Alex Goes To China

Jo and I are back in Beijing for the next few days. The flight from Guilin airport was a a quick 3 hours and now we are enjoying our favourite Chinese city before heading to Hong Kong for a 9 hour stop over on Monday and then back to Melbourne on Tuesday.

We are quite tired from our adventurous cycling, rafting and swimming around and in the lakes of Yangshuo. So we are resting, eating and doing a bit of last minute shopping before we return. Today I bought a pair of high powered binoculars that are about 50cm long. They will make an excellent tool for my amateur astronomy.

Jo seems to have some hayfever, but its nothing rest wont fix. Its been such an amazing trip. Everything has gone according to plan, well almost. And the things that didn’t have been amazing too.

China has so much to offer a ‘foreigner’. It is new and old. Politically rich with a vibrant community of ethnic groups and diverse agendas. It is also politically difficult, with its communist regime still all powerful.

If you ever get a chance to visit China, make sure you visit Beijing and Yangshuo, they for me are the best places I know of. I have alot of pictures from Yangshuo, I will upload some of them when I have time.

Arriving in Yangshuo by bamboo raft, overcrowded bus and finally electric powered tricycle is an experience in itself, but once you are here you can see why the local travel guides (who should be avoided like the plague) carry business cards that state: “Guilin is a beautiful place in China. But Yangshuo is better.”

Our guesthouse sits next to a small canal in the middle of the village sized town and a view of a 200 million year old rock formation in the background. Yangshuo is very touristy, the term ‘global village’ has been used by tourist maps (I wonder if they have read Marshal McLuhan) but it is really beautiful and you can understand why a lot of people would want to come.

Jo and I took a tandem bicycle out of Yangshuo yesterday and rode it to the next village; Fu Li. This was much more authentic, without the hustle of people trying to sell you $5 Rolex watches. We sat at a corner store on tiny little stools and drank two cokes and offered cigarettes to a group of older men that were looking at us  from a few metres away. They then came over and sat with us and talked to Jo in Chinese. They asked where we are from and when we said ‘Ao-da-li-ya’, which is Chiense for ‘Australia’, they looked confused. It was obvious that they had never heard of it. Jo explained that it is south of China. Then we moved on, talking about a map of the local area we had brought, which they were fascinated by. Later they asked if we were Americans. We said “no” and left it at that.

We have now caught up with Jimi Barlow, a friend from Australia, and are sharing a room with him at the Magnolia. We are planning a 20km bicycle ride today, but this time without a tandem – they suck, especially when you are being overtaken by a 20ton Russian tip truck in a narrow tunnel.

We decided to go to Guilin after all. Nanjing was sending Jo and I both a little mental as we waited for a call from Jo’s friend. While we waited, heavy rain flooded our proposed next destination. Within a couple of days the rain subsided and the flood waters that engulfed the Guilin rivers were gone. A persistent Chinese man, that I had contacted about accommodation days before, promised that if we came, he would refund us if the trip was ruined by flooding. This gave us confidence that all was well and so we got a flight that day, and we are so glad we did.

Guilin is a dream; with 200 million year old rock formations surrounding the small city (pop. 700,000ish) its lakes, moats and rivers decorate a fantastic landscape. Picturesque rice patties that seem more like a gigantic earth art installation than functional agriculture encompass the city. The air is clean, the sky blue and it is a welcome relief after the smog and noise of Nanjing.

We were met at the apartment upon arrival by a local girl calling herself Wendy, who happens to have a degree in English and an Australian boyfriend. She invited us for drinks at the local expat trap, an Irish pub that is about as Irish as a Bulgarian sumo wrestler. We played drinking games until 1am until Jo and I returned to our apartment to sleep.

We are planning a 2 hour boat trip to Yangshuo next down the Li Jiang (Li River) in a bamboo boat. We have been promised that the flooding from days before will not affect us.

I have also added a map of our travels here and some recent pics (click on thumbs):

View Alex Goes To China in a google map

Last Saturday night Jo and I caught a sleeper from Beijing to Shanghai. We shared a cabin with two Chinese men; an old, retired businessman and a salesman in his early 20s. The old man spoke very good English and told us about his work auditing factories in China for American companies.

When we arrived in Shanghai we were really tired. It was 7.30am and we couldn’t check-in to our hotel until 10am, so we hanged around a Chinese fast food joint and ate some MSG while we waited.

After we checked-in and got some rest, we had a look around. We are staying near Huaihai Rd, the French Concession and The Bund in the heart of Shanghai. These areas are very westernised but in quite different ways. The Bund is like the city from a Hollywood remake of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Jetsons. The French Concession is a bizarre version of Paris circa 1930 complete with Art Deco and Baroque architecture. And Huaihai is another one of those International shopping malls with every designer label you can think of plus a few local brands that have made enough money to afford the rent.

Some of the highlights of this area have been away from the tourist traps. We went to a pet shop down the road that had frogs, squirrels, chinchillas, crickets, turtles and much, much more. Also Jo and I went for a late night massage (fearful we would be offered a happy ending). Instead we got a traditional Chinese massage. My masseuse was small and young and yet her hands were so strong I am sure she could crush a skull with a casual clench of her fingers. My back still hurts, but in a good way. I can feel the tension from dragging luggage around and sleeping on strange beds melting as my back heals.

On Friday Jo and I are going to Fudan University to meet some artists, teachers and students at the Shangahai Institute of VIsial Art (SIVA). There is a 5 hour itinerary for the visit including lunch. I am looking forward to the opportunity to see how arts education functions at this university. Perhaps I will do part of my PhD there…

Overall I have to say I think I prefer Beijing to Shanghai. My Beijing experience was more grassroots and communal compared to my impressions of Shanghai. Shanghai has a more corporate, commercial feeling. The common comparison of Shanghai being like Sydney and Beijing more like Melbourne is probably accurate. These are only first impressions though, and judging them this early is a little premature.

Hot, wet and noisy; Shanghai from on high.

I have moved my blog from http://alexgoestochina.wordpress.com to here because of ongoing connection problems caused by the fact that the PRC have deemed Wordpress.com to be counter-revolutionary during the 20 year anniversary of the Tienanmen Square Massacre.

Anyhoo, this is a nice work around thanks to my colleague Ed, who created this service for artists to have an affordable, easy to manage web space. You too can have one of these revolutionary sites by signing up here: artistspace.com.au

After that little hickup I can now post some images:

Flying to Beijing was a dream run. Cathay Pacific economy class served delicious meals on the new or refitted plane. Movies were plentiful on the headrests of the person in front and the stop over in Hong Kong gave Jo and I two hours to stretch and eat some noodles with beer at Ajisen Ramen.

Our hotel is in the CBD, the Beijing Perfect Inn. Thankfully it is on a really interesting street (Guloudong Dajie) that seems to specialise in PSPs and XBox 360s. There is also a little alley (Nanluogu Xiango) that runs off it packed with great restaurants, little bars and cafes and other interesting shops. And everything is very affordable.

I wanted to blog earlier than today but The Great Firewall wouldn’t let me. My counter measures didn’t work. But today, auto-magically, it’s back online so here we go. I might back up this blog on another site in case it happens again (thanks to Ed):

http://alexgoestochina.artistspace.com.au/

We went to Tienanmen Square yesterday. It was a little uninteresting visually, but it was quite a powerful reminder of the political situation in China. We also went to Wangfujing Dajie which is a shopping strip packed with international brands, department stores and the like. It too was a little disappointing. I think we prefer stuff that is more below the surface of China. We will be hunting for more of that in future. Having said that, it is interesting to contrast the history of Tienanmen with the present day reality of Wangfujing Dajie as an example of where China was and where it is going.

I will post some pics ASAP.