26 July: Bamboo Sea - Day 2
Eyebrowless Women
Sometimes I think that there was a scary epidemic in China which scourged the land, destroying the eyebrows of many Chinese women. A disconcertingly large number of Chinese women appear to have no eyebrows and prefer to draw them on.The red/brown pencilled in eyebrows gives their faces a severe and scary look. Why do people pluck their eyebrows into oblivion???? :)
2 of the staffmembers at the hotel have scary painted on eyebrows. One of them is the nasty overcharging one who did my laundry and is still angry I didn't tip her. The other is the hotel shop assistant, a very scary looking dragon lady in her forties who keeps trying to push her pickled bamboo product on me. She's not very nice - I wanted to buy mineral water and asked for 哇哈哈 （wa ha ha) mineral water which I know and trust. It costs RMB2 but she kept trying to foist a different brand on me just because it costs RMB3. It's not the RMB1 I grudge, its the "screw for the foreigners for what they've got" mentality.
Speaking Chinese
I spoke to dad briefly last night who warned me about the perils of pigs and pork. I also spoke to Ori who weirdly enough didn't have anything particular to say, he just wanted to chat about places he had seen and places I had seen. He's probably getting sick of just talking to his girlfriend and her friend.
I've had weird experiences. Some people I meet, I could talk for ages like the French guy in Leshan, the English guy in Chengdu but then others you just want to run away from like the French couple in Kangding and the French Canadian guy in Chengdu.
Also, these last few days I've had no English opportunites - it's just continuous Mandarin. I usually get very tired when I speak Mandarin for so long, it's easier to speak English but I find that with practice, I can speak without having to think so hard so it's less tiring.
I also realised that when I speak Chinese to foreigners like my classmates I am lazy and frequently adopt the Honkie Habit of Chinglish - mixing English with my Chinese. I thought it was because I couldn't help it. I have realised on this trip that I can actually control it because I never, ever use any English when talking to Chinese people. Not even a single word - because they can't understand it. I find another way to say what I want to say or I think harder to find the word. It makes me realise that I should try to control my lazy speech habits when speaking to foreigners - less English words!!!
I tried to make excuses for myself and explain it away - when talking to Chinese people I'm usually speaking about more straightforward issues. With friends and classmates, I'm often speaking about more abstract concepts ;)
More of the Sea
Today we started out at 8am and Chen took me back to the Cloud Watching Pavilion just because I liked it so much and wanted to take some photos of it on my phone. It was embarrassing but to my discomfort we encountered yet another of the motorcycle drivers who had tried to push me into taking him on as a tour guide. I could see him giving me a look for going off with someone else. The drivers here are very pushy, I guess it's a bit quiet right now so competition for tourists is quite keen.
Chen is a good guide. He talks - but not too much. He knows when to fall silent so that you can enjoy the quiet of the forest, the sound of a waterfall or the scenery. He doesn't smoke, which believe me is almost unheard of in a Chinese man. In the 2 days he was my guide, he only spat twice. I counted.
The downside is that we did agree to a discount rate. It's normally RMB60 per day with a discount rate of RMB100 for 2 days. He accepted RMB120 without giving me back any change. Also to be honest, I really only had 2 half days rather than 2 full days BUT that being said, having 2 full days might have killed me!!!! Also, he has a 10 year old kid, the places he took me were really good and he didn't rush me through them and we went at a really nice pace I could deal with to allow me to enjoy my surroundings. We also had sufficient rests because I have no lungs :)
Today we walked deeper in to the forest to 忘优谷 (The Valley Where Worry is Forgotten) and 九叠泉 (9 Layer Springs). They were amazing places - lush forest, waterfalls everywhere . During one walk, I climbed up onto a edge and high above me was a waterfall. There was a very gentle spray of cool water which was just enough to cool you down but not enough to wet you. I bumped into a really friendly, bubbley Chinese girl from Guangzhou who was an art teacher who sat down in a pavilion and chatted to us for about 20minutes about her opinion of House of Flying Daggers (hated it) and different scenic spots in China.
At The Valley Where Worry is Forgotten, I encountered an annoying Chinese bureaucrat who said that my ticket was not right and demanded to see my receipt. The ticket was fine at all other spots but he had to be difficult. In the end we went back to the hotel and picked it up. I was quite pissed off about it and Chen looked amused.
"Why are you so annoyed about it?"
"Because I hate people who are difficult just for the sake of being difficult." I grumped.
We went back to the hotel and I headed out for lunch and had bamboo rice and bamboo shoots with shredded meat - which I later discovered to be pork.... Sigh. It was very tasty at least.
After that, I had a nap and decided to go for a walk. The closest scenic spot was the Cloud Watching Pavilion so I decided to walk there just to see what it might be like if I didn't have a motorcycle driver to take me around. The Bamboo Sea is too big and the scenic spots are too dispersed to do on foot unfortunately. It was a very long steep walk uphill. I didn't encounter the woman I met on my first day there who said: "You should have come with your husband."
"I don't have a husband".
"Well you should get one".
OK.
The walk was very hot and motorcycle drivers kept stopping to try to make me go with them. At one point I stopped by the side of the road because someone had put a small bunch of wild flowers on the roadside barrier. They were pale pink, blue and purple and very pretty. At that point, a little old lady with her grey hair pulled back in a ponytail and clipped back from a brown wrinkled face paused in her work to look at me. She was barefoot, dressed in a loose blue and white cotton dress and using a hoe to remove vegetation from the roadside drains/ditches. She was as shiny as I was with perspiration but incredibly friendly and cheerful. She asked me why I didn't have a motorcycle to take me around and I said I had already done a 2 day tour and was now just enjoying the walk. When drivers kept stopping to pester me, she called out: "No! She's enjoying the walk and the fresh air!"
Her accent was extremely hard to understand but she was so friendly and nice that I persisted. I kept walking and by the side of the road I saw corn growing, bitter melon, pumpkins, cucumbers, eggplants and rice. I passed a young woman with a child and was disconcerted to see that she was carrying a machete. What on earth does one need with a machete on such a lovely afternoon stroll? If it's not to kill foreign tourists and eat their brain, perhaps it was to steal roadside vegetables. No doubt the Bamboo Sea police have been trying to solve The Mystery of the Missing Roadside Aubergine for years .....
By the way the hotel's publicity documents all say "Baboo Sea" which sounds kind of funny.
I kept walking and just as I was about to give up after 1.5 hours of walking, I saw the pavilion. It was just as beautiful as in the morning but at that point, a bus pulled out and a load of Chinese tourists poured out in droves. There were no clouds at that time of day but you could see the beautiful Sichuan countryside which is endless oddly shaped green hills - they look like swirls on a map with strange steps carved in them.
When I walked back, the flowers by the roadside were gone, the roadside was tidy and the little old lady was gone - almost as if she had disappeared into the bamboo sea.....
Sometimes I think that there was a scary epidemic in China which scourged the land, destroying the eyebrows of many Chinese women. A disconcertingly large number of Chinese women appear to have no eyebrows and prefer to draw them on.The red/brown pencilled in eyebrows gives their faces a severe and scary look. Why do people pluck their eyebrows into oblivion???? :)
2 of the staffmembers at the hotel have scary painted on eyebrows. One of them is the nasty overcharging one who did my laundry and is still angry I didn't tip her. The other is the hotel shop assistant, a very scary looking dragon lady in her forties who keeps trying to push her pickled bamboo product on me. She's not very nice - I wanted to buy mineral water and asked for 哇哈哈 （wa ha ha) mineral water which I know and trust. It costs RMB2 but she kept trying to foist a different brand on me just because it costs RMB3. It's not the RMB1 I grudge, its the "screw for the foreigners for what they've got" mentality.
Speaking Chinese
I spoke to dad briefly last night who warned me about the perils of pigs and pork. I also spoke to Ori who weirdly enough didn't have anything particular to say, he just wanted to chat about places he had seen and places I had seen. He's probably getting sick of just talking to his girlfriend and her friend.
I've had weird experiences. Some people I meet, I could talk for ages like the French guy in Leshan, the English guy in Chengdu but then others you just want to run away from like the French couple in Kangding and the French Canadian guy in Chengdu.
Also, these last few days I've had no English opportunites - it's just continuous Mandarin. I usually get very tired when I speak Mandarin for so long, it's easier to speak English but I find that with practice, I can speak without having to think so hard so it's less tiring.
I also realised that when I speak Chinese to foreigners like my classmates I am lazy and frequently adopt the Honkie Habit of Chinglish - mixing English with my Chinese. I thought it was because I couldn't help it. I have realised on this trip that I can actually control it because I never, ever use any English when talking to Chinese people. Not even a single word - because they can't understand it. I find another way to say what I want to say or I think harder to find the word. It makes me realise that I should try to control my lazy speech habits when speaking to foreigners - less English words!!!
I tried to make excuses for myself and explain it away - when talking to Chinese people I'm usually speaking about more straightforward issues. With friends and classmates, I'm often speaking about more abstract concepts ;)
More of the Sea
Today we started out at 8am and Chen took me back to the Cloud Watching Pavilion just because I liked it so much and wanted to take some photos of it on my phone. It was embarrassing but to my discomfort we encountered yet another of the motorcycle drivers who had tried to push me into taking him on as a tour guide. I could see him giving me a look for going off with someone else. The drivers here are very pushy, I guess it's a bit quiet right now so competition for tourists is quite keen.
Chen is a good guide. He talks - but not too much. He knows when to fall silent so that you can enjoy the quiet of the forest, the sound of a waterfall or the scenery. He doesn't smoke, which believe me is almost unheard of in a Chinese man. In the 2 days he was my guide, he only spat twice. I counted.
The downside is that we did agree to a discount rate. It's normally RMB60 per day with a discount rate of RMB100 for 2 days. He accepted RMB120 without giving me back any change. Also to be honest, I really only had 2 half days rather than 2 full days BUT that being said, having 2 full days might have killed me!!!! Also, he has a 10 year old kid, the places he took me were really good and he didn't rush me through them and we went at a really nice pace I could deal with to allow me to enjoy my surroundings. We also had sufficient rests because I have no lungs :)
Today we walked deeper in to the forest to 忘优谷 (The Valley Where Worry is Forgotten) and 九叠泉 (9 Layer Springs). They were amazing places - lush forest, waterfalls everywhere . During one walk, I climbed up onto a edge and high above me was a waterfall. There was a very gentle spray of cool water which was just enough to cool you down but not enough to wet you. I bumped into a really friendly, bubbley Chinese girl from Guangzhou who was an art teacher who sat down in a pavilion and chatted to us for about 20minutes about her opinion of House of Flying Daggers (hated it) and different scenic spots in China.
At The Valley Where Worry is Forgotten, I encountered an annoying Chinese bureaucrat who said that my ticket was not right and demanded to see my receipt. The ticket was fine at all other spots but he had to be difficult. In the end we went back to the hotel and picked it up. I was quite pissed off about it and Chen looked amused.
"Why are you so annoyed about it?"
"Because I hate people who are difficult just for the sake of being difficult." I grumped.
We went back to the hotel and I headed out for lunch and had bamboo rice and bamboo shoots with shredded meat - which I later discovered to be pork.... Sigh. It was very tasty at least.
After that, I had a nap and decided to go for a walk. The closest scenic spot was the Cloud Watching Pavilion so I decided to walk there just to see what it might be like if I didn't have a motorcycle driver to take me around. The Bamboo Sea is too big and the scenic spots are too dispersed to do on foot unfortunately. It was a very long steep walk uphill. I didn't encounter the woman I met on my first day there who said: "You should have come with your husband."
"I don't have a husband".
"Well you should get one".
OK.
The walk was very hot and motorcycle drivers kept stopping to try to make me go with them. At one point I stopped by the side of the road because someone had put a small bunch of wild flowers on the roadside barrier. They were pale pink, blue and purple and very pretty. At that point, a little old lady with her grey hair pulled back in a ponytail and clipped back from a brown wrinkled face paused in her work to look at me. She was barefoot, dressed in a loose blue and white cotton dress and using a hoe to remove vegetation from the roadside drains/ditches. She was as shiny as I was with perspiration but incredibly friendly and cheerful. She asked me why I didn't have a motorcycle to take me around and I said I had already done a 2 day tour and was now just enjoying the walk. When drivers kept stopping to pester me, she called out: "No! She's enjoying the walk and the fresh air!"
Her accent was extremely hard to understand but she was so friendly and nice that I persisted. I kept walking and by the side of the road I saw corn growing, bitter melon, pumpkins, cucumbers, eggplants and rice. I passed a young woman with a child and was disconcerted to see that she was carrying a machete. What on earth does one need with a machete on such a lovely afternoon stroll? If it's not to kill foreign tourists and eat their brain, perhaps it was to steal roadside vegetables. No doubt the Bamboo Sea police have been trying to solve The Mystery of the Missing Roadside Aubergine for years .....
By the way the hotel's publicity documents all say "Baboo Sea" which sounds kind of funny.
I kept walking and just as I was about to give up after 1.5 hours of walking, I saw the pavilion. It was just as beautiful as in the morning but at that point, a bus pulled out and a load of Chinese tourists poured out in droves. There were no clouds at that time of day but you could see the beautiful Sichuan countryside which is endless oddly shaped green hills - they look like swirls on a map with strange steps carved in them.
When I walked back, the flowers by the roadside were gone, the roadside was tidy and the little old lady was gone - almost as if she had disappeared into the bamboo sea.....