Hohot

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I never made it to the sand dunes or grasslands of Inner Mongolia, but the capital city of Hohhot was extremely interesting.

We set off on a Friday night for a location further north, but by the time we had bought our tickets, all of the beds had been sold out, and only seats were left. We spent the whole night and the rest of the next day sitting in seats that couldn't recline on a crowded train as it wound through the country side of China (although there were some pretty areas, that last part might sound much more majestic than it actually was). You see, not only can you buy tickets for beds and seats on trains in China, but you can also buy "standing" tickets which means that you pay to stand in the aisles. This particular train was extremely crowded. There was a sea of people in the aisle, and it was almost impossible to wade your way to the bathroom. By noon the next day, we decided that we couldn't take sitting in uncomfortable positions on a crowded train anymore, and we decided to get off early in Hohhot, some hours short of our final destination.

At first Hohhot appeared to be just some other Chinese city. The sky was hazy with what I assumed were pollutants, and I couldn't spot any thing that seemed remotely remarkable about this location. The more time that we spent in Hohhot however, the more I liked the city.

One of the things that I first noticed was how friendly the people were. Often times people would see us and call out, "Helloooo," (or actually it sounded more like, "Hulleeeeeeer"). It was probably some of the only English they knew. These weren't shop owners looking for business like most other places in China; it was just people on the streets. Maybe it was because there are so few foreigners there; for a while, I thought that we were the only ones. Maybe as a result of this, shop owners didn't try to rip us off too much. When you're in places like Beijing and Tianjin, sometimes people will try to charge you ridiculous amounts for simple things because they think that as a foreigner, you won't know any better. For example, in Tianjin some one tried to sell my classmate a pack of cigarettes for a price that would have come out to $20 USD. In Hohhot, no one really did this. If they jacked up the price, it really wasn't any higher than the price that they would have tried to sell it to Chinese people for, and I appreciated that.
Another result of having so few foreigners was that as soon as you started dealing with the locals, a whole crowd of people would gather round to watch. There were a few times when we were bartering for services, and our small group was surrounded by people who were curious to listen to the foreigners talk. My last day in Hohhot, I met a very friendly couple of about my age. They treated me to the Hohhot natural history museum and to lunch, and then we slayed zombies together at an arcade. While we were talking with each other at the museum's restaurant, I happened to look up, and I noticed that every one in the booths down the row from us had stopped doing what ever it was that they had been doing and were staring at us. It's not a mean stare... I dunno... they're just really, really curious.

Another thing that I noticed about Hohhot was the youth culture. The young people (teens to mid twenties?)'s fashion was a lot more visual than any where else in China that I've visited thus far. I noticed it on the train coming into Inner Mongolia too. The closer we got to Inner Mongolia, the more interesting the youth looked. I saw a lot of Chinese people with long, curled, spiked, teased or permed hair that had been dyed red, blond or some unnatural shade of brown. People here generally had more piercings too; I saw some men with earrings and other people with studs in their nose. I mean, this might not seem extreme by American standards, and you'll see this elsewhere in China, but it's not as prevalent as it was in Hohhot, so by comparison this seemed very striking. It was also in Hohhot that I saw the only other person in China with a lip ring besides myself. I'm joking a little -the Chinese people I met tell me that other Chinese have lip rings, but their numbers are very few. Considering that apart from myself, I only saw one other person with one during my two months here, I'd have to agree. Another thing that was really popular in Hohhot was fake tattoos. While we were here, we decided to get our hair cut by some of the most interesting looking hair dressers we cold find. In retrospect, they weren't that interesting looking in comparison to every one else. Actually, they were probably about equal, but they knew what they were doing, and they did a good job. That was the best 10 RMB hair cut I ever got;10 RMB is about $1.50 USD. But seriously, I'm not being sarcastic! they were really good!

Towards the center of the city, people seemed to be more fashionable too. One of the things that Surprised me about Hohhot was the HUGE shopping area. I'm not sure if you'd call it a district, but there was this famous place called "Manda" (or was it "Manba"?) that every one told us to go to. It was GIGANTIC, like a shopping city! I went into this one building that had what would have been a few city blocks were dedicated solely to shoe stores. This mall had four levels. I spent two days perusing the racks. It's not that I'm a fiend for shopping, it just seriously too that long to see everything. I never would have expected to find any of this in Inner Mongolia.

There's also a really large Muslim district in Hohhot. Truthfully, I don't know what they call it. I tried to describe it to a few Chinese people by saying things in Chinese like "The Muslim District," and "That place over there with the really unique architecture," but people only really knew what I was talking about but most people just seemed to refer to it as, "that place over there." My friends and I stumbled across this one street full of little shops in a row of sheds like the type that you might see at a state fair one night, and we thought that was the Muslim District, but we were very very wrong. As I'd soon discover, a large portion of the city just changes for as far as the eye can see once you turn down a certain street. If it hadn't been for the Chinese people running around and the Chinese characters on signs, I wouldn't have known that I was in China. The architecture was completely different - it looked like pictures of the Middle East. To add to the feeling of stumbling into some alien world, quite a few of the signs were in Mongolian which I can best describe as a "squiggly vertical writing."

Although the majority of the population in Inner Mongolia is Han Chinese, there are quite a few Mongols as well as other ethnic groups. We met some very interesting Mongolians while we were there and it seemed to us that Mongolian sounds similar to some type of Slavic language. It was very interesting. On the subject of language, people had a hard time understanding us in Hohhot. we could understand them, but we had to repeat ourselves a few times before they understood could understand us. I never really had this problem in the places that I've been to thus far. Even now I don't really understand why it was so much harder for people in Hohhot to understand us than it was for people elsewhere in China. I will assume that it's because the language and vocabulary that I've been learning and using in and around the Beijing area isn't quite the same as what they use in Hohhot, but my time there really wasn't enough to investigate this.

A high point of Hohhot was the food. More specifically, lamb. Lamb was everywhere, but some of the best lamb I had was lamb on skewers from the Muslim District. Mmmmm~ I feel like my most memorable experience here however was interacting with the people. I met so many nice people during the short time that I was there. People aren't necessarily unfriendly elsewhere in China, they were just more open in Hohhot. I feel that if my language program had been located here, I'd have a lot of Chinese friends by now.

It was an interesting experience, but the next time I come to China, I'll probably want to go some where else 😊

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Photos

Styles Collide
I'm not sure how well you can tell, but right next to this very traditional-looking Chinese building are buildings from the Muslim district.

Complex
That traditional Chinese building was actually a large complex, but I'm still not sure what purpose it served. This was taken from the front of it.

Wait...what??
So that traditional-looking Chinese complex had some added flair...

Under the gate
You could apparently walk into the complex, or at least the left the gate open, but there was a large sign that read :"Prohibited..." and I couldn't tell what all of the characters under it were so I kept out. Peering in from under the gate, I saw some people in Muslim style clothing, and that white tower.

Wall art
..also from that complex.

Shopping Complex
Just some shopping complex in the Muslim district.

Mosque?
This appears to be a Mosque in the distance. It was really hot out that day, so I decided not to walk over there and find out.

Donkey
The man's selling apricots from a wagon that's attached to the donkey.

Architecture...
up close and personal.

Friends
This is the nice couple I met.

Comments

[Mosque]

The gate is for a Mosque. Four Chinese Characters(from right to left) are QingZhen(Muslim or Islamic) Da（big) Si(temple), so they mean Mosque. This type of mosque is for Hui Chinese. You may know, there are a lot of QingZhen food in China, such as Kebab,Dapanji and Beef noodle soup.

[mosilan]

Oh, thank you! That answers so many questions!

[Xing]

As if the pics lead me to middle east:)

[mosilan]

Yes!
Yes, it's just like that.