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I am conforming into the Chinese way of life so fast. I mean, I have a Chinese Mother, Father and Sister, and I play 'Instant Uncle' to almost every infant I see, whether they like me or cry because they haven't seem someone like me before. Their parent(s) or Grandparent(s) always seem to want me to say hello to the baby, whether by shaking little hand, saying or hello, or I frequently touch those baby-skin faces. I think Chinese babies/infants are some of the cutest babies in the world. There are too many of them of course, but they are the main priority in every family. And I guess they have the right to use the bathroom wherever and whenever as well, which you see numerous times a day. Babies of all ages have these crotchless pants/pajamas that they wear and so they don't have 'drop trough' too late. Don't get me wrong though, adults will be spotted doing it as well sometime. Last night in the middle of our Mei'lei which was our 9 hour bus ride, that should have been 4, on the side of a busy round highway, a lady just goes and squats on side of road.
My buddies and I look over, and just start cracking up, which we needed to do on that crowded bus which was crawling slowly or stopped in traffic for hours. As I did play by play of the situation since there was a clear language gap, my good buddy Donald, 51 year old Floridian teacher, looks over at me and says as I am predicting the size of the accident, "this could possibly be just too many cars going one way on a two lane highway on the last day of the May Day holiday..". Whatever the case was, we didn't see any major car accident, but we did see a closed toll gate (all 6 lanes) with kilometers of cars trying to go through, big trucks and family cars back to back trying to get up a hill, which we saw a truck much ahead of them broken down, so that line of 5-7 kilometers of cars wasn't going anywhere. I haven't used this word, maybe ever, but it was a 'hairy' situation. Since we were diverted because the freeway was closed, our bus driver started guessing directions, and he definitely went 0 for his first 2, possibly made
a good decision the third time around, which led us to following another bus that was also going to Dongying. As the SocioPsych guy I am, I was reading our drivers mind and and broadcasting his good and bad decisions, which we sat in most the time. We were standing outside the bus on the freeway for a a combined hour, let along going 5 kilometers in one stretch of travel. 9 times Ferris, 9 hour bus ride. Wowow,
This was on-top of us getting two hours of sleep on-top the mountain the night before. With the start of Spring comes the May Day holiday, which is like there Spring Break, but they only get 3-day weekend (we get 4 days!). You start to hear fireworks a couple days ahead of time which continue thru May Day, because fireworks signify celebration and are very common here, especially during holidays and weddings. Anyway, with four days off of school, our Managers assistant Louis was putting a trip to Tai'shan mountain together, and I jumped on board.
Life in China is becoming so normal. Nowadays, I see two of my students from Shane, Buzz and Mickey, in my neighborhood playing basketball
or walking home from school. As well, I see other students from my Shane and Shiyan classes, walking/riding their bikes home for lunch, going back to school, or playing after school. I hear 'Maygwa' a lot when walking through my community, because I think it's common knowledge that there is an American staying in the living complex now. Plus my bike's engine doesn't exactly help me keep a low profile. Anyway, that's not who I am. I walk through the gates of my community and I chase 2-3 little kids who hangout a lot, and they get scared and run into their Mom and Dads shop. I also have started to see more and more students on the road, whether I pass them on my bike, or like today, when I see a flock of students. I spotted my student Gavin from my cab today. Cool kid, who last class while discussing jobs, said he wanted to be a professional runner. Then I have 3-4 local restaurants I eat at frequently, and who are very friendly with me. It's like I am surrounded by a lot of good people, not even including the wonderful work environment I get to work
in five days a week.
So four of us set off for Mount Taishan Sunday morning, after we worked a full day on Saturday. Lois, who is the TA Manager and Assistant to our boss, Donald, Wayne (from Ireland, studies at U of Dublin) and I. They met at the school and I met them all at the Dongying bus station so we could catch our 7:30 am bus. It was a busy day at the station with many people traveling for May/Labor Day. We start to board and I see our bus, it's a short bus! We had maybe 10 rows of seats, and we all sat in the back. Lois had these funny red glasses on that didn't seem to fit her well but she loved them and we told her they looked great. There were also two teachers from Shane School in West City Dongying that were on our bus. For how big (at least to me) this city, I have been bumping into a lot of people I know frequently. So we depart and are off to the sacred, ancient and tall mountain. Plan is to grab lunch when we arrive, start climbing, sleep on-top
and come down the next day, and that's precisely what took place.
There are no standard ways of driving out here, so we have our fair share of laughs driving in wrong lanes sometimes, going wrong direction, and many close-calls. But bus drivers are bus drivers for a reason, they know the roads, and the Chinese way of driving. It's always amazing to simply stair out the window at everything you are passing whether its a somewhat urban part or the most common rural parts, because there is always something interesting taking place outside. Something you wouldn't normally see, or do. I start to receive text messages from my Chinese father and sister, as they found out from my good buddy 'Farmer' that we scratched our Shanghai plans since we only had four days off instead of the five we thought, and Shanghai is an 10-12 hour journey from here, and instead going to climb famous Mount Taishan. That's when I remembered it was fathers hometown. So then my Chinese sisters calling me and wants me, us, to have lunch with them when we arrive. Our English conversation can only go so far so Lois talks with her and
says after she hangs up, they are going to pick us up. Originally Lois' colleague was going to meet us. Meanwhile, I am seeing mountains, pine tree-looking trees covering the mountains, and big lakes for the first time in China. Being the every summer camp guy, I love the outdoors and mountains so I am getting so excited and happy! Lois looks back at me and says, who is this Chinese family of yours? And I tell her how they have a restaurant close to my house and I got to know them well. They take great care of me and my friends and have my picture up at nearly every table in their restaurant now, including two huge ones; one of those being in 'my' room, which is the most formal dining room at their BBQ restaurant. Yes, it's crazy. But it feels cool at the same time. The story goes during the last holiday, Tomb Sweeping holiday, we were having a 'Hot-Pot' (very common form of meal where you boil food in the middle of table over a flame and choose what you want to put in there) lunch with some other Chinese friends, and I went over
to say hello to folks and a younger girl walks up to me and says, "Hello Chinese brother"! It was the daughter of my Chinese Parents, who I didn't even know they had a daughter. It was the craziest thing. Farmer named her 'Rose'.
So we reach the outskirts of the town of Ti'an, and Lois yells to the driver to drop us off on the street corner ahead. On Chinese buses, you can dropped off at any point in the journey by just telling bus driver to drop you off here. So we exit bus, I am drinking a beer, and suddenly my sister begins to yell at me, Peter Peter Peter! Somehow from the short conversation Lois had with her, we were able to meet them so spontaneously. We all just inside the family Hyundai and drive down some crazy cool streets (as in third world crazy cool) and arrive at their house. It feels so cool to be greeted this way because we set off not knowing any of this was going to happen. We go up to their fourth story apartment, and the family is there to greet us and stuff. I look over and
there is one of the many pictures of me and friends at Chinese fathers shop that he must have sent them from Dongying. I just think,m that's so nutty! We have an amazing lunch, in the Chinese fashion. Sitting on short stools and a lower than normal table, and there was 9 of us around the table and ten delicious dishes starring right up at us. Grandma is sitting on the couch watching Tv on this nice flat screen. Then she occasionally goes over to put her eye drops in because she is losing her vision at age 79. Her Aunt who had cooked us dinner was ganbei'ing with us, which is to 'Cheers' or the literal meaning is to drink your cup dry. She also made all the food, so it's a delight to be sipping Taishan beer with the cook. Plus women don't usually smoke or drink here, so it's also cool in that regard. They are encouraging us to eat a lot as well because they know how big the climb will be for us. Lois is translating some for me when I would want to cheers to them for having us, state my Thank you in
a kind way, etc. Rose's English is ok because she has been studying English at U of Tai'an. As I state my thanks, they say, your family, no thanks needed. It was just such a happy lunch and place to be. The only reason I called them that in the first place because my Chinese parents were always so happy and good to me, not knowing any Chinese that first month. And it clearly runs in the family because the two Aunts, Rose and her cousin who we named Daisy, the two uncles and Grandma were just so warm and welcoming to us. Daisy's boyfriends is in the back bedroom sleeping I guess because he worked all night. They are clearly a middle-upper class family in China.
After dinner, us boys jumped in one of the Uncles Buicks, which was very nice, and the girls rode together. They drove us down to the sacred prayer spot and ancient village below the mountain. There we took photos and said our prayers before starting our accent. Since we have to pay to get in, they wait outside for an hour then we meet back up with them and they take us
to our starting point. All this driving is really nice of them and unnecessary really. It's just our of the kindness of the heart, and maybe because I'm family. We can taxi all these places, but they insist on driving us and we aren't complaining, at all!
At the base we see a lot of tourists and people walking around. There is a lot of traffic and we understand there are probably a half million people that will climb the mountain (or take Gondola up) during the 3-day May holiday. We take a bus up to the starting part and begin our climb. We realize earlier that this will not be the old fashioned way of hiking/trekking like we have done at home, these are 9,000 stairs we have come to tackle. There are small villages selling food, drinks and souvenirs every now and then, and usually many people swarming around. The first part is a little hard because our legs aren't used to it, but after a short bit, we were off to the races. We made good time climbing up and reached the summit before sunset. Many people who we would pass and see on the way
up,. we would flip-flop being in front and back of them. So we made a lot of friends on the way up. I would do my hello to the whole barge of people coming down the other way and some would respond with the famous Chinese hello! We must have seen maybe a handful of laiwei, 1 guy from Poland, 1 guy from Canada, 1 girl from Canada, then we saw two guys from East Coast at the bus station who were trying to climb mountain in three hours. Good luck! So there clearly wasn't many foreigners, but there were a lot of people. At one point, I busted out on my harmonica playing on the side of the busy stairway drinking a beer, then stopping and saying 'I love China' or 'Mount Taishan is number One' , have a little watermelon and pretty soon I had a crowd of 75-100 people cheering me on and clapping. It was just something so un-ordinary of any Chinese to do, so they love that type of character and change, especially come from a foreigner. (Just got a text from Aussie buddy Adam in West seeing if I want to make 200 kua
tonight teaching 8 3-4 year olds? Don't think so because we are going for bike ride to Swan Lake today and I want to be well rested for next four days of work starting tomorrow. But this just an example of how normal life has become for me here.
So we reached the top with our 20-30 new friends, everyone with big smiles of accomplishment of their faces. The last 1,000 or so stairs are very steep so there is a lot of stopping that last hour of climbing. By the way, all these stairs are made of rock, that Chinese workers have assembled. So they carried all this really heavy rock up the mountain to make this walkway. Simply crazy! It was to cloudy to see a good sunset, but nonetheless, we were thrilled to be up at the top and now needed to get our sleeping arrangement figured out. With is getting cold, we realized that the hammocks we bargained for and bought at the bottom of the mountain weren't going to do it tonight. Plus we start to see a lot of these big Chinese green jackets that people rent to stay warm at the top.
Lois gets one, but the rest of us are good. We hike up to where we see a lot of people setting up shop and realize our best bet is to get a tent. So the four us share a 2 person tent (200 kua for 1 night tent) up top. Now this place we slept at and on, was a mess, Slumdog Millionaire style. It gets dark soon. I run down to little village that rests at the summit of the mountain and purchase some 30 kua beers so we can play some categories as we fall asleep. It was a long day so we are tired. So as the three of them get cozy in 2 person tent, I sit outside starting a tiny fire (because fires weren't allowed but we needed some light, and heat) right outside our tent. I am sitting on wood pieces and trash practically. I love camping so it's just sweet to be in such a small area, camping again. I eventually jump in the tent and us four spoon the night away, while our feet stick out of the tent getting frozen by the nights chill. We didn't get much sleep and
would wake up to people going to the bathroom close to our tent all the time. Then when I had to get up and go pee, this tent close to ours begun yelling at me like I was pissing on their tent. I was bare-footed walking outside. I could barely stand up straight because the ground was so messy. They woke up for the sunset at 4 am, but I pressed the snooze button and said I would hold down the fort and watch our stuff. Again they said it was a cloudy sunset so didn't miss much, and I got two more hours of sleep, and actually got to spread my legs out too.
That next morning we hiked to the very top for three hours, seeing all the ancient Temples where the Emperors would stay when they came to Mount Taishan. A lot of history up there. We must have posed for over a hundred photos during all of our climbing, with adults and kids. We were celebrities. I was wearing some bunny ears some girl had giveen me me when I complimented her on them. They loved us. But the top was sweet, and the hike
was amazing. I love the great outdoors.
After our morning hike, we took the Gondola down and were ready to get home! We got to the bus station, and with everyone traveling back home after 3 day holiday, it was packed and we had to wait four hours for next bus. Crazy thing is, you can only buy your bus ticket one day in advance in China? Yeah, so you can't buy roundtrip bus tickets which can clearly make things longer and drawn out. After eating some lunch, we ran into 5 West City teachers camped out in front of the Tai'an bus station waiting for our 4 o'clock bus. It was actaully one of my good riding riding buddies Darcy, who also trained me in Januaray when I first got her. He was with his new fiance, who he proposed to a week prior. A very cool Chinese girl Millie (at least that's her English name) who goes on our motorbike adventures with us and is just a really cool guy's girl. Darcys brother who had just spen two weeks in Thailand, in Phuket and Bangkok, and now was in China for a month to visit his brother, and learn about his serious romance as well! Lol. Then English Peter, who is still recovering from a January bike accident and still has crutches (so he made journey but stayed in hotel room while others climbed) and a Chinese guy Victor, a former teacher at West City. So we sat in front of the station chatting and having some beers while wasting away time before we caught our bus. Darcys bro said that Bangkok sucked and there are a lot of crooked stuff going on between cops and taxis and targeting foreigners. I will be riding with Darcy, his bro and some others soon so I need to finish this up and tell you about the 9 hour bus ride home next time! Yeah, 4 hour bus ride turned 9 hours. It was some crazy stuff. Can you say a parking lot on a highway, for hours! At one point when we were moving, we went 5 kilometers in one hour.
Mount Taishan was amazing and a journey I will never forget! A lot of weird spirtiual things have been happening to me ever since I climbed those holy grounds. At the bottom, our taxi driver had a Padres jacket on, the first Padres gear besides my own I had seen in China. I ran into this girl at the bus station with a shirt that said San Diego and La Jolla all over it. Then last night I predicted where these people where going after we had a big feast at my Chinese parents place. I think the sacredness of my prayers, along with making it to the top, has made me, more holy! With some 'Rain Man' characteristics already in me, I hope this sacredness keeps on coming, and maybe I'll run into my future bride soon! I will add some video to this blog soon from atop the mountain.
To fill you in on Mount Tai'shan. Tai'shan is famous for it's 'First of Five Sacred Mountains', which is also called 'The First Mountain Under Heaven and 'Chinese Holy Mountain'. In 1987 it was added to 'World Natural and Cultural Heritage' list by the United Nations and in 2002 crowned 'Top Ten Famous Mountains'. In 2006 named 'World Geological Park'. There are more than 20 ancient architectural complexes and more than 2,200 stone stairs or steles, which have attracted worldwide admiration since ancient times, from the First Emperor of Qin to Emperor Wudi of Han, and to the emperor of Qing Dynasty. More than ten emperors came to Taishan and held their celestial rituals, offering sacrifice to gods on heaven and earth.
For now, all my best from a place overflowing with people, delicious food and third world ways of life.
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