Datong and Pingyao, Shanxi Province

Welcome back, or welcome…

Departing Hohhot was nowhere near as spectacular as it was arriving – no sandstorm, no electrical storm, just a straightforward taxi ride to the station and a 4 hour train trip to Datong.  The train was pretty crowded and there were a lot of people with standing tickets – they just keep on selling tickets and people stand in the aisles, between carriages and I have heard sometimes even standing in the toilets!

Our Hostel in Datong is fairly new and is located on the 21^st and 22^nd floor of a building in downtown giving great views of the city and surroundings on a clear day, -yes we did get a couple of clear days and another sandstorm which had the hostel staff running around shutting windows.  It was again quite the experience to see it coming across the city as a great rolling cloud.

Whilst doing some research for this trip it quickly becomes obvious that each town/city has either the largest/tallest/oldest/most statues or caves and it would be easy to become cynical if you tried to see them all.  I found a couple of references to the Yungang Grottoes just outside Datong which went along the lines, “if you only have time or want to see one set of caves and Buddha statues this is the place to go”.  Can report that we reckon this would have to be pretty accurate.  And it was as easy as catching a local bus right outside our hostel.

The Yungang Grottoes were simply amazing. Caves and Buddha effigies carved into a series of hills along the side of a valley.  Some had huge temples built onto the front of the rock face creating a temple/cave structure for the statues.  At the museum later in the day we learnt that most of the caves had temple structures built over them but had been destroyed over the years, mostly by fire and war.  So how many of these Buddha statues were there?  The smallest ones were about 150mm high and a whole series of them might have covered the entrance way into a cave, some were around 3 metres tall and the grand-daddy of them all – 72metres high! –carved inside a grotto hewn into the side of a hill…most impressive.  On site was also a very flash museum which was also well worth a visit. –photos

Next day we hired a taxi with a couple of Swiss guys and headed out at 7.30am on a pre-arranged journey.  First up after an hour was the Hanging Monastery at Hengshan. This Monastery is over 1500 years old and built on a sheer cliff face overlooking a river valley in a gorge.  It is seriously cool and dwarfed by the size of the rock face it precariously clings to -the poles that appear to help prop the buildings up are for appearances only as we saw some guy shake a couple of them and they wobbled- apparently the support beams are all wedged horizontally into the cliff face. -photos

We then went further on through the gorge and up a cable car to another part of the mountain which again had many temples but nothing as spectacular as one on the side of a cliff.  On the way back we visited the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, at 66 metres tall and built in 1056 with a huge Buddhist statue inside.   Back at the hostel we teamed up with others from the hostel and went out for a local meal and a couple of the guys had just done the Trans-Siberian train trip, St Petersburg to Beijing –now that sure sounded interesting!

From Datong we made our way to Pingyao which is an ancient walled town which is reasonably well preserved – may have something to do with the fact that it was the financial centre of China until the early 1900’s when modern banking saw the old systems decline.  We visited an old banking house premises which had underground vaults for all the silver and gold reserves that they held. It was a large courtyard style premises with different small offices for staff according to the geographical area they served, their specific trade expertise and seniority.  Found this all very interesting.

There were many other “courtyard” style museums of other businesses and activities and another one we visited was a newspaper museum.  Whilst obviously the vast majority was in Chinese there were a selection of Western newspapers with front pages of International significance; USA puts man on moon, September 11 Twin Towers,  –that sort of thing.  What about this one I found, a copy of a paper printed and circulated by the CPC, The Anti-Japanese Daily! 

We walked the streets and alleys of Pingyao and also about 3.5 kms on top of the old wall – parts were blocked off so couldn’t do the whole 6kms. Did a day trip which included visiting an old village, Zhang Bi, which back in the day was a small fortified town but the point of difference was it had an underground defence system which ran for 15kms on three levels.  We did the guided tour in the tunnels as was not keen on getting lost down there.

In many of these towns there are always temples with a variety of statues. At times it is clear to see that the statues are replicas or not of the same age as the buildings they are in and at times you may wonder-why?  Part of China’s more recent history included a period known as the “Cultural Revolution” from 1966 till 1976 during which the idea was to enforce communism by removing among other things cultural elements from Chinese society.  Across the country historical relics and artefacts were destroyed and cultural and religious sites were ransacked by Mao’s Red Guard.  Now to have someone publicly discuss this period is just a big no-no so was more than a little surprised to have our guide openly say that the statues were all copies of the originals that were destroyed during but that the paintings and art on the actual walls were original was in a way refreshing to hear some actual truth about what happened in those dark times.

Again some great meals were had, one with a Micrsoft executive and his wife, he works in Beijing and was present when a couple of weeks earlier the Chinese had raided the offices as part of “anti-competitive” inquiries.  Seems the Chinese don’t like overseas companies making what they consider to be too much profit and investigate them – and often they end up getting fined!  At the moment they are targeting the motor vehicle industry and the profits they are making.  But how about this? – earlier we had met a young German guy working in Beijing for Volkswagon who told us they employ 85,000 people in China.  Apparently some manufacturers are considering their future in China due to these “anti-foreign and excessive profit” activities and then what will happen to all the jobs??

Anyway, Datong and Pingyao were great places with plenty to see and do and many of our fellow travellers seemed to be on the Hohhot-Datong-Pingyao-Xian, (or reverse) trail as part of their China adventures.

Off to Xian next!!

1, On the train.  2, Datong.  3-6 Yungang Grottoes.

Hanging Monastery at Hengshan.

1-3, Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, 66 metres tall and built in 1056. 4, Dust storm in Datong.
5, Tourist street in Pingyao. 6, Jonathan on the Pingyao wall with a friend.

1, On Pingyao wall.  2, Our room. 3, Street vendor. 4, Vault in old banking house in Pingyao.
5, Glass maker, 6, Family burning items to remember ancestors.

1-3, Wang family courtyard/village. 4, Zhang Bi Ancient Fortress, 5-6 lady reading by the the God of literature.7-8, tunnels under the fortress.

Hohhot –Inner Mongolia

Welcome back, or welcome…

Re-packing completed and down to only what we will need for one month of travelling, and even then I think I am carrying too much stuff.  We head off from Huaian on the overnight train in our soft-sleeper carriage departing at 10pm – overnight transport is often a great idea getting the journey done and saving a night’s accommodation.  Arrived in Beijing at 7.30am and had to make our way across Beijing to the West train station to catch the train to Hohhot.  There is a huge amount of security/Police around the train stations due in part to internal terrorism attacks at a number of train and bus stations around China.  It’s not uncommon to see Police in these areas armed with sub-machine guns.

Our hard seat train trip to Hohhot was pretty uneventful, apart from highlighting just how massive this country is. We also provide a certain “novelty factor” on the train as we are in the standard hard seat carriages with the masses. A new experience on the train – one of the train crew came through and started what I suspect was a well-rehearsed and well-used sales pitch in the middle of the carriage. This went on for some time with the product being passed around up and down the carriage and then closing the deal with money changing hands.  Talk about a captive audience with nowhere to go!  This happened several times over the day and the products? – a super absorbent cleaning cloth which had its absorbent properties displayed as part of the sales pitch; some puzzle games, a Mongolian style animal skin wrapped water bottle and a range of headphones and battery pack phone chargers.  We did manage to avoid buying anything, but there were plenty sold by the entrepreneurial train staff.

On our arrival in Hohhot there was a sandstorm sweeping through and was quite surreal to see it coming towards you through the high rise buildings in the distance.  About an hour later this was followed by a huge electrical storm and heavy rain.

From our hostel we arranged a couple of trips. First was a day trip out of Hohhot and started with a stop at the Wanbu Huayanjing Pagoda, known as the White Pagoda, which is just outside of town. It was still raining and so there was no-one else there and was quite nice.  We then spent about 2 hours driving south to the Liangcheng area where the Great Wall continues its march across China. However, this time the Wall has not been repaired and is in an “as is” condition.  The construction here was mainly from clay bricks which over the years have simply eroded away and now the remnants are the watchtowers- as large mounds, and a crumbling wall between which in places has nearly washed away.  We walked along the top of the wall here for some way, in places about one foot wide due to erosion and requiring a steady step in places, and all the while there was not a single person in sight. This area is not on the tourist trail at all and there is some effort required to visit so was well worth it.  Here also lies a classic Chinese contrast between the old and new - in the fields around the Wall were a number of massive wind turbines that were part of a large wind farm. -photos

The second trip was north to the “Grasslands” area where the rolling plains appear to be endless.  We pass a lot of “tourist” style Mongolian yurt accommodation –basically round concrete water tanks with a hole for a door and painted traditional colours.  Start to wonder where we will end up. It was 15 minutes off the road along tracks across huge fields to a small, traditional, family run operation with 6 yurts in total beside a small lake.  It was absolutely fantastic and miles away from the run-of-the-mill Chinese operations.

After doing the sunset/sunrise bit out in the Grasslands we head off west passing Batou and Dalad to an area on the edge of a desert where we head into the dunes and there is another yurt for the night. This time that is all that is there. Sure there are sleeping bags and some ground mats –however it had rained and they were all on the floor in a wet heap.  We pitched in and made some racks outside to hang/dry them on and then went for a wander in the desert which included some tobogganing on a couple of sleds conveniently hidden for our use.  Gathered firewood and had a huge bonfire that evening after sunset.  In the morning our ride out of the desert arrived – two humped camels were the transport for the next hour out to the meeting point.  Glad it wasn’t any further really, bums and bits knew all about it for a few days afterwards. The lack of stirrups meaning there was no way to remove any pressure/weight from…..let’s just say where the rubber meets the road!

Heading back to Hohhot we passed over the Yellow River in its early stage as it heads east for miles on its way to the coast below Beijing.  It was a wide, braided river with a huge alluvial plain and the bridge that spanned the river and plain went for some 6kms between floodbanks on either side.

Back in Hohhot we enjoyed a great pizza dinner with the others from our tour. One of them, Travis from America, is also teaching English and he originally came to China 3 years ago – as it turned out also with the same crowd we came with and further his mate from his first year is still with Bucklands and is going to be teaching at the school in Huaian we have just left.  Isn’t it amazing how you can meet people with common connections wherever you may be – or maybe the world is not such a big place after-all!!

1, Spot Jonathan with the traditional Mongolian clothing.  2, This guy was flying the highest kite we have ever seen,  trying to spot it was near impossible.  3, Penmanship in the park. 4 & 5 The great wall of China. 6, White Pagoda.

The grasslands in Inner Mongolia.

In the desert.

Summer School – Yangzhou, June 2014

We arrived back in China on the 8^th July after a busy couple of weeks at home.  We came via Brisbane for a couple of days so we could catch up with Cameron.

Returned to Huaian to discover we had to be out of our apartment before heading to Summer School on the 11^th so was a bit hectic getting our stuff squared away. This was contrary to what we had been told prior to going home, -again TIC strikes!  Our Chinese friend Crystal has offered us the use of her vacant apartment to store our gear in and use as a base until we leave-nice!

Our Summer School job is in Yangzhou, about 2 hours south of Huaian towards Shanghai.  The school is massive and as one of the other teachers points out it is bigger than some university campuses and does not lack for facitlities.  Yanghzhou is a wealthy city as is evidenced by the Aston Martin and other luxury car dealerships on the way into the city.

The school puts us up in a nice local hotel and all meals are provided.  The kids are various ages and Julie and I both get Grade 3 kids with ages from 9-11yrs.  And only 19 kids per class, what a breeze after the large classes we have had.  The camp is split into two 1 week camps and we get new kids for the second week.

For your homeroom you choose a country and teach the kids about that country. Julie-New Zealand,  Jonathan-Australia.  Yes, it was hard enlightening young minds about Australia, but relax now – was able to balance most things by comparing them to NZ and China so it was not too biased. What else could I do??

There were a ton of activities organized for the kids and included; swimming, dancing, model-making, pottery, bingo, movie-night, craft, fashion show, fun-park trip, flag making, bonfire night, Halloween, as well as general English culture/country classes.  They sure managed to squeeze a lot in and days were from 7.30am till 8.30pm.  So yes, time went very quickly and we had one day off in 14.  At the end of camp we headed back to Huaian to re-pack for our next adventure, one month travelling in China!

Photo 1, Close friends in Huai'an, Frank, Jeff and Chrystal.  2-4 Summer camp at Yangzhou.  5-6 People in Yangzhou.

End of school and a quick trip home.

Kids performing for the school end of year production.  

The grand canal, street food sellers by our apartment.  The red circles are fireworks that get rolled out then lit, they go for ages.

Photo 1, friends we got to know through English corner. 2-3, Teachers we worked with. 4, Jonathan and his friend and fellow teacher Jeff.  The maglev train.

Back in New Zealand visiting family.

And friends.  Plus a quick trip to Australia to see Cam.

Ups and Downs - A Home Run: - June 2014

Welcome back, -or welcome to first timers.

We have met another Kiwi guy living here in Huaian, Peter Morgan, who has been living in China for 10 years.  He has an interest in a wool scouring/processing plant in Xuyi, a “small country town” about 1 hour away –population 700,000.  Peter also teaches at a local secondary school and we visited for a look around – we were hosted at the school for afternoon tea and later taken for dinner. Very quickly we realise they are in recruiting mode and sure enough we get offered jobs – but at this point not part of our plan but nice to have a back-up!

While in Xuyi Peter had organised for us to visit several factories.  Of course, a visit through his plant and see them processing sheep skins purchased from New Zealand and the finished products predominantly being sold into the Japanese market.  Whilst there we leave a large suitcase and box filled with surplus gear we are sending home with Peter as he is arranging a container of gear to NZ – a real lucky break for us as we were starting to wonder how we were going to deal with our stuff.

His Chinese friend, Frank, is a partner in a large factory that manufactures lathes, all sizes, manual to fully programmed. Starting with the cast pieces, machining and assembly being done in a series of factories - it was very interesting to see the different processes being undertaken.  Of particular note was the lack of Health and Safety gear or facilities – this is not unusual in most operations here.  Ear, eye, hand, foot, inhalation, fall, crush protection does not seem to be a consideration.  In fact when I asked it was openly acknowledged that this adds cost to the end product that is not wanted.  –photos

Another factory made huge rock crushing plants and were selling them as complete stand-alone units with generators and compressors to enable them to be set-up in remote locations and operated with a minimum of external services.  They were trying to have me buy one and take to NZ as all I needed to do was “find a rock mountain, set this up, and you are in business.  Pay nothing now and when you have an income stream going you pay us off monthly”.  Land ownership, resource consent, mining rights – not sure if these present too much of a problem in China. It’s OK, I didn’t order one.  -photos

Next stop was a cigarette lighter factory –producing around 450,000 a day and all assembled by hand!!  Rows of predominantly women at benches putting these things together in mass assembly lines.  One area had ladies putting stickers on the lighters one at a time, once completed each lighter was lit and flame adjusted then off for packing.  Another area had injection moulders, all 42 of them!! -running flat out making components.  -photos

We were also taken to the Ming Zuling tombs, which is a tomb complex built in the late 1300’s during the Ming Dynasty and flooded in 1680 when the local rivers burst their banks and created a large lake.  Over years the tombs were forgotten about and lay under water until the early 1960’s when a massive drought rolled back the lake revealing the complex.  Was pretty interesting.  –photos

The following Saturday was another organised day out.  Started first thing when we visited our Italian friend Davides’ screw factory –got picked up by his driver even!!  Was most interesting seeing his factory but even more so getting to talk with him and hear his experiences of setting up business in China and how the “system” works.  -photos

After lunch we met up with our friend Frank and other friends from EC –(English Corner) and a couple of other expats and went on a boat trip on the inner Grand Canal which runs through central Huaian and down to Chuzhou, which is the neighbouring city and part of greater Huaian.  The trip was pretty leisurely and at Chuzhou we walked into town as Frank had arranged for us to visit the Grand Canal Museum.  This was really informative and found enough English texts to give a good understanding of the whole Canal system.  Basically the Grand Canal was a series of canals dug by hand and including joining and widening of local rivers.  Parts of the Canal date back to 500 BC and were final connected around 600 and is 1776 km long running from Beijing in the north to Hangzhou in the south –(south-west of Shanghai)  Today it is still a complicated series of canals, river systems, lakes, locks with a constant stream of barges coming and going. A truly impressive feat of engineering.

On the walk back to the boat we visited an old village site which is part of Chuzhou, wandered around the alleys and got to talk with some of the locals with Frank translating for us –was really nice to be able to communicate and the people were as interested in us as much as we were in them!  Visited a small family run soy sauce business which has been in the same location for over 200 years and some of the urns were originals.  A very busy, interesting day out and about in Huaian.

The following Saturday, 24^th May, bought to us that which all people living abroad fear most – the death of a loved one.  We got several calls from New Zealand during the day advising that Julie’s Mum was not well and resulted in her passing away on Saturday evening.  A hard place to be when so far away.  After much debate we decide to stay put and arrange to attend the funeral via a Skype connection.  We do however decide we will head home for 2 weeks at the end of our contract to spend some time with family before our Summer School commitment in Yangzhou.

The end of the school term was a bit of a mixed bag with Julie getting told one day she was now finished and I had another week and a half….kind of. As again the teachers want to take the class to cram.  Also during these last few weeks the children put on their end of year show –photos. It was really great to see so many of the kids up on stage performing. A lot of singing and dancing routines as well as a couple of very patriotic ones complete with uniforms and flags.

Had a couple of dinners with some of the teachers that have been extremely helpful to us during the last year as they certainly made life easier, in fact it would have been damn near impossible!  On the 10^th of June we were told we would be all finished and free to go on the 18^th so we quick smart had tickets booked on a direct flight from Shanghai to Auckland.  If you ever get to Shanghai you have to go on the Maglev Train from town out to Pudong Airport – 31kms in 7 minutes at a top speed of 431km/ h, it is way cool.

We eventually arrived back in Auckland on the 19^th for some time with family.