Maggie in the Middle Kingdom

Letting the Secret Out

Life is good in Kunming, especially if you're here to study Chinese, travel and make friends. Here's a story I recently had published in the Beijing Review about why more people are coming to Kunming to do that.

Rail Trip

I spent the past two-plus weeks on the road, half of the time with my dear friend Maggie (and no, that's not a joke about preferring my own company, although I pretty much do. I actually have a good friend with whom I share the most popular name for American female dogs). We spent several days exploring Chengdu, and then took the train to Lhasa.

I really enjoy introducing people to China, especially friends like Maggie who are adventurous, curious, and willing to roll with the punches. We ate well--I gave her her first spicy taste of Chendgu hot pot, chou la mien, jiaozi and ma pou dofu. On our two day trips--to the winter wonderland of Qingchengshan and to see the centuries-old giant Buddha at Leshan--she especially liked the classic Chinese breakfast-on-the-run, of steamy hot baozi stuffed with vegetables. We took two decent hikes on our day trips, went to a Sichuan opera performance and visited a gallery exhibiting a couple of very talented young Chinese artists.

Our train ride to Lhasa was my first in China, and probably the most beautiful one I'll ever take. But riding a train at an elevation most people only ever reach in an airplane comes at a price. On the morning of day two of the 45-hour ride, I woke up feeling vigorous despite our climb to nearly 5,000 meters above sea level. Maggie was not feeling so great, however, and about 20 minutes after I got up, my body also suddenly became aware of its oxygen deprivation. I broke into a cold sweat and almost fainted. We spent the rest of the ride stumbling around like numskulls and taking hits from our oxygen tubes.

Running Through Tiger Leaping

If I had to use one word to describe my trip with Jesse, it would be aggressive. If she had to use one word, she would probably want to say "cold," but then she'd think about it and say something like, "amazing." It was also a trip where I believe we got to see some things that will look very different in just a couple of years—Tiger Leaping Gorge and the town of Shaxi. Tiger Leaping is being affected by dam projects, and both places will be impacted by development and increased tourism.

Jesse arrived on a Friday night after one week in Cambodia. On Saturday I gave her a whirlwind tour of Kunming, and we came home early to pack our bags for an early-morning flight.

We got up at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday to catch a 7:15 flight to Lijiang. When we landed at 9 a.m., I decided that since our time was short we might as well get right to Tiger Leaping Gorge and find out about doing the two-day trek. We got a late start—3 p.m., as opposed to the recommended morning to midday start.

When we arrived at the first guest house along the trail, Naxi Family Guesthouse, at 5 p.m., it just seemed too early to stopp. What would we do alone up in the mountains for the next seven hours? So instead we decided to try to kill ourselves by continuing on to the Cha Ma, or Teahorse, a guesthouse that was at least two hours away on a mountain trail that included the famous 28 Bends, a series of steep switchbacks alongside sharp drops. We ended up doing some hiking in the dark, which is about as smart as wandering around the nasty part of Bed-Stuy drunk in stilettos listening to your iPod at 1 am. And Jesse and I, while we're both in good shape, are really city girls unaccustomed to just about everything about hiking. But we made it, stumbling into Cha Ma at about 7:15. I took the below photo  of the guesthouse in the morning.

The next day we started much earlier. The portion of the trail we hiked Monday, from Cha Ma to Tina's Guesthouse, has several waterfalls, which are stunningly beautiful but also a little difficult to cross. Between the cliff face to your left and the sharp drop to your right, you have a few meters of slippery rocks and running water. I'm glad we did it in the daylight. Several times we heard the blasting of dynamite, carving out the earth for the building of dams along the Yangtze.

At Tina's, we linked up with two Dutch couples and rented a van together. Before driving us back to Lijiang, the driver took us down to the viewing spot at Tiger Leaping Gorge, at the point where the rapids rage at an astounding rate. In stark contrast to my visit in July, when the stairway down to the gorge was shoulder-to-shoulder with tourists, this time we saw about a dozen other travelers and enjoyed a few undisturbed minutes next to the roaring brown rapids.

That evening in Lijiang we had drinks with a group of American rafting guides, in town to lead one of the few whitewater expeditions that's been run on the Yangtze. They told us the story of the two (I believe it was two- one American, one Chinese) groups that "successfully" rafted the gorge. They sent guys down in capsule rafts, which are basically really tough big barrels. Both teams suffered several fatalities. They also told us that they believe the Tiger Leaping rapids, and large stretches of the Yangtze in Yunnan, will soon lose much of their power to the dams being built.

A Little Fresh Air

Two weeks ago, I went camping with a group of friends. We took a bus about an hour outside of Kunming, and then rode an hour or so in vans to a village in the mountains not far from Shi Lin, or Stone Forest. We hiked a few hours on dusty roads and through some woods and past a tiny village, until we arrived at our spot. We camped in a cave with a ceiling that was probably about 30 meters high. A stream ran through our cave, which was both convenient and pleasant. The sound of the bubbling stream helped me fall asleep at night, but totally confused me when I woke up in the morning and thought it was raining.

Our Chinese guides cooked the best meal that I've ever had camping (okay, I've not been camping much, but trust me, it was good). We had sauteed eggs and tomatoes, spicy cured beef, and soup made from a delicious green squash. While we never really got away from civilization—trucks rumbled past us on the dirt roads, and farmers brought their grazing cattle and goats past our campsite—it was a very nice way to pass the weekend, and the most tourist-free nature that I've seen yet in China.

On the walk back, we passed through a tiny village and two old men, 82 and 85 years old, were sitting outside their house. One of my friends started snapping photos of one of them, and he absolutely loved it. He took off his hat and posed. He and his old buddy had two of the most beautiful faces I've ever seen—warm and knowing is the best way I can think of to describe it. It is a little crazy to imagine what an 85-year-old in rural China might have lived through and seen. I am sure that when these guys were 50 years old, they never imagined they would be sitting out in their yard and talking with Americans, an Australian and a Brit.

When my friends finished snapping photos (I could only take a couple as my brand new camera still had very little memory then), one of the men said something to my friend about money. I thought he was asking for money in exchange for posing for the photos. This threatened to ruin the whole encounter for me. But then I heard him use the word for send. He was asking my friend to send the photos, and offering to pay to have them sent. This was the second time in China that I've been struck by the value of snapshots to people who don't have access to cameras or film developing shops.

Orchids and Jasmine

Kunming’s nickname, the spring city, comes from its year-round spring-like climate. And from this climate comes great growing conditions for everything from rice to corn to the marijuana plants that grow wild on the city’s outskirts. Yunnan province’s biggest industry is tobacco, but it also produces a lot of flowers. Most of those come from a town called Ju Hua Cun (Chrysanthemum Village), 90 minutes from where I live.

A few days ago, my friend Jenny and I took the bus to Ju Hua Cun. Like many things in China, it was much less charming than the fantasy I had created for myself. I had imagined driving past acres of brightly colored flowers, and pulling into a little town where camellia blossoms decorated storefronts, bicycles, even trashcans (okay, I didn’t really expect this). Anyway, Ju Hua Cun is a dusty little town where the shops that don’t sell flowers sell home and building hardware like pipes, doors and sheets of metal. And they cultivate the flowers under silvery hothouse coverings, so instead of seeing acres of flowers you see what looks like a lake covered with dirty snow.

But if Ju Hua Cun was disappointing after a superficial glance, its flower market exceeded my expectations. Along a long muddy road, both sides were lined with greenhouses selling orchids, dahlias, violets bonsai and bamboo trees. Some sold pots, vases and trellises. If it weren’t for my lack of a truck to carry it all home in, I probably would have bought a giant pot and created an indoor garden in my apartment’s empty room.

The vendors mainly sell to retailers, but were happy to bargain with us. I bought two jasmine plants for 18 yuan (just over two dollars). Jenny bought a potted orchid and a rosemary bush for 25 yuan, and they threw in 10 stems of orchids, each with at least four blossoms on it. The orchids smell great in my apartment, and I'll be going back. Maybe with a truck this time.

The Rest of the Trip - Ko Samet

When you last heard from me, I was relaxing on Ko Samet with three new Kunming-ren friends. I met them  on the boat from the mainland out to the island. I heard them speaking the local dialect, Kunming-hua, and introduced myself.

We spent two nights on Ko Samet, a beautiful little island south and east of Bangkok. To get there you take a bus ride of 4 or 5 hours, then a thirty-minute boat ride. If you visit Bangkok and must have some beach time, this is the place to go. Along the way is Pattaya, which I did not visit; it's supposedly swarming with sex trade. So if you want to catch an STD, or just understand how ridiculous the Thai skin industry is, make a stop there.

The Bungalow Beat

Ko Samet is about 5 km long, and not too wide; it's a national park, so there is a 400 baht entrance fee (right now it's about 33 baht to the dollar). I bought a used park admission ticket for 100 baht from an Aussie I met on the mainland (they are good for re-entry for at least a year).

The island has several sandy bays, separated by slender rocky outcroppings or mini-forests. Choosing a place to stay on Ko Samet, the general rule is that the further south you go the less crowded it gets. When you get far south, higher-end resorts dominate.

My original plan had been to go about halfway down the island, but now that I was linked up with the Chinese trio, I found myself in a collective-decision-making situation and we ended up at Ao Phai "resort," a collection of old simple bungalows scattered up the hillside. A single cost 300 baht a night.

Not totally satisfied with the place, I did some exploring around the island. Most properties I looked at had some units with air-con, some with fans. Often the air-con rooms are nicer than the fan rooms. But I found the fan rooms sufficient, as the nights were cool. We moved to a place called TuTu's. I immediately had a good feeling about it, as the manager, a guy with a great name (Nop), had a much more proprietary air about him than the women running Ao Phai. Indeed, the 500-baht singles were much better cared for and had HBO, working refrigerators and hot water.

What I Did

In the mornings, I woke up a couple of hours before my Chinese friends, who spent the nights downing Johnnie Walker, Chivas and Thai rum (ok, I had plenty too, but seemed to have much better mornings than they did). I would drink a fruit shake and go for a walk along the beach and in the hills. One late morning I rented a sea kayak and went exploring the bays to the far south end of the island. The rest of the day I spent swimming and lounging on a beach chair.

On our second evening on Ko Samet, we rented motorbikes to explore the island. Many of the roads looked like mogul-filled ski slopes, making for interesting, if a bit treacherous, riding. We got some great views of the ocean; on one particular hill, two large rocks framed the setting sun. In a couple of places, we got off to walk on the beach. Somehow, on this tiny island, we managed to get lost after night fell, but finally found our way back to our little piece of civilization.

Chinese Men Boys and Nature
When we saw living things on the beach, the guys (Xiong and Xian) invariably had to pick them up and play with them. This always resulted in some sort of damage to the crab or frog or huge slimy slug-looking thing. After dinner, Xiong and Xian's favorite activity was walking through the shallow water, overturning rocks to see what creatures lived underneath. Xian had brought a lantern that he could wear on his head. Xian's girlfriend would follow behind with a plastic bag into which they dumped the unlucky creatures. "What are you going to do with them?" I asked. Oh, nothing. After 20 minutes of squirming on top of each other in a plastic bag, the poor things were returned to the sea. Coming soon: my Chiang Mai jaunt

Lijiang Ancient City by Night and Day

Lijiang, like Dali, is (sort of) two cities rolled into one. There’s the larger modern part of the city where people live and work in “normal” jobs, and then there’s the ancient city, a half-preserved, half-restored, slightly endangered gem. The survival of an intact ancient city in China is very rare, thanks to a history of destruction of history.

Lijiang’s ancient city is beautiful. It’s not just the old red buildings, two and three stories high with latticed friezes, intricate painted patterns and tiled roofs that taper up and out at all four corners, in a style that’s distinctively Chinese. A system of rivers and canals runs through the city’s stone-paved streets, perfectly integrated with the city both aesthetically and practically. To get from the center of the street to a shop, one must cross over a little bridge. Tiny dams and waterfalls are evidence of the ancient engineering system that still delivers the water into homes and shops. The water, while not a clear blue, is very clean compared to what I’ve seen in Kunming’s canals and lakes. Lijiang is sometimes called the “Venice of China” because of these canals. The nickname is undeserved if you think it should mean riding in a gondola from your hotel to a restaurant—the water is very narrow and no boats ply it. But it’s probably the closest thing that China has to Venice.

The ancient city is big enough to spend a whole day just exploring its streets—two or three days if you indulge in the nightlife, start late and spend your late mornings relaxing in one of its many cafes. During the day, it is thronged with tourists, ducking in and out of the mostly cookie-cutter shops selling “minority” dolls, embroidered bags of varied sizes, Naxi carvings (Lijiang is home to China’s Naxi minority), Dongba writing, fake jade, and tons of other trinkets. I did stumble on a few shops whose wares were unique, mostly in the back of the city. There also is a street behind the main square where you can see the method that Naxi people developed for making paper.

Though the streets are busy, the cafes are not. This might be due to the relatively high prices—25 RMB for a cup of Yunnan coffee, compared to 10 in Kunming. I think it’s also the case that these places cater to Western tourists, who are still a small minority in Lijiang. In any event, on my visit I would get up before my travel companions and head to a café. From a comfy seat on an upper balcony, I would sip my coffee, eat pancakes drenched in honey and watch the suckers below battling the crowds.

Nightlife

At night, we would head to the bars of Yi Mi Yang Guang (One Rice Sunlight—obviously I am missing something in the translation). They line a narrow street, half-taken up by canal. To enter bars on one side, you must walk across a bridge that looks like an old wooden door dropped on the street. Bring a group of American college kids or the NYAC water polo team here and someone’s sure to end up in the water.

The bars all have bright orange/red lanterns hanging outside, and two stories of tables open to the street. Inside, you’ll find dancing, live music and groups of friends at big tables leaning out to watch the street. Groups on the second story sing rowdily to each other across the divide. The losing side is the one that can’t come up with a new tune.

World Heritage Status

In 1997, UNESCO designated Lijiang’s ancient city a World Heritage Site, inciting a tourist boom. Not surprisingly, Lijiang is finding it difficult to cash in on its protected status while retaining the very treasures that earned it this status. Visitors have increased to 12 times their 1997 levels, the un-ancient city of Lijiang is encroaching on the ancient one and I’ve even heard that Naxi people have been moved out of the city.

This summer, UNESCO warned China that the status of Lijiang and other sites was under threat. Soon after, I saw an interview on CCTV with a representative of UNESCO. The Chinese reporter was incredulous that UNESCO should issue these warnings. Her objection? “These sites are really important. Anyone can see that.” She completely missed the point of the warning, which was that all signatories to the World Heritage Conventions (of which China is one) agree to preserve and protect their sites, and that an ancient city filled with large tour groups in silly hats and whose mountain views are obscured by concrete buildings might not be considered one of humanity's treasure. To her, it seemed, the places’ value is immune to decay or abuse.

She then asked the UNESCO rep, “Well, these are just warnings, right?” When the rep confirmed this, she seemed very assured that there was nothing to worry about. If this kind of hubris exists among those entrusted with Lijiang’s preservation, I’m afraid the valley town will find a way to go downhill.

To get a peep at Lijiang, see my photo album on this site, or check out this very cool set of panoramic shots on the World Hertiage Web site.

Dali-Lijiang Trip Part 1: Kunming-Dali

My student, Gu (who I’m teaching English), arrives at my apartment at 10:30 Saturday morning to pick me up for the drive to Dali. My Dutch friend Jeroen and Gu’s Chinese friend Jin also join us. I’m finally making the trip everyone who lives in Kunming is supposed to make.

About 30 minutes outside of Kunming, the scenery changes from cement rectangles into lilting green hills. I can’t sleep for watching it, but Jeroen pulled an all-nighter and he’s next to me sleeping and reeking of gin. We listen to Chinese pop music—the same songs over and over.

About two hours into the ride, we come upon a little rest area where a police officer stands by his car and gives us a slight wave. If I’d been driving, I would have kept going, but apparently he was pulling Gu over. The cop approaches the car and Gu rolls down his window. I don’t understand most of what they’re saying, but I sense that the chemistry of the whole situation is completely different from when people get pulled over in the United States. The cop has none of the American officer’s swagger; Gu has none of the indignation, nervousness or apologetic air that American speeders adopt when caught. Gu pays the 200 RMB fine on the spot and the whole thing as the same amount of tension as the sharing of a cigarette. He tells us that he’s “lucky.” He was clocked at 119 kilometers per hour. If he’d been doing 120, the fine would have been 2,000 RMB. We buy some ice cream and pull out of the rest stop/speed trap. As soon as his Mazda can get up to speed on the mountain roads, we are doing 120.

We stop for lunch in a small town along the way, and arrive in Dali around 2 pm. It’s my first Chinese “ancient town,” and I really enjoy walking around its stone streets. The city is contained by a stone wall, as all Chinese cities once were, and the two-storied, tile-roofed buildings contain clothing shops, trinket stalls, cafes restaurants and hotels. In fact you pretty much can’t spit without hitting a hotel.

We haven’t been in the ancient city more than five minutes before women start offering us drugs. They tug at Jeroen's shirt and ask, “You want smoke something?” Dali is on the drug trail from Myanmar; heroin, meth and opium are trucked through Dali, sometimes to Kunming and then on to the rest of China and the rest of the world. Softer stuff like marijuana also follows the route. Yunnan accounted for 80 percent of the drugs confiscated in China last year. This means drugs are plentiful and cheap. A kilo of heroin costs $1 million in the U.S.; in Dali, it goes for $4,000. (The route also is contributing to the spread of HIV in Yunnan and throughout China. IV drug use and prostitution combine with lack of education and trucking routes to spread infection.)

We pass on the China White and stop at a café to drink fresh-squeezed watermelon (xiguo- western melon) juice instead. It’s here that I broach the topic of hotels, anticipating a little disconnect between the two Chinese businessmen, the graduate student and the student/freelance writer. It’s then that I find out that Gu and Jin have no intention of staying in Dali, but want to reach Lijiang that night. Jeroen announces that he’s staying, and after an hour or so of wandering around the streets, I decide to go where the comfortable ride and Chinese language skills are. I can always easily make the four-hour trip back to Dali, but for now I’d like to see Lijiang.

On the way out of town we stop at the Three Pagodas, a Buddhist site that’s supposed to be a well-preserved original but looks like a reconstruction to me (but really, what do I know?) There’s a quiet beauty in the giant pillars pointing to heaven, a slender, stark-white impersonation of the mountains that surround us. But ultimately, I find the site a little disappointing; the artistic details of the pagodas are too high to see properly, and the gardens surrounding them are unimpressively simple.

After checking out the pagodas, we’re off to Lijiang. We stop at a roadside restaurant for dinner. The guys ask if I want fish, pointing at some sad-looking catfish-like creatures in a tank. Remembering all the catfish I threw back into lakes while fishing as a kid, I say that I’d prefer chicken, and the proprietor brings a live one out for us to inspect before it’s slaughtered for our dinner. We enjoy four dishes, including the traditional and tasty Yunnan chicken soup, and hit the road.

Lucky, Lucky Me: Dali-Lijiang Photos

I’m just back from a trip to one of the world’s most beautiful places: northwest Yunnan. My travels took me through Dali and Lijiang, and as far as Shangri-La, formerly known as Zhongdian, near the Tibetan border. The report is coming, but for now enjoy two new photo albums.

Home Sweet Kunming

So the Beijing whirlwind tour is over. Some things were as expected: The Great Wall is definitely one of the Wonders of the World, the Olympic venues are beautiful, the Forbidden City captures the imagination and the city moves at an frenetic pace. Some things were not quite as expected: I encountered fewer foreigners than I thought I would, and fewer English speakers. And no matter how many times you hear about it, nothing can prepare you for swimming through the brown polluted haze that envelops China's capital. It adds a surreal tinge to the streets and totally obscures the sky, so that you have practically no warning before a rainstorm. I especially enjoyed the nights, because I could pretend I wasn't breathing so much junk. It's enough to make an environmentalist out of anyone.

Landing in Kunming a couple of days ago, I was surprised to find that I had the feeling of coming home, even though I've only been here two months and just moved into my third residence here (hopefully my last).

Here are the things that make me happy to be back in Kunming:

+ blue skies, with clouds that you can see
+ temperatures in the 70s by day, 60s at night
+ a 20-yuan taxi ride home from the airport
+ vendors with donkey and bicycle carts
+ my favorite alley for street snacks
+ old people doing Tai Chi in the park
+ pu'er tea
+ a nice little park outside my door, and a huge one 5 minutes walk away
+ the unassuming teahouses lining Cuihui Bei Lu
+ having time to study Chinese
+ FINALLY, after two months, unpacking all my suitcases

Beijing is full of opportunities, and I'll get there sooner or later. But for now I'm happy to breathe cleaner air and keep working toward my personal goals of Mandarin fluency and growth as a writer. Home sweet Kunming. Who knew?

****My Web access is limited for the next few days, and I've got a couple of big projects to turn in in the next couple of weeks. This will probably mean fewer posts. Try not to miss me too much.
****The photos are: Beijing skyline, The Empress's Quarters at the Forbidden City, Great Wall at Badaling, a view from my apartment window in Kunming, a woman flying a kite at Da Guan Park, on Dianchi Lake.