China: the largest dam nation

Many cultures have a day to commemorate the dead. Every spring, China celebrates “Qing Ming,” a three day festival to honor deceased ancestors. Qing Ming is translated as the sweeping of the tombs, during this holiday, families will travel to the tombs of loved ones to pay their respects. We decided to take advantage of this vacation by taking a four day boat tour through the Yangtze River.  

The Yangtze river is the longest river in Asia and the third longest in the world (if your into post-apocolytic fiction, it is where the first zombie outbreak occurs in the novel “World War Z” soon to be a motion picture). Getting to the boat was a bit of an ordeal. Our scheduled 3 hour bus ride, turned into a 12 hour crawl. The main road was shut down because of falling rocks and every one was traveling for the holiday. We climbed onto the boat around 2 am feeling very bus legged and exhausted (our seats were at the back of the bus with the window open).

When I was a boy, I remember quiting the boy scouts around the sixth grade. I still have the cub scout motto “Do Your Best” ingrained in my head, but the Boy Scout “Be prepared” never really stuck. The week before we went on the trip, the weather was a balmy 80 degrees. Not wanting to over pack again, I undercompensated for the trip before by only bringing summer clothing and a thin sweater. I guess I wasn’t really planning on roughing it, but it certainly was rough during some parts.    

Our dragon boat

Floating docks you can walk on.

The first day we hopped off our tour boat to board another to take us through the Mini Three Gorges. The Mini Three Gorges is the most popular scenic spot on the river. Gorgeous gorges, is all I can say, and not very fast. Unfortunately, (especially for those who didn’t pack a coat) it was cold and raining. The next morning we took another mini boat through a beautiful cannon. Beyond the cannon were huge mountains that made it feel a bit like Glacier. The day started out frigid, but warmed up significantly once the sun came out. After 30 minutes on the boat we got to get off and walk around through some of the gorges.  Later that they we arrived at the Three Gorges Dam.

The Three Gorges dam was finished being built just last year after 15 years of construction. It is now the world’s largest power station, and has sparked a lot of controversy. The consequences of such an enormous project are endless. The Three Gorges dam is five times larger than the Hoover dam and produces 20 times more energy. The man made feat that left the biggest impression, wasn’t the dam itself, but the outdoor escalators we took up a mountain side to get to the dam.

There's no such thing as a free meal; the price of half price

I felt a certain homely comfort walking back into our apartment in Rongchang. The trip was fantastic, but after 50 days I really missed the communal feel that comes from living in one place for a long time. Spending so little time in each place made it impossible to truly engage and assimiliate to each culture. Blogging enables me to talk about each destination as though I am a seasoned anthropologist, but my actual cultural knowledge really only scratches the surface. I’ve now been back in Rongchang for three eventful months. I’m excited to write more from a residential perspective than a tourist one.

I’ll start with the abismal news first. Kassy and I are the Patrons of doom. Our favorite baozi restraunt has closed as well as our favorite Sushi spot that refused to accept full payment, if any payment at all. Heaven and Hell, the local bar that I would enter like I was from the cast of Cheers has changed ownership. Stores and restaurants in China Kum and Go, just like the cars at that gas station. Even though rapid business change is extremely common, I still feel like I am Arthur Miller’s “Death to a Salesman” seeing as how three staple go-to establishments all closed within a week. If someone did the market research, they might conclude that it would be more fiscally beneficial to bar me from their business than to welcome me with enormous discounts. What I care most about now, is keeping my favorite “Shao Kao” BBQ in business. I think I am paying full price, but the cost is so cheap that I can’t really tell. There’s no way that they would accept a tip, but I am so afraid that they might close, I think about discretly tossing money behind their counter so it looks like they just dropped it.

Although my patronage doesn’t seem to boost business revenue, my sponsorship has been highly sought out. Kassy and I are on the market (no, our relationship is doing great). I mean our pictures are strewn all over town. Our faces are even advertised as teachers at a grade school we don’t even teach at, how the school got our photos still remains in question. My favorite advertisement we did was for a do-it-yourself photography store for a friend named Cindy. The idea is brilliant, give people a wide selection of custumes and a remote to snap pictures with then allow them to go wild by themselves for an hour in a private room. You have the intimacy of a photo booth with the space of a dance studio. The store will also print you photos on T-shirts, pillow cases, calendars, ect. Kassy and I wanted to do mug shots then print them on coffee mugs, but prisoner outfits were the only costume they didn’t have.

Just like last semester, our college classroom attendance is dwindling. Upcoming finals and 80 degree weather have taken priority to our optional oral English class, although there are still a couple of die hards. That being said, Kassy and I are definitely working more this semester. Kassy has been tutoring a 9-year-old sweetheart twice a week and I have started working at three other schools. A proper teacher assessment would probably show that I am under qualified and over paid for all of them, but no one is complaining. On the contrary, having a foreinger teach at their school has yielded tremendous results for their attendance and notoriety. All of them have locked me up for teaching next year already, one of them even wants to pay me to teach the children over skype this summer, only kidding.

Punny Fotos

Dinosore

Dinoswaurd

Get it on in Honkey Kong

We drove back into Hong Kong for the first day of Xin Nian (the Chinese New Year). Xin Nian is the largest and longest celebration on Earth, it lasts for 12 days. By this point in my travels I was not allowed to cross a street by myself because I would forget which side cars would come from; in each country/city I went to the driving rules seemed to switch.   

An agoraphobic would not last 10 seconds in Hong Kong. Walking around in Hong Kong was like exiting a sports stadium; the place is swarming thousands of people. As crowed as Hong Kong, their transportation system is so efficient that you can get almost anywhere in the city within a half hour. The first night in Hong Kong we went to see the firework show over the Victorian Bay. The show was explosive, way bigger than any I have ever seen. Afterwards we walked down the avenue of stars, which is exactly like its Hollywood counterpart, but with Chinese celebrities.

Bruce Lee statue

The next day after reading a guide book, I convinced the group to go see an enormous Buddha statue on a nearby island. Had I continued reading, I wouldn’t have made such a folly, as the book emphasized not to go during any holidays. To get to the island, one needs to travel by a cable car, to get onto the cable car, one needs to stand in an excruciatingly long line, we’re talking DMV meets new iPhone 5 coming out on Black Friday, line. Four hours later we climbed into the cable car, the sight beneath us of the island was gorgeous. I would have loved to have spent a half a day walking around, but we were on a time crunch to get back to see the New Year’s parade. If time is money, the cost-benefit of this excursion would go under the fiscal loss category, although by no means would I call the day wasted.

From the cable car, we took the metro to the parade just in time to catch the beginning. Like the firework display, the parade was enormous, and had performances from 17 different countries. The United States representation was the Seattle Seagirls, the Seahawk’s cheerleaders. As expected, the Chinese performances were the best. Lots of acrobatics and dragon dancing to get the crowd energized.

Hong Kong was chaotic, the celebrations went on all night for days. Our friend John, for the last two days of the trip had to go to the hospital for dengue fever. The staff wouldn’t allow any visitors, but we could talk to him through a hospital phone. At one point there was a possibility that he would have to stay in Hong Kong for two weeks by himself. The job fell upon us to make sure he made it back to mainland China. We were a bit scared that he might get quarantined at the border, but like most things, it all worked out in the end. John is now completely fine, or as fine John can be.

On a personal note, I had a McDonald’s big mac for the first time ever. Compared to the rest of China, Hong Kong is a bit of an expensive city, but for some inexplicable reason their Big Mac’s were only 80 cents.

Batman Tower

One 4^th of July many moons ago, a much more intelligent person named Luke Dwyer mocked me for not knowing that Hong Kong is part of China. After seeing Hong Kong, I don’t feel so idiotic for my geopolitical ignorance. Hong Kong is to China as Puerto Rico is to the US. Hong Kong was held as a British territory for about one hundred years until China reclaimed it in 1997. Hong Kong is quite autonomous, it has its own; currency, language, traffic laws (they drive on the other side of the road and actually have regulations) and government. Facebook and Youtube are permitted. The Hong Kong flag is raised above the China flag. Chinese citizens are only allowed to enter Hong Kong once a year and need a visa to visit. Perhaps the best way to describe the geography is through geometry. Hong Kong residents are like squares (no they are not losers) and Chinese citizens are like rectangles, all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. Hong Kong identifies itself with China but doesn’t consider China the same as Hong Kong.

Once we got out of the airport, we took a taxi to Shenzhen, an industrious city in mainland China. Chances are you are wearing or using something that was made/assembled in a Shenzhen factory right now. Our first day was mostly spent recooperating and meeting up with Raiko, another teacher from Bosnia, and our Chinese friend Maggie. The next day we got up at l8ish (maybe it was even 9) to go to Macau, the Las Vegas of China.

Our journey to Macau started a bit later than planned. We tried to take a ferry, but all the desirable tickets were sold out (they still had room on a boat leaving at 3:00 and returning at 4:00). We walked out of the ticket office looking like Charlie Brown when he’s down. At this point a shuttle driver swooped down upon us to ask us where we liked to go. Most of our group had it pretty ingrained into our heads not to climb into a stranger’s van. We figured that any solicition coming from outside the ticket office would be a CON. Luckily we had a huge PRO, Maggie, who actually asked the man how much it would be. Without her, we would have passed on the opportunity of a lifetime. The trip would take an hour longer to get there, but we could stay in Macau much longer and for half the price.

Macau

 

The only word I can remember from an art appreciation class is asetetic, and that’s the best word to describe Macau. Macau was once owned by the Portugese, so the city has a unique clash between Chinese and European archeture. Sometimes in cinematography or photography, a picture will be all black and white except for one object. The color really pops out against the dull background and that’s what Macau is like. All the portugese buildings are painted radiant colors that really standout against the surrounding grey apartments. It feels like you are in the movie “Pleasantville” at the point when half the town is in color.

The restaurant we dined at was particularly unique. The menu had a wide range of pricing from a $3 pork sandwich to a $800 delicacy.  Afterwards we went to the casinos. I have about a 1 for 15 record against casinos, the one time I did win was in Venezuela and I wasn’t quite sure how the game was played. It turns out I’m not bad in all casinos, just American ones. Kassy and I wheeled in the dough at roulette. The biggest gamble though was waiting until 11:30 to head back to Shenzhen. The Chinese border closes at midnight and if we missed it, we would have to spend the night in Macau. We ran like oiled gazelles, I was still panting like a dog in midsummer as I handed my passport to the border patrol at 11:57. Half of our winnings were paid in Hong Kong dollars and the other half in Macau dollars, rather than losing on the exchange rate, we spent all of our Macau dollars on throwing a party in the van on the way back. It was better than any ride at Six Flags and the perfect night cap to a wonderful day.