China Part 5: Pandas, Poets and Planes

And we reach the last of my China blogs!

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I also took weekend numero 3 in Chengdu to finally get around to seeing some Giant Pandas.

The Sichuan Giant Panda sanctuaries are also on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and although the Chengdu base is not included in that listing, it is surely of equal importance. Today, the Giant Pandas are found only in 3 provinces, and there are fewer than 1000 of them left – and 80% of them are distributed within the Sichuan province alone. So you can see why their care is so important - it would be terribly sad to lose such beautiful animals to extinction. 

And they are really beautiful (and so, so cute!)

We walked around a bit and saw some tiny, tiny baby pandas in what looked like incubators (Pandas are born around 1/900th the size of its mother. They can weigh as little as 50-120 grams, and they look like little pink rats. By the time they are six months old, they are fairly large and completely recognisable as pandas. An adult panda will weigh around 100-150kg; so really, their rate of growth is simply astonishing).

Baby Panda!

We also saw some cubs under a year old, who were just adorable and reminded me of toddlers. We got to the base really early in the morning, because once the sun gets up, that’s it – its too hot for them and they’re all taken inside – and we were able to watch them being fed. Two of the pandas were sitting on a platform and eating bamboo, of which there was enough to go around, but they just wouldn’t share it, and kept snatching the same bit of bamboo from each other, and playing tug of war with it. It was hysterical.

There was another panda in the same enclosure who decided to climb a tree, but he (or she) just couldn’t get comfortable, because (s)he was climbing and twisting and wriggling, and at one point was hanging out of the tree, upside down supported only by his/her legs.

They’re very beautiful and entertaining animals and I’ve come home with a mind to give some money to WWF when I can afford it, because it really would be a tragedy if they were to go extinct.

We also got to see some Red Pandas (who did not look like what I expected, being more reminiscent of foxes than pandas) and some Black Swans, which really surprised me, and was actually a little bit creepy.

The beginning of the week saw a spate of volunteers leaving China to go home, which was a real shame as we had a really lovely group going. Speaking of the other volunteers, it actually occurred to me lately that my one month in China was more Erasmus and international than all of the 10 months I spent in Paris combined. There were Brits, Americans, French, an Italian, Norwegians, an Australian and probably a few others that escape me right now.

That week had lots of ups and one very big down, when I was walking to the metro one morning. It was tipping it down with rain, and I suddenly felt a weird tug to my side. I turned to look, and caught a man with his hand literally in my handbag, trying to nick my phone. I have no idea how he managed to get the zip open without my even noticing – My bag was tiny, I kept it very close to me, and I was walking pretty fast to get out of the rain – but I was extremely lucky that I turned around when I did, or he’d have lifted it and been off. I wished I’d yelled at him or something but I literally was just so gobsmacked that me and the pickpocket just had a bit of a staring match for what felt like forever but was probably only a second or two before he bolted, the tosser.

Mid-week, there was another PA Social. We went to a Tibetan restaurant, which was really cute. When we got there, we all got shown into a separate room, with low benches and tables, and ordered a range of Tibetan food including a really spicy dish which was actually lovely, and Yak Sausages.

That’s right, Yak. And they weren’t half bad either!

That night was Jane’s last night in China, so we went out afterwards to a bar near this bridge, which I thought was pretty cool, although the river smelt appalling:

And we had a lot to drink. And that is the night summarised!

The Friday of that week was the last day of my internship, which worked out very nicely, since it meant I had a long weekend with which to do some frantic sightseeing and cross as much off my ‘to-do’ list as possible! I initially had a mega weekend lined up which would have involved staying overnight in a mountaintop temple, but unfortunately it all fell through, so I had to fill my weekend with other things instead, starting with, on the Saturday, Du Fu’s Thatched cottage.

Du Fu is considered to be one of the greatest Chinese poets, and set up a thatched cottage in the park in the Tang Dynasty, around 759, where he was apparently inspired to compose more than 240 poems. The original building is obviously long since gone – what’s there is completely modern – but it’s set within a beautiful park (beautiful – and quiet! A real contrast from People’s Park down the road). …

Inside the thatched cottage: gardens are quiet; streams are winding; bridges and pavilions are interwoven; trees reach for the sky; plum trees and bamboos stand side by side; and classical architectural styles bring you a strong cultural atmosphere. 

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/sichuan/chengdu/dufu.htm

After that I went to Qinyangong Taoist Temple, which is the oldest Taoist temple in Chengdu. It was built during the Tang Dynasty, and is also known as the ‘Green Goat Temple’. It's another working temple, full of intricate pavilions, dragon carvings and bright colours. They all have a deep significance in terms of Taoism, but I didn't see any tourist leaflets or anything like that around, and as what I read on the signs next to each thing of importance has now been forgotten, said significance is now, sadly, lost on me completely, although I did recognise what I am 99% certain were the animals of Chinese New Year fame and the Yin/Yang symbol.

That night, I finally made it to Jinli Old Street, which is an old market street stretching for over 300 metres through Chengdu. It is full of tea houses and stores which are an utter tourist trap for foreigners and Chinese alike - embroidering, carvings, other handicrafts and such things. It was crowded with people (crowded should be China's buzzword) but also utterly charming.

But best of all was the Sichuan Opera. Now, this isn’t opera like you’d get in Covent Garden. It’s not even opera at all, really. And it’s held in a tea house (although unfortunately, the tea was way too bitter for my taste).

Sichuan Opera is more of an entertainment show, and it is particularly important in Chengdu Culture. There are a few clips in this video that I made – watch it to the end for the best bit!

The last two clips are of something called ’face changing’, and it was pretty amazing. They change their Sichuan opera masks in magically quick succession, by waving their arms about and swishing their clocks, the mask on their faces changes over and over again. Apparently, this idea started about 300 years ago. They wear full face, painted silk masks in layers, and they pull them off one by one. It was pretty awesome to watch because you just couldn’t see him do it! My other favourite part was definitely the shadow shapes. I didn’t manage to record all of it, because the memory was running low on my phone, but that was also pretty awesome. I’m so glad I got to go.

On my last full day in China, Noémie and I finally got to go and see the Leshan Giant Buddha (yet another UNESCO World Heritage site).

The morning started in stress. For all that China is rapidly catching up with the rest of the world in a lot of areas, it can be so behind the times. Example One: E-Tickets have apparently not made it there yet. We turned up at the coach station in the morning, and joined the longest, loudest, most chaotic queue I have ever seen. Everyone around us looked confused, which did not bode well for us, as it wasn't like we had the advantage of speaking Chinese, and (obviously) it was boiling hot.  And then when we finally got handed our tickets, and got onto a bus, there was a few absolutely heart stopping moments where it was clear to utterly no-one where the bus we were sat on was actually going. 

It actually reminded me forcefully of this extract from Jerome K Jerome's wonderful 'Three Men in a Boat':

"We got to Waterloo at eleven, and asked where the eleven-five started from. Of course nobody knew; nobody at Waterloo ever does know where a train is going to start from, or where a train when it does start is going to, or anything about it. The porter who took our things thought it would go from number two platform, while another porter, with whom he discussed the question, had heard a rumour that it would go from number one. The station-master, on the other hand, was convinced it would start from the local.

To put an end to the matter, we went upstairs, and asked the traffic superintendent, and he told us that he had just met a man, who said he had seen it at number three platform. We went to number three platform, but the authorities there said that they rather thought that train was the Southampton express, or else the Windsor loop. But they were sure it wasn't the Kingston train, though why they were sure it wasn't they couldn't say.

Then our porter said he thought that must be it on the high-level platform; said he thought he knew the train. So we went to the high-level platform, and saw the engine-driver, and asked him if he was going to Kingston. He said he couldn't say for certain of course, but that he rather thought he was. Anyhow, if he wasn't the 11.5 for Kingston, he said he was pretty confident he was the 9.32 for Virginia Water, or the 10 a.m. express for the Isle of Wight, or somewhere in that direction, and we should all know when we got there. We slipped half-a-crown into his hand, and begged him to be the 11.5 for Kingston.

"Nobody will ever know, on this line," we said, "what you are, or where you're going. You know the way, you slip off quietly and go to Kingston."

"Well, I don't know, gents," replied the noble fellow, "but I suppose SOME train's got to go to Kingston; and I'll do it. Gimme the half-crown."

Thus we got to Kingston by the London and South-Western Railway.

We learnt, afterwards, that the train we had come by was really the Exeter mail, and that they had spent hours at Waterloo, looking for it, and nobody knew what had become of it."

Anyway, stresses aside and confusion overcome, we finally made it to Leshan.

The first thing I'll say about our experience at the Buddha itself, is that it resulted in the best 'Worst English' sign that I saw during my month in China, and I really regret not taking a photo of it. For one reason or another, we didn't get to Leshan until quite late in the day, and so we planned on seeing the Buddha by boat.

We walked over to the booths where tickets for this were sold, were a solemn looking Chinese lady pronounced 'No boat'. We asked why, and she pointed to a sign which was clearly there for the benefit of English speaking tourists, and which proudly announced:

BE LIMITED EXPORT

Que blank faces on our part. 

Bless the efforts of whoever tried to put that sign together, but that doesn't really tell me anything other than a little about foreign language education in China. A few more questions and some deciphering of severely broken English, and it was established that the water level was too high for the boats to run safely, or something like that. I'm not sure how Be Limited Export is supposed to indicate 'Danger' to tourists, but there we have it. 

Initial plans scuppered, we payed to go into the scenic area on foot and climbed up towards to Giant Buddha. Unfortunately, the only part of him we got to see was his head, because after half an hour of standing in the queue that would lead us down to his feet, it became clear that we'd never get to the end of said queue without waiting there overnight, which obviously wasn't an option.

Still, his head was very impressive, and by not waiting in the queue we got to see a bit more of the park than we would have otherwise, so maybe it was for the best.

Have a few pictures - they'll describe it better than I ever could.

And after that... well, before I knew it, it was the 5^th August. I had to give a presentation to a group of people with Projects Abroad in the morning, but then the rest of my day was devoted to packing and getting ready to go home. I had planned to fit one more thing in, but it just proved to be impractical in the end. Late that night, I left my keys in my safe, headed out to grab a taxi and before I knew it, I was at the airport, and then I was connecting in Doha, and then I was back at London Heathrow and zipping homebound down the motorway. I was lucky that I had an evening flight, because I was able to sleep (or try to sleep) through most of it and it made the journey go that much quicker.

So that’s it! One month in China, blogged about in rather more installments than I had originally envisaged. I’m glad to be home, and I’m looking forward to getting back to London and finishing off my degree - but I had an absolutely cracking month out in China and I don’t regret a second of the past year, even the things that didn’t pan out how I would have wanted them to.

On the 31^st I’ll upload my final blog post looking back on the 12 months that have passed since I first got on that plane headed for Paris (fastest twelve months of my life, no question).  

Until then –

Vicky xx

China Part 4: Tianfu, Tinder and Tea

Last time I posted about my mega weekend in brilliant Beijing, but in doing so, I missed out one or two things which happened before that, so I’ll quickly write about that before I go on to week 3.

Two days before I flew to Beijing, a group of us headed back to Tianfu Square (which I wrote about last time) for the Water Show…

“Every evening at dusk, as well as at noontime, an elaborate water show, synchronized to music, bursts out from the square’s fountains and attracts crowds of people during the spring and summer.” (http://www.chengduliving.com/guide-to-chengdu/sights/tianfu-square/) 

Now don’t get me wrong, the fountains were lovely, but you are talking to a person who’d been to the water show at Versailles about three weeks prior, a show which set such impossibly high standards that I’ll probably always be cold hearted and unimpressed at every other fountain show. (Not really. But Versailles was very fresh in my memory). 

Anyway, what was lovely about this was the atmosphere. Crowds of people were gathered, and there were load of little kids running around twirling pretty ribbons on sticks.

And being a big kid myself, of course I had to have my own one.

So me and the others joined the little Chinese kids mucking about in the square, having a good laugh twirling our own pretty ribbons, and attracting, at one point, quite a large audience, which was a bit embarrassing and very amusing at the same time. I think I mentioned when I wrote about People’s Park that people stopped us to take photos – westerners seemed to be a bit of a novelty (at least twice that week I found myself stood by two groups of girls who kept looking at me and bursting into giggles whenever I looked back at them, which was a bit uncomfortable). Anyway, I dread to think how many people took photos of us that night in Tianfu Square.

It was fun, anyway :)

If you read my last post about Beijing, you’ll also know that the whole weekend we were struggling with the heat. Well, we arrived back from Beijing late on the Sunday night and I had to take the Monday off because I was more dehydrated than I think I’d ever been and was feeling extremely rubbish as a result. So the Monday became a bit of a write off, really, as did a lot of that week for one reason or another, although I did have fajitas!

I mention this as a highlight of my week mainly because it was around this point that I realised that there is such a thing as too much Chinese food. Western food is not exactly in abundance out there, and what there was tended not to be great. And so, every day for nigh on three weeks I’d been eating noodles, rice, dumplings, more noodles, more rice, and more dumplings. Then a few more noodles, then some more rice, and then some more dumplings again. It was all delicious, of course, but...

Chinese Proverb*: Two Tons of noodles bring man great fortune
*This may or may not be made up.

You get the picture.

Now I’m home, I’m torn between not wanting to eat Chinese again for some considerable time and wanting to show off my newly found chopstick skills to my parents. I think the former will win out, but who knows?

On Friday night, the PA team had a social at KTV. Now, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this or not, but the Chinese love karaoke. They love it. When Jane and I went over to People’s Park that week, there were karaoke stations set up along pathways, and every five metres there was someone else singing their hearts out. KTV is a dedicated place for this. Groups of people go in and you can hire a room to sing in with your group – no strangers to act as an audience.

I should also mention that I am no great fan of karaoke, and categorically swore before I left for China that I would not be drawn into it. Nu-uh; no way José.

I could hear my parents and my brother laughing hysterically from thousands of miles away.

Still, it was actually quite fun - it quite quickly descended into a lot of loud group singing, of which I have some hysterical and very embarrassing videos tucked away on my iPhone, and we all had a laugh, and that’s the main thing, really (although, if any of my friends are reading this, don’t expect me to give in and go to karaoke with you any time soon. It’s still not my cup of tea). Although, it did make me realise how much I appreciate the smoking ban back home. My clothes were reeking of smoke by the end of the night.

After that, we all went out to a bar for some more drinks, and then to a club called Muse (which was much flashier than any club I’ve been to back home) where not a lot of people seemed to be dancing. It fell to the western contingent to fly the flag, and so we clambered up on the stage, danced a lot, probably got stared at a lot, got invited over by some man for loads of free drinks, danced some more, had a really good time, and then finally stumbled in about 4am, which was a shame in a way, since it meant I didn’t wake up until embarrassingly late and wasted most of my Saturday.

The weekends were the best parts of my time in China, because as valuable as an internship is, who wants to go all the way to China to sit inside an office all day? I wanted to explore *whines*.

So, when we all regained consciousness, a few of us summoned up some energy and headed over to Wenshu Monastery, which is the best-preserved Buddhist temple in Chengdu. I’d tell you when it was built, except that I found three different websites telling me that it was built in three different dynasties, and so I have no clue.

Still, it was very large, and very interesting to walk around, looking at all the statues of Buddha, the flowers placed in front of individual statues, and people lighting incense and placing them in large cauldrons or something similar.

It was very traditional and tourist site or not, really made me think of real China.

Outside the monastery, there were a few local shops and stalls, and a local performer... 

This was also where Noémie and Michela also had an unfortunate (but quite entertaining) experience with durian, which is a fruit very common in Asia, particularly, I’m told, in Thailand. They’re everywhere, so this wasn’t the first time I’d come into contact with it – you can’t miss it, really, as it smells absolutely revolting. I simply cannot emphasise enough how bad this thing reeks - you don’t even need to crack the shell open for this fruit to smell extremely strongly, and I don’t exaggerate when I say it could set off my gag reflex. Jane didn’t like the smell either, and she told me that it tastes exactly how it smells, so I wasn’t about to go trying it. But Bryan, another volunteer from Macau, was with us, and he convinced them that it was lovely and that they really should try it…

Mean trick. They tried it, they hated it, and their faces were absolutely priceless. It was hysterical.

On Sunday, we headed back to People’s Park, where we stumbled across something very, very bizarre.

Picture the scene. You’re stood in the middle of a very large and noisy park. Along one pathway, there are lots of older Chinese people, both men and women, stood next to large easels on which big posters have been set up, full of Chinese characters and numbers, and sometimes photos.

These posters are listing all the personal details of the children/grandchildren of these old folk. And I mean all the personal details.

Age, Height, Weight, Degree, Job, Do they drive a car? What is their salary?

And then people walk around reviewing these posters, and they will do some sums to see if the numbers match up – if they’re lucky according to Chinese superstition, and the like – to see if two people are an acceptable pair, hoping to get the subjects of these posters married off.

It’s a dating service run by your mum, essentially.

Oh, China, you’re so wonderfully weird.

Heading out of TinderZone, as I have baptised it, we walked past a group of men painting Chinese characters on the floor with water, which was oddly fascinating to watch.

Really, when I’m talking about China – and People’s Park in particular - I think my only option is to upload the odd video that I took. Everything is so different, and to me, who before now had only ever travelled in the West, every new little thing like this was a constant source of fascination to me. In any case, I really think that China is not a place to be described, it is a place to be seen, and so my dodgy videoing skills shall have to suffice in the meantime.

We also made sure to have some tea in a teahouse that me a Noémie found the first time we went to the park. I had Chrysanthemum Flower tea, which I didn’t think I’d like, but which was actually surprisingly nice, which might be down to the sheer amount of sugar that came in the bottom of the glass. Some of the other, more traditional teas looked somewhat suspect to me though, and I’m not so sure I would have liked those, although I’m not in a position to judge since I didn’t actually try them.

We also went to the Wide and Narrow Alleys, two old fashioned streets in Chengdu which have lots of traditional teahouses and places to eat. Last, but most definitely not least, I also went to see the Pandas (yay!) but, to do them justice, I’ll write about them in the next blog post (which will also be the last one on China).

By the end of the weekend I only had 5 days of internship and 9 full days in China left. Those first three weeks went extremely quickly, which I’ll admit, I was quite happy about. I’ve spent a lot of time away from the UK and from home this year and despite the fact that I was having the time of my life; I was also rapidly reaching my limit, and the idea of spending more than 5 days at home before rushing off somewhere else again was looking increasingly attractive.

Next Time – China part the last (part 5): Pandas, Poets and Planes

Vicky xx