The last stop on my official around the country journey is now complete. I spent two and a half days in Nanjing, one of the ancient capitals of China.
From a general point of view, Nanjing is very similar to Beijing. There is a mixture of re-built old city architecture and modern business buildings. The city was much more visited by foreigners than the previous cities that I saw, excepting Xi'an (another ancient capital) and Hong Kong. People tend to go to Nanjing for the history, which predominantly features Chinese culture, revolutions and wars: both domestic and foreign. I had a little taste of these three key types of history.
Before I start with the description, here is the Nanjing Photo Album for those who are interested.
On my first full day in Nanjing, I spent nearly the entire afternoon walking through the city, spending most of my time near the Confucius Temple. That area, which was almost completely decimated during the Cultural Revolution, has been reconstructed to mimic the historical setting. Surrounding the temple and nearby garden is an area composed almost completely of shops which have rebuilt "ancient" architectural facades. Placed on the streets which lie in front of the shops are bronze statues of Confucius and various other Chinese thinkers and historical figures.
Aside from the statues, this area was very similar to many other Chinese shopping streets that I have visited - full of hole-in-the-wall stores selling tacky souvenirs - so I eventually tired of the area and continued on walking toward the mountains to the northeast. As it turns out, those mountains were very far away. I walked for about 1.5 hours along very wide, boring streets that look like they could have been the main roads in a Midwestern American suburb, and after visiting some rather uninteresting Ming Dynasty ruins, arrived at the Zhongshan gate through the city wall (As an aside, Nanjing supposedly has the world's longest city wall, but I read that online, so don't quote me). At that point in time, I saw the mountains to my left, so I walked in that direction. Bad decision. I ran into a gate that was guarded by a man in a military uniform. I pointed to the mountain behind the gate and asked if I could pass through to go there. He didn't like that idea, and explained to me that I couldn't get to the mountain using the road that the gate blocked. Good thing he was there, I guess; if he weren't, I probably would have accidentally trespassed on a Chinese military base.
At this point, the weather had become extremely hot, and I was getting tired and cranky. Hence, I decided to catch a cab back to the hostel to relax for a while. I rested, met some nice people in the hostel, played some pool, etc. Eventually these new friends decided that they wanted to go out and see the Nanjing nightlife (on a Wednesday night). Needless to say, there aren't any interesting stories to relate: the bar that we went to was not empty, but nor was it full. We just had some drinks, met a few of the foreigners who lived in town, and danced a bit before going home.
On the final day, I figured I had better go see some real sights, so I took a bus to Zhongshan, the same mountain that I was trying to walk to the day before. It's a good thing that I had stopped walking, because the bus stop next to the historical sites was located a good two to four miles beyond the point where I had turned around. The sights on the mountain were very much worth the 2 RMB (about $0.30) bus ride, but when you include the 80 RMB (about $11.50) entry ticket, I felt like I broke even. At least I was able to see lots of sites though!
I won't bore you with the details of each of the places, but I went to Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum, an open air auditorium, Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Memorial, and the Ling Gu Scenic Area, where I saw some tombs and the Ling Gu Pagoda and Temple. The one interesting fact that I will relate is that I was surprised by all of the attention that has been devoted to Dr. Sun Yat-sen in these museums. He was the father of Chinese Democracy (yes, you read that correctly), and he was one of the leaders working to form the Kunmingtang government which was eventually led by Chiang Kai-shek and defeated by Mao Zedong and the Communists. Perhaps this was unfair of me, but I had just assumed that positive notions regarding previous governments (and democracy in general) had been stamped out during the Cultural Revolution and following certain more recent events. I guess I was wrong!
That about sums up my experiences in Nanjing. I spent the remainder of the time between the Zhongshan site seeing and my arrival in Beijing on pure necessities. However, I am now safe and sound in Beijing staying at my friend Jonny's house (the same Jonny who came to visit me in Chengdu), and I'll be here for the next week!
As a final note, this may be my last China related post. If there is another one, it will be after I have arrived in France (I'm going there on August 24th to visit Sabine). Hence, thanks for reading, and I hope that you have enjoyed it!
Friday, August 14, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Hong Kong and Trains
When I last wrote, I gave a little preview of my experiences on the 30 hour train ride between Chongqing and Shenzhen, and I'll begin this note by finishing that description. If you recall, I was forced to switch from a bed to a hard seat because of a booking error in Chongqing. However, the switch didn't end up as badly as I thought it would.
I shared four seats with a mother and her two daughters; one was twelve, one was about two and a half. They were extremely pleasant and interesting people who were going from Chongqing to Guangzhou to see the girls' dad, who is working there. The mother was interested in my experiences in China, as most adults are, but the elder daughter had some new questions for me. She wanted to know about the lives of children in the United States. She asked me questions like: "Do parents often tell their kids that they can't do things," "When are you allowed to make decisions for yourself," "What is school like," etc.
I found the questions extremely interesting, because they seem to be exactly the type of questions, which revolve around independence and socializing, that pre-teens and early teens in the US grapple with. It was enlightening to find that Chinese youth are working with the same issues, and even more interesting to discover that they think life is completely different on the other side of the Pacific. Needless to say, I assured her that, when I was twelve, there were plenty of things that I could not do. However, I gave her a glimmer of hope, telling her that as I aged, I was given more and more responsibilities and was able to keep them, as long as I didn't lose my parents' trust. I think she was satisfied with the answers.
I passed the first night with limited and intermittent sleep. Total, I slept about 5 hours between 1:00 am and 9:00 am. When lots of others on the train began to wake up, however, sleeping became nearly impossible. Luckily, I had brought my instant coffee, and I was able to chemically fend off drowsiness.
By the morning, it had become common knowledge that I spoke some Chinese, and lots of people on the train wanted to talk to the only foreigner in the hard seats section of the train (no lie, I was the only one . . . I might have been the only one on the whole train; I didn't see any others). We walked through the standard conversation: What's America like? How is China? Is America better or worse than China? How old are you? What do you do here? How long have you lived here? Where did you learn mandarin? Et cetera, et cetera.
Chatting with people aside, the most interesting part of the train ride must have been the period immediately after a salesperson came through the train hawking a little toy. Essentially, the toy was like a snake that could be twisted into various shapes. One of the children next to me purchased the object but couldn't make the animal shapes that the salesperson had demonstrated. He seemed disappointed, so I offered to help. He asked for a bird, and I made him one. Word of this accomplishment quickly spread, and before I knew it, I had a line of Chinese children asking me to make various shapes for them. They would decide they wanted a certain shape, ask me to make it, play with it for a while, and then hop back in line when they wanted something new. It was quite fun, and a great way to pass and hour and a half during a 30 hour ride.
As much fun as I had being in the hard seat section of the train, by the evening I was exhausted. I knew that the next couple of days in Hong Kong would not afford me much time for sleep, so I made the decision to upgrade to a soft sleeper for the night. It was a good decision; I had a great night's sleep and arrived in Shenzhen at 8:00am.
I spent the morning making the journey from the Shenzhen train station across the Hong Kong border (it's possible to walk across at a place called Luo Hu) to Hong Kong Island, and I met my old friends, Sean and Nikki, for a brief period before Nikki went to work and Sean took me to lunch near their apartment, which is in a great part of town called Happy Valley.
At this point, I guess I'll link to the Hong Kong Photo Album.
My initial impression of Honk Kong was that it was basically New York City, but it's full of Asians and cars driving on the wrong side of the road (thanks to the British influence). The most amazing thing to me, however, was the fact that everything just seemed to work. Whereas China is full of traffic jams (with honking horns), negotiations, and inconveniences; Hong Kong is quiet, well-ordered, and efficient. My friend Moling's description sums up the city's situation nicely: "If Hong Kong is the China of the future, then we're all fucked." It's true. Oh, and I just have to add one more highlight: it has the full internet (not the Chinese regulated internet), including YouTube, and Facebook, and my Picasa Web Albums. Sweet.
I spent the first afternoon getting catching up on some administrative work that I had to take care of, and then Sean took me out for drinks. It was a good night out, but I came to a realization the next day when I woke up and looked in my wallet: Hong Kong, like the USA, is very good at separating people from their money.
On Saturday, Sean and I relaxed, chatted about my travels to that point, and walked about the city before joining Nikki and a friend of hers for dinner at an Indian restaurant. The food was excellent (as it was everywhere in Hong Kong) as was the service . . . another big difference from China. We had a couple of drinks afterward, but since we wanted to enjoy the whole day on Sunday, we decided to go home early to get some sleep.
Sunday was, without a doubt, the highlight of the Hong Kong trip. We all woke up at 9:30 am, went to pick up a pair of Nikki's friends, and took the ferry across the harbor to Kowloon. We shopped for a couple of hours and then had a delicious and relatively inexpensive Dim Sum lunch, complete with wontons, dumplings, and hot peppers, which by the way, don't seem so bad after eating Chengdu Hot Pot. After lunch, we spent a couple more hours shopping, and then went back to Nikki and Sean's to change clothes before beginning the best part of the Hong Kong trip: a four hour hike over the inland mountains.
Hong Kong is a beautiful island, but it's even more beautiful when viewing it from 300+ meters (900+ feet) above (see the photos). We hiked from a road in the center of the island up over two mountain peaks, and I was continuously awestruck by the views. Mountains jut out of the water forming numerous bays. Surrounding the bays are tall narrow skyscrapers, which actually add to the beauty of the natural surroundings, rather than taking away from it. On the water, boats pull water skiers, and on the roads below, buses and luxury autos roll by (very luxurious; we saw 6 Lamborghinis on Sunday). Increasing my sense of amazement was the fact that we started our hike at a location that was less than 15 minutes from downtown Hong Kong. I've never been to such a large modern city where outdoor activities are so nearby.
The hike to the peak was not easy. Actually, the rumor is that the path has more than 1000 steps going up the mountain. I'm not sure if it was that many, but it was enough to make Sean, Nick (Sean and Nikki's friend), and me sweat through our clothing on the warm sunny day; it was also enough to discourage Nick's wife from making the trek; instead, she bypassed the mountain with their dog. Regardless of the heat and the stickiness, the hike was absolutely amazing.
After hiking, we took a walk along a bayside promenade in a part of the city called Stanley. There, we saw lovers enjoying the sunset, athletes playing soccer, and kids relaxing on a sandy beach. We were still dripping with sweat, but the surroundings were so nice that I didn't even care.
The whole weekend finished up with a veggie-burger dinner at Sean and Nikki's favorite local bar in Happy Valley. The food was delicious, and the beer was cold and smooth. Both of which were made more enjoyable by the fact that we had such a full and active day. When we finished, we returned home to sleep; they had work in the morning, and I had to make my way across the Hong Kong border again to catch my train from Shenzhen to Nanjing.
All-together, I loved Hong Kong. Well, I loved everything except the prices. It was a very different experience from the others that I have had in China: much more urban, much more westernized, and much more modern. However, it was still excellent, and I want to give my sincerest thanks to Sean and Nikki for being such great hosts to me while I was in town! You two are great!
I began this post with a discussion of a train, and I'll end with one as well. The train from Shenzhen to Nanjing (my next destination), which I boarded in 90+ degree heat (30+ C), had a broken air-conditioner. As a result, I was in a train with about 30 really pissed off Chinese for the first five hours of the journey while the staff decided how to solve the problem. I do not think that I have ever sweated so much while sitting still, nor have I ever heard so much angry screaming in such a confined space before. But hey, I'm in China. It's an experience!
The problem was solved, however, when the staff decided to trade beds with all of the people in our car. Honestly, their car wasn't that much cooler, but it seemed to make my fellow travelers happy, so no complaints here. The really curious thing, though, was when I walked over to their car (my old car) the morning after we moved. It was much much cooler than our car. I won't make any accusations, but it was strange. I guess the air conditioning wasn't broken after all.
I shared four seats with a mother and her two daughters; one was twelve, one was about two and a half. They were extremely pleasant and interesting people who were going from Chongqing to Guangzhou to see the girls' dad, who is working there. The mother was interested in my experiences in China, as most adults are, but the elder daughter had some new questions for me. She wanted to know about the lives of children in the United States. She asked me questions like: "Do parents often tell their kids that they can't do things," "When are you allowed to make decisions for yourself," "What is school like," etc.
I found the questions extremely interesting, because they seem to be exactly the type of questions, which revolve around independence and socializing, that pre-teens and early teens in the US grapple with. It was enlightening to find that Chinese youth are working with the same issues, and even more interesting to discover that they think life is completely different on the other side of the Pacific. Needless to say, I assured her that, when I was twelve, there were plenty of things that I could not do. However, I gave her a glimmer of hope, telling her that as I aged, I was given more and more responsibilities and was able to keep them, as long as I didn't lose my parents' trust. I think she was satisfied with the answers.
I passed the first night with limited and intermittent sleep. Total, I slept about 5 hours between 1:00 am and 9:00 am. When lots of others on the train began to wake up, however, sleeping became nearly impossible. Luckily, I had brought my instant coffee, and I was able to chemically fend off drowsiness.
By the morning, it had become common knowledge that I spoke some Chinese, and lots of people on the train wanted to talk to the only foreigner in the hard seats section of the train (no lie, I was the only one . . . I might have been the only one on the whole train; I didn't see any others). We walked through the standard conversation: What's America like? How is China? Is America better or worse than China? How old are you? What do you do here? How long have you lived here? Where did you learn mandarin? Et cetera, et cetera.
Chatting with people aside, the most interesting part of the train ride must have been the period immediately after a salesperson came through the train hawking a little toy. Essentially, the toy was like a snake that could be twisted into various shapes. One of the children next to me purchased the object but couldn't make the animal shapes that the salesperson had demonstrated. He seemed disappointed, so I offered to help. He asked for a bird, and I made him one. Word of this accomplishment quickly spread, and before I knew it, I had a line of Chinese children asking me to make various shapes for them. They would decide they wanted a certain shape, ask me to make it, play with it for a while, and then hop back in line when they wanted something new. It was quite fun, and a great way to pass and hour and a half during a 30 hour ride.
As much fun as I had being in the hard seat section of the train, by the evening I was exhausted. I knew that the next couple of days in Hong Kong would not afford me much time for sleep, so I made the decision to upgrade to a soft sleeper for the night. It was a good decision; I had a great night's sleep and arrived in Shenzhen at 8:00am.
I spent the morning making the journey from the Shenzhen train station across the Hong Kong border (it's possible to walk across at a place called Luo Hu) to Hong Kong Island, and I met my old friends, Sean and Nikki, for a brief period before Nikki went to work and Sean took me to lunch near their apartment, which is in a great part of town called Happy Valley.
At this point, I guess I'll link to the Hong Kong Photo Album.
My initial impression of Honk Kong was that it was basically New York City, but it's full of Asians and cars driving on the wrong side of the road (thanks to the British influence). The most amazing thing to me, however, was the fact that everything just seemed to work. Whereas China is full of traffic jams (with honking horns), negotiations, and inconveniences; Hong Kong is quiet, well-ordered, and efficient. My friend Moling's description sums up the city's situation nicely: "If Hong Kong is the China of the future, then we're all fucked." It's true. Oh, and I just have to add one more highlight: it has the full internet (not the Chinese regulated internet), including YouTube, and Facebook, and my Picasa Web Albums. Sweet.
I spent the first afternoon getting catching up on some administrative work that I had to take care of, and then Sean took me out for drinks. It was a good night out, but I came to a realization the next day when I woke up and looked in my wallet: Hong Kong, like the USA, is very good at separating people from their money.
On Saturday, Sean and I relaxed, chatted about my travels to that point, and walked about the city before joining Nikki and a friend of hers for dinner at an Indian restaurant. The food was excellent (as it was everywhere in Hong Kong) as was the service . . . another big difference from China. We had a couple of drinks afterward, but since we wanted to enjoy the whole day on Sunday, we decided to go home early to get some sleep.
Sunday was, without a doubt, the highlight of the Hong Kong trip. We all woke up at 9:30 am, went to pick up a pair of Nikki's friends, and took the ferry across the harbor to Kowloon. We shopped for a couple of hours and then had a delicious and relatively inexpensive Dim Sum lunch, complete with wontons, dumplings, and hot peppers, which by the way, don't seem so bad after eating Chengdu Hot Pot. After lunch, we spent a couple more hours shopping, and then went back to Nikki and Sean's to change clothes before beginning the best part of the Hong Kong trip: a four hour hike over the inland mountains.
Hong Kong is a beautiful island, but it's even more beautiful when viewing it from 300+ meters (900+ feet) above (see the photos). We hiked from a road in the center of the island up over two mountain peaks, and I was continuously awestruck by the views. Mountains jut out of the water forming numerous bays. Surrounding the bays are tall narrow skyscrapers, which actually add to the beauty of the natural surroundings, rather than taking away from it. On the water, boats pull water skiers, and on the roads below, buses and luxury autos roll by (very luxurious; we saw 6 Lamborghinis on Sunday). Increasing my sense of amazement was the fact that we started our hike at a location that was less than 15 minutes from downtown Hong Kong. I've never been to such a large modern city where outdoor activities are so nearby.
The hike to the peak was not easy. Actually, the rumor is that the path has more than 1000 steps going up the mountain. I'm not sure if it was that many, but it was enough to make Sean, Nick (Sean and Nikki's friend), and me sweat through our clothing on the warm sunny day; it was also enough to discourage Nick's wife from making the trek; instead, she bypassed the mountain with their dog. Regardless of the heat and the stickiness, the hike was absolutely amazing.
After hiking, we took a walk along a bayside promenade in a part of the city called Stanley. There, we saw lovers enjoying the sunset, athletes playing soccer, and kids relaxing on a sandy beach. We were still dripping with sweat, but the surroundings were so nice that I didn't even care.
The whole weekend finished up with a veggie-burger dinner at Sean and Nikki's favorite local bar in Happy Valley. The food was delicious, and the beer was cold and smooth. Both of which were made more enjoyable by the fact that we had such a full and active day. When we finished, we returned home to sleep; they had work in the morning, and I had to make my way across the Hong Kong border again to catch my train from Shenzhen to Nanjing.
All-together, I loved Hong Kong. Well, I loved everything except the prices. It was a very different experience from the others that I have had in China: much more urban, much more westernized, and much more modern. However, it was still excellent, and I want to give my sincerest thanks to Sean and Nikki for being such great hosts to me while I was in town! You two are great!
I began this post with a discussion of a train, and I'll end with one as well. The train from Shenzhen to Nanjing (my next destination), which I boarded in 90+ degree heat (30+ C), had a broken air-conditioner. As a result, I was in a train with about 30 really pissed off Chinese for the first five hours of the journey while the staff decided how to solve the problem. I do not think that I have ever sweated so much while sitting still, nor have I ever heard so much angry screaming in such a confined space before. But hey, I'm in China. It's an experience!
The problem was solved, however, when the staff decided to trade beds with all of the people in our car. Honestly, their car wasn't that much cooler, but it seemed to make my fellow travelers happy, so no complaints here. The really curious thing, though, was when I walked over to their car (my old car) the morning after we moved. It was much much cooler than our car. I won't make any accusations, but it was strange. I guess the air conditioning wasn't broken after all.
Friday, August 07, 2009
Chengdu Part 2 + Chongqing
When I last left off, I was in Kangding preparing for my trip to Chengdu. Since Kangding and the first day back in Chengdu were more re-charge time than anything else, I won’t describe those days in detail beyond this: I slept, caught up with some planning that I needed to do, and hung out with a couple of friends from earlier parts of my travels (namely; Pep, Joseph and the people who run the hostel where I stayed in Kangding).
On Thursday, however, I was joined by two friends from Beijing: Jonny and Aaron. I won’t describe our days in too much detail either with one exception - to be announced later. The majority of our four days went something like this: Breakfast, see a sight, eat a bit more, perhaps see another sight, have some drinks, go to bed, repeat.
As far as sights go, we saw the dark and tiny tomb of Wang Jian, made a return trip to People’s Park (see the previous Chengdu post for a description of that), spent time on the main shopping street called Chunxi lu, and visited a park that claimed to have more than 120 different species of bamboo (though I think that figure may have been misleading) as well as exhibition of antiques within that park. For pictures of these places (there are only 5 - not including very similar pictures), you can start here and move forewards.
For food, we braved the exceedingly spicy Chengdu hotpot – two of the three of us survived unscathed; one, who will remain nameless, had some . . . digestive issues. After that experience, we tended toward western food, but we did have some Chinese grilled fish that may have been the best fish I have tasted in China.
Finding the right location for drinks proved to be a challenge the first night. We took four cab rides and asked every driver and young person who we could, “Where do young people go to have fun at night.” By the end of the first night, we had been to every major nightlife street in the city (save one, which was our second stop the next night), and we located the “foreigners bar,” where we saw about 40 of the approximately 60 westerners in the city. Chengdu is not like Beijing. In the end, we settled on a street of establishments with predominantly Chinese clientele that struck a good balance between price and fun. Just to give a quick image of the type of places that we went: as soon as we decided that one club was suitable and ordered drinks, the in-house music shut of and was replaced by a male vocalist singing onstage karaoke-style. After a brief eye-roll from all three of us, we decided to make the best of the situation and enjoy our drinks; it turned out to be not too bad.
I mentioned that there was one Chengdu experience that I would describe in more detail, and that experience was visiting the Panda Breeding Center. In order to follow along with this part of the journey, you can take a look at the specially created Panda Album.
If you want to learn about Giant Pandas, I’m not going to help you much here. You should instead go to this Wikipedia article about pandas. I’m going to give a slightly different analysis, because after seeing real pandas, I feel that they are largely misunderstood. Also, as a disclaimer: If anything in my description disagrees with Wikipedia, blame the Panda Museum, my guide, or my faulty memory.
Now, I won’t deny it: Giant Panda’s are very cute. They even have opposible thumbs (just like us!) that render them extra cute because their arm and paw motions tend to mirror ours very closely, at least when they climb trees or eat bamboo, the only two things that I saw the Giant Pandas do.
However, I would argue that the majority of pandas’ cuteness (and we humans' resulting fascination with them) derives from their lazy idiocy and clumsiness. I don’t know exactly how it works, but for some reason humans are sufficiently entertained watching a black and white bear accidentally smack itself in the face with sticks of bamboo that it is trying to eat that we will stand by it watching and giggling for a good 15 minutes. Sitcoms don’t last much longer than that. And let me remind you that pandas don’t hit themselves in the face very often, so the majority of the time is actually spent watching a very lazy animal sitting on his butt or laying on his back . . . doin nothing. So yeah, that’s the most entertaining part about the adult pandas: when they smack themselves in the face with bamboo that misses their mouths. Guess what are the most entertaining moments when watching the baby pandas . . .
When they fall down (Obviously).
Here is the video which proves the point.
A close second to baby pandas falling down is baby pandas fighting, which tends to lead to baby pandas falling down. However, as a side-show while you wait for the inevitable fall, you get to see them growling, gently biting each other, and swinging for each others’ faces (often missing). What could be more fun than that!
I’m rambling a bit, but let me get back to the misunderstanding that I mentioned earlier. I found the false impression most succinctly stated in the Breeding Center’s Panda Museum. I found a quote that said (almost exactly), “Pandas are champions of survival and evolution.”
No.
They’re not.
I already mentioned that they’re dumb and lazy, but if that wasn’t enough, here are two more maladaptive characteristics.
1) They are capable of eating meat, but they only like to eat bamboo, a plant with almost no nutritional value; and worse, they only like to eat about 20 of the 40 common bamboo species in their habitats. In fact, they have to eat 17 – 40 kilograms (37.4 – 88 lbs.) of bamboo every day according to the museum, which, by the way, seems to disagree with Wikipedia. Further, they can’t move around much because that wastes the precious energy which they gain from eating those 88 pounds of food.
2) They suck at procreating (cover young children’s eyes for this paragraph). They only have sex during one short period each year. If the female can’t find the right male, she doesn’t even try to have a baby. Even if she does find the right male, they often do not have enough energy to mate (thanks to the bamboo diet). To make matters worse, the male’s penis is too small for the female’s vagina, so ejaculation is not even certain, let alone fertilization. And then if the female actually becomes pregnant, when she gives birth she only births one or two babies per littler, and she doesn’t know that the thing that just fell out of her is her cub, so she sometimes tries to kill it – trust me; I saw a video, and it was frightening.
Long story summed up very succinctly: I began to doubt the theory of evolution.
But then I saw it: a board titled “Panda Predators.” There are four. 1. 2. 3. 4. A panda can count that high without using its opposable thumb! And better yet, the predators, if I remember correctly, are also very rare.
So it seems to me that pandas are not “Champions of survival and evolution.” Rather, they were a well-evolved creature that wandered into the mountains, and then devolved because they didn’t have any predators. And thanks to that unlikely lucky situation for a maladaptive species, we now get to laugh at them when they smack themselves in the face with bamboo or fall down.
That concludes the tongue-in-cheek panda description. Let’s move on to Chongqing. Exit Jonny and Aaron.
When I arrived in Chongqing (photo album, for those who want to follow), it was raining buckets. And finding a taxi in the rain in a big Chinese city is war. I had to fight a woman holding a child for a taxi cab. Yes, I know that sounds heartless, but I had already had more than 7 cabs stolen from me, and I had clearly laid claim to this one when the woman, holding her baby like a football, ran in to try and take it away. However, I got it, and I was soon on my way to the hostel where I spent most of the day.
At the hostel, I met a Mexican girl named Val, and I did most of my traveling with her. We were able to walk around town for about two hours between two downpours. During that time, we walked towards a war monument which was suggested to me by one of the Chinese kids that I met on the train between Chengdu and Chongqing. However, when we arrived we quickly discovered that the war monument was not the main attraction. We ended up at the main shopping center in the town. (Note to self - even though I already knew it in the abstract: young Chinese people love going to shopping centers. Take their suggestions with a grain of salt.) We spent a little while walking around there, and then started to head back toward the hostel. About 2 minutes before we returned, the rain started full-force again, and we were forced inside for the remainder of the night, where we watched a movie and were joined by Stu the Australian for dinner and drinks.
The second day was much more fun. It was a sunny day, and Val and I spend the morning and early afternoon wandering through down the narrow alleyways between the stilted houses on the side of one of the mountains upon which Chengdu is built. We stopped for a quick cup of tea in one of the bomb shelters, which was built during the Sino-Japonese war period. Then we proceeded to the markets where Val was appalled to see chickens and ducks sitting in cages and then being removed and chopped into pieces in front of our eyes (for meat . . . it wasn't just a killing grounds for fowel).
From there, we started working our way up the mountain again, and we discovered a cable car which crosses one of the two rivers that converge around the main peninsula on which the center of Chengdu sits. We rode the car across the river, and were able to spend the sunniest part of the afternoon walking along the main promenade next the river. The city was quite pretty when the sky had cleared up, and I don’t think the photos quite do it justice.
After all of this walking, we made our way back to the hostel and re-joined Stu the Australian and (no lie) another new Stu the Australian for food and drinks. During this time, I relaxed and prepared for my long train trip which would begin that night at 1:04 am.
My general impression of Chongqing was very favorable. I wish that I would have had more time to spend there. The people were extremely friendly compared to those in most of the other cities that I visited in China. It seemed that nearly everybody was willing to talk and answer questions; it was kind of like a big city with a very small-town feel to it. If I were to pick a Chinese city in which I would like to relax for a summer or retire, I think Chongqing would be it (provided that I could still speak Chiense at those times; English was a bit scarce there).
That about sums up my experiences over the past week or so. I wrote this about 15 hours into my 30 hour train ride from Chongqing to Shenzhen, and according to myself at that time, "I’m looking forward to arriving. However, the hard-seat experience has proven to be very interesting. I’m surrounded by a number of young children who have taken a liking to me (the foreigner who can speak Chinese) :-p. Perhaps I’ll add a description of this experience onto the next post, but I’m not sure when that will be!"
Update: I ended up moving to a soft sleeper car (which has a bed) for the second night, so I arrived in Shenzhen relatively well rested. Now in Hong Kong, I'm not quite ready put together the train ride post, but based on my current impression of how different Hong Kong is than China, it looks like this weekend will contain plenty to write about as well.
On Thursday, however, I was joined by two friends from Beijing: Jonny and Aaron. I won’t describe our days in too much detail either with one exception - to be announced later. The majority of our four days went something like this: Breakfast, see a sight, eat a bit more, perhaps see another sight, have some drinks, go to bed, repeat.
As far as sights go, we saw the dark and tiny tomb of Wang Jian, made a return trip to People’s Park (see the previous Chengdu post for a description of that), spent time on the main shopping street called Chunxi lu, and visited a park that claimed to have more than 120 different species of bamboo (though I think that figure may have been misleading) as well as exhibition of antiques within that park. For pictures of these places (there are only 5 - not including very similar pictures), you can start here and move forewards.
For food, we braved the exceedingly spicy Chengdu hotpot – two of the three of us survived unscathed; one, who will remain nameless, had some . . . digestive issues. After that experience, we tended toward western food, but we did have some Chinese grilled fish that may have been the best fish I have tasted in China.
Finding the right location for drinks proved to be a challenge the first night. We took four cab rides and asked every driver and young person who we could, “Where do young people go to have fun at night.” By the end of the first night, we had been to every major nightlife street in the city (save one, which was our second stop the next night), and we located the “foreigners bar,” where we saw about 40 of the approximately 60 westerners in the city. Chengdu is not like Beijing. In the end, we settled on a street of establishments with predominantly Chinese clientele that struck a good balance between price and fun. Just to give a quick image of the type of places that we went: as soon as we decided that one club was suitable and ordered drinks, the in-house music shut of and was replaced by a male vocalist singing onstage karaoke-style. After a brief eye-roll from all three of us, we decided to make the best of the situation and enjoy our drinks; it turned out to be not too bad.
I mentioned that there was one Chengdu experience that I would describe in more detail, and that experience was visiting the Panda Breeding Center. In order to follow along with this part of the journey, you can take a look at the specially created Panda Album.
If you want to learn about Giant Pandas, I’m not going to help you much here. You should instead go to this Wikipedia article about pandas. I’m going to give a slightly different analysis, because after seeing real pandas, I feel that they are largely misunderstood. Also, as a disclaimer: If anything in my description disagrees with Wikipedia, blame the Panda Museum, my guide, or my faulty memory.
Now, I won’t deny it: Giant Panda’s are very cute. They even have opposible thumbs (just like us!) that render them extra cute because their arm and paw motions tend to mirror ours very closely, at least when they climb trees or eat bamboo, the only two things that I saw the Giant Pandas do.
However, I would argue that the majority of pandas’ cuteness (and we humans' resulting fascination with them) derives from their lazy idiocy and clumsiness. I don’t know exactly how it works, but for some reason humans are sufficiently entertained watching a black and white bear accidentally smack itself in the face with sticks of bamboo that it is trying to eat that we will stand by it watching and giggling for a good 15 minutes. Sitcoms don’t last much longer than that. And let me remind you that pandas don’t hit themselves in the face very often, so the majority of the time is actually spent watching a very lazy animal sitting on his butt or laying on his back . . . doin nothing. So yeah, that’s the most entertaining part about the adult pandas: when they smack themselves in the face with bamboo that misses their mouths. Guess what are the most entertaining moments when watching the baby pandas . . .
When they fall down (Obviously).
Here is the video which proves the point.
A close second to baby pandas falling down is baby pandas fighting, which tends to lead to baby pandas falling down. However, as a side-show while you wait for the inevitable fall, you get to see them growling, gently biting each other, and swinging for each others’ faces (often missing). What could be more fun than that!
I’m rambling a bit, but let me get back to the misunderstanding that I mentioned earlier. I found the false impression most succinctly stated in the Breeding Center’s Panda Museum. I found a quote that said (almost exactly), “Pandas are champions of survival and evolution.”
No.
They’re not.
I already mentioned that they’re dumb and lazy, but if that wasn’t enough, here are two more maladaptive characteristics.
1) They are capable of eating meat, but they only like to eat bamboo, a plant with almost no nutritional value; and worse, they only like to eat about 20 of the 40 common bamboo species in their habitats. In fact, they have to eat 17 – 40 kilograms (37.4 – 88 lbs.) of bamboo every day according to the museum, which, by the way, seems to disagree with Wikipedia. Further, they can’t move around much because that wastes the precious energy which they gain from eating those 88 pounds of food.
2) They suck at procreating (cover young children’s eyes for this paragraph). They only have sex during one short period each year. If the female can’t find the right male, she doesn’t even try to have a baby. Even if she does find the right male, they often do not have enough energy to mate (thanks to the bamboo diet). To make matters worse, the male’s penis is too small for the female’s vagina, so ejaculation is not even certain, let alone fertilization. And then if the female actually becomes pregnant, when she gives birth she only births one or two babies per littler, and she doesn’t know that the thing that just fell out of her is her cub, so she sometimes tries to kill it – trust me; I saw a video, and it was frightening.
Long story summed up very succinctly: I began to doubt the theory of evolution.
But then I saw it: a board titled “Panda Predators.” There are four. 1. 2. 3. 4. A panda can count that high without using its opposable thumb! And better yet, the predators, if I remember correctly, are also very rare.
So it seems to me that pandas are not “Champions of survival and evolution.” Rather, they were a well-evolved creature that wandered into the mountains, and then devolved because they didn’t have any predators. And thanks to that unlikely lucky situation for a maladaptive species, we now get to laugh at them when they smack themselves in the face with bamboo or fall down.
That concludes the tongue-in-cheek panda description. Let’s move on to Chongqing. Exit Jonny and Aaron.
When I arrived in Chongqing (photo album, for those who want to follow), it was raining buckets. And finding a taxi in the rain in a big Chinese city is war. I had to fight a woman holding a child for a taxi cab. Yes, I know that sounds heartless, but I had already had more than 7 cabs stolen from me, and I had clearly laid claim to this one when the woman, holding her baby like a football, ran in to try and take it away. However, I got it, and I was soon on my way to the hostel where I spent most of the day.
At the hostel, I met a Mexican girl named Val, and I did most of my traveling with her. We were able to walk around town for about two hours between two downpours. During that time, we walked towards a war monument which was suggested to me by one of the Chinese kids that I met on the train between Chengdu and Chongqing. However, when we arrived we quickly discovered that the war monument was not the main attraction. We ended up at the main shopping center in the town. (Note to self - even though I already knew it in the abstract: young Chinese people love going to shopping centers. Take their suggestions with a grain of salt.) We spent a little while walking around there, and then started to head back toward the hostel. About 2 minutes before we returned, the rain started full-force again, and we were forced inside for the remainder of the night, where we watched a movie and were joined by Stu the Australian for dinner and drinks.
The second day was much more fun. It was a sunny day, and Val and I spend the morning and early afternoon wandering through down the narrow alleyways between the stilted houses on the side of one of the mountains upon which Chengdu is built. We stopped for a quick cup of tea in one of the bomb shelters, which was built during the Sino-Japonese war period. Then we proceeded to the markets where Val was appalled to see chickens and ducks sitting in cages and then being removed and chopped into pieces in front of our eyes (for meat . . . it wasn't just a killing grounds for fowel).
From there, we started working our way up the mountain again, and we discovered a cable car which crosses one of the two rivers that converge around the main peninsula on which the center of Chengdu sits. We rode the car across the river, and were able to spend the sunniest part of the afternoon walking along the main promenade next the river. The city was quite pretty when the sky had cleared up, and I don’t think the photos quite do it justice.
After all of this walking, we made our way back to the hostel and re-joined Stu the Australian and (no lie) another new Stu the Australian for food and drinks. During this time, I relaxed and prepared for my long train trip which would begin that night at 1:04 am.
My general impression of Chongqing was very favorable. I wish that I would have had more time to spend there. The people were extremely friendly compared to those in most of the other cities that I visited in China. It seemed that nearly everybody was willing to talk and answer questions; it was kind of like a big city with a very small-town feel to it. If I were to pick a Chinese city in which I would like to relax for a summer or retire, I think Chongqing would be it (provided that I could still speak Chiense at those times; English was a bit scarce there).
That about sums up my experiences over the past week or so. I wrote this about 15 hours into my 30 hour train ride from Chongqing to Shenzhen, and according to myself at that time, "I’m looking forward to arriving. However, the hard-seat experience has proven to be very interesting. I’m surrounded by a number of young children who have taken a liking to me (the foreigner who can speak Chinese) :-p. Perhaps I’ll add a description of this experience onto the next post, but I’m not sure when that will be!"
Update: I ended up moving to a soft sleeper car (which has a bed) for the second night, so I arrived in Shenzhen relatively well rested. Now in Hong Kong, I'm not quite ready put together the train ride post, but based on my current impression of how different Hong Kong is than China, it looks like this weekend will contain plenty to write about as well.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
No Full Post Yet, But the Travels Continue
I have moved from Chengdu to Chongqing. I was planning to get a post together today, but couldn't find the time. In the interests of not making anybody nervous (first and foremost, my parents), just wanted to let you all know that I'll be offline for the next day or two. I have a 30 hour train ride to Shenzhen beginning at 1:04 am this evening.
Unfortunately for me, the woman who helped me to book the tickets in Chengdu made a mistake, and I was forced to change my seat assignment from a hard sleeper (bed) to a hard seat (exactly what it sounds like). Wish me luck!
Unfortunately for me, the woman who helped me to book the tickets in Chengdu made a mistake, and I was forced to change my seat assignment from a hard sleeper (bed) to a hard seat (exactly what it sounds like). Wish me luck!
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