Thursday, February 24, 2005
Thank You
Thomas Villalon and I sat crunched in the nook of two low tables, compressed by similarly seated folk and sharing a tangerine. My legs, begging to be stretched, sought impossible angles of relief. Perhaps if I just move, slightly, like this and then put them under the table like…this. My right hip abruptly signaled that it too was not enjoying the performance. Tom, annoyingly, seemed to be enjoying himself, being a good four inches shorter than me.
Next to him sat an old man with a beige brimmed hat strapped on his head suitable for keeping the bright Himalayan sun from his brow. Strapped across his waist was a bright-eyed girl of two or three years of age who was successfully winning the prize for Most Active Accoutrement. She alternated between toying with her Yeye’s chinstrap, reaching for the woman beside her, and timidly goggling at the laowai (Tom) sitting next to her.
Tom murmured his intention to me and turned to ask the two for a picture. The girl looked skeptical but the old man kindly consented. The skepticism, and timidity, soon vanished as the camera captured her imagination.
“That’s you!” Tom informed her in Mandarin after snatching one shot, pointing at the back face of the camera. Upon understanding a transformation overcame her. She now desired this object above all other objects, thought of no other. The old man’s hat was a toy of the past. Picture after picture had to be taken to satisfy her hands and eyes. Her tiny fingers clutched at the silver skin, yearning for the self-revelation brought by the tiny pixilated image. But, as with all unrequited infatuations, the camera turned its gaze on another and the girl sought delight elsewhere.
I turned my gaze back upon the colorful scene just in front of me and marveled at the staying power of these kids. For the past half hour, these boys and girls with their long pink sleeves had been taking part in a strenuous aerobics workout. Around them sat onlookers sipping tea and peeling fruit, and apparently enjoying the torturous ballet in their midst. One carefully choreographed routine after another had been danced on that stage to the shake-yo-booty beats of conspicuous non-Naxi (or any other local ethnic) origin. I was just happy for once to not be the center of attention.
An hour before, all eyes had most definitely been focused on me. I blushed under the gaze of the spectators and reddened slowly under the touch of the glaringly bright sunlight, both things that I had grown unaccustomed to while living in Shanghai. I spoke my best apology.
“Duibuqi, bu hao yisi, bu hao yisi, duibuqi!” I said quickly to the man beside me, trying to apologize to the whole village through the ears of one man. My ears popped finally and now I could hear the hubbub around me. I had caused quite a stir. Tom grinned at me and I looked up to see my handiwork.
The rusted metal hoop was bent down about three inches from its former position; reminding me to shut my mouth, jaw hanging slack as I stared. Maybe it had not been such a good idea after all.
I pulled Tom aside in line and proposed the idea. Tom, an agreeable fellow, was wholeheartedly in favor of the plan. So on Tom’s next go, I ran up to the goal and crouched down about three feet from the base of the goalpost, elbows locked into my knees for maximum support. I looked back once to show readiness and then prepared for the brunt, which turned out to actually be nothing at all. Tom glanced off my back and shot into the air, just short of accomplishing the intended effect. The crowd had the idea, though.
Upon the next round of lay-ups, I decided that I was my turn. Tom, again, was down. Once positioned, I took a deep breath and surveyed the scene. To my left and right were at least sixty locals who had come to watch the basketball game, seated on the dusty ground. Scattered around the packed-earth court were the athletes, soon to be my teammates or the opposition. The court itself reminded me of a little league infield, small rocks scattered everywhere threatening to make a grounder skip or bounce high into the crotch. That would be the first obstacle to overcome.
I wasn’t blind to the fact that I was an American about to dunk on a goal in rural China, nor to the fact that dunking off of someone’s back is hardly impressive. The only thing I wasn’t really sure of was if I could actually accomplish the feat at all. The goal looked awfully high and I had been convinced earlier that it wasn’t regulation size. The one thing I was absolutely sure of was that I couldn’t hesitate. Representing a race that I was sure would soon disown me I stepped forward and bounced the ball toward the target.
A couple of friends of ours from Guangzhou got up and left the performance, so we followed suit. Being cramped and watching a group of youngsters dance and move and stretch right in front of me was not my idea of fun. Outside we realized that our driver was still indoors, so we sat for a while, examining the dusty courtyard in front of the building, its main attraction being the rooting piglets.
Eventually, a few children who had been watching the performance wandered out into the courtyard. Tom, always up for a cute picture, ran up to the kids and asked them if they wanted to take a picture with him. There were about six of them, boys and girls, and they split right down the middle on the proposal. Three were dead-set on having a picture taken, whereas the other three shrank away and looked deathly afraid. After some introspection, and perhaps some reflection on the political implications of such a hasty schism, another two joined the picture. The abstainer looked on longingly as I snapped a quick shot of the group.
I returned the camera to Tom and the expected swarm of children clung to him like lichens expecting the tide to recede. One by one, he zoomed in on each face, showing the two-by-two image to its owner and getting in return a small look of wonder. After attaining immortality, each child would hear the call of the dusty ocean and float away from the flashing buoy. One stood by, waiting for his sister I presume. When she finally previewed her life of fame her look of joy was not overlooked by her older brother. He came up to Tom and used two words of the English language, perhaps two of the mere hundred that he knew, with more sincerity than I’ve ever heard an English speaker say them.
“Thank you.”
It wasn’t just the words that caught you off guard, but the look in his eye. I was back a couple of feet and so didn’t take it head on, but Tom was blown away. I could tell that he had never seen such an expression of gratitude before either. We communicated in a glance, marveling at the serious nature of this pre-adolescent and at the power of words. The boy walked off to look after his sister, his job done.
I hung from the rim for a good second, not realizing what I had just done. In the back of my mind, I think I didn’t expect to actually consummate the dunk. I let go instantly, but should never have hung on in the first place. Big fatty that I am, my downward momentum had served to give the goal a good makeover. For some reason I thought of that Aztec (or is it Cherokee?) ball game with the sideways hoop, though it looked nothing like it.
I was mortified and bumbled around trying to apologize and solve the problem all at once with my limited vocabulary. I bumped into one fellow that had an air of importance about him. I started into my apologies, but he stopped me quickly, a serious look in his eyes.
“Thank you,” he said, quickly adding, “but don’t do it again.”
Next to him sat an old man with a beige brimmed hat strapped on his head suitable for keeping the bright Himalayan sun from his brow. Strapped across his waist was a bright-eyed girl of two or three years of age who was successfully winning the prize for Most Active Accoutrement. She alternated between toying with her Yeye’s chinstrap, reaching for the woman beside her, and timidly goggling at the laowai (Tom) sitting next to her.
Tom murmured his intention to me and turned to ask the two for a picture. The girl looked skeptical but the old man kindly consented. The skepticism, and timidity, soon vanished as the camera captured her imagination.
“That’s you!” Tom informed her in Mandarin after snatching one shot, pointing at the back face of the camera. Upon understanding a transformation overcame her. She now desired this object above all other objects, thought of no other. The old man’s hat was a toy of the past. Picture after picture had to be taken to satisfy her hands and eyes. Her tiny fingers clutched at the silver skin, yearning for the self-revelation brought by the tiny pixilated image. But, as with all unrequited infatuations, the camera turned its gaze on another and the girl sought delight elsewhere.
I turned my gaze back upon the colorful scene just in front of me and marveled at the staying power of these kids. For the past half hour, these boys and girls with their long pink sleeves had been taking part in a strenuous aerobics workout. Around them sat onlookers sipping tea and peeling fruit, and apparently enjoying the torturous ballet in their midst. One carefully choreographed routine after another had been danced on that stage to the shake-yo-booty beats of conspicuous non-Naxi (or any other local ethnic) origin. I was just happy for once to not be the center of attention.
An hour before, all eyes had most definitely been focused on me. I blushed under the gaze of the spectators and reddened slowly under the touch of the glaringly bright sunlight, both things that I had grown unaccustomed to while living in Shanghai. I spoke my best apology.
“Duibuqi, bu hao yisi, bu hao yisi, duibuqi!” I said quickly to the man beside me, trying to apologize to the whole village through the ears of one man. My ears popped finally and now I could hear the hubbub around me. I had caused quite a stir. Tom grinned at me and I looked up to see my handiwork.
The rusted metal hoop was bent down about three inches from its former position; reminding me to shut my mouth, jaw hanging slack as I stared. Maybe it had not been such a good idea after all.
I pulled Tom aside in line and proposed the idea. Tom, an agreeable fellow, was wholeheartedly in favor of the plan. So on Tom’s next go, I ran up to the goal and crouched down about three feet from the base of the goalpost, elbows locked into my knees for maximum support. I looked back once to show readiness and then prepared for the brunt, which turned out to actually be nothing at all. Tom glanced off my back and shot into the air, just short of accomplishing the intended effect. The crowd had the idea, though.
Upon the next round of lay-ups, I decided that I was my turn. Tom, again, was down. Once positioned, I took a deep breath and surveyed the scene. To my left and right were at least sixty locals who had come to watch the basketball game, seated on the dusty ground. Scattered around the packed-earth court were the athletes, soon to be my teammates or the opposition. The court itself reminded me of a little league infield, small rocks scattered everywhere threatening to make a grounder skip or bounce high into the crotch. That would be the first obstacle to overcome.
I wasn’t blind to the fact that I was an American about to dunk on a goal in rural China, nor to the fact that dunking off of someone’s back is hardly impressive. The only thing I wasn’t really sure of was if I could actually accomplish the feat at all. The goal looked awfully high and I had been convinced earlier that it wasn’t regulation size. The one thing I was absolutely sure of was that I couldn’t hesitate. Representing a race that I was sure would soon disown me I stepped forward and bounced the ball toward the target.
A couple of friends of ours from Guangzhou got up and left the performance, so we followed suit. Being cramped and watching a group of youngsters dance and move and stretch right in front of me was not my idea of fun. Outside we realized that our driver was still indoors, so we sat for a while, examining the dusty courtyard in front of the building, its main attraction being the rooting piglets.
Eventually, a few children who had been watching the performance wandered out into the courtyard. Tom, always up for a cute picture, ran up to the kids and asked them if they wanted to take a picture with him. There were about six of them, boys and girls, and they split right down the middle on the proposal. Three were dead-set on having a picture taken, whereas the other three shrank away and looked deathly afraid. After some introspection, and perhaps some reflection on the political implications of such a hasty schism, another two joined the picture. The abstainer looked on longingly as I snapped a quick shot of the group.
I returned the camera to Tom and the expected swarm of children clung to him like lichens expecting the tide to recede. One by one, he zoomed in on each face, showing the two-by-two image to its owner and getting in return a small look of wonder. After attaining immortality, each child would hear the call of the dusty ocean and float away from the flashing buoy. One stood by, waiting for his sister I presume. When she finally previewed her life of fame her look of joy was not overlooked by her older brother. He came up to Tom and used two words of the English language, perhaps two of the mere hundred that he knew, with more sincerity than I’ve ever heard an English speaker say them.
“Thank you.”
It wasn’t just the words that caught you off guard, but the look in his eye. I was back a couple of feet and so didn’t take it head on, but Tom was blown away. I could tell that he had never seen such an expression of gratitude before either. We communicated in a glance, marveling at the serious nature of this pre-adolescent and at the power of words. The boy walked off to look after his sister, his job done.
I hung from the rim for a good second, not realizing what I had just done. In the back of my mind, I think I didn’t expect to actually consummate the dunk. I let go instantly, but should never have hung on in the first place. Big fatty that I am, my downward momentum had served to give the goal a good makeover. For some reason I thought of that Aztec (or is it Cherokee?) ball game with the sideways hoop, though it looked nothing like it.
I was mortified and bumbled around trying to apologize and solve the problem all at once with my limited vocabulary. I bumped into one fellow that had an air of importance about him. I started into my apologies, but he stopped me quickly, a serious look in his eyes.
“Thank you,” he said, quickly adding, “but don’t do it again.”
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Spring Festival
Okay, so it certainly has been a while since I’ve posted anything here on the blog. Mah bad. I’ve had a lot of things going on and have gone to some interesting places. There is too much to report on actually (which is why you should keep up regularly so you don’t have to sum up an entire month) but I’ll do my best.
Finals were the end of January and so I proctored my way through the end and awaited the final parents meeting on the 28th, so that on the 29th I could jet out of here to Yunnan province. All of January was spent in anticipation of the first two weeks of February. That’s really not a good way to live, but it was cold and dreary in Shanghai, so that was how I survived. I had a plane ticket and a general idea of where I was to go when I got there, and off I went.
To make it easier on myself, here is a quick outline of my itinerary.
Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, Hutiaoxia, Zhongdian, Baishuitai, Zhongdian, Kunming.
It’s that simple.
Let me just say that this was the best vacation for me. I had such a great time. I went by myself so that I would have to speak Chinese the entire time, and almost successfully implemented that strategy. I ate good food the whole time and slept in reasonable lodgings with firm beds, heavy covers, and (the most useful and snuggly of all) electric blankets. The temperature never got above 60 the whole time, but I was comfortable and the sun was shining. I had slightly forgotten what the sky actually looked like living in Shanghai, so it was a nice change. I actually got a bit of a sun tan on my face.
The way I planned it was to get into Kunming and stay that first night in a nice hotel, the Palace Hotel. And then on the last night, before leaving, I would stay another night at the Palace and then fly off the next morning. That part worked out perfectly, except for the fact that each time I got there they had no record of my room having been pre-payed (some kind of snafu in the sales dept) and so I had to get my travel agent to call them twice. The room was nice, king bed, full bath, and it was especially nice at the end of the trip.
So on the 29th I got into Kunming, bussed my way into town and walked around until I found the hotel. I ate that night at a good Thai restaurant and planned the next morning to find my way to Dali, as Kunming, being a big city (3 mil compared to the 20 mil in SH), wasn’t exactly what I was looking for at that moment.
I hopped a bus the next morning to Dali and made it to the city. It took me the afternoon to figure out what had happened. Now, because I decided to not take any guidebooks with me or really do much research at all, I really had to rely on the kindness of strangers or my own intuition (lacking) to find my way to the cool spots. Dali has two cities, as I soon found out. The big urban area is called Xiaguan and the upper smaller older city is called Gucheng.
Upon arriving in each city, I got a map of the area from a newsstand or some local shop. The map I got in Dali pointed me in the right direction, but I couldn’t tell how far it really was. I ended up getting another map that showed me all of Yunnan and the relative distances of all the cities I was planning on going to. Somehow (maybe fate) I conveniently lost that helpful map and so was again on my own later on in the trip.
So I found my way to the Old Town and was immediately barraged by offers for a night’s lodging. I took the cheapest and was led by a short Naxi woman to the hotel. It was a nice place. You had to go down a long corridor covered in tapestries until you arrived in a fresh-scented courtyard lined with plants and flowers. My room was on the balcony overlooking this courtyard. I really loved Dali.
The next day I found myself led around by that same woman, named Lady (Laidi). She took me to meet a guy who owned a horse and I rode one up the mountain, trailing the man as he trudged up before the horse. Later she took me down to the big lake near Dali, Erhai Lake, and got me on a boat that took me across the lake to a temple. The temple was called Silver Mirror Pavilion and was covered in mirrors. It was high up on a bluff overlooking the lake and was just beautiful. After I got back Lady took me to see the three pagodas, taking pictures of me the whole way. She was an excellent companion, helping me in my endeavor to speak more Chinese less English, but she was plain tireless. I was wiped out after the day and my left hip was hurting for some reason. The next day she assaulted me (since I had been generous in my payment the day before) but I told her that I was just gonna max and relax that day around the Gucheng. She didn’t understand for a bit, but I was obstinate, so finally we parted, friends. After she got me a good price on a ticket to Lijiang, of course.
Dali Old Town is beautiful, walled in on all sides with rivers of water running through the town (used to clean dishes, wash hands, all sortsa things). One street there reminds me of a street in San Francisco (though I forget the name of it) in that it had steps going down it the whole way and was a very beautiful scenic walk. The one in sanfran winds down the hill I think, but this wasn’t as steep. And going straight down the middle of this road was a stream, lined with rocks and sitting stones. At one point the stream drops down and encircles a stone gazebo of sorts, pooling up in the center of it before continuing on down the slope toward the lake far, far below.
I sat for a couple of hours in a park surrounded by roses, until a man came up to inform me that the table I was sitting at belonged to a restaurant, and if I wasn’t going to drink some tea, shove off. I muttered and sighed, but gave up on my spot. The grandmother and nephew pair to my side didn’t seem to mind me as they drew characters in the dirt.
On I went to Lijiang. It also has an old town, but not a separate one. Right in the middle of the city is a maze of back alleys and some main streets with plenty of stores and restaurants. This area also had streams going through it. I stayed in a hotel at the bottom of a temple hill and ate that night with some singing waitresses. I visited Black Dragon Pool, but failed to drink some of the natural spring water, something I was apparently spost to do. The next day I went the back way up a mountain to get to a temple at the top and then found out that the real entrance was through this aforementioned Black Dragon place. I came down that way and felt dumb. Overall, Lijiang was beautiful, but it wasn’t really an exciting place for me. And as I wasn’t in the mood for some serious mountain climbing (my hip still kinda hurt), I gave up on that town after two days and headed up to the Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hutiaoxia). Man was that a good decision.
I stayed halfway down the gorge at Tina’s Guesthouse with a bunch of other foreigners. The first afternoon I climbed down to the Yangtse to see the ripping action of the water taking on the rock. Quite phenomenal. I met a lady there who was a member of the family who take care of the paths thereabouts, and we went back up the hill, the hard way. This path was steeper and involved a climb up a very tall metal ladder that wobbled slightly, and some smaller ladders. The woman’s daughter was with us and seemed to have no problem, but I was and am still out of shape, so the climb wore on me. At the top of the long ladder, Ms. Zhang and I traded Chinese and English, and at the top of the hill, she gave me some snacks and tea at her house.
The next day I went up the mountain this time. I tried to forge my way up a river gulley, but that wasn’t quite working, so I came back down and decided to try a real path. I passed by three waterfalls and numerous hikers going the other way, as well as some cantankerous donkeys (not good to run into on a narrow precipitous path). I got to the halfway point, had some lunch, and headed back. The views were crazy and the winds were even more insane. As I would come round a bend, the wind hurtling through the gorge would clip me and force me into a crawl at some points. Slightly unnerving, but it was also exhilarating. It felt like a wind that would never cease. Just getting to brush by it for one brief moment in time gave me a taste of the immortal.
I left the next morning, after a chocolate pancake, and headed out to catch a bus up to Zhongdian aka Xianggelila aka Shangri-la. The bus was coming up from Lijiang and picked me up in Qiaotou. On the bus at this time was a Chilean American that I would later meet and spend a good deal of my trip with. Not feeling talkative at the time, I didn’t get a jumpstart on our meeting.
Got another hotel in Shangrila, this time with a personal toilet. The next day I went up to the Pine Tree temple and took some pictures. That was where I met my friend Tom, or Thomas, and we planned to meet the next day to go to Baishuitai and have a rockin new years with the Naxi folk. I bought some fireworks and some snacks and saw another temple before calling it a night. By the way, I was getting in some really good sleep on this trip.
So yeah, the next day (Chinese New Year Feb 8th) Tom and I found our way down to Baishuitai (White Water Flats / Calcium Bicarbonate Flats) and searched for the party that was bound to happen. Turns out it was the next day, but we scrounged around and finally found a hush-hush party that night up on the flats around a bonfire. The next night we were part-audience part-entertainment at a village-wide karaoke night. Thankfully we didn’t have to sing, but we did lead an awfully good line dance.
The next morning we snuck up to the Flats at dawn and went bathing in the pools of water that collect there. We did get caught, but we only had to pay the price of admission (30 kuai), no big deal. That may have been the coldest I have ever been.
After we went down and found something warm to eat and played rummy with a deck of cards missing all of the threes, fours, and sixes. There must be some kind of Chinese card game that excludes or only uses those cards, but we were mystified. Needless to say, a 2-5-7 combo became a low straight, f.y.i.
The stars were ridiculous. As Chinese New Year is a lunar event, on the night of the 8th it was a new moon. In as such, the stars were blazing in the moonless sky. I’m not sure when I will next see that many stars again, but it can’t be too soon. There was one moment of serendipity when Thomas and I thought of something at the same time and then a huge blazing shooting star rent part of the sky. The power of the stars in that night sky still makes my mind reel, and without seeing the night sky right now, I can still feel them up there. It’s hard to explain, and harder to describe. The night sky there was magnificent.
We then went back up to Zhongdian due to transportation problems. We stayed in a Traveler’s Guesthouse and met some very nice and interesting Cantonese people. We played mahjong with them until late at night and then went out to the grasslands with them the next day. I participated in a basketball game there where I was the tallest person and made the crowd gasp each time I made a shot (even though my shots were not as good as some of the others). My team lost, but it was a fun time.
We parted ways the next day and Tom and I went to Kunming on a long sleeper bus, so that he could then catch a train to Chengdu and from there to Lhasa. I had to get back to Shanghai soon anyway, so I spent the next two nights there in Kunming and then headed back here, to work. While in Kunming, I checked out the colleges there and also went to the World Horti-Expo there and walked through flowers for a bit. I really had a good time walking around the town and chatting with people.
The night before I left I met a couple of coworkers, co-teachers, who were also traveling in that area. We went to an entertaining set of bars and made friends with people who had nothing better to do than share their beer with us and shake hands. It was a good night of celebration and ended my vacation very nicely.
The next morning I went to the airport and ran into the Cantonese folk in the airport, very coincidental. We said our goodbyes again and I got on my plane, trying not to think about the change in climate I’d soon be experiencing.
Actually, today wasn’t so bad. The sun came out here and it wasn’t so cold. But I think tomorrow it is spost to rain and the cold will come back for a coupla weeks. They call the holiday the Spring Festival, but in the northern parts of China it seems a little early to be celebrating. Give me a month and I’ll add a more chipper blog.
I’m going to try to add some more of my pictures to the flickr page now, so hopefully you can see a little bit of what I was just talking about.
Night!
Finals were the end of January and so I proctored my way through the end and awaited the final parents meeting on the 28th, so that on the 29th I could jet out of here to Yunnan province. All of January was spent in anticipation of the first two weeks of February. That’s really not a good way to live, but it was cold and dreary in Shanghai, so that was how I survived. I had a plane ticket and a general idea of where I was to go when I got there, and off I went.
To make it easier on myself, here is a quick outline of my itinerary.
Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, Hutiaoxia, Zhongdian, Baishuitai, Zhongdian, Kunming.
It’s that simple.
Let me just say that this was the best vacation for me. I had such a great time. I went by myself so that I would have to speak Chinese the entire time, and almost successfully implemented that strategy. I ate good food the whole time and slept in reasonable lodgings with firm beds, heavy covers, and (the most useful and snuggly of all) electric blankets. The temperature never got above 60 the whole time, but I was comfortable and the sun was shining. I had slightly forgotten what the sky actually looked like living in Shanghai, so it was a nice change. I actually got a bit of a sun tan on my face.
The way I planned it was to get into Kunming and stay that first night in a nice hotel, the Palace Hotel. And then on the last night, before leaving, I would stay another night at the Palace and then fly off the next morning. That part worked out perfectly, except for the fact that each time I got there they had no record of my room having been pre-payed (some kind of snafu in the sales dept) and so I had to get my travel agent to call them twice. The room was nice, king bed, full bath, and it was especially nice at the end of the trip.
So on the 29th I got into Kunming, bussed my way into town and walked around until I found the hotel. I ate that night at a good Thai restaurant and planned the next morning to find my way to Dali, as Kunming, being a big city (3 mil compared to the 20 mil in SH), wasn’t exactly what I was looking for at that moment.
I hopped a bus the next morning to Dali and made it to the city. It took me the afternoon to figure out what had happened. Now, because I decided to not take any guidebooks with me or really do much research at all, I really had to rely on the kindness of strangers or my own intuition (lacking) to find my way to the cool spots. Dali has two cities, as I soon found out. The big urban area is called Xiaguan and the upper smaller older city is called Gucheng.
Upon arriving in each city, I got a map of the area from a newsstand or some local shop. The map I got in Dali pointed me in the right direction, but I couldn’t tell how far it really was. I ended up getting another map that showed me all of Yunnan and the relative distances of all the cities I was planning on going to. Somehow (maybe fate) I conveniently lost that helpful map and so was again on my own later on in the trip.
So I found my way to the Old Town and was immediately barraged by offers for a night’s lodging. I took the cheapest and was led by a short Naxi woman to the hotel. It was a nice place. You had to go down a long corridor covered in tapestries until you arrived in a fresh-scented courtyard lined with plants and flowers. My room was on the balcony overlooking this courtyard. I really loved Dali.
The next day I found myself led around by that same woman, named Lady (Laidi). She took me to meet a guy who owned a horse and I rode one up the mountain, trailing the man as he trudged up before the horse. Later she took me down to the big lake near Dali, Erhai Lake, and got me on a boat that took me across the lake to a temple. The temple was called Silver Mirror Pavilion and was covered in mirrors. It was high up on a bluff overlooking the lake and was just beautiful. After I got back Lady took me to see the three pagodas, taking pictures of me the whole way. She was an excellent companion, helping me in my endeavor to speak more Chinese less English, but she was plain tireless. I was wiped out after the day and my left hip was hurting for some reason. The next day she assaulted me (since I had been generous in my payment the day before) but I told her that I was just gonna max and relax that day around the Gucheng. She didn’t understand for a bit, but I was obstinate, so finally we parted, friends. After she got me a good price on a ticket to Lijiang, of course.
Dali Old Town is beautiful, walled in on all sides with rivers of water running through the town (used to clean dishes, wash hands, all sortsa things). One street there reminds me of a street in San Francisco (though I forget the name of it) in that it had steps going down it the whole way and was a very beautiful scenic walk. The one in sanfran winds down the hill I think, but this wasn’t as steep. And going straight down the middle of this road was a stream, lined with rocks and sitting stones. At one point the stream drops down and encircles a stone gazebo of sorts, pooling up in the center of it before continuing on down the slope toward the lake far, far below.
I sat for a couple of hours in a park surrounded by roses, until a man came up to inform me that the table I was sitting at belonged to a restaurant, and if I wasn’t going to drink some tea, shove off. I muttered and sighed, but gave up on my spot. The grandmother and nephew pair to my side didn’t seem to mind me as they drew characters in the dirt.
On I went to Lijiang. It also has an old town, but not a separate one. Right in the middle of the city is a maze of back alleys and some main streets with plenty of stores and restaurants. This area also had streams going through it. I stayed in a hotel at the bottom of a temple hill and ate that night with some singing waitresses. I visited Black Dragon Pool, but failed to drink some of the natural spring water, something I was apparently spost to do. The next day I went the back way up a mountain to get to a temple at the top and then found out that the real entrance was through this aforementioned Black Dragon place. I came down that way and felt dumb. Overall, Lijiang was beautiful, but it wasn’t really an exciting place for me. And as I wasn’t in the mood for some serious mountain climbing (my hip still kinda hurt), I gave up on that town after two days and headed up to the Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hutiaoxia). Man was that a good decision.
I stayed halfway down the gorge at Tina’s Guesthouse with a bunch of other foreigners. The first afternoon I climbed down to the Yangtse to see the ripping action of the water taking on the rock. Quite phenomenal. I met a lady there who was a member of the family who take care of the paths thereabouts, and we went back up the hill, the hard way. This path was steeper and involved a climb up a very tall metal ladder that wobbled slightly, and some smaller ladders. The woman’s daughter was with us and seemed to have no problem, but I was and am still out of shape, so the climb wore on me. At the top of the long ladder, Ms. Zhang and I traded Chinese and English, and at the top of the hill, she gave me some snacks and tea at her house.
The next day I went up the mountain this time. I tried to forge my way up a river gulley, but that wasn’t quite working, so I came back down and decided to try a real path. I passed by three waterfalls and numerous hikers going the other way, as well as some cantankerous donkeys (not good to run into on a narrow precipitous path). I got to the halfway point, had some lunch, and headed back. The views were crazy and the winds were even more insane. As I would come round a bend, the wind hurtling through the gorge would clip me and force me into a crawl at some points. Slightly unnerving, but it was also exhilarating. It felt like a wind that would never cease. Just getting to brush by it for one brief moment in time gave me a taste of the immortal.
I left the next morning, after a chocolate pancake, and headed out to catch a bus up to Zhongdian aka Xianggelila aka Shangri-la. The bus was coming up from Lijiang and picked me up in Qiaotou. On the bus at this time was a Chilean American that I would later meet and spend a good deal of my trip with. Not feeling talkative at the time, I didn’t get a jumpstart on our meeting.
Got another hotel in Shangrila, this time with a personal toilet. The next day I went up to the Pine Tree temple and took some pictures. That was where I met my friend Tom, or Thomas, and we planned to meet the next day to go to Baishuitai and have a rockin new years with the Naxi folk. I bought some fireworks and some snacks and saw another temple before calling it a night. By the way, I was getting in some really good sleep on this trip.
So yeah, the next day (Chinese New Year Feb 8th) Tom and I found our way down to Baishuitai (White Water Flats / Calcium Bicarbonate Flats) and searched for the party that was bound to happen. Turns out it was the next day, but we scrounged around and finally found a hush-hush party that night up on the flats around a bonfire. The next night we were part-audience part-entertainment at a village-wide karaoke night. Thankfully we didn’t have to sing, but we did lead an awfully good line dance.
The next morning we snuck up to the Flats at dawn and went bathing in the pools of water that collect there. We did get caught, but we only had to pay the price of admission (30 kuai), no big deal. That may have been the coldest I have ever been.
After we went down and found something warm to eat and played rummy with a deck of cards missing all of the threes, fours, and sixes. There must be some kind of Chinese card game that excludes or only uses those cards, but we were mystified. Needless to say, a 2-5-7 combo became a low straight, f.y.i.
The stars were ridiculous. As Chinese New Year is a lunar event, on the night of the 8th it was a new moon. In as such, the stars were blazing in the moonless sky. I’m not sure when I will next see that many stars again, but it can’t be too soon. There was one moment of serendipity when Thomas and I thought of something at the same time and then a huge blazing shooting star rent part of the sky. The power of the stars in that night sky still makes my mind reel, and without seeing the night sky right now, I can still feel them up there. It’s hard to explain, and harder to describe. The night sky there was magnificent.
We then went back up to Zhongdian due to transportation problems. We stayed in a Traveler’s Guesthouse and met some very nice and interesting Cantonese people. We played mahjong with them until late at night and then went out to the grasslands with them the next day. I participated in a basketball game there where I was the tallest person and made the crowd gasp each time I made a shot (even though my shots were not as good as some of the others). My team lost, but it was a fun time.
We parted ways the next day and Tom and I went to Kunming on a long sleeper bus, so that he could then catch a train to Chengdu and from there to Lhasa. I had to get back to Shanghai soon anyway, so I spent the next two nights there in Kunming and then headed back here, to work. While in Kunming, I checked out the colleges there and also went to the World Horti-Expo there and walked through flowers for a bit. I really had a good time walking around the town and chatting with people.
The night before I left I met a couple of coworkers, co-teachers, who were also traveling in that area. We went to an entertaining set of bars and made friends with people who had nothing better to do than share their beer with us and shake hands. It was a good night of celebration and ended my vacation very nicely.
The next morning I went to the airport and ran into the Cantonese folk in the airport, very coincidental. We said our goodbyes again and I got on my plane, trying not to think about the change in climate I’d soon be experiencing.
Actually, today wasn’t so bad. The sun came out here and it wasn’t so cold. But I think tomorrow it is spost to rain and the cold will come back for a coupla weeks. They call the holiday the Spring Festival, but in the northern parts of China it seems a little early to be celebrating. Give me a month and I’ll add a more chipper blog.
I’m going to try to add some more of my pictures to the flickr page now, so hopefully you can see a little bit of what I was just talking about.
Night!
