dinner
One of but 20 such plates of ill translated delectables…
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carnage
For lunch: jellyfish, something we thought might be turtle, shrimp with all their parts, tasty root veggies of unknown sorts with fried fat, crab guts, and, oh, French, albeit ‘cabernet merlot’ red wine.
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on to Lishui
Spent the day today getting from Wenzhou to Lishui. We’re now officially in the folds of the photo festival. Looking forward to finally seeing what it’s all about. I have a feeling the adventure has only just begun.
I’m not sure if I shared this yet or not – if so then it’s here again for new readers at least, but also for anyone who didn’t click through the first time… While this link might have little to do specifically with my travels (we’ll see…), check it out in any case. It’s fascinating:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/06/instant-cities/hessler-text
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the morning after
Bacon. Yum. But, no, I have no idea what the curly/turd/cocoon thing is.
Yum.
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thanksgiving dinner
We didn’t tell the hotel it was for Thanksgiving. Explaining to a country that lives with thousands of years of its history everyday that it was a big deal meal about some Spanish guy ‘discovering’ America a couple of hundred years ago felt silly. We simply asked if they could recommend a very typically Wenzhouian restaurant. They knew just the place, scribbled out something on a ‘take me to…’ taxi card and sent us off.
The restaurant (we don’t know what it was called – we only ever saw the Chinese characters) was across town, above the Playboy home furnishings store (?).
We walked in, up the grand staircase, to tanks of fish, crabs, and snails, as well as plates and plates of examples in cases and behind a big glass wall along the kitchen.
Then were descended upon China style by a half dozen young waiters and waitresses who soon enough figured out we spoke no Chinese. They escorted us back into our own little room and giggled as they tried to explain to us how it worked. Apparently we were supposed to go up and point at what we wanted to eat. Cool.
We were eventually led back up to the front of the restaurant, to the fish swimming and those on ice, where we, luckily, met the best English speaking Chinese of the trip yet.
He asked what we wanted and we asked what he recommended. He showed us the fish we wanted (said it was from deep and made good flavor), recommended the mystery dumplings (again? Really?) with some salty sour mushrooms, and for the veggie course said the seaweed/algae plate was the way to go. He also suggested Heineken. The only time we questioned his advice. We chose the Double Deer instead, a beer made right here in Wenzhou.
Thanksgiving, China style, as authentic as we could have expected to have had.
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thanksgiving lunch
Taj made it in safe and on schedule last night and we spent the day again wandering the streets and back alleys of Wenzhou. For a city so full of people and money there’s actually a strange lack of established places to eat.
For lunch today we just wanted some basic, authentic Chinese food and, even though we’re in China and you’d think it’d be easy to find, it wasn’t. In one of the street markets, between the pig penises (seriously, and testicles, too), live turtles, and unidentifiable pickled root things, I bought a handful of dates – how can you go wrong, right? Wrong. They looked like dates and were the right weight and texture, etc. and I think in fact they were dates, but they were smoked… And not a good smoked but a weird, burnt trash, wet smoldering smoked.
Still hungry.
Fresh off the date experience we were almost resigned to just going the McDonalds or Merry Christmas Pizza Hut route (for some reason Pizza Hut was COMPLETELY decked out for Christmas – Santa uniforms on all the servers, fake snow on the windows, a decorated tree in the center of the dining room, etc.) But at the last minute we saw a little bowl-of-noodles-and-dumplings-shop (I’m sure there’s a name for these places but there’s literally no one we can ask) and decided that would do perfectly. Authenticity, we’d decided was the goal for the day. We walked in and Taj, excitedly, whipped out his iPhone with the Mandarian phrases app, and called up ‘what would you recommend?’. The bored girl at the register points to the completely indescipherable menu board and stares at us. (The flipside of these authentic places, it turns out, is the lower to complete lack of tolerance for us foreigners.) It was a stalemate, and one we’d not win, so we broke it by pointing at the nearest bowl on the nearest table and signed that we wanted two. We then signed for a drink and she shook her head no (really??), took our ¥10 (that’s about a dollar and a half for both total) and we sat awaiting our bowls.
As we were waiting for whatever it was we just ordered, out the window Taj thought he saw a Coca-Cola sign across the street (even such ubiquitous logos feel somewhat cryptic here sometimes) and left to check it out. A few minutes later, doing even better than soda, he came back with two 500ml Tsing Tao beers.
Total for lunch and big beers for two: about $4
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thanksgiving breakfast
Don’t let the fork mislead you. The only thing I actually knew what was were the melon chunks…
Jason Houston
:e: jason@jasonhouston.com
:p: (+1) 413/429.6486
…from my iPhone…
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The Lonely Planet book on China is, I don’t know, 700-something pages… The area I’m headed to gets just a couple of paragraphs. The entire Wenzhou region itself only gets about two pages. I like to be prepared, but aside from a few misc. place names and a Google map I cobbled together and printed out before I left (if they block the blog sites, do you think they allow good aerial surveys to double check the Google maps?), I didn’t have much to go on. I’ve never traveled like this before.
Most (all so far?) exotic travel I’ve done has been for assignments where at least I have contacts and an itinerary and can vaguely comprehend the language, or at best I have a guide. But this is traveling pretty blind. I walked the couple of kilometers from my hotel to the ferry dock queued up in the line that looked like workers heading out or heading home (the other ferry went to an island that’s a tourism destination) and bought my ticket (matching the amount to what the person in front of me paid).
Across the river I found, as promised, the waiting mini-buses. What it didn’t mention was that there were maybe a couple dozen or more, lined up for destinations, all, of course, in Chinese. I spent 5-10 mins trying to match up the symbols with what I’d written down based on the guide books and internet, a process that so far has proven pretty futile, and then decided to try a new approach: show three people my Chinese chicken scratch and if at least two of them point in the same direction, go there. The first two pointed to the same bus, so I got on. As best I could tell it did look like I was headed in the right direction. And anyways, as planned I had everything with me so I really only needed to make it back in three days to meet Taj. I didn’t really need to get where I was going. And it was still pretty early too, so I had some flexibility. I should be able to find SOMEONE who can speak English in the course of three days, right?
At the back of the bus, a younger guy with English skills only slightly better than my Chinese, wanted to talk. He was nice enough and used trying to tell me about things to see to practice on me, while I used his enthusiasm to show him my Google maps (he had an iPhone so I figured he’d be sympathetic) and watch his face closely to see if he thought I was screwed or not for being on this bus. He struggled with his English, but didn’t flinch at my maps and pointed to a few places implying I was headed in the right direction. Good.
Bus Station Yantou
Yantou, where I got off, is in an area popular for local tourism, so it was actually possible for me to match signs and know with pretty good certainty where to get off. The draw in this area is a good looking river winding through those zen painting-like mountain spires (we passed a bridal photo extravaganza with a half dozen brides and twice as many photographers all shooting against the back drop of rivers and mountains) and a scattering of historic villages. Yantou itself features Lishui Jie, an old street with red paper lanterns along some historic aqua ducts. Not much else, but a nice place to wander that felt like the romantic old China we think of from the books. But still legit. People really lived there and really lived like that. I was maybe the only tourist and it all was just what it was.
While wandering I was approached by an older woman offering (universal sign language for sleeping – hands palms together at the side of her head). Could be for a whore house or could be a place to stay. For something to do rather than just brush her off, I had her write down all the info in my book. Amidst all the symbols I saw a ‘153′ which matched the address number for the one guest house there recommended in Lonely Planet. I pulled out my phrase book and pointed to ‘tomorrow’. I had other plans to try and pull off tonight. But it’d be nice if it worked out if I needed it tomorrow.
’Plans’ is a relative term. Not only can I not plan much this way, but I’m also enjoying having so little to actually do. But I did want to try and find the ‘fantastic old courtyard residence’ also in the Lonely Planet, in the next town south.
It was still early so I walked the main road to Furong, another historic village but this one with an admission fee and more interpretative signs (another relative term given the translation skills in rural China). But it’s still a living village and a really sweet, relaxing mix of local tourists and village life.
Pagoda on Village Pond - Furong
Wandering the cobblestone paths I eventually found the place I’d stay tonight. Actually the first time matching up the symbols I’d written out with signs on the street worked out. I signed (that universal gesture of one finger up) that I wanted ‘one’. And I guess they understood. They led me up to a room and let me be. I dropped my pack, locked the door with the key that was in it, and headed back out to wander some more (and write all this out on the damn iPhone).
Guest House in Furong
I’m hoping the same works tonight for a meal. Hoping they serve food there in fact. One thing missing in rural China like this is any obvious place to eat out. In this sleepy little village there’s not even anyone cooking in stalls on the streets. Good thing (1) I brought all those energy bars and (2) I can tolerate a low calorie diet.
2009/11/24 – 2am
For those of you worried about my gastronomic constitution, fear not. I am indeed up at 2am, but only to pee and because of the harsh time change, but of no other need. Dawu Renjia Kezhan, the ‘fantastic old courtyard residence’ is indeed charming, if quite simple, and has worked out well. It’s about $14 for the night and I’m taken care of here by an old Chinese woman who I can’t tell if she is amused by my complete lack of language skills or just taking pity on me. But in that maternally ingrained way, she falls right into predicting my needs, mixed with their customs (I assume), and just does.
I returned from wandering Furong and made another universal gesture, (this time for eating…with a FORK…duh) but again it worked. She said a bunch of stuff to me in Chinese, some I could tell was the same over and over again. I shrugged, dumbly, wondering what universal gesture THAT was, then she disappeared into a side room. Soon I heard cooking and smelled food frying on a wok. I assumed I was to be fed.
I sat on a bench in the courtyard watching and listening to several women a generation younger than the old lady feed and yell at some kids who were yet another generation younger. A little while later she came back out, carrying a bowl of noodles, vegetables, some small, salty shrimp with all their parts, and a grey mystery meat the texture more of beef, but the color more of pork and in little chunks. I don’t want to know.
(An Aside: As I was leaving Yantou yesterday I passed a truck with cages on it. In the one I could see on the back was a big German shepherd. I walked up to it and asked if I could photograph (universal sign: hold up camera) they laughed and nodded and as I approached I noticed in the other two cages a lion and a tiger. Again, I really don’t even want to know.)
I finished my meal and brought my bowl and chopsticks to where she had been cooking and said ‘xie xie’, which is supposed to mean ‘thank you’. I figure the least I can do is try a basic formality or two in their language. But they always just ignore the fact that I’m trying. In Central or South America or Africa or even in Indonesia when I try the language they embrace it and encourage it. Here I try ‘xie xie’ or ‘ni hao’ (hello) and they just ignore me (or the kids, they laugh). I’m saying it the way my daughter who gets a little Chinese in school taught me and the way I hear it said around me, I think. Maybe I’m just not hearing it? Perhaps I’m deaf to the tones and to them I am simply the white man speaking more gibberish. The same simple two letter word ‘ma’, so I read in my phrase book, can mean ‘mother’, ‘hemp’, ‘horse’, ’scold’, or ‘an expression of mood’ all depending on if I say it high and level (?), start medium then rise (??), start low then dip then rise to top (???), start at top then fall sharp and strong to bottom (????), or say it flat. And that’s all for just one simple, common consonant and one regular, non-modified vowel. I can only imagine what I’m saying mixing a consonant like ‘x’, which I don’t even know how to pronounce in English, with two vowels and twice. She laughed an amused laugh when I said ‘xie xie’. I nodded and left my bowl on the counter.
I returned to my room as it got dark to read for a bit. I’m traveling with just one book, Ryszard Kapuscinski’s ‘Travels With Herodotus’, a great meditation on experiential travel put in the grandest historical context (one that covers thousands of years) by one of my favorite writers. At the part where he’s mugged in Cairo by a friendly stranger who offers to show him a an old mosque there’s a knock on my door and more repetitive Chinese chatter. But for me it’s just the old lady again, this time with a thermos with very hot water, some wimpy plastic cups, and a box of loose green tea. Hot water, undoubtedly hot tap water, and soft plastic cups that all but melt upon contact with it, but I’m grateful. And I enjoy several cups before heading to bed.
I’m even more grateful now, at 2am, that all I had to get up for was to pee.
Tomorrow I’ll head back to Yantou and give #153 Lishui Jie a try. I sense I’ll get a different experience in Yantou. For one there’s no gate and entrance fee for the town. For another the old lady proprietor is less grandmotherly and more the business like middle aged Chinese woman you picture running an escort agency some place like Shanghai. Oh, and according to Lonely Planet it should cost just a little less than $5 for the night. Wish me luck.
2009/11/25 – 5am
Just wandered around most all of yesterday. I left the guest house in Furong in the morning. I’m not sure they understood if I was checking out for good and all or just going for the day but I just kept pointing at the fact that I had all of my stuff with me then left them with the Â¥100 I understood the night should have cost me. While most of where I wanted to go is walkable, I decided to hop in a sanlunche (pedicab) for the fun of it. I pointed to the symbols for Cangpo, where I wanted to go next, and he seemed to understand and seemed to be headed in the right direction so I sat back and enjoyed the break my legs were getting. As someone who sits behind a computer most of the time, all of a sudden walking all day everyday, and most of the time with a full pack on my back, for several days straight always takes some getting used to. Like sitting at the desk for days on end did too in the beginning.
The sanlunche followed the main road north, through Yantou . . .
Approaching Yantou from Furong
and past the neatly organized rice and vegetable fields that fill every open, unpaved space around here.
Fields Between Buildings Everywhere
15-20 mins later (these guys work for their dollar or two) we arrived at ‘famous town of history culture’ Cangpo. He gestured that he’d wait for me. I wanted to explain I liked to wander and it might be a while and that I didn’t know what I planned on next. Perhaps my universal gesture the dumb American shrug would do? He hopped off and began the tour, all in Chinese, hustling me from place to place, explaining… I don’t know what. Occasionally reaching out or hopping on to activate the centuries old equipment that was haphazardly scattered around the place to show me how it worked. Then off we go to the next. I nod, and occasionally dawdle or wander off like a two year old to make a photo, but between this ‘tour’ and the fact that this is turning out to be yet just another ‘famous town of history culture’ nearly identical, yet less interesting than the others, I’m ok with hustling through. And grateful for the known ride back.
My plans were to stay in Yantou tonight, along Lishui Jie, in the cheap place I mentioned. As we entered the north side of Yantou I tapped his shoulder to let me off. He stopped, then chattered (my lack of comprehension not his issues with speech) something where all I picked up was ‘Lishui Jie’. Fearing another tour, but this time of a place I’d wandered most of yesterday, I shook my head no, quickly handed him the fare and a little extra for his tour, and hopped off into the crowded street.
Yantou is a large town for this area and it seems a place where everyone comes to shop and trade. All of the little towns have streets lined with garage style rolling door fronted shops, like the aisles of a mini storage facility, each doing some little thing. One turning boards to table legs, bound for Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel perhaps, another selling nothing but ribbon and buttons, another where two young guys weld aluminum door frames from lengths of molding, one after another. This adds a layer to what ‘Made in China’ means. It’s as though those massive factories we think about when using that term are actually subcontracting much of the work. Or maybe this is where ‘Made in China’ for the Chinese happens and the factories are all just for us. Really wish I could speak the language, even a little.
Downtown Yantou
Around a corner I stumble across the heart of this town. Several streets deep, packed with people, stores spilling out into the street selling everything from meat and herbs and live fish to shoes, electronics, and pedicab parts. Everyone is busy, engaged, and no one appears to be hustling anyone. I stand out, as clearly is proven by EVERYONE staring at me all the time, and yet no one tries to hustle me. Pedicab drivers ask, then leave it alone, if I shake my head. No one tries to encourage me into their shop. It’s certainly partly that here, where there is no tourism, I’m maybe a novelty, but not a target. But there’s something else too. An attitude of hard work and willingness to earn their take. Certainly they’re all about taking advantage of opportunity, otherwise why would there be a storefront on the street selling nothing but switches of all kinds? But there’s no idleness, no hoodlums, and no apparent sense of entitlement, like I’ve seen so often in Africa and Latin America, where, if you have and they can get, they will try. If only they knew I just tried to buy some fruit for ten times what it was worth – and case in point: as I was pulling out a Â¥5 from my wallet the lady reached out and took a Â¥1 then gave me a Â¥.5 coin back. I guess I can see where the ‘universal five fingers up’ comes in, but in my defense I was just going to pay about US$0.75 for that handfull of citrus, which is a bargain in a farmers market back home…
Market in Yantou
I wandered up and down these streets for another hour or two, fascinated by the dynamics and photographing the dried fish and weird spices as I always like to do, before eventually finding myself once again over by Lishui Jie, the old street along the waterway where the cheaper guest house is where I planned to stay the night. I found 153 and the lady from yesterday and, pointing to the phrase in my phrase book, asked if I could see the room. It was depressing. Clean, but dark and buried upstairs in their ragtag house. I gestured for what it would cost and she wrote Â¥60 in my book. More than Lonely Planet said (which has been very accurate to date) and I could tell in their eyes they were starting high. Not interested in being the deaf and mute negotiator I passed on it all. For just a few more dollars I could return to the nice old lady in the fantastic old courtyard residence in Furong. And that’s what I did. When I showed up she gestured if I wanted to eat. I nodded. I gestured I wanted to sleep one night. She looked as if she already knew. I went up stairs where my room had not been touched and settled back in. Then went back down to the courtyard where she fed me.
Today I’m headed back on the bus then by ferry to Wenzhou to meet up with Taj, assuming his flight stuff all worked out. Last I heard a few days ago his flight from Beijing to Wenzhou was canceled. But I’ve been completely off-line and out of touch for these last few days. However, things seem to have a way of working out with travels like this.
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wandering wenzhou
Wenzhou is different than I expected. I knew going in it was a small city – of several million people – and one of many centers of China’s low-tech industrial machine. Google National Geographic’s story from summer 2007 on China’s boomtowns so I don’t have to type it all here on the phone. But do it. It’s fascinating stuff and turns out they focused on both Wenzhou and Lishui – the two main towns I’ll be in this next while.
Wenzhou
I walked around most of the afternoon today. Trying to keep moving so I could stay up and force myself into the time change. It’s a strange mix here. Cell phone stores hawking smart phones and 3G are everywhere as are fancy magazine brand boutiques. But in between are the stalls with ducks and pigeons stuffed into cages and weird little shops full of things like salvaged industrial machine buttons of all types or car key blanks, and families siting on the floor trimming the plastic fringes from some newly molded part who knows what it does. I was almost run over a number of times by both pedicabs and high-end European sedans. Not the kids-huffing-glue-at-the-shoe-factory-China one expects of industrial China (though according to that Nat Geo article a quarter of all shoes bought in China and 70% of all the cigarette lighters in the world are made here) but I think that’s just my ignorance or arrogance to think they’d not also have/want Prada and BMWs. Most of these places are also a lot safer than our fears would have us believe. That’s a real benefit of travel, even if it’s to such non-exotic places like Wenzhou. Perspective grounded in experience.
So, I’ve made it to an hour where I can actually go to bed now and get some sleep appropriate to the new time zone so that’s what I’m going to do. And tomorrow I’m headed out into the country so I’m assuming there won’t be much internet access. I’ll post again when I can, perhaps after a few days in the countryside with more interesting things to share.
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