fresh n juicy chunks of oyster :: RTW travel blog

It is near midnight. A thunderstorm is brewing overhead; flashes of lightning bathe the sky like bright white sheets that threaten to descend in a biblical flood. My skin is sticky with dried sweat and I long for the air to release its payload on me and the dirty streets of Guilin. But within this oppressive humidity and the crowd of locals laughing and drinking loudly at street foodstalls something feels different than it has for a while; it feels real.
The train from Beijing was the last time anything felt this real - all too real in fact in the bargain 'hard seat' class carriage to Guangxi province down South. These were probably the most uncomfortable 24-hours of my life; I ended up sleeping in the aisle for want of legroom. But I was a curiosity to everyone on the train, attracting stares and students eager to practise their English. It felt like it meant something like that exhilerating feeling of being somewhere you have never been before.
Then I made my way to Yangshuo, recommended to me by some random travellers as a nice place to go. The place to be in Yangshuo is West Street which has possibly earned its name by being a street for Westerners: bars, cafes, hostels, trinket souvenir shops and travel agencies are packed side by side. As I enjoyed my dearly missed English breakfast on the first morning there, however, some feeling started to creep up on me but I couldn't quite place it.
Later that day as I was sipping on coffee (a rarity in China) an old lady in tattered robes and the traditional, conical Chinese hat was slowly walking up and down the street. She came over to me and out of her basket she slammed down a plastic bracelet on my table. I picked 'no thanks' out of my vast vocabulary which had increased to an incredible repertoire of four phrases; she scowled at me and started yanking at my wristband from Bahia which is by now barely more than an ugly piece of string. She shouted something angrily in Chinese, presumably calling it ugly. After another minute of 'no thank yous' she walked off but it was then that the feeling that before I couldn't place crystallised: it was sadness.
It was a sadness about this town which lies in one of the most beautiful areas of the world and how it had become an entertainment centre for the traveller and how that once beautiful old woman had become frustrated and jaded by our being there. I imagined how she would have been content driving her family's oxen or working the rice fields; as hard as such a life would be at least it would not destroy her soul and spirit. I and all the foreigners there were responsible for what has happened. No amount of 'but we are helping the local economy' can truly excuse the transplantation of our ugly culture into beautiful places and into the minds of beautiful people. Yangshuo, albeit in China, was my first whiff of the fabled South-East Asia and its backpacking culture made infamous but legendary by books such as The Beach and common traveller-folklore with all its pretensions and high-horsedness.
But you get used to it and after a while the guilt starts to fade; I started noticing the old lady with a basket full of fruits hooked under her tiny arm and the cutest, most sincere gappy-toothed smile that has ever graced me; I 'discovered' the areas of town where the locals eat delicious foods and don't speak English; in a bar at night I had conversational English classes with the sweetest group of schoolkids from the city, brought here by their parents to practise with native speakers; and then there was the countryside, just minutes away by bicycle and where the people still drive their oxen and farm their rice-fields - where the world is still ok in my simplistic view of it.
In the city of Guilin meanwhile the downpour has come and I have walked back to my cheap hotel by the railway station. The cool rain on my skin felt amazing and even the female shopkeepers and small boys on the side of the road who tried to interest me in business with some hookers did not overly disturb me. But as I lie here on my lonely bed in this dirty room there is a suspicion growing in my mind: once I enter South-East Asia proper all this is just going to get worse...

[But all is not doom and gloom - the football commentary in China has improved miraculously and I am also one giant step closer to 'home': I bought a flight to Bangkok but am now looking for the best path out of this city.
Until I do check out Album China 2 with the snappies of Guangxi.]

My introduction to China was somewhat strange which was to be expected when sailing on a ship from Kobe under Chinese flag but stocked with the vending machines and products that I had come to love in Japan. The crew was Chinese who spoke superficial English but most of the passengers were Japanese who spoke unusually good English. The Chinese food served was undersized, overpriced and glistened and tasted like MSG-saturated plastic. Below deck there was a Japanese sauna and bath. Entertainingly the stewardesses extracted a cut-throat price from me for the Chinese entry visa and gobbled up all my dollars at extortionate exchange rates - it's hard to argue with a pretty smile that doesn't understand English. But then they made up for it with last-night karaoke performances and an attempt at a traditional Chinese dance with napkins. On the last day on board I then overheard an elderly Japanese gentlemen making conversation with a traveller from Australia.
"A lot of people in China," he started somewhat expectantly.
"Yes, the most," the Aussie replied with a baffled grin directed at me.
There was a slight pause, as though the older man was deliberating very carefully, and then he suddenly stated very matter-of-factly, "A lot of rats."
Make of that what you will but giggles by the gaijin ensued.
It was all already quite surreal as we started nearing the Chinese mainland after 48 hours and a cloud of thick pollution hung over the horizon of the canal into the port-town of Tanggu; it was promptly and aptly decided that we were entering China through its asshole.
Once we set foot on China's proverbial buttcheeks I collected my visa (to find that amusingly my name had been misspelled), passed through the SARS thermometer check (you were kindly informed to prepare for immediate quarantine in case of failure - outer Mongolia anyone?), souvenired an extra-wet and brightly shining red stamp in my passport and caught a bus to Beijing, glorious capital of the 2008 Olympic games. They already seem to be as prepared as Greece currently is; most of the area appears to be a building site or a locale for enormous modern art monuments, economically consisting of steel beams arranged in elongated geometric shapes. It'll sure be pretty here in four years.
And all that could pretty much sum up Beijing - it is a pretty strange place. In the poorer districts men generally only seem to lounge around, sip tea and chat, all the while their impressive chow-mein gut holding up their rolled up T-shirt; the women too seem to like to stand around and chat with each other on the street, often carrying a screaming child. They are amazingly friendly and seem very willing to throw token phrases of English at me and break out in giggles when I drop a Mandarin phrase out of my amazing vocabulary that consists of exactly two words. Conversely, anyone who seems to be working in a shop or behind a counter and the like are supremely grumpy towards me. The Beijingese seem to be happy doing nothing and seriously despise any sort of work - which is a pretty healthy attitude in my book (isn't stereotyping people a wonderful thing?).
Chinese national TV is also a good source of amusement. Viewing the English-language national TV channel for just a few minutes gives you a complete view of what is going on in China: everything is rising, from GDP-aquatic-food-price-confidence to constructing-asphalt-roads-into-the-middle-of-nowhere-index and other such nonsense. It's actually quite hard to make sense of anything but it all sounds pretty rosy.
Then there is the Euro 2004 football coverage which is simply hilarious - a goal is occasionally followed by a mumbled "oi" of the commentators several seconds later and most attempts at goal rarely warrant a comment, let alone a variation in tone of voice. Chinese football commentary must be the perfect antithesis to the South American one-minute crescendo screams of "GOOOOOOOOOOOL!".
But in compensation there is pretty decent and affordable food here - even if there is often more grease than you imagined possible and the flavour can be overwhelmingly intense (MSG is a way of life here).
And of course China is the place where DVD piracy has been elevated to an art form - oh, it's so beautiful, special features and all!
The nightlife is also quite entertaining (even if slightly expat-heavy who often lechily gallivant around while wife and kids are probably back in Europe). And at the end of the day there is the never-ending potential for totalitarianism/communism-related jokes that are just begging to be made here and brighten up the day - and brightening is severely needed in Beijing where hazy, smoggy skies are the rule.
Culturally I have been rather disappointed (or possibly unenthusiastic): the Forbidden City pretty much lives up to its name with most interesting-seeming areas being "forbidden for visitors" and the Chinese Wall too has evaded me - rainy days have made the climb up to the remoter sections either undesirable or just plain dangerous. And then of course, I am quite lazy too - wall, schmall, whatever.
But it's been great fun overall and not only because just like in Japan I have been spending the majority of time here with an old friend. Nevertheless, move on I must and tomorrow I hope to experience the marvels of Chinese train travel all the way across this huge country into the South. As in so many places I am afraid I will not even begin to be able to do justice to this China in such a short time.

[Weirdly I have been able to access this blog randomly at various times while at other times it seems to be blocked by the Chinese government's firewall. Strange, strange place but it feels liberating and slightly subversive to be blogging through the censorship anyway... But seriously folks, you barely notice it's not a democracy around here - could do with some of this political system elsewhere in the world, possibly.
In other news this time around I have managed to caption the photos (the Japan pics are also captioned now, btw). Click here for Albums China 1 and 2 with pictures of a skinned sheep and other random rubbish.]

It is my last day in Japan and as brief as our encounter was it has changed me more than anywhere else in the world. Japan has crept up on me - I barely noticed it amidst the flurry of confusion, excitement, isolation and peace - and today for the first time I felt its soul mingling with mine.
Before I arrived I thought that I knew Japan better than most places without ever having been there but the longer I stay the more I realise it is impossible to know Japan, ever. Japan defies comprehension and logic; all you can do is to start feeling it and listening for the vibrations that are around you everywhere, creating a symphony that initially appears to be devoid of all harmony.

When my plane touched down here I experienced sensory overload and some serious sleep deprivation. The two worked together to paralise me in fits of gigles wherever I'd look: the cute, cartoonish icons on signs; the way people were bowing enthusiastically to each other; the train conductor with white gloved hands bowing every time he'd enter or leave a compartment; the dark but brightly neoned streets of Tokyo replete with singing and dancing billboards vying for attention; the crowds of people who as soon as the traffic lights turned green would simultaneously spread all over the pedestrian crossings that dissect junctions diagonally; and the hordes of salarymen (business men) sleeping on trains clutching their mobile phones or the overhead hand-holds hanging like overworked bats in their cave.
Cool, I was in the Japan I knew from movies, stereotypes and books and was loving it. Ooh, and then there was the food: sushi, seaweed, bento lunch (or breakfast) boxes, slurpy ramen soups, gyozas, delicious sweets and finally amazing 24 hour convenience stores on almost every street corner selling most of the above. For a while I was in heaven.
I would walk the streets of aimlessly like a ghost amidst a population imbued with unfathomable purpose. It was as though I was invisible and everyone was ignoring me; the only way of making my presence known was through token konnichi was and arrigatos: I was experiencing the way of the gaijin (foreigner). As a gaijin you will never fully fit in or be treated as Japanese; a permanent stranger in a country where conformity exists even in youths' attempts at non-conformity. The fake-tanned schoolgirls applying glitter make-up compete for being kawaii (cute) with the schoolboys sporting gravity- and nature-defying hairstyles straight out of a manga; others go for the full-on goth look with Nazi-insignia blissfully nonchalant about the significance but luckily equally kawaii within their group; the arcade addicts who perfect their hand-eye co-ordination seemingly every free hour of their day, racking up perfect scores on personal favourites such as the virtual drumming, guitaring, DJing and dancing games.
But then right in between red-light districts, shopping centres and neon lights sit countless shinto and buddhist shrines and temples - even with a multi-lane highway next to them these places exude calm and peace with their manicured gardens and trees, raked gravel fields and people solemnly praying and being zen. After having seen countless cathedrals in my lifetime I couldn't help but be in awe of the shrines and their beauty. Here was a religion that didn't try to shock and awe you into submission with cold, imposing angularity and gold that screams brightly like a TV commercial advertising a vengeful God. In Japan places of worship are timelessly elegant with their gentle curves and solemnly sturdy beams of wood. They feel like living, natural objects, like forests in themselves just like a bonsai conversely feels like a man-made work of art. In shintoism there is natural beauty in everything from the most unremarkable pebble to the most majestic mountains whose silhouettes often line Japan's horizons.
After my first couple of temple visits I would have been ready to 'convert' if I were a more spiritual person and spoke Japanese. But instead I started looking inside people on the street more and thought I was feeling everyone brimming with inner peace. I would trust almost every stranger here with my life - the kindness of people here doesn't cease to amaze me and in fact Japan may very well be the most peaceful nation in the world (discounting its antics in earlier history and I don't recall ever feeling as completely safe as I do in Japan's streets).
And just when I thought I too was finding inner peace here, Japan's hyper-modern 21st century confused it all again. Shivers ran down my spine when I felt my first Shinkansen bullet-train fly past me, thundering like the furious and eponymous winds of old that twice miraculously saved Japan from the invading Mongolian armies. But maybe nowadays this modernity is in some strange economic way too saving and protecting the age-old spirituality that seems to lie diametrically opposite to it. Ultimately, however, it still doesn't make sense to me and in Kyoto I just gave up and immersed myself in more temples and shrines.
And then today, possibly induced by post Karaoke hang-over, I stopped feeling as isolated from everyone around me and I started bowing and smiling to random people in the street - and they bowed back! I actually felt that for the first time I was in some way part of it all, not a ghost anymore. Maybe if given time I could one day too be Japanese?
But no, as I was dodging bicycles on the pavement and waited obediently for a minute in front of a red traffic light on a small road with no cars in sight I realised that some things were just impossible. As I crossed the road by myself with the locals left behind me I thought that maybe they are right and gaijins can never 'learn' to become such complex and mysterious creatures as the Japanese are. Japan is a way of life and more than just loving karaoke.



[Just for the record, I love karaoke. But I am sure they will have karaoke bars in China where I'll be heading tomorrow by ferry and will be having trouble with updating this blog over the censored internet, no doubt. But there's always a way as a deeply spiritual person might say.
Apologies for not having updated for so long but the internet here is really, really expensive and Japan's been so hard to write about.
And apologies too about no pictures in this post - the internet here is giving me trouble viewing my own pictures.
Click here for Albums Japan 1, 2 and 3.. Final apologies for the lack of captions - see above for my excuse.
Wishing myself a safe voyage.]

[Click here for Albums Japan 1 and 2 with pictures (no captions yet, sorry, Japan is hectic. And proving tough to write about...]