Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago, ABROAD

It's a nice day for a... Chinese wedding

2011-12-04T03:20:00.007-05:00

Yesterday an American friend got married to his Chinese fiancée. They had a modern Chinese wedding, which takes random elements from traditional Chinese weddings, Western weddings, and whatever else they felt like to create something... interesting. It was held in a large restaurant near his university campus which specializes in weddings and has one each night in their large dining room.

The best man gives a speech in English- and then gives it again in Chinese. The grooms brother would later try to do the same thing by writing out his speech phonetically, much to the puzzlement of Chinese guests:

The bride and groom escort each others parents to their tables in the front, before hopping up onto the stage:

Next the bride and groom exchange vows and each give a short speech. Unintentional hilarity ensues when the groom, trying to give his speech in Chinese, accidentally says tongxing instead of tongxin- therefore describing his relationship with her as gay, instead of "with one heart." Chinese guests gasp and then laugh, foreigners hide their chuckles. Also a bubble machine is blowing bubbles over them the entire time, because....????

The spread- ranging from ordinary dishes like fried beef and peppers to delicious ones like roast duck to odd ones like red-braised turtle. As soon as any given dish was close to finished it was whisked away and replaced by a brand new one, until everyone at the table conceded defeat.

My old roommate and his girlfriend, enjoying the feast. The woman on the right is the owner of an Italian restaurant in town known for delicious paninis and pizza- I still have no idea where she learned to cook them or why her English is so good:

Us with the groom:

Halloween!

2011-11-20T04:51:00.007-05:00

From a few weeks ago, but I've been having trouble with accessing some sites recently. Anyway, my students had a bunch of questions about what Halloween is, which led to me declaring a special Halloween class on the week around Halloween. I told my students we'd be having a costume contest, play a few games, make jack-o-lanterns, and generally have as good of a time as English class allows.

They did a great job- here are a few pictures:

October in Amdo, part 6

2011-10-27T05:31:00.007-04:00

Facing one of the monastery walls is a row of art studios, where Tibetan artists paint thangkas. A thangka is a wall scroll, painted in Tibetan style. We stepped into a few of them and saw artists working on thangkas ranging from the size of a large postcard to ones that where 10 feet tall and 15 or so feet wide. Even a small one can take weeks to finish, and groups of three or four painters working on a large one might need months. One of the artists let me take a picture of his half-finished thangka:

The colors are really bright, which seems to be an ongoing theme in Tibet. A market by the side of the monastery:

The one street in town:

Because there's only one street taxis are pretty easy to arrange- they just trawl up and down the street, picking up anyone who signals and letting them off before turning around and going back up the other way. There's a flat fee of one yuan per person per ride, which could spoil you pretty easily. We kept running into the cabbie who took us from Taktsang to Labrang, honking and waving whenever he passed. Eventually we flagged him down and asked about if he wanted to give us a ride to Tarzang Lake, and he ended up giving us a really good price (and jumping out at a stall to buy tea for everyone!).

Tarzang Lake is a small one, sitting high in the mountains above the road. It takes about 15 minutes to reach the turnoff from the main road, but then there's another 10 or 15 minutes of going up a winding dirt road. The lake is considered holy by the locals, who are waived from the 20 RMB entrance fee. The lake is almost hidden from the entrance by a huge prayer flag array:

The side of the lake:

Looking across:

Back in town we promised to give the cabbie a call next time we end up in Gansu. Later we found a way into the yak butter sculpture hall without joining a tour, which is supposed to be impossible but actually turns out to be quite possible if you chat with some monks for a few minutes. A flower made of yak butter:

The next morning we had to get on a bus and head back to Lanzhou, descending into the haze and smog of Real China along the way. Next time, a few random pictures.

October in Amdo, Part 5

2011-10-19T04:18:00.004-04:00

The last time I visited Labrang was December of 2008, 9 months after the 2008 Tibetan Uprising saw a wave of protests, demonstrations, and riots break out across the Plateau. Restrictions against foreign travelers had only been lifted a week or two before I arrived, and would end up being re-imposed weeks after I left. Between closed hostels, shuttered restaurants, and an elevated Chinese paramilitary presence, the mood last time was very different than the tourism extravaganza of National Day 2011. Troupes of Chinese photographers like our friends from back in Taktsang besieged Labrang this time. Hotels were open- but sold out. We reluctantly booked a dorm room at the Overseas Tibetan Hotel, whose gross dorms I had hoped to avoid this time.

Still, the biggest presence at Labrang, by far, is that of Tibetans themselves. Pilgrims circle the monastery constantly, orbiting it in a clockwise flow that starts before the sun rises and continues until it sets. Some aren’t content to merely spin the prayer wheels and walk the trail- they prostrate their way around the entire place, a 3km ordeal that sees them touch their head the ground, stand up, walk one body length forward, then throw themselves down again. Others go even further, essentially doing it all sideways. They face the center of the monastery at all times as they work their way around, taking only a small step sideways each time. We watched from a restaurant by the side of the monastery as one such pilgrim finished his circuit of the monastery at 3:30 in the afternoon, presumably having started long before any of us woke up.

The prayer wheel trail- one man steps out and takes a break while others keep spinning the wheels:

The eastern end of the monastery:

Monastery goat:

One of the buildings near the center, where we briefly got lost in a maze of courtyards and halls:

The Gungthang Stupa. The boy on the stairs is carrying lunch for the monks, who were working up a storm of chanting on the inside:

This unfriendly-looking fellow was painted on the doors of the neighboring Red Hat temple. The skulls on his crown seem to be pretty outgoing, on the other hand:

Another monastery goat. A little girl had been teasing this one with the packet of food- until it (gently) butted her with the horns, and she ran away screaming:

I find that people who speak ill of Tibetan food tend not to have ever been there. Our favorite was the Nomad Restaurant, a third floor restaurant overlooking the crossroads at the eastern end of the monastery, where a constant flow of monks, nomads, pilgrims, and merchants mix it up all day. An all-Tibetan meal we had consisted of, from left to right:
1. Tsampa, a staple made of roast barley mixed with butter, sugar, and a little water. It’s then compacted into cubes and eaten, and tastes a little like cookie dough and a little like what I’d imagine raw Quaker Oats Squares cereal would taste like. Delicious.
2. Fried momos. Tibetan dumplings can be pretty different than their Chinese cousins. These ones were meatier, with a little bit of soup on the inside. It seemed like they were steamed first, and then quickly fried at the end to give them a crispy exterior. I’ve had some good momos in the States, but nothing near as good as these.
3. ‘Nomad’ grilled lamb with bell peppers. I don’t know if nomads actually eat this one, but it was heavy on cumin and garlic. If nomads do eat this I might have to reconsider my line of work.
4. Vegetable pakleb. A fried bread filled with minced green vegetables and a little bit of ginger.

Not pictured- yak butter tea, and my Tibetan black tea. It’s a confusing drink, made of rock sugar, dried fruit, and a mess of sticks and tea leaves that give it a smoky flavor.

Next time- the rest of Labrang, and our side trip to Tarzang Lake.

October in Amdo, Part 4

2011-10-14T01:13:00.002-04:00

Not much in the way of words for this one- the first picture is from the main highway near Luchu, and the rest are from the old road to Labrang through the Sangke grasslands. Small villages, nomads on motorcycles, enormous herds of yak, snowy mountains beyond the grass. Very possibly the most scenic ride I’ve ever taken:

October in Amdo, Part 3

2011-10-13T00:24:00.004-04:00

The weather got better day by day. In the afternoon the countryside around Taktsang looks like a painting:

The town mosque, which serves the Hui Muslim minority:

Later it was my turn to play photographer, catching these Tibetan women who were taking a break from spinning prayer wheels. After I took it I showed it to them, prompting them to break out into laughter and make jokes about each other:

In the afternoon we decided to hike up to the top of the red cliffs which tower over the town. It ended up being quite a hike, with the altitude and steepness of the first part catching us off guard. Luckily the view was worth it:

Wildflowers on the top:

The cliffs from halfway down the slope. Note the large herd of sheep in the middle right of the picture for scale:

That afternoon we were approached by a man who introduced himself as Sonam and offered us a chance to go horse-trekking for what seemed like a suspiciously low price. Two and a half hours for 100 RMB? Huh… Still, one of my travel companions was excited by the idea and we decided to go for it. We showed up at 9:30 the next morning after a surprisingly authentic apple pie breakfast and were somewhat surprised when Sonam actually showed up, blasting down the road on a motorcycle. He beckoned for us to follow him, and we walked a short ways out of town to find two guides and five horses milling around. Apparently the fact that we aren’t all experienced equestrians wasn’t communicated to them, because the extent of my training was being thrown up on the horse and told to go for it.

It worked out alright- although I was never sure how to make him stop walking and instead relied on his gluttony to give him pause eventually. Our guides were friendly guys from the town who may as well have been born on horses, it seemed. This is where the weather finally turned over for good- the rest of our trip would take place under brilliant blue skies. The one picture I took of my horse, who earned a nickname I shan’t repeat due to his predilection for gassiness (alright, it was ‘Captain Fartsalot.’ He earned that rank):

Trying to handle my camera while also dealing with aiming the horse in a generally acceptable direction was a bit nerve-wracking, but I got a few more of the grassland we went through:

During a break our guides relaxed a bit:

It was a fun two hours, for sure. When it was done we checked out of the hostel and were walking to the bus area when fate finally made up for all the ticket nonsense earlier in the trip: a cabby from Labrang had just dropped off his fares in Taktsang, and wanted to rustle up some passengers for the return trip in a hurry. We ended up haggling him down to a mere ten yuan more than the price of bus tickets would have been for the three of us. As an added bonus, he even suggested taking the scenic route instead of the main highway. Pictures from the trip tomorrow.

October in Amdo, Part 2

2011-10-11T22:44:00.000-04:00

Hezuo wasn’t that much colder than Lanzhou- t-shirts were fine during the sunny afternoon, although the night air cooled off quickly. As we got on the bus to Taktsang it was drizzling, which quickly transformed into snow as the bus climbed mountain passes and entered the broad grasslands of eastern Amdo. It was nice to finally see the Land of Snows in the snow, but I was starting to wonder if it would turn into a white-out:

I was also getting worried, because most of the stuff to do in Taktsang involves hiking or otherwise being outside. Luckily it seemed a bit clearer by the time we got to town, where we rushed to secure our hostel room before mobs of Chinese tourists could claim it. That afternoon we checked out Sertri Gompa, one of two major monasteries which dominate the town. Their stupa and prayer hall in the snow:

The one street, with snowy red cliffs in the back:

Back in the hostel common room that night we were drying off our shoes and playing a game of cards by the stove when I started to notice something was awry. You develop a sense here that tells you when people are taking your picture. I can be walking down the street and suddenly sense that someone is leaning out a fifth floor window to snap a shot, spin around and give them a thumbs up, but this was different. It turns out that a marauding band of Chinese photographers, lured by the “Switzerland of Asia” tagline that promotes the region, had come back in for the night and found the exotic sight of three foreigners playing cards irresistible. Two had set up tripods, and up to six of them at a time photographed us, each shooting with professional cameras worth more than my annual salary here. At one point I stood up and photographed back, catching the three on the right side of the room as they snapped away:

One even came over later and offered to drive us to the first bend of the Yellow River the next morning, apparently so that he could photograph three random foreigners in front of an otherwise non-descript river bend. His driver had apparently already started to arrange a larger car to make it all work out, but we had to turn down the offer- four hours each way seemed like a tall order after an incredibly long train ride and two lengthy bus rides over the last two days. It’s too bad, too, because I’ve always wanted to be photographed with two other foreigners in front of the first bend of the Yellow River by a $10,000 camera.

The next morning we awoke to find that more snow had rolled in overnight. We walked through Kirti Gompa to the gorge behind it, where the entrance is marked by an enormous prayer flag vortex and a stream of early-morning pilgrims giving way to mid-morning tourists:

The higher you walk up the gorge, the thicker the snow gets. Beyond where I turned around two years ago was this field where the trail forks, which we called Snowman Field:

Hot springs feed the White Dragon Creek, which runs through the gorge:

A carving etched into the cliff beside the gorge:

Back in town things were beginning to clear up (click for a full-size view):

The rest of Taktsang to come tomorrow.

October in Amdo, Part 1

2011-10-10T22:29:00.004-04:00

Chinese National Day is a magical time. Contrary to the name, it’s actually a week long, and with a little bit of class rescheduling I was able to get that up to 8.5 days. Figuring out where to go wasn’t even really a decision- I knew it was time to get back to Labrang, where I had planned to spend a few weeks this summer before the visa fiasco reared its ugly head.

The area I did end up visiting this summer is called Kham, one of the two major regions of Tibet separated from U-Tsang (sometimes referred to as Central Tibet) by Chinese redistricting in the 1950s. I spent National Week week in Amdo, the other victim of Chinese cartographers. Today most of Amdo falls into Qinghai province, with the rest lying in parts of Gansu and Sichuan. Culturally, linguistically, and ethnically it’s one cohesive area, but if you looked at a Chinese map you’d never know it. Famous Amdo Tibetans include Tsongkhapa (the Martin Luther of Tibetan Buddhism) and the current Dalai Lama.

Originally we had a group of 6 people ready to go, but when we reached go time we were down to three- two other Americans I met through my friends and myself. We ended up getting along pretty well, which is good because we were in close quarters the entire time and other foreigners were few and far between.

The departure from Wuhan was a hectic dash from my last class on Thursday back to my apartment to pick up my things, and then a cab ride to the new Wuhan train station. By the time I woke up on Friday morning the landscape had changed from the Yangtze River area near Wuhan to the loess plains of the Lanzhou and south-eastern Gansu. It was still pretty green, as a picture through the dusty train window shows:

On arrival in Lanzhou we wasted no time in getting on to the bus station. Lanzhou doesn’t have much of note besides an outstandingly filthy horizon, practically brown in the afternoon sun. The one real draw is Lanzhou beef noodles, which are hand-made in the restaurant and put the imitations found across China to shame. Upsettingly delicious.

The original plan was to hop in a bus and go straight to Labrang, but National Day struck us for the first time. Throngs of Chinese tourists had already bought out all the Labrang-bound tickets for the day, and the ticket office was one or two shouting people away from being a legitimate riot. I felt lucky to snag tickets to Hezuo, the capital of the Southern Gansu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Just an hour from Labrang and three hours from Taktsang Lhamo, it would do.

I’ve actually been curious about Hezuo ever since last year, when I almost accepted a job at a college there. It’s downright tiny by Chinese standards, with 90,000 or so in the municipal area. It proved a pleasant place, with a wide central square featuring this enormous yak statue:

Getting a hotel was a bit of an ordeal- we went from place to place being told that they didn’t accept foreigners. Finally at a business hotel north of the square I answered the apologetic “we aren’t licensed to accept foreigners” with a “well we won’t tell the government if you won’t!” That did it- a room was secured off the books. It was a nice room, and the only twist came when we were walking out of the room to check out the next day- we opened the door to see a policeman walking down the hall. The door was quickly shut, we occupied ourselves quietly inspecting the finer details of the room for ten or fifteen minutes, and then we carefully snuck out of the place.

The number of monks ambling around town got me curious about Hezuo Monastery, called Tso Gompa in Tibetan. It was supposedly the most beautiful monastery in the area before the Chinese army arrived, but it’s lagged behind others in rebuilding. As far as I know it only had ten or twenty monks just a few years ago, but this time it was noticeably bigger than it was when I last passed through in late 2008. A monk on the grounds said that these days the numbers are recovering and that there are currently 160 monks in residence. There were quite a few pictures of you-know-who in the temples:

A butter lamp in one of the chapels:

After checking out we secured tickets to Taktsang Lhamo, coming up tomorrow.

Escape from Wuhan: The End

2011-09-01T03:25:00.008-04:00

A few last pictures from across the trip:

The grassland:

One more angle of Zhonglu:

Three girls who followed us from store to store during our massive robe and mask buying expedition, shouting "hello!" and following up with "ok!" whenever we acknowledged them:

Corn drying in Zhonglu:

In Suopo village, the only way to get up or down were these crazy ladders- just a single log:

Assembly Hall in Ani Gompa:

Yak skull on the wall of Jya Drolma's:

A painted prayer wheel at Lhagang Monastery:

Escape from Wuhan: Part Six

2011-08-31T01:26:00.005-04:00

Our next stop was Zhonglu village. Our driver took us further down the road, which wound along the river underneath the steep mountain ranges. Turning off from the main road, he drove up an incredibly steep, switchbacked path. After about ten minutes of blasting up this road, the vertical climb gives way to a large bowl, halfway up the mountain. From below you wouldn't even see the place, but Zhonglu is actually pretty huge. Here's one random corner:

The view from the edge of the road up to the village, across to other mountains and villages:

The driver said he would give us about two hours to wander around, and then make our way back to the center. Truth be told, you could easily wander around Zhonglu for days. We struck out along a random path, working our way up past fields of corn, stone houses and yet more towers:

Like Hangzhou's West Lake, it was an almost unbearably pleasant place. Idyllic, even.

We didn't see any other tourists the entire time we were there- just locals, who were picking sichuan peppercorns from bushes on that day. I'd never seen them fresh here, as they're normally sold dried. We each ate one, learning that their numbing properties are much stronger when they're fresh. I couldn't feel the left side of my mouth for 10 minutes.

The path between the fields, temporarily blocked by this bull:

It's pretty easy to set up homestays in Zhonglu, where local families will give you a bed and a few meals for very low prices. I was really tempted, but unfortunately we couldn't figure out any way to do that which wouldn't also entail spending another night in awful Danba town, from where buses only leave very early in the morning. The hostel we stayed at in Danba was the worst place I've ever stayed in China, with no AC or fans to help with the heat. We ended up leaving the door and window open to get some air flow, but that in turn gave us mosquitos and the sounds of Chinese highway traffic blasting into our room all night. On to Chengdu!

Next time: some more pictures from all over.

Escape from Wuhan: Part Five

2011-08-26T23:50:00.009-04:00

After a few days in Tagong we arranged a ride to our next stop, Danba. They didn't have anything big enough for our group, so all 8 of us had to squeeze into a little van. No problem though, right? The roads had all been in great shape so far.

Wrong. It turns out the government decided to rebuild the road between Tagong and Danba- all at once. So the entire 4 hour trip was taken in a shock-less van that left us all feeling shaken and nauseous. The ride otherwise could have been pretty pleasant. After leaving the grassland the road goes through thickly forested mountain valleys, with plenty of scenic views:

A stream running beside the road grew over the course of the trip:

Becoming a full fledged river by the time we reached Danba town:

About Danba- it's the biggest town in the Gyalrong region of Tibet. Known for mountain villages, beautiful ancient homes and tall stone towers, Gyalrong is also a lot lower than most of the rest of Tibet, leaving it much warmer and capable of growing tons of corn. Danba town was fairly lackluster, and our hostel was so awful that we all started plotting our return to Chengdu minutes after arriving.

Luckily, we stuck around for a day. The whole point of Danba is to get out of the town and into one of the many villages nearby, which constantly win awards as the most beautiful villages in China. Inhabited by Tibetans and the Qiang, a Tibetan-related minority in the region, we ended up seeing two of them. Suopo was the first.

Our driver took us about ten minutes out of town, then pulled onto a dirt road and stopped beside a bridge festooned with prayer flags:

As we got out the driver told me that we should cross the bridge, walk about twenty minutes uphill, and there we would find Suopo. Before we could make it that far a native of the village approached us and offered to show us one of the homes and one of the towers for ten yuan a person. Sure, why not?

The towers, though, were crazy. Built by the Tibetans and Qiang from 800 to 1200 years ago, these tall structures bewilder everyone who comes to study them. No one can figure out why there are so many- over 100 in little Suopo village alone, and thousands across Gyalrong and two other small regions. What were they for? Your first instinct is to say they were supposed to serve as watch towers, but if that's the case the vast majority of them are redundant. In some pictures I caught five towers all next to each other, not a quarter of a mile between the first and the fifth. Some might have been defensive, and others might have been for storing food, but that still doesn't really explain the sheer quantity of them. When we arrived at the house I took a picture of this tower, framed by one tower on the left and one tower on the right:

Another one:

The house he showed us hasn't been restored, and on the inside he pointed out what various rooms were used for:

This was the shrine room, with the paintings on the lower cabinets clocking in at over 600 years old:

Another house, this one restored and lived in by a local family:

On the way back down our guide was kind enough to give us some apples from his orchard:

From there we went to Zhonglu village, which ended up being one of the highlights of the entire trip. Pictures and details next time.

Escape from Wuhan: Part Four

2011-08-25T03:17:00.011-04:00

The next morning we asked Jya which direction she recommends for a grassland hike. She said a good one was to walk out of town past Golden Spire Monastery, and then head towards the distant mountain and gleaming roof of Ani Gompa, an enormous nunnery. She also said something about it having a "mani gorge," which bewildered me at the time as I tried to translate from Chinese back into English. Mani stones, carved with Tibetan script, are frequently left in piles or occasionally built into long walls- but what is a mani gorge?

We followed her advice, walking past Golden Spire Monastery and towards the distant mountain, which remained our guide over the 4 hours we would spend hiking:

A few minutes out we had to cross this stream, which was easy enough but extremely cold even in the middle of August:

Beyond that it was just a huge expanse of grassland:

And more grassland:

Occasionally there would be a fence or two that would need hopping, but they all seem to have been built to contain livestock, not to keep people out:

The grass itself:

Finally we arrived, to find a festival in full swing. Tibetans were being dropped off by the tractor-full in front of this tent, where real and fake flows and Tibetan music made the whole place feel surreal after hours of nothing but green grass and blue skies. I tried asking what exactly was going on, but answers would start in Mandarin and then trail off into Kham dialect Tibetan:

The prayer flag vortex and flag covered hill next to the tent:

A wall topped by miniature stupas:

Right up the road from the tent we found the mani gorge. Smaller tents containing craftsmen line the way up to it, where they'll carve and paint prayers into stone. Pilgrims buy these:

And then give them to the temple, whose walls are made of stacked mani stones- I assume this building has been slowly growing up for some time:

Everyone we ran into was extremely friendly, giving the Tibetan greeting of "tashi de-le" if you so much as glance in their direction. By this point we were pretty much beat, though, so we jumped into a truck that whisked us back to town. Recovery from the hike, for me, came in the form of a yak pizza, expertly crafted by the two Tibetan women who run Sally's Cafe.

Tomorrow- Danba.

Escape from Wuhan: Part Three

2011-08-23T02:08:00.008-04:00

Lhagang!

Also called Tagong in Chinese, Lhagang is a tiny little town in the middle of the grasslands. It's relatively high up: 12,100 feet or so. Walking around is fine, but if you start running you'll feel it pretty quickly.

After we settled up with Losang he rolled out of town, leaving us at the central square. It's a one street kind of town, which makes it pretty easy for touts to find you. The Tibetan woman who was sitting in the middle of the square actually runs the guest house we had already planned on staying in, Jya Drolma's. The guest house was great- they had a 6 bed room which fit most of our party, now up to 8 with the addition of a Swede we had run into previously in Chengdu. The room was incredibly decorated:

The ceiling above my bed, with a snow lion and other Tibetan motifs:

The wall, with stylized Tibetan calligraphy and painting:

The only problem was getting there. The guest house is mere feet from the central square, but our room was on the third floor. Tiny ladders led up each floor, and at that altitude a trip down to the second floor bathrooms and back can feel like a serious endeavor. Still, Jya Drolma helped us arrange everything we needed and happily made butter tea for those interested in trying it.

On one side of the square is the Khampa Cafe, where we wound up having breakfast most mornings:

The dining room at the Khampa Cafe, again incredibly decorated:

The view out of the window in the morning, over the roof of Lhagang Monastery:

Lhagang Monastery itself is pretty small compared to Labrang, but there's a nice kora around it with prayer wheels. A constant flow of Tibetans wearing their finest walked clockwise around the monastery, spinning the wheels as they go:

Also, a stupa covered with mani stones. Mani stones are pieces of rock with the Tibetan mantra (om mani padme hum) carved into them by pilgrims or artisans. You'll hear more about them tomorrow:

A hilltop above town:

The big thing to do in Lhagang is go hiking through the grassland. Pictures from our epic hike tomorrow.

Escape from Wuhan: Part Two

2011-08-22T00:28:00.007-04:00

When we were just about finished in Kangding we asked the hostel if they could recommend a driver to take us to the next town, Lhagang. They called a local Tibetan named Losang, whose excited explanations of what we passed on the road, willingness to stop for whatever reason, and Tibetan pop cds won us over. I was actually pretty disappointed when we were unable to secure his services for the next leg of the trip a few days later.

As you leave Kangding the road follows the narrow river valleys that flow between the mountains, gaining altitude steadily. About a half hour out the road turns into a switchbacked climb that ascends the last mountain pass before the grasslands. Behind is the last of the Konkka Mountains, still snow-covered in August:

Your ears are popping by the time the van finally reaches the top of the pass, with a bright white stupa and a small shrine:

And now ahead the grasslands unfold:

By this time our original party of 6 had grown to 7 with the addition of Sabine, a French traveler whom we met in the hostel in Kangding and wound up coming along for the ride over the next week or so. I was lucky enough to have the best Chinese and the only Tibetan language whatsoever from the group, so I kept getting pushed into the front seat on the inter-town rides. They didn't have to push too hard, naturally, but... what can I say, duty calls. Requests were shouted up to the front for me to translate, things like "such and such has to go to the bathroom" or "can we stop and take some pictures here?" or "we love the Tibetan pop but can you turn it down just a little bit?"

After crossing that pass we proceeded along the grassland for about two hours. I think we were all pretty blown away, and after the initial shock faded there were cameras aimed out of pretty much every window of the van for the rest of the ride. The long sloping hills and fields were full of yak herds and the occasional large black nomad tent. Every few miles there would be an umbrella by the side of the road, from under which Tibetans sell cups of freshly made yogurt.

Yaks by the side of the road:

Us:

At one small settlement the driver jumped out to grab a snack, and we walked down the tiny town. Homes in the area are surprisingly well-built and decorated. These two kids put on very serious faces for the picture- I think the one on the right is a monk?

Almost too soon, we arrived in Lhagang. More on that town tomorrow.

Escape from Wuhan: Part One

2011-08-21T03:57:00.004-04:00

Where have I been for the last million years? Not doing anything terribly interesting. It's been a similar drill to what I did last time- teaching and getting into trouble in Wuhan. All of that would have qualified as reruns on this blog, so generally I haven't had much to post here.

That was supposed to change in early July, when the semester ended and I planned to explode out of here like a rocket. Originally I had scheduled two weeks for a stay at Labrang, studying Tibetan language and generally enjoying a break from the Wuhan heat. That plan was absolutely demolished by my school, which in a fit of complete and utter stupidity apparently failed to file any of my paperwork appropriately, and thus consumed 5 straight weeks in an ongoing legal imbroglio. Bribes were issued, paperwork was dispatched by the mountainfull, some other stuff happened that I'm not going to talk about on the internet, but for a while there no end was in sight.

Months ago 3 good friends from DC had bought tickets to come and visit Dennis and Dianne and I this summer. It almost got to the point where I would have missed them in addition to the entirety of my planned Labrang trip, but at the last minute the clouds parted and I grabbed a plane ticket, arriving in Chengdu the night before we were all scheduled to head up into the mountains. Just in time!

Our trip started in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province. I visited it with Carlos Froman four years ago, and actually had little interest in doing it again at the moment. The objective was to get out of the big city as soon as possible, to see the Tibetan region of Kham which takes up roughly half of Sichuan.

To briefly explain Kham- Tibet has traditionally had three provinces. U-Tsang is what China today calls Tibet Province, but the other two (Amdo and Kham) have been cut up and distributed throughout Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces. Kham is every bit as Tibetan as Lhasa- perhaps more so, given that Beijing hasn't bothered to Sinify it yet. It's also a lot easier to get in because unlike Lhasa you don't need a special permit, and it's a LOT cheaper.

The first leg of our trip was from Chengdu to Kangding, the traditional gateway to Kham. The transition, from Chinese to Tibetan, is so slow you barely notice it. Over the course of the 8.5 hour bus ride the landscape changes from the relatively flat Sichuan basin to incredibly high peaks. In one town you see one store with a sign in Tibetan, in the next town there are two, and then half of the stores have them, and by the time you reach Kangding they almost all do. Prayer flags change from being the sign of a Tibet shop to being a ubiquitous feature on every bridge, home, and peak.

Kangding itself was a nice enough town, stretching along both sides of the Dar River which gives the town its Tibetan name, Dardo:

In Kangding we stayed at the Zhilam hostel, which is easily one of the best hostels I've ever stayed in. Located in a village above the town proper, it's very comfortable and the staff was very hospitable. Their recommendation of a hike made the entire stay worthwhile. You see, Kangding is famous for Mt. Paoma, which inspired a popular Chinese love song and is probably the largest single tourist attraction in town. The hostel staff advised that we skip it, though, and take a hike straight up the mountain behind the hostel itself. It would be more difficult, they warned, but a) free and b) much more scenic, with a grassland at the top. Sold!

On starting the hike, we immediately felt that altitude. The first leg took us up to a huge formation of prayer flags on the lower peak of the mountain:

The flags stretched into the woods, which incongruously hosted a random collection of cows and horses:

About two hard hours later we approached the top, with a nice view of the town below:

At this point the path leveled out, taking us the rest of the way to the grassland:

The grassland itself, with a bunch of horses. A really pleasant, almost alpine place, well worth the battle to get there:

After descending we went to a Tibetan restaurant and ordered a few plates of momos, Tibetan dumplings, and fried wild greens. A feast! Tomorrow: the ride to Lhagang.

Caught Infiltrating a Chinese Military base!

2011-06-09T23:43:00.000-04:00

Yesterday my friend Brett and I went on a stroll around the neighborhood, as we are wont to do. Choosing directions almost at random, we soon found our way pretty deep into a maze of small neighborhood streets. We walked past what looked to be a retirement home and a number of buildings with signs labeling them part of some Wuhan college or other. At length we came across a market, and Brett bought a beer. This contained what should have been our first warning: the large bottle of beer cost an impossibly low 1.9 yuan. For reference, the same size would normally sell for 2.5 or 3 at the lowest. I know it doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but it was enough that we both remarked on how freakishly cheap it was.

Walking out of the market we turned to keep walking, but within a minute or so a man wearing a military uniform came up and saluted us. I gave a half-salute back because hey, why not, right? He greeted us in Chinese, and then after a short pause, sheepishly asked us where we’re from.

“I’m American, and he’s Australian.”

“Oh, then… I hate to trouble you, but you’re in a restricted military zone, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Very sorry!”

We told him it was no trouble, and as we turned around he asked us how we got into the military zone.

“We just walked in from Tiger Spring Street. You guys know you haven’t put any guards there, right?”

He gets on his walkie talkie:

“Yep, they came in from Tiger Spring Street. Right, the unmarked part where we don’t have any guards. Ok.”

He trailed us until we came to a random gate, helpfully pointing the way whenever we looked back. As we walked through the gate he enthusiastically waved goodbye. I don’t know what I pictured happening when they catch foreigners on a military base, but it certainly wasn’t an apologetic, studiously polite escort back to the gate from someone who seemed like he would have rather just grabbed a 1.9 yuan beer himself and talked about the NBA or something.

Picture Dump: #12

2011-05-22T05:49:00.003-04:00

Not two minutes from the front door of my building there's this weird little shanty town. The families all live in tiny one-bedroom apartments that double as stores- there's a small restaurant, a convenience store, a tea shop, a metal recycling center, a tile cutter, and some other stuff. It's pretty crazy that people can live like this, surrounded on all sides by sprawling high-rise apartment complexes and shiny university campuses and within spitting distance of what will be a metro station some day.

Eileen's theory is that they're all holding out for some day when a developer or the city government will buy them out. Given the location, even their tiny little street should be pretty valuable, so maybe that's it. Until then, the 'China miracle' is leaving them behind.

Picture Dump: #11

2011-05-21T05:44:00.000-04:00

The other day we had a really hot morning, that turned into a really rainy and cool afternoon, that turned into an extremely foggy evening. Just as the sun was setting all the fog cleared out, leaving this sunset. The picture doesn't really capture how red it was.

Picture Dump: #10

2011-05-20T00:48:00.000-04:00

Hong Kong Island, taken from Kowloon

Picture Dump: #9

2011-05-19T01:13:00.000-04:00

Prayer flags on a nice windy morning. Can hardly call it a proper balcony without a few of them around.

Picture Dump: #8

2011-05-18T01:09:00.001-04:00

View from my balcony, facing south-east. Wuchang just keeps going, all the way to the horizon.

Picture Dump: #7

2011-05-17T01:05:00.000-04:00

The view from my balcony, facing south-west. There's a driving range in the foreground, with South Lake behind it, and Tangxun Lake a barely-visible sliver beyond that.

Picture Dump: #6

2011-05-16T01:02:00.000-04:00

My building used to have a nice front street access area, but the subway construction cut it off completely. Now you have to step down that ledge to get to the front door of the building. This taxi driver apparently didn't notice the ledge and went right over it- he spent about an hour underneath his car building a ramp behind his front tires before he could finally back up and get away.

Picture Dump: #5

2011-05-15T00:59:00.000-04:00

Back in Wuhan, the new apartment building. Taken days after I moved in, back in early March. Some nice Wuhan Metro construction taking place right in front. My room is on the 29th floor- the very top!

Picture Dump: #4

2011-05-14T00:57:00.000-04:00

HK, street level.

Picture Dump: #3

2011-05-13T00:51:00.002-04:00

On the mainland, 150 RMB will get you an enormous room at a comfortable, cool hostel. In HK, it gets you a filthy tiny little closet of a room in the shabbiest building imaginable.

Picture Dump: #1

2011-05-11T00:46:00.001-04:00

A street in Hong Kong, back in February.

A Very Wuhan Christmas

2010-12-25T01:37:00.003-05:00

Christmas is a strange holiday here. Last night I finished work at 9 and walked out of the building to find the streets teeming with stands set up to sell just about anything. The sidewalks only got busier as the night went on, because Christmas Eve is a public shopping holiday here. Santa and Christmas trees decorate the streets and shops, but people are fairly hazy about who he is and why we decorate trees. Some friends had a very nice Christmas Eve party, although getting there involved an epic search for a cab.

There was snow blowing through last night- on Christmas morning this is what the view outside the apartment looked like:

A bit of snow left on those (magnolia?) trees. The roommate and I went for a Christmas lunch feast, Wuhan style:

Dry-fried string beans, Chongqing pepper chicken, and snow-corn soup. The restaurant, a nice Sichuan place on the nearby food street, had done some Christmas decorating- ornaments on the roof:

One Day in Shenzhen

2010-12-07T01:57:00.002-05:00

7:50 AM

I step off the train, and into the smell of… an Asian grocery store in the States? What is that, dried squid or something? And what is that guy eating?! This isn’t the China I know, not by a long shot. I didn’t get much sleep on that overnight hard seat train, not much at all, and there’s a good second-long pause before the words reach my mouth whenever I have to say something in Chinese. But why don’t the words coming out of the loudspeaker make sense? Is that Cantonese? Oh well, I have a little over ten hours to find my way to the Hong Kong border, cross over, and then cross back before my return train to Wuhan leaves.

7:55 AM

Turns out the train station IS the border crossing! That was easy enough. I just have to maneuver my way through the sprawling station/shopping mall/customs building, and I’ll be on Hong Kong. Customs is easy enough- for Hong Kong you pretty much just have to show up and they’ll let you in. Once I’m through I hop on the Hong Kong metro, ride it one station into Hong Kong, switch trains, and ride it back to the PRC border. There we go, officially legal to re-enter China! Next month I’ll be back for 5 days to fully switch my visa, and at that point I’ll stay for a while to actually see the place. Not today, though.

11:30 AM

A bit of wandering has revealed that Shenzhen, the border city on the Chinese side, is a decidedly boring place. I should have figured as much when all the guidebooks touted various amusement parks but were mysteriously silent on the subject of other things to do.

2 PM

After lunch and a bit more wandering, I’ve returned to the train station. Unlike my ludicrously uncomfortable train ride in, my return to Wuhan will be accomplished in grand style: a soft sleeper ticket, which also unlocks the magical Soft Sleeper Waiting Room. I still have a few more hours before the train leaves, but how often do you get to enjoy chairs this comfortable in China?!

What I learned:

-Hard seat really isn’t ok for overnight trains, despite what some lunatics may tell you.
-Hong Kong and southern China all smell like a vast open air Chinese grocery store.
-Chinese border agents are used to seeing people come and go for this exact reason all the time- they didn’t bat an eye at my passport telling them that I was re-entering China after having left earlier that morning, barely two hours after the crossing opened that morning.
-Hong Kong money looks like it’s from the future.

Things are happening...

2010-09-19T17:32:00.001-04:00

Watch this space...