So I am traveling in China now. I have left behind ugly Beijing. I have left behind my ugly concrete neighbourhood, I have left behind the terribly polluted grey sky, I have left behind my crappy job... as least for a month...
We were supposed to go to Qingdao with Sean and the folks from Pingdingshan. That did not work out. They said we should just go for fun (read: no pay) we said no pay, no work. It would have been nice to have that 2000 kuai, but I guess we'll live without it.
We took a train straight to Shanghai. We got a sleeper on the new fast train... the very nice one that we had been hearing about. Or perhaps I should say we bought a sleeper, but missed our train. Luckily we got on the next one, but they would not give us sleepers, we had to spend the whole night on the uncomfortable seats.
The seat I found was next to a student from Shanghai. Confident from the visa interview he just had with the German consulate he struck up a conversation with me. It was the typical Chinese person's conversation covering such interesting topics as his myopic view of the world and the countries in it, the manditory lecture on Chinese culture, and him asking to be my friend. By the end of it I was more resigned than ever that the Chinese propaganda machine produces people who all have the same militant nationalist ideas that might someday make the world a much worse place to live. He will have a terrible time in Germany. He will not make any friends and he will come back to China confirmed in his ideas of Chinese superiority.
After such a fun night and one hour of terrible sleep, interupted only by snoring, loud throat clearing, and yelling, we arrived in Shanghai. Shanghai is a nice city. It is very modern, the sky is blue, people are well dressed and polite, and it is possible to enjoy walking. As we made our way to the Malaysian embassy to secure Rae's entry into their country, I could not help but regret my decision to return to Beijing and not Shanghai. After finding a hotel room and having a rest, we went for a long, pleasant walk to the bund and then back to the old Chinese town of Shanghai.
The next day we met my friend Johnny for dinner. Johnny is a Chinese guy who was born in Shanghai but grew up in Canada and is really more CBC than immigrant. Not surprisingly, he had a girl on his arm, a testament to his frat-boy smoothness. We had crayfish, the trendy food in Shanghai, dumplings and beer. Then we went back to his house for more beer. It turns out that Johnny's grandfather was a party member and was given a nice house right in the middle of the super nice French concession. After getting a sufficient buzz on we went out to the hottest expat hangout I have ever seen. There were seriously more than 300 people crowding into a two story bar and courtyard... maybe it was more like 400 people. Seriously, it was packed and almost everyone there was an expat. Not the crappy English teachers or diplomat's kids like in Beijing, but real working expats. Although I did not have much fun there and we left quickly, I realized that if I want to work in China, Shanghai is the place to be.
After one more day of sightseeing and enjoying Shanghai's unthreatening, non-monolithic modernity, we caught a late train to Hangzhou. Hangzhou is famous in China for its beauty but it turns out that the only beautiful thing is the West Lake. The rest of the city is much like any other Chinese city with it's random mix of modern buildings, construction sites, communist blocks, and dirt. Perhaps this makes the West Lake all the more beautiful. It is surrounded by greenery and to the south and west there are actually mountains giving the whole thing a bit of a "vancouvery" feeling. We walked around the edge until we found a nice pagoda. Undeterred by the RMB40 entrance fee, we took the escalator up to what turned out to be a tacky, new pagoda built on the ruins of one that had been looted to the point of collapse in the 20s. While the veiw from the top was quite special, we could not help but think of how tacky the whole thing was. The quality was low as was the taste. It is as if the Italians had built a new football stadium on top of the Collesium. Unfortunately, we were unable to walk the whole way around the lake because the Typhoon that we had only just heard about was starting to cause rain in Hangzhou. That night, we braved the elements to go out to a really cool restaruant and spend way too much money... (well only about C$16, but that is more than our daily food budget) but we had a good time.
This morning, with a new resolve to spend as little money as we can, we had a breakfast of noodle soup and took a bus to catch another bus to the airport where, it turned out that our flight had been canceled (it was not canceled as of the time we boarded the airporter bus...). We then took this opportunity to take a different airporter bus to a different city where we are right now... I don't remember the name of this city, but it seems nice enough... more later..
Marc
We were supposed to go to Qingdao with Sean and the folks from Pingdingshan. That did not work out. They said we should just go for fun (read: no pay) we said no pay, no work. It would have been nice to have that 2000 kuai, but I guess we'll live without it.
We took a train straight to Shanghai. We got a sleeper on the new fast train... the very nice one that we had been hearing about. Or perhaps I should say we bought a sleeper, but missed our train. Luckily we got on the next one, but they would not give us sleepers, we had to spend the whole night on the uncomfortable seats.
The seat I found was next to a student from Shanghai. Confident from the visa interview he just had with the German consulate he struck up a conversation with me. It was the typical Chinese person's conversation covering such interesting topics as his myopic view of the world and the countries in it, the manditory lecture on Chinese culture, and him asking to be my friend. By the end of it I was more resigned than ever that the Chinese propaganda machine produces people who all have the same militant nationalist ideas that might someday make the world a much worse place to live. He will have a terrible time in Germany. He will not make any friends and he will come back to China confirmed in his ideas of Chinese superiority.
After such a fun night and one hour of terrible sleep, interupted only by snoring, loud throat clearing, and yelling, we arrived in Shanghai. Shanghai is a nice city. It is very modern, the sky is blue, people are well dressed and polite, and it is possible to enjoy walking. As we made our way to the Malaysian embassy to secure Rae's entry into their country, I could not help but regret my decision to return to Beijing and not Shanghai. After finding a hotel room and having a rest, we went for a long, pleasant walk to the bund and then back to the old Chinese town of Shanghai.
The next day we met my friend Johnny for dinner. Johnny is a Chinese guy who was born in Shanghai but grew up in Canada and is really more CBC than immigrant. Not surprisingly, he had a girl on his arm, a testament to his frat-boy smoothness. We had crayfish, the trendy food in Shanghai, dumplings and beer. Then we went back to his house for more beer. It turns out that Johnny's grandfather was a party member and was given a nice house right in the middle of the super nice French concession. After getting a sufficient buzz on we went out to the hottest expat hangout I have ever seen. There were seriously more than 300 people crowding into a two story bar and courtyard... maybe it was more like 400 people. Seriously, it was packed and almost everyone there was an expat. Not the crappy English teachers or diplomat's kids like in Beijing, but real working expats. Although I did not have much fun there and we left quickly, I realized that if I want to work in China, Shanghai is the place to be.
After one more day of sightseeing and enjoying Shanghai's unthreatening, non-monolithic modernity, we caught a late train to Hangzhou. Hangzhou is famous in China for its beauty but it turns out that the only beautiful thing is the West Lake. The rest of the city is much like any other Chinese city with it's random mix of modern buildings, construction sites, communist blocks, and dirt. Perhaps this makes the West Lake all the more beautiful. It is surrounded by greenery and to the south and west there are actually mountains giving the whole thing a bit of a "vancouvery" feeling. We walked around the edge until we found a nice pagoda. Undeterred by the RMB40 entrance fee, we took the escalator up to what turned out to be a tacky, new pagoda built on the ruins of one that had been looted to the point of collapse in the 20s. While the veiw from the top was quite special, we could not help but think of how tacky the whole thing was. The quality was low as was the taste. It is as if the Italians had built a new football stadium on top of the Collesium. Unfortunately, we were unable to walk the whole way around the lake because the Typhoon that we had only just heard about was starting to cause rain in Hangzhou. That night, we braved the elements to go out to a really cool restaruant and spend way too much money... (well only about C$16, but that is more than our daily food budget) but we had a good time.
This morning, with a new resolve to spend as little money as we can, we had a breakfast of noodle soup and took a bus to catch another bus to the airport where, it turned out that our flight had been canceled (it was not canceled as of the time we boarded the airporter bus...). We then took this opportunity to take a different airporter bus to a different city where we are right now... I don't remember the name of this city, but it seems nice enough... more later..
Marc
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