1. What I’ve Done
2. Almost Didn’t Get Through Immigration
3. Blogs that Distract Me From Writing My Blog
4. The next step
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1. What I’ve done
4/30-5/4 Wenjiang
-I didn’t do anything worthy of detailing. Or nothing I feel like detailing. It’s enough to tell you that I enjoyed my good friend’s company and talked about various aspects of life: growing up, raising kids, career goals, my dreams, etc.
-The cocktail of medication I seemed to help relieve my allergy or at least coincide with its demise. Finally.
-At this point my Chinese brain needed a rest, and I had some long and some short conversation with friends on Skype. Thank you for your time.
5/5-5/7 Wenjiang-Train-HongKong
-I decided to not press my time and go to Hong Kong directly, to reset my visa. I hopped onto a Monday afternoon train heading to Shenzhen, the associate Chinese border city with Hong Kong.
-Without effort, my seat neighbors fell into a misconception that I was from Gansu, a northern province in China. As I stepped onto the train, an attendant let out “woah, a westerner” to which I corrected “I’m a Gansu person.” She knew I was joking, and when she passed down the aisle selling newspapers she turned my way to offer her goods: “hey, gansu ren, do you want a paper” “No, thank you”. My neighbors confirmed “So you’re from Gansu?” “Yeah, it’s beautiful there, we have wonderful deserts and colorful landscapes.” I could have sworn that I revealed I was actually from the US after that; even if I did, for the the next few hours, I was a Gansu person and our conversation was minimal.
I’m sure I don’t fit the complexion of any ethnic group in Gansu but a few factors helped me carry out this bit of trickery: 1) China is so damn big, there’s too large a number of ancient ethnic groups, tribes, pockets and cultures to not believe that there might actually be a clan of 6’0, Blonde, blue eyed, nomads inhabiting a desert valley in Gansu. 2) On the 18 car train-1500+people-I was the only foreigner. Without having said anything at all, they might have assumed I was a local; they didn’t expect a westerner to actually join them to endure a straight-back hard seat for 39hrs across country. Airline tickets are expensive, I am not making any money, and my time is worth nothing. Hard seat it is. 3) Oh yeah, speaking Chinese.
In the beginning of the ride my neighbors and I had a bit of small chat, only a bit. I didn’t mind the lack of conversation, but I was surprised that none had bothered to ask me the classic first-time-meeting-a-foreigner-questions: “Where are you from?” “Which state in the US?” “How long have you been in China? “If you’ve only been in China six months, how do you speak Chinese?” “How long did you study in the US?” “Do you like Chinese women?” “Is all you eat steak and bread?”
A few hours into the train ride someone asked about Gansu. I laughed, and clarified that I’m from the US, “Wait, you’re actually a foreigner?” Everyone in the nearby seats turned their heads and we all launched into the aforementioned questions and a cultural exchange for the next day and a half on the train.
-Funnily enough I out slept everyone, both nights and day. When I stirred from sleep the first day I overheard my neighbors discussing my gift “Maybe he’s just extremely tired from biking” or maybe “I guess he’s use to this sleeping like this.” “How does he do it?”
About 3 in the morning, I woke up to find my neighbor had sleepily found a comfortable lean-on: me
I arrived in Shenzhen the morning of 5/7, met up with someone I’d met at the hostel 2 years earlier, showered, toured her job’s activities(she’s a social worker), neighborhood, ate lunch and then emigrated to Hong Kong.
5/7-5/11 Hong Kong
Things changed when I got to Hong Kong. Groves of skyscrapers and tall buildings spread out along the water-front and up the hills that backdrop the city. All of a sudden I was in a mega modern mix between New York, San Francisco, and Penang(Malaysia). I crossed HK on the metro and came up in my hosts neighborhood: Soma. A hotpot of bars/cafes/galleries/restaurants. The streets were clean, but lacked the sterility of Singapore. The infrastructure and architecture fit together in an orderly but also organic fashion: shiny business buildings, skinny needle-like apartment buildings, renovated/being-renovated public buildings, and varied store fronts. The diversity within a few blocks surpassed that of what I’d seen in Chinese towns over the past two months. I did appreciated the change in aesthetic, but despite the familiarity of some English signs, brands I knew, cafes, and masses of westerners, I couldn’t really find my place. I was just teleported from a the perils of adventure to a high class city. I was caught with my pants down, or rather just with the wrong pants: A pair of zip off hiking pants, faded synthetic shirts, crocs and a substantial beard. All of which definitely set me apart from the young and old professionals. In actuality, I don’t care that my dress didn’t match, this is metaphoric. It’s just that I didn’t really know how to explore or interact with this space. There’s no village, farmland, forgotten roads or deep valleys. It was somewhat a bit of reverse culture shock.
Rainy Hong Kong
HK does have hiking options and beautiful beaches, but the wet weather that plagued many of my days from Shanghai to Chengdu, managed to join me in the trek across country, limiting my options to exploring Hong Kongs commercial spaces. I’m not much of a shopper, so I wandered the streets, but didn’t find reason to go into stores. I felt rather lost.
I am sick of rain.
I won’t leave it at that, or else you’ll think that HK was a total loss. It wasn’t. I got to speak English, make friends and reconnect with an Berkeley classmate.
My hosts were awesome and it was exciting to discuss their plans for their own soon-to-be world trip. And I caught up with a friend from Berkeley. I haven’t written HK off, but I do really really hope that its sunny the next time I’m there. If it rains. I will.
5/11-5/21
-28hr train ride back, ten hours less than my way here-yes! Though I got less sleep this time cause got stuck on the aisle seat with no table to lean on. My ticket was for the middle seat-with table-leaning-access-but I was gratious and let the women with the aisle seat sit next to her husband(she was already sitting in the seat when I got there) I regretted this act of compassion, a lot. She never really used the table to sleep and I suffered through insomnia and back/butt pain the first night. She stole an abandoned window seat at 5am and I got some shut eye on the table, but relinquished when someone else needed their seat and she came back 8. I deserted curteousy that afternoon asked her to switch so I could sleep on the table. This was the first time that I did not coma(yes I’m using this as a verb) through transportation and I suffered. Now I understand why people are so jealous of me when I can sleep. Thank goodness it was only one night on the train. Salt in the wound: In Chengdu, I saw the man and women grab separate luggage and go separate waits: their not married Dang, I could’ve booted her without reservation the night earlier.
Note to self: just cause two people are sitting next to each other does not mean that they’re married.
Other note to self: Even if people are married and sitting next to each other.. if one is in your seat and that seat has access to the table. Have no mercy.
-I stayed a night with some biker friends in the city center and then joined Qiling and Chumeng. The first few days are a blur of drinking tea, editing photos, being lazy, writing, a trip to a local university, shaving, checking out the nearby mountains, and a birthday party.
Now recently I’ve just been scouring the map from here to Qinghai lake and writing an encyclopedia of trip notes. The Tibetan Plateau is less populated, higher altitude, and has varied weather. I’ve read blogs and maps hours on end now I’m really really feeling like its time to make moves.
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2. Almost didn’t get through immigration.
I’m exaggerating, they didn’t detain me or anything, but they did ask to see some more ids, and it took a minute or two for the guard to accept that I, in fact, am Chris McDermut. So I figured it was about time.
Which style is best?
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3. Blogs that Distract Me From Writing My Blog
I just came across two blogs I enjoy looking through.
-One is a MIT friend of a high school friend who lives in Qinghai. Her blog so professional, well written and easy to navigate, her posts vary from dealing with life-in-China’s frustrations, weekend trips to locals in the area, and some study of desertification on the Tibetan plateau. Tracy has even been kind enough to give me some of her advice on
http://tracyschina.blogspot.com/
-In preparing to mount and cross a corner of the Tibetan plateau, I’ve looked at some photos on “google explore”, my curiosity in the user “A Walk Across Asia”, led me to peruse their collection of photos and then find their blog.
I’ve stumbled across an amazing journey, a Harvard student’s walk from Samarkand to Beijing. It’s not necessarily that they’re walking that is incredible. It’s that they’re journey isn’t limited to roads, they traverse the natural landscape between villages and towns. A meandering line through deserts, scrub, farmlands, fields, mountains and glaciers.
It’s not just the trip that makes this character so spectacular, their communication reaches beyond English to Chinese, Russian, Tibetan, and sprinkles of regional dialects. Their walk yields a unique focus, being archeology, folk ark, and architecture. I’ve been focusing on the transition to the modern so much that to see his observations and research is a refreshing view to what-once-was. He intertwines scholarly analysis of regional history and architecture with captivating adventures and dots the writings with funny quips and insights.
I think I’m more curious about this character’s seat in reality than I was about Santa Claus. I sent him an email expressing my admiration and within a day he politely responded; I must say I was as giddy as a Rolling Stones groupie receiving fanmail-response.
Turns out that Habbinal is currently in China, graduated-and-all, furthering research on fortified villages in Northern China. We’ve kept a conversation going about our interests, motivations, and backgrounds. I think we’re friends now..
http://twosmall.ipower.com/blog/?page_id=51
http://www.ungernandsternberg.com/
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4. The next step
Some of you know, some of you don’t, but this upcoming stretch is the last of my trip(for now) and I don’t mean, the distance from here to California. I’m in Chengdu, China planning to ride to Xining, Qinghai, The next state northwest.
I’m 50km away from the start of what could be the most beautiful section of the trip. The wrinkled landscape of the Tibetan Plateau, the North east end of the roof of the world.
I actually won’t get to speak that much Chinese, if any(it’s mostly Tibetans from here on out. Clean air, mountains, colors, I’m excited
It’s present to myself, really.