I promised I’d blog it, and here
I am. I should mention is that it proved to be rather optimistic to fit a month’s
worth of stuff into one post, or even two - I’ve split it all up (and this post
is still going to be long and
meandering, so I hope it’s readable). There’ll be several instalments before I
wind this blog up for good at the end of the month.
So. As you might already know, I
spent the last month in Chengdu ,
China (I got
back yesterday). Chengdu is the capital city of
the Sichuan province, in Western China, bordering
Tibet .
Originally, I was supposed to be going to Shanghai ,
and I was disappointed at first when it was changed to Chengdu . But as someone pointed out to me
when I got there, Shanghai
is, for all intents and purposes, a very western city, with lots of skyscrapers
and western food. The reason a lot of people haven’t heard of Chengdu
is because it’s a very liveable city, and not particularly touristy, like Beijing and the like,
which means that I got to experience a lot more of real Chinese life and
culture than I would if I had been to Shanghai instead. Now I’m back, I’m glad
things ended up the way they did.
Including the connection in Doha (I flew with Qatar
Airways, who I’d recommend. They were actually very good, with lots of legroom and they served edible meals
in strange abundance), it was roughly 15 hours to fly from Heathrow to Chengdu , and happily it was not at all
stressful. I landed in China
at about 3pm on the Tuesday afternoon. My first impressions are a bit vague… it
was very humid outside (and continued to be for the rest of the month. But
then, it is rainy season). Second –
Chinese immigration officers are slightly frightening. Third - the
toilet at the airport was just a hole in the floor, much to my dismay. And
fourth - the clocks don’t change in China . So one of the first things
that I noticed through my jet-lagged haze was that it got dark early. Pitch
black, by 9pm, which was very weird for a while.
I got shown my apartment, in the
Tongzilin area of Chengdu
(where I found out that we were one of few apartments who actually had Wi-Fi.
WIN!) By the time I’d been there for 6 hours or so, I’d bought a Chinese
simcard (and phone, because idiot here didn’t bring the spare mobile I used in
Paris with me), walked around being shown where the metro and the supermarket
was (directions which I promptly forgot) nearly got run over and was given a
travel card for the metro.
As a short aside, while I’m
mentioning the metro - and driving, and transport generally - traffic
regulations in China
seem to be less 'laws' and more 'guidance'. It got pretty hairy at times, and
you had to be very careful when you are crossing the road, even when there is a
green man, because apparently the motorcyclists/moped people have apparently universally
decided that red lights don't apply to them. Sometimes, I’m fairly sure that
they’d happily travel the wrong way up the street. All the public transport is
state operated: there is a metro in Chengdu ,
but it is very limited because it’s about as new as metros can get. There are
only two lines operating so far, the youngest of which opened 2 years ago, and
I think there are plans to build at least six more by 2020. To get in, though,
you have to put your bags through a security scanner. It's like going to the
airport every single time, which can get a bit tedious, if I'm honest.
Anyway, back to business. After all of that, I suddenly realised
that I was starving. So a few other volunteers and I went searching for
somewhere to eat, and I had my first authentic Chinese meal. I’ve never felt
more foreign in my entire life. At least in European countries the letters are
familiar, but here, you couldn’t even make an educated guess. We pointed at a
few pictures, looked blankly at the waitress who was trying vainly to help and
hoped for the best (and luckily, everything turned out to be edible, so that
was a win). We ended up with two types of noodles, some rice, two portions of
what dumplings and some kind of soup, which you drank out of the bowl. I
successfully wrestled my way around the meal with chopsticks (although the next
few times I used them after that, I was a total fail, so chopsticks really were
a bit hit and miss for me. I’m blaming my left handedness. Never mind the fact
that thousands of Chinese people are probably left handed too), and
then I discovered the delights of the ¥/£ exchange rate.
Our meal (for 5 people) came to ¥53, or roughly £5.30. A
pound each. Seriously! The basic rule of thumb is that if you delete a zero
from the Chinese sum, you have the equivalent in pounds. So ¥10 is £1.
And everything is cheeeeaaaaaap.
Later in the week, I took a
journey on the Chengdu metro over 6 stops (roughly the distance of, say, Oxford
Circus to Liverpool Street on the central line, and it cost me 34 PENCE.) The day after that, a meal for 11 people cost
£30 altogether. A 40 minute journey in a cab cost £4. I kid you not; China is an
affordable place indeed - for westerners. I'm under no illusions about how different it is for someone on a Chinese salary and actually had some interesting discussions on the topic during my stay.
Anyway, after that, we went to
the supermarket - Carrefour, funnily enough, but nothing like the French version. There’s a distinct lack of
croissants for one thing, and the meat counter is very alarming for another.
It’s all dumped – no wrapping – in a large fridge, open to the elements (and
flies) and people will pick up bits of meat with their bare hands and poke and
prod it for a while before deciding that actually, they don’t want it. It smelt
terrible. (Needless to say, I didn’t frequent the meat counter). Also, you can
buy live fish for food. They hook them out of their tanks in a net and then
slam them to the ground to kill them. Charming, no? There were also turtles in similar tanks and I’m
really hoping that they didn’t end up with the same fate as the fish!
Meanwhile, the yoghurt aisle had
descended into something reminiscent of Romford Market, because there were a
lot of people yelling about (presumably) yoghurt into microphones..
I forced myself to stay awake and
be sociable that night in an effort to go to bed at a normal hour and make my
body clock adjust, but I was super tired for a few days. (Someone told me that
it takes a day to recover for every hour of time difference. I haven’t a clue
if that’s true or not, but I’m taking that excuse and running with it). And
after I did eventually go to sleep, I woke up the next morning stiff as a
board. Chinese beds are hard. Like bricks. It didn’t even dip when I sat on it.
Anyway, after unpacking and doing all of that kind of thing, I went to a
barbecue put on by the Projects Abroad staff.
On the way there, we walked past
a park, where there were loads of Chinese people playing with what looked like
a large metal spinning top, and to keep it spinning they hit it with a large
metal thing - it looked (and sounded!) a little bit like a whip. And there were
also loads of Chinese people just dancing - like properly dancing, the waltz or
some such thing - around the square to music. It was quite surreal actually. At
the BBQ itself I met some of the staff and some other volunteers, and had a go
at making my own dumplings (which I was terrible at), and the next day I was
shown how to get to my placement (which as I mentioned, I’ll be posting about separately,
for purposes of not making this blog post an epic novel).
At the weekend, I had to attend a
'cultural class' - basically a crash course in not mortally offending Chinese
manners while I was there and some basic mandarin so I wasn’t completely
helpless in every single situation! Unfortunately, I forgot most of it almost
immediately – it was very intense. I think the problem was that the teacher
tried to feed us way too much information in an hour and a half, so I didn’t
have time to commit anything to memory before we moved on.
What else? (I am aware that I’m
rambling but you try putting a months worth of happenings into a blog post
worth reading!) We decided to have a bit of a gathering in our flat that night,
and went to Carrefour to pick up a few things (including Cucumber flavoured
crisps, which for the record, are vile) and saw some Tibetan monks casually
doing their grocery shopping. Obviously normal – Tibetan monks need food as
much as anyone else, but for some reason this struck me as seriously odd.
Culture shock, I suppose. In a pleasant contrast to Paris , and home for that matter, everything
opens late on the weekends here - properly late. We're talking 23:00 for
Carrefour, even on Sundays (I guess, because it's an officially atheist
country, although I could be wrong about that.)
Also that weekend, Noemie from my apartment was invited by a colleague to a barbecue. She took us all along, and it was an experience in and of itself.
Now, in the street, it has to be said that some Chinese people can be appallingly rude. Although you could say that of many other nationalities too. And I suppose in all fairness it should be pointed out that there is an exponential culture difference, which apparently extends to what behaviour is appropriate in public (hint: it would be completely frowned upon here). People spit - a lot - they shove, shout and pint, and for young children, everywhere is a public toilet. Seriously - their children do not wear nappies, and they have conveniently placed holes in their trousers so they can go wherever and whenever they please. Usually on the street - sometimes you'll catch a parent holding their child over a rubbish bin instead, which is marginally better I suppose. Still, I question how they are ever potty trained.
Having said all that, at home, things are different. Their hospitality is second to none (that I've ever experienced, anyway). They mentioned it in our culture talk, but here, I saw the proof. People they invite into their homes are honoured guests. During this barbecue, we offered to help but she wouldn't hear of it, we were constantly plied with food and drink, she spotted my mozzy bites (of which, sadly, there were many) and went dashing off looking for something to put on them, and then when we left, she apologised for not looking after us properly! Anyway, we had a lovely time, played a million rounds of some game that I vaguely remember playing in Drama class at Crofton, and I tried some more authentic Chinese food.
One dish, which I did not try, was chicken feet. It turned up, and although I already knew that the Chinese weren't picky about what part of an animal they eat, I was still a bit like, Oh my god. That is literally feet. Battered feet in a bowl. I'm sure it tastes fine, or they wouldn't eat it. But I just could not bring myself to put a chicken foot in my mouth. Sorry.
Once we made our excuses and left, Noemie and I headed into the main part of Chengdu to have a look around. We started in Tianfu Square, which is a large public square overlooked by a giant statue of Chairman Mao. He has his hand in the air, supposedly waving to the people, but one of the Projects Abroad staff told me that it's a local joke that he's actually just trying to get a taxi and is having no luck haha.
Also that weekend, Noemie from my apartment was invited by a colleague to a barbecue. She took us all along, and it was an experience in and of itself.
Now, in the street, it has to be said that some Chinese people can be appallingly rude. Although you could say that of many other nationalities too. And I suppose in all fairness it should be pointed out that there is an exponential culture difference, which apparently extends to what behaviour is appropriate in public (hint: it would be completely frowned upon here). People spit - a lot - they shove, shout and pint, and for young children, everywhere is a public toilet. Seriously - their children do not wear nappies, and they have conveniently placed holes in their trousers so they can go wherever and whenever they please. Usually on the street - sometimes you'll catch a parent holding their child over a rubbish bin instead, which is marginally better I suppose. Still, I question how they are ever potty trained.
Having said all that, at home, things are different. Their hospitality is second to none (that I've ever experienced, anyway). They mentioned it in our culture talk, but here, I saw the proof. People they invite into their homes are honoured guests. During this barbecue, we offered to help but she wouldn't hear of it, we were constantly plied with food and drink, she spotted my mozzy bites (of which, sadly, there were many) and went dashing off looking for something to put on them, and then when we left, she apologised for not looking after us properly! Anyway, we had a lovely time, played a million rounds of some game that I vaguely remember playing in Drama class at Crofton, and I tried some more authentic Chinese food.
One dish, which I did not try, was chicken feet. It turned up, and although I already knew that the Chinese weren't picky about what part of an animal they eat, I was still a bit like, Oh my god. That is literally feet. Battered feet in a bowl. I'm sure it tastes fine, or they wouldn't eat it. But I just could not bring myself to put a chicken foot in my mouth. Sorry.
Once we made our excuses and left, Noemie and I headed into the main part of Chengdu to have a look around. We started in Tianfu Square, which is a large public square overlooked by a giant statue of Chairman Mao. He has his hand in the air, supposedly waving to the people, but one of the Projects Abroad staff told me that it's a local joke that he's actually just trying to get a taxi and is having no luck haha.
Give up, Mao! You're not going to get a cab! |
Then we walked to People's Park, which is one of the most insane, crazy places I have ever been. How can I explain this? I've never seen anything like it before, and nothing I can say will really give you a decent picture of how nutty this place was, but I’ll give it a shot.
Every pathway, nook and cranny
had been filled with makeshift tents, of a sort, erected very close to each
other along the pathways, and in each tent people were gambling, dancing, being
terrible at karaoke or singing (marginally better than the karaoke crew) and
putting on performances for small crowds of people. People would go up to these
singers on the stage and give them flowers, presumably plastic ones, which were
conveniently placed in buckets at each corner closest to the audience. And
because these tents were so close together you only had to walk about a metre in
one direction or the other before the tune would change completely… Honestly,
it's not something you can really make clear in words alone!
I’m not even really sure that you
can tell what it’s like from that montage that I made from the videos on my
phone, although on the first clip, you can clearly hear the guy who is singing
in the second clip, and in the clip at the end, where people are dancing, you
can definitely hear the opera woman who preceded it. Essentially, it’s big,
it’s loud, it’s uniquely Chinese and it’s completely and utterly insane.
There are also several teahouses
in the park (I'm really not a big fan of Chinese tea but I did have a proper
Chinese tea experience before I left) and a really cute boating lake, which my
brother said looks a bit like Central Park, and (here is where I show how
culturally ignorant I am) loads of classically Chinese... Structures? Shelters? I don't know.
And also, much to my bemusement,
we ended up being a bit of a tourist attraction ourselves. I’ve already
mentioned that Chengdu
isn’t very touristy, and you don’t really see many westerners around. I was
always getting stared at on the metro, and we got stopped several times in the
park so that people could take photos of (or with) us. Which is a bit strange but quite funny,
really.
That pretty much sums up my first week in
Next time – China part 2: Internships and Intestines
Vicky xx
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