Here Is a Big Post Full of Many Pictures and Adventures!

Oh hi again guys! It's another post, already! We've had a fair amount
of down time the last few days, what with traveling all over the
place. Trains, airports, that kind of thing. So I've already got two
things written (on my ipod) that I have yet to post - first, I skipped
writing about Xi'an and was pretty chintzy about Beijing, so that's
first. Then, well, you know how I mentioned having dinner with Sally's
dad's family. It was nothing short of hilarious. The whole thing
hinged on a borderline- offensive joke I made that Sally barely even
understood and tried to translate into Chinese... it was a fiasco,
stay tuned for that.

So, Beijing! We hit most of the major tourist destinations - Tiananmen
Square, the Forbidden City, the famous Tibetan Buddhist temple Yong He
Gong and some of the few remaining ancient alleyways, or hutongs. The
hutongs were narrow, bustling, a combination of faux- and
actually-traditional, and full of tourist crap. I loved them. We spent
one of the nights milling around at Ho Hai, which we were informed by
Sally's cousin is THE nightlife spot for Chinese natives. Chinese
nightlife, it turns out, is milling around after dinner while
middle-aged people do watered-down versions of ballroom dance in
public squares. But everything was lit up like Times Square/Christmas,
and it all reflected on the lake in the dark, and everybody was
wearing such tall shiny heels - it was lovely.

Chinese women always wear heels, and never flip flops, by the way.
Even to the grocery store. It's confusing. And their heels rarely
match their outfits. They're usually generously coated in bows,
ruffles, and/or rhinestones. They seem to pick out each item based on
its individual level of adorability, without attention to the other
items in the outfit - like "All right. Shiny hat, shiny dress, shiny
shoes. We're good to go!" And then you end up with a leopard-print
hat, flowered dress, and wedge heels in another color altogether,
which is what Sally's aunt wore when she took us to Yong He Gong.
Although there are some young people who look more like what I'm used
to.

So, Beijing was much as expected, and probably just like you've heard.
Big, developed city that looks very Western but has pockets of local
culture. Lots of noodles and dumplings, lots of well-dressed Chinese
people and comparatively schmucky tourists. Horrifying, just
terrifying traffic. (Well. The traffic moves slowly and people pay
careful attention, but that's only because the movement of everybody
around you - not just cars, also bikes, pedestrians, and semis - is
totally unpredictable.)

When we return to Beijing to fly out, we'll be seeing the new
up-and-coming art district, a temple and a palace. (Another temple!?!!
I hope there won't be too many pagodas!)

In contrast to Beijing, Xi'an, home of the terracotta warriors, is
probably not a place you've heard much about! And it defied our
expectations. We'd heard that it was dirty, dangerous and boring. But
only some of that was true! The streets were very clean, like almost
everywhere we've been to, but the air was just as bad as Beijing. In
neither city did we see a single hour of clear skies. It's dim, dingy
and smells of exhaust. Xi'an may very well have been full of
pickpockets and scam artists, but we were really careful with our bags
and had no problems.

And Xi'an really scored in the not-boring department! Sally's uncle's
boss' son Tony took us around and practiced his English with us. He
was a fun and thoughtful guide. First thing, we saw archaeologists
excavating the terracotta warriors! They're still working on it and
they have the majority of the statues left to dig up and reconstruct!
Isn't that insane!? Here's a picture.

It was really dark inside, so the pictures blow. Sorry.

I mentioned awhile ago that my whiteness endows me with certain powers
in China. One of these was revealed to me at the terracotta warriors
site. So, back when we were visiting the Forbidden City, a couple of
groups of Asian people stopped me, giggling, to ask if they could take
pictures with me. Though mind-boggled, I complied. Then, as soon as we
took a look at the terracotta warriors, AN ENTIRE TOUR GROUP WANTED
PICTURES WITH ME, ONE BY ONE. The guys put their arms around me like I
was their girlfriend and giggled. And then we walked thirty feet and
more people wanted pictures. This happened over and
over again, the whole time we were in Xi'an. And in Chongqing. And on
the cruise - it became obvious that people were "surreptitiously"
taking pictures of me when they were supposed to be taking pictures of
the Three Gorges. And now in Hangzhou. EVEN SALLY'S GRANDPA wanted a
"girlfriend" picture with me. And her uncle, and her 8-year-old male
cousin. IS THAT NOT CREEPY

I was thrown into insecurity by these requests at first. Why the h***
do all these d*** ******** people want to take pictures with me?
Slowly it became a little clearer. We noticed that many of the
picture-requesters seemed to be from places where not a lot of
Westerners go - rural people visiting Tiananmen Square, natives of
less touristy towns. We asked Tony for his thoughts, and he said, and
I humbly quote, "Chinese seldom see foreigners, especially a beautiful
one." In the shiniest, most upscale shopping areas, many ads had
blonde models. And apparently young Chinese kids like Lady Gaga & co.
We realized that Scott got far fewer picture requests than I did, and
never without me right beside him, while Sally never got a single
picture request :( A female Tan family friend said "You are a panda!"
in English, marginally clarifying to Sally in Chinese that "she has
the appeal of a panda to tourists".

And finally at dinner a couple nights ago, Sally's family spent five
minutes appraising me like I'm some damn horse: They said my skin is
so white and luminous, it's so much lighter == better than Sally's
(who thanks to a week at Myrtle Beach in May looks like a Navajo).
That, and my hair is pretty, were the two focuses of the conversation,
from what I can tell.

Basically, with my blue eyes and light hair, I am a walking
representative of western girls. They see blond-haired models and
actresses in all their airbrushed, celebritied glory all the time, but
they almost never see an actual, palpable 20-something blond girl.
(Aurburnish brown hair with blondish brown roots apparently will do
just fine for "blond" in China.) So that explains all the "girlfriend"
pictures... "Look guys, I'm dating Cameron Diaz! Close enough,
amirite?" Aside from the gluttony they have for American culture,
Chinese people also turn out to have a long history of sliding-scale
racism, where the darker your skin is, the worse you get treated, and
vice versa. My pallor fits nicely into this schema. Thanks, Dad!

(Plus, Sally and I are both young women. We're approachable. And she
obviously speaks Chinese - what often happens is that some giggling
women ask SALLY, in Chinese, if they can have a picture with ME, and
she relays the request to me and stands on the sidelines :( How
depressing that must be!)

Mystery solved! Next we stopped at another archaeological site nearby
that was way less impressive and full of scams, Huaqing Hot Springs.
(I forget the dynasty, sorry. It's around 1300 years old.) It was once
a bunch of hot tubs for the emperor and his 3,000 concubines. Now,
it's a bunch of dusty dried-up hot tubs with cheesy new pagoda-style
roofs built over them and poorly translated explanations of who
exactly was allowed to use which hot tub. But the grounds were very
photogenic! And Premier Zhou Enlai once took baths there!

Frustratingly, we spend extra to get an English tour guide who spent
the entire time trying to sell fake jade to Sally in Chinese.

We spent the evening doing karaoke with Tony!

Next day, we explored Xi'an proper. Most of the cool things are inside
the city walls, which have been preserved for God knows how long.
They're tall and have 18-meter-wide walkways on top. At one point, we
rented a double bike and rode all the way around the city center on
top of the walls in just over an hour. It was smoggy and dim, as
usual, but it was cool to see the contrast between what's inside and
outside. Zoning was obviously at work, as the outside was an endless
sea of ugly high-rises (a staple in China, where there are dozens of
cities larger than Chicago) while the inside contained only short
buildings, many of them in traditional pagodaed styles.

We ran into some monks by the south gate of the city walls and took
pictures with them! They responded by blessing us in Chinese, "You're
Americans. Go learn new ideas and bring them back to China. And
remember the name of our group!" Guess what, I already forgot it.

On the second day we spent the morning wandering around the Muslim
Quarter, which was definitely my favorite part of Xi'an. Aside from
the food, it was just incredibly picturesque, with traditional stone
architecture, lots of red lanterns hanging, carts selling calligraphy
brushes and flutes and postcards everywhere, alleys and courtyards,
and a ton of people milling about.

                                               (That's Sally and Tony walking in front of me.)

                                                        Somebody was selling birds!

That afternoon, we went to Big Goose Pagoda, outside the city walls.
There is also a Little Goose Pagoda but we skipped it. Big Goose is a
complex of Buddhist temples and buildings for the monks to use, with a
very tall pagoda in the center. I took a lot of pictures here so
that's going to be overrepresented :)

Here is THE pagoda, with a statue in the front. The design of these
places always follows feng shui, so the buildings are on a north-south
axis, which in this picture is marked by the statue & pagoda.

This is a 20-food Buddha statue inside one of the buildings, also on
the north-south axis. This is really typical of the several Buddhist
temples we've seen so far. There's space for people to kneel and pray.
You can also light votives and incense outside:

\

The smells & bells aspect of Buddhist tradition really reminded me of
Catholicism, although the content of the worship couldn't differ more
starkly. Maybe not so many bells. But a lot of rites and very ornate
places of worship.

We walked around the grounds a bit, most notably chasing a monk who
was chasing around some chickens with a broom. We were trying to get a
good action shot, but failed.

I couldn't resist:

So that was Xi'an! From Xi'an we took a nice overnight train to
Chongqing, where we had to figure out what to do with ourselves for 9
hours before boarding our cruise. Chongqing's not a very interesting
city. We first hunkered down for an hour or two in a cafe with
internet and typed like mad on our ipods. Then, we went on a quest for
a decent massage parlour. We had 2-hour full body + foot massage +
foot treatment for about $7! This country. We then met up with her
uncle's former coworker who had bought our cruise tickets for us, paid
her back for the tickets, and went out for hotpot with her. (What
would we do without Sally's family network? They've done everything
for us. I have no idea how you'd get around without a Chinese speaker
and connections. This friggin country.)

The next three days were passed on the cruise, so now I'm caught up! A
few photos to give you the basic idea:

We were the only Americans on the boat. As I mentioned, there were
three older white couples, two Dutch and one South African, which is
basically Dutch too (thanks colonialism!) They didn't know each other,
and I'm not sure how they ended up together. It was lovely. A
highlight was when we did the YMCA in front of a bunch of gawking
Chinese people. After the crew talent show, they put on the Village
People song and disco lights, and of course we felt it our duty as
Americans to educate them on our culture. It's a measure of how
engrossing we must have been that not everybody ran to the door the
instant the program was over - they waited for the YMCA to end first
:)


-Beker