Swimming at Sunset

---

It can be hard being a white person is Asia. Obviously I'm stupidly lucky compared to a lot of the locals. I am educated, I have health insurance, I can afford to travel across the world to be here. But occasionally I go through phases when the constant being ripped off gets to me. The way rice noodle soup will cost 3 Yuan when you go with your Chinese friend but double the price when you go back alone the next day. The bananas- you ask "how much?”, in Chinese. He answers, in Chinese, “8 Kwai”. He looks up and sees you are foreign- the price is suddenly in English and much higher. “You said 8 already. Not good, not good” is all the arguing my mandarin is up to. Not good, not good. I get that I will pay foreigner prices, or 'foreigner speaking mandarin' prices, which I accept are substantially cheaper but I don't like the lies. I don't like being told the price and then it changing. usually its ok. Barganing is a game. Its meant to be fun and leave each person satisfied. Any arguing is done with a smile and a laugh. But the game can be not so fun if you are western.

Sometimes its too easy because the starting price is just too ridiculous and they know it. I am glancing at a dress in a shop. The shop keeper, hovers over my shoulder. “200 yuan” she says. I just look at her. “OK, 100” she says. You turn to go. “40” she calls. “30...20”. I don't actually want a dress. I walk away to a waterfall of lower prices called after me.

You cant blame them really. Get what you can. But to sell a few things at a massive profit, or to sell prolifically at a smaller profit? I guess its a common business question. Id say the second option leaves everyone happier but then again I'm not trying to make my living selling shawls to tourists, so what do I know.

Shopkeeper language is one of the best forms of Chinglish. Its a messy regurgitation of everything ever said in their store. Calls of “just looking, Just looking” are supposed to entice you inside. While wall hangings are proudly advertised as “this one's too big”.

I think the reason that the being ripped off started to get to me was because I had decided to try my hand at being a local for a bit. The plan was to take a break from the stress of full time travel and spend some time working.

China is full of people who want to speak english. Some are lucky enough to be able to realize this dream, often aided private language schools. If you want to be part of this revolution then having any sort of academic qualifications and a firm grasp of the English language (a skill which comes quite naturally to me) is all you need. So, for the month of July (yes, I know I'm behind) I found myself responsible for teaching the Queens English to a charming but exhausting class of 10 year old boys. We had a big classroom and one boy had a tendency to get up mid lesson and run laps around it, full pelt. A habit not even curbed by the Chinese teachers physically picking him up. It was a great thing to do and they really were lovely children. In one lesson we were writing about “who I admire”, and I had a nice little ode written all about me! Generally it was a bit of a confidence boost. Nothing went horribly wrong and I discovered I could vaugely communicate, if not control my students. They liked me, I liked them and I think we both learned at least something!

The other students at the school were mainly adults and both them and the teachers were really nice. The management however was generally rather chaotic, and I seemed to have joined during a period of unrest which added an unfortunate work politics angle to an otherwise idyllic position. The main problem, and this seems to tie into the “loosing face” issue, that is prevalent in China, is that no-one admits to being wrong- the different bullshit they spout everyday was what they always meant. Instead of saying simply “I dont know” an answer is picked out of the blue, a different one everyday if need be. When I agreed to work at the summer camp, I agreed to different hours, different days, different dates, different aged students and different general conditions. For the teachers who were there longer term, these inconsistencies were obviously a problem but in the end, I liked my students and I was only staying for a few weeks so it didn't really matter. I could deal with politics all the while being cradled by beautiful mountains in one of the most revered destinations in China,

Yangshuo is a tropical place. The town is on the Li river and is surrounded by stunning karst peaks, rising straight up out of the ground. From the window of my little room the nearest mountain was only 100 meters away. Yellowy white limestone streaked with black and scattered with green shrubs. At night they are lit up with floodlights and the yellow stands out against the black sky. Its a hot place, with temperatures usually in the mid thirties without a single breeze. This, combined with the excessive humidity makes the heat quite intense. It hits you as you walk out the door and weighs you down as you search for the next air conditioned retreat. In my spare time I became a bit obsessed with the heat index- a figure that combines temperature and humidity to tell you what temperature it actually feels like- i.e. how capable your body is of dealing with it. I can conclusively say that during my entire stay in Yangshuo the heat index was officially stupidly high, 100% of the time.

My room was in school provided accommodation. Although the room itself can't really be described as nice (me and my landlord communicated the contstant stream of problems using my ever usueful mandarin dictionary), my view was gorgeous and it was wonderful to have some space to myself after months of dorms. When I first got my room, I didn't have AC and on the second night the tiny fan so kindly provided, spluttered, then, despite my desperate attempts at first aid, whirred out of its meagre existance. The following few nights the heat index topped at 51 degrees. I wasn't a very rested Tamara. One of my happiest moments in that flat was when my air conditioning was installed. It broke again on the thrid day but that first night of cool sleep revitalised me and cured my fast developing heatstroke. My second happiest moment in that accommodation was the night when I managed commandeer a mattress. It was skulking in the hall outside my room and didn't seem to have a home so I thought “why not”. After all, I did quite need a mattress. When I walked into my flat a few days before the bed frame was being changed- not sure why I needed a new bed but I was learning to take things as they come, random sporadic alterations to everything from electric fans to working hours. I went out again to get out of the way. When I came back a few hours later, my old bed was gone, my new bed was neatly made- I sat down. “Ooh, its hard!”. My old sheets were laid out on a new wooden bed frame. Just the bed frame. My mattress was gone. It was a hard life.

So, I adapted to my environment. I stole matressess, gorged on the local rice noodles and even started loving cold showers. A strategy adapted in an attempt to return my body temperature to normal! My room was on the third floor, and for some insane reason the roof of the corridor was made of glass. Glass I tell you- thats effectively a green house! What a flawed design! Climbing up to my floor could be unbearable and it was a race against time and possibly collapse to unlock my door and get in. Leaving was be a bit of a mission.

Of course there was respite from the heat. We caught the edge of quite a few typhoons, usually downgraded to tropical storms by the time they hit us. Tropical rain is a lovely thing. The whole world darkens and the sky becomes a strangely luminous shade of grey. Then the wind picks up and the usually still trees, begin to dance. The thunder rumbles and on cue the skies open. Big heavy rain drops come pouring down and within a second everything is drenched. Then the rain stops. The thunder continues for a little while but then loosing motivation rolls away and the heat returns. For maybe half an hour the humidity is reduced, but then its back and the sweat sits unevaporated on everyone's skin.

Apart from waiting for a typhoon, the best thing to do to cool down was to go jump in the river. Its wide and deep and worryingly murky but the current isn't too strong and its wonderfully refreshing. There was little I appreciated more in my life in Yangshuo than floating on my back in the river. Bamboo lined shores, jugged peaks and a blue blue sky. The hum of cicadaes and the shouts of other swimmers. A few times a week, a group of us would go down to the river after school and swim of the docks. We werent the only ones. Its a community activity and the often non-swimming chinese take to the water in all manner of flotation devices. As the sun sets and dusk thickens the crowds thin. A few times we braved the mosquitoes and stayed on. Swimming by moonlight surrounded by shadowy mountains with the town lit up down stream. Days were punctuated with lessons, noodles and sleep. Most evenings, all the teachers would end up in the same comfy cafe, where we'd watch the tourists go by and moan about school over a gin and tonic. At the weekend we'd go out so some bars, dance in one of the extremely cheesy clubs or crash a students karaoke session at the rent-a-room style KTV karaoke bars. Nights would invariably end at the local reggae bar before a pre bed noodlesession. The next day would be brunch and a trip to the 'secret beach'. A highly un-clandestine but beautiful location, within biking distance of town, where unripe pomelos bobbed in the water and the water was warm and shallow.

And that was that. I don't think Yangshuo was a place I could have stayed too long, the town is small and day to day life is a bit too regular and perhaps too easy. Saying that, the scenery was something that I don't think I could have ever got fed up of. It constantly took my breath away at the same time as inducing a wonderful sense of calm. The mountains were old and sheltering. There was no need to leave the comfortable world they provided, and while I was there I did surprisingly little exploring.

I met some lovely people and had a great time but my days as an English teacher were numbered. I was excited. And not just to be moving again. Leaving Yangshuo I was heading back to Hong Kong to meet Alex at airport. I had made it on my own from Bristol to south China in around four months, with surprisingly few mishaps. But I was full of numbered days and my time as a solo traveller was coming to an end. The next phase of my adventure was about to begin.

---

Photos

Birthday party with the teachers
(not mine!)

Moon Hill
A famous peak.

Comments

[mummy]

so many beautiful mountains!
I am amazed to see from your lovely pictures that all the unbelievably magical chinese mountains I had seen in pictures are real!