Whirlwind China II: Shenzhen/Yangshuo/Longsheng/Ping'An

Don't worry... despite the long title, I have a feeling this entry might be shorter than the last one, so squiggle into that butt grove and get ready for part two of our latest trip.

First, let me begin by my semi-regular apology for the delay of this post. This time however, I have a somewhat decent excuse. I wanted to include video clips into this post, and as of two days ago, YouTube seems to have made the list of blocked websites here in China. This is strange, because it comes just one day after I found myself able to view my own blog for the first time in a few months. This however is the subject of another post all together. So armed with the will to try out blogger's in house video programming, let me continue our story...



We arrived back on the mainland over land and into the city called Shenzhen. Some say the place is China's answer to Hong Kong, others say that it is a complete dump and a nightmare, but I'll just settle on... wow there were just too many people there. We ventured into the city while waiting for our night bus to Yangshuo, and couldn't help but be mezmerized by the moving masses. (How alliterative!) We also had the chance to use the toilets at the first McDonald's on mainland China, and be befuddled by the Shenzhen metro system. SO MUCH FUN!



And what's a stop over in a Chinese city without some uniquely Chinese food or drink?



Who would have thought that bamboo juice would actually be... good?

But good it was, and with Panda Feed in our stomachs, we boarded the night bus to Yangshuo. Now, I don't know who among you have traveled by way of night bus, but based on my experience, you are usually stuck dealing with a glorified coach bus, hoping to catch sleep in fifteen minute intervals. These though... something else entirely.



Metal framed bunk beds big enough for people half the size of the passengers, but still, one of the finest ways to travel. Sure when the bus lurches you find yourself skin to freezing metal, but of the three of us, I was pretty much able to sleep like a baby. Chinese Night Buses? HIGHLY recommended.



(Hope this new style video works...)

When we woke up, we were in Yangshuo. Elephant brained readers of this blog will recall that we hit Yangshuo on the last Whirlwind Tour. It was only on our way off of the Li River, but it made enough of an impression to warrant a longer stay.

In Yangshuo, we were able to bike around rice fields and farming villages, navigate around cows on leashes and make sure we were too sore to sit the next day.



We also met up with Jon, another friend from Syracuse who is currently teaching in Shanghai.



After the biking, we relaxed in the best way possible... by treating our bikes to a rest on Bamboo rafts down the river.







But we were far from done with Scenic Chinese Nature after we departed from Yangshuo. We were heading to the rice terraces of Ping'An next, but first there would be a quick stop for the night in a city called Longsheng. Not on any tourist maps I've been able to find, Longsheng is a slice of cold war era China that has preserved itself quite well. Dreary and bleak, yet full of character. After wandering around a bit during the night, we spent the morning before our bus to Ping'An in Longsheng's early morning market.



You want live Chickens? They got 'em. You want them to slaughter them fresh in front of you? You got it. You want some maggots and honey combs? Of course! You running low on pig face? Well you're in luck. Oh, are the kids craving some more jerkied rat? Can you blame them?



With our appetites shot, we boarded the bus to Ping'An. It was small and overcrowded, and when we entered the park, everyone without a seat had to duck down to evade security (seriously). Once inside though, we were able to see a completely different side of China than what we experienced in the market that morning.

Gone were the dried rodents. They were replaced by massive rice terraces, and a 400 year old minority village situated inside them. Ping'An is mainly done as a day trip out of Yangshuo or Guilin, but I'm glad we spent the time there. Because it was really nice to take it all in at a leisurely pace.






Aside from the terraces, Ping'An is also known for its minority residents: The Miao (pronounced... you know... like the cat noise). The Miao women are famous for their long hair, so of course they have figured out a way to charge tourists money to see it. The Miao women now have their hair up in buns, but for a short fee they'll let down their locks so you can take a gander. After being harassed by at least two dozen Miao, we finally caved to see what it was all about. But when one or two of them women reached into their basket to pull out hair extensions, I had to fight the urge to push them off the rice terrace.





Having been scammed, we returned to the hotel where we were unsurprised to see that the beautiful rice terraces get basterdized at night with hideous neon lights, and blaring techno music for no particular reason. Ahh, China.

Afterwards, we departed Ping'An to Guilin to catch our flight to Shanghai. If only we payed more attention to the weather forcast though, then we may have noticed a teeny tiny little typhoon that was going to be hitting Shanghai...

Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion!

- Shawn

Whirlwind China II: Hong Kong/Macau

When my parents came and we did one of these crazy trips covering a massive amount of land in China, I felt more than a bit overwhelmed coming back to the blog. I'd put my stress levels slightly below term paper, but definitely above two page history report.

So much had happened, there's so much I want to tell you about, and here I am trying to make it coherent and at least interesting enough to keep the hit counter on the blog going steady. The way it's going to work this time is for the next few days I'm going to cover a bit at a time. This makes it manageable for all of your MTV destroyed brains to digest.

Today's bit will cover the beginning part of the trip, where we left the mainland for the promised land of civilization known as Hong Kong.

Hong Kong, though turned over to China in 1997 still isn't completely assimilated into the People's Republic. We had to cross a border, cancel our single entry visas, and say goodbye to the good 'ol RMB. The concept of the "Special Administrative Region" is one I still don't completely understand, but all I know is that it was cool to just be able to stroll into another country.



Once in Hong Kong, priority one was meeting Matt - good friend from New York, former college roommate, and owner of an iPhone. After collecting him from the airport that night, we hung around a bit, tried to get our bearings in the huge city, and eventually called it a night.

The next day was spent on two of the outlying islands of Hong Kong: Peng Chau and Lantau. Peng Chau was a beautiful island that we were able to bike around and remind ourselves of the fact that Hong Kong is located in quite a warm part of the world.



Lantau was another nice island vastly different from the metropolis that is Hong Kong Island. Aside from the trees and the far too narrow roads, the main spot on Lantau was the "Big Buddah", who was, as advertised, very big.



Due to visa constraints, another day needed to go by before we could actually see Hong Kong proper. But we made up for it by hopping to another country. Sort of. Not really. We grabbed a boat to Macau, and made our way to the former Portuguese territory. If Hong Kong is a world away from Mainland China, than I don't really know how to describe Macau. It was like stir fried Eastern Europe, with a dash of Western European Spice, cooked up in a decidedly Chinese Wok, and served with a side of Moped Traffic Fried Rice.

Yeah, that about sums it up.



We strolled around the city/country taking in some of the essential sights like the ruins of St. Pauls and some other remains of Portuguese architecture. And made sure to sample some Portuguese/Macanese cuisine. After that, we had planned to check out Macau's own outlying islands, but our plans were halted when we saw something rather... unique.



There was a Moped/Scooter/Motorcycle protest blocking the main roads in Macau. Allegedly, they were protesting some changing parking laws, and showing how damn many of them there were. It was effective enough to cost us a trip to the islands, but entertaining and strange enough that it didn't matter.


By the time the protest died down, we were on our way to what Macau is really famous for. Drowning our money in the black hole known as Gambling. Our stop? Non other than the brand spanking new Venetian Macau. The largest Casino/Hotel in the world. Excess was the name of the game here, with indoor Gondola Rides, a shopping mall styled after Venice with a roof that looks like the sky, and a gaming floor at least twice the size of the one in Vegas. Unecessary? Maybe.





After losing a few Hong Kong dollars, it was time to head back to the big HK.

Finally, we'd have our Hong Kong day. We got to walk around the island, see some of the sites, and of course, roll up the longest escalator in the world.



That night, with Matt already in tow, we had a mini Syracuse reunion featuring guest appearances by other Alumni stranded in China: Cody who we had met up with previously in Beijing, and Terrie who is teaching in Guangzhou. We got to live large strolling around Hong Kong's bar territory, including a stop in a bar that shoves you in a freezer armed with fur coats and shots of Vodka that are (supposed to be) freezing cold.



Just like Syracuse really.

The aftermath day of our night out was supposed to be spent reconvening with our friends, eating some Dim Sum, grabbing our newly envisaed (great new word) passports and heading back to the Mainland. But things didn't go quite that smoothly. The Visa service we used through our Hostel decided that our new Visas couldn't be issued since no one ever drew a line with a pen (seriously) through our previous Visa. So we find out about this at noon, and have to forgo dim sum, and head straight to the Visa office. After wasting a whole day waiting, we find that we're going to need to spend an extra night in Hong Kong thanks to the ineptitude of our hostel. Oh well, there are worse things that could happen.

That night, we got to take the Star Ferry (nice and cheap at 2 HKD or so) too and from Kowloon, to get an incredible view of the Hong Kong skyline before returning to our new abode.



The Chungking Mansion, the place we stayed for our extra night is definitely worth a mention as it is probably one of the most striking and bizarre places I have ever been. Being from Queens, and spending most of my time in New York City, I've seen a fair bit of ethnic diversity. I've been to neighborhoods like Harlem and Jackson Heights that have very ethnically unique feels, but the Chungking Mansion was something else entirely. Filled with (my guess, Illegal) immigrants from Africa and Indian, Chungking Mansion was a strange melting pot of bootleggers, struggling immigrants, Hong Kong bourgeois, Indian Tailors, backpackers and tourists. All coexisting with only minimal petty theft. I'm glad we got to spend our last night there, it was a place I'll never forget. (With a fairly unique smell to boot).



Our hostel owner was a shockingly nice old Hong Kong man named Mr. Fat who presented us with gifts for the rest of our journey. He gave Corey, Matt and I three Lucky Jade Buddhas, which if not gifted by him would have been deemed far too touristy and tacky for me. But we put them on in thanks, and I'll say that we needed all the luck Mr. Fat's Jade Buddhas could provide in the coming days.

Tune in tomorrow for Whirlwind China II, Chapter 2.

- Shawn

Abraham Family Vacation: The Videos

I'll spare everyone the overlong exposition, and jump straight to the video highlights from my Chinese Family Vacation.

Video # 1: Good Parenting in Dalian, China



Video # 2: Wolong Panda Snack Time



Video # 3: Aerial Panda Combat


Enjoy, and steer clear of Pandas stuck in trees!
- Shawn

Wal-Mart Publicity Monkeys

In my last post, I talked about how we foreign teachers were trotted out to a conference all in Chinese so that our boss can pretend that we do something that we most assuredly do not. That wasn't the first time the fact that we aren't Chinese has been used to promote something, and we all knew full well that it wouldn't be the last.

A few weeks ago, Bianca told us all that her Chinese tutor has some sort of contact at Wal-Mart that was looking for some foreigners for some sort of mysterious event at one of Dalian's Wal-Marts. We heard the words games and TV, and inferred the words "free stuff", so the hearty staff of Future 2 agreed to show up and show our western faces.

Having experienced it, I'm still no clearer on what exactly this mysterious event was for. But I do know that what it essentially was was a "lets embarrass a bunch of westerners in the middle of our store as entertainment for our shoppers." Or something like that.

Without any explanation for why we were there (someone mumbled something about a "second opening", but I don't really know what that is...), we were divided into two teams, and promptly entered into competition.

Round 1 was Emily, the Chinese tutor whipping out random Chinese words that we couldn't possibly know, and we had to guess at them. Ummm... yeah.

Round 2 was a contest where the teams in two lines had to start a dance, with each person adding a new move as it went along. You can imagine how that went.



In Round 3, they played a song by Chinese superstar Jay Chow, and we had to sing a line from the song. Why? I mean, the crowd sure thought it was funny watching us try.

Round 4 was similar, as they recited some lame ancient Chinese poetry about moonlight on your bed (in Chinese of course), and we had to recite it. Exciting I know.

But I will curb my sarcasm for Round 5. We all had balloons strapped to our ankles, and had to engage in Balloon Warfare in the middle of a Chinese Wal-Mart. I'd show you a picture, but why bother? Here's a video!



After all that excitement, we got to try our hand at making dumplings, which was a fun experiment in failure. The best part was when the Chinese shoppers started pushing and shoving to see what was going on, and then pushed and shoved us out of the way to show us how it was SUPPOSED to be done. One woman reached in and opened up all the ones I made, only to reclose them to her liking.

Hence, the T.I.C. label on this post.

There were no TV cameras, but we did in fact get free stuff. A bag of unwanted Wal-Mart merchandise including a piggy bank and a toothbrush.

I have absolutely no idea what happened today, but it sure was fun.

- Shawn

OH YEAH! And come back tomorrow for a whole slew of pictures of the shenanigans from Corey. I assure you, they're not to be missed.

Strange Moving Pictures From Dandong

My recent trip to Dandong (as recounted below), wasn't only great because it provided a unique view into North Korea. It also had elements that were so strange they could only be found in China, and really only believed if you see them.

That's what this post is for. They're quick, but assuredly strange.

Like this one... in Dandong, you are seemingly discouraged from simply walking across the street.

Why walk when you can dance?

But that's nothing compared to this gem. I'm sure everyone and their mother is familiar with the Ahhhnold's classic "True Lies". Apparently even Chairman Mao.

You may think that a square in China would be a strange place for a public screening of True Lies. But obviously, The Chairman disagrees.

He likes it. Not as much as Kindergarten Cop though...

Enjoy the silliness,

Shawn

Video Double Feature

While you are all patiently waiting for the rest of Corey's kickass Beijing pictures, I thought I might interest you in a quick Video Double Feature.

See, thanks to the magic of technology, my camera has the ability to take real short video clips - and now I want to share some with you.

The first is more of an opening act. Not as crazy/interesting/oh man that's China! as the second one, but great and enjoyable in its own right. For Corey's birthday this past weekend, the foreign teachers all went to a bar named "Noah's Ark". While the name doesn't seem to have much to do with anything, it does boast live music, so there's that. Amidst a set filled with folky/Indie rock Chinese songs came a stripped down acoustic cover of Bon Jovi's comeback classic "It's My Life".

If you've ever wanted to see a Chinese house band cover the boys from New Jersey, but never knew where to look, this is the place for you.


"It's My Life" (Chinese Acoustic Cover)


Enjoy the backing vocals by the Future 2 staff as well.

And for our main act, I present to you a view from our bedroom window into the DMZ's local schoolyard. Now, I'm not sure if this clip really captures the insanity of our morning view, but it should at least come close.


Phys Ed in the DMZ


And yes, that could very well be a goat you hear. They've been sighted.

So until next time, crank some Bon Jovi on your portable MP3 player and go do some synchronized calisthenics in the back yard... otherwise you'll never be able to keep up.

- Shawn

Standard Citizen II: Audio Attack

Remember a few posts back when I wrote about a song that Corey (and sort of me too) corrected for one of my students? If you don't, scroll down a bit to the post named "I Want to Be a Model Citizen..."

First, I got the name of the song wrong. Sue me, it was after a long day. Regardless, we were handed CDs of Standard Citizen this past Sunday, and of course, I just can't wait to share it with all of you out here in internet land.

This is also the first of many posts where we'll throw you guys some audio and or video from over here. Don't get too spoiled though... only for special occasions. Just look for the A/V Club tag.

But enough jibber jabber. Without further ado: Standard Citizen (English Version) as sung by... umm... Peter.



And, as a special bonus for all you loyal visitors to Year of the Rats, here's the full song... in Chinese!



I hope you all enjoy them, as there might be much more news on this side project to come, seeing as how I gave Peter our names for a forthcoming magazine article.

Never a dull moment.

- Shawn