Thursday, October 06, 2005
ZHONGDIAN, A CRAZY GUESTHOUSE, A NIGHT BUS & BEN BECOMES LITERATE
After leaving Deqing we took a bus to Zhongdian (aka Shangri-La.) Zhongdian means "middle of nowhere" which wasn't really attracting the tourists so in 1997 the Chinese government changed the name of the town to Shanggelila (Shangri-La.) Now it's a large tourist town with western restaurants and a disco. The "new" town was built 15 years ago while the "old" town was built 6 months ago. They tore down the old town and rebuilt it completely - westernized, with every house now a bar or shop. Onj the bright side, for the first time in a month I had western food. I ate more pancakes, eggs, fries, coffee & real chocolate - Chinese chocolate ranks somewhere between food poisoning and stinky tofu for me, - than I thought I possibly could.
Our guest house was quite interesting. The first thing I noticed was a sign on the door that said "ri ben ren" with a line through it. This translates to "no Japanese" or more accurately,"no people of the sun." I know the Chinese hate the Japanese for the atrocities of the past, but the sign seems a bit harsh. The Japanese tourists I've met are some of the nicest of all travellers...even if they do love eating human hearts (isn't propaganda fun?) Before I get angry emails, read the Chinese Propaganda posting. The guesthouse only got stranger. Despite the existance of the death penalty here for possession of 100+g. of cannibis somehow people have overlooked the existance of a 7ft. tall marijuana plant in the courtyard there. I am baffled both by how it could exist there and how I could not notice it for 2 days.
Last night we took a sleeper bus to Dali. It left at 7:30pm and as we were leaving we realized that despite our buying 9 tickets they gave us 8: Seats 1-7 & 9. One of our leaders had to stay behind and come today. Our bus was supposed to arrive at 6am. After stopping for dinner at midnight (Chinese busses and time don't run on the same system) we continued on to Dali. At 3am we arrived. With nowhere to go at that time we spent the next 4 hours sleeping on the bus. Haven't seen too much of Dali yet, will post more about it later.
I did get to buy a Chinese language writing book. I have learned to write woman, baby and good (the first 3 in the book.) The written Chinese language is very interesting. There are pictographs and phonetic sounds that combine in the characters. One can infer many things from the characters. Good is a combination of the characters woman and baby because it is good if a man has a wife and child. Jealous is woman sick woman oven because it happens between 2 women and jealously makes you feel both sick and hot like an oven. Language is fun. The feminists in our group hate how "chauvenistic" the language is but I find it a fascinating insight into the Chinese mind.
After leaving Deqing we took a bus to Zhongdian (aka Shangri-La.) Zhongdian means "middle of nowhere" which wasn't really attracting the tourists so in 1997 the Chinese government changed the name of the town to Shanggelila (Shangri-La.) Now it's a large tourist town with western restaurants and a disco. The "new" town was built 15 years ago while the "old" town was built 6 months ago. They tore down the old town and rebuilt it completely - westernized, with every house now a bar or shop. Onj the bright side, for the first time in a month I had western food. I ate more pancakes, eggs, fries, coffee & real chocolate - Chinese chocolate ranks somewhere between food poisoning and stinky tofu for me, - than I thought I possibly could.
Our guest house was quite interesting. The first thing I noticed was a sign on the door that said "ri ben ren" with a line through it. This translates to "no Japanese" or more accurately,"no people of the sun." I know the Chinese hate the Japanese for the atrocities of the past, but the sign seems a bit harsh. The Japanese tourists I've met are some of the nicest of all travellers...even if they do love eating human hearts (isn't propaganda fun?) Before I get angry emails, read the Chinese Propaganda posting. The guesthouse only got stranger. Despite the existance of the death penalty here for possession of 100+g. of cannibis somehow people have overlooked the existance of a 7ft. tall marijuana plant in the courtyard there. I am baffled both by how it could exist there and how I could not notice it for 2 days.
Last night we took a sleeper bus to Dali. It left at 7:30pm and as we were leaving we realized that despite our buying 9 tickets they gave us 8: Seats 1-7 & 9. One of our leaders had to stay behind and come today. Our bus was supposed to arrive at 6am. After stopping for dinner at midnight (Chinese busses and time don't run on the same system) we continued on to Dali. At 3am we arrived. With nowhere to go at that time we spent the next 4 hours sleeping on the bus. Haven't seen too much of Dali yet, will post more about it later.
I did get to buy a Chinese language writing book. I have learned to write woman, baby and good (the first 3 in the book.) The written Chinese language is very interesting. There are pictographs and phonetic sounds that combine in the characters. One can infer many things from the characters. Good is a combination of the characters woman and baby because it is good if a man has a wife and child. Jealous is woman sick woman oven because it happens between 2 women and jealously makes you feel both sick and hot like an oven. Language is fun. The feminists in our group hate how "chauvenistic" the language is but I find it a fascinating insight into the Chinese mind.
