Chengdu & the Wild west

More to tell than time to write, so a short post today about some places I visited the last couple of days. To start with Chengdu, were I visited Bernhard, who’s studying Chinese there this year, and since the 10th of July was his birthday, my timing of visiting couldn’t be better. Apart from his birthday party he also showed me around Chengdu. Chengdu is the biggest real Chinese city in Western China. So my first impression was simple that this was just another big Chinese city. After visits to the famous teahouses, eating Sichuan hotpot outside and last but not least a look at China’s famous animal the Panda’s, I admit that the city does have its own character.

After Chengdu I took the bus more westwards to Kangding, which should be the unofficial start of Tibet. There were many Tibetans on the streets, but still a lot of Chinese as well. When I arrived, I first got a big disappointment. At the bus station I tried to buy a ticket to Litang, which is even more West and which was my purpose of going in this direction. At the bus station however the woman behind the desk simply told me that this was not possible. I could only understand that it was not possible, but my Chinese travel buddy (who I met on the bus) was kind enough to translate her words for me, “the situation in Litang is too complicated to allow foreigners”. So I just sat in a bus for about 7 hours, only to hear that I can buy a bus ticket back to Chengdu?

This disappointment aside I decided to make the best of the rest of the day and to decide at night whether to take a black minivan or not. Outside the bus station one of these cowboy looking guys already approached me, with the offer of bringing me there in his minivan. These black taxi’s are all over China, and their usually a bit annoying, but sometimes they are a good alternative. In Kangding I went to a big Buddhist temple with my new Chinese friend. This was a good idea cause it was nice to see the big temple and we even got a free diner which we could eat with some visiting monks together. Afterwards we walked through Kangding which is not really a special city in my opinion. Most Chinese know it because of the love song of Kangding, which I haven’t heard. What was interesting though was the amount of army guys on the streets. Chinese soldiers who are making sure that the situation is stable. It does make you wonder why there is a need for them. In Chengdu I also saw a couple of soldiers in front of the big Mao statue, but here there were a lot more, and at places which didn’t really seem to be that sensitive.

It did make me wonder about the situation in Litang, who was said to be too complicated for me to enter. It simply made me want to visit the place more, cause Kangding was apart from the presence of Tibetans still a Chinese city, in the sense that there are more Chinese people than Tibetans. After talking with some other foreign tourists who just came from Litang I decided to take the offer from the cowboy and to go to Litang next morning at 6.

The next day I arrived in Litang after a long bus journey on a horrible road. This place was really different than Kangding, and it felt like I had left China. Almost all the people in this place didn’t look Chinese. Their skin was darker, they were bigger, their noses were almost my size, their hair was thicker and the clothes they wore were exotic. It was also clear that Mandarin Chinese was not their first language. Most of the time they didn’t seem to understand what I said to them and the other way around I mostly failed to understand them as well. Some also seemed to dislike to speak Mandarin, so instead they used all their English to have a conversation. This was usually not more than hello, one girl who really tried looked it up in here schoolbook and managed to say goodbye. The architecture of the buildings was also very different than that of normal Chinese cities, here they had beautiful Tibetan houses. The last thing which makes this city special, is that it’s more than 4000 meters above sea level, this makes the sun very strong and the night surprisingly cold. Finally I didn’t saw that many soldiers here, only a few at a government building, but that’s quite normal, so why the official bus refuses foreigners is still a big question for me. It was easier to spot foreigners in this small city than it was in Wuhu, which is mainly cause the city center only consisted of a main street and some small streets around it, but still.

After Litang I moved on to a similar city called Daocheng, where I met another Dutch guy and an American couple, who were travelling the same direction as me to a place called Shangri-la. Quite a touristic town with a lot of Chinese and foreign tourists. This is where I’m now, tomorrow I will move onwards to visit the Tiger Leaping Gorge, and after that Dali and Kunming.

Goodbye Wuhu

My last post from Wuhu. Tonight I will be on the train to Chengdu. For more than 30 hours! I’m really looking forward to travel again, but ouch, thirty hours. Two nights, and one day, in a train. Guess I’m going to get back on a lot of missed hours of sleep… Apart from sleeping and reading, I really have no idea how I’m going to pass the time. Let’s hope there will be nice people in my cabin.

Today I’m also exactly 4 months in China. Which makes the perfect day for a new adventure. Wuhu was a nice city to live in for the past 3 and half month. It was an easy city to live in because it’s quite small, but still feels like a city and has most conveniences of a city. It has also been a great place to save money, cause live is so cheap here. Finally it has also been a very good introduction to China. I saw the fast economic development, the big contrast between the few dirty rich and the rest, fake copied Western brands, of which the best one has the slogan “Anything is Possible”, and of course the strangest kind of food. My Chinese improved drastically as well, mainly cause there are no people who speak English, except the other foreigners. I experienced the hospitality of the Chinese, some welcomed me to their home and offered me their food, for little in exchange. Dutch people could learn from their hospitality and hopefully I did. On the other side I also experienced their strong hierarchical society, which is in my opinion the biggest difference with my country, and something I will (hopefully) never get used to. Because it leads to very rude behavior towards people with a lower social position, and sometimes that's just not the right way to thread other people. In this aspect the Chinese can still learn a lot from the Dutch equalitarian society. Ironically the country is still lead by Communists.

Although I mostly enjoyed my life in Wuhu, it’s the first city I lived in which I wouldn’t recommend for a visit. This is simply because, despite Wuhu being an good place to live, it is an ugly city compared to places like Amsterdam, Enkhuizen and London. Of course this comparison is a bit unfair since Wuhu is a poor city without any places of interest, and there’s simply a lot more to see in the rest of China.

Evan, (the new American teacher) who is replacing me, turned out to be a really good guy, it’s too bad he didn’t came earlier. Although of course if he had come earlier, my point of being in Wuhu would have been gone. His situation is almost frightening the same as mine three and half month ago. Same apartment, same job, same misunderstandings with Chinese people, the same lack of a schedule, and finally as good as the same motivation of going to China. What’s not the same however is the salary. He’s going to do the same work for a thousand Yuan less! Ridiculous since he’s the native speaker with the real American accent, which is the kind of English all the Chinese want to learn, and which is why foreign American teachers are usually paid more. He’s also not promised a raise, and this suddenly makes me understand my boss, her decision of ending my contract completely. If she continued my contract she needed to pay me a thousand more each month, which would be two thousand Yuan more than what she’s now paying to Evan. I would have done the same in her situation, it’s crazy to pay so much more for a non-native teacher, if you can also get a native for less.

So tonight I’ll start my big trip, with a long train ride to Chengdu. Where I plan to stay for a couple of days. After I plan to go even more west, to a Tibetan town (Litang) outside of Tibet, but at more than 4000 meters above sea level, (according to my Rough guide it’s even 300 meter’s higher than Lhasa) so it will be very similar to Tibet. After this I’ll move on to the South, to see the Tiger leaping gorge, Kunming, and on to Guilin to take the river cruise on the Li river to Yangshuo. After that it will be about time to move onto Hong Kong to get a new Chinese visa, it expires the 2nd of July, so I really need to arrive there the 1st of July, which is coincidentally the day that the UK gave Hong Kong back to China. Hong Kong should be an amazing metropolis, even more so now that I arrive there after traveling for 2 weeks through the undeveloped, more isolated wild West and South west of China. In Hong Kong I will have a break for about two weeks, and after that I’ll continue my travels with a convenient only three hour flight to Beijing. Not sure if I’ll be able to update my blog every week from now on, but be assured that I’ll try my best.

Chinese kids

Last week I finished my teaching career in China. I had the last class at the middle school and thought this would be a good time to write something more about those students. These kids are about 14 to 16 years old, so they are right in their puberty, which is everywhere an very interesting period. Although they are in their puberty, they look like they just started it, the first time I saw them, I guessed their age at about 12 to 13. It’s not only the way they look, it’s also their behavior. They behave a bit childish. I’m not sure if it’s just my perception, but I got the general idea that most Chinese students grow up a bit slower than those in Europe. I guessed the daughter of my boss at 15, she turned out to be almost 18.

My theory is that they grow up slower because of a lack of freedom, and responsibilities. Sometimes I feel a bit sorry for them, cause they have almost no free time, and they never have to decide anything. For them there’s simply no choice, they already have been told what to do. A normal day in the life of these students, starts with their first class at 8am, then they have a break and have lunch at 12, class starts again at 2pm until around 5:30, then they go home to their parents, have diner, which is followed by their homework, and then finally they can go to bed. In the weekends they usually have some other classes, or their parents put them on some kind of language or music school. And of course there is still homework to be finished for the next week. All in all, they have about one afternoon left of free time. Which made my question on the spoken examination, “What do you like to do in your free time?” a very difficult one to answer.

The students are also extremely competitive, which is stimulated by a list, which shows the best student of the class all the way to the worst students of the class. This list is based on the students performances on all the important examinations they have to do. Maybe I haven’t been a teacher for long enough at this school, but I do have the impression that the students don’t learn how to work together, or the value of cooperation. Which could be more important for some of them than the English language will ever be for them.

The teaching at the middle school reminded me of my own time at school. The contrast however seems to be quite big, cause at my Dutch school we had a lot of afternoons free, and the homework was often voluntary. We could usually decide for our own if we wanted to do the homework or not. After all it’s for our own good to do the homework or not right?
Because a lot of those students don’t want to learn English it also reminded me of my French classes at school. I really disliked those classes and in the end I failed the subject, and apart from about 2 sentences I am not able to pronounce or understand anything of it. Which I now think is a shame cause it would be nice to speak another language, but also proves me that it really doesn’t make sense to teach something to someone who doesn’t want to study it in the first place.

This last point shows that there are similarities as well, I’m just pointing out the differences in my post. The kids attitude towards school is more or less similar, both the Dutch and Chinese kids dislike some subjects. Like me not enjoying my French classes, a lot (most?) of Chinese students dislike their English classes.