Pagodas and Peking Duck: Discovering China
Wukang Town and the Bamboo Mountains
Seemingly empty Wukang Town
On our second weekend in Hangzhou, we were taken on a trip by Zheijiang University to the Bamboo Mountains, Wukang Town and Anji. The whole weekend was somewhat bizarre. We left Hangzhou at 2pm, being told that we would get to Wuzhen Town to check in at 6. Preparing for a 4 hour bus journey, we loaded up the sweets and hunkered down for a serious nap. About an hour and a half in, we stopped in the centre of a small town for no apparent reason and were told that “this was an opportunity to explore a small town”. The town was quiet, empty with massive apartment blocks and tiny shops: quintessential contrasts.
Without anything to do really, we headed to some public toilets and found half size doors and a canal that run under all the toilets, that you were just supposed to squat over: talk about a bonding experience. It almost made me miss normal squat toilets! These were however slightly better than ones we experienced in a club which had half size cubicles minus the doors. Unfortunately I now know my companions far better than I would ever want to!
Small roadside cafe on the way up the moutains
Bamboo Mountains
In the town, the poverty that China is very much known for was far more acute and the pollution less so: for once, we were not quite lost in the tourist pomp that somewhat masks it in bigger cities. After doing a massive circle across the town, we came across what looked like a military training march, a lot of small shops, a Mcdonalds (as always) and then headed to a park where we spent the rest of the afternoon. A strange waste of a day?
Our programme organisers seemed intent on keeping us away from rural China which is what we thought the point of the weekend was. Instead, we were taken to a smaller town, the bamboo mountains (where Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was apparently filmed) and stayed in not quite 5 star hotels, but they were definitely nice enough. The weekend seemed aimed more at finding somewhere to spend the massive government grant that were given. The University definitely wanted to avoid us seeing anything “contentious” or anything more than what a general tourist would see coming to China. Whilst I suppose this is understandable, it is telling of the view they want to perpetuate to tourists and foreign students coming to China.
It is however interesting that the military presence cannot be escaped in China: in clubs, bars, tourist spots, everywhere. Taking pictures of them is also verboten, but doable if somewhat on the sly. It is one of the few reminders that China is a communist country, which beyond the tourist paraphernalia and the Communist flag, is easily forgettable. As a tourist, it is hard to see the differences between China and “democratic” countries abroad, but I imagine the longer you stay there, the more cracks would begin to show. We did have some history and economic lectures, discussing China’s more open economy, the one-baby rule (to which someone asked, “what about twins?”. No real response.) and the history of Chinese dynasties and briefly the Cultural Revolution. Unfortunately, the scarcity of these lectures meant that asking anything somewhat controversial was frowned upon and rather difficult to orchestrate.
Military Guard by a Cafe Next to the West Lake
The lack of an opportunity to visit rural China did not dimish the chance that we had to see more modern China, which seems in many ways vastly ahead of some parts of the West, however, the chance to see how the vast majority of China lives would have enriched the programme far more.
NB: Obviously I’m back at uni now, however, I wanted to do these last two entries to finish this blog off for the sake of some sort of conclusion as with mass amounts of work and a lack of internet access, I’ve only just had the chance to do so.
Shanghai: tea scammers, skyscrapers and ballroom dancing!
On our first (and only free) weekend in Hangzhou, we made plans to go to Shanghai. We caught the bullet trains early afternoon, which was unfortunately a bit of a disappointment. I’d heard stories of it going up to speeds of 300 km/h with revolving seats. Instead, it went to about 170km/h and the seats only revolved halfway – a bit pointless but oh well! The journey was about 2 hours and other than disgusting toilets was mostly uneventful. If I haven’t yet mentioned them, most toilets in China are squat toilets which took a bit of getting used to but are actually more hygienic than sitting down ones. It is a bit awkward, however, when there’s nothing to hold onto and the doors don’t even lock properly!
Once we got to Shanghai, we checked into our hostel and headed out, wandered down the streets, and enjoyed the little shops and fruit stands. We eventually found a metro and headed to People’s Square, where we came out onto a massive square surrounded by skyscrapers, giant billboards and swarms of people. The scale of Shanghai is hard to describe, until you’ve actually been there.
Man carving a pineapple in front of a fruit stand
Our first experience in Shanghai was less pleasant than we expected. We met two Chinese students from Hangzhou, who told us they were going to an amazing tea shop around the corner and asked us if we wanted to go. On asking them how much it was and getting a somewhat shifty response, one of us finally realised that this was probably a tea scam we were falling right into. Wearing our Study China Hangzhou hoodies made us easy prey for them to sound as plausible as possible. Essentially, “students” come up to you talking about an amazing tea house and then charge you extortionate amounts for a cup of green tea. If we gone to the tea house, we would definitely be broke now!
Shanghai Skyline
View from the top of the World Financial Centre
The rest of the evening was pretty amazing – we talked down the side of the river at night and saw Shanghai’s industrially beautiful Skyline by night. We then took a ferry across to the other side (an experience In itself: I nearly got run over by a swarm of motorbikes and would’ve been if one of my friends hadn’t pulled me out of the way!) Once we got across, we wandered in the direction of the World Financial Centre, which looks like a giant bottle opener(!) and as we got closer, we lay down on the road to take pictures (as you do…) and I got one where it looks like I’m walking on the building! We headed in and 15pound later went up 250 floors (over 400m) and walked along the world’s highest skywalk – even not being afraid to height, I was a bit nervous looking through a Perspex block and seeing the ground thousands of feet below! You can really tell how high it is by comparing pictures of the skyline from the ground and from the top.
The Old Town
The next day, we visited the Old Town, which I loved as much as modern Shanghai. The old buildings were slightly ruined by Starbucks and Mcdonalds, but we ate a massive Chinese buffet with noodles and massive spring rolls (a lot of snails, but I think we all avoided them.) We managed to go to a real tea house for 30RMB (3pound) and tried every variety of tea we could, in a beautiful old room with a stage that was apparently once used for the rich to come to theatre performances.
We then went down a little side street and went into some of the most beautiful gardens I’ve ever seen. They were made up of designer rock formations, cherry blossom and vast gnarled trees, pagodas and little water bodies, full of massively fat gold fish. The contrast between the old town and new Shanghai is far more poignant than anywhere else I’ve ever seen. Obviously the old town has only been preserved as a tourist attraction, however, this doesn’t diminish it’s worth as something to see when in Shanghai.
On leaving the Old Town, we were at a bit of a loss but eventually decided to hail a taxi to the French Quarter. We headed to Fuxing Park, where we saw a group of about 20 people practicing ball room dancing (!) at about 4 in the afternoon! We found another couple a few moments around a bend, who were clearly far too advanced to be in the class but were enjoying the music anyway. Next to them, an old man gracefully practiced his Tai ji moves. We also saw an old man doing Calligraphy with a paint brush about half the size of a grown man across the ground – absolutely perfectly formed.
Fuxing Park; Ballroom Dancing & Taiji!
We then headed out into the French Quarter, where we found a main street that literally looked like it had been lifted from Paris with tiny boutiques, cafés and even Parisian style lamp posts and cobble stones. After having a quick drink in one of the little cafés, we headed back to the station and Hangzhou, which really feels like home in China!
The romance of the Song Dynasty
On our fourth night in Hangzhou, we went to what our teachers called a “theme park”, although there wasn’t a rollercoaster in sight. Our first view of the Academy was of a massive rock formation and a few Chinese-style buildings with peaked roofs, covered in fairy lights. The place was full of Chinese tourists and therefore guides and hawkers who tried to sell us spinning wheels that light up, and like boomerangs, return to you when thrown in to the air. Although somewhat annoying, it did make a beautiful sight.
Once we got past the guides, and tried on some traditional costumes in one of the stalls outside, we went into what was probably the most amazing performance I’ve ever seen. If anyone does ever get a chance to go to Hangzhou, it is a must see although unfortunately, this blog may be a spoiler.
We headed into a theater with a massive screen welcoming students from UK universities, sat down and awaited the show somewhat unenthusiastically. It started out with what now seems somewhat of a gag performance with two men dressed in one piece leotards doing a balancing act with a ladder and two buckets of sand and boiling water. Whilst the audience appreciated the somewhat crude performance, in the words of one of my course-mates: “is it all going to be like this?” pretty much sums up our reactions.
The actual show was called “The Romance of the Song Dynasty”, a Romeo and Juliet-esque love story with two people from warring families. Although the show was entirely in mandarin, with some English subtitles on screen, it was easy to follow, through the mixture of song and dance, which went from beautiful, slow ballads in Mandarin to Arabic belly dancing to a mini Bollywood show: a surprising and one would think incongruent mixture; however it meshed together remarkably well.
For most of us, it was the sets that made the show spell-binding – it’s difficult to really do them justice. The performance started with two lines of dancing women dressed in red and gold doing a performance for who I presume was the emperor, sitting in a gold-lined chair. The entire backdrop was made up of a gold screen that gleamed under the red lighting. The show flitted from scene to scene, each time producing an indescribably beautiful performance.
I think my favourite scene, cheesy as this may sound, was where “Romeo” and “Juliet” turn into butterflies and stay together for eternity – a preferable ending to our rather morbid one. When the two characters met by Hangzhou’s famous “West Lake”, there was real water on stage, with a smoke machine creating mist to enhance the atmosphere.
For the slightly less romantic, the war scenes were equally amazing – a life like castle front with men climbing up real ropes and being thrown off. This was augmented by 3D animation on both sides of the stage, depicting the same thing, giving greater depth to the scene. As mentioned in one of my posts previously, live horses actually galloped across the stage carrying sword-wielding soldiers. When the canons went off, several people in the audience actually screamed!
Unfortunately, I haven’t had the chance to go to the theatre as often as I would have liked, however, even true theatre-aficionados said it was one of, if not, the best performance they’d ever seen. I really think Hangzhoue would be worth visiting just to see the performance!
Mandarin, Tai-ji and Wushu
I seem to continually forget that the main purpose of coming to China, beyond learning about the culture and to be honest, just coming, was to learn some mandarin. So far, I feel lucky enough to have learnt a little bit but definitely not enough to get around on, meaning we usually have to revert to mimicry and speaking slowly, neither of which particularly help. Even when we attempt to speak in Chinese, we’re rarely understood, however, I think the effort is appreciated!
The biggest battle is communicating with taxi drivers – it helps to get the address written down in Chinese characters rather than attempting to say things phonetically. Pinyin, standard written and spoken Mandarin, is entirely different from English. Unlike most Latin-rooted languages, it is entirely tone-based so if you’re trying to say stop (tíng) or music (tïng), you may have a potentially fatal accident on your hands. Taxi drivers usually enjoy the two odd questions that we’ve learnt: “Are you busy?” (Nî máng ma?) and “Are you tired?” (Nî lèi ma?). (Apologies to anyone if I’ve got the accents wrong – I still get confused!) They often start replying to us in Mandarin, at which point we shrug our shoulders and smile. Not very helpful. Three weeks is far too short to make a substantial headway into a new language, especially one as complicated as Mandarin seems, however, it’s definitely a good introduction and one that has made me want to learn more about the language and the culture.
We spent most of the first few lessons, learning the 4 tones (, ^, é, è) – I’ve used e to represent the last two tones there, as I can’t seem to find them in the symbol chart(!) – and how to pronounce letters. This sounds really obvious, but the sounds of Mandarin are entirely different to those of English and thus, being a native English speaker, I find it difficult to control the impulse to pronounce something as you always have. The language is as different as I thought it would be, but also surprisingly musical, Chinese class often feels more like singing than learning a language! The teaching style is mostly repeating after the teacher, in order to learn the sounds, practicing amongst ourselves and then creating a conversation based on what we’ve learnt that day. I think most people going on the Study China Programme overestimate how big a part of the programme the mandarin lessons are. Although it is very important and the small parts we’ve learnt about the characters is very interesting, you learn far more mandarin by interacting with taxi drivers, asking directions and buying things in markets (a good excuse to spend far too much money!)
One of the best parts of the lessons was learning “Frères Jacques” in mandarin, which translates as a song about two tigers without tails or eyes. The last line is “it’s strange, very strange.” Strange indeed.
Other than Mandarin, the other main organized activity was Tai-ji and Wushu. Tai-ji as is widely known consists of slow, deliberated movements, which are far more taxing than they seem. It’s also surprisingly relaxing and energizing at the same time. We usually start each lesson with a salute to the teacher, which consists of holding your fist against your palm – you have to be careful which hand is which, as the other way means you want to fight! Although I enjoyed Tai-ji, I found Wushu far more enjoyable. Wushu is a martial art, and therefore far more energetic. The instructor was a small, stockily build man who would shout at us to show him “eyes like a murderer” and growl as he kipped around, positioning people, far beyond their limbs would normally stretch. Over our lessons, he taught us a routine consisting of a lot of “hah’s”, bent knees, stretches and kicks. Definitely fun and something I would actually consider carrying on.
The majority of our slightly over-planned days consist of 2 or 3 hours of Mandarin in the morning, sometimes an hour of Tai-ji before, and often an activity of some sort in the afternoon. As you can probably see from my previous post, usually a night out – sleep is definitely not a priority! As you can probably imagine, it’s made keeping up with this blog difficult, but I hope you enjoy my slightly sparse entries anyway. The lack of a clear stretch of free time means exploring much further out of Hangzhou and Shanghai difficult, however, our travels after will include Xi’an and Beijing, touristy however, places that shouldn’t be missed whilst in China. Apologies for the lack of pictures in this entry, as I didn’t manage to take any of our Mandarin classroom which probably wouldn’t make for particularly interesting viewing anyway – I should make up for this in my next blog, which will be of one of the best theatre performances I’ve seen in my life.
Clowns and Conga Lines
Due to popular request or rather just the one, here’s a blog about Chinese clubbing. On our second night in Hangzhou, still jet lagged and having slept for about 6 hours in 30, we headed for our first Chinese night out.
I had absolutely no idea what to expect considering I didn’t even realize how big of a city Hangzhou is (population: 6 million), however, I think I’ve had some of the best nights out of my life in Hangzhou. I’m afraid York has nothing on Hangzhou!
We met some international students at Zheijiang University and within about 2 minutes decided to join them on their night out. One of the best parts of this programme is definitely meeting people from al over the world – Australia, Barcelona, New Zealand, Africa etc – it’s fascinating to hear why people decided to do semesters or even full degrees in a lesser known Asian city like Hangzhou: mostly circumstance but often also a genuine interest in the culture.
Considering our programme’s made up mostly of 18-22 year old students, we’ve managed to experience a fair bit of Hangzhou night life. Whilst most of it is fairly standard, if very cheap and usually involving vast quantities of free alcohol (“we must take care of our foreign guests”), there are two places that really stand out as absolutely amazing, if a little odd.
The first we went to on our first night and haven’t stopped going back since: Phebe-bar. Walking in, you’re immediately hit with not only the overwhelming smell of smoke, but also what literally feels like a wave of heat. Since the smoking ban in England, I’m completely unused to the smell of smoke, which seems to sink into your pores and smell for days after. Lovely. Once I got past the smoke, I noticed the eccentricities of the bar/club (I’m unsure of how to class it really.) Phebe-bar has one massive stage and several smaller ones dotted around it. Each time I’ve been there’s been a bleach-blonde Chinese singer, surprisingly good but who always pronounces English words just slightly off. It’s decorated with chandeliers, giant teddy bears and strange, old school propeller fans, not to mention massive massage chairs that are sat just outside the main room, odd? But surprisingly relaxing, and seem to attract a crowd in themselves. Also, for those “foreign guests” in the know, it’s possible to get a card which allows every foreigner three free beers every time they go there: I can’t imagine that happening anywhere else in the world!
Phebe bar is mostly full of Hangzhou locals and is far less international than the other places that we’ve been, which is definitely a huge draw for us as it’s a chance to spend some time with the locals, who all seem massively chuffed just to be around anyone foreign. It’s also photographic hell, because the locals can’t seem to stop taking pictures of us, and anyone who happens to be blonde is likely to be unable to see by the end of this trip, thanks to the flashing cameras.
For the most part, it seems like a fairly normal bar, until halfway through the evening when 5 clowns jumped onto stage with the now infamous bleach blonde singer, dressed in pink and white polka-dotted one piece outfits and started singing Happy “Birsday” in a mixture of Mandarin and English, and then jumped off and started a massive conga-line! Not something you see everyday. Whilst I don’t think that’s standard practice in China, it’s not something I can imagine happening anywhere else.
There’s one more club that definitely needs a mention, but I think I’ll return to that another day, as this is already getting quite long and my credit at this internet café is running out. However, I hope you’ve enjoyed the general oddities of a Chinese night out. Phebe-bar is definitely a testament to one of the first mandarin words we learnt being “jiu-bar” (alcohol bar). Keep reading!
The Trivialities of Travelling
Ni Hâo! After more than a week of being on the Study China Programme, I’ve finally made it to my laptop in an attempt to scribble a quick post. It’s been a crazy week and I hardly know where to start. I’ve been busy literally every minute of every day, whether its sitting in the canteen trying to decipher the entirely mandarin menu, chatting on the stairs or in the classroom, attempting to speak mandarin!
I got to Shanghai on the 27th at about 11.30am, leaving Delhi at 11 the night before with a quick changeover in Hong Kong. I made it out of customs and the “health check” (paranoid much?) fairly easily and went in search of the turquoise hoodies (we had them specially made…) that would eventually lead me to the rest of my group on the programme. I spotted a clump of hoody-clad, backpack-heaving group of people littered with empty diet coke cans and crisp packets: students!
Industrial Hangzhou
To avoid boring you with every little travel detail, I’ll just say we sat in the airport for about 3 hours waiting for the coach, exhausted, and then spent about half of the coach ride drooling prettily: excellent first impressions. My first view of China was somewhat surreal: skyscrapers and massive highways: it’s clear to see why Shanghai is known as the industrial capital of China. It’s about two and a half hours to Hangzhou by coach, and the road is completely built up with massive apartment complexes and houses: an awesome sight, in the true sense of the word.
Zheijiang University
We got to Hangzhou at about 5pm, and tumbled half asleep out of the bus and were allocated to twin rooms in Zheijiang University accommodation, which reminds me more of hotel rooms than dorms: two large beds and desks, a massive TV, a closet and an en-suite bathroom, wish our rooms at uni were like that! Zheijiang University is one of the oldest Chinese universities and is reputed across China. It has 6 campuses around Hangzhou, and we’re staying at the international campus, called the “Yuchuang campus”. It is seemingly a small, self-sustaining entity of its own, with a supermarket, several canteens (with pretty amazing, if a bit hit and miss food), a fruit stall and a clinic. The buildings are very modern, as are the amenities, apart from the toilets which unfortunately are little more than holes in the ground: standard practice around much of China.
West Lake, in the rain
Hangzhou is bigger, uglier in parts and far more beautiful in others than I expected. It has a population of 6 million, a bit bigger than the village I was expecting! Much of it is built up with gargantuan, indistinguishable apartment buildings and officers; however, the area around the West Lake retains its famed beauty. If you ever get the chance to come to China, this lesser known city is definitely worth a visit. The beauty of the West Lake alone should be a draw. It is surrounded on three sides by mountains and the last borders the city centre. The area is absolutely stunning; almost indescribable. It has a wild beauty to it; something that matches my somewhat romantic notions of what China might be like. Pictures, unfortunately, don’t do it justice. I have now seen it both in the rain, the sun and at sunset and it is amazing in every setting. I would wander around it in the rain again, despite getting soaked, if only to see the amazing greys and greens of the lake area.
Having only just managed to get internet (apparently the Chinese don’t know how to configure mac’s?), I apologise for what may be a sudden flood of blog posts, as I’d like to describe all of our amazing experiences so far, including a theatre performance (whose show included live horses and a real waterfall), a trip to a riverside town called Wuzhen (a perfectly preserved ancient town), experiences in Chinese night clubs, and an absolutely amazing visit to Shanghai. Stay tuned!
Pagodas and Peking Duck?
West Lake in Hangzhou
When I initially imagined writing this blog about my trip to China, I thought about calling it “Land of the Rising Sun”, until I came to the realisation that that’s Japan. Shows how little I know. I went through several title suggestions, the most boring: “Nanki’s Travel Blog” and “Nanki’s Travels to China”, to the slightly more creative: “Indo-Chinese Relations” (dodgy?), to my favourites: “An Eastern Easter” and “Captain (L) Mao” (if you don’t get the pun, you clearly don’t spend enough time on the internet…) However, I eventually settled on my own somewhat quirky title of “Pagodas and Peking Duck”. I hope you appreciate the eccentricity rather than agree with the kind words of a friend of mine: “that is awful.” There is however a good reason for the title, which should become clear as you read on.
I am going to spend three weeks of my Easter break in China in Hangzhou, about four hours coach from Shanghai. It’s famous for its West Lake, which is surrounded by Pagodas (there’s the first half of my title) and other temples. Hangzhou is also famously known to have attracted poets and artists through the ages due to its beautiful, natural scenery.
The remaining six days or so are going to be my very first, somewhat tame, attempt at backpacking. Those of us still standing at the end of the three weeks are going to work our way up to Beijing to see the Great Wall of China (which cannot, despite popular belief, be seen from the moon), go to a Beijing Opera and (it should all make sense now) eat Peking Duck. Whilst I don’t want to reduce China down to “Pagodas” and “Peking Duck”, they represent the two cities I intend to explore.
Pagoda, by the West Lake
Exactly three days from today, I will be heading out of dusty and already 40ºC New Delhi to the stunning city of Hangzhou for the Study China Programme. I applied about six months ago, never really expecting to get into a programme with a 1 in 4/5 acceptance rate (…yes, that is completely self-congratulatory). The purpose of the programme is to learn about the Chinese culture or cultures (depending on how you look at it), its people and particularly to learn some Mandarin, which is spoken over a vast expanse of China. I’ll also be taught some Tai chi (potentially embarrassing), Chinese Calligraphy and visit Mogan Mountain, amongst other things. (If you look at the itinerary there, you could even tell me what you’re interested in hearing about…!)
If this doesn’t draw you in, this programme is a chance to visit China, all expenses paid other than the flights to get you there (hence the one in five chance of getting in). There are two programmes running in the summer, which you can apply for until the 19th of April, and in my somewhat biased opinion, would definitely be worth going for.
If this blog can convey half of what I glean from my experiences in China or even remotely interest or amuse you, it’ll be worth it. I hope it raises awareness of the Programme at the University of York, where unfortunately it hasn’t been very well publicised. If it doesn’t push you to apply for the Study China Programme or even the Study India Programme, with any luck it will at least provide you with a few moments of interesting reading.