Globalisation... Travelling Friend or Foe?

Monday to Friday afternoon this weekend wasn't great. The novelty of my location had worn off, lessons dominated the days, and still I couldn't make myself understood in our adventurous class exercise of asking for directions to the city library. We did have two outings, however.

Note 3D appearance of character in reflection

The first outing was to Mogan Mount, which is a popular honeymoon destination. Three hours later of city traffic followed by windy roads up the side of the mountain (with obligatory horn honking throughout, of course) and we had arrived - literally - in a village in the clouds. The sides of the mountain are covered in bamboo. Fun Fact: there are 100 different types of bamboo. After a traditional lunch of fish eyes and chicken feet (attached to the rest of the animal, admittedly), we went for a walk to a lodge Mao once stayed in, a nice view point, a waterfall with the painting of the character for 'green' painted on the cliff face, and a lodge where Chiang Kai-Shek once stayed. The lodges themselves were very dull - nothing inside other than photos. The afternoon was much more enjoyable though as we continued walking down the mountain. It was so peaceful, and nice to be surrounded by nature rather than traffic for a bit.

Throughout the walk, the guides weren't very good at keeping the group together and I was slightly concerned we were losing people. We got to an interesting-looking spot, and the guide said we had one hour to look around. However, as it turns out, he then changed his mind and told other people that they had only half an hour. Unsurprisingly, some of us got left behind. All turned out alright in the end, and it was a good example of the laid-back nature of the Chinese tour guides.

Badly translated signs at Mogan Mount

The first was an evening performance at Song Dynasty Town. On our schedules, what was listed as a 'theme park' turned out to be a 'themed park', of Chinese life at the time of, you guessed it, the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD). The evening performance was awesome though - various dances based loosely around folk stories, like the Butterfly Lovers and the White Snake Lady, and locations in Hangzhou, principally West Lake (which people around here consider to be the most beautiful place on earth, and it attracts many Chinese tourists). There were gorgeous Chinese girls shaking their booty, crazy contortionists, and Kung-Fu / warrior dances among others.

The only annoying thing about the evening was that the vast majority of the Chinese audience sitting in front of us were OBSESSED with capturing the show on various tablets, mobiles and cameras, rather than just sitting, watching the performance and enjoying the moment. The stewards had to keep telling them to sit down. (Note my lack of pictures for this section of blog.)

This roughly leads me on to a discussion of something I had been thinking about throughout the week: globalisation makes travelling more boring than it might otherwise be. Hangzhou is a city, full of traffic, noise, concrete buildings, restaurants and shops. Replace 'Hangzhou' with an British city name, and you see the same characteristics. What I find particularly disappointing is the presence of brands like KFC, Pizza Hut and McDonalds. I know that we have them in Britain, and that they're originally American brands, but I find it depressing that these giant corporations have spread their greedy reach to the other side of the world. 

It confirmed for me that language is an essential component, at least for me, for successful and worthwhile travel. If you can't interact with the local people, ask their views, appreciate and engage with their perspectives and habits, then you end up spending a lot of time walking around looking at things...

And then I went to Shanghai.

I do not retract what I have written above, but a whirlwind two days has managed to reintroduce me to some of the things that I find fascinating about China.

Shopping and Haggling
In the Old Town part of Shanghai, there are so many little shops selling all manner of things, from the cheap decorated chopsticks, bracelets and wood carvings to the hugely expensive gold shops selling moulded gold dragon necklaces.
I haven't quite sussed the rule for when you can haggle in a 'proper' shop (as one person managed to get real Beats headphones from the technology dept. of a shop for a dramatically reduced price), but at stalls you should just let your hair down and go for it. I find it most fun when you don't actually want the thing they are trying to sell, as you are more willing to walk away and thus get the price reduced.
In one of the subways there is an enormous underground market, with fake brands like Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister and Superdry knock-offs everyway you turn. It is so, so cheap - especially if you haggle well.

Old things hidden in amongst the new

'Gods' in City God Temple

Hidden amongst some of the tacky stalls was the City God Temple. It is a reasonable size, with people burning incense, and praying and worshipping the three city gods: a chancellor, a civil servant and a general (all previous). Strange to imagine a temple in London for British equivalents, and people praying to Churchill for good fortune.
Another thing was the Yuquan Gardens. Once belonging to an official long ago, these are beautifully maintained traditional gardens with weeping willows, bridges, terrapins swimming in the lake with the fish, rock formations and so on. There was also a jade and an antique exhibition. They were surprisingly peaceful, given their proximity to the bustling streets.

At one point, we ventured off the beaten track for maybe only 30m. What greeted us was a maze of small, dirty, dishevelled backstreets. Electricity wires criss-crossed the street in the drizzling rain, and the locals stared at us with intrigue. Sinks stood outside buidlings every so often, serving the local communities' washing and cooking needs. Soon we had left the backstreets, and were back into the more 'respectable' looking parts of Shanghai. It really was like chalk and cheese. I don't mean to come over all romantic or clichéd or anything, but I feel like the lifestyle of those communities is a rare sight. In France, if you're poor you're either in government accommodation or you're homeless. The back-street communities are sort of in a no-man's-land in terms of housing: they have accommodation, but of an extremely low standard. I wonder how much longer such areas will last before they are bulldozed and replaced by new developments.

Osmanthus tea, alongside quail eggs

Moving on.... Whether or not the tea house we visited was old or not, what I do know is that the Queen has
taken tea there. We had two types of tea, a more normal one, and a special one where the dried tea/flower (we had Osmanthus) parcel put in the water slowly expands in the hot water and opens up, like a blossoming flower. Lovely. The teas were served with quails' eggs (cooked in tea, it seemed - very nice, in any case), bean curd squares, and a couple of Chinese sweets.

All of this took place against the backdrop of....

The bright lights and Shanghai World Financial Centre (SWFC)
Shopping aside, I think that Shanghai is coolest at night. Walking along the Bund, looking across the (tidal) Huangpu river at the skyscrapers all lit up, flashing slogans like 'I LOVE SHANGHAI' was pretty cool. (Side story: both times I went to the Bund I was asked by tourists to have my photo taken with them. I was sort of flattered, but also sort of creeped out at the idea of being in a stranger's holiday snaps... in any case I acquiesced. I was also told by someone else that I had beautiful skin; it seems that Chinese women want to be pale. I have been told that umbrellas are most used in the summer by women wanting to ward off the sunlight...)
Being driven around by taxis at night was exciting, as all the bright lights passed us by.
On the first night I went up the SWFC. It was quite foggy, but still - it was cool seeing all the buildings lit up, and looking down and through the glass floor. The SWFC is the current tallest completed building in the world, and I went up to 474m.

So, given how I started this blog complaining about how globalisation makes everything equally dull, and then exhorted the merits of the most westernised and international part of China (excl. Hong Kong), what note to finish on? Visit Shanghai, and more generally, China, too. But also, seek out the differences. Look for the dirty, smelly bits; the dodgy streets where you get stared at; the traditional food-stuffs. Ultimately though, learn the language. People are all different and unique, and will always be so. We can realise this best if we can truly communicate with them. I think that interacting with local people is where we find the true cultural differences, and thus where hides the most exciting part of travelling.


P.S. Food
Sadly I didn't get to try much Chinese food as we ran out of time. However this just means that I have another reason to return to Shanghai so as to sample Din Tai Fung's steamed buns (with hot soup in the middle) for which there was an enormous queue. There is also a recommended dumpling house I wish I had visited...

Week 1: Culture Shocks? More like the Culture Rocks!

So I have now been here for seven full days. There is so, so much to tell, so I'm going to break it down into categories. Enjoy!

Food

My delish (forbidden) fruit skewer

AKA my favourite thing, besides food. The food here is AWESOME. On Monday, I bought a fruit skewer coated in a sugar syrup. Three wonderful, juicy mouth-fulls into it I suddenly thought: I am going to get food poisoning. On my first full day. Why?! Why did I pick this fruit??!!
Nonetheless I also tried some free tasters of Chinese sweets (not that sweet, but instead they're like a stretchy goo covered in sesame seeds) and some of Evie's deep-fried crabs on a skewer. Equally delish.

On Monday we also visited a tea farm, complete with talk and demonstration (using iodine) of how green tea cleans out your insides, where we got further free samples of biscuits, sweets and nuts. I didn't buy any, as they weren't particularly special, but I did buy some gut-scourging green-tea miracle pills.

Having noodles for breakfast was weird, but tasty. Lunch's excitement has worn off. Rice every day, with assorted bowls of things from the canteen. The biggest disappointment are the meat dishes which look nice, but then are distinctly worse-off for being cold.

Two lovely fish heads. 

In the evening we go exploring. Everything is SO CHEAP. On Monday, we went to this crazy place where you cook your own selection of dishes in a pan of flavoured water/soup-like stuff. £13 for five people. Two consecutive evenings but with different people I went to an awesome, authentic restaurant where we ate stuff like pak choi, broccoli, chicken feet, fish heads, sweet and sour pork etc. First night: selection of ten dishes, rice, and two beers = I paid £5.50. Second night at same place: selection of 14 dishes, rice, and two beers = I paid £4 (as was split between more people).
A bottle of sprite is 20p in the canteen.
Yesterday, we visited the largest campus of Zhejiang University, and I had an amazing noodle soup full of yummy stuff, and dumplings (dumplings are WONDERFUL).

Haagen-Dazs afternoon tea

Today, we spent the day with families. I was with Katie, and we got very lucky with our family. They were SO generous! Mum, Dad and Daughter (13). Lunch: we went to a western-style restaurant and ate with cutlery for the first time in a week! I had seafood soup (Chinese bread was better than my experience of Italian bread), then cod on a bed of tomatoes, then a weird cake I didn't like so I shared Katie's lemon marscapone cheesecake thing. I had green tea and a mango smoothie (which came in a bowl). Weird cultural observation: the Mum ordered for the Dad and Daughter while the former was off picking up the latter from school, and the waiting staff brought out their food even though they hadn't yet arrived. And the staff brought out all of food whenever it was ready - so barely had we started our soups that Katie's main course had arrived! My dessert was sitting opposite me all the way through my main course... Then we went to a famous market street, and I tried a 'sweet'. Not very sweet, but had a rice exterior and a bean-paste interior. Could have been worse. Then (after buying a pretty fan) I got some 'medical' green tea. Then we went to a Haagen-Dazs store, and had a three-tier of desserts and fruit and ice cream. I also had Earl Grey tea. Delish.

THEN we went and had dinner which was the BEST thing I have sampled so far. Simply amazing. Again, the waiting staff just brought out dishes as they were ready rather than serving it all at once but making us wait. I suppose there's a logic in that. We had sunflower seeds to snack on, then our dishes were: prawns in sauce (eat everything, shell and all, except the head, which 'proper' Chinese people spit onto their plate); meat skewers (meat, then fat, then meat etc.); some weird sweet pastry thing served with tomatoes, cucumber and dressing; 'Cantonese kale stems' - really nice; things similar to kidney beans; a salt bone / yam soup - delish; and then.... piece de resistance.... the family had ordered an entire duck for us. We watched the chef carve the entire duck. First, you eat the skin dipped in sugar - scrummy; then, you eat the parts he has cut off for you like duck pancakes - pancake, ducks, sauce, cucumber and spring onion. But that's not it. Then they take away the carcass, cut it up with all the remaining bits of flesh on it, and they deep fry it with spices and small morsels of HEAVEN. Then they bring it back and you eat that. I genuinely could not stop eating.
Simply wonderful, and the restaurant looked out over the tea-fields.
So, so far in my culinary experience I am putting on weight, rather than losing it as I expected. I have also eaten fruit, salad and ice-cream despite guidebook warnings that you are not to eat such things. I could actually do with some food poisoning, to ease things up, if you get my drift... You may not be such a food fanatic as me, so I'll move on....

Teaching/ Mandarin
In total we're going to have 40 hours of Mandarin lessons here, which is pretty cool. So far, we have gone from knowing nothing, to knowing how to greet, numbers, asking when someone's birthday is and what someone is going to do at X time of day. Our laoshi (teacher), JinJin, is excellent. Enthusiastic every day, and helpful, and interesting to talk to in the breaks about how characters work, for example (we're only doing pinying (phoentic Chinese), not characters). She lives at home as she is unmarried - as she said, 'why would you not live at home? It's free!' - and is TINY, yet she said she is considered 'a bit fat' by Chinese standards. Daughter in family visit was also concerned about putting on weight, aged 13, so I think there is pressure on unmarried women to 'fit the mould' and not squeeze over the edge, as it were...
Anyway, back to the Mandarin. The hardest thing is getting the tones right and pronouncing the pinying correctly, as a 'zh' is pronounced as a 'j' sound. So you have to concentrate. But I'm really enjoying it. The grammar is also a lot easier; there are no tenses or subject conjugations in Mandarin which makes things a lot simpler! I won't be anywhere near a confident speaker-level by the end of my time here, but this experience is giving me a flavour of the language, alongside the culture, which is enhancing my experience.

Traffic/Roads
Traffic rules? Highway Code? Not in China. Scooters go down roads the wrong way. Bicycles do whatever they like: no helmet, instead people wear coats on their fronts and oven gloves (no jokes) to protect their hands, while children ride between their knees or on the back. Taxis stop wherever they like. Gone down the wrong road? Do a U-turn at the next available enormous cross-roads with traffic streaming towards you, why not? Oh, and it's obligatory to use your horn if the person ahead of you isn't nearly touching the car ahead of it. Or even if there's nothing for metres around you, just honk: you'll blend right in - honest. I tried asking Chinese people what the road death rate is, but they either didn't understand or they avoided the question. In any case, I asked if they were scared when cycling in the roads and they looked at me like a crazy person: why on earth would anyone be scared, cycling surrounded by lunatics?
I find it all very entertaining, personally.

Hygiene/Toilet paper
Toilet paper doesn't go in the loo here, it goes in an open waste paper basket next to the loo. Lovely. There is no soap available in public loos. Equally lovely. Apparently water does the trick here (although since you cannot drink the tapwater in China, maybe it has enough harmful bacteria in it to kill the loo-germs... take your pick). Loos are also backwards-facing toilet seats in the ground, so you squat and wee facing the hole.
The cleanliness of the streets though is impeccable. Hardly any rubbish around. Lots of street-sweepers though, which is probably the reason. They were large, circular, straw hats to keep the rain/sun off, and have homemade-looking brushes to sweep with.
I've no idea what the cleanliness is of the people cooking my food, but so far I haven't got food poisoning, so it can't be that bad.

Umbrellas in museum.

Other activities
I realise that this post is food-dominated. Other things I have done include: visiting the Botanical Gardens; having our opening ceremony at the university; visiting West Lake and going on a boat trip; finding WalMart and Pizza Hut/McD's in case of emergency; having a taster session of Kung-Fu and Tai-ji; and with the family today we visited an umbrella museum (umbrellas symbolise happiness and completeness due to their circular shape, and so are used at weddings regardless of weather). They were first made of paper, then covered in oil to make them waterproof, then they were made of canvas covered in the oil. Then 'modern umbrellas' came along and stole the show, unfortunately. That is one of the more disappointing things here: I was hoping it would look more like it does in Mulan.... We also went to an art museum which was the best activity I have done yet: we saw decorated paper fans, drawings, paper cuttings, STUNNING embroidery which I would happily have spent £300 on if I had it on me, carvings in wood and stone, lace... it was all absolutely beautiful. So yeah, I'm not just eating here. Promise.

Decorated paper fan. Pagoda overlooking West Lake.

Work ethic
People work so much harder here. Mum of family visit is a lung cancer specialist, and she works 12 hour days Monday-Friday, and also takes calls from patients (who may be depressed and wanting someone to talk to, she said) outside of hours. She said the hospital she works in has 10,000 patients PER DAY. Her daughter (13) is at school from 8am until 8pm, and then does homework until 10pm. She also has school on Saturday mornings, and the parents are very ambitious for her to go to university in the UK.

People
Everyone that I have been able to have a decent conversation with (yes, it's my fault for not speaking fluent Mandarin) has been lovely, welcoming, friendly and kind. This ranges from the staff organising this programme, to my teachers, to the students guiding us around campus, to a boy who helped me in the phone shop, to the woman in the panini/wifi place, to the family we spent the day with today. Yes, people who don't speak English find us a bit of a plague (i.e. trying to fix SIM cards, or order in a restaurant when all we can say is 'yes', 'no', or 'my name is Suzie', and we understanding nothing), but understandably so. One boy here says he finds the people very rude compared to people in India; yes, people here burp and spit right beside you, and shout and stare, but so what? I'm a weird white person in their country. Again, all those I have spoken to have been very welcoming and hospitable.

I feel like people work a lot harder for their livelihoods here. Stuff isn't guaranteed. Life is a gift to be treasured, not squandered lying in bed watching TV... When's you're one in 1.2 billion, you need to struggle to keep ahead of your game...

Looks like I'm off on another adventure...

Hello Blogger audience. Long time no posts, eh? That's probably because British Girl Abroad hasn't really been abroad since Italy (excluding two WONDERFUL, sun-drenched and food-fuelled weeks in the south of France with my favourite French family). 'So where are you off to now?' I hear you all clamouring. Well, my virtual friends, I am off to China. I am participating in a programme called 'Study China' which involves three weeks spent at a Chinese university (I'm going to Zheijang University in Hangzhou), including 40 hours of Mandarin lessons, a university module (I'm studying a politics module called Nation and Nationalism), and extra-curricular activities.

'Why? Why go to China? Haven't you got finals exams to prepare for?' Yes, dear reader, I do. However I am pretty confident about doing well in the exams, they're nicely spread out, and if I don't go to China now, when else am I going to go? When else am I going to be able to learn Mandarin IN CHINA? Especially given how the programme is free (excluding flights, visa, jabs and spending money). Life is too short not to take opportunities handed to you on a plate, I have decided.

I leave on 5th April, and after 11 and a half hours on a plane I expect to land in Shanghai. After navigating the airport, there will be a meeting point for Study China students for us all to get on a bus for the 2.5 hour journey to Hangzhou. I hope I meet some nice people. There's a Facebook group, and some people seem to be proper, real-life morons. 'What jabs do I need?' GO AND ASK A QUALIFIED TRAVEL NURSE. 'When do we get free time?' YOU WERE TOLD, AS WERE WE ALL, THAT YOU WILL FIND OUT WHEN YOU GET THERE. Hopefully all the smart ones have been keeping quiet and we can find each other when we get there and make a cult.

Moving on from my intolerance of (most) other people... What am I expecting in China?
* Being stared at.
* Having to eat weird, unpleasant food.
* (As a girl:) Not being treated as well as men are.
* Not understanding what's going on most of the time. (Although I'm sure this won't hit home til I actually get there, since in France I spoke the language. Even in Italy it felt OK after a while...)
* A mind-broadening, enriching experience.

I think everyone's a bit racist, and certainly at Exeter there are an awful lot of Chinese students who can't speak English. Now I'm going to be in their shoes (although hopefully without my toes taped to the soles of my feet - JOKES!). I wonder how it will feel at the other end of the linguistic and cultural barrier.

I've always thought Chinese culture was pretty cool, too. Probably ever since I first saw Mulan. Love that girl. She's my favourite Disney heroine. And just the values of respect, loyalty to your family, and personal honour. Too many people seem to have lost sight of their inherent value, instead preferring to invest that value in a group, like a gang or clique, and instead lose it completely.

What am I taking with me? Thanks to my Saturday shopping spree I am now happily equipped with an extensive first aid kit, complete with Imodium and Pepto-Bismol for the anticipated D & V, and an awful lot of anti-bacterial handwipes. I also indulged in a bountiful supply of Cadbury's chocolate and some Maoam. I'm also taking with me a book called 'China: a History' for the plane (better late than never). Other than that,  I'll be accompanied my trusty travelling-brain, common-sense and un esprit ouvert.