With the year closing up and my departure for the summer approaching, I find that as I write this post about the last stop I made (somewhat on an impulse) I'm also thinking of California and how I learned to situate where I came from in relation to the rest of the world. In part, this is because I feel that Xi'An doesn't get the recognition you might expect for a city that's been the capital many times over and situated by the famous terra cotta warriors. On the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, someone mentioned the terra cotta warriors, someone else asked where they were located, and then I was asked if I knew how long it took to get there by plane (I had no idea). When I first arrived in Lugano, the natural question all the students would ask each other was "Where are you from?". I quickly learned that "Saratoga" or "Santa Cruz mountains" doesn't ring bells too often, but that "San Francisco" or "Bay Area" were good points of reference. Once, a classmate surprised me when I mentioned that I was from around Silicon Valley and he mentioned Cupertino. It turned out that when he got his iPod, the clock/timezone was set to Cupertino and he'd always assumed that Apple was located there. (1 Infinite Loop!)

Anyway, I'd really been looking forward to Xi'An. I wasted a year telling myself I'd go and finally reasoned with myself that a 20 hour train ride back to Zhuzhou was worth it. Any memories should outlast a 20 hour train.I was on major nerd mode thinking about everything in the area: Wu Zetian's intact tomb (the sole woman in all of Chinese history to actually take on the title of Emperor for herself and currently subject of an expensive drama starring Fan Bing Bing), Qin ShiHuangDi sealed up under a hill with his mercury rivers and supposed model empire (tomb to be opened in 20 years, not sure what they'll do about the mercury), Ming dynasty walls, the Muslim quarter and its beautiful mosque (so different from what I've seen in Turkey or Morocco), and the endless supply of lamb. The Tang dynasty is at times referred to as a golden age of Chinese arts and culture, something tourism certainly tried to capitalize on with Tang dynasty shows and trinkets all around, but I spent more time dreaming on than shopping. This was the city that Kyoto, the old capital of Japan, was based upon, where the Qin emperor who gave his name to China was buried, where Yang Guifei distracted the emperor from his duties, a key point on the silk road, a city with Ming dynasty walls and a subway system. I only had a few days before running back to Zhuzhou. I hated that I couldn't do it all, but I wasted a year trying to find an entire free week to see it all and I would have kicked myself for not going after two years. 

I went with a group arranged by the hostel I was staying at. I generally prefer to go on my own time, but in this case I didn't want to lose a day by trying to figure out buses and other things on my own. As we wandered from through the 3 pits that they've opened, I found myself trying to grasp the scale of it all. Sometimes I wonder if the special place numbers seem to have in Chinese culture isn't partly trying to navigate such a big place with so many people and so much history. As I was preparing to come to China last year, a lot of people said "China is going to be the opposite of nice clean Switzerland". They talked about the cleanliness of the streets and the things that are done just so. But for me, it's scale. I looked at all the little labels on pieces of shattered clay men and thought of "Ozymandias": "Look on my works ye mighty and weep". When I look at those labels and think of the archaeologists coming in to work after the tourists have gone for the day, it seems fitting. Ozymandias is about the fall of empires and the emptiness of those words in the desert, but I could see the Qin emperor shouting that line at the ones who dig, sort, clean, and label the things they find around his tomb. His daily dose of mercury cost him the immortality it was supposed to give him, but in death all these years later he is not alone or forgotten.


After making the obligatory stop to the terra cotta warriors, I paid a visit to the Big Goose Pagoda where Tripitaka translated the things he brought back from the West. "Journey to the West" was one of the books we read during my freshman year of college, though it was the Arthur Waley translation titled "Monkey". I loved digging through the notes and understanding what conventions Wu Cheng En was making fun of. It seemed fitting that I had come to Xi'An during the year of the monkey, though the pagoda and surrounding temple had little about monkeys. It was really about the scrolls and Tripitaka/Xuan Zang's journey. I also couldn't help thinking about the previous year when Modi paid a visit. The ties with Xuan Zang going to India and coming back to China were obvious enough, but I've also heard rumors that Modi's hometown is somewhere near where Tripitaka visited.

Tripitaka has inspired others before me to travel, I felt a thrill of pleasure while reading Ella Maillart's "The Cruel Way" and Peter Hopkirk's "Foreign Devils on the Silk Road" and finding how many others I'm connected to through this man's 17 year journey. The Monkey King tends to steal the show in the story "Journey to the West", but I've been learning to appreciate the flesh and blood man who set out on that journey.

Xi'An ultimately seemed like a place where a lot of things I'd seen or picked up on or read about came together and I sorely wish I'd had more than 4 days at the end of break to take things in. Perhaps I will go back someday and visit Wu Zetian's tomb and the springs where Yang Guifei is said to have ruined the emperor and weakened the Tang dynasty. So many powers, so many stories. With the conclusion of my spring festival travels, I resolved that the next round should help me finish off the capitals seeing as thus far I've made my way to Beijing, Nanjing, and Xi'An. Hangzhou and Luoyang stand out as the next big places, and thankfully for me, Henan province where Luoyang is located is also home to Shaolin Temple and Kaifeng (a little pocket of Jewish history in China). Go north (and west)!

Hello! I've been away for a bit with school and all but I haven't forgotten this blog. Spring has come to Zhuzhou, things are in bloom and it's beginning to get warm. The countdown to the zhongkao has begun and there are signs everywhere telling students how long they have until the big high school entrance/placement exam. In the meantime, I've been fighting off the urge to dream about other things and other places as I figure out where to go from here and remember I have a job to do. I saw something listed for an English and Spanish teacher in Foshan, and I have to keep asking myself if I'd be in China to teach again or if it's less about teaching than it is about travel. I'm thinking of going to western Hunan for the next break I have and seeing Fenghuang and Zhangjiajie. On a more extended break, I might be interested in Henan province and checking out one of the tai chi schools where you can stay and train for a month. But back to spring festival:

Hanoi surprised me. I realize that since I was only in Hanoi when I was in Vietnam my observations are limited but I wasn't expecting it to be as open as it was. One of my guidebooks told me to get a VPN for things like facebook, but no one needed it and facebook wasn't blocked at all. I ran into a number of tourists from America and Europe as well as backpackers with dreads. Aside from pho and banh mi, I honestly didn't know much about Vietnam but listening to some of the people around I sensed that I wasn't alone. When I visited Hoa Lo prison, it was pretty empty throughout. The exhibits related to when it was a French prison holding Vietnamese prisoners were quiet. There was a middle aged American couple ahead of me in one room filled with shackled mannequins and I was surprised and kind of embarrassed when they stopped for a photo with all the fake prisoners. I was completely alone in another exhibit with sensors so that patriotic music followed me everywhere as I read about independence. When I got towards the end where they had things about war with America and John McCain's flight suit on display, I was surprised to suddenly find myself surrounded by people. A video played in one room, with footage very purposefully put together as it alternated between destroyed cities and hungry children and American prisoners smoking and playing cards. In the subtitles, it referred to the prison as "Hanoi Hilton 'Hoa Lo'" with quotation marks as if it were actually the Hilton and "prison" was just a nickname for a comfortable war time stay. The parting words were "Goodbye, uninvited guests. How lucky you were to be in a Vietnamese prison." Those are strange words to leave with as a tourist in a former prison. Aside from that, I never faced any issues related to my being American. If anything, my being American caused people to tell me prices in dollars even when I paid in Vietnamese dong. When I paid for my visa, I also had to come to the airport prepared with USD. When I flew out through airport at the end of my trip, the prices were all listed in USD and I struggled to work through the math so that I could spend the last of my dong.

Having read enough about Vietnam to know about its relation to China (and enough Chinese to see the connection between "YueNan", Vietnam, and "NanYue", an old kingdom that spanned parts of Southern China and Vietnam) I was kind of excited to explore connections and traditions that still seemed strong down south. I also had the great opportunity to see how they do the lunar new year in Hanoi so I got to see the city done up in lights, the flower markets, the fruit trees strapped to the backs of bikes, women and children in bright clothes and ao dai, people paying visits to different temples and the smell of diesel as people poured in (or out) to see family.

​After over 20 hours of being squished into a seat going from Xi'An to Zhuzhou, I finally came back to my apartment. I thought I'd have more time to ask questions and get work done before class on Monday but before I knew it, I'd passed out at around 4 or 5PM and woke up thinking it must be late since it was dark out and kind of quiet. My tablet said it was 6AM the next day. Whoops. I've got my gas started up again and Zhuzhou was dry for a while but now it's good and wet again. I've been lazy, kept some frozen buns and dumplings in the freezer to make sure I had something to eat whenever I got back so I've been making that for my meals. I also decided to message my liaison to see if I had class tomorrow. The answer is yes, 4 of them, and do you have the textbook? So I need to make a lesson plan and figure out what 4 classes I'm going to tomorrow. Ugh. I need another day to recover from that train ride. I don't quite understand why people go up and down the cars trying to sell stuff to people who paid for the cheapest tickets. In one memorable demonstration, a man in a railway workers uniform looped a belt around the luggage rack and stood on the little table in front of me while tugging and leaning back to prove how strong the belt was. The hard seat slow train experience is frequently not recommended for long trips, but I've done it about 4 times by now anyway, passing the time with people laughing at you or shouting "kan bu dong!" as you fill out 20 pages in your notebook, read a book, or try to talk to the people you will be close to for hours. On the bright side, this seems to get easier every time. Time seemed to fly by, but I was also better prepared than previous times.

Now that I'm back and in a better position to reflect on the past month, I decided to write about Beijing. Actually, part of why I've never been is because I was always kind of worried I'd just feel lost in a big city. I knew the Forbidden City was there, I knew the Great Wall was up there...but for some reason, it just never appealed as much as some of the other parts of China. It was a pleasant surprise to find that it wasn't as horribly overwhelming as I assumed it would be. It helped that I spent 5 days out there with a list of major things to do and remembered that when I went to London, I had to break things down by picking a neighborhood or a monument to explore from each day. I was surprised when some people told me 5 days was a lot. A man from Bordeaux told me he came for a weekend to see the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, then came back because the Forbidden City was closed. I guess for some, that's essentially Beijing.

Being in a part of China that receives more travelers from abroad was in some ways, pleasant and in other ways a little frustrating. More people spoke English and switched when I struggled (though they would ask questions or mention in passing that I looked Asian and the most tactful tended to say "But your hair is black"). I was a little less of a mystery. At times, people would hear me speak English and ask me to translate as when I went to an hour-long opera show that was clearly made to introduce people to the different roles in traditional opera rather than run through an entire show. At the venue, you paid different prices for a ticket which determined the kind of seat you got. When you went inside to sit, someone would look at your ticket and how much you paid and direct you to a seat where you could enjoy a pot of tea and some snacks. I paid the cheapest (180 RMB) and was directed towards a seat in the back where I watched as others came in and tea was brought out. One woman kept moving around after one of the staff showed her to her seat and saying "I want to be here...no...maybe here...no..."and the other woman working there followed her and spoke in Chinese, telling her that she couldn't just sit anywhere. They came towards me as I was reading, and the woman who kept moving around asked if I was alone, if she could sit, here, here, or here, and because I was speaking in English the other woman who had repeatedly told her what seats she could and could not sit in simply pointed and said "Ni shuo yingyu" ("You, speak Chinese"). To be honest, I repeated what the woman selling tickets had told me, watched her body language, and the only words I knew for sure were "280 yuan" and "180 yuan". I felt terrible because I know a real interpreter would be careful to fully translate but I wasn't a real interpreter and it seemed simpler than watching them run all over the theater. She finally sat down next to me and I got to hear about her travel plans for two weeks. It was fun to talk to her at first, then tiring as I listened to her itinerary and her thoughts on what I was and wasn't doing ("You're not going to do kung fu? You're not going to do taichi? You're not going...?"). She was going to see and do everything, and I had to admire that and it made sense for someone who only had two weeks. I shamelessly bought an Irish coffee at a Beijing opera venue because I'd been standing out in the cold beforehand and didn't enjoy such things in Zhuzhou. At the end of the performance, I left and she was still busily going over her map plotting out how to cover as much ground as possible in Beijing.

In a lot of ways, I enjoy talking to other people who choose to come to China. They are often other young people on their way to something or trying something out here. I like to think it takes an interesting person to choose teaching here, given all the ideas people can have about China. But over my travels, there were times I got tired. People who would say it was a shame that my parents didn't teach me Chinese, people who hoped I could help them translate something, and people who didn't quite grasp what I was doing in China or what my situation was like often made me want the relief that came with disappearing into a crowd of other dark-haired people. My anonymity here is one of the things I love and the better I become at Chinese, the better I disappear into the crowds here (most of the time). People thought I worked way out in the countryside surrounded by rice paddies and when I said that I worked in a city people asked me about factories and I would mention that it was industrial and that we had "foggy" days but since I taught at a private school where students pay 5,600 each term to attend this wasn't a part of the city as immediately familiar to me. Then they would ask about parents and look confused when I told them I didn't know any more than one parent who worked for the city. Even in speaking with others who taught or worked in China, it became quite clear that the life I lived was very different from the lives of those who worked in Guangzhou, Beijing, or Shanghai. I've always sensed that, but I only realized that fully when I spoke to others whose experience of China was limited to big cities such as these and who had no idea what pleco was (an app that works as a dictionary) and didn't discover that they couldn't use Google translate in China until it was too late.

Anyway, when people weren't looking to me for translation or to tell me it's a pity I couldn't speak Chinese I found I really liked Beijing. (I've been trying to remember if I ever pulled aside a white American while I was in Europe and told him his parents should have taught him Gaelic/French/Spanish/German/Romansh/etc. It's possible I have?) I stayed around Xinjiekou in a hostel down a hutong and it was fascinating to see the different buildings as I went around the city. But I also couldn't help wondering what it's like to live in one, what plumbing and electricity must be like. I remember how in Italy, people would sometimes talk about wanting to remodel or do something to their homes and all plans would be stalled or completely canceled upon discovering some ruins or medieval structure or something. China has a lot of history, but that story isn't quite so common as buildings go down and come up quite often. I can't help thinking of Okakura Kazuko's The Book of Tea when he talks about impermanence and wooden buildings and one particular building that must be rebuilt every twenty years. After 4 years in Europe and being asked to "read" monuments and spaces, China has kind of challenged me because it doesn't always fit so neatly into what I learned after going through so many museums, past so many fountains, restored churches, and murals. At times, it's more the idea than the actual building. When I went to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, I knew it had a lot of restoration work (the toboggan ride didn't strike me as a Ming dynasty), but I knew there was a wall there with a history and a purpose. It'd be cool to go out to other sections or "wild wall" where restoration work hasn't been carried out. I finished all of Peter Hessler's books during my travels and couldn't help thinking of "Country Driving" as I wandered around. There weren't many tourists, and it was icy which was beautiful but a little dangerous at times as patches in shadow wouldn't melt away.


I found myself surrounded by an interesting group as I went up with people from America, Brazil, and Amsterdam. I listened to a father and son speak to each other in Dutch and Mandarin and thought of all the times I accidentally stumbled into a Chinese community in Europe and the silent exchange that would go on, the studying of faces, the unasked questions, the careful dialogue in Spanish or Italian, the recognition, and confusion that took place. On my way down, I spoke with a woman who had been doing graduate work on education and gender and teaching in Foshan. We traded WeChat/Weixin info and tried to meet at the Summer Palace the next day but we entered from different sides and wound up exploring alone but communicating off and on so that we finally met at the Fragrant Buddha Temple in the middle before she had to leave for a late night flight. The Summer Palace was beautiful, unlike most of what you will find written of Empress Dowager Cixi who in the 19th century used funds that were supposed to go towards the navy in order to restore the Summer Palace. Once on TV, they had a special thing about tofu and how Cixi supposedly liked the tofu for her stinky tofu to be really fresh and the host cracked some joke about "national stink". There is one boat on Kunming lake, but it doesn't seem terribly seaworthy and a lot of guides (such as Lonely Planet) make some comment on Cixi's one naval contribution.

Aside from the stops everyone makes in Beijing (the Forbidden City/Palace Museum, which is only more amazing when you realize how much is closed off to the public) I also enjoyed the Yonghegong Lama Temple and Nanluoguxiang, a great neighborhood for hutongs, souvenir shopping, and getting something to eat or drink. I went back twice for a "Hutong Pizza" and I wonder how many other women show up alone to eat a 10" pizza. The first time was no big deal, the second time, I got an appetizer and a pizza and the man kept coming back and asking if it was delicious, if I was OK, and if I was going to finish it. He should have seen me eat a duck after I skipped lunch and went to the Great Wall. I'm amazed no one said anything to me then, but I wonder what they were thinking.

Oh, and the food. Some people have told me they're glad the Cantonese came and influenced Chinese food in America but as I travel around China I've really come to enjoy all the things I never got much exposure to both in America and as someone with roots down south. Last year, it was crossing the bridge noodles in Yunnan and this time it seemed to be Beijing's "baodu", a tripe dish in broth which was perfect for walking out in the cold at night. I knew the prices would probably go up in Beijing and Shanghai as compared to Zhuzhou, but I was still surprised by the cost of food at times. I had a great time on Wangfujing food street where I enjoyed a hot bowl of baodu, some lamb skewers, and fried ice cream. Vendors would sometimes pick up on my accent and just switch into English. Occasionally, they mentioned that I looked kind of Asian or that I had black hair. There was something comforting in realizing that even though my foreignness didn't throw people off as badly as in some places I've been, people still had questions and I still had well-rehearsed answers. I didn't have any good answers for the man who sold me lamb and told me that the grilled scorpion was also very good. I admit, they looked very crispy but they were also over 20 RMB per skewer. There were lots of things on sticks I'd never seen grilled on sticks before down Wangfujing street, it was obviously a kind of novelty food place as well as a place for traditional foods so there were souvenir shops and lots of people but it was kind of fun. At one stall, a man would ask what you wanted and the other man would prepare it while singing your order which made a lot of people stop and laugh. When I realized this was at the other end of the street where they had a large foreign language bookstore, I was kind of in heaven. It'd been a long time since I had any access to so many print books in English, but I held off on buying any since I was traveling out of one backpack and would still be traveling for a while. You think hard about what you're willing to carry for weeks at a time when you live out of a single bag. It's also the reason I skipped out on a qipao in Shanghai, with the hopes of possibly getting something cheaper in Zhuzhou.

To make a long post short, Beijing seemed to have everything: all kinds of food, all kinds of architecture, books...but is it so surprising that it should have all that as the capital? Despite my initial thoughts about just feeling lost in some big city like the first time I went to Paris or London, it didn't seem to take me long to latch onto some places and find my way around them, especially as I got more familiar with the subway system. I love subway systems, especially after taking a good look at the intersection near my hostel and seeing the left turn lane all the way over on the far right lane. But really, it grew on me. There were a lot of times when I would go see a temple or something and just drop all my other plans to go for a walk and study all the buildings until I started feeling tired enough to want a coffee or something. Which is something of a prelude to how I spent my time in Vietnam, which is incredible for its coffee culture. When I had my fill of tripe, duck, and buildings, I made my way to the airport and met a woman catching a flight to San Jose. I wish my Chinese had been good enough to hold a conversation, but all I got was that her son worked in Silicon Valley and stupidly all I could really say was that there were a lot of Chinese people there (but it's true...). We wished each other well when we parted ways and I went to Hanoi thinking of home and how many times I'd known people on the other side of that story, people who had left home or people whose parents had left and the classmates I had who identified themselves in different ways. I couldn't help thinking too about how proud she must be to have a son who made it through the system here in China and found work in another country. Not because America is perfect, but for all the success it represents to have made it so far. I hope she had a happy new year.

So last post was pretty much about how frustrated I was with not catching a bus on time for my room reservation and missing out on half my reservation (my numbers were off and I realized later that I had two nights). I have to admit, for a while I looked at the 7 hour sleeper bus ride it was going to take, the time it would take to get back, and the time I had in Yuanyang and asked myself if it was all worth it. I'm happy say it was:

Initially, these rice terraces formed by the Hani over 1000(?) years ago were the only thing that I knew about, the only big draw I'd heard of, and the only thing I found in a guidebook while wondering if there was something special going on in winter that I should check out. But since I stayed at Sunny Guesthouse in Pugaolao Village and pretty much slept next to the terraces, I found the whole area to be extremely pleasant. Given the nature of the terraces, they can't really industrialize how the red rice is grown and harvested here. I've read travel websites and guidebooks that talk about how great it is that this place is relatively untouched by tourism, but I don't know if it's entirely true when they've built viewing platforms you need to pay to enter. It's true though that since it's not the easiest place to get to, it's not really got a lot of other things going on for tourists. I would totally go back here, maybe even in its off season when the terraces aren't full of water since I really enjoyed my neighbors, a bunch of little girls who were always playing and singing together at all times of the day. One of them showed me to the guesthouse and I wound up giving her both the cakes I had in my bag in exchange for her help and she always smiled at me whenever I walked past.

Maybe I should go back to that first day of arriving. It was the 18th, New Year's Eve. After resting on the bus as best as I could, a man came on with a flashlight asking if anyone was going to DuoYiShu and I said yes. So I walked out at (6? 7?) some dark hour of the morning, loaded up into a minibus with one woman and two men and we set off for DuoYiShu. When we arrived at the viewing area, I asked if he could tell me where the parking lot of Pugaolao Village was. The other man siting up front heard me struggling with my Chinese and he spoke to me in English. We all got out at Pugaolao and they seemed bothered by me traveling alone so they walked with me down a to convenience store that a local man had set up in his house. The man called a friend who spoke English and had me talk to him, the woman who traveled with us stared and said "You don't understand?" as she tried to work out my nationality and my appearance. So the man who ran the shop walked me partway before asking a woman with a big-eyed baby to help me out, she walked me partway then asked a little girl to help me out and she got me to the guesthouse. Dante had Virgil and Beatrice, but I got 4 guides on my journey through what felt like paradise despite how tired I was. Cool, clean morning air, sun already risen over the terraces, roads with water running down the gutters everywhere and taking advantage of the mountain that this village is built on, little girls in traditional Hani tunics, blue sky, and all of it more than welcome after the time I've spent in cold and wet Hunan. The change in the air was the first thing I noticed as the bus came up the mountain since I couldn't see much outside my window at night.

So here I am taking stock of my things and food should I find that it's difficult to make my way to a store that's open during the holidays. I've noticed that the noodle shop I really liked my first night here has been closed since last night and I think some of the smaller shops are closing up as people leave for the holidays. Places like Wal-Mart and Carrefour have become difficult to navigate (at least compared to Zhuzhou) as people stock up decorations and gifts. I imagine bigger places like them will be open during the new year period.

So I never made it out to the bamboo temple (takes a bit of work changing buses and ultimately takes at least 40 minutes if not an whole hour to get out there). So no surfing arhats.But the city itself has been really pleasant and I'd be happy just staying and wandering here. I've come to know a few people who are living at the hostel too and they've been really nice. Traveled a lot too so we've talked about our different impressions of different countries.

Speaking of impressions, I can't help noticing how there are police everywhere and now there's a truck stationed nearby the market I've been walking through frequently. I asked some of the others who are staying here if there's always been a lot of police and they said that it's been that way since they got here. Little police pods watching traffic all the time throughout the city. But I know about some of the terrible events that took place last year and I'm leaving from the very train station where they took place. I also received an email saying to remain aware of my surroundings in case anything happens during the new year period so that may contribute somewhat to my sensitivity to all the police. But I've felt very safe here and see why so many think they'd like to come back and work here in Kunming. Just as in Cuernavaca, "City of Eternal Spring" and my first chance to go abroad in high school, the sun is out and the flowers are blooming in February. It's beautiful, the air is pretty clear, the sky is blue, the streets are pretty clean...every now and again you run into a kid peeing on the street but I don't feel like I've had to look behind myself for advancing motor scooters quite as often as I do in Zhuzhou. I walked out to find Tian Fu Famous Teas and went along Dongfeng and Nanping Jie and found it to be a very different world from the relatively quiet Zhuan Tang park. Zhuan Tang has people dancing, fishing, sitting on couches by the lake, cleaning ears, and getting a shave. Nanping Jie feels more like a busy modern city with tall buildings, international supermarkets and fast food chains, brand name stores, and kids in teeny paddle boats in shallow pools where they're parents can observe them while grabbing a snack. You can find people participating in all kinds of activities in Green Lake (Cui Hu) park as well but there's more touristy merchandise and candy. And people selling bread for the birds.

So I'm leaving the Cantonese speaking part of China and though I didn't get to everything, I did knock quite a bit off my list. I'm now moving on to Yunnan province, to the capital city of Kunming after a boat ride to the Shenzhen airport. I meant to catch a slow train but every single train for the date I wanted was full. Maybe I could have asked for standing room but that would have been 24 hours of standing with my stuff (or bringing my own seat). So flying it is. While it is sad to leave some of the conveniences of having more available in English and I feel like I've just begun to really enjoy Macau, I have been looking forward to seeing the surfing arhats and in particular, to going out to DuoYiShu for a few days. The terraces look gorgeous and the there's a large Hani community there as well so I have an opportunity to learn a little about one of China's many minority groups. In fact, the Hani made the rice terraces that so many come to see filled with water and colors in the winter. And though I'm missing out on the things going on in big cities for the new year, I've also heard that more rural areas tend to use more firecrackers in their new year celebrations...I guess it'll be like trying to sleep when they have big events or a new business opening up in Zhuzhou.

Since I'm leaving Guangdong and the SARs behind, I'll give some very quick information about Yunnan province. Yunnan borders 3 different countries and is home to about 25-28 different ethnic minorities (nearly half of China's 56 recognized ethnic groups). As a result of this, the food has a lot of different  influences and I was surprised to learn that cheese makes up part of the culinary traditions here. So of course, I'm looking forward to trying everything. I'm already happy to report that I've found massive bowls of noodles for 8 yuan across the street and that the streets around my hostel are full of eating options.

I can't say I've really got a lot on my list here. I've already mentioned the Bamboo temple a few times but it looks like a few days of just wandering and eating. Which is more than fine by me! I'm thinking of finding a cake of pu'er (bo lay) tea while I'm here as well. I think I'll need it by the time I've eaten my way across Kunming. I hear that they do roast duck with honey here and my nose is on the lookout...

So after an hour long boat ride that I pretty much slept through, I arrived in Macau from Hong Kong. I changed my money (but I've seen found that it's not unusual to find places that take Hong Kong dollars or list prices in two currencies) and caught a taxi down to the hotel. I thought about walking and for a while was looking at buses on the map I picked up but ultimately decided that I should just find someone who knew the way since I'd get a sense of the place in a few days anyway. And it hasn't been too hard though it's somewhat startling to find a bus ride costs 3.20 Macau pataca when a bus ride in Zhuzhou costs 1 yuan. It's also annoying that 10 cent coins here are teeny little things so finding that 20 cents has been a little tough and at times I've had to just drop in a 5 pataca coin and get on. My head's still a little funny, but the sun's come out in Macau and that's been nice.

Though I've never been to Portugal, it has been kind of nice to be somewhere with a more European influence. On my first night here, I bought a package of presunto (cured ham) and a cider to enjoy. Weirdly, imported beer here seems to be a little cheaper but soda is more expensive (5 pataca for a sprite as opposed to 2.5 yuan). The tiles along the streets and some of the arcades remind me at times of wandering through Italy too. I've come to like it here since it's got a lot of things available but the parts I've been through don't feel as overwhelming as Hong Kong. There are signs of the coming new year everywhere. I passed by a spot where they're setting up a flower fair (which sadly, as I chose to go to little DuoYiShu for new year's week I'm missing the flower festivals and big events going on down here), there are lights and zodiac animals (sheep especially) everywhere, and signs are posted for the firecrackers and festivities that are coming later this month.

Aside from wandering, I've made it out to one casino/hotel, walked to Jardim Lou Lim Leoc (Lou Lim Leoc Garden), seen the ruins of St. Paul's, and have been eating all kinds of junk. One of my favorite places to wander through is a market near the hotel where I've been able to pick up all kinds of lai see, eat cheaply, and stare hungrily at the roast meat carts. It's also where I've been getting a simple but filling chicken soup quite cheaply and I feel pretty good every time I grab a cup.

Macau has also been my opportunity to connect with distant (in just about every sense of the word) family. I tried to call my distant cousin before leaving on break but either I forget the code I needed, was told that all Macau numbers needed another 6 digits, or when I finally got through, was unable to communicate and was simply told "BYE BYE" when I spoke English. I had an address, but I wasn't sure if I would need to find out the address in both Chinese and Portuguese or not in order to send a card. I decided not to take chances and was told that the address I had was for his office so I made up my mind to take a day to go find the office and ask about my cousin. The first day I went out there was the weekend, so though I discovered that the place was a 7 minute walk from my hotel, everything was dark and shuttered. So I tried again on Monday, found the lights were on but no one was there so I decided to eat a late lunch and come back. I found a woman and a man at work and said "Hello" and asked about Hin but they didn't look to sure about what I wanted until I showed the card I wrote to the man who asked if I wanted him to give that to my cousin. Not being totally sure what else I should say or do, I said yes and thank you. So if nothing else, he has a "gong hay fat choy", a cell number, and a mailing address from me. And he'll also know that I'm on the mainland until June. Maybe I could have done this better to communicate my presence, but I wasn't sure. I really wanted to say something to him earlier but this works as well. But for knowing next to nothing about Macau, I have to say that finding a hotel a short walk away is pretty good.

I tried to make it out to Foshan the day after coming back from Zhongshan, but as I mentioned before I struggled a little. And I found out that the GuangFo metro line wasn't under construction after all so I didn't need the bus. Three metro stops from where I was staying and I was at the end of metro line 1 and the beginning of the GuangFo line that took me to Zu Miao. My only real concrete plans were to go to the Nan Feng dragon kiln (there are three left in China and Foshan has the oldest one, it's over 500 years old) and possibly catch an opera performance at 2pm at Zu Miao temple.Since it was still pretty early, I wandered a bit to find my bus and head out to the kiln first. It took a while for it to register just how big the twin kilns were (30 meters). It's still in use too. Anyway, since traveling to Cortona I seem to have made a habit of picking up a ceramic item wherever I go and the area around the kiln was definitely the place to do that. I resisted for a while and found myself back at the window of one particular shop eyeing the zodiac teapots. So I am now the proud owner of a small sheep teapot. It's been my one big purchase thus far aside from getting a violin in ZhuZhou. I'd have loved to stay longer but I also get the feeling that I could have spent a lot of time just staring at tea cups so I took one last walk around the kiln and the surrounding area and caught the bus back to Zu Miao.

Zu Miao temple was a bit of a strange place for me. It was kind of an all in one culture and heritage site where you could light incense to Bei Di (the north god), watch some Cantonese opera, check out tributes to Ip Man and Wong Fei Huang, see some dancing and kung fu demonstrations, look at woodcarvings, visit a Confucian temple, look at an old boat, and buy Foshan's famous paper art. It was fun and Cantonese opera actually wasn't quite as unbearable as I wondered about (to my ears anyway). It definitely drew an older crowd. I've been told that interest in Chinese opera has been fading, and that the experience of going to Chinese opera is quite different from what we'd expect during a Western opera. People who go to such shows are usually familiar with the work and the stories so they just kind of wander out for a smoke and come back for their favorite parts. But it was a good way for me see it at a relatively cheap price without having to pay for a whole show in the opera house (and possibly find that the highly stylized movements, singing, and face makeup was hard for me to take).

After wandering about on Tuesday, going on my day trip back to Zhuzhou on Wednesday, and hopping metro lines, I took Friday to go out to ZhongShan. I heard that there was the Guangzhou-Zhuhai Intercity train but I struggled to find out if there was a separate line or if I needed to stand in a long line for the tickets so I went to the bus station just outside of the south train station. I got a ticket to a bus station in ZhongShan almost immediately and the ride took about two hours. I was a little disoriented at first since we were just told to get off at a corner across the street from an obviously busy bus station but I crossed the street and found bus 12 which took me to Sun ZhongShan (Sun Yat Sen) Residence. It took so long I was afraid I missed my stop, but after an hour I saw what was obviously a tourist site and got off in front of the former Sun Yat Sen residence. I came ready to pull out my passport and some cash, but when I got to the ticket counter, I was just handed a white card that I gave to a machine later on. It was all free. It was a nice change from Guangzhou. It was pretty warm and quiet. It's out of the way enough that I guess only people passing through or true Sun Yat Sen enthusiasts would come out that way. Neither Lonely Planet nor Rough Guide mentions anything about ZhongShan City.

Keeping all that in mind, I was really surprised when I came in and found that everything was labeled in both English and Chinese and about half a room on the second floor of the exhibits was about the contributions of overseas Chinese. They also had a "folk village" and spaces set up so that you could get a sense of how different socio-economic classes lived during Sun Yat Sen's lifetime. It was nice to walk around and not feel at all crowded, and I'd heard that ZhongShan was famous for its flowers but I was still surprised to find a number of things in bloom in February. Guangzhou felt very balmy when I first arrived but now it's kind of windy and chilly, or maybe I just feel it more strongly after taking day trips to warmer places. So there really wasn't much there and I didn't do much beyond go around Sun Yat Sen's place and the Xinhai Revolution Park next doors. I think it would have been nice to just relax out there for a night and explore a little more. I had a little trouble trying to get back since I took the 212 and found out that it wasn't the one I wanted to get back to the bus station I'd arrived at. I was charged twice, felt the intense stare of many locals and high schoolers who were crammed onto the bus as they realized I spoke English and was unable to understand much standard Chinese and next to no Cantonese. I was told to get out at the next stop and the conductor waved her arm in the direction of the road ahead and the bus left, leaving me a little confused and frustrated as to whether that meant I could walk there, catch a different bus, or if I needed to find another way. I wandered down the street, waited by a bus stop and ignored a man on a motor scooter offering me a ride and repeatedly saying "There's no bus at this stop!" (I'm sure he's honest, but my insurance doesn't cover any scooter related accidents...) and I finally decided to walk on down the street and see if I could find a bus that would get me back. I walked down the road the conductor had gestured towards for a long time. I decided to go back down towards where I had started but to go down the other side of the street as I watched buses with "Guangzhou" clearly written out in Chinese characters. They had to be coming from somewhere, I just didn't know where. Fortunately, I found a different bus station that had buses going from ZhongShan to Tian He in Guangzhou and with the help of a man who spoke a little English, was able to confirm that I could take that bus back to where I wanted to be. But just to be safe, the woman selling tickets called another man over who said "Ke shi, wo de ying wen bu shi hen hao... (But my English is not very good...)" and was able to double check with me in some very simple sentences that I was going where I needed to. So it all worked out in the end and I showed up to the hostel exhausted. I don't think I realized how tired I was until I slept in and felt how sore my feet were.I was going to go to Foshan the next day and struggled to convey what I wanted when I was at the bus station so I wound up just going back to Fangcun and checking out a street filled with tea shops and a whole tea mall. Inside the mall, there were red lanterns strung together in threes with the character for tea written on them. I amused myself by mentally sounding them out. Tea in Mandarin is "cha" so reading three in succession made it "cha cha cha". I've never seen such massive bags and varieties of tea and it was incredibly fragrant the whole time I was there. I'm also happy to say that I found myself some jin dui. I wasn't sure what filling was in the fried triangles but I overheard the woman next to me asking for some. So I had a nice restful day while I tried to figure out Foshan (I'll give that its own post) and spent some time just exploring the area I've been staying in.

I may not have seen much of ZhongShan, but the bus ride itself was worth the day trip too. The sight of more modern apartments, buildings in construction, and a changing China alongside houses that were clearly much older and the sight of boats on the rivers as the sun was going down was striking as we headed back into the city. It may not have had much to offer in the same way Guangzhou did, but it was peaceful. And it was also a new experience to walk into a place where overseas Chinese make up part of the area's history and a historical exhibit and then walk out and onto a bus where I can't actually communicate well and I imagine the people have fewer chances to speak and practice English. 

So tomorrow is Friday meaning I've been here in Guangdong for nearly a week, although I had a bit of a rough start since I got on the train feeling pretty confident until I realized I didn't have my American debit card on me. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I had washed all my clothes, packed my documents, packed laundry detergent and a clothesline, charged my camera, phone, and nook, swept the whole apartment, mopped the whole apartment, washed my bedding and made it all up so I'd be set when I came back (and also because it's the new year) and forgot that one little thing because I keep it locked away and I never use it for anything other iTunes or ebooks. Fortunately and unfortunately, Zhuzhou is 2 hours and 20 minutes away by fast train. So I was able to book a day trip to my own apartment and spent Wednesday in the surreal other world place known as the fast train and fast train station. After being accustomed to taking all the slow trains and the activity that comes with riding one in hard seat, the large seats, tray tables, non-smoking cars was certainly a change. And while the 8 hour slow train I took to Guangzhou before was 8 hours, it was a nice gradual shift into a warmer climate. I don't think I ever realized how cold Zhuzhou really is until I got off on the platform, pulled my scarf out of my bag and caught the bus into town. It was wet and rainy too. But the operation was a success, I got to the station with plenty of time to spare, and even more after my train was delayed by two hours so I couldn't get the metro and wound having to get a cab at the train station. So it costly and annoying, but it seemed like a better idea to have it on hand and go through all that trouble now than to find myself in Kunming with nothing to fall back on and a 24 hour train ride back to Zhuzhou.

But that was my Wednesday. I arrived here on Monday evening and though my hostel is out of the city center, it is near a metro stop so I can get around pretty well when I want to. It's also nice to go somewhere relatively quiet at the end of the day after pushing through so many people on the metro to get to where I want to be. On Tuesday, I decided to go looking for all the free things I could do and it turned out to be a day of big contrasts which I guess set the tone for the rest of my traveling around the city. I got up and went out to Enning Lu since Changshou Lu, the metro stop that takes you there, is on the same line as the one I take to get to the hostel. The Changshou stop is under a big fancy mall and going outside I found a narrow street crowded with stuff to buy and more interesting to me, oysters with tons of garlic and green onions. They also had oyster shells filled with noodles but they didn't catch my eye quite as fast.

At the end of that street, I walked to my right and went along Enning Lu. I've heard that Bruce Lee's ancestral home is out at the end and that there's not much besides a plaque there to mark the spot. I originally set out to try and find it, and never did but I did find a lot of neat things along the way. I heard a bit of opera as I walked on and then a child's plastic toy chain saw lit up and played the Xiao Ping Guo. Like I said, a day of contrasts.

I later went out to Zhujiang looking for the New Guangdong museum (free admission!) and Canton tower. The architecture was completely different. There were multicolored electric lights everywhere as it got darker and the buildings were huge. Since it was close to the financial district too, there were a lot more English speakers and business men walking around suited up for work. It's where I learned that what it cost for me to stay at a hostel for 7 nights would just cover a scalp massage at the four seasons hotel. No, I have not looked at what must be some crazy price for a night at the four seasons. Whenever I walk into a place like that I never feel right. Hostel dorms or single rooms are more my pace.

Today, Thursday, I decided to go see the Lingnan Painters Museum at the school of Fine Arts. But when I got there, it was empty, locked, and all I saw were some maintenance tools. So I wandered around the campus a bit before deciding to take the metro to YueXiu Park. I heard YueXiu come up many times so I wanted to see what was around there. I found the museum of the Nanyue King shortly after exiting the station and went inside. I'd heard about the king's all jade burial suit and was curious as to how it would look. It was all pretty elaborate, which when you consider that his tomb was a king's tomb makes sense. But his jade suit alone was 2291 jade tiles sewn together. I'm not even talking about all the other jade bi or jade jewelry or jade in boxes around him in his tomb that they found. I found that a good number of the staff working here spoke English as well which surprised and threw off both myself and the staff since I've become used to having to gesture with my limited vocabulary and well, with my appearance. But with the history here, it seems to be less of a surprise to see a Chinese-American person than it is when I reveal myself in Hunan. The area definitely had more Muslim influence. I found a pulled noodle place (a specialty of Xinjiang), and a few signs in Arabic. The orchid garden too has some connection to Islam in China if I remember correctly.

So, I've been having a great time but counting my change and reworking what I have available has been frustrating. I lost a lot of money getting my card and now it seems I lost money by booking ahead on my train to Hong Kong. For whatever reason, the directions say you can only pick up the MTR tickets bought online IN PERSON IN HONG KONG which doesn't really work since my ticket was from Guangzhou to Hong Kong. So I'll be up bright and early looking for another ticket it seems. I'm not proud of my Wednesday escapade, but I guess the bright side of this is that by the time I leave Guangzhou, I'll have gone through every train station in this city. I also found that I've saved myself more money than I initially thought. When I arrived, I paid for a youth hostel card which knocked the cost of my room down and the card (which was 50 yuan) was more than worth the discount. Though I didn't find a youth hostel in Macau, it will also cut down what I'm paying per night at the hostel in Kunming. And in addition to all this, I do get my deposit back at the end when I check out so that will be a little extra to feed myself with. I definitely think I could have been smarter, but overall it hasn't worked out too badly. And now I may as well take advantage of the discount I get in youth hostels across China since I know I have another week long vacation in May. I'll have to see if it's possible to visit Xian and Nanjing in the same trip. If not, I know Xian could keep me busy for a week with the terra cotta warriors, the walls, and other sites it has. So, another tool to my China travel bag to work with.

I'm planning on using the rest of my time here to make day trips outside of the city. So I'll come back and write about how everything works out with getting to Foshan, Zhongshan, and Kaiping (which is in Taishan if I understand correctly).