Chinese vs. Western Tourism - part two

This very story I shall start with a middle-long but worth-reading passage out of a book I've read recently: it's called "Wohin du auch gehst" by Benjamin Prüfer. Not the type of book I would choose in other circumstances, but the book-swapping-shelfs of hostels don't offer too many books of my choice ;) But finally it was quite nice and the fact that it's a real story made it more interesting.

I chose this passage because even before having read it, I had exactly the same thoughts and found Prüfers way describing my thoughts simply perfect (I translated this passage it into English by myself):

"Going there and Getting away

I hate being a tourist. You can't avoid looking stupid when being a tourist. You are always in a manicly friendly but illusory world. I will call it Backpackerland. It is not important, if you are travelling through Asia, Australia or South America. Backpackerland is everywhere. Everything you need to know about Backpackerland can be found in the Lonely Planet Guidebook. It is structured in the sections 'Going there and Getting away', 'Accomodation', 'Things to do and to see' and 'Danger and Annoyances'. There are no real people in Backpackerland. There are only wily truckdrivers, endless-smiling stewardesses, hostel-owners and tourist-guides, who have a cousin in Germany. Everybody is really nice to you, they call you 'my friend', even though you have never met them before. And all ask you the same questions straight away: 'Where' you from?' - And when you answer 'Germany' they would say: 'Ah, Germany! I love Germany! Mick'ael Ballack! Number one football player!'

During my trip I had the feeling that everything around me was just a coulisse which had been built up only for me. I was there enclosed in a big bubble of western reality; with credit cards, MP3-players and a travelinsurance. I was not in Asia, I have always only been in Backpackerland. And I was sitting in the middle of all the others, who were also looking for something, who also had the Lonely Planet in their hands. They had necklaces with shark-teeth, tatoos or a buddha-pendants, to borrow an identity from the different culture. This attempt to give themselves some kind of individuality always ends in the same way: that they all look the same: Che-Guevara-shirts, army-trousers and flip-flops. And always the same T-shirts bought on Khao Sun Road in Bangkok. It is like an uniform.

Me as well I always had my Lonely Planet Guidebook with me and by consequence only saw, what was mentionned in the book. I have wondered sometimes, if I shouldn't rather just throw away the book. But then I would have been kicked out of the secure Backpackerland - this would have made my trip frightingly real. Only the imagination made me panic.

In Backpackerland there are only nodding acquaintances. You get to know a person, drink with him for a night, for a few days he's your best friend, but you know that as soon as he's on the next bus he will already have forgotten about you. You are never alone in Backpackerland, but you are lonely very often."

Me as well, I am travelling with the Lonely Planet, and me as well I have often thought about just getting rid of this book. But it is so useful, even though the information concerning prices and bus-times are  often not accurate. And it helps you getting an idea of where to head to. Still, you end up seeing only the places mentionned in the book, and nothing else, and being where everybody else is. But I say to myself:  there usually is a reason - something worth seeing - which makes many people heading to the same place. And - call me uncool - finally I don't really know what to do when going to a random Chinese village not mentionned in any guidebook at all...

But I HATE one side-effect of the Lonely Planet: all these backpackers in the hostels, this superficial world... And being one of them makes me even more hating this world, because I can't just ignore it, I feel I need to have an oppinion about it.

Why writing about this now?

Because I just spent one week in Yangshuo, a really nice little town in the middle of a breathtakingly beautiful area - together with hundreds of other Western backpackers (and some Chinese tourists). This small little town is in fact nothing but a big touristspot: the main street (surprise surprise, it's called "West Street") is full with souvenir shops, travel agencies, bars and restaurants (offering Chinese and Western food) hotels and hostels, bike-rental stores and anything else regular tourists and backpackers might need.

And as already mentionned before I had the feeling of beeing in a big bubble, that 

could be just anywhere - like describd in the passage above.
But I admit: of course it is nice to eat a burger after having eaten only rice and noodles for weeks (no, not half as good as Shebeen-burgers...) and have some beers in a nice bar which meets the wishes of Western tourists. And the rooftop-bars in Yangshuo definitely met these wishes- they were nice indeed with great views over the beautifully lit streets and rocks.

The gros of Western tourists could therefore be found in these very rooftopbars. Many special offers like cocktail-happy-hours and cheap local beers made them even more attractive to them. And you can see that loads of Americans are visiting Yangshuo - I have no other explanation for the fact that all these places have beer-pong-tables. And being there, just among Westerners, watching them drink and play beer-pong made me again having the impression of being inside this bubble; made me hate this superficial world. I have never been there but I thought that this is just a smaller version of Mallorca or Ibiza.

However, I do of course understand them all: it is the need of feeling a bit home, feeling secure, having somebody with the same experiences to talk to, out there in this unknown culture, that makes us Westerners sometimes aiming for Western places.

And I am no better than they are: me as well I ended up having a preferred pub, non of the rooftopbars, which gave me a bit the feeling of being back home, back in Shebeen ;) a place with great music, many different beers on tap and in bottles (btw: you can get Erdinger, the beer you see on the umbrella in the pic, simply everywhere in China), burgers, a TV-screen with football behind the bar - oh yes, home sweet home. And posters of cool movies on the wall as well as two posters of Salzburg :)

The Lonely Planet writes about Yangshuo: "Let's get a few things straight from the start. Yes, Yangshuo is extremely touristy. Yes, parts of it are very Western indeed. And yes, you will be hassled by touts during every day of your stay. But if you use any of the above as an excuse for avoiding the area altogether, you're making a big mistake."
And that's all so right! It is simply beautiful and there is soooo much you can do in the area.

If you want you can easily avoid all the tourists: just rent a bike and ride into

the countryside through the many small villages. Or go hiking, rockclimbing, or whatever...As long as Niku was still here, we went for a few long biking trips and a long hiking trip along the Li-River. We went jogging, which I now try to continue again no matter where I am as I really saw how much I was missing sports.
(She left after 5 days, I stayed 3 more days - Niku, it was great travelling with you these two weeks!!)



Here is my little excuse or escape from being a typical backpacker in Yangshuo: - and something that made my trip being a bit more senseful:
We were volunteering as English conversation partners in the ZhuoYue English College. I found this school by coincidence through CouchSurfing (another reason to love this network and we simply loved the opportunity. Many Chinese students (all adults) are staying in this school (some even for months...) having English classes every day from the morning to the evening. And foreigners can just stay there as volunteers, sleep in the dormitory and get free food. In exchange they have to do the English corner: talking 2 hours with the students in the evenings. I really enjoyed the time with the students as we could talk about anything we wanted. So I learned far more about Chinese tradition and they learnt more about Austrian or European in general, than you could learn through any book.

Already beforehand I have had a few doubts about my trip because just travelling around without doing anything meaningful, and moreover hanging out in hostels where I only met other backpackers but nobody from the country I actually travelled in, seemed all so senseless to me. Couchsurfing had so far at least offered me the opportunity of seeing the places I've been through the eyes of my hosts, and not through the Lonely-Planet-reading backpackers-eyes. But you don't always find CS-hosts and even if you are, you're not doing anything meaningful. So my goal is now to find more places where I can change my trip into something more meaningful... wish me luck my dears!

Chinese vs. Western Tourism - part one

back to China...

I must admit it was a bit of a shock - there are a few (ok, I admit many) things, that I don't like about China and they all hit me hard. And they hit you even harder when you're tired and find yourself AGAIN in an overcrowded hard-seat-compartment of a train. (no, I was NOT in the mood of smiling more on this pic)


But this story is not about trains (even though I could now write a lot about trains now) but about Chinese tourism...

As mentionned in my last story I continued travelling after Hong Kong with Niku, a girl from Sweden, who spent her 4 weeks holidays in China. As she was into hiking as well and I wanted to go into the great Natural Park of Zhangjiajie (surprise surprise: Unesco World Heritage Site - and again not without a reason...) I was really happy to have found a great hiking and travelling partner in her.

As it was already the case in Jiuzhaigou, Zhangjiajie is not really known among Western tourists, but even more among Chinese tourists. We arrived after a horrible train ride in the middle of the night, checked in and just went straight to bed. The next day we were preoccupied with organising our upcoming hiking days, as we not only knew thanks to some forum entries that you should really plan this trip: You don't want to pay this rather high entry-fee and end up seing only the most touristy parts. And the maps don't really help you as Chinese maps are made to look nice, but they are not at scale (can't tell you how annoying this is!!)...

Perfectly organised we finally entered the Natural park the next day - together with loaaaaads of Chinese tourists. You get the impression, that Chinese people can't travel independently, they would always take tour groups. It is not hard to recognise a Chinese tour-group: one guide in the front, with a flag, shouting into his microphone (they would never talk silently, even with a microphone they shout into it...) Reaaaally annoying I can tell you. At the most important scenic points in Zhangjiajie you are not only surrounded by one or two groups, but you would not be able to count all flags and all the different shouting noices.

However, there is one good thing about these tour groups: they are lazy!
We entered the park, went up the first mountain with the cable car and then continued walking around this mountains top before going down. In lets say 50m distance from the cable car exit, you'll have tons of people, unbearable sounds, many small stands trying to sell you shit loads of stuff. But after having passed the first overcrowded scenic point you find yourself alone with the few indeptendent travellers, who are ready to hike instead of taking the cable car back down and taking a bus to the next overcrowded scenic point. So all in all Niku and me we managed to avoid the tourgroups quite successfully, had two great hiking days and saw soooo much that all the people taking organised tours never saw!

Of course we couldn't avoid the tour groups completely as there is a reason why they are going to some view points - because the views there are really good. But at one point I ended up being a far more interesting attraction to the tons of tourists than the great views: OH MY GOD, A GIRL WITH BLOND HAIR!! WHAT AN ATTRACTION!! I ended up standing there for at least 3-4min (considering that taking a photo takes a few seconds, this is a looong time) smiling while being taken on photo with many Chinese tour-group-participants... But well, I'm already used to being taken on photo - asked or unasked...

This park is simply breathtaking! Photos can only give you a slight idea of the place - you have to see it in real (maybe you should watch "The Avatar", which took the idea of it's scenery from this very park). But still, I will just write a few comments on these few photos - for more photos just check my Zhangjiajie-gallery!

The viewpoint I took this picture from is called "Bridge Viewing Point" - and if you look precisely you can see the "World Number 1 Natural Bridge", which is in fact amazing:

This are the "Fields in the sky" - and these rice fields are literally in the sky on the top of one of the big stone-pillar!

At this very point your heart stops beating for a few seconds: you can go to the edge and look down without any fence (no wonder they don't guide the groups here...)

This photo doesn't need a comment - I simply find it really beautiful :)

But ok, when seeing these pictures - all taken from viewpoints where Chinese tour groups wouldn't go to - you may: why are they then participating in one of these stupid tours??

Well, just one week later we ended up taking a tour myself: From Yangshuo, a super-touristy village (more about that in my next story), we wanted to see the Dragon Backbone Riceterraces on a daytrip. Taking public transportation would have ment taking 3 different busses and still paying entry into the area. And with the tour we got it all included - very comfortable, but well - it is a tourgroup...

So instead of just driving us to the area, not annoying us in the bus and leaving us alone for a few hours, our tourguide explained us about the tour details during the bus ride. And of course it included a folklore-show (no joke: the "long hair village") on the way for extra money... So all those, who didn't want to see this stupid show had to wait for an hour till the others came back to the tourbus.
 

In the area itself we ended up having only 2-3 hours to walk around - of course where all the other tourgroups were walking around. But taking a "only for farmers"-route Niku and me ended up again being all by ourselfs and enjoying the beautiful scenery (one month earlier before the harvest it would have been really beautiful - you can't have it all)...

I feel like it was ok, as we only had time for a daytrip. But to be honest: I don't know what I missed - I was part of a stupid tour group so I was obliged to be back at the bus after 3 hours...

So I only got an idea of it - but this idea is still really nice indeed:

Am I unfair treating tyical Chinese tourist-groups like this?? Well, don't worry, in my next story, which is already in my head, I won't be nice to Western type of tourism in this region neither - or lets say it in a German way: "I won't leave a good hair on Western tourims" :)

trip to France, Belgium, England and Portugal - just a bit further East...

France, Belgium, England and Portugal?? What is she talking about?? Hasn't she been just in China??

Well I was and I am again, or lets say to be correct: I have been all the time since my last story... But having gotten an idea of mainland China and Chinese cities I didn't feel like being in China during the last 1,5 weeks:

Shanghai

Of all the three cities I will talk about now Shanghai was the one I liked the least. I have a hard time right now as well saying of which country Shanghai remembered me most - not of China, but of what else then? It is - as we would say in German - "not fish and not meat". In contrast to Hong Kong or Macao it has never been a colony, but it had British and Frensh concession-zones.

Within the French Concession - a very popular part of the town among tourists and expats - you would just feel somewhere in Europe. Where exactly? I can't say. Not in France despite its name and the many "french bakery" (or "boulangeries")...

On the bund - the former British concession - you're remembered of Good Old Europe? Well, again, I wouldn't say that it remembers me of England in particular - rather you get an idea of what the Commonwealth meant and of the trade going through Shanghai in the last 2 centuries...
Anyhow, this very boardwalk is defninitely really nice to walk along, especially at night!

Beside these places, where you get an idea of the recent history, I found Shanghai was stinking of money: Walking around between the skyscrapers in Pudong is impressive (but not even half as impressive as the skyscrapers in Hong Kong as I found out later), but it you can smell the money and the business there - a smell me in particular I don't like...

But don't worry, I still liked many things in Shanghai - it is just that I had the impression that this city was missing its own particular touch.

There are a few things I want to mention about Shanghai apart from the touristy spots I mentionned above: first of all I was staying with a really nice CS-host, an English guy teaching Math in an international school (expat-teachers are everywhere in China...):

Thanks to him I got to know a bit of the nightlife of Shanghai, saw the various different nice restaurants and Belgium-alike chocolate places (he really was addicted to chocolate :D). In Shanghai - and mainly in the French concession you see loads of Westerners, and the offers and layout of bars and restaurants are adapted to them and therefore like back home.

I have also been at a really freaky market, where they sold loads of different insects, crickets (that made the whole place sound like a big forest at night) worms and other animals.... iiiiiiiiiiiiihhh

This was for sure freaking me out, but what was freaking me out more was the marriage-market my host showed me: on Sundays parents would go to the central park of the town and hang up papers with descriptions of their sons/daugthers in order to find the perfect match for them... I mean, hello?? It's ok when people are writing announces for themselves in the newspaper, but parents looking for a partner for their children in a big intercultural city like Shanghai was not what I expected...

As a resumee: all in all Shanghai was ok, but nothing more to me...

Hong Kong

When going to Hong Kong you are leaving China... somehow... which was important to me, as my visa ran out.

Even though Hong Kong was given back to China in 1997, it is still a special administrative zone with different tax laws, more openness (no visa required for 90 days, no blocked internet sites,...) and a different currency. Well, in general you can say: it is still Great Britain, with a bit China on the top of it...

In buildings there is a groundfloor, you get along with English everywhere, no blocked internet, and everything is expensive: Welcome back to Europe!!
Unlike Shanghai, there is no doubt about the recent history of Hong Kong: England... cars are driving on the left side, you have double-decker-busses and double-decker-trams everywhere, and everything is in English.

I was of course visiting the most important tourist sites: Victorias Peak, where you get a view over all the skyscrapers (see photo above - really impressive!), going to the Big Buddha and so on. I was really lucky having met Niku, a girl from Sweden, who arrived just the same day in Hong Kong to travel in China for a month. With her I spent all my time in Hong Kong and continued after that (but more about that in my next story...) We went to the beach together, to different markets and just hung out together...

I liked Hong Kong but felt immediately that you need to stay far longer and live in this city to get to know it properly (which is the case for every city, or place in general, I guess...). So five days was fine to get an idea of it, but far from being enough. Interestingly enough I liked it far more than Shanghai, but have far less to say about it now...

So, pictures say more than 1000 words, right??

but no - this was not all I have to say about my trip to Hong Kong - There is for sure one thing I want to describe a bit more in detail: Chungking Mansions (it's even on Wikipedia... wow!!)

Chungking Mansions is a huge building (17 floors, 5 blocks...) with loads (and I mean loooooooaaaaaadddss) of cheap places to stay and cheap Indian and Pakistani restaurants.

In these hostels and sleeping-places many immigrants from India, Pakistan and Nigeria are living. The groundfloor is full with them offering you food or fake-stuff - "lady-wanna-copy-watch?"
Niku and me met in a supercheap hostel on the 3rd floor. For a bed in a room where there is not more space than for the 6 doublebeds they squeezed in it, you pay 100.,- HKD (€10,-) - the cockroaches in the bathroom are included in the price. As they didn't have any beds left we went to a really freaky hostel no the topfloor - only 60HKD (you won't find anything cheaper in Hong Kong): freaky because of the people living there. Not many travellers but mainly immigrants, and weird people like junkies and others we didn't know what they were doing in Hong Kong... No worries, it was not dangerous but simply not supercosy. We stayed there two nights, before moving to a nice CS-host (guess what... yes, she's Englsih-teacher) for another two nights.

With all the people we talked to and mentionned Chungking Mansions we got the impression, that you have only really been to Hong Kong if you stayed in Chungking Mansions. So even if it was not the most comfortable place to stay, it was an experience on its own and I wouldn't want to miss it!

Macao

From Hong Kong it is really easy to get to Macao. Instead of staying a few days there, as was my plan before, I ended up making only a daytrip, which was perfectly fine: I took the ferry in the morning there and in the afternoon back.


I definitely found what I was looking for in Macao - and no, it was not casinos; - but some South-European flair. When I arrived in the morning, supertired and freezing because of the aircon on the ferry, I wasn't sure if it has been a good idea to come here: close to the ferry-terminal are only ugly buildings and the huge casinos the Chinese people come to Macao for.

But after some walking I arrived in the old town, which is not without a reason Unesco World Heritage, I felt back in Europe: many churches, it was sunny and hot, many small squares with a tree in the middle, bars everywhere and everything was written in Portuese.


All in all I really enjoyed my trip to Macao!
With this I finish this very story - till the next is coming you may have a look at my gallery of this short "Europe-trip"!

New Gallery: Chinas North

before telling you about my impressions of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macao I feed you with more photooooooos :)

so check these photos to see more about my trip and impressions of China from Datong, Beijing, Xian and the Terracotta Warrior...

next story coming soon!

Golden Week

The Golden Week: national holidays in China for one entire week from the 1st to the 7th of October - what a nighmare for travellers...

all queing up to squeeze into the same train...

Because it seems as if simply every Chinese person is travelling as well - which makes it super-difficult to get traintickets, trains are overcrowded (people are seriously standing in the train - and I'm not talking like standing all the way from Vienna to St. Pölten but standing 16 hours from Beijing to Xian - and a standing place does even cost as much as a sitting place) as well as all tourist sights, streets in cities,... or to make it easier: lets say simply EVERTHING EVERYWHERE is overcrowded. I mean, you would never feel alone in Chinese cities anyways, but where the hell do all these other people who seem to appear only for the national holidays hide during the rest of the year??

First I thought that it could be great fun still being in the capital during the start of this holidays but finally there is nothing special happening. Appart from huge amounts of people squeezing through the streets and alleyways, and flags hanging out of every door...

However, this week was full of events to me as well, which didn't have anything to do with the national holidays...

The very start of this public holidays was at the same time an end for me:  the end to my time in Beijing...

On the 1st of October we were celebrating one of the local couchsurfers birthday at the flat after a great dinner in a Ningxia-restaurant. The party was definitely great fun! And I took it as my goodbye-party from this great city as I was supposed to leave the following day! Having read my last story you know that I really really liked Beijing...

The day after the party I took the train to Xian.
While I had spent a lot of time with expatriates in Beijing and didn't really get to know many Chinese people, I got to know many on my way to and in Xian. The guy sitting next to me in the train - DaWei - turned out to be great fun, teaching me Chinese pronounciation and ending up giving me a Chinese name (娜仁).
In Xian itself I was surfing at another Chinese guy - GaoXu - who was really cool as well!

Due to limited ticket availability (guess why...) I stayed a bit longer in Xian than I first wanted - but finally it turned out to be great like this! GaoXu made sure that I had a great time there:

The first evening we met with a friend of his and walked through the Muslim Quarter - pulsing streets full with small restaurants and foodplaces: cooks who prepare food directly on the street, loads of delicious stuff! I was sooo impressed and really loved that place and the atmosphere (even though - again - there were soooo many people...)! 

Without GaoXu I would have never known about this very special dish (I have to ask him for the name of it... upcoming soon...) we were eating. And also in the upcoming days he would make me taste other typical dishes like a Hot Pot and some really delicious Jiaozi (dumplings -->) just before I left ... mhmmmmm

I met various of his friends during my stay: on the first evening for example some more friends of him would join us and we would go to a bar having beer (I admit that I found it sweet when he told me that he felt drunk after 2 small beers...).
He would constantly force his friends to speak English with me - for them to practice - and they would always say that they can't but end up speaking really well :)

But after all - the reason why I came to Xian in the first place was of course to see the Terracotta-Warriors. So on the third day of my stay in Xian GoaXu and me took the bus there (he guided me past the endless queues to a bus we could enter straight away). While he went to his university-campus I went to the sight.

So how about the warriors? You get exactly what you expect: loads of warriors lined up to protect their king Qin Shi Huang. It is really impressive though because they do really all look different and loads of them are not broken at all even though they had been burried over 2000 years ago! I can't imagine how long it must have taken them to build the army, even more as they had been all coloured as well what dissappeared during the millenia.

You want more photos? Here we go:

After my trip to the warriors I met GaoXu in his university campus - from 300BC straight back to 2011 ;) some friends of his showed me a typical Chinese dormitory room and I admit that this was to me as interesting as the warriors...

Still having time in Xian I rounded up my stay there with a nice bike-ride on the citywall on the last day. This was great fun I can tell you! And not to be underestimated: it took me - a few photobreaks included - more than an hour to bike the whole wall...

The national holiday week ends on the 7th - and with the end of it the unsupportable huge amount of people dissapears as well... On this very day I found myself again in an overcrowded train from Xian to Jiangyou (just to compare: in the train I took 4 days later from Chengdu to Shanghai everybody had a seat - can you imagine?!)

Within the upcoming 5 days - from the 7th to the 12th - I spent in total 66hours in trains, busses or waiting between trains and busses: this is in fact a huuuuuuge effort - effort for what?! To get to Jiuzhaigou.

 

This valley is not without a reason a UNESCO World Heritage - and it's not without a reason really expensive to go there - but still worth the effort and the money! And me being in China in autumn even more pushed me to take this effort, because the mix of turquois-blue seas, mountains, waterfalls, green and red leaves is too beautiful to be missed!

To get a maximum out of it I entered the park as early as 7am. Just to give you a slight idea of the size of it:  from the entrance to one peak its 31km - and there are two peaks... The whole reserve is perfectly organised with busses inside, hiking-trails everywhere and loads of maps to show you where you are. And even small signs every now and then hanging on trees saying which sort of tree it is... 

So I was of course hiking a lot, taking loooads of photos (you might have seen them already, if not: here we go) and when I got out of the park at around 5pm I had just managed to see about more or less every worth-seeing part of the park. 

What a golden week this was indeed...