China 2005: Greatings from the socialist shopping paradise

Ni hao, it's been quiet a while since I last wrote. Last time I was in Shigatse, now I'm about to leave China.

After all this trouble to get around in Tibet travelling in China was peanuts. First I went to Yubong village. I was also there 4 years ago and to my relief not much had changed. So no big resorts were build: it was still the same quiet, friendly village (no cars!) surrounded by glaciers, waterfalls, ice caped peaks and moshy forests. Some trees look like out of a fairy tale with elves hair hanging from their branches while other trees look very spooky as if they want to grab you with their branches. After Yubong I went to Zhongdian. Also there I was 4 years ago but here many things had changed. 4 years ago the old city was maybe not so interesting but at least it was authentic. Now they were "restoring" a lot of houses. Restoration in the Chinese sense means: stripping the whole house down and put in some new woodwork which maybe looks nice (if you like tacky things) but has nothing to do with the original. 4 years ago there was not 1 tourist hotel in the old city, now there are maybe 20 or so and of course a lot of restaurants, shops and bars.

The forest around Yubong village has a spooky beauty

With domestic tourism picking up I think China will be one big amusement park in 10 years. Already now you have places where you can pose sitting on a yak or dressed up in a sheepskin jacket waving a sword while sitting on a horse. Or you can pose with some local beauties in traditional costume, or like in Longshen, which is in the Guinness book of world records for being the village where the women have the longest hair, the women come up to you saying: "Long hair, long hair, you take picture". And in another place some women were walking around with a goat in their arms and they persisted I take a picture of that. I guess the majority of the Chinese tourist like to see this kind of things while they are lead around, all wearing the same yellow cap, by a tour guide holding a flag or a umbrella. This kind of "totalitarian tourism" gives me the creeps.

The long hair village from above

Chicken looking at the future

I met up with my mother and brother and we visited some cities in Yunnan, after that I went to Yangshou where I spent the last 3 months teaching English. I liked the job, it was the best job I ever had, but maybe it had something to do with the fact I only worked for 10 hours a week. I teached to teenagers and early people in their early twenties. In every other country teaching teenagers would be horrible, but in China the people respect authority so it wasn't that hard.

Fisherman around Yangshou

Because I only stayed in one place I also got to know some Chinese people. And more important what they think and feel. I consider most Chinese people a product of their government. You would be amazed about the effects that years of brainwashing in school and through the media have on somebodies mind. Sometimes I had the feeling I was talking to zombies. Always the same opinions that they learned in school, it really disgusted me. The people are not really encouraged to think (critically) and I have to say: it pays off. Politics is not a favorite topic, especially not with somebody with so "radical" viewpoints concerning Tibet and Taiwan like me.
Another thing I found out is that Chinese people don't understand the concept of irony. Many times my ironic remarks were taken for serious. Sometimes it also was the other way around: when I was making a serious comment people thought I was joking. While in Yangshou I started a movie club, which is not easy in a country where favorite titles include movies like "Gone with the wind", "Roman holiday" or "Titanic". So you have to be careful what you show. I had a woman walking away during "Team America" because there was to much violence and sex in the movie. It's a puppet movie for god's sake! Okay it's from the directors of South Park but still.

Amazing view from Moon Hill near Yangshou. This was about the
3th or 4th time I've been there. My Ansel Adams period

I also found many people very rational, not much emotions there. Like on the subject of marriage: the most important "characteristic" a man should have is money. I see so many beautiful girls walking around with fat, ugly guys, it makes me regret I don't have any money :-) On the whole I think Chinese people are a bit to obsessed by money and career. Long gone are the days of Mao. Thank god for that, to bad that his hardcore communism is replaced by empty hardcore consumerism. They still like him though, no bad words please about the man who is responsible for tens of millions dead comrades and counter revolutionaries. Better focus on those evil Japanese. They are still hated by many Chinese people including the youth for the excesses they committed during the second world war. It's good to have a common enemy, ask any regime or government, they will agree.
Maybe I'm a bit harsh on them, anyway besides being brainwashed materialistic zombies they are nice and friendly people who can cook great food. Also the people in general don't have much attitude, something I can appreciate.

I was planning to work for the school till the end of January, and I would have done that if it wasn't for the friendly Chinese person who solved my problem of carrying a heavy laptop around by stealing it from my room. Bye bye 2 months of pictures and work. You can understand I was very pleased and grateful for this. Another reason for leaving earlier was that I found out that the school I was working at was run by incompetent, greedy frauds who were reluctant to pay me. Just one day before I left (I had already bought my train ticket) I got paid the money of the 3 weeks they hadn't paid me. Only because I went into a strike and told them I would only start working if they would pay me this money, which I didn't. Sometimes you have to play it nasty.

A fine example of Chinglish

Tomorrow I will take the bus to friendly Laos, spent some weeks there and in Thailand and then back to Holland.