黄山

hello, guys, future me.  I'm currently sitting at the hotel lobby/bar. whiskey on the rocks is 32 rmb, which is around 5 greenbacks.  on my second one, and my excuse (TRUTH) is that i have a sore throat and need bacterial cleansing.  They did not have (did not know) a hot toddy.  tried my google best, but to no avail.

Today was pretty good.  Huang shan is absolutely breathtaking.  1700km elevation at our lowest after the tram.  Crouching tiger hidden dragon was shot there. Oh, a joke that a fellow tour mate made. Crouching in Chinese sounds like “hungry” and hidden sounds like “bed”. So the analogy is that the tiger is hungry for a bedding with the dragon.  Hahahahahaha, I’m done.  During the ride up, there was a mixture of bamboo and non-bamboo trees (the “regular” ones with brown trunks, branches and green leaves). Made a pitstop to buy these hiking sticks, but both my dad and I were too stubborn to admit that we might need its assistance.  That place was filled with what I thought were floating dandelions, but were all just really chubby pale flies. There were a lot of them.  Tour guide was chill as fuck.  There were old people on the trip (as I’ve said repeatedly), but he don’t give a fuck. They just gotta keep up.  As the tram went up, it felt like I was passing different pieces of Chinese landscape paintings.  Its really incredible that as artists use nature as a reference for their artwork, we (those who do not have the capacity to frequent beautiful places) use artworks to make sense of the beauty in nature.  And they do a marvelous job to abstractly represent how expansive and far reaching these mountains actually seem.  There wasn’t that feeling of how small I was in relationship to something so sublime, but it was more a respect for how the sublime could offer me this experience. To see something larger than a metropolitan area, to experience an environment not solely designed for humans, and that reminded me of it is most ideal to live synergistically.  That the world isn’t designed for humans.  But then I look at the rocks I am standing on that have been blasted into steps, how inaccessible this view is to an untouched mountain.

Tong Li is kinda awesome

I didn't really expect to enjoy my visit here after i found out that it wasn't Su Zhou I was staying at, but actually a province north of it.  I had done some research for Suzhou and intended to visit museums, tea houses, and the many gardens it is known for.  For the first day and a half, I was more struck, rather than enamored, that I was elsewhere. It didn't matter the country, city, state, province, just somewhere else.  After that shock, which in that process, alleviated stress back home,  forgot self conjured problems, and remembered that i came here to explore, my mind settled a bit (which may have been due to the beautifully preserved architecture dating back to the Song Dynasty) and realized, this place is going to be the best part of the trip.  (i'm saying this now as I left and am in my second destination, Shanghai) Tongli is replete with preserved culture, a small town dynamic, friendly people, and it makes you want to wake up early in the morning to catch a show in the outdoor theatre, or stay outside at night to join the large conga line of middle aged women dancing.  I know me, and you might know me...I don't wake up early...I don't dance...Of course there is a bit of tourism, heck, I had a conversation with that bar owner as to why there isn't more tourism.  But it isn't a culture that has overtaken tradition.  People there are still unabashed, they fish by the canals with bare hands, teaching their children their techniques, young artists take advantage of Tongli's beauty and sit for hours without obstructing the narrow pathways, the gondoliers engage in friendly banter with store owners, fellow tour guides, patrons, anyone that the pass by as they row. Maybe its just the rose petaled glasses i'm wearing from simple being in a different environment, but I treasured my time here.

Side note: Went back with my dad to that bar with the dude that basically payed to hire me, and we all sat down for drinks.  Dad tried to get me to talk to two girls next to us.  I told him I didn't know how to speak the language. He thought i was talking about women not chinese...But hell, i tried to do both. Father ended up talking about commies, old days, his kids being what they are, america, shit, that man has no organization.

Revenge farts

now at father's friend's hotel called the Garden Hotel. Currently in Tong Li, the "Venice of the East".  Total travel time was around  25 hours from the time I left home.  Who knew sitting on your ass all day would be so exhausting.  The entire plane ride, i kept smelling something rancid.  In my claustrophobic state, I concluded that my dad next to me was farting on me.  I'm also a bit passive aggressive, so instead of confronting him, the best course of action was fart retaliation.  I expelled whenever he shifted his seating position towards me to alternate comfort zones. It was great, but then i realized it was actually his breath.  so the entire ride, while he was trying to talk to me, i turned away in disgust. He definitely thinks i don't want to talk or something, i mean....he's right, but for the wrong reason.

Also, dad's friends are so fucking loud. i'm kinda wishing there was someone who speaks english here. heck, even engrish would suffice.


slight update-
went to a nearby bar to do some coding learning, but the owner dude started asking me questions.  it was kinda cool at first, i was able to put what little chinese i knew to the test, and it was fun figuring out what he was saying.  they guy had some american pop culture idols up on posters on his wall (bob dylan, beatles, rolling stones, michael jackson - "king of po") and a makeshift basketball and football jersey.  then we talked about censorship in china, hate on deng xiao ping, ai wei wei, chinese institutionalized brainwashing, and had to google translate most of the conversation.  I got a bit wary when google translate typed out things like "i have no freedom" or "police are all part of an underground gang".  Then he asked if I wanted to work at his bar for a month, free room and board, and I would teach him english while he teaches me chinese...If only it had been an attractive chinese girl, I wouldn't mind playing the naiive little american boy, mehehehe. 

Preparation

Hey guys, to whomever reads this. This is, I suppose, a travel blog, but its less for you and more for me to chronicle things.  I haven't traveled that often, but of the times I have, they were amazing experiences...but then I forget.  I'll never forget the spirit tree in Trinidad, or the hippie caves in Matala, but the feeling of experience erodes with time.  It takes a bit of digging to remember the feeling of strong camaraderie in Trinidad, and the interesting family dynamic in Greece.  I'm hoping to revisit this in later years, and drink to what a little shit I once was (still am/will be).

This trip I am about to take, will embark on October 6th, 2013.  It will be the first time I travel to China in 17 years....fuck, I'm getting old...

Shanghai--->Beijing--->Guangzhou---->Hong Kong

Will return on November 18.  I suppose this is a trip to expose me to my roots, understand were I came from, finding my identity, yadda, yadda, hooray motherland, blah blah...but I'll be joining tour groups for the majority of the trip (Shanghai and Beijing) so i'll be taking everything in with a grain of salt.  I plan to/ need to go again once my Chinese has improved drastically and have a more defined area of exploration (location or academic).

^
That shit was weeks ago. In about 10 hours from now, i'll be boarding a flight to China.  I'm not that exhausted, not that prepared, and i don't really know what to expect, just as i like it.  I probably packed far less clothing than i should, and far more electronics than necessary.  The parents played the role of costco santa and are stuffing tons of wholesale, party sized...toiletries, craisans, and vitamins to dole out as gifts.

here is a pic of a pile of Scotch Brite sponges that we are giving away.....

But there is a bit of a backstory to this tradition of stuffing large amounts of seemingly menial objects and giving them out as presents. My father was telling me, yet again, as I criticized the 2 mega tubes of cling wrap that we are going to bring overseas, that his family had no money when he was growing up.  His parents were away a lot, so my dad and his sisters had to fend for each other.  When his parents did return, they would bring back bags of rice, vegetables, large amounts of other necessities.  To prep for these large hunter-gatherer journeys, they would inlay their clothing with burlap sacks because they would not be able to purchase bags at where they would get their commodities. It is interesting to see how a simple survival tradition has progressed into something so bizarre.  So why do we need 5 large bottles of glucosimine and 3 kirkland bottles of calcium? The fuck if I know.  being costco mules isn't going to be very fun, haha, but hey, its tradition...maybe....This is making me realize that the quality of life that we have, what i think is menial, might be a luxury.  I don't think this means much, nor do i want it to. this can give the delusion of feeling superior, luxury is an easy and gilded  focal point. This brings me to what I am hoping to attain on this trip.  I want to get a better understanding of where my parents come from.  I'll save the bar scene, the night life for another month, another year, with other people, but this is an opportunity to see my father's stories of his village come to life, to see where his friends are and what could have been him had he stayed in Toisan.

on that note, parents are packing everything in now, hahahaha, they are optimizing the fuck out of that luggage space. gotta help