Sichuan Province - Leshan

For our second day in Sichuan we got up early and rode a bus for about 2.5 hours to the town of Leshan with the goal of seeing the Leshan Giant Buddha and the Buddha Park.  It was the first time for all of us to not be in a city in China.  It was pretty interesting to see the Chinese countryside and how different it was from the vast metropolis’ of Shanghai and Chengdu.  The countryside was a beautiful lush green and dotted with small houses and villages.  It didn’t look like there was much money making its way out to these small communities and it seemed that the people out here lived a pretty simple life, and a very different way of life than the people in the cities.

We arrived at the Giant Buddha Park at around 10 AM.  It was swarming with people.  I had no idea where all these people came from.  We were way out in the middle of nowhere and there were just seas of people.  But anyway, we got into the park and right by the entrance were guys with monkeys.  I didn’t think twice, I asked the dude how much, pulled out my money, and next thing you know I was holding a monkey!  It was amazing.  I held him for a minute, got a few pictures, and smiled the whole time.  I couldn’t get the stupid grin off my face for hours. 

We then went deeper in the park and saw a bunch of different buddhas, walked up a bunch of stairs, saw a ton of people everywhere, and got stopped loads of times by people wanting to take pictures with us.  Sichuan doesn’t see quite as many foreigners… and since it was national holiday there were lots of travelers from other parts of China as well.  So all that combined to make us almost like minor celebrities.  Many people would say “hello” when we walked by, many would stare, a few would say “laowai” and point and stare.  At least 10 times, and maybe more, people asked for pictures with us.  It was mostly teenage girls that asked for pictures with me, but there were also a few groups of men that asked for pictures with my roommates, and a few families that wanted pictures for their family photo album with a group of foreigners.

So with seeing the sights, and taking pictures, and having our pictures taken, it took us a couple of hours to get up to the Leshan Giant Buddha (the world’s largest Buddha).  By the time we got there, there was a massive line.  We got in the line, stood for about an hour, got to where we thought we would be allowed to go down to see the Buddha, only to realize that we were just let in to another area with another massive line.  We stood for about another hour, barely moving, when we came to another area that we realized just housed another massive line we decided to hop out of line and just explore the park a little bit more.  Plus we saw a small area for viewing the head of the Buddha that didn’t require us to wait.  We got down to that area, took a few pictures, and then explored the park some more.  It would have been great to see more of the Buddha, but it wasn’t worth standing in line for 5 or 6 hours to see him.  Plus we still had to get back to Leshan town and figure out how to get bus tickets to return home.

We took a taxi back to the town of Leshan.  We bought bus tickets for later in the day so we had a few hours to kill.  Leshan was a big town by some standards, but by Chinese standards it’s pretty small.  It has a population of about 150,000 people.  While the setting seemed urban, it felt anything but.  Walking around the town was an experience.  More people stared here than anywhere else we’ve been yet in China.  People were in shock to see foreigners wandering around their town.  We went to a small street market and it seemed like business just stopped.  My roommates bought some jewelry and I bought a pocket knife…a huge group of people surrounded us as we attempted to negotiate prices.  They were laughing at our horrible Chinese and probably even worse bargaining skills.  It was a lot of fun though and everyone was very friendly. 

We then ate lunch at a small hole in the wall restaurant.  I ordered You Xian Rou Si , a Sichuan dish, which was delicious.  They didn’t have an English menu and I didn’t know what else they’d have.  I figured they’d have that dish though because it is a specialty from the region.  They laughed and smiled when I ordered it, I think they were pleased that I knew of the food from their province.  We also ordered some rice and veggies.  It was all great and of course dirt cheap. After we ate we headed back to Chengdu to get ready for another trip the next day.

Zhejiang Province - Putuoshan

My roommate Mary invited me on a trip with her and three of her Chinese co-workers (Annie, Felice and Jan) to Putuo Mountain in nearby Zhejiang Province.  We really had no idea what to expect before the trip as it was all arranged by her co-workers.   All we really knew was that it was 2 days and 1 night, and that Putuoshan is very difficult to get to without speaking or reading Chinese. They told us that it would involve a lot of outdoors activities, hiking and possibly camping.  For 390 RMB (around 60$) it would include return journey via bus/ferry, entry into the national park, a guided tour, overnight accommodation, and tea.

Our Chinese friends were right when they said this trip would be near impossible to make without knowing Chinese.  On Tuesday morning at 6AM we met at a random corner in People’s Square where we were expected to check in for the tour and meet the bus.  When we arrived there was no booth, no sign, no nothing.  Just a guy standing around smoking a cigarette.  Annie approached him and asked if this was the place and he confirmed that it was.  He checked us in, but notified us of a problem.  Because of the Communist Party meeting in Beijing, we foreigners would not be allowed to stay in the accommodation that we had booked with the tour.  He said that we could be spies and that we would have to book a room at the army barracks after we arrive at Putuoshan.  This of course made no sense, the party meeting was in Beijing and we were supposed to be staying at some sort of B&B/guest house place.  We were confused and a little bit scared of what the army barracks would entail, but just decided to go along with it anyway.  One thing you learn quickly about China is that everything is always an adventure, even the most basic of things.  If you aren’t easygoing you’ll have a shit time in China; you just kind of have to go with the flow and shrug your shoulders sometimes. 

After a five hour or so bus ride we arrived at the ferry terminal and met our tour guide for the island.  Before we could go catch the ferry, the guide had us all gather around and he began spouting off numbers in Chinese.  After what seemed like 10 minutes, people from our group began shouting numbers too.  Apparently he was telling people various numbers to call in case of emergency, in case anyone was separated, numbers for hotels, numbers for who knows what else…it went on forever, followed by people shouting out their own phone numbers.  Then he shouted more numbers, each group of people on the tour was assigned a number to better keep track of us.  We foreigners plus the three Chinese friends were group 4 or “si” in Chinese.  4 is unlucky in China (most buildings omit the 4^th floor and skip straight to 5) so I think that’s why we got stuck with it.  Turns out it didn’t cause us any hardship, whodathunkit?  So anyway, anytime he said “si” the rest of the trip we had to shout back at him so he’d know we were there, just in case the two white faces in the sea of Chinese didn’t catch his attention.  The trip involved lots of shouting; this was just the beginning.

Next we got on the ferry, and after a 10 minute journey we arrived at Putuoshan Island, where once again we huddled around the tour guide as he shouted all kinds of things in Chinese right there on the dock. There wasn’t anything to look at (the smog was thick), there weren’t any monuments (we were standing on the dock), and there really wasn’t anything worth talking about as far as I could tell.  But we stood and talked for at least another 10 minutes about who knows what.  Two times doesn’t make a trend, but it was an ominous sign of things to come.   Once we got off of the dock and into the park we were told that we would be going straight to a monastery and wouldn’t be stopping to put bags away at a hotel or in storage or anything like that.  I packed pretty light aside from my big camera bag, and the Chinese packed super light, but Mary being a Western girl had a decent sized bag.  So before we got going we asked the guide what we could do with our stuff… he walked us over to a couple of old Chinese people, told them where we’d be staying, told us to take out all valuables and to pay the people 5 RMB per bag.  OK…  So of course we did it.  Why not?!

The rest of the day was spent listening to the tour guide talk for huge chunks of time in random places about nothing, checking out Buddhist shrines and monasteries, as well as seeing the famous (in some circles I guess) golden Guan Yin statue that stands 33 meters tall.  It was all really gorgeous and it was nice to see the ocean and some forested nature type areas again.  At the end of the day we went to the “army barracks” that we were told we would be staying at…turns out it is a converted army barracks and is actually now a pretty nice hotel.  Also turns out that those nice old people that we gave our bags to along with our 5 RMB were kind enough to take them to the hotel and leave them at the front desk.  And they didn’t steal anything either!  China is awesome sometimes.  It’s especially awesome when you have no idea what is going on and things just magically work out. 

After we checked in to the hotel we went out to dinner.  Every single restaurant in the little village was the same.  As we walked down the street all the owners tried to get us to come into their particular restaurant, but there was nothing distinguishable about any of the different places.   Tubs of fish and various sea creatures were on the ground swimming around at each place.  Old sickly looking vegetables were on the racks.  No place had a Chinese menu, let alone an English menu.  I don’t know how our friends ultimately chose a place to eat but somehow they stopped at one place and we began picking out fish, mussels, crabs and prawns. When we picked out our fish the lady casually grabbed a net, picked up the fish, took a step or two away from us, and smashed the hell out of the poor guy on the cement.  After we selected out desired items we went upstairs to find a full dining room of people Chinese people happily enjoying seafood and alcoholic beverages.  When the two laowai (foreigners) walked in people took notice.  The table to our left, a group of older Chinese men, immediately began offering us, and me in particular, swigs of baijiu, which is a strong Chinese liquor.  They poured me a couple of shots as we sat and ate and we all bonded over food and drinks before they headed out while we were still barely tucking into our food. 

The food was amazing.  The poor fish that I had just witnessed be savagely murdered was perfect, easily the best fish that I have ever had.  The prawns were good, the mussels were good, the crab was good, everything was pretty incredible.  We also ordered an egg soup, rice, a tomato and egg dish that the Chinese seem to love, and Yu Xiang Rou Si, one of my favorite Chinese dishes (though it is pork and not sea food).  We were all stuffed by the end of it but it was well worth it for the experience alone, but the amazingness of the food made it even better. 

The next day our tour began again at 6 AM.  We were taken to another Buddhist temple where we spent about two hours, and were then given about 4 hours to do what we wanted before we had to head back to the bus.  We decided to walk to the top of Putuoshan to see the Huiji Monastery, the highest on the island.  It lies at the end of 1300 stone steps and is pretty steep at times.  It was interesting to see the Buddhist pilgrims climbing the stairs.  They would take three steps, go all the way to the ground, touching their forehead to the floor before standing back up, taking three more steps, and then doing it again. They did this the whole way up the mountain.  Couldn’t have been easy. 

The Buddhist temples are all really cool, though once you have seen one you have pretty much seen them all. They all have similar courtyards, filled with people bowing and burning incense.  Inside they have a variety of buddhas and again, people bowing.  Monks walk around doing their thing, ringing gongs or talking on their cell phones.  There doesn’t seem to be much more to it from an outsiders perspective.  They would be really serene places if there weren’t so many people there making noises and bumping into each other.

On the way home we had another surreal China experience.  The bus stopped at a large convention center type place and were ushered into a small room.  Once seated we were given a live infomercial type demonstration.  It was like being on late night TV, live and in the flesh.  The guy had a headset and he spilled various liquids onto the fabric and began demonstrating that water would not get out the mess.  After a few minutes of watching and not really understanding what he was saying (though we could easily have guessed) we decided to head out and go see what else there was in the convention center.  When we left the room our tour guide became very upset.  He began to yell at our Chinese friends and they yelled back.  It was very odd.  They argued for a few minutes before Annie and Jan went back in, and Mary, Felice and I pressed on through the building.  Felice explained that the infomercial was part of our tour and that the guide gets a cut of any money that is made off of the products that the guy was demonstrating.  By us not staying to watch he was losing out on potential income.  The argument wasn’t about Mary and I leaving, he said he didn’t care about us not staying for the infomercial, but that the Chinese people had to stay and watch.  During the argument he even mentioned that the Buddha would not bless them if they didn’t stay to watch the infomercial.  Strange stuff. 

But it would get weirder…the huge convention center was like a giant “as seen on tv” store that twisted and turned its way through the building.  It funneled you through and you had to walk through all of it, there was no way to skip ahead.  Products and shelves and walls forced you around in their desired direction.  Odd products abounded, including a head scratcher that a Chinese worker was kind enough to demonstrate on my head for me (great picture I have of her scratching my head I will add somewhere, likely instagram I guess when I get around to it).  She was very sweet actually, spoke decent English, and for some reason introduced me to her Uncle.  Well not exactly for some reason, she brought me to him because she said that I “have a lot of money.”  I guess because I’m white?  I don’t really know…I didn’t buy anything so don’t know where she got the idea.

After the “as seen on TV” section there was a huge seafood section we had to go through, followed by a strange snack section, filled with all kinds of weird stuff that I had never seen before, not even in China.  Most of it I had no idea at all what it was, and our friends really didn’t know what a lot of it was.  I walked down the aisles asking the workers “zhe shi shen ma?” over and over and whenever I got an answer that I maybe could sound out in pinyin, I’d put it into the phone to see if I could get the English name for it. It was oddly fun.

After this and then a few more hours on the bus, we stopped at another one of these places for another infomercial and more “shopping.”  This time instead of foods it was mostly knock off purses and jackets as well as a variety of knick-knacks and toys.  We made it back to Shanghai around 7 PM, they dropped us off on a different random corner near People’s Square than the one they picked us up at, but we made it back safe and sound and I’m not sure but either more confused about China or much wiser about China…not entirely sure.

Random Only in China Moment #1:  At the hotel a large group of old Chinese ladies, maybe around 20 or so of them, came in to the check-in area at the same time as us.  As we were leaving one of the ladies shouted “laowai” at me and pointed.  All of them turned around and began pointing at me and saying “laowai, laowai.”  I then told them in my horrible Chinese “Where is the laowai?  Where is the laowai?”  They all started cracking up laughing and thought it was the funniest thing ever.  Chinese people that aren’t used to foreigners are awesome.  They have no shame pointing at you and calling you “laowai.”  Seeing a white face must be such an unusual and infrequent experience for them it kind of blows your mind to think about.  If people staring at you and maybe even getting into your personal space bothers you then China is not the place for you, but if you can just roll with everything it is so much fun.

Random Only in China Moment #2:  Chinese buses always have a “bus attendent” for lack of a better term.  They ride on the bus and handle customer issues or tickets or fares and things of that nature.  On the way home on the bus the attendant gave a microphone to a little girl around 6 years old and asked her to sing a song.  She sang a few songs and it was really cute and everyone had a good time.  Next she gave the microphone to Mary and I after telling everyone essentially that “next the white people will sing.”  We laughed and said “no” and that we aren’t going to sing.  However Felice grabbed the mic and began singing a song that the three of us all know and we ended up all singing together.  We were very amusing to the Chinese folk apparently and received quite an ovation when we were finished.  Another one of those “roll with it” China moments. 

Also, Putuoshan had a few more moments for me that I like to call being “China famous.”  Essentially people either taking your picture, either slyly or not covertly at all, or for the more bold, asking you to take a picture with them.  I was stopped 4 or 5 times for pictures while there.  It doesn’t really bother me at all, I think it’s fun, but a lot of people out here seem really bothered by it. 

Overall, another good time in China, that’s all I really seem to be having.  Sorry for the length to anyone that may be reading.