Adventures in China : October 2012

The Crazy Train Station...

Playing "Go Fish" With Our New Friends

Just when I think I’m starting to get a hold on China, it surprises me yet again. Last week we went to Xi’an, in a different province north of here, for a vacation during National Week… us and everyone else! We heard rumors of people saying not to travel during National Week but we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. Wednesday morning we woke up and got all ready and ventured up to the train station. A quick walk and subway ride away. When we got to the train station it was a crazy bustle of people! We found some food and made our way to our car. The train station here is similar to a small airport, but with less security. You have to show your tickets, your passport or ID, go through a security check, have a metal detector wand swiped over you, then you have to find your terminal, or in this case your platform. Once we got to our seats we settled in for the next 16 hours! Our first mistake was not getting sleeper cars and only getting seats. They were the equivalent of a less comfortable airplane seat. Second mistake was not getting enough food. They have a food car onboard but it’s a set meal and is 50 RNB per person, just under $10 USD. They also sell fruits, vegetables, cup of noodles, and snacks, but all the prices are so high! Once we got settled on the train, it didn’t take long to realize we were the only white people on the 18 car train, so we got a lot of stairs. My roommate and I sat across from a couple who were traveling with a group of about 12 friends. They were on their way home from traveling for the first part of the national week. The first four hours or so we talked to them in their broken English and our attempted Chinese, they helped my roommate with her Chinese homework and we taught them how to play Go Fish in Chinese. It was fun! And a great way to learn some Chinese. The scenery was absolutely beautiful!!! We went through the suburbs of the city which is fun to look at but as we got further north we saw the mountains, rivers, people working in their rice fields with their traditional Chinese hats, land, and more! We went through a million tunnels that they cut into the mountain. The next 12 hours were a drag though. We watched some movies on a laptop, read, played more cards, talked, tried to sleep, and just sat there staring off into space. The train is so uncomfortable to sleep on! Not to mention, fairly unsanitary as well.

The Crowded Streets of the Muslim District

After a long and grueling trade ride, we finally arrived in Xi’an at 5:30AM with no idea how to get around town or where our hotel was – so we just started walking and the only knowledge we had was the name of the hotel and the name of the street. After walking in what we thought was the right direction, one of the guys finally decided to pull out his GPS and we wandered to the hotel, all exhausted of course! When we got there they miraculously let us check in at 6:30 in the morning and had our room all ready for us, which was awesome! We had to sneak in the three boys because the room was technically only for two people and it was under mine and my roommates names. When we finally all got settled we all decided to nap, what was supposed to be a 3 hour nap turned into a 5 hour nap and we all woke up at 12 and got a start on our day. We decided to just start exploring. We had heard that there are a ton of Muslim’s in Xi’an and a whole Muslim district so we set out to get lunch and find the market. We went to the city center in which there is a giant bell tower and then went towards the drum tower. In that district there is a Haggen Daz, a fancy Starbucks, and a KFC, all very popular in China. Beyond that was the bell tower and then an extremely crowded street. That crowded street we discovered was the Muslim district. There were a ton of fun shops, tourist souvenirs, and restaurants. The best part was the street food! The Muslim people know how to cook let me tell you. We had so much greasy but tasty street food that was fairly cheap. I had a fried quesadilla type thing but instead of cheese in it, there was pickled cabbage and meat, it was so good!!! They also had a ton of quail eggs; they are really good, healthy and popular here, tofu swirlies as we call them, fresh squeezed pomegranate juice, and cooked quail eggs. The street food was all amazing!!!! We wandered around for a while through all the shops and wound up at Subway for lunch. It was great to get a turkey sandwich but the sauces were way different, but it was still a nice little taste of home. Afterwards, we walked to the city wall which is the oldest fully intact city wall in China. Xi’an used to be the capital of China so it has a ton of history behind it, including the city wall and the terra cotta warriors. We watched a show by people dressed like ancient Chinese warriors – they danced and played the drums. Then we watched a gymnastics show put on by some young male gymnasts, most of them looked to be in their early teens if that. It was crazy to watch! We had heard that the big thing to do while in Xi’an is to ride bikes around the city wall, so we stood in line for about 45 minutes and rented bikes to ride around the wall. There were five of us so we got two tandem bikes and one normal one and rode around. We weren’t super excited because it was going to get dark and we didn’t think we would be able to see much, but boy were we wrong! In the evenings, the lanterns along the wall light up and the whole city is lit up, it was absolutely beautiful! It only took us just over an hour to bike around it, including stopping to take pictures. After that we were all pretty exhausted so we grabbed dinner and headed back to the hotel.

Early Friday morning there was a knock on the door; it was the boys who had traveled along the Silk Road who were meeting up with us. After they got all settled, we found the bus to go to the terra cotta warriors and we were off. It was an interesting drive as we escaped the main portion of the city we saw a lot more farms, tractors driving down the street (just like in Snohomish!), and a ton of statues of terra cotta warriors. When we got there it was tourist central. We walked through a ton of shops displaying warriors among other things! We finally reached the entrance and it was a long walk to get to the pits where the warriors were discovered. At the main tourist site there are there are three pits. The first one is the largest with over 6,000 warriors, chariots, and terra cotta horses were found. Every warrior has a different facial expression, face structure, and hair style, which is crazy when you think about it! They are the 8^th Wonder of the World, considering the fact that they were made over 2,000 years ago by hand and were only discovered and uncovered about 40 years ago. The 2^nd pit is still fairly large but contains more chariots and horses. The third pit is the smallest and contains the least amount but you can still see a lot of chariots. The cool thing is, you can see the rotting wood, I know that’s gross but the fact that it’s 2,000 year old wood that has withstood being underground for all these years is cool. After that we all ate and once again walked through all the tourist shops. Then about half of our group returned back to the hotel and the other half of us went to some smaller sites about 2km away. There was a small bus that took us there and it was all included in our initial ticket. This other park is more park like. There are trails, lots of trees, and it just has a lot more of a nature aspect to it with way less tourists. There are a few pits over there which were only uncovered about 20 years ago for some. It was cool; we got to watch the workers work to excavate the pits even more. It was interesting to watch and crazy to realize the fact that there is still more to be found and explored. It made for a long day! And when we got back, we ate more street food for dinner. On our last full day in Xi’an 西安, our group was split. Most of the group went hiking at a place a few hours from the city of Xi’an, while the other four of us decided to tour around the city. The mountain looked fun, but I didn’t bring hiking stuff and it would have taken up literally ALL day! So two of us decided to sleep in and then went adventuring. We went and found the Large Goose Pagoda, a huge seven story Pagoda in the south of the city that is a large tourist destination but also has a lot of historical significance. It is within an old monastery, but the whole area outside has been turned into a tourist destination. The monastery was absolutely beautiful! After walking around the monastery, we went up into the Pagoda. The Pagoda used to be ten stories but was partially destroyed in World War II so now it only has seven. It was a trek to the top and the stairs were really steep but it was an amazing view from the top. You can look out four large windows at all four directions of the city. However the smog kept it from being a very clear view, but it was still beautiful. After that we went and found a small hole in the wall cafeteria looking place. They had amazing dumplings and it was super cheap. The people there were really nice as well and it was a nice atmosphere. After that we went to the Shaanxi (陕西) Museum, the province that Xi’an is in. It is a huge free government museum with artifacts from up to 10^th century BC through now. You walk through the three different sections of the museum and as you do so, you progress through time. It was interesting minus the fact I couldn’t read a lot of it because it was in Chinese, but it was a free government museum. Our friends who went hiking didn’t get back until about 11 because they had missed the last train back from Xi’an and had to catch a ride with some random driver. Meanwhile the four of us who stayed back got some food and roamed around the Muslim quarters again.

Sunday morning was our last day in Xi’an. We did some last minute shopping; my lovely roommate got everyone donuts from Dunkin Donuts and coffee. J That day we finally made it to the train stations about 30 min before our train was set to leave, we were cutting it close we know, lucky for us the train was late. It is like pushing through a mob to get through the lines into the train station and go through security. Then after going through the metal detector, my bag with food and our souvenirs in it ripped because everyone was pushing, shoving, and grabbing for their stuff. When we got inside we found out our train was late, which worked out for us, and then we had to wait in a long giant line that was actually more like a crazy mob. We finally made it on our train only to realize people were sitting in our seats because they had standing room only tickets and were sitting while they could. Yes, people had standing room only tickets for a 16 hour train ride. They were absolutely crazy but if you’re desperate to get home you’ll do whatever it takes. I had to try to get food from our friends three cars away from us and trying to get through to get to them was a task all in itself. I was one of only two western girls on the whole train, so I got some weird looks plus trying to push through everyone was nearly impossible. Luckily one of my friends met me halfway. The rest of the train ride was spent playing cards, talking to the people around us, or attempting to, watching movies, and attempting to sleep. At one point we had all moved around seats and my seat was open so one of the guys with a standing room only sat there and started sleeping. Well my roommate came back but I was in her seat, but I didn’t have the heart to ask the guy for my seat back. He looked so tired, we were about 9 hours into our train ride and he had been standing or sitting between cars on the ground the whole time. So he sat there for a while but eventually he got up so I could have my seat back. I just felt so bad! So many people were sitting between the cars on the ground. Some were sitting on newspaper, smoking, and playing cards but it looked like a back alley in New York. So many of them looked sad and had hurt in their eyes, many looked homeless or at least really poor, it was humbling knowing how lucky I am to have what I do. The train was beyond its capacity for sure and couldn’t have been legal in anyway, at least not in the US and not technically in China, but the train company, which is probably owned by the government, just wanted to make as much money as it could so it didn’t care about people’s safety or sanitation. The whole train smelled terrible, the squatting toilets and the whole bathroom were disgusting, and the whole train was just dirty. It was an experience to say the least but my roommate made the observation that sometimes those are the conditions that people have to live in; we are only facing those conditions for sixteen hours. It was a really good perspective to have but regardless we still weren’t fond of the conditions.

We FINALLY arrived in Chengdu at about 5:30AM after getting two hours of sleep off and on. Fun fact however, the subway doesn’t run until 6:45 so we couldn’t take that. So then we tried to take a taxi but they were trying to charge us 80RNB ($13USD) for the 12km trip… Something that shouldn’t cost more than 20RNB (about $3.25USD). So we just began to walk in what we hopped was the right direction and we planned to either catch the subway once it opened or get a cab. Eventually our group split up and four of found a cab for 18RNB and finally got home. I have to say I never thought I would find my hard bed and my dorm room here in China so comforting. When we finally arrived at about 6:30 we were welcome with the internet being out for two days and no hot water for a shower. We were a little irritated but that also was due to the fact that we were tired and it was 6:30AM. All of our clothing we were wearing and our backpacks reeked of cigarette smoke and just dirtiness. I had to take two showers that day just to get the smell of smoke out of my hair a little bit. It was not very pleasant; I’ll put it that way. My poor roommate was supposed to have had a test the morning we got back so she studied her little heart out, only to find out at the end of class that the test got moved to Tuesday. We both just used that day to sleep and catch up on stuff. That night some of us went out to dinner at a local Western Food place that happened to have Wi-Fi luckily. I had had no way of letting anyone know we got home safe from Xi’an so needless to say there were some worried people! The next few days we relaxed and caught up on classes, but I was excited for Thursday.

Last Thursday two of our professors from SPU were in town for a conference. So on Thursday I hung out with them, we went shopping at the Lotus Market and then a lot of the SPU students and the two professors all went out to dinner that night. It was so nice to get some familiarity from home here in China, especially since one of the professors and I are fairly close. It was nice to have people from home here that I knew and crazy but awesome that we were able to hang out on the other side of the world! Friday we hung out them again, met them for lunch, and then I took them to the bamboo park (Wangjiang Park) and got dinner with them.

The weekend was busy busy busy! On Saturday I went on the school sponsored field trip to Dujianyan again. This time it was a bright and sunshiny day and it was fun. We thought there would be English guides but we were the only four, on our bus at least, that were Western and spoke English. SO half the day we had no idea what was going on. On the way there one of the buses got a flat tire, which was just the start of the crazy day. After the irrigation system they took us to a nearby restaurant in which we had a family style lunch. What was really fun is the fact that at our table of 10 people, 6 different nationalities were represented. There was a couple from Poland, two girls from France, an American from the Philippines, three Americans, a guy from England, and another guy from Japan. Our common languages were English and some Chinese. It was cool to see so much diversity at one table. After dinner we went to some Ancient City down the street a ways. It was an ancient town with lots of traditional buildings and statues that displayed life in China. It was beautiful to look at. One of my friends and I got yelled at by some Chinese Grandma who thought we were trying to take a picture of her granddaughter even though we weren’t, she was convinced we had a picture of her. The thing is, they snipe pictures of us all the time without asking, so why can’t we? It wasn’t that big of a deal, it was just the first time we had gotten yelled at like that. When we finally left we were on our way back to school and all of a sudden our bus turned around. We were confused thinking maybe we forgot someone or something, but then we saw that the bus that had been behind us had gotten into an accident. Somehow a larger truck had hit it and the back windows on one side of the bus were completely smashed. Luckily, everyone was okay but the Chinese guide on that student bus had been standing in the back ended up getting thrown to the front of the bus. She was okay, but was extremely shaken. After that we all managed to get back safely.

Sunday was awesome! I finally got the chance to go to church and it was amazing how much you miss it when you don’t go, but you don’t realize the fact that you do. It was a decent distance away but so worth it. It is a house church of all foreigners and each week it is at a different person’s apartment or house. When we walked in we were greeted with the smell of fresh coffee and pastries as well as about 20 other Western faces… it was amazing. Fresh coffee was a huge blessing, if you know me, you know that I am a coffee addict and instant Nescafe just doesn’t do it for me. The coffee was a mixture of hazelnut and regular and was a little piece of heaven in China. There was also fresh pumpkin –cream cheese bread homemade by the wife of the apartment we were at. It was sooooooo good and a nice taste of home! The church was amazing and reminded me a lot of people at home. It consisted of about 25 adults – an older couple in their 60s or so, several families with kids, and 7 or 8 college kids, as well as about 10 little kids belonging to the different families. The group was super nice and it was awesome to see people from all over the world come together. The guy that lead that week also happened to be originally from Edmonds, WA though him and his family has been in China for about 16 years and another couple was from Shoreline, WA, so it really is a small world I found out. After church some of us went out to lunch and had the best Chinese food I’ve had since I’ve been here. The family who has been here from 16 years ordered for us so they knew what was good. One of the women that came with us paid for all of the college kids’ lunch which was so sweet of her! It was only about 15 RNB a person (almost $3USD) but the gesture all on its own was sweet. After that we bussed it back home and hung out with some girls who had just arrived in Chengdu from the states to teach English. The rest of the day I studied and hung out. That night my friend had invited me to a worship and prayer night at an apartment that they rent out. It was so fun and awesome to see everything that is happening over in China and to be able to fellowship and worship with so many people half way across the world. It almost felt like we were back in the states for a while. The interesting thing about the church is that it is technically illegal because it isn’t registered with the government, but since it is only foreigners and moves around every week it is okay. But to think that this is what people used to have to do in order to simply fellowship with each other is crazy to think about; we don’t realize how lucky we are in the states. Christianity is legal in China but you cannot pass Bible’s out to people, do “mission” work, and you must be registered if you have a church. So the rules on religion are fairly strict, though the government isn’t fond of any type of religion.

The rest of this week we have been busy studying, doing homework, and taking midterms. My poor roommate had four or so midterms for her Chinese class this week. Our non-intensive class only had one and it was extremely easy, but it was the first time I’ve had to study since being in China. The test was 50% of our grade but was only two pages and took about 30 min. It was all in Chinese, minus the directions, and it was fun to be able to read it! I never thought that I would be able to read or speak any Chinese in my whole life. Before I came here all Chinese words sounded the same to me and I never understood how anyone could understand it, but after being here, listening, and learning some of the characters and words, I can begin to tell the difference. I love it!

I am starting to get a little bit homesick, but more for the people and familiarity of home. Being in another country getting around is complicated and I don’t always know where everything is. So the selfish part of me and the Western part of me misses the familiarity and simplicity of home and of Seattle. I am missing the changing of the season of fall and all of the red leaves, the crisp air, pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pie, pumpkin patches, and corn mazes. It’s amazing how you don’t realize how much you love things like that until you are away from them. Something as simple as the beautiful leaves changing. The leaves here change on some trees but they don’t turn beautiful colors, they just turn brown and die and fall to the ground. I am also missing a lot of Western food and being able to cook anything but noodles and peanut butter and jelly. I am missing my friends and family. Don’t get me wrong I love China, the people are amazing and there is so much to do, I am just really beginning to realize how much I love the city of Seattle.

Happy fall to everyone and I promise I will try to update this thing more often.

PS If you want to know a little bit more about how the Chinese government works, here's a lovely little article I found: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13904437