Pingyao

Back from Pingyao; a town the Lonely Planet (aka 'the bible') calledthe best preserved traditional, old, chinese town still around.

It was the financial capital of China until around 100 years ago,and for the 400 years or so before that was an important (andsuccessful) trading town.

I learnt that Beijing has clean air in comparison to this place(where the sun barely peeped through the pollution) and I thoughtabout the role of tourism in such a town. The old, preserved, partof town is inside the 6km circumference walls. It consists of acouple thousand buildings, of which 10% are fancy temples, old banksor old residences which have been restored (or not in some cases)and in total form the 20 'historic attractions' that you can visiton 1 ticket. Of the rest; I think only half are actually occupied(their residents have probably moved on looking for betteraccommodation or jobs).

This old part of the town only survives of tourism (and providingbasic services to those staffing the restaurants, hotels and (mostof them) the 20 historic attractions. These 'attractions' wereridiculously overstaffed (maybe there are more tourists at othertimes of the year); as were all the (identical) shops selling tackygoods. The fact that all the kids ran up to us saying 'hello',presumably means they don't see many white faces! I think Karen(friend I travelled with) enjoyed the attention though!

Outside of the walls, is the rest of the town; which is a depressingexample of Chinese urbanisation. I wont say more about it, just thatit 'sucked'. We rented some bikes so I could show Karen a bit moreof crappy Shaanxi province (I had been to this province before) -shesoon realised visibly that this province provides 30% of china'scoal. In fact, I think we saw 5% of it either piled on the roadside,being piled into trains, or as coaldust (which we were breathing in).

The trip was fantastic. The old stuff was great; the hotel we stayedin was very traditionally chinese and we spent the whole weekendtrying to read characters (we know about 100 most common ones). Therest of the city was so chinese, you just feel like you areexperiencing the real urban China. The weather was great, theovernight train journeys fun; and then there were lots of littlequirks to amuse us:

-the bike I hired had a metal bar for a brake, connected to anothermetal bar, connected to the brake pad (no wires or plastic when thisbike was built!);

-the pedicabs chased us everywhere wanting to drive us the few kmsthe town took up;

-the 12 of the 20 attractions that we did were complete withhilarious signs (bad english, or just dumb, 'desparate-to-invent-something-interesting-to-say') and the same group of actors doing adifferent show at a different attraction every hour (or so itseemed);

-the obvious extortion we received as foreigners when buying streetfood: a chinese woman would pay 3 RMB for 6 of something, and wewould pay 2 RMB for 1 of something. Yet when we tried to haggle,they refused; even when we could buy it from 15 other people sellingthe same thing!

It was fun, and it has made me determined to learn more Chinese andsee more of China. The routine I seem to be settling into in weekdayevenings suits me fine. My flatmate or her sister cook for us; Ipractice my chinese with them, learn new words, make them laugh as Itry to create sentences, and so on.

In a week or so, I have a videoconference with the HQ of a bigassurance company who MIGHT sponsor AIESEC China for all, or someof, a full-time CSR coordinator (a job I will hopefully do iffunding gets secured, and if the rest of AIESEC here want meto)...so we'll see.

and to end (another long email!), I'll get my new name/businesscards soon which will have all 4 chinese characters of my chinesename on (Ya Dam Lay En). Ya Dam -Adam. Lay =thunderstorm and En=kind person who helps others. I like it. The first is a directtranslation of Adam (no meaning) and the second part shows mymasculinity (grr, big thunderstorm) whilst ensuring I am still intouch with my 'feminine side' (kind, with feelings)....or so I liketo think :))

anyway, hoping to enjoy more of this 20-25 degree weather, before itstarts getting too hot and humid in a month or so.

Adam