Travelling to the rice terraces with the dirtiest man in China

Above is the taxi driver from the Shuanglongquian...double dragon bridge.

From the Jianshui bus station we headed 4 hours south to the famous rice terraces. Stand in line and get a ticket to XinJie, outside of Yangyuan, and the bus left 7 minutes later, with a few baskets of chickens strapped to the top. While the tickets come with a seat number, on only a few busses was this numbering system actually used. That said, these buses were not overloaded and everyone had a seat. While some of the small rural buses we took later had people sitting in the aisles, we were—in general—very impressed by the buses. The kids and Ross wanted to sit in the back. I can’t do that…my stomach won’t allow it. I found a nice seat near the window and, it turns out, the dirtiest man in China. When this fellow entered the bus, we all looked. He wasn’t untidy or normally dirty. He was absolutely filthy. His hair was matted and stood up straight, his face was smudged with all kinds of dirt, there was crud around his mouth, eyes. His hands were stained black, brown, and burgundy and his fingernails were packed with some sort of solid substance…how Charlie’s look after a good day of making mud ‘stew’. When he sat next to me I found myself studying his head to see if I could see lice. I could not (though as I write this, I find my scalp itching). The kids and Ross called for me to come sit back with them, I demurred. The tone of their voices raised a to a higher pitch as they encouraged me to join them in the back. Maybe this was stupid, but I did not want to be seen as not wanting to sit by him, though his smell…some sort of industrial solvent mixed with general life grunge…made me very happy I was sitting next to a window that opened. And open it I did. Enjoying the cool breeze, then cold breeze. He offered me some of his pumpkin seeds and water. I offered him some sesame candy. We watched a Hong-Kong majohng-kung fu comedy movie together and laughed. He pulled out a cigarette, I asked him not to smoke it, but as he did not understand my Chinese, he tried to light up. His lighter would not work….he took it apart, and reassembled and finally borrowed one from his friend behind him. I opened the window wider and the strong wind helped him burn through his cigarette more quickly. I admit I was happy when someone got off and he moved back to sit with his friend in the row behind.

The bus bumped through towns getting progressively smaller, and finally pulled over at a roadside crossing. A lovely looking couple got on, the lady in dress traditional to the Hani ethnic group got on with her young baby. I motioned for her to sit next to me. The baby was fully dressed in a traditional hat with lots of silver jangly bells hanging in a circle around the brim. The young mother sat down and readjusted this wonderful headwear. Every time the baby turned her head, the tinkling followed. She was so cute. Her mother had a long black braid hanging down her straight back. When she bumped into me to adjust the baby her body had no extra meat. She was so lovely. Such a pleasant change from my previous seat mate. We exchanged pleasantries. Then from deep in her throat came a great hawking sound and large juicy luggie flew from her mouth splatting onto the bus floor. On top of dirty-man’s pumpkin and sesame seed shells. Ah, China.

Double Dragon Bridge, Jianshui, Yunnan, China

The morning of our second day in Jianshui, we wanted to take a taxi to visit the Double Dragon Bridge….one of the oldest bridges in the area…on our way to the bus station. Shuang Long is also Ross’ Chinese name, so we were more determined than normal. However we had trouble finding a taxi to take us. The ‘waigoren tax’ as we came to call it…the extra money levied on you by shopkeepers, ticket sellers, hotels, restaurants, and especially taxi drivers…trying to squeeze a few extra RMB from the unsuspecting, ignorant foreigners. To be fair, my Chinese friends tell me that these hidden surcharges are often tacked to any outsider, but I feel particularly unable to defend myself well. So, we knew the bridge was 6 km from town and we knew the bus station was 8km from the bridge. This is about a 30 RMB cab ride. The first driver quoted a price of 100. We left that cab. The second, 60. We left that cab. The third did not want to go. Cab number 4. By this time we had attracted some well meaning passersby trying to help us get a cab. We thought if we broke the trip up, this might work, the passerby thought this would help (actually, it would have been a horrible idea). No go. Cab number 5 explained this to me…because he would need to come all the way back without a fare. Finally we got him to agree to go and to use his meter. Yes, they all have meters, and are required to use them, but often do not want to. So, we headed out of town. Finally. It is always amazing to me how these simple logistical acts can take so much energy. The road out of town went through a stone cutting area, grey dust and the loud buzz of saws cutting local light grey stone to make funeral pieces, carvings, and other stone objet d’art. The streets were covered in a fine grey dust and the people almost ghost-like with the powdery covering. After this, we hit a detour…and not just any detour. A road construction project had re-routed the road into a small lake. Apparently something had burst, but the water in this area was half way up the door of the car. The trucks were making it through, but there was a minivan full of people stuck in the middle. We went into the water and it got deeper and deeper. It was about a foot from the window. I was nervous, especially when we could not make it up the hill on the other side. Ross and I got out into the mud, and the taxi gained traction and made it up the mud embankment. At this moment my cell phone rang…someone from Beijing wanting to talk logistics….very incongruous. The bridge was pretty, many arches over two rivers, but not near as exciting as the route to get there. To go home, the driver drove through a small market on a walking street, with just inches on either side of the car. Luckily there were no people out. I normally don’t like cars driving on the narrow sidewalks, but at this point, it was better than playing at Noah’s Ark again. We arrived at back at the bus station in plenty of time, and paid the drive the 30 RMB…and gave him a small tip to wash his car. Our bus from Jian Shui was not nearly as exciting.

Jianshui, Yunnan, China

The next day we took the bus to Jain Shui, a rebuilt Ming/Qing dynasty era town. This was our first long-distance bus trip, though it was only 4 hours. We mistakenly took the advice of the people at the hotel and headed to the East Bus station. People are very kind and try to be helpful and give advice, but unfortunately it is often wrong. Sasha had what she called the ‘three person rule’…only when three people agree to you do follow that course of action. I bought some tickets…only to look at them and realize that they were for the wrong place. While everyone speaks Chinese, the accent down here is different and mutual misunderstandings abound. The woman had seen me and assumed we wanted to go to the stone forest, a cool configuration of limestone rocks where many tourists go. The system was pretty efficient though and she took back our computer printed tickets and gave me our money back and sent us on our way… It seems that there were no buses to Jian Shui from this station…only the South station. Another cab and another 30 minutes later we arrived at the South station, bought our tickets and were the last 4 people on the bus. As we pulled out of the station, we were just happy to be aboard and heading in the right direction.

Jianshui still has some of its gates standing and we had the taxi from the bus drop us there. For some reason, I was a bit sick at this stage and after we found our hotel (70 RMB a night), I fell asleep with a fever for a few hours. Ross and the kids went exploring and later in the day we all headed out to the beautiful Confucius Temple. It is one of the largest privately built ones apparently, and the large lake and grounds were a quiet oasis. Even the kids seemed to like it a bit. Especially Amelia who borrowed the camera and took lots of pictures of the stone carved animals, elephants and the usual panoply of dragons and phoenix, rabbits and cows. Unfortunately much of Jian Shui has been reconstructed to look new-old…the China phenomena…so while the streets were nice, it was a bit touristy. Our dinner was good…we walked into one restaurant where they had two menus….with the one in English at 50% more…we walked out. We found one down the street…just point at a bunch of greens, mushrooms, tofu and the woman cooked them up. Great. …

The next morning we visited the Zhou household…an old rich local family that built a beautiful home with many courtyards….sure they were capitalist roadsters, unfortunately supporting the wrong side in some conflict or another (and there were so many from 1900-1949) that their downfall was inevitable. The house was then a school or dormitory and hospital. It had been rebuilt about a decade ago and part of it turned into a hotel. It was interesting to see it, all of the different spaces for public/private, male/female, high/low status use. Over 30 different courtyards, surrounded by room upon room. Amelia and Charlie agreed it would be a fabulous place for a game of hide and seek. We walked around the little lake and fed more fish…this is a fun activity as they swarm, swimming over one another in a rush to get the food into their mouths. It is quite dramatic as they splash and gape and squirm about. Makes me think we need a fish pond.

Yunnan Travels

Hi All,
Because of computer troubles, I have not been able to get to Blogspot and post. Here are some updates from our Yunnan trip, spaced over a couple of days.

We just spend a wonderful two weeks of Spring Holiday travelling around Yunnan province…not without occasional mishaps, but overall a great experience.

Kunming
We flew from Beijing to Kunming and were met by our friend Jian Ming (in photo with his son...now named DASH) at the airport. We had met Jian Ming last year at our Chinese Family Weekend at the Concordia Language camps. He as the martial arts teacher and is a martial arts and tennis teacher at the University in Kunming. It was great to see him again, still as strong as ever. Apparently in his youth he had been involved in many different kung-fu competitions and even some films. Instead of staying at the youth hostel we had booked we ended up going to the Sports Hotel, close to his house and where he had connections….negotiating the room rate from 380 to 170 (about 25$). This is something that Chinese people seem much better able to do than us. The elevator doors were extra speedy, crushing anyone who wasn’t fast on the entry or exit. I posited this was to provide extra training for the sporty stars staying at the hotel…just to keep them in shape. It was so warm and pleasant after Beijing, and there was green! We strolled to a nice noodle dinner. Kunming is known as the city of eternal spring, indeed, the restaurant did not even have windows, just deep overhangs and lots of lovely vegetation. The kids ate….nothing….maybe a noodle or two for Charlie…
Solar hot water heaters were on almost every rooftop. It was amazing really. Jian Ming told us that the government had forbidden their installation on new buildings. I guess they think they are too ugly. Too bad, they seem to work great.
While Kunming is only about 1000m, I felt the altitude the next day climbing the 1,000 steps to the monestary half way up the Western hills. The kids and Ross seem to be in much better shape than I and Jain Ming and his 5 year old were very speedy. The view from the top, over the lake and back into town was nice though…Charlie and Amelia are such a good pair…they got Jain Ming to help them negotiate the purchase of two little stone carvings, a pig for Amelia and a dragon for Charlie, 10 RMB for both. From there we headed down…the kids wanted to take the gondola, but we walked and to more good food. Living in China involves lots of eating. Mostly this is good, but with the kids and friends ordering, it can be tricky. Essentially, they are hungry, but won’t always eat. Usually they will eat rice, but not always. We had some nice mushrooms, which Yunnan is famous for. We headed to the University and walked around the famous Green Lake. Everyone was out strolling….or flying kites, or getting massages, or looking for love. Near the lake there were lists of paper up….Jian Ming told us these were dating services in the park…people list their name, age, height and a few other details. He said it was a rife place for scams. There were lots of people milling around and meeting one another. The kites were so high, the guys let me fly one for a bit. They have about 2km (2000m) of line and the kites go so high on these big metal reels. Kite subculture. The kids fed the fish and all was nice. Jian Ming’s son was tired at this point and inconsolable as we headed back to the hotel and said our goodbyes. He kindly gave us the number of his friend who owned a hotel in Jing Hong and helped us finalize our travel plans.

Watching a movie…

We don’t go to theaters here…the prices are roughly 50rmb…8 dollars, we could feed all of us for that…for a week in the cafeteria! And they are only in Chinese…so we watch them on-line or a DVD. There is a site called YUKU, where they have all all US TV shows and movies, streaming live. Needless to say this site is blocked in the US. Also, you can buy DVDs at a shop or grocery store for ~$2. No legit copies are available in any radius around our place. That said, the copies are dodgy…Ross got District 9 and the aliens spoke in Russian subtitles…hard to understand.

Ross borrowed a movie called ‘Rebound’ from a friend…Some bad coach comeback in a poor middle school basketball team can’t say I liked the movie but the subtitles were hilarious. They were in English, but completely random, and not connected to the English at all. Kind of like our lives in Beijing…not understanding much but adding our personal subtitles to life….

But this movie was hilarious…For example, when the coach was arguing with someone….
“The world’s larges microwave oven” flashed onto the screen.

The mom was talking to the son about going to school and the captions read:
“Um your stocking has just been teleported from one pod to another. “
And “ I say build me a laser with this and that. “

The kids were walking through the school and the narration read:
“So… wow… and this and this. You haven’t told them {beep beep}
You want the quotes right , this is personal. Im; a journalist.”

All just random….but really funny

“ the Bartok people will kill me.” “I can only teleport inanimate objects.” “I don’t have a life” ”The book will end with me transporting myself” I don’t have a telepod. Rough Day”
“It is a real restaurant cappuccino machine” “Designer Phone Booths”

I wonder if they are just from another film and they put them onto this movie…. That said it was the best thing about the film…

Remember, this film was about basketball in a Jr. High school. All of the scenes were about a coach trying to redeem himself…this was a few of the subtitles. “you’re a petty schmuck” “ I think it turned the baboon where the sun don’t shine.””Cheeseburger” “you know you are cute?” “It tastes …um…synthetic” “Psychology today my ass” “you will never get carsick” “I still have the residue of another life on my shoe””You can’t have any fluid left in your body” I think they were from some sci-fi flick…” I want to teleport right now” “You are afraid to be destroyed and recreated” “Drink deep or taste the plasma pool” and there were some others I won’t write here….Let’s just say the aliens were having some fun…”a deep penetrating dive into the plasma pool”…and then they started repeating themselves. Best part of the film..

ants and honey

A colleague from the political science department and his son headed back to Canada and gave us a wonderful stash of stuff....his beautiful electric blue bike (THANKS Jeremy!), some DVDs, plates, a half-full bottle of Chinese brandy and a 2 L bottle full of mountain honey, topped with a layer of dead ants. Like us, his apartment had lots of the little creatures and they have the tendency to get into everything. But, he could not find it in his heart to get rid of the honey. I understand this. When 7 year old Anders (our friend Lisa and Woody's son) gets angry at his mom, he tells her she is being WASTEFUL. This is THE big insult that he has learned from his Chinese ayi. I like this attitude of conservation and care and understood why Jeremy needed to pass the ant filled honey on to a new home. The other gifts were easy to integrate into the household and I really appreciate a better bike! The ant/honey combo has had me puzzling for the past few days...

As many of you know, we have had lots of 'issues' with ants for the past several months. They got so bad at a time that they were in the kids beds, my underwear drawer, clustered around any old kleenex on the floor and covering the spouts of the water cooler. Finally, we broke down and Ross borrowed some poison from our friends Hong and Dong and since then, they have been relatively scarce (cross fingers). Apparently they just get into the walls of the building and take over.

That said, by the end, I had cultivated a much more zen like attitude toward the ants. Maybe it is the morning yoga. And honestly I was not driven completely crazy like before. So this bottle of honey...luckily (you may not know this) dead ants float on honey..kind of a suspended animation. So all I had to do was get the dead ants off the honey and transfer the remaining honey to another container. I devised several different plans...puncturing the bottom of the bottle and draining it from the bottom. But then I worried about the flow. Finally, we cut the top third of the bottle off and I scooped the ants out with a spoon and scraped others off with a knife and just poured the remainder into other containers. It was oddly satisfying.

For our Jan 1 breakfast, I had one of Ross' banana pancakes with a small drizzle of ant-free honey on top and a banana smoothie, sweetened with no-ant honey. Delicious! Bon apetit and happy 2010!

The Wind...

The prevailing wing in Beijing is from the Northwest…blowing across the plains from Siberia, Mongolia and over the mountains into Beijing. Many of my Chinese friends and colleagues here really hate the wind. It is sometimes strong (trees bend far and last year I saw a filing cabinet [it was empty] being blown down the street), cold and dry (hands and lips crack), and noisy (Ross was afraid that he might go crazy if our first noisy wind night continued indefinitely, and it felt like it would). But my appreciation for the wind comes from its ability to scour away the coal dust and pollution in the air. The day after a big wind storm, my lungs feel free again and I can see the mountains…not to mention the buildings down the street. Last week was our first sand storm, where the wind carried with it a fine dust from the Gobi Desert. The first up to the second floor stairwells were coated in the brownish-yellow sand, and around the window in our kitchen was a pile of the fine sand.

Suddenly, this idea of Feng Shui (literally, wind water) makes a little sense. Orienting buildings and space to protect from the strong wind and dust, and open human spaces toward the southern sun. The Forbidden City is protected by Coal Hill…built to the North improve the Feng Shui…but how nice a protection this manmade human berm would be as a block to the brutal winter cold.