Quanzhou is not a place many people have heard off but several hundred years ago (back when China was responsible for more than 40% of World GDP and much of the World's trade along the land/sea silk road) it was famous as one of the biggest ports in the World. There were even 6 Mosques for the Arabic residents/traders. Today there are plenty of temples and 1 mosque left standing; though not much else.
It is now, though 1 of the many ports in China at the forefront of exporting goods to the rest of the World. In fact the area of east and south-east china is full of cities that come to specialise in certain products. 1 city makes something ridiculous like 95% of the world's plastic lighters; another makes shoes; another makes ceramics; another makes stone statues... most of them don't just sell out of China but of course to the huge market inside of China too -and every finished product requires many more people working to create the components too.
After Quanzhou I headed into the mountains to an area now inhabited by the Hakka People, who lost many battles against the Han Chinese a thousand or so years ago and were forced into the mountains. Their language is (as is typical of China) as different to Mandarin Chinese as Italian is to English though their writing is mostly the same. What makes the area attractive to tourists is that the Hakka people built their homes out of mud, straw and so on and in square and circular shapes for protection. Typically the 'Tu Lou" (Earth Buildings) are 3-4 stories with the ground level being for cooking, the next level for storage and the next couple for accommodation. The bottom 2 levels had no windows whatsoever, and there was only 1 entrance into these massive structures (with walls around 2m thick).
Of course many of them are still standing (i saw one almost 900 years old), and what makes the area so interesting is that they are all still inhabited and new buildings are still created in the same style (though with some mod-cons, like taps a long with the well). Visiting the Tu lou (and there are thosuands in the area; most villages are full of them) is a glimpse into a way of life little changed for a thousand years -and still ongoing. The only real changes are that many of the young people migrate to the cities to work, so most of the tu lou are half-empty and motorbikes are the method of transportation of choice.
The people are extremely kind with several families offering me in for tea and feeding me -making it hard to leave politely. Each Tu lou houses several families with the biggest holding 2-300 rooms: around 1,000 inhabitants! Quite a sight -and great if all the families get on well; though i am not sure if i can handle the closeness of these kinds of communities (brought up, as i was, in a house of just 5 people and a couple of pets). Actually the most annoying thing from staying in these tulou was not the lack of toilets inside, the hardness of the beds or the smell from the animals downstairs (though these might be too much if i was staying more than just a night or two!), but the damn cockrells that never shut up and could be heard through the open windows!
Monday, February 26, 2007
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
legacies of colonialism
A great deal of China was actually colonised by the western powers. During the 19th century after the Brits and a few others forced China into giving us Hong Kong, over the next 60 years many Foreign powers actually ended up with whole tracts of land in the most important trading cities. This meant these 'foreign concessions' were just like bits of Europe in China: old brick buildings, real sewers, street lights and so on.
Although owning a few bits of a few cities was not enough for japan, who invaded about half of China for its raw materials before and during world war 2 (The Allied powers were giving China weapons and so on to help them defeat the Japanese, but the Japanese only really left because they lost to the USA in WW2).
Anyway, I am now in one of those cities (Xiamen) that had a bunch of foreigners living there a while ago. In fact the foreigners set up home on a little island nearby, because the city itself was too 'dirty'! Thus in the period before and after 1900 over a thousand western style villas were built: grand mansions with columns, balconies, turrets, domes and so on. Some are more 'Mediterranean', others more 'American' depending on who the owners were.
Now the traffic-less island is a wonderful place with many tiny, winding alleys between grand mansions (there were 13 consulates amongst other residences) and not-so-grand-but-not-so-bad chinese buildings. There are beautiful trees everywhere that are 1-200 years old although many of the buildings are now falling into disrepair as the chinese owners have no need for 20 room mansion! They use 4 rooms and leave the rest in a mess, unfortunately (it is possible to have a look in some actually homes, due to some enterprising locals).
Weirdly 1 now houses a museum of art made from fish bones -surprisingly good (photos up later hopefully). Most of the pianos that the foreigners took there seem to be housed in the museums on the island, though in the past you would hear the pianos being played everywhere it seems. It is a wonderful place to relax with some great beaches and parks, fresh sea food and, despite the tens of thousands of tourists each day (compared to the 5,000 or so residents!), still quite quiet off the main streets.
It is definitely much 'better' than either Macau, Qingdao or Shanghai which also have great foreign concessions. Here so much has been left and not knocked down, not filled in with horrible cheap buildings, not destroyed by traffic noise and fumes and not turned into bars! highly recommended. A shame all us foreigners left during the war (taking all the nice stuff with us i presume), because now the houses are kind of bare :-(
Although owning a few bits of a few cities was not enough for japan, who invaded about half of China for its raw materials before and during world war 2 (The Allied powers were giving China weapons and so on to help them defeat the Japanese, but the Japanese only really left because they lost to the USA in WW2).
Anyway, I am now in one of those cities (Xiamen) that had a bunch of foreigners living there a while ago. In fact the foreigners set up home on a little island nearby, because the city itself was too 'dirty'! Thus in the period before and after 1900 over a thousand western style villas were built: grand mansions with columns, balconies, turrets, domes and so on. Some are more 'Mediterranean', others more 'American' depending on who the owners were.
Now the traffic-less island is a wonderful place with many tiny, winding alleys between grand mansions (there were 13 consulates amongst other residences) and not-so-grand-but-not-so-bad chinese buildings. There are beautiful trees everywhere that are 1-200 years old although many of the buildings are now falling into disrepair as the chinese owners have no need for 20 room mansion! They use 4 rooms and leave the rest in a mess, unfortunately (it is possible to have a look in some actually homes, due to some enterprising locals).
Weirdly 1 now houses a museum of art made from fish bones -surprisingly good (photos up later hopefully). Most of the pianos that the foreigners took there seem to be housed in the museums on the island, though in the past you would hear the pianos being played everywhere it seems. It is a wonderful place to relax with some great beaches and parks, fresh sea food and, despite the tens of thousands of tourists each day (compared to the 5,000 or so residents!), still quite quiet off the main streets.
It is definitely much 'better' than either Macau, Qingdao or Shanghai which also have great foreign concessions. Here so much has been left and not knocked down, not filled in with horrible cheap buildings, not destroyed by traffic noise and fumes and not turned into bars! highly recommended. A shame all us foreigners left during the war (taking all the nice stuff with us i presume), because now the houses are kind of bare :-(
tea
Not the best of starts to a holiday when it all the travel agencies take the day off for chinese new year's eve; and hence had no tours available -so i left Nanchang quickly for Wu Yi Mountain to meet 2 Japanese Girls and spend New Year's Eve letting off fireworks in the street and drinking beer on a bridge (in the drizzling rain).
Then followed 2 days of fantastic hiking -some times following hundreds of people up steps, sometimes alone on paths that were not just fun but also difficult -cut out of the rock in crazy ways (if there were no handrails, it would be almost impossible) and sometimes trying to follow footpaths that do not exist. Chinese people tend to only go to an attraction, then back to the bus (and then onto the next one). Hence, though a map hints at paths between 'sites' they actually do not exist really... just lots and lots of paths used by the farmers during the harvest to 'harvest' (or whatever you do to tea when it is ready to sell!).
Anyway, after carefully leaving my GPS behind in the hotel the one time when i could actually use it, I wondered off finding a house (and some maybe crazy guy in it) hours from the nearest road and 4 hours later i managed to crawl down an embankment on a main road to hitch a ride on a motorbike back to town (the driver complained i was too heavy for his bike!). It was, though, a great trip.
Many of the real signposted paths were also pretty and full of waterfalls/ I splashed out 5 pounds to drink some supposedly amazing tea (supposedly, i can't really tell the difference) but thought 'what the hell' -bringing on another bouth of hundreds of people staring at the white person drinking tea. To be honest I was looking very confused, trying to understand the lecture the tea woman was giving me about the history of the tea and traditions of pouring, drinking etc... not understand a word.
For some reason, though I am in south-east coastal China (which has been growing fast in the last 20 years), everyone is more suprised to see a foreigner than in the back waters. Or, maybe the parents are just much more vocal about telling their kids about the 'laowai', whilst the teenagers are braver in shouting 'hello'. I do try to reply hello back.. but after hundreds of times in 5 days my mind is saying other things, much less polite (though i do keep my mouth shut, just).
Then followed 2 days of fantastic hiking -some times following hundreds of people up steps, sometimes alone on paths that were not just fun but also difficult -cut out of the rock in crazy ways (if there were no handrails, it would be almost impossible) and sometimes trying to follow footpaths that do not exist. Chinese people tend to only go to an attraction, then back to the bus (and then onto the next one). Hence, though a map hints at paths between 'sites' they actually do not exist really... just lots and lots of paths used by the farmers during the harvest to 'harvest' (or whatever you do to tea when it is ready to sell!).
Anyway, after carefully leaving my GPS behind in the hotel the one time when i could actually use it, I wondered off finding a house (and some maybe crazy guy in it) hours from the nearest road and 4 hours later i managed to crawl down an embankment on a main road to hitch a ride on a motorbike back to town (the driver complained i was too heavy for his bike!). It was, though, a great trip.
Many of the real signposted paths were also pretty and full of waterfalls/ I splashed out 5 pounds to drink some supposedly amazing tea (supposedly, i can't really tell the difference) but thought 'what the hell' -bringing on another bouth of hundreds of people staring at the white person drinking tea. To be honest I was looking very confused, trying to understand the lecture the tea woman was giving me about the history of the tea and traditions of pouring, drinking etc... not understand a word.
For some reason, though I am in south-east coastal China (which has been growing fast in the last 20 years), everyone is more suprised to see a foreigner than in the back waters. Or, maybe the parents are just much more vocal about telling their kids about the 'laowai', whilst the teenagers are braver in shouting 'hello'. I do try to reply hello back.. but after hundreds of times in 5 days my mind is saying other things, much less polite (though i do keep my mouth shut, just).
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Chinese New Year
Train Tickets just delivered by agent... 3 hours before train leaves...with a note "if anyone asks, tell them you queued for a looong time to get the ticket from the return's office". Whatever, he got his commission and i got my ticket for a 23 hour journey down south-east to coastal (and hopefully warmer) China. Hopefully it will rain -although i can barely remember what rain is like!
On Sunday, it is Chinese New Year. Now it's time to leave on holiday!
On Sunday, it is Chinese New Year. Now it's time to leave on holiday!
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Pigs, Taxi Drivers and more
Today was a wonderful day: shorts and t-shirts weather (well, whilst playing football anyway!) and it was about 15 degrees in the sun: evidence of global warming maybe -the lake where we go ice skating froze 1 week later this year than last year and unfroze another week early. I am talking about Beijing of course; Xi'an never has beautiful days -just a few 'nice' days.
Xi'an only had 1 real period of rain in 2006; it had 4 in 2005 according to my chinese teacher here -and currently Shaanxi province is in the middle of a serious drought forcing the government to bring in drinking water for many places in the countryside. It means that I feel like a girl using 'moisturizing lotion' and the pollution will probably be awful in the spring with more violent dust storms than usual. Beijing won't be much better (though it has more 'induced rain' -through putting chemicals into the clouds), so it is a good thing that the Olympics are only 16 months away -another few years and even the Chinese government might not be able to stop the dust!
On that note, I heard that half of the new subway lines in Beijing won't be finished in time for the Olympics -proof that there are still some things beyond the means of the all-powerful Chinese government in Beijing. Actually, there are many things beyond their means (corruption, controlling the faraway provinces, enforcing the law....), but I am surprised at this. A real shame, because the traffic continues to get worse. A presentation by GM recently mentioned that the growth in automobiles in the last 5 years has been twice as much as their most ambitious prediction (the GM speaker had a big smile on his face -any environmentalists less so!)
More excitement in Beijing comes from the taxi drivers who have now started learning English (all of them will be tested before the Olympics) and english words are translated into phonetics based on chinese characters. This is hilarious and really hard to understand: I am trying to remember some examples; but imagine someone trying to pronounce Bowel but saying it: Bo-Ah-Le or Bo-Way-Le. Poor guys. I think all foreigners should help them during journeys.
In 1 week's time it is Chinese New Year (so start preparing your hong bao now -red envelopes with money in to give to those younger than you) -so on monday i am going to call our 'train ticket' guy who promises train tickets no matter what... to see if he can live up to his word. This year tickets went on sale a whole month before new year (rather than the usual 4 days!) and still for at least the first 10 days of that period people were lining up at 7am; 90 minutes before the ticket office opens!
Next year is the year of the pig- a year that is supposed to be very lucky (this was the year everyone was getting pregnant so next year they can give birth), so there will be lots more chinese people being born -which means lots more boys than girls as usual.
In case you didn't know 123 boys are born for every 100 girls on average: and in some parts it is more than 150-100. Predictions are that more than 20m males will never be able to get married (unless China gets into divorces and remarriages in a really big way) -now that is going to be a lot of frustrated men (whose mothers will be screaming at them until they die for not having children) which will be yet another social issue for the government, along with the increasing trade in wife-trafficking (a national and international problem throughout SE Asia because of China). It is funny how when there are so many people in a country, that even tiny little inbalances involve millions of people: HIV/AIDS, unemployment, job-hunting graduates, migrant workers... even if it only affects a tiny proportion, it still affects so many people!
Xi'an only had 1 real period of rain in 2006; it had 4 in 2005 according to my chinese teacher here -and currently Shaanxi province is in the middle of a serious drought forcing the government to bring in drinking water for many places in the countryside. It means that I feel like a girl using 'moisturizing lotion' and the pollution will probably be awful in the spring with more violent dust storms than usual. Beijing won't be much better (though it has more 'induced rain' -through putting chemicals into the clouds), so it is a good thing that the Olympics are only 16 months away -another few years and even the Chinese government might not be able to stop the dust!
On that note, I heard that half of the new subway lines in Beijing won't be finished in time for the Olympics -proof that there are still some things beyond the means of the all-powerful Chinese government in Beijing. Actually, there are many things beyond their means (corruption, controlling the faraway provinces, enforcing the law....), but I am surprised at this. A real shame, because the traffic continues to get worse. A presentation by GM recently mentioned that the growth in automobiles in the last 5 years has been twice as much as their most ambitious prediction (the GM speaker had a big smile on his face -any environmentalists less so!)
More excitement in Beijing comes from the taxi drivers who have now started learning English (all of them will be tested before the Olympics) and english words are translated into phonetics based on chinese characters. This is hilarious and really hard to understand: I am trying to remember some examples; but imagine someone trying to pronounce Bowel but saying it: Bo-Ah-Le or Bo-Way-Le. Poor guys. I think all foreigners should help them during journeys.
In 1 week's time it is Chinese New Year (so start preparing your hong bao now -red envelopes with money in to give to those younger than you) -so on monday i am going to call our 'train ticket' guy who promises train tickets no matter what... to see if he can live up to his word. This year tickets went on sale a whole month before new year (rather than the usual 4 days!) and still for at least the first 10 days of that period people were lining up at 7am; 90 minutes before the ticket office opens!
Next year is the year of the pig- a year that is supposed to be very lucky (this was the year everyone was getting pregnant so next year they can give birth), so there will be lots more chinese people being born -which means lots more boys than girls as usual.
In case you didn't know 123 boys are born for every 100 girls on average: and in some parts it is more than 150-100. Predictions are that more than 20m males will never be able to get married (unless China gets into divorces and remarriages in a really big way) -now that is going to be a lot of frustrated men (whose mothers will be screaming at them until they die for not having children) which will be yet another social issue for the government, along with the increasing trade in wife-trafficking (a national and international problem throughout SE Asia because of China). It is funny how when there are so many people in a country, that even tiny little inbalances involve millions of people: HIV/AIDS, unemployment, job-hunting graduates, migrant workers... even if it only affects a tiny proportion, it still affects so many people!
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