Laos

The first week in October was China's National Day, the anniversary of the Liberation, or Communist takeover depending on your perspective. This year was especially noteworthy because it was the 60th anniversary. Most people have a few days off of work and school for this holiday, and I figured by skipping a few days of school, I could actually have 10 days off in a row. In recent years, shopping and travel have been heavily promoted as vacation activities here (to increase domestic consumption), and since Kunming is a nice place to go in China, it seemed like a good time to beat the rush and leave town.

But where to go? Going anyplace in the country was sure to be a transportation nightmare. I wasn't really in the mood to "plan" a trip and seriously considered staying home and studying (boring), but then in late September on a local website I saw a post from someone looking for a travel partner to South Asia. She was open about destination and even better, was a native Mandarin speaker. Mira and I met and decided to go to Laos, a country I didn't know much about and hadn't seriously considered visiting. It borders China, though, and it's easy to get a visa at the border, so it was the perfect choice for a no-plan trip. For the next week, we emailed back and forth about details. From some friends, Mira had heard of a place in Laos with treehouses called the GibbonExperience and as soon as I read about it on their website, I really wanted to go too. I also wanted to see Plain of Jars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_of_Jars) so we decided to try to see those two places to start, and then play it by ear.

We met for the second time at the bus stop and then headed downtown to take the night bus to the border. We bought tickets from the driver for the 7pm bus, and he said he would drop us at a crossroads a few miles across the border at a town that had a bus station and lots of transport to the town we were hoping to reach by the first night. He claimed we would be there by 10 am. This sounded rather fishy to me. In my brief research, I’d never heard of the crossroads town. It wasn’t even on the Google map I’d printed, so it seemed unlikely there was a bus station there. And, it seemed impossible to get that far in only 15 hours. I was skeptical, but Mira felt sure that the driver wouldn’t lie to us and so we paid a bit extra to be taken the extra distance. I should mention that Mira is 25 and had never been out of China.

The 7pm bus finally left at 8:30 and we were off. About 4 hours south of Kunming, the road started to get a little rough. There were long stretches of bumpiness interspersed with prolonged periods of violent jostling. The overnight bus is also known as the sleeper bus, since there are no seats, only bunk bed-type enclosures. Each one is perhaps 18 inches wide, and if I laid out flat my feet pressed against the bottom (remember, I’m short). Of course, I got no sleep.

We finally got to the Chinese side of the border at about 9 am. Mira decided she needed some more money before we crossed, so we headed back through town on foot to get to the only ATM. I mentioned several times that we should hurry because the bus might leave us, but she was sure they wouldn’t since the other people on the bus knew we’d be back. Of course, when we got back in sight of where we’d left the bus, it was nowhere to be seen. Mira was shocked. I wouldn’t have minded too much but our bags were on the bus. Fortunately the border was less than half a mile up the road and so I started running. Mira followed me and we caught the bus at the Chinese border.

It took awhile for the border police to unload all the bags and inspect them, but by 10am, we were heading to the Laos border. Since this was the second day of the Chinese holiday, the border was crawling with Chinese travelers. The Chinese are not known for forming lines, and so every window of the sleepy little Laos government building was overrun with disorderly mobs of people trying to get forms, trying to get visas, trying to get through. It was complete insanity. It took us 3 hours to get across. Reports that I’ve read say it typically takes maybe 30 minutes tops.

But, finally we were in Laos. Wow, what a difference. Laos is poor. Really poor. And very quiet compared to China. There aren’t too many cars, people don’t honk every 30 seconds, and there is very little development, at least in Northern Laos. The mountains are green and beautiful, but it’s easy to see that there isn’t much forest remaining, a few small patches here and there, but most of the trees have been cut down. It was a little depressing.

Finally at 3pm, we arrived at the crossroads. Of course, there was no bus station. I figured we could hitchhike since it was only about 20 miles to the town, but there were practically no cars. We stood around for about an hour and finally got a guy to drive us out there for more than we wanted to pay, but he wouldn’t budge. We didn’t really have any other options, so we piled into the truck and headed down the road.

We got to Louang Namtha about 5 pm. It’s a small town with seemingly more chickens than people. Tourism is just starting to discover this place, so it’s still laid back, friendly and cheap. We found a very nice guesthouse for $3 a night, spotlessly clean, very well decorated, very friendly (Zuela’s Guesthouse). After exploring for a while, we went to the night market to sample some food and watch the town.

The small outdoor market has an endless variety of food, tables of local women selling little piles of leaves and fruits and veggies and who knows what all stewed together in different spicy combinations with bags of sticky rice to go with it. No chopsticks. In Laos, you eat with your fingers. We got some food and sat down on some old wooden tables to relax and eat. We met a funny woman from Thailand and spent the rest of the night laughing with her over BeerLao, which is the local brew. I’m not a big beer drinker, but Laos beer is excellent and it was a perfect chaser to the spicy food. The local vendors came by repeatedly to try to get us to buy their handcrafted trinkets, and the multitude of terminally pregnant market dogs circled constantly looking for bones and scraps. We had to catch the early bus to the next town in the morning, so after a few hours, we said goodbye and headed back to the room and, at last, some sleep.

The next day, we got on the bus for Houay xia on the Mekong River. The bus was oldish, but not too bad. Every seat was full, but no livestock in the bus, and only a few people sitting on stools in the aisle. People were quiet, calm and orderly. The road was constructed within the past few years and is reportedly now one of the best roads in Laos. There are occasional washouts and bare rock patches, also some serious potholes, but basically a good road. It took about 4 hours to get to the town, and on the way we passed through many villages with bamboo huts on stilts and half naked children running on the side of the highway. All flat land was covered with rice paddies (Laotians eat 350 pounds of rice per person per year), so there was green everywhere, and still no real forest left on the mountains.
When we got to the town, we went to check in at the Gibbon Experience office first.

The trip is quite expensive, 160 Euros, or about $240 (at the time). I saw it as a contribution to maintaining forest habitat rather than paying for accommodations, and that’s basically what it turned out to be. While waiting in the office, we saw a group of Westerners returning from their stay in the forest, and I was really struck by how incredibly big Westerners are. How does this happen? I guess Corn Flakes really are fortified with 8 essential vitamins and iron. After paying, we found a nearby guesthouse to spend the night and then explored the town a bit.

The town is right on the Mekong, and since the other side of the river is Thailand, it’s a border town. Like most border towns, it’s not terribly charming. Many tourists pass through here, and that’s about the extent of it. Apparently the Chinese are planning a big gambling complex up the river, so the whole area is soon to change dramatically. Lots of jobs for locals, but since most of the population is Buddhist and very reserved and conservative, I’m not sure how well this is going to turn out. Not so well I suspect.

The next morning we piled into a truck with four others for the several hour trip to the base village. The first hour was on mostly paved road, and then we drove across a river to the next leg, all dirt and ruts as we headed into the mountains. It was more rural, more beautiful, and much poorer.

The village where we started our hike was full of naked children, chickens, turkeys, donkeys, waterbuffalo and locals who seemed pretty accustomed to truckloads of foreigners shuttling through their village. I’m not sure it that’s a good thing but I’m sure they can use the work since their lives seem pretty hard so it’s difficult to say.

The six of us headed out with our two local guides who spoke very little English and were really shepherds rather than guides. Besides Mira and me, there was a British couple who were decided eco-tourists, just off a trekking trip to Borneo and they seemed to talk about little else. The other two were a young Israeli couple who seemed pretty friendly and had decent English. The weather was hot, and even though I’d been sweating since I got to Laos, hiking made me sweat even more. The trail was pretty minimal in places, but there was so much to see, new plants and an endless variety of huge butterflies I several times mistook for birds. We hiked fast up and down the hills, since stopping invited mosquitoes, leeches and more sweat.

After an hour or so, we got to a hut, had some water and put on our harnesses. Soon, we came to our first zipline. I thought it would be slightly scary and exciting, but it wasn’t scary at all. The harness is just like a rock-climbing harness, and basically clips onto a little wheeled apparatus with a piece of tire for a brake. You fit the wheels over the line and jump off and then fly through the trees on a wire line. The forest below is so beautiful, and the cool wind is great, but it goes by so fast there isn’t time to be scared. I was almost never able to make it to the end of the line and so had to pull myself to the end every time. The heavier folks had no problem and always had to brake to avoid hitting the tree on the landing platform. There were many lines to cross, so it was hike/zip/hike/zip etc., for about 3 hours until we got to the first treehouse where we spent the night.

The treehouses can only be reached by ziplining because they are all high in the trees, maybe 50-80 feet up. They have water, which includes a shower and a Chinese-style toilet that opens onto the forest floor below (fertilizer), a stove to heat water, and mattresses on the floor with mosquito netting. Nothing fancy, but adequate and the view is spectacular. Local people brought rice and vegetables three times a day via ziplines. The food was pretty basic and bland and everyone was totally sick of rice by the third day. The coffee was great though, so I was happy.

That night was a full moon, and the forest was really beautiful in the moonlight. The forest was pretty quiet, but I heard what I’m pretty sure were gibbons most of the night. They have a throat pouch that inflates when they call so they make a really loud, really bizarre, mechanical sound. In the middle of the night, one started calling from the tree right next to ours. It went on for 20 minutes and it was really strange. I managed to record it, but unfortunately the recording is not very good.

The next day was pretty much the same as the first, hiking through the heat and leeches and mosquitos to the next treehouse. We stopped to swim at a waterfall with a swim hole and it felt so good to be wet and cool but as soon as I got out I started sweating again. I also discovered a leech that had eaten through my sock to enjoy a tasty meal on my foot. The anticoagulant they inject is really powerful. My foot bled freely for two hours and nothing I tried would stop the bleeding. No pain though.

The second treehouse was a little smaller than the first one, and there were also lots of ants and some alarmingly huge spiders. But, it was by a river and the sound of the water was very relaxing. No gibbons that night, and I actually fell asleep for awhile. I’d hoped to see lots of birds, but the mornings were always very misty and foggy and that’s when the birds were feeding in the trees, so although I heard a lot of birds, I saw almost none.

On the third day, after a big bowl of…rice…we hiked out of the forest, across a few rivers and past several tiny hill villages. We finally reached the base village and piled into the truck for the ride back. Mira and I had to ride in the back of the mini pickup, and since there wasn’t room to sit down, I stood up and held onto the back of the cab. This was actually the most exciting part of the trip, since we drove under a number of low-hanging trees and vines, so I really had to hang on and pay attention. It was a great view too, but after two hours, I was very sunburned and very exhausted. We stopped for a lunch of…rice…and then finally made it back to the town. We wasted no time in finding a room and getting out of the sun.

The next day, we took another bus back to Louang Namtha. I’d considered instead taking a boat down the Mekong to another town I’d heard about and then several long bus rides to get to Plain of Jars, but since that would mean two days on the river, and ultimately a more than 24-hour bus ride back to Kunming, I decided I was too tired. Next time. We relaxed in town and again went to the colorful night market and met some other travelers, and the next day Mira took the bus to Kunming. I decided to stay another day to see the surrounding area. For just over $1, I rented a very decent mountain bike for the day and went exploring. There are some Buddhist temples in the hills, and also some waterfalls and a number of villages.

The next day, I decided to take the bus back to China, and spend the night in Jinghong to see the botanical garden, then take the night bus back to Kunming. It took about 7 hours to get to Jinghong, and when I got off the bus, it was definitely not Laos anymore. It seemed even hotter and there was lots of noise, honking traffic, and the typical chaos of a booming Chinese city. I hiked through town in search of a guesthouse I’d read about, but I got there only to find it had been torn down to make way for yet another luxury high-rise. Although I could easily have found another place to stay, I decided right then to return to the bus station and get on the next bus to Kunming, a louder, more bustling city that is at least much cooler and more familiar. After a bumpy sleepless night on the sleeper bus, I got to Kunming about 6 am and after a few more local bus rides, I was home and happily rediscovered the inexpressible pleasure of not being bitten by insects. The next day, I was back in school.

To see pictures, you can go to http://picasaweb.google.com/melindacorrell. I can upload pictures, but the site is blocked, so I can’t see or modify the layout. I also can’t get to my blog anymore. I’d hoped that after the 60th anniversary celebration, the government would lighten up a little and loosen the restrictions, but instead, they’ve added features to the firewall so that proxy servers no longer work and even VPNs have trouble. And, more sites are blocked. It’s a little spooky. So, this is the last post. If you want to receive updates by email, send me an email and I’ll put you on the list. Otherwise, thanks for reading!

Wu Che Ri

I really enjoyed No Car Day yesterday. Private cars were prohibited from entering the central section of Kunming. My school is in that area, and I have to say it was so much more pleasant with only the taxis and buses blowing their horns. There was almost no traffic so the city was wonderfully calm.

I read in the news this morning that China as a whole adds 10% more cars every year; Kunming adds 18% more, so traffic is becomming an increasing problem here. As of 2007, that meant 560 more cars on Kunming roads every day. Since 2009 broke all records for auto sales in China, the number of new cars on the road each day is now much larger.

And it's not just new cars. The vast majority of new car purchases are made by new drivers, so the city adds 100s of new drivers every day. New and inexperienced drivers. They drive just like they rode bikes and later motorbikes, which is to say very pragmatically. Traffic lights, lane markers, signs, all are seen as suggestions to be followed if convenient. Or not, which leads to some seriously chaotic traffic snarls. Every intersection is a zoo as cars, buses, motorbikes, bicycles, pedestrians, donkeys, etc., run red lights, drive on the wrong side of the road, turn against oncoming traffic, pass on the right going the wrong way, basically inserting their vehicle wherever it will fit. Of course there are traffic cops at every corner, but they are basically ignored. I've only seen a few fender benders, but my neighborhood is home to number of small autobody shops and they are busy from dawn to dusk seven days a week.

Fortunately, because there are so many vehicles on the road, no one can drive very fast. This is an especially good thing if you are a pedestrian because pedestrians are the bottom of the barrel. It doesn't matter if you are walking on the street, in the crosswalk, or on the sidewalk, cars have the right-of-way and they will take it. The driver honking his horn is not saying, "Please get out of my way." He is saying, "This may be the last sound you hear." But they aren't at all angry or malicious about it. They will simply run you over if you don't move and they can't go around you.

Despite the chaos, it all seems orchestrated in some weird way. If you keep moving and don't do anything unexpected, the traffic just slowly flows along. There is no overt agression, no road rage. Even when it comes to a complete standstill, people honk, but no one comes unglued. Anyone that can move through the crush of vehicles does, and anyone that can't just bides their time. When I first came to China, I found even crossing the street quite frightening, but now it just seems normal. Still, yesterday was really nice. I wish every day was No Car Day.

On vacation

I decided to take a few days vacation before the semester gets started again. I
went to Dali, a very touristy town northeast of Kunming, about 4 hours by bus. Dali is typical of every culturally significant location in China; it's basically been torn down and "restored" to a large open-air shopping mall. From everything I'd heard about Dali, I knew that I wouldn't like it, but my objective was not the town, it was the mountain range to the west of the town, the Cangshan range. I wanted to take a break from the gritty, teaming, chaotic marketplace that is China and get out into some nature.

The bus ride was beautiful, through green valleys terraced for crops, the same
terraces they have used for thousands of years. The white-washed brick villages clustered on the sides of the hills and the fish ponds in each valley were so
picturesque. Unfortunately there was no chance to take any pictures.

Due to transportation timing, I had to spend one night in Dali, and it was every bit as touristy as I'd been led to expect. I stayed in one of the many guesthouses, very simple and basic, but friendly. That night, I sampled some of the chuan (skewers of meat, veggies, tofu, etc. roasted over coal and then sprinkled with chili powder and other ingredients) from the stand in front of the guest house. Absolutely delicious. One of the girls running the stand told me that they were Yi people and so their chili ingredients were different than what the Chinese chuan stands use. I think the secret was Sichuan pepper, which I absolutely love. It's got a unique flavor, and it leaves your mouth somewhat numb. I cook with it a lot.

While I was waiting for my second round of lotus root, a family walked by and their little girl of 8 wanted to practice her English. We talked for a while, so the family sat down to have something to eat during her "lesson." They were really
nice and invited me to share their chuan and a few beers, which of course I could not refuse. They were from Guizhou, the next province to the east and had been travelling Yunnan for about a week. I understood them fairly well, especially the mom, at least for the first hour or so, until the beer started to impair my listening ability. The father really admired Western ideas and English in general even though he could only speak a few words (cheers being the main one). He didn't have an English name, and when I told him he looked like an Allan, he seemed exceptionally pleased. After the rigorous Chinese lesson and the beer, I climbed the stairs and slept like a baby.

The next day I set out for the mountains. There is a chairlift to the 2600 meter level and I'd planned to take it, but after trying to buy a ticket and enduring a few rounds of typical negotiation (90 yuan, round trip ticket only; ok, 60 yuan, round trip ticket only; ok 30 yuan one way ticket, blahblahblah), I figured screw it, I can walk. The "trail" isn't really marked, and I'm not actually sure I was on it, but it's not hard to find a way up through the forest. I just followed my nose and stuck to the horse trail. It was steep and slippery in places, but very pretty and a good workout. Over time, the horses have caused pretty serious erosion, and as I climbed, I thought that if it rained the trail would become a raging river in minutes.

After about an hour, it started raining. Softly at first, and then it really started coming down. I hiked as fast as I could, and even though I had my umbrella, I got pretty wet, especially my shoes. After another 40 minutes of hiking in the rain, I reached the rather secluded guesthouse on the side of the mountain. Of course I was drenched, but unfortunately, so was virtually everything in my pack. I figured I would dry out in front of the heat source, whatever it was, no problem. Problem: no heat source. They have a wood stove in the dining area, but apparently they save it for the winter. The rooms have no heat at any time. Of course this is the rainy season and summer, but still. It was pretty musty and cold in the room, and I spent the first afternoon trying to figure out a way to get dry in the continuing rain. I ate the spiciest thing on the menu for dinner and piled on the blankets to get warm enough to sleep.

The next morning was misty but beautiful, and I hiked north to the end of the trail. No worries about getting my feet wet at least. The scenery on the mountain range was absolutely spectacular. The trail winds in and out of steep green mountain valleys covered in pine and broadleaf forest. Each valley ends in a long full thundering waterfall. There are so many different greens: ferns, mosses, liverworts, and herbacious plants and vines, most of which I'd never seen before. And hundreds of different species of fungus. There were also many birds with unique and beautiful calls, but the bird book I have doesn't have the greatest pictures, so I had a hard time making any positive IDs. When the clouds parted, I could see Erhai Lake to the east, a huge lake that runs the length of the mountain range. It's hard to describe how amazingly beautiful it is in those mountains, and it's not just because I've been nature-deprived for 6 months.





The trail is also amazing. It's about 16 kilometers long and virtually flat. It's
completely paved with marble (mined from the mountains) and I think granite in an artistic design. There is even a railing at the steepest drops. I'm not sure when it was built, but there was clearly a lot of care taken in it's construction. It looks like something I'd expect to see in Switzerland. It's obviously maintained too, because there was almost no trash.


After a lunch of spicy soup, I hiked up a different trail toward one of the peaks. I had no intention of actually climbing to the top (9 hour round trip, very cold at the top) but the trail was so beautiful I just wanted to keep going. This particular trail is very little used, so it's overgrown to the point that it's almost invisible. It reminded me a lot of my botanical survey days when I'd just hike through the forest following deer trails or nothing at all. Besides bird calls, there was no sound at all. It was so still and pristine, like being in another world. I had to turn back because it was getting late, but it's definitely someplace to return to.

After another cold damp night, I hiked south along the trail to the other end. There were many beautiful waterfalls and rocky outcroppings, and hardly any tourists until later in the afternoon. There wasn't much rain either so the views of the lake below were spectacular. After 6 hours of hiking, friction was starting to dry out my shoes but I was relieved to get back to the inn before getting serious blisters. I had a lively dinner conversation with some young travellers from England, Ireland and Spain. It's so interesting to see how other Westerner's perspectives on China.

The next day I did some more hiking before heading down the mountain and back to Dali to wait for the night train to Kunming. I met a traveller from Guangdong province and we walked around the town for a few hours and chatted. Since they speak Cantonese in that province, his Mandarin was hard for me to understand (I'm sure he would say the same for mine), and so was his English, but we got by. He also had no English name, so I named him Wade. It seemed to fit.


On the hour bus ride to the train station, I talked to Lisa, a 5 year old girl from
Beijing. Her English pronunciation was great. Kids are so good at listen-and-repeat. Her grandparents were delighted to have her speak to a native English speaker for an hour and she was such a cute kid. Chinese kids are always cute.

The train ride back was 9 hours and although I usually sleep really good on the
train, I had a hard time this time, partially because the windows were open and the fumes from the engine filled the compartment so it was kind of hard to breathe. That's one of the drawbacks to living in China: sometimes it's hard to breathe.

The Cangshan range is a great place, but if you go, dress warm and stay dry.
Otherwise, I discovered that if you have two dry layers, you can wear a wet layer between them when you sleep and the wet layer will be almost dry when you wake up. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do about wet shoes.

Nothing much

What have I been up to since the eclipse? I saw a bit more of Kunming, some of the old Muslim quarter that is quickly being torn down to make way for more slick buildings that lack character. People go about their business up until the night before the building is demolished and then move off to wherever.

Demolition activities:

Knitting...

napping...

and hauling bricks:



I joined a gym. The altitude here was making me feel out of shape and unmotivated, and there really isn’t a convenient place to run in my neighborhood, except a track that’s not too far away, but it’s a track. Flat. Boring. At least on the treadmill you can adjust the incline. The gym is quite nice, very spacious, decent equipment, not at all crowded at the hour I go. It would be great if they had water or toilet paper, but of course, other than 5 star hotels, no place in China provides such amenities.

I started teaching English a few hours a week. I know, I swore I wouldn’t do that, and I’m not really sure why I agreed. It’s only 3 hours a week, and even though the pay is not great, it covers all of my expenses. I’m teaching at the school that I will be going to for Chinese. They have English classes for Chinese university students on summer break. It’s funny because one of the stipulations on a student visa is not working for money. The school made sure to inform me about that, and then turned right around and hired me the next week. But everyone does this. Native speakers are in great demand. Although these students have studied English for 10 years or more, they have had very little practice with native speakers, and they are mostly unintelligible. Unfortunately, the students in the class are from vastly different levels and they have different goals, so it makes it a little tricky.

I went to Xi Shan, the closest "mountain" for hiking. It's about 8500 feet, so not a mountain really, but very pretty. There is a interesting grotto at the top built in the late 1700s , basically carved into the side of the mountain peak.


Supposedly these carvings were done by workers suspended by ropes. How they did this without power tools is beyond me. I can only guess how many people must have died.

From the top, there is a great view of Kunming and Lake Dian to the south. The lake is huge, but sadly a bright lime green from all the algal growth. It's seriously polluted, but not by Chinese standards. Here, green is much preferred to black and oily. Black, oily and steaming is even worse.




I went to the wild animal park about an hour north of town. Typically, I hate zoos. It makes me so sad to see the animals in cages, even if the cages are big. It seems so demeaning, especially for the primates, but for all of them really. When I look into their eyes, they seem no different than me (well, hairier) and yet they are treated like prisoners. They often look very depressed, very stressed. I worry about their psychological well-being, even if they look healthy and well-fed. I want to personally apologize to each animal for their unfair imprisonment by my species.　It's a real downer.
But when Melinda, one of the Hungarian girls that was staying in our extra bedroom (long story), asked me to go, for some reason I agreed. We barely squeezed onto the #10 bus heading north. I leaned against the front window and I was sure not another person could fit on, but no, about 50 more people got on before the driver started saying no. Since it was a Sunday and the #10 is the only bus to the park, it was full of people taking their little children to see the animals. After about an hour and a half, the road turned to dirt, and shortly thereafter, we came to the last stop and the final trek to the entrance.

The park is really big. It was at least 6 miles to the far end and we decided to walk instead of taking the tram since it was still overcast and not hot. It felt really refreshing to get out of the city, into the green mountains with lots of big trees and plants, very natural in appearance, but there were definite elements of the typical distressing zoo experience. Primates trapped in cages and enclosures large and small, some looking so depressed I just wanted to cry. People throwing food past the “Do not feed the animals” signs, or worse, throwing sticks or bottles at the animals trying to get their attention. At least the animals looked well-fed, unlike what I saw at the Chongqing zoo on my previous trip to China. There were even some monkeys that were free, running around and flying through the trees and generally looking like they were having a blast.
There weren’t many birds, but they did have several species of Hornbill, including several spectacular Great Hornbills that I’d never seen before and which can be found in the south of this province. Of course there were the requisite pandas, a very lonely and beautiful Golden Monkey (on the verge of extinction), a number of different species of tigers and lions, and many other animals. A couple of the lions were actually in the mood and were not at all shy about it. It was quite amazing to see the lion's mating ritual. Unbelievably fast, but she seemed to enjoy herself ;-).

Besides that, I'm just settling in to the rhythms of life here, nothing exciting. Still working on the picture thing.

Solar Eclipse

Today was the much-anticipated full solar eclipse. At this latitude, we only saw a partial eclipse, about 85%, and it was overcast, so it wasn’t terribly exciting. Unfortunately, just at the critical moment, I pressed some wrong combination of buttons and I could no longer access the viewfinder so I was shooting randomly out the window and only managed to get one decent picture (someday I am going to have to figure out how to use that camera). But it's better than nothing, since I don't think I will be around for the next one...

Fee collection...er, Health Exam

One of the requirements for residency here in Kunming is a health exam. I went to get mine today. As I suspected, the main purpose is to collect the fee, something less than $50. The test includes a number of faux procedures. In no particular order, they give you an ultrasound of the main internal organs, an EKG, a chest x-ray, blood test, urine test, vision and sense of smell exam and a blood pressure reading. These tests are of course all performed by different individuals in different rooms on different floors. Some of these folks really could not be bothered to even grunt instructions in Chinese. I just sort of wandered around and figured it out, trying to get all the spots on the paper stamped.

The ultrasound was the first test. I came in as the last person was exiting, and the sticky gel that the tech used on her was all over the cot when I laid down. Nice.

Next was an EKG that took about 3 minutes. They need to fully expose the chest so the sensors can be attached. The woman ahead of me was still lying there, fully exposed, as I was ushered into the room. Just one big happy family.

The x-ray tech was busy reading his newspaper and made some vague hand gestures at me. I went into the room with the x-ray machine and stood on the foot marks on the machine. No lead apron of course, but I'm pretty confident there was no x-ray taking place. The sound that x-ray machines make, especially machines as old as this one, was not made, and no lights flashed. Easy to pass that test.

Then there was the urine specimen (no sterility or privacy involved whatsoever), and the draw of 4 vials of blood. It was a new needle, but why do they need all that blood? I need that blood...

Next was the blood pressure test. As a part of this test, I was required to stamp my feet on the floor a few times??? I could not understand the woman, but apparently the foot stamping is pretty basic part of this procedure because she seemed very exasperated when I didn't catch on.

On to the hearing, vision and sense of smell test. I stood in the hall for awhile, and when a cluster of Chinese examinees started to form behind me, the tech was finally persuaded to put her little pink cell phone back in it's little pink case and do her little pink job. I had to identify a pattern of colored dots as an elephant, smell a clear liquid in a jar (alcohol) and cover my right eye (the good eye of course) for a primitive eye test. The fact that I heard her instructions automatically counted for the hearing test.

Finally I was finished and I have to go back in 3 days to get the results. Then I can proceed with the final 5 steps in the residence permit process.

The most interesting thing I saw was on the bus trip out to the facility. There was a guy with a donkey cart and two dogs clipping along the main highway. One of his dogs was standing on top of the donkey , balanced on the center of his back and bouncing along in traffic. He looked like he was really having fun. Of course I didn't have my camera.

Kunming

It's been a long time since I've been able to post. Google Blogspot is still blocked in China, but I found a proxy site I can use. It's slow and glitchy， I can't see the comments and I don't think I can post pictures, so it's not a long term solution. But for now it will have to suffice since I haven't been able to find a non-blocked blog host.

Since I last posted, I finished school in Jinan and moved across China to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in the southwest, bordering Vietnam and Myanmar (no, I didn't feel the earthquake yesterday). I'll be continuing my Mandarin studies at another school here for at least another semester. I decided not to return to Seattle. Maybe someday to visit.

I'm sharing a 3-bedroom apartment with a woman from Australia. It's a palace compared to the dorm in Jinan, although not without it's problems. It's fairly large and my half of the rent is $80 a month. It's in an older neighborhood, comfortable, green, and hopefully not on the verge of being bulldozed, although the nearest open market is coming down next week. Kunming, like every other city in China, is rapidly being rebuilt. There is a good Wikipedia write-up on Kunming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunming).

Hopefully I will be able to use this workaround to post regularly, and maybe even upload pictures. If not, maybe I can use Flickr, although it's currently blocked...

Blogger Blocked!!

Hi all,
I haven't blogged lately because I can't get to my blog to add posts. It's blocked by the censors in China (the entire Blogspot domain is blocked, so it's not something I said...I don't think). In any case, this has happened before and I　hope that the block will be removed soon, but who knows. I　am reachable by email (although that has been known to be blocked on occasion).
Thanks for posting this Linda!

Melinda

Hangin' in Hangzhou

Last week, school was in recess for the May Day holidays and we had a week off. Since most of China had only 3 days off, it was an ideal time to travel (not too crowded). I decided to go to Hangzhou, a fairly large city two provinces south, about 12 hours away by the fastest train. I'd been there once before during my previous trip to China, but at that time I was travel-weary after 18 days of rushing around the country and the city didn't make much of an impression on me.

I took the night train, hard sleeper class, middle bunk. Hard sleeper is better than it sounds. It's basically a room, roughly 5.5 feet wide by 6 feet long by 9 feet high. There are 6 bunks in this space, 3 on each side. There are fold-down seats on the other side of a narrow aisle, but not enough to accomodate all the bunks, so unless you have a bottom bunk (or have a friend that does), you are either laying down or standing and waiting for a seat. So, the night train is the best option since you can sleep away the hours. The best bunk is definitely the middle bunk. While there is not enough room to completely sit up, you can almost sit up. The "hard" part refers to the mattress, but it's not extra hard, actually about the same as my mattress in the dorm.

I got to Hangzhou at 6:30 in the morning, and after 12 hours on my back, I was ready to get off the train. I was very happy my "net friend" Erin who was there to meet me (sorry it was soooo early for you!). She'd arranged a room for me at the inn on her university campus, so we set off on the bus.



I noticed several things about Hangzhou immediately. The air is not dry there; the city is very green; there is almost no luggie hocking (Jinan's favorite form of exercise); people actually wait in lines; cars stop at red lights, even taxis; I am not short in relation to everyone else (Northerners are taller); people stare at me less (more of a casual glance instead of an "aliens-have- landed-on-our-planet-ohmigod" look); the sky is blue.

After checking into the room, we got a bite to eat and then set off for the famed West Lake, the city's claim to fame. The lake is quite large and the city is mostly on one side, although it's growing quickly. All around the lake are paths and gardens and temples and pagodas, etc. The west side of the lake is particularly tranquil and green since most tour groups do not go there. We spent most of the next 3 days strolling on the lake. At night, the city lights and the lighted pagodas create a really magical scene.







I had some tasty meals in Hangzhou, including this stewed chicken baked in a lotus leaf. It was tender and delicious, and I was only slightly startled to find the bird's feet:


The head was also included, and I'm sure I would have been a bit more taken aback if I'd found the head first. At least the eyes were closed... I also indulged in espresso every day. Very expensive habit in Hangzhou, but at least the coffee was decent.

On the return trip, I wasn't lucky enough to get a middle bunk. I got stuck with the top. Not good. Very little head room and about 7 feet off the floor. It's a bit of a tricky climb, so unless you are sleeping, you will be loitering in the aisle. Advice: try to avoid the top bunk if at all possible. When I got back to Jinan, it had been raining hard for over 24 hours, and it was still raining. The streets were flooded to my knees, and I was soaked by the time I got back to the dorm. But, it was good to be "home." All in all, a very relaxing micro-vacation.

Street Scenes

So, it turns out that my digital camera doesn't take very clear videos. This is just an ordinary Sunday afternoon. The traffic is fairly light and the weather is pleasant. Notice the construction work going on in the middle of it all. No one pays any attention, since this is going on all the time everywhere. There are no barriers or flagging or safety equipment of any kind. It's hard to imagine what could be considered a public safety hazard here.

I'm a little behind, so here are a few random street scenes:



The is one of the squatting bike repairmen that are on almost every street, usually near large bike parking areas. The bikes here range from ancient to old to relatively new. Most of them are in relatively poor repair, although occasionally you see a shiny bike the looks like it's straight out of the 50s, usually being ridden by someone in their 60s, probably the original owner.



This is a more stationary version of the same thing. Notice how orderly the shop isn't. Very typical.


Hopefully, none of these birds have the flu...



There are many street sweepers in China. Thus, the streets can be fairly clean despite constant littering. In this area, they use a really colorful broom. I haven't seen these in any other province in China. They are made of used shredded plastic bags tied to a grass and bamboo frame. I've seen them repairing them on the side of the road. A very interesting handicraft.



Another broom:

Air...quality?

I've whined a lot about the air quality here, so I decided to post some documentation. This picture was taken last week from a park on a nearby hill that I like to go to. The park is very large and overlooks the north part of the city. These are not clouds:



Admittedly, this was a bad day, probably the worst day last week, although the rest of the days were about the same.

This picture was taken today, at the same time and from the same place. It rained Saturday night and all day Sunday so everything looks clean, including the sky:




This is why I get up at 6am to run...the sky is a little better at that hour of the day. Of course, if I can't see the building across the street, I skip it entirely.

While I was in Qingdao, this was happening about a 45 minute walk from my dorm:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor beaten for honoring ousted China leader

By AUDRA ANG – 1 hour ago

BEIJING (AP) — A 75-year-old retired Chinese professor said Tuesday that he was beaten up for commemorating the death of a reformist communist leader ousted for sympathizing with the 1989 Tiananmen Square protesters.

Sun Wenguang said a group of five men attacked him Saturday while he was trying to pay his respects to Zhao Ziyang, the former premier and general secretary of the ruling Communist Party.

The weekend marked "Qingming" — grave sweeping day — an annual festival where Chinese honor the dead.

Sun said he was followed by a police car on Saturday when he went to visit a memorial honoring Chinese martyrs on Heroes' Mountain in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province. He said he carried five small banners, one of which said "mourning for the martyr Zhao Ziyang."

He said he was attacked when he entered the memorial grounds. He said he was then beaten and "kicked like a football" for more than 10 minutes.

"They were very strong. They did not say a word," Sun said in a telephone interview from a Jinan hospital. "They broke three of my ribs. ... I was just lying there. I couldn't move."

It was not immediately clear who the men were. Plainclothes security agents or thugs hired by local authorities often intimidate activists or residents who are involved in sensitive issues.

Telephone calls to the public security bureau and state security department in Jinan were not immediately answered.

Sun, a retired professor from Shandong University, said he has been repeatedly warned against honoring Zhao, who died in 2005. Zhao was forced to step down for sympathizing with pro-democracy protesters in 1989 and spent his last 15 years of his life under house arrest.

Sun said he had visited the memorial before with no repercussions. Last year, Sun said he did not make it because public security officials threatened Sun's wife about the "consequences" if he commemorated Zhao's death during Qingming.

He said he was beaten up Saturday possibly because this year marks the 20th anniversary of the military's crackdown on the Tiananmen demonstrators.

"I never expected them to beat me in broad daylight," Sun said in a weak voice, adding that he could not move his body.

According to human rights groups, Sun, a former physics professor who later taught management before he retired, was detained and imprisoned many times in the 1960s through the 1980s for expressing dissenting views such as criticizing Mao Zedong, founder of Communist China.

Sun said he also had recent run-ins with authorities because he gave speeches and posted articles about Zhao.

Qingming is traditionally a politically sensitive festival.

In 1976, thousands of people streamed to Tiananmen on Qingming to lay wreathes and flowers honoring Zhou Enlai, the beloved premier who had died in January.

The violent suppression of that spontaneous movement set the stage for the arrests of the ultra-leftist "Gang of Four," headed by Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing, and the end of the Cultural Revolution later that year.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

------------------------------------------------------------

Another story from the NY Times with more details:
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/asia/08china.html?ref=global-home)

April 8, 2009
China Rights Activist Beaten at Cemetery
By SHARON LAFRANIERE

BEIJING —For the past four years on a traditional Chinese holiday to honor the dead, Sun Wenguang, a retired university professor, has gone to the cemetery to remember a Communist party leader who sympathized with Tiananmen Square protesters.

The worst that ever happened was police questioned him, he said.

Last Saturday was different. Mr. Sun, 75, a former physics professor and longtime activist, said four or five men attacked him in the cemetery and beat him severely. He is now in the hospital with three broken ribs and injuries to his spine, head, back, arms and legs, according to China Human Rights Defenders, a human rights group.

The group said the attack on Mr. Sun is part of a concerted effort by the Chinese government to head off any efforts to commemorate the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. June 4 is the 20th anniversary of the government’s crackdown that led to the deaths of hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators.

“Chinese authorities are staging a campaign of terror to intimidate and suppress expressions of commemoration for the 1989 Tiananmen massacre,” the group said in a statement.

Security officials in Jinan, a city about 300 miles south of Beijing where the incident occurred, referred media calls to the propaganda office of the city’s communist party. No one answered the phone at the office.

Saturday was Qingming, or tomb-sweeping day, an annual Chinese holiday to remember the dead. Mr. Sun said he announced in an internet posting that he would visit a cemetery to honor the death of former Communist Party general secretary Zhao Ziyang, who was purged from the party and was placed under house arrest for 16 years after expressing sympathy for Tiananmen Square protestors.

“It is important for China to restore the memory of its history,” Mr. Sun said in a telephone interview from a hospital in Jinan, a city about 300 miles south of Beijing. “Zhou Ziyang is such an important person in Chinese history and students today have no idea who he is. That is outrageous.”

As he left the teacher’s dormitory at Shandong University Saturday morning, a public security officer and about 20 plainclothes officers tried to stop him. ”They said, ‘Don’t go there today. So many people are going there. It is dangerous’,” he said.

When he got in a taxi, a car followed him, he said. He had started down a cemetery path, carrying a banner that read: “Condolences to the heroes who died for freedom.” Then four or five men jumped him from behind, lifted him off the ground and threw him into a deep ditch, he said. Other people came to the edge of the ditch, he said, “but nobody tried to help.”

He said the men kicked and beat him for more than 10 minutes before a uniformed police officer showed up and summoned an ambulance. In the four days he has been in the hospital, police have not shown up to investigate the incident, he said.

“I still feel very weak. And I think probably my days are numbered. But I don’t feel regret. I am 75 years old and I would be very happy to sacrifice my life for my ideals,” he said.

Mr. Sun has a long history of pro-democracy activism. He was jailed for seven years in the 1970s and was one of the first people to sign Charter 08, which calls for democratic reforms.

Still, he said, “I didn’t expect this. I was not trying to organize any group of people. It was just a personal visit to a cemetery. In order to fight for democracy, we need to make personal efforts.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------



This is certainly not a rare event here, but I've been to this cemetery so it makes it very real and very disturbing. Of course, few people here are even aware of this happening. I stumbled upon this story less than an hour after it broke on AP. I copied it immediately, because I figured it would be blocked. I'm sure any Chinese site with the story was blocked much sooner. I was able to find one mention of this on a mainland Chinese site in Chinese, and it was a blog that depicted the event as an act of random violence as opposed to political violence. I think this kind of suppression is sponsored on a local level in an effort to keep dissidents down and prevent them from embarrassing (and thus damaging the careers) of the provincial officials. Very very strange.

Qingming Qingdao

Last weekend was Qingming, a 3-day holiday for honoring dead ancestors. We had a day off of school, so Anja, Stephanie, and I went to Qingdao. It's a coastal city in Shandong province, about 3 hours away by express train. It's considered to be a very livable city, quite touristy compared to Jinan，and like the rest of China, has undergone a lot of development in the last 10 years. This is particularly true in Qingdao since China was chosen to host the Olympics (sailing events took place off the coast nearby). The older part of the city was designed and built by the Germans during their occupation (1898-1914), so it has a rather distinct architecture. The Germans also established the Tsingtao (named after the city) Brewery, which still produces China's most famous beer (Tsingtao beer - think Corona).

I was anticipating western food (pizza) and espresso (Starbucks), and a few unplanned days spent exploring German-style architecture. I was also hoping for a room with a working heater, and maybe even a bathtub. These thoughts got me through the final freezing week of winter in Jinan, when it was just too cold to sleep. With these expectations, we set off from Jinan on Friday afternoon.

Stephanie has a relative (Shushu) living in Qingdao, and he offered to meet us at the train station and help us figure out how to navigate our visit, and even help us find a place to stay. How nice. And it was, but his vision of our trip and our vision of our trip were not the same. We actually had very little input. He and his wife met us at the train station and took us out to a great Chinese meal and told us about our plans for the following day. Since he doesn't speak English and my Chinese is still poor, Stephanie filled in what we didn't understand (80% at least). He then took us to the hotel he'd picked out, not too far from his apartment. The hotel didn't have a bathtub, but it did have a heater which was great since the nights there are still a bit chilly. I'd seen a Starbucks on the drive (horrendous traffic in Qingdao), so I was looking forward to coffee the next day.

In the morning, he picked us up and took us directly to a section of the city with some German architecture. We spent the rest of the day walking on the seaside and the nearby neighborhoods. The weather was lovely and the crowds weren't too terrible.

Marriage is still extremely important here, and love isn't necessarily that important. Matchmaking is still a big business, and shops like this are not uncommon. Stephanie was surprised at how funny this concept seemed to Anja and I.


There aren't too many curbside postal boxes, but the ones that exist are serviced by a China Post worker on a bicycle.


It's possible to tour the Olympic Sailing Center for a price, but I'm not much of a sailing fan.


This is a famous sculpture (Wind of May) in Qingdao very near the Olympic Sailing Center.
By day:

By night:



We walked all day and finally when I was giving up hope, we found a Starbucks. Unfortunately, just as I'd heard, the Starbucks coffee in China is as weak as dishwater. I made the mistake of getting a double tall latte. Forget coffee. There wasn't even much coffee flavor. Oh well. I was happy.


In the evening, we rejoined our hosts and went out to another huge and delicious Chinese meal. The seafood in Qingdao is incredibly fresh and varied (but it's not pizza...). Then they took us on the nighttime tour of Qingdao. There are so many lights and great views over the water. One of the local customs on Qingming is to light small hot air balloons while making a wish, and then release them into the sky. There were many people doing this along the water, and the night sky was filled with magically glowing red balloons.


The next morning, Shushu and his wife picked us up for a ride around Mount Lao. The government collects a fee for driving around the mountain, and for us it would have been $50, but some phone calls, some connections, some favors...we didn't have to pay. There is a famous Taoist temple there, and the traffic was very heavy, but the scenery along the water was beautiful.

Tea is grown on terraces at the base of the mountain and the view of green tea terraces interspersed with red brick buildings at the edge of a beautiful blue sea reminded me very much of the Mediterranean coast in western Italy. Unfortunately, there was no way to stop for picture taking.

We finally stopped for a picnic lunch on a not-so-scenic beach

and then headed back to Qingdao. And then to Shushu's place. He gave us a lesson on green tea culture and we talked about the state of the world while his very dutiful wife cooked for us. The food was delicious of course, and we had to keep eating past the point of saturation. There was just no way to refuse, polite or impolite. We were his guests. For the entire trip, in fact. He paid for everything, including the room. We practically wrestled to pay for the meals, but there was no way to succeed. This is very typical here, and also a bit frustrating, since the guest is almost like a child and has no control whatsoever.
Our hosts:


They do some creative things with food here. A stencil of a character is placed over the apple while it's on the tree, and the sun does the rest. This is a character meaning auspiciousness:


Did I mention that the seafood here is very fresh? That's a pumpkin in the shark's mouth:




Finally, on the last day, we had a few unstructured hours. We again went to Starbucks. I tried to get a triple, but they simply could not put an odd number of shots in the cup. Nor could I order a single shot. This wasn't a language problem, it was just outside the scope of what is commonly done and therefore was not possible. Tip: avoid Starbucks in China.


We then took the bus to the train station and briefly considered our options. There wasn't really time to do much, so we stood by the edge of the sea and waited for the train.


The return trip was five hours long, and then we were back in Jinan, and it seems like it's finally warming up.

Kodak China Moment

On my way to the store today, I had a distinctly China moment. I'm not sure why, but some migrant workers are digging a trench along the road (by hand of course) and so the sidewalk is more congested than usual. As I was passing a loudly coughing, smoke-belching Soviet-era contraption of some sort, I was straining to listen to the music of a dusty old blind man playing the erhu (two-stringed high-pitched violinish traditional instrument) accompanied by a younger man, just as dusty, playing a xylophone-type instrument. They seemed very accomplished, but I was distracted by a passing three-wheeled bike with a pile of salvaged wood at least the size of a Volkswagen that was passing by in the street. At the same time, the workers pulling an ancient earth-tamper (apparently powered by the previously mentioned safety hazard) were distracted by me. Obviously their province has never been visited by foreigners before, because the guy steering the tamper just about twisted his head off staring at me, and I'm sure his eyes will never fully retract into their sockets. Of course I didn't have my camera, but I don't think a simple picture could capture the flavor of the scene.

The Dorm

Why haven't I been posting? Because I've been studying. Hard. Every day. All day. It was starting to drive me over the edge, so I took a break for some retail therapy. Today I bought a digital camera. I should have bought one in the US as so many folks advised, but no, I can't do it the easy way. I had to buy it here. Something of a struggle, and all I could find were really recent models with all the bells and whistles that I definitely don't need. I bought the simplest thing I could find and got them to knock $90 off the price and throw in a 4G memory card. Fortunately, it's very simple to figure out, which is a good thing because the user manual is in Chinese. I hate reading manuals anyway.

I have gotten a few questions about the dorm, so I'm posting pictures. The picture above is a 10x12 room and the picture below is a 5x5 shower/toilet room. There is a very small entry. That's it. The plumbing in the bathroom leaks constantly, so the orange bowl is there to catch some of the water. The leaks on the other side of the bathroom go down the drain. Unless the bathroom door is closed, the constant dripping is something like the Chinese Water Torture. It's the hot water that is leaking, so long hot showers are not possible.


If you look closely, you will notice that the handle of the toilet is hanging a bit outside the toilet tank. This is because the handle is tied on and then the rest of the mechanism is tied to the flange in the toilet. I did this when the toilet handle fell off one day a few weeks ago. I used several pieces of dental floss. Used dental floss of course, because although I have seen dental floss here, so far I haven't seen my brand.


There is really no point in asking the management to fix things here. Not only is the guy in charge an extremely unpleasant person, he has already "fixed" the plumbing twice. When I requested a mattress that wasn't broken (the mattress is too long for the bed frame, so it was forced in and the mattress buckled in the process), his response was an angry tirade and then a refusal. After a few nights, I realized that the lumps were only at the head of the bed, so now I sleep upside down.

This room is much nicer than the previous two rooms I was in, really not bad at all. It's just that it's some new problem every day. Yesterday, there was no water, and since the hot water heater is drained by the leaky plumbing, it got extremely hot and smoky after the water was shut off. I was afraid it was going to catch on fire. Today, the curtain rod, which was barely connected, fell off and it took awhile to reattach it. In the process, I found a piece of my chair which had broken off last week. Be warned: if you are considering going to school at
Shandong Normal University in Jinan and you have seen the pictures of the foreign students dormitory posted on their website, you might be somewhat disappointed.

The Thunderbird Aisle

Today, Anja and I decided to do a little shopping/exploring. The weather was pleasant so we walked along the old city moat to, I am embarrassed to admit, Walmart. The Chinese version of Walmart is not the US version of Walmart. Although they tried, the "lowest possible price" model didn't work in China. They simply could not beat the local Chinese vendors and they lost a lot of money in China before changing their customer target to middle-class Chinese. The store is more like a mid-level department store in the US that has some good loss-leaders. There were a lot of clerks, but not a lot of shoppers. Strangely, many of the signs had English translations.

We did a lot of looking, but we didn't buy much. On the wine isle, we were very amused to see this sign:


The Chinese characters say the same thing, so it's not a mis-translation. Maybe these are "fortified wines"?

Wo gan mao le

Yesterday, I got a visit from Li Jie, the deputy dean of the international program. I was curious as I followed him to his office; maybe my Chinese is so bad I'm being kicked out? But no, he actually wanted to invite me to dinner.

Tammy's (a friend in Washington who grew up in Jinan) father and mother, Li Jie, another woman from the school, and the deputy director of the Foreign Affairs Office in the Shandong Provincial Education Department and I went to a fancy hotel restaurant for dinner last night. I'm not really sure why. I think Tammy's parents wanted to thank me for bringing some items from Tammy to China and also just to show their hospitality. They were both teachers at my school some time ago, and more recently, Tammy's dad was the president of another local university. I felt nervous hobnobbing with these well-connected people, but they were very warm and kind, like everyone here. Fortunately, Li Jie speaks English, so he helped me, but I was mostly in the dark.

The food was delicious, very fresh, lots of seafood and vegetables, some things that I had never heard of. The wine was also delicious and there were lots of toasts. I just smiled and did what everyone else did. Eventually, the dean of the college showed up as well. Strange. And tonight I'm eating instant noodles in my room because I caught my roommate's cold and I just don't feel like going out into the sub-freezing weather.

It's because I look like Paris Hilton, right?

Today, my roommate Anja and I went with Stephanie and her friend Beauty to visit some springs in downtown Jinan. There are apparently 72 springs here in Jinan, and several are quite large. Many people actually get their drinking water from the springs rather than buy it. We walked through a narrow street and then down some very non-descript stairs and suddenly we were at the river that surrounds the old section of the city. A very pleasant walkway has been constructed along the river, and there are a several springs on the side. Of course there were throngs of people, like everywhere in China, especially on the weekends, but the willows were just greening up, and the weather was very mild, so it seemed like a peaceful place.



We walked along until we got to QuanCheng square, one of Jinan’s most famous landmarks. It was totally crowded with people flying kites and playing with their children, vendors, visitors, and just everyday people doing shopping or hanging out. The two foreigners drew a lot of attention, but that is normal. If you are not Asian and you can’t handle being stared at by 100s of people every day, don’t come here.



After another 15 minutes or so, we got to Five Dragon Pool. We paid the 75 cent admission and went it. It was also crowded, but not nearly as densely. It’s a pleasant place with several springs, walkways, waterways, fish, trees, and some historical and cultural displays. There was a display of calligraphy by a famous Jinan calligrapher, Wu Zhongqi. I think the style is called Cao Shu or Running Style. It’s the rather messy free-flowing style that can be difficult even for Chinese to read. It’s my favorite style. It reminds me of a Jackson Pollock painting. There is some meaning hidden there, and if I just stare at it long enough, it will suddenly emerge, like a figure coming out of a thick fog. The lighting in the hall was dim because over time, light damages the scrolls. I was one of the only people in there and I could have stayed all afternoon, losing myself in the peaceful script. Each calligrapher has his own style and many of them do not have much effect on me. Wu Zhongqi certainly did, though. I will go back there again. This is an example of his calligraphy from a website:



We walked back into the shopping masses and found our way to the old district of Jinan, the remaining hutong area that has not been demolished for new construction. It’s an area of narrow winding alleyways, and dates from at least the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644). There were not too many people there besides the people that live there, and their families have inhabited the same small homes for centuries.




There was a famous pool in that area that a prince from long ago swam in regularly. There were a few men there swimming, and that’s where we picked up our own personal paparazzi. A maybe late-20s guy wielding a digital camera with a large lens started snapping pictures of us. First, he was very unobtrusive. I thought I was imagining it, but when he started following us, there could be no doubt. The guy followed us for almost 2 hours as we wandered the ancient alleys. He kept taking pictures, no matter what we did. I wished I’d dressed for the occasion. I got a little glimpse of what it must be like to be famous.
Beauty took some pictures of him taking pictures of us and asked him what he was doing. Apparently he was taking pictures for a magazine. Wait, don’t I get some money for that? And what could the story be about: Foreigners Visit the Hutong? How exciting. It turns out that Beauty and he were both from the same town, so they chatted for awhile…perhaps a budding romance? We stopped to buy some fresh rolls, and I offered him one, but he refused. After another 20 minutes or so, he disappeared. Very strange indeed.

For dinner, we had some delicious food, including a famous Sichuan dish Shui Zhu Yu. It’s cooked in chili oil and peppercorns with lots of red chilies. It was very delicious, but the fish is so hard to eat here because they just chop it up, head, tail, bones and all. Apparently one of the most common reasons for a hospital visit is a fish bone stuck in the throat. I was very cautious, but it makes eating a bit of a chore. We had a few other delicious dishes and then headed into an extremely windy night to return home.