Shangri-La: Land of the Sky

This will be my penultimate China post--probably a good thing seeing as I've been away from China for several months now. Finally I can get to talking about Chicago and being a student again. Or maybe not...I still haven't decided yet if I want to blog about something not quite as blog-able as travel.

But anyway on to Shangri-La (the village formerly known as Zhongdian)--quite possibly the greatest tourist gimmick ever pulled off. You take a largely-Tibetan village, located on the edge of the real Tibetan plateau (but not actually in Tibet so it's easy to go to) and you rename after a mystical place in a work of fiction. Voila! The magical place of Shangri-La. Not exactly. It was certainly different. The landscape was eerily bare, the Old Town wonderfully quaint and less-touristy, and the air was very, very thin. Yu Yun, as well of the vast majority of Han tourists there, had trouble breathing. I suppose it was a little easier for having been raised in Appalachia. And maybe my infantile asthma had the odd side-effect of making my lungs more efficient.

I will let the pictures speak for me, but there were some interesting things of note that I learned there. First the famous Shangri-La liquor tastes the exact same as any other Baijiu I've ever tasted. Second, there apparently is no current Dalai Lama, according to the monks I spoke to at the local. monastery. Strange, I could've sworn there was one. Enjoy:




Leb Wohl

Yunnan Pt. 3: Close to the Edge

On Day 3, we journeyed north towards Shangri-La. On the way we had decided to stop and see the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge before they decided to build a dam there and destroy the whole thing. Originally I had thought that we could hike the length of the Gorge, spending the night in a guesthouse along the path, but soon I realized that A. We had limited time and B. We were not good hikers. So the plan was to stop at the Gorge, take a mini-bus to a scenic point, and then get on our way again to "Poor Man's Tibet."

After weaving through the mountains north of Lijiang, our bus dropped us off in the miserable little town of Qiaotou. The only industry in the town, it seemed, was the "Tourist" (-scam) industry. At this point LP failed us completely: There weren't any buses, the sketchy people told us, because of road work. But we could take a gypsy cab for about 300 RMB. I thought it was a scam at first, but it was obvious that we had no other choice if we wanted to see the damn thing. We paid a driver and then roared off down a gravel road.

Immediately we had to stop and wait for fifteen minutes for them to finish doing something to the road--clearly there was construction, but still 300? But then we were off again passing several other gypsy cabs along the way. Good, at least we weren't the only ones foolish enough to do this.

But we were foolish, or foolhardy at least. It turned out that it cost 300 because it was so ridiculously dangerous. The "road" was in a horrible condition due to the construction, and was littered with construction equipment that our crazy driver had to navigate in our top-heavy vehicle. For most of the journey we had a sheer 100-meter drop to our right. Oh, and we passed several waterfalls to our left. Caution: You May Get Wet.

But despite the danger, it was well worth the trip. The Gorge was stunningly beautiful--much more spectacular than the Three Gorges Area (and cleaner). Opposite us was the massive face of Snow Mountain, the other side of which we had ascended the day before.

We stopped about halfway through at a little "toll" area. You paid some money to the people who controlled that portion of the trail and then you could walk down to the river. While our driver waited up top we climbed down, passing bored-looking Naxi youths selling sports drinks and colas to passers-by. It was a pretty trail that took us through bamboo and through blasted-out rock, but tricky and steep--safety is interpreted much more loosely in China, if you can't already tell.

At the bottom it leveled out and we followed the river up to some rapids. The trail passed into someone else's jurisdiction, so we had to pay more money to walk out onto a boulder in the middle of the river. But still, worth it:

But climbing out of it really sucked.
Leb Wohl.

Yunnan Pt. 2: Playing with Fire

The night after our ascent up Snow Mountain, we visited Shuhe, another "old village" north of Lijiang, for their annual torch festival in honor of some Dongba deity (Dongba being the traditional Naxi faith). Shuhe was a lot like Lijiang, but smaller and cozier.

In the town square there was a large circle of people dancing around a giant torch. Peddlers sold personal torches of bundled-wood that you could stick flowers into. Yu Yun bought one and personalized it with her own vegetation:



At first I thought we were supposed to wait for the fire to reach the bottom of the central torch, and then light our torches from it, Olympic-style. But each time I though it the thing was going to burst into a bonfire, I was sadly disappointed--the flames just very slowly burned downward like a candle. Regardless of whether we were supposed to wait or not, people began lighting their own and then sharing. It was difficult at first to catch Yun's on fire, but later we discovered we had been going about it all wrong:


After we spent about half and hour appreciating the fact that we were in a tight crowd of people (including many children) playing with fire, we decided to leave. Yun's torch took forever to burn out so we had to douse it in one of the little canals next to the street. I donated the leftover tinder to a group of poor pyromaniacs:

Leb Wohl.

Yunnan Pt. I

Northwest Yunnan province, a high, mountainous region close to Tibet, would be my last trip this semester. The landscape around Lijiang, the area's biggest city and our first stop, turned out to be not much different than my beloved Appalachia, but it was still the cleanest, most beautiful place I had yet been in China. Yu Yun was amazed by how blue the sky was. Our hostel was nestled in the Lijiang Gu Cheng, or old town, which we explored that evening after we arrived. I had been to several old towns in China, one of which was featured in a well-known action movie.


But in Mission Impossible III Tom Cruise wasn't really running through the streets of Shanghai, but through the little water village of Xitang, and hour and a half away. This is because Shanghai doesn't look that Chinese anymore. Or anywhere in China for that matter. The "old towns" are architecturally authentic but have been so commercialized they are hardly "ancient" anymore. Xitang may have looked exotic on film but that's because most of the denizens (tourists and merchants taking tourists' money) where removed to make it look what like what Americans expect China to look like. Unfortunately this includes Old Town Lijiang as well, though on a much bigger scale. But despite how tourism and capitalism has fundamentally changed old China, new old China, and the Euro-backpackers that infest it, still has a lot of charm in a different sort of way, especially in remote Yunnan where industrial pollution doesn't obscure it. Epcot it ain't.

A very authentically Chinese sight

A outside Lijiang city the old life still holds sway. The fields and roads are sparsely populated, save for the Naxi villagers growing their corn and potatoes. I often saw Naxi women, in their eclectic modern-traditional dress, carrying huge baskets of crops on their backs to a fro. As part of their traditional matriarchal culture, Women were, and to some extent still are, the literal backbone of the Naxi workforce. Mini-buses carting tourists between the area villages often speed by, but it is nothing compared to the thousands of green, honking taxis clogging Changzhou's cement arteries.


Natural beauty also surrounds Lijiang. Though the immediate mountains were not so imposing, Yulong Xueshan (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain) looms, perpetually cloud-covered, in the distance.

Natural Beauty

Yu Yun and I rode horses part of the way up its slope on the second day. Our guides were of course Naxi women, the sames ones who told us how hard-working Naxi women are, from which I inferred how lazy their husbands must then be. (Apparently only in Southwestern China do they openly admit a truth that other world cultures deny). We did not get very far up the mountain. After two hours our guides started leading our horses up a tight, steep path and the animals started to slip on the loose rocks--we had not taken the way up Lonely Planet advised, but had seemed reasonable--but by then it was apparent that we were the only tourists going up that far along this particular route.





Apparently our guides were just waiting for us to tell them when to turn around. Or maybe they were curious just how reckless a dumb foreigner and naive Han Chinese would be in the wilderness. After all, they weren't the ones on horses. To be more specific, one geezer horse that only had one more season before retirement, and a stubborn junvenile that attempted to eat everything green in sight. Not the party you wanted to take up on the "adventurous" side of the mountain, unless perhaps you were the Donners. Eventually Yu Yun decided that we had gone beyond our insurable limit and so we told our guides to turn the horses around--but not before we had gone far up a dangerous path, making it all the more difficult to get back down.

Leb Wohl.

EXPOsed

The Expo is in Shanghai this year. For those of you who don't know what the Expo is, it's what many call the "World's Fair." If you don't know what that is, well, it's a big exhibition every two years or so where countries and companies show off or "exchange" their advances in culture and technology.

Shanghai got it this year, and won't shut up about it. Like the Olympics, EXPO 201o is a big deal for the Chinese. Unlike the Olympics, nobody else in the world cares about it. I was once asked if foreigners would come to visit Shanghai to visit it, to which I responded "no," unless of course they were expatriates who were living in the vicinity. Which I was, so I went. Twice.

What you do at Expo is simple-- You pay 150 Yuan to wait in line for an hour to enter the site, walk to a pavilion that you want to visit, then you wait in another line for over 2 hot, miserable hours to enter. The really popular ones, such as Germany or Japan, can take up to 4 or 5 hours to get into (we managed them in about 4). From what I heard Saudi Arabia was the longest wait at nearly 8, thought some had clocked 5 or 6. The Chinese Pavilion was open only to special reservations, as were Taiwan and Hong Kong (yes they had their own). Smaller ones like Oman, Israel and Argentina only took a matter of minutes to get into, but also risked sucking, like Slovenia. We had purchased little Expo-passports that you could get stamped at each place, so we attempted two long lines each day, and killed the remaining time at the smaller, quicker pavilions.

Queuing is a western concept which was only recently forced on the Chinese, and believe me they hate it. Despite the country's Buddhist legacy, people here are very impatient. Jumping queues is very common, therefore you have to fight to maintain your position in any line at the train station or dino-park. Line rules were well-enforced at Expo (for once), but people would still push past you for the slightest advantage and fill in any available space. As a social experiment my friends and I fought to maintain about 1.5 meters of difang (space) in front of us while people piled up behind.

Most of pavilions were interesting, though never worth the wait. While the event's theme was "better city, better life," most, like Spain's, were just expensive exhibits of their culture and history presented on massive video screens. Though Spain's did have a freaky, giant animatronic baby that greeted you at the end. I was disappointed (but unsurprised) that Germany's "Balancity" actually followed the prompt and presented a polished but less exciting array of environmentally-friendly and sustainable technology, ending with a giant orb which reacted to the audience's energy. Others, like Israel, emphasized (or pandered perhaps) their positive efforts with China to make the world a better place. The entire exhibit in Japan's Pokemon-shaped building was based around one of the ugliest white birds you have ever seen. Apparently this Ibis went extinct in Japan so they found more in China and imported them. As presented in crystal clear video by Canon. At the end a little Chinese boy then sang a song about it while masked people road around the stage on futuristic Honda scooter-cars. Yu Yun liked it.


But the best pavilion by far was North Korea. Upon entering you were greeted by the rainbows and fountains of a cheap, socialist dream world. It was the kind of thing so over-the-top and fake that you immediately felt like you were livestock in an abattoir being comforted before you reached the rotating knives. There was very little English, but above the TV monitors showing harmonious scenes of opera, soccer, and factory work, was the simple phrase: "paradise of people."


Next to North Korea was Iran, but my Chinese friends didn't want to go in. Apparently the Third World just didn't hold the same absurdist wonder for them.

Leb Wohl.

No Bros

The train ride back from Xi'an was a delight. We had splurged on "soft sleeper" seats, which had only four beds (as opposed to six) which were bigger and more comfortable. Yu Yun had mistakenly put us different cabins and it turned out that she got the boring one (explained in a moment). She tried to switch with the odd, quiet woman in the bunk above mine, but she didn't want to move.

If she had had any foresight she certainly would have wanted to, because opposite us was a family with two young boys, sharing two bunks with mom and granddad. All evening they were climbing over the bunks, playing under the blankets, jumping from one side to the other, and at certain times escaping into hall with mother and grandpa in hot pursuit. The youngest (about 3) capriciously kept demanding to be moved from the top bunk to the lower one and even sometimes venturing over to mine, but that was only when he wasn't chasing after his brother or looking for ghosts out the window. His "Ge Ge" (older brother) enjoyed playing with him for intervals of about 10 minutes. Then he would get tired and start fighting with him over something, at which point mom would intercede and he would cry about how she loved "Di Di" more than him. It occurred to me that this interplay was something I hadn't seen much of in China, and there's a good reason why.

Because of the one child policy, parents are not supposed to have more than one son. In rural families, if the first child is a girl, then they may have a second child, and there are other exceptions, including a fine for "breaking" the rules. Yu Yun talked with the mother and found out that they were from Jiangsu province, but the oldest was attending school in Beijing (to ensure he learns proper Mandarin) which confirmed that the family was probably pretty well-off. So if they didn't already have connections with the powers that be, they could probably handle the fines. But most of the young people I know, including the students I teach, are only-children, or just have sisters (ewwww, sisters :)) so a big or little brother is an uncommon sight.

I couldn't help but wonder how this changers Chinese society. You might think I am being biased as a (lousy) older brother myself, but I think it's just as critical as any other relationship within the family. Each kind of sibling bond, whether sister-sister, brother-brother, or sister-brother, is important because they help shape our personalities. But what is a society that has few older brothers? Or few younger sisters? Or any siblings at all? I am not going to venture into psychology, but older brothers (at least good ones) provide a male role model for their siblings, just as older sisters serve as female role models. All are siblings are part of our coming-of-age process.

In the US those of us without one kind of sibling-bond can look elsewhere in our family or friends for the kind of reinforcement we need, but what if there aren't any older brothers or sisters at all? In China cousins are typically referred to as brothers or sisters, but cousins usually aren't always around, though extended family is usually close-knit. In most households grandparents take care of the child while the parents work, so a lot of time is spent with grandma or grandpa, but as entertaining as mahjong, knitting, or poker is, sometimes you just want to play with someone your own age, which is something not all Chinese youth have outside of school. Boredom and isolation is a common phenomenon among Chinese youth, especially those from one-child families, who turn to the internet and World of Warcraft for amusement, which lead to problems like this. A brother or sister is an invaluable playmate and confidant you can rely on when you are young.

Now excuse me as I prepare for my sister's rebuttal.
Leb Wohl.

The Sewer at the Center of the World

The Yangzi is dirty, really dirty. That's what I noticed when I took a cruise on it with 3 of the other teachers. A boat trip through the Three Gorges area is a standard Chinese vacation. If you're like us and like to ride cheap, you get on a small, rusty ferry-like vessel and spend 3 nights sweating profusely in a four-person cabin with a Chinese toilet that produces wonderful smells. The river is completely brown and profuse with garbage. Paradise on earth.

That toilet started a ruckus the moment we saw it. You see, a western toilet had been a selling point for the entire trip, and once realized the lack thereof, the arguments started and our booking agent, "Jimmy" Yin bolted. It turned out we had gotten some bad information from certain parties and Jimmy wasn't really at fault, which I told him when I caught up to get the room key. However, Jimmy did manage to put us at the immediate fore section of the ship, so the 4 biggest people on the boat were occupying the smallest room.

It was nice to wake up that first morning, drenched with sweat because they turned the AC off at 11 and ponder the misery that we had shelled out 5oo Yuan for. That first day, walking up this silly historical-theme-park tourist-trap "ghost mountain" thing, I felt like a human faucet. Gradually I began to adapt to the discomfort. I stole some deck chairs from the "entertainment" deck and we passed the time reading on the foredeck, where there was a breeze...when the ship was moving. Aside from a Korean couple, and a Chinese-American family from San Francisco, we were the only foreigners on the voyage. The Chinese passengers busied themselves doing laundry, playing cards, drinking beer, and eventually stripping to their waist.

This explains a lot.

The cruise took us through some empty, dingy towns and some pretty "meh" tourist attractions. On the third day we reached the gorges. The first was quite astounding, but short, and the second two equally majestic, but more of the same. The real treats were the "Lesser" Gorges, which we reached by taking a smaller boat up another river. The water turned green and blue and the cliffs came closer as the river narrowed. When we stopped at the beginning of the 3rd "Lesser," Sean and I decided to blow 10 Yuan on "smart water" from a "wise spring" up on the cliff face. We later boarded a smaller skiff which took us further up the narrowest part of the gorge while the boatswain sang unintelligible river songs and the tourists took action shots wearing traditional fisherman's garb at the front of the boat.

We reached the dam--the massive monstrosity which supposedly made the Gorges less beautiful--on the last day for a tour which disappointingly did not take us inside the behemoth. It was smaller than I expected.

Leb Wohl.

War On Chinglish

...if you must

The last few weeks of my faculty class ended up having a lot to do with translation. This was largely due to the head of the Translation Department, Ms. Liao, attending my class, and she kept giving me material on Chinglish (Chinese-English) that she wanted me to lecture on. Eventually I decide to just make translation the last "unit" of the semester.

It turned out to be the most interesting and revelatory theme I had ever taught. The students were a hodgepodge of different levels of English, so they were always difficulty to teach, but Chinglish was one thing they all could understand and enjoy equally. Having them "correct" municipal and commercial signs was an excellent interactive activity, and some of the zanier examples I found online (engrish.com) amused them. The Chinglish lecture I gave at WEB hadn't gone nearly as well, I think because some were ashamed or offended by the topic. In the faculty class Ms. Liao was concerned about the impression incorrect English made to foreigners, but no one took it personally. Apparently businesspeople have a different opinion of it than teachers--perhaps because it brings back bad memories of foreign business partners laughing at signs when they are shown around the city.

I explained to to the class that in my opinion public signs are usually not so crucial that they must be absolutely correct standard English and that in fact, one thing foreigners love about China is Chinglish. We also discussed how correcting the English would destroy part of the meaning. Much Chinglish is created by literally translating the Chinese phrases which traditionally more verbose for poetic effect. For example metaphor and personification are often used, as in "the grass is sleeping." In translating the signs into correct, modern English, something valuable is "lost in translation" (Yes, and I showed that movie too).

Still, I understood that the Chinese don't want to be laughed at, so we tried to think of a compromise that saved both art and face. My solution was to make signs grammatically correct but leave them wonderfully strange. For example, one such sign states: "The grass is growing. Think about step into." The entire wording is strange, but only the second sentence is grammatically incorrect. I would change it to "The grass is growing so please think before stepping on it." Unnecessarily wordy and awkward, but the Chinese-ness is intact. Simply using "Keep off the grass" would lose the cultural value.

The topic went well beyond class. Ms. Liao recruited me for an ongoing project that the department was doing for the local government. Two of the other teachers had already spent a day correcting signage for them. You can read Dan's Wall Street Journal report about it at http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/06/30/silver-collars-and-no-talls-in-disorder-changing-chinglish/ . Ms. Liao kept bringing me examples and wanted me to confirm that her corrections were sound. Sometimes she had come up with several options and wanted me to pick the best one. Later I realized that some of revisions I was checking were not hers but my colleague's.

The grass is smiling. Please go around.

Then last Monday I accompanied her, some students, a news producer, and a cameraman to Hong Mei Park for what turned out to be the filming of a Changzhou news special. In order to assist the city, students from our school and Nanjing Normal University had teamed up to document more Chinglish signage and discuss the corrections. Apparently I had been assisting the project the entire time and was named one of the "leaders." We went around the park and I explained to the camera what I thought was wrong and needed to be changed about various examples of municipal Chinglish, such as "Challenger on water" (bumper boats) "Lofty mountainsand flowing water," and "Pay attention to safety. Beware of Falling Into Water."

Naturally I was careful not to eliminate the Chinglish entirely. It is my opinion that the signs do not need to be concise or natural-sounding as long as the meaning is reasonably obvious, and most Chinglish does get its point across, if in a very strange way. Of course park signs like "no speeling," which make no sense of all, must be remedied--perhaps by placing another sign next to it that translates the non-word into whatever they were trying to say ("spilling, spelunking, etc.) Many, including embarassed Chinese businessmen, would probably disagree with me, but if they are so serious about eliminating the chuckles then businesses and governments should hire a good translator rather than rely on computer programs that directly translate every word. Of course maybe they did and those translators had a sense of humor like me...and thus Chinglish was created.

But I'll be darned if I help destroy an art form.

Leb Wohl.

The Ascent Part II: The Ascent

Getting from from the Terracotta Warriors to Huashan wasn't easy. The touts who gave us advice did so with half-truths--we went in the general direction, but the route was never direct. Buses in China rarely take the most convenient route, often going down beat-up dirt roads in obscure villages. Sure, it would make sense if someone actually got off the bus in the little podunk towns, but that almost never happened either. I suspect it was a way to avoid the toll highways.

I was growing impatient, thinking that we had missed the mountain or were going the wrong way, but I was proven wrong again when we arrived in the town at the base. The place reminded me of the town at Angkor--completely tailored to the tourist crowd, like Disney, but uglier. We found the hotel responsible for our room on the mountain. By then it was already 9:30 pm, and we knew the climb would be long. The concierge apparently expressed some skepticism about us going up then, but I was eager to make the climb. We ate some quick dumplings down the road and then set off.

The path started from a gate a little ways above downtown, up a street lined with vendors selling maps and other essential Huashan climbing gear like flashlights, mittens, and commemorative ribbons (explained later). And we we would not be travelling alone. My guidebook had told me that many of the locals enjoyed making the night climb, but I had not expected so many people.

The path was level and well-lit at first, instilling a false sense of ease. Then there was a small incline, then a larger one, and then a larger one. Then we reached the first marker, which congratulated us on having completed Phase 1. That was about 45 minutes after we had begun, and there were at least 5 markers. Eventually the steep inclines turned into steps; Endless steps interspersed by snack and tea stands. And so began the general routine of climbing: Series of steps, exhaustion, tea, series of steps, exhaustion, tea. After the 3rd marker I lost complete track of where we were. Smaller ones along the way told us how far we had come, but I couldn't remember how far we had to go. At first I felt certain we could make it to the hotel room in time and rest for a bit before dawn, but as the hours went by I knew we would be lucky if we made it to the top before the sun came up.

The further we went up, the more crowded the path became as people slowed down to pace themselves and navigate the steeper and more dangerous steps. The whole path was a long staircase now. You could stop on some ledges to rest, but it was hard to stop and start again. The mountain was usually well-it, but often their was only a flimsy chain handrail between you and the sheer drop on your left. And when we came to a dark stretch I found myself using the little gloves I had earlier mocked, crawling on all fours and trying not to die. It reminded me of the Endless Stair you had to take to get into Mordor. At one point we found ourselves wedged in a long vertical crevice during a traffic jam. There was zero space between people and I kept wondering what would happen if someone in front lost their grip on the chain. People shouted "Zou Zou" (Go Go).

Occasionally I could look back and see the lights of the city down behind us. It was more heartening than looking up at the string of lanterns that marked our path. Each time I looked I could swear I saw the peak at the end of the staircase, but ledge after ledge that peak never got closer, probably because what I saw was only a bend or a twist in the side of the mountain, a false hope. Climbers started dropping like flies. Girlfriends complained. Middle-aged men started pulling up there shirts. On one wider landing many had settled down to sleep and some even pitched tents.

Eventually the trees disappeared and we were surrounded by the brightest stars I had ever seen in China. We had reached the North Peak at about 2:3o am. The East Peak, were supposedly the the sunrise would be prettiest, was across the mountain and further up. After a rest we kept hiking, though the way was no longer straight: paths ran off to different sides of the mountain and to other temples and hotels. Several times we followed the wrong group and ran into dead ends. But an hour and a half later we came to a steel staircase a cliff. Up that staircase and a little ways further was the massive rocky protrusion that formed the East Peak. It was then 4 am. We were lucky to get there when we did, since space was limited. We huddled near the single-rope barrier that divided the "safe" area from the side of the mountain, which was a sheer cliff. In the hunt for space several people went beyond the rope, only to squeeze back in when a guard walked along the perimeter every few minutes to enforce "safety regulations."

Dawn was obscured by an annoying layer of cloud, but as it crept up it unveiled the white and green monstrosity that we had ascended. Huashan and the surrounded range were rocky and harsh, but beautiful. I suddenly realized that in any given moment during the entire climb I had no grasp on were I was in relation to were I had been and were I was going. Our altitude was always anywhere between sea level and wherever the heck the mountain ended, if it even did.

Though the last third of the way up I was hovering on the edge of exhaustion, the need to get to the top before dawn keep me from going over. But once the sun had risen and we got our fill of the view, it was time to find our hotel for the 3-hour nap that our schedule then allowed. At that point fatigue hit me and my legs became dead weights for the hike down. Finding the hotel took forever as Yun Yun argued over the phone with the staff about directions. When we did hobble up the final staircase and into the rough-looking inn about 6:30 am, demanding beds immediately, the caretaker gave us a funny look but acquiesced.

After our rest and quick breakfast of instant noodles, we left the dirty lodge and began our descent amidst the throngs of elderly and (you guessed it) western tourists who had waited to take the cable car up. Between the peaks I left the ribbon that I had worn as a headband that had words praising the mountain and good health. Like everyone else who left a ribbon on the mountain (nearly everyone) I made a wish.

The sun had reached the mid-morning mark and we could marvel at the vistas that we had missed in the night. At the same time, being able to see clearly made things a lot more frightening--there were many more drops than I had thought. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

Xi'an--The Ascent Part I: Les Liasons Dangereuses

From: Li Yang, Minister of Provincial State Security, Shaanxi Province

To: Zhang Rui, Director of State Security, Beijing

Sir, I recently received information from secure sources that an American national, PETER WARD YOUNGBLOOD, while vacationing in the province, made contact with PERSONS OF EXTREME INTEREST and KNOWN THREATS to STATE SECURITY and NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY.

The PATTERN OF EVENTS are as follows:

9:47 AM--Youngblood left a hotel near the South Gate of the Xi'an Old City Wall with his LOVELY COMPANION, a Chinese National.

10:15 AM--Youngblood and Companion arrive at Xi'an train station. They converse with an tour attendant. The Companion complains that they only wish to see certain TOP CHINESE CULTURAL LANDMARKS, more specifically the TERRACOTTA WARRIORS AND HORSES. They board the tour bus. Observers note that they waited impatiently for the tour to leave.

10:49--The tour bus departs. While enroute the tour guide explains the GREAT AND PRAISEWORTHY HISTORY OF XI'AN and SHAANXI. Noteworthy excerpts were about the history of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, FIRST EMPEROR OF UNITED CHINA as well as the dramatic tales of LI SHAN MOUNTAIN, which Youngblood could not understand because his companion could not translate clearly. However, observers agree that when the guide asked the group how long it had taken Jiang Jie Shi (Chiang Kai Shek) to run up the mountain (10 minutes), Youngblood was surprised. Apparently he did not know that Jiang, the LOVED/HATED HERO/ENEMY OF CHINESE DEMOCRACY/SOCIALISM, had once run up this mountain to escape a NOBLE REVOLT by two of his generals who meant to force him to join forces with the GREAT MAO ZE DONG against the IMPERIALIST JAPANESE. Jiang eventually gave up his scheming and made the GREAT PATRIOTIC DECISION to FIGHT TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY ending 10 years of war and repression.

11:30--Arrival at HUA QING HOT SPRINGS at the base of LI SHAN. Youngblood and Companion take the cable car up with the rest of the group. Upon arrival at the summit, they admire the MAGNIFICENT VISTAS and take pictures.

A Magnificent Vista

11:45--Tour Group begins descent. Youngblood keeps asking where Jiang is. He is unaware that Jiang died in Taiwan PROVINCE in 1975.

12:30--Youngblood and Companion stop at a booth. In they make contact with JIANG JIE SHI. Apparently our intelligence of his passing was in error. A female NATIONALIST soldier produces a uniform (obviously kept hidden until Youngblood's arrival). The meeting is short but his Companion and the NATIONALISTS takes many pictures, obviously for PROPAGANDA PURPOSES. Our operatives mark the location of Jiang's hideout. We attack at 06:00.

The Meeting

13:02--The tour departs the area, enroute to the next stop

13:37--Arrival at one of the ONE THOUSAND GREAT JADE FACTORIES OF SHAANXI. Youngblood and Companion express disinterest in the site. Apparently Youngblood had seen another JADE FACTORY outside BEIJING (OF EQUAL OR GREATER MERIT AND INTEREST I am sure, Mr. Director, please infer no offense directed at your province). Our observers last saw Youngblood and Companion arguing with the tour leader. Then they lost contact. Intel from the tour guide revealed that they had abandoned the tour, which they claimed was too slow, and had caught a taxi to see the Bing Ma Yong (TERRACOTTA ARMY OF WARRIORS AND HORSES).

14:20--Contact reestablished at TERRACOTTA ARMY. Targets wander about the TERRACOTTA ARMY COMMERCIAL VILLAGE and enter at 14:40. Apparently they had received advice that viewing the excavation halls in opposite order (2-3-1) was more favorable.

This office must admit, Director, that this suggestion was sound. Our observers remarked that by starting with the largely-unexcavated, largely-ruined halls in #2 gave them a feeling of what the location looked liked mere days after the site was discovered by a WAYWARD BUT PATRIOTIC FARMER digging a well. #3 contained upright and restored warriors guarding what is thought to be an officers mess hall, an preview of what was to come. #1, the main hall astounds viewers with a full army lined up in formation for war. Youngblood seemed very interested in the ongoing work and excavations, and commented about the difficulty of putting all the pieces back together. Apparently he is unaware of our ARCHEOLOGICAL DILIGENCE AND EFFICIENCY. Our observers had difficulty tracking Youngblood as so many of the visitors to the site looked similar.

Admiring Culture

16:35--The targets pick up their effects (which regretfully had not been searched) at the entrance of the site, and then proceed to the buses. After some argument and discussion with the drivers, they choose one going to the town of Wei Nan. From what we could ascertain their next destination was Hua Shan mountain.

We attempted to track them on their way, but I admit, Director, navigating my GREAT PROVINCE can be difficult. Shaanxi people are Generous AND HARMONIOUS, but not always best-informed on the MOST EXPEDIENT ways to get places. Thus the bus route involved too many complications for successful following.

22:04--We attempt to intercept them in the town of Hua Yin at the base of Hua Shan, but we were too late: Targets had already begun the ASCENT under cover of darkness.

End Report and Leb Wohl.

Xi'an Day 1: "The Ride"

A friends of mine from work at Web invited me to go with her on a trip to Xi'an, the ancient capital of China, famous for the Terracotta Army. Since it was one the places I really wanted to see and hadn't seen yet, I couldn't say no. We hopped on a dirty night train in Shanghai for what turned out to be a 15 hour trip. Usually getting somewhere is my favorite part of a journey, but the "hard sleeper" (2nd class) cabins on Chinese trains are cramped, small, and hot and the bathrooms ungodly, so I was only too happy to arrive the next day.

Apparently saving money with 2nd class lets you splurge, since Cui Yu Yun, my travelling partner, had booked us rooms at very nice French-art-themed hotel. My room was Matisse. We had arrived late so we quickly left to meet her colleagues in the Muslim quarter for a belated lunch. Her "colleagues" were Xi'an natives who worked for the same bank she did, and they had met on a work trip on Hainan Island (the Florida of China). We had some trouble finding an open restaurant...though it turned out we were just looking for a place to sit down. Wen, her male colleague, then went to find some of the city's famous snack food from the vendors. My favorite were the cold liangpi noodles. Apparently these noodles are all over the country, but in Xi'an they are especially tasty. They are spicy and sesame/peanut-flavored, reminding of the fake Thai food I eat in the US (but better). Another good dish is a pot of literally every single food found in the average Chinese kitchen, the name of which escapes me.

Because Xi'an is so hot, everyone goes out in the evenings, so we were told to go back and take a nap before our excursions. I was eager to see things but acquiesced. Around 5 we went up onto the city walls, the gate of which was very close to our hotel. Xi'an's walls are impressive due to the fact that they are still there. They make a complete circuit around the old city which you can walk or bicycle--we choose the later option, which was quite fun and wise considering the length of the walls. During dull periods we played chicken with opposing bike traffic.

Our next stop was the park which contained the famous "Big Goose" Pagoda, a very old, very different looking tower from the ones I was used to seeing in eastern China. There is a big stretch of water fountains--the kind you can cool off in--right in the middle, and most nights at 9 there is a light-music-water-show. We stayed for it and watched the plumes of water and light dance to traditional Chinese instrumentals. The harmony was interrupted only by the children stepping over the jets to block the water, which left me wishing, just for yuks, that the whole gaggle of bathers would act in concert and stop the entire show.

We wanted to go in the Pagoda, but Yun Yun's colleagues had misinformed us about the time everything closed (this began a pattern of misinformation that would plague us the entire trip). So I didn't get to go in. Instead we wandered around until Yun Yun got Wen to pick us up in his new Chevy. Since Wen only recently got his license we proceeded at about 10 km/h through the wealthy part of Xi'an. He took us to a new artificial rake for some reason, probably because he felt responsible for our evening being cut short and took us to the only thing open.

By then I was ready to get back to Matisse.

End Day 1. Stay tuned for Day 2: "The Ascent"

Jurassic Park

Whenever I am traveling around Eastern China and mention that I am from Changzhou, most people know it for one thing and one thing only: The China Dinosaur Park or Kong Long Yuan. Embarrassingly it took me months to finally go there.

When I did finally go with a local friend (who had been four times) it was sort of a letdown. The place had been hyped for me for so long that I had high expectations of it--basically everything but real dinosaurs. It didn't help that we went on a rainy day so the normal throngs of Chinese were absent, so there wasn't as much spectacle as I had hoped. Apparently Halloween is a lot different. Really it was just a small scale dinosaur-themed amusement park.

But at least it wasn't one of those lame places that advertise "living dinosaurs" and show you a couple of alligators and komodo dragons cooped up in glass cages and not eating people. In fact I don't think there was a single living animal that I saw. Instead the dinos were mostly cheap animatronics and cartoon characters, but even they were upstaged by the non-reptilian more popular Chinese cartoon figure, the Lazy Sheep. The only factual area was the museum which we used as a shortcut from one end to the other.

Fortunately the rides were actually pretty good, and thanks to more lenient (lax) standards of comfort and safety, they were quite torturous. The best example was a 3D Movie ride which constantly sprayed water in your face and prodded you in the back. There was also a flume ride which was a total knock-off of space mountain, except instead of traveling through the galaxy at the speed of light, you rode slowly down a river through plastic forests and foam volcanoes. Though you do get pretty wet at the end. There weren't any real roller coasters, but the smaller rides were adequately dizzying, and sickening for quite a few. But unlike the easier-to-please Changzhouren, I don't plan on getting a season pass.