Sichuan 四川
This past week was the National Day Holiday here in the PRC. To Chinese people this means remembering when their country became The People's Republic of China, and often traveling to see family.
To me, this means:
1. I get a paid week off work;
2. I have time to explore parts of the country I have wanted to for a while;
3. I will battle crowds of millions of Chinese tourists everywhere I go.
Remember last year Gina and I went to Beijing for this holiday? Wow, I can't believe that was a year ago. This year I had a few things I wanted to check off my list: The Giant Pandas in Chengdu, hiking at EmeiShan, and seeing the Three rivers gorge dam.
Unfortunately - and quite uncharacteristically - I did not fulfill all three goals. This was due in part by choice, since I was so overwhelmed by battling hordes of people after five days I said "Swan le" (算了) and gave up.
But I had quite an experience nonetheless. And here I will tell you about it, of course!
Si Chuan 四川, Literally means 4 rivers. And is a very large province just to the West of the province I am currenltly living in, Hubei. Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan. I flew into Chengdu on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
(Aside: On the plane I met a brilliant Chinese-born-Canadian man who owns a fuel cell company in Wuhan with whom I had a mesmerizing talk with. And I wondered....why is it that every man I meet who I find interesting and who I feel has something to offer me is not only over the age of 40 but also married with children?!?)
As usual, upon arrival to my destination, I dropped my bags at my hostel and started walking. I noticed a few things about Chengdu from the get-go. Chengdu is the home of KungFu Panda (the greatest movie of 2008) and there are a lot of similarities (you'll just have to see it). The city is modern, bright, and less polluted than Wuhan. However, there was a lot more yelling "laowai" and "hellloooo!" at me. Many incredulous looks and kids crying at the sight of a long-nosed-round-eyed-'Waiguoren'. And the honking...oh the honking.... I was reminded of a few things I hated about China by the end of my stint last year...and a few things I am thankful for in Wuhan (honking is illegal). The city itself reminded me a bit of Osaka just in the flow of hustle bustle and the development around the river.
Chengdu touts to be the epicentre of Hot Pot, and was the epicentre of last year's earthquake. The province of Sichuan is famous for 3 things: giant pandas; face-changing opera; and spicy food. On my first full day in Chengdu, I took part in all three...and was certainly not let down.
Although I was slightly concerned that the Giant Panda Breeding Centre would be more like a zoo than an educational centre, the only thing that was zoo-like were the people.
Were they ever cute (the Pandas, not the people). And so much smaller than I expected; a bit smaller than a brown bear. There are less than one thousand wild pandas, and this was one of several international breeding centres aimed at evading their impending extinction.
Besides the fact that they only eat bamboo - which is currently being replaced by soy or cattle farms to feed North American over consumption - I bet that the main reason why these timid animals are near extinction is that their babies are born very premature; often only 50-100GRAMS! Therefore, in the wild, they have very little chance for survival, and their mothers appear not to have any motherly instincts.
In captivity, on the other hand, they are well taken care of.
This one is one month old and already almost 4kg. If human babies grew that fast they'd be almost adult sized by the age of one month!
After the breeding centre, I explored the city of Chengdu and took part in two of my first real life, almost adult conversations in Chinese. By this I mean exchanging opinions and ideas (albeit they were typical pleasantries) but in both cases advice was even sought and given. I may have just graduated from a 5 year old to an 8 or 9 year old in my laguage abilities here!
After seeing the People's square and a few Buddhist monnestaries and a nunnery, I went to Jilin Folk street for dinner. Here, you basically attach a feed bag and try every snack imaginable. This street of food alone is worth a trip to Chengdu. The food was so spicy I stopped breathing at one point and had tears in my eyes a few times. But I persevered, of course!
...When in Rome....
To me, this means:
1. I get a paid week off work;
2. I have time to explore parts of the country I have wanted to for a while;
3. I will battle crowds of millions of Chinese tourists everywhere I go.
Remember last year Gina and I went to Beijing for this holiday? Wow, I can't believe that was a year ago. This year I had a few things I wanted to check off my list: The Giant Pandas in Chengdu, hiking at EmeiShan, and seeing the Three rivers gorge dam.
Unfortunately - and quite uncharacteristically - I did not fulfill all three goals. This was due in part by choice, since I was so overwhelmed by battling hordes of people after five days I said "Swan le" (算了) and gave up.
But I had quite an experience nonetheless. And here I will tell you about it, of course!
Si Chuan 四川, Literally means 4 rivers. And is a very large province just to the West of the province I am currenltly living in, Hubei. Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan. I flew into Chengdu on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
(Aside: On the plane I met a brilliant Chinese-born-Canadian man who owns a fuel cell company in Wuhan with whom I had a mesmerizing talk with. And I wondered....why is it that every man I meet who I find interesting and who I feel has something to offer me is not only over the age of 40 but also married with children?!?)
As usual, upon arrival to my destination, I dropped my bags at my hostel and started walking. I noticed a few things about Chengdu from the get-go. Chengdu is the home of KungFu Panda (the greatest movie of 2008) and there are a lot of similarities (you'll just have to see it). The city is modern, bright, and less polluted than Wuhan. However, there was a lot more yelling "laowai" and "hellloooo!" at me. Many incredulous looks and kids crying at the sight of a long-nosed-round-eyed-'Waiguoren'. And the honking...oh the honking.... I was reminded of a few things I hated about China by the end of my stint last year...and a few things I am thankful for in Wuhan (honking is illegal). The city itself reminded me a bit of Osaka just in the flow of hustle bustle and the development around the river.
Chengdu touts to be the epicentre of Hot Pot, and was the epicentre of last year's earthquake. The province of Sichuan is famous for 3 things: giant pandas; face-changing opera; and spicy food. On my first full day in Chengdu, I took part in all three...and was certainly not let down.
Although I was slightly concerned that the Giant Panda Breeding Centre would be more like a zoo than an educational centre, the only thing that was zoo-like were the people.Were they ever cute (the Pandas, not the people). And so much smaller than I expected; a bit smaller than a brown bear. There are less than one thousand wild pandas, and this was one of several international breeding centres aimed at evading their impending extinction. Besides the fact that they only eat bamboo - which is currently being replaced by soy or cattle farms to feed North American over consumption - I bet that the main reason why these timid animals are near extinction is that their babies are born very premature; often only 50-100GRAMS! Therefore, in the wild, they have very little chance for survival, and their mothers appear not to have any motherly instincts. In captivity, on the other hand, they are well taken care of.
This one is one month old and already almost 4kg. If human babies grew that fast they'd be almost adult sized by the age of one month!
After the breeding centre, I explored the city of Chengdu and took part in two of my first real life, almost adult conversations in Chinese. By this I mean exchanging opinions and ideas (albeit they were typical pleasantries) but in both cases advice was even sought and given. I may have just graduated from a 5 year old to an 8 or 9 year old in my laguage abilities here!After seeing the People's square and a few Buddhist monnestaries and a nunnery, I went to Jilin Folk street for dinner. Here, you basically attach a feed bag and try every snack imaginable. This street of food alone is worth a trip to Chengdu. The food was so spicy I stopped breathing at one point and had tears in my eyes a few times. But I persevered, of course!
...When in Rome....
Sichuan people live up their name of being aggressive and hot tempered; to the point of ignorant belligerence. Chinese people from afar blame it on the spicy foods. All day I was being yelled at for being a Westerner. Sometimes it was in good fun, but often it was making fun of me. Not really enjoyable, you know? But I started yelling things back in Chinese and won a lot of battles with the insults I have learned from my students. Don't worry, dad, I didn't say anything mean; just asking them things like "what, have you never seen a foreigner before?" or "Just because I'm white doesn't mean I don't understand you, jerk!". Their faces alone were enough motivation to learn more Chinese. Though I know no mater how much Chinese I learn, I'll never be accepted here. (more on that in a later blog I am sure).
The Sichuan opera is known for it's art of face-changing. I am going to let the video (which I am currently unable to upload but am working on it!) and pictures do the talking on this one.....
The Sichuan opera is known for it's art of face-changing. I am going to let the video (which I am currently unable to upload but am working on it!) and pictures do the talking on this one.....
And after seeing this video, don't even try to explain how they do it. No one knows. It is an ancient tradition that has been passed on only from master to apprentice over thousands of years.
On my second full day, after a long run down the river and a coffee (of course), I took a bus down South to the highly praised UNESCO world heritage sight, LeShan Giant Buddha. Unfortunately, the entire country wanted to see the Buddha on this day. And for this reason, along with a few others (like no one here spoke Putonghua, no one had ever seen a foreigner and were constantly taking pictures of me, and no one had any regard for any other human being...T.I.C) this was easily the biggest disappointment of my trip.
But I actually found a corner of China with no other people -albeit for about 5 seconds -so I was happy for those 5 seconds!
On my second full day, after a long run down the river and a coffee (of course), I took a bus down South to the highly praised UNESCO world heritage sight, LeShan Giant Buddha. Unfortunately, the entire country wanted to see the Buddha on this day. And for this reason, along with a few others (like no one here spoke Putonghua, no one had ever seen a foreigner and were constantly taking pictures of me, and no one had any regard for any other human being...T.I.C) this was easily the biggest disappointment of my trip.
But I actually found a corner of China with no other people -albeit for about 5 seconds -so I was happy for those 5 seconds!
From LeShan I took another bus West to what I had planned to be the highlight of my trip. I had wanted to hike EmeiShan ever since Gina and I hiked HuangShan. Unfortunately, this was also a pretty huge disappointment.
It was beautiful. But it had nothing on HuangShan. I found out, after returning and telling my Chinese teacher how I felt about EmeiSHan that there is an old Chinese proverb on the topic: 五岳歸來不看山。黃山歸來不看岳。 This means that once you've been to HuangShan, no other mountain will ever match it. Not even the five famous mountains in China.
Well NOW you tell me!
If it weren't for the billion tourists, I may have seen beauty in the Golden Buddha at EmeiShan.
But it, along with the heavily advertised spiritual experience, was lost in the cloud of crowds.
In fact, if it weren't for my new friends from Israel (I've never met an Israeli I didn't like) Sigal and Yaniv, I may have gone home right then and there! They were good to hike with because they kept my mind off the physical discomfort of the hike; they taught me a lot about Israel, and they kept me from hiking the entire mountain in one day and killing myself.
Sigal and Yaniv were also positive about the monkey situation around EmeiShan. Whereas I was annoyed that people were feeding them junk food and wanted to yell at all the Chinese tourists for the way they were treating the monkeys.
A fresh perspective is always good at this stage of aculturation.
Which are the monkeys and which are the people? The ones on the left were behaving much more humane, that's for certain.
Ultimately, when things bother me here I need to just remind myself to laugh about it. I ask, "what's funny about that?". Once I change my mind about the frustration and hardships of being a "laowai" and living in an environemnt that at times is far from ideal, I tend to end up in funny situations. For example, I almost gave the bus driver a heart attack when he had been talking about me to the guy beside me for a good half an hour. Then another "Laowai" came up and asked them something in Chinese. They were almost blown off their seats. After observing and understanding the entire conversation, I smiled politely at the other foreigner and he was off. Then the two Chinese guys looked at me in shock and asked me where he was from. I told them I didn't know. He looked maybe European. Then they seemed to have suddenly grasped that two foreigners in the span of one minute communicated with them fluently. They started freaking out and asking me a million questions. I had to laugh at them and began my answer with "not all foreigners are unable to speak Chinese, you know." In my best Putonghua tones. For the rest of the trip, the driver told me his whole life story (I only understood about half of it). And I was hit with a profound thought: by learning this language, I am making myself available to 1.6 billion other people in the world: their thoughts, opinions, traditions and friendships...how cool is that!?!?!?
It was beautiful. But it had nothing on HuangShan. I found out, after returning and telling my Chinese teacher how I felt about EmeiSHan that there is an old Chinese proverb on the topic: 五岳歸來不看山。黃山歸來不看岳。 This means that once you've been to HuangShan, no other mountain will ever match it. Not even the five famous mountains in China.Well NOW you tell me!
If it weren't for the billion tourists, I may have seen beauty in the Golden Buddha at EmeiShan. But it, along with the heavily advertised spiritual experience, was lost in the cloud of crowds.
In fact, if it weren't for my new friends from Israel (I've never met an Israeli I didn't like) Sigal and Yaniv, I may have gone home right then and there! They were good to hike with because they kept my mind off the physical discomfort of the hike; they taught me a lot about Israel, and they kept me from hiking the entire mountain in one day and killing myself.Sigal and Yaniv were also positive about the monkey situation around EmeiShan. Whereas I was annoyed that people were feeding them junk food and wanted to yell at all the Chinese tourists for the way they were treating the monkeys. A fresh perspective is always good at this stage of aculturation.
Which are the monkeys and which are the people? The ones on the left were behaving much more humane, that's for certain.Ultimately, when things bother me here I need to just remind myself to laugh about it. I ask, "what's funny about that?". Once I change my mind about the frustration and hardships of being a "laowai" and living in an environemnt that at times is far from ideal, I tend to end up in funny situations. For example, I almost gave the bus driver a heart attack when he had been talking about me to the guy beside me for a good half an hour. Then another "Laowai" came up and asked them something in Chinese. They were almost blown off their seats. After observing and understanding the entire conversation, I smiled politely at the other foreigner and he was off. Then the two Chinese guys looked at me in shock and asked me where he was from. I told them I didn't know. He looked maybe European. Then they seemed to have suddenly grasped that two foreigners in the span of one minute communicated with them fluently. They started freaking out and asking me a million questions. I had to laugh at them and began my answer with "not all foreigners are unable to speak Chinese, you know." In my best Putonghua tones. For the rest of the trip, the driver told me his whole life story (I only understood about half of it). And I was hit with a profound thought: by learning this language, I am making myself available to 1.6 billion other people in the world: their thoughts, opinions, traditions and friendships...how cool is that!?!?!?
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