Our Holiday Adventures

Carrie: On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was formally established, with its national capital at Beijing. "The Chinese people have stood up!" declared Mao Zedong as he announced the creation of a "people's democratic dictatorship."

What that meant for us was a week off work. Woo hoo! We ended up deciding to go to Changsha, the capital of our province. More popular vacation spots would be too crowded and it's only a 3 ½ hour bus ride away (for 100 RMB, about $13 US). Our friend Joan and her boyfriend Kai decided to come with us, which was immensely helpful since they are Chinese and had been to the city before. It was also great because Joan's dad had somehow gotten us two very nice hotel rooms for free! We had a fantastic time and I would recommend the city to anyone in the area. We expected it to be your typical large, dirty city but it actually had many beautiful parks. The area has been inhabited for 3000 years and has some incredible artifacts at the Hunan Provincial Museum. We were pleased to find that the museum has well-written English descriptions of the majority of their displays. It is best known for its exhibits from the 2100 year old Western Han tombs of Mawangdui that were found just outside the city. (I'm pulling from the Lonely Planet China guidebook a bit here, I highly recommend their books.) The highlight of the museum is the remarkably well-preserved body of the Marquess of Dai. When her tomb was opened in the 1970s, her skin still had elasticity and doctors were able to perform a detailed autopsy that revealed that she died of a massive heart attack shortly after eating a melon (there were 168 seeds in her stomach!). She is now displayed in an air-tight glass coffin of fluid – pretty gross. I was more impressed by all the beautiful items recovered from the tombs, especially the red and black lacquerware and the exquisitely embroidered silks. The museum also has an impressive collection of Shang and Zhou dynasty bronzes.

2100-year-old corpses and Pizza Hut!

I've developed a very generalized impression of Chinese aesthetics: every thing old is beautiful and everything new is ugly. I love the traditional style of architecture, with colorful pavilions and detailed woodwork, but almost everything built in the past 50 years is utilitarian and bland. The hand-welded bars on the windows drip rust down the blank concrete walls. Photographs of ancient homes look warm and comfortable, with rich wood tones and coordinated design. But I have not been able to find an attractive set of sheets anywhere. Everything is bright pink, yellow, and green; it doesn't match; and it has cutesy flowers that no American adult would want anything to do with. When we were living at the hotel I found a Chinese “Trading Spaces” show on TV and the end results were AWEFUL. It was as if Hildi was your designer and her theme was giving you migraines. http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/tradingspaces/bio/hildi.html

In Changsha we did a lot of window shopping, checking out malls and shopping centers. The fashion for young people is very modern and European, they tend to take more risks and wear brighter colors than Americans but the popular styles are similar. For old women the uniform is dark pants and a boxy, buttoned sweater with tacky embroidery. For old men it's dark pants and a white dress shirt with slightly pointy dress shoes and a belt with a bright gold and polished black rectangular buckle. Sometimes the buckle has a snazzy logo on it. In the hospital IV room we saw a sleeping old man with the Playboy bunny on his- we couldn't help but snicker. The Playboy logo is all over clothing here and usually worn by the very old or very young. I think that people think it's cute and don't realize its relationship with porn. Of course, after being away from Western comforts for almost 2 months, the highlight of our trip was the foreign food. We had ice cream at Haagen Dazs and burgers at McDonalds. We even ate at a Pizza Hut. When they brought out our cheese-stuffed crust Meat Lover's pizza I thought that Jesse was going to weep. (Jesse: Actually I did weep a little, on the inside.) I found peanut butter and jam at the Wal-Mart, yay!

Jesse: On the western bank of the Xiang River is the Yuelu Park. Jesse: Yeulu Park, on the gracefully wooded slopes of Yuelu Shan (that's Yuelu Mountain for those who can't read atonal pinyin) is very Chinese. And by that I mean it is a complete and utter contradiction. Being a spot of natural scenic beauty near an important city it has been the home of Buddhist temples, shrines, monuments to ancient empresses, and schools of Confucian learning for hundreds upon hundreds of years. However, it is also a tourist trap with an admission fee, alpine slides, a cable lift to the top, a T.V. station, and a bird zoo. It reminded me of home in that every feature that wasn't crammed sliding off some precarious slope into a deeply wooded gully had a separate fee to see it, or if not was surrounded by a thousand Chinese tourists and the requisite snack and cheap crap vendors. Want to buy a little a wooden sword? Visit the kiosk conveniently located next to the grave of one of Mao's revolutionary buddies.

As we entered the park Joan got a phone call from her father. Apparently her father's friend had used his all his guanxi (good feelings or connections) and we would have to pay for our hotel that night. At 150 RMB (less than $21 a room) it wasn't a big deal, but Kai looked like someone had mistaken his dog for one of the edible kind. It was a little tense. I may not speak Chinese but the tones of voice and body language are easy enough to read. While they argued, I went through my wallet and discovered I was rich. I vowed to blow as much money as possible as we got under way.

We climbed a little way up the mountain. Not far, but enough for me to remember that I smoke when I spotted the cable lift. Remembering my vow, I encouraged everyone as to the brilliance of taking it to the top. After offering to treat, we were on our way. Now this cable lift is basically a ski lift. As you may know a ski-lift can be precarious at the best of times. China is a country virtually without safety regulations, so with no warning, not even a helpful Chinglish sign, the car came up behind us and we juddered of the ground. We were about 20 feet in the air when I realized two things. Firstly, there was bar we could pull down to keep us from plummeting to our deaths, and secondly this is a country virtually without safety regulations. Pardon my language here, but as I eyed the very thin clasp that gripped the cable and the seemingly aluminum arm that curved down to the roof of our car, I was scared shitless. And as the ground dropped further below us I couldn't help but calculate our weight and notice how every branch we passed over seemed to be almost maliciously sharpened.

But after 15 terror filled minutes we were at the top and began our trek through the mountains to find the bird zoo. We had bought our tickets at the gate and the posters made me think "bird sanctuary," sanctuarary it was not. If you are even remotely fond of animals do not visit a Chinese zoo. Here are some of the negative highlights: a series of tropical birds in barren cages, a series of parrots chained and padlocked to metal bars (a long chain, admittedly), and the small cage the size of the back seat of a car containing a muddy puddle and 5 or 6 webbed footed sea birds angrily stretching their wings to dry. But we did take in some entertainment. They have this 63-year-old blue macaw (I called him "Norwegian Blue") that could ride a bike and had motorskills. It could place appropriately shaped blocks in different holes. I was really impressed with the parrot show. The finale demonstrated how the parrots could get money. At the prompting of the handlers people would hold up two bills, on small and one large. The parrots would fly out land on the hand with the small bill, pick it up and drop it and then snag the big bill and return to the handlers. This went on for a good 20 minutes.

Carrie, Joan, Kai, and I ducked out a little early to beat the rush and wandered into another show. I don't know if you have ever seen a trained Vulture and a trained Pelican perform tricks but there was something "unwholesome" about it. Remember how I said that China is full of contradictions? Well the bird zoo was no exception. One hillside was covered with free roaming ground birds, a mishmash of Turkeys and Peacocks in the same area. I bet they talk about each other. The final sight at the bird zoo was the Ostrich show in which a small man in a black cape and a cowboy hat rode around a pen on the back of an Ostrich while the Emus scoffed and made snide remarks. That may not have happened, the sun might have been getting to me.

After we left the bird zoo we stayed off the road, partly to beat the heat and enjoy the wooded mountain slopes but also partly to avoid the mini-busses and taxis that hurtled down the mountain in neutral, horns blaring at the hordes of tourists that they swerved around. As we descended we came across a little sculpture. The ground around it was covered in litter and I could have sworn that underneath the moss it was concrete but then Kai informed us, with the help of his cellphone / electronic dictionary that it was a Buddhist relic over a thousand years old. Coming from such a young country as America and realizing that at that time my European ancestors were still painting themselves blue and busy burning Rome, it is hard to explain the shock of staring at that thing. But it got under my skin. And that happens to us all the time in China. Underneath the crowding and pollution there are these little hints that the streets you walk on are ancient and you can feel the slow momentum of all those years tugging at you. It's one of the reasons I love this country. And I do love this country, in a way that's hard to describe. I worry sometimes that my choices in writing this make it seem like I look down on China. That couldn't be farther from the truth. Come here, come here now!

We left the park after a few more sights, detailed in the photos and stopped to see the giant statue of Mao Zedong at the Hunan Normal teacher's college. Mao was first a student there and then principal before he got busy with completely changing the world for millions of people. A huge crowd of students requested to take their photo with us for no reason other than we are foreign. We had a nice dinner and then retired early, preparing to leave the next morning.

Carrie: After the wonders of Changsha, we were back in Yongzhou for a night. We had wanted to go straight to Xintian, a small down in our prefecture, to visit some other foreign teachers right away but we weren't in time for an early enough bus. When we arrived home we had no electricity so we went out for dinner. While we were eating the power went out on the whole block. Jesse asked, "Look around, what do you see?" My answer, "Nothing special." No one reacted to being in the dark, they just kept cooking, eating, walking, driving, working, or whatever else they were doing. People didn't collect in the street to say, "Did you call the power company?! I did 15 minutes ago and I can't believe I'm missing the new episode of Lost!" Sometimes we really do love China.

Our visit to Xintian was wonderful but too short. On the bus ride there we made a new very cute friend. The child had a boy's haircut and attitude but 100% girl's clothes with hearts and flowers. Even figuring our his/her name didn't help us with our confusion, but it didn't matter. The ride through the mountains was slow but beautiful, and our visit with our Australian friends was lovely. Gabby was a wonderful hostess. We even got to see our friend Yvonne, the student from Buckland, and she made a delicious meal for us. I tried to help but I was just in the way. It made Jesse and I braver about trying to cook though, so we're making baby steps in that direction. But going out to eat is so cheap and easy!

We finally have our address typed up, send us or our parents an email if you want it! I want to address some common myths about China in a future blog so send us any questions you have or things you've heard, even if they sound stupid. =)