Sunday 28 October 2007

Day 67: Tales of Birthdays and Hallowe'en

So, it's been far too long since I've written in here, I do apologise. I kept meaning to, and then realising I had no time etc.

So anyway, a week ago Friday/Saturday (I forget which day exactly) Nikki and I got a text from Eric who said, "We're going to a Mongolian Bar, wanna come?" So we did. And it was BRILLIANT. Easily the best place to go out. There was a nice mix of quiet background music so you could chat, then live Mongolian music, then a random bit where the lights went out, the strobes came on and they placed some really cheesy Europop dance music. Brilliant fun. We ended up staying 'til about 5am, but it was totally worth it, and it was really cheap. Because I drank...wait for it...BEER. Yes, I, Liam, drank beer. Partly because there was no other choice, and partly because it's actually okay. And it was Wusu (乌苏), which was described to me as "probably the worst beer [he'd] ever tasted." But at 10 kuai a bottle, you can't really complain (okay, so it's 2.50 in the shops, but still).

Not much else of note happened really until Wednesday, when it was Nolan's birthday. His do was on Thursday, so I didn't know it was his birthday until we bumped into him at lunch and 戴熙涵 said, "Happy Birthday!" So then on Thursday we went to a restaurant quite near our house and had a big dinner, and I drank 白酒(Baijiu) and beer again. Then we went off to the Mongolian bar, and partied until the wee small hours (read:5am). Nolan had to leave early, as he had been toasting too many people. We also befriended a Mongolian guy called 巴音达拉(Bayindala), and one of the singers who works there whose name completely escapes me right now (this will be relevant in a bit).

So, as Tuesday is Hallowe'en, but that's a bad day for a party, we had a Hallowe'en party last night. Well, our friends upstairs hosted it. Loads of people we knew were there, absolutely none in costume, and Eric and Michele (the hosts) had made paper ghosts, little signs explaining Hallowe'en in Chinese and Uyghur, and loads of snacks and things. We bought the drinks, and we were scared they wouldn't be enough, as we had been told up to 40 people would be there, but it turned out there was plenty to go around, and it was all fun and games. Although one guy and his girlfriend kept fighting (which has apparently been going on for ages, as she might be carrying someone else's baby). Oh, and I was told I look like Prince Charles by a Chinese girl, which I think is probably the most offensive thing anyone has ever said to me.

That kind of takes me up to date I think, so here's some photos from the birthday do on Thursday:

LTR:Me, 巴音耷拉,戴熙涵

LTR:Me, Nolan, Eric

LTR:Catherine, Tobin, Paul

Saturday 13 October 2007

Still day 52: Just a quick question really

Google is being most unhelpful, so those who have been to China and posted things home, how long did it take on average? It's been around six weeks since I first sent postcards, and I know about the UK postal strike, but still...

Also, I was planning posting some parcels (see previous post) and I have no idea how soon I need to send them.

Day 52: Back to the madness

I can't remember if I've talked about my classes much on here, so I'm going to now, and if I've already told you, sorry.

Okay, so every week, we have 18 hours of class. These are split into 汉语中级 (comprehensive), 听说 (speaking and listening), 阅读 (reading) and 文化 (culture, which is an elective for intermediate students, but it's interesting, and it's helping my Chinese (it's entirely in Chinese (as is the textbook))).

Our teachers are of varying qualities. 张雪梅老师 (Zhang Xuemei) teaches us the comprehensive class, and she is a brilliant teacher. She's from Shandong, so has an accent that I'm not used to hearing in these parts, but I still understand. She's big on discipline (which is good, see below) and is very fair, and can be a good laugh. We went out for lunch at Mid Autumn Festival with her, which was nice, and she only has a few words of English, so it had to be Chinese the whole time. In fact, that's kind of normal for this part of China.

Anyway, then for listening and speaking we have 易红老师 (Yi Hong). She's absolutely lovely, although her accent is a little strange (for example, 问 (wen) she pronounces with a 'v'). Not too good on discipline though, and not big on correcting mistakes either. Non Chinese-speakers may move on to the next paragraph now. Say if someone reads the sentence 还有什么?对了,有空儿的话,欢迎来我家玩儿! as "hei yao shi ma, yao kong de hui, huan yin lei wo zha wanr", she'll still say, "非常好!" Which is annoying.

For reading, we normally have a teacher called 周册老师, but she's currently on leave. And for this, we are grateful. Our temporary teacher is called 阎(I think)新艳老师. She's a much better teacher, although her characters are not fun to try and decipher. The first teacher tries to get us to read at 100 characters a minute, when we know about 50 of them, and bans dictionary use. After we got the book changed to one that wasn't ridiculously hard (aimed at people who had had over 250 hours, we've had about 150, if that), she calmed down a little and explained things better, although still using more complex vocabulary than is needed. But oh well. When we changed book though, the bookstore from where the university buys the textbooks didn't send them for ages, so we had no books. Then, when 周册老师 suddenly 有事 (we think a nervous breakdown, in all seriousness. She was the most tightly wound person I have ever encountered. And she was 30 and Chinese, yet still gave herself a Croydon Facelift)
the new teacher wasn't told we had no books, so we spent one two hour reading class telling stories. It was actually a really good class - everyone got to speak (and the Kazakhs weren't there, more below), and it turns out that Korea, China and the UK all have the same stories they tell their kids.

Okay, so that's my classes. Now for the people. There are five westerners in my class, the four of us from Newcastle (Rachel, Catherine, Nikki and myself) and a guy who is doing postgrad (possibly PhD, apologies for forgetting) at Manchester, and has to do a year in China learning Chinese as part of it. Then there are three Koreans, a couple in their early forties and a guy of about 18. Then Galina, a Russian girl whose name is probably not spelt like that. Then there are the Stanleys. The Stanleys is the name we use to refer to all those people from the countries which end in -stan. Now, I am not a racist person as I'm sure you all know, but these people have put me off Kazakhs, Tajiks etc. for life. In class, they are noisy, disruptive and disrespectful, and spend the entire time chatting very loudly in Russian, making phone calls etc. There are one or two who do work, and I feel very sorry for them being tarred with the same brush, and I'm sure that outside of my class, there are some really nice Kazakh people. But these people are so bad that Tobin (the guy from Manchester uni (but he's Glaswegian, I forgot to say)) wrote a letter of complaint to the head of our college demanding that they be moved from our class or that he be refunded his tuition and he would move to Beijing and study there. The next day, she came into our class and shouted at everyone saying that this was a place of study, and those who weren't here to study would be expelled, because 师范大学 (my university) does not want that type of student. Which worked for the rest of that class. Then yesterday, the good news.

(English is below)"这个班的学生太多了,所以下星期二分开了。英国人,韩国人和Galina在其他的班,别的都在这个班。"(There are too many students in this class, so from Tuesday, you will be split. The British and Korean students and Galina will be in a different class, everyone else stays in this class." Our timetable is the same and we have the same teachers, so I don't know on whom they're inflicting the Kazakhs.

This was great news, but I was confused. Why Tuesday? Then I remembered, this uni gives all the Muslim holidays (no Christian ones, so no Christmas :(), and today is the last day of Ramadan in China (elsewhere, it was yesterday), so Monday is a one day holiday for Eid ul-Fitr. Yay! It's also the day Frankie goes back to Shanghai, after travelling with us then a stay in the infirmary here (Nikki and Catherine were both ill, both better now).

Today I shall go shopping, and some of you might get packages from China in the post. If so, please don't open them until the 25th of December. They're not Christmas presents like, but just wait 'til that day :P

Oh, and only Ross has sent me his address, any more postcard requests?

Tuesday 9 October 2007

Day 48: Back in Urumqi

Okay, so I'm back, so I'll pick up where I left off with the tales of my voyages. So, we got off the train at Kashgar at around 11am, and were harassed by hundreds of taxi drivers wanting to charge us extortionate amounts to get to the centre, so we got the bus instead, then found the hotel we had heard of (the Seman Hotel), because we had heard it's next to John's Café, which does travel advice and things. The hotel ended up being cheap and really really nice, so we stayed there.

That day, Catherine wasn't feeling well, so she stayed in the room while Frankie, Nikki and I went to a Uyghur restaurant across the road for lunch, then went back to see how Catherine was. I think it was most likely a minor illness (I got a slight cold on our travels) and the exhaustion from the travelling made her feel much worse. But anyway, she still wasn't well, so she stayed at the hotel, and we got a taxi to 东湖/東湖 (west lake) park. Which is in fact just a giant lake. But our taxi driver wasn't too clever. We told him where we were going, and he headed off. Then part way, pulled over and ran out, to somewhere across the road, then came back. We assume he went to ask directions. Then, he took us to the International Bazaar. Not quite right. We told him the new place, and again he stopped, and asked someone, who spoke to us in Chinese and translated into Uyghur for him. Eventually we got there, paid to get in, and discovered there was nothing there of any interest.

So we left, and went to People's Park, opposite which is the biggest statue of Mao in China/the west of China (delete as appropriate). Once inside, we discovered a mini theme park. Which was fun. We also stopped and had some whippy ice cream on the way, because we could, and because it was 2 kuai for a big tub :D At the park, after the theme park, we went into the zoo. Big mistake. I had heard Chinese zoos were bad, but nothing prepared me for this. It was worse than the RSPCA adverts (for the Americans out there, the RSPCA is the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a UK charity who show you horrible pictures of mistreated animals to get money from you so they can try and stop animal cruelty). There was a lion in a cage about fifteen foot by fifteen foot (around 5 metres). It was so skinny you could see the bones, and when it tried to roar, it was the most depressing, pathetic crying-like noise I've ever heard. There was a tiger in a cage the same size, who just lay on his side in the shade, and didn't move once. The bears, in ten foot by ten foot cages just paced side to side constantly, and the eagles were in a cage so small they couldn't even stretch their wings at all, never mind fly. All of the animals were mangy and underfed, and the few that did have water, had really scummy old water. And the people at the gate were quite happy to take your five kuai to see that.

So, shellshocked, we left the park and headed up one of the main streets, arriving (without our knowledge) at the Idkah Mosque, famous for its size (on festival days, it can hold up to 100,000 worshippers), and the old town.



We wandered up the old town, and bought some comical hats (see below), then walked right up the old town, coming out at the city walls. However, we were oblivious to any of this, and just walked on home. It was only when we looked at a map and tried to go back there that we realised we'd been there. But we hadn't gone into the mosque or taken photos, and Catherine hadn't seen it, so we went back anyway. The city walls were an anti-climax, in that we couldn't decide for a few minutes if what we were looking at was indeed a city wall, but the rest was good.



The following day, we went to the tombs at Apak Hoja (sometimes spelt Abak Hoja) where we wore traditional Uyghur dress and had photos taken:


We say the big Mausoleum (just behind us in that photo), which has a really big dome, and it's the biggest in China I think, but then these claims I never believe anyway. After checking out the mosque and museum, we went to the orchard, where we were given free fruit grown there and there was a traditional Uyghur dance show. They did a few dances, then they invited people from the audience. Nikki and Frankie went up, and did their best:



After the tombs, we headed back into town and got our bus tickets for Tashkurgan. Then we wandered again up to the mosque, and this time went in, where we saw some hilarious propaganda, which I will post at some point. Then through the old town again, and to the city walls, which were a huge let down. We went back to the hotel and met a friend of a friend, who is a tour guide here, but I don't know how much I trust him, as everything he said turned out to be false (of the things I remember).

On Friday morning, we got on the bus to Tashkurgan, and five hours later, arrived. Now, Lake Karakul, according to China, is in China, but according to all maps, is in Tajikistan. Furthermore, we stopped at a place where they checked our passports, but didn't stamp anything. No matter, we got to Tashkurgan, which is really near the Pakistani and Afghani border, had lunch, wandered around the town and the Stone City and marvelled at how the cows and goats just wander around the streets and no one bats an eyelid. Then at 6:15, we boarded a bus to Karakul Lake, which then left at 7:30. We arrived and were greeted by a Kirgiz family who had a yurt we could stay in. We had dinner with them (rice and lamb, really nice) but not until after they sold the three girls some jewellery. Then we slept in the freezing cold in a yurt, which I'm sorry, but is a glorified tent. The inside looked like this:



It was amusing though that the man was so creepy. We were lying there going to sleep, and he suddenly came in, lit the candle, poked the fire, then went back out. We wondered if he was going to come back, so we waited, but no. Then, in the middle of the night, Frankie heard someone moving around, and had a blanket thrown on her. It was warm, so she didn't care, then she realised the man was next to her. She grabbed her bag and he just said, "sleep" in a very strange manner, and left. I wasn't aware of any of this happening.

The next morning, after a breakfast of bread and tea, we got on some camels to ride around the lake. Although just before this, we went to find a shop, and while over at the main bit at the lake, we were told we had to buy tickets, 50 kuai, 25 for students. So we bought tickets, and then went to head back to the yurt to wait for our camels. The creepy Kirgiz man then spent fifteen minutes basically shouting at us for buying tickets. He was like a broken record, and I was so close to shouting at him. He seems to hate the Chinese though, he was being very racist. Fair enough if they're claiming that part of Tajikistan as part of China.

That over, we got on the camels. Two hours later, my legs were so sore and I was cold, so I got off and walked for the next hour and a half. They tried to make me pay for three hours, but the distance around the lake is doable in two hours, they just took their time, and I got off after two, so I refused. Hired car back to Kashgar, and back to the hotel. And a very early night - the lake is spectacular, and the stars at night are absolutely breathtaking (there's absolutely no ambient light, and there are literally tens of thousands of really bright stars), but it was nice to be indoors where there was a toilet, a shower, and a real bed.

On Sunday, the day we were going to the famous livestock market, sunday market and the old Uyghur housing museum, Nikki was ill. She had food poisoning, so she stayed behind. It was raining a lot, and was really cold, and because it's still Ramadan, the livestock market wasn't on. So we went to the Sunday market. Dead. Only half the stalls open. So we went to the museum, which was interesting, but there purely for tourists. When you leave though, you get a ticket with a prize on it, so I won a can of Sprite.

This was supposed to take all day, and it was now around lunchtime. So I dossed about, read Gulliver's Travels (abridged) and three Shakespeare plays (VERY abridged), then dinner. Nikki was still really unwell, so we booked flights to Urumqi for the next day (yesterday, Monday). As we'd done everything we wanted to do, on Monday I went to the bookstore and bought several maps and books on China, and we started planning our plan - to visit every province in China. Harder than it sounds. There are 34 (including Taiwan, Tibet etc.) and by Christmas we'll have covered 6 (for Christmas, we're going to Shanghai, then a two day trip to Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, followed by a trip to Suzhou and Nanjing in Jiangsu province then on to Hefei in Anhui province to fly back to Urumqi), and at Spring Festival we hope to cover another ten at least.

So we flew back, and that's it. Catherine and Frankie have gone on to Hotan, to then take the bus across the Taklamakan desert (Taklamakan means once you go in, you can't come back out), and should arrive tomorrow or the day after.

So today I'm doing all my laundry, homework etc. and relaxing before classes again tomorrow. I'll leave you with a photo of myself and Nikki on the bus on the way to Karakul Lake from Tashkurgan:

Sunday 7 October 2007

Day 46: Korla and Aksu

So, I'm still on my travels, so this will be a short update.
 
So, on Sunday midday we got on a train headed for Kashgar, and 11 hours later got off the train at Korla.  After finding a really cheap hotel (20 yuan per night), we went to bed on a board (literally) and slept not very well on account of the train station being next to us and the trains using their horns (are they called that on trains?) as much as possible.  The train journey wasn't that bad, we had seats and a really nice Chinese couple opposite us.  That evening though, outside Korla train station, a homeless woman ran up, snatched my bottle of Sprite and necked it.  I wasn't bothered, it was mostly empty and flat, but still not much fun.  So on Monday, we jumped in a bus to the city centre, and explored.  What we didn't know is Korla is a very new city, set up by the Chinese government purely for the sake of economic growth, so everything was big, shiny, new and nice.  Then the fun part - we went to what we thought was a park, and it turned out to be a theme park.  Many exciting rides later, we were tired and hungry, so a cheap lunch followed by a wander around.  Frankie had a bumbag on under her t-shirt, which made her look pregnant, so we decided to go into a baby shop for a browse, which amused us all greatly. 
 
Then, back to the train station to board the train to Aksu.  We were told our tickets were absolutely fine, but around ten minutes before the train arrived (and the train waits ten minutes at the station), we decided to double check.  Turns out, we had to get the back of our ticket stamped and signed, so Catherine had to take all four tickets and run downstairs.  While she was away, the train arrived.  But we made it onto the train, and as we had no booked seats for this train, sat on some of the steps in a carriage.  Two things about the Chinese train system: stations are like airports, with security checks and specific waiting rooms for specific trains.  The trains are also two story, and have free hot water, for instant noodles (which are really good in China).  On the train, Nikki and Catherine played card games with some Uyghur men (including one which couldn't possibly every work, mathematically) and Frankie and I sat and taught English to a Chinese girl and her friend(?).  At Aksu, we got off the train, got ripped off in a taxi and tried almost every hotel in the city, but none had beds (read: it was 5am and the sleeping hotel staff couldn't be bothered).  Eventually we found one, and it turned out to be crawling with bugs.  But it wasn't bad for the price.  Word of advice: don't go to Aksu.  There's NOTHING to do.  Seriously.  What a wasted journey.  We got back on the train at 5am the next day, but only after sitting in the waiting room opposite two Chinese people who were talking about us in Chinese.  It was amusing that sometimes, if I stressed a word, he would repeat it in my accent.  Then at one point, when they were talking about us, she said, "They might understand."  He said, "No, they don't."  Then a woman standing next to them said, "Of course they understand" and then we laughed.  He was embarassed, but it was funny for us.  We managed to get seats on the train (it was now the middle of the holiday week, so the train was quieter).  We sat next to a Chinese couple who we chatted to for a few hours, with a break to eat the blandest noodle-soup-breakfast-thing I've ever not-tasted.  The guy made me taste Baijiu (for those who don't know, it's Chinese rice wine, about 50%), which wasn't as bad as expected, but not what you want at 8am after 4 hours sleep.
 
I'll stop there because this keyboard is a nightmare and my arms are sore from typing, and also I must go and book flights to Urumqi (Nikki is ill, so I'm flying back with her (to her family if you read this - not serious, but in a "I want my own bed and a western toilet" kind of way)).  Postcards are on their way to Mum, Dad, Alice, Nicki, Fran, Lady Faye, Franck, Zona, John, Carole and David, God and Gogd, Starbucks (Newcastle and Inverness) and Rachel.  If anyone else wants one, I need your address :D