Ok.....
..... update, update, update.....
I've been in China for the past coupla weeks and I've gotta say my expectations of the place were pretty far off the reality of what I actually encountered. I mean, I wasn't too far off the money thinking that the food would be strange ( and by strange I don't mean bad I just mean different ) and that I would experience some degree of culture shock. What I wasn't prepared for was the extent to which I would feel that culture shock.
Here's a country that contains a little under a quater of the entire planets population within a land mass just slighlty larger than Australia. Here, in Australia, you can walk down ANY street ( even out in the bush ) and come across different nationalities and different heritages from all the people you meet. After all, as a nation we are only 200 years old. In China however, with it's 1.4 BILLION ( that's a lotta people...), you'd be hard pressed to find any other nationalities other than Chinese. That may not sound all that peculiar, but believe me, when you're thinking of what to have for dinner at night and you realise you really only have ONE choice ( take a stab here folks ) it's a little un-nerving.
But saying that, I really did appreciate the culture there. Although 'modern' China has largely shunned most of it's ancient culture in order to concentrate on dealing with the shear number of it's inhabitants. There is still the sense a visitor gets of national pride, regardless of how dirty and run down much of it is. It works, and more than that it works seemingly well for them. Sure there's poverty and then there's wealth too ( which for a 'communist' country took me by surprise a little ) but the actual people do not seem that different. The poorer areas do not slum in depression or crumble, they set up their street stalls and sell their noodles and fruit and drinks and they all take care of each other. It sometimes seems like many of them work on a trade system, as in ' you got what I want and I got what you want so lets just swap'. There is respect and loyality for their community and on a larger scale their country. And while the richer folks may live more priveleged lives that allow them not to have to set up their street vending stands, there is still a system of respect that is present and evident even when, like me, you have no idea what they are saying to each other.
I visited four different provinces in China, three of which I was joined by my very best friend and his girlfriend who have been living and working as english teachers there for the past 7 months. First stop was Guang Zhou, just west of Hong Kong where I was met by my friend, Dima. As far as initial reactions go, Guang Zhou was the China I expected- very busy, very crowded. So following Dima's lead, we took a brief walk through the city ( did I mention it's really fuckin hot there? like 35-40 degrees CELCIUS every day with around 95% humidity....HOT! ) but we really found this quite taxing... or at least I did. So we resorted to the hotel for beers. Many, MANY beers later that evening we cabbed it across town to what is apparently quite a famous restaurant in Guang Zhou called the Revolving Restaurant. Aptly named. Know why? 'Cause it revolves...... Buffet style, all you can eat and the food was hella good. The beer was better. SO by the end of the meal, we're well pissed and decide to hoof it back to the hotel so we can see a bit of this here city. I know it was fun but the specifics of that walk home have been lost from memory now. There are some photo's of Dima and his girl talking to locals and buying some kids beer and food in a 7-11, but as I said- no recollection whatsoever ( go on, say it Shell- I'm an alcho...).
The next day Dim and I took a train over to Hong Kong to stay with my brother and his family who have been living and working there for the past 13 years. Its been at least five years since I've seen them so that was a bit of fun, although HongKong itself is quite a boring place. Unless you wanna shop because really, that's all there is to do.
From there it was a fun filled 15 hour train ride back to Dima's home town of Heng Yang in Hunan province. This was an eye opener. 90% of the buildings looked like they should be demolished and yet were happily inhabited. The streets were filthy as was the air. Yet, like I mentioned before, this was simply a small town ( small? By Chinese standards yes, but with 7 million people in a place similar in size to a normal Australian CBD ) with less money than Guang Zhou yet the people were getting on with it. The streets bustled with activity at all times of the day and night. Street vendors cooked up a storm sending arousing aromas into the air just begging you to sample some. Motor bike taxis zoomed past in a whir dodging and weaving through the traffic and careless pedestrians. The traffic in China takes a bit of getting use to. As far as I could tell, the only rule on the road was first in best dressed. Meaning if you're in front, you got right of way. But if the vehicle in front of you is going too slow and you're on a two lane road, one going each way, you just over take and play a little chicken with the oncoming traffic. They don't get upity and yell- there's no road rage- they just pull over a bit more to let you pass. And there's zebra crossings for pedestrians, but no one stops for you. Like cars, if you're in front, they just drive around you, if they're in front, you wait till they pass. I actually got to the stage of not even looking when stepping out onto the road, you just walk out and if you hear a horn, then you look.
Anyway, in Heng Yang I was introduced to the ritualistic 'dinners' I had heard about from Dima before I came over. Because eating out is so damn cheap in China it is done for most meals and if you work for a company, in Dim's case a rather important school, then the leaders of that company will take you out as often as possible. These swaree's are held in private dinning rooms which most decent restaurants have, with generally around 10-15 people. The leaders ( or whomever is hosting the dinner ) will invite the most important people they can to prove their standing in society. Because us 'westerners' are deemed as an inmportant commodity to the modernisation of China we are nearly always considered as special guests and thus were invited to all occaisions.
My first night in Heng Yang we were guests of honour at a dinner hosted by the local Communist Party leader. It is tradition in these dinners to drink a toast to every person at the table, first as a group then individually. This is done with a large shot glass of beer and is downed in one hit. You wait until the whole table has toasted to you and then to show respect and politeness you return the toast to all. Intermitedly people will toast you as they fancy ( who says fancy... jesus...). Also, they may bust out the Chinese rice wine called Bigou- this shit is dangerous. It ranges from 15% to 85% alcohol and really all that's needed is a few small glasses and you're gone. Unfortunately my first dinner the leader of Dima's school "gumbay'd" ( which is cheers in Chinese ) me 9 times with bigou- 9 times for good luck. This was done one after the other so on top of the 30 or so shots of beer I'd previously done with the rest of the table, I was totally gone. I don't remember going to the night club after dinner, hell I don't even remember leaving the restaurant. I definately don't remember pissing in the hall way of Dima's house.......
The following week in Heng Yang was quite similar to that evening; lunches and dinners, drunkeness and hilarity. Fotunately there were no more pissing incidents. There was a horrid vomiting incident, but that doesn't need to be shared ANYWHERE. The three of us did get a bit of time to get out and about and spend time with each other, but by the end of that week I was dying to be somewhere else.
From there we all travelled further up north to Xi'an where Dima and his girl would be working over the one month summer break. They were supplied with a really nice apartment righ in the middle of the city and had one day free with me before they started work. I liked Xi'an, it is much cleaner and more inviting than Heng Yang. It also has quite a bit of old style chinese architecture which I had thus far not seen. It is also the home of the Terracotta Warriors, although I missed out on seeing them due to the language barrier and my inability to find out exactly how the fuck to get there..... pissed off about that.....
I bid farewell to Dim and his lovely girl and headed to Beijing for two nights before I went home. As I was to be all alone and having spent so very little money so far, I treated myself to two nights of luxury in the Grand Hyatt 5 star hotel. Of course I stuck out like a sore thumb but fuck the bougouis ( sp? ) cunts!
Here I took a giuded one day tour to the great wall which was an amazing, moving experience to say the very least. I had no idea how much of an effort it'd be walking on it. The wall itself stradles the peak of the mountains across the northern border of China and as such is not at all flat making for some very steep inclines. Coupled with the heat and humidity a days walking left me very sore indeed.
At the end of the day I got back to the hotel and decided to take a quite walk down to Tien Amin square. On the way I met three gorgeous chinese girls who 'wanted to hang out with an english speaking person to practise their english'. Unfortunately this turned out to be a sting on their behalf and after a tea ceremony in a 300 year old tea house I was left with a bill larger than that of my two night stay in a 5 star hotel..... with no help from the girls..... at the time I was shattered but now see it was all part and parcel of the experience.
Karma smiled on me however when the next morning while cheking out of the hotel I was only charged one night instead of two after extolling to the clerk of my previous night's encounter and subsequent disappointment.
All in all I fuckin loved the trip. I loved seeing my mate- who has never left Australia- getting on and doing so well. I loved seeing such an ancient culture and loved the fact that I WASN'T AT WORK FOR TWO WHOLE WEEKS!!!!!!
... now, back to the monotony. That is until November when I'm ( supposed to be ) off to New York City....... if I can pay off my fuckin credit cards in time......
Check out my pics folder for photo's. So far I've only put in the pics from my phone camera cause of my lack of computer at home. When I get time I'll upload the ones from my digi cam.
Peace out
..... update, update, update.....
I've been in China for the past coupla weeks and I've gotta say my expectations of the place were pretty far off the reality of what I actually encountered. I mean, I wasn't too far off the money thinking that the food would be strange ( and by strange I don't mean bad I just mean different ) and that I would experience some degree of culture shock. What I wasn't prepared for was the extent to which I would feel that culture shock.
Here's a country that contains a little under a quater of the entire planets population within a land mass just slighlty larger than Australia. Here, in Australia, you can walk down ANY street ( even out in the bush ) and come across different nationalities and different heritages from all the people you meet. After all, as a nation we are only 200 years old. In China however, with it's 1.4 BILLION ( that's a lotta people...), you'd be hard pressed to find any other nationalities other than Chinese. That may not sound all that peculiar, but believe me, when you're thinking of what to have for dinner at night and you realise you really only have ONE choice ( take a stab here folks ) it's a little un-nerving.
But saying that, I really did appreciate the culture there. Although 'modern' China has largely shunned most of it's ancient culture in order to concentrate on dealing with the shear number of it's inhabitants. There is still the sense a visitor gets of national pride, regardless of how dirty and run down much of it is. It works, and more than that it works seemingly well for them. Sure there's poverty and then there's wealth too ( which for a 'communist' country took me by surprise a little ) but the actual people do not seem that different. The poorer areas do not slum in depression or crumble, they set up their street stalls and sell their noodles and fruit and drinks and they all take care of each other. It sometimes seems like many of them work on a trade system, as in ' you got what I want and I got what you want so lets just swap'. There is respect and loyality for their community and on a larger scale their country. And while the richer folks may live more priveleged lives that allow them not to have to set up their street vending stands, there is still a system of respect that is present and evident even when, like me, you have no idea what they are saying to each other.
I visited four different provinces in China, three of which I was joined by my very best friend and his girlfriend who have been living and working as english teachers there for the past 7 months. First stop was Guang Zhou, just west of Hong Kong where I was met by my friend, Dima. As far as initial reactions go, Guang Zhou was the China I expected- very busy, very crowded. So following Dima's lead, we took a brief walk through the city ( did I mention it's really fuckin hot there? like 35-40 degrees CELCIUS every day with around 95% humidity....HOT! ) but we really found this quite taxing... or at least I did. So we resorted to the hotel for beers. Many, MANY beers later that evening we cabbed it across town to what is apparently quite a famous restaurant in Guang Zhou called the Revolving Restaurant. Aptly named. Know why? 'Cause it revolves...... Buffet style, all you can eat and the food was hella good. The beer was better. SO by the end of the meal, we're well pissed and decide to hoof it back to the hotel so we can see a bit of this here city. I know it was fun but the specifics of that walk home have been lost from memory now. There are some photo's of Dima and his girl talking to locals and buying some kids beer and food in a 7-11, but as I said- no recollection whatsoever ( go on, say it Shell- I'm an alcho...).
The next day Dim and I took a train over to Hong Kong to stay with my brother and his family who have been living and working there for the past 13 years. Its been at least five years since I've seen them so that was a bit of fun, although HongKong itself is quite a boring place. Unless you wanna shop because really, that's all there is to do.
From there it was a fun filled 15 hour train ride back to Dima's home town of Heng Yang in Hunan province. This was an eye opener. 90% of the buildings looked like they should be demolished and yet were happily inhabited. The streets were filthy as was the air. Yet, like I mentioned before, this was simply a small town ( small? By Chinese standards yes, but with 7 million people in a place similar in size to a normal Australian CBD ) with less money than Guang Zhou yet the people were getting on with it. The streets bustled with activity at all times of the day and night. Street vendors cooked up a storm sending arousing aromas into the air just begging you to sample some. Motor bike taxis zoomed past in a whir dodging and weaving through the traffic and careless pedestrians. The traffic in China takes a bit of getting use to. As far as I could tell, the only rule on the road was first in best dressed. Meaning if you're in front, you got right of way. But if the vehicle in front of you is going too slow and you're on a two lane road, one going each way, you just over take and play a little chicken with the oncoming traffic. They don't get upity and yell- there's no road rage- they just pull over a bit more to let you pass. And there's zebra crossings for pedestrians, but no one stops for you. Like cars, if you're in front, they just drive around you, if they're in front, you wait till they pass. I actually got to the stage of not even looking when stepping out onto the road, you just walk out and if you hear a horn, then you look.
Anyway, in Heng Yang I was introduced to the ritualistic 'dinners' I had heard about from Dima before I came over. Because eating out is so damn cheap in China it is done for most meals and if you work for a company, in Dim's case a rather important school, then the leaders of that company will take you out as often as possible. These swaree's are held in private dinning rooms which most decent restaurants have, with generally around 10-15 people. The leaders ( or whomever is hosting the dinner ) will invite the most important people they can to prove their standing in society. Because us 'westerners' are deemed as an inmportant commodity to the modernisation of China we are nearly always considered as special guests and thus were invited to all occaisions.
My first night in Heng Yang we were guests of honour at a dinner hosted by the local Communist Party leader. It is tradition in these dinners to drink a toast to every person at the table, first as a group then individually. This is done with a large shot glass of beer and is downed in one hit. You wait until the whole table has toasted to you and then to show respect and politeness you return the toast to all. Intermitedly people will toast you as they fancy ( who says fancy... jesus...). Also, they may bust out the Chinese rice wine called Bigou- this shit is dangerous. It ranges from 15% to 85% alcohol and really all that's needed is a few small glasses and you're gone. Unfortunately my first dinner the leader of Dima's school "gumbay'd" ( which is cheers in Chinese ) me 9 times with bigou- 9 times for good luck. This was done one after the other so on top of the 30 or so shots of beer I'd previously done with the rest of the table, I was totally gone. I don't remember going to the night club after dinner, hell I don't even remember leaving the restaurant. I definately don't remember pissing in the hall way of Dima's house.......
The following week in Heng Yang was quite similar to that evening; lunches and dinners, drunkeness and hilarity. Fotunately there were no more pissing incidents. There was a horrid vomiting incident, but that doesn't need to be shared ANYWHERE. The three of us did get a bit of time to get out and about and spend time with each other, but by the end of that week I was dying to be somewhere else.
From there we all travelled further up north to Xi'an where Dima and his girl would be working over the one month summer break. They were supplied with a really nice apartment righ in the middle of the city and had one day free with me before they started work. I liked Xi'an, it is much cleaner and more inviting than Heng Yang. It also has quite a bit of old style chinese architecture which I had thus far not seen. It is also the home of the Terracotta Warriors, although I missed out on seeing them due to the language barrier and my inability to find out exactly how the fuck to get there..... pissed off about that.....
I bid farewell to Dim and his lovely girl and headed to Beijing for two nights before I went home. As I was to be all alone and having spent so very little money so far, I treated myself to two nights of luxury in the Grand Hyatt 5 star hotel. Of course I stuck out like a sore thumb but fuck the bougouis ( sp? ) cunts!
Here I took a giuded one day tour to the great wall which was an amazing, moving experience to say the very least. I had no idea how much of an effort it'd be walking on it. The wall itself stradles the peak of the mountains across the northern border of China and as such is not at all flat making for some very steep inclines. Coupled with the heat and humidity a days walking left me very sore indeed.
At the end of the day I got back to the hotel and decided to take a quite walk down to Tien Amin square. On the way I met three gorgeous chinese girls who 'wanted to hang out with an english speaking person to practise their english'. Unfortunately this turned out to be a sting on their behalf and after a tea ceremony in a 300 year old tea house I was left with a bill larger than that of my two night stay in a 5 star hotel..... with no help from the girls..... at the time I was shattered but now see it was all part and parcel of the experience.
Karma smiled on me however when the next morning while cheking out of the hotel I was only charged one night instead of two after extolling to the clerk of my previous night's encounter and subsequent disappointment.
All in all I fuckin loved the trip. I loved seeing my mate- who has never left Australia- getting on and doing so well. I loved seeing such an ancient culture and loved the fact that I WASN'T AT WORK FOR TWO WHOLE WEEKS!!!!!!
... now, back to the monotony. That is until November when I'm ( supposed to be ) off to New York City....... if I can pay off my fuckin credit cards in time......
Check out my pics folder for photo's. So far I've only put in the pics from my phone camera cause of my lack of computer at home. When I get time I'll upload the ones from my digi cam.
Peace out
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
speedway74:
ok i arrive at 11.55 tuesday aug 15 and fly out mon aug 21 at 2.45
speedway74:
im not a fan of radio birdman at all