Day Two

Day two in Dandong saw us delving deep into the Korean War from the Chinese perspective. It was incredibly interesting to visit  the Museum to Commemorate US Aggression in Korea. The museum was well put together, had extensive English captions and was a really in depth look at China’s contribution to the Korean war. The photos were really incredible, but it was the captions that really had us thinking. They showed a very different point of view about the war then that which we in Canada are likely to see in a history book.

As a historian, Paul likes to point out bias when he sees it. However, the signs made it very clear that the information in the museum was only open to interpretation by the museum staff and that any differing opinions were not to be expressed. While none of us know enough about the Korean war to check the Chinese museum’s claims about death tolls, etc. it was the loaded language that was really hard to deal with.  Paul took lots of pictures to show future classes of Social Studies Eleven.

Propaganda floated downstream to the UN troops by Chinese and North Korean Soilders

This man was apparently tatooed against his will by UN forces while in the POW camp, funny thing is the tatoos are in Chinese.

After we had wandered around the museum for a number of hours, we headed outside. For the next few minutes we wandered around a field of tanks, anti-aircraft guns, radar installations, mig fighter planes and other military materiel. In fact we climbed in, on and around all of this equipment like children at a jungle gym. So much fun squishing three grown men into a Korean War era tank and yelling “Down with the imperialist pigs!”

The rest of the afternoon was spent walking on the broken bridge that used to connect the Chinese mainland with Korea before the US troops “accidentally” bombed it during a cease fire during the war (along with also accidentally destroying a hospital and airport). When we finally climbed back into the van, it was only for a few minutes, as we soon ran out of gas and were unable to find an open gas station. Eventually, our driver tracked down a jerry can full of fuel and got us to a gas station. Soon enough we were on our way back to our comparatively comfortable beds.

Reflections:

-North Korea has no electricity that we saw. None. You can make your own mind up about what that must show about the state of their economy.

-Korean food is fantastic. Silk worms... doable. Except for the fact that no one in Asia can seem to make a delicious breakfast food here is pretty darn good (when you know what to order).

-The wall is pretty great.

-Chinese clubs are hilarious.

-We know now what it feels like to be an eleven on the freak dial. Being some of the only tourists around was an interesting experience.

DANDONG!

Including driver we somehow managed to squeeze ten people in here for a three plus hour ride.

Dandong. For weeks we have been planning to get away to this border town that links North Korea and China, but there has always been something going on. This week we decided to go for it, and with the help of Ryan (our friend and Chinese Librarian at the boys campus), lots of organizational work by Cameron, and a mass of electronic communication, a group of 9 of us were ready and waiting for a van at four o’clock on Friday. We squished in (barely) and spent the next few hours weaving our way North, avoiding toll booths when we could. It was a fairly uncomfortable trip, but not all that bad considering. The most difficult part of the journey was convincing the driver (who spoke no English) that we actually, really, had to pee. Our ploy to gift him with a coke so that his bladder would also feel the pressure was to no avail.

We checked in to our very basic hotel (and promptly changed rooms because ours had apparently had a recent flood and was still very... damp), and took off to have some delicious hotpot and enjoy some of the local beverage specialties.

hotpot!

The next day we piled nine people into two taxis (the trick is to distract the driver with broken Chinese while four people slide quickly into the back) and headed out to the Easternmost section of the Great Wall. A small section, Tiger Mountain Great Wall (Hushan Changcheng) was built during the Ming dynasty in an attempt to keep out non-Han invaders. It was our first section of the wall, and even though it is apparently less impressive than many other sites, we were pretty stoked to have our wall cherry popped.

This part of the wall sees comparatively few tourists and it was a smoking hot day. In all we couldn’t have asked for a better morning, as we wandered around, poked our heads here and there, and gazed out over the border into North Korea.

Its a great wall....

Trekking the wall with Byron.

Left a little Canucks souvenir on the wall.

My spy pic, taken through a pair of high powered binoculars. Chinese tourists interacting with North Korean guards who just happened to be accompanying farmers in the fields near the border... Honestly not sure what was going on, if these tourists were being welcomed (I was pretty sure I saw cigarettes exchange hands) or being reprimanded for being on the wrong side of the border.

Some steep sections of the wall left the legs a little sore the next day.

Cameron hanging out with an out of place terra cotta warrior.

Paul contemplating the wall.

Do not climb or cross separation obstacles such as barbed wire....

oops.

The border was less than formidable. However, once you make it across the river into North Korea, there are miles of open fields with little to know vegetation and frequent guard towers. You might get in... but then you will probably have to stay for a while... a long while. In a less then comfortable place. We don't recommend it.

In the afternoon we went for a boat ride (and crossed into North Korean waters... so technically we were in North Korea). It was pretty incredible to look from the built up city of Dandong on the Chinese side of the river, to the polar opposite just across the river. From what we have been told, this part of the border is supposed to be the show that the government has put on for outside eyes. It is supposed to show that North Korea is a functioning, prosperous place. If that is the goal....


The Dandong crew, minus Laura Lee. China on the right, DPRK on the left.



North Korean Prosperity

After our boat ride, we wandered around the town, and were gawked at, as we were probably 9 of the 50 white people in the whole city (of over 750,000). People had asked for us to take pictures with them on the wall, but we took it a step further, putting on traditional Korean costumes (neon is apparently extremely traditional) and putting ourselves on overt display for a little while. The pictures with the bride and groom of a wedding were our personal favourites.

No comment could truly encapsulate this moment.

We then walked up to the main train station, where we relaxed under the imposing edifice of a giant Mao Zedong statue. It is immense, and made us pause to think about what a tremendous impact one person, and the cult of personality that was attached to him, has had on the development of the China we see today.

A pretty good summation of the last few decades of Chinese history in one picture.

The rest of the evening was spent at a Korean BBQ and the most seizure inducing, eye destroying club we have ever seen (the dance floor moved to the beat of the music... honestly). Being white, and a rarity in those parts, we were invited on stage (lured away from leaving by the promise of free libations) where we were quizzed in Chinese by the DJ who was in his mid forties. While we tried our best at the beginning to answer him in Chinese, the most poignant answer to any of his questions was Byron’s.... “LOOOOOOOOUNGO!” After Byron had answered his questions the same way a number of times, the DJ took it up himself, and by the end of the night in between songs you would hear a long, loud, “LOOOOOOOUNGO” from the dance floor!

We finished the night eating silk worms at a street stall. Yes, insect larvae bbq’ed and spiced. Ahhhh.... China.

That is delicious bbqed pupae.

We ate them all. Mmm.

Big Announcement

Well, decision made.

After much deliberation, we have decided to sign on for one more year in China.

Kristen did not receive a letter of acceptance from the programs she hoped to get into (and right now she doesn’t really want to talk about it). Neither of us have any really great job prospects at home. Instead, we have decided to stick with a sure thing, save a tonne of cash, go traveling, and enjoy the adventure that is every day in China.

Paul will be working as a department head at the Junior High next year, and Kristen will be one of only a few returning esl teachers at the girls campus. We will have a few weeks this summer to party with all our friends and family so get the barbeques ready for August.

And if you have ever had a hankering to see East Asia (or even Southeast Asia for that matter) get your passports out of storage... You have a place to stay and a couple of guides!

 Now, to cheer you up:

SPECTACLE

Every night in Yangshuo there are numerous lights that light up nearby peaks, the banks of the river and some of the most interesting architecture. However the town’s best light show is one you have to pay for. The director of the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics (and the movie “Hero”) had put together a lightshow involving almost a thousand actors and the use of six mountains as backdrops. Needless to say we decided to shell out a few hundred yuan to go and see this spectacle.

The lights of Yangshuo

The experience was so incredibly Chinese. We booked our tickets through the hotel, which involved two tour desk employees and the day manager trying to figure out what we were saying in our broken Mandarin and responding to us in broken English. Eventually we got the tickets and were picked up by another person (no English) who drove us in a minivan (full of other people) to the show. There we were handed off to another person who along with a second guide corralled about fifteen people together. We all had to line up and follow our guide’s “hello Kitty”-stuffed-doll-on-a-telescoping-stick through the teeming masses of people who were following other guides’ telescoping sticks into a holding area. There we were given our tickets and found our way to our seats. Altogether there must have been four or five thousand  people in the huge, open air theatre.

The real Chinese theatre experience

A Note: Chinese theatre goers are incredibly rude by Western standards. They answer their phones and talk (loudly) for as long as they feel like it during performances. They use flash photography. They get up and move to positions that benefit their picture taking. They yell and wave to their friends. They get close to the stage so that they can be in the pictures alongside cast members who are performing. In general they do things that would get you kicked out of a western theatre. In China, this is normal. Not a cause for comment or stress. It definitely made for an entertaining evening, as audience watching was as fun as watching the show at times.

The show was an incredible spectacle. Torches, bamboo boats, LED light suits, mountains being lit up as backdrops, hundreds of cast members on floating stages, wild costumes, traditional Chinese folk music, hundreds of children singing at once... the list goes on. There were definitely some moments that were very cheesy and there were some things that we wanted to suggest to the director (like “more pyrotechnics”) but overall, it was extremely interesting and a seriously GRAND  performance. Our favourite part was when fifty or so young women dancers all pretended to take off their clothes (they were wearing nude bodysuits) because of the reaction of the crowd. Many people in China do not have adequate access to optometrist services so the nearsighted men (and women?) in the crowd were wildly entertained.

"Impressions" lightshow

LED light suits and traditional fold music... a match I wouldn't have predicted.

Our visit to Yangshuo ended with and early morning busride back to Guilin, an amazing race type navigation of the streets of Guilin, the boarding of a shuttle bus to the airport, two airplane rides and a “black taxi” (non-licensed taxi arranged by one of the Chinese teachers for us) back to our apartment. The week was wonderful, relaxing, stimulating and food for thought. I am sure we are going to be thinking about this trip for a long, long time.

To be a sybarite... or not to be sybaritic

Coming into this break, we knew that we only had a week to see as much as we could in the Guilin area. We also knew that we only had this time to recharge our batteries before heading into the stretch run of the school year. With that in mind, we tried to strike a balance between cramming as much as we could into or itinerary and taking time to just sit and soak in the view from our balcony.

We spent a bunch of time wandering the town of Yangshuo itself, ignoring the touts and admiring the wares of the vendors. In particular Paul was interested in the purple jade carvings and the musical instruments (Chinese oboes in particular) while Kristen was more taken with the beautiful textiles on display. In the end we did some bartering (Kristen got a wonderful “peacock” sundress – the vendor started at 180 and we ended up paying 45 yuan which was definitely the best bartering we have done so far) while Paul bought a pair of hand knit shoes from an extremely elderly homunculus (DEF.: Homunculus- N. Tiny, perfectly formed, human).

We saw the cormorants and the coir raincoated fishermen, but declined the offers to go with them to watch them fish (hugely expensive and from all accounts extremely staged). We weren’t able to do any rock climbing because of the slippery, wet conditions (well one day we might have been able to but we were out on a bike ride for most of the day), but we consoled ourselves by enjoying almost four hours of spa treatments over the last four days. We found one really great traditional Chinese therapy place that specialized in acupressure, meridian line massage and “cupping” (like reiki). We had two hour long foot massages as well as back massages there. Sitting, sipping ginger and osmanthus flower tea while reclining looking out the window onto the small river flowing beside you, and having someone apply ancient Chinese relaxation techniques to your feet for over an hour was hard to take.

To balance out the sybaritic massages, we also hiked up a bunch of the hills in town, and headed out on another bike excursion. This one was down the Li river towards the historic village of Fuli (a fishing village built over seven hundred years ago and known for its fan painting artisans). We biked our way along backroads without seeing any other tourists. Instead we saw small village after small villages, weaved our way between rice paddies, frog ponds, fish ponds and vegetable gardens, passed water buffalo herders and were passed by all manner of motorized vehicles (usually with their engines exposed and the belts repaired with glue and leather).

We got lost a few times and had to ask for directions, but the ride was pretty gentle and it only took a few hours to get to  the river crossing. There we negotiated with the boat owners and got them down to 5 yuan for each of us (with the bikes coming for free).

We wandered around Fuli for a while, admiring the old town feel, trying not to feel too upset about some of the poverty we saw and eventually made our way to one of the many painting workshops that were set up around the village. The artisans work mostly in family groups, passing on their skills to each new member, so that most shops have distinctive styles. The paintings (on fans, wall hangings, etc) are almost all sold in Yangshou and Guilin by brokers who come and buy from the artisans in bulk.  We hadn’t expected to buy anything, but after seeing so many beautiful paintings we decided we really wanted one. We negotiated (not too hard) and bought a five foot long painting of the scenery near Fuli for a little over $15 Canadian.

Maoist graffiti? An old advertisement?

Frog pond where they raise frogs for the market in Yangshuo.

This look is "intrepid Kristen"

To get back we decided to take one of the main roads (it saved us about an hour of biking). Looking back we realize this was probably a bad decision. Although there were plenty of other bikes on the road, the traffic was well... typical Chinese traffic. In other words unpredictable and poor. We also had to cross through a tunnel at one point, and even though we walked our bikes on the narrow sidewalk, it was a bit of a harrowing crossing. In any case we rode cautiously and defensively back into town and made it back without any incident.

The Tour de Yangshou

To get a chance to see more of the countryside around Yangshuo we rented two “Giant” brand bikes. Paul found a (heavy) downhill bike in good condition and Kristen found a cross country bike that was also `tip top`. After some bargaining, we rented both bikes and two locks for a little under 5 dollars Canadian for the day (from 9:30 until 7:00pm). Armed with a really poor map of the area and a small segment cut out of our guidebook we set off through the crazy traffic to try and find a trail that would take us up the Yulong river.

The Li river is big and fast. The Yulong is the Li`s much smaller cousin. It meets up with the Li just South of Yangshuo and to find it, we cycled some back roads and paths beside decaying apartment buildings until we found a small track that took us through aquaculture ponds and rice paddies. We were given directions by `helpful villagers` that turned out to lead us to a dead end on the bank of the Yulong. To get across, we had to negotiate with one of the many bamboo raft polers who were waiting for us there. It was really cool actually, and a pretty worthwhile experience.

Getting the bikes on was the hard part...

At least for us.

For the next few hours we cycled through some amazing countryside, only encountering other tourists a very few times. Rice fields, water buffalo and staggering karst peaks were the norm, and we passed through a number of small back country villages. Finally we came out of the paths onto a main highway, which we negotiated with our hearts in our mouths. After stopping to ask a few people for directions with our limited Mandarin, we made it to another track that took us to Yulong Qaui (Dragon Bridge). The bridge is six hundred years old and was a wonderful spot to stop and have some noodles and dumplings for lunch.

Getting through the peleton was easy... Kristen had a great support team and a wicked domestique...

Sweaty Paul in front of the rice paddies.

traffic jam.

"Dragon Bridge" in the guidebook. However, if you want to find it, best to say Yulong Quai to the people you are asking directions from.

Eventually we set off again, and not long after we had left the restaurant made a fatal error. Instead of turning left down a dirt track along the river, we continued on the more road-like path to the right. For the next three hours we cycled up and down hills through some of China`s back country. It was incredibly beautiful semitropical forest, high peaks of karst, and orange groves, rice fields and vegetable gardens as far as the eye could see. But no signs, no people, no villages.

We passed under the main highway several times and even saw some road signs that showed us we were heading north (towards Yangshuo and the nearby town of Gaotian). However, after following the highway towards Yangshuo for about an hour, the track turned sharply and went in the opposite direction. It was at this point that the heat, the lack of water and the fact that we had truly no idea where we were going all kicked in. We had a moment that involved some swearing, kicking rocks and the throwing of sticks. Just as we were about to tear into one another or take the long ride back towards the first turn off by the bridge a man on a beat up scooter showed up. As best we could make out, he thought it was hilarious that we were looking for Yangshuo, and pointed out the direction we should take.  We soon found out why it was so hilarious.

We had come up one valley, towards Yangshuo, but there was no way for us to actually get to Yangshuo from where we were. Even though the town was less than two kilometres away, we had to cycle back the other side of the valley, through tiny (and I mean TINY) Chinese villages where we were considered to be 11`s on the freak scale. Some of the kids had clearly never seen a white person. Eventually after making it through the footpaths that led through the orange groves and surprising countless old women carrying their loads on the backs through the fields, we found the pass through the hills that took us back to the Yulong river. In essence we added about twenty kilometres of serious, hilly cycling to a trip that was only supposed to be twenty kilometres in total. We definitely took those bikes up and down some paths that tested them to the fullness of their capabilities.

Grave markers were everywhere in the hills. Well looked after and often with incense in front of them.

This is what rice looks like in the early stages.

Not exactly the lazy bike ride most tourists to Yangshuo get up to.

However, we made it back to town without any injuries, only a slight sunburn and a wealth of sights, smells and experiences to think about. We dropped off our bikes with the lady we rented them from and received a huge sigh and a disapproving glance from her when she saw just how covered in mud and dirt they were. She shook her head and gave us back our full deposit without any haggling.

Which was a nice surprise.