed in a white, cold snow. It was very calm and strange. There were no other people around either. Me and Ben followed a couple of paths to find the cave. We passed a silent shrine on a peak, and then followed the path along the cliff side until we found the cave. Old, colorful sutra flags were fluttering in the wind around the cave entrance. It was deserted at the time, so we just went in. It was completely dark. A stone stairway led us down further into the pitch black cave. We used the light of Ben’s cell phone and my key chain flashlight to guide our way. It was just enough. We got down to the bottom, and found one small light shining. We found a shrine to some Buddhist deity that was nicely arranged and cleaned. Nothing we hadn’t seen before, but it was more fun to find it at the bottom of a cave. We found another path behind the shrine and followed it until it ended with an iron gate and a warning sign. I think they put the dead monks down there behind that gate. We climbed back out of the cave after taking some pictures, and made our way back to the monastery to meet Yuan Fan and continue up the mountain.

There was ice and snow the rest of the way up to the top. We bought iron spikes from the locals and attached them to the bottoms of our shoes. We hiked and hiked like the first day, but had to be careful not to slip on the ice. We didn’t pass very many people the second day since conditions were not very favorable. We stopped to eat our packed lunch outside an abandoned rest stop. Signs kept warning of wild monkeys, but it was too cold for them to come. We kept our sticks at the ready though. We had a lot of fun the second day and enjoyed the great sights and snowy mountain peaks. That afternoon, we started to reach the top. We could see the tourist crowds in the distance. There was a cable car, bus station, restaurants, hotels, and souvenir shops near the peak. It was disappointing to see after so much work to reach the top, but we just kept climbing past it. Most of the other people were surprised when they realized we actually liked to hike the whole mountain. In the evening, we finally reached a little hotel at the peak. It was a normal hotel, but freezing cold. We ate dinner in a freezing cold room, then went back to our room, turned on our electric blankets, and sat in our beds the rest of the evening.

We woke up early the next morning to see the sunrise. We went to the very top, but it was too cloudy that morning. The sunrise at Emei Shan is famous for its beauty. The peak is above the clouds, and sometimes it appears like you are standing in the sky. We got a wonderful view over the mountain range we had just hiked though, and it was still great. We had hiked forty kilometers through the mountains, and had seen sub tropical climate change to snowy evergreens. We took the bus back down the mountain and immediately caught a bus back to Chengdu. We got back to our nice hotel that afternoon and rested up.
We celebrated the end of our climb by eating Sichuan style hot pot. Hot pot is basically a big pot of hot water and oil, and then you stick various pieces of food inside to cook it. Sichuan style hot pot is full of spices though and in my opinion is much better than hot pot from the north.

The next few days we decided to visit various places around Chengdu, but most of our attempts failed due to getting lost or having to use the poor transportation system. The public buses were the most troublesome we had seen before. Twice, we got stuck with taking the inefficient bus. First, you would have to buy your ticket at the bus station and then wait for the bus to completely fill up with people before departing. The drivers usually took bumpy back roads that just slowed things down. The bus workers must have tried to make as much money out of one trip as possible. Whenever somebody got off the bus, they would keep stopping along the road to fill up the bus again. This stopping and going would continue the entire way, and double the time it took to get anywhere. So, if you go to Sichuan, be wary of taking the standard buses.

So, the last few days in Sichuan province were uneventful. We basically just tried to enjoy as much good food as possible before we left. We said goodbye to our friend Yuan Fan and continued south on our way to Yunnan province.

请等一下

I’m currently working on Part 2 of my travelogue. Sorry to make everyone wait.

I recently moved out of my old place living with the Chinese family, and now live by myself in an apartment about five minutes walk from my school. I pay 3000 ($375) kuai a month for a three room apartment. It came furnished, and is very comfortable. I put up some pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexsumerall/sets/72157600038174533/

Part One - Tibet

The sun was coming up over the mountains as we woke up on the rattling train. The night before, we left Beijing and began our trip to Lhasa, Tibet. We had already traveled a long way. We were near Xi’an in Shaanxi province, the old western capital. Our train ride would take approximately forty eight hours from Beijing. Only our excitement kept people sane, I think. Most passengers around us had never been to Tibet before, and you could tell they were excited to see so many new things. It made it easier to get along, and we just shared conversation and food to pass the time. The train was quite new and comfortable. It had English translations, ambient music, clean services, sink and bathroom areas, and some power outlets. It was used for high altitude trips, and each bed is equipped with a little oxygen outlet. We had the hard-sleepers with six beds to a room. I had a bottom bunk and my friend Ben had the one above it. So, we could just sit on the bottom during the day, and didn’t have to fight for a chair in the hallway. We were in good company too. Two Tibetan girls sat across from us and a business woman who liked to give us food. She said she admired me and Ben’s appetites, and wished she could eat as much. We got a lot of information from the Tibetan girls. They taught us some Tibetan words that might be useful, and gave us some tips on travel. At 9:00 A.M. we stopped in Xi’an station, and then shortly continued westward.

The landscape became very arid and cold. That afternoon, we traveled through some mountainous terrain with lots of tunnels. All the mountain sides had been carved up like a flight of stairs for farming reasons. I couldn’t imagine there being any crops on those mountains though. It was very dry and rough. The West of China is truly poor. This was the first time I got to see it for real though. There were some old, communist looking cities along the tracks. Transportation and people for that matter were very sparse. Old cave dwellings covered the mountain sides. People inhabited these caves about fifty years ago. People may not live in these caves anymore, but these people are still very poor. At 4:00 P.M. we stopped in Lanzhou of Gansu province. We got to step outside the train for about ten minutes to stretch and get a breath of fresh air. From where we were, Lanzhou looked run down and poor for a large city. It felt deserted and was eerily quiet.

At about 6:00 P.M. we entered Qinghai province, which is adjacent to Tibet Autonomous Region. We were still only about half way through the trip though. We stopped in Xiding, the capital of Qinghai. Xiding marks the beginning of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, which is the world’s highest altitude railway. As the sun lowered, our train began to enter the hinterlands.

The next morning I woke up at around 7:30 and got cleaned up and ready by 8:00. It was still pitch black outside. The train staff came around and passed out air tubes to passengers in case they were feeling bad. You could stick the little tube into the oxygen vent. We were still in Qinghai province that morning. We were in a very remote area, and not a single light could be found outside the train. We were traveling south as the sun rose to our east over the snowy mountains. The sunlight gave the mountains a blue aura and it was very pristine. By 9:00 A.M. it was light outside. The sun was shining with all its glory. No pollution or clouds to block it here. The sky was a brilliant blue and totally unspoiled. The train passed through flat mountain valleys. We spotted some groups of Tibetan antelope, wild donkeys, and yak that morning. They would become a common sight the closer we got to Lhasa. We spent most of the day just looking out the windows. That afternoon, we passed Co Na Lake, the highest freshwater lake in the world. It was completely frozen though. We could tell we were getting closer to civilization as small settlements and herders showed up outside. Not much further.

We arrived at the Lhasa station around 9:00 P.M. that night. We got a taxi to the city for forty kuai, which took about twenty minutes. Lhasa was all lit up and we could see it from the distance with the Potala Palace hovering above it all. The city lies tucked in between the mountains, and we made a big loop around the mountain side to get into the city. The first thing I noticed was how small and low the buildings were. The roads didn’t have that busy, loud feeling like in the East. There are few visitors to Tibet in the winter, so we got a hotel room for half price (140 kuai). We could feel the difference in the oxygen level. It gave a slight dizzy feeling that night. It usually takes a day or two to adjust and get used to the altitude.

The next day, I got up at 9:00 as the sun rose over the mountains, making the Potala shimmer. We walked to the Potala Palace (Budalagong). It only took about five minutes. Pilgrims were circling the perimeter in a clockwise fashion that morning while spinning their prayer wheels, and murmuring sutras. We took in the sight of the palace before we went inside. We had to climb the hill to the entrance. We had to stop every minute to catch our breath. We bought tickets and went inside. It was dark and smelled old. It’s a really magnificent structure, and is filled with relics and treasures of the Tibetan people. Most of the people inside were pilgrims giving respects and prayers to various deities. Tibetan Buddhism is such a mystery to me, and it was hard to appreciate all the things I was looking at. Everything had some kind of meaning, but I was only seeing the surface.

The weather felt nice so we spent some time walking around and then found some lunch. It was the middle of January but it wasn’t very cold. The mornings and nights were cold, but in the afternoon the sun was so strong we didn’t even need a coat. We just sat and watched the people for a while. Lhasa is maybe 85% Tibetan people and 15% Han Chinese people. The Tibetan people look different. They have darker skin, and straighter noses. They don’t tend to wash their hair, which is usually long. People tend to wear colorfully decorated clothing common to Tibet. Women wear colorful jewelry sometimes, and put beads in their hair. The sun is so strong so many people wear wide brimmed cowboy hats. Some women walk around carrying their babies in a bundle on their backs.

That day, we went to the Jokhang Monastery. It’s another holy place in Lhasa, but it’s also become the heart of the cities commercialism. Outside the monastery gates, pilgrims prostrate themselves on the ground throughout the day, and circle around like at the Potala. The Bharkor Bazaar also encircles the monastery selling just about everything you could imagine being in Tibet. Most of the merchandise is fake and incredibly overpriced for foreigners though. You have to bargain hard to get an honest price. I admit I just got fed up with some salespeople and bought things without trying hard enough for a decent price. We payed a monk at the monastery for tickets and went inside to take a look. It was similar to the Potala Palace. It had interesting architecture, and relics, but we couldn’t really appreciate its meaning. It was just a nice sight. After the Jokhang, we wandered around for about two hours and then had dinner. A bike cart driver first showed us a little teahouse that he said we should try. It was just a crummy little place. It was dark, dirty, and everyone sat around on some filthy sofas. It was only local Tibetan people so we stayed for a drink. The locals inside were so puzzled when two outsiders came to sit. We got a thermos of Tibetan sweet tea for one kuai. So, we enjoyed our short stay there, and then left to find some food. We found a restaurant nearby the monastery. I got a big thermos of Tibetan butter tea. It tastes like a mild butter but is thin like tea. It was very good and is a famous Tibetan drink. Ben doesn’t like milk so I had to drink the whole thing. The food was just alright though. We never found really god food during our stay in Tibet. There are too many foreigners in Lhasa and too many restaurants catering to foreign tourists. It’s hard to find anything authentic. People there were usually surprised when I spoke some Chinese to them. I think they’re used to seeing the newbie tourists who are always catered to. After being in China for a while those people get annoying even though we’ve all been there at some point. Many Tibetan people can speak at least a few English words. People always said “hello” to me as I passed by. Shopkeepers said, “Hello, lookie, lookie!” Other people say, “Hello, how are you doing?” and “I love yoouuuuu!”

The next day, we went back to the Bhaarkor Market, and I bought some souvenirs and a wide brimmed hat to keep off the sun. After shopping, we paid a visit to the Norbulinka horticulture gardens, which was disappointing. The tickets were expensive, upward of one hundred kuai, and there was really nothing unique to see. It was a large, walled in garden complex with some temples. There were no unique plants and nothing of real interest. If you happen to visit Lhasa in the spring or summer time it might be worth a visit, but still probably not. The rest of the day was rather uneventful. We just wandered around the city and relaxed at the hotel.

The next day we decided to take a bus to a different city to the southwest of Lhasa named Rekaze (Shigatse in English). At the bus station, a crowd surrounded us asking to take us on their bus. We agreed to go with one group, and paid one hundred kuai for two tickets. It’s illegal for foreigners to travel outside of Lhasa without a certified guide (which are really expensive), and illegal to travel along with the Tibetan people, but we took the chance. If the police find you, the worst they can do is give a small fine and sent you back to Lhasa. So, the driver quickly ushered me onto the bus, and sat me at the very back. The bus was full of Tibetans and a few Chinese. Definitely, the most uncomfortable bus ride, but it was worth it in the end. We were in the back with our legs crammed up against the seats in front of us. The ride would take about four hours. Once the bus was full of people, we set off. We drove for about thirty minutes when a Tibetan man came and told me to keep low since we were coming to a police checkpoint. I just put my hat low over my face as we approached. We passed through without any problems, and continued on. The landscape was mountainous and arid the whole way. The road followed a sparkling river the whole way through the mountains. The road was new and quite good, but still dangerous. It was narrow, had sharp turns, and avalanches seemed commonplace. Fallen rocks blocked half the road in a few places. The highway was dotted with small villages. It was very different from Lhasa. Most of these people lived in small wood and brick homes with flat roofs. Some are stuccoed or painted white and have very colorful details painted on them. Every hour or so, we would take a break and get off the bus. Everyone would just go across the road and take a piss on the side of someone’s house or restaurant, and then shuffle back onto the bus. We kept going further to what seemed like nowhere. There was very little along the highway now. The landscape became more and more arid with a few sand dunes even. At one point, a group of smiling Tibetans blocked the road and started throwing dirt at the bus. It was a friendly act. A Tibetan guy next to us said it is a custom to throw dirt on your clothes to grant safe travels.

At 3:30 P.M. we arrived in Rekaze and quickly walked to a nearby hotel. The people at the hotel welcomed us warmly. Again, there were no problems with a foreigner being there. We got a hotel room for eighty kuai. It was good, except that it was freezing cold. Apparently, that day was a small festival day in Rekaze. We decided to go out and see some things. We decided to walk to the Jashilunpo monastery. It was actually being rebuilt and closed down. It was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. We walked about thirty minutes. I saw a lot of empty police cars along the way, but no cops. Lucky it was a festival day. Some little children were excited to see me and helped us find the entrance to the monastery. They told us to walk up the hill. A flock of sheep came ambling down as we took in the view of the city. All the buildings were very small and low. It was much more authentic than Lhasa. We walked up a big hill to get to the entrance. A Tibetan dog stood guard there ready to kill, but it was chained down. We found the construction foreman and he let us go inside the monastery to look. There was nothing to see, but again we got a great view. We found a Muslim family restaurant near our hotel and had some dinner and then went back to the hotel. That night, I had to wear three pairs of pants, shirts, socks, and my coat, but it was still freezing.

The next morning, we got up early to catch a bus back to Lhasa. I jumped on the bus and waited for it to fill up with passengers. Lucky we went the day before because, that morning police were swarming all over the place. We eventually filled up and left Rekaze. Its 280 kilometers drive to and from Lhasa. Another four hours, but it wasn’t bad.

We got back to Lhasa uneventfully and immediately went to buy train tickets to our next destination. We couldn’t get tickets straight to Chengdu and would have had to wait a week so we bought tickets to Xi’an instead. We spent another day in Lhasa just relaxing, and then left the next morning.

The Tibetan people are very friendly and down-to-earth. They live very naturally and their culture is very spiritually based. I can hardly begin to understand their complicated culture, but I gained a good impression of the Tibetan people when I was there. Tibet is technically a part of China, which was “liberated” in 1951, but is really nothing like China. Chinese business, government control, and language are the only major signs of Chinese presence in Tibet. Go outside of Lhasa and it’s less and less like China.

I'm back from my travels.

I returned last week from thirty five days of travelling around China. I visited nine cities including: Lhasa, Rikaze, Xi'an, Chengdu, Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, Shangrila, and Shanghai. It's going to take me time to write about it so until then, I've uploaded all my best photos for you to see. You can see them all here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexsumerall/sets/72157594551347823/

Concrete Jungle

Every day I walk about a mile and a half to go to my university campus. It takes me about thirty minutes to go this distance. Most people take some speedy way of transportation to get to school, but I prefer to walk. On this mile and a half stretch of road one can see all of Beijing summed up in a nutshell.

I start off from my place at 7:40 every morning. As soon as I step out the door, the air of the cold, cement stairwell hits me. It’s like breathing in fumes of burning coal. The temperature is usually below freezing in the morning this time of year so I wear a lot of clothing. The cold and the air just bite at you to get walking faster.

I pass out the gate of the apartment complex and turn right onto the sidewalk. I just continue walking straight all the way to my school. The sidewalk is very wide and allows for easy moving. People will mostly walk on it, but lots of bikes, motorcycles, and cars take to the sidewalks for shortcuts around road traffic sometimes. People won’t hesitate to park cars in the middle of the sidewalks either. The first two months I was here in Beijing, a brand new sidewalk was built all the way from my place to the school. There used to be holes and loose bricks everywhere, so it’s much nicer now. The new sidewalk has already been well worn in. I usually walk with my eyes scanning the ground in front of me so I can dodge the freezing spit and mucus and other trash on the ground. My friend told me Beijing is one of the dirtiest cities in the world. I wasn’t too sure, but sometimes it really seems that way. Chinese people have some of the dirtiest habits, especially spitting everywhere.

I usually see some of the same people walking in the mornings, but there really are so many people here. The street vendors are always out carting around roasted chestnuts, which taste like dirt, and other fruits and breakfast snacks. Sometimes I see the horse drawn carts coming in from the countryside carrying various building materials or vegetables. There are usually about six horses, each pulling a cart loaded with supplies and a few farmers. They just go along with the cars and bicycles. I pass by the next apartment complex, where lots of foreigners live. The illegal taxis hang out here to mooch off the foreigners’ money. They stopped asking if I wanted a ride a long time ago though. The drivers just stand out in the cold most of the day smoking and playing Chinese chess under the bridge.

The migrant workers are usually scuffling around in their big, green army coats. Lots of older people wear aged military outfits that aren’t used anymore, which gives a really communist feeling in contrast to the more stylish, young people’s clothing. There are usually about three homeless people that lay on the freezing sidewalk all day begging for money. I don’t know how they can actually survive sometimes. The trash collectors come riding along in the morning too. They usually ride a bicycle with a little motor and a cart on the back and they’ll pack as much stuff onto it as possible. It’s unbelievable how much they can get onto their little carts sometimes. I’ve seen a few piles of bags stacked almost ten feet tall and strapped on with ropes. They just ride along with their big tower of trash swaying back and forth. There are a lot of things going on along the road, and it’s very loud and smoggy sometimes. People honk their horns all the time here and won’t think twice about honking their horn right in your face.

Most of the people are on their way to work of course. Grandmothers are usually taking their grandchildren to school. The grandmothers ride their bikes and the little kids just sit on the back holding on tight as they weave through traffic. The Korean students are usually speeding to school on their mopeds, and the salary workers are either running after a bus or hailing a cab. The elderly people usually walk in the mornings and sometimes bring their dogs for a stroll.

This piece of street gives a good impression of most of Beijing. The whole city is pretty much gray, dirty, and loud, especially in the winter. It’s sometimes named the “concrete jungle” by foreigners because of its wild and dismal atmosphere.


A Chinese Christmas

Along with capitalism and commercialism comes Santa Claus to the cities of China. Some Chinese people like to try and celebrate for Christmas. They just don’t really know how. I think most people believe Christmas to be on the 24th of December. One of my American friends had an argument with a Chinese person that thought Christmas Eve was actually Christmas day. I was out on Christmas Eve and the streets and restaurants were busy through the night with revelry. Some people had a little too much excitement I think. On Christmas morning the streets were marked with a rare silence and frozen barf. I get the feeling most Chinese people can’t hold their alcohol very well. Lots of shops and restaurants had some basic Christmas decorations and carols to welcome customers too. All the workers wore Santa hats for the time before Christmas. The image of Christmas in Beijing that stuck most is the random old guy on his moped smoking his cigarette with a big frown on his face and wearing a big, red Santa hat.

Spit On What?

Chinese people really like to spit. It’s so bad, the Chinese government has to put up signs and remind people not to spit on the ground. Most young generations don’t have such a habit though. Except for the nicer places in downtown Beijing, you will always see people spit on the ground. They always first clear their throats really loudly and sometimes obnoxiously before they stain the ground with their mucus bombs. I don’t really know why people always spit. Lots of old, senile people just like to spit whenever foreigners walk by to express their feelings.

I always eat lunch with one of my Chinese friends at my school’s dining hall. One day we were eating lunch, and I had to spit out some meat that had a piece of cartilage in it. I put it back on my plate and he said that was really disgusting to put it back on my plate. I asked him what I should do if I need to spit out some bad food. He said to me that it would be much more sanitary to spit out food onto the table or on the floor. He said it was more sanitary because nobody eats food off the table or the floor, but the plate should not be touched by any germs from somebody’s mouth. I thought that was really weird, but an interesting cultural difference.


Things have been really slow here lately. The recent earthquake knocked out my internet, but it speeds up a little bit everyday. I had some photos to show with this post, but my connection is still too slow to upload them. I have two weeks of school left now. I plan to leave for vacation on January 16th. I'll start by going to Tibet for about a week, then to Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guangxi Provinces for the next three or four weeks. Look forward to a lot of stories from my travels.

China: Transformation Or Mutation?

China is truly going through a major transformation and I am starting to believe most Chinese people are having a hard time keeping up with the quick change. Beijing is full of contrasts: new, decrepit; rich, poor; knowledge, ignorance; traditional, and modern. Most people here over the age of forty are still scarred by the hard times of the Cultural Revolution and seem to still carry a heavy burden from those times. Half of Beijing seems to be filled with people still living in the past and not accepting the future. The younger generations are now adapting to the modern China though, but most young Chinese still grew up in a very different time and place. Through my friends and host family I’ve been able to see part of this transformation from old to new Chinese lifestyle.

The father of the household, where I live, is a thirty year old, college educated IT specialist, who grew up in Hebei province near Beijing. I think he’s a good example of how Chinese people are adapting to the new China. When he returns from his work, he can often be seen coming in the door with his laptop and hanging up his coat and pants before setting down for dinner. My friend says I live with a “real” Chinese family because the father will just take off his pants in the living room because he says it’s a bit warm in the house. His apartment has a personal computer in one corner, a nice, large flat screen TV in the center, and a little statue of Mao Zedong to top it all off. It seems like the flat screen TV is becoming an important asset to the modern Chinese family. I don’t think they’ve given much thought to their interior design either, and things are usually left messy for the maid to clean up later. Sometimes it’s like they’re still living on the farm. To some foreigners here they just can’t quite understand why Chinese people still act this way and it maybe doesn’t fit their definition of “civilized.” Chinese people use the things they have in a different way from most Western people. They usually just don’t know how to take advantage of the “modern” lifestyle the way most foreigners do, and just live the same way they have always known.

Most of my Chinese friends have had college education yet they still know very little about the rest of the world. I was having dinner with the family this week and the grandmother asked if all foreigners ate with chopsticks. The father didn’t really know either and we started naming every country we knew where people used chopsticks. He seemed surprised when I told him Europeans did not use them, and Japanese people did. If you ask most Chinese people about a foreign country you’ll probably just get a very textbook answer. If somebody talks about Americans, they will almost certainly mention Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Nixon, Clinton, Bush, and Bill Gates. This week, my Chinese friend said he really admired Clinton because he thought he was really tall like Yao Ming. He said he really liked Nixon too because he met with Mao Zedong to mend relations between the US and China. He said he really didn’t like Bush because he attacked Iraq. He said he admired Mao the most of all, and admired Chou Enlei the second most even though he probably didn’t know Chou Enlei was marked as a traitor to Mao and killed by Mao’s Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. Fabricated history is just annoying because it makes everyone sound like a hypocrite or just dumb.

Lotus Charity Excursion

Not much interesting happening these days, but I'm keeping very busy. I've been spending a lot of time at the gym, and planning for my winter vacation starting in January. Nothing is final yet, but I'm hoping to travel to Tibet and down through southern China for about five weeks during the holiday.

A few weeks ago, I joined the Lotus Educational Foundation to travel to a senior center in Hebei province, outside Beijing, to do charity work. Some fellow students, the Lotus staff, and many Chinese volunteers took a coach bus to the small village. It took about two hours to travel to the location. The senior center was for poor, senior Chinese men with no families to live. It was actually an old school and was in bad condition. The living standards were very poor. We visited inside the men’s living quarters to chat with them and help them clean things up. The floors were cold cement, there was no heating, usually one light bulb hanging from the ceiling, no running water, flies everywhere, and not even a real door to keep out the hard winds. They each had a small bed frame and a thin mattress to sleep on. Most of the men were in their seventies or eighties and could barely get around, let alone fix up their places. One old man, who seemed quite healthy, had managed to cover up his whole window with a tarp to keep out the winds. There were lots of volunteers who came to perform different tasks. Some doctors came and used Chinese medicine to help the men. They performed examinations, and they put little pins in their ears because I think the ear has many important points in acupuncture. Most of the volunteers were Buddhists from various places or groups who do this type of work on a normal basis. The people were all given vegetarian steamed buns for lunch. It’s like a soft roll filled with veggies. It’s a popular staple food in China though usually they are filled with meat. After the supplies were handed out, we said goodbye and got back on the bus, which was now full of flies buzzing around. It was an interesting trip. A good experience for the Thanksgiving and holiday season too. After we returned to Beijing, we were served a feast of vegetarian food by the Lotus Foundation in a fancy restaurant. It’s just amazing to see how easy things can go from dirt poor to being extravagant in China these days. It’s like this almost everywhere I’ve been so far.

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexsumerall/sets/72157594385655072/