Travel to China, Guangdong, Shenzhen.

I worked in a restaurant for almost 6 years, and during which I was pestered by the impatience and annoying tendencies of foreigners, in particular the Chinese. Well now the tables have turned, and in many ways I have become one of them. In little less than a month, I have adapted to their culture and to their restaurant etiquette. I have learned the ways of street vendors, fast food clerks, and even had lunch at a five star restaurant with a nine course meal. So to all my serving friends, this is for you. I am going to reveal to you what typical service is like in China.

Upon entrance into a restaurant, and this is true for most restaurants, the customer chooses the seating. You walk in and sit wherever you want. There are places where a host seats you, but in those instances, there is always a host to sit you. If there is no host, I usually expect to seat myself.

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Travel to China, Hubei, Wuhan.

I started teaching kids again Monday...it went really bad...I think they started school that day and then came to the training school in addition on the same day. They were out of control. One kid basically screamed and ran around the room for an hour. My boss sat in on two of the classes so I spent most of the time with my mind blocked by self-doubt...When you add that to the attitude I had been having you end up with Tuesday and the question, "Why did I come back here?"

Apologies to everyone who encountered me Tuesday and before, it was not good. I started planning my escape...leave China after this term, travel in Nepal, and then be in Chicago at a really good time...and then I remembered what makes the world go around...it's not happiness, it's money. Money is why I stayed in China. I need to take this year to save so I can do what I want. Money. I don't like this system, this game of success and promotions. I want to help people, it's hard to get paid to help people-it's hard to break even when helping people.

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Travel to China, Fujian, Zhangzhou City.

We had a right laugh last night in our room. We decided to do some item swapping! Before the trip stated we agreed to bring an item that represented our home town. I got Zoe's gift from Margate- a linen bag, a stick of rock and some postcards. Zoe got my Hull College polo shirt. Rob got Laura's Mhaigheo man, and she got Rob's Nun game!!! It was very funny at the time; it was one of his situations were..... You just had to be there to know how funny it was! Jason couldn't find his 'pebble' from Brixham, then Josh got out his musical Justin Beber toothbrush. Both Josh's and Rob's gifts bore no resemblance to their city of Hemel Hempstead, but that mad the whole thing even funnier! We ended up with a room full of people wanting to know what was so funny, but by then we were all in stitches, not really knowing why! I think my contagious laugh may have had something to do with it! This morning we were up and sorted and on the coach by 6.30. We arrived at the train station in good time for the 8am train.

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Travel to China, Henan, Zhengzhou.

Big day today, We have lots to do, and it will all be physically challenging! I have been dreading this walk! We are going to watch the Shaolin Monks perform in their performance area in the Shaolin Temple area.

We got mini buses to the main area, then that is the end of being spoilt. We set of for the performance. It was unbelievable. They are so graceful, yet so strong, and some are very young. The school has about 8000 students being taught Kung Fu there. Fabio and Gloria went on a volunteers, they both did really well. Fabio won! After the performance we set off for Dharma cave where a nun has been living and meditating for four years. It is wwaaaaaaayyyyyyy up towards Wuru Peak on Song Mountain. It was such a hard hike. Probably my hardest ever! I was soooo pleased that I actually made it up there. If Jason hadn't have come back for me I don't think I would have made it! Bless him!

When I got to the. Cave, I just about collapsed on the nuns bench! I ate some bread that I had prepared earlier, had a drink, then I came round! I then carried on to the top of the mountain where the Dharma statue is. It was so high up I felt giddy!

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Travel to China, Xinjiang, Kashgar.

I spent a couple of hours wandering around from the area where they discuss the price of cows, to the next where Uyghur men check out the sheep’s ears, backs and buttholes… and then there is the donkey area… While the Uyghur were looking at the animals, I must admit I was people watching. As you can see I took more pictures of the people selling and buying livestock than of the animals. There is something fascinating about these men’s faces, the beards, the hats, the wrinkles and the body gestures. When I look at them, I realize how far I am from home. Funny how a simple hat changes everything…

Men negotiate the prices and they shake hands in order to make an offer. As their hands meet, the buyer will hold a few fingers inside the seller’s hand to indicate how much he’s ready to offer for the animals. Apparently they do this so that no one around can find out how much they agreed on and the bargaining
Kashgar July 2013can go on with many other buyers. When they reach a final agreement, they shake hands very loudly. And then they get the banknotes out… I hadn’t seen this much money in a long time!

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Travel to China, Fujian, Xiamen.

Xiamen is a very relaxed city by Chinese standards. People say that is because of the proximity to Taiwan, meaning there has always been affluence and a certain limited exposure to the outside world. No one batted an eyelid to see a Westerner. Xiamen is popular as a tourist destination for the Chinese, although it's a more laidback type of tourism, people come for the beaches and to hire tandems to cycle along the promenade.

I had an interesting conversation with the owner of the hostel I am staying at, who is Chinese but married to a Westerner, about the dramatic shift in China from Communism and collectivism to rampant consumerism. This is something almost every traveller I have met in China has remarked upon, but it is hard to escape: in modern China, shopping malls are everywhere, garishly lit up and packed with crowds, and advertising is everywhere too - even on the Subway systems, there are screens showing advertisements.

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Travel to China, Shanghai.

Before I came to China, I had not known calligraphy was considered such an art form. Today I went to the Shanghai Museum, which has a section devoted to the history of calligraphy and examples of the various masters and the development of the form throughout history. It was surprisingly entertaining as the audioguide described how through the various dynasties what was considered perfect calligraphy changed as new masters came along and altered the artistic landscape, similar to the way painting developed in Western fine art. I saw ancient calligraphy variously described as "free and expressive", "like writing in capital letters in an email" and, my favourite, "the finest calligraphy of its time, but characters like a frog squashed under a rock".

Calligraphy remains a popular hobby in China. Beijing has a whole row of shops selling calligraphy materials and we have periodically seen calligraphy shops in all the places we have visited. Walking the streets I also regularly see people (usually older people) practising drawing characters in the street with a large brush and a small bucket of water to dip it in.

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Travel to China, Xinjiang, Turpan.

I believe there are 3 places that stand out in Xinjiang province in terms of popularity. The first one is naturally Urumuqi because it’s the capital of the province and it’s also the largest and most developed city in this huge province. The second one is Kashgar because of its location in the far west of Xinjiang. It’s the gateway to Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan or Pakistan and it’s the heart of the Uyghur community and culture. Finally the 3rdplace must be Turpan, a famous oasis covered in green grapes where tourists come for a day trip from Urumuqi to enjoy big fat raisins and some sweet wine.

Becky’s friend, Jiao Lu, had some business to attend in Turpan and she offered to drive us there so that we could visit the vineyards and the other sites while she was working: an offer we couldn’t refuse. The road to Turpan from Urumuqi offered some very cool scenery along the way. At first we drove through bare hills of stones and little bush, and then we passed dark stony mountains before hitting the flat empty land where gigantic windmills are spreading on each side of the road for kilometers.

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Travel to China, Xinjiang, Kashgar.

Kashgar can be seen as several distinct areas, there is some of the Old Town left, There's the New Old Town, then the larger high rise city and the New City of Kashgar under construction. Several years ago the Government started making a concerted effort to knock down the Old Town, as unsafe buildings and where high rise apartments would be a much more efficient use of city space, which brought some strong resistance into the streets. A compromise of sorts was reached and a New Old Town area was designated, two and three story buildings leaving areas for street markets etc and leaving a small area of the Old Town standing. The pace of change did not stop just became refocused on the New City. China is committed to bringing millions of its citizens into the middle classes every year, a program that will continue for the very success of Chinas Rebuilding, they have let the Uyghur people move along at a slower pace.

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Travel to China, Hunan, Shaoshan.

We've been trying to get to Shaoshan for quite a while. I would really like to see all the home towns of the old communist leaders around Changsha. That was going to be our plan but, as is usual in China, we underestimated just how long it would take us to get there. We left Shaoyang at around 9 am and arrived in Xiangtan at lunchtime. After a spot of lunch we then travelled onto Shaoshan, we took a taxi 200 rmb but there is a bus from the west bus station we found out later which cost 15rmb, which took another hour. So it was around 2 o'clock when we finally got there. We had about 45 minutes in the square and visited Mao's home and then we had to go back to Xiangtan for the long bus ride home. With hindsight it would probably have been better to stay in Xiangtan or Changsha. Never mind.

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Travel to China, Gansu, Mati Si.

In my second day at Ma Ti Si I rode to another grotto, 13km away. The Tibetan guesthouse owners had told me there was a road to go to Guan Yin Dong. What they didn’t tell me (or did I miss it?) was that the road was unpaved and VERY bumpy! It took me 90 minutes to cover the 13km. The scenery was splendid though! I took (too) many pictures and I imagined building a little summer mud house for the future…

Fields were covered in blue-purple flowers (I don’t know what they’re called, but I’ll find out) and I only ran into a couple of tractors and local farmers on their motorbikes. The only noise was that of cuckoo birds and bees: soooo relaxing!

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Travel to China, Guangxi.

Boat racing always the event on the Duanwu festival day, but here in Longhe, a small township northeast from Napo in Guangxi, the Zhuang people celebrate it in their own way on the Lunar 5th day of May, for the last 230 years or so they shot canon up to the sky that carry a small matel ring, it was an act to praised the almighty their Lord. People would fought their way to catch the ring when it falling back down from the sky that'd been carry the blessing from above. Everywhere in China Duanwujie is dedicated to the patriotic poet Quyuan, but in Longhe only the patriotism is related, they dedicated the day to a Shima King and a temple had been built over 200 years ago, for his effort to defended the country's border. and every year on the 5th of Lunar May people would honor him by shooting 5 canons up to the sky. prize would be reward to those who'd caught the ring, and the first canon gave the biggest prize(this year the prize for the 1st canon is 380 yuan).

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Travel to China, Gansu, Xiahe.

I enjoyed the atmosphere around the Labrang Monastery so much that I ended up spending 6 days in Xiahe. I stayed in a fun guest house held by Tibetan monks where I met some young Chinese tourists, a few foreigners (in China to teach or study), a Chinese teacher who works with orphans, Tibetan men who openly talked to me about the difficulties of being a Tibetan in 2013, and many monks who enjoyed talking about the Dalai Lama but also football and Tony Parker...

It was nice to park my bike for a couple of days and go off for long walks in the mountains and through the narrow alleys of the monastery. But I also enjoyed getting back on it and riding to the grasslands of Sangke and Gangia. I think I did about 60km on the first day out and maybe 90km on the second.

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Travel to China, Shaanxi, Xi'an.

Everything was going so well the next morning. Our planned taxi journey to the station area of Xian to pick up our coach to the Terracotta Army went without a hitch - well there was a minor blip when our taxi driver decided he would stop for breakfast en-route but apart from that all good. And then we saw the queues for the coaches to the Terracotta Warriors! As they say in Norfolk where Lottie Let Loose hails from 'Ooooh moi gard!' There were literally hundreds of people in the queue (the fact that the Chinese were actually queuing warranted a photo!) and it wasn't moving as far as we could make out. Dennis hadn't ever seen it this bad before, but this is where having a fab local tour guide comes into its own. A few phone calls later and he had got us a ride, through a friend of a friend and we relinquished our place in the queue, that had only move about 2 metres in the time we'd been waiting, and followed our personal driver to his vehicle a few streets away and we were off....sort of...the traffic was really bad, so along with everyone else trying to get to the Terracotta Army, we were crawling along at snail's pace for quite a way out of the city. Eventually things seemed to ease up a bit and we got on our way.

A very slow 17 miles later and we finally arrived at the Terracotta Army site. A long walk to the ticket barrier and another long walk to the pits and - deep breath - woah there we were standing in front of the most amazing archaeological discovery! The main pit is housed in a big arched roof hangar with a viewing platform all around the edge. At the front are the horses and infantry soldiers that have been expertly restored - not quite to their former glory as the originals were painted, but as good as. Further down the pit are still some of the smashed warriors waiting to be restored or half way through their jigsaw work. At the back you can see lots of half made up warriors, work stations and a lab.

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Travel to China, Yangtze River.

We were again woken up at 6.20am with an announcement over the boat's intercom and zombies were in evidence once more shuffling up to eat a massive breakfast. For someone who normally only has a slice of toast and a cup of tea in the morning I was finding the volume of food I'd been having in China quite an effort and I assumed a bit of dieting was likely to be needed on my return to the UK! As we tucked into our breakfast our boat was starting to pull into our mooring spot, up against another cruise boat, and were treated to the sight of an older gentleman standing naked, bar his white Y-fronts at his bedroom window - completely oblivious to us! Not a pretty sight it has to be said, but pretty funny nonetheless.

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Travel to China, Jiangxi, Nanchang.

My last post left off at Shelly's where I spent my Spring Festival and celebrated the Chinese New Year with her family. I overall had a great time, but was very excited to be traveling back on the 14th of February. Going back to Nanchang actually involved quite a bit of work both from Shelly and her father to get me to the bus station. To get to her house, if you remember, it took a 3 hour bus ride to Anfu city, then her family picked me up in a car, which in itself involved asking for favors from different family members, and then driving 30 minutes to her house. To get back, since it wasn't convenient to ask for the car again, Shelly's dad rode a motorcycle (theirs I think) and took my main luggage while Shelly and I walked to the nearest village (where Shelly's old school was).
IMG_6655From there we waited a while for an extremely crowded bus where we (THANK GOD) got two of the last seats and rode about an hour or so to Anfu city. At that point Shelly haggled with the 3-wheeler taxis to get us to the bus station where we then had to wait in line and get the very LAST ticket to Nanchang that left at 4 (it was around noon). Since we had a while to wait we went over to Shelly's aunt's house to rest and have lunch. Time passed pretty quickly and it was soon time to say goodbyes and our promises to stay in contact since she wouldn't be coming back to Nanchang, but would be going to Shenzhen for an internship in March.

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Travel to China, Hangzhou.

It is unbelievable that we are heading into our final week of March! I still cannot wrap my head around how quickly the weeks scoot by. I knew that this year was going to go by very quickly, what with it being filled with new experiences… but this is madness. The end of March brings about the beginning of April which is going to be a month filled with “firsts” and plans.

Lifestyle-wise, April is going to bring a very significant change. At work, I’m going to be taking on a classload and transitioning into more of a teaching position and away from the marketing madness. We are beginning a new term altogether the first week of April, so it’s a bit like a fresh start and reboot for the center at large. April is also set to bring our center an additional Foreign Trainer who is entering onboarding this week. That is bound to turn our center’s operations on its head as that could mean a lighter classload, and better coverage for our classes during vacation time.

Ah, vacation time – the next major change being brought to my schedule! In about a month,
Spaghetti with Chopsticksmy mother will be here! It looks as though everything visa-wise has been approved, so we can actually start to look forward to this thing as though it’s actually happening! We have some pretty spectacular plans laid out, so it is bound to be a very good visit.

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Travel to China, Yunnan, Dali.

This place was WAY better than Kunming!! Oh man. Way nicer people and far better scenery. What's unique about Dali is that it's divided into the Ancient City and the new city, Xia Guan (lower town). The new city is modern; deluxe hotels and large shopping malls, while the Ancient City is a well-preserved relic from the 8th century. Nowadays, Dali Ancient City is mainly set up for tourist visitors. In fact, there's even a street named "yangren jie" which means "foreigner street" lined with shops selling bootleg CD's, crispy crust pizza, and cheap garb.

The Dali Ancient City lies on the western edge of Erhai Lake. The altitude here is 6,330 feet, almost the same elevation as Lake Tahoe. Behind it soar the Jade Green Mountians and the awesome Cang Shan at 13,330 feet. To me this city reminds me a lot of Bishop, CA and the corridor along Highway 395. Dali is famous because it used to be the end node for trade along the Burma Road during the 9th century. To protect it from rival kingdoms, Dali is surrounded by massive stone walls and thick gates on all four sides. The
The Three Pagodasonly group to have successfully taken the city by force was Kublai Khan and his Mongol Army. Like a bawws.

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Travel to China, Heilongjiang, Harbin.

Our longest train journey yet started from Irkutsk on the weekly train to Beijing via Harbin. The train was one of the newer ones and this time we had a cabin all to ourselves for two days or so. Settling in we realised there was little to do except check out the scenery or read. I decided to catch up on sleep and let Dave get his fill of scenery. When I woke, Dave let me know that there had been plenty of trees and then as the sun rose we were given a lovely view over lake Baikal which the train followed around the southern end, As I had slept for a couple of hours we were nearing the last sight of the lake. From here the train turned east to skirt Mongolia before headings towards Zabaikalsk-Manzhouli (The Russian-Chinese border). After a good nights sleep we were informed by our provodnik that we would arrive at the Russian border town of Zabaikalsk to change the train bogies at around midday. We were told we needed to leave the train while this happened and that it would take about 4 hours to do but we could leave our luggage in the
Ulan Ude train stationtrain.

Getting to Zabaikalsk we alighted in the platform and the provodnik gestured the direction to the town. We headed off in the direction of the town but soon found a cafe full of Russian border guards to have lunch in. We sat there long enough to enjoy a cup of tea and watched our train leave the station without us. Very disconcerting. Getting cold and bored we headed to the warm waiting room back at the station to wait for the train to reappear and to read a book or two.

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Travel to China, Shanghai, Putuo

It's day 6 of my Chinese adventure and so far I've noticed about half of my pre-conceptions were correct. The food here is much better than I anticipated and I already know I will miss it upon my departure in June. However, I have also come to realize I'm not quite as good at using chopsticks as I thought... Its surprisingly difficult to eat slippery dumplings and noodles with two sticks. Thank god I'm picking up on strategies of my Chinese friends/people who have been here longer than I. My roommate, Maria, and I have discovered a true Chinese treasure called Coco's. It's a bubble tea place that makes the most amazing drinks. I had a Mango Au Lait and hot Pineapple Black tea with pineapple chunks that changed my life and beat Starbuck's (Singbake as it'd called here, pronounced sing-bah-keugh) 2:1. Additionally, the Starbuck's here put sooo much sugar in their drinks. You can probably get diabetes from having just a sip.

My second pre-conception that I will not understand what anyone is saying to me was 100% accurate. Everyone I talked to before leaving said I would be fine... you guys are all dirty liars. Practically no one
IMG_0854here speaks English. Luckily most places have English menus (otherwise I can't eat there) and I've made friends with people who are in Advanced/Intermediate Chinese; I'm in Beginner II... Taking the placement exam was a train wreck: I knew the answer to 1 question out of the whole 5 page test and for my oral exam, the Laoshi (teacher) straight up asked me, "What DO you know how to say in Chinese?!" Luckily she also asked me what level I wanted to be in and was gracious enough to accept that I had taken one semester and didn't put me in the first class. I'm also taking Changing Nature of Business in China, China's Macroeconomic Impact, and Chinese Film and Society. I'm pretty excited for the classes, they sound interesting and start Monday. Hopefully they aren't too hard/too much work so that we have time to explore the city and have some fun inbetween.

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