Telling me
all about China before I
left, Rosie McC said that Xian (Xi'an -
pronounced like Sheean - just a wee city compared to Beijing
and Shanghai,
with only 7 million people!) was a great place, and she wasn't lying! After a few days I decided to extend my stay
to five nights at the brilliant Xiang Zi Men hostel, a traditional Chinese old
building with courtyards and all the trimmings, facing out onto the monumental
south wall of the city.
Eva arrived
from Shanghai the day after me, and we went to a Tibetan restaurant for a
traditional hotpot meal, which involved a man with a net going over to a tiny
pond in the corner, fishing out a large wriggling carp (an oversized goldfish I
think), and bringing it over, weighed at 1.5 kilos for us to decide if it looked
Ok. About three minutes later it was
gutted and bubbling away on an electric stove set into the middle of our table,
joined by oily water, spices, lemongrass, chillies, bamboo, beansprouts, huge
amounts of garlic, and - whenever we chose to chuck them in - sliced potato and
cauliflower (slightly dull choices, but these were the only optional extras from
a long list that our waitress could translate.)
All very delicious.
As well as
trying to teach me to play Chinese chess, LiYong, a very nice crazy mentalist
from Chengdu, looking for a new job in Xi'an (but mainly just fooling around)
who insisted on using a special pipe to smoke normal cigarettes, took me, Dan
and Adam (who I'd met in Shanghai) and to a proper local restaurant pronounced
Loulu (=Happy) the following night - we wouldn't have stood a chance
deciphering the menu or bossing the waitresses around without him, and we had a
huge meal complete with drinks, tea and soup for about 90 pence each.
Talking of
food, Eva noticed it in the hostel, and I had the same on the street the next
day - fruit salads here include tomatoes!
Fair enough and quite nice actually, I remember being told they're
fruits... as long as I don't get a vegetable stir fry which includes
strawberries!
Between
Eva, Dan, Adam and me going to see the Terracotta Army, it turned out that
three of us had studied archaeology, but none of us knew a single thing about
Chinese prehistory, so it was lucky that, on the journey from Xian, the staff
on the minibus changed so much that we were told the same stories and facts
three times!
The
terracotta warriors were discovered in 1976 by
farmers who were digging a well.
Incidentally, one has become a celebrity in China because when Bill Clinton
came to Xian on a presidential visit, he met Yang Zhifa, one the farmers and
asked for an autograph. Being
illiterate, the farmer drew a small circle for Clinton instead and got his 15 minutes of
fame.
Lots more
excavation is to be done, but almost 10,000 life size warriors have been found
already - each with different facial figures, and specific ranks and functions.
In the 3rd
century BC, Qin Shi Huang, the Emperor responsible for the terracotta army
managed to unite China
and also started the Great Wall, but for all his achievements he sounds like a
bit of a git! He tricked and killed
hundreds of intellectuals; ordered all books that weren't to do with his family
history or agriculture to be destroyed; hundreds of his concubines that didn't
have children had to die as soon as he did, and he even decided that all the
makers of his terracotta army should be killed as soon as they were
finished! No surprise that Mao was a big
fan.
Before
growing a full mullet, I decided to try getting a haircut in Xian, which
started with a mandatory head massage and shampooing - I tried to find out how
much it was all going to cost but in the end had to hope for the best. After that I was put in a seat and a Chinese
car magazine was thrust into my hands.
Ten minutes later... 'Hello' - the barber was ready, and the risky
business of trying to communicate using only hand signals began.
Cowboy's
clothes floor (I think that meant jeans and checked shirts)
I wasn't
sure from the signals if he'd decided to take a little bit off, or leave me
with a little bit of hair, but a lots of scissor cutting went on, and at the
end my hair was a very slightly shorter version of what it had been an hour
before! £1.
I also
hired a bike to ride the 15km route around the top of the huge city walls that
enclose the central part of Xian.
Supposedly only one other city in China still has complete defensive
walls intact. Never got to see all the way along any of the walls, because of the ever-present smog.
Though the
hostel had WiFi, they seemed to have some upload problem or limit, so I
couldn't upload to iStock. I decided to
try the lobby of a swanky hotel, and went to the Howard Johnson
Plaza, not too far from
hostel, on the other side of the city wall.
I tried to impersonate a guest by wearing my smartest clothes, but still
stuck out like a sore thumb as a young, hip, streetwise, undercover traveller(!)
from the chinos and pressed shirts of the middle aged tourists.
Anyway, I
didn't get chucked out, and sipped my beer (felt I should buy something, but at
29 yuan for a small beer at the HoJo versus 4 yuan at the hostel for a large
beer it was like being back in Scandinavia!) as the cheesy music came from a
white piano on a fairy light encrusted revolving stage. When I arrived there was a man playing, but
he'd got bored and switched the piano to autoplay before I left.
On my last
day I headed on a long trip out of the city to climb the Taoist holy mountain
Hua Shan, joined by a few real pilgrims, and many thousands of Chinese
tourists. Thankfully most of them didn't
climb too high, as the steep and narrow walkways at the start were ridiculously
crowded with pushing and shoving tourists. Trying to keep polite when you're
being repeatedly jabbed by elbows and stepped in front of can be hard!
There were
no paths, but chunky steps cut into the rock for the emperors who came to the
peaks - back when Xian was the Imperial capital - to appease the gods,
presumably for their appalling behaviour, like having to themselves regular
lavish eighty course meals that could have fed thousands of their starving
peasant subjects!
But the
reason for the mountains being considered holy was clear, which me and my
camera - only with a 50mm lens couldn't do justice. Huge sheer drops all over the place with
autumnal trees everywhere they had a chance to grow.
As well as
pilgrims and tourists, these sherpa style guys climb up and down the peaks
three times daily, carrying gas, water and food. I had to have total respect for this guy, who
- while climbing with his heavy load, was also able effortlessly to play a
harmonica and smoke a cigarette, at the same time. He also tried out his English phrases -
'hello', 'how are you', 'good afternoon' and 'I love you'!
On my way
down from a peak towards the end of the day, I stopped in at a teahouse, and
there he was again, grabbing a bite to eat.
Four Chinese guys were also there, and they managed to (with some help
from 20 yuan) persuade him to sing a song, which he did with great passion, his
booming and operatic voice drawing others in to watch and listen from the level
above in the pagoda. After the applause
I added my 10 yuan for the effort (sitting right next to him I'd got a good
listen), and that prompted him to launch into a further three songs, one of
which was a sort of very long Chinese rap, involving audience participation. Then he sat down for a smoke and some more
tea to get him ready for another load.
Chongqing Strange Tasting Horsebeans. Do exactly what it says on the tin!
Leaving
Xian, it was sad saying goodbye to the friendly staff and new friends at the
hostel, especially to LiYong (catchphrases 'Come On' and, sung Ronan Keating
stylee, 'It's a little bit funny'), who'd been a constant source of laughter and
fun, plus good advice on China
and Mandarin. He kindly gave me a dvd of
'Cheers' - not the US
sitcom, but the English name of a sweet voiced Taiwanese pop sensation who
sings melodic ballads.
Wet One's
Whistle
Then the 18
hour journey from Xian to Chengdu,
on a much older train, with the carriages identical to the older of the Russian
trains, except that they had squat rather than western style toilets. Thankfully my stomach was back to normal by
now, as I didn't fancy trying to use one for serious business on a swaying and
jolting train, especially after reading somewhere the advice to westerners -
'until you are experienced in using a squat toilet, remove your trousers and
pants completely to avoid defecating on them'!!
How to stop
the carriage
Having
memorised a new phrase 'ni jiang ying wen ma' (do you speak English) with - I
thought - all the right tones, I tried it out on a smiling guard in the
restaurant carriage who'd said 'hello', but neither him nor the other laughing
staff members could work out what I was on about - I think they thought I was
speaking English still. But I did manage
to get a cold tea when I was after a hot coffee!
More
general stuff about China
- Lots of
employees. I suppose communist
traditions and a population of 1.3 billion have something to do with it, but
it's sometimes astonishing to see the number of staff shops, restaurants,
trains etc have. In one fairly small,
normal priced clothes shop there were four employees in a line outside the
door, about eight near the front of the shop as I went in, all wanting to help
me find something, three or four behind the till, many others scattered around
plus two security guards. I went to the
changing room and there were two more staff members, just having a natter and a
laugh. Sometimes if getting a drink or
something, one person will reach to the fridge and get the drink, one will
write a receipt and take your cash, and a third will - if it's not a modern
till - use a calculator (or sometimes an abacus) then hand over your change.
- Although
most young city-dwelling Chinese are very trendy and cool, it seems to be standard
practise that the men carry their girlfriends' frilly and spangley handbags for
them while window shopping.
- The food
is great, but after weeks of spicy, oily and dumplingy meals, I've sometimes
found myself craving things like milk, bread, coffee and cereal, which are
pretty much only available from cop-out western or western style coffee shops
etc. I've copped out and paid outrageous
prices for the odd latte or bowl of cereal once or twice!
Concuss with the
world together. Not really sure what
they're trying to get at with that tagline!
