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...