Beijing (again)

After a heavy night of cocktails with Malva and Merel in Chengdu I stumbled to my early morning flight back to Beijing. For domestic flights you only have to be there 45mins in advance, rather than 1hour for a train journey, which was a little strange but I wasn't complaining for the extra time in bed, coaxing sambuca out of my pores. I had agreed to meet the girls again in Beijing in a few days and immediately started to feel better, knowing that my 2h30m flight paled into insignificance compared to their 30+hr train journey.

When I landed in Beijing, I headed to Jingshan park, north of the Forbidden City. The park includes a man-made hill dating from the time the capital was moved to Beijing - the area around the palace is essentially flat, so the hill was built to comply with Feng Shui principles.

After 3 weeks on the road I was glad to catch up with friends who, like I, had made the trip over to China for Guru and Lihua's wedding. I saw Manuel and Matt that evening before they headed north to Chengde and we swapped tales of our travels so far in this fantastic country. Relaxing with beers in the sunshine, on a roof terrace of a traditional hutong is certainly a great passtime.

The following day Ross arrived and we prepared for a daytrip to the Great Wall. We trekked along a 6km stretch between Jinshanling and Simatai about 80miles north-east of Beijing. It was a long journey to get there but every mile further from Beijing means fewer touts and tourists sharing your part of the wall. The few touts that bother to make the trip here are incredibly patient, making idle chit-chat for several kilometres before trying to guilt-trip you into buying some piece of tat.

The views into Inner Mongolia were magnificent:

What impressed me most was that the 5,500 miles of wall were built atop the ridges of the mountains, as if the physical barrier of a mountain wasn't enough to deter armies. The truth is that the wall didn't stop the invaders - sections were incomplete and some parts were destroyed over time - but really the wall is a statement of power, rather than a physical barrier. And no, you can't see it from space... just like you can't see other objects that are 9 metres wide.

Back at the hostel, Ross and I met up with Malva and Merel again and got chatting to Jake, taking his gap year before university. By some coincedence Jake happened to live on an adjacent street to me in Clapham and worked part-time in the music shop on Northcote Road (it was only after I'd left Beijing that I realised he took my order for a Prokofiev piano sonata that never came). We all went out for cocktails, Peking Duck (when in Rome etc...), and made good use of the cheap beers in the hostel (Dutch drinking games are punishing!).

The following afternoon we all took a trip to the Forbidden City, the imperial palace throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties. It's amazing to think that this complex of almost 1000 buildings was only opened to the public in 1925, 500 years after its construction.

After searching (unsuccessfully) the tourist shops for a novelty Chairman Mao bottle opener, which had become an obsession for me, we headed to Tiananmen square, the largest city square in the world. Plenty of monuments glorifying the worker and a huge LCD screen playing patriotic scenes and rousing music (obviously no mention of the protests of 1989). Mao himself lies in state in a mausoleum on the square but I'd have to wait until my next (!) visit to Beijing to see him. We had a sleeper to Shanghai to catch...

Chengdu to Leshan

From Xi'an I headed south-west through amazing countryside to Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province. With its wide boulevards and glistening glass and steel skyscrapers it's hard to tell this city apart from others in China, and for that matter other large Western cities (were it not for the huge statue of Mao peering over the central square).

Chengdu is famous for being the home of the giant panda research base, which is certainly the largest tourist attraction in the area. I went along for the 8am feeding when the pandas are most active. Pandas are clearly the most useless animals on the planet. Firstly they don't reproduce, which is arguably the primary purpose of life; secondly they essentially only eat bamboo, which is low in nutrients and every now and again flowers and dies off en masse, taking wild pandas along with it; thirdly they are black and white in a jungle environment - probably not the best camouflage (not that all animals should be camouflaged in their environment - sheep are probably white because they gain a competitive advantage by being visible to other sheep, as they are so dumb they can't survive without their herd, but I'm pretty sure this doesn't really apply to pandas). Having said that, pandas have one redeeming feature that is keeping them alive: being adorable.

The following day I tagged along with two Dutch girls, Malva and Merel, whom I met on the panda trip to visit nearby Leshan. Leshan's claim to fame is the Giant Buddha, carved into the rock-face at the confluence of the Min and Dadu rivers, which at 71m tall is the largest of its kind in the world. We joined the queue of people climbing down the cliff-face in single-file, all jostling for the best views despite the slippery steps and precarious incline, but the sight was worth it.

  

Corrugated for her pleasure

I'd heard of Chinglish long before I visited China. The web is full of these often hilarious examples of Chinese-English mistranslations, with grammar and spelling mistakes or odd word choice, but I never expected them to be so prevalent - especially in museums and major tourist attractions.

At the Pearl Tower in Shanghai, visitors are asked not to bring "animals and the articles which disturb common sanitation (including the peculiar smell of effluvium)" nor "dangerous germs, pests and other baleful biology", that is assuming you're actually allowed into the tower, which also forbids the "ragamuffin, drunken people and psychotic" from entering.

Here are a few examples I captured in a garden in Suzhou:

So why are we asked to "Mind the virescence" rather than to "Keep off the grass"? Is this an elaborate practical joke by the English speakers of China or are all English lessons conducted with a Victorian thesaurus? China did try to correct a lot of their signs for the Shanghai expo to avoid embarrassment - I'm surprised that English-speaking pedants haven't already offered their services - but why would you want to correct them? It's harmless fun (albeit at the translator's expense), the point of the message is generally conveyed, and it's not often that you can go off to foreign lands and improve your English vocabulary.

But as much as I love Chinglish, this is probably one that should be corrected...

Luoyang to Xi'an

Luoyang
After a few days relaxing in Pingyao I thought it was about time to get back to another Chinese metropolis. I took the sleeper to Luoyang, which is a convenient stopover on the way to Xi'an. Like Tiayuan there was little  to do in the city centre, however Luoyang has a star attraction just a few kilometres away: the Longmen Grottoes. This is a complex of hundreds of caves, housing over 100,000 Buddhist carvings, cut into the limestone cliffs along the Yi River.

The pictures don't really do it justice. The level of detail and sheer scale of the complex is unbelievable. However, being such a spectacular religious site meant that it was high up the list when the Red Guards came knocking. During the Cultural Revolution (and previous anti-Buddhist movements) many of the statues were systematically defaced (literally) or destroyed entirely - in fact almost every carving in the top picture no longer has facial features - but even this organised destruction hasn't taken away the magic of the place.

After a tiring afternoon of walking around the caves, and a pretty scary taxi ride where I had to wake the driver at every red light, I fancied a good feast. Luoyang has an buzzing night market with everything from noodle dishes to insects on skewers. I tucked into what looked like a spare rib, but on closer inspection turned out to be a chicken's gristly head and neck, which was almost edible. I avoided the fried roaches and larvae and settled for an unadventurous bowl of steaming noodles.

----------

Xi'an
Sitting at the end of the silk road Shaanxi province, Xi'an (in its previous guise of Chang'an) was perfectly positioned as the political capital of China and a major trade hub that rivalled Constantinople at the height of its power. However today there remains very little of this old city - the Daming Palace in the north of the city, which disappointingly didn't make it through the ages intact, was once 4 times bigger than the Forbidden City in Beijing; the old city walls, though fully intact and hugely impressive, are now lost in a sea of modern buildings; and plenty of other Chang'an-era sights have been lost to time and the occasional razing.

Xi'an's remaining sights are spread out, which really highlights the size of the former capital, but the main draw is the site of the Terracotta Warriors around 30km east of the city. Swarms of tourists take the trip out there on expensive organised tours but I decided to take one of the many public buses which make the journey. I was herded onto a bright green minibus daubed with pictures of the warriors, assured that it'd be direct to the gates and feeling happy about my Northern thriftiness. Once the bus was full we set off and, although I was beginning to get used to being the only westerner on public transport, the fellow passengers didn't really look like typical domestic tourists. Sure enough the driver's claims were untrue and people alighted at every stop along the way, leaving me as the sole passenger. A few minutes later the bus pulled into a depot and the driver turned off the engine - stepping out the door he did a double take, said something along the lines of "Oh sh*t, the waiguoren is still on the bus", and ushered me onto another bus in the opposite direction. A few minutes later and I was told to get off at a patchwork of roundabouts in a desolate field. Aside from a few boarded up trinket shops a lonely road sweeper the place looked deserted, like a post-apocalyptic Milton Keynes. Surely a UNESCO heritage site ought to be a little more occupied, but then the main carpark came into view. Throngs of guides swarming around row after row of coaches, distributing a garish rainbow of anoraks to their enthusiastic tourists.

Despite the crowds, the Terracotta Army is an amazing sight. Thousands of soldiers, horses, chariots all standing in formation, designed to protect the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, in the afterlife. Most of the estimated 8000 warriors are still buried in pits nearby. Obviously the scale of the project is beyond belief but what really took my breath away was that each of the soldiers is unique in design, from facial expression and haircut to the folds in his clothing. The attention to detail was so high that the soldier's rank in the army even determined his body shape and age, with the more experienced terracotta officers looking more stocky and gruff, and the archers being more lithe and nimble. An awe-inspiring sight.

Back in Xi'an I headed over to Lao Sun Jia, one of Xi'an's oldest restaurants for some food. In my trip I had to do plenty of character matching, comparing the chinese symbols in the guidebook with those on the restaurant signs, and had very little success. So often I'd try to memorise the symbols with pictures in my head, but when I finally compared "beta-with-a-J, cross-in-a-3-sided-box, pi-bar, duck-in-a-neck-brace" to the sign on the front I'd find even the slightest change of font would scupper it.

By the time I finally found the place I was starving. The waitress sat me on a large table with the only other westerners in the building, obviously herding us all together in order to keep us under control. She handed us menus the size of holy scriptures full of hundreds of dishes. I skipped past the whole battered dog on a bed of lettuce (we're talking Jack Russell size, not Alsatian) and pointed to some more unadventurous dishes.
"You can't have that" the waitress sighed.
"What about the pork"
"No, only soup"
We looked around at the other diners tucking into sizzling plates of meat.
"Only soup?"
"Yes... here's the bread, now tear it into pieces"

Apparently it's a speciality where you can choose the size of the bread pieces that are dropped in your generic soup. Hardly the choice I was expecting when I was handed the menu but we proceeded to diligently tear the bread into small chunks. After 5 minutes the waitress came round, chastised me for the slightly too large bread pieces and sent me back to work. The old Canadian chap to my right looked nervous and frantically tore his into even smaller cubes. He looked rather smug when it was taken away without comment. 1 litre of broth and soggy bread later and I left for the McDonalds next door. No trouble reading that sign...

[I had multiple PC problems over the last week so this blog has been a bit delayed... normal service will resume...]

Taiyuan and Pingyao

Entrance to Chongshan Temple, Taiyuan

For a city that was a regional capital 2500 years ago Taiyuan has very little to see. This municipality of over 4.3m people has lost its charm under the thick smog that blights so many coal cities in Shanxi province. While it has a smattering of interesting temples scattered around town, an impressive evening skyline and a supposedly excellent museum (although somehow I managed to visit on the only day it was closed), I found it interesting for a wholly different reason...


For a city of so many inhabitants, only a few hours' train ride from Beijing, I was surprised to see the incredulous reactions towards a Westerner. People stopped what they were doing to stare or point or ask for photos. At one point a mother pushed her embarrassed teenage daughter over to me to be photographed by the rest of her family. To be fair this didn't just happen in Taiyuan but I struggle to comprehend how a city of this size sees so few Westerners. Put it into perspective: excluding Greater London, there are no cities in the UK with a population of over 1m... there are over 160 in China and that number is growing. I left Taiyuan feeling a little uncomfortable... mostly because I knew that if I even scratched my balls in public there'd be a 360 degree photo flicker-book of the event from nearby Chinese cameras.

---

Gate tower, Pingyao 

Temple courtyard

Pingyao is a mere hamlet of around 500,000 people. The modern town is nothing special but the real highlight is the beautiful old town, surrounded by impressive Ming dynasty walls. Pingyao was also the site of China's first bank, the Rishengchang, and at its peak in the later years of the Qing dynasty had over half of the country's financial institutions operating within its walls. Plenty of shrines to wealth here, and some interesting residences of bodyguards who would accompany the crates of silver as they trundled to the far reaches of the realm. Often these bodyguards would be Kung Fu masters trying to earn a bit of cash in hand. A dangerous but lucrative job. 

Ming & Qing buildings, taken from the city walls

Bodyguard training area

I decided to extend my stay and hop on a tour of the nearby attractions: Zhangbi underground castle and the hilariously-named Wang Courtyard.


The former is essentially a series of tunnels under the village of Zhangbi Cun, designed to protect the occupants in the event of an attack. Several kilometres of underground passages run over three levels with secret exits, soldiers' sleeping quarters, spyholes and ambush points. Architectural features of the above-ground temple complex were positioned in order to align with the Chinese constellations. If you're interested these are based on the position of the moon in a single month (the "28 Mansions") rather than the 12 positions of Sun in a year for the Greco-Roman constellations. Russell Grant would shit himself...

The Wang Family Courtyard was an impressive complex of residences, gardens, temples and schools, built for one of the region's most powerful families. The size of the grounds is impressive but once you've seen one courtyard you've seen them all.

On the way back from the tour our taxi driver pointed at the side of the dusty dual carriageway.

"Look, Tibetan ladies. They want to sell us something."

We pulled over. Two ladies wearing traditional Tibetan clothing were standing over a selection of jewellery. I hate how most organised tours end the day [or in the case of Egyptian tours, spend most of the day] in the local jade/alabaster/carpet/silk shop with slick-haired salesmen plying nonplussed tourists with tea in order that they might offload their shoddy wares at massively inflated prices. I was loath to get out of the car. That is, until one of the ladies pulled a hunting crossbow and a semi-automatic pistol out of a sack. Our driver assured us they were for sale - and not, as I had firstly presumed, for forcing us to buy bracelets at gunpoint - and proceeded to try out the pistol (a bargain at 800 RNB, about £80 - and that was their initial price, before bartering). Not really something I could get back through customs though. China's has 56 recognised ethnic groups, with the Han Chinese forming over 90% of the population. In an effort to keep social harmony the government allows some minority groups to carry weapons - although I think pistols are pushing it a bit.

Courtyard gardens

Wang's Courtyard complex