The Great Firewall of China

This is a series of blogs about places that I have been in the last month since I have been in China.

Due to some centrally sensitive reason, the internet has been blocked in China; since the riots...

There are many missing visitations since the last post here, they may be elaborated on. They may not.

I am currently in HongKong staying at Sze Ki's House, more in a later post no doubt.

Enjoy:
(We have just left Korea at this point)

09.06.23 PM – Day 1
After ticketing problems caused by a friend who ordered our tickets (My name was spelt “Herry”), we changed our carrier to Korean Air “A world’s best airline”, scheduled to be arriving in Shanghai around 20:00, local time – with no intention to visit Shanghai.

We caught our flight no problem. A comfortable flight over JeJuDo (We said ‘Hi’ to Joni & Tsui-Fan in the air) took us parallel to the sunset along the coast of China
Current security in a paranoid China is to bring a H1N1 Inspection Crew onto the plane after landing – Naturally mainly inspecting foreigners for the virus that reminds them of SARS. Of course I was one of the nervous Whities that they probed, pointing lasers at my forehead and taking my oral temperature which was surely rising under the pressure.

I was clean.

We disembarked and rushed through customs, besides the usual hilarity with my passport photo, in order to see what last minute flights we could get to JiangJiaJie OR our alternative YiChang.
After circling between the two terminals of Shanghai PuDong Airport a number of times, being followed by hawkers most of the time, we agreed on a flight, the next afternoon to YiChang for a very reasonable pric3e. The hawkers’ offers for a bed nearby were conversely, not reasonable, costing nearly as much as the flight – so we slept in the airport.


09.06.24 AM – Day 2

The first thing I heard this morning was a sickeningly smooth Alto-Sax Solo version of Autumn Leaves.
After filling a juice bottle with instant coffee after 7 hours sleep in an airport, I was ready for noodles and the confrontation of the first ironic news of the journey – in line with the trouble causing us to sleep in an airport, the ticketing agency we just bought our tickets misspelt my name… ‘Happy’.
After being assured that this was no problem and it could be changed as we board the plane, we started work on realigning our planned route to our new destination, not having anticipated needing a place to stay in YiChang, due to the fact we had no idea we were going there until last night we frantically rang around a few hotels (there are no Hostels in small towns in China) and tried to assemble a new itinerary. Wrapped into one, we found a very good Travel Agency in YiChang that managed to find us a very good price on a cruise from YiChang to ChongQing, our next destination, up the Yangtze River with sight-seeing and tourism as a definite. A little reluctant (that’s really not my style) we booked it and found a hotel and waited for the flight in the evening.


09.06.25 – Day 3

Relaxed and reasonably rested after a sleep in a real bed, we set about exploring the town a little. We had a local speciality caught from the Yangtze River with rice and bugs – the bugs weren’t anticipated. I managed to get some Boba Tea which I had missed sorely since my last visit to China and drank that down with childish glee. We stocked up on supplies and pushed through the heat to the travel agents who were keen and ready to go. Between leaving the offices and hailing a taxi I was approached by a rather well meaning but sadly better avoided Chinaman who wanted to practice his English and welcome me to his country.

We took a bus to the port which gave us a taste of the unmistakable Southern countryside, with bridges over the Yangtze and Tunnels under TeraTons of green-shrouded dirt and after 1.5 hours arrived at our departure point near the XianXia Dam – ‘The largest in the world’ [verification needed].
Boarding the boat, it felt empty and we felt lucky, but within the next few hours the boat filled with Bloody Northerners and our luck and patience wore thin – we escaped to our cabin and swore to ignore.


09.06.26 – Day 4

Rise at 0600, Breakfast (Rice Porridge, steamed bread, peanuts and spicy vegetables) 0630, 0700 off the boat for our first stop. We were visiting one of the 55 minorities in China, the 土家TuJia. We took a smaller boat up one of the feeder streams in 神龙溪 (ShenLongXi) and came to a docking station where there were smaller boats, Chinaman-powered and wooden we were rowed upstream with a school of other tourist-laden boats. A crew of 6 towed 2.5 tons of tourist and each man gets paid 30CNY (£3) per three days. The part that they are most famous for is when we get into the shallower, stone-bottomed fast-flowing water, they all jump out and in the straw sandals that their wives make for them they heave us against the flow – the sandals only last 2 weeks.

On the downstream part of the circuit, our wonderful 土家女人 (female) guide sang to us and engaged some of the male crewmembers in a call and answer song.
After seeing a culture performance from some locals and buying some food, we made our way back onto the main ferry and were heading up the main tract of the river.
Later that afternoon we came to 白帝城 (White Emperors City) which is a very famous landmark from the 三国 (Three Kingdoms) era in China. Where one of the Kingdoms (蜀)made its last retreat to . If anyone hasn’t seen the recent Chinese epic ‘Red Cliff’ (赤壁) directed by John Woo (吴宇森), torrent it and you’ll have a better idea of what I’m seeing.
This is a beautiful place.

The effect of the Centrally-administered dam is that the water-level, chosen by the intellectual descendents of Mao fluctuates upon their whim and is currently 10m below its winter high-point so 白帝城 becomes an island in the summer. 诸葛亮孔明 (Kong Ming) would say that the FengShui is excellent!

From the top of the island, and also we passed it on our ferry, the 蛤蟆问天 (Frog Asking Heaven) mountain is perfectly visible – exactly as painted on the reverse of the 10 Yuan Note.

Returning to the ferry we picked up some more cheap, local and delicious foods and enjoyed an evening of beautiful views, Chinese Chess and Cards.


09.06.27 – Day 5

Tired and retired from a full day in the heat yesterday we could wake at 0900 and have the morning to ourselves. However, before long we were stopped and moored in Hell.

This is a rather strange relic of the recent past, a little dilapidated with strange impressions of Chinese Society. Encapsulating the general perception of Hell in China, it’s a monument to a Chinese version of Dante’s Inferno, but stranger. Explanation can only be justly achieved through photos.

We nearly missed the boat for wallowing in awe at the grotesqueries and buying food on shore -

After being digested and squeezed through the bowls we were shat back onto the dirty end of the Yangtze. We were about 12 hours cruise away from ChongQing, notoriously the dirtiest and most industrial city in the dirtiest and most industrial nation of the world, surely twinned with Hull. Boats now were mainly freighters and the freight was mainly coal, coal that would not be gasified and efficiently burnt, but coal that powers dirty 19th Century style power plants and burns in open burners, cookers and boilers in people’s homes, coal that barely improves the quality of life of the majority, coal that kills. And as the night enters the valley of death, drizzle. Not rain or pour, drizzle.


09.06.28 – Day 6

Upstream we moved and by the morning, the far-too-early-morning we were woken up and ejected from our cabin to a pre-breakfast ChongQing. This is an asphyxiating and intense city. The air and the people are close and visibility is somewhat restricted in all dimensions. You could get stranded here and no one would know, not even yourself.

The busses weren’t running, maybe even time had stopped. Silence and smog were our first souvenirs. We took the bus, the bus took us and we were off at the wrong stop before long, nothing that a small march on an empty stomach would soon put right. The locals spoke in a Chinese that Michelle couldn’t even understand so directions were surely well meaning, but ultimately useless. However, wit and observation pulled us into our hostel at about 08:00, before available check-in so we left our bags and headed for a breakfast of comfort – BaoZi and DoNai (Dumplings and Soy-Milk, my favourite). Our room was wonderful and immediately used, abused and appreciated.

The main tourist streets are exactly what they say on the tin. I bought a much coveted Xuin (Ancient Chinese Flute) and then enlisted the help of a small-handed craftsman to create a name stamp for me with my Chinese name. This was finished after a relaxing dinner of characteristically SiChuan food – Spicy everything and a comparably stable bed for dessert and supper.


09.06.29 – Day 7

The morning was mainly ignored for some unproductive personal time and lunchtime was a small but beautiful Buddhist temple, with a commanding view of the river and then after a browse through SiQiKou, a famous and preserved heritage street – and rightly so – we came to a rather strange area… where this kind of thing was not out of place:
Shaking off confusion and finding our way back to recognisable reality we strolled more alleyways laden with calligraphers, painters and . Men that were good with their hands and with tourists money. We found relief with the rain and a novelty Chuckle-Brothers machine with which we toured the riverside and ran down infants and elderly alike.

The bus to the airport and to a world above the fumes came soon enough and soon enough we were in LiJiang, late at night in the north of YunNan, YunNan meaning ‘South of the Clouds’. We collapsed into a beautiful and accommodating Hostel with air so clean as to be nauseating. Sleep was sound and the next sound was…


09.06.30 – Day 8

Dogs were barking. The resident puppies, Big-Black and Small-Black were at our door begging for breakfast. We obliged and went for a stole to indulge in local flavours. Surely over-priced but not entirely unjustified we snacked in anticipation of lunch.
A bus retrieved us from our hostel and drove us over and through the mountains to a beautiful lake nestled and mostly undisturbed in a remote valley. Settled for millennia by the Minority, famous for their equine mountain-trekking. We feasted as only paupers can on wholesome local food, prepared by elderly women before meeting our trekker and our horses. My horse was named ZouLi and our trekker was named Mu – both not Chinese names but local-language names.

We set off, peachy bottomed and white cheeked. We took about 2 hours to scale the mountain which was sodden in a continuous rainfall – it’s the rainy season in YunNan. The breaks in the rain made riding easier for both rider and horse and open stretches were ready invitation for a gallop which both mount and mounted enjoyed greatly. Tough but not rigid, the horses easily ascended and descended the mountain and on the lakeside upon return, we engaged in friendly racing. We dismounted, rosy-cheeked and blue-bottomed.

Then a journey into the lake by boat where we were engaged by a strange fisherman. Huddled under a permanent raincoat with a permanent line into the water, he was selling us fish that he had somehow barbequed on his tiny tender in the middle of the lake. We enjoyed the scenery and on the way back to shore and back to the bus I collected a fallen horseshoe to exchange culture and thanked everyone that made my visit wonderful.

That afternoon, I rested my bottom by walking around the old-town that LiJiang is so famous for. Worthy of its fame we enjoyed an afternoon and early evening immersed in culture and similar tourists. I met a man who boasted he could fashion a wallet for me exactly to my specifications, that is one that can fit my passport in. We took each others offer and I returned to his little shop only an hour later to recover my booty – A wonderfully utilitarian leather wallet and a similarly hand-made leather satchel.

The hours grew larger before they grew smaller and we rested well.