As I'm looking around me, I'm comtempling the fact that once again, I'm the only foreigner, expect my sleeping traveling partner, on this overnight train that will bring to an end this great Chinese journey. Another hard seater, just like it started, to finish this amazing life experience in China. I can say one thing about this journey: holy shit! It was everything I didn't expected. It was so tasty, amazingly beautiful, brutally shocking, terribly dirty, nerve racking, patience tester and so on. I was pushed beyond every limit I have. Communication wise, patience, general habits and personnal space. I've experienced it in the worst time I could of chosen and that is Spring festival.
The festival is the biggest migration of people in one week. About one half of the country will leave their working town and go back home to the family. Spring Festival is the Christmas/New year of the Chinese People. For us, also called Chinese New Year. It all started with an overnight hard seater train to Guilin. 14 hours that would gave me a taste of the next 30 days! It was harsh, brutal and as they say, I've learned the hard way! By the way, hard seat means hard seat, church style benchs with a little cushion.
From that day, I've eaten so many good things. From noodles, Cantonese Chow Mein, soups of any kind, sandwiches, many many fried meats, dog included, and so on, but the best were certainly the almost crunchy bread with beef cooked on a skewer. So delicious. Too bad, that all over China, the use of MSG is everywhere. Some time the ''taste good salt'' as they call it is a little bit too much.
Communication: many of you know that I've been working for a news broadcaster and therefore over the past 6 years I've learned to carefully choose my words and also listened to so many conversations between journalists, line up editors, producers, so, I know when one word should be used instead of another word! Many of us would think, well it's same same. But indeed there's a difference. But guess what, when you're in a country when the only way of communication is pointing, mime, and gestures, I realized how futile words can be useless! Even basics things like chou chou with my arm up miming a train didn't really worked out because culturally speaking, for them a train isn't really mime like that! The sounds, the figures, the general conceptions of things are different! As of now, I can certainly say that this was a learning experience.
Slurping. I was taught, like pretty much everyone I know, from a early age to close my mouth when I chew and not to slurp my soup and so on. Well everytime I sat down to eat, the only thing I could hear was slurping around me. Wow. That was so nerve-racking. Patience, you'll get through this meal and everything will be fine. Well as of today I still can support it but I've worked hard on staying calm. I know embrace it and slurp happily along with the locals.
Spitting. Even more disgusting than slurping. Men and women will have everything hanging in their nose and throat and will spit it out. It's almost a noise contest and they will do it everywhere, streets of course, train stations, metro, buses, restaurants, name it. It was less intense in the bigger cities as there's more more signs of no spitting but still, disgusting for me, normal for them! Not my call.
Garbage. Just like the spitting, people throw their rubbish on the ground pretty much everywhere. There are no, or very little, rubbish cans on the street or in touristy areas and you'll be lucky to find one on the street food strip. Those strips were covered in skewer stick, plastic bags, little plates, chop sticks, napkins and such. But the impressive thing is that every morning when you go back to that street, it's spotless! From what I've seen, they prefer to pay cleaning crews instead of installing garbage cans. Fair enough, it's one way of doing it!
There's 1.3 billion people in this country and a small town here is somewhere around 1 million people !?!?!? I grew up in a town of 35 000 souls. There's people everywhere in this country. No mather where you go there will be somekind of crowd. Even on the great wall of China where we were 15 foreigners, there was 20 people to sell us things we didn't need! Therefore, having your personal bubble here, doesn't really exist. There will be people around you, and very close. Chinese people don't have the same approach to personal space, or should I say, they don't care. For exemple, at the train station you're trying to buy your ticket at the booth and this guy will lean over your shoulder, extend is arm with is money and ID card to make sure he'll be next or try to get in front of you. All of that while pushing you against or away from the counter. For me it was the end of the world. Dude, just get back in line. Well here, the principle of staying in line is merely inexistant. For a westerner, it's the worst experience because it goes beyond everything you know. But for the Chinses it's normal. When you think about it for a second, with that many people, you have to push your way otherwise, it's not like you'll get your turn, there's way too many people for that! Food is mostly the same way, you just have to be able to speak louder then everyone else, waving your money! Fair enough, I had the advantage of being different which sets me apart from the rest of the crowd. But in the end it was also a great culture learning experience.
Amazingly beautiful: Chinese people are kind, generous, trustworthy (almost everyone) and their country is certainly worth discovering. I've meet so many people able to ask me where I'm from and where I've been and having that 2 minutes conversation with them, made them happy and so was I. Having a map in my hand and trying to find my way, there would always be someone willing to help who couldn't speak a word of english nor can I speak mandarin but if you look closely, you can count how many corners the person is gesturising before turning right and so on! I've come to the conclusion that many of them are shy but if you make the first step, there's a whole new world that will open up and it's amazing. Language barrier certainly doesn't make full day tours, great friendship and so on, but it can simply be a hello, smile, friendly look, and life goes on. People were quite willing to help.
The country itself has much to offer aswell, full of culture, history and much more.
All in all. I've been to:
- Shenzhen overnight. Brand new city of 10+ millions that was built to withstand the mass production.
- Guilin. Nice city for 2 full days. Many beautifull parks, daytrip to Dragon backbone rice terraces. Departure city to:
- Yangshuo. That city is really nice. A little Mont Tremblant. I totally recommend to take a full day to go cycling in the country side.
- Xi'an. known for the Terracotta warriors. This city has much more to offer than just the Warriors, which I found greatly disappointing.
- Dunhuang. Would have been nice in the summer because half the town was closed because it was winter.
- Beijing I'd move there if I had the chance. Self explanatory. In my other post, I compared Beijing to Montréal.
- Shanghai. It was bucketing so I can't really comment.
- Hangzhou. It's a weekend city for the people of Shanghai. The lake is beautiful, the place charming. Worth going.
- Xiamen/Gulang Yu. Really nice. Little island with no cars. A good break from the Chinese road chaos. Certainly not a chinese vibe but still genuine.
China: Amazing experience, I'll have to come back.
