Matt Hartzell's China Blog

Job listings and salaries in a small Chinese city

2011-11-17T20:51:00.001-08:00

Thought folks might find this interesting. Recently, passing through a small city in Yunnan Province called Yuxi (玉溪), I was waiting for my breakfast (饵块...barbecued rice cakes with peanut sauce) and next door to the rice cake shop was a job agency, with hundreds of jobs listed on a chalkboard. I took a photo of one of the chalkboards, translated the jobs into English, and converted the salaries from Chinese Renminbi into US Dollars. The salaries listed are monthly. With the exception of the sales jobs, all of these jobs also provide free food and accommodation.

Freight handler $472-$630
Freight shipping handler $189-$252
Electrician-plumber-machine repairman $315-$472
Lathe operator $472-$630
Boiler operator $252-$394
Iron worker $283-$315
Cook $283-$472
Assistant cook $189-$283
Hot pot restaurant server $142-$189
Cashier $189-$283
Cafeteria worker $126-$157
Office clerk $157-$252
Supermarket appliance and makeup salesperson $283 + commission
Building material salesperson $94-$126 + commission
Book salesperson $394-$472 + commission
Large vehicle driver $189-$252
Small vehicle driver $283-$394
Digging machine operator $283-$394
Machine installer $315-$472
Mechanic (large and small vehicles) $315-$472
Mechanic (digging and construction machinery) $394-$472
Welder (odd jobs) $394-$472
Welder (tractors) $472-$630
Welder (containers) $315-$472
Welder (iron railings) $472-$630
Welder (mixing machine) $315-$472
Chicken farmer (wife and husband), $378-$409
Chicken farmer (single), $189-$205
Pig farmer (wife and husband), $315-$409
Pig farmer (single), $142-$236
Fish farmer, $189-$252
Flower and vegetable farmer (wife and husband), $315-$378
Karaoke customer service, $157-$189

Cycling along the Historic Yunnan-Vietnam Railway

2011-10-24T11:53:00.000-07:00

The Yunnan-Vietnam Railway (滇越铁路) celebrated it’s centennial last year. With a newhigh-speed rail line connecting Kunming with Vietnam already underconstruction, this historic narrow gauge railway’s days may be numbered. Today,the route can no longer be experienced from aboard the train (passenger servicewas suspended in 2003 due to the risk of landslides). But it’s still possibleto see the occasional freight train rolling along these historic tracks.

Most of its 466 kilometerswithin Yunnan snake through river valleys and canyons away from contemporarytransportation corridors. It’s only possible to scout out the tracks in certainplaces where parallel roads exist. One of the most rewarding such sectionsbegins at the Vietnamese border in Hekou (河口), following the Nanxi River (南溪河) north for 112 km into Pingbian (屏边) county, ending at Renziqiao (人字桥), a remarkable bridge shaped like the Chinesecharacter forperson: 人.

I explored this route bybicycle last weekend. The route parallels the railway the entire way, offeringchances to see the occasional freight train, and to marvel at engineering thatbrought this railway through such forbidding terrain a century ago. Significantsections of track are perched high up on the valley wall; tunnels and bridgesare par for the course.

The route also runs throughcolorful geographical and cultural terrain. The tropical climate and lowaltitude suit the Nanxi River Valley to banana, pineapple, and papayaplantations. Most of the valley’s locals belong to the Yao (瑶族) and Miao (苗族)ethnic groups, and many of the women and children still wear their colorfultraditional clothing.

Most are farmers who livealongside the road in wooden huts and raise horses, which they use to carrybananas down from the steep slopes. I passed by numerous work teams washing andweighing bananas, and packing them into trucks bound for markets across China.

DAY ONE: HEKOU (河口) to BAIHE (白河)

Starting in Hekou, I firstcrossed over a minor mountain range, then joined the railroad at the NanxiRiver. The next 68 km were relatively easyriding. The road and the railroad parallel the river on opposite sides. Minorups and downs abound, but no major climbs. I had a tasty lunch of boiled beefjerky and sweet bamboo shoots at Yao ethnic restaurant in a wooden house by awaterfall.

About halfway along theday’s ride, the highway and railroad switch sides. The railroad bridge runsdiagonally across the river. I was lucky that there happened to be a traincrossing at the same moment I was there.

All along the river thereare small suspension bridges, some wood, some metal, some concrete. I decidedto follow one across the river and see what was on the other side. I rode mybike across the swooping, swaying bridge which was kind of thrilling. On theother side was train station and switching yard called Lahadi (腊哈地). Lots of old railroad buildings, railroad cars andengines, and a railroad turntable.

74 km from Hekou is a towncalled Baihe (白河). It’s not very big, but it is the biggest town apartfrom Hekou on the route, and it’s where I spent the night.

Baihe has the air of an oldrailroad town. As recently as 2010, a station agent still manned the crossing.A sign warns that pedestrians are now on their own to stay out of the way ofpassing trains. I was lucky to see one chugging through town just after dusk;its piercing horn and slow pace made it hard to miss.

I talked to some of thetownspeople about the town’s history and economy. It’s ironic that whereas 100years ago, when travelers elsewhere in the province faced weeks of arduousanimal pack trains to Kunming, Baihe was one of the most efficienttransportation connections in the region. Just hop on any one of the dailytrains and be in Kunming in 30 hours!

By 2002, the last yearpassengers could still board trains in Baihe, that 30 hours no longer held muchappeal. I talked to some old timers who remembered riding the train, but didn’tseem to miss it too much.

DAY 2: Baihe (白河) to Renziqiao (人字桥)

10 km north of Baihe themain highway makes a steep ascent up the mountain to Pingbian (屏边) County. At this junction I waited for James, whoarrived in Pingbian that morning and rode down the mountain to meet me. Then wecontinued following the Nanxi River, only just time the road wasn’t paved; itwas made of rough cobblestones, making cycling very slow.

Further north, the river enters a narrowcanyon and at times the railroad disappears completely from view, clinging tothe precipice high above. The river in this stretch is full of boulders,waterfalls, and deep, natural swimming holes. James and I went swimming inthese.

Webought some of the cheapest papayas we’ve ever seen from a farmer in onevillage. Continuing up the valley, the railroad temporarily leaves the NanxiRiver valley and makes a U-shaped detour up the Chahe River (岔河) valley in order to gainin elevation before climbing out of the Nanxi River watershed and onto theYunnan-Guizhou Plateau. The cobblestone road also jogs to the right, runningright up the middle of the “U” , producing the interesting phenomenon ofrailroad tracks running along both sides of the valley.

Fromhere it’s only another 8 km to the final destination. The Renziqiao bridge islocated at the bottom of the curve in the “U”. The bridge is a worthydestination. With its distinctive 人-shaped arch, it is an achievement of design. Butit’s the bridge’s surroundings that make it so impressive. It bridges a narrowgap between two vertical limestone cliffs, and is approached on either side bytunnels, resulting in a unique profile, which has become something of a symbolof the railroad. Having first seen it in photographs years ago at the YunnanRailway Museum in Kunming, finally reaching it in person was breathtaking.

Wantingto get up as close to the bridge as possible, we climbed up to the railroadtracks and walked towards the east tunnel, only to be thwarted by a femalerailroad police officer. So we simply went back down the valley and up to thetracks again on the western side. This time there were no police guarding thetunnel entrance, so we proceeded inside with flashlights. Right where thetunnel ends and the bridge begins we were discovered by another policeman.Luckily, he was friendly and allowed us to snap a few closeup pictures from theviewing platform.

Backin Renziqiao village, which is also nestled in the curve of the “U”, we hadplanned on pitching tents and camping for the night, as there are noguesthouses in the village or tourism infrastructure of any kind in thevillage. We ended up spending the night in a local home at the invitation of akind farmer.

Itwas night when the freight train finally chugged up the valley. We scrambledout of bed to watch it make its curve around the “U” and cross the bridge. Itsheadlight beam was playing all sorts of tricks, spasmodically illuminating thiscorner of the valley, and then that, as the train made its way along the zigzagbends in the track.

Day3: Renziqiao to Hekou

Thenearest city with buses back to Kunming is Pingbian, 57 km away. But the routeto Pingbian entails a backbreaking 1400 meter uphill climb. We decided insteadto backtrack along our previous two days’ route, covering the 112 km back toHekou in one day, which is perfectly doable since the majority of the route isdownhill.

Asalways, pictures are on flickr and facebook.

If 9/11 happened in China: Excerpts from my students' essay responses

2011-09-18T09:44:00.001-07:00

I teach Chinese middle school students social studies. Last week, we talked about the 10th anniversary of 9/11. I asked the students to answer the following questions: "How would you feel if 9/11 happened in China?" and "How do you think China's government would respond if 9/11 happened in China?"

Below are some excerpts of some students' responses. Some selfish, some selfless. Some ignorant, some wise. Some funny. Some unexpected.Overall, I was surprised how many students said that if 9/11 happened in China, it must mean China was doing something wrong in the realm of foreign relations, and that if China wanted to solve the root problem of 9/11 it must do more to forge peaceful ties with other countries.

*Note I edited many of these excerpts for grammar and other mistakes to make them easier for you to read. But the ideas and content of the students' responses I left intact without modification.

How would you feel if 9/11 happened in China?

We would be very surprised because China is a friendly country, which gives money, food, and skills to other countries, and has never harmed any other country.

I would go to the countryside and pick fruit, because it's safe and comfortable, and watch TV.

People who don't like China should confront China face to face to talk about their grievances instead of using terrorists.

The most important thing is not why or how it happened, but how to solve it.

The first time is by accident. The second time is attacking. The third time is the beginning of the war. It would make many Chinese sad, because it would lead to a war. I think we should resolve the problem with means other than war, but if the terrorists persist we must go to war.

If 9/11 happened in China, maybe it means China did something extreme to provoke the terrorists to anger. Maybe it means China was promoting hegemony. I don't think it is right, but it is normal. Because the more powerful you are, the greater success you will get.

In my opinion, the terrorists are very bad guys. They just want to kill people. They don't know anything about the country. And because they are foolish, they behave just like animals and have no mind.

The Chinese government is corrupt. They always exploit the people. They don't know how to make China better, they don't know how to make the people's lives better. If 9/11 happened in China, this is a proper punishment for the government's bad behavior.

I think maybe it's because someone hates the government. So the government must check themselves and correct their mistakes.

I would be very surprised, because I never would have expected the Chinese government could make other countries so angry at us. I think the Chinese government is one of the best governments in the world. And if this happened, that would mean the Chinese government is bad, and that Chinese people or people in other countries disagree with the Chinese government.

If this happened I would worry that China's relations with other countries aren't very good. Maybe we should do more to further globalization and development, help other countries, be more friendly, and make a more peaceful world.

For example, if the attacks were done by the French, I would boycott French products. I wouldn't go to the French supermarket any more. I wouldn't buy French products anymore. I hope the international policemen would catch the terrorists quickly.

I would feel interested. I would feel relaxed. I would feel happy. I would feel a little sad.

I would feel very sad, because many Chinese would pass away. Also, China would lose a lot of money.

China has a larger population than America. So if 9/11 happened in China, more people would die.

This would give us warning. We need a peaceful world. We need to make fair laws. And we need to listen to other peoples' ideas.

How do you think China's government would respond if 9/11 happened in China?

UN, NATO, and the KGB would help China's intelligence agency track down and kill the terrorists.

I would volunteer to help the victims of the attacks, especially homeless children. I would help them rebuild their homeland.

China's government would look for the reason, and force the perpetrators to apologize and compensate for their actions.

China would tell the terrorists: "don't do that" and if the terrorists persist, China would be very angry. Maybe China's leaders would talk to the terrorists and ask them to stop their attacks.

Chinese people should trust the government, not have riots, and make the society stable.

First, I would want to help people. This is not because I'm Chinese, but because I'm human.

If this happened, maybe it's because we're moving so fast, so other countries' people feel so envious.

The government would declare "We aren't a weak country! We will find the evil backstage manipulator and make him face the consequences!"

In fact, I think China's government wouldn't do things the right way. As we know, Japan hijacked a Chinese fisherman, but China's government just issued a statement and did nothing. Maybe the Communist part thinks China is a developing country, and if it launched a war, it would poorly influence China's development. As for the Chinese people, they would be sad and angry, and destroy the terrorists country's supermarkets. They would also go on the internet and do human flesh searched. You know, China has many people, and they can protect their country by themselves.

The government needs to tell us what happened and why. But maybe we should just know a little bit about what happened, because the government doesn't want people to think China is a dangerous place.

Two Weeks Along the Burmese-Chinese Border

2011-09-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

For my two week summer vacation in mid August 2011, I headed towards the far south-southwestern corner of Yunnan, part of the border region with Burma. My two weeks were divided between one week spent visiting my two friends in their villages in Ximeng Wa Ethnic Autonomous County (西盟佤族自治县), and one week spent bicycling between Ximeng and neighboring Menglian Wa, Dai, and Lahu Ethnic Autonomous County (孟连佤族傣族拉祜族自治县), Lancang Lahu Ethnic Autonomous County (澜沧拉祜族自治县), and Menghai Dai Ethnic Autonomous County (勐海傣族自治县). Since those names are a mouthful, from now on I'll simply refer to them as Ximeng, Menglian, Lancang, and Menghai.

It wasn't my first time visiting Ximeng. I went there in early May to see the Wa Ethnic Wooden Drum Festival. During that brief visit I never ventured outside of Ximeng County Seat, which was where the festivities were held. I only spent a day there but I had a glorious time, witnessing thousands of Wa, Dai, and Lahu folks celebrating the festival in their traditional outfits, singing, dancing, drinking. Also at that time I met two young ladies, Ye Ping and Nana, both of the Wa Ethnicity, and exchanged contact information with them. I'd kept in touch with them over the following months, and so on this trip decided to go and visit them in their villages (both are students and August is summer vacation, when most students from rural areas return home to help their families with the agricultural work).

Ye Ping actually hadn't headed home yet. 21 years old, she just graduated from high school, and is now going to a vocational college in Simao, the prefectural capital of Pu'er (of whose many counties Ximeng is one). When I arrived in Ximeng County Seat, she was working in the Dragon Lake Hotel, the nicest hotel in Ximeng and the only building with an elevator. But she took the day off work and escorted me hiking around the beautiful Dragon Lake. The next day James, a bloke from England and my friend from Kunming, arrived, and together we mounted our bicycles and headed off towards Nana's village. But not before first stocking up on fresh fruit to offer Nana's parents (my bike panniers were already filled with English books for Nana, pens and coloring books for her nephews, and ham and dried beef for her parents).

The road descends from Ximeng County Seat down a 10 km grade to the Kuxing River (库杏河), then follows the Kuxing River for 15 km until it joins with the Nankang River (南康河). Then we followed the Nankang River for about 30 km until we hit a bridge and the road turned to mud. Up until this point, it had been a good sealed road, but now it was foot deep mud. Worse yet, it was uphill from here all the way to Nana's village. Luckily, the mud only lasted about 5 km, and then the sealed road picked up again. Nana later explained that because of excessive runoff and landslides in that 5 km section the government didn't bother to seal the road. I should probably mention that this was rainy season in a tropical environment. It would rain almost every day for the two weeks I was there, but rarely would it rain nonstop. It would come in spurts. Another 10 km uphill, broken with a rest under a shed while we waited for a rainstorm to pass. Finally made it to the pass and there was Nana waiting to escort us the final 4 km down a dirt road to her village, Little Bannong (小班弄村).

I've stayed in many Chinese villages by now and am pretty used to the conditions. In our conversations before my visit, Nana was somewhat self-conscious and worried that I would feel uncomfortable in such primitive surroundings. I knew it wouldn't be so bad. Since she played her village and family's conditions down so much, I was actually impressed when I finally arrived. The family lives in a four room brick house: parents' bedroom, kids' bedroom, TV room, and storeroom. Concrete floors, posters on the walls for decoration, musty smell, but nothing I wasn't used to. Kitchen and dining room were outside in a wooden shack. Toilets were a communal outhouse shared with the neighbors. The neighbors also have a shower house with solar hot water heater, and Nana's family pays them a nominal fee each month for use of the shower.

The village itself had about 50 households and was attractive with wooden and brick houses with tiled roofs. The Wa used to live in thatched roof houses, but the government forced them to tear them down and build new houses during the last decade. It was about seven years ago that the village was connected for the first time to the electric grid. Nana remembers when she was a child they had no TV and no electric lights and no hot water heater. The paved road the we followed most of the way from the County Seat was paved three years ago.

Nana's parents are nongmin (农民), "peasants" or farmers. They've got some rice paddies and corn fields on terraces on the mountain below. It's a good hike down to the fields and back. They also have a stand of rubber trees. As does every household in the village, and in all the villages in this region. When James asked Nana's father what the single biggest change in Ximeng was during his lifetime, he answered without hesitation "rubber". Rubber, Nana explained, is the economic lifeline here. The rice and corn in the fields, the pigs and chickens, those are all for their own consumption. Rubber is their only source of outside income.

I got an up close and personal look at the origins of rubber during my stay. On our second day in Bannong, Nana and her cousin and friends walked us down the mountain to the river at the bottom of the valley. Along the way, we passed through numerous rubber stands. I'd heard of rubber tapping before, and I'd seen the tapping of maple trees for maple syrup before, so I figured rubber tapping would look something like that. And it did. A diagonal cut on the bark of the rubber tree, and a thin white line of rubber juice bleeding down from the tree, collecting in a cup suspended by a wire. What I hadn't anticipated was that the rubber in its most natural essence is already white in color and possess the rubbery texture and properties of rubber. I know because I stuck my hand into one of the collection cups and pulled out a hockey puck-shaped hunk of coagulated rubber juice. I also learned that rubber in its bare state has a foul stench.

I was able to communicate quite easily with Nana's father. That's unusual. Usually when I visit friends in rural villages, communicating with their parents is very difficult because the parents only speak their ethnic language or regional dialect, and can't speak the standard Mandarin that I've learned. Nana's father, however, used to be a teacher, so his Chinese is better than the average villager. I really liked Nana's father. But Nana seemed to be somewhat self-conscious about her family and their current conditions. She explained proudly that her father was once one of the wealthiest, most forward-looking men in the village. He worked as an accountant. He was the first person in the village to wear pants (as opposed to the sarong traditionally worn by Wa men). He was the first to eat mantou (steamed bread common in Northern China). But unfortunately he had some psychological problems and lost most of his money and his job when he set out on his wandering, nomadic (流浪) adventure. His nomadic adventure sounded romantic and exciting to me, but I feared prying too deep because it obviously set off a nerve with Nana.

Nana's family troubles were not limited to her father. Her mother left the family at one point, and only later returned. Her grandfather was the richest man in the village. He had two wives: one was his cousin and the other a local beauty. He couldn't decide which wife he liked best, so when he died he left his fortune buried somewhere on the mountain. To this day, no one knows where the fortune is buried.

While Nana and her family can speak Mandarin well, they prefer to speak their local Wa language. I, of course, couldn't understand a word of it. It's as different from Chinese as Spanish is from Japanese. Wa belongs to the Austro-Asiatic Language Family, which includes the uncontacted tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean, the Khmer language of Cambodia, and various tribal languages in Southeast Asia. I liked the sound of the Wa language. It's musical and colorful, especially when the women speak. Their voices often swing into high pitched sounds of laughter and exclamation. Certain sounds in the Wa language reminded me of Spanish (the rolled "r"s), Swedish (a certain "glöp" sound), and even some sounds that sounded like they might have been African languages.

Nana's father explained that rubber trees first came to Ximeng about 15-20 years ago. There was a government sponsored directive to the peasants in the region to plant rubber trees. It takes many years for rubber trees to mature until they are able to produce commercially viable rubber. I didn't find out if the initial cost of planting the trees was borne by the peasants themselves, or if they had assistance from the government. I did learn, however, that the price the peasants receive for the raw rubber is volatile. It was once as high has 15 yuan ($2.30) a kg, but has since declined to 12 yuan ($1.85) a kg.

Nana's parents only have 40 rubber trees. Other families in the village have considerably more. We had dinner the first night at Nana's cousin's house. The cousin's house had two floors, the meal was larger with more dishes, and the family even has a truck (a rare luxury in Bannong Village). We also visited Nana's brother's house. He's 26 years old, married for 8 years with two kids. When he married he was 18 and his wife was 17. He's a farmer and a rubber tapper. He has a tractor.

Nana explains that marrying at 17 is nothing unusual in her village. Most of the girls her age have either been married off already, or have gone off to the cities to dagong (打工), which basically means to work in some low-paying service sector job such as waitressing or massage or karaoke bar prostitute. A few girls, she explains to my horror, have even been sold by their parents to men from other provinces who can't find wives in their own villages. Considering the fate of so many other girls from her background, Nana is pretty lucky to have parents who look after her and support her continuing her education.

Ximeng is not the only place in southern Yunnan dominated by the rubber industry. Xishuangbanna, to the south, has long been in the rubber game, and probably has a head start over Ximeng by a few decades. It also enjoys much better transportation linkages to the outside. Ximeng, in contrast, is one of the most remote and isolated counties in Yunnan. It takes 14 hours to get there on the bus from Kunming.

Rubber plantations, I have gathered, are a scourge of environmentalists. Rubber grows in tropical regions, where rainforests are the natural inhabitants. In order to plant rubber trees, old growth rainforest must be cut down. Probably one of the most classic cases of environmental degradation, one every American child learns in elementary school, and here it was before my eyes. But with a human face put on it. Nana's family and neighbors cut down rainforest to plant environment-destroying rubber trees. But in their eyes, rubber is an economic lifeline, the source of the meager income by which they can afford electricity, a TV, and their daughter's education (Nana's the bright one in the family of three children, the one who will attend college. Her brother, on the other hand, is already married with two kids and is a peasant and rubber tapper himself).

Not all the rainforest has been cut down. Riding my bike through Ximeng, and through the surrounding regions over the course of two weeks, I saw a lot of rainforest. But it was almost always just there in patches, traces of what it must have been before. One one hill slope you could see very visibly the replacement effects of rubber. On this hill slope, 80% of the forest cover was rubber trees. The remaining 20% was old growth rainforest. It was entirely concentrated on the steepest sections of the slope, where reaching the trees would have been too difficult.

Some of the accompanying environmental changes that follow deforestation are in the realm of biodiversity. Nana's father said when he was a boy tigers and other large animals were common the jungle. But he hasn't seen a tiger since the 1970s. During my time there, the only wild animals I would see were snakes (I did see quite a few).

I tried to imagine would I would have done, what I would have said had I been from an environmental NGO, trying to encourage Nana's family to shift away from dependency on rubber and towards some other, more sustainable form of livelihood, and I came up blank. To tell them point blank "your rubber trees are bad for the environment" would be so thoughtless, so in contempt of their socioeconomic situation. I remembered a professor in the Geography Department at Penn State whose research focuses on sustainable livelihoods in Ghana. Her solution to this kind of dilemma was always "turn the village into an ecotourism destination". How preposterous. Not that I'm against ecotourism, or tourism in general. I guess you could say I James and I were Bannong Villages first tourists, and if anybody who reads this decides to go there for themselves, I may be spearheading the kind of tourist colonization I studied in my Masters Thesis. But seriously, for every village out there that could viably turn into any sort of tourist destination, there are thousands of villages that may be equally beautiful but never will find their way onto tourist maps. There's nowhere near enough demand for every village to turn itself into a tourist destination.

To return to the thread of the story, our group walked down to the riverside on a very steep trail, and James and I kept slipping. When we got to the river we went swimming. I don't get to go swimming very often in China. Most rivers and lakes are badly polluted. There is no industry anywhere near this river. The river drained into Myanmar. I went walking along the narrow embankment that separated the rice paddies from the river for a while and almost stepped on a huge snake slithering right across the path. At that point I hightailed it back to the rest of the group. It started to rain and we treated into a small wooden hut which is used by the villagers during the day when they're laboring in the fields. Two of the girls caught a chicken and killed it by hand. Then they singed its feathers off in the fire, plucked them clean, and proceeded to turn that freshly killed chicken into a delicious meal of spicy mixed chicken and chicken rice porridge, a Wa speciality, called xifan (稀饭).

On the next day James, Nana, and I went back down the mountain to the bridge and then set off on a hike to the Burmese border. Based on my maps, I knew it wasn't very far away. There was a river running along the border, so I didn't know how feasible James' wish to cross into Burma would be, but I figured it was at least worth checking out. It rained all day that day, and the road was muddy for the whole 10 km to the border, following the Nanka River (南卡河). On the other side of the river the rainforest had not been converted to rubber trees. Whisps of fog draped across the jungle in graceful patterns. Just as we were nearing the border, a border police SUV showed up. The police inside wanted to know where we were going. I was sure this was the end of our hike and we would be forced to turn back. Instead, James convinced them to let us keep going all the way up to the river that forms the border. This way we were able to see Burma and get some photos. The Burmese side didn't have many signs of life, nor did it look much different than the Chinese side. I was frankly pretty surprised to find border police in such a remote place. But then we realized the reason: the Chinese are building a dam and hydroelectric station right at the border. Surely the police presence has to do with that project. The police then escorted us back to the bridge on that bumpy road. They didn't let us go scott free, though. They called their superior, a female commander in plain clothes who drove all the way from the County Seat in an SUV to meet us and ask us some questions. It was a bit like an interrogation, except that they were fairly polite. They took our pictures, took pictures of our passports, and once they were satisfied that we hadn't snuck into China from Burma, they let us go.

The next day James headed back to Kunming and I stayed behind in Nana's village, tutoring her in English. Nana's a good student, and her English reading and listening ability is surprisingly good considering the background and place she's from and the fact that I'm the first foreigner she's ever spoken to. Her spoken English not surprisingly wasn't very good, so we spent some time on that. She'll be taking the college entrance exam this year and hopes to go to Kunming to attend university, and English is an essential component of the college entrance exam. I think it's unfair that English is expected of every test taker across the country, no matter if they are from urban or rural areas. Nana's school-assigned textbooks, too, seemed so ill-adapted to the particular socioeconomic milieu in which she lived. Her teachers, however, do supplement the standard curriculum with some material specifically tailored to the ethnic minorities in Ximeng, such as the history and culture and music and dance of the Wa people. Her school also has several volunteer teachers from Shanghai, and receives money from the Chinese educational charity fund The Hope Project.

After four days in Bannong, it was time for me to hit the road. Thus began six days in a row of cycling. SInce I got my new bike a few months ago, I'd done some serious cycling, but never more than three days in a row. I held up pretty good after 6 days, but after some difficult sections on dirt roads, I did make the decision to stick to sealed roads. I knew to expect rainy conditions and muddy roads since I was heading into one of the least developed corners of rural China during the tropical rainy season. I packed a poncho to keep me dry, a waterproof bag to keep my panniers dry, and a spare mountain bike tire in case the going got really rough. I switched my hybrid tire out for the mountain tire back in Nana's village expecting rough conditions on my ride out of town. The mountain bike tire was too thick for the mudguard, which I had to remove. Then I got some good news from Nana's classmate: the road I planned to take, contrary to expectation, was a sealed road! Well, that is, for the first 20 km, which are all downhill. Then the road crosses a river at the Ximeng-Menglian county line, the classmate's good news falters, and the road reverts to dirt. It was then about 20 km of nonstop uphill on steep dirt road. It was raining. The road was pretty muddy in places, but I trudged along. I couldn't really appreciate any of the scenery because everything was so grey and foggy. It was not a heavily traveled road. If you look at the map, it's definitely the shorted road between where Nana lives and my destination - Menglian County Seat. But given the poor quality of the road, most people would opt for the much longer way around on the sealed road. Finally I crested the summit and started downhill. That's when I regretted removing the mudguard. I discovered what happens when you ride downhill through mud with no mudguard. The tires spewed mud all over my body (poncho not much good at this point, as the tires even spewed it up inside the poncho), and all over my waterproof panniers, which proved to be not so waterproof after all. Fortunately, it was just a couple km of that before I rolled into the town of Fuyan (富岩). This foreigner, drenched in mud, coming from a hardly ever traveled dirt from from Ximeng, was probably a surprising sight to the people in Fuyan town square. I headed straight for the first restaurant, and to the nearest spigot to start washing off the mud.

As I left Fuyan the sun came out and the road was sealed again, and it was a mostly downhill ride 40 km to Menglian through beautiful scenery. Having left the Wa people and rubber plantations behind on the other side of the pass, I was now in tea country, and the dominant minority was no longer Wa but Dai. Golden spires of temples and monasteries dotted the route, and I rolled into Menglian in time for dinner.

I have very little to say about Menglian County Seat. A boring town if there ever was one. I don't take this attitude about all small cities in China. I've been to numerous small cities that I quite like. Some small cities are located on a lake, or along a river, or on a mountain. They have nice restaurants and interesting shops and ethnic minorities and well designed public spaces full of activity. Menglian, by contrast, has none of those things. Half the streets in town were in the process of being torn up and replaced. I had a terribly hard time finding a place to eat dinner. Okay, the complaining stops there. One thing Menglian did have was a car wash. I took my bike there and had all the mud thoroughly cleaned off.

Next day I rode to a place called Meng'a (勐啊) in a second attempt to see how close I could get to the Burmese border. This day's ride was among the easier rides of the trip. One uphill climb over a pass, and then all downhill down a river valley towards Meng'a. If you look at Yunnan on a map, you can clearly make out Meng'a as the the point of a triangular wedge that juts into Burma. On the other side of the border is Wakang, the capital of the semi-independent Wa State in Burma. I really wanted to figure out just how China operates a port of entry with a breakaway state, not to mention one alleged by the DEA as the largest narcotics trafficking organization in Southeast Asia. China has official relations with both the central government of Myanmar, and with the breakaway Wa State on its border. Furthermore, the Wa people on the Burmese side and the Wa people on the Chinese side have familial links that predate the drawing of the official border sometime in the mid-20th century. In not-so-recent history, both sides of the current border were loosely organized tribal fiefdoms of the Wa Kingdom. Although technically lying in British Burma and Qing Dynasty China, neither the British nor the Chinese really had any control over the Wa and their territory, lyings as it was far from the main Chinese-Burmese trade routes to the south and north, infested with malaria, and with a local population, some of whom still practiced headhunting.

The road to Meng'a was entirely sealed, and passed through a green valley of rice paddies and forested mountains. Dai and Wa villages dotted the valley. The Wa village homes were largely made of wood, the Dai ones more modern materials, but with cerulean tiled roofs quite distinctive. Golden-spired Buddhist temples also dotted the valley. Highlights of the ride included a delicious meal of cold mixed rice noodles from a roadside stand that included no fewer than 20 different ingredients, and a roadside wild mushroom market, in which a dozen villagers had well over 100 types of mushrooms spread out on the ground. Mushrooms of every shape, size, and color, a remarkable sight.

Meng'a and the border crossing were a disappointment. I didn't expect they would let me cross, but I hoped to at least get a view across the bridge of the other side, maybe snap a few pictures. But the Chinese border building blocked the view of the other side. I followed the border river a couple kilometers and came to the old border crossing, where the old bridge had collapsed. Finally, I was able to see across the river to the other side. Not a whole lot to see, however. Road back to Menglian for a second night.

Next morning I threw my bike on top of a bus and traveled four hours southeast to Menghai County Seat in Xishuangbanna Prefecture. At 160 km, it was a little too long to do by bike, and I wanted to make the most of my time. I had to lift the bike onto the roof of the bus, and secure it myself. I was a little worried it might fly off, but it didn't. I barely spent any time in Menghai after I arrived at 12:30, instead setting straight off on a 80 km ride to Daluo (打洛), yet another border town next to Burma.

It would be a good day's ride, through beautiful countryside. All on good, sealed roads, but over undulating terrain, several climbs and several descents. First it was a relatively easy ride up over the first pass. Just as I got to the pass, it started raining, and I ducked into a little pavilion to put on my poncho and waterproof my bags. Riding down the other side of the mountain from the pass the rain poured down. In the valley below I ducked into a shop with a large overhang. I was surprised to see another white guy on a bike doing the same thing as me. His name was Collin, a middle-aged chap from Wales, and he was equally surprised to see me. He would be the only other foreign cyclist I would run into on this trip, and I the only one he would run into. Since we were respectively heading in the directions from which the other had come, we exchanged information about the roads ahead. Collin has lived in Yunnan for twenty years. A fun chance encounter. The rain stopped, the sun came out, and I crossed a broad valley of chartreuse colored rice paddies, then started up over another pass. Got a flat tire, and completed my first ever flat tire repair on the road successfully and efficiently (luckily I'd practiced at home before the trip).

The route to Daluo passes through stunning scenery of rice paddies, banana plantations, and emerald green mountains in all directions. Lots of small villages along the way, all with their distinctive pitched tiled roofs. While the majority of the route looks like it should be entirely downhill on the map, actually there are lots of little hidden hills. You definitely feel like you (and your legs) are in touch with every inch of the terrain when you're riding a bike. Finally rolled into Daluo around dinnertime. This was my third time approaching the Burmese border in one week. At the previous two locations, the border followed a river. Here, the border was over land. I figured this increased my chances of actually crossing the border. A couple kilometers away from the official port of entry is an old, abandoned port of entry. Surrounding the old crossing was a whole city, mostly abandoned. It's said Daluo used to be a very seedy place, full of drugs and prostitutes and gambling. Now old Daluo is like a ghost town, and new Daluo 5 km away is pretty tame.

I saw Chinese (or Burmese?) people freely crossing back and forth through the gate, and no police or border guards were anywhere in sight. But some Chinese guys hanging out next to the border told me I couldn't cross on my own, it was dangerous and illegal. Instead, one volunteered, he'd take me into Burma for a fee. I was somewhat tempted, but decided against it. Who knows who this guy was? Maybe he would have turned me into the Chinese police. Maybe he would have robbed me on the Burmese side, where I would be unable to get help from the Chinese police. Maybe he would turn me into the Burmese police, who would discover I didn't have a Burmese visa. I'm not sure how likely any of this was, but I decided it was better not to risk it. Using my GPS and Google Maps, I sidetracked to a village that was located just a half kilometer away from the border. From the village I found a dirt road heading right to the border. I found the border, sure enough. No police, no guards, but lots of signs warning (in Chinese) not to cross, as well as not to traffic drugs, and not to evade customs duties. It was here that I finally got to cross into Burma and get a picture. I didn't cross in very far, maybe 100 meters, before I headed back. I didn't want to do anything too stupid, but I did get a little thrill from actually being on Burmese territory, illegally, without a visa.

I later learned that James had previously been to Daluo, and had crossed into Burma much more brazenly than me. He had spent a whole day exploring the Burmese side. It turns out there's a whole city there. The Chinese guy at the border told me the Burmese side was wilderness, that the nearest city was 20 km away. I felt a little regretful that I hadn't been more adventurous, but still content in my accomplishment. Like my father, merely crossing a border is thrilling enough. It doesn't really matter what's on the other side.

That night in Daluo there was a huge thunderstorm and the power went out. I think it's honestly the first time I can remember the power going out since I've been in China. Honestly, the power went out more in Marin County California than it does in China.

Next morning I caught a bus for the 35 km uphill to the junction with the road to Bulangshan (布朗山). I could have ridden it, but I'd ridden it the day before and thought it better to save my time and energy for the new section of road. From the Bulangshan Junction to Bulangshan was just 48 km long, but it took all day. It was a beautiful ride, probably the best of a week's worth of good riding. All sealed, except for 7 km of cobblestone road. No dirt road. And phenomenal scenery the whole way. After an initial short, steep uphill to the pass, it was downhill for about 20 km, passing through a heavily forested, thinly populated valley dotted with the occasional village and tea plantations. Bulangshan is home to the Bulang ethnic group (布朗族). It is also home to one of the finest varieties of Pu'er tea. I stopped in some villages and talked to the villagers who were busy drying tea leaves on mats spread out on the road. Since it rains so often, they have to take advantage of every minute of sunshine for drying. They said they can earn up to 80 yuan a kg for high quality leaves. I asked if I could buy some direct and they said no. They don't do any of the processing there in the village. The leaves get sent to a processing plant in Menghai city where they're pressed into bricks and shipped to Kunming and around the world.

About halfway along, the downhill ended and the uphill began once again. I stopped at a shack selling cold drinks and the owner invited me in for some lunch - delicious bamboo shoots and pork. His friend was from Zhaotong, in the complete opposite corner of Yunnan. He's in the banana business. He said he can make a lot more money growing bananas in Xishuangbanna than he could growing corn in Zhaotong.

The next 15 or so km of uphill road passed through an unbroken stretch of primeval rainforest. I'd seen rainforest in patches all along on this trip, but this was the largest unbroken stretch of pure rainforest, with no signs of civilization, no villages, no agriculture, no lumber harvesting. This is where the sealed road turned into a cobblestone road, not the most pleasant for riding, but I suppose it's to keep the road from being eroded. It rained as I rode through the rainforest, and the butterflies were out in full force. If you try to find this this section of road on Google Earth, its hidden beneath the rainforest canopy.

Finally the road crests at the summit, and all of a sudden the environment changes completely. You're on top of a ridge looking out over a deep, wide valley towards Burma. The mountains in front of you are not rainforest, but transformed by human agriculture. You're back in tea country again. From there it's a short ride along the mountain ridge to the town of Bulangshan. I was hoping the town itself would be a little more interesting than it actually was, but the surrounding mountains made up for it. The clouds, too, were putting on a show that evening. Cumulus clouds with strong personalities, eerie mists settling in the the surrounding hills, rays of sunshine, all combined to make a dramatic sky. Then some of the blackest thunderclouds I've ever seen rolled in and it rained all night.

The police officer who registered me warned me that I shouldn't stay out too late because "the local minorities like to get riled up and make trouble". Nice stereotype, Mr. Han Police Officer. But he was right. That night was the owner of my guesthouse's birthday and she and her friends got drunk and invited me to partake in the festivities. I've been to birthdays of young people in China, and they always have a blast smearing cake frosting on everyone's face. I didn't expect that a birthday party for adults in the little village of Bulangshan would feature the same craziness.

It was still raining when I got up at seven the next morning to begin the next day's riding. Originally I'd planned to make a loop back to Menghai, but Collin had warned me that the road I thought I'd take from Bulangshan to Menghai was a dirt road and very difficult. Collin showed me a road east from Bulangshan to Menglong (勐龙) that wasn't on my map. It's a sealed road, newly built. I took that instead. It rained almost the whole way. Luckily, this route was mostly downhill. Beautiful at the time, but if I describe it here it might sound a little repetitive: villages, valleys, passes, rainforest, banana trees. The road followed a river valley for the first 40 km, then entered a broad, flat valley with lots of villages and towns. There's only so many ways you can describe bicycle touring and not repeat yourself.

Rolled into Menglong around noon. Originally thought I'd ride the remaining 70 km to Jinghong, as they were flat and easy. But it was a big highway with lots of trucks and buses, not my favorite riding conditions. And I wanted to make it to Jinghong quickly so I could catch a bus to Lancang. So once again I threw my bike on top of a bus, and was in Jinghong in an hour. In Jinghong, I went to three bus stations before I found one with a bus to Lancang. Got my ticket for 6:30 pm, and then had the afternoon to hang out in Jinghong. I'd been to Jinghong before, and went straight to the Mekong Cafe, where I had my first hamburger and coffee in ten days, and told some of my adventures to the German owner who's been there for ten years.

Arrived in Lancang at 10:30 pm. I'd been there before two: four months ago I spent a day there visiting one of Wang Ping's cousins, Xiao Yan, I met when I was best man at Wang Ping's wedding. But Xiao Yan was busy studying for the civil service exam, so I didn't bother her this time. Just spent the night, and the next morning I was out again on my seventh and final day of cycling. It would be the longest day, too. 97 kilometers (60 miles) and 2,777 meters (9,111 feet) of elevation gain. Followed a river, climbed a mountain, descended into a valley, passed some villages, climbed another mountain, descended the mountain, and then I was back where I started twelve days before, in Ximeng County Seat.

I stored my bike in a safe place, then met Ye Ping, and we traveled in a minibus to the old County Seat on top of a mountain. There we met Nana and together the three of us piled into a very crowded minivan for the two hour ride on bumpy dirt roads to Ye Ping's village Banshuai (班帅). A relaxing last couple days spent in Ximeng enjoying village life with my two Ximeng friends. Particular highlights: dancing to the "disco" DVDs and that infectious Hungarian pop song "Dragostei Din Tae" in this little Wa Village. Using the soot from the fire to paint on the face of the loser in the card game "fight the landlord".

The ride back to the Old County Seat from Banshuai was one to remember. At 6 am, we packed into a truck along with about 50 other people. A girl from the village had gotten knocked up in the Old County Seat and that day was having a shotgun wedding, and the entire village of Banshuai was invited, but there was only one truck in the village so everyone piled on together. It was the most uncomfortable ride in my life. I was in the cab, but had nowhere to place any of my limbs, and experienced the worst case of numb ever. Twice the truck got stuck in the mud and all 50 people had to get out and help push. It was hell, but it makes a good story!

You can view my photos on facebook or flickr

You can download KML files and view my cycling routes in excellent detail on Google Earth from wikiloc.com

Dali to Shaxi Bike Ride

2011-08-05T22:38:00.000-07:00

I've been on serious, 200 km+, two- or three-day bike rides every weekend for the last five weekends.

This latest one to Shaxi was, I reckon, the greatest so far. The ride through Northern Vietnam two weeks ago was awesome too, but I think the overall riding experience this time was much better.

The three day trip began with a bus ride to Dali. It then followed a loop, returning to Dali three days later. I divide the route into four sections, each with distinctive geographies. They were, in order:

• plain (Erhai Lake)

• mountain (Cangshan Mountains)

• valley (Heihui River and Yangbi River Valleys)

• canyon (Xi'er River Canyon)

Not only do these four sections correspond to distinct physical geographical regions, they also each reflect varying levels of socioeconomic development, most readily apparent to me as I rode through on my bicycle in the quality of the transportation infrastructure.

Google Maps Terrain view of the complete loop (Copyright Google Maps)

THE PLAIN: DALI TO NIUJIE

The trip began with a bus ride to Dali. To ride all the way from Kunming to Dali would have taken four days, and I didn't have that much time. The bus takes four hours, all of it on a high-speed expressway. I've done this now a few times, putting my bike on a bus. The long distance buses are huge, and usually have ample space underneath to fit a bike, provided I take the front wheel off. But the drivers often complain that it's a hassle and charge an extra fee. That's understandable. I've paid 30 yuan for the privilege in the past. This driver wanted 50. I talked him down to 40 (about $6). I didn't really have any other choice.

Dali is one of the main destinations for hippies and backpackers (as well as Chinese tourists) in Yunnan. I first stayed there over five years ago and I was there twice last year. This time I just spent one night there. Dinner and breakfast in Cafe 88, a bakery and restaurant run by a German.

Next morning it was up early and on the road. The road was provincial highway 221,which runs from Dali (大理) to Lijiang (丽江). It is a wide, smooth ribbon along the shore of Erhai Lake (洱海). To the left, paralleling the lake and highway, not more than a few kilometers away are the Cangshan Mountains, a towering emerald green massive of 4000-meter plus peaks. But the road was good and flat; I made very good time on this stretch. Passing me were hundreds of buses carrying tourists from Kunming and Dali to Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge, and Shangri-La. This is one of the busiest tourist corridors in China, and here I was sharing the same two lane highway with them. I was one of them too, five years ago, speeding along Erhai lake in a bus half asleep at 7 in the morning. Needless to say, you can see a lot more, get a much deeper appreciation for the details of the terrain you're riding through. I won't pretend that I get a much deeper cultural experience, however. Most of them time I just pass through villages. I pass through a lot of them. It's hard to go more than a few kilometers in China without coming across some sort of village. Only when I stop for water or food or the night, I can get a closer up view of the communities I'm passing through.

Vertical perspective of my route along the Erhai Lake Plain with the Cangshan Mountains towering behind
(copyright Google Earth)

Covered a lot of distance that morning. Made it to the northern tip of the lake, where I left the Lijiang-bound provincial highway and joined the Shangri-La and Tibet-bound national highway 214. I actually accidentally went off track for about twenty minutes. I was riding along what was obviously a brand new (in fact, yet unfinished) stretch of wide highway, three lanes in every direction. My GPS told me I was off track, but I thought that was just because Google hadn't recorded this new highway alignment yet. Turns out it was a cut-off back to 221, so I had to use the GPS to find a county road across the valley back to 214.

214 followed the river that feeds into Erhai Lake. I was still in flat valley land, a solid green blanket of bright green rice paddies. Hugging the river was a linear strand of great dark green trees. Further beyond mountains loomed on all sides. The first elevation climb was a gradual ascent through a narrow canyon. Not much more than 100 meters. On the other side, emerged into another broad valley.

Rice paddies and trees along the Er River north of Erhai

I was now in Eryuan County (洱源县). Er Yuan means "source of Erhai Lake". I was still in the same watershed. But that wouldn't last for long. I didn't even turn off the main highway on the side road to the Eryuan county seat. I ploughed ahead, making it to Niujie (牛街, which means "Cow Street") in time for a big lunch.

THE MOUNTAIN: NIUJIE TO SHAXI

After lunch, I left 214. I left the tour buses, the flatness, the smoothness. Hell, I lost the pavement. I had just 32 kilometers to go before my destination, Shaxi (沙溪). But lying in between me and Shaxi were those towering Cangshan Mountains. Actually, they weren't quite as high here as they were near Dali. Which is precisely why I rode the 70 km here in the first place. This is one of the few places where a road crosses over them. One other road crosses the mountains near Eryuan county. Scouting routes on Google Earth beforehand, I chose this route over the other because the pass was slightly lower at 2800 m compared to 3000 m. As it turns out, the other road although reaching a slightly higher summit, probably would have been a lot faster. The road I chose was a rough mountain road, dirt in the best of times, and rocks in the worst. The other road was a paved road. Both roads appeared on both my print map, and on Google Maps. But neither cartographer gave any indication that one was paved and the other was dirt. On the maps, they appeared the same, a thin brown line on the map, a thin white one on Google, which belongs to the lowest classification of roads in their hierarchy of road types (local, or other, roads). The geographer in me got to thinking, this sounds like a job for me. Go to the map publisher (which is in Beijing) and offer to be their Yunnan scout, checking all the roads in their maps for accuracy. Make sure that paved roads and dirt roads are marked as such. I think that kind of information would be pretty useful to drivers, who are the main consumers of these high quality road maps.

Dirt road over the mountain from Niujie to Shaxi

Anyway, I'm not complaining that the road was a dirt road. It was a great ride up the mountain and down the other side. It was some of the most uninhabited 32 km of road I have ever been on in China. From the bottom of the mountain to the summit I didn't pass a single village or settlement or even house or structure of any kind. On the other side of the mountain, there were a handful of farms. I passed very little traffic, too. Just a few motorcycles (with people who were clearly pretty surprised to see a foreigner riding a bike in such a place), one car, and one truck. The red dirt road rose quickly in a series of switchbacks. I was a little apprehensive since my phone was already telling me the battery was low and I felt that the GPS would be a good thing to have as I attempted this off-the-beaten-path route. I kicked myself that I'd turned on the app on my android "my tracks" for the four hours that morning. In the past, my phone's battery had lasted 8 hours so I figured it would be enough to get me all the way to Shaxi. But by leaving on "my tracks" I put a much greater strain on the battery. My tracks constantly uses GPS to record your location, and make a path, and profile it with all sorts of statistics on your speed, elevation gain, etc. But here I was in the place where the GPS might actually come in handy, to record the dramatic climb over the mountain and steer me in the right direction in the event of any misleading side roads or forks in the road. Another drawback of the dead battery was that I wasn't able to take many pictures on the mountain.

Route over the mountain from Niujie to Shaxi (copyright Google Earth)

Well, as luck would have it, the GPS didn't prove to be necessary. Other than a couple forks in the road near the very bottom of the mountain, where there were still villagers around to ask if I was going the right way, the mountain road was very easy to follow. Although it's a rough road, rocky and potholed in many sections, it's still a road that's been engineered to some degree. It's wide enough for vehicles. There are a few road cuts and a few places where water is channeled under the road. I wondered what the economic utility of this road was. Every road has to have some economic utility, or perhaps in some special cases social or political utility, or else it wouldn't be built. With almost every transportation route used in modern China, the route itself has probably been in use for millennia. But at what point was it changed, presumably by some government agency, from a footpath used by villagers and traders on horseback, to the road (albeit a pretty inferior one) that it is today? Frankly, it would have been a very uncomfortable road in any motor vehicle, but for a mountain bike it's perfect. My mountain bike enthusiast friends in Kunming prefer much rougher, steeper terrain on single track trails, but for me this is the ideal kind of mountain biking. It was a deep ascent up to the 2800 m (9,186 feet) pass, though, and I was glad when I finally made it to the summit. All along the way, I certainly appreciated the dramatic scenery. First, leaving the Niujie Valley, seeing the valley and its villages strung out on the high way like beads on a string. Then seeing the distant peaks of the Cangshan Mountains grow closer and closer as the road zigzagged its way up the first flank of the mountain, then ducking behind the first ridge and rounding the rim of a small canyon before heading up the next flank. A great blue reservoir emerged below in a valley hidden from view from Niujie. As I climbed in altitude the vegetation change was evident in the pines and conifers that blanked the mountain beginning about halfway up.

Rounding the summit the steep uphill finally changed to downhill and off I went. That's fun mountain biking too. Lots of obstacles and potholes and rocks and things to watch out for. My mountain biking friends say they just barrel down without brakes. I used my brakes quite a bit. It took about forty five minutes to get down the mountain. About two thirds of the way down I started riding through mountain side villages. In no time, I reached Shaxi.

THE VALLEY: SHAXI TO YANGBI

Shaxi old town is a place I'd wanted to visit since I first heard about it last fall at a hostel in Lijiang. When another backpacker mentioned it as a place he was considering visiting, I was surprised. I thought I knew all the backpacker spot and spots visited by foreign tourists in Yunnan. How had I never heard of this Shaxi? Turns out, it's been in Lonely Planet for a few years now. It's already turning into something of a backpacker destination, and stopover for French and German tourists who come with expensive private guides. It's definitely nowhere on the scale of the tourism in Dali, Lijiang, or Shangri-La. The town itself is tiny. There is one main street, modern and nondescript. A small "old town" consists of one street and a courtyard. What a fine old town it is, though. Genuinely old buildings (the one at which I ate was 150 years old, the waitress said). Shaxi was once a bustling trading center on the old tea horse trail from Yunnan to Tibet. In recent years, the local government has conducted a very good restoration project cleaning up some of the old buildings, without tearing them down and rebuilding fake "old buildings" like so many other places in China do. There are about five guesthouses, including an IYHA hostel. There seemed to be around 20 other foreigners when I was there, and a handful of Chinese photographers. Definitely a tourist destination, but a tiny one for China. I was fascinated. This is exactly what I was looking at in my masters thesis, but in India.

Shaxi Square

Shaxi is classified as a township in the hierarchy of administrative division in China. Townships are below counties and above villages. All the other backpacker destinations Yunnan are in county-level cities: Dali, Lijiang, Shangri-La, the cities of Xishuangbanna, even the Stone Forest, or in National Parks (Tiger Leaping Gorge, etc). I hadn't heard of any western backpacker-geared guesthouses in places as small as Shaxi. I've stayed in small townships such as this before, but never before one with backpackers and restaurants with coffee and muesli such as here. Usually Chinese townships are dull places with one main street of ugly buildings selling most farm equipment, with a couple cheap eateries and a couple simple lodging houses.

But Shaxi is certainly deserving of its reputation, if ever small. It feels like walking into the China of a very different era. And the valley it's set in is the quintessence of Chinese rural beauty, the rural beauty backpackers hope to find when they come to China. My friend and former roommate Matt Burton is the Chinese program director for the American kids' education program "Where There Be Dragons". He took some kids there a few years ago. He predicts one Shaxi will take off, and one day may look something like the tourist excess of Lijiang. I think he's right.

Most of the tourists to Shaxi probably stay there several days. It's out of the way, and not really on the way to anywhere else. The guesthouses all have bikes for rent. Many probably go for day rides in the countryside around Shaxi. Well, I went for a "day ride" too, but it was a bit more substantial. In total, I rode 108 kilometers on day three. I followed a single river the whole way. It starts off being called the Heihui River (黑惠江), and after it joins with the Misha River (弥沙河) it changes it name to the Yangbi River (漾濞江), named after the county of Yangbi, whose county seat was my ultimate destination 108 km away.

Immediately after leaving Shaxi

In my preliminary survey of the route on Google Earth I assumed it would be a relatively easy day's ride. The whole route was in a valley, following a river flowing downstream. I would drop 500 meters (1,650 feet) in the course of the day. However, I probably did more overall climbing that day than I did the day before when I climbed the Cangshan Mountains in single long uphill slog. That's because the road down the valley didn't just follow the river. It ran all up and down the hillsides above the river, in and out of valleys and rides in a terrain with little flat land. So it wasn't an easy ride. But it was great riding. In contrast to the previous afternoon, this road was paved. Pavement makes everything faster - uphill and downhill. It also passed through continuously inhabited land. It wasn't heavily inhabited, with almost no signs of industry until I hit the outskirts of Yangbi. This was pure agricultural land, and I passed through mostly fields of corn, rice, tobacco, and vegetables. Some places there was still forest, and I saw locals tapping pine trees for pine sap. Also unlike the previous day's mountain road, there was a steady stream of traffic. Not exactly heavy. Not a lot of trucks. Some local county buses. Some motorcycles. And lots of local farmers walking, riding bikes, or walking their cows, pigs, and goats.

Heihui River Valley south of Shaxi

Confluence of the Misha and Heihui Rivers

This is my favorite kind of cycling. Mountain biking is fun in doses, but I wouldn't have wanted to ride that mountain road all day long. This day's valley ride took me 9 hours, but it was fun and beautiful the whole way. Changing terrain, ups and downs and curves, but on a good quality road, with not a lot of obstacles, villages, places to buy water, lots of views of the river and farmland below. This time I left My Tracks off and the battery lasted the whole 9 hours, so I was able to take plenty of pictures along the way, which you can see on flickr and facebook.

Tapping pine sap

Yi Ethnic lady with a very large hat

THE CANYON: YANGBI TO DALI

But even beautiful scenery and good road quality can get old after 9 hours, and when I finally rolled into Yangbi I was glad to be there. As I got closer to Yangbi, the valley gradually was becoming more developed, more ugly modern buildings and fewer traditional houses. About 15 km north of Yangbi I passed through a town called Maidi (脉地镇). It seemed to be a factory-based town, the first sign of industry I'd seen in the valley. The road approaching the town was lined with electric street lights, which seemed very out of place after the relative underdevelopedness of the valley up until this point. I imagined this is a typical Chinese "face project" in which local officials or maybe the boss of the factory pays for a bunch of unnecessary street lights to make the town appear more developed and modern than it really is.

Street Light "Face Project" on the approach to Maidi Town

Yangbi is a place I'd never heard of before I planned this bike ride. Even the characters in Yangbi (漾濞) are kind of strange-looking. Most place names in Yunnan have fairly simple characters. Not Yangbi. I've been to many county-level cities in my travels in Yunnan and had some very nice experiences. I wouldn't place Yangbi very high, though. In fact, as I thought about this over dinner in Yangbi, I made a list of all the county level cities I've been to in Yunnan, and then rated them on a scale of 1-5 according to four categories: the town itself (i.e. architecture, urban design), scenery (can you see mountains from the city? is there a river? parks?), surroundings (is it close to interesting things?), and the "cultural milieu" (the vibe, shops, street life, friendly people). I calculated that I've been to 37 such county level cities. Some of them were quite nice, places I could actually envision myself living in. Yangbi wasn't one. After the beauty of the Yangbi River Valley, Yangbi city seemed more like an ugly stain on the landscape. The river, clear in the upper stretches of the valley, was muddied and brown by this point. I spent a night, had some mediocre food, and was off the next day to complete the loop back to Dali.

Yangbi City

Day four's ride was the least interesting of the trip. But still unique in its own way. From Yangbi it's a steep drop down to the Xi'er (西洱) River Canyon. The road here is wider than the road above Yangbi. I was surprised to see a brand new multilane high speed expressway under construction parallel to the existing road. It hardly seemed necessary. Another "face project"? Would it just go as far as Yangbi City? I hope so.

It only took 40 minutes to hit the Xi'er River Canyon and the junction of National Highway 320, which runs all the way from Nanchang (南昌) in Eastern China, to Ruili (瑞丽), on the border with Myanmar. At 1400 meters, this was the lowest elevation on this trip so far. From here it would be a 500 meter climb through 20 km of canyon back to Dali. Paralleling National Highway 320 is National Expressway G56, which runs all the way from Hangzhou (杭州) (near Shanghai) to Ruili. Riding parallel to an expressway may not sound like the most pleasant cycling experience, and I wouldn't have wanted to do it for too long, but for 20 km it's not bad. The topography of the region means that any road would naturally have to pass through this canyon. And riding the old road parallel to the expressway actually is kind of cool, because you can admire the engineering of that larger road - which is largely built on pylons, an elevated ribbon of highway gliding up the canyon.

As I neared Dali, the road was lined with fish restaurants. Finally, after cresting the hill, Dali and Erhai Lake appear in view. Back to the bus station and back to Kunming I went. All in all, an excellent ride, particular the mountain crossing to Shaxi, and the valley to Yangbi.

Northern Vietnam Bicycle Adventure

2011-07-18T01:08:00.000-07:00

I wrote about my new bicycle in my last post. For the last three weeks, I've taken it on a major ride every weekend. The first two were 200+ km rides based in Kunming.
But this past weekend I did something grander. Pretty damn grand considering that I just started long-distance cycling.

The main impetus for the trip was that I need to make another visa run. Instead of just entering Vietnam and then re-entering China, I thought I'd take my new bike for its first international adventure.

I had a grand plan. If you look at the Vietnamese-Chinese border you'll see that the main border crossing is at Hekou (河口)/Lao Cai. This is the most logical border crossing topographically. It's where the Red River runs into Vietnam from China. It's where the 100 year old French colonial railway linking Kunming to Hanoi runs. But, if you pan west on the map, over some mountains, a couple valleys over, you'll see another, much smaller border crossing, between the Vietnamese town of Lu Thang and the Chinese town of Jinshuihe (金水河). I thought it would be cool to ride my bike from one border crossing to another. I had my doubts that the border crossing would be open to foreigners, though, so I inquired with both Vietnamese officials at the consulate in Kunming, and with Chinese officials at the border at Hekou. Both told me that foreigners could, indeed, cross at Jinshuihe. So off I went.

Morning in Lao Cai. Started with an avocado smoothie and Vietnamese coffee on the banks of the Red River, overlooking China. Lao Cai is at elevation 100 meters (328 feet). Hot and tropical. From Lao Cai to Sapa, it is 1,500 meters (4,921 feet) straight up the side of a mountain. I knew what I was getting myself into. I'd never before ridden up such a steep hill, but I felt I was up for it. I figured it might take me all day. I surprised myself when it ended up taking only four hours. The first 10 km are in the valley. Up the mountain the road is only 26 km long. but with that climb, it's a steep road. I pedaled up most of the mountain with the middle crank in middle gear and the rear crank in low gear, stopping only for periodic water and shade breaks. I watched the vegetation change from tropical to temperate. The whole way there were people along the road, local minority tribes in traditional clothes, selling fruit and vegetables along the roadside. Terraced rice fields spilled down the slopes all the way up the mountain. I didn't see any other cyclists on my way up. Lots of buses and minivans carrying tourists to Sapa passed me. Lots of Vietnamese on motorcycles. I received hundreds of "hello's" from children, and adults, all the way up the mountain.

3:00 pm arrived in Sapa. Found a guesthouse and showered. Then plenty of time to hit the town and join the throngs of tourists. Knowing that they'd all come by bus and I'd come by the power of my own two legs was a good feeling. When the motorcycle-for-hire guys pestered me to pay for a 1 km ride around town, I just laughed. Sapa was a hill station and military sanitorium where French colonials escaped from the heat of Hanoi. Today it's a hub of hill tribe tourism. The same ethnic minorities that live on the Chinese side of the border live on the Vietnamese side, only they have different names. The main group is the Hmong, who in China are called Miaozu (苗族). In China, you often find old ladies still wearing traditional clothing, but men, children, and young women all wear modern clothing. In Sapa all the women, young and old, and even some men, still wear traditional clothing. But it's hard to tell how much of that is honest cultural tradition, and how much is out of recognition of the tourist dollars that minority tourism brings in to the Sapa economy. You can't walk down the street without being pestered by packs of Hmong women and children hawking trinkets, postcards, and shawls, spouting "Where you from?", "Buy from me!". The tourism scene in Sapa is very developed. There are dozens of cafes and restaurants with English menus serving Western backpacker favorites. Dozens of tour agencies take tourists out on treks to minority villages. That night in Sapa, I ate Vietnamese food and chatted with a French couple. It was Bastille Day and they treated me to a glass of Vietnamese Dalat wine. One plus of Sapa being so developed was the preponderance of wifi. I'd never used my new smartphone outside of China, and hadn't really stopped to realize that I would be able to use it to go online anywhere in the world that had wifi. This will fundamentally change my future travel communication patterns.

Day 2 morning breakfast and coffee in Sapa, then headed back out on the road. Sapa's already quite high, but it's another 500 meters (1,640 feet) to Tram Ton summit at 2,000 meters (6,561 feet), the highest summit in Vietnam, in the shadow of the highest mountain, Fansipan. Just before the summit was a big tourist trap called "Silver Waterfall" with a parking lot full of tourist minivans and souvenir stands. Up until the summit the road had been excellent, 100% paved. But the summit marks the boundary between Lao Cai province and Lai Chau province. For the rest of the journey I'd be at the mercy of Lai Chau's road conditions, which leave something to be desired, a combination of paved and unpaved, with the latter somewhat more predominant. Given that Lai Chau is Vietnam's poorest, most remote province, this is not entirely surprising.

From the summit I got to enjoy my first section of downhill riding since leaving Lao Cai. 1370 meters (4,494 feet) of downhill, from the cool, pine forested, mist-enshrouded slopes of Fansipan to the semi-tropical valley of Ban Ko Lam at 630 meters (2,066 feet). Not a lot going on in Ban Ko Lam. Hot, and hazy, and dusty. Found some pho at a roadside restaurant. Heading out of town, I ran into what would be the first (and only) other foreign bicyclist on my trip. A German decked out in spandex, and coming from the opposite direction, we exchanged notes about the road(s) ahead.

From Ban Ko Lam valley I had to climb another 670 meters (2,198 feet) to the next pass. Some gorgeous scenery over the pass. Chartreuse-colored rice terraces, emerald green mountains, silver waterfalls, and great limestone rock formations. And a million friendly "hello's" from everyone I passed. From the pass, a short descent of 400 meters (1,312 feet) to the provincial capital of Lai Chau. My initial impression of Lai Chau was of a ghost city. Big empty streets, big government buildings, and absolutely no people to be seen anywhere. I was out of water and hungry and rode through the main street looking for somewhere, anywhere selling water and food. Nothing! Could this be? But aha, then I crested a small hill and rode down into what turned out to be the real Lai Chau. The first Lai Chau was merely the (seemingly yet unfinished) government "new town". Water and donuts at the "French Cafe" were waiting on the other side.

Based on my pre-trip preview of the route on Google Earth I was under the impression that it would be all downhill from Lai Chau. I must have misread the map. From Lai Chau there was another climb to another pass, my third in a single day. While it wasn't the most strenuous climb at 220 meters (721 feet), I was already pretty tired from the previous two passes and was relieved when I hit the top and began my second long downhill stretch of the day, 860 meters (2,821 feet) down to Phong Tho. By this time I was back in steamy, tropical country. In fact, the tropical rainforest here was much more primeval and untouched than in the far more developed, industrialized Lao Cai. From Phong Tho it was just another 20 km along a river to the Chinese border. After a day of rough, potholed roads, this final stretch of road was surprisingly beautifully paved and I sped along to the Chinese border, taking off my sunglasses as the sun was low in the sky, and enjoying the breeze of the river and the rainforest jungle all around me. The road was nearly empty. Barely any traffic. I imagined that it might have been built with Chinese funding, in anticipation of cross-border trade. But that evening there wasn't much trade going on.

I hit Lu Thang, the border town (if you can call it a "town") at about 6 pm. It had been a long day. I found the border without much trouble. A short bridge over the river, China clearly within sight about 50 meters away. A single Vietnamese official guarding the border. I spoke with him in Chinese.

"Can I cross?"

"No, not okay."

"Oh, because it's too late, right? Can I come back in the morning?"

"No, that's also not okay."

"Why?"

"This is a national border, not an international border."

"But I checked with officials from both countries before I came. They told me this border is open to foreigners."

"No, according to Vietnamese law and Chinese law only Vietnamese and Chinese citizens can cross here. You can cross at Lao Cai."

"But I just came from Lao Cai. I just rode my bicycle 130 km over three mountain passes to get here, so I could cross at this border."

"Sorry, no dice."

At this point, I convinced him to let me leave my bicycle behind in Vietnam and walk halfway across the bridge to where a Chinese official was standing and talk to him. I asked the Chinese official what the Chinese policy was on foreigners crossing here, and could I cross if I came back tomorrow morning. The Chinese official was young. He stammered for a minute and then answered "yes I don't see why not".

Back to the Vietnamese official.

"That Chinese official just said I could cross tomorrow morning!"

"No"

"But he just said so"

"According to Vietnamese law you cannot cross here".

To this day I don't know whether the Chinese official replied accurately or not. He was a young guy, and for all I know, he didn't know what he was talking about. If I'd somehow been able to get past the Vietnamese official with my bike the next morning, I made have run into his superior, who might have corrected the junior official and turned me back. But the fact remains that if I couldn't get past the Vietnamese side, it doesn't matter what the policy on the Chinese side was. I was tempted to spend the night in Lu Thang and try again in the morning, just in case the Vietnamese side was manned by a different guard with a different understanding of the rules. But Lu Thang had no hotels or guesthouses to speak of, just a few ramshackle village huts. After a long day's riding I really wanted a shower. So I hightailed it 20 km back to Phong Tho. But not before I took advantage of my proximity to China to use China Mobile's signal to make some text messages and phone calls to my friends in China. The sun was already set, but the road back to Phong Tho was excellent, so I sped along in the moonlight. I was kind of freaked out when I was chased by several angry barking dogs. Up until now, I hadn't had any problems with dogs on this ride. Why do dogs only chase bikes at night? The mosquitoes also came out at this time, and I got quite a few in my face. But I covered the 20 km quickly and made it back to Phong Tho safely where I found a hotel and shower and a hot meal waiting for me.

Day 3. At this point I had no choice but to head back to Lao Cai. Having already ridden the entire route between here and Lao Cai, I didn't really feel like repeating it, especially the long incline to Tram Ton pass. I decided I would cheat and put my bike on a bus back to Sapa, then ride downhill from there. But Phong Tho was a small town with no bus station. I figured I'd have a better time of finding a bus in Lai Chau, so I set out on my third day in a row of riding. The previous day, the descent from the pass to Phong Tho had been so quick that I didn't anticipate how long it would be going up in the other direction. 860 meters (2,821 feet), that's how much. And this being my third day of uphill riding, it tired me out. Further frustrating my plans were the fact that my Vietnamese money was nearly out. When I rolled into Lai Chau I went looking for the bus station. I remembered the previous day passing lots of Lai Chau-to-Lai Cai buses so I knew there must be a bus station somewhere. But I don't speak Vietnamese. And no one in Lai Chau spoke English (or Chinese, for that matter, which surprised me, given how close they are to China). No one understood what I was talking about when I asked "bus? bus? bus?". So I just kept on riding. I started riding up the next pass, to Ban Ko Lam. I figured that at some point a bus would have to come, and I would flag it down.

Finally, the bus came. The vivacious ticket lady threw my bike on top of the bus and tied it down. There were no seats, so I sat on a sack of rice in the aisle. And we were off. I only had enough Vietnamese money left to pay for my own bus fare. For the bike fee, I gave her a $5 bill I was carrying. I didn't have any $1's. The bus was more efficient uphill than a bike. We made it over the pass, to Ban Ko Lam, then over Tram Ton pass to Sapa, in just 2 hours. In Sapa, I thanked the bus driver, and set out on what I knew would be an enjoyable ride 1,400 meters (4,593 feet) down the mountain, all downhill. I passed the scene of a car accident minutes after it had occurred. This would be a pretty dangerous road, especially with vehicles passing each other. I took that to heart and rode down as carefull as I could. Before I knew it I was back in Lao Cai. I rode through a section of town that I'd previously never seen. A shady street lined with old French colonial houses and an old church. Then back to China, and the next morning, back to Kunming on a bus.

I didn't calculate the total elevation climb until I got back to Kunming yesterday. The results floored me. In those three days, I rode a total of 12,073 feet uphill (not including the part where I cheated on the bus). Total elevation difference (uphill and downhill) was 26,692 feet, practically one Mount Everest! Probably, without a doubt, the most impressive physical feat of my life so far. Yet, I handled it pretty well. I think I could (and will) do it again. Certainly, having a good bike helps. Weighing it down with panniers slows things down, but apparently not by too much. I prefer a ride with more variation in uphill and downhill, and not single uphill stretches such as the section from Lao Cai to Sapa, but it's nice to know that, in the future, I can handle it if I need to. When I compare what I did on these three days to my previous mountain biking experience, mostly at home in Marin County, California, the difference is extraordinary. Mount Tamalpais in Marin is 2,570 feet high. I used to consider a ride to the top of Mt. Tam to be an all-day, energy-exhausting feat. But I climbed the equivalent of nearly five Mt. Tam's in just three days (two Mt. Tam's each on the first two days, and one on the third day). Plus, I did it in tropical weather. Below is a detailed summary of elevation information, all the high points and low points and vertical gain/drop:

                                                  vertical gain/drop
Day 1
Lao Cai 100 m     328 ft
Sapa 1500 m        4,921 ft        + 1,400m    + 4,593 ft

Total climb                              + 1,400m    + 4,593 ft
Total elevation change            1,400m   4,593 ft

Day 2
Sapa 1500 m       4,921 ft
Pass 2000 m        6,561 ft        + 500 m    + 1,640 ft
Valley 630 m        2,066 ft       - 1,370 m    - 4,494 ft
Pass 1300 m        4,265 ft        + 670 m    + 2,198 ft
Lai Chao 900 m    2,952 ft       - 400 m    - 1,312 ft
Pass 1120 m        3,674 ft        + 220 m    + 721 ft
Phong Tho 260 m    853 ft       - 860 m    - 2,821 ft
Border 300 m      984 ft        + 30 m    + 98 ft
Phong Tho 260 m    853 ft        - 30 m        - 98 ft

Total climb                              + 1,420 m    +4,658
Total elevation change            4,080 m    13,385

Day 3
Phong Tho 260 m    853 ft
Pass 1120 m        3,674 ft          + 860 m    + 2,821 ft
Lai Chao 900 m    2,952 ft        - 220 m    - 721 ft
bus to Sapa
Sapa 1500 m    4,921 ft
Lao Cai 100 m     328 ft           - 1400m    - 4,593 ft

Total climb                      + 860 m    + 2,821 ft
Total elevation change            2,480 m    8,136 ft

3 Day Total climb                  + 3,680 m    + 12,073 ft
3 Day Total elevation change        7,960 m    26,692 ft

New stuff

2011-07-05T09:51:00.000-07:00

Another long absence from blogging. A lot to catch up on. I'll start with the most recent events and move backwards.

Biggest news is probably a couple of purchases I recently made. I'm not usually one to get worked up over consumer purchases, but well I guess this time there are two exceptions. Both were pretty expensive (the most expensive things I've spent money on in China other than rent and air tickets), but both are things I use every day.

The first is a new phone. An android. I've never had a smart phone before. This is a lot of fun. It is world's better than my last cell phone, which could only make calls and send texts. It's got the full touch screen and tons of features which I use often: internet, GPS paired with Google maps, chat clients, a 5 megapixel camera with flash, mp3 players, Chinese-English dictionary. One little device replaces at least five different devices I used to carry around. Probably my favorite function is the GPS. Being the geography nerd I am, and doing as much travel as I do in China, I'll never again get lost, never again wonder where I am. It's especially useful when paired with my other big recent purchase:

A new bike! I can't believe it took me so long to get around to buying a good bike. I've always liked bicycling. I biked a lot growing up in Marin. I biked in college. I biked in grad school. And I've biked for the last two and a half years in China. But I always biked on crappy bikes. My justification was that most of my biking was around the city, where bikes frequently get stolen, and I didn't want to risk getting an expensive bike stolen. But I would also sometimes go on longer rides, and for that the crappy bikes just sucked.

So now I've got a nice hybrid mountain-road bike, strong, sturdy, smooth, fast. I also loaded up on accessories - mostly importantly, a rear-mounted bag for carrying supplies and luggage when touring. I've met so many long-distance cyclists recently that it inspired me to do the same. All of my travel in Yunnan these last couple years has been by bus. Now I can travel by bike for extended periods of time. You can see so much more by bike. And I can take the wheel off and put if in the bottom of a bus if I ever need to.

I went on my first semi-long distance ride this past weekend, kind of a test run. I rode 200 km in two days. From Kunming, I rode south along the shore of Dianchi Lake (滇池) to a town called Haikou (海口). From there I headed up a steep mountain road to get to the next valley over. The road started out paved, but then turned to dirt. The mountain was a giant phosphate mine and with dirt roads criss-crossing the whole mountain I would have become very lost if it hadn't been for my GPS-equipped Android. Actually, I did become lost at one point. The beacon on my phone indicated that I was straying from the main road and I ignored it at first because I assumed it was an error either in the Google maps base map, or the GPS. But it was actually right and I was wrong. With its help, I backtracked and resumed on my way. The bike is not the best for dirt mountain roads; it handled them alright. But it really excels on the highway, which is where I plan to use it most of the time. I've already ridden mountain bikes before, so riding a hybrid road bike on roads is a lot of fun - you can go very fast seemingly effortlessly, even glide up hills.

The next valley over was a beautiful valley, very green and very fertile, full of pear and apple orchards, lotus ponds, and vegetable farms. An old railroad line runs down the valley, but a local said it hasn't been in operation in 20 years. My bike covered in mud from the mountain road, I stopped at a carwash station and asked them to wash my bike. The friendly owner washed my bike for free, said he was happy to welcome foreigners to his valley. At this point I was only about 50 km outside of Kunming but it felt like another world, very far from the hustle and bustle of the city. I rode down the valley 20 km, and spent the night in a down called Bajie (八街). The town only had one guesthouse, and I forgot to bring my passport, so the guesthouse proprietor told me to go to the police station to register. The police station was staffed by a bunch of raggedy looking 18 year－olds. They followed me back to the guesthouse, had me sign my name and fake my passport number, and that was that.

Next morning started out heading west through the fruit orchards on a good quality rural road. Hit the next mountain range and climbed to the top quickly, this time on paved road. The next valley over was considerably lower in elevation because the descent was much longer than the ascent. I hit the county seat of Yimen (易门), the northernmost corner of Yuxi (玉溪) prefecture. It's famous for its wild mushrooms. I had some for lunch. Then I started the 100 km ride back to Kunming, all on main roads. A fair deal of climbing, a couple more mountain ranges. Then I hit the main east-west expressway of Yunnan, the one that runs from Kunming to Dali. Being on my bike I took the old road which runs parallel to the expressway. This was not fun. The old road is in bad condition, parts torn up and turned to dirt. Furthermore, the scenery sucked. I was riding through industrialized outskirts of Kunming. Finally hit the town of Anning (安宁), one more mountain range to cross, and then back to Kunming. I'm looking forward to future, longer, rides with my new bike.

One last little tidbit of interesting news. My friend Deng Sheng Chun (邓声春) used to work at Polar Bear, my favorite drink shop making milk tea, smoothies, and whatnot. But she left Polar Bear because the pay was too low (just 1000 rmb, $150, a month, and she worked 10 hours a day 29 days a month). Deng Sheng Chun just opened her own drink shop, with her own brand name. It's a joint-venture with her friend. I went to visit her new shop on its opening day. When a Chinese shop opens they light fireworks and set up big red banners and bouquets of flowers. I hope she's successful in her new business. She's from a poor rural family. She must have saved a lot of money to be able to invest in her own store. Polar Bear occupies prime real estate downtown. Her shop is in the far suburbs of Kunming, but next to a university campus, so hopefully business will be brisk. Her prices are a lot lower than Polar Bear's, for basically the same products, so her margins can't be very high, she must be planning to make up for that in volume. Anyway, I thought it's a nice little case study of development in progress at a very individual level. Polar Bear is a successful small chain store with about 6 branches throughout Kunming. But they exploit their workers with low pay and long hours. So workers like Deng Sheng Chun save money, and maybe borrow money, and try to make it on their own. There are a million people (well, probably several millions, this is China!) of people just like her, opening their own small businesses. I don't imagine they're all successful. But I admire their entrepreneurial spirit and drive.

Uploading pictures on blogspot is such a pain, I'm not even going to bother. If you want to see pictures of everything I write about here, go to flickr.com/photos/matthartzell

And now for a couple of posts about trips taken last month:

TENGCHONG

At the beginning of June I went to Tengchong (腾冲), a small city in a lush green geothermally active valley near the Myanmar border.
I had actually been to Tengchong once before, almost exactly five years ago, on my first trip to China in 2006. At that time, Tengchong received about a half page of coverage in my travel guide book and was billed as an off-the-beaten-path alternative to the heavily touristed destinations of Dali and Lijiang further up the road. Indeed it had been, and since that first visit had stuck in my head as one of the highlights of my first trip to China. During my time in Kunming, the name Tengchong would come up from time to time amongst travelers. I was curious to see what changes might have taken place in the intervening years.

The Tengchong I discovered in 2011 did seem larger than the Tengchong I saw in 2006. Or maybe I just didn't get around enough the first time. I saw several things this time I didn't the first time. An "old town" area of the main city. And a historic village called Heshun (和顺) a few kilometers outside of the city that seems like it's trying to be the next Lijiang. It's a charming village of entirely old buildings perched on a hill surrounded by rice paddies and mountains. Every house in the village is a guesthouse or cafe or souvenir shop, just like Lijiang. But the place was near empty when I visited on a summer weekend, not a good sign.

I remembered in 2006 spending a day wandering in the villages and rice paddies east of town. I went back there this time only to discover a huge construction site for a massive "tourist resort center", complete with conference center and golf courses.

One of my Kunming friends is from a county neighboring Tengchong. She put me in touch with her childhood friend, who has lived in Tengchong for many years. Xiao Yu is a year younger than me, but has already been married seven years and has a five year old daughter. She is the manager of a restaurant. Her husband is a jade merchant. Jade is big business in Tengchong, since it's so close to Myanmar, which is where most of the world's jade actually comes from. There are hundreds of jade stores in this small out-of-the-way city. Xiao Yu told me about the process of selecting jade. It's quite expensive for the better pieces, which are more luminescent and have darker strands of green. I bought a couple small, comparatively inexpensive pieces because being the friend of a jade merchant's wife I was able to get me a discount. One of the more interesting items for sale in the jade shops is "mystery jade", an unpolished rock with some unknown amount and quality of jade inside it. You can wet it and shine a flashlight into it to get some idea of its contents, but you won't know for sure until you buy it and the guy slices it open using a special blade.

HONGHE

In mid June to Honghe County 红河县), where I'd spent Chinese New Years with Sean, Mao Xian, A Fei, and Li Wei a few months ago. That time I went to Mao Xian and A Fei's home towns. This time I went to Li Wei's home town. The occasion was the Hani ethnic New Year. Took a night bus to the Honghe County seat, then a local bus to Yangjie (羊街), the town where Li Wei lives. Yangjie is on top of a mountain range which spills down several thousand feet to the Yuanjiang River below. My visit was pretty similar to my previous visit to Honghe. Lots of sitting around with the family, playing cards, eating big meals. Some walking around and hiking in the hills. One unique feature of Yangjie is the giant see-saw they built every year on this occasion from a massive tree log. It is several times longer and several times higher than any see-saw I have ever seen, and in addition to see-sawing up and down, it can rotate 360 degrees. We had a great deal of fun playing on it; it's actually quite nerve-wracking when it reaches its highest height.

Wa ethnic festivals on the Burmese border

2011-05-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

XIMENG and the WOODEN DRUM FESTIVAL

I spent International Socialist Workers Day ("May Day") celebrating two Wa ethnic festivals in towns along the Myanmar border.

I took a night bus from Kunming to Ximeng (西盟县), a small county of 60,000 people in the westernmost part of Pu'er prefecture (普洱市), right next to the border of Myanmar. It is a Wa ethnic "autonomous county", a designation given to any county where ethnic minorities make up the majority.

I'd seen a hand full of Wa people in Kunming before, but I'd never seen so many Wa in one place. The first thing one notices is that they look extremely different from other Chinese (including from other Chinese ethnic minorities). The Wa have noticeably darker skin than any other ethnic group in China. They look more like Burmese or Indians, which makes a lot of sense given their geographic proximity to those countries. Their language falls under the Austroasiatic language family, which includes the Khmer of Cambodia was well as scattered ethnic minorities throughout the highlands of Southeast Asia.

The Wa ethnic group live on both sides of the Myanmar-China border, with about 800,000 in Myanmar and 400,000 in China. The Wa in China all live along the Myanmar border in the prefectures of Pu'er and Lincang in Yunnan province. The geopolitical situation of the Wa is quite fascinating. On the Myanmar side, the Wa govern their own de-facto "Wa State" which technically lies within Shan State of Myanmar. The degree of control that the Myanmar central government actually has over this region is not entirely clear to me. All that is clear is that neither side appears to have complete and total control.

A couple years ago, violence broke out in the region, and tens of thousands of refugees spilled across the border into this region of China where they resided temporarily. My friends in Ximeng told me that it was surprisingly orderly, with the Chinese army providing shelter and food until the refugees could return home. Apparently, the border is quite porous. Families span both borders. I met some people in Ximeng who were born in Myanmar but grew up in China.

According to Wikipedia the Wa army of Myanmar is the largest narcotics trafficking organization in Southeast Asia, mainly producing opium (long endemic to the region, also called the "Golden Triangle") and exporting it as processed heroin, as well as ketamine and meth. China is a huge market for these drugs, which means this region is presumably one of the busiest narcotics trafficking corridors in the world. I didn't see much evidence of drug smuggling, but on the bus ride out our bus was searched thoroughly by narcotics cops for about 45 minutes. One villager in Ximeng, upon my refusal to accept the cigarette he offered me, reassured me "don't worry, it isn't laced with heroin".

The reason I went to Ximeng was to celebrate their annual "Wooden Drum Festival" (木鼓节). The wooden drum, made from felled logs, is a symbol of the Wa people, along with cow heads. The drums themselves only made a brief appearance during a choreographed performance.

I'd been to a couple of ethnic festivals before, but this was my favorite by far. The other festivals mostly resembled the American county fair or carnival. Portable rides, carnival games, barbecue shacks, lots of drinking, a general party atmosphere. At the other festivals, some people came dressed in ethnic clothing.

At the Wooden Drum Festival, ethnic costumes predominated. In addition to the Wa, there were also sizable numbers of Lahu (拉祜族) and Dai (傣族) people, each distinctive in their own ethnic garb.

I don't want to delve too deep into the loaded concept of "authenticity". Part of the festival were clearly put on for show. The festival was subsumed under the larger prefecture-wide Pu'er Tea Festival. Busloads of tourists and dignitaries were brought in to watch the choreographed and heavily produced dance performances. TV crews were there to film the festivities. Women wearing official "hostess" cheongsam and red "welcome" banners guided tourists around the festival site. I can't even lay claim to being the only foreigner there. I ran across two others - a Spaniard, and an American tea merchant who was a "VIP" in the tea festival.

But the spectacular nature of the shows and official presence seemed out of sync with what is really quite a traditional festival in this small, out of the way place. And what a place it was! I was told that the new Ximeng County seat is a new city, built after the old county seat started sliding down a hillside. Looking at the new city on Google Earth, one can see that it was literally carved out of the rainforest. Luckily, the city is tiny. The surrounding rainforest is still intact. From any point in town, you look up at lush green rainforest draping across steep mountainsides. It's a stellar location.

The weather alternated between sunny and cool, clear, and foggy. The foggy times were probably the most beautiful, giving the place a more ethereal tropical jungle feel.

I went to Ximeng upon the invitation of Jing Ling, a girl I met randomly on the Chinese instant messaging service QQ. She added me at random a few months ago, not even knowing I was a foreigner. The connection proved convenient, because here I had a host to guide me through the festival. I stayed in her house during my stay in town. That was lucky because the hotels in town were all booked up by government officials. Jing

The choreographed performances were great, but I preferred the spontaneous dance circles that formed afterwards in the central square, in which I was able to take part in. Words don't really do the overall vibe in Ximeng justice. I got lots of colorful photos which you can see at my flickr site.

LANCANG

From Ximeng I planned to travel to the much larger and more famous Monihei (摸你黑) festival in Cangyuan (沧源县) county of Lincang (临沧市) prefecture. On the map Ximeng and Cangyuan are a mere 37 miles apart as the crow flies. But the crow would fly over Myanmar, and I'm not allowed to enter Myanmar.

I did give it a little thought. I'd heard of foreigners sneaking across the border into Myanmar. As the border is mostly mountains and rainforest, and runs for hundreds of kilometers, people say it's quite easy to do. But the problem is, what if one gets caught? Crossing the border and then crossing back is one thing, but trying to illegally cross a country and re-enter China in a different location could be much trickier. I would play it safe and get to Cangyuan through China instead.

This required me to circle around the border on the only available road. This didn't look so bad on the map, a mere 105 miles. Yet it took me an incredible 13 hours to make the trip! More on that tiring trip later, but first a bit on Lancang (澜沧), a small city which conveniently lies a couple hours from Ximeng. Lancang is the home town of Xiao Yan, the cousin of Wang Ping, the lady whose wedding I participated in as best man a couple months ago. I'd kept in touch with Xiao Yan since the wedding, so I called her up and arranged to hang out in her hometown of Lancang for a day. As it turned out, Wang Ping was there too, visiting from Kunming at last minute because her uncle lost his fingers in a construction accident.

Despite the somber mood over the uncle's severed fingers, I had a good time with Xiao Yan and Wang Ping, visiting the Lahu Culture Garden Park, learning the origin story of the Lahu, whose symbol the bottle gourd was carried by a fish across the seas, swimming at the local hot springs, and enjoying a meal and night of karaoke on the dime of the uncle's boss.

CANGYUAN and MONIHEI

The day I left Lancang I would spent 11 hours in an old, run down bus. Even if the road had been fine, it would have been a slow trip, for the bus was exceeding slow climbing hills, and there were a lot of hills.

But the bus was the least of it. This national highway, the only road connecting Pu'er and Lincang prefectures for hundreds of kilometers, is under construction. The beginning was on an already-finished new road. Then the new and old roads separated, with us taking the latter because the new road was still under construction. Bumpy and curvy, I thought the old road was pretty bad. That was until we hit a canyon where lack of space forced the old and new roads to combine. In other words, the only route was to take the construction road, which was full of bulldozers and heavy machinery busy hacking away at the cliffs to widen the road. This meant we were constantly stopped behind construction vehicles, only being allowed to go through in starts and stops. I started to wish I'd taken the illegal route through Myanmar.

Making the trip slightly more tolerable were an amusing group of passengers on board - a group of boisterous artists, musicians, photographers from eastern China, heading to Cangyuan for the same reason as me - to see the Wa ethnic group and celebrate Monihei.

Finally we arrived in Cangyuan. Cangyuan is the home of the Wa Monihei festival, the main event of which consists of a giant mud fight in which thousands of people get totally covered in mud. It was my main reason for coming.

Unfortunately, my main reason for going was a flop. Due to a misunderstanding over the festival dates, I arrived two days too early, and had to leave a couple hours too early. The big mud fight was scheduled for 2:30 pm on May 2nd, but I had to take the only bus back to Kunming that day at 3:00 pm in order to make it back the next morning in time to go to work at 9:00 (the bus ride takes 13-14 hours). As a result, I missed the mud fight by a hair. I was really disappointed. But I was able to live vicariously through Sean and several other foreigners who came down from Kunming just for Monihei, and whose schedules allowed them to stay in time for the fun.

I did have some fun in Cangyuan, soaking up the general festive vibes, and appreciating the beautiful mountain surroundings. A British lad named James and I traveled to a village called Wengding (翁丁), where the houses are all the traditional style, made from wood and thatched roofs. It all seemed quite authentic until I asked a villager, who revealed that the thatched roofs were all installed just five years ago at the government's behest in order to attract tourism. I guess it worked; it attracted us. James and I went hiking in the nearby valley, then camped outside the village.

Although I didn't get to participate in the mud throwing (which Sean described as simultaneously fun and horrific....mud being shoved in ones facial orifices...) I was still really happy to have made this latest excursion, not least of which was because I got to get accustomed with two new ethnic groups, the Wa and Lahu, and because I went to a corner of Yunnan that I'd never been before.

Border Towns, Engineering Feats, Karst, and Tall Tales

2011-04-18T08:46:00.000-07:00

ANOTHER BORDER RUN

I just got back to Kunming from yet another (visa time limit-driven) border run. In the past, I've always used the border with Laos for this purpose (my Chinese visa is good for a whole year, but I have to leave the country every 3 months). I liked the Lao border because it's in the middle of nowhere and the border guards never asked me questions, even when I re-entered China just minutes after leaving. Also, the Lao border post is a kilometer away through the rainforest from the Chinese border post. So I didn't actually have to officially enter Laos.

But the Lao border is considerably further away from Kunming than the Vietnamese border (12 hour bus ride compared to 8 hour bus ride). This time I decided to try the Vietnamese border. What I learned is that the money I save in the shorter bus ride, I lose because I am forced to purchase a Vietnamese visa (unlike the Lao border, the Chinese-Vietnamese border is on a bridge and you must fully cross into Vietnam before you can re-enter China). The price is essentially the same for the two routes. But the Vietnamese one saves time so I'll probably use it again in the future.

Long story short, I didn't go anywhere I hadn't been before on this most recent trip. But re-visiting places can be fun, too. Hekou (河口), the Chinese border town with Laos, was a happening place when I swung through a few days ago. In the past, I'd taken the night bus to Hekou and thus not appreciated any of the scenery along the route from Kunming. This time I took a day bus.

KUNMING TO HEKOU

The 36 seat bus only had about 8 passengers. The first two hours are spent on the expressway, getting out of the greater Kunming metro area, passing through a corner of the Stone Forest. The expressway then dead-ends, and the next four hours are spent on a crowded, two-lane highway. The new expressway, still under construction, is clearly visible paralleling the old road. It will shave several hours off this trip when it opens in the next couple years. In the mean time, it's slow-going down along the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau (云贵高原), past the grape vineyards of Mile, the old industrial town of Kaiyuan, and the on-the-rise town of Mengzi (new Ford and Chevy dealerships gleaming in the suburbs). At about the 6 hour point, the expressway suddenly picks up again, and carries us the rest of the way to the border.

It's the same way on the road to Laos. You get expressway for the first few hours leaving Kunming, then a horribly bottle-necked gap through Pu'er, where the expressway is still under construction and hours-long traffic jams develop as overloaded trucks grind their way up and down the old mountainous road. Then, as you hit Xishuangbanna, the expressway suddenly picks up and glides you straight to the border.

I've got a theory on why the sections of expressway furthest from Kunming (and Beijing) were completed first. It's both about national security (in the case of a war, like the one between China and Vietnam in 1979, you can get more troops to the border quicker this way), and about image (people traveling from Southeast Asian nations are immediately greeted with China's awesome engineering success). My friend in the transportation department said it's to facilitate trade. That could be too, but if that's the case I'd think the sections nearer to Kunming are just as, if not more, important.

IN WHICH MATT IS IMPRESSED BY CHINESE ENGINEERING

But more about the expressway itself. There's one section where the 4-lane expressway descends more than 1000 meters (about 4000 feet) in just about 30 kilometers. It is truly breathtaking. Outstanding engineering. Really nothing like this in the United States. Okay, there are some impressive freeways built over mountains ranges in the States - I-80 over the Sierras, I-70 over the Rockies. But those highways always follow the optimal topographic route of minimum resistance. No such topological towing the line seems to have hindered China's engineers, however. This expressway literally cascades down the face of these mountains, off the 1000-2000 meter high Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, and into the tropical, near-sea-level Red River Valley. There is no flat land underneath this roadway. It is entirely built on stilts, and in tunnels. It's one tunnel after another. Dozens of them. Some nearly a kilometer in length. Nowhere in the United States are there so many tunnels concentrated on one stretch of roadway. It's a thrilling ride.

It was my fourth time passing through Hekou, the slightly seedy border town. The weather was hot and tropical. The tropical fruit smoothie vendors got a lot of business from me. I sampled every item on the menu - papaya smoothie, mango smoothie, pineapple smoothie, coconut smoothie, even durian smoothie. I did my border business, and enjoyed my pho noodles and Vietnamese coffee on the opposite bank of the river.

Watching the Vietnamese traders queuing up to re-enter Vietnam with their rusty old bicycle-pulled carts loaded to the hilt with cheap Chinese consumer goods was amusing too. Definitely more goods going out of China than coming in (coming in mostly seemed to be foodstuffs, the markets full of interesting tropical items).

Then I headed back up the plateau, towards the east, hugging the international border. Gained 1000 meters, this time considerably more slowly, in a county bus. Destination Maguan (马关). I'd been there once before, during Spring Festival 2010 with Sean and Thomas. That time, we'd met a couple girls and exchanged QQ numbers. I'd talked with one girl, He Shuang (贺霜), a few times over the last year, and took her out to dinner when she was living in Kunming last spring. Hadn't talked to her in a while and was curious what she'd been up to this last year.

REVERSE MIGRATION - FROM CITY TO COUNTRY

Turns out she'd had quite a year. As a 20 year old high school graduate, she left home last spring and moved to Kunming looking for work. She found low wage work in a clothing store in the distant suburbs of Kunming. She left after a couple months and moved to Guangdong. There she worked as a laborer in a factory, assembling office furniture for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

She could earn more money than selling clothing doing this, but it took a toll on her physically and mentally. She had no free time, her factory was in the middle of nowhere, and it was hard to make friends. She picked up and moved again, this time to Zhejiang, the province south of Shanghai on the east coast. She worked in a clothing factory for two months. The boss was an asshole and only paid her for one. Chinese bosses pull this all the time with migrant laborers, apparently.

Finally she gave up on being a migrant laborer and returned to her home town. When I saw her she looked happy and healthy. She even insisted on treating me to dinner (what would have been my wages for 40 minutes of work was probably the equivalent of her several days of work, but she still insisted). Now she works 5 days a week, 9 to 5, in a government office. Money's not great, but living at home she pays no rent, and expenses in Maguan is cheap.

She's not the only example of "reverse migration" in China. Millions of nongmin gong (young people who leave the countryside to work in China's booming south and east coasts) have made the decision, like He Shuang has, to return to their home towns after stints in the big city. They inevitably cite the environment (particularly the "fresh air"), the familiarity of friends, family, and home, and the mental toll that factory work took on them.

KARST MEANDERINGS

My second day in Maguan I took the local county bus thirty minutes outside of the county seat city, and got off in a small town called Renhe (仁和). From there I went wandering randomly through the countryside for several hours. I had no map, but I knew generally which direction I was heading in, and that as long as I didn't wander too far away from the main county road, I could always catch the county bus back to the county seat when I tired of hiking.

The topography in this part of Yunnan is incredibly. The landscape is dotted with thousands of miniature mountains of varying shapes and sizes, but rarely more than 100 meters high. There are other famous spots in China with similar landscapes. Guilin is probably the most famous. Miniature mountain spire rise up from the river-inundated plains like gumdrops. These are the landscapes you've seen in classical Chinese watercolor paintings. What I like about the Maguan landscape is that the underlying topography from which the gumdrop karst formations rise is not an even plain like it is in Guiline. It itself is an undulating terrain. The result is that everywhere you turn there is something interesting geologically happening. In between the gumdrop mountains are miniature valleys, and they are made the most of by the local residents who farm them.

Since everything is on such a miniature scale, you feel like you cover a lot of ground. In one hour, you can walk the length of a "valley", climb a "mountain pass", and explore a village. In five hours, you can do that with five valleys, five mountains, and five villages. It never takes too long to get from one to the next. But it's exciting because you never know what's around the next bend.

I've seen lots of farmland by now in my various travels, but one thing in Maguan I'd never seen before. Large farms covered entirely by shade structures built of pine needles. Intensive labor required to build such shade structures. I figured the crop underneath must be something special. Indeed it was the famous sanqi (三七), a medicinal herb prized in Kunming and throughout China. And this here is its base.

FOLLOW UP ON HUIZE

Back in Kunming I ran into a few notes I'd made in Huize (会泽) the week before and neglected to include in my blog entry on that place. So I'll add them in here.

I described Huize as one of the smallest, least modernized places I've been to. And yet, in the town's one general store, I still counted several American brand name products. Among them: Oil of Olay, Head and Shoulders, Johnson and Johnson, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Minute Maid, Tropicana, Nestlie, and Wrigley.

Sha Sha said Huize is home to many mining industries. She named three main ores and minerals that are mined there. Two of them I recognized - iron and copper. The third I had to look up in my dictionary - molybdenum!

Sha Sha and her father were full of tall tales. I mentioned the amulets the father treasured, claiming to have dug up from under the mountain and possessing hundreds of years of history, when they looked like plastic trinkets to me. Sha Sha also claimed that the reservoir near their house is home to a giant man-eating monster. That the Phoenix bird (a mythological creature) used to live in a village hear her house. And that the dam on the reservoir is the largest earthen dam in Asia. Okay, that last point I actually verified, and it's true. But the others seem a little more far-fetched.

Tombing Sweeping Day, Huize Village, and more

2011-04-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

Got a million things to catch this blog up on.
I'll try to be more concise than usual.

A cold spell a couple weeks back has ended and Kunming has been experiencing beautiful weather, blue skies, and sunshine.

I started performing music again after a several-year dry spell. Sean asked me to join him at a couple recent open-mic nights in Kunming, him on his guitar and me on my clarinet.

I had my first couchsurfing hosting experience a couple days ago. Didn't actually host anyone on my couch, but met up with a Japanese American girl from New Jersey traveling through Yunnan to give her advice. I enjoy playing the part of the Yunnan expert.

TOMB SWEEPING DAY

A couple weeks ago was 清明节 (Qingming Festival), also known as "Tomb Sweeping Festival". On this day, Chinese visit their family graves in droves. It was my first time experiencing Qingming Festival. My friend Joyce invited me to join her family members in the annual hike up the mountain to the grave. If it sounds like a very somber event, its actually not. The scene is rowdy, with thousands upon thousands of people converging on the same mountainsides flung on the outskirts of Kunming. Joyce's family's are located at the edge of the northern suburbs. We took a bus, but the bus got stopped by the totally deadlocked traffic. We got out of the bus and walked the remaining kilometers, while frustrated drivers in private automobiles sat unmoving.

I'd been to this particular mountain hiking once before, and it was nothing like the scene on Qingming Day. The hillside is covered in tombs quite distinct from the style of tombs found in America. Each family's tomb is identical and shape and appearance. Round, made of stone or cement, more than ten feet in diameter and five feet in height. (note: I didn't take any pictures because I worried that would be considered taboo in such a place)

The eponymous "sweeping" portion (by brooms improvised by pine needles) was just one of a handful of rituals. Others included setting out a feast of food carried up the mountain on the grave altar. Bread crumbs were scattered around the grave. Little colored paper flags were assembled and inserted into the earthen roof of the grave. Each family member knelt and kowtowed before the grave. I learned that the Mandarin Chinese word for kowtow (磕头, ketou) is pretty close to the English version, which I am assuming is based on the Cantonese.

I thought the food on the altar was going to be left there for the ancestors' spirits to "eat". But actually we got to enjoy it ourselves, a delicious graveyard picnic. There was even wine and beer! Not a somber occasion at all, really, Joyce's family was in a good spirits. This day was just another opportunity for a family get together.

A little while later, at the temple, we burned incense and burned paper money.

That first grave was Joyce's maternal grave. On a nearby mountain was Joyce's paternal grave. Joyce's maternal relatives parted, and Joyce and I continued on our own to the second mountain to visit the grave (Joyce's paternal relatives would do the rituals themselves the following day). The environment on this mountain was quite different. While the maternal grave was located amongst many others on a barren, trodden hillside, the paternal grave was hidden in a dense pine forest with few people around. That's because it's within the confines of 黑龙潭公园 (Black Dragon Pool Park), which charges a hefty 20 RMB ($3+) entrance fee (Joyce says it used to be 5 RMB. Inflation has been severe of late).

Joyce had trouble finding the grave at first. She remembered that it was near the water tower. The tower we found, but it took half and hour of wandering up and down the pine-strewn hillside before we finally pinpointed the grave.

Same rituals. Then checked out the Black Dragon Pool. Not very impressive. The last of Kunming's parks to be checked off my list. That evening, another family dinner at Joyce's uncle's house, followed by several rounds of 斗地主 (Screw the Landlord), one of the most popular card games in China, and one that I only recently picked up.

MAHJONG

Speaking of Chinese games, I finally learned how to play 麻将 (mahjong) a couple weeks ago. I'd been meaning to pick up this, the quintessential Chinese game, for ages, but I always assumed it was really complicated. My friend 毕春燕 (Bi Chun Yan) finally convinced me that it wasn't complicated, and sure enough, I picked it up in about 30 minutes. Not to say that I'm anywhere near being able to win (most Chinese gamble for money when they play, but we just played for fun). That takes years. But now at least, when Chinese friends invite me to play, I don't have to sit on the sidelines anymore.

VISIT TO HUIZE VILLAGE

Last major item in this blog entry. Last week I went to a new place, 曲靖市会泽县新街乡 (Xinjie Village, which is located in Huize County, Qujing Prefecture), about 3 hours northeast of Kunming.
My previous travels in Yunnan Province have been in the Western, Southwestern, and Southern directions from Kunming. I had never traveled to the Northeastern part of the province before. This region is not known for any tourist destinations. Yunnan is mostly famous for its minority cultures, which are mostly found along the borders with Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. Yunnan's northeast, on the other hand, borders the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Chongqing, and Guizhou. Minorities are few. This part of Yunnan is more like the rest of China than it is like the rest of Yunnan.


The dark grey arrows illustrate the directions from which I've most often traveled from Kunming.The light grey arrow, on the other hand, illustrates how my trip to Huize was my very first in the northeasterly direction

Whenever a friend invited me to visit his or her hometown I see it as an opportunity not to be passed up. I've been to about 10 or so hometowns during my close to two years in Yunnan. It's an opportunity to go to a place I otherwise wouldn't have gone to, and to see and appreciate everyday life in a small town or village close up, literally staying in the homes of village farmers, sharing their meals, bathing with buckets, just as they do.

This particular friend, Sha Sha, I'd met a long time ago when I first moved to Kunming. She'd since moved to Chengdu and I hadn't seen her in over a year. When she suddenly contacted me and invited me to her village, I was a little surprised, but but not too surprised. Chinese people are known for their hospitality, and I was certainly treated to lots of it during my visit.

As far as my Chinese friends go, Sha Sha is from the lower economic rung. Her parents divorced when she was 3, and her mother had no part in raising her. She grew up with her father in a farmhouse made of mud bricks. After graduating from middle school at 16 she went out to 打工, or "dagong", the term used when young people from the countryside go to the city to work. Dagong for men often means manual labor or construction work. For women it usually means low-paying service sector jobs. In Sha Sha's case, she variously worked in restaurants, bars, and clothing stores.

When I talked to her about her experience in Chengdu, she seemed a bit jaded. She doesn't enjoy her work, and the salary isn't particularly great (1000 RMB, or $150, a month), but it beats staying in the village. There are no jobs in the village other than growing potatoes and corn. But she still likes her village, and the natural environment around it. And so did I. Xinjie Village in Huize County was gorgeous. Pine-covered mountains, blanketed by purple wildflowers. Brown and green checkered fields dotted with traditional, tile-roofed farmhouses. Imposing, green-domed mosques, since this township is largely 回族 (Huizu, one of the Muslim ethnic groups in China).

The "town" so to speak of, a short distance from Sha Sha's village, was pretty sleepy when I was there. The market only comes to town once a week, and I missed it by a day. The main street is lined with a few general merchandise stores, a couple barber shops, some shops selling farm machinery and animal feed, a few government buildings, a health clinic, a China Mobile office, a primary school, and a middle school. As we walked down the street, Sha Sha's father introduced me to every person we came across as his 美国朋友 (American friend). At the risk of sounding somewhat arrogant, I think its safe to say that hosting an American was a pretty big honor for the man, or as the Chinese say, he gained a lot of face. Although I harbored my doubts, Sha Sha insisted that I was the first foreigner ever to visit their township. Apart from the pilot of the American warplane that crashed over their village during World War II, that is.

There wasn't a whole lot to do during my three day stay in Huize. Not that I was expecting much to do. Did some hiking in the hills, and general wandering around the villages. Visited some relatives in an even smaller, remoter village an hour up into the mountains. Went to Sha Sha's old middle school, where the students were terribly excited to see a foreigner, and pulled me into their classrooms one after another to introduce myself. The school principal, a man with decaying black teeth but car keys to an imported car, gave me a tour of the school and thanked me for coming. The school's English teacher made an effort to engage me in conversation in English. Later visited a cousin who had just given birth to her fifth child, a boy. Her first four children were girls. You may be thinking "I thought China had a one-child policy". That's for urban residents, only. Farmers are legally permitted to have two. But they routinely have more without facing very stiff penalties, especially if they're still gunning for a male heir.

The food during my stay was quite good. I was treated to delicacies like 腊肉 ("larou", or preserved pork, which hangs, dried and salted, in the attic of every farmhouse). I also unknowingly ate pig feet for the first time. I thought it was just boney, gristly pork. I picked through to find the meat. Pork in China always comes in hunks of flesh and hunks of fat. Chinese people love to eat the chunks of pure fat. I don't know how they do this and remain so skinny. I always separate the fat and just eat the flesh.

Sha Sha claimed that her father is a "doctor". I never saw him practice any medicine. I think his brand of medicine is more in the realm of traditional Chinese astrology and superstition. He had a collection of amulets of which he was extremely proud. One, a glow-in-the-dark bird, he claimed possessed magical properties. He said it was excavated from the mountain behind his house, and was hundreds of years old. I'm pretty sure it was a plastic toy manufactured in a factory. He liked to drink, too. His drink of choice was 药酒, "yaojiu", which is Chinese 100 proof baijiu grain alcohol steeped with traditional Chinese medicine. Luckily, he didn't force me to drink the stuff, and bought beer especially for me instead. Since he lives alone, he does all his own cooking. He doesn't do much housework though. The house was pretty filthy. But they did give me a comfy bed to sleep in.

The mud brick house where Sha Sha grew up still stands, but next to it stands a more modern structure, made from concrete bricks. She said this building was built in the last five years. Both buildings are enclosed within a walled compound. There were two dogs, several chickens, and two cats. No pigs, goats, or cows, but neighbors had plenty. Inside the home the appliances consisted of a TV set, an electromagnetic cooktop, an electric rice cooker, and electric lights.

The night that we traveled from Kunming to Huize, we took a minivan that picked us up at Sha Sha's accommodation in Kunming and drove us straight to Sha Sha's farmhouse. This is not part of the regular passenger bus system. It's more of a private jitney car service. The driver a native of the village, of course. It sounds like a great service. Except for the fact that before actually leaving Kunming, it has to pick up a dozen passengers in every far-flung corner of Kunming. This literally took hours. The original scheduled departure time of 6 pm was pushed back to 10 pm. When we were finally picked up, there were several more passengers still needing to be picked up. We didn't actually leave Kunming until after midnight, arriving in Huize around 4 am. These Huize people needing pick up tended to live in the most remote suburbs of Kunming. I cannot fathom the economics of such a service, how spending 6 hours driving hundreds of kilometers back and forth across Kunming and the gasoline needed to do so could possibly be covered by the incredibly cheap fare of just 80 RMB.

TRENDS

There's a lot more I'd like to write about the crackdown happening right now in China, but I'm going to have to save that for another entry. I only know about the crackdown by reading about it in the foreign press. From my view on the ground, 99.99% of Chinese know nothing about it, nor are they affected. Well, I am affected in one regard - the internet. It's been getting harder and harder to access foreign websites on the internet. Gmail has been very slow. The VPN service I bought a couple months ago is not working very well. Frustrating to say the least.

An empty, communist, narrow gauge train

2011-04-05T17:29:00.000-07:00

Last week I went for a ride on a commuter train that runs through the suburbs of Kunming. I've been wanting to ride it for ages, ever since I first moved to Kunming. My old apartment was right next to the train tracks. I'd see (or hear) the train go by every day, and always wondered where it went. I did some research at the time, found that it ran from the Western suburbs to the Eastern suburbs, not particularly useful for me or most Kunming residents. I still wanted to ride it, but somehow it never happened.

Fast forward to last week, when GoKunming.com ran an article about the train. GoKunming is a website run by a couple of Americans who've lived in Kunming for years. It's mainly for expats, but has a Chinese version too. In addition to the standard information for expats, its got lots of well-written articles and interviews worthy of a journalistic publication. And here was this train, in a feature of its own. That decided it for me. It was finally time for me to experience it.

I called up Sean and we met at Kunming North Station a few minutes before the 4:20 afternoon train to the Western terminus. The North Station is a massive building I've passed underneath many times, as the main north-south artery Beijing Road passes through a tunnel underneath it. I've also been to the Railway Museum inside, which celebrates the Kunming-Hanoi railway that celebrated its centennial last year. The French built the narrow-gauge line to exploit Yunnan's precious metal resources. At the time, Kunming was more connected to the French empire in Indochina by this sole railroad line than it was to the rest of the Chinese empire to which it belonged. The railway ran intermittently ever since 1911, with disruptions during World War II and the Sino-Vietnamese War. But passenger trains stopped running in 2003 because the route was deemed too prone to landslides. I'm told a couple lone freight trains still ply the route daily.

Anyway, Kunming North Station used to to be the place where you boarded the train to Vietnam. Now all that's left there is this little commuter train. And what a train it is. Four passenger cars. Tickets costing 1.5 yuan (20 cents). It chugs through the city at about 15 mph, crossing dozens of streets in its path. At every street, traffic comes to a standstill waiting for the train to pass. Each intersection is manned by a guard who lowers the crossing guardrail. The train is staffed by at least ten uniformed conductors. And the stations on either end of the line manned by furthermore. Sean and I estimated that there are at least 100 people employed in the operation of this train. And tens of thousands inconvenienced by it every day as it blocks traffic at grade-crossings.

Now here's the fact that will blow your mind. The train only sees on average 160 passengers a day! That's divided into three runs in each direction. In other words, fewer than 30 people ride the train on average at any given time. When we rode it we counted all of 7. The other five were all riding it for the same reason we were - out of curiosity. Indeed, it was an entertaining train ride. Passing through mostly familiar territory in a brand new mode of conveyance was fun. And seeing all the people waiting at the intersections for us to (slowly) pass by was great fun. At the last station, we waited 20 minutes while the engine was turned around, then headed back where we'd come from. I still need to go do the run to the Eastern suburbs sometime soon. All in all, it was definitely worth 40 cents!

The rail right of way will be partly used by one of the six lines of the new subway/light-rail system currently under construction.

Riding the train was like taking a trip back to the golden days of Communist China. A clearly subsidized service that's terribly inefficient by market standards. In an era when even the Chinese communist party pays close attention to supply and demand and the bottom line, how does a train like this keep running? I can only imagine its because of the guanxi (relationships) that must be involved. Whoever has the power in the ministry that controls this train probably gets lots of good will from the jobs the train provides. Keeping the train running, at whatever its cost, must be worth more to him than the political fallout of canceling it.

See pictures here

Groomsman at a Rural Chinese Wedding

2011-02-19T23:05:00.000-08:00

This week I attended my third wedding in China. This was far and away the most interesting of the three weddings. The first two were in cities and mostly consisted of a banquet and nothing else. This one was in the countryside. I traveled several hours by bus to get there. Most importantly, in this wedding I was the 伴郎 (groomsman).

Reminder: as always, see the full set of pictures at my flickr website

I didn't actually know the groom very well at all. But the bride and I have been friends for some time. She's the owner and manager of a massage shop in Kunming that I've been a regular customer at for a year and a half. Together with some of the girls in the shop, we'd gone out together several times in Kunming. I was quite honored when she asked me to be the groomsman at her wedding. I was a bit confused at first why me and not one of the grooms' friends, but I later realized that Chinese couples almost always hold two weddings, one for the bride's family and one for the groom's. This was for the bride's family, and the groom probably simply didn't have any other male friends in the village, so they asked me. I'm sure having a foreigner as groomsman is a novelty that's worth some face as well.

The bride and groom in her hometown, Mohei, Pu'er

The bridge, 王萍 (Wang Ping) comes from a village just outside of the town of 磨黑 (Mohei), in 宁洱县 (Ning'er County), 普洱州 (Pu'er Prefecture), about 6 hours south of Kunming on the road to Xishuangbanna, Laos, and Thailand. The town lies on one of the major transportation corridors in Yunnan province. In days of old, this was a major international trade route, and part of the network of "tea horse" roads. Pu'er is the production base of the eponymous pu'er tea, one of the most reknown teas in China. This is rich agricultural land, verdant and abundant not just with tea, but also rice, wheat, and tropical fruit.

countryside around Wang Ping's village

Wang Ping's village

Wang Ping's village from on top of the mountain

The road from Kunming to Mohei has already been transformed into a freeway. It took some amazing feats of engineering to build a freeway through topography as challenging as this. Nearly the entire route is thick with mountains and deep river valleys. Tunnels and bridges make up a good portion of the route. Barreling down the freeway in a bus in an exhilarating experience. There lies about a 100 km gap in the freeway through the heart of Pu'er Prefecture. Mohei lies right at the place where the freeway ends and traffic is diverted to the old road. The viaducts of the new freeway already pierce right through Mohei town, and by the end of 2011 the new freeway should be open, reducing the diversion traffic on the old road.

Wang Ping's uncles told me they're used to seeing foreigners riding bicycles through their town, on their way from Kunming to Xishuangbanna. Most of them don't speak English, they say. They laugh as they explain that when they see foreigners on bicycles they yell "Hello! Nice to Meet You!"

Wang Ping's family is 哈尼族 (Hani ethnicity), the same ethnicity as the friends I stayed with two weeks back in Honghe County. But unlike those Hani, Wang Ping's family don't speak the Hani language. They explain this is because they have been more or less 汉化 (Hanicized, or influenced by the majority Han ethnic group). Mohei contains a mix of ethnicities, and they use regular Chinese as the common language. Although they may be Hanicized, the wedding still contained many traditional elements.

The day before the wedding there were lots of tasks to help with. First thing in the morning, Wang Ping's several uncles slaughtered a pig (I didn't help with that task). Later, we hiked up a nearby mountain, cut down several bamboo poles, and carried them back to the house. On the patio we used the bamboo to build the frame of what would become a kind of tent for the after-party. After the frame was complete, we built a roof out of leaves and branches.

building the bamboo caonpy

slaughtering the pig

The banquet would be held in the basket court of the village. Adjacent is large kitchen capable of cooking large quantities of food just for occasions like this. It was explained to me that in any given year there might be dozens of weddings, and that at each wedding pretty much every villager attends. Wang Ping has lived in Kunming for the last ten years. As is common in small towns and villagers like hers, Wang Ping left home after graduating middle school at sixteen years old. She worked as a waitress in restaurants, then giving massages, and because she's smart and hardworking she was able to build up a business of her own. Although she'd come home occasionally for holidays, she explained that most of the villagers aren't too familiar with her. Nevertheless, they would all come to her wedding, which is more about her family gaining face than it is about her and her husband. Everyone in the village, after all, knows her parents.

We went shopping in the town market, loading up giant rucksacks full of vegetables, then back to the basketball court kitchen do peel, cut, and chop.

Over the course of the four days I spent in her village, I got to know several of Wang Ping's many relatives. Apart from the wedding banquet itself, when there would be several hundred guests, there were many other meals attended by all the relatives, which in total were several dozen. Some live in the village, some came from other places in the province for the occasion. Of her several younger cousins, none had gone further than middle school. The highest level school in the town is a middle school. The best students might go on to the high school in the county seat 30 km away, but this is not common. There were several girls in the 16-18 age range; they all worked as waitresses.

the bride and groom, several of the bride's relatives, and me at the bride's old middle school

The afternoon before the wedding day, two musicians arrived. They were 唢呐 (suona) players. They would spend the next 36 hours serenading us with suona music. The suona looks like a cross between a clarinet, oboe, and recorder. It has a double reed, open hole keys, and a curved bell. Its sound is high pitched and nasally, not the most beautiful sound in the world, but added ethnic texture to the proceedings. Every thirty minutes or so, from dawn to late at night, the suona players would break out into song.

The morning of the wedding a second pig was slaughtered. Less than an hour later I was invited to try some fresh grilled pork of the barbecue. I have to admit, it was some of the best pork I've tasted in my life.

I had some time to kill so I went for a morning walk through the nearby countryside. The fields were bursting with verdant green stalks of wheat, forming waist-high blankets of green, punctuated by purple wildflowers, on the terraced slopes.

By mid-morning the videographer had arrived Wang Ping had changed into her elegant 旗袍 (traditional cheongsam dress), the groom was in his suit, and it was time for me to don my suit as well. We spent about an hour blowing up balloons. Then lunch, then piled into minivans decorated in balloons and drove off to the county seat half an hour down the old road. The suona players sat in the back of a pickup truck which drove in front of the bridal van, serenading us all along the way. Once in the county seat, the bridal procession drove around in a few aimless circles so that all the townspeople could see. Then we went to the beauty salon so the bride could get her hair done. The groom got his hair done too (with glitter), and so did I. At this point the bride changed into a traditional western wedding gown and we went to the town plaza to take pictures. On the way back to Mohei, stopped a reservoir to take more pictures.

the suona players in the truck leading the wedding procession

Around five o'clock, the bride, groom, maid of honor, and I lined up at the entrance of the basketball court to greets guests as they arrived. The maid of honor held a tray of sunflower seeds, peanuts, and candy, and I held a tray of cigarettes, as is the custom at every Chinese wedding. Wang Ping's family members manned the table recording the amount of money given by each guest. They explained that this is so that when they are guests that their neighbors' weddings they can give the respective amount.

the bride and groom, her parents, and the bridesmaid and me greeting guests

The wedding feast was bountiful of course, with fresh pork, fish, and several vegetable dishes. Following dinner we went back to the house and started the evening's real festivities - drinking and dancing under the bamboo canopy. The dances were all traditional Hani ethnic dances, and everyone was impressed that I picked up the moves so quickly.

wedding banquet

As the evening wore on, the young people crowded into the bridal suite (a room in the house that had been painted and decorated specially for the bride and groom on their wedding night). This would be the roasting of the bride and groom, a tradition that many young Chinese couples practice on their wedding night, and which I don't believe exists in the States. The bride and groom are forced to play several games, usually with some sexual overtones. For example, a blindfolded groom with a chopstick wedged between his thighs has to insert it into a beer bottle wedged between the bride's thighs. Or the bride and groom have to simultaneously reach for a sunflower seed being dangled by a string with their mouths. Or the bride must use her mouth to manipulate an egg inside the groom's trousers from one foot to the other. In one game the bride has to whip the groom in some light S&M like situation. All the while, all the cousins and kids are crowded around watching. It's all very silly and everyone's drinking.

friends and relatives watching the "roasting of the bride and groom"

bride playing a raunchy game involving an egg in the groom's trousers during the "roasting of the bride and groom"

All evening long, my responsibility as groomsman is to drink on behalf of the groom so that he doesn't get too drunk. The drink of choice of course is baijiu, the wretched 100 proof homemade alcohol that men in Chinese villages consume by the gallon. Two weeks earlier in Honghe County my tolerance for baijiu was very low. Over the course of four days in Mohei, I think it went up considerably.

The day after the wedding, I spent the majority of the day with some of the girls from the massage shop. One of them, whom they call "Fourth Sister" (四姐) because she's the youngest of four sisters in her family. She comes from a village about 45 minutes away from Wang Ping's village. We went shopping in the town market, then with several of her family members climbed up the mountain behind her village to the tea fields on top. There we barbecued fish, pork, and chicken. One her her uncles chopped down some bamboo poles, split them open, and filled them with rice and water. The result, after grilling over the barbecue, was bamboo-scented rice! Down the mountain, another meal at Fourth Sister's house while watching a DVD of her wedding a few years earlier. She's divorced now, she explained, because her husband was a 酒鬼 (literally "alcohol monster", but better translated as "drunk", prone to fighting and whoring.

bamboo rice

After the previous night's happy wedding, watching Fourth Sister's wedding video was a little strange. But she was in a good mood, hosting me and our friends, and that night she cooked a massive meal with twelve dishes. After dinner (and more baijiu) we went to Mohei town's only karaoke club. Karaoke in small towns like this is a much less fancy affair than karaoke in the big city. And they didn't even have my favorite song. But nevermind. Everyone was happy and it was a memorable last evening in Mohei, Pu'er.

Next morning had to get a ride to Ning'er County seat to catch the bus back to Kunming. What had taken just 30 minutes two days before in the wedding vans took an hour and forty minutes this early morning. The two lane mountain road was clogged with terrible truck traffic. Apparently, this happens every morning, when the trucks which spend the night where the freeway ends continue on their journey to Xishuangbanna and Laos. We barely made the bus, then had to wait in the same traffic on the way back. Seven long hours later finally reached Kunming. A very memorable trip indeed!

Reminder: as always, see the full set of pictures at my flickr website

Chinese New Year in rural Honghe

2011-02-13T00:35:00.000-08:00

I spent five days over the Chinese New Year holiday in Honghe County (红河县) in Honghe Prefecture (红河州), about 190 kilometers (120 miles) due south of Kunming. The name Honghe means "Red River" and derives from the eponymous river that carves a deep valley right down the middle of the prefecture, eventually draining into Halong Bay in Vietnam.

As always, please visit my flickr website to see the full collection of photos.

If you look at a topographical map, the Red River Valley is a decisive feature in Yunnan province. The river runs through the valley at only 300 meters (1000 feet) above sea level, but the adjacent mountains rise nearly vertically up to 2000 meters (6500 feet). This produces vastly different microclimates, as well as a stilted transportation network and relative historical isolation.

It took six hours for me to reach Honghe County seat by bus, with two transfers (I was traveling on the first day of Chinese New Year, when many regular bus routes are suspended). I spent one night in Honghe County seat, one night in Xiaohe Village (小河村) in a tropical river valley, and two nights in Lubu Village (鲁布村) high on a terraced mountainside. In each of the three places, I stayed with friends. I met them through Sean, my American friends in Kunming. Three guys, Jack (阿飞), Li Wei (李伟), and Mao Xian (毛线). These three guys grew up in three different small villages in Honghe County. They became friends when they were classmates in high school in the County seat. After graduating they moved, as so many bright and adventurous young people do in China, to the big city - Kunming. That's where they met Sean and me. When they invited us to visit their home towns for the holidays, Sean convinced me it would be the opportunity of a lifetime. He was right.

Google Earth screenshot showing the relative locations, and topography, of the places we traveled in Honghe County

I'll go into specific detail about the three places in a minute, but first some overall impressions. I'd traveled in remote, rural areas of China before. I've even been invited into the homes of villagers before. But never before have I had such a close-up experience in such traditional settings. This clearly was the result of knowing people from these villages. As such, we were invited into their homes by their families, into their villages by their neighbors, extended great hospitality, and wined and dined.

Every meal we ate in the four days and night with these friends was a feast - at least sixteen different dishes laid filling every square inch of the table. It wasn't purely out of hospitality towards Sean and me. All across China, people eat better over New Years than at any other time of the year. I'm sure the average meal during the rest of the year is not so large, and does not contain so much meat, as the meals we were treated to.

Lunch at Maozi's house in Honghe County seat

closeup of lunch at Maozi's house

Another essential component of the trip was baiju (白酒), the Chinese national liquor. Distilled from rice, but not tasting anywhere near as good as Japanese sake or Korean soju, baiju is consumed in great quantities by Chinese men throughout the year. I've encountered it in Kunming, taken sips when necessary, and gotten drunk on it twice (both at weddings, when its a social necessity in toasts). To put it bluntly, the stuff is repulsive. At 100 proof, its stronger than any Western liquor, and unlike a nice Scotch or gin, does not sit well on the palate. Add to that the fact that the baijiu consumed in rural places like Honghe is not of marketable quality, but probably rather some form of homemade moonshine. It is carried around in gallon-sized plastic containers resembling petrol containers. It might as well be petrol for all I'm concerned. I discovered that in villages like the ones we were in, it is consumed on almost any occasion. With breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My god, these men must spend most of their lives drunk. Is this the case year round, or just at New Years? This is unclear to me, but judging by the men's jiuliang (酒量, one's tolerance for alcohol) I'm guessing its consumed in copious quantities year round.

At every meal, every man is given a shot glass filled with the stuff. Throughout the course of the meal, there will be many, many toasts. In China, it is basically unacceptable to take a sip of alcohol without toasting someone (or everyone) at the table. In a traditional setting such as these villages, the toasting follows many formalities. The elder men are addressed by specific titles. A toast is accompanied by both men standing up and extending their glasses with both hands. For the women, beer is an acceptable substitute.

Another inescapable fact of village life, I discovered, was the ubiquity of tobacco. My god, I've never been around so much smoking in my life. And that's saying something, because Chinese throughout China are heavily addicted to tobacco. But that's particular true in villages with not much else to do. And even more so in villages in Honghe, which also happens to be the location, and brand name, of one of the two most famous brands of cigarettes in China (the other being Hongta, which is also located in Yunnan province).

I was used to being offered cigarettes at social occasions in Kunming. When this happens, I always politely turn them down and that's the end of that. But in the villages I quickly discovered that turning down cigarettes is difficult to do. It is customary whenever two men meet to offer a cigarette. When I tried to turn them down, the men simply didn't believe me. The concept of a man who didn't smoke simply did not exist in their minds. As a result, I graciously accepted hundreds of cigarettes over those four days, stuck them in my ear like a pen at first (this is what Chinese men do when they already have a cigarette in their mouth), and then discretely hid them away in my pocket or somewhere else, where I could "gift" them back to my friends later. Cigarettes are so ubiquitous here that the father of one of my friends thought it funny to jokingly offer one to his two year old granddaughter.

Now I'll describe the three different places. First, the County seat. Straddled across a mountaintop, with the Red River Valley plunging down on one side, and a verdant valley and terraced mountains spreading out on the other, Honghe County seat is truly set in a stunning location. If I hadn't researched it on Google Earth before my arrival, however, I might never have known this. In the morning, the Red River Valley is a sea of fog (the Chinese word for this phenomenon, yunhai, or 云海, literally means "cloud sea"). Luckily, by afternoon the fog burns off and the geographical setting reveals itself in its glory. This market town and transportation hub was alive with activity when I was there, with people from surrounding villages coming to town for shopping, many of the women dressed in their traditional ethnic clothing.

view of Honghe County seat

Honghe County seat must have been a pain in the neck to reach in the days before motor vehicles, sitting on top of a mountain as it is. But that must have made it a good defensible trading center. Li Wei explained that the French came here a hundred years ago and that some of the architecture they built is still preserved today. The Japanese encroached upon the region during the war, but never made it as far as Honghe County seat, the locals proudly recount. I had three meals in the County seat. First a simple lunch of grilled tofu pillows and cold rice noodles. For dinner a feast at Jack's friend's Li Qi's house. Li Qi's house is on the edge of the city and overlooks the stunning valley to the south. The dining table is set up on the large balcony overlooking the valley. Several of Jack and Li Qi's classmates joined us for dinner, including one who works in Hekou, on the Vietnamese border, as a drug enforcement cop. The next morning, Li Wei, Sean and his girlfriend arrived (they were coming from his girlfriend's home town and had been delayed the previous day by New Years transportation cancellations). We had lunch at another classmate's house, Maozi (his name means "Hat"). Another feast.

That afternoon, Jack chartered a minivan to drive us down the mountain and down the Red River Valley 15 or so kilometers on the newly paved highway. Where the dirt road to Jack's village split off from the highway, the minivan driver had us get out. A friend from Jack's village drove out in a pickup truck to meet us and drive us the rest of the way on the very bumpy dirty road. I'm not sure why we didn't just walk the 5 or so kilometers. I think walking would have been almost as fast as driving on that road.

Jack's village Xiaohe is in a tropical valley, around 300 meters in elevation. Jack is of the Dai ethnicity (傣族). It was explained to us that the distribution of ethnicities in Honghe County is very closely tied to the physical geography. The Dai people always live near water, at low elevations, in tropical climates. The Hani people (哈尼族), with whom we would stay next, on the other hand, live on mountains. Jack's village is surrounded by banana plantations and sugar cane plantations. They also have mango trees and lychee tress. Those ripen in summer. This was sugar cane season. We all enjoyed chewing on freshly cut sugar cane for the next day. Jack's village has maybe 20 households. Each in a mud brick compound. Inside the furniture was mostly made of wood. The mud brick structures provide pretty good insulation - cool in hot weather and warm in cold. During our visit in February it was warm during the day, and cool at night. We met Jack's whole family and had another feast that night. That was the one and only night I drank baijiu, and I got very drunk (as did everyone else). After that I decided I would drink beer.

Dinner at Jack's house in Xiaohe Village

Banana and sugarcane plantations around Xiaohe Village

Our next destination was Mao Xian's village Lubu. Lubu is only about 16 kilometers away from Xiaohe as the crow flies, but to travel between the two villages by road takes more like 35 kilometers and 4 hours of travel time (!). Jack's original idea was to travel by road. But Sean and I convinced him otherwise. We would hike it instead. Jack warned us that it was quite a hike, with a lot of climbing. We said great! It would take us 6 hours (with numerous stops) to hike those 16 kilometers. I guessed we climbed about 1000 meters in elevation. Later, on Google Earth, I calculated that the actual elevation gain was even greater - about 1300 meters (4000 feet). Although Jack grew up in Xiaohe and was friends with Mao Xian, he had never hiked the trail between their two villages before. He didn't even know the route. So Jack's mother walked with us the first two hours, showing us the way. Then Mao Xian met us about half way and showed us the route to his village (If this had been the United States, we probably wouldn't have gotten cell phone reception. But I have yet to be anywhere in China where my cell phone didn't work).

Google Earth screenshot showing the route we hiked from Xiaohe Village to Lubu Village

The first hour of hiking was easy enough, following the dirt road up the gently sloping valley amidst banana and sugarcane fields. Then the road ended and the trail began. It didn't seem to be a very heavily used trail because the plants were heavily overgrown in many parts. At one point, Jack's mother (a Dai lady dressed in traditional garb) lost the way and had to call her friend for directions). Eventually, she led us to a bridge where the trail would then begin a steep ascent up the mountain, and bid us farewell. This was the dividing line between the two ethnicities: the valley-dwelling Dai, and the mountain-dwelling Hani. From here on, it would be a lot of steep climbing amidst endless terraced fields.

The trails through the terraces were incredibly steep, and muddy in many places. Winter is the low season, when the fields lay fallow, so there was little activity as we passed through. About halfway up the mountain Mao Xian met us and guided us the rest of the way to his village.

On the hike from Xiaohe to Lubu

On the hike from Xiaohe to Lubu, we didn't encounter many people. But we did encounter cows.

From left to right: Me, Mao Xian's cousin, Mao Xian, and Li Wei

Honghe County is adjacent to Yuanyang County (元阳县), which is a tourist destination famous for its terraces. Honghe is similar geographically to Yuanyang, but its terraces are not quite as impressive or famous. There's virtually no tourism in Honghe. In Yuanyang, you have to buy a ticket to see the terraces. Not in Honghe. Finally, when we were all exhausted, we reached the village of Lubu. Quite a bit bigger than Xiaohe, Lubu had maybe 100 households and several hundred residents. It was especially lively at this time of year with Chinese New Year going on.

terraces around Lubu village

Lubu was in a stunning setting on the side of a mountain, overlooking a vast valley, with more mountains and distant villages on the opposite side. Everywhere as far as the eye could see were terraced fields.

We would spend the next two nights in Lubu Village, and interact with hundreds of curious villagers, especially the kids. At night there was folk dancing on the basketball court. During the daytime there was basketball. Every time Sean and I went out in the village we attracted the stares, smiles, and shouts of surprised villagers and curious children. Mao Xian told us that we were the first foreigners ever to visit Lubu Village. I found this slightly hard to believe, since the French were in the County seat just a few dozen kilometers away over 100 years ago. Surely a few French explorers had passed through here at some point, hadn't they? But in any case, it's safe to say that Lubu doesn't get many foreigners, and for many of these kids it's very possible that we were indeed the first foreigners they had ever seen. They reacted differently. Some were shy, but most were very outgoing and inquisitive, asking us lots of questions, and inviting us to dance and play basketball with them.

Dinner in Mao Xian's house

Sean and me with members of Mao Xian's family in Lubu Village

Hani ethnic folk dancing in Lubu Village

The first night in Lubu there was a spectacular fireworks show. It lasted nearly half and hour and must have cost a fortune. I was amazed that such a tiny remote village could afford such a fireworks display. Mao Xian explained that the villages in this area competed with each other to see who could put on the most impressive fireworks show (gaining face). Two other nearby villages also had their own fireworks, and we could see all three at the same time. The fireworks were all purchased by individual villagers, most likely the richest people in the village.

We would meet many of Mao Xian's family members. All the women wore traditional ethnic clothing. All the houses had electricity, and television sets. But the plumbing infrastructure was not quite so developed. Most houses had at least cold running water. But hot water had to be heated in kettles. Showering was not an option, and we were all pretty grubby by the end of the four days. Most houses had no toilets. There were two public restrooms in the village - concrete structures with holes to squat over. The toilets did, however, enjoy stunning views.

The people in the villages where we stayed did not speak very standard Mandarin Chinese. When they spoke amongst themselves they spoke in their local ethnic languages, which are completely different from any form of Chinese. Sean's girlfriend is also Hani ethnicity, but from a different county. Her Hani language is completely unintelligible from the Hani language spoken in Honghe. When the locals spoke with us they spoke in their dialect form of Chinese, which is very heavily accented and slightly difficult for me to understand (Sean's better at the dialect than me, having practiced extensively with his Kunming friends).

After two days in Lubu, we headed out in the morning on the way back to the County seat. Another "cloud sea" had settled in the valley below, and offered stunning views. Lubu has one road connecting it to the outside world, but its a very rough road, and slower than hiking, so we hiked down the mountain to the valley below, and then up the mountain on the other side. On this mountain there's a dirt road, and a pickup truck came rumbling along and offered us a ride to Azhahe (阿扎河), the town on top of the mountain. From Azhahe, we were able to catch a public bus two and a half hours back to the County seat. All the tickets to Kunming we sold out that day, and Sean was in a rush to get back to work the next day, so we made emergency plans to travel to Gejiu that night, where I have a friend who was able to go to the bus station and help us get tickets back to Kunming early the next morning.

As always, please visit my flickr website to see the full collection of photos.

The "cloud sea" on the final morning hike out of Lubu Village

What percentage of people in the world has never seen snow?

2011-02-12T07:42:00.000-08:00

The above title is a question I encountered on Quora, a new website I recently joined that's like Yahoo or Google Answers but slightly more intellectual.

It got me to thinking: how to answer this question?
I thought, you'd have to go through each country, one by one, and make an informed guess based on that country's specific geographical and socioeconomic conditions. Then add them all up and find the average.

Well, that would take all day. But I did it for the 10 most populous countries.
Maybe someone else could pick up with the next 10?

1. First of all, China, the world's most populous country, is out of consideration. Most Chinese people live in areas that do experience snow, and even those in the subtropical south have experienced freak snowstorms.
Population: 1,342,290,000
Estimated % never seen snow: 5%
Total never seen snow: 67,114,000

2. Next down the population list is India. Apart from the Himalayan region, its safe to say that the vast majority of Indians have probably never seen snow (unless they have traveled to the Himalayas, or Swizterland).

Population: 1,193,970,000
Estimated % never seen snow: 95%
Total never seen snow: 1,134,271,000

3. The United States has seen massive immigration to the "sunbelt" stretching from California to Florida for the last half-century. Many Americans live in regions which are snowless year-round. However, its a safe bet that the vast majority of Americans have at least seen snow at some time in their life, on vacation, ski-trips, etc.

Population: 312,049,000
Estimated % never seen snow: 5%
Total never seen snow: 15,602,000

4. Indonesia has a few snow-capped peaks but they are isolated. Most Indonesians live in tropical regions and have probably never seen snow.

Population: 237,556,363
Estimated % never seen snow: 90%
Total never seen snow: 213,800,000

5. Brazil has a huge tropical rainforest which never sees snow. Most of the population however lives in the temperate southeastern regions which can and do experience snow in the winter, so its a safe bet the majority of the country's population has seen the white stuff.

Population: 190,732,694
Estimated % never seen snow: 20%
Total never seen snow: 38,146,000

6. Pakistan. Like India, it contains some very snow parts in the Himalayas. But many Pakistanis live in hotter regions which don't experience snow. The mountainous regions along the border of Afghanistan do contain a sizable population in an area that does snow, however.

Population: 171,816,000
Estimated % never seen snow: 70%
Total never seen snow: 120,271,000

7. Nigeria. My Nigerian geography is not as good, but my guess is that this populous country does not see a lot of snow.

Population: 158,259,000
Estimated % never seen snow: 80%
Total never seen snow: 126,607,000

8. Bangladesh. It doesn't snow anywhere in this highly densely populated country.

Population: 150,035,000
Estimated % never seen snow: 99%
Total never seen snow: 148,545,000

9. Russia. I think its a safe bet that every Russian has seen snow. (Before the breakup of the Soviet Union that would not necessarily have been true, but now that the mostly desert "Stans" are independent, what remains of Russia experiences some of the most intense winters on Earth)

Population: 141,927,297
Estimated % never seen snow: 1%
Total never seen snow: 1,429,000

10. Japan. The north island of Hokkaido is very snowy in winter. I think most of Japan experiences at least occasional snow, except for the tropical southern islands of Okinawa. But even those in non-snowy regions have probably seen snow. Japanese travel a lot.

Population: 127,370,000
Estimated % never seen snow: 3%
Total never seen snow: 3,821,000

Of the 10 countries above, the total number of people who have not seen snow is 1,869,606,000. The total population of those 10 countries is 4,026,005,000.
That means about 46% of people on Earth have not seen snow.

As for the countries that didn't get counted above, those which together make up about 2 billion people we can make some generalizations.

The equatorial regions of South America, Africa, as well as the desert regions of the Middle East, see the least snow on earth. They are also home to some of the most populous countries, and the poorest (in other words, people are less likely to travel). Together these regions have about 1.5 billion people.

Europe, I think its safe to say, almost everyone has seen snow. Even those in Mediterranean Spain and Italy have probably traveled to snowy northern Europe. Europe has about 500 million people.

So the overall world total of people who haven't seen snow is probably a bit higher than 46%, maybe higher than 50%.

beverage company coincidence

2011-02-01T10:55:00.000-08:00

Went to The Hump (驼峰客栈), a popular backpacker guesthouse and bar, tonight with some reading. I like to read in public places. If I meet some interesting people I can set the reading aside and join the conversation. If I don't I can still get some reading done.

Most of the customers at The Hump are foreign backpackers. But there are also Chinese - both locals who go for the bar, and travelers who go for the guesthouse.

This evening I met two Chinese tourists. Just so happens they both work for foreign beverage companies. The girl works for Evian in Shanghai. The guy works for Coca Cola in Shenzhen. Both were traveling this Spring Festival instead of spending it with their families, as is the tradition in China. The Evian girl will travel on to Luang Prabang, Laos (as I did a couple months ago). The guy will take the tried and true tourist route to Dali and Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge. Interesting is that I got to play the part of the "Yunnan local", giving them travel tips about their upcoming journeys.

We had a long, sprawling conversation. I enjoyed it because our common medium was Mandarin. Sometimes when I'm out with a group of Kunming friends I'm frustrated that they all speak in dialect and I can't understand. But when you take an American, a Shanghainese, and a Shenzhenese, Mandarin is the natural language.

Tokyo

2011-01-31T23:06:00.000-08:00

After a year and a half in Kunming, I returned home to the United States for the first time last month. Being home for the holidays with my family was obviously a welcome opportunity. So was catching up with many friends from different stages of my life. People kept asking me if it was a shock to be back in the United States after so long in China. To be honest, no, it wasn't. I've got a pretty good memory for places and the sensations of places. Home at the end of the first decade of the 3rd millennium was pretty much exactly the same as I remembered, a few minor tweaks notwithstanding.

One mini-project I worked on while I was home was documenting as much of my surroundings as I could in photographs for my friends back in China. Kind of the reverse of what I do normally, documenting China for my friends in America. A reversing of the anthropological gaze, if you will. As expected, my pictures of home, of Christmas dinner, of Marin's park lands, of my aunt's home in the forest, attracted a lot of interest and admiration from my Chinese friends.

I routed my ticket home for the holidays with a short stopover in Seoul on the home-bound leg, and a slightly longer stopover in Tokyo on the China-bound leg. Neither stopover was long enough to absorb much in-depth understanding of these two northeastern neighbors of China, but I did gain some fleeting impressions.

SEOUL

Seoul was truly a brief visit. To fit within the airline's guidelines, my stopover had to be less than 24 hours. Factor in transit time to and from the airport (Seoul Incheon is 70 kilometers away from the city center) and my time in Seoul was truly on the timer.

I arrived in the city center at about 10:30 pm, got off the subway station nearest my hostel, and immediately got lost. My hostel didn't provide a map, just directions which were entirely subjective. "Turn left at the Baskin Robbins"? "Left" depends on where you're standing in relation to the Baskin Robbins. It was near the university and the region was buzzing with young people, eating, drinking, shopping. Bright lights, fashionable stores, cheap eateries. What struck me about the place was how pedestrian-friendly everything was. The streets were narrow, more designed for people than cars. Eventually, I found the hostel, "Bong House". I wonder how many potheads show up at Bong House not realizing the name comes from the proprietor's actual name, Mr. Bong. Grabbed dinner in a noodle house. Three 30-something Korean women invited me to their table to eat and speak in broken English. They were all married and liked cracking jokes at their husbands' expense.

Next morning, up early to take in the sights. It was a chilly but clear day, with temperatures around freezing. Patches of snow from a recent snowfall remained on the ground. I walked up the hill behind the hostel to wander around the university campus. From high, the view over the city was quite good. I was struck by the appearance of this city...nothing like Chinese cities, something much more resembling San Francisco. Smaller scale buildings, a variety of colors, the city rising and falling with the undulations of the underlying topography.

Wandered back down the hill and towards the city center. This time, wandering through the busy lit-up district of the previous night, it was totally dead. Sunday morning in Seoul. Half the population is in church.

That would be the theme all day - it was a quite, cold, Sunday morning, and a lot of businesses were closed. No matter, there's peace in silence. I wandered through several central city districts, following my Dad's advice stopping to see the recently refurbished urban river park running through the center of town, the tourist shopping district, the old town district, the national palace. I was very impressed by the overall design acumen of Seoul. A city of elegant, distinctive buildings, interesting uses of color, and varied buildings materials. You simply do not see modern buildings made of wood in China. Come afternoon, off to the airport for the flight home.

TOKYO

Three and a half weeks later, after a good visit home to California, I'm back on a plane over the Pacific, this time flying into Tokyo Narita, also a great distance from its city center. Three trains/subways and an hour and a half later I arrive in the western suburb of Shajuki-Koen, where I'm to try couchsurfing for the first time. My host is Katsumi, a 32 year old salesman who lives in a tiny apartment that costs something like $2000 a month (his company subsidizes most of the cost). I'm to sleep on a mat on the floor. I don't complain because in Tokyo this is a good deal - free accommodation, and with a friendly, willing local. Katsumi's busy in the office during the day, but during my three night stay in Tokyo I'll meet up with him each evening for dinner or drinks, along with several of his group of friends, both Japanese and foreigner.

Katsumi and me

Having done a bit of preparation and studying of maps, I know that Tokyo is a huge city, the largest metropolis in the world. That in itself is quite remarkable. Most of the world's largest metropolises are in developing countries - India, Brazil, China. Japan's anything but. It was the pinnacle of development back in the 80s. Since then it seems to have been treading water. It doesn't seem poor, run-down, or even on the decline. But it seems a bit paralyzed in time, cognizant that it hit its stride early on, and ran out of places to go, and now that other places (like China) are catching up there's a quite a bit of self-doubt just below the surface. Some of this existential crisis probably serves as an impetus for some of the strange cultural phenomenon that stand out and make this place uniquely weird. I'll get into that a bit later.

But back to the layout of this huge city. Tokyo's a city without a real center. It's got many centers, most of them on the JR (Japan Rail) Yamanote Line, which encircles the core central area of the city and connects numerous huge train stations, which serve commuter rail lines which span out into the suburbs. It is the combination of these commuter lines and the JR Yamanote line (along with subway lines) which earn these stations the title of "busiest railroad stations in the world", with millions of passengers passing through daily. I got a dose of that traveling at rush hour. It's a calamitous scene, but somehow it all works. People squeeze in, but don't push and shove like they do in China. It's a society used to living in confined spaces.

west suburb commuter line map (just one small part of the overall system)

I covered a lot of ground in the three days I was in Tokyo. I rode a lot of subways and trains to get from place to place. Tokyo's annoying in that its urban transit system is operated by several different companies. You can pass seamlessly from one system to another, but each time you do you pay the full fare. This can add up. Half my budget in Tokyo those three days was spent on transportation.

The other half, of course, on food. I certainly ate well while I was in Tokyo. Japanese food might just be the best cuisine on earth as far as I'm concerned. Of course there were the expected favorites - sushi, sashimi (the freshest I've ever tasted), udon noodles, tempura, teriyaki. But then there were so many delights that I'd never associated as Japanese before. These were mostly located in the food court basements of the large department stores. Veritable wonderlands of culinary delicacies. A feast for the eyes as well as the taste buds. The department store foodcourts spanned hundreds of stations selling everything under the moon, from meats to salads to soybean fermented vegetables, to pickled vegetables, to bakery treats. It all looked so delicious. Unfortunately, it was also all very expensive. Several stations offered free samples, which I partook of with relish. Bento boxes galore, containing hundreds of combinations of little doses of cold deli items like seaweed and pickled vegetables, along with bigger helpings of meat and rice. I did feel a pang of jealousy walking through those food halls that maybe I'd chosen the wrong Asian country to live in.

sashimi

mochi

vegetables in fermented soybean paste

beef rice and udon noodles

What else can I say about Tokyo? I covered pretty much all the main areas of interest - the "old" town and temples of Asakusa, the downtown business district of Ginza, the fish market of Tsukiji, the electronics and anime district of Akihabara, the high class residential and shopping district of Roppongi, the youth district and Tokyo's answer to Times Square, Shibuya, and the skyscraper and entertainment and red light district of Shinjuku. I don't need to describe all the sights in detail. You can get that from any tourist guidebook. I'll just describe some general impressions, instead.

The fish market was worth the visit. A habitual stop on most tourists' itineraries, it is a real live working fish market, perhaps the biggest and most valuable one in the world. Auctions of giant blue fin tuna flown in from the waters off the coast of New England have been known to fetch prices in the tens of thousands of dollars for a single fish. By the time I arrived at 9:00 the auctions were already over, and the market was winding down for the day. I did browse amongst some of the strangest sea creatures I've ever seen, though. The sushi stalls out back behind the market are known to have some of the best sushi in the world, as evidenced by the two hour long lines of people waiting for their turn for ten minutes at the standing-only sushi bar. I didn't wait in line. I went to the cheaper, less famous one down the road.

squid

sea urchins

octopus

tuna

Shibuya was probably the most interesting of the main districts. To the west is "Love Hotel Hill", where Tokyo couples go for a few hours of privacy to have sex. To the north is Harajuku, the youth fashion district. This is where you see all the kids in bizarre clothes, crazy died hair, mohwaks, you name it. Tokyo has definitely developed a youth culture unto itself. The amount of money and time some of the girls (and boys) spend to completely alter their appearances make you wonder what road Tokyo is heading down. I also couldn't help but notice the abundance of girls and women dressed in short skirts, their bare legs naked to the January chill. This you would never see in China, and probably not in the US either (at least, in colder climates). What are these Japanese girls thinking? Katsumi explained to me "they're either looking for a boyfriend, or they're trying to please their boyfriends". What a chauvinistic culture that men place such demands on women in the depths of winter.

youth "bizarre" fashion in Harajuku

youth "princess" fashion in Harajuku

youth "punk" fashion in Harakuku

Unfortunately, short skirts are not the only sign of a chauvinistic culture. Anyone who's had any exposure to the Japanese pornography industry knows what I'm talking about it. I've seen a bit in my days, and its some peculiar, sadistic stuff. Every scenario seems to show poor, submissive, girls being taken advantage of by aggressive men, rape-like scenarios where the girl is never shown to enjoy the act of sex, but to have it inflicted upon her, the passive victim. Having read Paul Theroux's description of a seven-floor porn emporium in Tokyo I had to have a look for myself. Each floor up gets progressively weirder. I'm pretty sure there was stuff in that store that would be illegal in the United States. Frankly, the first floor was the most disturbing. This is the "loli", or "lolita" section. Clearly underage girls, 14, 12act of sex, but to have it inflicted upon her, the passive victim. Having read Paul Theroux's description of a seven-floor porn emporium in Tokyo I had to have a look for myself. Each floor up gets progressively weirder. I'm pretty sure there was stuff in that store that would be illegal in the United States. Frankly, the first floor was the most disturbing. This is the "loli", or "lolita" section. Clearly underage girls, 14, 12, 10 years old, prancing around in bikinis and lingerie. No full on nudity or sex, but clearly presented in a provocative manner. And marketed to grown men for $40 a DVD. An entire floor of this. Something's wrong here.

Akihabiara is the anime/manga center of Tokyo. The young folks, and adults too, it seems, are very into this stuff. Judging by the distribution of the crowds in the bookshops, they read more of these cartoonish graphic novels than they do real books. Also maybe not such a good sign for the future of Japan. A number of young people have taken to dressing up like the characters in these graphic novels. There are whole stores in Akihabara selling the makeup, fake eyelashes, wigs, maid uniforms, schoolgirl uniforms, and whatnot needed to turn oneself into a cartoon character.

uniforms in Akihabara

accoutrement of anime fans - everything a young Japanese girl needs to turn herself into a big-eyed, blonde-haired zombie

schoolgirl uniforms

And then there are the 7 floor manga emporiums. In one of them, floors one through three were set aside for the family-friendly manga, flours four through seven for the "adults only" manga. You can guess which floors were most packed with customers. Noon on a weekday in Tokyo and floors four through seven were jam-packed with adult men, and a few women, buying pornographic comic books. Based on the covers, the whole lolita child pornography theme seems to run through the comic book industry as well. Next door to this manga emporium was another, this one with four floors of women-only cartoon porn. My oh my, the most peculiar markets exist in Tokyo!

Also filling Akihabara are the so-called "maid cafes", coffees shops where the waitresses wear french maid outfits, and coffee costs $10 a cup. I saw a map guide to the district that indicated at least 30 different maid cafes. Jeez!

advertisements for "maid cafes"

North of Shinjuku is the Kabukicho red light district. Having heard its a very seedy place at night, I took a stroll through during the day when most of the strip clubs and sex clubs were still closed, gleaning what I could from the signs outside instead. What I gleaned was that they have a sex club for every fetish, every taste. They have clubs with Japanese women, clubs with Chinese and Korean women, clubs with Filipina and Thai women, clubs with British and American women. Clubs with fat women. Clubs with pregnant women. They also have clubs with men, for women customers.

"fat" hostess club

male host club

"american and british honky tonk ladies"

Alright, enough of that. Sorry to dwell so much on of the seedy side of Tokyo. I have to admit though, its very much part of the Tokyo aura, the infamous seedy perverted vein that runs under this culture. Fortunately, not all of Tokyo is like this.

My host Katsumi seemed a nice enough chap. He comes from a smaller city and lives alone in Tokyo in a company that buys and sells raw ingredients used for animal feed. I honestly wasn't sure why such a company needed to be in downtown Tokyo, but who am I to ask? He makes $60,000 a year, many times over what anyone in China would make in a similar job. His housing is mostly subsidized, as is his subway pass. That leaves food and entertainment as his biggest expenses. Indeed, this seems a common trend. I went out with him and some other foreigners one night to a Mexican restaurant. A burrito there costs the equivalent of $20, I kid you not!

His Japanese friends were nice people, too. Various white collar workers, none of them rich, but able to enjoy the nightlife and youth culture of this metropolis. Most of them spoke at least some broken English. Not to different from China. I was particularly curious though about the foreigners living in Japan, and comparing them to the ones I know in China. Who were these people? Why did they choose Japan of all places? Didn't they know Japan was yesterday's news? One admitted specifically that he had considered both Japan and China, and chose Japan because it was more developed and internationalized. Okay. He was doing pretty much the same thing in Japan that many foreigners do in China - studying the language, and teaching English. He made more money doing the latter than his counterpart in China would, but given the cost of living, I doubt he saved as much. A few of the expats had been in Japan for many years. I guess they just had made enough of an investment that they were going to keep making a go of it, even if the Japanese economy continues to sputter down a downward spiral.

I met a couple of middle-aged Japanese people who wanted to speak English with me. One, a man in his 60s on a subway train, very gregarious, in the textile industry. One, a woman also in her 60s, at a shrine tucked in between two skyscrapers in the central business district. She was an English major in college back in the 70s, and she told me how she works to keep up her English even now, listening to books on tape, and speaking to foreigners like me.

A couple blocks away from that shrine I happened upon something called the "urban farm". Inside a skyscraper in downtown Tokyo were rice paddies, vegetable gardens, all interspersed in an office building settings. It was all open to the public, with fliers explaining the company's philosophy and products in English. The company is in the business of selling hydroponic equipment, stuff to turn any office into an "urban garden". It was a pretty cool environment so I stayed for a while and had a cup of coffee in the attached cafe. Cheapest coffee in the whole city, just a dollar. The salad (made from vegetables grown in the building of course) was free. Background music was provided by a woman playing the grand piano. A random discovery, this urban farm, but one of the highlights of my visit. Something totally unexpected, but also seemingly very Japanese - using high technology to make the best use out of limited space.

rice paddy in the urban farm

meeting space in the urban farm

And that's another theme that runs throughout Tokyo. Its a very efficient city. Excellent transportation. Tall, narrow buildings. Parking garages where cars are lifted up by automated elevators. And yet for all its density, it still retains a very pedestrian-friendly ambiance, not unlike Seoul. Apart from a handful of skyscraper districts, the majority of the buildings in Tokyo are not that big. They are human-scaled. The streets, too, are human-scaled. There are few wide boulevards cutting through the city like in Chinese and American cities. There is not even much automobile traffic on the streets, as almost everyone rides the subway. From a design perspective, Tokyo is still cutting-edge, and a very attractive city. In these aspects, it is very different than China, whose cities, aesthetically at least, are pretty ugly.

small scale streetscapes in urban Tokyo

When I ask my Chinese friends what they think of Japan, they aren't likely to point to its efficiency or its urban design. They're likely to say that Japanese girls are, alternately, sexy, or "open" (a Chinese euphemism for "slutty"). And they're likely to mention the war, which they still haven't forgiven the Japanese for. One reason they haven't forgiven the Japanese for the war is the Yasakuni Shrine, which I visited on my last day in Tokyo.

controversial Yasakuni Shrine

There are thousands of Shinto shrines in Tokyo, but the Yasakuni is particularly controversial as the resting place of the souls of Japan's millions of war dead, including hundreds of which are convicted war criminals. If the shrine were merely a monument to the fallen soldiers, the pawns if you will, that might be one thing. But the fact that the masterminds of the Japanese war of aggression, the people behind such injustices as the Nanjing Massacre, as the inhuman medical testing that Japanese doctors performed on Chinese victims, that these evil-doers are enshrined, by name, in this sacred site in downtown Tokyo, that just rubs the Chinese and the Koreans and all the other victims of the war in the wrong way. As does the fact that until very recently, the Japanese prime minister made annual visits to the shrine to pay his respects. Being drawn to politics and intrigue I had to see the shrine for myself. If I hadn't known what the shrine was infamous for, had I simply wandered into its grounds while exploring the city, I never would have known. It looks like any other shrine, a peaceful garden, and traditional Shinto buildings. Some antique dealers sell their wares outside the entrance, and a snack stand sells fried octopus balls and coffee. There were no signs in English so I couldn't decipher what exactly was said about the souls resting inside. On that cold January morning a handful of visitors made their way around the grounds. I couldn't help but wonder if the Chinese indignation was slightly blown out of proportion. Is the prime ministers' visit here any different than a US presidents' visit to the Vietnam War Memorial? Paying one's respects to the dead doesn't necessarily condone the war itself, does it? And though the souls of a few hundred war criminals, the really evil ones, do rest here, so do the souls of millions of soldiers who were just following orders. Later, on the internet, I came across a documentary film about this shrine. Directed by a Chinese filmmaker, but with the support and even funding of the Japanese government, it looks very interesting.

Three days is enough to see most of the major sites in Tokyo, but not enough to get any firm grasp on Japan. I would have liked to see some of Japan outside of Tokyo. Maybe that will wait until another trip. Japan is presented in Western culture and media as one of the most different places in the world. Think of Lost in Translation, in which Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray drift through Tokyo like lost souls, totally disconnected from their surroundings. After living in China for two years, I didn't feel that same disconnectedness in Tokyo. Of course, there was the language barrier. But I didn't feel like Japan is any more different from America than China, or Hong Kong, or Thailand. And those places, I feel, have a lot of similarities with the West these days. But I was happy to be heading back to China, heading back to my friends, back to a country where the cost of living is so low, and where the people are, I think its fair to say, more humble, more down to earth. A place where girls dress appropriately in the winter, and pornography is outlawed. Where the sushi is tasteless because Kunming lies a thousand miles from the sea and the fish is frozen. After Japan, I may never be able to eat Chinese sushi again!

Links to two photo albums of Tokyo on flickr:
Tokyo "cool"/Tokyo "weird"
Tokyo architecture and streetscapes

Small Town Gangsters

2010-12-24T19:49:00.000-08:00

My friend Xiao Lin (小淋) invited me to visit her hometown, Yuanjiang (元江), about three hours south of Kunming on the Kunming-Laos highway. Yuanjiang’s at a much lower altitude than Kunming, a result of it being in the Red River Valley. It’s also smack dab on the Tropic of Cancer, a fact announced on billboards upon arrival in town. It’s one of many ethnic autonomous counties in this region of China, the ethincities in this case being Dai (傣族), Hani (哈尼族), and Yi (彝族). Xiao Min is Dai.

In the middle of the bus ride, three angry men suddenly stood up and began beating a man as he crouched into his seat. As they were speaking angry dialect it was hard for me to grasp the reason behind the beating. The bus pulled over to the shoulder as the concerned passengers watched out of the corner of their eyes, while the driver made a modest effort to restrain the men dispensing the beating. When they eventually settled down, one of the beaters sat down in the empty seat next to me. After finding out I was American, he wanted to know why we Americans were always starting wars? Normally I like it when a Chinese person wants to talk politics with me. But this was someone I did not think I wanted to get into a heated conversation with.

In Yuanjiang, I stay at Xiao Lin’s father’s deserted house. Her parents are divorced and father is off in Zhejiang working. Her mother is still in Yuanjiang but her apartment is too small for us to stay there. Instead, we go there for meals. Her mom and older sister are excellent cooks. Each meal I eat in Yuanjiang consists of at least ten different dishes. I don’t know if they always eat this richly, or if it was in honor of my visit. They have an Old English Sheepdog (like the one in the Shaggy Dog movies), which seems quite out of place in their confined urban apartment. Named Shuai Ke, he’s a rambunctious furry fury of energy. He likes to jump on me and knaw at my shoes. That first night, the girls and several friends take me out to the karaoke club. Much drinking is done by all.

With Xiao Lin, her sister, and two male friends we head off to the village of Xiao Man Li about 45 minutes away where the sisters' grandfather lives. It's in a tiny village on a dirt road tucked in a rolling valley of fields, gardens, and flowers. The grandfather lives in a house made of mud with some relatives. The interior is simple, but not spartan. There is a refrigerator and a TV set, amongst the farm equipment, bags of rice, and other dusty accouterments of life on the farm. We have brought lots of food from the city, and began concocting another feast. The obedient granddaughters give the kind old man a haircut and wash his clothes. Xiao Lin explains that she feels great affection for her grandfather, as he essentially raised her when she was young, her parents both having left home to work in other regions of the country.

There weren't many young people in this village of about 30 houses. The kids of school age were all in school, and the kids who were older than school age had left to find work somewhere else, in Yuanjiang city, in Yuxi, in Kunming, or further afield. But there were two little girls remaining in the village, probably too young for school. My presence in the village frightened them at first. They ran screaming from my sight the first several times they saw me (it was a small village, and with not a lot to do in the mud house, I walked around the village a lot). Eventually the girls started creeping around the house to check me out. By the end of the day they were friendly. I asked Xiao Lin if she thought I was the first foreigner to ever come to Xiao Man Li. But she burst my bubble and said no. I was guilty once again of falling into the same trap that I criticized when writing my master's thesis: the neocolonial feeling of needing to be "the first" to "discover" a place.

Back to Yuanjiang city by evening, we go out for barbecue. One of the members of the party tells me how after retiring from the Chinese Army, he was hired by the Myanmar Army to serve in the civil war against the Karin rebels in Northern Burma in the mid-90s. He drove the boat, the fat, gregarious man boasted. After two hours of drinking and barbecue someone suggested we go to a nightclub. Xiao Lin warned me that I shouldn't flirt with any of the girls at the club, for that could spell trouble with the boys at the club. I took her words to heart and didn't think I didn't anything that would constitute flirting. Sure enough, the girls in the club took an interest in me. They wanted to "jing" (敬) me, or toast me. They wanted me to go over to their table. They wanted my number. They wanted to dance with me. I tried to be polite, but stick with Xiao Lin and her friends.

That night after Xiao Lin and I arrived home, there was a knock on the door. Three young boys, maybe 17 or 18, had followed us home from the nightclub. What did they want? They wanted to 吹牛 ("blow the cow") with me, a phrase that can mean "shoot the shit", "bullshit", hang out", or, in this case, most likely "fight". They were from the club. They were jealous of the attention the girls (their girls? who knows?) were giving me. Xiao Lin opened the door quickly and hit one of the boys in the face. He'd been hovering that close behind. She then proceeded to turn on the 甜言蜜语 ("sweet and honeyed words") and convince the boys to go home and leave us alone. In the end, they did and all was fine. But she was quite distraught. They'd been looking for a fight, for sure, she cried. They only were convinced to leave because Xiao Lin had connections in town, too. Her sister knew people. Men bigger and stronger than these 小流氓 ("little gangsters").

That's what they were, she explained. In China, small cities like this all have their share of small-time hoodlums, gangsters, teenagers up to no good. They hung around places like nightclubs, pool halls. They loved to fight and they feared nothing, because they were just dumb kids. They collect protection fees from schoolchildren. Is this any different than your typical bully in an American school? Well, in America 17 year old thugs wouldn't be allowed into the local nightclub. But China has no age limits at that kind of place. I never was too worried, but Xiao Lin thought I should have been. I admitted it was definitely a bit of excitement for this small town of Yuanjiang.

Southeast Asia (addendum)

2010-12-04T18:05:00.001-08:00

A few things I forgot to mention in the previous blog entry.
And because I can only access my blog through a proxy server because of the stupid censors, I can't go back and edit it. I can only post new content here.

Because Cambodia is a poor country, and its politics rife with corruption, many foreign governments donate money directly to the Angkor association under the auspices of UNESCO, bypassing the Cambodian government altogether. Most of the temples have displays explaining which country has "sponsored" restoration efforts at this temple. I was surprised by how many countries sponsor temples at Angkor. Not just Western countries, but China, Brazil, Korea, also.

Cambodia may be corrupt but it is nominally a multiparty democracy, and that was apparent in the preponderance of signs advertising different political parties (including the "Human Rights Party"). Interestingly, many of these political party signs were mounted on stores. I imagine if American stores did the same, publicizing their political preferences, they might lose a lot of business.

Riding the bus from Phnom Penh to Saigon I sat next to a Vietnamese man who lives in—San Jose, California. He's in import-export and returns home to Vietnam (and Cambodia, it seems) several times a year.

In Saigon I showed up in a nice-looking bar because they had $1 beer happy hour. I was dressed casually in my traveler clothes - t shirt and shorts, and most of the patrons looked more well-heeled, expat businessmen. I had a long conversation with a Chinese man who was originally from Singapore, but grew up in Australia, and has lived in Saigon for the last 11 years. He treated me to several shots of Johnnie Walker, duck meat crepes, and imported New Zealand lamb sausages. Turns out he was the owner of the bar!

In Nha Trang, the Vietnamese beach resort, a motorcycle tout called out to me in perfect colloquial English:
"Hey man, you don't really like this place do you? "
"Too touristy, right?"
"Don't you want to see the real Vietnam?"
"Come with me I'll take you to the countryside"
He certainly had studied the tourist-traveler dichotomy discourse well!

On the streets of Vietnamese cities children roam with tall stacks of books to sell to tourists. It's kind of nice. In other countries vendors hawk tacky souvenirs, drugs, sex, but in Vietnam they hawk books. How literate!

Southeast Asia Trip: Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam

2010-12-04T04:02:00.001-08:00

Southeast Asia

I just got back to Kunming, China from three weeks in Southeast Asia. It was a whirlwind trip incorporating four different countries (not counting China), five border crossings, three visas, dozens of bumpy bus rides, in all traversing over 5000 km (3000 miles) of territory. Southeast Asia is well connected to Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Bangkok, and Australia by budget airlines, but that didn't help me at all, based as I was in China. China's air links to Southeast Asia are severely overpriced given the short distances they cover. Hopefully once the new airport opens next year, competition will drive down prices. But in the mean time, I was traveling by land, seeing more, and enduring the bumps along the way.

I'd been to Southeast Asia three times before. Once in 2006, a week in Thailand, my very first trip to Asia. And twice last fall, brief trips not far across the Chinese border, mainly visa runs, to northern Laos and northern Vietnam. This time would be more extensive, covering a lot more ground. The initial impetus was the same as last fall: I needed to make another visa run across the border. The next goal was to get to Angkor Wat. It's quite a ways south of China, and necessitated traveling across large swaths of Laos and Thailand to get there (and then Vietnam to get back to China).

Laos

Made it to the Chinese-Lao border at Mohan/Boten an hour before closing time. No public transportation on the Laos side. Some taxi drivers wanted to charge me a highly inflated fair to the junction 20 km away where I could catch a public bus. Just then a French tourist showed up. He had come to the border "sightseeing". He gave me a ride (for free) on the back of his bike to the junction. 20 minutes later the public bus rolled along and picked me up. It had one available seat. I felt like things were going my way that day.

Oudamxay

Three hours later arrived in Oudamxay, a dusty little town at the intersection of two highways. A third of the population there is Chinese: business people, construction workers, prostitutes. I first looked at a Chinese guest house since I could speak the language, but the place was filthier than anything I had ever seen in China, unswept floors, a stained mattress, no sheets. The Lao guesthouse next door cost a dollar more but was spotless and welcoming (and the proprietor fluent in English, as I would find almost everyone who interacts with tourists in Southeast Asia is). Most Lao guesthouses, and even shops, all ask guests to remove their shoes at the door.

Even though Oudamxay is not much of a destination, the place was full of backpackers, mostly traveling to and from other places in Northern Laos. This is quite a striking difference from the kind of places I'd been traveling in during the last few months: small Chinese towns with nary a tourist in sight. I would posit that the tourist:local ratio is considerably higher in Laos than in China, likewise with the tourist:land area saturation rate. I went to a restaurant recommended to me by a British man I met on the street. I had the tofu larb (a minced dish with fragrant spices served in a banana leaf) and green papaya salad. Upon receiving the salad I noticed an ant crawling across the surface. Figuring one ant wasn't going to kill me I brushed it off and proceeded to eat. Then I realized the salad was crawling with ants - hundreds, maybe thousands of them. It's a testament to my attempt to "go with the flow" that I actually contemplated just shrugging it off ("some people in Asia like eating ants", "they're probably nutritious", "maybe this is considered a delicacy"), but in the end I sent it back. The poor old woman preparing all the food herself didn't seem to see what the problem was. I found the source of the ants was her jar of peanuts. Her eyesight must not have been good enough to see what I saw. I'm afraid my ant complaint caused the rest of her business that evening - two German fellows - to evaporate.

Next morning there was one and only one bus scheduled for the place I needed to get to: Nong Khieu. I woke up bright and early at 7 to make sure I had a ticket for the 9 am bus. Turns out it was more a minivan than a bus, and the 9 am departure was interpreted liberally. We didn't leave until 10:30. Along the way, passing homes made of bamboo thatch, our vehicle was flagged down by a woman holding a furry creature by the tail. I never did figure out what the creature was. It looked like a cross between a bobcat and a raccoon. Money exchanged hands, and the creature was thrown onto the floor of the minivan, apparently to be someone's dinner that night.

Nong Khieu

In Nong Khieu I wandered down the single dusty road looking for the boat dock, where I was hoping I hadn't missed the last boat of the day to Muong Ngoi, my real destination for the day. I found the docks deserted and went asking about the boat. I was pointed up to a landing, where I discovered about 10 other backpackers waiting in the shade. I knew then I was on time. Half an hour later, we all loaded onto a narrow outboard motor-equipped keel boat, and up the Nam Ou River we went. Passing bathing bovine and villagers washing clothes, we pulled up on the docks of Muong Ngoi an hour later. Muong Ngoi is a popular backpacker destination: a roadless, carless riverside village on the edge of the jungle, with spectacular karst mountains all around.

A quick disclaimer. I've done a lot of "off the beaten path" travel in China because I can. Being able to speak Chinese opens up a lot of places to potential exploration. But on this trip I had no pretensions to anything of the sort. Crossing the border, I was instantly transformed from a knowledgeable resident of China capable of communicating with the local populace, to just another ignorant American bumbling my way from backpacker enclave to backpacker enclave with nothing more than "hello" and maybe "thank you" in the local language (if that).

Muong Ngoi

Muong Ngoi consists of a single dirt road lined with guesthouse/cafes, the nicer of which had large wooden decks overlooking the Nam Ou. Every evening they turned on the generators for three hours of electricity. A few of the cafes had all-you-can-eat buffet for two dollars. My favorite part was the coconut stick rice with mango.

I made several friends in Muong Ngoi - Polish, German, Israeli. When, on day two, the two groups merged together for a day trek I was a little curious to see how the Germans and Israelis would get along. Turned out to be a non-event. We followed a creek through a wooded area, explored some caves, and then emerged into an open area of rice fields. The trail crossed several streams without bridges. Not wearing sandals, I had to take off my shoes to ford each stream. Midday we reached a village of bamboo thatch homes, palm trees, and barefoot children. Following lunch in the village, hiked further up into the jungle amid tall rainforest trees and waterfalls. Returned to Muong Ngoi early because the sun set incredibly early in these parts - around 4:00.

Luang Prabang

After two days in Muong Ngoi, caught the boat back to Nong Khiew, and then bought a "bus" ticket to Luang Prabang. This "bus" turned out to be a pickup truck with benches in the back. This is what passes for scheduled public transportation in northern Laos. Actually, I thought it was very comfortable - in the open air back of the truck, the wind blowing made for a refreshing ride. I sat in the back, with a great view of all the scenery slipping into the distance behind us.

Luang Prabang was as far as I'd gotten when I went to Laos the previous year. The UNESCO world heritage city is a charming collection of French colonial houses on the tropical shores of the Mekong River. Having spent several days there last time around, I only stuck around for one day, enjoying the fruit shakes, cheap food, and pastel houses.

Vang Vieng

After the cheap, breezy truck ride of the previous day, I was a little disappointed to learn that the tour companies seemed to have the next segment of the journey cornered. I had to buy a ticket on a "VIP bus" to Vang Vieng, a place renown among backpackers in the Lonely Planet. I went because it broke the ten hour trip to the capital Vientiane into two. Vang Vieng's big draw is tubing on the Nam Song River. What I didn't know until I got there was that the river is lined with makeshift bars and that the backpackers tubing down the river stop at each bar, getting drunker and drunker as they float downriver. They jump off cliffs and ride down zip lines, some spraining ankles and breaking bones. The drunken masses in Vang Vieng that evening had words scribbled across their bodies in magic marker ink. A half naked British man told me instead of renting a tube for $5, you should just steal someone else's tube at one of the bars where they're piled up nameless. Never mind that the renter of that tube would then lost not just $5 but their $10 deposit. I decided at that point that this was not the place for me. That, and the fact that every bar and restaurant in town played Friends and the Family Guy on an endless loop. I mean, come on!

On the bright side, the landscape of Vang Vieng was truly gorgeous. The outline of the craggy karst mountains in the dusk and dawn light resembling a paper cut. The mist settling on the river at night and gradually burning off as the morning heated up. Since my goals seemed to be different from the drunken backpackers of Vang Vieng, I went to bed early, and woke up early for a pre-dawn walk, before bidding farewell to Vang Vieng and moving onto the capital.

Vientiane

Rumor has it, it was once a wild town, but the Vientiane I found was staid and sober. To say that it was the busiest place I'd seen thus far in Laos was not saying much. Vientiane has to be one of the least pretentious national capitals in the world, a lazy little city on the shore of the wide Mekong with a compact street grid and a handful of French buildings. The food was decent, though. Vientiane is famous for its sidewalk cafes. They're actually quite nice, with comfortable rugs and furniture all laid out on the sidewalk. There was a wide range of international cuisine, a Swedish bakery, and sidewalk cafes. I had my last Lao larb, this time a chicken one, and a green papaya salad, this time no ants.

From Vientiane, I could have continued south through Laos and crossed directly into Cambodia. But the Lao-Cambodian border was out of the way of my destination of Angkor Wat. And transportation in Laos, as I had discovered, is slow and in poor condition. It had taken me several days and countless hours just to travel a couple hundred kilometers from the Chinese border to Vientiane, along narrow, winding, potholed mountain roads. Rather than find more of the same in southern Laos, I decided instead to detour through Thailand. The route I would take through Thailand would be longer, but more efficient because Thailand has railways. Plus, Americans can enter Thailand without a visa.

Thailand

Laos has one kilometer of railroad to its name. It opened up last year, and it is a spur that connects the outer edge of the capital to the Thai national rail network. The train is a two-car affair, looking more like a streetcar than a train, that runs across the Lao-Thai "Friendship Bridge", an automobile bridge most of the time that converts into a rail bridge twice a day. On the Thai side, in Nong Khai, passed through immigration in minutes, with enough time for a quick plate of Pad Thai before catching the night train to Bangkok. Thai trains are more comfortable than Chinese trains. Instead of squeezing three bunks on top of each other, there are only two. The reading lamps actually work. Unfortunately, Thai trains don't turn off the corridor lights at night as the Chinese trains do, making a good night's sleep difficult for sensitive sleepers like me.

Bangkok

I arrived at Bangkok at 7 am, and I would have exactly 23 hours to explore the city before heading out on a train to the Cambodian border the next morning at 6. Bangkok was the very first destination of my very first trip to Asia back in 2006, and I was curious to see it again, see how my impression had changed now that I've spent so much time in Asia (not just China but India) in the intervening years. My theory was that Bangkok might seem far less "exotic" than it had seemed that first time around.

My theory was proved wrong. My impressions of Bangkok in 2006 had been of contrast, between the old city and the new, the poverty and the wealth, the maze-like lanes and canals, and the skyscrapers and luxury shopping malls. Well, that's turned out to be a pretty universal theme throughout Asia. And the Bangkok of 2010 looked more or less the same to me as the Bangkok of 2006. The difference was that the dollar had depreciated quite a bit since last time, when $1 exchanged for 40 Thai Baht. Now it only exchanged for 30. The political crisis and near shutdown of the city that occurred just months ago might not have even happened from the look of things in November 2010. The "red shirts", I was told, are currently "regrouping" up north and Bangkok may not have seen the end of political turmoil.

I returned to several of the same sights I'd seen before, rode the same multifarious public transportation: ferry boats, canal boats, subway, elevated rail. I spent several hours in bookstores. And since it was Saturday night I partook in some nightlife. Makeshift bars open up on the sidewalks after midnight, where aging expats mingle with go go dancers, prostitutes, and ladyboys.

Cambodia

The train to Aranyaprathet on the Cambodian border was not an express. The only tickets available were third class, but as they cost only $1.50 I wasn't complaining. With the windows rolled down, the breeze kept things comfortable enough. We rolled across flat rice fields, the mountains of Laos by this point far behind, stopping at every single little station on the route, most of them serving what appeared to be tiny villages of a few dozen households. At the border, having been warned by the travel literature about the scams that plague Aranyaprathet, fended off the touts who tried to sell me fake "visas" to Cambodia at twice the price at the fake "immigration office" on the Thai side. Waited an hour in line at the real border, then crossed into the no-man's land filled with Cambodian casinos for the Thai tourists who come by day and never leave the gambling no-man's land, thus never officially entering into Cambodia. After getting the Cambodian visa-on-arrival, a free shuttle bus took us to a bus station where there were no buses but instead "shared taxes" for $12 a person to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat. I shared the taxi with a young Dutch couple. The three of us all crammed into the back seats because the driver wanted an extra $5 for the privilege of riding in the front passenger's seat. Instead, the passenger's seat went empty.

Siem Reap

I'd made it to a new country, and to the main destination of the trip: Angkor Wat, and the town of Siem Reap that serves it. It was by far the most developed tourist destination I would visit on the trip. No one goes to Cambodia without going to Angkor. As far as the Ministry of Tourism is concerned, Angkor is Cambodia. Even the national airline is called Angkor Air. And Siem Reap International Airport sees more traffic than the airport in the capital Phnom Penh. In Siem Reap I was rubbing shoulders with tourists from around the world. Whereas Laos had been primarily European, Australian, and North American backpackers, in Siem Reap they were joined by Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai, South American, Middle Eastern, African. And they weren't just backpackers. Siem Reap is host to dozens of 5 star resort hotels.

But none of that took away from the charm of Siem Reap itself. Cosmopolitan by nature of the international tourism is supports, yet still very affordable, Siem Reap was a colorful, comfortable town in which to spend four nights as I thoroughly explored Angkor (tickets are sold for 1, 3, and 7 days, for $20, 40, and 60, respectively. Nearly everyone buys the 3 day ticket, since the guidebooks all warn that 1 day is simply not enough). While Siem Reap is a sizable city in itself, the downtown area is compact and walkable, framed by a triangle grid of streets along the Siem Reap River. Dining options are abundant, with plenty of french food, bakeries, and coffee shops, and 50 cent draft beer at most restaurants by evening.

The US Dollar is the de facto currency of Cambodia. Everything is marked in dollars. ATMs dispense dollars. But if your bill includes fractions of a dollar, they give you Cambodian Riel for change. Most places accept the easy conversion of 4000 riel to the dollar, but the grocery stores are a pain in the neck and demand 4100 per dollar, which is just a ploy to round up the bill, because most places don't even stock 100 Riel notes.

A number of bookstores in Siem Reap sold illegal copies of exactly the kind of books that westerners and backpackers like to read, for $5 each. It was like a kid in a candy store. I got a copy of The Accidental Billionaires, the story of Mark Zuckerburg that was turned into the movie The Social Network. Also Paul Theroux's 2008 follow-up to his 1973 The Great Railway Bazaar, his trip across Eurasia by rail. Called Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, he retraces his steps as closely as he can, with certain areas he traversed in 1973 off-limits now (Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan) and certain areas that were off-limits in 1973 (Cambodia, north Vietnam) open now. Of particular interest to me was that a large chunk of my itinerary on this very trip were following his very footsteps. He was writing about the exact same trains I took in Thailand, the same borders I crossed, the same museums and temples. Talk about relevant.

Angkor

"Angkor Wat" is how it's known around the world, but what tourists discover upon arrival is that Angkor Wat is actually just one (albeit the main) temple in a complex of hundreds of temples that covers dozens of square kilometers. Angkor Wat is the biggest and most famous of the temples, and it has the biggest crowds, but it wasn't my favorite, not by a long shot.

Because the temples are too spread apart to walk to, most people hire a motor rickshaw for about $15 a day to ferry them around to all the different sites. Those with more money on their hands also hire an interpreter, who are available in 12 different languages. I opted for the cheaper, do-it-yourself bicycle rental, which cost 25 cents a day (!) It was hot and tiring riding that one-speed bike around Angkor for two days, but it was doable. I bought a hat to protect me from the sun, and drank lots of water. I saw almost all the main temples over the course of three days.

I won't go into terrible detail describing the temples of Angkor. You've all seen photographs and probably have some picture in your head. Of course, you should go to my flickr website and look at my photos there. You may think that after three days one would feel "templed out". Well, its true to some extent. Frankly, I think 2 days might have been enough. But there's no 2-day ticket, and the 3-day ticket is the same price as buying 2 1-day tickets. Since the temples represent a span of several hundred years of the Khmer Empire, there is a great deal of range in their architectural styles and features. Although there are several motifs and themes that are prevalent throughout Angkor, it can also be said that each temple boasts its own individual feel.

They are in various states of repair and disrepair. Personally, my favorite temples were the ones that are well into a state of ruin, toppled bricks, crumbling ramparts, stones stained every shade of green by moss and lichen, otherworldly trees, their tentacle-like roots devouring the stone structures. These are the images that we are used to in Hollywood depictions of ancient mystical temples - the stuff of Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider (the later of which was filmed on location here). While its all very "orientalist", it's also really there. Smiling faces starring out of stone gates hidden in the jungle, demons, headless soldiers, stone elephants, snakes, tigers, and then the temples themselves, those iconic towers pointed towards the heavens.

Of course the logistics and the engineering behind the construction of these monuments is a story in itself. As is the historical intrigue surrounding them, the undoubted egomaniacal nature of the emperors who ordered their construction. Angkor was the heart of the Khmer Empire which at one point was the dominant empire in South East Asia, controlling parts of present-day Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam.

New to me was the fact that Cambodia, and the Khmer Empire before it, had strong links to India. Two thousand years ago, Indian seafarers reached present-day Cambodia on trading voyages. They ended up strongly influencing Cambodia's culture, religion (the temples at Angkor were originally Hindu temples devoted to Krishna and Vishnu among others), music, language, writing, architecture, and art. To this day, this Indian influence is apparent. Cambodian writing and language are more closely related to Hindu than to Thai or Vietnamese or Chinese. Cambodian people too look more like South Asians than East Asians. If Southeast Asia is "Indochina", then Cambodia is the "Indo" part and Vietnam is the "Chinese" part.

Although tens of thousands of tourists visit Angkor every day, it is not difficult to feel like you have the place all to yourself. The temples are so numerous, so vast, and so full of convoluted corridors and pathways that call out to the amateur explorer to wander through their hidden corners. Apart from a handful of places sealed off because of dangerous falling rocks, almost everything is open to the visitor to explore, duck under, climb over. You can get very up close and personal with these ancient monuments. Needless to say, photographic opportunities are boundless. The place is crawling with amateur, and professional, photographers.

It's also crawling with small-time businesspeople, mostly in the form of adorable young children. They sell ice-cold water, coconuts, musical instruments, artwork, engravings, t-shirts, postcards, and every other imaginable souvenir. Some have stationary vendor booths along the walkways to the temples. Others, freelancers if you will, simply wander the grounds, searching for customers. Their English levels are impressive, to say the least. Having come from China, where middle and upper class college kids struggle so hard to speak fluent English, here are these poor Cambodian kids, who surely do not go to school, who can speak fluent English. Of course, their daily contact with international tourists helps. And they probably make more money selling souvenirs than they would in any job earned with a college degree (assuming they're not controlled by bosses who take whatever profits they earn, which may very well be the case).

There seemed to be a standard script that many of the child vendors followed:

"Hello Sir, which country are you from?
"The United States"
"Oh, beautiful country. Capital Washington, DC. Population 330 million. Major cities Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco."
"San Francisco, that's where I'm from"
"Beautiful city, sir. Golden Gate bridge. Stanford University."

Wow, I thought! These kids ore walking Encyclopedia Britannica’s.

"Would you like to buy some postcards sir?"
"No thanks, not right now"
"No problem sir. You first tour the temple. Then on your way out you can have another look."

"Would you like to buy a painting sir?"
"They're very nice, but I'm afraid carrying it around with me all day wouldn't be very convenient."
"Don't worry sir, We can deliver to your guesthouse tonight."

They had every possible permutation of the conversation planned out in advance. I actually did end up buying a few articles, from a hardworking, kind 18 year girl named Anina. I bought a rubbing/etching image of the Buddha on rice paper, a Jew's harp carved from bamboo, and some local style hemp shirts. I also drank a lot of coconuts, which they kept cool in ice boxes.

After two days on the bicycle, I'd seen almost everything there was to see in the main temple area. There were just a few temples left in the more outlying areas, one group 15 km in one direction and another more than 30 km in the opposite direction. I decided it was time for me to hire a motor rickshaw. Because of the extra distance, it cost $20. Also fit in a visit to the Landmine museum. In addition to Angkor, the other big tourist attraction (it seems kind of morbid to call them "attractions") of Cambodia are related to the country's tragic recent history: The Vietnam War, Nixon's secret bombing campaign, landmines, the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, and the genocide. The Siem Reap Landmine Museum was founded by a former Khmer Rouge soldier who'd once laid landmines, and later became an anti-landmine activist. The museum clearly demonstrated that the United States was as much to blame as the dictator Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge for the landmines, which continue to plague Cambodia and maim and kill dozens of people every year.

The UN has sponsored a major anti-landmine treaty, which has so far been ratified by hundreds of countries. But the United States remains a major hold-out, giving cover to other holdouts like China and Russia.

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh. What a name! Definitely one of the most memorable place names in the world. Other than that, I really didn't know what to expect in the capital of Cambodia. Images of poverty, child prostitution crossed my mind. Actually, Phnom Penh was a fairly pleasant city, with numerous elegant temples and government buildings, and a cafe-lined riverfront promenade along the Mekong River (I seem to have been following the course of the Mekong River for the better part of this trip). Phnom Penh also has the genocide museum, housed in a former schoolhouse converted to torture center by the Khmer Rouge. Once again, fingers are pointed not just at the murderous Pol Pot, but at the United States. New to me was the fact that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge actually received political and material support from the United States, both during and after their fanatical reign. At first, I couldn't quite believe this, but I later did some research on the internet and it seems it is largely factual. The United States supported Pol Pot on the reasoning that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." In 1975, the US was smarting from its humiliating loss in Vietnam. We supported Pol Pot because we thought that might hurt the Vietnamese. For the record, China was doing the same thing. One theory is as follows: this was the time of Nixon's visit to China, the beginning of the thawing of Sino-US relations. China supported Pol Pot. In order to get on China's good side, the US also supported Pol Pot. In 1979, but not before the Khmer Rouge had murdered one-third of the population of Cambodia, the Vietnamese finally stepped in to end the madness. In retaliation, China invaded Vietnam. The war only lasted a few days, and China relinquished the territory it gained. They just wanted to make a point: we're still stronger than you. China and Vietnam have a long history of mutual antagonism stemming from Vietnam's 1000 years under Chinese tutelage. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This is still supposed to be about Phnom Penh.

The genocide museum is haunting. In addition to the usual historical displays, maps, and the jail cells and torture chambers preserved as they were during the genocide, there are thousands and thousands of black and white photographs of the men, women, boys, and girls murdered. In a particularly gruesome display, there is also a pile of skulls. Like the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge kept meticulous records of every person they tortured and murdered. In order to save money and bullets, the preferred weapons of choice were farmer's tools - blunt iron instruments. Like Auschwitz, the museum is haunting and disturbing, even more so when one stops to consider that like horrors like the ones that played out here 30 years ago are still playing out across the world today.

Vietnam

From Phnom Penh hopped on a "VIP bus" six hours to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Buses in Cambodia area incredibly cheap. The bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh cost only $5, and to Ho Chi Minh City only $8. We crossed the Mekong River on a ferry boat just before it split into a million channels that are the Mekong Delta, the rice belt of Vietnam. Everyone calls Ho Chi Minh City Saigon, so from now on I will too.

Saigon

I'd been to northern Vietnam last year, but this was my first time in southern Vietnam, the part where my country's military spent 20 fruitless years trying to battle communism, not realizing they were really on the wrong side of an anti-colonial war. The ironic thing is that democracy never had anything to do with it. Following the Paris Accords ending the French-Vietnamese war of independence, there were supposed to be nationwide elections. Ho Chi Minh in all likelihood would have won that election democratically, fair and square, with the support of the peasantry of both north and south Vietnam. But the CIA prevented that election from taking place in the south, keeping the south under the rule of corrupt capitalist dictatorship. No wonder we lost the war for people's hearts and minds.

Apart from the overt war-related propaganda on display at numerous museums around Saigon, you'd never know that this city was dominated for decades by the Vietnam War. Paul Theroux made the astute observation that while the French and the Americans were both hated by the Vietnamese, at least the French left behind lots of nice buildings, railroads, universities, not to mention baguettes, croissants, and coffee. The Americans left behind no infrastructure whatsoever. And as far as America's culinary contribution? I'm not sure TGI Fridays and Outback Steakhouse deserve much mention in the annals of Vietnamese cuisine.

Saigon itself is not as charming as Hanoi. It is more modern, more spread out, with not as much old colonial architecture. But its a pleasant enough city, with lots of restaurants and cafes. The War Remnants Museum is a must-see. Four floors of material on the Vietnam War: the history, the battles, agent orange, My Lai. Lots of great photographs. Most of them by western photojournalists. A whole floor dedicated to anti-Vietnam protest movements around the world. The courtyard surrounding the museum is full of American warplanes, tanks, and helicopters.

In the museums you might get the impression that the Vietnamese think about the war often. But the visitors there were all foreigners. Paul Theroux wrote that the Vietnamese were amazing for their inability to hold a grudge. He said they anyone who remembered the war hated the war, but they don't blame the American people. They blame the politicians. That's a health attitude. Of course, half the Vietnamese population today is too young to remember the war. They're more focused on taking advantage of Vietnam's booming economy. But Paul Theroux and I both found that nearly every Vietnamese person we talked to (at least, in southern Vietnam) had a relative living in the United States, because that relative had cooperated with the United States, and sought asylum after reunification.

Speeding Up the Vietnamese Coast

In retrospect I should have followed Theroux's footsteps exactly and taken the train. I always prefer trains to buses. But the bus just seemed to good a deal to pass up when I saw it advertised in travel agencies in Saigon. Vietnam is a narrow but very long country, nearly 2000 km between Saigon in the south and Hanoi in the north. That distance is traversed by railway, costing about $75 and taking about 45 hours. The same distance is also covered by a network of "open buses", stopping at various points along the way. You can buy one ticket and get on and off whenever you feel like it. It costs half the price of the train, and is about a third faster. I bought the bus ticket, thinking it would be nice to get off at points along the way, and that a single bus ticket would be less hassle than buying several different train tickets. Turns out I made a big mistake. I was under the mistaken assumption that the bus would be a relatively smooth ride on relatively modern highways. Boy was I wrong. The single national highway linking north and south Vietnam is in terrible shape, a two lane road riddled in potholes. Needless to say, I got very little sleep on those 2000 kilometers of sleeper bus journeys. On top of the bumpiness is the general uncomfortableness of a bus. A train is always better than a bus. You can stretch you legs, go for a walk, use the toilet. The berths in the Vietnamese sleeper bus were angled so that you couldn't lay completely down, and you had to contort your feet to fit into the compartment underneath your front-neighbor's inclined head, leaving very few options for sleeping positions.

The first stop up the coast was Nha Trang, a beach resort town. I went swimming in the ocean, and went to some mud baths. There wasn't much else to do but read my book and wait for the next bus out of town. I didn't spend the night.

Next stop was Hoi An, a historical city in the center of Vietnam. I strolled around its cobblestone streets, past old buildings and souvenir shops. It was all perfectly nice, but to be honest not too different from a lot of the historical cities I've seen in China. That would be a result of the 1000 years that Vietnam spent as a vassal of the Chinese empire. I met a Canadian the same age as me who is the principal of the Singapore International School there. Although he'd lived there 6 years, didn't speak very much Vietnamese, and he pronounced the "nam" in "Vietnam" as if it rhymed with "ham" (reminding me of a goofy parody song in the Hasty Pudding Production 161 of which I was a part titled "Green Eggs and Nam")

The next stop was Hue, another historical city. I have to admit at this point I was feeling a bit of travel fatigue. I missed my home and friends in Kunming. I was growing tired of Southeast Asia, of the heat, of traveling alone, of being unable to speak the local language, of spending money while my apartment in China went uninhabited. I wanted to speed this trip up and get home, so I skipped Hue altogether and took the next bus out of town to Hanoi. This meant three sleeper buses three nights in a row, three nights of poor sleep, three nights not in a real bed.

Next stop was Hanoi, where I'd spent several days last year. Last time I was there I met a really cool girl from Taiwan and we spent a week together. She wasn't there this time around, and the weather was suddenly cool and dreary, and as nice as Hanoi is, I moved on after 12 hours. This time I would sleep on the train bound for Lao Cai on the Chinese border. It being a sleeper train and not a sleeper bus, I actually did get a decent night's sleep.

At Lao Cai, most of the disembarking tourists pile into minivans and head an hour up the mountain to the old French hill station town of Sapa, today known for its beautiful scenery, rice terraces, trekking, and Hmong minority people. Since I had some time to kill before I needed to cross the border to China, I made the trip to Sapa too, and spent the morning there. The place was totally fogged in and I couldn't see any of the famous scenery, but I did get a taste for the place - its colonial architecture, the Hmong in their minority dress selling postcards and knock off North Face trekking gear. Then back down the mountain, across the border to Hekou and back in China at last.

Ran into some Americans from Vermont who'd ridden across the border on their bikes. They'd been riding across Southeast Asia by bicycle and were planning to take the same rugged road through southern Yunnan, skirting the borders of Vietnam and Laos, that I'd traveled by bus a month before. This was their first day in China, and they didn't know any Chinese, so I helped them out finding a hotel room, a map, an ATM, and giving them some helpful Chinese phrases. Needless to say they were grateful. I would have been happy just with their impressed reactions to my knowledge of Chinese, but they also took me out to dinner, at a restaurant on a boat, bobbing in the current of the Red River.

It was another sleeper bus from Hekou to Kunming, my fifth night in a row sleeping on a moving vehicle. Never before had I been more happy to sleep in a bed the next night. It was a good trip. The main goal of seeing Angkor Wat was a complete success. It was a bit rushed. I covered a lot of ground in a short period of time. Two weeks from now I go home to California for Christmas. When I come back to China in January I look forward to being more stationary, getting a job, and not traveling for a while. Since finishing my job three months ago, I've been on five trips, spent 8 our of 12 weeks on the road. I guess you could say I got some of the wanderlust out of my system. I'm sure more travel still lies in store for me in the future, but I think its time to slow down for a while.

Three Recent Trips in Remote Corners of China

2010-11-01T01:51:00.003-07:00

In the last mere seven weeks, I have been on four separate trips inside China. You could say that since leaving my English teaching job I've had more time on my hands. Mind you, three of the four tips were visa- or passport-related. But I still managed to squeeze in travel to distant, beautiful lands on the same trips.

The first one was to Shanghai for Expo. You can read about it already in my last blog entry.

Now, I'll recount the other three trips, in reverse-chronological order.

CHENGDU

The most recent trip was to Sichuan and back. My US passport needed renewal, so I took the train 20 hours north of Kunming to Chengdu (成都), the biggest city in Western China, and home to a US consulate. They've got my passport right now. Hopefully I should get it back within a week or so. I only spent one night in Chengdu, as I'd been there before, on my first China trip back in 2006. I met the cousin of one of my friends from Penn State who's from Chengdu. She and her friend took me around to some interesting spots - a couple of "old town" districts where all the buildings are newly built in a classical style. The architecture and design and environment are all quite lovely, but the commercial function is entirely dominated by upscale restaurants, boutique hotels, art galleries, and expensive souvenir stores. The cousin is a cat lover, and her Chinese nickname is literally "cat cat" (猫猫). I stayed in a sprawling backpacker hostel set around a lovely garden courtyard. There, in the bar in the evening, I got to play the role of China "expert" to several backpackers touring China with no Chinese language skills and needing advice on places to go.

THE SOLDIER

From Chengdu I took a train south to Xichang (西昌), where I would change to a bus headed for Lugu Lake (泸沽湖). The train was 10 hours long, but since I wouldn't be on it all night, I got a regular hard seat rather than a sleeper berth. The train was scheduled to arrive at 1:30 am. Around 11:00 I was tired of my hard seat and wandered down to the dining car to stretch my legs. There, an officer in the People's Liberation Army struck up a conversation with me, and before I knew it I was unwillingly engaged in a drinking contest of sorts with him. Keep in mind that drinking is an inherent part of Chinese culture, especially between males. Binge drinking, that is. Chinese people don't savor their alcohol, they down it. I don't usually enjoy this aspect of Chinese culture, but I decided to go along with it for a while that night since I figured there might be an interesting conversation in it. Indeed there was for a while, until he started getting really drunk and repeating himself.

He was friendly enough, praising America and my Chinese. Among the nicer things he said were that he "loves peace" and hopes America and China will continue their peaceful relationship. But he kept dropping hints that this may be wishful thinking. He said that right now the PLA is preparing for war...with America. And he looked in my eyes and told me that if I, or my country, ever "messes with" (欺负) China, he would shoot me (with this line he made a gun out of his hand and pointed it at my head and made a "boom" sound). I know he was just drunk and speaking nonsense, but still it didn't make me entirely comfortable.

As the conversation went on it was clear that behind what remained of the nice exterior was a man who got great pleasure out of comparing himself to me. He interpreted my inability to keep up with his drinking, or arm wrestle him, as evidence that if China and America ever went to war, China would easily win. At that moment, I wished my childhood friend Jamie Poole, who's now a gunner in the Navy and might stand a chance at beating this man in both drinking and arm wrestling, was there to back me up. Anyway, I didn't exactly want to get in an argument with the guy. I kept searching for ways out of the conversation. He kept repeating the same things over and over again. Like that the cigarettes he was smoking were a special brand, 50 yuan a pack, only available to officers in the military. He showed me pictures of his BMW, bragged about his numerous houses and girlfriends. He kept asking me to introduce him to some sexy western girls (of which I know none in China). His friendly demeanor became absolutely obnoxious, and I finally just worked up the nerve to say thank you, good bye, and left. He got my phone number that night and promised that in Kunming he could do all sorts of favors for me, get me a visa, etc. I haven't heard from since, and I'm glad. He didn't exactly leave me with a good impression of the PLA. I'm not a big proponent of the United States Army, nor do I have any desire to see America and China ever exchange fire, but if they did, I'm not so sure I believe his claim that his side would win.

LUGU LAKE

Arrived in Xichang at 2 am, pretty near drunk from the soldier's beer. Made my way to the bus station across town and checked into a cheap hotel for a short rest before waking up for the bus ride to Lugu Lake in the morning. I'm a lightweight when it comes to drinking. I didn't want to be throwing up the whole bus ride, so I drank several bottles of water before going to bed that night to try to cleanse out the alcohol in my system.

It worked. The next day I had a headache but no throwing up. I felt pretty awful for the first couple hours of the bus ride, but by the time I arrived in Lugu Lake that afternoon I felt fine, fresh, and even full of energy. There's only one bus to Lugu Lake every day, and it was entirely full of tourists, a departure from the experience I'll describe later on of my last trip, where I was the only tourist (let alone foreigner) on the buses I rode, while my fellow passengers were all farmers and peasants. On this bus, I wasn't even the only foreigner. There were two Israelis on board as well.

Lugu Lake is 2600 meters (8500 feet) high in the mountains of Southwestern Sichuan and Northwestern Yunnan provinces (technically the foothills of the Himalaya). In fact, the lake straddles the border of the two provinces. It is a very remote region, 7-8 hours away from the nearest real city in either direction. There is no airport (yet...I hear they're building one now), just one bank, and the local population is only 10,000.

The local people belong to the Mosuo (磨梭) ethnic group, which somehow slipped through when Chinese anthropologists designated the official 56 ethnic groups of China. Instead, they're classified as a sub-group of the Naxi (纳西) people who mostly live in Lijiang (丽江). Although small in number, the Mosuo have quite a reputation. This is mainly because they are one of only a handful of matriarchal societies in the world. The women have most of the power and responsibility in this society. They also have a unique sexual-marriage custom in which the women are free to choose as many male lovers as they want, invite them to spend the night, and then send him walking home the next morning. Hence, the title "walking marriages" (走婚).

When I first arrived I was happy to get off the bus and decided to walk to lake instead of take a minivan taxi. I made the 7 km walk in 1 1/2 hours, walking alongside the extraordinarily beautiful wetlands (called the "grass sea" (草海) in Chinese) that drain into the lake. The combination of the late afternoon sunshine and natural features of the environment formed an incredible palette of colors - bright yellow, green, and blue - that you can appreciate better by visiting my photos on flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthartzell/sets/72157625270950758

I arrived at the lakeshore shortly after sunset, and spent the night in the village of Luowa (落洼). That night I attended the local folk dancing, where 20 Mosuo men and women in full ethnic costume danced, and then invited the tourists to participate. A word about the kind of tourists who I encountered at Lugu Lake. Like most places in China, although there were a handful of foreign tourists, domestic tourists predominated. But unlike many tourist destinations, where domestic tourists come by the busload in matching hats, led like sheep by a megaphone-toting tour guide, these tourists were largely cut from a different cloth: independent Chinese tourists, adventure tourists, outdoor tourists. I interacted with them on a number of occasions - on the bus, on the road, in restaurants, at the nightly folk dancing, and they were by and large interesting people to converse with, having come from the far corners of China to see this unique place, just like me.

After the dancing, I was invited to join a group of people for barbecue. They included Chinese tourists as well as a couple of local Mosuo. One of them, an attractive women, I soon realized, was making not-so-subtle airs at me. Turns out she was a local Mosuo woman, a few years my senior, who calls herself Tigress (母老虎), and that's when I realized the stories of the walking marriages are true. The others at the table were all joking around and egging me on to have a walking marriage with her, which made me quite embarrassed. That what in mainstream culture would be considered promiscuous behavior, or straight up casual sex, is a standard aspect of this culture is a strange idea to get one's mind around, especially since the majority of China is so conservative and shy when it comes to matters of sex.

The next morning I set out to hike around the lake. The lake is encircled by a road on about two-thirds of its shoreline. The other one-third is rugged wilderness. That's the part that I set out to hike. It all started well, with a good solid trail leading me along the rugged lakeshore, up and down the little ridges and jutted into the lake every kilometer or so. But then something happened. Either I lost the real trail, or the trail simply ceased to exist for all intents and purposes. I found myself on very steep terrain, all the while carrying my big backpack on my back. I decided rather than proceed along the dangerous trail less cliff slope, to scale down to the lakeshore instead. From up high it looked like there was narrow strip of land, about a foot wide, on which I could walk along the lake.

When I actually got down to the water level I discovered that I wouldn't get far without my shoes getting totally soaked. So I changed into my flip flops and proceeded. Then I came to a ridge jutting into the lake. It was too steep to scale, so I decided to wade into the lake and go around it. I took of my pants, thinking that would be enough. Turned out it wasn't. The water came up above my waist, soaking my underpants and the bottom of my backpack. Fortunately the water wasn't that cold. I proceeded for some time, alternately walking along the narrow beach and wading into the lake around the ridges, in my underwear. I never saw a single person, exist for some people paddling canoes in the far-off distance. I was never terribly worried, and the scenery the entire time was amazing. Lugu Lake is a deep blue color, and I got some fantastic photos.

Eventually I came to a big clearing, where I took my all my wet clothes and when skinny dipping in the lake while I waited for my clothes to dry. The sun was strong that day so it didn't take long. From this point I could see that continuing along the lakeshore would take a long time, as I was headed along a long peninsula jutting into the lake at by several kilometers. So instead I put my hiking shoes back on and charged up the steep, wooded slope of the ridge. From the top, I was relieved to see that on the other side there were signs of civilization. I found a trail heading down, and in ten minutes time I was in a small village called Liujiao (柳角). That's where I ran into a group of eight young people I'd met earlier that morning in Luowa. They had come by minivan. They were a interesting group of independent travelers who'd met on the road, including people from China, Hong Kong, Korea, and Sweden. I joined them for a lunch of boiled and fried lake fish, then continued on my way.

This time I followed a paved road and made much faster progress. I continued walking for the next several hours, gradually circling around the lake. I passed through a number of villages, saw farmers harvesting bright red chili peppers and loading them into Chengdu market-bound trucks. I felt quite good about the stamina I was keeping up, despite carrying all my luggage on my back. I walked for about 15 kilometers that day, with the aim of getting to a village called Lige (里格) for the night. I was still a few kilometers away from Lige when the sun went down, but a friendly couple in a nice car responded to my hitchhiking thumb and took me the rest of the way. They were from Guangdong, and the wife had gone to college on Australia and spoke fluent English.

Lige was quite a bit more touristy than Luowa or Liujiao. A small village on the side of the lake, with a small wetland, beach, and peninsula, nearly every home in town was a guesthouse-cum-restaurant. But it was a case of supply clearly exceeding demand. I was there in what's considered the low season for tourism. I'm not really sure why because the weather was beautiful. Maybe it's just that when Chinese aren't on their national vacations, few have the time to come to such a remote place as Lugu Lake. The young Chinese tourists I met there were all taking some sort of extended furlough from their jobs or schooling. Also, the road to Lugu Lake is undergoing construction, which makes the journey less appealing.

At night in Lige, as I strolled along the lakeshore promenade, every little restaurant was grilling a whole pig over a spit. I ended up not eating roast pig but roast yak meat. The restaurants were all barbecue style. They give you the raw meat and veggies and you grill it yourself. I went to the folk dancing again that night, and once again met local women who seemed interested in courting me for a walking marriage. This time, three of them. The old ladies all encouraged me to choose the "beautiful girl" I liked the best. This in front of all the Chinese tourists. Once again, thoroughly embarrassed.

Third day, I walked another 11 kilometers to the largest town on the lake, Luoshui (落水). Like Lige, it was over-built with tourist infrastructure and not enough tourists. In both towns, I stayed for $3, and I was the only guest in the hotel. I spent the afternoon hiking up in the hills above Luoshui, and in the evening I met a nice local girl who worked in a handicrafts shop who spoke quite good English and chatted with her for a long time. Eventually I bought several hand woven textiles from her, which are now hanging up in my apartment, making it much more beautiful and cozy. Met a Frenchman at the girl's shop as well. He didn't speak Chinese, so when the girl's English faltered I acted as translator.

The next morning, woke up early at 6:00 am to board the bus to Lijiang (丽江). Due to the road construction, the road is only open to through traffic for a narrow window each morning, hence the early departure time. I sat next to three extremely talkative Chinese young people, and gabbed with them nonstop for the first couple hours. The scenery along the way was spectacular - nonstop mountains and valleys and pastoral farmland. The colors in particular were beautiful, a palette of purple and pastels, golden yellow cornfields in the process of being harvested, sepia and raw umber, and deep forest green, all underneath a deep blue sky.

Spent one night in Lijiang old town, probably the biggest tourist destination in Yunnan province. I'd been there 4 1/2 years before, and stayed in the same guesthouse as before, Mama's Naxi guesthouse. It was full of backpackers, and once again I got to play China expert to them. Next day, took the new train back to Kunming (the train to Lijiang opened less than a year ago).

SOME NOTES ON ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS IN CHINA

In the People's Republic of China there are 33 provinces. Each provinces is divided into prefectures (an administrative level that doesn't exist in the United States). There are 333 prefectures. Each prefecture is divided into counties. There are 2,862 counties in China. Each county is divided into townships and villages. There are 41,636 townships and even more villages. China's transportation network is impressive for a developing country. There are 65,000 kilometers of national-grade highway, second only to the United States. The transportation network does a pretty good job of connecting the far corners of the country, and most prefecturual level capitals are connected by decent highways. But beyond the prefecture level, getting down into county and township levels, the quality of transportation degenerates. Especially in a highly mountainous province like Yunnan.

On this trip I stayed in county-level cities, not townships or villages. But even these county seats were connected by some of the worst roads I've ever traveled on. Albeit, the reason the roads are so poor is that they're under construction. And since this was the rainy season, the rutty dirt roads turned to mud, often two feet deep. Gunning the engine, my bus slowly struggled through the mud, up steep slopes, the rear half of the bus sliding back and forth. At one point, we were stuck for an hour behind a less powerful vehicle which was totally mired down on a muddy slope. It took a giant construction bulldozer to tow it out before we could get through. I feel like in the United States road construction of this nature happens in short segments at a time, so you're inconvenienced for a few km at most. But in China they apparently subject 60 km stretches of road to construction simultaneously.

In California there is little rhyme or reason to the boundaries of counties. They range in population from 1000 (Alpine) to 12 million (Los Angeles), in area from tiny (San Francisco) to huge (San Bernardino). County seats are not necessarily the biggest city in each county. Some county seats are tiny little towns. But in China, most counties are roughly similar in size and population. In other words, the administrators who created them long ago (Chinese county boundaries date back at least several hundred years) did a good job of breaking up the land into manageable pieces. Every county seat is logically the largest city in that county.

There are 16 prefectures in Yunnan province, 129 counties, and 1455 townships.

I've now been to a number of the counties, and I've discovered some patterns. County seats almost always contain a certain minimum level of commerce and services. There are a number of retail chain stores that pop up in almost every county seat I've been to. That's pretty amazing when you think that there are 1000s of these countries across the country. These domestic chain stores selling mostly clothes and shoes and whatnot must have some of the widest networks of any businesses in the world.

Small county seats are great places to stay, I've found. I can get a private room in a hotel for very cheap. 20 RMB ($3) usually gets a room without a bathroom. 30 RMB ($4.50) gets one with in-room bathroom. The towns have plenty of restaurants and are lively places during the day and night. There are usually a few bars and even some nightclubs in some of these small cities. The nicest thing is that they are never too big. I can usually start walking from the center of town, and be out in the countryside in 15 minutes. Since Yunnan is such a mountainous province, there are usually some hills or mountains right outside town, which you can climb for a great view of the city and surrounding area.

Also important for travelers...every county seat has an official long-distance bus station. Every bus station has a map showing all the places you can go from that city. It's almost always a pretty impressive list. Buses will usually connect each county seat with all the other counties within the same prefecture, as well as many other neighboring counties and prefectures. No matter where you are in Yunnan, most county seats have direct buses to the provincial capital Kunming. And then there are the little local routes, that serve the different townships and villages within the county. The quality of the bus obviously ranges quite a lot, from comfortable sleeper buses to Kunming, to rickety mid-sized buses to smaller destinations, to minivans to villages. The Chinese call minivans 面包车, which literally means "bread car" because they think they look like loaves of bread. Unlike the larger scheduled buses, minivans usually only run when they fill up with passengers. Minivan drivers have a stack of destination signs which they'll put in the windshield depending on where they're going.

All this means that as long as you speak and read Chinese you can go pretty much anywhere in the country you want on some form of public transportation. It's really quite remarkable when you think about it. America doesn't come anywhere close. In China, if there's a road, there's a bus that travels on it. You don't have to board the buses at the bus stations either. You can just stand on the side of the road and wait for a bus going in your direction. Buses will almost always stop to pick up extra passengers, regardless of whether there are empty seats or not. Of course, this kind of travel would have been a lot more difficult did I not speak Chinese. Needless to say, everything in these bus stations is in Chinese only.

XISHUANGBANNA-PU'ER-HONGHE TRIP

Now we'll back up a couple weeks on the timeline to my last trip. The main impetus for this trip was to get to the border and get a stamp in my passport. That's because I'm on an annoying Chinese tourist visa right now that only lets me stay in the country for 30 days at a time. So I took a bus bound for Laos, and instead of actually going into Laos and spending any time there, I simply crossed the border, and then re-entered China five minutes later. Sounds like it shouldn't be possible, but it worked. While waiting for the border to open, I met a British man who'd ridden all the way there on his bike from Britain!

Instead of heading straight back to Kunming on the same route I'd come (the fastest route, which is mostly on the expressway), I decided to take a different route back. The route I would take is roughly parallel to the expressway route, but much slower, as the quality of the roads is much much worse. But I traveled through some very interesting countryside and met some interesting people, so it was definitely worth the trip. The route I took passed through territory where very few Chinese tourists go, let alone foreign tourists. There's little in the way of tourist infrastructure or designated tourist sights. The places bear no mention in travel books. And if I didn't speak Chinese, it would be pretty difficult to travel there.

The first stop was Mengla (勐腊) , in the prefecture of Xishuangbanna (西双版纳) , the county seat closest to the Lao border. In this town, all shop signs are written in Chinese, Lao, and English. There is a distinct tropical flavor to the town, with palm tree-lined avenues, and Dai style architecture. The Dai are the main ethnic minority in this region, and they are ethnically, culturally, and linguistically very close to the Thai. In fact, this region of China used to be part of the Kingdom of Thailand, and was only incorporated into China 160 years ago. I wandered outside the town into the surrounded countryside, where the main economic activity is banana plantations. I watched bananas being harvested fresh off the trees and loaded into trucks bound for the rest of China. Papayas, pineapples, and coconuts also grow here, making this one of the main tropical fruit production areas in China.

The next morning bright and early I woke up to catch a 6 am bus to Jiangcheng (江城) . Although the distance was only 120 km or so, it would take nine hours to make the journey, because of the aforementioned road construction. As the bus climbed north, out of the tropical lowlands of Xishuangbanna and into the mountainous tea growing Pu'er. If you're familiar with Chinese tea, you'll recognize the name Pu'er (普洱) , which is both the name of the prefecture and the famous tea that grows there. Jiangcheng's claim to fame is that it is at the confluence of three national borders: Laos, Vietnam, and China. Here, the shop signs reflect that with all three languages, plus English. The town itself had little of interest, but the surrounding mountains, terraced with tea plantations, made for good hiking. A local girl of the Hani ethnic group I met my first day in town took me on a picnic the next day, exploring the tea fields, and even touring a tea processing plant.

Another early morning bus the next day took me along yet another narrow, winding, and in stretches dirt, road through the incredibly dense topography of southern Yunnan, arriving nine hours later in the county seat of Lüchun (绿春) in Honghe (红河) Prefecture. Lüchun is situated atop a narrow mountain ridge. On either side of the one-street city, terraced slopes grow rice and other crops. There's no flat land anywhere in sight. Last day, from Lüchun back to Kunming, about 12 hours total on buses, passing through the famous scenic terraces of Yuanyang, where I'd taken my parents earlier this year in April.

YONGPING-LANPING-DIQING-YONGSHENG TRIP

Backing up another couple weeks on the timeline (between each of the four trips I took in the last seven weeks, I spent a week in Kunming), I made a trip into the mountainous northwest corner of Yunnan province. This trip was made during China's busy national day weeklong holiday, in order to coincide with my friends' Sean, Frank, and Anna Maries' vacation from work. We wanted to avoid the busy tourist spots and go to places with little or no tourism instead. They were going to begin their trip in Weixi (维西), a county seat in Diqing (迪庆) , the North westernmost prefecture in Yunnan, an area close to TIbetan and dominated by Tibetans and other ethnic minorities. I had a couple extra days head start so I took the slow road to Weixi. First I went to Yongping (永平), a county seat in Dali (大理) prefecture. Dali is a famous tourist destination, but only in the old town in the prefectural capital Dali. Yongping is a little-traveled corner of Dali. But it was beautiful. A small town situated in a broad valley, punctuated by a patchwork quilt of farm land and village houses.

From Yongping, headed north to Lanping (兰坪), a county in Nujiang (怒江) prefecture. Sean and I had traveled to Nujiang Valley over New Year's. Lanping, while part of the same prefecture, is not in the same valley. I hiked into the hills above the city, passing through small villages where eager villages were thrilled to meet me. Some kids asked me if I knew "Susan". Who's Susan, I asked? The German lady who passed their village last year. I guess they just assume that we white people all know each other! There was one woman in the village who actually spoke passable English. She's the one who communicated with Germany Susan, who apparently couldn't speak Chinese.

From Lanping, it was north to the pine forested highlands of Diqing, and Weixi county seat, where I met Sean, Greg, and Anna Marie after their 17 hour bus ride from Kunming (I'd done the same trip in 3 days with 6-8 hour bus rides between each stop). Weixi is situated on a mountain and every street is sloped. We set out hiking once again, quickly rising above the city into the hills above, passing through corn fields, small villages, and appreciating grand vistas across the valley to the high mountains beyond. Originally, our plan had been to head from Weixi roughly 30 kilometers west to the Lancang River (as the Mekong River is known in China) Valley. Ever since Sean and I had studied this region on our maps, we'd been dying to get to this valley. It's perfectly parallel to the Nu River Valley where we'd traveled over New Year's, but unlike the Nu River Valley, there was absolutely nothing written about it in any guidebook, nor any photos tagged on Google Earth. I knew the instinct driving us there was the same instinct I had criticized in my Master's Thesis on tourism in the Indian Himalaya two years earlier: the drive to "discover" mysterious lands where "no white person" had been before, and all that nonsense. But although I know the orientalist and even neocolonial connotations embedded in that discourse, it's hard to avoid. There's still a primordial urge to go to places like that.

Yet we didn't make it there, at least on this trip. Once in Weixi, we received news that the entire valley was undergoing construction. The "bread car" minivans were still traveling there (as people who live in the valley needed some way to get in and out), but their fees had skyrocketed because of the hardship conditions of driving there. We decided to save it for another trip and go somewhere else instead. Sean had done some research on the area and suggested we go find a Tibetan Monastery called 达摩祖师洞. I don't know the English name, but when I translate the Chinese name it is "Damo Ancient Master Cave". It is on top of a mountain near the village of Qizong (其宗). Qizong is supposed to be a 60 km drive from Weixi, but the road was closed for construction, so we took a roundabout way of getting there through Judian and Tacheng (塔城), along the Golden Sand River (金沙江), which is the name for the Yangtze River (长江) in these parts.

We didn't really have much information to go on on how to actually find this temple. In fact, at several points on our four hour hike up the mountain that afternoon, Greg, Anna Marie, and I were seriously doubting where it actually existed. But Sean assured us that it did, and in the end he ended up being right. At the bottom of the mountain, an old woman assured us that the temple existed, and that we could spend the night if we just showed up. We started up the mountain at about 4 pm, following a trail. We ventured off the trail on short cuts several times, not really knowing where we were going. Every so often we would pass farm houses and ask the residents if we were on the right track. They would always just point us further up the mountain. Finally, it was starting to get dark, and we still weren't there, and Greg and I were starting to get worried. Just then, some Tibetan monks crossed our paths. They were out for their evening stroll, they said, and their monastery school was just up around the bend. Relieved, we powered up the hill and made it there by dark. The monks in the school were kind and gave us tea, potatoes, and beds to sleep in.

The next morning, they refused the money we offered them for the food and beds. We then continued up to the actual monastery on the very top of the mountain. On the way up, we crossed paths with a group of fifteen old ladies, pilgrims who said they come to this monastery every year on pilgrimage. They were very friendly and chatty, and spoke semi-understandable Mandarin. They also had amazing old bodies and hiked up that mountain as fast as we did. I later calculated on Google Earth that we climbed about 1000 meters from the bottom of that mountain to the monastery on top. Reaching the monastery at the top, we were in awe. The monastery was a perfect specimen of Tibetan classical architecture: The white temple built into the rock cliff face of the mountains, Tibetan prayer flags fluttering in the wind, and the view from the top of the mountain encompassing miles and miles of mountains, valleys, and the Jinsha River below. Inside the monastery, we met monks and listened to their prayers, songs, and music. We joined the Tibetan ladies in their circumambulation of the mountain, and since we hadn't adequately packed food or water for the journey, they graciously shared theirs with us. The Damo Ancient Master Cave Monastery was definitely one of the highlights of my travels in China.

That afternoon we headed down the mountain, finding a quicker route down than the one we'd taken up. We spent the night in Qizong, then the next morning headed to Lijiang, the nearest major city. Being right in the middle of the National Holiday golden week, Lijiang was throbbing with tourists. We stayed there a couple hours, then moved on. Next destination was Yongsheng (永胜) County, in the eastern part of Lijiang (丽江) Prefecture. Next morning, Sean and I hiked down a steep slope into a beautiful valley where the farmers were busy harvesting rice. As a result of each field being in a different state of harvest, the valley was a patchwork quilt (sorry I know I already used that metaphor earlier, but it's really the only suitable one I can think of) of chartreuse, yellow, and brown. We met a farmer, who took us to his (very dilapidated) house and gave us a tour. We talked to several farmers who were performing various harvesting tasks in the fields: cutting the rice with tractor like machines, shaking the rice stalks by hand into big woven baskets, running the rice kernels through threshing machines to remove their hulls, packing the finished rice into bags to be put on the market. Finally, a night bus back to Kunming brought this trip to a close.

2010 Shanghai World Expo

2010-09-24T23:09:00.001-07:00

Preview: See my Expo pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthartzell/sets/72157624877847499/

KUNMING to HONG KONG to SHANGHAI

The last two weeks were the longest I've been away from Kunming, and the longest I've been away from work, in the last year. Quitting my job was the first step (I'd grown tired of teaching English, and wanted more time to study Chinese, travel, and do other things). First, I needed to go to Hong Kong to get a new visa. I took the train from Kunming to Guangzhou, sharing a compartment with four Swedes who are doing their hydrolic engineering masters projects in China, planning dams in Myanmar. They don't speak any Chinese, so I played translator between them and the curious Chinese passengers sitting next to us, which is always fun. 26 hours to Guangzhou, then changed trains to Shenzhen, walked across the border to Hong Kong, took the MTR into Kowloon, and got to the Chungking Mansions just after midnight.

I'd been to Hong Kong twice already, and so there wasn't much left for me to see or do this time. Since Hong Kong is considerably more expensive than mainland China, and the weather still beastly hot and humid this time of year, I spent as little time there as possible, getting my visa and getting out.

Next stop: Shanghai, where I stayed for a week. My main reason for going was to see the World Expo. Also to visit some friends who I made when I lived there last year.

WORLD EXPO BACKGROUND

The Expo, otherwise known as the World's Exposition or World's Fair, has been held every few years, since the 1850s. For its first 100 years it was a big deal. A handful of World's Fairs stand out in history New York 1964, San Francisco 1939, Paris 1893, Chicago 1873. World's Fairs frequently came up in my history classes at Harvard, often as examples of the cultural manifestations of imperialism. After all, early world's fairs were basically an opportunity for the metropoles of Europe to show off the spoils of their empires. Natives from the far corners of the world were put on display in exhibits for Europeans to gawk at, not unlike animals at a zoo. The fairs were celebrations of Orientalism, of exoticism. The world's geography condensed into a few acres and represented in a variety of symbolic and commoditized forms. They were also demonstration grounds for rich and powerful countries to show off their scientific, technological, economic, and political achievements.

This was all in the back of my mind when I decided to make the 2010 World's Exposition in Shanghai my first World's Fair. During the time I lived in Shanghai last year, the Expo was already being heavily promoted all over the city, in advertisements, billboards, subway stations, and with the silly-looking mascot "Haibao". I felt I needed to see the finished product for some closure.

First of all, I have to give China credit for creating what is undoubtedly the largest Expo the world has ever seen, simply in terms of the size, scope, and attendance. Occupying more then five square kilometers on both sides of the Pu River in Shanghai, the grounds are truly immense. It took me three days to see most of what I wanted to see, and there was still a good deal that I didn't see. The grounds are a city unto themselves, with bus lines, ferry lines, and even a subway. Total visitors for the six month expo are expected to exceed 70 million. On the days I was there, the daily totals were around 300,000. And I was there during the middle of the week, during the off-peak period (intentionally, I might add).

More countries participated in this Expo than in any other in history. The only countries I could identify that did not participate were The Vatican, Andorra, and Bhutan. On the flip side, participation was seen from the entire "Axis of Evil"—Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Afghanistan was there. As was not-yet-technically-a-state Palestine. Every tiny little Pacific Island nation was there. And Europe's barely-there states San Marino, Monaco, and Liechtenstein were there too. Every African country was there, most of them housed inside one giant "joint" pavilion. Actually, every continent featured a joint pavilion for those countries not rich enough to afford their own pavilions. I'm told these were subsidized by the Chinese in order to increase the number of participants.

In addition to all the country pavilions, which are laid out mostly according to geography in continent-themed regions, there were a number of other buildings, buildings, and parks. Several "urban-themed" pavilions promoted the overall theme of the Expo, which was a rather vague concept of urban sustainability and development. Then there were the corporate pavilions. And then there were several dozen world cities which built their own pavilions promoting "case studies" in urban development.

The grounds themselves, I have to say, were very well planned. Public restrooms were everywhere. Water stations were also everywhere, with not just drinking fountains but spigots for filling empty bottles with water, for free. Smoking was restricted to a small zone behind each public restroom. Given that smoking restrictions are rarely enforced in China, I was pretty impressed that they were strictly enforced at the Expo (this was made easier by the fact that all lighters were confiscated at the security check). The buildings were all air-conditioned using low-energy technology. The areas that weren't air-conditioned often had water misters, shade structures, and shade trees. Six ferry routes ran back and forth across the river. Apart from the immense size, the grounds were very walkable. Most of the pavilions were located in areas restricted to pedestrian use. To get across the grounds, you have to cross some streets, but the only traffic on them was buses and golf-cart like trams. A network of elevated walkways circulated throughout the grounds, offering a great view of the pavilions below.

In terms of food available at the Expo, it was perhaps one of the greatest concentrations of international cuisine found anywhere in the world. Most of the pavilions included a cafe or restaurant, and on the menu were authentic dishes from their respective countries. This wasn't just carnival food, but real dishes cooked by chefs from the countries. Wine and beer from around the world also flowed freely. None of this came cheap, though. Dinner at the Norway pavilion and France pavilion ran around 450 yuan, or $70. I ate at random array of international food: Russian piroshkies, Iranian saffron icecream, Sri Lankan samosas, Uruguayan pastries, and Bolivian empanadas. For my other meals, I mostly ate at the Chinese restaurants were also scattered throughout the park, and far cheaper. There were also dozens of convenience stores within the Expo grounds, which themselves sold meals, cheap drinks and snacks, and even sushi. It's easy to spend a lot of money at the Expo, but not necessary.

My ticket cost 400 yuan ($60) for three day. Considering the magnitude and uniqueness of the event, I think it was money well spent. I'm sure some people might have gone into the Expo with very high expectations and come away disappointed. International visitors probably only accounted for about 5% of overall visitors, meaning this was mostly a Chinese event. Consequently, a lot of the content of the pavilions themselves was mostly aimed at a domestic audience more interested in snapping pictures and collecting stamps in their Expo "passports" than in truly gaining much in-depth knowledge about the countries of the world.

But then again, I'm not sure any Expo is ever so much about knowledge as it is about spectacle, sensation, and image. The Chinese tourists at the Expo were clearly drawn to the pavilions with the greatest sign value. That is, the pavilions with the most dazzling designs and exteriors, which also happened to be the pavilions of the rich countries of the world.

The countries I'm referring to are pretty much all of Western Europe, Japan, Korea, the US, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. These pavilions had lines lasting several hours, with Saudi Arabia taking the cake with lines lasting 6-8 hours. Waiting in such a line was unthinkable to me, and, I imagine, most international visitors. Which is probably why the Expo has earned more criticism than praise in many of the international reviews and blogs.

One blog I read, however, was wise in pointing out that the long lines were not so much the fault of the Chinese organizers of the Expo as they were of the foreign designers of the individual national pavilions. These designers should have anticipated the huge crowds their pavilions would surely attract. But instead of designing their pavilions to accommodate such crowds, they designed them as monuments to their own artistic ambition instead. The result was pavilions that look awesome on the outside, but which simply could not handle the crowds. Usually the culprit was some sort of orientation video shown upon entering the pavilion. The pavilion could only hold as many people as could fit into the theater at once, creating bottlenecks and stationary lines that only budged every several minutes when the film went through its next cycle.

Impatient western visitors balked at the lines that formed at the most popular pavilions. At to that the stifling heat of summer in Shanghai, and its no wonder many visitors went away with negative impressions. Many of those who waited in line to finally get inside the pavilions had little to say about the pay-off...the actual contents of the pavilions. I for one decided I had no real need to see any of the popular Western European pavilions, since I have been to most of those countries in person, and nothing inside a pavilion in Shanghai could compare to the real thing.

But for the Chinese masses, the Expo is quite a different thing. I read an article which quoted a old farmer who traveled all the way from Sichuan to visit the Expo, and who waited patiently in line for hours to see all the most popular pavilions. He was quoted explaining that he has lived through war, famine, and cultural revolution, and thus a few hours in line was nothing to him. On the other hand, the pay-off for him was tremendous. He has never been, nor will ever go abroad, so for him the chance to see real life people from around the world, to see images and objects from around the world was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

If you view the Expo through the eyes of people like the farmer from Sichuan, it makes a lot more sense. This is not so much an international event where the different countries of the world come to interact and share ideas and promote global consciousness. Instead, this was a Chinese event where the world comes to China to offer the Chinese a brief glimpse of their countries. Considering that for much of its history, both ancient and modern, China was a ethnocentric country closed off to the rest of the world, this in itself is quite an achievement. The national government and Shanghai municipal government spent a fortune to put on this event, with a price tag running far higher than the Olympic in Beijing two years ago. But unlike the Olympics, which were mainly meant to show off China to the rest of the world, this was an event meant to show off the rest of the world to China.

Consequently, foreign visitors who travel halfway around the world just to see this Expo might be let down. But for me, as a foreigner living in and closely following China's development, it was definitely a worthwhile experience. The overall impression I came away with is that the Chinese are very much interested in the world outside their borders. But they are more interested in breadth than depth. Nearly every Chinese visitors had an Expo "passport", and set about to collect as many stamps as possible. Waiting in line for hours to see a single pavilion was not the most efficient way to collect stamps, but visiting the African joint pavilion, for instance, one could collect dozens of stamps in a mere hour. Of course, most of these stamps would come from countries these visitors had never heard from. I observed inside the African pavilion as Chinese visitors raced around the giant warehouse-like structure containing more than 40 countries' pavilions, getting one passport stamp after another, and only pausing to take pictures next to curiosities such as stuffed gorillas.

It didn't seem to help cross-cultural communication much that most of the representatives of the different countries didn't seem to speak Chinese. I was a little surprised by this, figuring that Chinese language is now popular enough that finding Chinese speakers from the far corners of the globe shouldn't be that hard. But the reality was most countries had both staff from that country, and Chinese staff to serve as interpreters. When I went to the American pavilion on my last day, and encountered fresh-faced American college graduates speaking fluent Mandarin, it was only impressive because I'd encountered so little of that in the other pavilions. That said, most of the foreign nationals spoke at least enough Chinese to haggle over souvenir and handicrafts. As I discovered, for many countries the Expo is a commercial opportunities to sell knickknacks. Nearly every country pavilion had a store selling that country's local products, and the Chinese visitors were in a very spend-happy mood.

INSIDE THE COUNTRY PAVILIONS

Apart from the souvenir stands and passport stamping stations, what exactly did these pavilions contain? To be honest, it was mostly pretty humdrum. Usually there would be a bit of stylized interior decorating, representing the traditional architectural styles of that country. If the country had some famous animals or natural scenery or industry there would be displays representing those features. Lots of blown-up photographs and maps, scale models featuring planned or new development, even economic statistics about that country's development. Many countries boasted of their ties with China, with photos of dignitaries receiving, or being received by Chinese officials. Some of the more astute countries traced their ties with China back several hundred years. One example is Somalia. Now, the present day Somalian state is a recent creation of colonialism, but this region of Africa has been in contact with Chinese traders and sailors for hundreds of years. A nice map display illustrated this fact.

In general, the information one could glean from some country's pavilion was little more than one could gather from reading that country's encyclopedia entry. And the design was in many cases pedestrian. Clichés and national stereotypes abounded. But what do you expect when you try to condense the entire world into a fairground? My guess is this criticism could apply equally to World Expos throughout history. If many country's pavilions resembled tourism and investment advertisements, can you really blame them? Most of the countries whose pavilions I visited are poor. If just one out of every 1000 Chinese visitors who passes through their pavilion actually learns the name of their country, registers it in their consciousness, and considers traveling there or investing there in the future, its probably worth that country's while.

I'll share an anecdote from the Cape Verdean pavilion. Most of the African pavilions had short lines for passport stamping that moved efficiently. A slightly bored-looking African man or woman would stamp the passport, maybe exchange a "ni hao", and that would be it. But in the Cape Verde pavilion, the passport stamper actually spoke Chinese. He made a point of trying to engage every visitors who passed through his passport line in conversation. He would quiz them with questions in Chinese such a "Where is Cape Verde?", or "Do you even know which country's pavilion this is?". I thought this was great fun, and I stroke up a conversation with the young Cape Verdean. Turns out he lives in Chongqing where he studies Chinese. He seemed relieved to meet someone who was actually interested in his country, and gave me a book and DVD about tourism and investment opportunities in his country....all in Chinese. I thought the Expo could have used more participants like him.

Most of the pavilions I visited contained mediocre content. But there were a few stand-outs which I'll now describe.

ALGERIA was one of the few African countries which had its own pavilion. The interior was a maze of passageways recreating the ambiance of a bazaar in Casbah. Visitors wind their way through the bazaar, then climb up a staircase where they can see the "rooftops" of the bazaar. On these the cell-like rooftops of the bazaar is projected a video flyover of Algeria, showing its ancient cities, desert landscapes, and modern cities. The final exhibition room featured maps and exhibits on different cities in Algeria, their urban form, and urban amenities.

MOROCCO featured a beautiful pavilion. The outside resembled a palace or mosque. Inside was a large atrium, pool, and luxuriantly detailed interior design. The second floor featured several exhibits demonstrating traditional crafts and trades, such as mosaics, basket weaving, woodworking, and metalwork. The third floor was a 360 degree movie showing scenes of modern Morocco. Elevating the pavilion in my esteem was the fact that there were no vendors hawking knickknacks.

OMAN was one of the few "rich oil countries" without a long line to get in (Saudi Arabia and the UAE had hours-long lines). The large pavilion was very well done, with exhibits on the geography, economy, crafts, and future development of Oman. Real life Omanis did demonstration craft-making. I learned that Oman is the world's most important producer of frankincense, and admired the frankincense tree in the center of the pavilion, as well as the actual frankincense aroma filling the pavilion from real burning frankincense.

CHILE's pavilion was one of my favorites. It earns points both for its content and its design. A giant wooden egg occupies the center of the large hall, and walkways wind up and around the building taking visitors through a variety of multimedia rooms presenting different aspects of urban experience. The content here is not very country-specific, but more universal, focusing on the phenomenon of urbanization in general, and posing philosophical questions to the visitors such as "If no one knows anyone, then why live in a city?"

NEW ZEALAND's pavilion was also high on my list. Simple concept, but well executed and highly sensory. One walks on a winding pathway surrounding my video screens showing a cross section of every day life in New Zealand, both urban and natural, all while listening to an infectious New Zealand reggae beat. Eventually, one reaches the top of the building, and walks out onto the roof, which is an eco-style roof covered in grass and greenery.

HUNGARY gets points for its uniqueness. Inside there is little about the country itself. Instead the visitor is thrust into a "forest" of wooden beams suspended from the ceiling. The beams are flexible and can be pushed and pulled as the visitors wanders through the "forest".

NETHERLANDS was one of the few West European countries without an endlessly long line, and thus one of the few Western European countries whose pavilion I visited. The pavilion was architecturally inspired by the modular housing found in many Dutch cities. Colorful cubical rooms set at cockeyed angles are connected in a sort of 3D modernist sculpture, and the visitor winds around the rooms, each containing objects of interest, on a walkway that swoops in and down and up and around the different rooms. On the ground floor, a simulated pasture with sheep provides space for families and their children to rest.

USA pavilion mainly gets points from me because I admire the volunteers who speak fluent Mandarin inside. The pavilion itself is a series of large auditorium, each presenting a different short video. The first is rather amusing; it features a cross-section of Americans trying to speak Chinese. The second is pure corporate propaganda. After introductions from Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, we meet PR representatives from Chevron, GE, and Citibank who talk about community values and sustainable development. Next we watch a cute video about a girl who starts a garden in an abandoned lot in New York City. Finally we enter a room full of information about America's corporations. Since Congress doesn't allow government funding of US Expo pavilions, funding had to come entirely from corporations, which is why the pavilion feels like a big advertisement. It also gets points for the queueing area, which is pleasantly situated under shade trees, and within earshot of a stage featuring country and blues performers from the States. To top it off, a cowboy in stilts wanders through the crowd taking pictures with delighted Chinese children.

I should probably say a word or two about some of the more infamous pavilions at the Expo. Much has been made of the fact that the North Korean pavilion is located right next to the Iranian pavilion. Did the Expo planners have "international nuclear pariah-ism" in mind when they put these two next to each other? That's unclear, but the geopolitics of another pavilion location are unmistakable: Although Taiwan does get its own pavilion, which is an admission from the Chinese of its separateness from the rest of China, it is conveniently situated right next to, and under the watchful gaze of, the much larger Chinese national pavilion. And don't assume that its separate pavilion is an admission of its status as an independent state. Hong Kong and Macau, which are very much legitimate parts of China today, also get their own pavilions. Other than Taiwan, the only other not-exactly-a-state with its own pavilion is Palestine.

The NORTH KOREA pavilion contains a rather odd assortment of displays. A fountain with chreubish naked babies, walls and ceiling painted with rainbows and angels are the centerpieces. Surprisingly the only images of "Dear Leader" to be found are on the books for sale in the bookshop. Other pavilions of countries run by dictators are not so subtle. Zimbabwe features a big portrait of Mugabe, and IRAN of Ahmedinejad. Iran's pavilion was actually quite nice inside. A large mosque-like atrium, lots of exhibits about Iranian geography, culture, history, and economy. A scale model of a nuclear reactor. And lots of Persian carpet salesmen. There were no Iranian women inside the pavilion, and the Chinese women who stood in their place were dressed in conservative Muslim clothes and headscarves. I asked one if she liked wearing these clothes, and she said no, but it was her work uniform so she had no choice. An Iranian cafe on the second floor sold snacks and saffron ice cream.

Although I didn't wait in any of the long lines to get into the biggest, most popular pavilions, I was able to appreciate the exterior architecture and design of these pavilions. Many pavilions were simply a box dressed up with a creative shell. The richest countries (namely Europe, Saudi, Japan, etc) actually designed their pavilions from scratch, with styles ranging wildly from neoclassical to postmodern to space-age. Some ugly, some beautiful, it would be a waste of time to describe them in words here. Instead, just go to my flickr page and see the photos for yourself:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthartzell/sets/72157624877847499/

CORPORATE PAVILIONS

In addition to the country pavilions were three other types of pavilions: the Corporate pavilions, the Theme pavilions, and the Urban Best Practices case pavilions. I spent significant time exploring the latter two of the three.

From the outset, I had no interest in the corporate pavilions, which I imagined to be nothing more than fancy advertisements. When I ventured over to the Puxi side of the river, where the corporate pavilions are located, I was surprised to find that they too had hours-long lines. Why would anyone wait in line to see an advertisement? Because the pavilions looked cool, and because inside, I'm told, were "4D" movies. 4D was a new term for me. Apparently it means a 3D film with extra sensory effects, such as wind or water or motion. I believe Disneyland already entered this category years ago with shows such as "Captain EO" and "Honey I Shrunk the Audience". But apparently Chinese tourists are willing to wait 2 hours to see a 5-minute 4D film sponsored by China Petroleum. Most of the corporations represented were domestic and state-owned companies. Coca Cola was the only Western one I recognized. The only corporate pavilion I visited was that of China Railways, which was well worth it. After the 3D movie (merely 3D!) I spent considerable time exploring the many exhibits, which tell the story of railroading in China from the beginnings over 100 years ago, to the magnificent near future. China already has the longest and fastest high-speed railway network in the world, and it is set to expand exponentially in coming years. When I took the train back to Kunming from Shanghai, it took 38 hours. After the new high speed line is completed in a few years, it will take only 8 hours! I was also fascinated by a map of the future planned rail network in China, particularly the southwestern corner. Currently, Kunming mainly an outpost of the national rail network, with the majority of connections being to bigger cities to the east and north. The only line extending further into Yunnan province from Kunming is the line to the tourist centers of Dali and Lijiang. But according to the map on display here, Kunming will soon see lines branching out in several directions, serving the far corners of Yunnan province, as well as new rail links to Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam.

THEME PAVILIONS

I was quite excited to see what the Theme Pavilions had in store, as the theme of this Expo was "Better City, Better Life". In other words, urban planning. There were five theme pavilions in all, each focusing on a different aspect of urbanism: Pavilion of Footprint, Pavilion of Future, Pavilion of City Being, Pavilion of Urban Planet, and Urbanian Pavilion (yes, the English names sound a bit Chinglishy). Together, these theme pavilions occupied several million square feet of space. City Being, Urban Planet, and Urbanian together occupied the largest building at the Expo. And Footprint and Future each occupies a historical building that was retrofitted for use in the Expo (Future occupies a power plant dating from 1897, and the new pavilion retains all the old features of the old power plant, including the smokestack). I was very curious to see what the Chinese Expo planners could possibly say about urbanism that requires so much space and five separate pavilions.

The result, at least as far as content is concerned, was disappointing. I came away feeling these pavilions used a lot of space to say very little. They could have easily condensed everything into just one or two pavilions. Instead what they built were massive buildings with massive rooms and not a lot inside them. Actually, from a sensorial perspective, the pavilions were kind of cool. Not often does one have the chance to wander through such humongous, cavernous spaces in factory-size buildings. A lot of the content was highly visual: 360 degree movies, floor-to-ceiling displays, blow-up scenes of cities and architecture and maps. One room featured giant books and video projections that made it seem as if the "pages" of the books were being flipped through.

The theme of the Urban Footprint museum was urban history. Visitors walked through movie set-like reconstructions of ancient Rome, Babylon, China. It was kind of Disneyland-like, and there wasn't much substance to any of it.

Urban Future was a little more interesting. Visitors are presented with the history of urban planning and urban utopias imagined over the last hundred years. Thus we get information about Howard's Garden City, Le Corbusier's modernism, etc. As I've studied urban planning and urban history, none of this was new to me, but I imagine for the vast majority of Expo visitors it was quite novel. But then the theme deviates from reality, and we are given five ideas of "future cities" as imagined by children today Ecological City, Smart City, Water City, Space City, and Energy City. Each idea has a room and movie dedicated to it, but it is all the stuff of science fiction and bares no relation to actual city planning.

City Being seemed pointless to me. A huge room resembling a train station. A 360 degree theater showing slices of life from 5 different cities around the world. That was it. The theater was cool, but it could have been condensed with one of the other pavilions.

Urban Planet was the one focused on environmental issues. Against, nothing new here for anyone who follows green planning. But for the average Chinese visitor, probably pretty useful. Lots of visual displays illustrating different kinds of pollution. A giant spinning earth that is the image of high tech projectors which show the earth from many different perspectives geomorphological, hydrological, ecological, sociological. A surround theater showing the evolution of a civilization from primitive origins, to medieval marketplace, to industrial metropolis, to post-industrial ruins, to rejuvenated future ecological haven.

Urbanian Pavilion was the best of the five theme pavilions. Visitors are introduced to six families from six continents. They represent a cross section of race and social class found in our world. We then follow them through five different themed rooms, each focusing on a different aspect of urban life: Home, Work, Connection, Education, and Health and Recreation. These themes are mostly represented through videos. Although there are a lot of images to process, the rooms are very well designed with moving projections screens and clever angles and perspectives, allowing the visitor to both focus on each family's story, and compare the families at the same time. In between the five theme rooms the visitor walks through corridors filled with urban infrastructure built out of entirely recycled materials.

URBAN BEST PRACTICES CASE PAVILIONS

Dozens of cities from around the world built their own pavilions at the Expo. They are called "case studies" in "urban best practices". A diverse array of cities are on display, from rich to poor, developing world to developed. Each one focuses on a particular successful aspect of that city's planning or environment that is meant to serve as an example for others. The cities include London, Madrid, Liverpool, Pondicheery, Montreal, Bremen, Freiburg, Guangzhou, Ahmedabad, Rotterdam, Sao Paulo, Tianjin, Ningbo, Seoul, Cairo, Bologna, Shenzhen, Malmo, Prague, Beijing, Taipei, San Francisco, Alsace, Vancouver, Mecca, Madrid, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Xi'an, Osaka, Paris, Hamburg, Bilbao, Barcelona, and Rhones-Alpes. Some contain nothing more than some picture and charts, while others rival some of the Expo's national pavilions in size and scope (and cost). Madrid, for example, boasts an enormous three floor pavilion, and London built a 100% ZED (zero energy design) facility, including a restaurant where the cutlery are edible. There was a lot of information on display here. I didn't have enough time to get more than a cursory understanding, but I think this was one of the stronger areas of the this Expo, and hopefully will leave some lasting impressions on visitors. Then again, the mere fact that a given city earned a spot in the "Urban Best Practices" area doesn't mean that city really deserves the honor. I have a feeling many of the Chinese cities on display (ahem, Beijing) were here more because of political connections than actual sustainable environmental urban practices

With that I'll bring this blog entry to a close. I spent a busy three days at the Shanghai 2010 World Expo. My feet were killing me at the end of each day. I faced heat and crowds and didn't get a chance to go to the most popular pavilions because the lines were so long. Visiting the China pavilion was out of the question. One had to procure a separate ticket, which meant either lining up in the wee hours of the morning, or having political connections. But I'm glad I went to the Expo. I'm not sure that this Expo will necessarily go down in history like Expos past in London, Paris, and Chicago did. But it is definitely a significant event in China's modern history, a sort of coming-out party. If the Olympics were about displaying China's might and prowess to the world, the overall theme of the Expo was a bit more embracing. This was a chance for China to take another incremental step towards the internationalization and opening-up that has been ongoing for the last 30 years. Much of it may be contrived and staged and clichéd but that doesn't detract from the fact that this was an opportunity for people from nearly every country in the world to interact and learn a little more about each other.

Reminder: see my Expo pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthartzell/sets/72157624877847499/

one chinese character

2010-07-04T16:56:00.001-07:00

Came across this character in my dictionary the other day. I thought the long list of possible meanings was pretty amusing, ranging "elite" to "energy" to "sperm" to my favorite..."mythical goblin spirit"

精 jīng
essence
extract
vitality
energy
semen
sperm
mythical goblin spirit
highly perfected
elite
proficient (refined ability)
extremely (fine)
selected rice (archaic)

Interesting Things I've Learned From My Students

2010-06-24T20:30:00.001-07:00

ABOUT MY STUDENTS

Thought I’d blog a bit about my teaching experiences so far in Kunming. Specifically, about some of my students themselves. Since I’m not one of those tell-all bloggers out to paint people’s reputations forever in cyberspace, so I won’t use any names.

First a bit about English education in China. Beginning in primary or junior middle school, every student in China studies English. But the English instruction they receive in their private schools is shoddy. They are taught mostly by Chinese teachers, in Chinese, and focus on reading English rather than speaking it. So millions of Chinese parents send their children to supplemental English language classes outside of their public schools. There are thousands of these private schools across the country, dozens of schools in Kunming alone. I teach at the most expensive one in Kunming. Students pay a whopping 18,000 RMB a year (almost $3000, a typical annual salary for many Chinese) to study at this school.

The classes I teach usually just have one or two students. As a result, I get to talk to these students quite a bit. With the more interesting ones, I like to talk about their lives, their plans, their backgrounds, their thought processes. I’ll share some of what I’ve gleaned from them below in some brief descriptions and anecdotes.

RICH KIDS

Needless to say, the majority of my students are pretty well-off, either children of wealthy parents, or successful, self-made businessmen and women. They’re divided roughly into thirds: high school students, college students, and adult professionals. The first two groups, almost invariably, have their tuition paid for by their parents. A small number of students are not so well-off; they just really care about their ability to speak English, and work very hard to realize their goals.

The rich kids are usually quite evident. When they form example sentences, they talk about their cars, their family’s social position, and their many houses. Many have traveled extensively around the world. One visited 17 European countries in 2 months.

One student plans to be a doctor. To help people, I ask? No, he wants to be a plastic surgeon, make a lot of dough. A lot of Chinese women want to get their eyelids, noses, and breasts done; it’s a growing market, he informs me.

One student is 19. She does not go to university because she doesn’t like studying. After graduating from high school, her well-connected father got her job working at the business desk of a 4-star international hotel. She lasted there for 50 days. Now her father will set her up in with her own import/export business. Curious how she planned to handle this, I asked her some questions about trade, economic, and geography. She hadn’t a clue. Either her father is nuts and her business will flop, or he’ll fill all the important positions with people who know what they’re doing, and she’ll be a figurehead collecting a paycheck.

I have two students who grew up in Myanmar. Neither one is Burmese; both are Chinese and neither speaks a word of Burmese. One’s family has houses all over Southeast Asia. The father is a businessman who extracts Burmese minerals and lumber. A lot of Yunnan businesspeople have ties to the neighboring countries in Southeast Asia, where labor and resources are both cheaper than in China, and where governments often welcome Chinese direct investment.

The rich kids invariably plan to go abroad to continue their educations. The majority of them will not do so based on merit alone, but on account of their family’s money. There are loads of 2nd- and 3rd-tier universities in the US, Canada, and Europe happy to take mediocre foreign students as long as they can pay their own way. It’s surprising how many of these universities that I’ve barely ever heard of have recruiting operations in China. The cynic in me wonders how much these students will actually take away from a study abroad experience in the United States. A lot of their English is really not that great. I’ve seen it before...once in the US they tend to socialize mainly with other Chinese foreign students (not really griping...after all Americans do the exact same thing when they study abroad).

The professionals are often more interesting. Unlike the rich kids, they actually have some idea how the real world works. It makes for more interesting conversations in class. A number of my students are quite successful in their fields – engineering, investors, businesspeople, vice president, CEOs. Interestingly, their English is often sub-par compared with the younger students, as they’ve been out of school for many years and their once-learned English skills have gotten rusty.

Some of the professionals include:
• the vice president of a software college, who overseas hundreds of staff and thousands of students.
• A communications engineer/project manager whose Chinese company will send him to Moscow next month (I was never quite clear why he was studying English instead of Russian)
• A surgeon at the top hospital in Kunming
• The CEO of a travel agency with operations across the world
• A guy who sells credit insurance to Yunnan’s exporters. His wealth of information about what gets exported from Yunnan is very illuminating: among them, chili peppers to Mexico, mechanical equipment to Myanmar and Vietnam, and snow peas and mushrooms to Europe.

SEX

One of my better students dreams of working in a foreign company in China. She doesn’t want to be one of the 60% of Chinese people who work in State Owned Enterprises (SOEs). I’d been under the impression that the SOEs were dinosaurs left over from the old days, quickly being phased out, hardly popular with today’s youth. But she assured me that plenty of young Chinese still see the SOEs as appealing, a source of stability, and possibly even a job that exists merely on paper, providing a salary without requiring any real work. She doesn’t want to work at the SOEs because she says the business culture is depraved and corrupt. She says it’s common knowledge that if a man wants a promotion, he must exploit connections or else bribe his bosses. And if a woman wants a promotion, she must have sex with her boss. When I commented about this pitiful situation for the women of China’s state-owned companies, she responded that the women weren’t forced to have sex with their bosses; in fact, they were more than willing to. She describes an internship she had with China Mobile. Her boss clearly wanted her to have sex with him. He never said as much directly, but it was pretty obvious. Filing a complaint was simply not an option. Sexual harassment laws exist in China, but they are not enforced. She quit instead. This student is remarkably poised and strong-willed. Her upbringing is surely at least partly responsible. Her mother, a nurse by profession, raised her differently than many Chinese women raise their daughters. She says her mother always treated her like a friend, and involved her in all family decisions. She also talked to her about sex when she was a teenager, something extremely rare in China.

Sex in China is still a taboo subject and most Chinese people receive no formal sex education at all. That doesn’t mean they don’t have sex. It just means they don’t know the basic facts that everyone should know. And that Chinese almost never discuss sex. As a result, too many Chinese people have unprotected sex, and AIDS is spreading fast. Rather than appreciate men who use condoms, women think that men who use condoms are players and untrustworthy. Women think that they cannot have sex during their period. Advertisements in magazines and on buses peddle sketchy products designed to enlarge their breasts. And men think that eating extract of tiger penis will enlarge their penises. Accidental births are widespread, but so are abortions. The government practically gives them out for free. American conservatives would be up in arms – definitely no parental notification. They’re necessary, though, because unmarried pregnancies are basically forbidden. Mothers cannot register their babies’ birth if there is no legal husband.

The degree to which sex is taboo is all the more confounding given the degree to which sex so thoroughly pervades so much of life in China. Prostitution is rampant throughout the country, which thinly-disguised, pink-lit “hair salons” serving as brothels as if the whole of China were Amsterdam’s Red Light District. I was embarrassed when my parents came to visit, and the hotel rooms in which we stayed came with placards advertising “24 hour in-room massage services”. Though my mother doesn’t read Chinese, she figured it out; the picture of the sexy girl tipped her off.

The Chinese internet is plastered with stories of the rapidly changing attitudes towards sex amongst the younger generation. Whereas a mere 30 years ago, premarital sex was virtually nonexistent, it is now the norm. And not just with college students, but with high school and middle school students. One survey of high school students by the Chinese media revealed that 70% believe there is nothing wrong with premarital sex and one-night-stands.

One gets the impression that adultery is a fixture of Chinese modern life. Successful men view it as their natural right to maintain mistresses on the side. I know a 21 year old woman who is married to a 32 year old television executive. She knows he sleeps with all sorts of women in the entertainment industry, so she is out to start an affair of her own. At first, she pursued me, and when she realized I wasn’t interested she moved on to my friend.

In China, it’s a well known fact that real estate agents, invariably young attractive women, will have sex with prospective clients in order to sell houses. Same for sales representatives of nearly every commodity.

With all the sex happening, it seems pretty crazy that no one is willing to talk about it at all. It certainly doesn’t seem very healthy for society.

LOVE

Chinese attitudes towards love also diverge strongly from those in the West. In one of my large classes, I distributed a survey to measure my students’ attitudes towards love and marriage. I was surprised to find that what students look for in love and in marriage are quite different. Many expressed the sentiment that love and passion are something to experience before marriage with their girlfriends or boyfriends, and that the purpose of marriage had nothing to do with love, but instead was about growing up, stability, raising children, and pleasing one’s family.

The girls said that the traits that make a good boyfriend are different from those that make a good husband. The boyfriend should be romantic, handsome, sexy, but the husband should be rich, well-employed, and kind. One girl said of her ideal boyfriend “I should love him” and of her ideal husband “He should love me”. Many students, boys and girls, said too handsome of a husband or beautiful of a wife was dangerous because he or she would be more likely to stray.

$500 MOVIE TICKETS

One of my students told me that in China, the price of movie tickets varies from movie to movie, depending on the budget of the film, bankability of the stars, the director, and so on. Kind of a good idea, when you think about it. Wonder why it’s never been done at home. In China the cost of a single movie ticket is several times more expensive than buying a high-quality pirated DVD (and pirated DVDs make up 99% of DVD sales in China). People go to the movie theaters to gain face. Tickets to the Avatar 3D Imax film retailed at about $25 each, and my student explains that tickets to the opening night midnight show in Shanghai went for as high as $150-300 a piece due to scalping and general demand.

SCHOOL

I’ve learned a lot about the difference between education in China and the US. In China, primary education does not begin until 7 years old. Primary school students do not have one main teacher as American primary school students do. Instead, they have different teachers for each subject, as we do in middle school. Chinese teachers do not have fixed classrooms. Instead, the students have fixed classrooms. It is the teachers who move around from classroom to classroom during the school day, rather than the students. As a result teachers cannot decorate their classrooms or add any aesthetic or personal touches as they can in the States.

Junior and senior middle school are 3 years each. Education is mandatory (and free) in China through junior middle school only. Students who wish to enter senior middle school (what we call “high school”) must pass an examination, and pay tuition. All Chinese education, beginning in primary school, is examination-centric. But senior high school is almost nothing but examinations. The 3rd year is entirely devoted to preparing for the gaokao (高考), the national university entrance examination.

Chinese students are in class for more hours per day then their American counterparts. Middle school students often have evening classes. On the other hand, Chinese students have three hours off in the middle of the day, during which they return home for lunch. Chinese students go to school on Saturdays. Their summer vacation is shorter than ours at only 6 weeks, but their winter vacation is also 6 weeks. They have homework during all vacations.

Senior middle school students have no choice of classes. Not until university do they have any say. And even in university, they have far less choice than Americans do. Chinese university students are not free to choose their own majors. Their majors are basically determined by their gaokao exam scores. If you score in the highest percentile, you can choose the top majors like engineering and chemistry. If you have a lower score, you are stuck with less popular (because they have less potential of producing future income) majors like humanities and social sciences. Students also have little choice in where they can go to university. Their gaokao score determines which tier of university they are eligible to apply to, and they usually only have a window of 5 or so universities to choose from.

One of my students, a girl of 22, is a member of the Yi ethnic minority. Her family’s background is quite different from the average student at this school, for whom the exhorbitant tuition fee is not an issue. She comes from a small mountain village in Pu'er (she calls it a "big" village because it has 800 people while other villages only have 100 or 200 people). Her parents are farmers, and work as household assistants in Kunming in order to support her and her brothers' educations. She attended a Finance University in an eastern province, where she majored in English. She wants to go to Guangzhou to work in logistics in an international trade firm. Her goal is to buy her parents a house. She doesn't want to stay in Kunming because she thinks it's "too relaxed" and "not developed enough". Yet she complains that Kunming’s rents are too high (the "3rd highest" in the country, she says, though I’m skeptical). Because of its quality of life, outsiders have been flooding in, investing in real estate, and driving up prices for everyone else. She says she wants to work in international trade because it has "more risk" than other jobs. In her mind, risk is not a bad thing; according to her, it means more responsibility and gives her life more meaning. She likes to go to Kunming’s Green Lake Park in her free time and watch the musicians and dancers. I do too. But it’s kind of unusual for a modern Chinese girl. Most young people have no interest in traditional music, and most of my Kunming friends rarely go to Green Lake Park. She also follows financial and international news.

ENGLISH STUDENTS TEACHING ENGLISH

A few of my students study English from me, and then turn around and teach other Chinese people English for a living. One is a 19 year old college student whose English is just beginner level, but who charges $4 an hour to teach Chinese children. It’s less than what I make, but not that much less, and far more than the average service sector employee makes in China.

Another student teaches English at an established English school. Her school has no foreign teachers. She tells me most of her students can’t really speak a word of English. And she doesn’t really speak English in the classroom either. Instead, she lectures to them in Chinese about written English. It’s all so that they can pass their examinations (high school entrance and university entrance examinations both require English). The students can fail the listening section of the exam and still pass, as long as they do well on the grammar section. It all seems pretty useless to me...what’s the sense of learning a language

I ask her if she thinks this model of education makes sense, and she says no. If she had her say, English education in China would place more emphasis on practical speaking skills. But when I ask her if she thinks the government’s policy that every student study English makes sense, she wholeheartedly agrees. She says more and more foreigners are coming to China, and therefore the Chinese need to speak English to communicate with them..

I’m accustomed to Americans taking this position (our language is the most useful, so everyone else should adapt to us), but I’m a little taken aback by this bit of linguistic imperialism coming from this direction. As a foreigner who has taken the time to learn Chinese, I’m increasingly contemptuous of foreigners in China who cannot. Furthermore, I firmly believe that the Chinese education system’s emphasis on English is misplaced and a waste of time, money, and resources.

For the vast majority of Chinese, English has no practical use. I can’t tell you how many Chinese people I know who studied English for several years in school but who cannot speak a single word today other than “Hello” or “How do you do?”. Make no mistake, English is an extremely useful skill for the handful of Chinese students who wish to study abroad, work in international company, or work in the tourism industry. But it’s my belief that those students would naturally seek out language-learning opportunities regardless of whether or not they were mandatory. My fellow Americans may not like what I’m saying, because it would mean fewer opportunities for them to find easy work in China. But I truly believe China could spend its resources more efficiently if it made English optional instead of mandatory.

CORRUPTION

My students are always shocked when I tell them that civil servants, bureacrats, and politicians in the United States are, as a rule, not rich. If the discussion is in depth enough, I might then go on to explain that, yes, we do have corruption and bribery of a certain level, and that many politicians get perks from lobbyists that occupy a sort of gray area of morality and ethics. But that sort of corruption usually only takes place at the top ranks of American officialdom. In China, it exists at every level of the bureaucracy, from the village part chief to the municipal permitting bureau to the drone in some regional ministerial office to top ranks of the government in Beijing.

It is a well known fact in China that if you pass the civil servant exam and get a job as a bureaucrat, you basically have it made in the shade for the rest of your life. A high base salary, excellent benefits, lifetime job security, and hardly any work. It’s that last part that really gets me. According to my students, most civil servants don’t really do anything for the benefit of their country. Their jobs exist on paper only. They have an office in a government building somewhere, but they are free to pursue their own business ventures on the side, apart from their official duties. Or, more likely, their side ventures are intimately tied to their official duties in the form of graft, bribes, and corruption. For example, the official responsible for issuing permits to developers will likely be given a chance to invest, at a heavy discount, in the very project he is responsible for regulating.

Interestingly, few of my students want to be civil servants. In fact, many of them openly despise civil servants. They think they are lazy, and resent the fact that this corrupt institution so pervades their country. My students are more entrepreneurial. They want to get rich, but they want to do so on their own merits. One is on the debate team in her university. One of their recent debate topics was on the “social problem” of university graduates’ desire to become civil servants. She argued for the position that this is a problem because civil servants are a drain on society and add nothing to it.

IGNORANCE

We’re allowed to talk about politics in class, but there are a few topics that are taboo. They’re neatly summed up as the “Three T’s”: Tibet, Taiwan, and Tiananmen. Sometimes I have fun testing the boundaries of these taboos. Tibet actually comes up frequently, usually in the context of geography. But sometimes, I bring it up in reference to the protests that took place there in 2008. I would never advocate anything such as independence in class (besides which I don’t even agree with), but if an opportunity exists to acknowledge that there is a problem there I’ll sometimes take advantage of it to see how the student reacts.

Likewise, with Taiwan I would never be stupid enough to advocate independence, but if an opportunity exists to lay out the facts as they are, I’ll sometimes take it and let the students share their own opinions. The more aware ones know that Taiwan is not quite the integral (at least, in practice) part of China their government claims it to be. The less aware ones don’t have a clue.

Unfortunately, the majority of the students are generally not very aware of world affairs. Few read newspapers. Those who get news largely get it from TV. Few knew anything about the oil spill currently ravaging the Gulf of Mexico. Few have any notion of the conflict in Israel and Palestine. Fewer still know anything of the civil wars and violence in Africa fueled by resource exploitation (much of it Chinese). Most of my students don’t seem to have any idea that North Korea is considered a dangerous rogue nation by nearly the entire world, including China. They know only that China has an "alliance" with North Korea because they are both “communist” countries.

PLANNING CONCEPT DISCREPANCIES

There is no Chinese word for the English for “neighborhood”. This has been a painful and discovery for me, as I find the word “neighborhood” to be an exceptionally useful term in talking about urban planning, and, more simply, everyday life. It is also frustrating because Chinese cities clearly do have neighborhoods, but there’s no word to describe them.

There are a number of Chinese words to describe different size geographical and administrative units of area. Cities are divided into districts, or diqu, each with their own sub-government. At the smaller scale, there is the Chinese word xiaoqu, which has no English word but which I would describe as enclosed, self-contained apartment complexes, each consisting of several apartment buildings around a courtyard or grounds. The Western concept of a neighborhood exists somewhere between the xiaoqu and the diqu, but it being an abstract concept rather than one defined by definite boundaries makes it difficult to describe in Chinese. I usually have to explain that it means the blocks immediately surrounding one’s home, the area with which one is familiar, in which one walks the dog, shops for groceries, etc. But the concept of “blocks” also doesn’t really exist in Chinese. Of course, blocks do exist, but rarely at uniform distances. Modern streets can stretch for hundreds of meters between blocks.

OTHER RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

When Chinese people whose parents are divorced get married, they will have two weddings, one for each divorced parent’s family.

When do people from different geographical regions of China get married, they will often have two weddings, too. One for each side of the family.

Answering machines and voicemail do not exist in China. Chinese people prefer direct communication and are uncomfortable with the concept of leaving a message. For this reason, most Chinese also do not use email. Instead, they are glued to their cell phones, and to QQ, the most popular instant messaging system in China. Many keep their cell phones signed in to QQ at all times.

Shop hours in China are very different from those in the United States. All manner of shops are invariably open late. For clothing stores, 10 pm to 11 pm is the standard closing time. On the flip side, finding shops that are open in the morning is difficult. Many a morning I wish I could go to the fruit shop across the street from my apartment, but it doesn’t open until 10 am. Same for bakeries. They are ever-present in modern Chinese cities, but seem to be more of an evening thing than morning thing.

The Chinese concept of “noon” is a period of time lasting from 11 am to 1 pm, rather than a fixed point in time at precisely 12:00.

The Chinese use the same sound for “he”, “she”, and “it”. These three words are written with different characters, but pronounced exactly the same. Thus, one of the most common English mistakes Chinese people make is confusing “he’ and “she”. Even the most advanced students make this mistake frequently. To the Chinese mind, animals are apparently genderless, and referred to as “its:”. It always surprised my students when I tell them we refer to animals in English as “hes” and “shes”.

Chinese people brush their teeth before breakfast instead of after.

Chinese people bathe in the evening rather than the morning.

Chinese people generally do not like cold beverages, including cold water and cold beer. Chinese mothers tell their daughters that cold water is bad for their stomach. They also tell their daughters that if they get a cut they cannot eat soy sauce or vinegar.

Chinese people retire extremely young, at least by American standards. Chinese state owned enterprises, which employ 60% of the workforce, enforce mandatory retirement for men at 60 and for women at 55.

One of my classes focuses on the phenomenon of stereotypes. Stereotypes undoubtedly pervade in China (as they do everywhere), but my students have a hard time either recognizing this or admitting it. Instead, they resort to pedestrian comparisons of different region’s tastes in food (“Yunnan people like spicy food”, “Shanghai people like sweet food”, etc).