Kunming

I've spent the past 48 hours in Kunming, which is part of the Yunnan
Province. Our local guide was especially good at explaining the
culture of the province, so I'm leaving here feeling like I know a lot
more about Kunming than other places we've been. China has around 55
minority groups, and something like 25 of them are only found in this
province. Last night we went to a show that had the traditional dances
and music of some of the minority groups. It was incredible! I am
guessing they modernized it a lot for their 100% tourist audience, but
I still feel like I have a pretty good idea of the general styles.

One of the sixteen people on this trip had the common sense to bring a
China guidebook, so we turn to her for guidance about each city. It's
not that we don't trust our guide—we really like her—but she has a
very clear itinerary and set of speaking guidelines, so we often don't
get all of the information we want. For Kunming, the guidebook
basically says that the only thing for tourists to do here is go to
the Stone Forest, which is actually an hour outside the city. Living
up to our expectations, we spent all day yesterday at the Stone
Forest. The Stone Forest used to be covered by a lake, and over time,
due to Himalayan plate movement and erosion from the water, these tall
stone columns formed everywhere. I could not envision it at all before
we got there, but it really does look like a bunch of tall, stone tree
trunks with real trees interspersed between them. When you walk among
them, it is like a combination of weaving through tree trunks in a
forest and walking through caves with roofs that have fallen in. Ok- I
didn't do a great job describing this. Check out my pictures when I
post them. It was really cool to see though—almost magical. Definitely
not like anything I have ever seen before.

That's about it for Kunming. Now we're on an airplane waiting to take
off but are delayed for air traffic control reasons. This doesn't make
a lot of sense to me because, according to the departure board, there
are only about 6 planes leaving each hour. But I'm just gonna go with
it. They're showing a white water kayaking competition on the TV,
which seems pretty random, but, again, I'm going with it. I'll use
this time to write about some more general observations about China.

Architecture:
Everything is China is big. They have a huge influx of people moving
to the cities (remember when I said 8 million people was just a medium
sized city?) so everywhere we've been, the skies have been filled with
half completed apartment buildings that look a lot like the projects
in NYC, but are a little nicer and a lot bigger. Our guide joked that
the national bird of China is the construction crane. Other than the
completely boring and huge apartment buildings, China is full of the
most creative office buildings I have ever seen. Every building has
some kind of unique element to make it stand out from all the other
equally unique buildings. There are skyscrapers that are odd shapes,
consist of uncommon materials, or have huge sculptures on top. I'm
convinced that there is some big competition between all architects to
build the most creative building.

Fashion:
-Screen printed tee shirts in English are really popular here, but
most of them make NO sense. I'm not sure whether the people wearing
them just don't understand what they say or whether they know it makes
no sense and see it as a fashion statement. Most shirts are
accompanied by graphics that have no relationship to the words on the
shirt whatsoever, but here are two examples: Our adult, professional
tour guide wore a shirt the other day that said
"FREE
keeps evolving
ALIVE"
Oh, and the capitalized words were also glittery. Then, shopping in a
store a few days ago, I saw a shirt that said
"Big Rooster
Since 1983
Pursue Character
wear out the your it's best own style"

-One of the most popular hats that are sold in tourist shops and that
people wear here are fake panama hats that say "Ronaldino" across the
front. The "n" has a little tilde over it but I can't figure out how
to type that into this blog. Now I'm not super up to date on my sports
trivia, but the only association I have with that name is a famous
soccer player from (I think) Argentina a few years ago. I've asked
about a dozen people here what that means and nobody knows. I have a
hard time believing this is the same Ronaldino the hat refers to, but
I have no better explanation. Maybe the Chinese just really like South
American soccer players. Weirder things have happened…

-I haven't seen a single baby here wearing diapers. Instead, they all
wear pants with giant slits in the middle so that their butts hang
out. I guess it saves a lot of time doing laundry, and it's pretty
cute, but still doesn't seem super sanitary.

Weddings:
We see brides everywhere we go. I guess in a country of 1.3 billion
people, a lot of people get married every day. One of the people on my
trip (the only other one under 60ish) just got engaged, so we've been
talking about weddings a lot. All of the brides that we've seen wear
Western-style, white poofy dresses and, of course, all of the brides
are beautiful. Traditionally in China though, white is the color one
wears to a funeral, so the young brides usually compromise with their
parents and wear a traditional red dress to the wedding reception. One
of my favorite new customs that our guide told us about is that when
it is time to put on the rings, they are flown across the room to the
bride and groom via remote control helicopter. How creative!

Ok. The plane is finally taking off. Yangtze river cruise here I come!

Chengdu and Lijiang

Here's the thing. Pandas are the cutest animals ever. Yes. Ever. Fun fact though: newborn pandas are not. They look exactly like naked mole rats. After a few weeks though they are super adorable and continue to be so for the rest of their lives. We only spent one day in Chengdu, and our first stop was the Panda Sanctuary, where they have about 80 pandas. Most of them were inside, but there were enough around that we spent about 3 hours there. I literally overdosed on cuteness and am still talking in a slightly squeaky voice.

 

Then, in the afternoon, we went to the Tibetan neighborhood in Chengdu. It definitely did not make up for us not being able to go to Tibet (the Chinese government forbid it, so they had to rearrange our tour) but it was still amazing to see. There are monks walking around everywhere, sitting in the stores, and generally acting like it's no big deal to be a Buddhist monk. The stores are full of beautiful Tibetan art, prayer wheels, jewelry, and ornate statues of Buddha. I got a set of prayer beads and a gorgeous carved incense burner box. It was so frustrating though that I couldn't communicate with the store owners at all. I had about a million questions and would have talked and talked for days if I could have.

 

A quick note on the food there- it is the only variation we've really had so far. Chengdu is in the Sichuan province, meaning that the food is really spicy. REALLY spicy. They gave us 2-star spicy food (on a 5-star scale) which, while delicious, almost gave me PTSD flashbacks to the time I tried the spiciest sauce at Buffalo Wild Wings.

 

After Chengdu, we hopped back on a plane for a brief trip to Lijiang, which turned out to be my favorite place so far. The Old Town, where our hotel was, doesn't allow vehicles on its streets. The entire place is paved in large stones and has narrow, winding streets. If I had gotten lost I don't think I ever would have made it back to the hotel. It has become pretty touristy and is lined in small shops decorated with red lanterns that sell jewelry, antiques, and clothes that are much more of a bohemian style than traditional Chinese.

 

In the morning we went to a museum about the history of the Naxi (pronounced Nah-shee) people, who are native to the area. This region became part of China relatively recently (like 800 years ago) and the people seem to have much less allegiance to China as a country, and especially the Chinese government. Our guide was the first Chinese person I've met to blatantly criticize the current government and Mao specifically.

 

After the museum, we went to a beautiful park at the foot of the edge of the Himalaya Mountains. I climbed about 3 steps of the trail, so now I can say I've hiked the Himalayas:-) While wandering around the park, I was approached by a group of Chinese tourists who asked if they could take a picture with me. I said yes, which led to more tourists asking to take pictures with me. In China, the ideal woman has a big nose and is pale. Also, my blonde hair and blue eyes are especially exotic, so I stand out A LOT here. I've decided to embrace it though, as very few people appreciate paleness in the USA. Our guide told me that many people in China have seen white people, but have never seen someone in person with blonde hair and blue eyes. The photo shoot was a little awkward but mostly I had fun with it.

 

In the afternoon, we went to a training school for girls to learn embroidery. The art they make it truly amazing. In the gallery, we saw many works that had been copies from paintings, and looked exactly like paintings. Incredible detail! Some of them took people who had been studying embroidery for over 10 years, a full year to make.  Then, we went to a small town up in the hills where there was a small museum about Dr. Rock, who despite his misleading name, was an anthropologist in the early 20^th century who lived among the native people and chronicled their lives.

 

One of the best parts of this stop was our local guide: Wu. He studied Chinese literature in university and now works part time as a teacher and volunteers at a nature conservancy in addition to his tour guide job. He has a great mastery of English and has gone above and beyond to learn how to speak English in, what I assume, he thinks is a poetic and authentic way. He has literally memorized every idiom of the English language and uses them whenever remotely appropriate. This means that he averages an idiom every two sentences or so, making him extremely entertaining to listen to. A typical example: "First we will go to the gift shop. Remember a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush so feel free to spread the wealth. We've had a lot of balls up in the air today so we'll take a break before dinner and you can get forty winks." A great sense of humor!

 

Now we're back on a plane, flying to Kunming. This trip involves a lot of travel, which is tedious but makes sense. Turns out China is a pretty big country!

Xi'an

Our next stop after Beijing was Xi'an, which at a population of 8
million (roughly the size of NYC) is "only a medium sized city"
according to our guide. It was also the beginning of the Silk Road and
the capital of its region something like 2000 years ago, giving it a
lot of rich history. I won't go into that though because that would
take pages and pages (and also I don't remember most of the details).
I haven't had time to blog since we got there 3 days ago so this is
going to be a long one.

After the aforementioned nap in my previous post, we hit the town. And
by hit the town, I mean spent a few hours in the Shaanxi History
Museum. After trying, only semi-successfully, to understand the story
written mostly in Chinese, here is my highly scholarly take on the
history of China: There were a lot of dynasties. The emperors were all
very wealthy and commissioned super luxurious art. They had lots of
slaves. Then there was communism and the people loved it (or at least
pretended to). Maybe I shouldn't generalize, but the museums and
historical sites here that I've seen are much less cohesive and
interactive than museums in the United States.

This seems like as good a time as ever to provide a disclaimer: I take
no responsibility for what may seem to be fact in this blog,
especially dates and superlatives. Sometimes the English explanation
is hard to understand, I have a very selective memory, and (if you've
ever met me you already know) I've been known to zone out
occasionally. Remembering numbers, particularly, is not my forte. Feel
free, however, to correct any inaccuracies in the comment section.

After the museum we went to the top of the city wall and then had a
Mongolian hot pot meal, which is like fondue but not as good. I had
fun with it, but a few of the people in our group had a shockingly
difficult time understanding the concept of cooking their own food.

The next morning, our first stop was a jade factory. Carving jade into
complex, highly detailed designs is very difficult, but the
demonstrators made it look easy. I learned a lot about jade, including
the fact that jade is not always green. Also, unlike most other
gems/stones, the more colors and variations in a piece of jade, the
more expensive it is.

Next stop was the Terracotta Warriors site. The Terracotta Warriors
were made to protect an emperor in his afterlife and are buried about
a mile from his tomb, which is, by the way, the largest tomb in the
world. Yes, bigger than the pyramids. While the varied and detailed
8000ish warriors and horses were incredible to see in person (one of
those" way better in real life" type situations), I would like to
focus on how they were found: by a local farmer digging a well. They
have the site of the well included in the exhibit, and it is on the
verrrry edge of the front line of warriors. As in, if he had decided
to dig half a foot farther over, he would have missed the underground
lair completely. I guess the find worked out ok for him in the long
run, though, unlike in the USA, he has no claim to site even though it
was on his property. He now has a cushy, government assigned job
signing books in the museum gift shop and for 20 Yuan (roughly $3)
he'll pose for a picture. This tourist attraction, unlike most other
ones, did have a pretty cool interactive part. I now have a picture of
myself riding a bronze chariot pulled by clay horses.

After a brief stop at a wholesale herbal medicine market (lizards on a
stick, goat testicles, and human placenta were among the delicacies)
we headed to a delicious dumpling feast. You're probably sick of
hearing me talk about food so I'll try to keep this short: 18
different kinds of dumplings all in different shapes! A gastronomical
adventure and delicious! During dinner we saw a performance of
traditional Tang Dynasty music and dance. All of the dances were
interesting, but the one that really stuck out was the 10,000 Hands
dance. I don't know that a video would be easy to find online, but
it's definitely worth a try.

Yesterday morning I woke up early for an optional Tai Chi lesson,
which I loved. I guess I was the Tai Chi master's favorite because he
gave me a peacock feather as we were leaving:-) Of course now I am
determined to carry it around for the next 2 weeks and somehow get it
through customs…

After a brief stop to learn about lacquer furniture (sick of
showrooms, I quickly retreated to the bus to read about 15th century
England) we headed to our "day in the life, typical farming village
overnight home stay." I actually had a great time and enjoyed my host
a lot, however I had a hard time getting over my anger that the
Chinese government was trying to sell this as a "typical" farmer's
life. First of all, this was a model village, only 10 years old that
was clearly built for tourists. All of the houses we stayed in had
second stories with two bedrooms and a western style toilet. All of
the houses also had certificates on the wall that they were certified
by something like the Chinese Bureau for Tourism. Second, we didn't
even live like they do. We had much softer beds, they cooked for us,
and we were there from 4pm to 11am. At night, we went to the center of
town for traditional Chinese dancing (at the risk of being immodest, I
was the only one of us to really learn the dances) and American dances
like Cotton Eyed Joe and the Macarena. I ended up talking to a
16-year-old girl who said that she comes from a neighboring village
every night to practice her English because they have dancing with
American tourists almost every night. Oh, and there was a group of 30
or so People to People teenagers staying in the village too.

We went to the old village that everybody had moved from when the town
was built, and that is similar to where the majority of farmers in
China still live. It reminded me a lot of Uganda. I am trying not to
get too into this rant right now, but the amount of control that the
Chinese government has over our experience here is scary. Even though
we have a tour guide, we are required to hire local tour guides
certified by the government, each place we go. All of the tour guides
so far have parents who are in the communist party, which, by the way,
is pretty difficult to get into. Most of the information they give is
only half the story, and even by asking direct questions it is hard to
ever get an answer that doesn't show the Chinese government is a real
light. And don't even get me started on the government banning US
citizens from traveling to Tibet! In trying to control my experience
here so that I see the Chinese government in a good light, they made
me view it as extremely oppressive. But I digress…

This morning we got a demonstration of a unique emerging style of
farmers' art, and then participated in a paper cutting lesson. My
paper snowflake skills are clearly not developed enough for anything
more complex.

Now I am on a plane to Chengdu, as a documentary/infomercial on the
overhead TV tells the inspiring story of a flight attendant who had
trouble in flight attendant school (she was petite and had trouble
opening the emergency door) but persevered and is now a well trained
flight attendant on this airline. I can't tell whether the point is to
give us confidence in our flight crew or inspire us to want to BE the
flight crew. Regardless, this is getting long enough and I want to
nap. Gotta get rested for pandas tomorrow!!!

Beijing--> Xi'an

Yesterday was, sadly, our last day in Beijing. I could have easily
spent another week there. In a city of 18 million people, there is a
lot to do and see. In the morning we had free time, so Jane, Dad,
Karen and I decided to go shopping. Being in China without a guide is
a little bit more stressful than most places I've been because I can't
read any of the signs, but thanks to two terrifyingly daring taxi
drivers, we made it to the mall and back. Actually, on the way there
we saw a really intense fight between three bicycle cart drivers in
the middle of a busy intersection. Our taxi driver just swerved around
them like it was no big deal. Driving in Beijing, by the way, is
crazy. As our tour guide put it, the lanes and signs are more like
suggestions that nobody follows. Driving is kind of like playing one
giant, very expensive, game of chicken. Being a pedestrian isn't easy
either, as cars have the right of way here. Like, if you are on a
crosswalk with a walk sign and a car wants to turn left, it's your job
to get out of the way and avoid getting hit. We've already had a few
close calls in our group.

In the afternoon ate lunch at the house of a woman whose grandfather
was an artist for the government and trained her to take over his
business. Basically, she takes glass vases and paints beautiful
pictures (mostly landscapes) on them from the inside using a curved
brush. It seems incredibly difficult because she has to paint the
details and then the background. She also taught us how to make
dumplings and let us try too. Of course, mine fell apart…

After lunch we did a walking tour of a traditional neighborhood, which
has small, single-family houses crammed side to side along narrow
alleys. Our guide told us that the neighborhoods are disappearing as
the government takes them over to build skyscraper apartment buildings
for the growing population to live in. The way that housing works here
is pretty complicated. Some people own their own houses/apartments,
but most people lease them from the government. Everybody has to have
ID cards for their province, and with certain exceptions (marriage,
etc) they are not allowed to move to other provinces. Also, if
somebody is going to school in a different province than the one their
ID card says and they get sick, they have to go to a hospital in their
own province to get any insurance coverage.

After the neighborhood walking tour, we went to the Temple of Heaven,
which is gorgeous. It is this huge, one room structure that was used
by the emperors to pray to the heavens, usually for a good harvest.
That's about all I got out of it though because all of the
explanations there were only in Chinese.

Last night, after a delicious noodle dinner, we boarded an overnight
train. My group had a sleeper car to ourselves so we decided to have a
Fourth of July party in the hallway. Someone bought a bottle of the
traditional Chinese firewater, which smells like rubbing alcohol and
kind of tastes like it too. Luckily the train cart was selling "Great
Wall wine," which I also don't recommend unless it is your only
option. We arrived in Xi'an this morning and all promptly went to our
beds to shower and nap, which is where I am now.

I guess I should take this time to write a little bit about our group.
There are 16 of us, all couples except me, Karen, and an adult father
and daughter. As it turns out, summer isn't the most ideal time to
visit China (I think it has been in the 90s every day so far), so
about half of the couples here are traveling now because one of them
is involved in academics. Most of the people here are around my
parents' age, though there are a few older people, including two
really in shape 75-year-olds. So far everyone is getting along well,
though I think everybody is complaining a little bit too much. If they
wanted to relax and be comfortable they shouldn't have gone on a tour
of China! Mostly though, everybody has a good sense of humor and
adventure.

Our tour guide is Susanna, and she is fantastic! She has done a great
job of taking care of us and answering all of our questions, though I
am getting the feeling that the government tourism bureau has given
her quite a few guidelines. She has a mini umbrella that is decorated
like an orange panda (including ears sticking out of the top) that she
holds up when we are walking around. I find it probably more amusing
than most people that I am going to spend the next 2 weeks following
an orange panda around. Before we go into large crowds, Susanna always
reminds us, "We are a group! Stay together like sticky rice!"

So far I have only learned/retained a few words, so I will end with a
very short lesson:
Hello= Nee-how (not to be confused with neeow, which means "I have to pee")
How are you= Nee-how ma
Soso= mama hoohoo
Great!= dingding how
Thank you= Shi-eh shi-eh
I don't want (to buy)= Boo-yao

Beijing

Wow. The past two days have been jam packed. I have lots to talk about! So here goes:

Saturday morning we went to a cloisonné factory. Cloisonne is the art of decorating things with copper wire, filled in with colored enamel—think J. Crew enamel bracelets but usually on much larger items like vases and plates.  We went to the factory and watched women hand paint vases. Then they took us briefly to the kiln room, where they fire each piece 5 times at around 1800 degrees Fahrenheit. When they opened the kiln the whole room immediately heated up at least 10 degrees! Honestly, it was mostly an excuse for them to take us to a GINORMOUS show room full of art and push us to buy things, but it was still really cool to see. We got in a big debate about whether the women who do the painting find it fun and creative or just tedious. I tended to think more on the fun side but was pretty outnumbered.

The afternoon was taken up by going to The Great Wall. They took us a little farther outside the city so we could get to a part that hadn't been rebuilt and wasn't so touristy. According to Mao (nbd but I'm kind of on a first name basis with the guy by now), anybody who climbs to the top of the wall is a Chinese hero. So we climbed. And climbed. And climbed. My legs were finally recovered from all that biking in Friesland too! Our guide, of course, was running circles around all of us as we wheezed our way up the stairs. Here is the thing about The Great Wall that I didn't realize: most of it (and ALL of our part) is just stairs. Nothing flat. All they're all different heights so you really have to pay attention to where you are going if you don't want to fall on your face. We climbed a total of 800 of them, give or take 20. (I counted on the way down).  Reaching the top was definitely worth it. The view was incredible. I know this is obvious, but the wall just goes on and on and on. For me at least, seeing it gave me a much bigger appreciation for the work involved in creating it than just hearing about it.

That evening we went to an acrobatic show that was generally like Cirque Du Soleil but not quite as well funded. The tricks were still incredible though. I was really impressed by how young all the people were, but I was told afterward that the minimum age was 13. I thought they were 10 at the oldest!

This morning, our first stop was "Beijing Number 1 Carpet Factory (2nd)." No joke. That was the name. And it actually is one of the biggest and oldest silk carpet companies in Beijing, employing around 1500 people to hand make silk rugs. 2 fun facts about silk carpets:

1) One silkworm cocoon (approximately the size of a walnut) can be unwound to make about half a mile of silk.

2) A large, 800-count, silk carpet can easily take someone 2 or 3 years working full time to make

After the silk factory, we went to the Summer Palace, which is where old Chinese emperors and empresses used to spend time in the summer. The parts that we were in were mostly full of tourists, but according to our guide, there are many quiet parts where people living in Beijing (Beijingites? Beijingers? Beijingeans?) go. Not a ton to say about it though. It was very pretty to wander around, and then take a pagoda boat through, but nothing very exciting happened.

In the afternoon we went to one of the local Kung Fu schools. You know how in the US we have language immersion schools? Well this school is like that but instead of intensive studying a language along with regular subjects, you practice Kung Fu 4-5 hours a day along with regular subjects. First we saw a demonstration, which was awesome and pretty much exactly like the movies. There were lots of flips and sword play, breaking wood on people, and then somebody threw a needle through glass to pop a balloon. After the demonstration we had a tutorial from the students, which we all failed miserably at, though a lot of the poses were very similar to yoga poses.

Finally, tonight we went to the opera. Now, this is not at all like anything anybody in the US would think of when I say opera. The place was set up more like a nightclub, with everybody at tables instead of in rows of seats. We had dinner in the theater before the show started, and then once it started the entire audience continued to eat, drink, smoke, and talk while little kids ran around. The show itself literally consisted of one woman in traditional robes, fake hair down to her ankles, and her face completely covered in makeup standing on stage for 30 minutes singing (in a high pitched voice) eeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeAAAAAAAAAAaaeeeeeeeeEEEAAEEAEAEAEEEEEAaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeee. I am dead serious. Everybody (not just the American tourists) was laughing the entire time. We had been warned by our guide ahead of time that 30 minutes was plenty long, but I didn't take her nearly as seriously as I should have.

Alright. I have a lot more general stuff to write about, but this is getting long I think tomorrow I will have a lot more time to write, as we are taking a 12-hour overnight train. It should be interesting…

Netherlands to... China!

I typed this on Friday but couldn't post it because turns out China blocks blogspot (yay rights!). Then, today I remembered that I set up an email address from Uganda that lets me email in my posts. Not sure if this will work but it's worth a try (somebody email me and let me know if you're reading this?). Without further ado, a seriously subpar entry:

Ok. So apparently I'm not so good at getting my final trip entry done. Things always seem to speed up, and reflecting so soon is overwhelming. The end of the bike trip in Europe was fantastic though. The last two days were definitely the hardest, with headwinds and monotonous landscapes for the majority of both days. We still found ways to entertain ourselves though and have fun. And, of course, we also managed to eat really well! We got all 11 towns, and biked the whole 260kms, which means that after we mail off our stamp sheet I'll get a certificate. I'm gonna frame that baby!

Anyways, after 2 days in Charlotte doing nothing but sleeping late and then napping in the sun by the pool, I'm in China! Yeah… it's a rough life. We landed last night at 11pm, were at the hotel around 1, and had to wake up at 7. As a result, it is 9:30 and I'm already in bed. My body is beyond confused about what time it is.

Today was fantastic though. We wasted no time jumping right into it. First thing we did was go to Tiananmen Square which, unfortunately, was closed off today because it is the 90^th anniversary of the founding of the Communist party in China. We got to see it from across the street though, and watch them set up for some kind of ceremony they were having later in the day.

There was a huge police/military presence everywhere we went today. They kept randomly stopping people (not Westerns though) and doing full searches of their bags. I'm talking FULL. Like, opening each container, smelling liquids, etc. It honestly seemed to be more for the intimidation affect than actual security, but I'm guessing that was the point. And it works! I would not have wanted to attract the attention of any of them.

Next was the Forbidden City, which, true to any description, is HUGE. Before you even really get into it there are 4 or 5 gates, each with giant courtyards in between them where there are military barracks and souvenir booths. The palace itself is absolutely beautiful, full of old relics and extravagant decorations. All of the rooms (or at least all the ones we saw) have different names and since there are 9,999 rooms, they obviously had to get a little creative. One of my favorite parts was just reading all of the names.

Ok. This is a very incomplete description of the day, but I am exhausted and need to get some sleep so I'll try to catch you up on my observations another day. This is going to be a great 3 weeks!!