Today I got lost kayaking down the Lijiang River, wandered into a village roughly 30 miles south of Guilin, was taken in by an impoverished Chinese family, made it back to town (somehow) to the airport two and a half hours later and then walked onto my plane to Beijing seven minutes before takeoff. Here's how it played out.
The hills in the Guilin area are incredible. There's no point in trying to describe them as I'll be putting pictures up in a minute. Flowery language would probably just detract from the story anyway. The plan was to leave the area for Beijing yesterday, but after a cruise down the river I decided that to leave without experiencing the river more intimately would have been a travesty. The hole in the wall travel service offered me a deal that sounded good enough too. 150 yuan for a four to five hour kayak rental with drop off and pick up included. Clearly it was too good to be true. Right from the get go “China syndrome” was in full effect. “It's 9:07, you're seven minutes late” “I apologize, my hotel was having a difficult time when I was checking out” “Well, they were waiting for you for five minutes so they had to leave”. Oh, China! A full five minutes? How inconsiderate of me being under ten minutes late for a cab ride you lied about being solely for me. When we got to the launching point I was then informed that someone would be following behind us in a gasoline powered “bamboo” raft the entire way. This had quickly turned into the opposite of the quiet solitude one expects to get out of kayaking down a river in China. Surrounded by a Korean family, and a bunch of other white people with a noisy faux bamboo raft within earshot. My solution was to simply hang back and see what the guy on the raft did. Thankfully he went ahead past me.
The scenery was picturesque to say the least. It was dynamic as well. I only took a few pictures for two reasons. The first is that dropping the Google phone into a river would be disastrous. The second is that this was something I wanted to save just for me. Pictures can rarely live up to the memory. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. Downstream on fairly placid water it gave me an opportunity to truly escape the issues plaguing my mind grapes at the moment. Also nice was that only one other person in the group had been kayaking before. It allowed me to hang back for a while and then power ahead until orange life vests were once again within sight. Yet at some point I started to enjoy the quiet a little too much. I opened my eyes to catch back up, but after fifteen minutes they still weren't in sight. No worries though. Surely the pick up point would be clearly marked. Then again... this is China. As the hills changed to something resembling that one scene in The Sound of Music I saw a small town on the opposite side of a fork in the river. It seemed prudent to double back and see if there were some kayaks and a faux bamboo raft there. The current on the opposite side of the fork proved to be too much so I pulled my ride up onto the bank of the river and went for a little hike.
The trails I found myself on were narrow and winding. Well worn to the point of being sunk in, they had clearly been traversed for generations. The trails wound through different plots of farmland in a strangely logical manner. Though there was no grid or signs and foliage obscured future, the way to the village was apparent. Eventually I saw someone, an old woman. She was walking back from working in the field, wielding what appeared to be a long handled sickle (ever appropriate) made of wood and bamboo. The instrument looked more appropriate for the Ming dynasty (1600s) than the post Deng era. I waved slightly and said “Ni hao”, she mustered a mild nod and thin lipped smile. The fact that she wasn't bowled over by the sight of a white person bode well. I continued into the village and eventually happened upon a group of three men sitting on the side of the road. “Hello”, “Ni hao” I responded. “Does anybody speak Yingyu?” They laughed. This did not bode quite as well. My original plan was to ask waiguoren zai nar (where are the foreigners) and if they pointed somewhere this would have to be the final destination of the kayaking trip. However it had become fairly clear by now that this was not the pickup point. This was a double edged sword.
There were no places of business, oxen sparsely populated the surrounding area, the streets were still, most houses were glorified shacks. This was as close to the other China I was looking for as most westerners will get. So I spent some time exploring. In the other villages I have explored people look at me strangely. That wasn't really the case here... because there was nobody on the street to look at me strangely. After a good bit of wandering the time had come to find my way home. The first plan of attack was to call the hotel, get the number of the place that booked the kayaking trip, have them call the kayaking people and tell me the name of the pickup point. CLEARLY that did not happen. Plan B was to get the hotel to get a cab out to me. The major hitch in this plan was that I had no idea where I was. The GPS told me a name, but the woman at the hotel didn't seem to have any idea. When in China those who do not speak Hanyu and find themselves in such a situation are wise to track down a trustworthy looking local and hand them the phone. Again, I ran into a snag in that there was hardly anyone on the street. Eventually I saw another old woman in a house (which had no door). Asking doubeche (“sorry”, or in this case “excuse me”) I handed her the phone. She had absolutely NO idea what was happening. Luckily at that moment her daughter or daughter in law walked into the room and the phone was transferred to her. They spoke for a while with her at one point walking out of the room holding my phone and primary means of surviving in China. Eventually she came back and handed it to me. The woman at the hotel had explained the situation and given her the number to a taxi service to get me out of dodge. From this point I had the pleasure of a cultural exchange. For thirty minutes I was lucky enough to sit with a rural Chinese family in their living room and try to absorb whatever possible about their way of life in that amount of time.
So here's the situation. This place wasn't exactly impoverished, but by most standards the living conditions were very poor. Before I begin describing the house, keep in mind that this was definitely one of the nicer ones in the village. Imagine the poorest non-homeless people you've ever met in America. Take away the door and make the flooring of their house bare concrete, replace the furniture with simple wood furniture and add more flies. There was a crib for the baby (albeit extremely shoddy and worn) and even two posters for when the child got a little older, one designed to facilitate learning pinyin, the other with pictures of family members and their names (baba, mama, etc.). Outside of the house the roads are dirt, there are a good deal of chickens walking around and there was a single construction site which it seemed had been given up on. It should be noted that the image of poverty in America generally includes a lot of clutter and uncleanliness on the part of the impoverished. These people kept their house clean to what extent it was possible. Sorry, again I didn't take pictures as I didn't want to be rude to my hosts.
My assessment of the situation is that not long ago these people were legitimate peasants but something has changed. The family even had a small television. What exactly changed is the question. There was no real economy in the village. These were farmers. Clearly all of their livelihood was based around agriculture and before whatever changed they had a subsistence lifestyle. Now there's electricity running to the village and cell phone towers are close enough that the father of the family had an old beat up mobile phone. In my view there are a few possibilities. The village is close to Guilin and to tourist towns. So the first possibility is that a demand arose for their produce when tourism in the area picked up. The second is that the village has these amenities thanks to remittances. It is my understanding that the factories in China are manned largely by people who come from the countryside to work for two or three years, save money and then go back to their village and support their families. Maybe a few people in the village work in Guilin in some capacity, hotels or something along those lines. The third possibility is that what has changed is government intervention. Either price floors on the produce, subsidies, or even giving them money outright. It's difficult to say. Clearly the latter is at play to some extent. They obviously didn't erect the electrical lines themselves. But of China's 1.3 billion people over half are dirt poor peasants. There are no social welfare programs because in spite of how flush the government is, they simply wouldn't be able to afford it. None of the explanations are particularly good. If only I could speak Mandarin!
All of this aside, it is clear to me that I liked these people. So many Chinese people are inept. Deal with a waiter in a restaurant and the experience is just unreal. But middle and upper class Chinese are not like that. Apparently rural Chinese are not either. The old woman had no idea what the hell was going on when I handed her a cell phone. The wife though knew what was up and was on point. The front desk at the hotel explained the issue, gave her a phone number to call, she called it and that was that. The communication involved in getting a cab to come to the hotel to bring me to the airport was vastly more complex than getting one to come to a tiny village accessible only by the rockiest of dirt roads. Unfortunately our communication was limited (if only I could speak Mandarin!) but they were extremely hospitable. Before the exact nature of the situation was established the old woman had already invited me to come in and sit down. At the earliest possible time the wife brought out some food and I was offered a much needed cigarette by the husband as well. They tried their best to communicate with me as well and make me feel welcome, clearly that could work though to only such an extent.
My knowledge of China is still somewhat limited but there are a few things I have learned and did my best to apply them in this situation. The main one is not to turn down food. If you turn it down or even don't eat enough Chinese people interpret it as you not liking it. At the same time I was worried that they might not have a great deal of food, so I ate slowly throughout the entire time. I gave a prolonged head nod at times when thanking them, which it seems is a sign of respect. Beyond that I used my translator and very limited vocabulary to try and make small talk and do my best to let them know quite how thankful it was. For instance, when talking to the father I pointed at the baby and asked “Baba”. When he responded affirmatively I said in English that he had a beautiful family and did a lot of head nodding and smiling at the same time. He beamed from ear to ear, so it seems that he got it. I put into my translator things like “I am thankful for your hospitality” (which translated to a single word) and “I am in your debt”. Overall it seemed like they were happy to play host for thirty or forty five minutes and glad they could help me. For my part, there were backup plans but the family saved me a lot of hassle and the learning experience was invaluable. One of my favorite experiences in China so far.
The hills in the Guilin area are incredible. There's no point in trying to describe them as I'll be putting pictures up in a minute. Flowery language would probably just detract from the story anyway. The plan was to leave the area for Beijing yesterday, but after a cruise down the river I decided that to leave without experiencing the river more intimately would have been a travesty. The hole in the wall travel service offered me a deal that sounded good enough too. 150 yuan for a four to five hour kayak rental with drop off and pick up included. Clearly it was too good to be true. Right from the get go “China syndrome” was in full effect. “It's 9:07, you're seven minutes late” “I apologize, my hotel was having a difficult time when I was checking out” “Well, they were waiting for you for five minutes so they had to leave”. Oh, China! A full five minutes? How inconsiderate of me being under ten minutes late for a cab ride you lied about being solely for me. When we got to the launching point I was then informed that someone would be following behind us in a gasoline powered “bamboo” raft the entire way. This had quickly turned into the opposite of the quiet solitude one expects to get out of kayaking down a river in China. Surrounded by a Korean family, and a bunch of other white people with a noisy faux bamboo raft within earshot. My solution was to simply hang back and see what the guy on the raft did. Thankfully he went ahead past me.
The scenery was picturesque to say the least. It was dynamic as well. I only took a few pictures for two reasons. The first is that dropping the Google phone into a river would be disastrous. The second is that this was something I wanted to save just for me. Pictures can rarely live up to the memory. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. Downstream on fairly placid water it gave me an opportunity to truly escape the issues plaguing my mind grapes at the moment. Also nice was that only one other person in the group had been kayaking before. It allowed me to hang back for a while and then power ahead until orange life vests were once again within sight. Yet at some point I started to enjoy the quiet a little too much. I opened my eyes to catch back up, but after fifteen minutes they still weren't in sight. No worries though. Surely the pick up point would be clearly marked. Then again... this is China. As the hills changed to something resembling that one scene in The Sound of Music I saw a small town on the opposite side of a fork in the river. It seemed prudent to double back and see if there were some kayaks and a faux bamboo raft there. The current on the opposite side of the fork proved to be too much so I pulled my ride up onto the bank of the river and went for a little hike.
The trails I found myself on were narrow and winding. Well worn to the point of being sunk in, they had clearly been traversed for generations. The trails wound through different plots of farmland in a strangely logical manner. Though there was no grid or signs and foliage obscured future, the way to the village was apparent. Eventually I saw someone, an old woman. She was walking back from working in the field, wielding what appeared to be a long handled sickle (ever appropriate) made of wood and bamboo. The instrument looked more appropriate for the Ming dynasty (1600s) than the post Deng era. I waved slightly and said “Ni hao”, she mustered a mild nod and thin lipped smile. The fact that she wasn't bowled over by the sight of a white person bode well. I continued into the village and eventually happened upon a group of three men sitting on the side of the road. “Hello”, “Ni hao” I responded. “Does anybody speak Yingyu?” They laughed. This did not bode quite as well. My original plan was to ask waiguoren zai nar (where are the foreigners) and if they pointed somewhere this would have to be the final destination of the kayaking trip. However it had become fairly clear by now that this was not the pickup point. This was a double edged sword.
There were no places of business, oxen sparsely populated the surrounding area, the streets were still, most houses were glorified shacks. This was as close to the other China I was looking for as most westerners will get. So I spent some time exploring. In the other villages I have explored people look at me strangely. That wasn't really the case here... because there was nobody on the street to look at me strangely. After a good bit of wandering the time had come to find my way home. The first plan of attack was to call the hotel, get the number of the place that booked the kayaking trip, have them call the kayaking people and tell me the name of the pickup point. CLEARLY that did not happen. Plan B was to get the hotel to get a cab out to me. The major hitch in this plan was that I had no idea where I was. The GPS told me a name, but the woman at the hotel didn't seem to have any idea. When in China those who do not speak Hanyu and find themselves in such a situation are wise to track down a trustworthy looking local and hand them the phone. Again, I ran into a snag in that there was hardly anyone on the street. Eventually I saw another old woman in a house (which had no door). Asking doubeche (“sorry”, or in this case “excuse me”) I handed her the phone. She had absolutely NO idea what was happening. Luckily at that moment her daughter or daughter in law walked into the room and the phone was transferred to her. They spoke for a while with her at one point walking out of the room holding my phone and primary means of surviving in China. Eventually she came back and handed it to me. The woman at the hotel had explained the situation and given her the number to a taxi service to get me out of dodge. From this point I had the pleasure of a cultural exchange. For thirty minutes I was lucky enough to sit with a rural Chinese family in their living room and try to absorb whatever possible about their way of life in that amount of time.
So here's the situation. This place wasn't exactly impoverished, but by most standards the living conditions were very poor. Before I begin describing the house, keep in mind that this was definitely one of the nicer ones in the village. Imagine the poorest non-homeless people you've ever met in America. Take away the door and make the flooring of their house bare concrete, replace the furniture with simple wood furniture and add more flies. There was a crib for the baby (albeit extremely shoddy and worn) and even two posters for when the child got a little older, one designed to facilitate learning pinyin, the other with pictures of family members and their names (baba, mama, etc.). Outside of the house the roads are dirt, there are a good deal of chickens walking around and there was a single construction site which it seemed had been given up on. It should be noted that the image of poverty in America generally includes a lot of clutter and uncleanliness on the part of the impoverished. These people kept their house clean to what extent it was possible. Sorry, again I didn't take pictures as I didn't want to be rude to my hosts.
My assessment of the situation is that not long ago these people were legitimate peasants but something has changed. The family even had a small television. What exactly changed is the question. There was no real economy in the village. These were farmers. Clearly all of their livelihood was based around agriculture and before whatever changed they had a subsistence lifestyle. Now there's electricity running to the village and cell phone towers are close enough that the father of the family had an old beat up mobile phone. In my view there are a few possibilities. The village is close to Guilin and to tourist towns. So the first possibility is that a demand arose for their produce when tourism in the area picked up. The second is that the village has these amenities thanks to remittances. It is my understanding that the factories in China are manned largely by people who come from the countryside to work for two or three years, save money and then go back to their village and support their families. Maybe a few people in the village work in Guilin in some capacity, hotels or something along those lines. The third possibility is that what has changed is government intervention. Either price floors on the produce, subsidies, or even giving them money outright. It's difficult to say. Clearly the latter is at play to some extent. They obviously didn't erect the electrical lines themselves. But of China's 1.3 billion people over half are dirt poor peasants. There are no social welfare programs because in spite of how flush the government is, they simply wouldn't be able to afford it. None of the explanations are particularly good. If only I could speak Mandarin!
All of this aside, it is clear to me that I liked these people. So many Chinese people are inept. Deal with a waiter in a restaurant and the experience is just unreal. But middle and upper class Chinese are not like that. Apparently rural Chinese are not either. The old woman had no idea what the hell was going on when I handed her a cell phone. The wife though knew what was up and was on point. The front desk at the hotel explained the issue, gave her a phone number to call, she called it and that was that. The communication involved in getting a cab to come to the hotel to bring me to the airport was vastly more complex than getting one to come to a tiny village accessible only by the rockiest of dirt roads. Unfortunately our communication was limited (if only I could speak Mandarin!) but they were extremely hospitable. Before the exact nature of the situation was established the old woman had already invited me to come in and sit down. At the earliest possible time the wife brought out some food and I was offered a much needed cigarette by the husband as well. They tried their best to communicate with me as well and make me feel welcome, clearly that could work though to only such an extent.
My knowledge of China is still somewhat limited but there are a few things I have learned and did my best to apply them in this situation. The main one is not to turn down food. If you turn it down or even don't eat enough Chinese people interpret it as you not liking it. At the same time I was worried that they might not have a great deal of food, so I ate slowly throughout the entire time. I gave a prolonged head nod at times when thanking them, which it seems is a sign of respect. Beyond that I used my translator and very limited vocabulary to try and make small talk and do my best to let them know quite how thankful it was. For instance, when talking to the father I pointed at the baby and asked “Baba”. When he responded affirmatively I said in English that he had a beautiful family and did a lot of head nodding and smiling at the same time. He beamed from ear to ear, so it seems that he got it. I put into my translator things like “I am thankful for your hospitality” (which translated to a single word) and “I am in your debt”. Overall it seemed like they were happy to play host for thirty or forty five minutes and glad they could help me. For my part, there were backup plans but the family saved me a lot of hassle and the learning experience was invaluable. One of my favorite experiences in China so far.
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