Culture

“Oh New Shoes Lost Me!”

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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After a flight from Bangkok on Bangkok Air, I have been enjoying my 26 year-old daughter-in-law on quiet Khlong Muang Beach in Krabi Province the last couple of weeks while my son Doug is in Oregon. Luk’s English is delightful and I hesitate to puncture her enthusiasm by correcting her but alas she must learn correct English. She often helps her friend Cie manage some resort bungalows up the street and they spend down time in the office with a pile of Thai kareoke CDs…singing their hearts out together…nearly always innocent and young romantic fantasies proclaiming lifelong love…tears falling when hearts are broken.

I am staying in the same bungalow that Doug and Luk were living in when the tsunami hit their sliding glass doors…15 feet from the water and even closer at high tide when tsunami detritus gets washed up each day. This morning I shivered when I sat up in bed to look out at the beach covered with dingy colored beach towels and empty plastic water bottles.

The owners upstairs are members of a delightful extended Muslim family…they speak no English but when mom comes downstairs with an offer to share their dinner…a big steaming bowl of homemade Tam Yam with freshly caught fish…a special treat here in Krabi…I bow deeply with hands folded and I give them no other words except kwop kum kha…thank you. I thoroughly enjoy their broad smiles in acceptance of my eager gratitude.

Luk and I are both trying to lose our “poom pooy” (fat) tummies (not that Luk has a fat stomach) so we often only eat omelets for breakfast and delicious broth soup with vegetables and pork for dinner made by a friendly Thai lady up the street. She doesn’t want to eat after 4pm…”it’s poom pooy to eat at night” she says. However, once in awhile I ride behind Luk on the motorbike to Au Nong Beach, 20 minutes down the coast, to splurge on something special …like the fresh hot cinnamon rolls with big juicy raisins at Lavinia…an Italian restaurant. Before heading back to beat the rain, we buy a couple newspapers that will eventually get peed on by Luk’s dog, Ting Tong. I check email and maybe buy a couple pirated DVD movies….Cinderella for her and Hotel Rwanda for me.

On another day we motorbike to a nearby moving market. I like to buy mangosteens, mangos and small ripe tomatoes from one of the Muslim vendors to munch on when I get hungry…passing up the small custards with difficulty. Luk likes the chili chicken satay on a stick.

For bigger excitement we sometimes take the songthaow, a small covered pick-up with two benches in the back facing each other, to Krabi Town where we can buy almost anything we want…even KFC and Swanson’s Green Tea Ice Cream. On my last trip, an elderly Thai silversmith on the street made me a necklace to enclose my tiny little wooden image of Buddah that was given to me by a monk during a blessing at a wat (temple) north of Bangkok.

Then it’s back to our quiet little beach where we are becoming part of the neighborhood…waving to familiar motorbike riders…buying water from the same little market each day…greeting Bum Pom, a lean young Muslim boatman who has been working on his long-tail boat under the bridge during this rainy season, his broad smile showing a missing front tooth…dreadlocks pulled into a ponytail hanging down his back.

After more than a month, it’s back to Bangkok.

Inconsistent Thai Values

Posted on by Laughingnomad

After nearly a dozen visits and about six months time in the city, over the last several years, we have gotten to know Bangkok a little. In this city with a population of over 9 million people we can get anywhere we want to go…as long as our destination is near the Skytrain, subway line and boat ramps or as long as we can communicate with the taxi driver. Haven’t braved the buses yet but we do take the motorcycle taxis back and forth down Sukhumvit 22 to our dentist at the end of the street…surely risking our lives in the process!

It’s interesting to watch the people embarking public transportation in Bangkok. They stand politely aside as they wait for debarking travelers to get off before they step into the trains. (In China it’s an all out battle of people coming off against the people trying to get on!) Once on, people are usually very respectful…if they are Thai…careful not to bump each other.

One jaw-dropping gesture, for an American, is that anytime a small child embarks a crowded Skytrain or subway car with packed adults standing cheek to jowel, the nearest adult of any age will quickly jump up and invite the child to take his/her seat…leaving the beaming child to look up at it’s parent as if to say, I am really special today aren’t I?

We have never experienced a culture that has such implicit respect for their little ones. You never see adults scowling at children or admonishing them…in public at least. Children always get an admiring glance and an enthusiastic accommodation from adults around them. The interesting result is that you never see an unruly child. This is very humbling to observe. At home we often see parents humilating their children in public by yelling, shaking and even slapping or spanking them.

On the other hand, it is common for young women in small villages to leave their children in the care of others while they exchange sexual favors in Bangkok. A pretty young woman who was perming my hair, works in an upscale hotel beauty salon during the day and as a bar girl at night…her parents left to care for her two children in her northern Isaan village. It has been said that as many as one out of thirty very poor young women, who do not consider themselves prostitutes, will trade sex for money, dinner and shopping from the nearest Western or Japanese or Korean “ATM man.”

This activity often has more than the usual side effects however. Sadly, Thai women are often overcome with depression. It has been said that once Thai women consort sexually with a Westerner, the local Thai men will not have anything to do with them and they often remain single and without any way of supporting themselves. The Bangkok Post this week reported on a 23 year old young woman who had jumped from the Skytrain to her death on the pavement below because, her friend reported, her Western “boyfriend” had just broken up with her. From the point of view of the Western male, the gratitude and soft sensuous, accommodation of the Thai woman is a welcome relief.

I asked my friend, Jiraporn, a university professor here, who lived ten years in the States, what she thinks about this. “They are young and don’t know what they are doing. “Village families are poor and need the money the girls send home so everyone just turns their heads, she whispered kindly.

Trekking Northern Thailand

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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As soon as we returned to Bangkok from Bali Bob took a train to Chiang Mai for a trek in northern Thailand near Mae Son Hong. I stayed in Bangkok to have some dental work done. This entry was written by Bob.

Chiang Mai is Thailand’s second city and the jump-off point for experiencing the northern hill tribes.
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Mae Hong Son is in the trekking area–but quite a ways from Chiang Mai–drove there with several treks en route and spent one night in the town. There are many ethnic tribes–most renowned being the long necked ladies. When I was there not many tourists as it is hard to get to. We subsequently flew back to Chiang Mai–but that was included in the package. Did this on one of my early trips. On that trek we would walk for a day or two, spend nights in tribal villages and the van would pick us up at a designated site. Then onto the next trek–also did a little rafting but no rapids.

These peoples owe allegience to their ethnic group and national boundries are of no signifigance. They originally migrated from China and Tibet and now reside in southern China and in a geographic band across the north of Burma, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
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These tribes have taken taken advantage of the tourist influx and now offer their villages and homes as overnight lodging for trekkers. As they live in the hills there are no roads, autos and access is strictly by foot. So after a couple of days re-exploring Chiang Mai (its growing big time) I joined 5 other farangs (European and half my age) and a Thai guide for a 4-5 hr ride in the back of a pickup to the trailhead for a 3 day trek.

The walking is relatively easy but the heat/humidity combo is a killer. In 5 hrs we reach a Karen village, are given lodging in a bamboo slat hut and offered a “shower” from a barrel of cold water using a laddle to pour water on whichever body part is selected. A simple meal is offered–tasty but usually best not to ask what it is. Market comes to us as the local ladies show up with their handicrafts. The children run about and giggle at/with the strangers. During the night a pig was the victim of a noisy slaughter as the next day was a festival (new years).

On the previous trek along the Burmese border we had been invited to a wake for a child who had died that day (probably from congenital heart disease). But alcohol became the focus of the event and we made a hasty departure out a side door as belligerence unfortunately replaced festivity.

The next day of this trip offered many stream crossings over narrow logs and I was made suddenly aware that balance is one of the skills that diminishes with advancing youth. Oh well! But we made it to the waterfall for a rewarding swim and that night barbequed a suckling pig.

The last day offered a ride on a bamboo raft through several small rapids and the obligatory elephant ride (once is enough). My less than friendly elephant was named Toby with her cute baby following along behind. I kept thinking that I should have a seat belt. Toby, however, was sure footed, enjoyed the sugar cane and bananas that were sold at intervals along the route.

Mae Sai is just a border town in the far north I went to on another trip. Across the bridge is Burma. It is not a primary trekking destination. Used more for visa stamp-outs and Thais purchase stuff (primarily pornography I think that they cannot get in Thailand–or at any rate saw much of it being confiscated by Thai immigration.) From Chiang Mai it is part of a day trip –in a van–that also includes the Golden Triangle (people stand and have their picture taken under a Golden Triangle sign) and Mekong River/Laos border area. A boring trip.

Tip: The trips out of ChiangMai have become a bit too packaged and westernized–now include the obligatory elephant ride and a raft trip which is a token overcrowded experience. Ok if one has never done it but better if you are able to get off the beaten track like the trip to Mae Hong Son.

Sights And Ceremonies

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The Balinese are Hindu…but a Hinduism that is overlaid by ancient animist beliefs…a world away from the Hinduism as practised in India. To the Balinese, spirits are everywhere and offerings are put out in shrines in every field and on the street in front of every home and shop to pay homage to the good spirits and to placate the bad ones. A few sticks of incense are stuck in among some fancy food and various flowers that are carefully laid in little hand-made reed trays. Once the gods have eaten the essence of the food it is left discarded.

One afternoon on the beach, amid a crowd of chanting and drumming Balinese, we saw two men with 12-foot long propane torches burning something through the open ends of a colorfully decorated large bamboo “box.” After a few questions from some on-lookers we were amazed to discover that a cremation was taking place. DSC00367.JPG
The body of a 12 year old girl had been carried on the shoulders of several men to the cremation ground in a high, multitiered tower made of things like bamboo, paper, string, tinsel, silk, mirrors and flowers. Along the way celebrants, followed by a noisy gamelan sprinting along behind, shook the tower, run it around in circles, spinned it around, threw water at it and generally created anything but a stately funereal crawl…all precautions taken to confuse the deceased spirit and ensure that it would not find it’s way back home. Male relatives did their duty by poking around in the ashes to make sure that no bits of body were left unburnt…which actually took quite a long time. And where did the spirit go? Why to a heaven that is just like Bali!

Vibrant Bangkok

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Bangkok Air From Koh Samui to Bangkok again. Not a pretty city but it’s vibrant. The populace, as with much of Asia, lives outdoors-almost all 10 million of them. It is increasingly cosmopolitan and this year seems to have more farangs (Westerners) than I can recall in my several former visits here.

It is a paradox of a city. Some big money and big establishments with big prices but the vast majority is poor and the cost of living (by most western standards) is inexpensive. Traffic predictably chaotic with frequent gridlock. Travel by sky train and new subway system redeeming (and air-conditioned).

Walking is an adventure with uneven and poorly constructed sidewalks, often with holes, open pits, and unstable underfoot tiles– exposed haphazard electrical wiring and the mangiest dogs anywhere –all of them breeding exponentially. Hard to tell if they have any owners. Half of the dogs have orthopedic disability either from vehicle vs dog and/or intracanine squabbles. They sleep on the sidewalks during the day and roam at night occasionally in packs that cause a pause and change of direction for us pedestrians.

Shops, vendors, food stalls on wheels, open front restaurants, open sewers, tuk-tuks; all contribute to a cacophany of sound and smell that paradoxically continue to be both enticing and repelling. Bangkok is not renowned for it’s aesthetics. It is visited for it’s populace…the Thai people.

Smiles and accomodation prevail—but who knows what is lurking beneath…best to accept the presentation at face value and not analyze. The attitude, dictums of the Budda prevail. Mei pen rai (“whatever”).  As a passenger on a motorcycle taxi the driver, without looking, pulls out and speeds into the flow of traffic. “Slowly, slowly”, says I. “Mai pen rai, Budda will take care of us,” is the nonchalant response. The concept of liability has not reached these shores. Persons or events are either lucky or not lucky. Inevitable comparison of societies is fraught with subjectivity and tilted by one’s biases. Perhaps it is best (and more just) to live and let live. Enough. RLG

Miao Village In Guizhou

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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In Shanghai, exploring the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree web site, I noticed a query from a young woman from Kaili in Guizhou Province who was offering to arrange a homestay in a Miao minority village in the mountains. We exchanged emails and I was excited to meet her. But then I received an email saying she was in Shanghai and could we meet for the train ride to Guizhou in a couple days. I returned that I couldn’t leave that soon but I could meet her in Kaili…then I never heard from her again. A mystery…or maybe she got an offer from someone to pay her fare back to Kaili…who knows. But I knew where I was going next! From Shanghai I flew to Guiyang, capital of Guizhou Province and stored my baggage at a hotel there before boarding a bus for the three hour ride to the city of Kaili.

When I got off the bus there, I was directed to another station around the corner with several rickety old buses waiting for passengers to various villages. I had no idea which bus would take me to Xiuang, the village I had been told by the English-speaking receptionist in Guiyang that would be celebrating their New Year’s holiday. Then I saw a smiling family waiting near one half-full bus. “Xiuang,” I asked. Yes, they nodded. But while we were waiting to board, a couple of men outside a nearby fence a few feet from us motioned us to approach them. It gradually became clear they were taxi drivers that wanted to take us to Xiuang. Between my motions and their language we all agreed to share the cost of the taxi so we piled in and were off…on a harrowing short-cut along steep mountain dirt roads with thousand foot drop-offs…to our village!

The people in the mountains in this southeastern Chinese province are not Han Chinese. Eighteen different minorities live within Guizou province and I was here to visit the Miao people in this gulley-like valley with identical hand-hewn wooden houses climbing the hills on all sides.

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The wooden houses are built on foundations of stone and constructed with wooden pegs…no nails or cement. Steep paths meander among the houses.

After some initial quandry as to where a hotel might be, if there was one, I came across a woman who led me to a small building…who would have thunk it was a hotel…for about $2.00 for the night. I was invited to join the family around their hotpot dinner downstairs…had no idea what I was eating but I was starved and it tasted delicious with smiling faces all around. No extra charge! There was no heat in the freezing room that night so I took the bedding off the other twin bed and added it to mine.

There are at least 130 different types of Miao people living in villages among the mountains and they have different dialects, headdress, and traditions. Yet, they all belong to one Miao minority. Their language is endangered as it has no written form and is used less and less among the younger generation who is often eager to learn English.

The next morning, walking along the main cobblestone path through the village I came across a young French couple…the only Westerners in the town…who were delighted to speak English with someone after hiking all over the mountains from village to village without a guidebook. “Just knock on a door” they said, and show the sign for sleep and eat and show money and you will be invited in,” they said. They were in their second year of travel before returning home to start a family. They had been traveling in the province two months and it was they who took me to Mr. Hou. Mr. Hou was the English teacher in the middle school there that drew students from villages all over the mountains. “By foot,” he said.

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Mr. Hou invited me to stay for two days for $4 a day in his home, generously sharing three banquet meals a day around “hotpot” and dozens of small dishes of whatevers with him and his extended family of which there were many coming and going during each meal! While the men and women prepared the food, the guests all sang a local folk song. Then they asked me to sing a song…and I’ll be darned if my mind didn’t go panicky blank…all I could think of was Row Row Your Boat and I think that is really a French song! So I told them we had rock music and I couldn’t sing rock. They all nodded in agreement…to my relief I was off the hook!

The family and I joined round on 8 inch high stools and watched Mr. Hue chop the meat up on a thick round wood cutting block on the floor. Then slowly bowls of food appeared from another cooking room that the women had prepared and were set out on the floor around a “hotpot”or wok full of boiling broth sitting on a foot high round stand full of lit charcoal. Mr. Hue would chopstick some of the food he considered the best onto my small bowl of rice. The bones and small rejected bits were spit onto the floor. After every few bites the local hooch was poured round and after a song and a whoop everyone would gulp down the fiery fruit-flavored alcohol made by the grandmothers. It didn’t take long for the whoops and songs to exceed the eating. Humorously, I was given “just a small amount” each time..the villagers having experienced past catastrophes with drunk foreigners!

Finally the day came when the New Year’s biggest day would be celebrated…music, dancing…the women in wonderful traditional dress.

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During the daytimes I wandered through the small cobbled lanes leading through the houses and shops…trying my best to avoid the firecrackers thrown at the visitors by the small boys.

Although the New Years ethnic dances in costumes were delightful and the people warm-hearted and friendly, I was happy to leave the village. The small boys thought it was great fun to make the “foreigner” jump when they threw firecrackers at her feet…one landing on top of my backpack…nearly scaring me out of my wits. And on top of that Mr. Hou felt he had to direct my every move in the home…was terribly worried I would fall off the narrow log ladder to the upper level where he had cleared out a cozy room with a rock-hard bed. After all, I was “old.” 62! So by the third day I had had enough fireworks and directing!

While I was waiting for the bus back to Kaili, (there was no schedule…you just waited for the bus to show up) a newly-arrived young man from Amsterdam and I made friends with some Chinese English-speaking students from Hunan province who were there with their photography teacher and we nearly went to Langde village with them if there had been room in their van. I was sorry not to be able to go with these cheery young people who were so anxious to try out their English…some of the words inappropriately big and ostentatious…and some I didn’t even know the meaning of! Be sure to correct our English, they said! Well, we don’t use that word in normal conversation I would say and they would look so disappointed. We exchanged email “to practice English.”

“Kaili, Kaili, bystanders yelled at me as a small bus appeared…barely missing the food-vendors on either side of the dirt road leading up to the village. Then just as I was waiting to board, a Russian-American in his 80’s from NYC with a false leg nearly toppled off the bus with his bag into the street. We quickly traded some travel stories…he had been backpacking for years all over the world…refusing to give it up…very inspiring…and touching…

I headed back to Kaili, a comfortable and colorful Miao urban city with great food down small alleys, and was pleasantly surprised to find that my hotel room harbored a broadband high speed internet connection! This was not only Asia, but it was China after all and the appetite here for technology and communication devices is insatiable.

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After another bus back to Guiyang I spent the evening walking along the river than runs through the city, meandering up and down streets…getting lost and finding my way again…checking email at a large internet cafe with at least a hundred young kids all noisily playing video games. And eating wonderful street food!

The next night I headed off to Kunming on an overnight train…middle bed in a 6-bed compartment this time…but not without exploring the new Wal-Mart around the corner from the train station to replenish my battery supply!

Yangshau

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Currently in a delightful city (Yangshau) that is on the Yangtze River about 100 miles north of Shanghai.

China’s autumn has been fantastic, the people interesting (and challanging) and the food tasty (most of the time) even if we do not always know what we are eating.

Spent 3 days north of Beijing trekking the Great Wall (I waved to the folks in space so hopefully they were able to see me) and then did a couple of climbs on China’s sacred mountains (Tai Shan and Lao Shan).

The climbs were more like our day hikes in Oregon but still a good workout–spent one night on the summit and got up with several hundred Chinese to view the sunrise–magical and mystical as an orange globe emerging from a cloud bank. The Chinese, however, take a tram to the summit and were quite surprised that a foreigner of my age would want to walk up the mountain. “Singjingbing” (“crazy”) is the frequently heard comment.

China is a very dynamic country and going through rapid metamorphoses–in 10 yrs it will be quite different and maybe not for the better–they aim for modernization and construction is booming. However on the lanes, streets and freeways autos compete with pedestrians, bikes, and hand drawn/animal drawn carts. The expression “Chinese fire drill” prevails. Crossing a street is an adventure.

Market economy is obvious and pervasive–Karl Marx can only be shaking his head.

Tiz OK to laugh with the Chinese but not at them (have made a couple of social/cultural guffaws).

Off the tourist track we foreigners are still an oddity and draw many long stares. Younger children say “hello” and then giggle. I say “neehow” (hello) and they giggle even more. The smaller kids are cute as can be; as they get older (teens) jeans and cell phones prevail and there is the loss of cultural diversity.

Air pollution, autos, hacking & spitting, littering (everything: restaurant bones, trash, spit goes on the floor–at an internet cafe I was admonished by the propriator for putting my backpack on the floor–did not appreciate her concern until I realized what all else is on the floor and had the insight that she was trying to prevent backpack contamination.)

Then the Chinese sweep–everywhere things are swept with grass brooms but that is as deep as the cleaning process goes. But as always the fun is in observing and appreciating cultural differences (a two way street as they laugh at me)
later. B

Tai Shan Sacred Mountain

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Located midway between Beijing and Shanghai, “Tai Shan” is probably the most famous of the five sacred mountains of China. According to legend Tai Shan represents the head of Pan Gu, who after creating heaven and earth, dies from exhaustion and his limbs and head fall to earth as the five mountains. Subsequent emperors were required to climb the mountain in order to be considered an appropropriate ruler. Both Confucius and Mao felt obliged to scale the summit (5068 feet).

The sacred Mount Tai (‘shan’ means ‘mountain’) was the object of an imperial cult for nearly 2,000 years, and the artistic masterpieces found there are in perfect harmony with the natural landscape. It has always been a source of inspiration for Chinese artists and scholars and symbolizes ancient Chinese civilizations and beliefs. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

I had no idea what to expect but planned on spending a night on the summit so packed my pack with multiple contingencies to include extra clothing, rain gear, food, water etc. All unnecessary, of course, as vendors and shops lined the route from bottom to top altho prices became proportionately more expensive with elevation.

The majority of the route is along carved and/or constructed stone steps which are several centuries old. Multiple temples and shrines line the way. These have cultural and spiritual significance for the Chinese but without English explanation went over my head and remain largely unappreciated. Trees, under which various emperors rested, are noted and enshrined.

Along the route the Chinese would often give me the thumbs up sign–perhaps because of being a foreigner (“laowai”–the word has a derogatory connotation like farong or gringo or honkie) or perhaps my age, perhaps both. Frequently they would request (demand) to carry my backpack (I sweat easily) and were dismayed and occasionally argumentative when I communicated that I preferred to carry my own pack. My interpretation was that they felt they should be “taking care of” the foreigner.

Photos of ancient sites & scenery were encouraged but attempts to photograph poverty, filth or anything less than ideal were met with negative feedback or at least wonderment on why anyone would want to take such a picture. The Chinese have elevated posing to an art form and always include themselves in the scene.

I reached the summit about 5pm and found it to be crowded with all shapes and sizes of Chinese who had taken a bus to the half way point and then a tram the remainder of the way to the summit. As the sun set it became increasingly cold and vendors rented out Chinese military overcoats. The laowai (foreigner) had difficulty finding one that would fit–precipitating smiles to giggles to gaffaws. The lodging was somewhere on the negative side of adequate and without heat the night was cold enough to interfere with sleep.

After a knock on the door at 5 a.m. I joined a huge entourage of Chinese for a hike to a lookout where we sat and waited for the sunrise. It was spectacular with an orange globe rising from a white bank of clouds…this coupled with a lone pine tree next to a pagoda…represented my interpretation of the quintessential and mystical China.
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Lao Shan Mountain Climb

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Spent 3 days in Quin Dao…one in new part of town, one in old town and one on a mountain north of town called Lao Shan–subsequently took train to Tai’an and climbed Tai Shan–one of the 5 holy mountains in China–it was an all day effort but not that difficult–more like a hard day hike in the Columbia Gorge in Oregon–spent the night on the top–accomodation somewhat less than basic but inexpensive–then was awakened a 5 a.m. to join the rest of the Chinese tourists to a lookout point to see the sunrise–it was quite impressive–took a tram down and now am south of Qufu–tomorrow have an “offer” to see the countryside so will probably see what that entails–do not know whether it is an overnight or what.

Have found that the Chinese usually have the best of intentions but something gets lost in the communication/language gap–on the mountain had people wanting to carry my backback–don’t think it was for financial gain but they just wanted to take care of an “older” foreigner–when I refused it often became a tug-of-war. On my way south and plan to stop in Nanjing and Langshou–there is another shan south of Shanghai that the guide book said is thee mountain to climb in China–but would like to meet up in Shanghai–probably +/- one week from now.

Had another couple of days of diarrhea with a near miss experience on Lao Shan–am sorry to hear that the upper respiratories have reached you again–but am glad that you are not proximate as the cold you gave to me in Russia took 3-4 weeks to resolve. Keep me updated–each time I get to an internet access I will forward to a word or two.
l. B

Kindred Spirits in Quindao

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Walking by the Foreign Language Bookstore in Quindao, just up the street from my comfy clean hotel room that a tout from the railroad station led me to…80 yuan she says..that’s about $10..I look in to see what they have in English. Most of the books are in Chinese…the English selection is tiny with dreadful choices and high prices. Just then I see the first westerners I have seen in Quindao walk in…where are you from, I ask…from the Gold Coast of Australia…oh, I find Australians everywhere…yes, she laughed…we manage to find our way all over the world! These women have just arrived from Shanghai where they participated in the masters section of an international dragon boat competition. One, Tye, is a nurse…the other, Leah, a school janitor. Dragon boat racing, they said, originated in China but is very popular in Australia.

Are you alone, they ask. When I say yes, their eyes light up…oh good, then would you like to come with us? Of course I jump at the chance. I show them where the internet cafe is that I had walked all over town looking for and finally found that morning by accident as there was no sign on the outside of the building. And I give them a card for the hostel I stayed at in Beijing which delighted them no end.

We have dinner together…the women pass up tubs of all kinds of shellfish to choose from on the sidewalk in front of tiny restaurants with only two or three tables…and finally choose to have “hot pot” that sits on top of a flame with your choice of all kinds of fish from the sea…a dozen different kinds of clams, little crab, shellfish we have never seen before, various unknown kibbles and bits, leafy vegetables, thin sliced mutton or pork, as much as you could eat for 29 yuan or about $6. One of the women is a bit nervous about all the unknown bits…but we laugh it off and make a complete mess on the table…the big Chinese group at the next table finding our clumsy adventure quite funny.

The next evening they showed up at my hotel door….we just showed the Chinese girls at the desk downstairs “big hair” they said…and the girls immediately knew who they were looking for…besides the fact of course, that we were all westerners…we must all know each other! They shared some wonderful chewy sweetened dried fish with me and needed me to show them how to do email so off we went out into the evening again.

My last evening in Quindao, at a 4 star hotel coffee shop, I invite the friendly waiter who has been letting me use the hotel’s free WIFI with my laptop to have dinner with me…seafood soup and jousa (dumplings)… before he has to go to his university classes at 7pm. Jack is his English name given to him by his English teacher and I find myself wishing Chinese English teachers would get a little up-to date with the English names they hand out. Jack, Han Chinese, is from Urumqi in the largest and most western province in China…Xinjiang…which has a majority of muslim Turkic speaking people. His family still lives there. He is 23 but says he is not a good student. I ask why and he says he likes sports…he would rather play American football! I say, what!! He says it’s a sport young people like but his parents don’t. I say, yes, I understand! I ask if he plays basketball and mention Yao Ming’s name…he dismisses Yao…”oh, if I were 7 feet tall I would be famous too!”

I let Jack order…he is anticipating a soup with “all kinds of shellfish from the sea” but when it comes it’s basically an eggflower soup with only a few little bits of shrimp and clam. He looks disappointed and I realize he has never done this before. The soup is only 6 yuan…less than a dollar. But Jack only makes $200 a month and I wonder what this skinny kid eats every day. At his bus stop we shake hands with lingering looks and he invites me to come back to Quindao again.

I have a hard sleeper booked on the train today at 1:30. I will arrive in Shanghai tomorrow about 9 am when I will book a dorm bed for 100 yuan…about $12. Right now this hotel I am in is celebrating a wedding with drums and a funky dragon made of balloons. The dragon lies down and the groom carries her over it and into the elevator…the ceremony will continue downstairs.