Travel tales in Yúnnán

We finally have the opportunity to visit the place listed in our guide book as a traveller’s mecca; Lìjiāng. Roger has to make a work trip to Yúnnán and I, having finished teaching for the semester, can join him.

Before Lìjiāng we visit Chǔxióng where Roger will meet with the local forest research centre. Consequently we are met at Kūnmíng airport by a driver and interpreter and driven 2 hours west to Chǔxióng and are immediately taken to a banquet. The flow of hospitality doesn’t cease for our entire stay. Every meal is provided, with many important guests, sightseeing opportunities are provided, our onward bus trip to Lìjiāng booked and paid for, and our hotel costs covered. The hospitality is exceedingly generous but is all rather overwhelming for an ‘independent’ Australian. I found the 24-hour time-management somewhat claustrophobic, and was equally culturally unsettled by the inability to select my own food. This, in a banquet, is normally not a problem as there are usually a couple of dishes that tempt, but after 4 meals where almost every dish is jumping with chilli I find my stomach, and my Australian soul, in rebellion. I do little for the image of Australians as gracious and appreciative guests. Fortunately Roger is able to provide the research team with a constructive report plus do some data collection for a Tasmanian colleague trying to identify the first species of eucalypt to enter Yúnnán. Through this analysis we realise we’re at 2900 metres, higher than Mt Kosciusko. However the full significance of this doesn’t emerge until later in the trip, when we are at an even greater altitude.

Lìjiāng is a prime tourist destination so we are grateful to be visiting out of the peak periods. However we are still apprehensive so book accommodation in one of the three Lìjiāng ancient villages that hardly gets mentioned in the guide books. We arrive at Dàyàn, the most well known village, which we later find is pristinely presented with immaculate restrooms (a major achievement as the worst toilets I’ve ever encountered have been on this trip) but a sterile atmosphere and a highly regulated and developed commercial infrastructure focused directly on the tourists’ hip pockets. Heading away from Dàyàn, down a broad street 8 lanes wide and ‘state of the art’ lighting snaking up to the horizon, surrounded by modern apartment developments, I start to worry. What backwater or fabricated tourist enclave have I booked us into? It is a long 15 minute drive to Shùhé. Over the next couple of days we discover Báishā, the most distant village, is still pretty undeveloped with just a couple of lanes packed with cafes and souvenir shops while the other streets retain a living traditional culture. Yet Shùhé, where we are staying, is halfway between the other two centres, in both distance and development. The village has evolved enough to provide services such as ATMs and a good coffee (locally grown) but still offers simple restaurants and bars frequented by locals, and a streetscape that doesn’t look like it has had the ‘history’ renovated out of it. In addition our guesthouse is extremely welcoming with friendly staff, and dogs, a very comfortable bed and clean surrounds. Shùhé was not a mistake and indeed proves to be a gem, at least for now.

The other attraction of the area is Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (Yùlóng Xuěshān) and is a prime example of the ability of Chinese to develop tourist sites that can handle the massively increasing numbers of domestic travellers. There is little concession to the independent and non-Chinese speaking visitor, and the ticket price reflected the scale of the development; 80 yuán tourist tax charged for just being in the Lìjiāng area, 200 Lìjiāng minibus hire to get out to the mountain, 80 yuán to get into the mountain reserve and another 80 yuán to access the section we wanted to see, giving a total, for the 2 of us, of 680 yuán (A$112.00), or about a week of my teaching time. However we are here and the mountain does look impressive, so we sign up to visit Yak Meadow, are loaded onto a bus and wind up the mountain with a tour group of largely Chinese Australian, who laughingly tell us we probably know more Pǔtōnghuà than them.

Alighting from the chair lift we head out across the meadow to the Tibetan looking temple just a couple of hundred meters away. The tour group, with just a 10 minute slot in their schedule, remain on the viewing platform before returning back down the mountain for lunch. It is a beautiful day with cool air, a clear blue sky, and grassland reaching out to the magnificent snow covered mountain. A perfect opportunity for a hike but I feel sick, very very sick! Was it the rice, or the fish? Yet Roger ate the same food and he is fine. So he sets out to explore the grassy rises while I sit in sight of the stunning mountain, trying to ignore the waves of nausea. They prove to be un-ignorable. Later internet research leads us to decide that our fairly speedy accent from sea level to 3500 metres, at Yak Meadow, has resulted in a case of altitude sickness!

On reflection, this trip has offered new, and not necessarily flattering, insights into my character and a very ‘memorable’ trip to a mountain meadow, just confirming that travel doesn’t always bring what you expect.

Our guesthouse; www.sleepyinn.com.cn

The family home in Tèchéng and Kāipíng

Taking advantage of the cooler weather, we head out to Tèchéng Island, a small and largely flat island just a 20 minute ferry ride from the centre of Zhànjiāng. We’d been there before, by accident. I thought I was buying ferry tickets to cross the estuary as we wanted to explore the other side of the river. The ferry staff obviously didn’t think that was where we really wanted to go and put us on the boat to the island; a known tourist destination. It all worked out remarkably well as we met some of Roger’s colleagues and their families on the ferry, and all ate together at a small waterside restaurant we’d have never found on our own.

This time we take our bicycles and we’re joined by a Chinese friend, Jim. After some technical difficulties; a slow puncture and the need to install extra padding on my bike seat, we arrive at the wharf to find we’ve just missed one ferry and the next is in 2 hours. But this is China – there is always an alternative! Jim tackles the negotiation with a boat man and, for what he considers an outrageous fee of 40 yuán (about $6.50), we and our bikes, are soon on an ageing but serviceable speed boat.

Arriving at the jetty at the other end we discover we have to pay a landing fee, which, oddly, is the same cost of catching the ferry! At 3 yuán each (about $0.50) it is a small cost, but somewhat perturbing. We pay our way off the dock and cycle out into the fields of Tèchéng Island. Despite it being Sunday the fields are busy with people completing the harvest. Some are burning off stubble, some are spreading out Chinese medicinal roots to dry, on the road, and some are turning the soil with buffalo-drawn ploughs. Here and there are clusters of houses forming villages, and occasionally there is a ‘mansion’ under construction. Jim tells us these are probably built by families no longer resident in their home town. He talks of his own Father’s desire to have a home in their birthplace, which, though they visited infrequently, allowed them to provide a place for his grandmother to live and, possibly more importantly, gave them good fortune. Jim talks animatedly about his parents’ horror when their home was demolished and how they linked a string of bad luck to this event.

I remember Jim’s story when we are on another trip, further a field this time. I had been eager to get to Kāipíng, about 4 hours northeast of Zhànjiāng heading to Guǎngzhōu, since we arrived in Zhànjiāng a year ago. We had seen pictures of some intriguing buildings called diāolóu, or watch tower, dating from the early 20th century. These defensive towers are a mix of Chinese and Western architectural styles and have been recently placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. After several aborted plans to visit we final find 3 free days and have identified the bus time and departure point. Waiting at the bus station, luggage, maps and phrase books in hand, we are told our bus, the one bus a day to Kāipíng, has broken down! There is a solution; take the bus to Guǎngzhōu and get dropped at the toll gate at the Kāipíng motorway exit, some 20 km from the centre of town. A trip that should have taken 4 or 5 hours takes 8! However having finally made it we have a glorious, if cool, day for our trip to the surrounding villages in our rented mini van, with a driver of course. In no time we see some towers, they are littered all around the region, some 3000 I have read, but many are decaying, ‘modernised’, or built out by other properties so are next to impossible to view. Yet a few villages have taken advantages of the heritage listing and are making tourist attractions out of their homes. While this alters the untouched charm of the towers it does provide a much needed impetus to protect and maintain them.

Walking into one tower, maintained by the Chicago branch of the family, I find the floor plan is derivative of many traditional Chinese homes; a central lobby, that originally would have been the courtyard and family altar room, which is flanked by 2 living rooms. However behind the normal position of the altar is a stair that leads up to another 4 floors. The altar has been relocated to the top floor, where there is also a lovely terrace looking over the rice fields. While the layout is Chinese, the decorations, inside and out, are heavily influenced by Western architecture. In this example, and not typical of other towers, black, classically embellished, timber panels line the walls with etched glass inserts incongruously depicting Chinese scenes. More common are floors painted to look like Victorian encaustic tiles and wall frescos that seem to have come straight from Italy. Classical columns, domes, arches and balustrades adorn the top floors and terrace. I can imagine the expatriate Chinese builder returning to his home town from America, where he struggled to make his way in the new world. The elaborate and soaring buildings of the late 19th Century American city are still vivid in his mind as he plans a tower to display and protect his wealth, and, just as Jim’s family feels, to provide him with the good fortune of a presence in his home town.

60 years of progress

A ruling has gone out, apparently, that only new decorations are allowed for National Day on, this, the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. So the streets are lined with pristine flags and brand new dragon lanterns (lóngdēng), while billboards, hot of the press and with the nationally regulated ’60 years’ graphic design, are posted. Everything must look its best so parks are supplemented with additional potted plants and trees, and sub-standard bamboo flag poles are replaced with military-straight stainless steel ones.

At the University my students enthusiastically anticipate one of the most important holidays of the year, made all the more exciting as Mid-Autumn Festival coincides with National Day adding an extra day’s break. However I’m thrown into confusion when I’m told by my students, on Wednesday, that I’ll be teaching them that Sunday! All across China workplaces swap workdays with the weekend to maximise the days available to return to their homes, often many hours or days away. The holiday of 4 days is turned into a break of 8; quite a good system with only the drawback of an 8 day workweek on our return, and the fact we’re only given the details a day or two before so can’t make any plans!

However we have the compensation of a grand banquet to attend. Every year Zhànjiāng’s local government hosts a National Day dinner to show appreciation for the services provided by foreigners. Embossed red invitations are sent out and I am firmly instructed, several times, to dress formally. Arriving at the best hotel in town we find the forecourt crammed with both cars and a full military brass band. Inside we are courteously ushered to our table, but find that, this year, table after table of eminent locals, and even a Rear Admiral, relegates us, the usual VIP guests, to the back of the ballroom. We don’t mind, though I get a little nervous as the brass band assembles at the rear of the room, right next to us. Expecting to be blown out of my seat I find the opening rendition of the Chinese National anthem remarkable pleasurable. The evening continues with speeches, a translation thoughtfully provided on large screens at the front of the hall, though, less thoughtfully, not clearly visible. The ubiquitous male and female MC marshals the rest of the evening’s entertainment, most intriguing of which are dancers with headdresses fashioned from the very long tail feathers of what must be some nearly extinct bird. We watch, with some amusement, the official party touring each table to toast the occasion; the enthusiasm of the group visibly waning as it progresses down the room. By the time we are toasting it is a quick gānbēi and then they are smartly on to the next and final table. Suddenly the bulk of the attendees have departed and our recalcitrant group of foreign teachers are doggedly digging into the platters and platters of leftover food and rounding up small glass jugs of rejected red wine. For us it was a great opportunity to meet a few of the 80 odd foreigners we are told work in Zhànjiāng

Having experienced a grand dinner just before National Day, we decide a suitable way to celebrate on the day is with morning tea (zǎochá), though we had not anticipated that most restaurants would be booked out days ahead. Determined to join in we head out early to try and secure a table, and hit the jackpot with a private room, and a television. By the time my university colleagues arrive we have the TV tunned to the National Day Parade in Beijing, tea on the table and the first of the dumplings ordered. After some rather pointless footage of the TV crews in Beijing and a military communications plane laboriously getting airborne (filling in air-time before live broadcasts is similar all over the world) the march, in all its contrived and sometimes scary magnificence, commences. The ultra-precise marching, the immaculate tank paintwork, the un-manned drones, and the short, medium and intercontinental nuclear-capable missiles start to unsettle me, but this is eased by floods of civilian marchers and festive floats (huāchē) commemorating past achievements and all the regions including each of the provinces, the special economic zones, the ‘outlier’ of Taiwan and even Overseas Chinese and, for the first time, ‘foreign friends’.

Later we join a Chinese family in their celebratory lunch; cooked by ‘Grandma’ and similar to the Spring Festival lunch we have had at the same house, it emerges from the kitchen in a seeming endless stream. After the eating and a fair amount of toasting, we gathered around the TV to drink tea and to continue to snack as we watched the march, again. A young friend of the family, just starting his crucial final year of school, declares how proud he is to be Chinese, how magnificent the Parade is and how great are China’s achievements; his enthusiasm endearing and his English excellent.

Finally we closed the day watching an impressive fireworks display down on the river estuary. Families complete with Grandparents and toddlers, teenagers, young couples and groups of lads all mingle on the boardwalk chatting, buying drinks, or lanterns, windmills and other cheap trinkets, and enjoying the warm evening. After the fireworks everyone turns back into the city; the pavements clogged with pedestrians, the streets thick with bikes, motorbikes and cars weaving in and out of each other, their horns all sounding at once. It is hard to imagine what these peoples’ lives will be like in 10 years time, let alone another 60 years.

Street scenes

Heading out to do some shopping I find I have to pick my way down the pavement and across the street even more carefully than usual. The main north-south road, linking the two centres of town, is currently a major construction zone; large slabs of concrete are being broken up and bulldozed out, roundabouts are transforming into intersections, bus stops and palm trees are being relocated, and the entire 9 kilometre length is being surfaced in bitumen. A team of women are scrubbing pavers while other labourers are carefully scavenging recyclable material, usually reinforcing bars but I have seen a neatly loaded handcart of very dirty PVC pipes. However traffic management doesn’t seem to be an integral part of the process; coming back into town one weekend we discovered the bitumen-laying machines on one side of the road had caught up with the concrete foundation preparation team on the other side, resulting in a section of the road being completely impassable. Consequently we spent an hour and a half, mostly stationary in a side street diversion, travelling a distance that usually takes 15 minutes. And, of course, this is a good time to upgrade services so the traffic lights are out too, and the water pipes are being replaced with unannounced shutdowns of supply. On 3 days we have found ourselves without water, not that pleasant in this hot climate, but, fortunately, the supply has returned each evening.

I make it safely to the nearest intersection passing groups of men waiting for casual work and a woman pushing a garbage tricycle. Hovering over the crossroad is a huge billboard poster of China’s great American based, square-jawed, sporting hero, Yáo Míng. I love the floating basketball and the curious sea and cityscape and speculate on the insurance company’s message. Beneath the billboard is a man, with a sound system on a small luggage trolley, selling music CDs and barrows selling fruit, though we usually use the fruit stall tacked outside a small supermarket, one of three within about 200 meters. Further on is a little vegetable and meat market with produce, living, dead and reasonably freshly picked, displayed on concrete slab tables. I’ve given up bargaining for fruit and vegetables, as my efforts result in next to no discount. I know I am paying too much because the stall holders keep giving me extra produce! I wave to the woman with a mobile glass cupboard selling roti-style flat bread, and move on past the poultry cart, and, horrifyingly, the dog cart. Both will sell you roast meat to take home or to eat ‘in’ at little pavement-side tables with tiny stools.

Other services cluster round the market. A hairdresser sets up on the concrete forecourt with battery-powered clippers, chair, booster seat for kids (a smaller chair placed on the adults’ chair), a mirror and an umbrella for sun and rain. When finished for the day it is all loaded on to the ubiquitous blue flatbed tricycle. Lined up beside him are three cobblers, each with a free-standing hand-operated sewing machine that looks like it came out of the industrial revolution. These three women, surrounded by leather scraps and half repaired shoes, chat as they wait for work. Back in Zhāngzhōu a similar setup re-heeled a worn pair of shoes for me. I was horrified when I was charged 5 yuán (about $1), which, at the price of a simple lunch, seemed a lot, until I realised I was actually being asked for 5 jiǎo (half a yuán)! Out by the side of the road is a bicycle repair man with a number of spare inner tubes slung on the handle bar of his bike. He is often crouched over a bowl of water testing a tube, and I have seen him with a completely disassembled bike scatted across the pavement. Should you need a new watch battery look out for a little booth, almost a sentry-box, perched at the front of a shop. For ¥10 the elderly man, as they always seem to be, will deftly open up the back, replace the battery and hand it back to you before you can negotiate a price.
















I catch the bus to one of the two main shopping centres and, paying 2 yuán for any length trip, I recover in its beautiful air-conditioned. Leaping off the bus, before it speeds away, I wander past elderly women crouching by black plastic bags of Chinese medicine; woody fungus and dried lizards and seahorses. Other kerb-side vendors sell local snacks, Western soft drinks and newer services such as supplying and applying protective film to your new mobile phone or MP3 player. Motorbike and 3-wheeled scooter taxis congregate at entrances to buildings, their drivers calling out for business, and the pavements are thick with bikes overseen by vigilant parking ‘officers’ waiting to collect the 1 yuán parking fee. Finally I reach the shopping centre discovering the forecourt swamped with red tents and umbrellas, basketball hoops and inflated beer cans. The marketing team for Pearl River Beer is in town and, as sponsor for the Chinese basketball team, is encouraging product awareness though a range of basketball related and other games. Music blares out, young men enthusiastically compete for prizes and I find myself dazed by just a simple shopping trip with its heady mix of old and new China.

The Banquet

The banquet is one of the joys, and mysteries, of living in China, and we have experienced many; some in our honour, particularly when starting a new job, some to celebrate a special occasion and some to greet distinguished visitors. Generally the events we attend are not ultra-formal affairs but the culture and etiquette are still baffling to me.

The arrangements are often made late in the day so I find myself scurrying to get ready. I never quite know what to wear. My instincts tell me to dress up, yet I know the other guests and host will be quite casual, though we will be greeted at the doors of the restaurant by beautiful women attired in full-length brocade dresses, with fur capes in colder weather. They’ll escort us to a private room with the curtains drawn shut to focus us on the occasion. There may be easy chairs set round a coffee table and an individual bathroom, while on the wall, close to the round dinning table, will be a huge, and loud, TV.

Ordering involves an extended discussion between the waitress and the host, a senior company member or, if we are travelling, the driver. This process usually doesn’t involve a menu but rather a dialogue between the two, sometimes held over the fish tanks and racks that hold the fresh produce, about what we might want, the options available, and the balance of the meal.

The rational for the number and range of dishes eludes me but in Zhànjiāng seafood features strongly. Frequently we’re served a whole fish, prawns and crabs if they are in season, sea cucumber with western broccoli, sea worms either battered or steamed on a bed of clear noodles, and shellfish. There will usually be a roast chicken or duck, chopped across the bone, maybe a beef or pork dish, generally only one vegetable dish or two if you count steamed sweet potato and corn, and noodles, dumplings or steamed bread. I swear there is always something to scare the foreigners such as the sea worms or duck’s feet, though I think these are genuine favourites here, and once we were served dog which, now that I have tried it, I’ll never touch again.
















The banquet is often, by Western standards, a speedy affair; the first few dishes arrive from the kitchen within about 10 minutes and the rest of the food follows soon after. The platters are squeezed onto the ‘lazy Susan’ and swung around to sit in front of the host, who is sitting facing the door, or a special guest. The host will ask everyone to start eating or get things going by serving some of the “best bits” to a special guest, usually the pieces I am least keen to eat. The soup, and there has to be soup, will arrive early in meal, while towards the end, when I am too full to consider it, rice, or rice porridge, is ordered and consumed at speed. The signal to conclude the meal eludes me. The arrival of rice and a fruit platter may give some indication, but I often find I’ve just worked out which dishes I like and am settling down to eat properly when everyone is standing up and it is all over.

Sometimes, if there is serious drinking to be done, the banquet is more drawn out. This opens up a new set of problems as I struggle through the etiquette of toasting. In Zhànjiāng we are usually served a tall glass of green tea and then might be offered red wine, báijiǔ or both. The báijiǔ, a clear spirit, is served in thimble sized glasses, for which I am very thankful as it is usually tastes like rocket fuel and is just as powerful. A tiny amount of red wine is poured into brandy balloons and, as with all alcohol, only drunk with other people in a toast, often a gānbēi requiring the glass to be drained. A local variant is to start the meal with 3 gānbēi toasts following which you can just take a sip, assuming there isn’t a faction in the group determined to get the foreigner drunk. I am yet to work out when I should stand to toast, who I should toast, who I should toast first, what is an appropriate reason for a toast (I suspect any reason will do), and how low on the other person’s glass I should clink my glass (the lower the glass touches, the more deference you are showing). I also have to remember to hold my glass with both hands and, once finished, show the glass to the group to prove I have in fact done my duty and emptied it.




The banquet can be a confusing affair and just when I’m feeling more comfortable with it I discover a new layer or a new variant; we’ll just have to keep practicing!

Cultural chasms

Having arrived in Zhànjiāng (湛江) and got Roger settled and productive in his new job, his colleagues decided it was time to get me working too. I had hoped to find employment in something other than teaching, so had ignored a passing comment from a very old Chinese friend of Roger’s about working at Zhànjiāng Normal University. I assumed, in a culture that doesn’t say ‘no’, not replying at all would indicate that maybe I was less than enthusiastic at the prospect of teaching oral English to classes of up to 50, and sometimes more, students. I obviously miscalculated this nuance of Chinese interactions as a couple of months later, and without warning, Roger’s good friend announced he had visited the university and arranged an interview for me. So, he advised, he’d be happy to take me there in 2 day’s time. We would be meeting someone from the Office of International Exchange and Cooperation and I’d need copies of my passport, visa, photos, and qualifications.

Two days later I’m ready in my best outfit, rarely worn as the environment and climate is just too destructive for expensive Australian fashion, clutching my documentation and feeling slightly bemused. I acknowledged that there seemed to be few other work options for me other than teaching and realized that a position at a university was probably a lot better than teaching 25 classes a week to 60 16-year-olds at a middle school. Yet I did wonder if I had explored other possibilities enough, and was feeling somewhat ‘organised’.

However an opportunity is an opportunity and we head off past the hotel at the gate to our apartment complex, up the grand palm-tree lined avenue we live on and by the banks and government office buildings that line the road. Soon we enter Chìkǎn (赤坎), one of Zhànjiāng’s two city centers, complete with a couple of modern shopping centers, the site of a local battle against the French ‘imperialist invaders’, a maze of little back streets, and the University.












Arriving at the University administration building, where we are instructed by signs on the wall to speak Putōng huà (Mandarin) rather than local languages that include Guǎngzhōu huà (Cantonese), I realize Roger’s colleague is going to join me in the interview. So, watched on by both Roger’s old friend and the other staff in the open office, I have a 20-minute wide-ranging conversation, in English, with the Foreign Teachers’ Manager. There is then a lengthy discussion, in Chinese, with Roger’s work colleague, resulting in me being told that, given my visa type and the limited time we plan to stay in Zhànjiāng, she will need to talk to her boss. I will be contacted in couple of days if I’m required to present a sample lecture to students and the Vice-Dean of the Commerce School.

Two days come and go, and, without me telling anyone about the interview, I keep getting asked by Roger’s work colleagues, from the students to the Director, how it went and when will I start teaching. Two weeks after the interview I have still not heard and I learn that Roger’s good friend has followed up with the University. He advises me I’ll be giving a guest lecture early the following week and the day before the presentation he’ll pass the topic on to me.



Having received the theme, “Education’, on the morning of Tomb Sweeping Day, a public holiday, and being told I will be speaking to up to 60 students, I find myself at the University the next day presenting to the Vice-Dean and the Manager, and five students! Most of the students have decided to extend their long weekend into Tuesday and not attend my non-compulsory lecture. The few students there, and the staff, seem to respond well and again I’m advised I’ll be contacted in two days.

Four days later I’m invited to come into the office to talk. Eagerly I attend and I finally manage to ask some of the questions I have, up until this point, had no opportunity to ask. I am offered a position and find there is no expectation that I might refuse the job. That evening I’m rung up and told, for reasons I could not understand but involve another foreign teacher hurting his foot on the Great Wall, that the plans have all been changed and I’ll be advised what was happening in, surprise, surprise, a couple of days. I do get called 2 days later, at 7.30pm as we are going out to meet a friend for dinner. I’m to let the University know by the middle of May if I want a position for the next academic year, starting in September, but could I fill-in for a teacher the next morning, at 8am!











Life in China often leaves me bewildered and stressed. Frequently I feel I have no basis to interpret people’s actions or modify my behavior to better reach the outcomes I desire, and I can’t count the number of times I have had to race to meet other people’s ridiculously tight deadlines. As far as I can tell organizational planning operates by a completely different set of rules, and usually on a just-in-time basis, and the nuances of social interaction constantly elude me. I fully understand that Roger’s colleagues’ interest and actions are heartfelt and intended only with kindness and to do the best for Roger and his ‘family’ (me), yet I am surprised at the differences in personal space and shocked at my emotional reactions when my boundaries are breached. It is a vivid lesson in the power of social constructs.