IIF by Highland Rover (with apologies to Rudyard Kipling)
Hangzhou - 28 August 2004
IF you can grin and bear
the constant spitting,
not only in the street
but on trains, in restaurants,
and learn to dodge phlem too.
IF you can hold your breath,
and do your business blind,
in a pit or over a trough
seeing others doing the same,
but making yourself not mind.
IF you can keep a smile on your face,
as scores of Chinese push and barge in
screeching loudly, without any grace
like chickens being strangled - the din.
IF you can eat things when you don't know what they are
hoping it's not dog, or rat, or worse
IF you can cope with beaurocracy of the highest degree
not lose it, bash someone over the head and flee.
IF you can deal with things going wrong daily
remaining calm and smiling gaily
Yours is China and everything that's in it
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son
China – it is definitely NOT for the faint-hearted. It would test the patience of a Saint and undoubtedly drive him to drink. It is demanding, time-consuming, exhausting - culture-shock with a capital C! It challenges you on an almost daily basis and frequently drives you to the point where you begin to question your sanity, wondering what the hell you are doing here at all and how quickly can you make good your escape.
Let me share with you some of the idiosyncrasies I have so far observed. At around 5am each morning the Chinese begin to wake up and the hawking starts. I only wish I could record the sound for you. It starts somewhere deep inside, lasts several seconds and then bam, it is fired from the mouth – the spittle bullet. Dodging phlegm has now become second nature. Men and women, in the street, on the trains and buses, in restaurants – everyone is doing it everywhere! It is really no surprise that SARS spread with such rapidity.
While I am on the subject of hygiene…..the kind of loo we are all used to back at home (fondly called the Five Star Western by the travelling community) is a rare species in China unless you are in a hotel (which obviously, on a traveller’s budget I am not). Squatting is the order of the day here and they don't look like they have ever seen a bottle of Toilet Duck. If you are lucky, you get a proper cubicle all to yourself with a porcelain bowl over which you assume the position. However, if you are unlucky, it will be a communal squatter with a low wall between each but no door, so you can see and be seen as you go about your business. If you have been really unlucky though, it will be just a long trough. This is worse than the squatter, which at least usually flushes (although the plumbing system cannot cope with loo roll so that has to be deposited in a bin at the side) and worse than the pit or chute where it usually goes down a dark hole. In the trough nothing has been flushed away for some time. I did see a woman once, cleaning around a squatter with a mop. I was quite impressed until I then saw her put the whole mop head into the squatter, swish it around, flush, then pull the sopping wet mop out and drag it along to do the next one. Aggie and Kim would have a field day if they came out here for an episode - ‘How Clean Is Your Squatter’!
Linking nicely onto - food! The Chinese will eat anything. Nothing with legs is safe except a table. The usual fare of beef, pork and lamb is joined by dog, rat, pigeon, donkey and insects. Bits of an animal you didn’t think were edible are devoured here with gusto. I kid you not, I saw a woman eat a whole baby bird of some kind, which had been skewered on a stick and roasted, including the head and feet. I’ve read things on menus you really don’t want to know about but I’ll tell you anyway; brains, bladders, tongues, stomachs, feet and even grilled donkey penis. It is enough to turn you anorexic. Ordering food is a lottery and rarely turns out like anything remotely resembling what you get in a Chinese at home. I think I’ve eated dog (not through choice I hasten to add) because it was not like any beef I’ve ever tasted. Occasionally though, you get lucky and there is always a MacDonalds around if things get desperate.
Finally, the characteristic that is guaranteed to turn me into a near homicidal maniac. The Chinese have no concept of waiting your turn or queuing. There you are, having stood in line for goodness knows how long to buy your ticket or whatever when someone (or often more than one) barges in, squawking away. Or, if you are waiting to get on/off a train, go up/down stairs etc, they just push in front of you, en masse, with no thought whatsoever almost sending you back down the stairs. Spitting I can deal with, smelly, dirty toilets I can deal with, eating something strange I can almost deal with but pushing and shoving in front of me constantly I can definitely not deal with – it is the red rag to the bull. Although I now have a weapon - my tripod, when strategically strapped to the bottom of my rucksack can, with a quick flick of the waist, take out one or two at a time. And I’m not afraid to use it!
But, despite the spitting, the loos, the strange food, the pushing and shoving, the fact that no Chinese person can communicate at a volume of less than 10 decibels higher than the rest of the world and in such a high pitched squawk that it sounds like someone strangling a chicken, and that they have incredibly bureaucratic systems which want to make you scream and shout and stamp your feet, China IS worth it. The beauty of its rural landscapes, the temples where you can wander in the footsteps of emporors and their concubines, the hutongs (narrow alleyways) which have existed for centuries where people still live and carry on ancient traditions such as painting Chinese scrolls or acupuncture or Chinese medicine or making clothes or selling fruit and vegetables or playing old Chinese games like mah-jongg. Watching groups of old Chinese doing Tai Chi early in the mornings. The people who want to speak to you just because you look so different and those that are helpful when you are in a sticky situation, having lost all hope, and want nothing in return. It is a country of such contrasts, beauty and adventure that you just put up with all the problems and get on with it.
On the train from Mongolia I met an older gentleman, an Australian professor of Chinese. He said to me, “Lynne, every single day you spend in China you will have an adventure. It will drive you mad one minute and leave you in awe another. There is no place in the world like it”. Having now experienced one month here, I can tell you he was absolutely right. The few travellers I’ve met (i.e. proper travellers, not those on a tour group with air-con buses, English speaking tour guides and posh hotels) have all said that without doubt, China is the hardest place they’ve ever visited. I then met an Australian who said he’d backpacked in Africa and the Middle East in the past few years but that he would never contemplate doing China because it is just too difficult to cope with as a backpacker. The language barrier, the bureaucracy, the scams and everything else. He only visits on business or holidays and does organised tours. I have to say that hearing this made me feel quite intrepid and after a month here, I feel like I could deal with anything that is thrown at me now. And, I know quite a few words of Mandarin now so can order food, buy train tickets, count and other basic stuff.
So, a wee update on some of the things I’ve seen and done the past three weeks. After waving off Mini Rover aka Rona, my short relationship with luxury ended when I was turfed out of our hotel at midday – back to the Saga Youth Hostel for me. I’m pleased to say that is was not full of OAPs, much as the name might suggest it. I stayed in Beijing another week and met Laura and Dave who had been travelling for 5 months around Oz, NZ and South East Asia. They were spending a month in China before flying back to England. We left Beijing a bit the worse for wear after having stayed up all night to witness the flag raising ceremony in Tiannamen Square. If you ever come to China, don’t bother, we spent an hour and a half sitting in the dark, hemmed in by Chinese tourists, waiting for dawn to see one flag being raised up a pole accompanied by the Chinese National Anthem. After a 7 hour train journey on the hard seats, we arrived in Datong, famous for its locomotive building although that’s not why we went. We wanted to visit the famous Hanging Monastery, built precariously on the sheer cliffs of a canyon around 1400 years ago or thereabouts. Not a place to go if you suffer from vertigo but otherwise, quite impressive. We also did a quick stop at Cloud Ridge Caves which contain over 50,000 Buddhist statues, granted we didn’t have the time or inclination to look at them all! In Datong we met Charlotte Church, sadly not the Welsh teenager who is rich enough to have bought us all a slap up meal but a very middle-class English girl who had a manner about her that evoked Girl Guide teacher or 6th Form Mistress. She was even more bossy than me!
Next stop Pingyao, a Unesco World Heritage site, surrounded by a completely intact 6km Ming dynasty city wall and full of ancient temples and courtyard houses as well as a couple of ferocious cocks who crowed all day long. I think their internal timers must have been dodgy. Our digs were lovely, in a courtyard hostel with the biggest bed I’ve ever seen on which 4 of us comfortably slept in the starfish position with still room to spare. We decided to go for a bike ride but having managed to get on mine, it seemed to be something of a death-trap, wobbling around all over the place and I didn’t fancy my chances of staying on it, much less managing to dodge scores of Chinese on bikes or ricksaws. The handful of Chinese people who had rented us the bikes, plus a few shopkeepers and passers by found my attempts to stay on it quite hilarious so I got off and had a nice beer and read a book instead while the others sweated it out around the City walls.
From Pingyao we had a 15 hour train journey to Xi’an, home of the Terracotta Warriors. Most long journeys like this are done on a sleeper train because trying to do it on a hard seat would render your bum numb for 3 weeks afterwards. Soft sleepers are available which have four beds in a compartment and are a bit more comfortable but being on a budget we had to go hard sleeper. This is basically a whole carriage filled with beds, 3 high so you have something like 60 beds in each carriage. It is noisy and cramped and getting onto the top bunk is not fun and, unless you are 4ft, doesn’t allow you to sit up. Added to that, you have the aforementioned spitting constantly accompanied by dreadful Chinese music blaring from speakers all the time and lights out at 10pm on the dot. Also, the attendants are mean and lock the doors when the train is nearing a station which is usually always the time when you are desperate for the loo. I almost had a fight with one who refused to let me use the facilities even though we were ten minutes away from the station and I was trying to explain I had a very bad tummy. I had to wait for 30 minutes and felt sure I was not going to make it. The next morning, at 5am, all the Chinese wake up, start spitting and eating smelly instant noodles and the music begins again so you have no chance of a lie in.
Xi’an was I’m afraid to say, was not really worth it. The Terracotta Warriors were quite impressive because of their volume and detail but are really hyped up hugely. I wouldn’t consider them one of my highlights anyway and you can not escape the people trying to flog you mini-warriors or other tourist tat. Communist China is pretty Capitalist when it wants to be that’s for sure.
We got out of Xi’an after two days and headed down to Chengdu. Another long, hard sleeper journey of 15 or so hours although it was worth it because Chengdu was a great place and we ended up staying around there for a week in lovely youth hostel. The Panda Research Centre is just outside the City and we went there and spent a morning watching them. You can’t help yourself wanting to take one home – they are gorgeous. Before we left Laura and I went into the pen with the baby red pandas and helped feed them. Of course we had to pay but it was worth it – they were amazing and I wanted to steal one but my rucksack is heavy enough.
One evening we went to try and find some Sichuan hot pot (Sichuan is the province in which Chengdu is located and hot pot is it’s famuos dish). We got lost down a few side-streets and eventually came across a place which had a few Chinese in it so we popped in. We chose a few bits of meat and vegetables (they even had tatties – hurrah!) and put them in the pot to cook. The pot is placed in the middle of your table fuelled by a gas cannister and the contents cook away quite happily while you enjoy a beer – or two. The owners were lovely and looked after us very well. The hot pot almost set our mouths on fire but it was delicious.
We did a detour while at Chengdu and took a 12 hour hidously cramped and noisy bus journey to one of the national parks. This place is not famous but it should be. It has some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen. 4000 metre mountains and beautiful opalescent green-blue lakes and waterfalls – absolutely stunning. You are not supposed to stay in the park but in one of the overpriced hotels just outside – the road is like a scene from Las Vegas with lots of neon lights and tourist shops which totally spoils the beauty of the area. We couldn’t afford it though and neither did we want to stay there so I sweet talked the man in the information kiosk and he told us we could stay at his friend’s house inside the park. I say house but it was more of a hostel in progress (which defies the rule of not staying in the park!) as it was being massively renovated and there was scaffolding everywhere, no panes in the windows and we couldn’t use our bathroom because it was a building site so no loo and no hot water.
We were really looking forward to a long lie in on the Saturday, after our 12 hour bus journey back from the park not least because our heads were frazzled from the incessant beeping of the horn. Chinese bus drivers like to beep their horns and I don’t mean occasionally, I mean literally every 10 seconds. It’s a kind of “Look out, I’m here”, or “Move it Mr!” sign to other drivers. I tell you, the CIA and MI6 would get results from even the most fundamentalist of terrorists if they were subjected to Chinese Bus Torture for a lengthy period. After 2 hours of it I just wanted a straightjacket and a padded cell. Our Saturday long lie was not to be however because after arriving back at the hostel we were informed that our bus the next day was at 6.40am. Nice.
5 hours later we arrived in Chongquing (re-named Chongming by Laura because it was a bit grim), and spent the afternoon in an internet café waiting to board our boat up the Yangtze river and through the world famous three gorges. Yet again it was hyped up and we sorely wished we had not wasted the money as it was not an insignificant amount. As well as the basic cost of the cabin, we had to pay to go on deck and for other added extras. The sky was grey, the boat was stinky (although the cabin was okay), and the gorges were not that impressive. Myself and Laura resorted to drinking Baijo – Chinese rice whisky which was probably the most unpleasant drink I’ve tasted but it was an emergency and playing cards. In the end the highlight of ‘cruise’ was when we went on a smaller boat trip full of Chinese tourists to see the mini-gorges. One of the Chinese men came and had his photograph taken with myself and Laura. I’m not sure why but this sent all the other Chinese into fits of laughter. He was followed by a couple more at which point we thought we should start charging.
Despite paying for three nights accommodation on the boat, we were turfed off at 4am on the Tuesday morning to get our bus to Wuhan from where we would get a train to Hangzhou, a small city near Shanghai. The three of us had shared our cabin with a nice, young Frenchman called Xavier and as he was also going to Wuhan he decided to sit with us on the bus. Of course, there had to be a problem. The female tour guide – Miss Su - who was supposedly looking after us on the boat but who was totally useless and spoke no English at all said Xavier had to go on a different bus to Wuhan. Why, we couldn’t fathom – the Great Wall of Chinese bureaucracy reared its ugly head once again - but we joined ranks and spent 20 minutes trying to tell her that it was totally ridiculous and we were all going together and that was that. She stomped off and we got on the bus and tried to go to sleep only to be denied it because the TV was blaring with Chinese stand up comedy. Trust me, even Ken Dodd would have been better. In Wuhan, we were to be met by a Mr Hu who had our train tickets which we had pre-booked and paid a deposit for before we got on the boat. Mr Hu was nowhere to be seen and we had to stand around in the blistering midday sun for an hour to wait for him after a kindly young man called him for us and told him to get a move on. Mr Hu turned up as a woman. She had our tickets but wouldn’t give them to us because she said we needed to pay an extra commission. Well, by that point I had well and truly reached the end of my tether, went ballistic and told her in no uncertain terms that we would give her the price on the ticket and no more and that if she didn’t accept that, we didn’t want them and we would buy our own. She called her manager who arrived looking very shady and wore his mobile phone in a belt holster – the mark of a dodgy conman if ever there was one! He didn’t want to let us have the tickets either, without a mark up. We stood firm though. Laura and I did ‘good cop – bad cop’ (I was the bad cop obviously!) and after about 20 minutes they realised it was either 500 yuan or no yuan so we got our tickets and celebrated our victory with a cold beer.
17 hours later (although on a slightly more comfortable and clean train) we arrived in the beautiful city of Hangzhou. Our youth hostel was situated next to the famous lake and we enjoyed a couple of days there lazing around. That night, Laura and I went for a drink in a couple of the bars next to our hostel which would not have looked out of place in New York or London. They were very trendy and the music was good. We ordered two G&T’s (hurray for G&T’s) but were a bit shocked when they arrived with about 5 mls of gin in the glass – a Mauthful – get it? Talk about stingy and they weren’t cheap either. We decided to try our luck in the bar next door which was much more fun and they had Tequila! We were adopted by a group of Chinese people who were clearly quite inebriated and kept giving us their business cards and introducing themselves over and over again but it restored our faith and we left giggling and happy.
One month in China down, two months to go. Next stop Shanghai from where I will hopefully get a ferry to Hong Kong and then I am going to treat myself to a few days of relaxation and sunbathing on a tropical island in the South China Sea – well, I think I’ve earned it!
