China travelling

I was glad that this trip to China gave me a chance to travel. And prior to this trip, the candidate destinations were those I hadn’t been before. But as Sam Gung’s passing went into the mix and people had to make decisions, and bullet train tickets during the Spring Festival period became fewer, the destinations became Shantou and, later, Zhaoqing. Both places I had been before; Shantou I’d been to pre-NZ return but Christy had been unwell so apart from the riverside and a few trips out for the local cuisine, it was unmemorable; Zhaoqing, I had a history with having visited way back in my first visit in 2000, and then with my sister in 2010. That all being said, I was happy to stomp their ground again.

Shantou was interesting if only because others would say that there was “nothing to see” – plenty of people were asking why we’d go. But there was plenty to see, and more importantly for us and the two friends who we went with, people to see. Guangdong, although synonymous with Cantonese and Cantonese culture, is home to a multitude of cultures. The majority culture of Shantou is actually more akin linguistically and culturally with Fujian Province further up the coast. And those areas speak a dialect of Chinese that is not identifiable in any way to Mandarin, Cantonese or Shanghainese. It probably split at least two thousand years from other Chinese dialects which in a western respect puts it well beyond where the Romans unified Europe. Most of those Romance languages have some similarity to each other, say French to Portuguese to Italian, which is analogous to China’s dialects in a way. But Shantou language is more distant. And thus its culture too is more distant, too.

Culture though is not that readily visitable unless you can speak with people and those were some people were the key sites to see! Our main guide was a previous student who had kept in touch with our friends. She took us back alley eateries, baristas as well as the best restaurants for Shantou cuisine.

The barista element took me by surprise – although a tea city, the coffee was probably the best I had ever had in China. We got take to one superb café, but stumbled on another which matched it.

My runs in Shantou were the most interesting of the trip. Shantou being a port city, it is close to the ocean as well as estuaries, so my runs also went along these. One my first run, I encountered the most surreal scene: As I approached a bend in the seaside promenade, I heard shouting, but not the argumentative kind. It was like a primal scream or loud, visceral sighing from different voices. As I approached there were middle aged men, topless, who may have just emerged from their swim in the estuary, one was stark naked dousing himself with fresh water, others were projecting their qi loudly into the bay. I ran past them with a mutual greeting, one even ran after me obviously infected by exuberance for running. The scream/sighing continued but I realised it wasn’t just coming from the men behind me but also from the bay itself. I spotted heads bobbing around in the water to see multiple men slowly cruising to shore with a life preserver, one of the reading aloud a famous poem from Mao Zedong, each verse being greeting with the qi explosions from the men on shore. With a bit of distance I took videos of this and no one could explain the middle-age man primal screams to me. 

River swimming is a thing, even in this so-called winter. You saw people swimming in the murky waters in Qingyuan and Zhaoqing. But it was Shantou that turned me into David Attenborough, trying to fathom where this all came from. And still do not know.

On another run, I bumped into another runner and had a nice conversation – the first I had with a fellow runner since arriving. The difference was probably that he too was a tourist having arrived a day later than me and also randomly looking for a place to train.

Our Zhaoqing trip was of a different nature because it was with family, ten of us in total, and we stayed in a 民宿 (minsu), which translates directly into “homestay” or “boarding with a local” but it’s more akin to Airbnb. We all went into a three storey renovated old building with all of us fitting into the four bedrooms. It had a “lounge” which was a table that you could play mahjong on. Since my trips in 2000 and 2010, it has developed quickly – no similarity to the place I went on each occasion. The constant was the main site, the Seven Star Crags, a series of large limestone towering peaks that emerge out of a lake area. Our minus was on a peninsula opposite now with a multitude of really good restaurants and cafes. The first day we mainly ate, drank and scoped out the place, especially Paifang Park, which we used hireable bikes to go to and from. Being a family trip, it was a good time to talk and I heard our niece, who is now an adult talking much more than I had ever heard before. The following day was a big day on and around the Crags. Christy and I were the only ones to climb one, the rest of the family happy to walk around them and use the boats to explore. One advantage of going with a family group is it took me out of my usual minimalist approach to parks – I would never usually shell out for a full ticket with all the boats, bells and whistles, but there was some benefit in this. The boat ride into a cave was actually worth it, and with older folk in our group, boat rides were a good way to break up the exertions.

Our final day was a site I had not been to, Dinghu Mountain (鼎湖山). It was a significant mountain because of it having a lake at the top, and also a significant Buddhist temple. For the average foreign visitor, it is not that interesting unless you really like temples. And although you can walk the whole mountain, we did this mountain with three shuttle buses up and three shuttle buses down. It is quite the carry-on with buying tickets, queuing and getting on and off.

We still have travel dreams in China. Despite an untold number of trips to China, I have not been to the North-East, home to some of my favourite cuisines, Xinjiang, deliciously dangerous, and we both want to go to Xi'an, me for the second time, Christy for her first. She also wants to see Qingdao, which is another city I have not visited. And we have barely scratched the surface of Hunan province. At this time still, travels outside of Qingyuan cost quality time in so the parents or family are either with us, or we travel closer to home. There is no rush though, even with an incredible four weeks of holiday we did not achieve all we wanted to do. The rest will wait for another day.