Conversations

Overnight Train to Xuindao

Posted on by Laughingnomad

1wXSp3CkNsDoJl3s0SgHmw-2006171174607989.gif
Xuindao is also spelled Quindao

From Beijing, I take an overnight train alone to Quindao. Quindao is a weekend getaway for well-to-do Communist party cadres and the train is brand spanking shiny new. As I struggle to get my heavy baggage up to the ceiling storage area, I hear a compassionate “help” over my shoulder from one of my travel companions who otherwise seems to speak no English. He thankfully comes to my rescue.

I am in a “soft sleeper” with four beds…the only beds left in the cheaper “hard sleeper” with six beds were on the top bunks and it’s hard enough for me to negotiate the second bunk let alone a third that gives you only a nose full of room to breath. My three impeccably dressed compartment travelers are friendly and gracious…no strong-smelling instant noodles and piles of snacks, sunflower seed shells and chicken bones to litter the room one end to the other…no hacking and spitting…even a flat screen tv monitor showing cartoons.

When I figure out how to tell them I am from America (no one ever knows what I’m talking about when I say I’m from the States or the U.S.) A vail falls ever so slightly over the eyes…they don’t want to admit they don’t know where I am from.

Coffee Taxis & New Friends

Posted on by Laughingnomad

East China.gif

I take a taxi to the upscale Lufthansa shopping center in Beijing to see if a bookstore had the Lonely Planet “Shanghai.” They didn’t of course…there were a few Lonely Planets but none on China…guess they don’t want the locals to know what everyone else in the world knows about China. The books in English I’ve mostly seen in China are western classics…Shakespeare etc. Surely they don’t think western tourists are going to buy these??? And I think it must be a real slog for a Chinese learning English.

Then, thinking it’s going to be awhile before I see ground coffee again, I find my way to the indoor mall-the Oriental Plaza- with exclusive European and Asian shops to buy some Starbucks Sumatra even though I don’t buy Starbucks ready-made coffee to drink…ever…anywhere….because they charge the same ridiculous high prices in the third world that they charge in the States.

American shops seem to be limited to Starbucks and Apple Computer. The ground coffee in Mongolia neither tasted nor smelled like coffee and I looked forward to escaping the mad traffic, tucking under the fluffy Chinese comforter in my cozy room and soothing myself with a cup of jo while listening to “The Twelve Girls Band” a Chinese crossover folk/pop group that is all the rage in Beijing and reading Pico Iyer’s latest travel stories.

But it’s late Friday afternoon and the traffic is horrendous. Cars will run you over as well as look at you…in fact there is an article in the current “Beijing Today,” the English language expat rag, about a taxi driver that was fined $20,000 (which he will never be able to pay) for killing a woman. Headline: “Driver Ordered To Pay Up After Killing Wayward Pedestrian.” A law put into effect last May requires a driver “to do all he can to avoid the pedestrian and ensure her safety.” The National People’s Congress Standing Committee is quoted by “Beijing Youth Daily” as saying the law shows that legislators care about the lives of pedestrians. Yeah right! Since when is the individual in China important? They better care if they don’t want to wipe out half a dozen unsuspecting tourists during the Olympics!

I try to get a taxi in the street near the Grand Hyatt Hotel to take me to the hutung but they all refuse so I retreat to the Hyatt lounge bar a couple hundred steps up from the street to buy an International Herald Tribune, have a whisky and people watch while waiting out the rush hour…only a handful of white westerners…all the rest are Asians from who knows where.

Finally about 7 pm I try getting a taxi again. If I’m not getting refused then the Chinese are jumping in ahead of me…I try to do it faster but they still beat me to the door…I watch and try to figure out how the heck they do it…this crowding stuff is difficult to get used to. I am starting to get concerned. The last taxi I took got lost bringing me home and took me to the wrong hotel! Then three young people in their 20’s walk up and ask where I’m from. The US I say, wondering what the scam is now. But no scam…at least for me. They are waiting in front of the Hyatt to find an American to practice English…our teacher is Chinese so we get bad pronunciation they say…and we want American not British accent…English is very important, one says authoritatively…but understanding the culture is even more important. When I tell them I have to read subtitles when I watch British movies they all laugh.

They have all finished with university. They are from poor Guanxi Province where their families still live. If we know English, they say, we can get a good job. None of us have eaten so I ask them to walk me across the street to a cheap noodle restaurant and we each have a bowl of soup and a soft drink and they tell me all about themselves until late into the night.

The restaurant closes so Rose and Will and Keven (their English names) talk a taxi driver into taking me home in my hutung and they ride along to give the driver directions. They really groove on the hostel situation…look at all the English speakers…right in the middle of a hutung…and we’ve been going to the Hyatt! We hug our goodbyes and promise to email each other…practice practice we say.

Far East Youth Hostel

Posted on by Laughingnomad

East China.gif

The last time I was in China it was freezing cold in January 2003. The weather is fantastic this October day in 2004.

After slogging it out across Russia and Mongolia, we soak up creature comforts at the friendly Far East Youth Hostel located among the back alleyways of one of Beijing’s ancient hutongs where young backpackers pick the cheap dorm rooms next to the self-catering kitchen and laundry room in the basement and we, of course, choose a double room upstairs with all the Chinese tourists for about $25.

Downstairs is a “coffee bar” featuring a wide screen TV for viewing one of scores of dvd movies, three high speed internet terminals and a book case full of tattered novels and old travel guides.

Several tables of travelers share experiences and information…one with an Israeli guy trying to explain his country’s posture regarding Palestine to a couple of doubting Norwegians (Europe is generally pro-Palestine which is one reason the Europeans have trouble with the U.S.)

The compound includes a courtyard across the alley with a budget restaurant where I tried to order soy sauce in Mandarin (chiang yo) and got rice instead because of the tone I used.

On the back end of the courtyard are even cheaper dorms housing mostly young male West Europeans. After setting up the tiny computer speakers and coffee pot we step outside the doors of the cozy hostel and find ourselves dodging old men on bicycles between humming dumpling shops and cheap clothing stores blasting Chinese hip-hop and techno. At dinner we laugh at the English menu…among the choices are “Hot Pot of Old Duck With Chinese Medicine” and “Soup Of The Ox Reproductive Organs.” This is as good as it gets. If home is where the soul likes to be…I am there…at least for now.

And then…Bob packed up…and left.

The Tajik and Olga

Posted on by Laughingnomad

7yBXvp82X2gVlMeZe25DiM-2006198051115673.gif

The Tajik and Olga
In Irkutsk, when we find our seats on the train to Ulaan Baatar, we find a good-looking 40 year old Muslim man from Tajikistan in our cabin. He has studied English in school when he was a boy by showing us how tall he was, and remembers a few words. He shows us pictures of his wife and four kids back at home in Tajikistan. We show him pictures on the computer of our trek in 1996 in Kyrgzstan although aware that the Kyrgeez and Tajiks don’t really like each other very much.

We are able to figure out that he is returning to Ulaan Baatar to operate a “caterpillar” at a gold mine after a three-month summer break with his family. We soon put our sausage and cheese and bread on the little table and he pulls out his bottle of Vodka. He is charming and has a wonderful smile and a quick laugh…I like this man.

The next day Olga, an energetic middle-aged blond, begs to move from her assigned seat near the toilet at the end of the carriage so she joins us…immediately kicking the mellow Tajik up to the top bunk and spreading her belongings from one end of the cabin to the other. Fluent in English, she says she gave up her doctoral studies in Chemistry in 1993 because there was no work in her field, to become an entrepreneur and she makes the trip to Mongolia and China every few months to buy merchandise…”everything for health” she says. She instructs us where to get a cheap hotel in Beijing and gives me an empty bottle to have the Chinese traditional pharmacist fill for my psoriasis.

Soon she and the Tajik are really going at it in Russian…the bluster again…and I ask her what they are talking about. Olga is incensed: “He leaves his wife in Tajikistan to work in another country but when I ask him if she works he says no she has to stay at home and only leave when she is with him!” This goes on for awhile and is actually quite entertaining to watch…then she non-plusses Bob by showing him a picture of man (XY) and woman (XX) and showing him that with an unfinished “X” (referring to the “Y” that “there is a mistake!” When he objects she says “well maybe women are more clever. He just looks at her.

Five Hours to Olkhon Island

Posted on by Laughingnomad

7yBXvp82X2gVlMeZe25DiM-2006198051115673.gif

The next morning we are picked up at our homestay in Irkutsk by a sullen driver who drives us five hours over pot-holes, through the taiga and across a bay of the beautiful blue Lake Baikal to the small Buryat fishing village of Khuzhir on Olkholn Island with a population of 1500 (half are Buryat). Urr0g6ZfQ7ttYL19duYJfg-2006170133924757.gif

We stay at Nikita’s Guest House (Siberia’s only real traveler’s hangout) for five days. Nikita, we are told by some of the guests, was at one time Russia’s table tennis champion. Two multi-lingual Russian girls seem to keep things hanging together and they serve us great garlic-charged meals in a communal dining area. The guests are all European…no Americans…and the conversation is spirited…two Swedes quickly challenge a comment I made that they interpreted as being critical of Socialism.

We enjoy the banya (bathhouse) with wood-heated hot water we can pour over ourselves…although the first time we signed up we were the first on the list and the water was still cold.

To Irkutsk With Vladamir

Posted on by Laughingnomad

7yBXvp82X2gVlMeZe25DiM-2006198051115673.gif

The evening we are to leave Yekaterinburg on the train, Bob loses his change purse containing a credit card getting out of a mini-bus. Olga’s son drives us in his car to the internet cafe on the way to the train station so Bob can email the bank.

Waiting for Bob, he and I have an interesting conversation. I make a comment about the importance of having all the information you can get your hands on and he agrees…free press or no. He tells me he has been reading a web site about American foreign policy and is afraid, that since we invaded Iraq, that someday we might go to war with his country. Alarmed, I try to reassure him that this would be very unlikely and give him my email address and ask him to send me the url.

We get on the train at midnight to find two adult women and a child in our berths and no amount of turning on the lights and loud talking and piling of our luggage in-between the beds will dislodge these people who are stubbornly pretending to be asleep.

We collar the carriage “mother” as I call her (who almost wouldn’t let us on the train in the first place because she was confused by the fact that we were ticketed through to Ulaan Baator) and she finds us a new cabin with Vladamir (is every Russian man called Vladamir?) who seems to be pretty familiar with this route. He is a diesel engineer on his way further east to Chita to “advise,” we gather, considering we have two words in Russian and he has maybe three in English. We settle in, glad there are only three of us instead of four.

The next morning we share each other’s food and he orders delicious Russian borscht for us all from the attendent at the end of the carraiage who makes our soup in a space maybe four feet by three feet at the most. Then Vladamir wants to talk…to tell us everything…in Russian. We get maybe a tenth of it by interpreting body language. “Maxi, maxi, he says and points to Bob when he shows him the map of Nepal and Mt. Everest.

I see some Russian girls dressed in skin tight pants with flat stomach showing beneath a short jacket and above a very short mini-skirt and knee-length spike-heeled boots with very pointy toes and with little short-handled purse slung over the shoulder clicking along the platform. “Russian girls,” I say to Vladamir. This he understands. “Russian gerls! Russian gerls! he exclaims proudly. Cick click they go down the concrete platform. They love the clicking…you can tell. They will spend a month’s earnings on a pair of shoes. There are websites with 40,000 of these girls looking for western men to marry, Sasha told us in St. Petersburg. They are sharp and are disappointed in their own men who only seem to want to spend their time drinking beer and vodka.

Free-Wheeling Moscow

Posted on by Laughingnomad

7yBXvp82X2gVlMeZe25DiM-2006198051115673.gif

Video

2004-09
Like in the big Central European cities we visited, there are cranes everywhere… old soviet buildings built during the Stalin era are scheduled to be razed and new one modern ones put up. Foundations for Stalin’s “Seven Sisters, called “Wedding Cakes” by foreigners, were laid in 1947 to mark Moscow’s 800th anniversay when Stalin decided that Moscow suffered from a ‘skyscraper gap’ compared to the USA.

Inextricably linked to all the most important historical and political events in Russia since the 13th century, the Kremlin (built between the 14th and 17th centuries by outstanding Russian and foreign architects) was the residence of the Great Prince and also a religious centre. At the foot of its ramparts, on Red Square, St Basil’s Basilica is one of the most beautiful Russian Orthodox monuments. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Moscow is a free-wheeling city. To the ambitious there are no limits…the streets around the hotels outside Red Square are lined with black Mercedes and BMW’s with black glass windows guarded by black leather clad “goon” drivers…looking like the mafia. I find a fancy hotel where there is free WIFI in the lobby while participants in a European Union meeting saunter back and forth and high-heeled jeans-wearing translators wait around having lively conversation with pipe-smoking goons.

While I sit here uploading text on our blog, Bob wheels off to find the American Medical Clinic where he has a smoldering tooth extracted by a Russian-speaking dentist before we get on the trans-siberian train for Yekaterinburg (birthplace of Yeltsin) Lake Baikal and Mongolia beyond. We miss each other at the end of the day and it costs me 600 roubles to get back to the flat in a taxi because I’m too chicken to hazard the buses and metros.

The night we saw “Spartacus” at the Bolshoi Theater, our bags were searched by monstrously big “security,” one at least seven feet tall. Tanya says, “I never see them there before…” I ask if it is because of terrorism and she says yes, terrorism. By the way, the suicide bomber that killed several of the people in front of the metro entrance was only about 5 minutes from her flat…she says she was at that metro only a few minutes before the bomb went off. People in Moscow worry she says, but what can you do? Yes, I said, I know, thinking of our Josh who works at a restaurant in lower Manhattan.

We are in the ozone at the Bolshoi, the first ballet for Bob who now says he is ready to take ballet lessons if you can picture that and we enjoy conversations with people around us during the intermissions…one older woman from Berkely and a young woman who is here for a few months to volunteer with an AIDS education Non Profit Organization. Come to find out, over a glass of champaign and caviar-filled pastry, her boyfriend, having graduated from Harvard, is working in Chicago as a chef and they are moving to Manhattan…so of course I take her email address to give to Josh.

We leave on a midnight train for Yekaterinburg.

Perspective On China

Posted on by Laughingnomad

China is big.

The population is staggering with a billion and a half people. It’s a matter of getting perspective. Our home state of Oregon only has about 1.5 million people. By comparison Hong Kong has 7 million. Westerners hear mainly about the Chinese cities of Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, but Guangzhou, the first mainland city we visited two hours north of Hong Kong is a westernized city of commerce with nearly 7 million people…it’s province of Guangdong having 46 million. Kunming, which reminds us of Denver Colorado…a mile high, cold but sunny…has nearly 4 million people but its located in rural province of Yunnan that has nearly 44 million people.

Guilin has nearly 1.4 million people…it�s province of Guangxi having nearly 75 million. Yangshuo, an hour south of Guilin, felt like a small village in comparison with the bigger cities but the guidebook shows it with a population of 300,000…bigger than our home town of Salem, Oregon.

Chengdu has over 11 million people but it’s province, Sichuan, has 109 million. Chongqing, the city where we started our Chang Jiang (Yangze) River trip, is a sophisticated lively city that reminds us of San Francisco with 5.8 million people…it�s province having 32.5 million. You get the idea–lots of Chinese folks—and lots more on the way even with their one child policy. Ultimately a formidable group.

How is China Doing?
As near as we can tell, China’s cities and it�s citizens are doing well. The significant story is in the poorer rural areas where only 10% of China’s land mass is capable of agriculture…encouraging genetic engineering of food to force an increase in production and where unemployment and disastisfaction is high…and where China’s leadership will continue to be challenged by demonstrations that are never reported in the Chinese or Western press.

The arguments against the Yangze River dam pale in comparison to the country’s need for electricity…and in comparison to the economic power China will become because of it. Mao Tse Tung decreed nine categories of enemy: landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements, rightists, traitors, foreign agents, capitalist-roaders and…The Stinking Ninth…intellectuals. The motto then was “Serve The People.” “To Be Rich Is Glorious” is the motto used now by a new practical generation…the first to grow up with no spirituality, no Confucius and no interest in politics…unhampered by religion and it’s dogmas-Taoism, Buddhism and even Christianity-unhampered by emperors, by chairmen, by gods.

China’s youth wants democracy and freedom. But the Chinese “never know when to stop,” says Paul Theroux who recounted his trip through China by train in the 80’s in his “Riding The Iron Rooster.” Where will the brakes come from when China is headed toward excess…in a China already plagued by corruption?

When I asked one of the teenagers in Ruili if he could go to Hong Kong if he wanted to answered “No Money…No Happy!” Another, Paul, a teenager who plays the guitar in his rock band, when asked what he thought about Hong Kong, answered: “Paradise!” You Western capitalist running dogs…look out for the younger generation in Communist China…the generation that is so excited that they are finally free to work hard…free to put money in their pocket…already making materialism in the West look ascetic.

I would love to have a conversation with Ma Jian, the poet, painter and writer who, being harassed by communist cadres, left Beijing in the early 80’s and traveled through China for three years. In his book “Red Dust” Ma foreshadowed the thinking of the next generation when he recounted his thoughts after getting lost and nearly dying in a desert: Walking through the wilds freed me from “worries and fears, but this is not real freedom. You need money to be free.”

When, after a student demonstration in the 80’s in Guangzhou, Paul Theroux asked Andrew, a university student, if he expected to become a capitalist-roader, Andrew answered “I think we have a lot to learn. We want to use the good features of capitalism but not the bad ones.” “Is that possible? Paul asked. “We can try” Andrew answered. Maybe it is only fair that now China gets it’s turn to try…

Ruili China

Posted on by Laughingnomad

YUqE3FCf1Hd9CjfG1qqmt0-2006171132705308.gif

Coming down out of the mountains we were happy to see Ruili lying in the green lush valley below…a larger city than I thought…a Chinese/Burma border town with a mix of Han Chinese, minorities and Burmese traders hawking jade and various smoking substances. The streets were not all marked in Pinyin…the communist-designed phonetic romanization of the spelling of Chinese characters…and we spent half the afternoon looking for a hotel listed in the Lonely Planet guidebook before we finally registered at a hotel owned by the Chinese water and electric company, Li Shui, meaning Sweet Water.

That night we found a Burmese street restaurant and ordered five dishes and an alcoholic cherry drink all for a little over two dollars. Back at the hotel, we fell into bed exhausted…but were furiously wakened at various intervals during the night…by prostitutes hoping to find male foreigners!

December 26
The next day after eating breakfast noodles in the market we walked down an ancient cobblestone road to the old part of Riuli called Mengmao where a lovely old man fell into step with us along the way. He took us first to see the elaborate carving of the concrete grave monuments. Huge modular slabs of decorated concrete were being fitted together at one factory after another along the road for single and double graves. Then we walked up the hill to his own grave site where he waved us good-bye.

That night on the way from the Gem Market, five middle school students (about 17 years old) started talking to us as we walked along…hello…where are you from…what is your name…our English names are Zhong (John), Paul, Fantasy, Do Na and Steven…can we help you…listen to us…we have a good idea…all of us ending up eating delicious Burmese fried dumplings and egg cake and exchanging email addresses at a Burmese restaurant. About 10:00pm we were all on our way home when Zhong remembered it was his birthday…

listen to us…we have a good idea…catching up to us and bringing us all back to his parent’s home for cake with light delicious frosting. Then we all struck out for home again…the kids reassuring us that when their parents found out that they had been practicing their English with a couple of foreigners that the parents wouldn’t be angry about the late hour.

“Listen to us…we have a good idea!” So early the next morning the kids picked us up at the hotel and took us in the fog to their school to show us around but the headmaster was already visiting with some Japanese visitors so the guard wouldn’t let us enter. The school was out that day so the students could practice their dances in preparation for the “city party” which would celebrate the tenth year that Ruili had been designated as a “city.”

We asked the kids why the schools always had the names written on them in English…the country had joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) they said and wanted foreigners to come visit the schools.

Then again…listen to us…we have a good idea…as we went to a brand new internet room that was offering free internet on this it’s first day in operation…on the way buying us french fries with chili and a little plastic sack full of Asian Pear relish. We ate Over The Bridge Noodles for lunch…the waitress bringing to the table a tray of thin sliced meats and vegetables and noodles to be “cooked” in a very hot bowl of broth. That afternoon we all took a taxi to the Ruili City Park near the Ruili River (or the Irrawaddy River to the Burmese) where you could see Burma across the river.

While watching hundreds of students acting out various Chinese stories in the dances and music, Jana and I think we must have talked to every young person in Ruili who wanted to practice their English…do you like music…what is your favorite rock band…our favorite band is HOT (High-five Teenagers) from Korea…do you know what high-five means…then I showed them high-five which they liked..then I asked do you know the “brother” handshake like most young people give each other in America but this was met with blank faces and was going nowhere…we like American country-western music they said…we like John Denver and in our last English class we learned about The Carpenters…do you like pets…dogs or cats…do you like sports…we like sand volleyball…and tennis…and PingPong…Paul saying the Chinese weren’t as good at PingPong as they used to be…I like swimming…Jana said she liked running…Fantasy saying oh, that’s too hard…

listen to us…we have a good idea…

But we fled back to our hotel in a tuk-tuk before the afternoon was over…our throats hoarse from talking…and drank a Budweiser with a Chinese label in the warm sun in the backyard patio of the hotel.

The next morning, relieved not to be traveling by bus, we caught a plane to meet Bob in Kunming where we would proceed on to Chengdu Sichuan Province the next day by train. The only event of note on the train was my losing my sixth pair of reading glasses while bending over the squat toilet…hearing the clink and catching a glimpse of tortoise shell as they clinked down the metal pipe to the tracks below.

Christmas At Re Hai Hot Springs 2002

Posted on by Laughingnomad

YUqE3FCf1Hd9CjfG1qqmt0-2006171132705308.gif

We went to Re Hai Hot Springs..a short half-hour bus ride from Tengchong.

The Asian and European continental shift also resulted in over 80 crystalline hot springs…grand Boiling Hot Cauldron…age-old Toad-Mout Hot Spring…Drunk Bird Hot Spring…Pregnant Well…Fairy Pool…Majic Pool…others…jade colored water bubbles and cloudy vapor…Beauty’s Bath…Pearl Bath…boiling hot.

At the bottom of the hill just outside the main entrance was the Jiaotong Binguan for 60 yuan a night for a double…only problem was that the WC was down the stairs and 50 meters away from our room…they had no rooms with bathroom. Showers were in a little room down the stairs and up some other stairs to the back of the main unit with a hot water pool about two feet deep and about 12×12 feet square…one each for men and women. The dreaded evil karaoke downstairs could be heard through the thin walls until late. Restaurant behind a row of triple rooms with no bathroom across the parking lot from the main building was great…they let us in the kitchen to choose ingredients….seeing what we get is part of the adventure!

Monday December 23
However, since it was nearly Christmas we decided to treat ourselves so we walked up the mountain through the park to the Bright Pearl Hotel…finding five giggling girls at the reception desk with no word of English. After a fashion we were able to secure a double room for ourselves…with all the amenities…WC (even if you did have to flush it by lifting the tank lid sideways), hot shower…and can you believe it…my laptop hooked up to the internet!

Tuesday December 24 Christmas Eve (for us on this side of the world)
We spent this day walking through the park in the sun…Jana took a dip in one of the pools…meeting five Burmese on her way back to the hotel. Where was she from and was she traveling alone…they wanted to know. Yes, she said, she was traveling with a friend…she was sorry that her friend (me) wasn’t there because she (me) and her (my) husband had just been in Burma for the month of August which they found very interesting…are you Catholic they wanted to know…surprised by the question she said, well, yes she was. I am a Catholic priest said one…the two women were nuns…and one of the two Chinese was a Deacon. They exchanged Christmas wishes and then the priest blessed Jana with safe travel.