Hello and now that I am about to
leave China again, I thought it was time to tell you what I have been up to for
the past month or so. This time in China I didn't visit as many different places
and haven't met as many new people, but I have managed to catch up with some
friends.
My first real stop was Lijiang.
Lijiang is one of those bits of China that fulfils the stereotype more than the
reality. In the old town it has the winding alleys and cobblestoned streets that
has been made synonymous with China from the various media representations one
sees. It even has little stone bridges crossing over the stream that winds it
way through town and the shops and the like are in traditional or
pseudo-traditional buildings. The roofs are all tiled and the place where I
stayed was a converted traditional house with a central courtyard. The whole
thing looks like it could have been plucked from a film set. The main thing to
do there is wander around, appreciating the place as there is almost no where
else the Chinese have kept the bulldozers of progress and ugly monolithic
buildings away from. One thing I did which was interesting was to go and see the
Naxi traditional orchestra. This orchestra is mostly made up of musicians who
hid (often by burying) their instruments from the rampaging Red Guards of the
cultural revolution. This has meant that this is one of the best if not the only
chance to hear traditional Chinese music played how they used to. Most of the
musicians are getting on a bit to say the least and at one point the compere
introduced only those audience members who were at least eighty years old, which
was about half their number. The music itself was interesting and at times
entertaining but the compere seemed to love the sound of his own voice too much.
From Lijiang I headed back to
Kunming (I had been through there briefly to get to Lijiang). When I first
arrived I was walking up to the hotel when I saw a row of blind people doing
massages on the pavement. Generally suffering from a bad back I thought I would
employ their services so went and put my big bag down and spoke to one of the
masseuses, an old fellow, about price etc. As I was doing this the old girl
stationed next to him thought I was talking to her for a bit until the old guy
put her straight. When I agreed to let him ply his trade the old dear got
confused again and came towards me to administer a massage but my bag was stood
in between us. She came across it and started to massage my backpack like a true
professional. Meanwhile I was being pummelled by the old bloke, trying not to
laugh and realising the Chinese for "Sorry love but your massaging a
rucksack" would have been a useful phrase to have learned. Thankfully she
only massaged it for a minute before she realised it was an inanimate object, so
he desisted with a smile and sat on her stool. Once my bloke had done his thing,
the old girl obviously felt robbed of
the opportunity to massage a Laowai (white bloke) so she gave me a vigorous
massage as well. Excellent two for the price of one.
Apart from generally ambling
around the city I didn't do too much of note in Kunming, being there essentially
to catch a train to my next destination. One thing that happened that was a
first for me was when visiting the museum with a couple of English guys I had
met at my hotel, we weren't particularly impressed with the exhibits until we
got to a showroom with a lot of Qing dynasty art, furniture and objets d'art.
For this bit a nice guy who spoke good English showed us around, explaining the
origins of the pieces, how one can establish what date it was made etc., which
we all appreciated. Then I noticed a number of the artefacts had little stickers
on (presumably with the catalogue number), so I joked with our guide, "Oh,
so the stuffs all for sale, I see you've put price tickets on everything."
Not the wittiest remark in the world granted, but otherwise we wouldn't have got
the response. "Yes, all these exhibits are for sale and because you came
independently, not with a guide or tour group we can give you a good
discount." The Chinese aren't renowned for their wit but we weren't sure if
he was joking with us until he got more serious about trying to sell us
eighteenth century silk paintings. This was the first time any of us had ever
been to a museum where they actively tried to sell the exhibits.
From Kunming I headed East again
to Yangshuo, a nice quiet little town amongst some beautiful Karst scenery. En
route on one of the older trains, the scenery out the windows was quite
dramatic. Chinese trains are generally very good, albeit not that quick by
Western standards. They have certain little charming aspects that make the
journey more enjoyable. Amongst these are the numerous staff, one to give out
bed linen, another to open the doors at stations, another to lock the toilet
doors as the train approaches a station, people to check tickets, those pushing
trolleys of food or selling toys and gadgets with amusing demonstrations,
security staff and some who merely seem to be making up the numbers. Of all of
the different jobs performed the one I would like is that of the carriage DJ.
This person has his own little cabin replete with bed and stereo equipment, his
task is to play tapes of easy listening music for the daylight hours. This
involves him taking the tape from his authorised selection putting it in the
deck, pressing play and then forty five minutes turning it over. Another
forty-five minutes later he puts in another tape. Not the hardest of lives I
feel. In this area, the type of rock formations one sees in Chinese paintings.
Yangshuo is another anomaly as far as China goes, it is a real backpacker town
in the same vein as one might see in South East Asia. The countryside is rather
lovely and there is also a nice relaxed vibe to the place. I also managed to
meet up with Annie, a friend I hadn't seen for over a year, since I was in China
last time, which was nice. I also decided to take Chinese cooking lessons and
learned how to make a few of my favourite Chinese dishes. My choice of day to
learn this was good as well as it was the evening of the Ghost Festival, so the
family I was learning with were entertaining so needed more dishes, so I got to
learn more than the standard three things and I then the best bit, when we ate
all the stuff with the family and guests afterwards. Amongst the other
activities I undertook around Lijiang was a bit of cave exploration that wasn't
that great and climbing Moon Hill. Moon Hill is an attractive small mountain
with an overhang that drapes over the top to give a big round aperture that kind
of looks like a moon. The views from the top were nice but one can no longer see
the best bit of scenery as one is on top of it. I also got a boat trip down from
Xing Ping as the scenery there is particularly nice, it even features on the
twenty Yuan note. However after an hour or so looking at the rocks it was
enough. That evening I got a sleeper bus south to the China / Macao border.
Sleeper buses like this are confined I think to China. They are essentially just
buses that have been refitted with bunks instead of seats. On the previous
occasions I had been on one of these I had managed to use the argument I'm
Laowai and we're far too big to share our bunks with anyone to secure my own
single bunk. Unfortunately this time I was with seven other Laowai, it wasn't
going to work for all of us and as it turned out it didn't work for any of us, I
ended up sharing my bunk with Moshe an old Israeli bloke, needless to say
neither of us got much sleep in our somewhat cramped quarters. The following
morning we got off the bus in Zhuhai and got a local bus to the Macao border
just as the doors opened, good timing. After going through immigration the first
thing I needed to do was change money as this may be one country now, but it
still has three different currencies, the Renminbi in mainland China, the Hong
Kong Dollar and The Macau Pataka. I got some Patakas and headed off to find a
cheap enough hotel.
Macao surprised me in so far as
it was more laidback and interesting than I had anticipated it to be. In my time
there I visited a number of nice old Portuguese churches. The fort and
lighthouse on the top of the island also afforded nice views. I then headed to
the Museum of Macao which was completed just before Macao’s handover to the
Chinese so was actually very objective and very well put together. Just down the
road from there is the San Paulo church or at least what is left of it. This was
an excellent example of really nice Portuguese church building and is the symbol
of Macao, unfortunately all that is left of it now is the facade and the steps
leading up to it.
Testimony to Macao’s maritime
history can be found in the graveyards which are quite interesting for the
descriptions of the internees and what befell them. The most charming aspect of
Macao however was that for the first time in a long time for me I was in a city
that despite the hustle and bustle also had retreats and pleasant shopping
arcades. As Macao is the only place in China where one can legally gamble I
decided it would be remiss of me not to have a flutter at the Casino Lisboa,
Macao’s most famous casino. It is quite possibly the most depressing casino I
have ever seen in my life, not because of the venue but no-one there seems to be
having any fun at all. I even went and watched some of the high stakes card
games on the upper floors where minimum bets were ten thousand Hong Kong Dollars
(most of the betting in the casino was done in HK Dollars as that is where most
of the patrons are from). Even the high stakes games were boring as nobody so
much as cracked a smile even if they won a hundred thousand dollars or so. I
myself left after winning a paltry hundred and fifty dollars, the place was
starting to depress me.
From Macao I got the boat across
to Hong Kong where my friend Stuart met me. Thankfully as Hong Kong is not a
cheap place I was staying in Stuart's flat. There were other advantages to this
arrangement, one was that Stuart had time off work so could act as a guide for
me, the other was a potentially dangerous thing which was that Stuart manages a
bar. This may sound innocuous but the problem is that many of the bar managers
in Hong Kong know each other so drinks are bought and before long the couple of
drinks we had gone for turned into an entire night on the razzle, without having
to buy beers ourselves. The other thing is that there is no closing time so we
would end up leaving places after having spent no money in hours as the sun was
rising. The scariest bit was probably when we went to an open mike spot in a bar
and the music was all pretty tolerable, but then a chinaman got up and sang
"Those were the days", which is not the worst song in the world, but
the scary bit was how some of the girls who had until this point been rather
subdued were dancing like epileptics in a strobe light, Mary Hopkin would be
proud I am sure.
Stuart was able to take me to
all the most important places. The first place we went was to see the Horse
Races. The race course is actually set in amongst all the high-rises and
skyscrapers which gives it an unusual but not unpleasant backdrop. My sure-fire
system of betting on the horses with the catchiest names didn't work and after
moderate losses we called it a night.
Just a few days before my
arrival the Hong Kong History Museum had opened. So, Stuart and I decided to go
and check it out. This being over in Kowloon, (the bay facing Hong Kong Island)
it also gave the opportunity for the De Rigeur Star Ferry ride and shots of the
Hong Kong skyline. The museum starts the history, when it really started - in
prehistoric times, detailing the creation of the islands and surrounding land
and the rocks etc. Through the evolution and migration of flora and fauna and
then to the inhabitation of the area. Needless to say it was pretty thorough. It
gave an objective account of the Opium wars and the ceding of Hong Kong and then
all the bits that happened subsequently, up to the handover back to the Chinese
in 1997. It was interesting to see that unless they build some more there is no
room for any exhibits concerning the post-handover period, something that might
imply a lack of confidence in the Chinese. All in all it was excellently done
and apart from having a slightly confusing floor plan there was nothing to
criticise, far from it.
One of the other things Hong
Kong used to be good for was electronic and photographic purchases. This appears
to have changed as the prices for those things I was interested in from more
reputable dealers were higher than I can get the items back home and the less
reputable dealers did nothing but faff around, promising things they didn't
deliver and just wasting everyone’s time. In the end I didn't buy anything of
that kind, I did however stock up on many of the things I had missed from home,
generally confectionary as the UK is in my opinion without a doubt the
confectionary capital of the world. So after buying my prawn cocktail and salt
and vinegar crisps, several packs of Twiglets, a mint aero and a jar of marmite
I felt rejuvenated to the extent that I could take the world on again. It was
also a good place to get hold of some reading material, quite possibly my last
opportunity to get decent books before getting home.
With all this vitality we
ascended the peak, using the tramway of course. From the top one has a rather
good view of most of the island and over to Kowloon and into the New
Territories. From there we walked down to a convenient place to get a bus to
Aberdeen a waterfront area of fishing boats, marinas and little attraction. We
got the Sampan over to have a look at the menu at "Jumbo" the famous
floating restaurant, the prices were reasonable, but the range was limited so we
went to Stanley. This is a much more pleasant waterfront, it even has a beach,
complete with shark nets to keep the naughty nibblers away from the bathers.
Feeling that I had done all I
needed to do in Hong Kong (which included getting my Visa for Russia), I decided
to head over the border again to mainland China. Unfortunately the bus driver
had other ideas, apparently the Chinese have developed an ingenious type of
multiple entry visa that can only be used once. As the bus driver was liable for
all of his passengers having the appropriate paperwork, he wouldn't let me try
to have it out with the Chinese officials. So, I called Stuart again, told him I
was staying another day and got another Chinese visa (Commie bastards just do it
to be difficult and get more money). The next day I finally made it to
Guiangzhou (Canton), with my new
visa and no difficulties on the border.
Guangzhou which is known as
Canton abroad is not the most fascinating of cities and owes its current size to
the trade that it handles between Hong Kong and the mainland. As a result the
place has many of the facilities that can be found in Hong Kong and even
receives English TV from Hong Kong which I was lucky enough to have in my hotel.
It is quite a rare thing for me to have watchable TV when travelling so I was
watching some crap program in my room when a newsflash brought through the news
about the terrorist attacks in the United States. It was rather surreal and if
it weren't for the fact that I had that television, I would have remained in
blissful ignorance of the events for some time as the Chinese government has
also blocked internet access of the main western news agencies. On a lighter
note, I did visit Shamian Dao, a small island in the sea just outside Guangzhou
that used to be the only Chinese territory foreign traders were allowed on,
before the Opium wars allowed much freer trade. The island is still quite
tranquil and a number of the buildings are old trading posts and embassies.
From Guangzhou which was really
only a transit stop I got the train to Shanghai. There I was meeting another old
friend, John who I had spent a few weeks travelling with in western China more
than a year previously. My timing seemed to be good as the bar up the road had
recently started a policy of free beers between 7.30 and 10.30 in the evening,
every day for the month. Needless to say this was an opportunity not to be
missed, so we caught up with each other over several pints. In Shanghai I
visited another Museum, with an impressive collection of bronzes and other
artefacts. Shanghai is probably the most cosmopolitan of mainland China's cities
and as such it made for something different to just wander around. It is home to
some attractive and some abominable architecture. One of the bits that is
horrendously tacky it's charming in it's sheer disgustingness is the Pearl
Tower, the worlds tallest and tackiest radio mast. With a glittering pink ball
halfway up it, it somehow resembles a hypodermic needle from a bad
science-fiction film. Needless to say I really quite like it, one can see that
the architects were thinking out how they
will be able to easily make money from the merchandising of the inflatable,
clock, paper weight etc. replicas of the monstrosity. Some of the more charming
of the architecture in Shanghai is in a small area called the Bund which used to
be another of Chinas foreign concessions. There are some really lovely Art Deco
buildings and the Pudong bank, previously home to the Hong Kong Shanghai Banking
Corporation (HSBC) is probably the nicest bank I have ever been in. Another nice
old building I visited was previously the Ohel Rachel Synagogue, now a museum
chronicling the history of Shanghai's formerly quite considerable (both
numerically and economically) Jewish population. The
brochure that is given to each visitor is worth the visit alone as it has some
of the most amusing Chinglish I have had the pleasure of reading and it gave a
disproportionate amount of amusement to John, Emily (his girlfriend) and I.
Being the cosmopolitan, cultural
centre Shanghai is, we ate good food in restaurants of different nationalities
and John and I also went to an Erhu concert. The Erhu is a two stringed
traditional Chinese musical instrument, played with a bow. The concert started
with a couple of pieces played by an orchestra of about thirty children - some
who didn't look to be older than eight or nine. There's was some of the best
music played that evening. John and I worked out a system of evaluating how good
the performers were going to be before they had even started playing. It was
quite simple really, one just judged their attire. The better dressed they were
the better their music was. One guy who turned up in a tux had a small orchestra
accompany him and deservedly so, he was a good musician and well attired. The
guy who turned up in full Communist regalia also helped to prove our system, he
played along with a tape. Obviously he enjoyed all the pomp but amounted to very
little in terms of any practical achievement.
From Shanghai I headed to
Nanjing, one of the former capitals of China (the name actually means South
Capital). There as well I visited another good museum detailing the history of
the Chinese court and displaying artefacts found in and around Nanjing. There
was another slant to this museum, for some undisclosed reason there were
festivities afoot. These involved clowns and acrobats, singers and dancers and
or course a wall of death. Quite why they had built a bucket shaped cage - for
motorcyclists and curiously, children on pushbikes to cycle around the walls of
- in the middle of a pseudo-Ming dynasty courtyard was not explained but it
definitely added something to the viewing of Neolithic artefacts. I went to see
the Ming Gugong, the site of the palace, but all that was left was one main wall
and a lot of lumps of stone. It was amusing to watch the Chinese ballroom
dancing there though, something they don't seem to do very well. The Chinese
seem to love to ballroom dance and any open space is suitable for them to gather
to bad music and dance badly together.
Sun Yat Sen, the man who is held
responsible for the overthrow of dynastic rule in China is buried just outside
Nanjing in a reproduction Ming style tomb. The complex is massive and there are
hundreds of steps to the main mausoleum where Dr. Sun is interred. Apparently he
did not ask for anything as grand as this, I wonder if the Chinese see an irony
though in the fact that the man credited with ending the Dynasties was built in
a tomb worthy of the Emperor.
Xi 'An is another former capital
of China and in fact was the first capital of a unified China, when the Qin
dynasty brought all the warring states together under one rule. The most famous
attraction here is without a doubt the Terracotta Army, but it wasn't the first
thing I saw. As Xi 'An served as a capital for many years (about a thousand)
there are a number of historical sites in and around the city.
The first thing I went to see
was Zhong Lou, the Bell Tower. This isn't a bell tower in the western sense of
the words, but is basically a reasonably large Ming dynasty building in the
centre of the old town (also now in the centre of a roundabout) with a bell
outside. The building itself is quite interesting as it is one of the few
structures of its kind still in existence, the Red Guard and general
deterioration saw to the demise of most of the rest. As such it is nice to see
the real thing as opposed to the imitations. There is also a display inside of
old calligraphy and traditional musical instruments. Unfortunately the musicians
were not going to be about for some time and I couldn't be bothered to wait.
Then went on to see the Great Mosque, several centuries old and very ornate.
Nothing like any mosques I had previously seen as it was very Chinese,
resembling a Chinese temple or nobleman's home more than anything else. As I was
there on Friday, Muslim Sabbath, there were prayers in progress which also
although being in Arabic had a Chinese sound to the way they were chanted. The
building is actually one of the nicest examples of Ming architecture around. My
next stop was to the "forest of Steles", a bloody heavy library. This
is essentially a collection of some of the old steles that had transcripts,
edicts, prayers, poems, examples of calligraphy, pictures, prayers, laws,
Confucian or Buddhist precepts, Tripitaka and the like engraved in the rock. A
few centuries ago the current emperor decided to gather them all together and
house them in this place. They give an interesting look at different aspects of
Chinese culture but ultimately they are just some very heavy reading.
Next day I went to see the
Terracotta Army, which as most of you I am sure know are thousands of life-size
warriors made of terracotta during the Qin dynasty over two thousand years ago.
One of the most impressive aspects of the warriors and other figures (All the
various groups and objects needed in a Qin style army were present, although
some parts have decomposed) is that each of them looks different, has different
hair, clothing, facial expressions etc. When they were originally buried they
were also painted appropriately so although they are striking now, back when
they were first made they would have been phenomenal to behold. They were put
there to defend the emperor in the afterlife, but unfortunately just a short
time after his demise his successors lost battles nearby which led to some of
the site being looted and destroyed. Just up the road from this is the actual
emperors tomb, but for the moment there is nothing to see there but the hill
that buries it as the technology does not yet exist to excavate it (there are
rivers of mercury and other fanciness that makes it undesirable to unearth it at
the moment, for both safety and archaeological reasons).
Back in Xi’An I visited
another museum, this time the Shaanxi History Museum. Another excellent museum
with good informative displays and interesting exhibits, particularly concerning
the Qin and Tang dynasties. I also visited a couple of very old Pagodas “The
Big Wild Goose Pagoda” and “The Little Wild Goose Pagoda”. Although the
Big is older the little was better looking in my opinion, both being
multi-tiered, with each ascending tier slightly smaller than the previous.
From Xi’An I got the train to what is my final proper destination in China, at
least for the while, Beijing. When I first got in, I went and arranged my
Mongolian visa and train ticket to Ulan Bator, my next destination. Then went
and visited the Forbidden City, home of the emperors of China for many
generations and a very impressive place it is. It is immense considering that it
was essentially only built to house one family. I took the audio tour (largely
because it was narrated by Roger Moore) which was very good and helped one
imagine the splendour of the times even more. There are some very nice
buildings, walkways, squares and the like, but not enough garden in my opinion.
After my tour of the Forbidden City I wandered around Tiannemen square as it is
only over the road. All I can say is what a lot of concrete, it looks better in
the newsreels. Something that was as impressive as I had hoped it would be was
the Chinese Acrobatics show I went to. Mot of the performers being young
children they manage to twist themselves into scary positions and throw
themselves about with stunning accuracy. Much of what they did required immense
strength that if it hadn’t been demonstrated, one would never presume these
little things to have. Well worth a look.
I haven’t visited any proper
museums here as apparently all the best stuff is in the places mentioned above.
I popped into the Revolutionary museum which wasn’t interesting as it had
almost nothing in English and was mostly photos. I also visited Mao in his
mausoleum. He isn’t looking well, despite the fact he has been dead for nearly
thirty years, he has a strange orange glow on his face that is (in my opinion)
either poor lighting or some radioactive preservative glowing.
Jus a little way from Beijing proper is the Summer Palace, a much cosier affair
(by imperial standards) with a less imposing feel to it, although very nice.
Next to it is a small lake that was actually man made to fulfil one of the
former residents desire. It is actually quit serene here and thankfully not so
many tourists bother to go out to it which made it even nicer.
A peculiar them of my time in
Beijing has been ten pin bowling. After noticing a bowling alley down the road
from the hotel where I’m staying I asked the other two people in my dorm (Pete
and Tony from near Manchester) if they wanted to go for a game or two, when we
found out how inexpensive it is, we’ve been there most nights ¨C the fact
that they have a bar was in no way influential in the decision making process.
After one particularly late night of bowling and beer we decided we may as well
go and see the flag raising ceremony in Tiannemen square that happens at dawn,
so we jumped in a cab and got there just in time. We were surprised by the crowd
blocking the view so I ended up as photographer designate sat on Pete’s
shoulders for the course of the ceremony, which takes place with full military
honours. Afterwards there are a number of squads of the local army who do
exercises in the square. Not being one to old the Chinese army in much esteem I
decided to go for a run with them as they were running round the square in
formation asking them questions. A few of the soldiers seemed to have difficulty
suppressing smiles and one of the officers cracked up laughing, completely fell
out of step with his squad and ended up walking the rest of the way holding his
head. When another squad came along I started running backwards in front of them
(they don’t run very fast) challenging them to a fight, this had a similar
effect as with the previous squad. Then when I convinced a PSB (kind of police)
guy I was harmless I did some workout alongside some of the hundreds of army
folk. They were really crap and I don’t think they really appreciated me aping
there drilling and subsequent martial arts exercises, although I did draw a
small crowd of Chinese who seemed to find it hilarious. During this exercise in
international diplomacy the other guys kept well away from me.
As we were already up, it was
decided it would be a good time to go to the Great Wall. As there are a number
of spots along it to choose from we first had to decide this and then get
transport. After a Metro, Bus and Minimi journey we finally got to Huanghua a
nice deserted spot of wall with almost no-one around. This bit is also in a
pretty authentic state of decay with shrubs growing through it etc. We climbed
along the top of the thing to a peak we decided wouldn’t be too strenuous to
reach but would still justify the journey and afford better views. From this
spot the views were fabulous in both directions one could see the wall stretch
for many miles winding along hills and over peaks to re-emerge on the next
hillside. We then returned to Beijing and had some of the famous Beijing
(Peking) Duck. Not as good as back home in my opinion. Pete couldn’t handle
the pace by this point and headed back to the hotel whilst Tony and I went to
see a simplified Beijing Opera. It was very nice in many bits, but thankfully
was suited down to the tourist palate. It consisted of three scenes from
different operas to demonstrate the main different bits you get. The first was
good fun and demonstrated not only acrobatic and sword fighting skills but
acting and comedic ability. The next was a scene where a couple of women sing
(read whine) a lot. Finally there was a scene which was really good fun and
particularly showed the martial arts, acrobatic and comedic skills. An
impressive bit was whilst the main character ¨C the Monkey King ¨C was doing
back flips, the split, fighting his foes etc. he was also singing along and
didn’t miss a beat. It goes to show all the young popsters who can’t even do
a simple dance without having to resort to miming the lyrics to their songs. The
make-up on the actors was as dramatic as expected from pictures I had seen
previously and the theatre itself was interesting, being the oldest opera
theatre in China, built in 1667 and with a character of its own. Thankfully the
opera didn’t go on too long so we could go back to the hotel and get a much
needed early night, the first and only early night or night free from bowling
since I got to Beijing.
Subsequently I have mostly been
taking it quite easy and merely been refining my drinking and bowling skills.
That isn't to say things have been uneventful, just last night after making some
phone calls and getting something to eat at three o'clock in the morning the an
extremely obese man and the rest of staff decided to take one of the waiters
outside and strip him naked whilst fondling his genitalia. The young waiter
didn't appear to object as he just giggled and put up nothing more than toke
resistance. This was done repeatedly and then they came back inside and the fat
man didn't seem to think he had done anything even slightly unusual. In
situations like these we had only one course of action, we went bowling,
whereupon the child molesting posse turned up half an hour later to say hello
for two seconds and then disappeared again, very surreal.
Today, my last day in China (as
long as I manage to get on the train to Mongolia tomorrow) was quite uneventful,
despite it being Chinese National day, I went down to Tiannemen square with
Chris (a tolerable yank) but there was nothing very dramatic going on, just a
bit of kite flying, some funky fountains and bloody big crowds. Unfortunately
the only party these people seem know is the Chinese Communist Party.
Leaving China this time, I have
had a very different impression to my previous visit. The people in the East of
the country have been more relaxed and less hostile than those in the West.
Having an idea of what to expect and a passable vocabulary have also made this
visit more palatable. This said, I still don't like the social aspect of their
toilets or understand why when at sites of interest they take pictures of
totally irrelevant buildings and scenes but not of the historical treasures on
show. The other thing is the noise these people make, there is generally a poor
understanding of volume control in Asia, but the Chinese seem to have less
regard than anyone else. The closest analogy I can think of to my perception of
the Chinese people is syphilis. There are pleasant aspects to how the disease
may be contracted but at the end of the day you are still left with a lot of
irritating pricks.
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