Born a Quarter Century too Early

I loved rural China. I knew I would. I loved working with the kids at the local school. I expected that I would. But one surprisingly rewarding aspect of our trip was getting to know the three young staff members from the travel group Dragonfly that facilitated our trip and service work. We spent a fair amount of time getting shuttled around on our charter bus and more often than not I managed to get myself positioned across the aisle from one of them.

Cindy was in her early twenties. She was born and grew up in Yangshuo where we were staying. She went to an elementary school that was not all that much more modern or equipped than the school we had been serving in. She was going to school part-time in pursuit of a degree in the hotel and hospitality industry. Her fluency in Mandarin was invaluable as was her knowledge of all the camera shops around town where we could stop and get Mr. VanNoord AA batteries for his camera. Again.

Adilah, in her late twenties, was born in Malaysia. She was of Malay and Chinese ancestry. She came from a Muslim family and spent the week making a concerted effort to avoid all the Chinese dishes with pork in them (which was many of them). Adilah’s Chinese grandmother had her feet bound as a young girl. It was a little surreal for me as an American teacher in charge of a group of Hong Kong students to be lead around the interior of China by a young woman from Malaysia. Adilah recently became engaged to a British man from Hong Kong.

Phil was a young man in his mid-twenties from the US Midwest. Unlike Adilah who was on staff fulltime, Phil was a seasonal hire. We were his last service/tour group for the season. After our group left for Hong Kong, Phil had a couple of day’s worth of work to wrap up with Dragonfly and then he was done. He was planning on spending some time traveling around Southeast Asia sightseeing and visiting friends. In a week or two or three, he was going to jump on the internet and see what other international seasonal work was available for the winter. Several times during our week together I asked him where he thought he might end up? Europe? South America? Africa? He said he genuinely didn’t know, but was sure that –thanks to the internet- he would be able to line something up.

The internet? Really? It’s seriously that easy?

Man, I was born twenty years too earlier.

I even own a big blue backpack and everything.

-Jack

Yangshuo Horsepower

Trucks of Rural China

Call me a nerd, but one of the coolest aspects of visiting rural china was seeing all of the different trucks, tractors, motorized carts and other vehicals I had a hard time catagorizing. Rural China has work vehicals in a dizzying array of shapes and sizes.

I saw motorcycles, mopeds, and bicycles of every variety. The little six-person city buses I saw all around YnagShuo were actually more golf cart than bus.

But my favorite of them all were the antique-looking tractors that I saw everywhere.

They were actually equal parts truck and tractor. They were small and the putt-putt-putt sound of the engines made them sound as if they were all running on one cylinder.

The engines were up front and none of them had a hood. All the engines were simply exposed to the elements. The coolest thing about these tractor-trucks was that they did not have a rack-and-pinion steering system. Instead, the frame of the truck was articulated just in front of the driver but behind the engine. So when the driver turned the wheel, the entire front third if the truck swiveled.

All of them had flat beds like a pick-up trucks. Many of them have covered beds and some even had a dump-truck style bed.

I brought home a souvenir fan and a genuine fake antique Chinese coin from the Ming dynasty, but if I had really had my way, I would have bought an old Mao-era Chinese farming truck. I would shipped it back to the States and then go putt-putt-putt down Binnie Road in style.

But I guess I will have to be content with the cone-shaped straw hat I bought.

-Jack

Mushan Village

Mushan part 2

The paths of Mushan are paved, but they’re barely wide enough to get a car down, which is probably okay because by the end of my hour-long walk, I had seen just one car.

Mixed in among all the old brick houses of Mushan are much newer buildings. Some of the village farmers are apparently building themselves new houses. In this village of 600 people, there are a couple dozen of these new houses which all seem to be three stories high and made from poured cement. It’s good to know that China’s new-found prosperity is reaching the rural areas as well.

I noticed that only half of these new buildings are finished and occupied. Half of them are in varying stages of completion. The farmers work on them as they have the money. They stop when cash runs low and then resume when money comes in.

As the sky got brighter, the farmers on the foot path were replaced by small clusters of children making their way to school.

In fact, it’s about time for my students to be waking up.

On my way out of the village and back to the inn, I passed a man going down the path with three water buffalo and a cart. One of the buffalo was being particularly obstinate. He paused for a moment to tie the misbehaving buffalo to the back of the cart. It was too much to resist. Our group’s guide and translator Cindy, who is from this area, had told me that it’s okay to take pictures of the locals, but they expect a yuan or two in return.

I fumble through my wallet. The smallest bill I have is a twenty yuan. But hey, it’s guy with three slow-moving water buffalo and home-made cart for Pete’s sake.
I gesture to my camera. I hold up the money. He nods. I pay. I casually start taking a few pictures. I have to slow down to keep pace with the water buffalo.

Just as I am about ready to finish up, a fellow villager walks by. It’s obvious they know each other. I don’t speak a word of Mandrin, but based on their tone, gestures and the big grin on Cart Dude’s face, I’m pretty sure the conversation went something like this.

“Hey Zhì Míng, getting your picture taken by another one of those foreign devils.”
“Laugh all you want Xiū Bó, this nut-job just spotted me twenty yuan for half a dozen pictures.”

“Twenty yuan! Maybe you should go into full-time modeling.”

“It’s about time I finally made some money off of these good-for-nothing water buffalo.”

“See you later. By the way, you’re buying the drinks tonight.”

Twenty yuan is about US$3.00

-Jack

500-year-old Village of Mushan

Mushan Part 1

After living in metropolitan Hong Kong for the last three-and-a-half months, I was determined to soak up as much of rural China as possible on this my first foray into the Mainland. So every morning I got up between 5:30 and 6:00 and went for an earlier morning walk or bike ride.

The night before, our guide Phil had told me that the village of Mushan was less than a mile from our inn.

I set out just as the village was coming to life. There is really only one road –more of a path actually- that leads into and out of Mushan. A few of the villagers were already outside and in their gardens tending to their vegetables. I passed several farmers headed out of town on their way to their fields. I passed a man waking his water buffalo out of the village. Now that’s a sight you don’t see in Hong Kong or Chicago every day.

This village is over 500 years old and some of the houses looked like they could very well be 500 years old. Everything was made from brick. The town is laid old in a meandering, haphazard fashion as if it emerged and grew over time which is probably exactly what happened. I saw old-fashioned hand water pumps in almost every yard.

Chickens and roosters were roaming everywhere.

Although this particular village is not on the road to anywhere, they must get a fair number of curiosity seekers, because no one seemed to bat an eye at my presence. This place is so different from any place I have been. I feel like I have entered another world. Obviously, I know that villages like this exist all over the world, but it’s something all together different to be experiencing it firsthand. I try to image what it be like to live my life day in and day out in this village, but I can't wrap my brain around it.

My early morning walk was all the more enjoyable knowing that it wasn’t on our official itinerary. It felt like I had stumbled upon this hidden gem. Later I would try to recruit some of the kids –including my own daughter- to join me on a walk through Mushan. I had no takers. They’d rather use their free time to play cards with each other in the hotel lobby. I guess it’ll be just be me, the farmers, and the water buffalo again tomorrow.

-Jack