You can find American, English, French, German, and even Chinese things in China. Starbucks stores, McDonald’s restaurants, Cartier boutiques, Mercedes showrooms, street butterfly sellers, frog shashliks, red lanterns and glorious South China Sea beaches are all there.
Most China tours start in Beijing and the Forbidden City, which was considered the heart of the empire for centuries. Next on the itinerary come Tian’anmen Square, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, the restored Badaling section of the
Great Wall, the Lama Temple, and the Confucius Temple. Any one of these places is worth coming thousands of kilometres to see, although you had better be prepared to put up with never-ending crowds.
The Chinese will inconsiderately photobomb you and elbow their way to the nearest free seat on the underground. And do not expect anyone to give up their seat for a woman: nobody is given preferential treatment here. Just tune out to the hundreds of tourists that inevitably throng around every historical site and you will see and experience China as you have always imagined it.
The bustle of the metropolis
“We will all be speaking Chinese one day”, prophesied Witkacy over half a century ago. I was pondering this while strolling along Nanjing, Shanghai’s famous commercial thoroughfare – just another face in a motley crowd of locals and foreigners – and around the Bund with its Western architecture. The thought continued to occupy my mind as I walked among the elegant villas in the French Concession, sipped my coffee in Duolun Street in the Hongkou district where Chinese communism was born, and got lost in the narrow streets of the historical Nanshi district.
China is the most populous country on Earth and Shanghai is a high-rise metropolis of twenty million, but in Nanshi, you can expect to come across narrow alleyways, and run-down wooden and stone houses with outdoor rusty air conditioners and metal rods for hanging out washing. Dentists treat patients in sheds with no electricity and women do the laundry on washboards. The area abounds in designer restaurants and street food stalls.
There are street markets selling insects per piece and caged cats and dogs just around the corner from boulevards illuminated with neon signs advertising famous companies. There are also quaint red lanterns and the kitschy pink glow of hairdressing and massage parlours, where you will be beckoned in by staff with spiky hair dyed brown or, as the Chinese say, kafei. Last but by no means least, come the temples, whose incense engulfs them in smoke.
The Guilin region
The skyline is replaced with a the Guilin montains. The name of the city Guilin at the foot of the South China Mountains, translates as “sweet olive forest”. The town’s greatest attraction are the steep, fantastically shaped karst hills, which hover over the city centre. The area around Guilin was once flooded with sea water and emerged as a result of a sudden uplift. People settled in the area over 2,000 years ago, when the Ling channel connecting the Yangtze with the Pearl River was built. Today, it is a modern city with enormous department stores, loads of restaurants and cafes, and boulevards lined with olive trees. The city’s many canal parks and the river give it a special charm. You get a good look at them from a double-decker bus. Mountains jump up at you from every corner.
I can recommend a cruise on the Li – the views are incredible on clear days. Cruise boats stop at neighbouring cities, especially Yangshuo. This is recommended for people who did not eat much in Guilin, where there is not much other than regional cooking and where anyone used to European food does not have much to choose from. Standard fare at Guilin restaurants includes 100-year-old eggs, snakes, crustaceans, turtles and something that resembles a Polish beetle. But you can enjoy Italian pasta, American chicken, pizza, French crepes and much more in Yangshuo. Most restaurants have ice cream, European beers and wines, and espresso. Not surprisingly, you are more likely to see Americans and Europeans than Chinese on the streets.
Back in time
A little R&R is in order after the buzz of China’s biggest cities. I took a break in the tiny, ancient town of Fuli in the south of the country. I remember sitting in a wooden gazebo on the banks of the river Li and watching buffalo grazing. A stooped old man with a cormorant was leaning on a chipped stone wall. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman with a little boy. They were making their way to a small temple, where they bowed deeply. After resting a moment, I got up and took a walk through the narrow streets. I bought a paper dragon mask in the dark entrance to one of the huts.
A few steps further on, I came across a fan workshop, which is what the town is famous for. A local artist was painting landscapes on paper. She invited me in with a smile. In the next little shop, I bought a figurine of a Mandarin man. It looked like an antique stowed away in a cobweb-covered chest for years. But I had no illusions that it was brand new. Oh well, the Chinese have an incredible talent for producing things that look at least 500 years old.
I joined a group of local women picking jasmine flowers. One of them was up in a tree shaking the branches. The others were standing underneath holding a foil to catch the falling jasmine flowers. My offer to help made them smile. I was given a bunch of jasmine flowers as a token of their appreciation. It was late afternoon and the tourist buses had all departed. I realised that I was the only foreigner and the only young person there. I did not meet any young Chinese in Fuli. A lot of them have moved to the big cities in search of a better life. According to official data, over 100 million Chinese have left villages and towns for large cities (unofficial figures are double that). The young people of Fuli have moved to Guilin, from where I had travelled via the Li to Yangshuo before taking a coach to Fuli.
Culinary and spiritual feast
I decided to visit the Chinese Hawaii, i.e. Hainan Island, for a culinary treat. Hainan Island is in the South China Sea and the province is a favourite holiday destination for tourists the world over. Most come to Sanya and it is not hard to see why. The city has the most beautiful beaches in the country. But there is more to the island than beaches and luxury hotels. The Li and Miao people who live there (two of the 55 ethnic minorities of China) can boast four exemplary dishes: Wenchang chicken; Jiaji duck; Dongshan lamb e.g served in coconut milk; and Hele lobster served with ginger and garlic in vinegar.
All this can be washed down with Shanlan rice wine, which the owner of the hotel I stayed in introduced me to. “We drink in three stages”, Ms Lu told me. “The first stage is qiang fu ang, which means chatting and drinking. The second stage is bi ao, which means getting drunk. The islanders drink until they are drunk. And the final stage is tun zhuo qiu, which is when everyone starts stinging together”, she explained. Something tells me that many of you will find this familiar. Poles tend to drink in exactly the same way.
Keleidoscope magazine 05/2014