Local and Foreign Companions
Yesterday’s transport arrangement worked well and we enjoyed each other’s company. It was a nice blend of foreign (Brit) and local (Fuzhou) company. So we agreed to sight-see together again today.
Like Indonesia, I get a semi-local experience through my ability to converse and interact with the locals. It was a good opportunity for me to practice my Mandarin while the Fuzhou threesome … their English was good to fill in the gaps when my Mandarin didn’t work. There was plenty of baidu-ing (baidu is he China equivalent of Google) to find information for us on their iPhones, be it a question about the population of a city, a word, or just about anything!
Somewhat Disappointing Sightseeing
It was less than a half-day outing today, covering Xiaoqi and Wankou:
- Xiaoqi turned out be a relatively contemporary village where the walk-through was just past tea-shops and craft shops. There was meant to be a tea factory but we didn’t find it (not that we really searched).
- Wankou was much more rewarding. It was set along a river and it felt like uncommercialised for tourism. We felt like we had a glimpse of real village life.
At Xiaoqi, we didn’t walk through the fingerprint-controlled turnstiles. Each guard had a mobile handheld unit … like a compact version of the ones used at Malaysian banks for verifying one’s identity.
I spent the afternoon back in Little Likeng, relaxing at a local teahouse sipping tea, sorting through photos and writing this. A bit of relaxation at last.
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- The vege patch and neighbour’s property outside my hotel room.
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- Typical home and ancestral hall … with a diner inside for this particular one.
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- Ancestral hall at Wankou.
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- Chinese men tend to expose their bellies in hot weather to cool down.
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- Back in Little Likeng.
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- Back in Little Likeng; view from where I’m sipping tea and writing this update.
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- Back in Little Likeng.
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- Window at Little Likeng.
There’s no Big Brother in China?
Being the social butterfly and talker that I am, I enjoy insights into the life of the people that I meet on the road … regardless of whether they are local or fellow-travellers. Here are a couple of interesting ones:
- I had some clarification of China’s one-child policy. City-folk are allowed one child; full stop. Country folk can have one child if the first-born is a boy; but if the first-born is a girl they can try their luck with a second child five(?) years later. As a result, it is rare for anyone to have an older brother! So it isn’t true that in this country “Big Brother” is watching you. There ain’t no Big Brother. Also, minorities (eg. Tibetans, Uighurs, Yunnan tribes) are exempt from the one-child policy.
- Talking to Naomi whose father is South-African born Chinese who grew up during the Apartheid era, I learnt that being a coloured doctor, he could not practice on white people. He could only practice on fellow-coloureds and blacks. Black doctors could not practice on whites or coloureds … only on blacks. So there appears to be a hierarchy with the different classes! I wonder what the rationale was …. different coloured people have different plumbing inside? And white people have bigger brains and could be trained to treat all three classes; coloured people are not quite as clever and can only learn to treat two classes? LOL!!!Hey, someone tell me if Christian Barnard did his first heart transplant on a white, coloured or black guy. I wonder if during the Apartheid era they did risky trials on black people first!
Naomi, Chris and I also had interesting exchanges of Chinese stereotypes, characteristics and preferences … eg. hardwork overcomes the lack of talent, gambling, love of fluorescent lighting over bulbs, washing one’s feet before bed, brushing one’s teeth in the morning”before vs after” breakfast.
At Wankou we simultaneously let out a smile when we saw our Fuzhou friend pull up his shirt to expose his waist. This is appears quite common amongst Chinese men in hot weather to cool themselves … even in public. I guess it isn’t too odd as Western men would just take their shirts off completely.
Polite Dinner Conversation
Over dinner I chatted with my fellow travellers. We talked a bit about our jobs and this led on the issue of poverty and also poverty amongst an aging population. I offered my two-cents worth with a Chinese slant for the first issue “Get them to work harder”. As for the latter issue, “You should have worked harder; and get your children to work harder [to support you]”. I hope my sense of humour in the context of being in China was appreciated.