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Published: December 21st 2005
David.
Well we were both quite sad to leave wulingyuan as it was so beautiful, but what better way to banish our blues than a bit of Chairman Mao mania?
The train journey from Zhangjaijie to Changsha was the shortest that we had made in China so we went for hard seats instead of sleeper. The only thing of note on the journey was the group of chinese journalists who were sat with us. They were really friendly, really interested in the UK and just made up that we had decided to visit China. The journey flew by chatting away to them.
We arrived in Changsha late so had to take the first hotel we found, by the train station. The train station area of any city is never the best but Changsha was really nasty. It was just so crowded, loads of homeless people and beggars. It was so cold as well, it made me feel a bit odd that we were going to be tucked up nice and warm in our hotel. Some of the beggars were in really bad ways too, it really tugs at the heart strings. In a country so overcrowded and with no real social security that is the way it goes though. We may complain about the ammount of people on benefits in the UK, but it is preferable to the situation some of these poor souls are in.
After checking into our hotel we were soon introduced to another cultural difference. The phone rang and a girl on the other end of the phone started speaking in Chinese. I told her I only speak English and she apologised and said 'I come up now?' I assumed it was reception and that there was a problem with our passport number or something and said 'OK, come up'.
Five minutes later the phone goes again and we have exactly the same conversation.
Five minutes later there is a knock on the door and Bec answers it.
Imagine her surprise in opening the door to a lady who worked in 'the oldest profession'!!!
Bec informed her that we weren't taking visitors and sent her on her way! Apparently this happens often in cheaper chinese hotels. We know for next time!
Anyway, Changsha is the capital of Hunan province, and the location of the first communist party office. Hunan is the province where Mao was born so he is still held in high esteem in these parts, and there are plenty of museums about Mao and communism in the area.
We woke early the next morning ready for a real whistle stop tour of Changsha, as we had booked a sleeper out of there that night!
Firstly we made our way to the former office of the Hunan communist party commitee. Set in quite grand surroundings, a large park with well tended flowerbeds, a huge gleaming statue of the big man, marble tablets showing his poetry (???) and an exhibition room with pictures of a smiling Mao and statues of intense looking workers, their faces set with a look of steely determination that seems to be the fashion for any statue commemorating communism.
The former office itself is tiny though, a small building with only 4 rooms, 2 are living quarters (Mao used to live here), one is the kitchen and the other is a small meeting room with space for ten cramped people, but not enough chairs to accomodate them! I could just imagine Mrs. Mao bringing the communists a brew and biccies in from the kitchen while they were plotting their next Geurrilla strike, and warning Mao that his friends had to leave at ten. I'm sure it never happened like that, but in my head it did.
If you don't have an interest in recent chinese history and propoganda it's not really worth the visit, but i found it quite amazing. It illustrates the power vacuum which must have existed in China at the time, for an organisation so small to have grown, defeated the nationalist government and today be a genuine superpower. It also illustrates the charisma that 'the great helmsman' must have had to lead them there.
We took a walk through Leishi park, which was nice enough but nothing too remarkable, then decided to get some lunch. We went into a nice looking place and Bec did a bit of point and choose with a bloke eating what looked like soupy noodles.
Imagine our surprise (given the current bird flu panic) when the bloke brought out a tray containing a plate of thinly sliced raw chicken, two uncooked quail eggs, noodles and veg. We weren't too sure where this one was going till he brought out a bowl of bubbling stock and whacked it all in.
A few minutes later he gave us the thumbs up and to be fair to him it was delicious, the chicken so thinly sliced it was cooked beautifully and the eggs poached to perfection in the stock.
Next we took a bus outside town to the Lei Feng memorial museum.
The story of Lei Feng is an odd one. I'll give you the facts rather than my opinion and let you decide for yourself. Born a peasant in 1940, he faced hardship from his evil landlord (landlords were public enemy no.1 to the communists) and Japanese occupation, he was orphaned, joined the communist army where he was a model soldier until he died in 1962 in a traffic accident. The following year the communist party lionized him, urging the people of China to behave like Lei Feng, the perfect citizen and releasing the pictures of him.
The museum itself contains all the photos of Lei Feng, which there seem to be an awful lot of for a peasant soldier in 1960. Lei Feng helping an old lady across the road (honestly), washing the clothes of a sick fellow soldier, reading from the little red book to other soldiers, to children, Lei Feng having a huge smile on each photo. There is a statue of Lei Feng carrying a cement bag, commemorating when he organised a few soldiers to move eight million (possible exageration on my part) bags of cement during a rain storm. There are even cartoons from the 60's showing Lei Fengs childhood struggles against oppression.
The funniest bits were pictures drawn by modern day school kids showing Lei Feng as a superhero, or sharing his ice cream with all the kids and other whacky things.
There was also a great picture of Lei Feng, all soft focus, in his peoples army uniform with the big fur hat on, his gun across his chest, looking into the distance Che Guevara style, which is going on a T-shirt when I get back to the UK.
I thought the museum was well worth the visit if you want to see some great examples of propoganda from the 60's, but if you're not interested in politics or recent Chinese history then Changsha is definetely not the place for you!
As we left we also saw a great sign telling you to keep off the grass, but taking a paragraph to do it. It's called 'Chinglish' and there are some brilliant examples of it around China.
Then it was time to get out of Changsha. We had a great meal on the way to the train station, Chilli beef with 4 different types of Chilli fighting it out to burn your tastebuds off. The dried ones seemed to win though. Afterwards I couldn't feel my lips and my heart was beating like I'd just ran a marathon. It said in the guidebooks that Hunanese food was spicy and they weren't kidding. Best meal in China so far (except the beijing duck but it's unfair to compare any meal to that).
Off to Guangzhou on the sleeper train. Bec can tell you about that one.
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neil
non-member comment
Merry Christmas
Hi Guys great to hear from you and well chuffed your having a ball. Will have to check out the Chinese press for news of the new posh and becks!! Anyway Have a gorgeous Christmas and carry on living life to the full. Bless you Love Neil and Lol