Bird on Wire

Like a bird on a wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried, in my way, to be free.
(Leonard Cohen)

Guilin to Yangshuo – Day 4, Part 2

Continuing from “Cat’s in the Cradle,” KK and I took a tour bus from Guilin to Yangshuo. We sat in the back of the bus with 4 nurses with minimal English, but KK charmed them with her Chinese.

Along the way, we saw more of the famous Guanxi hills.

About ¾ of the way to Yangshuo, we stopped at a small place called Yangdi where we were to board a small raft to take a river tour of one of the most picturesque places in China. Before doing so, however, the locals approached us tourists to sell us stuff, such as these headbands of flowers.

I bought one for KK, but she realized, rightfully, that she needed no adornment to accent her beauty, and she declined to wear it.

Not wanting this expensive purchase to go to waste,…

Anyway, we took off down the river with a bunch of other rafts, all powered by little lawnmower engines.

The views were indeed luscious.

Upon returning,…

…I decided to give my headband back to a flower lady,…

…who rewarded me by trying to sell me something else.

We hopped back on the bus, giggling our way…

…to the metropolis of downtown Yangdi.

We got out and were led to a small café advertising their extensive beverage menu. (What does the sign say on cold days?)

We filed through the kitchen where we told the chef whether we wanted fried rice or fried rice.

KK and I enjoyed our gourmet vittles in the company of our new friends.

In a nearby parking area, a guy came by with one of his girlfriends,…

…who preferred cruddy leaves to fried rice…

…as her offspring looked on.

After this feeding extravaganza, we walked through the town toward the river.

We arrived at an ancient bridge over the river…

…where everyone in the tour group posed for pictures with their friends.

Then a local guy with two cormorants tied to a pole arrived,…

…and we all posed again.

We then walked down to the river’s edge to watch a local fisherman using cormorants to catch his dinner. He stands on a small raft and has cormorants tied to the raft itself or the end of the pole.

One of the birds has a long red string moderately tight around its throat.

The other end of the string is tied to the pole. The bird is put into the water to find a fish, which it soon does.

The cormorant flips the fish up into the air so it can slide down his throat.

The river is shallow, and the bird stands up, trying to swallow the fish, but the string prevents this,…

…and the fish remains stuck in the bird’s throat.

The fisherman gently pulls the cormorant to back to the raft,…

…lifts it out of the water,…

…and teases the fish out of its throat…

…and into a bucket.

After this little show, we hopped back onto the bus and went to a small preserved village that they named Shangri-La. It’s not the true Shangri-La in Yunnan Province, but various places in this part of China decided to take advantage of the famous name and book by renaming some of the villages “Shangri-La.”

At this village we boarded little boats…

…and, just as in Guilin, we went on a short Disney Adventureland cruise…

…past a variety of waterside performances by the “natives.”

As always, there were interesting signs along the route.

After the cruise, we were shown different types of ancient Chinese craftsmanship,…

…including the art of making rice paper.

We all were given small decorative balls,…

…and we finally took off for Yangshuo.

KK and I were excited to finally reach our hotel in the countryside, The Giggling Tree.

And that’s pretty much all that happened that afternoon.

保罗

Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe

I’m back in China. I’ll try not to belabor the comparison between Beijing and Tokyo much more, but after 8 days in Japan, I just have to emphasize once more a few things:

• The Japanese people are among the most polite people in the world. Japanese drivers are more polite than American drivers, and they are a stark contrast to drivers in Beijing, who have no regard whatsoever for pedestrians. It is inconceivable to me that pedestrians in Japan would have to jump out of the way of cars – which is the rule in China.

• It is inconceivable that a Japanese mother would have her toddler urinate on a pedestrian bridge or a crowded sidewalk, something I have seen several times in Beijing (though not elsewhere in China).

• While I can confirm that I’m more sensitive to noise than most people, I think it’s safe to say that I’m less tolerant of it. During 8 days in Japan (Tokyo, Hakone, & Kyoto), I heard a horn honk a total of 4 times: (1) a scooter honked briefly at a bus that cut it off, (2) someone honked briefly at a taxi I was in because of a maneuver my driver did, (3) one of my taxi drivers honked briefly at a car who was parked awkwardly and blocking traffic, and (4) I heard something in the distance. If you are anywhere near a street in Beijing, it is hard to go 1 minute without hearing someone honking at someone else. (I tested this today.)

• All places I visited in Japan were extremely clean, free of both trash and dust. Beijing is geographically disadvantaged because it’s dry and just south of drier Inner Mongolia, and dust is constantly in the wind. Here’s the surprise: I saw not one piece of trash on any street or road while I was in Japan, but I did have trouble finding trash cans. There are very few trash cans on the sidewalks of Japan (unless they are cleverly camouflaged), so people must be very conscientious about carrying their trash to some distant receptacle. Beijing, on the other hand, has thousands of trash cans along the sidewalks. Many Beijingers are indeed careful to use these trash cans, but there are others who don’t. Fortunately, Beijing has an army of street-cleaning people employed to keep the streets and sidewalks as free of trash as they can.

• Not once while I was in Japan did I hear someone hack and spit. I shudder to think about the looks I would get from the locals if I had done so. Today, in my favorite park across from my school, it was almost a chorus. One 60-year-old woman walked right next to a flower garden, but spat 3 times within 15 seconds onto the sidewalk to her right instead of the garden to her left. Others walking nearby didn’t even look down to try avoid her products. When I’m the only one in the park (or anywhere else) who notices these things, I wonder if I’m overreacting. As the standard of living in China continues to rise, I am hoping there will be a concomitant rise in micro-environmental awareness.

• Here’s an interesting comparison: Chinese people appear to me to be happier than the Japanese. I emphasize “appear” because it is hard to read the Japanese; they are some of the most reserved people on Earth, and it is generally difficult to know how they are feeling about anything. Still, there is a lot more public laughter on a per capita basis in China than there is in Japan. I would love to see a study of this. It is possible that it’s less a function of the cultural differences of the peoples than it is of the difference in standard of living. Believe it or not, the happiest people I’ve seen around the world have been some of the poorest people. I think as we gain more physical stuff, we are more intent on keeping it. The less we have, the less we expect. This is consistent with the recent study showing that the acquisition of wealth negatively affects one’s personality. Ah, but how many of us would give away most of our money with the hope of becoming happier?

Pictures from Japan later.

保罗

Tomb Sweeping Day

I am remiss in not pointing out that last Saturday was China’s Qing Ming Festival, a national holiday. Because it fell on a Saturday, today (Monday) was a holiday (so people could have a 3-day weekend). Unfortunately, schools make up for the lost day by holding classes this coming Saturday.

If you recall, this is the festival where people burn fake money in honor of their ancestors. This holiday was recently added in order to try to preserve this aspect of China’s tradition. One of the fun things about China’s holidays is that they generally are associated with specific foods that everyone eats around the same time of year. Here’s an excerpt from that great encyclopedia in the sky:

Qingming has been regularly observed as a statutory public holiday on Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. On Taiwan, the public holiday is now always observed on April 5th to honor the death of Chiang Kai-shek on that day in 1975. Owing to its associations with traditional Chinese religion, the holiday was not initially celebrated within Communist mainland China after 1949 but it was reinstated as a public holiday in 2008.

On the mainland, the holiday is associated with the consumption of qingtuan, green dumplings made of glutinous rice and barley grass.

保罗

Sleeping Beauty

I’m writing this at midnight on my last day in Japan. No, I haven’t been out whooping it up (though I did have a wonderful meal, but that’s a story for another day). After 3 hours of sleep, I awoke suddenly thinking about two apparently unrelated things:

Thing 1:

You remember in the 60s at the beginning of the space age when we’d see these news items about new, miraculous alloys that would have a blow torch attacking it from one side and a baby’s bottom comfortably resting against the other (or something like that)?

Thing 2:

Probably the leading theory now for the location of the origin of life on Earth (if indeed it was Earth) is hydrothermal vents. Not only do they spew out great quantities of useful molecules but also there’s a wide range of temperatures within a short radius of the vent, going from very hot to very cold in a short distance.

In the last year and a half I have traveled around China and Japan, and I don’t think I have had one complete night’s sleep in any hotel. You see, there’s this one-blanket policy (smiley face) pervasive throughout the region.

When my wife and I travel through Europe, the small hotels and B&B’s have beds with multiple layers of thin blankets, just like we all have at home, right? In Asian hotels it seems that everyone has gone to a single comforter as both a top sheet and a blanket, and thus it is almost impossible to regulate the temperature under this thing.

My body generates a lot of heat, so I always turn the AC in the hotel room down as far as it will go. For presumably economic reasons, these hotels prevent the AC from going below 17 degrees Celsius (62.6 F). This is not nearly cold enough for me, so I always wake up after a few hours, sweating, heart beating rapidly, etc.

This is when I try thermoregulation: I stick one foot out into the air, then 2 feet, then a shoulder, etc., until I get to a temperature where I think I can sleep. Depending on the thickness of the blanket, I may end up with just a part of it covering my waist (such a lovely image!). My overall temperature seems OK for a while, but then the exposed parts of me get too cold and I crawl back under the blanket. After a few hours I wake up and the cycle begins again. (After posting this I’ll give sleep another try.)

Apropos of nothing above, I had words with a taxi driver this evening – which was quite an accomplishment, seeing as how I speak no Japanese and he speaks no English. We earlier had taken a taxi ride about 10 minutes away to have dinner with TO. After dinner, we hopped into a taxi to go back to our hotel. Twice the taxi driver asked TO about the name of the hotel and its location, after which he nodded and took off. He turned left and I knew he was going the wrong direction, but I said nothing. I politely handed him a map (provided by the hotel) showing the hotel’s location. Then I gave him my map from the hotel’s Web site. Whenever he came to a stop light, he put on the overhead light and his glasses, then studied the maps. Eventually he pulled out is professional taxi driver’s map.

Then he started fiddling with his fancy GPS, which all Japanese taxis seem to have, but it was instantly clear that he did not know how to use it. Also, when he tried to punch in some information, his hand trembled, suggesting a recovering alcoholic or something equally sinister.

Eventually, he wisely stopped to as another taxi driver for help, but he was confused as to the actual name of the hotel, so 2 or 3 times I had to call out the window to our advisor the name of the hotel.

Finally, after zig-zagging through this part of Tokyo, we arrived at our hotel. The cost on the meter was $30. I broke out the receipt from the outgoing ride and showed him it was only $24. He pointed to his meter that showed $30. I pointed to him and then made a zig-zag motion with my hand. He grumbled but eventually charged us only $24.

He was not a very objective or self-reflective guy. I was in no mood to be gracious. It’s probably fortunate we could not speak each other’s language.

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