slender west lake

spring has sprung, the grass has riz...

a reply to comments:

I can't reply in the comment in the comments section due to the great firewall of China so I'll start my latest report with a couple replies.

Kent: Try as I might, I cannot muster the same horking sounds that my Chinese counterparts have perfected over the years so no retaliation is in my future.

For anyone worried about me getting arrested: I am keeping my opinions and most of my burning questions to myself. The student who sent me the email is talking to me again but keeps referring to China as "our China". It is starting to creep me out a bit. We may have to end our meetings soon. Needless to say, we do not talk about Tibet.

For the most part, the students here have no idea or no comment on Tibet. We attended a student night where students have an opportunity to practice their English. One of the profs reported that his group did not understand why we couldn't get into Tibet. I guess they are too busy studying.


And for an entertaining read, you should continue to follow the China Daily coverage and compare it to the Free Press or Globe coverage. It is an amazing example of how a few words can completely change the feel of a report on the same events. For example, China Daily report of the monks who rushed the reporters while on a guided tour of Jokhang Temple reads like this:


Organizers of the media tour, including officials from the State Council Information Office, did not interrupt the interview, letting it continue for about 15 minutes, the same duration as other on-the-spot interviews on the itinerary.


from the Canadian Press:

Officials tugged at the journalists to leave and shouted "Time to go." After the outburst subsided, the monks filed away upstairs.

Long live freedom of the press.


Now on to lighter things. We kicked off the weekend with a fabulous road trip a couple hours outside of Nanjing to the city of Yangzhou, home to Slender West Lake. The lake was created from a river by a group of salt merchants in an attempt to impress the emperor on his visit to Yangzhou. The emperor's commented during the visit that the park lacked a dagoba, a bottle shaped Budhist monument. So they built one of those overnight for the ungrateful sot. (my comment not Fodors). The lasting effect is this beautiful park with flowers and bridges and an odd looking white dagoba ( the Aladdin lamp thing in the background of the picture below).










The funniest part of the day began with the simple act of sitting on a rock to wait for my group to catch up. There were hundreds of school kids at the park on Friday. Most of the kids study English in school but rarely have the opportunity to practice so when this little boy wandered by staring at me in the typical manner I asked if he liked the flowers. Within seconds I was swarmed by the grade five class of Yangzhou Primary School.









We had a great conversation mainly centering around the theme of "how are you?" and "how old are you?"with a couple "where are you from?". While I was talking to the kids another crowd gathered to take pictures. It seems that one white person surrounded by school kids makes a great photo op for the average Chinese park goer as well. So once again I will be featured in a few Chinese photo albums as the token Westerner they saw in a park one day.

The rest of the day was spent templing (the verb form for viewing temples)




and wandering around a garden courtyard once home to some rich mucky-muck from the Qing Dynasty (we didn't get a very informative tour).







In other news: my suit fits so I ordered more custom-made clothes. You can't beat the price or the fit. One jacket and two pairs of pants, lined, light wool - $95 Cdn. I'm getting two pairs of capri's for $15 each. Yippee!

Today I am heading to the grocery store today to pick through the vat o' chicken with the other 6000 people shopping. Tonight is pot luck. I am going to attempt to make some lemon chicken. And somewhere in there I have to plan our alternative travel to replace Tibet. There are so many options.
... and I have work to do.

four down, two to go

Tomorrow will be the one month mark of my little adventure. I started crossing off the days on my Botanical Paperworks plantable calendar pages when I was feeling a little home sick. When March and April were staring back at me, untouched. It seemed like April 24th was a lifetime away. But here I am, more the halfway done my classes, one week away from seeing Peter and two weeks away from seeing the rest of China. Yippee! I did it. I'll be planting my calendar pages in no time. I can't wait to show Peter around my new home turf. I've been picking off the sights in my free time and saving some of the highlights for when Peter arrives.

Here are a few new sights:

Nanjing Museum: Not a very big museum given China has a 5000 year old history, but they managed to capture some pretty cool highlights. The two floors were partitioned into items China is known for - jade, pottery, weaving. The coolest thing was the oldest thing I have EVER seen.

They don't look like much. In fact, I believe Mom has something very similar from my pottery class days but these little vessels date back to 5000 B.C. 5-0-0-0 That's old. And what is neat about them is that they took the time to make pig faces. Usually you think of things that are 7000 years old to be purely functional. Not in this part of the world. Fashion and function are key. Here's a couple other pics from the Museum.

Jiming Temple: It is a working temple complete with scary gods, golden Buddhas, and a gaggle of nuns and nuns-in-training. The centre tower provides a spectacular view of the city including Xuanwu Lake, sight of the bicycle for two adventure.

We finished at the temple around rush hour so we decided to walk to our next destination - Blue Sky. It's an expat bar owned by an Australian and run by a Canadian. It is the place to go on a Saturday I hear. They have a restaurant too so I finally had a meal that I could identify, didn't have to pick bones out of and was certifiably toad free.

Rush hour in downtown is chaos. If your life wasn't being threatened from all directions I would even dare to call it magical. It is a perfectly choreographed dance. Problem is, we missed the rehearsal. The sheer volume of bikes alone boggle your mind. The picture really doesn't do it justice but you get a bit of an idea.

Tomorrow we are off to Slender West Lake. Saturday I pick up my suit. And Sunday is a blank page. More pictures to come.

tension rising

Things are heating up here in China. This weekend I got an email from student who approached me a few weeks ago while we were walking across campus. He asked if we could meet once a week so he could practice his English. We met once and had an interesting discussion that eventually made it's way around to how our two countries view each other. Canada is pretty much a non factor in China's eyes. At best we are this sparsely populated iceberg that isn't thought of beyond basic geography class, but more often we are just folded in with the US and Britain as "westerners". He asked what I thought of China. I told him I like the people but I didn't like the pollution and am not used to the crowds. He responded, "China is a developing country. The world needs to be patient with us."

Fair enough. They do have a lot of problems that come with an exploding population and economic boom. So we had a friendly discussion and made plans to meet again this week. Then I get this email from him:

"The terrists are terrible, they killed the people and destroy the shops ,banks , schools and so on . Another point I want to say ,some foreign media report

wrong fact ,for example:CNN BBC ....
I know you are in our China , maybe you learn the truth

Pls forgive me . I hate some foreign media ,terrists ,CNN BBC.... very much especial the American. I canot believe their action."

The "terrist" in this case are the Tibetan rioters. The media he is referring to is an article that came out in the China Daily about CNN and BBC doctoring photos and bending the truth about what is happening. I'm not going to link the article because that would link the media back to my blog but go check it out and read their comments. The article was published on Friday. Globe and Mail has a rebuttal article that you should also read. There is also a blog link in the China Daily article written by a couple of people who were in Tibet when the problems started.


I will refrain from too many comments except that I came to China with one view and I am learning how complex the issues really are. It's interesting to see things from China's point of view. It seems to me that having "westerners" voice their opinion about Tibet is a bit like China putting political and social pressure on Canada to embrace First Nation self-government. Maybe the two issues aren't alike at all but it is the best example I can think of.

The email has me a bit rattled. For the first time, I actually feel exposed to a general hatred that I only imagine is a form of racism. I can't tell if my Chinese friend was lashing out at me or just trying to give his side of the story. It makes me sad because last week we seemed to have a good chat. I don't want to be just another foreigner.


I also feel a bit uneasy after reading some of the comments in the China Daily article. I'm not in danger but I don't like the feeling of being lumped into a general "Westerner" category.  I wish I could have an open discussion with people here to get their side of the story but everyone is very guarded. So I will keep my mouth shut and take my seat in the nose bleed section to observe a piece of history unfold before me.

out and about

Wow, that week zoomed by. I was hoping to post again since the sun did come out and my mood picked up but I ran out of time. I still am working on the things I like. It's not that I can't think of any, I'm just collecting a few pictures and waiting for one last thing. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, here's a little photo shoot from yesterday. I took off for a little adventure in the morning - got lost, walked 5 km to get 'unlost' but saw lots of cool things along the way like this temple:

Complete with a street lined with flowering plum trees. Perfect. This is Jiming Temple and is home to Buddhist nuns. Nice digs ladies. I will be returning next week to tour.

The big trip of the day was to Yuejang Tower and surrounding parks area.

In the park beside the temple, men were practicing spinning these tops. I have no idea what they are called. They wrap the string around the bottom of the top and make it twirl. The whirling sound in the video is the sound the tops make. Pretty neat stuff.

They tried to teach me. The best I could do was keep it spinning on the string. You can see the tower in the background. We climbed to the top but it was a misty day (actually mist not just smog) so we didn't get a good view of the Yangtze River.

The other common activity in the park is cards and board games. The Walker clan would fit right in! It was a good day complete with lots of exercise. We're off to see the Nanjing Museum today. It is known as one of the best collection of Chinese artifacts in China including jade, pottery and embroidery (oh my). See ya!

disappointed

Latest news release: http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKPEK29814020080316

It seems that travel to Tibet has officially been suspended. The BBC reports that it may be up to 5 months before foreign travel will be allowed in Tibet. Why now? It's been 58 years of repression - what was one more month?

I cannot tell you how disappointed I am. I was even looking forward to the 18 hour train ride. We haven't heard from the travel agent yet. I guess that is next week's task. I know there are tons of other things to see but when you have Lhasa on the docket it's a bit difficult to find a suitabe replacement.

hmph...

lights, camera...

Thanks for the feedback on the blog. It has been a fun way to track my trip and it is even more fun knowing that I'm not talking to myself. It makes it a little less lonely over here. It is surprising how isolated you can feel in a city of 8 million.

Speaking of 8 million, at least 5 million were on the move this weekend - most of them by subway. For once I had the advantage, using size to gain some much needed space on the subway. I would have taken picture but I couldn't extract my camera from my purse. It was exactly as I imagined it would be - doors to the subway open unleashing a flood of people in all directions, people stacked in face-to-armpit, fighting for that last little space. And to ensure the whole group gets into the same car, one only has to lean very hard against all the people to create space. 

We all headed out on Saturday for a full day of sightseeing. My goals was to see the South Gate. I've added a Nanjing map on the links for your reading pleasure. I've attempted to add in some helpful graphics to follow along but given my limited experience with the free editing software I downloaded, it looks like a three year old drew on the map. However, you get the basic idea.

We started at the top of the map (orange star) at the downtown campus and took #78 to the corner of the short horizontal road leading to the subway station. That little road is Hunan Road. We rode the sardine can south to the end (red dot) and then walked back up to the Zhonghua Gate (South Gate) and Confucius Temple. I am happy to report that at no time did we get lost. I even managed to match up some Chinese characters on a sign to my map - big step in conquering navigation around here.

South Gate is incredible. It is a series on walls and rooms - more like a castle than a wall. This is the view from outside the wall.

I would like to draw your attention to a couple thing in the above picture. Dude is taking his dog AND his birds for a walk. I'll elaborate another day on that phenomena. He is also outfitted in a very traditional Mao/Communist jacket and hat.

Each stone was cut to weigh 15-20 kg and inscribed with different characters and words. I guess they had a bit of time on their hands back in the Ming day.

So after we explored the wall, we set out to find Confucius Temple. I was under the false impression that it was a pagoda style temple. Instead we found this...

I think the space has changed since Confucius time - unless Confucius created the temple of shopping. I don't think I've ever seen so many people in one area. And the shopping!!

I hope to come back here a) on a weekday and b) at night. It is supposed to be incredible at night.

Back to the map: We met our Chinese student, Amy, outside one of the temple gates and headed back to the subway (red line) to go for supper (flower). If you want to eat in China, you either need pictures or a Chinese person. Anything else and you are taking your chances. Supper was relatively uneventful except for the fight over the token chicken foot in one of our dishes.

After dinner we took a walk back to Hunan Street (pink line). Hunan street is impressive during the day...

but at night it puts the Griswolds to shame. What a light show. This is what I've been waiting to see.

Today I'm off to the market and then I need to get a little work done. I forget that I'm not on holidays.

All in all, a good sight seeing day yesterday and a successful venture beyond bus #78.

Bus #78

I've been down for the count with a headache since my Nanjing outing on Tuesday. I can't decide if it was the smog, a day in the sun or just lack of sleep that finally did me in. But a few Motrin later and I am ready to talk.

I'm getting the hang of bus #78. I know where it stops, how much it costs (1 yuan which is about 15 cents) and most importantly - I know where it goes. It takes me to one of the most popular shopping strips in Nanjing - Hunan Road. This place is so popular it has a full length neon sign stretching right across the road - "Welcome to Hunan Road".

The shopping is extensive if you are the size of a 10 year old girl. I have yet to find a Ms. Big and Tall store. I did find a cool hoodie with Chinese embroidery in XXL that just barely fits - if it doesn't shrink in the wash. I didn't buy it yet. Still holding out for something I really love.

At the end of Hunan Road is a section of the city wall built in the Ming Dynasty (they sure like their walls).

And behind the wall is an incredible lake and park called Xuanwu Lake Park.

It's a serene escape from a city that never slows down and NEVER STOPS HONKING. Behind the walls you can escape the chaos to walk through cherry trees and weeping willows.

And what better way to see a large park then to rent a broken down, miniature sized bicycle built for two. Yes, Greg and I set out for a little spin on this ill-fitting contraption with wonky steering and squeaky brakes. We saw fountains and gardens, beautiful flowering trees and men with impossibly long fishing poles. It was the type of outing I had been hoping for since I arrived.

That little taster of sighseeing has kick started my plans to see more of this crazy city. I'm actually starting to get the hang of the city. Two simple rules - ignore the stares and watch for traffic. Pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way - even when they are supposed to have the right of way.

Here's a little Fodor's Nanjing history. Nanjing means Southern Capital. It was the capital of China for six dynastic periods, which means nothing to me since I don't know the periods or how long they lasted. During the 14th century, the Ming Dynasty built a wall around the city for protection. And boy did they ever build a wall. It is an impressive piece of architecture. I'm hoping to see the South Gate - a fortress with courtyards and tunnels. That's next week.

Stay tuned for excursion #2 - taking the subway! Bus #78 can only take me so far.

photo blog

I'm too lazy to write today so here are some sights in back and white for a little change. Some things in China are better without colour. I am even too lazy to edit the pictures so here are some unedited sights of Nanjing.