wandering Ka

When I came back from China and anyone asked me how the holiday had been, I didn't know what to reply!
I keep thinking that it was a nice holiday but not the best I've had so far. Why is that? I guess the main thing was that there weren't many people I could talk to. Not many people could speak english and when I go to a foreign country I like to talk to locals and listen to their stories.
It was also tough to go around because hardly anyone could speak English even at bus and train stations. My plan was to spend as much time as possible in the remote villages, but after the first two days I had enough. Gosh, if I remember... A friend told me that the phrasebook would have been useful and he was damn right! But still it's not easy to find in it what you want to say and sometimes people didn't even bother to read what I was showing them, they just run away..
Anyway. In these villages it was terribly cold during the night. There was no heating in the house and two duvets weren't enough to keep me warm. That was April. I have no idea how they manage during the winter. And you can ask everyone who knows me, I am usually fine with cold. But that was too much. I couldn't sleep well. At the third day, in this wonderful village called Little Likeng, a terrible migraine hit me and I had to go to my room at 3 in the afternoon. I slept until 6 of the next morning (with my nose frozen). So I missed the dusk light and the red lanterns turning on... And most of all I missed the peace of the late afternoon when the tour buses leave!
You have to know that there is one billion chinese. And you can tell that when you go to China. Every turistic spot has millions of visitors every day. Not many foreigners. Millions of chinese tourists. Hundreds of tourist buses fill the parking lots and crowds of chinese in the streets push and pull you around ... It's like Venice for the carnival. Just every day and everywhere like this.
Let's take Little Likeng for example. A beautiful old village. But rebuilt for the sake of the tourists. Everything is fake. Every house is turned into a shop or restaurant. I couldn't see anyone doing some normal housekeeping. The same in Lijiang, a beautiful old village in the sunny region of Yunnan. In one of the villages in the rice fields north of Guilin (the Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces) it was even worse! Stalked by women wearing "traditional dresses" that wanted to sell you clothes, bracelets and even postcards (! the only place where I saw postcards in China) with pictures of the famous women with long hair. A true disappointment. I was hoping to see these ladies with long hair doing their jobs or looking after their children... No.
They call it "culture shock". Certainly when you go to a country so different from your own it is quite a shock. The first shock was getting on the train in the underground. I am used to England where people respectfully first wait for those inside the train to get off before they try to step in. In China it's all a pushing. The one that pushes harder wins. I found it soooo annoying! And no respect for queues. There is always someone that arrives late and puts himself well beyond you.
On my fourth day in China I saw a little boy with his ass and little penis in the air. I thought he had ripped his trousers after they had left home and I felt sorry and embarassed for the mum. I thought that I wouldn't have stayed out, I would have gone home immediately. Well, turns out this is not a child with ripped trousers and it wasn't the first or the last time that his penis was touching the plastic seat of a bus. I saw many other children with their bottom out. That makes it easier for them to pee or poo whenever they need it and ... wherever. If you see a shit on a pavement in China it's more likely to be a child's than a dog's.
I can't believe I haven't mentioned yet the thing that struck me most: the spitting! It's a particularly noisy habit, and of course a bit disgusting. Well, it never happened to me, but you should always be careful not to be hit while walking in a crowd.. Anyway, I guess the funny part of it is that they probably found it disgusting that I blew my nose in a tissue (and then put it into my pocket!!) as they throw out everything when they sneeze, they never use tissues. I guess this is actually useful. How many times do we find ourselves without tissues when we need them?
I still don't know why on the bus the seat next to me was always the last one to be taken. Is it because I have a strange smell? Or out of respect? Or fear? And then in other circumstances while you are drinking a coffee (oh coffee... how I missed it!) in a café, people stop to take a picture with you, the "white monkey", or they steal one, pretending they are photographing the tree behind you.... I didn't mind. Well, I was actually flattered, I felt like a star! But why then all these different approaches?
The coffee... Chinese people drink litres of tea during the day. Everyone has their flask, more or less fashionable, and you can find boiling water dispensers almost everywhere. I am not a tea person, and I am not really awake until I have my coffee in the morning. But to find one, what an adventure! In the big cities there are plenty of Starbucks or McDonalds or their "Dico's" (my favourite, because you could find a Nescafè at £0.80, I refused to pay £2.50 for a cappuccino when I could have noodles for £0.50). In the villages it was impossible. So I had to wander around all day in a semi-inconscious state...
Nevertheless, I miss it.
I want to go back, go to Tibet and Nepal and India.
I don't know what it did to me. Sure it wasn't easy to travel and it didn't go as it was meant to, but maybe this is what made it a bit special? That's the best part of a trip, the unplanned events, isn't it?